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3. English Trading Companies 1658-1750
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Birth of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC)
Radisson & Groseilliers
Canada's oldest company is also the world's oldest. This is the story of how it began.
On August 6, 1654, two fur traders, Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1640-1710) and his brother-in-law Médart Chouart des Groseilliers (1618-1696) left Lachine in New France with their canoes laden with trade goods for the tribes of the far west.
Radisson & Groseilliers spent the winter with the Ottawa and Winnebago around present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Lake Michigan. While they were there, the natives told them about large lakes to the north-west, and rivers that flowed to the salt water. Radisson & Groseilliers returned to Montreal with a rich cargo of furs the following autumn.
The profession of the coureur des bois - the voyageurs who mounted their own free trade expeditions - was growing - by 1680, Intendant Duchesneau estimated that there were at least 800 coureurs des bois in New France.
The Royal governors were determined to stop the tide. On March 12, 1658, officials posted a notice under the name of the King of France forbidding the inhabitants of New France to leave the colony without permission. That June, Radisson & Groseilliers ignored the order and left on a second visit west of Lake Superior. While Groseilliers stayed put trading, Radisson headed north-west of Lake Superior into Sioux/Assiniboine country, and later claimed that he visited as far as Hudson Bay.
On August 22, 1660, the pair returned to Montreal with an even bigger load of furs. Two days later they were fined and their furs confiscated, for trading without a license. Disgusted by this treatment, they talked about approaching the English about forming a company to trade into Hudson Bay. A year later, they left Montreal, again without the Governor's permission, to explore and trade west of Lake Superior, possibly reaching Hudson Bay.
It is reasonable to assume that Radisson & Groseilliers made sure to sell their furs from this trip through the English, as did many of their fellow free traders. Faced by this leakage of profits from his colony, the King of France decided in 1664 to give the monopoly of all trade in the colony of New France to the large and powerful French West India Company, managers of the sugar trade in the Caribbean.
The Compagnie des Indes were skilled at managing trade in a single commodity, and began to tighten control over the fur trade of New France in order to extract the best possible royalty for the King of France.
The Rise of Trading Companies
Sending ships to the new World was a risky business, and many vessels packed with trading goods were wrecked in storms, or their cargoes seized by pirates. To spread this risk, many European merchants began to partner with wealthy investors, often royal ones, and set up joint stock companies to make sure that enough trade was done so that the loss of single ship would not lead to financial ruin for the investors.
The biggest and most profitable companies were the English and Dutch firms trading sugar and slaves to and from the West Indies, and furs from the colonies along the Atlantic coast. Some of this fur made its way illegally from New France down the Hudson and other rivers to Boston and New Amsterdam. It ended up in the fur markets of London, Holland and even France, where it was made into shoes, apparel and high quality hats.
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Radisson & Groseilliers were determined to profit from their western discoveries, and had no desire to give up the lion's share of their knowledge with the French West India Company. In 1668 they left New France and ended up in London, talking to groups of investors about bypassing the St, Lawrence and New France entirely, and taking western furs out through Hudson Bay.
The fur merchants of London were soon persuaded by their argument. So on June 3, 1668, Médart Chouart des Groseilliers found himself a passenger on the little ketch Nonsuch on a trade voyage to Hudson Bay.
Captain Zachariah Gillam and crew sailed the Nonsuch up the coast of England, took water in the Orkney Islands, and then headed north west to Hudson Bay. On September 29 they reached the base of the bay, found a suitable site to pull up the ship, and proceeded to build a trading post called Charles Fort, named after King Charles, on the Rupert River, named after the King's cousin Prince Rupert, a major backer of the voyage.
The company soon made a trade treaty with the local chief and spent the winter bartering furs. Groseilliers's survival skills in living in the north, dressing warmly and eating a proper diet ensured that the English mariners and traders passed the winter comfortably. The following August they set sail for England on the Nonsuch with a rich cargo of furs after making a treaty to purchase the region from the chief.
The following year, on May 2, 1670, King Charles II granted a Royal charter to his cousin Prince Rupert and a group of investors called The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay: today's Hudson's Bay Company. The charter gave the company the exclusive monopoly of commerce in lands flowing into Hudson Bay, and required them to search for mines, and a route to the South Seas.
In exchange, the Company had to pay "two Elkes and two Black beavers" to the King whenever he or his successors visited the territory - a payment that has been made only four times in the Company's history.
In 1859, the HBC's exclusive trade license expired, and in 1869, the Company agreed to surrender its Rupert's Land rights to the Crown. In 1870, Manitoba and later the North-West Territories become part of the new country of Canada.
