Page:The story of Illinois (IA Storyofillinois00peas).djvu/31

4 and here the Jesuits were to follow them. First at La Pointe on Lake Superior and then at Green Bay, Jesuit missionaries established themselves in the west.

Even before the Jesuit the fur-trader had penetrated to the west. In the northern parts of America the white pioneers sought in vain for the pearls and precious metals that enriched the Spaniards in the south; but early in the seventeenth century they had discovered a source of wealth in the fur bearing animals. The trade in furs, though small if judged by modern standards, speedily became one of the important branches of international trade. Amsterdam became a great fur market, supplying western Europe and distant Russia. Most important in the trade was the pelt of the beaver or castor, as the French called him; both his names came to be English cant synonyms for hat; and the manufacture developed in both France and England. In America the demands of the trade forced the Indians to become the white man's hunters, abandoning the practice of their primitive domestic arts in order to purchase with furs the white man's blankets, textiles, kettles, guns, ornaments, and above all his fire water, whether Dutch gin, English rum, French brandy, or American whisky. At some time between 1654 and 1663 Radisson and Groseilliers had journeyed far into the Northwest, perhaps even to