Michael Howell May 4, 2011 J300 Dr.

Snyder Competition and Alliance: A Complex Fur Trade in the Upper Mississippi and Great Lakes Regions
Figure 1 Figure 2

An image of an Iroquoian war chant recorded by Nicolas Perrot and published in Claude Charles Le Roy, Bacqueville de la Potheries Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale. Iroquois War Chant, Bacqueville de La Potherie,
Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale, 1723, Archive of Early American Images, John Carter Brown Library.

An image of a Native American holding the calumet; the frontispiece of A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America by Father Lewis Hennepin. Lewis Hennepin, A New
Discovery of a Vast Country in America (London, 1698), frontispiece.

We are told of five French-Canadian soldiers, in 1669, who went into some woods hunted by those of the Iroquois Nation and found a lone Indian with a canoe full of moose skins. After at first refusing, the Iroquoian Indian finally accepted the mens offer of some brandy, and after some time he, evidently, took so much that he became dead-drunk.1 The soldiers then secured a rock to the mans neck and let him drop into the Outaoas River and set off with his equipage. Those who knew him came to believe that he had died from river rapids, until one day when the mans corpse was witnessed floating on the water with a rock fastened to it. One of the mans pelts was recognized by a specific mark that Iroquoian peoples put on their own furs and a
1 Nicolas Perrot, Memoir on the Manners, Customs and Religion of the Savages of North America, i The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley & Region of the Great Lakes, trans. Emma Helen Blair (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 204.

trail of exchanges was traced back to the five soldiers. The Iroquoian Nation let known their indignation by threatening a renewal of war with the French people. So the soldiers were arrested by the French military, tried and sentenced to death. And despite the Iroquoian Nations request to execute only one of the soldiers, the French military persisted to shoot to death each of the five men.2 While this anecdote does not exemplify the typical contradiction of competition and alliance within the French fur trade discussed in this essay, it does show some complexities arising from the fur trade. This episode was published within the famous coureur des boisor French-Canadian, woods rangerNicolas Perrots Memoir on the Manners, Customs and Religion of the Savages of North America. Fur traders like Nicolas Perrot, Ren-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut embodied this contradiction in the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi regions. Alice E. Smith tells us that, Competition among Native tribes for the beaver, and resultant tribal rivalries and wars, were pointing towards a general upheaval, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 3 However, we also see that peace between Native groups was actively sought out by French fur traders in the preservation of trade. So as the French fur trade encouraged competition for beaver pelts between Indian nations, it also encouraged alliances, promoted by fur traders, between Indian groups in the Great Lakes region.

2 3

Ibid., 204-207. Alice E. Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, i The History of Wisconsin, ed. William F. Thompson, 5 Vols. (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1985), 1:12.

The origins of French interaction with the peoples of North American transpired with Jacque Cartier, in 1534, discovering the Gulf of St Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River, and eventually arriving at todays Montreal. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain, under the rule of King Louis XIII, founded the port of Quebec. And he soon after made contact with the Huron peoples on the Richelieu River which would begin a long relationship of trade as he had strategically considered their control of the upper Ottawa River near Montreal.4 Seven years later, Champlain introduced four Recollet priests to the Hurons. The former would go on to invite the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, who would continue the practice of living with Native Americans and learning their language, religion, politics, etc.5 tienne Brl was the first Frenchmen able to live among the Hurons around 1620, and by 1643 the Jesuit missions had started to flourish in the Great Lakes regionamongst the Huron Indians especially.6 Francis Parkman, referencing to writings by Jesuit missionary Gabriel Lalemant, explains that in the eyes of the Jesuits, the Huron country was the innermost stronghold of Satan, his castle and his donjon-keep.7 As the Jesuits claimed to have converted several hundred Indians by the late 1670s, they also were able to gain information from their familiarity with them. 8 From 1632 to 1673 they published reportsknown as Jesuit Relationsabout their work with

4 5

Ibid., 3-6. Cornelius J. Jaenen, Friend and Foe: Aspects of French-Amerindian Cultural Contact in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 41. 6 Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, 1:6; Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699, ed. Louise P. Kellogg (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1917), 4. 7 Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1867), 43. 8 Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, 1:28, 11.

