Native American and French Settlement Patterns - Northern ...

(black squirrel), Sable ('sand'),
Nassauakueton ('fork'); later also others)
and to all other "upper Algonquians" who came
down to Montreal for trade." Due to their
mobility it is difficult to localize their
villages.[16]
Role of the Fur Trade. - During the
first half of the seventeenth century all of
the Iroquoian-speaking peoples of the
Northeast grew increasingly dependent on
European trade goods. The coastal Indians
first encountered the Europeans and became
involved in trade. However by the late 1630s
even the interior Hurons were involved in the
trade. The Hurons became important middlemen
in the French fur trade in the 1630s and
1640s and involved Indians in the Upper Great
Lakes region. When the demand for beaver had
greatly reduced the supply in their homeland
by 1630 but they met the demand by trading