Note 104 — Chapter III · THE FOX WARS: A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT
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Turner, op. cit. There were two reasons for their opposition to this trade. By supplying the Sioux with firearms and goods the French enabled them to carry on their contest with the Foxes on even terms. Furthermore the Foxes desired to play the role of middlemen in the trade between the French and the Indians farther west. As early as 1675, according to Marquette (Jesuit Relations, LIX, 174), the Illinois Indians were trading in this way between the French and their own people, and already were acting "like the traders" and giving them hardly more for their furs than did the French themselves.
[105] Shea, Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi, 49.