The Indian, the Metis and the Fur Trade

Transcription

Ron G. Bourgeault
The Indian, the Metis
and the Fur Trade
Class, Sexism and Racism in the
Transition from "Communism"
to Capitalism
Native peoples' modern history has as its basis class exploitation
and oppression. As a consequence of class exploitation, their
struggle has been one against racism and national oppression.'
Native peoples' social and material productivity, and their varied
forms of labour, arise from their relationship to different forms of
capital and to the resulting exploitation of their labour by capital.
To understand the historical, political and economic existence of
the native (including mixed-blood) people in North America, it is
necessary to analyze them within the context of the political economy of mercantilism. It is within this system that the contradictions of race, class and nationalism have their antecedents and that
the foundations were laid for the formation of Canada as a nationstate.
The object of this paper is to argue that the fur trade of the Hudson Bay basin, in what is now northern Canada, initially transformed Indian labour into that of a peasantry caught in the web of
feudal relations of production. 2 The paper will also show the nature
of Indian women's subjugation, a subjugation undertaken to establish the fur trade. Class, racial and sexist divisions came to be imposed upon the indigenous Indian population through colonial relations based upon a particular form of exploitation.
Just as mercantilism created class differences within the Indian
population, so class and racial differences were created among the
4S
Studies in Political Economy
Europeans. These class differences were created by capital within
the society from whence the Europeans were recruited, but within
the context of the fur trade, they manifested themselves as racial
differences. So long as merchants capital was dominant, there were
always basic divisions between European wage labourers and
Indians engaged in fur production. This followed from constantly
maintaining Indian labour in fur production, while on the surface it
appeared as a very distinct racial split. Resident within the fur trade
territory were both the servant or working class and the officer or
petty bourgeois managers, who by the turn of the nineteenth century were assuming an overt role as British colonial administrators.
Ownership was maintained by the British merchant bourgeoisie in
London. Over a period of two hundred years (1670 to 1870), racial
differences in relation to class differences came to manifest themselves within the Europeans. The mass of the unskilled European
labour that was recruited was French, together with some Scots
from the Orkneys and the Islands. Among the Scots themselves,
there were very distinct differences. Skilled labour came predominantly from the Highlands; the petty bourgeoisie came from the
Lowlands. The merchant bourgeoisie remained predominantly
English.
Currently, Marxist analysis on natives in Canada as a whole, and
the North in particular. is for the most part exceptionally lacking.
Recently some debate and some general theories have been initiated
by individuals who are attached to native organizations either as
consultants or advisors and who might claim in some sense to be
Marxist. 3 These theories of the nature and struggle of the native in
the North do not recognize the history of class exploitation originating in the first contacts with European capital and its different
forms over the centuries. Nor do they recognize in the same way the
basis of colonial relations emanating from the natives' relationships
with different forms of capital. Presently, as a result, they are
incapable of dealing with the crises that exist between the native and
monopoly capitalism, especially given the increasing influx of
natives into the cities and the labour market in the southern part of
western Canada, and the rapid imperialization of the North.
These theories deny that class even' exists as a basis of the oppression of native people. Rather, they see northern natives as having
existed in the past in some sort of pluralistic relationship with the
capitalist world, and contend that the contradictions that now exist,
such as unemployment and colonialism, are only the result of the
recent movement of monopoly capital and the Canadian state, on
its behalf, into the North. They perceive the destruction of the "tra-
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Ron Bourgeault/lndians,
Metis
ditional" economy rather than a new stage in the long history of
class transformations of native labour due to different forms of
capital. Therefore, the strategy they espouse would preserve the native "way of life" and advocate that natives engage in de-colonization from the Canadian state through the use of aboriginal rights or
land claims so as to achieve a negotiated co-adventure status with
the national bourgeois state and imperialism. Those who advocate
this are wrong. First, "traditional" society cannot be "preserved,"
just as any other traditional society under the same circumstances
cannot be preserved, let alone return to some period in the past.
Second, aboriginal rights through bourgeois nationalism is not the
real issue; if anything, that strategy is going to create a form of neocolonialism. The real issue is one of class - to do away with the
sources of oppression, not to manage them. The native struggle
must be seen and dealt with within the context of class and
colonialism.
Mercantilism
The advent of British mercantilism into the Hudson Bay basin during the seventeenth century heralded the beginning of the class I
national struggle of the native population within what is now the
north of Canada. Here, mercantilism entailed the search for fur as a
commodity for the European market. Since the accumulation of
wealth or capital through the exchange of commodities was the economic driving force of the mercantilist, and since an alternate
source of labour could not be introduced within the area, mercantile
capitalism was compelled to transform the Indian population to
produce the desired commodity. However, the resident Indian
population was not a source of labour that was organized to produce that commodity directly for exchange. The northern Indian
was operating within varied forms of the primitive communist mode
of production, and as such the production of commodities for exchange was not a part of their economic activity. What shape did
the transformation of the native population then take?