The venture founded by Radisson & Groseilliers still thrives today, as the Hudson's Bay Company, the world's oldest continuously operating joint stock company. The capital invested in the company by Prince Rupert and the King in 1670 is still held by the company, and still returns a profit. And the Company still has royal investors.
The first auctioning of furs from Hudson Bay took place at Garroway's Coffee House in the City of London On Oct. 17, 1671. The following year, on January 24, 1672, the new HBC held its first auction of 24 lots of furs at Garraway's.
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The French Reponse 1671-1700
Across the Atlantic in New France, Intendant Jean Talon soon learned about the Nonsuch voyage, and on August 6, 1671, he sent Charles Albanel up the Saguenay River and overland to explore Hudson Bay and verify the presence of Radisson & Groseilliers. The following June, Albanel reached the mouth of the Rupert River, made friendly contact with the Indians, and claimed the land for the King of France.
For the next decade, the Hudson's Bay went quietly about its fur gathering business from new posts at Fort Albany [Ontario], and Fort Nelson [Manitoba]. Radisson & Groseilliers chafed under increasing English domination of the trade, and felt cheated of the profits they thought were theirs; by 1680 they were back in the French camp. In 1682, they backed Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye's new Compagnie du Nord, later called the Hudson Bay Company (Compagnie de la Baie d 'Hudson) founded by New France merchants to compete in Hudson Bay against the HBC, and to drive them out by force.
Trading action shifted west toward the Nelson River, gateway into Manitoba. In 1683, Pierre Esprit Radisson led a French force to destroy Fort Nelson. A year later, the English counter-attacked, and Groseilliers was forced to surrender his Fort Bourbon [York Fort] to the HBC. On June 20, 1685, New France native Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville 1661-1706 captured Fort Monsipi from the English, after an overland trek from New France. On July 2, he took Fort Rupert [Moosonee] from the English, and on August 10, he captured an English vessel laden with furs, and sailed it to Quebec.
The fur war heated up in 1685, when the King of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, a policy protecting French Protestants. The net result was more civil war in France, and a wholesale flight of Huguenots from France to England and Holland. Many of the refugees were hat makers, and they took their beaver felt hat technology to England.
Back in New France, Governor Denonville ordered Pierre de Troyes to mount an expedition to Hudson Bay to expel the English and capture traders working for Radisson, now back in the English camp. In April 1686, de Troyes, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and a troop of 70 Canadiens and 30 French regulars started up the Ottawa River, and on June 20 they reached the bottom of the Bay, capturing Fort Monsipi [Moose Factory], renaming it Fort St-Louis, and Charles Fort (Fort Rupert) renaming it Fort St-Jacques. On July 25, they met up with Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who had come by sea, and captured the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Albany [Kitchichouan] after a two-week siege, renaming it Fort Ste-Anne.
In the autumn of 1688, d'Iberville returned to James Bay, captured two HBC trading ships, wintered over, and returned to Quebec the following October, his ships laden with furs. He returned for the winter of 1690-91, and in 1694 went back again with soldiers to loot Fort Nelson, which fell on November 14.
In July of 1697 d'Iberville again entered the Bay, this time on a 50 gun French warship, the Pélican, with four other naval vessels, Profond, Wesp, Palmier and a smaller brigantine.
On August 29, separated from his fleet, he encountered three English ships sent to protect the HBC trade. On September 5, he attacked the 52 gun English warship Hampshire and sunk it, while another English ship, the Dering fled north. The next day, d'Iberville took the surrender of Fort Nelson from HBC Governor Henry Bailey. The warship Pelican was badly damaged, however, and d'Iberville was forced to abandon her on a beach before sailing off to France with the rest of the fleet.
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Both sides were exhausted by the conflict, and on Nov. 19, 1686, England and France signed a Neutrality Pact to settle the Hudson Bay dispute and try and decide on a boundary for the fur trade. Two years later, to protect its interests from French attack, the Hudson's Bay Company began to build a large stone fortress, Fort Prince of Wales, at the mouth of the Churchill River, northern gateway to the Saskatchewan River.
New French Attacks
The year 1689 saw the outbreak of King William's War with France, which lasted eight years, and saw more armed conflict in Hudson Bay. On August 10, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville successfully defended Fort Albany against an English attack, but he had to surrender Fort New Severn and return to Quebec.
Five years later d'Iberville was back, and on October 15, 1694, he captured York Fort, the stronghold of the Hudson's Bay Company, and renamed it Fort Bourbon after the French royal family. Two years later it was back in English hands.
