DCHP-1 Online
free trapper Fur Trade 
a trapper or hunter not in the employ of the fur companies, often a former company servant.
See also: free hunter
- 1902 (1912) The free trapper went among the Indians with no defence but good behaviour and the keenness of his wit. . . . Indeed rival hunters have not hesitated to bribe the savages to pillage and murder the free trapper; for there was no law in the fur trading country, and no one to ask what became of the free trapper who went out alone into the wilderness and never returned.
- 1955 He then became a free trapper until 1841, when he became a settler.
- 1902 (1912) The free trapper went among the Indians with no defence but good behaviour and the keenness of his wit. . . . Indeed rival hunters have not hesitated to bribe the savages to pillage and murder the free trapper; for there was no law in the fur trading country, and no one to ask what became of the free trapper who went out alone into the wilderness and never returned.