A Condemnation of the Hudson’s Bay Company Monopoly in Western Canada (1744)

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Hudson’s Bay is a massive bay in north-central Canada. Its shoreline extends across 3 Canadian provinces and territories- Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Nunavut. Its drainage basin in even larger, extending through Newfoundland and Labrador, northern Quebec, northern Ontario, virtually all of Manitoba, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Albera, and part of the western United States .

The bay was named for Sir Henry Hudson, an English explorer who explored it in his ship the “Discovery” in the early 17th century. In the latter part of that century English traders began to trade furs with local indigenous people on the shores of the bay. This led to the establishment of the Hudson’s Bay Company . The English government granted the company a monopoly over trade in the vast Hudson’s Bay drainage basin, which was named Rupert’s Land.

The Hudson’s Bay Company faced competition, however, by French fur traders based in the French colony of New France . The rivalry between the New France fur traders and the HBC was part of a larger Anglo-French struggle for control of North America. After more than a century of intermittent warfare, the English, who dominated the eastern seaboard of what is now the USA, overcame the French. The former French colonies of Canada were conquered by the British in the 1750s. A few decades afterwards, however, the Anglo-American colonies rebelled, and broke away from the British Empire.

Despite the loss of the United States, Britain maintained its control over the northern part of the North America and the HBC continued to dominate western Canada. The HBC faced some competition, in the western Canadian fur trade, from the North-West Company. The latter company was based in Montreal. But the sometimes bitter rivalry ended when the North-West Company was absorbed by the HBC. This meant the Company once again enjoyed an unchallenged monopoly in the west.

Finally, in the 1860s, the HBC and British government agreed to turn over Company territory to the newly-formed Dominion of Canada. As a result the former HBC territory of Rupert’s Land was absorbed by Canada and divided into provinces and territories. Today the Hudson’s Bay Company survives as a major Canadian retail company, with stores across the country.

The author of this document, Arthur Dobbs was a vocal opponent of the HBC trade monopoly in the 18th century. He argues here that the HBC monopoly was a barrier to trade and settlement in Canada. Dobbs argued, correctly, that the Canadian prairies had a great deal of agricultural potential. He claimed that colonization was being blocked by the HBC.

Dobbs was born in Ireland. He served in the British army and held a number of official posts in Ireland. In the 1740s he became involved in efforts to find a northwest passage- a route through the Arctic Ocean to Asia. This is when he seems to have become interested in opposing the HBC monopoly in northern and western Canada. In the 1750s Dobbs was appointed governor of British-ruled North Carolina. He died on the eve of the American Revolution.