Mercantilism as a system was the transitory stage between
feudalism and the formation of capitalism. It had as its main characteristic the elementary accumulation of capital. The modern history of capital dates back to the feudal societies of the sixteenth century, with the rise of production for the market. In order for capital
to develop and accumulate it was necessary for the circulation of
commodities to take place on a world scale. The production and
circulation of commodities and the creation of a world market
drove the mercantile system to expand beyond Europe and engage
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other peoples around the world in various forms oflabour. The societies confronted by the Europeans existed, for the most part, as
different forms of pre-capitalist formations. As contact was established, each society established barriers or engaged in forms of resistance to the penetration of capital. How a society either resisted or
accommodated the capital penetration determined the level, extent
and duration of the penetration." In some situations merchant
capital actually preserved, consolidated and even reproduced precapitalist relations as a condition of its penetration.' Some societies
completely rejected overtures to establish economic relationships,
mainly because the relationships to be established were completely
foreign to them. Such was the case with some primitive communist
societies in which commodity production and exchange did not
exist. It was, therefore, necessary for mercantile capital either to
destroy or alter communal social units that prohibited or prevented
their exploitation. S
The accumulation of merchant capital and its imposition over
other pre-capitalist modes of production did not require the creation of a capitalist mode of production within those societies." In
Europe, in order for capital to grow, it required a free labour market. Merchant capital, outside of the capitalist mode of production
in Europe, required only the production and circulation of commodities as the basic condition of its existence. In fact, merchant
capital was quite compatible with different pre-capitalist modes of
production, so long as it could gain control of the respective
societies and either change, alter or introduce productive mechanisms towards what was required. In the case of the fur trade in the
northern part of North America, the primitive communism of the
Indian was slowly undermined and destroyed. The relations of production that were created in the new society were essentially
feudalistic. 7
The fur trade was feudalistic in the sense that the Indians as a primary source of labour for mercantilism, were transformed from
producers of goods and services entirely for collective use, into a
peasant or serf labour force bound to particular trading posts, with
the commanding officer (on behalf of the merchant capitalist) functioning as a feudal lord. The method was to appropriate surplus
production through a form of tithe in recognition of European land
ownership and colonial dominance. The Indians' class position in
the production of fur came to be the basis of their economic exploitation and racial oppression and, as well, the basis of the
colonialism and colonial relations that developed. Although existing
within a form of feudal relations under merchants capital, the
48
Metis
northern Indians were still formally within the emerging capitalist
system as a whole because what they were producing was a commodity for the developing capitalist market.
Primitive Communism
It is difficult to determine what constituted the actual existence of a
primitive communist society. As for information from anthropologists studying pre-class societies, it should be borne in mind
that those societies have for centuries been incorporated, for the
most part, into varied forms of capitalist relations of production.
Marx characterized a primitive communist society as being one in
which the basic mode of production was based "on ownership in
common of the means of production .... "8 Marx recognized that
primitive communism, as an overall system, was made up of various
groupings, not all of which were the same. Some groups or societies
might be at different phases of development than others. Each
would, of course, find different means of subsistence and different
means of producing what was needed within their natural environment. Also, the phase of development and the productive organization of the society in relationship to the natural environment determined the quantity of surplus and how it was to be distributed. 9
However, what little work Marx dedicated to analyzing primitive
communism dealt very little with any internal relations of production.'?
In the broadest sense, primitive communism was a mode of production governed by egalitarian social relations of production and
the communal appropriation of surplus-labour. 11 Since the appropriation of surplus labour was communal, there were no social divisions of labour as between a class of non-labourers and a class of
labourers. The only division of labour within primitive communism
was according to sex and age. Since there were no class divisions,
there was no distinct state apparatus existing as an effect of the
social division of labour.
In the case of the northern Indians' primitive communism, its social relations of production were egalitarian in the sense that what
the people produced and how it was distributed, exchanged and
consumed were mutually decided upon.P The existence of egalitarian relations varied from group to group depending upon objective conditions of natural environment and the level of development
of the productive forces. Land within the primitive communist
society of the northern Indians did not entail a question of ownership; rather land was seen as existing for all and as producing what
was to be used in a collective capacity. For the northern Indians,
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then, land functioned as a subject of the labour-process. In this
sense labour extracted the necessities of life (which existed
naturally) through the process of hunting and gathering. 13
Although there was a division of labour according to sex, that did
not necessarily involve men exercising decision-making powers or
engaging in exploitive relations with women. Inasmuch as women
did particular kinds of work, the work they did and the overall relations between the sexes were based upon the reciprocal and mutual
exchange of goods and services. Both men and women mutually
exercised decision-making powers over the production and distribution of that which was their responsibility to produce.
Within the egalitarian society of northern Indians, all individuals
were as dependent upon the larger collective society as upon the
nuclear family. The nuclear family functioned as an integral part of
the collective society, and as such it was not an individual unit of
production as within class society. Since women held mutual
decision-making powers with men within the collective society, they
were not economically or socially bound or dependent upon men
within the family. Although household management within the
family was exercised perhaps mostly by women due to varied expressions of the division of labour by sex, it was an integral part of
the collective society as a whole and was not deemed to be of less or
more importance than any other work.
