The French and Aboriginal peoples worked together in which vast economy, driven by European demand for beaver pelts?
- Gold mining
- Oil production
- Shipbuilding
- The fur trade
Answer: The fur trade
Demand in Europe for beaver pelts drove a vast fur-trade economy in which the French and Aboriginal people worked together. The first companies in Canada were formed under the French and British regimes and competed for the fur trade.
Learn more: Royal New France
- In 1604 Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded the first European settlement north of Florida, first on St. Croix Island (now in Maine), then at Port-Royal in Acadia (now Nova Scotia).
- In 1608 Champlain built a fortress at what is now Québec City.
- Champlain allied the colony with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron, who were historic enemies of the Iroquois.
- The Iroquois were a confederation of five (later six) First Nations. They fought the French for about 100 years. The French and the Iroquois made peace in 1701.
- The French and Aboriginal peoples worked together in the fur trade, driven by European demand for beaver pelts.
- Jean Talon, Bishop Laval and Count Frontenac built a French empire in North America from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.
- In 1690 Count Frontenac refused to surrender Quebec to the English: “My only reply will be from the mouths of my cannons!”
- Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, was a hero of New France who won many victories over the English, from James Bay to Nevis in the Caribbean.