Voyagers and
Indian Maidens:
The Fur Trade
Creates A New
People
The Hudson’s Bay
Company
The Hudson’s Bay Company
established a number of trading
posts throughout the Hudson’s Bay
area and interior.
The trading posts were manned by
employees of the HBC.
Aboriginal groups would trap
throughout the winter and then sell
or trade their furs at these
outposts.
Fort Carlton, Saskatchewan, 1871
Unforeseen Events
Employees began to have
relationships with the women
who came to the trading posts.
The Directors of the
Company quickly acted to stop
these relations.
The directors created rules
by which the employees were to
adhere to.
Rule 1:
•All persons attend prayers.
Rule 2:
•All persons to live lovingly with one
another, not to swear or quarrel but to live
peaceably without drunkenness or
profaneness.
Rule 3:
•No man to meddle, trade with or affront
any Indians, nor to concern themselves
with women. Men going contrary to this
order are to be punished [in public] before
Indians.
Enforcement of the
Rules
The HBC had little control of
their employees situated so far
away on the shores of another
continent.
Within a few brief years both
servants and officers of the HBC
were taking First Nation wives.
By 1763, the majority of the
HBC employees were of “mixed
blood”.
Mrs. William McKay, 1820-1917 wife
of Hudson's Bay Company factor.
William McKay was stationed mainly
at Fort Ellice and Fort Pitt.
Benefits of the Inter-racial
Marriages
Bilingual and bicultural, they
became the near-perfect
middlemen of the fur trade.
Expanding the Company’s
trading empire as they created
new trade alliances between the
Company and bands of Northern
Cree.
The men were a made-to-order
workforce for the fur trade
which rapidly replaced the
indentured servants who
previously had to be brought all
the way from Europe.
These “Half-breed
people” acquired within
their family structure
both the European and
Indian skills necessary for
the fur trade. Good
hunters, at home in the
forest or in the fort, they
were expert canoe men as
well.
Halfbreed Cree women, Moose
Factory, Ontario
Women's Roles
in the Fur trade
Indian wives of Company men
had many skills that proved
essential once the Company’s
operations began to expand to the
interior of the continent.
The fur trade in the interior
could not have been successfully
carried out without the Company’s
acquisition of the traditional skills
of the Indian women.
Traditional Skills
Native wives made pemmican, a
mixture of smoked meat and wild
berries. Pemmican was such a
nutritious food staple that voyagers
could live on it for months at a time
without any other food supplement.
The women also made snowshoes,
without which overland trips would
have been impossible during the
winter months when furs were at
their prime.
Indian women made and repaired
canoes, which were, of course, vital to
the fur trade.
The North
West Company
Made up of Canadian merchants from
Montreal.
Used the St. Lawrence, Great Lakes, Rainy
River system that connected Montreal to the
West.
This route consisted of thousands of miles of
rivers and lakes stretching from the stately
maple forests of Quebec and Ontario through
the majestic desolation of rock and pine known
as the Great Canadian Shield to the open
immensity of the Canadian prairies.
Other waterways led to the incredibly rich
fur-producing regions along the Mackenzie and
Coppermine Rivers.
Issac Todd, one of original
partners of North West
Company ca. 1743-1819
The Origins of the Metis
These "Nor’Westers" took Native
brides without facing questions of
foreign morality.
They married for love and passion
and for the same trade-related
reasons as the Hudson’s Bay Company
men.
But they were more prolific, with
many voyageurs taking more than one
wife, as was the custom of the Natives.
The children of these unions, like
their fathers, became employees of
the North West Company. They were
known as "les Metis," a name that has
passed the test of time.
Mrs. Pierre Decheneau and
descendants, Metis, North
Battleford, Saskatchewan.
Conclusion
Today, all Canadians of Indian and European descent proudly
call themselves Metis.
They are the descendants of the early adventurers who first
made their way across the vastness of this continent.
They marked the beginning of the end for the ancient Indian
cultures. And they planted the seeds of a new social order, the
value of which is still to be determined.
References
1. Glenbow Museum, Archives, 2003. All pictures.
2. McLean, Don, 1987, pp. 5-7. Reprinted with permission from
the Gabriel Dumont Institute.