Beaver swimming in murky lake water.
Fishing, Furs and Christianity: Early Euro-Indigenous Relations (1608–63)
The fur craft began as an adjunct to the fishing diligence. early in the sixteenth hundred, fishermen from northwest Europe were taking rich catches of gull on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Drying their pisces onshore took several weeks. During that prison term, thoroughly relations had to be maintained with autochthonal people, who were tidal bore to obtain alloy and fabric goods from the Europeans. What they had to offer in exchange were furs and fresh meat. The fishermen found an tidal bore and profitable market in Europe for the furs .
When the wide-brimmed palpate hat came into fashion late in the sixteenth century, the demand for beaver pelts increased enormously. The best material for hat felt was the soft undercoat of the beaver. Its strands have bantam barbs that make them mat together tightly .
To exploit the craft more effectively, the inaugural french traders established permanent land bases in Acadia, a post at Tadoussac. They besides founded a base at Quebec in 1608. The follow class, the Dutch began trading up the Hudson River. In 1614, they established permanent deal posts at Manhattan and upriver at Orange ( now Albany, New York ). This action marked the beginning of an intense competition between the two commercial empires of the Dutch and the french. It besides involved their respective autochthonal allies, the Huron-Wendat and the Haudenosaunee, both of whom were supplied with guns by their european allies. ( See besides : Indigenous-French Relations. )
autochthonal peoples were authoritative partners in this growing fur craft economy. From roughly 1600 to 1650, the french shape alliances of affinity and barter with the Huron-Wendat, Algonquin and Innu. These peoples helped the french collect and process beaver furs and distribute them to early autochthonal groups throughout their huge trade network, which was established well before the arrival of Europeans. The fur trade provided autochthonal peoples with european goods that they could use for gift-giving ceremonies, to improve their sociable status and to go to war. The french forged military alliances with their autochthonal allies in regulate to maintain full barter and sociable relations. In the seventeenth hundred, the french fight against the Haudenosaunee in the fight for manipulate over resources. This was known as the Beaver Wars or the french and Iroquois Wars.
During the first half of the seventeenth century, the count of traders flooding into the St. Lawrence River region, and cutthroat competition among them, greatly reduced profits. In an undertake to impose order, the french Crown granted monopolies of the trade wind to certain individuals. In return key, the monopoly holders had to maintain french claims to the modern lands and aid in the attempts of the Roman Catholic Church to convert autochthonal people to Christianity .
In 1627, Cardinal Richelieu, beginning minister of Louis XIII, organized the Compagnie des Cent-Associés to put french territorial claims and the missionary drive on a firmer footing. Four Récollets missionaries were sent to Québec in 1615. They were followed in 1625 by the beginning members of the potent Society of Jesus ( Jesuits ). A mission base, Ste Marie Among the Hurons, was established among the Huron-Wendat near Georgian Bay. however, the Huron-Wendat were more concerned in the trade goods of the french than in their religion. And it was fur-trade profits that sustained the missionaries and allowed the company to send hundreds of settlers to the colony. In 1642, Ville-Marie ( immediately Montreal ) was founded as a mission center. In 1645, the company ceded restraint of the fur trade and the colony ’ s administration to the colonists. ( See besides : Communauté des habitants. ) unfortunately, they proved to be awkward administrators, and fur-trade returns fluctuated wildly. finally, after a desperate invoke by the colonial authorities to Louis XIV, the Crown took over the colony in 1663 .
French Control and French Profits (1663–1700)
The main staple of the trade was still beaver pelts for the hat industry. The Ministry of Marine, creditworthy for colonial affairs, leased three overseas enterprises — the West Indies grove deal, the African slave trade, and the marketing of canadian beaver and moose hides — to the newly formed Compagnie des Indes occidentales. In reality, it was a crown pot. All permanent wave residents of New France were permitted to trade for furs with autochthonal people. however, they had to sell the beaver and moose hides to the company at prices fixed by the Ministry of Marine. All other furs were traded on the free market. thus, the trade was not a monopoly, but the law of provide and demand had been suspended for dress hat and elk hides .
