Quote Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer
The English came in and built a society on the ashes of the French defeat.

Unlike the French, my ancestors had enough sense to shoot the beavers before putting them on our heads to make those funny little hats. That made for a marked reduction in the number of colonists who had their heads chewed open by beavers.
Any reply I attempt to give would surely expose my complete ignorance of the history of America's Hat.