Economic Conquest and tbe Creation of Class Society
The process of transforming the population in order to produce
what was needed was the process of imposing one mode of production upon another. In order to accomplish this, it was necessary
to conquer the communal society economically so as to change
the Indians' productive mechanisms from producing goods for internal use to producing goods for commodity exchange. Once this
occurred, the communal appropriation of surplus-labour and the
governing egalitarian relations of production were terminated or
ruptured. As commodity production began to occur, and as the
European market increased its demand for commodity furs, feudal
modes of production and feudal relations of production developed. 14
During the course of this development, the internal social relations
among the people were altered, inequalities were created between
women and men, and unequal external relations were created between Indians and Europeans. The fact of a foreign economic system imposing itself upon another national or indigenous grouping
became the basis of colonialism and colonial relations. The nature
of the development of colonialism depended upon the political and
50
Metis
economic system being imposed upon the population; the type of
society before colonization; the strategies undertaken by the
colonizer in the exploitation of the population; and the strategies of
response - either resistance or accommodation - by the colonized.
Analysis of the fur trade as the imposition of feudalistic relations
of production should not be perceived as a reference to classical
European medieval feudalism. Indeed, first indications suggest that
the Indians existed in the form of independent commodity production. The process of commodity production of fur was initiated by
the merchant traders who introduced through trade, tools of labour
and clothing, such as the gun, steel trap, axe, and knife, all of which
served to displace the communal production of their equivalent for
internal use. IS The foreign-introduced goods in effect replaced
indigenous tools and goods by causing them to lose their use-value
- a change which then halted the production of indigenous goods
as the producer's immediate means of subsistence. Dependency
upon foreign goods was thus created through their acquired utility
and in return for further goods - specified goods - that no longer
had any use-value (such as fur). The foreign commodity trade goods
were introduced in such a manner as to intentionally create a notion
of private property. Trade was conducted on an individual basis,
thus undermining collective trade. With individual trade came
individual production, which then became the private property of
the producer. Since communal society had no notion of individual
property, its intentional creation through barter served to break
down the communal society into individual units of production.
The production and exchange of fur as a commodity, and the
specialization of labour around it, created a social division of
labour between the Indian as commodity producer and the merchant capitalist. Eventually, the labour-process went more and
more into the production of goods as a commodity for exchange in
excess of what was needed to live. The surplus-labour of the Indian,
which previously had been appropriated communally, was increasingly appropriated by the merchant capitalist, resulting in the creation of surplus-value from the circulation of the commodities in the
European marketplace.
If we take the situation in 1716, when the British were developing
trade relationships with the Dene-Chipewyan people northwest of
York factory, we can see that select individuals were brought back
to York Factory and trained in the use of the rifle, which was then
traded on an individual basis. As well, the British taught the
Chipewyans which furs were of value and in what manner they
wished them to be dressed.P On first contact, trading was conducted
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on a collective basis, which then came under the authority of communal use. However, once particular goods such as the rifle came to
have utility, then trading was slowly directed towards individuals.
Hence, the process of development of individual units of production
took place. As individualized trading developed, the introduction
of European goods and technological tools of labour was
accomplished through men, as opposed to women. This slowly resulted in the establishment of men as the dominant source of labour
in the production of commodities for exchange. I? The following
quote is illustrative of instructions given on how to develop trade
with inland Indians who were still independent.
You are by presents of Brandy, tobacco, knives, Beads etc. by kind
usage to draw the natives to trade with you ....
and when a leader
comes to trade with you, if you think his goods will amount to 500
Made Beaver, give Him a Captains Coat, Hat, Shirt and other things
as usual. ... A man that brings You 300 Made Beaver give him a
Lieutenants coat. . . .18
Once engaged in commodity production, the Indians around
Hudson Bay then began to work the land in a different capacity.
Whereas under primitive communism land had been the object of
their labour in the production of goods for communal use, it now became the object of their labour in the production of commodities.
As individual commodity production developed, so the communal
notion of land slowly broke down and individual trap lines started
to appear.
To this point, the Indian in the fur trade indeed seems to bear the
characteristics of an independent commodity producer. Yet we insist that the Indian was more akin to a peasant and that relations of
production and the appropriation of surplus was in fact basically
feudalistic. In the development of the relationship between the
Indians and the European officers, the latter were in fact overseeing
masters, in positions emanating from the pattern of ownership of
land. The basis of feudalism as a mode of production was the existence of "lordship" or a lord who owns the land, generation after
generation, with the serfs continuing to work the land under him.
This basic relationship existed in the northern fur trade. Once engaged in commodity production, the Indian became physically
bound to continue.
With the introduction of technologically advanced tools of production, the European arranged that the repair and maintenance of
these tools could only be undertaken at the respective trading
posts.l? Thus, although the Indians were given possession of the
means or their own production, they did not have any control over
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Ron Bourgeault/Indians,
Metis
the maintenance and reproduction of these means.
