The ‘Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson's Bay’: A Study of the Founding Members of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1665–1670

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Barry M. Gough
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Hudson's Bay Company ◽  
North American Continent ◽  
Trading Company ◽  
The North ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Financial Power ◽  
Hudson’S Bay Company

In this year of the tercentenary of the incorporation of the Hudson's Bay Company it is appropriate to examine the founding membership of what may still be called “The Great Company.” It is surprising that the literature which chronicles the early adventures of the Company in the northern reaches of Canada has largely neglected a close scrutiny of the founders. The purpose of this article is to examine the early partnership, note the walks of life and social groups from which the adventurers came, and identfy those who formed the nucleus of leadership in planning and executing the endeavors for which the Hudson's Bay Company became renowned.In general, the men who established the Hudson's Bay Company were representative of the era of extensive oversea expansion that characterized Restoration England. They were essentially promoters and imperialists. Yet they were not the first of their kind, for in the thirteenth century merchants had formed regulated organizations for prosecuting the cloth trade. Nor did they ever possess the financial power or parliamentary lobby of the East India Company. Nonetheless, their interest in the fur trade, in a Northwest passage and in general scientific inquiry prompted these men to lay the basis of a firm that by the height of its influence in the early 1840 was engaged in business throughout most of British North America as well as on the Pacific slope south to San Francisco Bay, in the Pacific islands, and in Canton. Today this organization remains the oldest merchant trading company in the world and the oldest business firm on the North American continent.

Chronological list of expeditions and historical events in northern Canada. IV. 1763–89

Polar Record ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 15 (98) ◽  
pp. 699-721
Author(s):  
Alan Cooke ◽  
Clive Holland
Keyword(s):  
The Arctic ◽  
Hudson Bay ◽  
Minor Importance ◽  
Hudson's Bay Company ◽  
Southern Boundary ◽  
Northern Canada ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Hudson’S Bay Company

If the Treaty of Paris in 1763 secured the Hudson's Bay Company in its monopoly of Rupert's Land, it also, by the Cession of Canada, opened to British enterprise the river-and-lake routes, discovered by the French, from Montreal to the fur-rich country west of Hudson Bay. This instalment of our list covers the years of the Montreal traders' expansion into the North-west, their crossing of the Arctic watershed into the fur trader's Eldorado, the Athabasca district, their organization into the Hudson's Bay Company's formidable rival, the North West Company, and concludes with the climax of their north-westward surge, Alexander Mackenzie's arrival at the Arctic Ocean in 1789. This activity obliged the Hudson's Bay Company to change its policy of waiting for the Indians to bring their furs to posts on Hudson Bay and made them push inland to compete for furs with the pedlars from Montreal. In the meantime, the Moravians had established missions on the coast of Labrador, searches for a North-west Passage were directed away from Hudson Bay to the Pacific coast of North America, the first scientific expedition was sent to Hudson Bay, and the Indians were decimated by smallpox. Toward the end of this instalment, we begin to draw our southern boundary of “northern Canada” both westward and northward and to omit many expeditions and events of peripheral or minor importance, such as activities south of Saskatchewan River, or of regular occurrence, such as annual voyages northward from Churchill.

Industrial Experiments in the Wilderness: A Sidelight in the Business History of the Hudson's Bay Company

1958 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-433
Author(s):  
Alvin C. Gluek
Keyword(s):  
Fur Trade ◽  
Business History ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
American Continent ◽  
Hudson's Bay Company ◽  
North American Continent ◽  
The North ◽  
Industrial Experiments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hudson’S Bay Company

Development of the North American continent was a halting process, characterized by use and misuse of latent opportunities. The Hudson's Bay Company, giant in fur trade and northern exploration, proved by trial and error experiments that abundant natural assets were not in themselves the magic key to wealth.

Trapped?

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Ashley Riley Sousa
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Fur Trade ◽  
San Jose ◽  
Hudson's Bay Company ◽  
Trade Network ◽  
Central California ◽  
The North ◽  
White Settlers ◽  
Hudson’S Bay Company

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.

