Nicolas Perrot (1644-1718)
Perrot’s life among the Indian tribes began as early as 1665, little more than a half-century after the founding of Quebec; and during nearly forty years he traveled and lived among the Indians- successively as engagé to the Jesuit missionaries, coureur de bois and trader, explorer, and agent of the Quebec government. His narrative greatly illumines the history of the relations between the French colony and the Indian tribes within its sphere of influence, and still more the character and customs of the aboriginal peoples in their primitive condition; for he was the first white visitor to several of the western tribes, and even those of the east were not yet very greatly altered by contact with Europeans.
– from editor Emma H. Blair’s Preface in Vol 1.