In August of 1697, while the warring powers were meeting at Ryswick to talk peace, d'Iberville sailed back to the Bay on his warship The Pélican, ready to do battle. On September 5, in a pitched naval battle near York Factory, he attacked three Hudson's Bay Company ships, sinking two of them, and ten days later recaptured York Factory.
To d'Iberville's dismay, on Sept. 20, 1697, France and England signed the Treaty of Ryswick, ending the War of the Grand Alliance (called King William's War in America). Under the treaty, all places taken during the war were to to be mutually restored. France agreed to return York Factory and the HBC posts seized by d'Iberville, and gave up Newfoundland in exchange for Acadia.
The Treaty also ruined the Compagnie du Nord (Compagnie de la Baie d 'Hudson), founded in 1682 by La Chesnaye and the Quebec merchants. Bankrupted by costly campaigns against the Hudson's Bay Company, the company failed to prevent the HBC from draining furs away from New France. The French kept Fort Bourbon in operation until 1714, when they surrendered it to James Knight, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the French fur traders retreated back to Quebec, operating trade routes overland to Hudson Bay through a company called the Postes de Nord.
Kelsey's Voyage to the Interior 1690-92
On June 12, 1690, during a short interval of peace, Hudson's Bay Company employee Henry Kelsey c1667-1724 set out from York Fort [Churchill, Manitoba] on the western shore of Hudson's Bay with a party of Stone and Assiniboine Indians to begin an epic journey of discovery.
Canoeing up the Nelson River, then the Hayes and Fox Rivers to Moose Lake, the party reached what Kelsey called Deerings Point at a bend in Saskatchewan River near The Pas, Manitoba on July 10. Kelsey took possession of the land for the HBC, and the party wintered there.
The following Spring, Kelsey's Assiniboine guides took him up the Saskatchewan and Carrot River to the Prairie grasslands southwest of The Pas. On August 20, he became the first European to witness the enormous herds of North American bison, and was the first white man to describe them, as well as the grizzly bear.
After taking part in a buffalo hunt with the Assiniboines three days later, the party may have explored as far west as present day Alberta. They returned to Deerings Point, wintered there, and in July of 1692, Kelsey started his journey back to York Factory with a full load of furs.
Resource: 1690 - Henry Kelsey's Trip to the Prairies
Kelsey was made made Governor of all the Hudson Bay settlements in 1718, and he died back in England on November 2, 1724.
The HBC continued to move inland after Kelsey's death, building Henley House, 250 km up the Albany River in 1720, and in 1750, Fort Paskoyac at The Pas, the first post on the Saskatchewan River.
James Knight & Thanadelthur 1713-17
Thanadelthur was one of three Chipewyan [Dene] woman who were captured by the Cree in a raid in 1713. She escaped, and nearly starved to death, but she found a hunting party from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) who took her to York Fort on November 24, 1714.
Thanadelthur told the governor, James Knight, that the unarmed Chipewyan people could not come to Hudson's Bay to trade because the Cree, who had guns, were waging war against them. Knight was impressed by her intelligence, and employed her as a translator. She told him many stories about her people, their fur and told Knight of a mine of yellow metal [copper] in the northwest, beyond the Churchill River. Knight soon organized an expedition and assigned clerk William Stuart to lead it beyond Cree territory, guided by Thanadelthur.
On June 30, 1715, Thanadelthur left with expedition leader William Stuart, an HBC employee, and a group of Cree anxious to establish peace with their Chipewyan neighbours. However, the expedition was plagued with sickness and hunger. Many Cree returned to their homelands, those that remained were forced to separate to survive.
On June 27, 1715, Stuart, Thanadelthur and 150 Cree left Fort York. The expedition was plagued with sickness and hunger. Most of the Cree returned to their homelands, but the rest of the party continued across the tundra at the edge of the Boreal forest. They reached the vicinity of Great Slave Lake, and found five Chipewyans, killed by Cree. Thanadelthur persuaded them to wait ten days while she, alone, went to get the rest of the Chipewyan. She came back at the last minute with more than 100 Chipewyan willing to secure peace with the Cree and trade with the English. She managed to bring peace between the sides by a long and hard negotiation.
Thanadelthur and Stuart returned to York Fort with 10 Cree and 10 Chipewyan on May 7, 1716, after nearly 11 months. Stuart told Knight that Thanadelthur had been instrumental in their success. She remained at York Factory as a mediator, and helped Knight plan future expeditions, but she fell ill and died on February 7, 1717. As Knight said of her: "She was one of a very high Spirit and of the Firmest Resolution that every I see in any Body in my Days and of great Courage."Other Thandelthur sources:
- The Story of Thanadelthur, from the Journals of James Knight
- Thandelthur Comic Book
- James Houston's novel Running West, McClelland & Stewart (1989).
