CHAPTER III. 



1608-1763. 

 THE FRENCH, THE ENGLISH, AND THE INDIANS. 



The French colonists of Canada held, from the 

 beginning, a peculiar intimacy of relation with the 

 Indian tribes. With the English colonists it was 

 far otherwise ; and the difference sprang from 

 several causes. The fur-trade was the life of Can- 

 ada ; agriculture and commerce were the chief 

 sources of wealth to the British provinces. The 

 Eomish zealots of Canada burned for the conver- 

 sion of the heathen ; their heretic rivals were fired 

 with no such ardor. And finally while the ambi- 

 tion of France grasped at empire over the farthest 

 deserts of the west, the steady industry of the Eng- 

 lish colonists was contented to cultivate and improve 

 a narrow strip of seaboard. Thus it happened that 

 the farmer of Massachusetts and the Virginian 

 planter were conversant with only a few bordering 

 tribes, while the priests and emissaries of France 

 were roaming the prairies with the buffalo-hunting 

 Pawnees, or lodo^insf in the winter cabins of the 

 Dahcotah ; and swarms of savages, whose uncouth 

 names were strange to English ears, descended 



