Communications With the American Government.--Origin of the
American Fur Company

THE success of the Northwest Company stimulated further enterprise in
this opening and apparently boundless field of profit. The traffic of
that company lay principally in the high northern latitudes, while
there were immense regions to the south and west, known to abound with
valuable peltries; but which, as yet, had been but little explored by
the fur trader. A new association of British merchants was therefore
formed, to prosecute the trade in this direction. The chief factory was
established at the old emporium of Michilimackinac, from which place the
association took its name, and was commonly called the Mackinaw Company.

While the Northwesters continued to push their enterprises into the
hyperborean regions from their stronghold at Fort William, and to hold
almost sovereign sway over the tribes of the upper lakes and rivers,
the Mackinaw Company sent forth their light perogues and barks, by Green
Bay, Fox River, and the Wisconsin, to that areas artery of the West, the
Mississippi; and down that stream to all its tributary rivers. In this
way they hoped soon to monopolize the trade with all the tribes on
the southern and western waters, and of those vast tracts comprised in
ancient Louisiana.

The government of the United States began to view with a wary eye the
growing influence thus acquired by combinations of foreigners, over
the aboriginal tribes inhabiting its territories, and endeavored to
counteract it. For this purpose, as early as 1796, the government sent
out agents to establish rival trading houses on the frontier, so as to
supply the wants of the Indians, to link their interests and feelings
with those of the people of the United States, and to divert this