Henday Visits the Blackfoot 1754-55
When French fur traders led by the La Vérendrye family began to tap the western trade during the 1740s, the Hudson's Bay Company decided to act. In 1754, the HBC Factor asked a young netmaker, Anthony Henday, to mount a trading expedition to find the "Black Foot people" and to seek trade with the chief and his people. A native of the Isle of Wight, Henday had been outlawed as a smuggler in 1748, a fact unknown to the HBC officials who hired him.
Henday took some training in mapmaking, then left on his journey on June 26, 1754, guided by Cree leader Conawapa and a group who had come to Fort York to trade. The party paddled up the Hayes and Fox rivers, then, related Henday, after three weeks of travel, they "met four canoes of Indians and informed me that I was on the confines of the dry inland country, called by the natives the Muscuty Tuskee."
In late July they were warned about nearby French traders. Wrote Henday, "I dont very well like it, having nothing to Satisfy Them on what account I am going up the Country and Very possibly they may expect Me to be a Spy."
When the party reached Paskoya (The Pas, Man.) on July 22, the French traders threaten to seize Henday and send him to France, but influenced by Conawapa and his well armed Cree, they allowed him to proceed.
The party then continued along the Battle River valley by foot, and on Sept. 6, met a group of Eagle Indians, an Assiniboine band who had never traded with white men. On Sept. 15, Henday recorded, "the Buffalo so numerous obliged to make them sheer out of our way."
Finally, on Oct. 14, about 28 kilometres (eighteen miles) southeast of present-day Red Deer, Alberta, Henday and Conawapa came to the great camp of the people the Cree called "Archithinues" - presumably either Blackfoot or Atsina (Gros Ventres) - some 200 teepees pitched in two rows. At one end of the camp was the buffalo-hide lodge of the head chief, capable of seating about 50 people. Attended by 20 elders, the chief received Henday, seating the visitor at his right hand on a newly dressed buffalo hide.
The chief was not impressed with Henday's sales pitch for the HBC: "The leader set out several grand-pipes, and we smoked all round, according to their usual custom... My interpreter Attikashish informed him I was sent by the Great Leader who lives down at the great waters, to invite his young men down to see him and to bring with them beaver skins and wolves skins, and they would get in return powder, shot, guns, cloth, beads... The Blackfoot chief answered, it was far off, and they could not live without buffalo flesh, and they could not leave their horses.... He made me a present of a handsome bow and arrows, and in return I gave him a part of each kinds of goods I had. Then servants passed around boiled bison meat in baskets of woven grass, and presented the honoured guest with 12 buffalo tongues - the greatest delicacy known to the Archithinues.
The next day Henday met the chief again and asked that some of the young Archithinues be allowed to return to York with him. The chief replied that they had no experience with boats and paddles, and his tribe got all they needed from the buffalo. The chief had also heard that the people who went down to the settlements on the bay often starved on the journey. "Such remarks I thought exceeding true, noted Henday.
Over the winter, the party moved west of present Innisfail and Red Deer, where they spent the early winter within sight of the Rocky Mountains. In January 1755, they moved to the North Saskatchewan River, about 32 kilometres (20 miles) downstream from present-day Edmonton (March 5), to build canoes for the return trip. They left in May, paddling down the North Saskatchewan.
When the flotilla of 60 canoes arrived at Fort Saint-Louis, 15 km below the forks of the Saskatchewan, the French traders offered the Crees brandy in return for about 1,000 prime skins. Henday reported "The French talk several Languages to perfection: they have the advantage of us in every shape; and if they had Brazile tobacco... would entirely cut off our trade."
On June 23, Henday's journey ended at York. He had been farther into the western interior than any other European, and made valuable discoveries about the Indian economy and French competition. But his journey was regarded as a failure, and his claim that the Archithinues rode horses was simply laughed at. He returned to England in the year 1762.
(Continued in Chapter 4)
| English Companies - Gallery | Stories & Texts | Web Links | Milestones | Student Activities | Student Projects |
| B. Early European Explorers →→ 1. The Viking Saga to 1400 → 2. European Exploration and Colonies 1400-1650 → 3. English Trading Companies 1658-1750 → → 4. Newfoundland Settlement and Conflict →→ C. New France |
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