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the french minister of marine, hoped the canadian economy would diversify to provide french industry with raw materials. These would include timber, minerals and foodstuffs for the West Indies plantations. Thousands of emigrants were shipped to Canada at the Crown ’ s expense to bring the domain into production. ( See besides : Filles du Roy. )
Colbert discovered that a ample proportion of the young men did not remain on the farming. alternatively, they disappeared for years at a time to trade with autochthonal people in distant villages. ( See besides : Coureurs de bois. ) The main reasons for this phenomenon were the assure profits in the trade and the imbalance of the sexes in the colony. It was so great that until about 1710, alone about one man in seven could hope to find a wife — a necessity on a farm. In the interior, however, the traders cursorily formed alliances with autochthonal women. Their economic skills helped the french adjust to wilderness liveliness. Women made invest and moccasins and helped to supply the fur craft posts. ( See besides : dress During the Colonial Period. ) Most importantly, they fostered kinship ties between Europeans and Indigenous peoples. This linked the two groups in more than just trade and economy .
By 1681, Colbert was forced to acknowledge the pull of the fur trade. He inaugurated the congé arrangement. Each class, up to 25 congés ( licences to trade ) were issued by the governor. Each congé allowed three men with one canoe to trade in the West. It was hoped that the Canadians would wait their twist for a congé, therefore leaving the colony only 75 men short each year. But the newfangled system did little to reduce the number of men away from the settlements ( most of them illegally ). The total of beaver pelts pouring into Montreal continued to increase dramatically. By the 1690s, the Domaine de l ’ Occident ( Company of the Farm ) was complaining of a huge glut. ( The Domaine de l ’ Occident had been obliged to take over the beaver trade in 1674 from the defunct Compagnie des Indes occidentales. ) In 1696, in despair, the minister of nautical suspended the beaver trade. He besides gave orders to stop the publish of congés and to abandon all the french posts in the West, except Saint-Louis-des-Illinois .
George Agnew Reid | (courtesy George Agnew Reid/Library and Archives Canada/Acc. No. 1990-329-1)
War and Rivalry: France, England and Indigenous Peoples (1701–15)
The order to abandon the western trade posts ( to slow the migration of men into the beaver barter, and to reduce the flood of pelts ) was given while England and France were at war. The Canadians were engaged in a desperate struggle with the English colonies and their Haudenosaunee allies. ( See besides : Beaver Wars. ) The governor and intendant ( french administrator ) in Quebec protested vigorously. They declared that to abandon the posts in the West think of abandoning their autochthonal allies. By the latter one-half of the seventeenth century, these besides included the Saulteaux ( Ojibwa ), Potawatomi and Choctaw. The french feared that these peoples would become allies of the English. If that happened, New France would be doomed .
In accession, the English had been established at posts on the sub- Arctic seashore of Hudson Bay since 1670. ( See besides : Hudson ’ s Bay Company ( HBC ). ) The western posts were essential to fend off that contest. The canadian Compagnie du Nord had been founded in 1682 to challenge the HBC on its own land, but it was a failure. The minister of marine was obliged to rescind his drastic orders. The dress hat barter resumed in hurt of the over-supply, for strictly political reasons .
In 1700, on the eve of modern hostilities, Louis XIV ordered the establishment of the new colony of Louisiana on the lower Mississippi River, plus settlements in the Illinois area and a garrison post at Detroit. The aim was to hem in the english colonies between the Allegheny Mountains and the Atlantic. This imperialist policy depended on the support of the First Nations. In 1701, the french and their allies reached a armistice with the Haudenosaunee, known as the Great Peace of Montreal. This efficaciously ended the Beaver Wars over the fur trade. By that time, however, the wars had already resulted in the permanent wave dispersion or destruction of several First Nations in the Eastern Woodlands, including the Huron-Wendat. ( See besides : Hurons-Wendat of Wendake. )
Nicholas Isawanhanhi, Huron chief, shown wearing the regimental coat commonly awarded to Indigenous trading captains during the fur trade.
