|
Guy Carleton | Jay's
Treaty | Black
Loyalists | Alexander
Mackenzie | Simon Fraser |
David Thompson |
John Graves Simcoe |
Captain George Vancouver |
The
Northwest Company |
Prevost's Conciliation |
Tecumseh |
The War of 1812 | Lord Selkirk
| Newfoundland |
Constitution Act 1791
The Northwest Company was officially
created in 1783 in opposition to Montreal fur trading
interests and the Hudson Bay Company. Many traders who
had pushed west from the Great Lakes had been
considering various partnerships for a few years before
the launching of the Northwest Company and some had
cooperate associations, working with other traders or
some sort of organized effort to compete.
In 1779 a sixteen
share partnership was formed but broke down over the
next few years only to be succeeded by the 1783
agreement. Their competition in Montreal was Gregory,
McLeod and company wit Alexander Mackenzie as a
shareholder. By 1787 the Northwest company had taken
over that partnership by offering them 4 shares in the
newly reorganized Northwest Company which then had a
total of 20 shares. This became the favoured method of
overcoming competition and in 1800 a "New Northwest
Company", which was to become known as XY Company, began
to compete with the Northwest Company but they were also
absorbed in 1804 with a 1/4 share interest the Northwest
Company which now had 100 shares.
The real competition throughout these
years was the Hudson Bay Company which was a chartered
company formed on May 2nd, 1670 by King Charles II. The
HBC was not a partnership of its workers so its'
employees rarely worked as hard or as aggressively to
find the new furs or explorer new territory. They did
however grow into a formidable organization across the
expanses of Canada and continually expanded its trading
system and its forts throughout Western and Northern
Canada and the North Western United States. In 1812 Lord
Selkirk who owned a considerable amount of stock in the
HBC was granted land in present day Manitoba to begin a
colony. This area was right in the middle of many of the
trading routes of the Northwest Company and threatened
its flow of furs.
The Northwest Company paid out profits to
it's partners and did not retain earnings for the
company itself. This served to centralize the decision
making process of how the run the company. Until 1812,
the company had expanded and grown as it's explorers
such as David Thompson and Alexander Mackenzie opened up
vast new territories for trade and development. While
the HBC could use all of the waters that flowed into the
Bay to transport its furs downstream, the Northwest
Company had to ship all of its furs across thousands of
miles of wilderness to Lake Superior where they were
then shipped to Montreal. The Selkirk settlement cut off
this route and threatened the survival of the Northwest
Company.
Another assault that fell on the
Northwest Company came form the south. With the outbreak
of the war of 1812 one of the first actions by the
Americans was the invasion of Sault Ste. Marie and the
subsequent destruction of the Northwest Company trading
post. The over harvesting of furs and particularly
beaver in many of the areas of trade also served as a
negative factor in the fortunes of both the HBC and the
Northwest Company.
Matters
came to a head in 1816 with the massacre of Seven Oaks
resulting in the death of 21 people.
One June 19th the HBC attacked the Northwest Company's
Fort Gibraltar at the fork of the Red and Assiniboine
Rivers and killed most of the North western men. The HBC
then refused to compensate, withdraw or allow North
Western fur brigades through the area.
in 1820 the British Secretary of State
for War and Colonies was forced to step in and issues
directives to both companies to restrict and cease their
aggressive actions against one another. By July of 1821
a merger was forced upon the Northwest Company which
resulted in their 97 posts and forts being amalgamated
into the HBC system at the end of the great company.
George Simpson became the new head of the HBC and their
new head quarters was located in Lachine Quebec.
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