DCHP-3

free trapper

Fur Trade
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

a trapper or hunter not in the employ of the fur companies, often a former company servant.

Quotations

1902
The free trapper went among the Indians with no defence but good behaviour and the keenness of his wit. . . . Indeed rival hunters have not hesitated to bribe the savages to pillage and murder the free trapper; for there was no law in the fur trading country, and no one to ask what became of the free trapper who went out alone into the wilderness and never returned.
1955
He then became a free trapper until 1841, when he became a settler.