22 Department of Conservation of Louisiana 



trade movement from the gulf up into the heart of the 

 continent and, before Louisiana was a year old, New France 

 had asked the home government for protection against the 

 encroachments from the colony on the Gulf of Mexico. 



Louisiana Enters the Fur Trade 



In order to prevent the traders of New France from 

 carrying their peltry down the Mississippi to the Louisiana 

 market, the "Company of Canada," which succeeded the 

 "Company of the Hundred Associates," proposed to the 

 Crown that all beaver skins shipped to France from Louisi- 

 ana should be seized at Rochefort and sold at the same price 

 the "Company of Canada" was paying for them at Quebec. 



The affairs of the Canadian Company rapidly passed 

 from bad to worse and records show that twelve of the 

 principal traders had in the fall of 1701 made off with a 

 large cargo of brandy which they exchanged for pelts and 

 sold them in the newly formed Louisiana colony. By the 

 next year the French government was informed that so 

 many of the traders had left their homes in New France 

 for the purpose of entering the Louisiana fur trade that 

 many of the merchants of Montreal and Quebec were being 

 financially ruined. The prayer that the home government 

 stop this practice was answered by the Louisiana officials 

 to the effect that the trouble rested with the merchants of 

 the two northern cities, because they provided the traders 

 with merchandise and sent them into the woods to buy furs 

 "which would have gone over to the English had the 

 Frenchmen of Louisiana not received the pelts." 3 



So, in 1706, the "Company of Canada" went bankrupt. 

 Each year the profits of the firms succeeding this company 

 fell off, while the traders of the Louisiana territory built 

 up their business and prospered. 



Among Iberville's schemes for the development of the 

 province he was to establish was one for the promotion of 

 a trade in skins with the natives. As early as 1700 he had 

 received some buffalo hides from the Illinois country and 



8 Margry, vol. iv, pp. 628-629. 