Voyageurs
In 1715, it was discovered that rodents and insects had consumed the flood of beaver fur in french warehouses. The market immediately revived. As an item on the poise tabloid of French external craft, furs were minuscule. Their plowshare was besides shrinking proportionately as deal in tropical produce and manufactured goods increased. however, the fur trade was the spine of the canadian economy .
Unlike the HBC, with its monolithic structure staffed by pay servants, the fur trade in New France was carried on into the early eighteenth century by scores of little partnerships. As costs rose with distance, the trade came to be controlled by a belittled number of bourgeois. They hired hundreds of wage-earning voyageurs. Most companies consisted of three or four men who obtained from the authorities a rent at a specific post for three years. All members of a company shared profits or losses proportional to the capital invested. Trade goods were normally obtained on credit rating, at 30 per cent interest, from a small number of Montreal merchants. They besides marketed the furs through their agents in France. The voyageurs ’ wages varied from 200 to 500 livres if they wintered in the West. For those who paddled the canoes west in the spring and returned with the fall convoy, the common engage was 100–200 livres plus their prevent ( about doubling what a laborer or craftsman would earn in the colony ) .
Westward Expansion (1715–79)
between 1715 and the Seven Years ’ War ( 1756–63 ), the fur deal expanded greatly and served a variety show of purposes — economic, political and scientific. Educated Frenchmen were keenly interested in scientific question. Government members, eager to discover the extent of North America, wished a Frenchman to be the first to find an overland road to the western sea. ( See besides : Northwest passage. ) Commissions were granted to senior canadian officers such as Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye to discover that path. They were given dominate of huge western regions ( some of which overlapped territory claimed by the british ), with exclusive right to the fur trade. Out of their profits they had to pay the expenses of maintaining their posts and sending exploration parties west along the Missouri and Saskatchewan rivers .
The Crown thereby made the fur trade pay the costs of its pastime of skill. It besides maintained restraint over both its subjects in the wilderness and its alliances with the foremost Nations in arrange to exclude the English. By 1756, when war with England put a check to exploration, the french had reached the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Warfare between the Blackfoot and Cree prevented further advances .
Hudson’s Bay Company and Other English Traders
Throughout this period, there was acute competition between the french canadian traders and the HBC. The Canadians took the lion ’ s plowshare of the craft. They had many advantages : they controlled the independent waterways throughout the West ; they had a certain add of the birch bark needed for canoes ( something the Anglo-Americans and the HBC men both lacked ) ; many of their craft goods were preferred by the autochthonal people ; and they had good relations with the First Nations, with whom they had developed across-the-board kinship ties. Attempts by the English of the thirteen american Colonies to obtain more down for colony angered the autochthonal people. The French did not covet autochthonal lands but were determined to deny them to the English .
The HBC traders made no real undertake to push their craft inland. rather, they waited in their posts for autochthonal people to come to them. The first Nations were astute adequate to play the English and French against each other by trading with both. The french dared not try to prevent autochthonal people from taking some furs to the Bay, but made certain to obtain the choice furs, leaving only the bulky, poor-quality ones to their rivals .
In the St. Lawrence region, New York and Pennsylvania traders made little attempt to compete with the Canadians. rather, they purchased furs clandestinely from the Montreal merchants. In this way the Canadians obtained a good issue of strouds ( coarse English woollen fabric ), a front-runner english trade item. The illegitimate barter between Montreal and Albany besides removed any incentive the New York traders might have had to compete with the Canadians in the West .
When the Seven Years ’ War began, the fur trade continued out of Montreal. The first Nations people had to be kept supply, but the volume of export furs steadily declined. Within a year of the french capitulation of Montreal in September 1760 and the subsequent seduction of New France, the trade began to revive. It was largely supported by british capital and canadian british labour party.
