"Coureur de Bois: Wargamer Myth?" Topic
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TheBoz | 05 Dec 2019 4:19 p.m. PST |
Historygamer, I said that Langlade was a good example of how the French and their Métis descendants were integrated into Native kinship systems that were mobilized during the war, not that he didn't serve in an official capacity. I definitely didn't say he was present at Braddock's defeat. Regarding a good chunk of your comment, I don't know how you game this period and not have a basic knowledge of the fur trade. |
TheBoz | 05 Dec 2019 7:29 p.m. PST |
I suppose, as part of this, we need to ask what the difference is for us if a voyageur or other trader serves as a marine in time of war? Let's stay with Langlade for now. He was a French/Odawa member of one of the most prominent Native families in the communities surrounding Michilimackinac, a major center for trade and political power. The Odawa at Michilimackinac were bound to others across the region by marriage and kinship bonds, including the French. These bonds were the basis for trade and the mobilization of military force, and the same individuals (like Langlade) capitalized on both. Thus, someone like Langlade might bring Odawa and other Anishinaabeg to fight alongside (more so than for) the French or pull the French into Indian conflicts to preserve their alliances. Langlade himself was both a marine and a trader at Michilimackinac at the same time. Which do we consider him when he led his kinsmen in attacking a group of English and their Miami hosts at Pickawillany in 1752 in a raid that helped lead to the FIW? Which do we consider him once hostilities between France and Britain became official? Does it matter? There were groups of mixed ethnicity fighting and especially raiding throughout the conflict. Some of them were presumably unlicensed traders (and thus, coureurs du bois). Is this whole thing just a matter of what the miniature we use is wearing? |
Virginia Tory | 06 Dec 2019 12:28 p.m. PST |
Ironically Langlade led the Indians later under Burgoyne. With a singular lack of success. CdB don't appear as any sort of formation in any sources I've ever seen. |
TheBoz | 06 Dec 2019 1:41 p.m. PST |
Virginia Tory, not until the War of 1812. |
Virginia Tory | 09 Dec 2019 6:11 a.m. PST |
I thought the 1812 guys were actual militia/provincials. |
historygamer | 09 Dec 2019 5:20 p.m. PST |
TheBoz: You keep giving me history lectures instead of proof. Please provide a passage/document/reference – preferably from the period – that details, mentions, etc., Coureur de Bois fighting alongside French and/or Indian forces. Someone's opinion from an Osprey book is worthless without documenting where it comes from. Other than that, all of the above is just speculation, opinion, and likely commonly held mythology – largely from the 19th century and beyond. |
TheBoz | 10 Dec 2019 6:11 a.m. PST |
Seriously, I pointed you to a nearly 400-page academic text. |
TheBoz | 10 Dec 2019 6:14 a.m. PST |
If you need the basics of the fur trade, "The Voyageur" by Grace Lee Nute is old, but a good general introduction. |
TheBoz | 10 Dec 2019 7:41 a.m. PST |
Virginia Tory, it was a brief experiment. If I remember correctly, one of the Canadian companies volunteered their voyageurs, but it didn't go well. |
historygamer | 11 Dec 2019 8:18 a.m. PST |
I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. The question has nothing to do with the fur trade of the period. Kind of a red herring there. It's simple. Please provide a first person account of these people taking the field with Native American Indians. I have read several journals of French participants in the war and yet to find it, but perhaps someone here is better read on the subject. I am pretty clear based on those works, how the French really felt about the Indians. They didn't trust them at all. In fact, they had reason not to, as proved by some of their actions. Speculation of academicians and Osprey authors don't really substitute for primary documentation. |
historygamer | 11 Dec 2019 11:21 a.m. PST |
1649–1681: rise[edit]
Map of Great Lakes Region of New France, 1688 (by Vincenzo Coronelli 1650–1718)
Radisson & Groseillers Established the Fur Trade in the Great North West, 1662, by Archibald Bruce Stapleton (1917–1950)
Edict of the King of France in 1681, limiting fur trade participation The term "coureur des bois" is most strongly associated with those who engaged in the fur trade in ways that were considered to be outside of the mainstream.[5] Early in the North American fur trade era, this term was applied to men who circumvented the normal channels by going deeper into the wilderness to trade.
