The Moonspeaker:
Where Some Ideas Are Stranger Than Others...
The Ignominious Demise of the Hudson's Bay Company
Probably it was inevitable the former fur trade-focussed concern known as the hudson's bay company (HBC) would meet its demise via one of the most popular of profiteering methods under decadent late capitalism: asset stripping. For those who observed the demise of eaton's, then toys 'r us, then sears, it was not difficult to recognize what was happening. The process always begins with a corporation that has lots of associated property, a widely recognizable "brand," and access to plenty of money to take over likely looking competitors or companies already successful in an area it hasn't already reached. The trick is to avoid overreach and failure to adapt to new conditions. The trick can't be pulled off forever, and in 2008 the "HBC," originally founded in may 1670, finally fell into the hands of a new york-based "private equity firm," the type of organization infamous for its asset-stripping ways. The HBC included many stores and brands before the asset-stripping began, and the new owners indulged in loading the ailing company with debt by splashily shutting down its two bargain brand store chains, then purchasing additional luxury retail store chains and flirting with the toronto stock exchange. In march 2025, the HBC officially filed for creditor protection, and is now tangled up in an undignified legal battle between creditors seeking to minimize their losses. Perhaps it is only to be expected from what in many ways was a junior version of the british east india company (EIC), that nevertheless can claim the dubious distinction of having made itself synonymous in at least some canadians' minds with "canada" itself.
As a matter of public relations and advertising, that various people would ultimately resort to conflating "canada" with the first and most notorious of its anglo-empire corporate exploiters is at once unsurprising and bluntly creepy. Unlike the EIC or numerous smaller concerns associated with the united states, the HBC had no obvious connections to the slave trade, focussing instead on its wars against the beaver and later the buffalo. Despite the governor and HBC officials having extraordinary powers to take over and exploit an equally extraordinary span of land, water, and Indigenous nations similar to those of their EIC counterparts, the HBC did not end up as directly entangled in the wars between colonial powers, since it was never allowed to develop its own army. It has a catchier, easier to glorify origin story in the machinations of a pair of renegade frenchmen, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers and Pierre-Esprit Radisson. When those two men with dreams of easy riches couldn't interest the french crown in their schemes, they made their way to england, where the newly re-established monarchy represented by Charles II and friends were persuaded by their own dreams of easy profit to charter a new company: the Governor & Company of Adventurers of England Tradeing into Hudson's Bay. There are all the basic parts of a nineteenth century boy's own novel, a pair of men who could be framed as visionaries, who helped inspire the founding of a supposed capitalist success story that colonized half a continent starting from a men's fashion frenzy for beaver fur hats. Old style popular historians such as the prolific Grace Lee Nute and Peter C. Newman wrote best-selling books about Groselliers and Radisson, and then about the fur trade.
The romanticized tales of plucky french voyageurs heading off in canoes to trade for furs and bring back the proceeds, manly men who lived hard, perhaps picked up a country wife or several before retiring back to relative "civilization" and a quiet old age could appeal more to adults. For those more into scandal, intrigue, and at least small-scale battles, there were popular accounts of the HBC's rival fur companies, which in canada usually focusses on the various iterations of the northwest company (NWC), which took over the original southern french fur trade routes after the fall of new france in 1760. Those stories could focus on british, most often scottish, expatriates from the upper ranks of the companies, whose lives are better documented and even more likely to finish up with a society marriage to a non-Indigenous woman. Far be it from me to deny the marketing genius of the HBC in its days of featuring its point blankets, branded maple syrup, and of course, its ongoing role as fur buyer and broker until nearly the very end. Nor would I deny the clear imprint of HBC fort and factory names plopped on top of long-established Indigenous meeting and trade places. Some of them have lost such telltale word markers as "House" and "Factory," especially if they became part of national parks sold as "natural wonders." The canadian government had a particular obsession with renovating old forts across the country as "national historic sites." Like many people who grew up in canada during the 1970s-1990s, among the field trips of my elementary school years was one to just such a restored fort. I wonder often whether the site interpreters and teachers realized how their storytelling would be received by the few Indigenous kids and many second generation children from india and pakistan on those trips. The staff were so intensely proud to show us the bastions, including replica cannons, and to explain how Indigenous people were not permitted inside the fort because they were savages who would attack the traders and steal whatever they could their hands on.
