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Copyright 2019 Scott P. Stephen
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Title: Masters and servants : the Hudsons Bay Company and its North American workforce, 16681786 / Scott P. Stephen.
Names: Stephen, Scott P., 1972 author.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190119500| Canadiana (ebook) 20190119519 | ISBN 9781772123371 (softcover) | ISBN 9781772124972 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781772124989 (Kindle) | ISBN 9781772124996 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Hudsons Bay CompanyEmployeesHistory. | LCSH: Hudsons Bay CompanyHistory. | LCSH: Household employeesCanadaHistory. | LCSH: Contract laborCanadaHistory. | LCSH: Fur tradeCanadaHistory. | LCSH: Household employeesGreat BritainHistory.
Classification: LCC FC3207 .S84 2019 | DDC 971.2/01dc23
First edition, first printing, 2019.
First electronic edition, 2019.
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Proofreading by Kirsten Craven.
Maps by Wendy Johnson.
Indexing by Stephen Ullstrom.
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Contents
Editorial Note
I CONSIDER the language used by the Hudsons Bay Company Committee and its servants to be of central importance in this study. Therefore, every effort has been made to preserve the spelling and punctuation of the archival sources quoted, although some abbreviations have been expanded to avoid too many brackets. Where I have quoted from published editions of primary sources that have modernized the text, I have not tried to undo those changes.
Wages are quoted per annum; thus, a man engaged at 10 was paid 10 per annum. A man engaged at 3-4-5-6-8 was paid 3 in his first year, 4 in his second, and so on.
All dates are given in present-day style; for example, 11 February 1681/2 is written as 11 February 1682.
Acknowledgements
NEEDLESS TO SAY, I have incurred many debts during the research and writing of this book and the dissertation upon which it is based. I would like to acknowledge the moral support and financial assistance of the University of Manitobaparticularly the Department of History, St. Johns College, and St. Pauls Collegeand the History Department of the University of Winnipeg. Chris Kotecki and the rest of the staff of the Hudsons Bay Company Archives at the Archives of Manitoba have been very helpful. I would like to thank Garin Burbank, Jack Bumsted, Russell Smandych, Patricia McCormack, Melissa Pitts, and the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript, as well as my editors, Peter Midgley and Mary Lou Roy, and all the staff at University of Alberta Press. Jennifer and Wilson Brown have been at my side from the beginning of this undertaking, offering words of wisdom and cups of tea, and saying Ah! encouragingly. Roland Bohr, Tolly Bradford, Gerhard Ens, and Frieda Klippenstein have epitomized both friendship and collegiality throughout my personal and professional ups and downs. I am eternally grateful for the support of my parents, my sister, her husband, and the rest of my family; in particular, M.B. and my wonderful wife, Susan, have always been there for me in ways too numerous to mention. And I hope that one day our young son, Timothy, may shrug his shoulders and say, Yeah, I dunno. My dad wrote some kind of book or something; I guess thats kinda cool, and I shall glow with honest pride. After my having received so much support and encouragement from so many wonderful people, it would be churlish of me if I allowed them to take the slightest blame for any errors or omissions that may be found herein.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my mother and father, whom I dearly wish could have lived to see its completion.
Introduction
Governor Geyer, we have considered your faithfully [ sic ] Services & indefatigable paines in our Interest, as well as your cheerfull compliance wth. our request to stay an other yeare in this Extraordinary time of danger; & the Consideration on which you doe it, hopeing (as you say) the Warre may be by that time ended, that you may Leave our Concerns there in a peaceable & florishing Condition & that you would not willingly Leave your Post before you saw them soe setled, is so ingenious & honourable in you, & kind towards us, that we assure you it hath a great influence upon us that know the value of your meritts & how happily Our affaires there have prospered under your Conduct: To Shew our Just sense therefore of your Service & due regards for your Person, after having cleared wth. Mr. Kingston your acctt. upon your Sallary, We have moreover unanimously voted & paid him allso for you a Gratuity of One Hundred Pounds, Resolving soe allwaies to discharge Our selves that the Character of a meritorious Servant & Gratefull masters may be reciprocall between us.
HUDSONS BAY COMPANY to George Geyer & Council (York Fort), 17 June 1692
THE GRATEFULL MASTERS in the 17 June 1692 letter were the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Committee of the Hudsons Bay Company (HBC). The Extraordinary time of danger to which they referred was King Williams War, during which French traders controlled James Bay, and Port Nelson (York Fort) was the only trading post in HBC hands. The meritorious Servant in question was George Geyer, the HBC factor (agent) in charge of Port Nelson, a man who had indeed given faithfully Services & indefatigable paines for more than fifteen yearsand who was very strongly suspected by his employers of trading privately, contrary to their explicit instructions. How do wehow did the Committeereconcile the apparent paradox of a servant being both devoted and deceitful?
The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudsons Bay (to give its full name) came into being on 2 May 1670 as a small, undercapitalized, high-risk, overseas fur-trading venture with well-placed shareholders but no guarantee of success. It was heavily dependent on loans from friendly creditors (including Committee members and lesser shareholders) and seriously threatened by interlopers, warfare, and fluctuating European markets. Initially, the companys survival was the paramount concern, but this underlay some ambitious attempts at expanding its operations.