Native groups which they would send back to France.9 The Jesuit missions were also involved in trade in the region, and would act as diplomats and spies for New France.10 As the Jesuits spread the influence of France and its fur trade to numerous Indian nations throughout the seventeenth century, we see what Richard White has called the middle ground, or the meeting of frontiers between New France and the Native American groups of the Great Lakes region. The middle ground was literal as well as figurative in its assimilation of concepts. Examples of concept assimilation existed with the French who reduced Indian religion to [previous French concepts of] devil worship and witchcraft; and similarly, some Indian groups saw early Europeans as spirits, or manitous in the context of their religion before first contact.11 The fur trade brought Native Americans and Europeans into a complex system of interaction with reliance on both sides. Gillis Havard mentions that, although European goods did not change or create dependence for these Native groups, a process leading towards it had clearly begun.12 Trade had, no doubt, benefited both the French and Indians; however, there were a number of conflicting perspectives concerning dependence on trade in this region. To understand the complexity of the various perspectives on trade between the French and Indian groups, we can look at a quote by Perrot: did not we [New France] even inform them [Native Americans], in offering these [valuable presents], that it was done only through compassion for their miserable condition? On the other hand, in this present time of ours they desire to dominate us and be our superiors; they even regard us as people who are in some
Ibid., 1:11. Gilles Havard, The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century, trans. Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott (Montreal and Kingston, London and Ithaca: McGill-Queens University Press, 2001), 19. 11 Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 51. 12 Havard, The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century, 32.
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manner dependent on them. And we can compare it to what Baron De Lahontan wrote, in 1685, that Canada subsists only upon the trade of skins or furrs, three fourths of which come from the people that live round the great lakes.13 Similarly, Intendant Champigny said, in 1699, that,

The savages our friends will become our enemies, and the result will be the inevitable loss of
the colony, which could never be sustained without them, and much less still if they war against us.14 Regardless of how the French fur trade was sustained in the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi regions, it is evident that interaction between Native Americans and French traders here was complex. The Pays den hautor the upper countryepitomized the French fur trade in North America because it represented the middle ground. Beavers were prevalent here, which attracted Indian groups seeking trade with Europeans, and French traders followed. Traders here would set up trading posts in order to house furs to send back to Quebec.15 It was around the midseventeenth century, from a number of disasters and having been defeated by Illinois Indians, that the Winnebago Nation of the Green Bay region had been reduced to one-sixth of its former size. This encouraged friendly factions of Sauk, Fox, Potawatomi, Miami, Mascoutin, Kickapoo, Noquet, Wea, and Ottowa Nationsalong with refugee Petuns and Huronsto fill in this region in pursuit of trade with the French.16 A decade later, after Louis XIV had established New France as a royal colony, westward expansion had advanced significantlypartly because

Ibid.; Frank E. Ross. 1938. The Fur Trade of the Western Great Lakes Region. Minnesota History. [cited 2011, March 28]. http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/19/v19i03p271-307.pdf, 19:271. 14 Havard, The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century, 31. 15 Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, 1:12, 13. 16 Ibid., 1:14, 21; White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, 14.

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Iroquois Indians on the St. Lawrence River were passive at the time.17 Green Bay and Chequamegon Bay became prime locations for Indians seeking trade since it provided direct contact between hunters and French traders.18 But many groups were also motivated to move here in order to escape aggressive groups such as the Iroquois Five Nations. A strong illustration of competition and alliance from the French fur trade in this region occurred with the Iroquois Wars and subsequent Peace Treaty of 1701. Figure 1 shows an image of an Iroquoian war song that Nicolas Perrot recorded from his interactions with those Indians; it was published in Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale by Claude Charles Le Roy, Bacqueville de la Potherie.19 The Iroquois Five Nations, which occupied the region near the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, began raiding Indian Nations to the beaver-rich north who would have traded with the French.20 These attacks were the result of overhunting in their own territory which curbed trade with English settlers. As attacks by the Five Nations moved west, New France was brought close to ruin by harm to their fur trade.21 Guns acquired by Iroquois peoples through trade with the English allowed them an advantage in warring with groups in the Great Lakes region. This created a fervor for guns and ammunition amongst other Native groups in the region, especially the Huron peoples.22 Similar to the Huron peoples, Illinois and Miami groups began acquiring guns from the French in 1671about twenty years after the Iroquois had begun

