Company of Hudson Bay

See also: Hudson Bay (homonymy)

The Company of Hudson Bay (in English: Hudson' S Bay Company ), founded with London in 1670 for the Treats furs in the Hudson Bay, is oldest Moral person of the North America. It was always closely related to the history of Canada. It was born from the competition for the trade of the furs and the Colonisation of the North America between the France and the England. After the fall of the News-France in 1763, it extended its network of stations of draft towards the west and north of what was to become the Canada.

At the beginning of the Years 1800, the Compagnie of Hudson Bay entered in competition with the Compagnie of the North-West of Montreal and both amalgamated after a bloody conflict for the control of the furs. It is thereafter during nearly one half-century the holder of most of the Canadian territory and of an exclusive right of draft of the furs. The territory will be given to the new country in 1870 by the government of London. Its stations of draft became general stores where the Amerindians came to supply themselves and its representatives was de facto the representatives of the British order in the distant communities. It opened stores with rays in the cities of the south and it created its own brands of trade of which famous covers with stripes.

Description

The Company of Hudson Bay is still today in the field of the fur and the trade. It manages a chain of trade of all sizes, Retail business at large surfaces, mainly the chains the Bay and Zellers. Owner of approximately 550 stores in 2006, it employs approximately 70  000 people.

History

The English navigator Henry Hudson discovers in 1610 the bay, to which it gives his name (Hudson Bay), at the time of a voyage of exploration to find the Passage of the North-West towards China. England thus knows the road by north for this territory.

Pierre-Spirit Radisson and Medard Chouart of the Currant bushes, two adventurers and runners of wood turn over of voyage in 1660 and brought back a cargo of furs on more than one hundred boats. This voyage had enabled them to discover the salted sea about which the autochtones spoke, Hudson Bay, while coming from the south since the News-France.

This new territory is consequently indissociable Franco-English fight for North America with S. Indeed, it gave access to the vast territories of draft of the furs in which each country wanted to obtain exclusiveness.

Foundation

As Radisson and of the Currant bushes did not have a license for the draft of the furs, the governor of News-France Pierre de Voyer d' Argenson confiscated their spoils to them and subjected them to the fine. They then sought to launch a company of trade but did not accept any support in News-France. Currant bushes not having been able to obtain justice at the time of a voyage in France, the two explorers left for Boston in order to interest the authorities of the New England in forwardings, against the policy mercantilist of the time which dictated the exclusive trade with the motherland. They met the English colonel there George Cartwright which took them along to England and submitted them to the Court of the king Charles II.

In June 1668, they left England finally, driving two trading vessels chartered by the Prince Rupert, the Eaglet and the Nonsuch , towards the Hudson Bay by the road of Henry Hudson. This new shorter road eliminated the need for passing by the river the St. Lawrence controlled by the French. Only the Nonsuch arrived at destination, Of the Currant bushes on its board, because Eaglet, damaged in a storm, had to turn over to England with Radisson.

The results of this voyage convinced king Charles to create the Compagnie of Hudson Bay the May 2nd 1670. It then had as a name the Company off Adventurers off England (Company of the adventurers of England) and its charter established a monopoly of draft with the Amerindians, especially for the furs, on the vast area of the rivers and rivers flowing in Hudson Bay which one will call the the Ground of Rupert in the honor of the first director of the company Prince Rupert of the Rhine. This territory covered 3,9 million km ², that is to say a third of modern Canada and extending even in north from the Grandes American Plains, but its borders were still unknown at the time.

Franco-English competition

The district-general of the operations of the Company is placed at Fort Nelson ( York Factory ), with the mouth of the Fleuve Nelson, in what is currently the North-East of Manitoba. It orders the series of forts along the Saskatchewan river and the red River which trades with the Amerindians of the Canadian Prairies. Other stations are established on southern bank of Hudson Bay in the north of the Ontario and is current Quebec. They are named " factories" (manufactures), because in English the name of a tradesman is known as " factor" , and they operate like centers of draft of fur. During spring the summer and the autumn, the natives go in boats of bark by the rivers towards these stations to sell the skins collected during the winter. They receive in exchange of the goods manufactured like metal tools and tackles of fishing, generally imported Germany the inexpensive production center at that time.

