In 1824, Canada was a British colony and most of the western portion of the country was controlled by the London-based Hudson’s Bay Company. The primary non-Indian settlements west of the Great Lakes were trading posts.
Hudson’s Bay Company
By 1824, the Canadian fur trade was dominated by the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), the London-based company which had received its Royal Charter in 1670.
The original HBC business model involved factories (i.e., trading posts) located along the shores of Hudson Bay to facilitate shipping. By 1824, however, HBC was establishing trading posts farther inland.
There were a number of Indian groups exploiting the resources of the Mackenzie Mountains on the border between the Yukon and Northwest Territories, and trading occasionally at HBC trading posts. In 1823, HBC had sent John McLeod and a party of explorers from Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territories to contact the Nahanni Indians (probably a Kaska-speaking group) in the MacKenzie Mountains. The party made contact with a Nahanni band under the leadership of White Eyes.
In 1824, HBC once again sent John McLeod to contact the Nahannis and to find out more about any large river flowing west of the mountains. He contacted the Nahannis and persuaded Nahanni leader White Eyes and his son to return to Fort Simpson with him. Geographer James Rogers, in his University of Montana M.A. Thesis Rivers of Conjecture: The Hudson’s Bay Company and the Exploration of the Far Northwest, 1823-1851, reports:
“Once back at the post, White Eyes confirmed the reports of a trade with white men on the coast among Indians to the west, but he declined to sketch a map of his people’s lands for the disappointed McLeod.”
HBC then sent out Murdock McPherson to build a new trading post and establish trade with the Nahannis. James Rogers reports:
“McPherson failed to make contact with any of the Nahanni and, as a result, did not learn anything new about the country to the west beyond the extent of his own travels.”
As trading posts became less profitable, HBC would close them. Decline in the fur trade came about through overhunting and through the migration of aboriginal groups to new areas. In 1824, HBC closed Fort Dauphin as well as the Swan and Red River posts in the Swan River District.
Christianity
In Ontario, Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby; 1802-1856) returned to the Credit River Reserve to tell the Ojibwa Mississauga about his conversion to Christianity. In his book Sacred Feathers: The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians, Historian Ronald Smith reports:
“He soon made the new Christian concepts comprehensible to his Indian audience as no white minister could.”
Peter Jones was the son of Augustus Jones, a non-Indian land surveyor, and Tubbenahneequay, the daughter of a Mississauga chief. Tubbenahneequay refused to convert to Christianity and raised her children among the Mississauga in the traditional ways. Peter Jones converted to Christianity in 1820 and was affiliated with the Wesleyan Methodist Church.
Indigenous Warfare
As the fur trade expanded out onto the Northern Great Plains, it increased tensions between tribes. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Blackfoot were concerned that the Hudson’s Bay Company was more liberal in arming the Crees. In his book The Effects of White Contact Upon Blackfoot Culture, with Special Reference to the Role of the Fur Trade, anthropologist Oscar Lewis reports:
“Here the Cree, specialists in beaver trapping had a great advantage over the Plains Indians whose wolves and foxes were relatively worthless.”
In Alberta, Cree warriors attacked a Blackfoot camp near Fort Edmonton while the men were away hunting. About 400 Blackfoot were killed and 20 were captured.
More Native histories
Indians 101: The Canadian fur trade 200 years ago, 1821
Indians 101: The Cypress Hills Massacre
Indians 101: The Sioux in Canada
Indians 101: American Indians and the French 300 years ago, 1724
Indians 101: The French and American Indians in the 17th century
Indians 101: Canadian First Nations 350 years ago, 1670
Indians 101: Champlain and the Canadian First Nations
Indians 201: The York Factory and the Canadian First Nations