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Rise of the North West Company (1779–1810)
At the time of the conquest of New France, over the period 1759–60, two systems dominated the commercial fur barter of the northerly half of the continent : the St. Lawrence – Great Lakes organization, based in Montreal and extending to the amphetamine reaches of the Mississippi River and its major northerly tributaries, vitamin a well as to the prairies and the southerly fortune of the Canadian Shield ; and the Rupert ’ sulfur Land arrangement, which covered the wholly region draining into Hudson Bay and James Bay .
The St Lawrence-Great Lakes arrangement, developed by the french, had come to be served by the en dérouine ( itinerant peddle ) practice of deal. This type of trade was dominated by many belittled partnerships. It was conducted by parties of a few men sent out to do business with the first Nations in their own district. The Rupert ’ s Land trade system, by contrast, had not evolved in the lapp manner. In 1760, the HBC ’ s employees calm followed the practice of remaining in their coastal “ factories ” ( major trade posts ), awaiting the arrival of autochthonal people to trade .
After the Conquest, Anglo-Americans ( Yankees, or Bastonnais ), and English and Highland Scots merchants supplanted the Canadian bourgeois and the agents of french merchants in Montreal. The new “ pedlars ” forged a newfangled commercial connect with London. The resulting rush in natural process in Montreal disturbed the HBC ’ s “ sleep by the frozen sea. ” The success of its fresh rivals forced the caller to alter its coast-factory trade policy. In 1774, the HBC penetrated inland from the Bay to found Cumberland House, close to the Saskatchewan River. For their partially, the pedlars learned that co-operation among themselves, quite than contest, was the road to commercial success .
The resulting North West Company ( NWC ) rose quickly to a situation of dominance by gaining a de facto monopoly of the deal in the fur-rich area around Lake Athabasca. ( See besides : The North West Company, 1779–1821. ) staple fur ( beaver ) and fancy furs ( mink, marten, fisherman, etc. ), unsurpassed in quality and number, assured big profits. They did so even in hurt of the high costs of the inevitably labor-intensive exile arrangement, the canoe brigade. The annual dash of brigades from Fort Chipewyan to Grand Portage ( late to Fort William ) on Lake Superior created much of the romantic visualize of the fur trade wind. To maintain its Athabasca monopoly the NWC competed, at a loss if necessity, with its opponents on the Saskatchewan River, around Lake Winnipeg and north of the Great Lakes. On the North Saskatchewan River, the rival companies leapfrogged westward by each early ’ second posts in an try to gain a commercial advantage with First Nations .
Fort William, Ontario, was the centre of the northwestern fur trade. (courtesy Ontario Ministry of Tourism)
In all regions, little trade parties journeyed with supplies of deal goods to waylay autochthonal people travelling to rivals ’ posts. When necessary, they would force them to trade. In this competition, the HBC appeared disadvantaged in malice of having a major dispatch post, York Factory, on Hudson Bay. It was much closer to the fur-gathering areas than was the NWC ’ s trans-shipment point of Montreal .
The HBC lacked personnel and equipment peer to the tasks of inland travel and trade. not until the 1790s did the HBC evolve the York Boat brigade as an answer to its rival ’ sulfur canot de maître and canot du nord. even then, improved equipment and personnel were not sufficient to turn the commercial tide in the company ’ s favor .
montreal agents, such as Simon “ The Marquis ” McTavish and his nephew and successor William McGillivray, astutely directed the NWC ’ randomness affairs. however, much of the party ’ second achiever was due to the enthusiasm of its officers and employees ( engagés ). Wintering partners participated in decision make and enjoyed the profits of the trade. Unlike the HBC, the NWC ’ s adoption of exogamy between traders and Indigenous wives resulted in a sealed stability. The mixed-descent children of these “ nation marriages ” — known as the Métis people — established themselves as traders, buffalo hunters and suppliers to the NWC. By the early on nineteenth century, goodly Métis populations existed around trading posts and particularly in the Red River Colony .
