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In 1665, the year the Bubonic plague hit London, two French explorers and entrepreneurs pitched an idea for a fur-trading business in North America to King Charles II.
Familiar with the rich and intricate networks of the Indigenous fur trade in North America, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers convinced Charles to fund the operation on the argument the enterprise would lead to profit and economic recovery for England.
So, in 1670, the charter for the Hudson Bay Company was granted, with Charles claiming most of the lands of what would become northern Quebec, northern Ontario, all of Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Nunavut (the areas that flowed into Hudson Bay).
He called this territory Rupertsland, after the King’s cousin, Prince Rupert, who acted as governor.
Rupert then used the profits he had gained from the slavery of Africans in the southern colonies to found the Hudson Bay Company (HBC), which was given “the sole Trade and Commerce” over Rupertsland.
With a trading monopoly, the HBC commercialized the fur trade, helped create the economic powerhouse Red River Colony, and enabled traders such as Lord Selkirk to form treaty with Chief Peguis in 1817, creating non-Indigenous settlement on the Red River and — eventually — the city of Winnipeg.
A York Factory accounting book, circa 1714-1715, part of the Hudson’s Bay Company collection at Manitoba Archives. (Joe Bryksa / Free Press files)
In history books, the HBC is given prominence as the primary force that built the fur trade in the west and mapped the country — but none of this would have been possible without the labour, organization and leadership of Indigenous communities, traders, and their economies.
Simply put, the HBC may get the accolades, but Indigenous peoples did most of the work.
In return, the HBC gave Indigenous communities a few jobs, access to European goods, and the ability to learn valuable languages and skills.
HBC employees also created competition, brought colonizing attitudes and practices, and introduced devastating diseases like smallpox into Indigenous lives.
In other words, Indigenous peoples may have benefited somewhat from interactions with the HBC — but they paid far more than they earned.
On its website, HBC officials admit the company “relied on Indigenous expertise for general survival, surveying, trapping, translating, kinship and much more” to build the company, but when it came to sharing profits and the land (particularly when transferring Rupertsland to Canada in 1870), everything was done “without consulting First Nations or Métis inhabitants.”
While the situation was complicated, the HBC was thoroughly involved with exploiting Indigenous peoples, dispossessing Indigenous peoples of lands and livelihoods, and participating in the colonization of lands now known as Canada.
But don’t just take it from me.
Writing about the HBC’s 300th anniversary, National Indian Brotherhood Chief George Manuel said: “The company was responsible for the misery, deprivation and exploitation of Canada’s Indigenous peoples.”
This week, HBC officials announced that the U.S.-owned Canadian business is broke and needs creditor protection, with plans to liquidate its entire business and close 80 stores across Canada by June 15.
More than 9,000 jobs will be eliminated, and HBC is said to owe $950 million to creditors such as trucking companies, suppliers and leaseholders. In Manitoba, more than $2 million is currently owed to local business owners, many of them small operators.
Seems the HBC didn’t just exploit Indigenous communities.
In 2020, just before HBC abandoned its goliath downtown Winnipeg building — trading it to the Southern Chiefs Organization, which has plans for a massive redevelopment — I wrote this about HBC going out of business:
“So, this is how colonization ends. The people who profit the most take all they can from the land and people within it, and then quietly leave when there’s nothing left to take. Soon, all that will be left is an empty, lifeless pile of plaster and metal that will cost millions to repair or remove for those who actually live here.”
HBC is a massive real estate holding company, with nearly $9 billion in land assets. (Chris Young / The Canadian Press)
As I pointed out in that piece, though, HBC hasn’t been a real estate empire for a long time. It is a massive real estate holding company, with nearly $9 billion in land assets.
Just as King Charles II gave Prince Rupert lands that were not his to give, HBC holds deeds to billions of dollars of global property (much within former Rupertsland itself) and there are now questions about the ethics of selling these spaces and territories.
Like most bankruptcies, these stolen lands will probably be sold to the highest bidder at a cheap price.
So, this is not how colonization ends but perhaps how it continues, with new landholders and Indigenous peoples yet again locked out in the cold — or, rather, locked out of the fort.
How fitting for a company that started during a plague.
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