During the seventeenth century, the First Nations of what would become Canada were drawn into the European economic system via the fur trade. French fur traders, coureurs de bois (woods runners), ranged far into the interior of the continent following long-established Native trading routes. The fur trade altered the relationships between Indians and Europeans as well as between Indians and the animal people. Briefly described below are two events involving the First Nations 350 years ago, in 1670: the establishment of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and the death of a young man, Kwaday Dän Ts’inchí.
Hudson’s Bay Company
In 1668, a consortium of English businessmen provided financial support to Médard Chouart, Sieur Des Groseilliers, an enterprising coureurs de bois. A 40-ton ship was sent to Hudson’s Bay where it wintered at the Rupert River and then returned to Britain with a profitable cargo of furs which had been obtained from the Cree.
In 1870, some of the original subscribers to Groseilliers expedition were granted a royal charter from the English Crown incorporating the Hudson’s Bay Company. Anthropologist Alice Beck Kehoe, in her book The Kensington Runestone: Approaching a Research Question Holistically, reports:
‘Prince Rupert, a duke, three earls, and other nobles subscribed to the Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, proposed by two Canadian-born Frenchmen to circumvent the French government monopoly on the Canadian fur-trade channeled through St. Lawrence valley depots.”
The charter required the company to furnish the King (or his heirs) two elk skins and two black beaver pelts annually as rent or payment for the charter.
The grant consisted of all lands which drained into Hudson’s Bay and the Company was given sole trading rights for this region. In his book Montana’s Fur Trade Era, F. Lee Graves writes:
“The regal charter granted the Company absolute proprietorship, supreme jurisdiction in all civil and military affairs, the power to make and interpret laws, and even the power to declare war against ‘pagan’ peoples.”
Geographer Richard Ruggles, in his chapter in North American Exploration. Volume 2: A Continent Defined, describes the powers of the Company this way:
“As lords and proprietors, the company could make laws, judge civil and criminal cases, and impose penalties. It could erect forts, appoint commanders, use armed force, and request assistance from all officers and subjects of the monarch.”
According to Peter Newman, in his book Empire of the Bay: An Illustrated History of the Hudson’s Bay Company:
“By choosing to settle the deserted shores of Hudson Bay rather than more attractive landfalls to the south, the early traders appropriated the overwhelming advantage of being able to deliver their trade goods into the very heart of the new continent, for the network of wide rivers that flowed to Hudson Bay rolled through a fur-rich hinterland stretching back to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.”
Geographer Richard Ruggles writes:
“The news of the company’s arrival would be broadcast inland, mainly through local natives, who would be informed that useful, good-quality trade goods awaited groups who would come down to the bay in the open seasons over longer distances.”
The company envisioned its factories on the coast rather than inland.
With regard to its relations with the natives, the Hudson’s Bay Company tended to continue many of the policies of the French fur traders. According to historian C.L. Higham, in Noble, Wretched, and Redeemable: Protestant Missionaries to the Indians in Canada and the United States, 1820-1900:
“It too treated the natives as economic partners and sought to create a stable and calm frontier for business purposes.”
The standard trade items used by the Hudson’s Bay Company include steel traps, pots, strike-a-lights, and whiskey. In addition, the Company also supplied the Indians with guns and ammunition. The trade gun is a muzzleloading, smooth bore flintlock that can handle either ball or shot.
With the establishment of the trading factories (note the term “factory” here refers to a trading post under the direction of a factor) for the Hudson Bay Company, the Cree began to take their furs directly to Hudson Bay rather than trading them to the Ottawa. With French encouragement, the Ojibwa began to supply the Ottawa with furs and to expand their hunting area along both sides of Lake Superior.
In Ontario, some Ottawas returned to Manitoulin Island.
Long Ago Person
While European cultures—French, British, Russian—were changing Native cultures through the fur trade, many Indian people were living in the interior, in areas untouched by European goods. In 1870, one of these people would leave a legacy through his death.
In British Columbia, a young man died in the St. Elias Mountains in Tatshenshini-Alsek Park and his remains were frozen in a glacier. He is later given the name Kwaday Dän Ts’inchí which means “long ago person found.” He was wearing a plant fiber hat and a fur robe. His diet was heavily marine-based. In an article in American Antiquity, Michael Richards et al report:
“The evidence of a mainly marine-based diet for this individual is significant as it indicates that despite being well away from the coast at the time of his death, for most of his life Kwaday Dän Ts’inchí lived either on or near the coast, or at least in an area where salmon constituted the dietary mainstay, perhaps one of the villages reported to have existed in the nineteenth century on the middle to lower Tatshenshini/Alsek basin.”
During the last year of his life, however, he had changed his diet to terrestrial foods rather than marine foods. His stomach contents showed that he had recently consumed marine foods.
Kwaday Dän Ts’inchí would provide twenty-first century people with additional insights into his world.
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 explores various American Indian topics. More about 17th century American Indian history from this series:
Indians 101: 350 Years Ago, 1669
Indians 101: Indian Events of 1666
Indians 101: American Indians 400 years ago, 1620
Indians 101: Four Centuries Ago (1618)
Indians 101: American Indians in 1617
Indians 101: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680
Indians 101: New Amsterdam and the Indians
Indians 101: New Sweden and the Indians