Apart from the economic motivation to acquire the foreign
goods, feudalistic relationships of production required the creation of servility within the peasantry. This took the form of extraeconomic motivation or psychological dependency towards the fur
trade post and the officers in charge. Certain gratis services were
offered at the posts that served to enforce the developing servitude; in return certain donated duties and support work were expected from the Indian peasantry as a recognition and acceptance of
the "new order of things." The creation of servility was necessary
as a means of completing the destruction of independence derived
from primitive communism. It also served another purpose: the
explicit ideological recognition of feudalistic relations. A certain
amount of the Indians' labour, beyond that which went towards the
production of commodities, was required to be donated gratis as a
token of their servitude. The donation was a result of their labour
applied to the land and was a recognition of the property relationship entailed in the fur trade.j? It was a subjective donation of
labour outside the exchange of commodities through barter - a
form of labour-rent.
Merchant capital did not require that all production of goods be
for exchange; there could still exist within the dependent society the
production of goods for internal use." The dependent society was
not totally dominated by the production of commodities; some
surplus-labour was still communally appropriated.P In this way the
penetration of that pre-capitalist society by mercantilism served
both to undermine and perpetuate the society at the same time.23
The mercantile companies were not responsible for the social reproduction of Indian labour - that was left to the people themselves
and to their "traditional economies. "24 There was no real internal
market consumption, just dependent subsistence. The Indians' responsibility for their own social reproduction was an important
element in their formation as a peasantry. Hence, much of what was
primitive communism, now no longer independent, was allowed to
reproduce itself and become a facilitating mechanism by which
Indian labour was exploited. The northern Indians became a particular type of peasantry, and unlike the classical European
peasantry, one that was transitional and ultimately subject to the
evolution of different capital formations.
The development of the Indian peasantry within the fur trade was
a process that took place at the same time as the development of
the European (British) working class. The Hudson's Bay Company
was adamant that the labour market exist only within Britain and
53
not within the fur-trade territory. Although the European workers
came out of the capitalism which developed within Britain as "free
labour," the predominant social conditions into which they entered
were feudalistic. All skilled and unskilled labour was recruited
individually, legally bound to the Company by contract, and economically dependent upon the particular post to which it was sent. 2'
As feudal relations were developed, it was Company policy that
each post attempt to be self-sufficient. In so doing, part of the
Indian peasantry - the Homeguard Indians - was responsible for
the production of food for its respective post. All crafts produced
by European craftsmen were entirely for an internal local market,
either for use by other workers around the post or as trade goods
for the Indian fur producers. In return for the loyalty and permanence of the labour force, the Company assumed most overhead
expenses of the individual workers.
A basic division was created between European labour and northern Indian labour. This division was based primarily upon maintaining the Indian as a peasant. Any change in productive relations,
such as allowing Indians access to wage labour jobs around the
posts, was forbidden, since such change would contribute to
the breakdown of the peasantry. Together with an already highly
developed ideology of racism among the colonizers, which served to
justify the nature of the exploitation, this division enhanced
subjective racial ideas of differences among the European labourers
around the posts. This difference was also maintained economically
between the two divisions of labour, primarily through the tariff or
the rate at which labour was exchanged or sold for goods. The tariff
was much higher for the primary producer than for the wage
worker. In this way Indian labour could also function as a cheap
source of reserve labour within the system. As one post officer
commented to another in 1791: "Poor indeed are the prospects of
trade at the Factory, great part of the homeguard debts remain for
them to work out by Inland journeys. "26
Class antagonisms were not all that uncommon between the
Company's officers and servants. Usually these were expressed on
an individual basis and occurred in relation to wages, treatment,
and working conditions. If the conflict was severe enough, the individual workers responsible would be fined and/or sent back to
Britain and possibly blacklisted.F It was not until the growth of inland water transportation in the late 1700s that the collective class
antagonisms occurred and became overt in the form of mutinies or
strikes over wages and working conditions.P In fact it was the voyageurs who became the advanced elements of the working class within the fur trade. During the late eighteenth century they were almost
54
Metis
completely European, but by the early to middle nineteenth century
they were Half-breed and nationals of the territory, that is, Metis.
The Indian, once transformed into a feudalistic form of commodity production, became the basis of the whole fur trade. The mode
in which the surplus-labour of the Indian was extracted in the
production of fur determined the form of society. The social structure of society, the form of colonialism that developed, and the
state that emerged, were all related to the form in which the surpluslabour of the Indian as a peasant was extracted.
Indian Women and Economic Conquering: The Impact of
Colonization and Class Society
In the course of developing commodity production, which led to the
destruction of egalitarian relations, mercantile capitalism was compelled both to exploit and destroy Indian women's egalitarian role
within the society. 29 They were exploited in the sense that Indian
women were found to be an important commodity in themselves in
order to gain access to the particular societies. Since the relationships between Indian women and men were reciprocal, the colonial
exploitation of society created a transformation in the social relations over the years resulting in a particular subjugation of Indian
women.
