By 1688, New France's population was 11,562 people, made up primarily of fur traders, missionaries, and farmers settled in the St. Lawrence Valley. To help overcome its severe shortage of servants and labourers, King Louis XIV granted New France's petition to import black slaves from West Africa. Though no shipments ever arrived from Africa, colonists did acquire some black slaves from other French and British colonies. From the late 1600s, they also acquired Indigenous slaves, mostly from what is now the US Midwestern states, through their western fur-trade networks. Slaves of Indigenous origin were called "Panis," but few came from the Pawnee tribe. More commonly, they were of Fox, Dakota, Iowa and Apache origin, captives taken in war by French Indigenous allies and trading partners.