nting-grounds, often hundreds of miles away. It was
then that the trader came and credits were wrangled over and extended,
each side endeavoring to get the better of the other. *

* Thwaites, "Story of Wisconsin," p. 156.

This traffic was largely managed by the British in Canada until 1816,
when an act of Congress forbade foreign traders to operate on United
States soil. But a heavier blow was inflicted in the establishment of
John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, which was given a substantial
monopoly of Indian commerce. From its headquarters on Mackinac Island
this great corporation rapidly squeezed the clandestine British agents
out of the American trade, introduced improved methods, and built up a
system which covered the entire fur-bearing Northwest.

Of this remoter Northwest, the region between Lakes Erie and Michigan
was the most accessible from the East; yet it was avoided by the first
pioneers, who labored under a strange misapprehension about its
climate and resources. In spite of the fact that it abounded in rich
bottom-lands and fertile prairies and was destined to become one of
the most bountiful orchards of the world, it was reported by early
prospectors to be swampy and unfit for cultivation. Though Governor Cass
did his best to overcome this prejudice, for years settlers preferred to
gather mainly about Detroit, leaving the rich interior to fur-traders.
When enlightenment eventually came, population poured in with a rush.
Detroit--which was a village in 1820--became ten years later a thriving
city of thirty thousand and the western terminus of a steamboat line
from Buffalo, which year after year multiplied its traffic. By the
year 1837 the great territory lying east of Lake Michigan was ready for
statehood.

Almost simultaneously the region to the west of Lake Michigan began to
emerge from the fur-trading stage. The place of the picturesque trader,
however, was not taken at once by the prosaic farmer. The next figure
in the pageant was the miner. The presence of lead in the stretch of
country between the Wisconsin and Illinois rivers was known to the
Indians before the coming of the white man, but they began to appreciate
its value only after the introduction of firearms by the French. The
ore lay at no great depth in the Galena limestone, and the aborigines
collected it either by stripping it from the surface or by sinking
shallow shafts from which it was hoisted, in deerskin bags. Shortly