About this record
Father Carheil explains -- at times in graphic detail -- how lust and greed corrupted nearly everyone connected with the fur trade at the western posts. Voyageurs, hunters, explorers and merchants have been romanticized so often that we benefit from seeing the fur trade's dark side through his eyes. Carheil reveals how French colonialism affected the everyday lives of young French clerks, teenage Indian girls, hardened soldiers, and tribal elders, and asks the government to end the excesses. We have digitized here only the English translation, on the odd-numbered pages, and omitted the facing French text.Citation
Carheil, Etienne de. "Letter ... to Monsieur Louis Hector de Callières, governor [on conditions in the Upper Lakes in 1702]." The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents...(Cleveland: 1895), vol. LXV: 188-253).