Ranger (North America)

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A coureur des bois of the 17th century in Canada

Fur traders in North America at the beginning of colonial history are referred to as rangers ( French coureur des bois or coureur de bois ) . In contrast to the large trading companies with their agents and branches, they went out into the country on their own, lived with the Indians , hunted with them and exchanged their furs. The beginnings of the fur trade go back to the French Compagnie de la Nouvelle France of 1627 and its predecessors, which is why the language and customs of the early fur hunters were influenced by French. The Coureurs emerged when the company wanted to enforce its trade monopoly.

The first known coureurs were Médard Chouard, Sieur des Groseilliers and Pierre-Esprit Radisson , who returned to Trois-Rivières in 1660 with 60 canoe loads of furs after being the first white men to set out for the Great Lakes the previous year . They and their successors played a significant role in the exploration of the continent, they established contacts with the Indian peoples and opened trade routes.

The heyday of the independent coureurs came to an end when, at the beginning of the 18th century, new trading companies such as the Hudson's Bay Company or the North West Company themselves penetrated the North American continent with dealers and branches. The vast majority of voyageurs were then recruited from the population of French descent and the coureurs , who took on transport tasks for the companies on the rivers. They are considered the successors of the Coureurs . Self-employed trappers did not reappear in the Rocky Mountains until the 19th century , when mountain men no longer only bought furs from the Indians, but went into the wild as fur hunters themselves. The supply of fur hunters through rendezvous , developed by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company , also allowed independent trappers to work in the mountains on their own account in the 1830s and 1840s.

The role of the ranger has been the subject of novels such as Lederstockpf (1821) by James Fenimore Cooper or Le coureur des bois (1850) by Gabriel Ferry , which Karl May translated, edited and published as The Ranger (1879).

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