Traditionally, the government of New France preferred to let the natives supply furs directly to French merchants, and discouraged French settlers from venturing outside the Saint Lawrence valley. By the mid-17th century, Montreal had emerged as the center of the fur trade, hosting a yearly fair in August where natives exchanged their pelts for European goods.[6] While coureurs des bois never entirely disappeared, they were heavily discouraged by French colonial officials. In 1649, the new governor Louis d'Ailleboust permitted Frenchmen familiar with the wilderness to visit "Huron country" to encourage and escort Hurons to Montreal to participate in the trade.[7] While this did not legally sanction coureurs des bois to trade independently with the natives, some historians consider d'Ailleboust's encouragement of independent traders to mark the official emergence of the coureurs des bois.[7][8] In the 1660s, several factors resulted in a sudden spike in the number of coureurs des bois. First, the population of New France markedly increased during the late 17th century, as the colony experienced a boom in immigration between 1667–84.[9] Of the new engagés (indentured male servants), discharged soldiers, and youthful immigrants from squalid, class-bound Europe arriving in great numbers in the colony, many chose freedom in the life of the coureur des bois. Furthermore, renewed peaceful relations with the Iroquois in 1667 made traveling into the interior of Canada much less perilous for the French colonists.[10] The companies that had been monopolizing and regulating the fur trade since 1645, the Cent Associés and the Communautés des Habitants, went bankrupt after the Iroquois war.[11] The Compagnie des Indes occidentales, which replaced them, was much less restrictive of internal trade, allowing independent merchants to become more numerous. Finally, a sudden fall in the price of beaver on the European markets in 1664 caused more traders to travel to the "pays d'en haut", or upper country (the area around the Great Lakes), in search of cheaper pelts.[11] During the mid-1660s, therefore, becoming a coureur des bois became both more feasible and profitable. This sudden growth alarmed many colonial officials. In 1680, the intendant Duchesneau estimated there were eight hundred coureurs des bois, or about 40% of the adult male population.[12] Reports like that were wildly exaggerated: in reality, even at their zenith coureurs des bois remained a very small percentage of the population of New France. 1681–1715: decline[edit] In 1681, to curb the unregulated business of independent traders and their burgeoning profits, French minister of marine Jean-Baptiste Colbert created a system of licenses for fur traders, known as congés.[13] Initially, this system granted 25 annual licenses to merchants traveling inland. The recipients of these licenses came to be known as "voyageurs" (travelers), who canoed and portaged fur trade goods in the employ of a licensed fur trader or fur trading company. The congé system, therefore, created the voyageur, the legal and respectable counterpart to the coureur des bois. Under the voyageurs, the fur trade began to favor a more organized business model of the times, including monopolistic ownership and hired labor. From 1681 onwards, therefore, the voyageurs began to eclipse the coureurs des bois, although coureurs des bois continued to trade without licenses for several decades.[13] Following the implementation of the congé system, the number of coureurs des bois dwindled, as did their influence within the colony. Myths[edit] The role and importance of the coureurs des bois have been exaggerated over the course of history. This figure has achieved mythological status, leading to many false accounts, and to the coureurs des bois being assimilated with "Canadiens" (Canadians). The myth-making followed two paths; initially, people in France judged the colonies according to the fears and apprehensions which they had of the Ancien Régime. If order and discipline were proving difficult to maintain in continental Europe, it seemed impossible that the colonies would fare any better, and it was presumed things would become even worse.[2] Accounts of young men choosing a life where they would "do nothing", be "restrained by nothing", and live "beyond the possibility of correction" played into the French aristocracy's fears of insubordination[6] which only served to confirm their ignorance; and coureurs des bois became emblematic of the colony for those in the metropolis. French Jesuit Traveller and historian
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682–1761) The myth of the coureurs des bois as representative of the Canadians was stimulated by the writings of 18th-century Jesuit priest F-X. Charlevoix and the 19th-century American historian Francis Parkman; their historical accounts are classified as belonging to popular rather than academic history.[27] Charlevoix was particularly influential in his writings, because he was a trusted source of information, as he was a Jesuit priest who had journeyed in Canada. But his "historical" work has been criticized by historians for being too "light" and for relying too heavily on other authors' material (i.e. plagiarizing), rather than his own first-hand account.[27] Critics of Charlevoix have also noted that in his account, he confuses different periods of time, and therefore does not differentiate between voyageurs and coureurs des bois, misrepresenting the importance of the latter in terms of number and proportion in terms on influence on trading.[2] But Charlevoix was influential; his work was often cited by other authors, which further propagated the myth of the Canadian as a coureur des bois.