The Fort and the Village

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas C. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Historical Archaeology ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Spatial Segregation ◽  
Hudson's Bay Company ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Fort Vancouver ◽  
Archaeology Of Colonialism ◽  
The Village ◽  
Hudson’S Bay Company

Fort Vancouver, located in southwestern Washington (USA), was the administrative headquarters and supply depot for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in the Pacific Northwest, essentially its colonial capital between ca. 1825 and 1845. The documentary record for Fort Vancouver suggests a spatial segregation between the fort and the village along class lines which separated the elite managers of the company from its employees (engagés). Archaeological and ethnohistoric data, however, tend to blur these sharp lines between the fort and the village as artifacts, pollen, and other data reveal a more complex colonial milieu tied to the unique multicultural nature of the settlement and ties to indigenous and other non-Western communities. The historical archaeology of colonialism at Fort Vancouver helps the modern descendants of these people, as well as others tied to the fort, reconnect to their history and heritage and develop a dialogue regarding past and current identities.

Chronological list of expeditions and historical events in northern Canada. V. 1790–1821

Polar Record ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 15 (99) ◽  
pp. 893-920
Author(s):  
Alan Cooke ◽  
Clive Holland
Keyword(s):  
Hudson Bay ◽  
Hudson's Bay Company ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Northern Canada ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Rupert's Land ◽  
New Policies ◽  
Hudson’S Bay Company

During the period covered by this instalment of our list, the accomplishments of the North West Company, both in geographical exploration and in the realization of profits were great. It consolidated its position in the fur-rich Athabasca district and, with a few posts along Mackenzie River, began to draw in the furs of that immense territory. Its traders invaded not only the western part of Rupert's Land but even Hudson Bay itself. The Hudson's Bay Company rose only slowly to the challenge of its formidable rival, but, gradually, it began to adopt new policies and new techniques and to meet the North West Company on its own grounds and on its own terms. Finally, after a bitter struggle that was almost the destruction of both companies, the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1821, effectively absorbed the North West Company in a coalition that gave the older company greater strength than ever and a wider monopoly than Prince Rupert had thought of.

John Rae (1813–93): Explorer of the Canadian Arctic, the great pedestrian

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 206-208
Author(s):  
Brian Loosmore
Keyword(s):  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Chief Factor ◽  
Eastern Shore ◽  
Hudson's Bay Company ◽  
Northern Canada ◽  
Orkney Islands ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Hudson’S Bay Company

Born and raised in the Orkney Islands, Dr John Rae joined the Hudson's Bay Company and rose to be Chief Factor. Unusually tough and intelligent, he explored much of northern Canada, mapping the north eastern shore and finding controversial evidence of the lost Franklin expedition of 1845. A talented botanist, geologist, anthropologist and cartographer, he was northern Canada's most distinguished explorer.

William Seward and the Diplomacy of the Civil War

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Randolph
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
North American Continent ◽  
The North ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Post War

Best known as Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state during the Civil War, William Henry Seward conducted full careers as a statesman, politician, and visionary of America’s future, both before and after that traumatic conflict. His greatest legacy, however, lay in his service as the secretary of state, leading the diplomatic effort to prevent European intervention in the conflict. His success in that effort marked the margin between the salvation and the destruction of the Union. Beyond his role as diplomat, Seward’s signature qualities of energy, optimism, ambition, and opportunism enabled him to assume a role in the Lincoln administration extending well beyond his diplomatic role as the secretary of state. Those same qualities secured a close working relationship with the president as Seward overcame a rocky first few weeks in office to become Lincoln’s confidant and sounding board. Seward’s career in politics stretched from the 1830s until 1869. Through that time, he maintained a vision of a United States of America built on opportunity and free labor, powered by government’s active role in internal improvement and education. He foresaw a nation fated to expand across the continent and overseas, with expansion occurring peacefully as a result of American industrial and economic strength and its model of government. During his second term as secretary of state, under the Johnson administration, Seward attempted a series of territorial acquisitions in the Caribbean, the Pacific, and on the North American continent. The state of the post-war nation and its fractious politics precluded success in most of these attempts, but Seward was successful in negotiating and securing Congressional ratification of the purchase of Alaska in 1867. In addition, Seward pursued a series of policies establishing paths followed later by US diplomats, including the open door in China and the acquisition of Hawaii and US naval bases in the Caribbean.

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