In 1613 French merchants, explores and investors formed the Canada Company led by the King of France's administrator Cardinal Richelieu. Its purpose was to settle and develop New France (Canada & Quebec). In return for an exclusive monopoly over the fur trade from florida to the arctic circle, the company was to bring more than 4000 settlers to New France and provide them with employment, accomodations, and other neccessities. They also had to provide three priests for every settlement. Since colonization costs time, money and effort but the French government demed it to be worth it as fur pelts from North America were becoming increasingly popular among the wealthiest members of European society.
In the early days of New France, Samuel de Champlain wisely created a pact with the native Huron. Initailly, each spring, Native Huron traders travelled the waterways in their canoes filled with furs, arriving at Quebec, Trois-Riviers and Montreal. It was not unusal for more than 10,000 beaver pelts to be brought down the rivers. The initial success of the fur trade resulted in many French traders known as coureurs de bois migrate westward into Canada to find more native tribes to trade furs with. The competition in the fur trade heated up considerably when the British became involved in 1670. By a Royal charter from the British Crown gave the Hudson's Bay Company an exclusive fur trading monopoy in all the lands the British controlled in Canada. British merchants had been alerted to the wealth of furs obtained by the French coureurs de bois. In 1682 the British built York Factory and several other forts. French and British merchants began to attack one another of rich native fur pelts.
