The French sent their earliest explorers to North America in the 1500s, but French expansion into North America, focused at first on the St. Lawrence River Valley, was delayed until the early 1600s because of internal disorder. From their new settlements of Quebec (founded in 1608), Trois-Rivières (1634) and finally Montreal (1642), the French soon discovered that the main economic benefit they could gain from their North American colony was the export of furs, and in particular the beaver. Exported to Europe, this fur was treated to make felt used for hats. The fur-bearing animals were trapped by the Native people, and then traded with the French for manufactured goods like metal knives, kettles, and axes; guns and gunpowder; cloth and blankets; and decorative items like glass beads and silver adornments.
Though the French first traded with the Huron people who lived close to the St. Lawrence Valley colonies, it was soon clear that there was advantage for the French in seeking furs from farther afield. In order to trade more effectively with Native groups far and near, the French sent out very young men to spend time living with Native people so that they could learn Native languages and become familiar with Native culture. One of these “truchements,” as they were called, was Jean Nicolet, who, after his eleven years living with the Hurons, was sent west by the colony’s governor, Samuel Champlain, in 1634. His mission was two-fold: first, to seek allies and trade partners with the Native people far from the St. Lawrence River valley, and second, to seek a water route to the Pacific Ocean in order to facilitate travel to China and its lucrative trade opportunities.
Nicolet came through the Mackinac Strait and down the west coast of Lake Michigan into Green Bay and landed at Red Banks near today’s city of Green Bay, where he met Natives who were probably Ho-Chunk. Although it would be some decades before the French returned to this spot, Nicolet’s route became a gateway to the western Great Lakes region. The waterways in and around Wisconsin, long used by Native peoples, would become a passage to the Mississippi and beyond for the French, an important entrance to the pays d’en haut or Upper Country, as the French called it.
Traders travel into the Upper Country
Farther east, the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois pushed aggressively toward the west to gain the furs that other Native nations brought to the French. This aggression pushed the Native people from what is now Ohio, lower Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois into Wisconsin in the mid-1600s. Given the chaos and violence associated with this conflict, today called the Beaver Wars, the French wished to bypass the Native middlemen and create one-on-one relationships with as many Native groups as possible. The French colonial government began to encourage traders to travel into the pays d’en haut, including Wisconsin, to establish these relationships and to bring back furs.
As the French established their colonies and then pushed further into the pays d’en haut, they found that they needed their Native trade partners for many things, not just for purposes of economic exchange. Travel in this territory required Native guides who would acquaint the French with the water routes the Native people had used for many years and who could integrate them into already-established trade networks. The French traders also soon learned that the birchbark canoes which Native peoples had perfected were the best means of transportation. Native dress—leggings and moccasins—worked best for travel in the woods and water environment of the pays d’en haut, and traders also needed to source their food as did Native people. Though the availability of trade goods was useful for the Native people, the French also needed their Native allies.
Along with traders came French Catholic missionaries. Both Recollect fathers and Jesuits traveled to the North American colony, seeking to convert Native people throughout the French colony. The first mission in what is now Wisconsin was established by the Jesuit Father Claude Allouez at La Pointe du St. Esprit, at Chequamegon Bay, in 1665. Father Jacques Marquette established a mission at Sault Ste. Marie in 1668 but moved to Ste. Ignace in 1669. Allouez then moved his activities elsewhere in the territory, working along the Fox River and in the Green Bay area, which the French called “La Baie.” In 1671-72, with Father Louis André, Allouez built the St. François Xavier mission at De Pere. Generally speaking, the French missionary efforts were not particularly successful, and for the most part did not result in the adoption of Christianity by the Native population. Even though some of the places where missions were established remained as small posts and population centers, the French presence in Wisconsin was advanced through the fur trade rather than through religious efforts.
Groseillers and Radisson
In the 1650s there was a lull in the violence associated with the Beaver Wars, and a French adventurer named Médard Chouart des Groseillers, along with his brother-in-law Pierre-Esprit Radisson, came into Wisconsin in search of furs. They spent the winter of 1654-55 in the Green Bay area and then returned to Montreal with canoes loaded with beaver. They set out again for the pays d’en haut in 1659. Although the French government tried to strictly regulate the fur trade, requiring traders to apply for a limited number of licenses to venture into the pays d’en haut, Groseillers and Radisson set out without obtaining a license. Groseillers and Radisson came to the Chequamegon area of Lake Superior and traveled throughout what is today northern Wisconsin and northeast Minnesota. They spent a difficult winter on the Chippewa River, but returned to Montreal with huge numbers of furs. Rather than being rewarded, they were punished for unlicensed trade by having their furs confiscated and being imprisoned. Such unlicensed traders were called coureurs de bois or runners of the woods. The French government continued to struggle to control the illicit trade for many years following Groseillers and Radisson’s ventures.
Père Marquette and Jolliet
The French authorities were still interested in finding a route to the Pacific Ocean, which they referred to as la Mer de l’Ouest, or the Western Sea. Having heard stories of bodies of water west of the Great Lakes that might well turn out to be that sea or at least a major route to it, the governor of New France sent out explorers. In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette and fur-trade entrepreneur Louis Jolliet were directed by New France’s administrators to investigate these stories of a route to a Western Sea. They stayed for several days with the Menominee at Green Bay and then set out on their route west and south led by two Miami guides. They followed the Fox River to the portage that allowed them to enter the Wisconsin River, which they later wrote of as the “Meskousing.”
Taking this river west and south, the small party entered the wide river—which the Ojibwe called Misi-ziipe (Great River)—just south of today’s Prairie du Chien, and followed the large river south to the mouth of the Arkansas River. There they turned around and headed back upstream, realizing that this river would continue south and not west toward the “Western Sea.” Their return trip did not take them back to the Wisconsin River. Rather, they took the Illinois River northeast from its mouth and crossed the Des Plaines portage to the Chicago River, which took them to Lake Michigan at the site of today’s city of Chicago.
In 1674 French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, misread the capital letter at the beginning of the river’s name in Marquette’s document: instead of the capital letter “M,” he read “Ou,” which was then put onto maps as “Ouisconsin.” Over the next decades, as new maps were produced, the “M” completely disappeared, replaced by the “w” sound of the letter combination “ou,” so that the river and the land through which it flowed became known as “Ouisconsin.”
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