Canada

The center and soul of the economic system in New France was the traffic in furs. Even before the colony contained more than a handful of settlers, the profit-making possibilities of this trade were recognized. It grew rapidly even in the early days, and for more than a hundred and fifty years furnished New France with its sinews of war and peace. Beginning on the St. Lawrence, this trade moved westward along the Great Lakes, until toward the end of the seventeenth century it passed to the headwaters of the Mississippi.

It was the royal desire that New France should some day become a powerful and prosperous agricultural colony, providing the motherland with an acceptable addition to its food supply. To this end large tracts of land were granted upon most liberal terms to incoming settlers, and every effort was made to get these acres cultivated. Encouragement and coercion were alike given a trial. Settlers who did well were given official recognition, sometimes even to the extent of rank in the noblesse.

In New France there were no privileged orders. This, indeed, was the most marked difference between the social organization of the home land and that of the colony. There were social distinctions in Canada, to be sure, but the boundaries between different elements of the population were not rigid; there were no privileges based upon the laws of the land, and no impenetrable barrier separated one class from another.

The religious belief of the North-American Indians seems, on a first view, anomalous and contradictory. It certainly is so, if we adopt the popular impression. Romance, Poetry, and Rhetoric point, on the one hand, to the august conception of a one all-ruling Deity, a Great Spirit, omniscient and omnipresent; and we are called to admire the untutored intellect which could conceive a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato. On the other hand, we find a chaos of degrading, ridiculous, and incoherent superstitions.

 DAUVERSIERE AND THE VOICE FROM HEAVEN. - ABBE OLIER. - THEIR SCHEMES. - 
 THE SOCIETY OF NOTRE-DAME DE MONTREAL. - MAISONNEUVE. - DEVOUT LADIES. - 
 MADEMOISELLE MANCE. - MARGUERITE BOURGEOIS. - THE MONTREALISTS AT QUEBEC. - 
 JEALOUSY. - QUARRELS. - ROMANCE AND DEVOTION. - EMBARKATION. - 
 FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL.

 FAMINE AND THE TOMAHAWK. - A NEW ASYLUM. - 
 VOYAGE OF THE REFUGEES TO QUEBEC. - MEETING WITH BRESSANI. - 
 DESPERATE COURAGE OF THE IROQUOIS. - INROADS AND BATTLES. - 
 DEATH OF BUTEUX.

 THE IROQUOIS WAR. - JOGUES. - HIS CAPTURE. - HIS JOURNEY TO THE MOHAWKS. - 
 LAKE GEORGE. - THE MOHAWK TOWNS. - THE MISSIONARY TORTURED. - 
 DEATH OF GOUPIL. - MISERY OF JOGUES. - THE MOHAWK "BABYLON." - 
 FORT ORANGE. - ESCAPE OF JOGUES. - MANHATTAN. - THE VOYAGE TO FRANCE. - 
 JOGUES AMONG HIS BRETHREN. - HE RETURNS TO CANADA.

 FATE OF THE VANQUISHED. - 
 THE REFUGEES OF ST. JEAN BAPTISTE AND ST. MICHEL. - 
 THE TOBACCO NATION AND ITS WANDERINGS. - THE MODERN WYANDOTS. - 
 THE BITER BIT. - THE HURONS AT QUEBEC. - NOTRE-DAME DE LORETTE.

 QUEBEC IN 1634. - FATHER LE JEUNE. - THE MISSION-HOUSE. - 
 ITS DOMESTIC ECONOMY. - THE JESUITS AND THEIR DESIGNS.