On their side, the French establish forts worked out along the Big lakes, of the basin of the river the Mississippi and even in the Plains as their explorations progressed. Radisson and Of the Currant bushes would have liked to apply the same style to the English establishments but the Company did not see the need of it. In 1674, they thus decide to turn over their allegiance towards France.

During the Years 1680, the war again makes rage between France and England. Thus a series begins from attacks between the two empires for the control of the trade of the furs. In 1686, Chevalier of Troyes is sent with a troop and captures the English stations established along the Baie James, an appendix of Hudson Bay. They make the 1  000 kilometers in boats and with foot. Pierre Moyne d' Iberville, which showed a great heroism, is put in load of the captured forts. Later in 1697, become captain of ship of Iberville will demolish three ships of the Royal Navy in the battle of Hudson Bay, the most important naval battle of the North-American Arctique and will capture the district-general of York Factory. The capture of the fort was particularly clever. The forces of Iberville having been reduced, it nevertheless succeeds in making accept besieged that its troops were very important.

During the following decade, the forts changed hands several times before all the territory are not yielded to the Great Britain in 1713 by the treated of Utrecht. York factory was rebuilt then out of bricks like a fort but with the mouth of the river Hayes, a little further, where it exists still today. The exchange of the fur skins against wool blankets became the characteristic of the exchanges thereafter. These covers with a very distinct reason became the brand name of the Company. The control of the Compagnie on the Earth of Rupert became not only commercial but also governmental. The representative of the Company in a community being the governor, judges and administrator of his territory in a way similar to the privileges of the English Compagnie of the Eastern Indies.

Fight with commercial hegemony

After the fall of News-France to the hands of the British in 1760 and the final transfer by the treaty of Versailles in 1760, plus nothing did not seem to stop the Company of Hudson Bay for the domination of the trade of furs. However in 1782, Benjamin Frobisher, his Joseph brother, and Simon McTavish founds the Compagnie of the North-West to Montreal, taking again the traditional ways of this trade which the French had left. The two companies thus move towards a commercial war because the way towards the west passes by the current Manitoba, part of the Earth of Rupert.

Of commercial, the competition becomes territorial in 1811. Indeed, both employ the Métis this area for the transport of the goods. Those see of an evil eye the attempts of colonization which the Company of Hudson Bay tries in the valley Rouge by Thomas Douglas, 5e count de Selkirk. The conflict envenime when one period of food shortage in the colony opposes its inhabitants and the Mongrels to the Bataille of the seven oaks in 1816. Armed confrontations and commercial continue whereas surchasse it animals with furs, especially the beaver, decreases the receipts quickly.

In 1821, the Secretary of State to the war and the British colonies, Henri Bathurst, forces the two companies to be amalgamated in order to bring back the order. The agreement stipulates that the new entity will keep the name of Company of Hudson Bay and its new governor (managing director), George Simpson, decides to move London with the suburbs of Montreal called Lachine. It consolidates the network of forts of the two companies by eliminating the unfolding.

End of the monopoly

During the Years 1820 and 1830, the Company controls really all the trade towards the Canadian west. Starting from its forts, it collects the furs, exchanges all the first needs with the Amerindians and sees with the establishment of certain colonies. The trappers of the Company is inserted more and more deeply in the back-country and takes part in the exploration of the territories active of the California to the Alaska and the Territory-of-North-West.

Territory of Oregon

In the territory Oregon which was disputed between the the United States and Great Britain, a treaty is signed in 1818 for a joint administration. In fact, it is with Fort Vancouver on the river Colombia, in what is today the south of the State of Washington, that the Compagnie of Hudson Bay exerts real control. The director of the fort John McLoughlin, called " factor in chef" , actively discourages colonization to maintain the monopoly of the Company and sends brigades of trappers towards the north of California by the path known as Siskiyou Trail.

