Fur Trapping, Empire & the Hudson’s Bay Company

Don Wildman (0:04)

We're in the late 17th century. While here in North America, there's King Philip's War in the Northeast, Bacon's Rebellion down in Virginia, and the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts. Over in the fashionable circles of London, Paris and Amsterdam, anyone who's anyone is topping off their fit with a nicely appointed, broadly brimmed, beaver-felt hat. They're warm, they're waterproof, they're fattishly posh, and in England, at least, they cost about 40 shillings, 20 days of work for the average laborer. What's more, they're made of beaver that comes from an exotic and mysterious new world. They come from North America.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to American History Hit. I'm your host, Don Wildman. European exploration was primarily driven by capital pursuit. Investors in England and on the continent funding expeditions that led to settlements that led to colonies and so forth. And in the early days, if it was gold down south, up north, it was fur pelts and especially beaver.

Into the wilds ventured the European trappers, who are so often vaguely referred to in historical accounts. Well, vague no more. Today, we look closely at the individuals stalking the wilderness on behalf of their European patrons. What organized company did they serve? How did they interact and intermix with native peoples? And very basically, why beaver? We'll find out with Stephen R. Bown, an oft awarded historian and author of a dozen works of historical non-fiction. Being a Canadian, he is proudly focused on Canadian history with works like Dominion, The Railway and The Rise of Canada and the book we'll draw from today, The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire, published only a few years back.

Hi Stephen, how are you? Welcome to American History Hit.

Stephen R. Bown (2:04)

Thank you. My pleasure to be here.

Don Wildman (2:07)

So much of today's episode is geographical landing in the Great North, what is today Canada. But of course, in those days, a vast territory of various people native to those parts like the Cree, the Inuit and others. It was a serious and widespread indigenous population, wasn't it?

Stephen R. Bown (2:22)

Yeah, there were many, many dozens of indigenous nations that all had different languages, different cultures, different landscapes they lived in. We have woodland hunters more in the east and around the lakes. We had prairies. People on the prairies were hunting bison and buffalo on horseback. We had salmon fishers in the mountains in the west. Of course, there was no international boundary between, well, what at the time was the British Empire, and what I call the American Empire since at the time, they were struggling to compete for who is going to extend their control over that land. Eventually, the border disbisected right through the cultural traditional lands of a great number of people.

Of course, disease had its toll, basically eliminating 80% of the indigenous population, which is what more or less paved the way for Britain and the United States to be able to press territorial claims over this entire land of North America, eventually divided up between them.

Don Wildman (3:18)

We will be focusing on the lands around the Hudson Bay, a gigantic realm about the size of West Virginia, far greater than the Great Lakes combined. Hudson Bay had been explored, of course, by Henry Hudson in 1610, as he searched for the Northwest Passage for the English East India Company.

Around the same time, you've got Samuel de Champlain founding Quebec, claiming the St. Lawrence River for France, and voila, it's the defining duality of the European colonization of this part of the world. France and England vying for power and for beaver. What is it with beaver in the 1600s Europe, Stephen? Why so popular?

Stephen R. Bown (3:52)

Yeah, I mean, that's one of the most interesting things. I mean, we live in a world now where we have all sorts of synthetic fibers, materials. Back then, everything had to be natural because there was no access to any of that material. So everything had to be either made of wool, sometimes out of cotton, sometimes out of leather and fur.

And what was special about the beaver is that its particular type of fur and the way that the hairs were lined to each other meant that with a process that involved mercury and eventually drove people into insanity, which is where the term mad as a hatter comes from, you could manufacture a substance known as felt, like traditional felt, real felt. And that was hugely valuable because it could be manipulated into all sorts of different shapes and had military applications and warfare for keeping gunpowder dry.

But its most valuable trait was that it could be turned into clothing and hats at the time, which was very fashionable. And every order of society had its own style of hat that would distinguish them within the hierarchy. And so, yeah, it was an extremely valuable substance, not for its warmth value, but for its ability to be converted into felt.