DCHP-1 Online

free trader Fur Trade

• 1 Hist. a former servant of the Hudson's Bay Company who travelled amongst the Indians, especially in the hunting grounds, trading necessary articles for furs and usually getting his outfit from the Company.

  See also: freeman (def. 1a)  

  • 1872  (1883)  These "houses" were the trading posts of the first English Free-Traders. . . .
  • 1907  The origin of the term "Free Trader" dates back considerably over three-quarters of a century and was first used as a distinction by the Hudson's Bay Company between their own traders, who traded directly from their posts and others who in most cases had been formerly in their employ, but had turned "Free Traders."
  • 1940  Local metis and French Canadians--free-traders--cabined in the neighbourhood, were happy enough to assist McLeod in a task to which he had set himself.
  • 1965  James Sinclair, a metis free trader . . . nearly lost his life going over the Kananaskis Pass

• 2a a fur trader operating independently of and in opposition to the fur companies.

  See also: free fur-trader  

  • 1864  Another circumstance which strengthens this probability is that the plains are lined with Free traders, who are well-supplied with goods and provisions.
  • 1934  The bitterness aroused in their breasts if a "free trader" ventured to defy the might of the "Gentlemen Adventurers" by attempting to trade on their own was almost inconceivable.
  • 1947  Its founder, Nicolas Peltier, a native-born Canadian of French parentage, and one of the first free traders to follow in the footsteps of Pierre Esprit Radisson . . . first came into the Saguenay in 1672 under a conge, or permit, from the Governor, de Frontenac.
  • 1965  Bill Anderson [is] a veteran free trader at Fort Albany on James Bay. . .

• 2b Hist. a person trading or selling whisky, especially as an illicit business, to the Indians.

  See also: whisky trader  

  • 1881  Whiskey was the great staple article of trade, both of the Hudson's Bay Company and the free traders in this district, and the horses and fur of the Indians and gold of the miners went to purchase it.
  • 1957  Being somewhat remote, they were never overrun with whisky-peddling "free-traders."
  • 1960  [Between 1868 and 1874] there was an invasion of American "free traders," bringing in raw whisky in their trade with the Indians.