McLoughlin established Fort Timbers, at present in the south-west of Idaho, in 1834 to compete with Fort Hall, an American establishment with 483  km in the east from there. In 1837, one buys even this last and one exposes to it charriots abandoned by colonists along the Piste of Oregon in order to discourage the newcomers. Despite everything, McLoughlin helps some pioneers who arrive through the territory and who generally are with end of resources arriving at the Pacifique coast.

In 1843, Marcus Whitman leads the first convoy organized of carriage to cross the track successfully. The convoys will follow one another then and of the thousands of migrants reach the Vallée of Willamette. In 1846, the United States buys the territory in the south of the parallel 49e and Strong Vancouver is there. McLoughlin must change its rifle of shoulder and receives as from this moment the colonists while opening a general store with Oregon City to supply them. It will be named later " Father of Orégon". The Company will finish later its presence in the sector.

Canadian west

An major event which was going to exhaust the monopoly of the Company on the Earth of Rupert arrived in 1849. Guillaume Sayer, a mongrel trapper and tradesman, was shown of illegal trade of the furs. The lawsuit was held in the district of Assiniboia, more or less current the Saskatchewan, with a judge and sworn with the pay of the Company of Hudson Bay. During her unfolding, a crowd of Mongrel directed by the father of Louis Riel expressed peacefully in front of the court but ready to intervene with the force so necessary. The judge Adam Thom recognized guilty Sayer but did not impose any sorrow or probably amends, because of intimidating crowd outside and shouting “the trade is free! The trade is free! ”. The Company have then well of the difficulty of maintaining its influence on the trade in the colony of the Red River.

Of 1857 with 1860, the captain John Palliser carried out a forwarding whose initial report/ratio was very unfavourable with the establishment of farmers in the west and who was taken again by the Company with his advantage. But the debate which followed saw many opponents refuting these conclusions. In 1870, the monopoly was finally abolishes and the trade open to all but already in 1868, an act of the British Parliament forced the Company to reassign the possession of the ground of Rupert in Great Britain which hastened to give it by stages to incipient Canada.

Transformation

At the end of the 19th century, the new tendencies of the mode contribute to the decline of the trade of the furs. The colonization of the West and the gold rush quickly bring to the Company a new type of customers: the time of the retail business east starts. She concentrates from now on on the transformation of the stations of draft into stores of retail sale, furnished with a set of articles vaster than before. The company also launches out in the real estate, selling batches to the lately established colonists, which gradually involves the development of real credits to large scales. Goods transport and the natural resources, in particular the Oil and the Gas, will form also important parallel activities. These department stores will be spread through Canada, either by construction of new branches, or by purchase and transformations of stores.

Among acquisitions of the Company of Hudson Bay appear the department stores Morgans of Montreal bought in 1960 and transformed into store the Bay in 1972 and the stores Simpsons and Zellers in 1978, which remains independent chains. The deceleration economic of the Years 1980 force to re-examine the priorities and to return to the basic activities. The Company sells its interests external with the retail business and carries out other acquisitions in the sector of the retail business: Towers/Bonimart is bought in 1990, the Woodwards stores will be integrated into the stores the Bay in 1993 and the Kmart of Canada will become Zellers in 1998.

Recent history

At the beginning of the 21e century, the Company of Hudson Bay started already well its fourth centenary in the retail business in Canada. The various chains which it control fill alone more of two thirds of the needs for the Canadians as regards purchases but competition for new chains like Wal-Mart and the change of the practices of the consumers give wire to retordre with the Company. Inter alia, the stores with rays the Bay lose their customer with the profit of shops specialized and Wal-Mart strongly competes with the stores with Zellers reduction.

This leads to financial problems which make the Company vulnerable. In January 2006, the company accepted tender offers of 1,5 billion Can the American Business man Jerry Zucker.

Board of management

The administrators of the company are:
  • Jerry Zucker, governor, president of the council and chief of the direction
  • Peter C. Middle-class
  • Paul Campoli
  • George Heller
  • James A. Ingram
  • Robert B. Johnston
  • Michael P. Lowry
  • Michael Rousseau
  • Brice Sweatt
  • Julian A. Tiedemann

Governors

See too

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Reference

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