17 18

Ibid., 21. Ibid., 23. 19 Claude Charles Le Roy, Bacqueville de la Potherie also attended Montreals Great Peace Treaty conference of 1701. White, Introduction, 4. 20 Ibid., 13. 21 Ross. The Fur Trade of the Western Great Lakes Region. 19:289. 22 Havard, The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century, 33.

destroying villages in their territories.23 Interestingly, just prior to French contact, the Miami and Illinois confederacies had split up as a once unified political organization, which occurred for reasons that are not quite clear.24 This, as Eric Hindraker explains in Elusive Empires, would have left Illinois and Miami Indians increasingly vulnerable in their relations with outsiders.25 Other groups raided by Iroquois Indians during this period included the Wenros, the Petuns, the Neutrals, and the Eries.26 But the Huron peoples were the only ones at first to accept the tomahawka symbol for the declaration of warfrom the New France governor, Monsieur de la Barre, against the Iroquois peoples.27 The relationship of French traders with the Huron peoples changed slightly, in 1682, when the formerinstead of supplying guns to the latter in their skirmishes with Iroquois Indiansbegan mediating directly. Father Le Clercq, having traveled this region with La Salle, understood that war would have interrupted commerce; therefore, an alliance against the Iroquois was reason enough to mediate between the numerous groups of Indians in this region.28 White tells us that neither trade nor military force alone could have held the alliance together. It was the ability of the French to mediate peace between contentious and vengeful allies that did that.29 He goes on to explain that mediation was possible through an infrastructure of refugee centers that brought groups of Indians together to aid in protection, while promoting French

23

Ibid., 33; Eric Hinderaker, Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 12. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Perrot, Memoir on the Manners, Customs and Religion of the Savages of North America, 233. 28 White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, 31. 29 Ibid., 34.

trade.30 Jesuit estimates state that between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand people lived in these centers during the 1670s.31 Peace was fragile in this environment, and French traders such as Nicolas Perrot, Ren-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut would have known this from experience.32 French fur traders interacting with Indian groups in the seventeenth century would have become familiar with the practice of passing the calumet, or singing the calumet as Perrot describes it.33 The calumet was a sacred pipe used to smoke tobacco for the purposes of worship and negotiation.34 This practice was another example of the middle ground where French traders would often smoke it as a sign of peace in order to live amongst Native American peoples learning about them, converting them and securing trade from them. Figure 2 shows a sketch of an Indian holding the calumet with the Mississippi River as its background. Father Lewis Hennepin, from whom we obtain this image, would have witnessed a scene like this in traveling with La Salle in 1679. Perrot, in particular, enjoyed the honor of smoking the calumet with numerous Indian Nations. When discussing the war sought out by Monsieur de la Barre against the Iroquois Indians, Perrot writes that In the morning he [Monsieur de Lude] was told that I was at Michillimakinak; he sent for me, and told me that no one could, better than I, induce the tribes to unite with us in this war, [as he was] persuaded of the ascendency that I possessed over their minds.35 When Perrot met a Potowatomi chief, he was presented the calumet and the latter uttered, praised be the Sun, who has instructed thee and sent thee to our country; and the
30 31

Ibid. Ibid., 14. 32 Ibid., 15. 33 Perrot, Memoir on the Manners, Customs and Religion of the Savages of North America, 182. 34 Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699, 75. 35 Perrot, Memoir on the Manners, Customs and Religion of the Savages of North America, 234.

chief blew smoke over him. 36 This mark of respect would have signified Perrot, or whoever received the honors of the calumet, as a son of the tribe.37 Other times in which Perrot smoked from the calumet were in interactions with the Maloumin, the Outagami, the Miami, the Maskouten, the Sioux and the Ayo Nations.
38

As early as 1664, Perrot was living among the Algonquian peoples, and soon after he came across Potowatomi Indians at Green Bay.39 He is known for being among the first Frenchmen to see many places within the Great Lakes region and the first white man to be seen by many Native American groups.40 The Jesuits had trained and sponsored his stay with these groups, which allowed him to learn various Native American languages. From his experiences, he would go on to write his Memoir on the Manners, Customs and Religion of the Savages of North America.41 It was in this memoir that we find the story at the beginning of this essay, which took place while Perrot was traveling throughout Menominee, Outagami, Mascoutin and Miami Indian territories.42 Fifteen years later in 1684, he would be sent as an agent of New France into present day Wisconsin to secure peace between Indian groups there.
43

