In 1670, the Crown had granted a royal charter incorporating the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) which gave them the exclusive trading rights to all lands which drain into Hudson’s Bay. Within this area, known as Rupert’s Land, HBC had all of the rights of a sovereign nation. A century later, a group of independent fur traders in Montreal formed the North West Company (commonly called the Nor’westers) to circumvent the HBC monopoly by opening up the area west of Rupert’s Land for trade. The new company, which was inspired by the reports of Peter Pond, was a loose, 16-share coalition of Montréal traders.
The approach used by the Nor’westers was different from the passive approach used by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Anthropologist David Morrison, in his book Profit & Ambition: The North West Company and the Fur Trade 1779-1821, reports:
“From the beginning, the North West Company actively took the trade to its Aboriginal customers.” The Nor’westers set up dozens of trading posts across the Northern Plains and the Subartic, while Hudson’s Bay Company expected the Native trappers to come to their posts on Hudson Bay. Among the Nor’westers, the individual traders visited the Aboriginal camps and villages bringing their trading stock in canoes.”
By the early nineteenth century, the competition between HBC and the Nor’westers sometimes involved active warfare between the two groups. By 1818, the Crown was becoming concerned that the conflict was damaging its Canadian colony and in 1821, bowing to Crown pressure, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company merged. The British government granted the merged companies exclusive trading privileges west of Rupert’s Land. In his book The Hudson’s Bay Company as an Imperial Factor 1821-1869, John Galbraith reports:
“The North West Company’s system of assigning shares in the profits to its officers in the field, the chief factors and chief traders, which had proved to be a strong incentive to energy and efficiency, was introduced into the amalgamated concern.”
At the time of the merger, the North West Company had seven posts in the Columbia Region (the area between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean): Fort George (Astoria), Walla Walla, Spokane House, Flathead House, Kootenay Fort, Fort Okanagan, and Fort Kamloops. All of these, except for Fort Kamloops, were in the area jointly occupied with the Americans.
William Warren, writing in 1852 in his book History of the Ojibway People, says of the demise of the Nor’westers:
“With deep regret do the old voyageurs and Indians speak of the dissolution of this once powerful company, for they always received honorable and charitable treatment at their hands.”
In his monograph The Effects of White Contact Upon Blackfoot Culture, with Special Reference to the Role of the Fur Trade, anthropologist Oscar Lewis writes:
“This had a very wholesome effect upon the Indians. The immediate effect was to cut down the sale of liquor to the Blackfoot to a minimum, and to stabilize the fur trade.”
With regard to the impact of the merger on trade, Theodore Binnema, in an article in the WesternHistorical Quarterly, writes:
“With competition reduced, the HBC closed posts, reduced the range of trade goods offered to Indians, and drove a harder bargain.”
In the Northwest Territories, with the merger of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company the Nor’wester trading post Fort of the Forks was renamed Fort Simpson after the Hudson’s Bay Company Governor George Simpson.
In a report to the Hudson’s Bay Company, George Simpson reported
“Connubial alliances are the best security we can have of the goodwill of the Natives, I have therefore recommended the Gentlemen to form connections with the principal Families immediately on their arrival.”
In Alberta, Hudson’s Bay Company Chief Trader George Simpson encouraged the Natives around Fort Wedderburn and other posts to devote themselves entirely to buffalo hunting so that they could supply the posts with food.
Indians 101
Twice each week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—this series explores various American Indian topics. More about the 19th century fur trade from this series:
Indians 101: The Fur Trade in 1816
Indians 101: The Fur Trade in 1818
Indians 101: The fur trade in Washington
Indians 101: The Fur Trade in Northwestern Montana, 1807-1835
Indians 101: The Pacific Fur Company
Indians 101: Cultures in Contact on the Northern Plains
Indians 101: Fur Trade in the Rockies, 1801 to 1806
Indians 101: The Astorians and the Indians