The social division of labour and the specialization of commodity
production by men became the basis of social inequalities which
were to develop between Indian women and men. Given the dependency of women developed under colonial relations, particular unequal and exploitive relations were created between Indian women
and European men. As communal society slowly became undermined by trade goods and commodity production, women
began to lose the decision-making powers they had over their labour
and the use of the goods they produced. The creation of individual
commodity production was the beginning of a decline in the communal family and the beginning of the formation of the individual
family as the unit of production. With men established as responsible for the production of commodities, they assumed the role as
head of the family and women became dependent support workers
within each family unit. With the development of colonial relations
and the growing dependency of Indian women upon men, some
women began to realize it would be in their interests to take advantage of relationships with European men. As well, the European
colonizers saw it in their interests to avail themselves of the Indian
women, especially insofar as they provided the mercantilists with
the opportunity to penetrate the communal society. Indian women
became a valuable commodity and were exploited both politically
55
and sexually in the conquest of Indian society.
The particular subjugation of Indian women is well documented
in the journal of the officer in charge at York Factory in 1716-17. In
the early 1700s the British desired to move northwest from York
Factory, where they had established themselves with the Cree
people during the late 1600s. The desire of the British was to establish trade with the Dene-Chipewyan people. The British, through
trading with the Cree, captured a Chipewyan woman whom they
referred to as the Slave woman. Their strategy was to familiarize the
Slave woman with the value and use of British goods and then to use
her to penetrate Chipewyan society in order to establish trade
relations. While in York Factory she learned quite well the nature of
the trading that was to be imposed on her people. Thereafter she
went to great efforts to implement it. The Slave woman was sent
throughout the interior and organized 400 Chipewyan people for
the first trade meeting, at which 160 men were present to conduct
the trade negotiations. The Slave woman knew that the British
wished to establish trade through men, as they were the producers,
even though the first trading would have been collective. She
arranged for some people to be brought back to York Factory to be
trained in the selection and preparation of furs which were "of
value" for trade. She also arranged for the men to be trained in the
use of the rifle. The Slave woman was so committed that she made a
solemn promise that she would not rest until the whole of the Dene
people were delivered into trade relationship with the British. In
return for her work she requested only to be rewarded with a social
position for her brother - that he be made a trade captain.
The journal was kept by the officer as a means of recording how
the British developed the initial trading with the Chipewyans. The
journal reveals the process of economic conquering - first trade,
then private property and servility - and the use of women's power
in order to establish that process. The journal ends with the death of
the Slave woman in 1717:
but these Poor people have none but are forced to live by the bows
and arrows and they cannot livea great many together, becausethey
have nothing to subsist on but what they hunt. . . . but if pleaseGod
when I have settled a trade amongst them and can bring what I am
working upon to pass I willstopp the trade with those Indians for a
year or two and lett them make . . . . on them and drive the
Dogg's to the Devill.... the northern Slavewomandeparted her life
after about sevenweeksillness.The misfortunein loosingher willbe
very prejudical to the Company's interests....
As I have been writing about the Slave woman (deceased)it will
not be amiss to mention one thing. Last June she gave away a little
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Ron Bourgeault/Indians, Metis
kettle as I had givenfor to carry with her whenshe wentback into her
Country again. I (tax'd) her about it she said she had not gave it
away. I sent to the Indian as had it and fetched it away & show'd it
her. She told me was a lyer for he had stole it for she did not giveit
him & said her Indians should killme whenI cometo ChurchillRiver
and did rise in such a passion as I never did see the like before & I
cuff'd her Ears for her but the next morning she came & cry'd to me
and said she was a fool & mad & told me that I was a father to them
all & that she and all her Indians would love me & I should never
come to any harm. She hade been very good ever since in givingme
any information & alwaysspeakingin our praise to these Indians and
her own. We buried her ab't 4 a clock.... 30
The journal reveals the power and status that the Slave woman
had within the egalitarian society of the Chipewyans, and for that
matter the Crees, who had been already going through the process
of transformation. Although the Slave woman may have appeared
to be exceptional, her exceptionalism was an expression and outgrowth of egalitarian society. We can see that just the process of
developing trade towards commodity production was not enough.
The idea of communism had to be ended. A notion of private
property and subservience had to be created. Hence, the strategy of
developing trade, creating dependency or use-value for European
goods, then terminating the trade. This destroyed any notion of
mutuality of trade and established the basis for a lord-peasant
relationship. The kettle became symbolic of accepting private
property and at the same time the conflict around it was symbolic of
both colonial and sexual subservience. The Slave woman's role in
Indian society was being used and at the same time her role was
being destroyed.
Apart from Indian women being exploited politically by Europeans to gain control of their society's productive mechanisms, they
were also exploited sexually. At no time throughout the fur trade
were European women allowed into the territory of Rupert's Land.
The absence of women, therefore, made Indian women a valuable
sexual commodity to the colonizer. It was a common practice for
the resident officers to have permanent, or even casual sexual
relationships with influential Indian women as a means of developing and maintaining trade relations with the surrounding Indian
groups. One officer commented in 1743 on the importance of a
particular Indian woman to the continuing of trade at Moose Factory. She apparently lived for a period of time within the fort and
had a child by the officer.