Perrot spoke to Menominee Indians at a time when they were on the verge of war with the Potawatomi Nation for having murdered one of their people: Here is a porcelain collar [a wampum belt], by which I bind you to my body; what will you have to fear, if you unite yourselves to us, who make guns and hatchets, and who
36 37

Ibid., 75. Ibid., 185. 38 Ibid., 27. 39 Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699, 69-70, 74. 40 Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, 1:15. 41 Perrots Memoir was written between 1680 and 1718; Ibid., 1:25 footnote. 42 Ibid., 25. 43 Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, 1:36-37.

knead iron as you do pitch? I have united myself with the Pouteouatemis, on whom you are planning to make war. I have come to embrace all the men whom Onontio, the chief of all the French who have settle in this country, has told me to join together, in order to take them under his protection. Would you refuse his support, and kill one another when he desires to establish peace between you?44 The father of the deceased Indian then took the wampum belt, presented the calumet to Perrot and to all those present and began singingindicating that he wished to enter into alliance with Perrot. Perrot was able to record sheet music to the calumet song, introduced by the Fox Nation, which is similar to that of the Iroquois war chant in Figure 1.
45

As an agent, Perrot would go on

to mediate peace between the Fox and Ojibwa Nations.46 He also acted as interpreter during peace negotiations between the French and the Onondaga Nation. And in the summer of 1688, Perrot and du Lhut worked together to convene Indians at La Baye in hopes of securing peace. 47 Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut mediated peace between Chippewa Nation and Sioux Nation Indians in 1679 when it had disturbed the fur trade there.48 He also settled peace between Algonquian groups quarreling over murders in order to preserve trade with them. And in 1689, du Lhut and Perrot were, again, asked to stage a council of Algonquian leaders to agree on peace; however, the council did not end up staying in Montreal because the colony had been pillaged by Iroquois Indians. 49 Interestingly, du Lhut had also rescued Father Hennepinwho

44

45

Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699, 77-78. Perrot, Memoir on the Manners, Customs and Religion of the Savages of North America, 185, footnote. 46 Richard White, Introduction, i The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley & Region of the Great Lakes, trans. Emma Helen Blair (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 2. 47 Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, 1:38. 48 Ross. The Fur Trade of the Western Great Lakes Region. 19:276-277. 49 Ibid.

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gives us the image in Figure 2as a captive of the Sioux Nation.

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Another trader, Ren-Robert

Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle brought Miami, Illinois and Shawnee Indians together at the fortified Starved Rock garrison in todays state of Illinois to avoid Iroquois attacks.51 And his lieutenant, Henri de Tonti, had mediated peace between Miami and Illinois Indians in 1685. While peace may have been the mission for these agents, it was not always a harmless occupationat least two were tortured and killed.52 This being said, many French, as well as Indian, individuals participated in extending peace between groups. New France Governers: Joseph-Antoine le Febvre de La Barre and Charles Jacques de Huault de Montmagny took part in these negotiations as well. Montmagnygiven the name Onontio, meaning great mountain,had mediated peace between several Algonquian groups.53 And the Jesuits would also play an important role in keeping peace between divided Indian nations. In 1650 Father Gabriel Druilletes traveled down the Kennebec River to negotiate a treaty between Indian groups in that area.54 Before Druillete the Jesuits were firm to their missionary work, but afterward they would often enter into the politics of Native groups.
55

Furthermore, there were a number Jesuit

missions accepted into the territories of the Iroquois Nations that were, thus, used by New France to negotiate with and spy on individuals in those regions.
56

Conversely, Iroquois

individuals living in New France, mission villages would act as mediators between France and the Five Nations since they were allies to New France, but could travel freely through Iroquoian

Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, 1:33. White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, 31. 52 Havard, The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century, 19. 53 White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, 36;142. 54 Parkman, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, 323. 55 Ibid. 56 Havard, The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century, 19.
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territory.57 And a Potawatomi Indian by the name of Onanghisse often negotiated with the French and has been considered the Potawatomi equivalent to Perrot.58 Aside from bringing furs to New France and acting as diplomats, Perrot, du Lhut and La Salle were employed in claiming, for the King and for French trade, the region of the Great Lakes. In 1671 Perrot gave a speech to the Indian groups that surrounded Lakes Huron and Superior: I take possession of this country in the name of him whom we call our king; this land is his, and all these people who hear me are his subjectshe desires that they live in peace, and he will take in hand their affairs if his children have any disputes among themselves, he desires to be the judge in these.59 Perrot would claim other territories and peoples including Lake Pepin in 1688 and Green Bay in 1689.60 Du Lhut had claimed the region of Lake Mille Lacs within the territory of the Sioux Nation in 1679, and La Salle did the same at the mouth of the Mississippi River. 61 These pursuits continued as France and its trade moved throughout the Great Lakes region. As the Iroquois Wars demonstrated the extent to which competition had been the result of the French fur trade in the upper country, the Great Peace Treaty of Montreal of 1701 represents French influence towards alliance. The treaty was a general peace between the Iroquois Five Nations, Algonquian coalitions and the French themselves. This would bring to a close the intermittent period of hostility, from 1609 to 1701, between the Great Lakes region Nations and
Ibid. White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, 39. 59 Claude Charles Le Roy, Bacqueville de la Potherie, Histoire de lAmrique septentrionale i The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley & Region of the Great Lakes, trans. Emma Helen Blair (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 347; William W. Folwell, A History of Minnesota, 4 vols. (St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1921), 1:17. 60 Smith, From Exploration to Statehood, 1:29, 38. 61 Ibid., 1:25;29.
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the Iroquois Nations.62 Nicolas Perrot served as an interpreter for these talks.63 While peace had been settled between the Iroquois Nations and New France and its allies, conflict would transpire again when the French and Fox Nation fought each other for over two decades beginning just eleven years after the Peace of 1701.64 The Jesuit explorer, Pierre Franois-Xavier de Charlevoix, asserted once that wars are eternal among the savages.65 And history would show the extent to which European imperialism continued to manipulate Native American groups. The furs that caused five French soldiers to murder an Iroquoian man on the Outaoas River were part of a global market that brought on a complex interaction of competition and alliance between French and Native American peoples in the Great Lakes region. While competition for beaver hunting grounds and for commerce with French traders occurred between Indian groups, New France saw this as a disturbance to the fur trade and actively sought out peace in the region. Perrot tells us that when the five French soldiers, rather than just one, were executed, Iroquois Indians had great confidence in the French; and many of their families, influenced by so splendid a reparation, came down into the colony and remained there.66 At the start of the colony, when Champlain was meeting with groups in the Great Lakes region and securing sources of furs to send back to France, we see the formation of a complex system of interaction between two separate beneficiaries. And this became clear when the Jesuits began living with Indian groups such as those of the Algonquian or Huron Nations. At first priests, and soon after traders, started to learn Indian languages allowing for increased religious conversion

Ibid., 1:51. Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699, 71. 64 Havard, The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century, 175. 65 Ibid., 176. 66 Perrot, Memoir on the Manners, Customs and Religion of the Savages of North America, 234.
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as well as trade expansion. This meeting ground existed with both sides molding previous concepts to accommodate for a drastically changing environment. The Great Lakes region was important because it was a melting pot of individuals, whether they were French traders seeking Indian furs or Indians seeking refuge from attacking Nations. As Iroquois Indians moved west from the Ohio River valley in search of beaver pelts, it pushed several Indian Nations into the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi regions. New France understood the benefits of creating alliances against a common enemy in the Iroquois Five Nations. So traders such as Nicolas Perrot were used as agents of New France to seek treaties between quarreling groups. They would use symbols in the calumet and tomahawk to achieve these aims. Aside from these agents, peace was achieved through refugee centers, Jesuit missions and Indian allies. And in 1701, New France was able to make peace with the Iroquois Nations. Although this would not secure the long term control of this region for France, it was the end of a period of aggression in which alliance would be a major factor in maintaining the fur trade of New France.
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It is evident that the Great Lakes region in the seventeenth century was complex. Various perspectives from prominent traders, priests, explorers and colonial authorities have contributed to the narrative of interaction with Native Americans; however, alternative perspectives from Native Americans, less significant Frenchmen and French women are scarce. So for an integral time in North American history, we can only partially piece together what interaction must have been like between Natives and newcomers. But Historians like Richard

67

White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, 143.

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White are able to broaden our perspective of this period in which two groups came into contact. However complex the narrative of French and Indian interaction has become, trade is an indispensable component in that; and we should all be able to relate to this in terms of globalization and the strength of the market.

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