In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie carried the NWC ’ second flag to the Arctic Ocean. In 1793, he reached the Pacific Ocean overland. ( See besides : The Explorations of Alexander Mackenzie. ) late explorers such as Simon Fraser and David Thompson opened up the fur lands west of the Rocky Mountains. The sign of Jay ’ second Treaty in 1794 ended the southwest trade. A modern rival, the XY Company, appeared in 1798. But the NWC met its challenge and in 1804 it absorbed this nouveau-riche .
Hudson’s Bay Company Triumphs (1810–21)
It was the revival of the HBC begin in 1810 that ultimately defeated the NWC. That year, the Earl of Selkirk decided to establish a settlement in HBC territory. He purchased sufficient lineage to place four friends on the HBC ’ s seven-man govern committee. These men, new to the party, emphatic efficiency in the deal march to reduce costs and turn from loss to profit. This success led the party to attempt to invade the Athabasca country in 1815. Poor planning by the dispatch ’ sulfur drawing card and the NWC ’ s influence with the autochthonal people in the region caused vitamin a many as 15 men to die of starvation. But the HBC was undaunted. It returned a few months later and successfully challenged the NWC monopoly .
The governing committee gave Selkirk ’ randomness Red River Colony aid and co-operation, although officers in the region were unenthusiastic. The NWC saw the settlers as supporters of their newly revitalized commercial rival. The NWC convinced the local Métis, who had settled the region, that their lands were threatened. commercial dispute erupted in violence when the colony ’ south governor and some 20 other settlers and HBC servants were killed in the Seven Oaks incidental on 19 June 1816. The Métis lost entirely one man .
such occurrences led the british government to demand that the competing fur companies resolve their differences. To this end, the government passed legislation enabling it to offer an single license to trade for 21 years in those areas of British North America beyond settlement and outside Rupert ’ sulfur Land. In 1821, the two companies created the “ Deed Poll. ” This document outlined the terms of a alliance between them. It detailed the sharing of the profits of the trade between the shareholders and individual officers in the field. It besides explained their relationship in the management of the trade. It was in this manner, and in the sharing of profits, that elements of the NWC survived in the new HBC. however, what was a alliance in name became assimilation by the HBC. In 1824, the board of management was eliminated. A majority of officers working for the HBC after 1821 were erstwhile Nor’Westers .
Simpson Consolidates the HBC’s Fur Trade Empire (1821–70)
commercial agreements between the two classify companies and the patronize given by government legislation and announcement could not hide the NWC ’ s kill. The triumphant HBC once again sought to increase its efficiency. Under the direction of Governor George Simpson, known as the “ Little Emperor, ” the HBC achieved undreamed-of profits. But such profits required a constant monitoring of costs and a constant search for savings, arsenic well as a policy of sharply competition with rivals in border areas. Through the company ’ s policies and the actions of its personnel, the inhabitants of the previous North-West were exposed to the charm of changes wrought in Britain by the Industrial Revolution, including the initiation of workforces dependent on company employment .
Simpson distinctly saw the importance of providing hold to autochthonal people ’ randomness hunt and trap. These activities supplied the furs that sustained the HBC ’ second fortunes. In times of adversity, the company offered aesculapian services and sufficient supplies and provisions for the trapper and his family to survive. Yet in systematizing these services, Simpson ’ second policies led autochthonal people into an increasingly dependant relationship with the HBC. The Plains Indigenous peoples, could be mugwump of the party ’ randomness services while the buffalo hunt was silent feasible. But for others, the new reality was increasingly economic addiction .
Simpson ’ s reforms allowed HBC expansion along the Pacific slide, northbound to the Arctic, and into the department of the interior of Labrador, which had been largely ignored until then. Such a huge fur sphere attracted rivals. Simpson ’ s fundamental scheme was to meet rival in the frontier areas to preserve the deal of the home for the HBC. On the Pacific coast, he reached an agreement with the russian Fur Company that permitted the HBC to pursue the maritime deal and successfully challenge the pre-eminence of the Americans. South and east of the Columbia River, he encouraged expeditions to trap the area clean in a “ scorched-earth ” policy. This left no animals to attract american “ mountain men ” or trappers. In the Great Lakes area, he licensed little traders to carry contest to the territory of the american Fur Company, finally causing it to abandon the field for an annual payment of £300 .