Ausiskashagan came in here hawling his sick wife on a Sledge, re-
57
lieved them with provisions ....
she having been brought up at Albany & used to these comforts, as being of ye blood Royal & has a
child by Mr. Adams, is very industrious in catching Martins, I having
had above two hundred from her husband already & must use them
with tenderness on acc't of ye Comp'ys Interest.I'
In addition, officers, as a condition and privilege of their class,
took possession of women as concubines. This privilege was denied
to the European servant class; it was a privilege in much the same
manner as a feudal lord expected to enjoy with peasant women in
Europe. An officer during the late 1700s wrote:
No European women are allowed to be brought to Hudson's Bay,
and no person is allowed to have any correspondence with the natives
without the Chief's orders ....
However, the Factors for the most
part at proper times allowes an Officer to take in an Indian lady to
his apartment, but by no means or on any account whatever to harbour her within the Fort at night. However, the Factors keepsa bedfellow within the Fort at all times, and have carried several of their
children home as before observed.P
As the communal Indian society broke down under commodity
production, Indian women gradually became more dependent upon
men. The colonial situation presented an opportunity to some
women for seeking economic security or benefits from varied relationships with European men. If a woman was able to become a
live-in companion or even wife of a high officer, or just as a livingout companion of any junior officers, the material benefits could be
considerably greater than living the life that was unfolding for a
peasant. The creation of dependency conditions that forced women
to seek these particular opportunities laid the basis for privileged
positions or differences which were to occur among Indian women.
To the officer class, such was seen as a class privilege, but in reality
it was class prostitution. These same privileges were denied the servant or working class, hence any relations between Indian women
and working class European men took the form of a more overt
form of prostitution. As a newly arrived officer reported in his journal at York Factoryin 1762: "the worst Brothel House in London is
not so common a (Stew) as the mens House in this Factory was
before I put a stop to it .... "33
During the first century of its existence, the mercantilism of the
fur trade did not allow any formal formations of families between
European men and Indian women around the different posts. In
fact, one of the reasons why European women were not brought
into the country was that the internal formation of feudalistic relations of production did not require any form of a free labour mar-
58
ket within the territory. If allowed to develop it would have lead to
the growth of a surplus wage labour pool which would be a burden
upon the trade. Any Mixed-blood children born out of clandestine
relationships between Europeans and Indian women were as a
matter of policy to be brought up as Indians. This prevented the
formation of a wage labour pool, since the capitalist labour market
was to remain in Britain. As the Board of Governors complained in
1747 to the officers in charge of Fort Prince of Wales (Churchill):
Weeare sorry to find by information, that not withstandingour former orders often repeated, that no family of Indians especially
Women be suffered to remain within the Factory. That you suffer
two such familys to be in your appartment which in consequence
must be detrimental to the Companys interest. . . .34
As the initial development of feudalistic relations did not allow
individual mixed or European family formations to take place in
and around the creation of a surplus wage labour pool, so these relations necessitated the creation of individual family units among
the Indian peasantry out of the destruction of communal family
units. With the establishment of commodity trade, the basic unit of
fur production slowly became the individual family, with the men
dominant and the women dependent, doing support work. Each fur
trade post demanded that groups or bands, made up of individual
families of Indians, be tied to it in producing what was required. 3~
To enhance this and at the same time aid in the breakdown of the
communal family, the officers would offer to maintain women and
children of individual families while the men went out to trap or
hunt food for the post. Thus individual family units in association
with others became tied to their respective fur trade posts and
bound to the land producing commodities for exchange. With
dependency upon the fur trade post, women's work became exploitable in support of each post. In 1724, at Fort Prince of Wales, not
ten years after the death of the Slave woman, we can see how individual families were being formed, with dependency and exploitable support work coming into place, eventually taking the form of
unpaid and expected servitude:
The Indian whichcarnehere ye22'd of last month wentawaywith his
wife in order to look for some deer, he leaving .... children by
reason they would be a hindrance if he had taken them with him, he
having been employedall this fall a making things necesaryfor our
Men which lay abroad this Winter. So I think to Entertain him he
having a Small family for to hunt for us this Winter, also to knitt
Snow Shooes & making Indian Shooes & other things is wanting for
59
ye Men in ye Winter time & itt being Usual to Entertain an Indian for
ye same purpose .... 36
The Age of Mercantile Competition
Market, 17605-1821
and the Creation of the Labour
As the first half of the eighteenth century was characterized by mercantilism establishing itself and creating feudalistic relations of production, so the latter part of the eighteenth century and first part of
the nineteenth century came to be characterized by the entrenchment of these relations and an increase of British colonialism and
imperialism. However, it also included the rapid inland penetration
of both mercantile companies - the Hudson's Bay Company and
the North West Company - the continued process of economic
conquering, and the increased exploitation of Indian labour as a
result of monopoly competition and the increased demands of the
European market. Finally, there was the further internal
development of class and racial divisions, as well as the increased
dependency of Indian women.
