French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American WestFrenchmen were far ahead of Englishmen in the early Far West, not only prior in time but greater in numbers and in historical importance, writes Janet Lecompte in her introduction to French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American West. They were the first to navigate the Mississippi and its tributaries, and they founded St. Louis and New Orleans. Though France lost her North American possessions in 1763, thousands of her natives remained on the