List of Illustrations Translator''s Note Foreword to the English language Edition Acknowledgements Introduction First Part: FUR-TRADING MOBILITY AND COLONIAL SOCIETIES 1 The Time of Go-Betweens (1600-1650) The maritime origins of the fur trade Go-betweens and winterers (16101632) Coureurs de bois ? Falling socially, or rising socially? (1633-1649) Who can trade? 2 Birth of a Mobility (1650-1672) Trade becomes democratized Supervising mobility Spatial mobility, social mobility and national ambiguity: Des Groseilliers and Radisson The beginnings of the Montreal fair The ambiguities of the rush to the West The issue of marriage: social tensions and masculinity 3 The Construction of a Vagabond (16721681) A new social category Police State and Utopia In the "depths of the woods" Homo libertinus Vagabondage and the war on idleness Banditry 4 Illegal Activities Justice, between apathy and bullying (1672-1674) Clan Wars, Act Two (1675-1681) The promotion of fairs A composite minority Linguistic knowledge 5 Legal Framework and Frauds (16811715) The course des bois legalized (1681-1696) Forms and issues of regulation Frauds Illicit Mobility The course is proscribed (1696) The course tolerated? 6 A Culture of Travel Takes Root The voyageur "Two kinds of coureurs de bois" Women without their husbands: a culture of absence Disruptive movement 7 Colonial Anxieties. The Ways of Idleness A "kingdom of youth"? The weight of the single life Forgetting the Land Nobility, idleness and social mobility A society of spending " Sauvage :", a mirror of a politeness under construction 8 Useful Vagabonds? The Course des Bois and Reasons of State Is the course a profession? Terminological fluctuations Between social fatalism and political utilitarianism Vagabonds and servants: the cases of Michel Bisaillon and Étienne Veniard de Bourgmont How to wage war in America? The coureur de bois as a warrior The contribution of the coureurs de bois to military expeditions: hope and disillusionment 9 Birth of a Regional Ethnotype Does the Canadian run in the woods? How a social category is made ethnic What is a Canadian? 10 Myths and Realities of Fur Trade Mobility in English America Some "English coureurs " The Puritan does not run into the woods English criteria for expansion The elusive bushloper 11 Slaves and Deerskins: Trade in South Carolina The rise of the Indian trade The peddlers of the savannas The meeting of slave societies Race for profit and intracolonial rivalries The regulation of 1707 The impunity of traders 12 The Regulation of Travel (1715-1760) In Canada: licenses and monopolies Louisiana: Merchant-state and monopolies The restructuring of the Carolinian trade 13 When Mobility Becomes Commonplace. The Place of the Voyageurs in Colonial Societies Canadian voyageurs From the oar to the sickle: the pluriactivity of Canadian voyageurs The voyageurs of the Illinois Country The fur traders of Lower Louisiana The hunters of the Mississippi The Indian traders of Carolina and Georgia Linguistic Competence and Social Mobility 14 Travel Customs The empire of the canoe Expansion: the technical and logistical consequences of the commercial boom Pirogues and barges of the Mississippi basin British caravans French Trading Posts and Storehouses The British caravanserais The cabanages of the Mississippi From seasonal mobility to migration 15 Jurisdictional Friction and Shady Commerce In the Pays d''en haut : respect for licenses and monopolies The quarrel over the Missouri River.