Travelling down the Missouri, he met the Mandan, the Hidatsa and the Arikara. Up until 1760, when the French were defeated by the British, the merchants of the St. Lawrence Valley established commercial relations mainly with the Cree and the Assiniboine who lived north and south of the Canadian prairies. The regular contact between Canadian voyageurs and these Indian groups gave rise to the first Métis groups in the Canadian West.