The competition and inland penetration by both mercantile companies created an increased need for more permanent labour and
officers to work and manage the increased post and transportation
infrastructure. As a concession to permanence, European labourers
were informally allowed to take Indian women as "country wives"
or companions, but any mixed-blood children still had to be raised
as Indians. However, the cost of maintaining the infrastructure and
increased importation of labour became astronomical. 37 Together
with labour shortages in Europe, due to wars, and increases in the
price of labour, due to industrialization, there began to emerge the
need for a source of wage labour within the territory. There was a
need for a form of labour market, a market from which mercantilism could draw wage labourers when they were needed and could
expel them when no longer needed. However, at the foundation of
the fur trade was the Indian peasantry and the feudalistic social
relations encompassing them. Merchant capital could not destroy
the peasantry in order to create a "free labour" force. The
Company therefore- started to see the potential benefits from
relaxed relations between European workers and Indian women the value of mixed-blood children as a source of wage labour. A
labour pool could form separate from the peasantry and at the same
time pressure the peasantry.
This process was begun under competition between the two mercantile companies, but did not become formalized until after the
merger of the two companies in 1821. Before the merger, the labour
60
market was developed only insofar as cheaper native wage labour
was occasionally needed and was drawn upon sporadically within
feudalistic relations. There was no formal discharge of labour into
any established labour pool or reserves.
Inasmuch as merchant capitalists were increasingly in need of a
cheaper internal source of wage labour, so they were also in need of
a national elite that could function in association with them under
their colonial rule. The new indigenous class structure had to form
outside of the peasantry and this could only be accomplished
through the evolution of individual family units by means of
intermarriage. Thus there came into being a native petty bourgeois
and wage labour class, which for reasons of class and race, were no
longer to be considered as Indians and were not allowed to become
English. They were, as their colonizers called them, "Half-breeds."
In turn this created a radically oppressive situation for Indian
women.
The creation of a native petty bourgeoisie began in the 1760s with
officers being granted the formal privilege of sending their Mixedblood male children to Britain for education." On their return the
Mixed-blood young men were not allowed to have the same class
position as their fathers. The colonial officer class constituted a
feudal enclave whose responsibilities and allegiances remained in
Britain. Their Mixed-blood children were seen as nationals and were
not entrusted with running the fur trade.
The first generation of mixed-blood elites were given junior positions as clerks within the fur trade and used as middle men in trading with the Indians. Mixed-blood female children as a rule were not
allowed to be sent to Britain for an education, remaining instead to
become the wives of European officers or servants. The resident
European ruling elite eventually found it to be more "desirable" to
take a mixed-blood woman than an Indian woman as a companion.
Mixed-blood women were thus forced to become the wives of
incoming officers. Such was the case of a mixed-blood wife of an
officer making a request that their child be educated in Britain:
An infant that has the tenderest claims upon me, and looks up to me
for protection and support, demands that I should not. ... increase
it by leaving him in this country. . . . unprotected to the mercy of unfeeling Indians ....
the request arises not from a sudden fit of affection from the infant but from a long-wished-for desire; from a duty I
owe him, as well as from the affection I bare him, and I the more
strongly wish it as his Mother is the daughter of an Englishman and
has few or no Indian friends to protect the child should any accident
happen to me."
61
Thus an elite of mixed-blood women took shape, in the form of a
class and racial division among Indian women as a whole. They
were no longer Indians, because as dependent women their new role
did not prepare them for that, but like their "brothers" they were
not allowed to be English. So mixed-blood women also became
Half-breeds.
Mixed-bloods were employed permanently in the same capacity
as Europeans, but did not have the same status. To be allowed the
same status would have meant that they would have had to be paid
the same wages as a European and be allowed to emigrate to
Britain. The mixed-blood potential labourers were denied both,
since to have allowed either would have gone against the formation
of a cheaper labour pool. Take the case of Thomas and John
Richards in 1783-84:
We are sorry to acquaint you we are five men short of our intended
compliment being only 59 Men, but there is two young lads by the
name Thomas & John Richards - sons of Mr. Richards late Master
at Henley - who have made repeated application to your chief and
officers to be retained in your Honors service as Englishmen, the
former has frequently been employed in caes of necessity.t"
The following year the two young mixed-bloods were hired as
"Englishmen," but did not gain the right to emigrate to England."
(Thomas Richards, however, declined the position because he was
not allowed to go to England.F) As the intent was to form a labour
pool at a cheaper rate than labour from Britain, emigration could
not be allowed. The labour pool had to be captivated and
reproduced within the territory. With the only job source being the
Company, the surplus wage labour had no choice - except to go
back into primary production as a peasant.