Farther east, the opponents were more unmanageable to dislodge. The King ’ south Posts, a series of deal posts north of the St. Lawrence originally belonging to the french king, had been granted in 1822 to a Mr. Goudie of Quebec City. Along the Ottawa River, lumbering provided bases for rival to arise. Yet the HBC vigorously pursued its competitors in all the frontier areas. It sustained its monopoly of the trade in Rupert ’ mho Land and in the accredited territories to the north and west. In the 1830s, when silk replaced felt as the prefer bleak material in the industry of hats and beaver lost its value as a staple fur, the party maintained a profitable trade emphasizing fancy fur. alternatively, it was liquidation, not commercial rivals, that presented the biggest challenge to the HBC .
Challenge of Settlement
West of the Rocky Mountains, American settlers succeeded where their predecessors, the batch men and the ships ’ captains, had failed. As a result of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, the HBC retreated north of the 49th parallel of latitude. To the east, at the Red River colony, the HBC met the challenge of free traders by charging Pierre-Guillaume Sayer and three other Métis in 1849 with trespass of the HBC monopoly. ( See besides : Sayer Trial. ) Although the company won a legal victory in the court, the community believed that the free traders had been exonerated. In Lower Canada, the company acquired the lease for the King ’ second Posts in 1832. however, the northbound borderland of lumbermen signalled the lessening importance of the fur deal in this region. Simpson countered brilliantly by making his company an important supplier of goods needed by the log crews .
When the geographic isolation of the West was breached in the 1840s, forces early than the fur interests became involved in opening the “ Great Lone Land. ” Catholic and Anglican missionaries who had appeared sooner immediately penetrated to the center of the continent. They were followed by adventurers and politics expeditions seeking resources other than fur, such as timber, district, and scientific cognition. ( See besides : Palliser Expedition. ) Simpson ‘s end in 1860 and the sale in 1863 of the HBC to the International Financial Society, a british investing group, marked the begin of the end of the historic fur trade.
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The End of the Fur Trade
In 1870, the HBC ’ s huge territory in the West was transferred to Canada. The next class, the federal government began signing treaties with the Indigenous peoples of the area. ( See besides : count Treaties. ) The government acquired title to those traditional lands and opened them up to colony and development. What had been a drip of settlers coming from Ontario immediately became a flood. As colony spread north and west, the HBC and equal free traders intensified the north push of the trade, and finally established enduring trading contacts with the Inuit. Fur traders moved into the north-polar territories of whalers, who had abandoned their posts as the whaling economy declined. From 1912 to the early 1930s, the HBC established a series of trade posts in the north-polar .
Johnnie, his wife and child with George Anderson examining white fox pelts at the Hudson’s Bay Company store..
In the confront of rival and the presence of the canadian government, the HBC reduced the patronize services that had been a depart of its trading relationship with the first Nations. These services had buffered autochthonal people against the swings of fur-market demands in Western Europe. In the twentieth hundred, fortunes in the fur trade came to reflect the swings of the market and the advent of fur farming. ( See besides : Fur Industry ). increasingly, autochthonal people looked to the missions and even more to the politics for back in times of adversity. This shift culminated in the accord of family allowance, schooling and pensions after the second World War. It besides marked the end of the historic fur deal. Fur trapping continues as a cash snip in frontier areas, but as a means of life sentence it is confined to a few northern areas .
Significance
historically, the fur trade played a singular role in the exploitation of Canada. It provided the motif for the exploration of much of the state. The trade remained the economic initiation of Western Canada until about 1870. The fur trade besides determined the relatively passive patterns of Indigenous-European relations in Canada. A central social expression of this economic enterprise was across-the-board endogamy between traders and autochthonal women. This gave heighten to an autochthonal fur-trade company that blended Indigenous and European customs and attitudes .