Finally, romans du terroir (rural novels) also added to the myth of the coureurs des bois by featuring them out of proportion to their number and influence. The coureurs des bois were portrayed in such works as extremely virile, free-spirited and of untameable natures, ideal protagonists in the romanticized novels of important 19th-century writers such as Chateaubriand, Jules Verne and Fenimore Cooper.[28] link |
TheBoz | 12 Dec 2019 2:41 a.m. PST |
Cool. The latest scholarship clearly takes none of that into account. And talking about fur traders definitely has nothing to do with the fur trade. You do you, man. |
historygamer | 12 Dec 2019 7:51 a.m. PST |
No documentation of such individuals fighting in the field during the F&I War, and certainly not in the AWI< where this topic jumped from. But, your troops, do as you like. Still waiting for anyone to provide credible evidence. I think I'll be waiting for a loooooong time. :-) |
Virginia Tory | 16 Dec 2019 6:44 a.m. PST |
What about Jacques Pasquinel? |
TheBoz | 16 Dec 2019 8:53 a.m. PST |
Is it documented in pre-approved source material? |
TheBoz | 16 Dec 2019 11:51 a.m. PST |
There's also this: "The western Indians, who were often accompanied by Canadian ensigns and militia, generally former coureurs de bois, concentrated their assaults on the region around Fort Cumberland and on Cumberland County, Pennsylvania" (301). "The raids continued to the west of the Susquehanna. Here the raiders had specific targets. Jean-Daniel Dumas, the French commander of Fort Duquesne, sent out war parties with distinct orders "to observe the enemy's movements back of Fort Cumberland!,] … to harass their convoys," and where possible to attack stores and destroy forts. These bands consisted of western Indians, Shawnees and Ohio Delawares, usually accompanied by a French officer" (309). Ward, Matthew C. 1995. "Fighting the 'Old Women': Indian Strategy on the Virginia and Pennsylvania Frontier, 1754-1758". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 103, No. 3 (Jul., 1995)
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TheBoz | 16 Dec 2019 12:10 p.m. PST |
Grace Lee Nute also has a chapter on voyageurs as soldiers in the American Revolution and the War of 1812. |
historygamer | 17 Dec 2019 6:40 a.m. PST |
Sorry, was too busy last evening to fully address this. I love Matthew's book, "Breaking the Back Country." That said, I don't recall him using the phrase coureurs de bois in it, though to be fair, it concentrated on the English and colonial side, IIRC, not the French. So the quote post is interesting, but begs the question, what is the basis for it? Did Dumas use the phrase "coureurs de bois," or is this the author's turn of words? My guess is, the later. I've read a number of period French journals, and again, never seen the phrase "coureurs de bois" or any reference to such individuals. For my money, the best books on the Western PA/VA frontiers -on were done by Preston, Cubbison, and Baker. Have you read any of their works? Preston and Cubbison do a very good job of looking at the French side of things using all new research. Not a mention of "coureurs de bois" in them, though Cubbison does address what Canadian militia were brought to Fort Duquesne in 1758. Let's look at Matthew's statement a bit further: ""The western Indians, who were often accompanied by Canadian ensigns…" I am assuming he is awkwardly acknowledging that French Colonial Marine officers sometimes accompanied French raiding parties. Baker mentions one in one of his books being captured. But he was a Marine officer, not a "coureurs de bois." He goes on to say… ""The western Indians, who were often accompanied by Canadian ensigns and militia…" Militia going out on raids with the Indians, huh? Where is that documented? We know they were present at Braddock's defeat (not a raid), and promptly took off at the opening shots. Militia were civilians called to service. Such troops had to be fed and supplied. Not likely they ever went out with the Indians as they were called up for a specific task and service to supplement the regular military. ""The western Indians, who were often accompanied by Canadian ensigns and militia, generally former coureurs de bois…." So what does that mean – "generally former coureurs de bois?" What is that based on? So they were, but aren't any more? Have to see what that conclusion is sourced to, as that indeed a stunner. Again, I suspect this is the author's opinion. I note it is not footnoted. His next passage is interesting, and documented in other works: "The raids continued to the west of the Susquehanna. Here the raiders had specific targets. Jean-Daniel Dumas, the French commander of Fort Duquesne, sent out war parties with distinct orders "to observe the enemy's movements back of Fort Cumberland!,] … to harass their convoys," and where possible to attack stores and destroy forts." We know from Baker's works that this is indeed true, and that most of these attacks preyed on defenseless civilians, and denuded the frontier of whatever settlers were there. Note that these raids had no strategic value. Fort Cumberland was not really attacked as that was not the Indian way. Some of the smaller outpost that Washington had built fell, but some of them had a handful of soldiers in them and were little better than fortified cabins. But for all their woodcraft, the Indians had no idea in 1758 that Forbes was coming over the mountains, building a road from Carlisle, PA – until mid-Sept when Grant showed up outside the