17th-century New France fur trade contracts

The Portage, Winslow Homer, 1897. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

The Portage, Winslow Homer, 1897. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

The French-Canadian Heritage Society of Michigan (FCHSM) has added to its website the three-part series, 17th Century Engagé Contracts to the Great Lakes and Beyond, by Diane Wolford Shepard.

The series, posted on the society’s Fur Trade web page, covers the period from May 1682 to August 1700. It was originally published in Michigan’s Habitant Heritage in 2014.

Each part of the series is largely made up of an index of contracts, stating the name of the man who was hired, who hired him, when and where he travelled.

The information was translated and transcribed from E.Z. Massicotte’s Répertoire des engagements pour l’ouest conservés dans les Archives Judiciares de Montréal (1670-1778). The three-part series is available here.

For background information about the fur trade, read The Fur Trade in
Nouvelle France: Coureurs de Bois and Voyageurs and Engagés by Suzanne Boivin Sommerville that has been posted above the three-part series in the above link.

While you’re on FCHSM’s website, you may want to take a look at other material the society has posted about New France and the fur trade industry.

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