ÿþ<htmlÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<headÿþ>ÿþ<script type="text/javascript" src="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=2N_sDSC0" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script>ÿþ ÿþ<script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden","showSwfDownload":true};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="ÿþhttps://web-static.archive.org/_static/ÿþjs/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> ÿþ<script type="text/javascript"> ÿþ __wm.init(ÿþ"https://web.archive.org/web"ÿþ); __wm.wombat(ÿþ"http://www.newsocialist.org/magazine/06/article04.html"ÿþ,ÿþ"20071025003309"ÿþ,ÿþ"https://web.archive.org/"ÿþ,ÿþ"web"ÿþ,ÿþ"https://web-static.archive.org/_static/"ÿþ, "ÿþ1193272389ÿþ"); </script> ÿþ<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=1utQkbB3" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />ÿþ ÿþ<!-- End Wayback Rewrite JS Include --> ÿþ ÿþ<titleÿþ>ÿþNew Socialist Magazine, Natives, Voyaguers and the Frontier Fur Trade - Articleÿþ</title>ÿþ ÿþ<metaÿþ ÿþname="description"ÿþ ÿþcontent="New Socialist Group socialism communism socialists communists "ÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<metaÿþ ÿþname="keywords"ÿþ ÿþcontent="socialism, communism, socialists, communists, marx, marxists, marxism, Marx, Marxists, Marxism, Canada, politics, anarchism, Trotsky, trotskyism, NDP, radical, revolution, revolutionary, Lenin, leninism, leninist, Luxemburg, working class, 1917, syndicalism, radicalism, union, labour, anarchy"ÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ</head>ÿþ ÿþ<bodyÿþ ÿþtopmargin="20"ÿþ ÿþleftmargin="20"ÿþ ÿþmarginheight="20"ÿþ ÿþmarginwidth="20"ÿþ ÿþbgcolor="#FFFFFF"ÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<fontÿþ ÿþface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"ÿþ ÿþsize="5"ÿþ ÿþcolor="#000000"ÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<centerÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<bÿþ>ÿþNatives, Voyaguers and the Frontier Fur Trade ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ</b>ÿþ</font>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<fontÿþ ÿþface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"ÿþ ÿþsize="2"ÿþ ÿþcolor="#000000"ÿþ>ÿþ by Deb Simmonsÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<iÿþ>ÿþNew Socialist Magazine, November 1996ÿþ</i>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ</center>ÿþ ÿþ<fontÿþ ÿþsize="1"ÿþ>ÿþOne of the great myths about the formation of Canada has to do with the "heroic" fur traders. Often written out of the history, however, is the central role played by native peoples in the trade. DEB SIMMONS looks at this issue with an eye to what it tells us about the history of native resistance in Canada.ÿþ</font>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Last year, the Hudson's Bay Company celebrated 325 years since the signing of its founding charter. The HBC department store in downtown Toronto marked the occasion with a series of window displays under the slogan "Proudly Canadian." The displays traced the roots of the company in the fur trade, its role in the founding of Canada, and its more recent focus on the retail business in urban centres across Canada. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The central images in all but two of the displays were modes of transportation a sailing ship, a voyageur canoe, a flat-bottomed York boat, and a train. With the decline of the fur trade, the HBC is transformed into "merchants of change" -- the transition to the retail business was signified by a display of commodities from the early part of this century. The final display consists of a montage juxtaposing photographs of urban HBC store interiors and exteriors, with futuristic images, and photographs of the variety of (non-aboriginal) Canadians -- "People like you, working for you." The text which follows this populist slogan skillfully conflates the history of the "oldest company in Canada" with the history of Canada itself. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The nationalist history compressed into these five department store windows excludes many inconvenient facts. Aboriginal fur producers are reduced to insignificance, and the brutal competition with French traders is written out (although symbols of voyageur culture are appropriated). But what is remarkable about the display is its admirable summary of the essential perspective put forward by Canadian political economist Harold Adams Innis 65 years earlier. The display is a testament to the extent to which Innis' account of the fur trade has gained common currency in (English) Canadian national consciousness. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Innis drew from a theory of the North American frontier which had become all the rage in the United States during the last decade of the 19th century. Fredrick Jackson Turner was the original proponent of this theory, which he most succinctly developed in the essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." His account of frontier history, with its characteristic slippage between social and geographical forms, could have served as an epigraph for the Hudson's Bay Company display over a century later: ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<blockquoteÿþ>ÿþ "The buffalo trail became the Indian trail, and this became the trader's 'trace;' the trails widened into roads, and the roads into turnpikes, and these in turn were transformed into railroads . . . Thus civilization in America has followed the arteries made by geology, pouring an ever richer tide through them, until at last the slender paths of aboriginal intercourse have been broadened and interwoven into the complex mazes of modern commercial lines." ÿþ</blockquote>ÿþ According to Turner, the challenge of the frontier, "the meeting point between savagery and civilization," gave rise to a national culture in America which was radically differentiated from its European antecedents. In adapting this version of history to a specifically Canadian context, Innis was able to justify the concept of an inherent national identity, and advocate the natural role of the state as the guarantor of Canadian nationhood. For this he became known as the founder of Canadian political economy. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ "It is no accident that the present Dominion coincides roughly with the fur-trading areas of northern North America," wrote Innis. For him, Canadian identity originated in the unique institutions of the fur trade, which he viewed as a partnership (albeit unequal) between aboriginal fur producers and European trader. But the French fur trade which dominated what is now Canada until the 18th century does not get credit for defining the modern nation. In his massive book The Fur Trade in Canada, Innis explains that the French inevitably succumbed to that far superior British institution, the Hudson's Bay Company. And this "superiority" naturally determined that the Canadian state would be defined and dominated by the English. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ In the Innisian view, the fur trade acted to preserve the land-based traditions of aboriginal peoples. But despite the best efforts of the Company, the fur trade, and with it, aboriginal societies, would fall into decline under the tide of settlement and new economic development. Like their French counterparts in the fur trade, aboriginal peoples are reduced to tragic victims of progress. The long histories of aboriginal and Québécois resistance are summarily erased. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Innis and his successors are correct to point out that aboriginal peoples played a strong role in defining the nature of the fur trade, at least in the early period. Although the European profits from the trade were immense, aboriginal traders drove a hard bargain. However, the increased availability of European goods as a result of the trade did not lead to "dependency," and the dissolution of aboriginal cultures, as the Innisians like to argue. Rather, these trade goods served to enhance and strengthen traditional communal practices which involved the redistribution of wealth. The traditional roles of women were also probably reinforced in matriarchal aboriginal societies by the extended absences of the men involved in hunting beaver and trading. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ But in their greed for profit, Europeans did encourage overhunting of beaver. As beaver supplies dwindled and competition among French, Dutch and British traders intensified, aboriginal peoples were forced to fight to maintain an independent economic base in the trade. In order to gain advantage, strategic alliances would be forged with European traders against their competitors. In this way, historic patterns of intertribal warfare became intertwined with competition among imperial powers. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ This was the basis of the sustained aggression by the Iroquois after 1640, which resulted by the early 1650s in the dispersal of the largest neighbouring tribes. As late as 1689, the Iroquois took confidence from news that a new war between the English and the French was impending, and launched a series of attacks on the colonists of New France which lasted for twelve years. The Iroquois succeeded in disrupting agricultural production and forcing French settlers to retreat into urban centres. For three years, inhabitants of New France endured near famine conditions. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Betrayed by their British allies, the Iroquois were finally impelled to negotiate a peace treaty with the French. But through long years of warfare, the Iroquois won real material independence, preserving their hunting rights in the north. Thus the particular pattern of development taken by the colony of New France was not the consequence of a simple French victory over the aboriginal population. It was also the outcome of aboriginal resistance. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The deÿþstruction of the French trading networks by the Iroquois also had a direct impact on the structure of the fur trade. During the early period of the trade, the French traders preferred to save on transportation costs by relying on aboriginal middlemen to bring furs to their posts. By the second half of the 17th century, they were left with no alternative but to employ coureurs des bois, who later became known as voyageurs, in the transportation of goods between Montreal and the Upper Great Lakes. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The voyageurs were organized in cooperative units. Their emergence as a distinct class marked a transformation of the social relations involved in the fur trade. For the first time since the arrival of the Europeans on the continent, there existed a class basis for alliances between non-aboriginal and aboriginal peoples. The voyageurs tended to come from the peasantry of New France, which was suffering under the twin burdens of overpopulation and famine. These people had every reason to admire aboriginal societies and adopt many of their practices. In the words of C.J. Jaenen, the voyageurs "soon adopted native modes of traveling, dressing, hunting, fighting and even eating. They learned much about new foods, new medicines, new ways of building shelters, and generally surviving in the woods." ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The sexual mores and gender relations adopted by the voyageurs are indicators of the extent to which they freed themselves from the oppressive authority the Catholic Church. The numerous Métis children which resulted from liaisons between the voyageurs and aboriginal women were almost always raised in aboriginal communities, and identified with aboriginal culture. Even French women of the lower classes manifested a certain identification with their aboriginal counterparts in their adoption of the short skirt that Indian women wore, which scandalized many a clerical visitor from France. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Both aboriginal fur producers and a section of the peasantry of New France participated in the fur trade because it provided them with an opportunity to improve their living conditions. But the fur trade also created the conditions for crisis in both communities. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Aboriginal fur producers were driven into warfare by a crisis of scarcity, the result of over harvesting. The decline of the fur trade left the peasant (habitant) communities of New France, whose economies had been sustained by the trade, more desperately impoverished than ever before. But the real threat to both aboriginal and habitant societies was the development of a profitable capitalist agricultural economy in the British colonies. This challenge would require new strategies of resistance. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<formÿþ>ÿþ<inputÿþ ÿþtype="button"ÿþ ÿþvalue="Close"ÿþ ÿþonclick="top.close()"ÿþ>ÿþ</form>ÿþ ÿþ</body>ÿþ ÿþ</html>ÿþ<!-- FILE ARCHIVED ON ÿþ00:33:09 Oct 25, 2007ÿþ AND RETRIEVED FROM THE INTERNET ARCHIVE ON ÿþ06:14:12 Mar 05, 2026ÿþ. JAVASCRIPT APPENDED BY WAYBACK MACHINE, COPYRIGHT INTERNET ARCHIVE. ALL OTHER CONTENT MAY ALSO BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT (17 U.S.C. 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