fort. No idea. Surprise! :-) Matthew goes on to say – "These bands consisted of western Indians, Shawnees and Ohio Delawares, usually accompanied by a French officer" So again, supported in Baker's book where he documents when a French (Colonial Marine) officer was captured on a raid with the Indians. Note, none of the Indians were captured, only this hapless Marine officer, who apparently had little influence over the Indians to do French military bidding, as the Indians were more concerned about raiding homes and capturing stuff than achieving French military goals. So that brings us back to the question, why did Matthew's include this phrase? I don't know, especially since it is not referenced. Cubbison, who I would view as much more expert on the French side of things based on his works, says nothing of the sort. In most works on the time period, the raids on the frontiers are referred to as "French and Indian" raids, but provide no specifics on whether there were French (or Canadians) along with the Indians, or the phrase just means that they were just Indians allied to the French cause (kind of, as the French documented all over the place that they did not trust the Indians – something you have not commented on, as it does kind of undermine the integrated white man idea). Have you read this book? link Or this one? link Mine is signed by the editor, as I used to help run the F&I events for him at Old Fort Niagara. |
TheBoz | 17 Dec 2019 5:26 p.m. PST |
Here's another one, citing Jesuit accounts, Bougainville's journals, Montcalm's correspondence, and Ian Steele's book, "Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the Massacre": "The official campaign against the English opened with a brisk sweep of the territory between Forts Carillon and William Henry. A combined Indian-colonial force, including Anishinaabe warriors, pushed to the outskirts of the English fort and took thirty-three scalps. Then the Odawa put their canoe skills to good use. They suggested a project that would ultimately seal the fate of the fort and its defenders. Their target was a flotilla of twenty-two whaleboats or barges led by Colonel John Parker, who had brought five companies of New Jersey and New York militia down the Lake to destroy a sawmill and take prisoners. Langlade and the Odawa cut off his retreat. It was an upper country affair, made possible by the canoe skills of the participants. The Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Menominee totaled some five hundred warriors alongside about fifty Canadians. Lying in wait to launch an amphibious ambush, they took the first six boats in silence, without a shot fired. The Indians who were on the shore then fired on the following barges. Those in canoes pursued the remnants of the group, sinking or capturing all but two boats that escaped. Fewer than a hundred of Parker's 350-strong expedition made it back to Fort William Henry. A hundred men were shot, drowned, or hunted down in the forests when they fled, and the Anishinaabe took another 150 prisoners. Only one warrior was slightly wounded. Though Montcalm praised his own officers in official reports, he also claimed 'the whoops of our Indians impressed them with such terror that they made a feeble resistance.'" (McDonnell 2015: 178) It's worth noting that in a number of these quotations, there's an emphasis on "western" Indians, "the upper country" (pays d'en haut), etc. As Ward notes in the article, different groups of Native Americans operated with different degrees of collaboration with the French. If I remember correctly, the Delawares pretty much just got supplies. Other groups were more integrated, including (and perhaps especially) those of the Western Great Lakes about whom I have been consistently talking and in whose lands the French had a limited official presence.
As I mentioned before, we need to back up and ask what's the significance of the term "coureur du bois" for this conversation? All it means is that someone is an unlicensed fur trader. That doesn't tell us much about the person, and it definitely doesn't preclude the person also being a marine. In fact, we know from the Langlade family that these categories could easily overlap. I can't speak for everyone here, but when I'm talking about French traders, I'm not talking about the kind of idealized wilderness hero characters from the "Myths" section of the Wikipedia article you copied and pasted, certainly not from "Chateaubriand, Jules Verne and Fenimore Cooper." I'm talking about people like French and Métis traders that did business and settled in my home state of Wisconsin and the neighboring region, folks like (though not specifically) Jacques Vieux and his son in law, Solomon Juneau, who founded the trading post that became Milwaukee, where I live. So, what does this actually mean for miniature wargaming? The European model of an officer leading a unit who automatically obeys his commands doesn't fit the historical situation well, as that marine officer and many a colonial official found out. The French constantly had to negotiate with their Native allies, who were independent participants who declared war and made peace with the English themselves. That Langlade had a leadership role had a lot to do with his kinship relations, not just with the French but with prominent Odawa (Ottawa) clans and lineages through his mother and uncle. That can only be represented in game mechanics so well. The OP was questioning his use of "coureurs du bois". As he suggested, whole units of them wouldn't be appropriate. Looking at the actual units pictured, we can ask, "Who's that French guy?" Is he a coureur du bois? A voyageur? A marine? All of the above? Does how we answer that question really have any practical bearing on the game or even necessarily the models used? That there's a French guy nominally in command fits historically (although I might put one or two French guys in a unit of Native Americans led by a Native "officer" instead), so in the end, are we really just arguing about nomenclature? |
