How Did The Fur Trade Affect France

France, one of the more wealthy countries in Europe at the time, claimed a chunk of land in what is today America and Canada. Although France generated a lot of wealth from the land they controlled in the Northern Americas, nevertheless they lost all the land because they were spending more than they were getting in return, there was not enough people that wanted to go and colonize the land, and the land was invaded by the British. The land was not colonized by people who wanted to settle there, only men went there in search of new wealth in the fur trade. Jacques Cartier made three voyages for the French. He sailed up the St. Lawrence River and found the land that is modern day Quebec and Montreal. He returned to France in 1536. He returned

With the fur trade, the French could use these furs to make items, or just sell the fur for gold or silver. The fur trade contributed greatly to the wealth that France had at the time. They also formed commercial companies, the members of these companies were various merchants from France. The promised to settle and colonize the land in return for rights to the land’s resources. They also traded beaver pelts, which were at a high cost because of limit of beavers in France. Larger fleets of ships would come to meet the native traders before other countries could. They tried to settle trading colonies at the important trading posts along the St. Lawrence River. You could also find wealth in the fisheries and the waters located in the Northern Americas. Gradually more and more ships would come to the New France to go on these fishing trips. But later these same people would leave fishing to go join the fur trade, which was where most of the wealth was

One of these reasons is that mainly the people that were there just did not want to settle there. The bigger towns or cities were at the trading posts. Usually only men traveled across the ocean to get to the Americas to go to the land controlled by France. Their wives and children stayed back in France, so it was very difficult to bring new people there. Many decided to stay along the St. Lawrence river were all the trading was going on. Many of the men that were there from France did not do any of the trapping. The Natives would trap the animals, and then the men from France would come and get the fur from the animals and bring it to the trading outposts were all the merchants were. France was also paying more than they were getting in return. Even though they were getting a lot of money from the fur trade, they were losing a bunch of that money they just got in other expenses. Trying to colonize the land was very expensive. They could not just use the money earned from New France, they also had to use France’s money, which lowered the wealth of the country. The population of New France was very low, which made it hard to produce more things to help pay for the expenses of living and settling there. France controlled more land than they could