The thing about history intended to rationalize and reinforce imperial violence and exploitation is it wears thin very, very fast, for the general public as much as anyone who reads or studies canadian history more closely. There was the awkward issue of the near extinction of the beaver, barely staved off when the HBC and the canadian federal government hurried to finally coordinate with Indigenous peoples to put a stop to the carnage. The near total annihilation of the buffalo became embarrassing, because ostensibly civilized people were supposed to be better at conservation than mere "savages." The HBC was not terribly interested in "christianization" and so did not bankroll residential or industrial schools, though it provided ready transportation to missionaries into the early twentieth century. But it did attempt to meddle in Northwest Métis politics as it did in Indigenous politics more widely, as it had already done for decades with its creation of "trade chiefs" and strategic trade marriages. Besides the fiasco of the Selkirk colony and the ultimate formal breakage of the HBC's trade monopoly, the late nineteenth century merger of the HBC and NWC was the immediate prelude to the colonization of central canada up to the rocky mountains. This is when the canadian federal practice of denying provincehood until satisfied the Indigenous population was outnumbered and all profitable resources in capitalist hands began.
Today there is little interest in what the HBC and so many other traders actually exchanged for furs. We hear the most about adulterated cheap alcohol, tobacco, and guns, with iron kettles, knives, and the fancy coats given to "trade chiefs" in a bundle of distant seconds. The discussion of trade beads, fed always by the propaganda story of how supposedly the dutch bought manhattan for a few handfuls, hints at something closer to the truth. Men may have focussed on what amounted to drugs, weapons, and the sort of kettles voyageurs were bound to value as cookware, but this was a small part of what the earlier fur traders hauled out into the so-called "wilderness." They encountered far greater demand for european-style cloth and the thread and needles suited to working it. They could count on trading at least a few "fripperies" such as fancy combs, small mirrors and the like, but it took considerable cultural disruption before ironware could overtake most Indigenous cookware, general tools, and weaponry. The HBC and its trade colleagues helped that disruption along via the trade routes they took over and the others they imposed, spreading european diseases as the various epidemics passed from the traders to Indigenous peoples. This was terrible enough for the HBC to provide smallpox vaccinations at least to the people they referred to as "house indians," that is, Indigenous people who still stayed regularly at their original gathering and trading grounds now expropriated by the HBC and its forts, and other Indigenous people with family ties to HBC employees and ancillary staff.
Almost every major city in canada to this day has a now tattered HBC store, a successor to the original wooden forts with their associated warehouses, barracks, and stables. In sharp contrast to the sorts of low to medium high rises characteristic of Eaton's, with their lack of decoration, HBC "heritage buildings" stand out. They typically have a façade decorated with corinthian-style pillars, with acanthus leaf patterns along the pediments and window frames and a prominent version of the HBC coat of arms above the main doors. The HBC store intended for settlers to visit is a far cry from the wooden building with small windows and a high counter at which Indigenous people were expected to hand over their furs for tokens, then spend the tokens and any credit they may have had on goods the trader would measure out and package for them. The settlers were allowed to walk around the store and even pick up and examine samples for themselves without asking for them to be brought out first. Nevertheless, in a striking element of historical continuity, a visibly Indigenous person in an HBC store could expect to be followed around on the assumption they intended to shoplift. It was never all hard feelings, though. The HBC provided a significant portion of its archival documents pertaining to its operations in canada to the province of manitoba, where they make up the HBC Archives portion of the Archives of Manitoba.
Nevertheless, as Jacob Richard observed in a blogpost for activehistory,ca, Canadian History in Entirely Precedented Times:
Akin to Canada-US relations, the HBC and Indigenous peoples have also been cycling through periods of cooperation and antagonism for over 350 years. A legacy that, long and impactful, is worthy of our attention, especially with the eerily parallel re-introduction of bison back onto the Canadian plains.
Rather than give it life-support, maybe it’s time we say goodbye to the HBC. But before we do, let’s quickly look back at the former precedent of our bison.
Oh yes, about those all but extirpated buffalo. Even as the HBC went from moribund to bankrupt, the ongoing efforts of Indigenous nations to bring their beloved bison relatives home has been picking up. Eight First Nations of northern north america established the Buffalo Treaty in 2014, with more signing on every year. This treaty establishes protocols for re-establishing bison in their rightful lands and maintaining respect for their freedom of movement. This is not an act of nostalgia, but a serious work of practical land restoration and deep ceremony. Never mind for now how Richard slips into speaking as if settlers should be included among those whose relatives include the bison, and as if the bison belong to anyone other than themselves. It is also worth noting the beaver nation is also making an important come back, now independent of the various programs in the areas of canada where there are still active traplines.
How bittersweetly appropriate that the HBC, vehicle of mass death to Indigenous peoples and to every animal, fish and plant sellable on the european market they could find in canada, supporter and implementer of invasion and colonial violence for over two hundred years, should be ignominiously destroyed by the very greed that inspired its creation.
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