TheBoz | 17 Dec 2019 8:40 p.m. PST |
You may also be interested that McDonnell notes regarding the events at Fort William Henry that "Bougainville blamed some of the French and Canadians who were attached to them (the Indians) for encouraging and participating in the plundering" (182), again with a number of citations, including Bougainville's journals and a letter of his. For the siege, "The French assigned an officer to provide liaison with different groups of Indians. These officers were mostly veteran soldiers and warriors such as Langlade with long experience in the ways of Indian warfare. The French also made sure there was an interpreter for each group and missionaries for the 'domesticated' Indians" (181, citing Bougainville and Steele). In this and the section I quoted in my previous post, we have French, Canadians, and Métis fighting in groups together in one of the most important campaigns of the war with information drawn from first-person accounts. |
TheBoz | 18 Dec 2019 8:48 a.m. PST |
At any rate, this conversation is an exercise in futility, and I am done. |
Butchbird | 16 Jan 2024 5:59 p.m. PST |
Holy thread resurection Batman! Stumbled upon this thread while doing my researches on FIW wargames and, even though the tone isn't quite friendly, I found it much interesting. To follow up on academic works, I figured some might be interested in the more "scholarly profane" aspect of records on coureurs de bois at war. My family so happens to have a history book detailing our history from our arrival in the first half of the 17th century to the mid 19th (interestingly, I met a distant relative who's branch diverted from mine with an ancestor wedded around 1755, she had the same book) and presents bits of information which, coupled with some things we know, allowed me to come to my opinion on the subject. 1) While what probably amounts to the majority of the coureurs de bois, espescially after the colbert edict (though for the legality of this buisness, keep in mind bribes and corruption were widespread and almost socially acceptable back then), inevitably planted roots definitely amongst the amerindian, many inevitably abandoned the trade and took wife "inside new-france". As you might guees I have an example. An ancestor of mine took part in a few expeditions in his early adulthood but declined to take part in a potentially very lucrative expedition, said endeavour ending with the slaughter of all involved. He settled down permenently at that point. Had he been called to fight, he would've brought his coureur de bois experience with him, but been part of the militia. 2) A bit before the colbert edict restricting coureur de bois trade, a member of the family (unfortunately not my branch, and I point out how we were in no case members of the lords) became captain of the militia and one or another of his descendants would go on to succeed him every generation until the anglo-saxon conquest. Couple this "expertise" with the fact that it is known that 1/2 of the male population (it is estimated higher but…) of canada participated in a voyageur or coureur de bois expedition and it becomes easy to understand how coureur de bois methods would be present and passed down within the militia. And in the end, coureurs de bois were first and foremost merchants. While I can seen them in a scenario were they are ambushed and must sell dearly their lives, I fail to see how they could be mustered as "coureur de bois" into the french army…but it is evident some brought their baggage within the militia. |
Old Contemptible | 18 Jan 2024 11:20 p.m. PST |
This article about the Battle of LaBarbue Creek is from the December 2003 "Military Heritage" magazine, (please excuse the secondary source.) "Rogers' Rangers fought the French Canadian Coureurs de Bois through the northern forests during the French and Indian War." link |
Old Contemptible | 19 Jan 2024 6:43 p.m. PST |
Boy, I wish History Gamer were still on TMP. |
Butchbird | 19 Jan 2024 7:45 p.m. PST |
"French Canadian Coureurs de Bois" Right off the bat, you've got the "french-canadian" anachronism, which sets the tone/viewpoint. But then, maybe that's just it, "Coureurs de bois: wargamer myth?", the opinion of the individual depends on what the individual thinks of when he sees the term "coureur de bois". I suppose that if "coureur de bois" brings forth the image of Canadien bushranger/warrior, then yes, they can classify as a full blown and readily available unit in wargames. If, on the contrary, you believe more in post-1970 historiographie on coureurs de bois, then the said bushrangers/warriors are to be considered as militiamen. Far less adventurous/exotic sounding then "coureur de bois" of course. Add-on to mention that yes, there are also the "amerindianised Canadiens" whom have sporadically participated in the war, but again, those Canadiens that joined Ameridian societys did so for the freedom they enjoyed, not to participate in battle. |
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