Discouraging the Use of a Common Resource: The Crees of Saskatchewan

1981 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Harper-Fender

The Crees of Saskatchewan adjusted their economic life in reaction to their long and interdependent relationship with European fur traders. For the period from the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century, this paper examines one aspect of the Crees' economic adjustment to the fur trade, the limiting of access to the land and its resources to conserve the fragile supply of furbearmg animals. Hudson's Bay Company documents and studies by anthropologists provide the basis for this economic study.

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-97
Author(s):  
Krista Barclay

By the mid-nineteenth century, Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) officers were retiring in greater numbers with their Indigenous families outside Rupert’s Land. Much work has been done to uncover the experiences of fur trade families who remained at HBC trading posts or settled in what became the American and Canadian Wests, but there has been little research on those families who left for Britain or colonial Canada. In Canada West, the racial and gendered terrains of their new home communities were complex ones for Indigenous women and their children to navigate. They played roles in both the reification and subversion of racial and gendered imperial hierarchies, and thus came to occupy unexpected and even contradictory positions in family and local historical narratives.


2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Ashley Riley Sousa

This article re-evaluates the nature of Indigenous labor at Central California’s New Helvetia colony. The fur trade in Central California was not simply a vehicle for settler exploitation of Indigenous labor but a dynamic trade network shaped by Plains Miwok– and Valley Nisenan–speaking trappers and traders, Mission San José, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and white settlers. Analysis of the financial aspects of trade for the Indigenous trappers and ethnohistorical examination of their motives for engaging in the trade suggest that the fur trade was not a source of degradation and dependency, but a vehicle by which they creatively and purposefully engaged colonial forces and markets. This article orients the histories of Plains Miwok– and Valley Nisenan–speaking communities into the larger story of the North American fur trade and suggests New Helvetia and its fur trade can be better understood as what historian Lisbeth Haas calls “Indigenous colonial” creations.


2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary P. Spraakman

In their 1992 textbook, Economics, Organization and Management, Milgrom and Roberts used 19th century fur trading companies as examples of effective (the incentive-based North West Company) and ineffective (the bureaucratic-based Hudson's Bay Company) organizations. Findings from detailed examinations of both companies' archives suggest that Milgrom and Roberts were not completely accurate in their depictions of the two companies' incentives and bureaucratic controls. In response to complexities of intercontinental trade, both companies used bureaucratic controls for coordination as well as profit sharing to motivate senior managers. More generally, the findings raise questions about Milgrom and Roberts' relatively negative conclusions concerning the effectiveness of bureaucratic controls.


2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-406
Author(s):  
Ryan Hall

This article argues that Blackfoot people played a central role in the emergence of the northwest plains as a vibrant borderland between British and U.S. fur trade empires. When the British Hudson’s Bay Company monopolized the northern fur trade in 1821, Blackfoot traders abandoned their previous opposition to American expansion and deliberately encouraged U.S. trading companies to expand onto the Upper Missouri River. In so doing, the Blackfeet forced fur trading companies to compete for their favor and gained crucial economic and political advantages over their neighbors. This episode reveals the centrality of indigenous agency to early western geography, sheds new light on the ways Indian people understood and created borderlands relationships, and underscores the importance of linking early U.S. and Canadian history.


Polar Record ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (207) ◽  
pp. 329-340
Author(s):  
Ian R. Stone

AbstractBy an agreement in 1839, the Hudson's Bay Company and the Russian American Company established a framework for co-operation in their activities in Alaska and adjacent areas of Canada that lasted until the 1860s. The signatories to the agreement were George Simpson and Ferdinand von Wrangell. These men were prominent in the management of the co-operation and this was facilitated by their mutual trust and friendship. An examination of their correspondence affords insights into business methods in a cross-cultural environment in the mid-nineteenth century, and into the extent to which their personal relations influenced major decisions in economics and politics with regard to the areas of activity of both companies.


Author(s):  
Brian Schefke

Abstract This article aims to elucidate and analyze the links between science, specifically natural history, and the imperialist project in what is now the northwestern United States and western Canada. Imperialism in this region found its expression through institutions such as the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). I examine the activities of naturalists such as David Douglas and William Tolmie Fraser in the context of the fur trade in the Columbia Department. Here I show how natural history aided Britain in achieving its economic and political goals in the region. The key to this interpretation is to extend the role of the HBC as an imperial factor to encompass its role as a patron for natural history. This gives a better understanding of the ways in which imperialism—construed as mercantile, rather than military—delineated research priorities and activities of the naturalists who worked in the Columbia Department.


1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary P. Spraakman

Using an environmental contingency approach, Johnson and Kaplan [1987] argued that virtually all management accounting practices used at the time of their study had been developed by 1925 in response to increased uncertainty caused by geographical expansion and large-scale operations. During the 1821 to 1860 subperiod, the Hudson's Bay Company had significant uncertainty which was largely a result of the dynamic environment of its fur-trade operation. Consequently, it should have developed management accounting practices in response to uncertainty. Moreover, the management accounting practices should have been less extensive in the subperiods before and after 1821 to 1860, as these subperiods had less uncertainty. The Company's accounting and related records were examined for 1670 to 1914, and provided evidence to support the contention of Johnson and Kaplan that management accounting practices evolved positively with uncertainty.


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