Thus began a further class and race division: mixed-bloods
entering the labouring class were no longer allowed to be an
"Indian," in the sense that they were being separated from their
own means of production; nor were they allowed to become
"English." Half-breeds soon comprised the mass of the labour
force outside the peasantry. By the end of the eighteenth century,
Half-breed children of the working class and the officer class were
given the rudiments of education to prepare them for Company
service. Training programs were designed so that youths might
apprentice for upwards of seven to ten years, either to become
unskilled labour or craftsmen." Women's dependency on men,
either inside or outside the peasantry, or now between Half-breed
and European men within the working class, was becoming
62
-----------------------
Metis
complete - as support workers within the individual family and as
reproducers of labour. As one officer wrote in his daily post
journal: "the men employed about Sundry Duty's as before Except
Mag's Twait. ... and I man plaining woodwork for 2 canoes and
the Men's Women mak'g Pitch and splitting meat for drying."44
Merchant capital, from the 1780s to the 1820s, began to create a
capitalist labour market within the fur trade's predominant
feudalistic relations of production. It did so without at the same
time destroying those relations. During that same time period, merchant capital lost its independence, as industrial capital was becoming the dominant form of capital in Britain; it became absorbed
within the developing capitalist mode of production. Industrial
capital had no designs of applying itself within the fur trade
territory until the mid-1850s. In the meantime, merchant capital was
allowed to retain its position within the fur trade so long as it
functioned within the interests of industrial capital. Because merchant capital did not develop the productive mechanisms of the society in which it operated, its constant presence served only to "underdevelop" the society. The predominance of the feudalistic relations of production within the fur trade did not change so long as
merchant capital itself remained the dominant form, even when it
was an agent of industrial capital. Thus, as capitalism continued to
develop with industrial capital, the fur trade and the northern
Indian became underdeveloped, as they were still under the influence of merchant capital. In short, the North did not change; it
stayed the same, producing fur with a subsistance peasantry, even as
global patterns changed. Any internal changes that resulted from
the implementation of a labour market - the formation of a wage
labour class and a petty bourgeoisie - did not serve to develop the
society, but rather served to create underdeveloped classes in a
society that overall, was underdeveloped. However, as an
increasingly minor aspect of the overall development of capital,
merchant capital's previously high rate of profit was reduced
correspondingly." In the fur trade this created greater exploitation
of the northern Indian population and the further erosion of Indian
society.
The Age of British Colonialism and Imperialism, 1821-1870
From 1821, when the two mercantile companies merged, until 1870,
when Rupert's Land was annexed to Canada, an era of formal
British colonialism existed. The class formations and contradictions
that developed during the era of monopoly competition started to
crystallize after 1821, resulting in overt class and national struggles.
63
The rise of national consciousness among the Metis population
grew out of the class oppression and racial hierarchy formed within
the mercantile system. The Hudson's Bay Company no longer exercised political power solely as an independent mercantile concern;
rather it came more closely under the control of the British parliament and Colonial Office. The Company became, in effect, an
agent of British imperial.interests. The British created a political
and state organization to deal with the developing internal class formations and divisions of labour, as a means of maintaining their imperial interests in the area.46
Soon after the merger, the Hudson's Bay Company initiated a
series of radical changes to economize and streamline the operation
of the industry." The Company retrenched and centralized all its
operations in Red River. All posts, labour and management considered redundant were dispensed with. Labourers and officers were
either retired or discharged and sent home or settled at Red River.
The labourers were the Metis or Half-breeds that had been engaged
in different wage labour capacities in the interior or around Hudson's Bay, the plains Metis buffalo hunters that emerged under the
North West Company, European labourers, and French labourers
and free hunters, all with their native families. The labourers sent to
Red River constituted a free labour force that the Company could
draw upon when needed. It could be employed seasonally, as in the
summer as voyageurs, and discharged during slack periods. It could
function as a pool for any permanent labour that might be needed
and at a cheaper rate than in Europe or Quebec.
Those who could not obtain wage labour positions, either by contract or consistently on a seasonal basis, spilled over to become the
plains buffalo hunters. The internal post infrastructure needed the
surplus production of food and its distribution throughout the interior. The harvest of the buffalo had to be effective and complete;
the disciplined labour needed to accomplish this had to come from
within capitalism. Surplus food accumulation could not rely upon
the arbitrary trading with the plains Indian, who was as yet
unconquered and still communally organized. This quote from a
Protestant missionary illustrates the formed and functioning labour
pool and market:
I say this not to the disparagement of either parties for many follow
these callings from necessity more than choice: these being the only
lawful means within their reach to obtain clothing for themselves and
families. By making a voyage to York a man will earn £6 or £7 sterling ....
the same defence may be made for many who leave their
homes, their children and churches to go to hunt on the plains,
64
Metis
Pemican, Dried meat and fat, which they sell to raise money to purchase the European articles wanted for their individual or family
use.48
By the 1830s, 20 per cent of the contracted servants were Halfbreeds; 50 per cent were Half-breeds by the 1850s. As well, there
was all the seasonal labour in transportation - either with Red
River carts or boats - and general labour around the different
posts."
Those who settled in the Red River were given land grants in accordance with their class position. Retired officers with their native
families were given the largest land grants, some upwards of 1000
acres, others less than 100 acres. The already present Selkirk Settlers
received one- or two-hundred-acre grants from Lord Selkirk's
estate. European tradesmen received upwards of 50 acres, with
other labourers, either Half-breed or European, receiving about 25
acres. Many of the common unskilled labourers and plains buffalo
hunters were not given any grants outright, but were allowed to
settle as squatters. so The Red River was not designed to be a free
colony in the sense that the land was public property and each individual settler had a right to turn part of it into private property
and individual production. Rather, tenure remained with the Company in feudalistic fashion. However, individual allotments were
made in order to create a landed petty bourgeois ruling elite and a
large agrarian peasant population which produced food for the
internal use of mercantile enterprise, with the only market being
that provided by the Company. SI
Over the first twenty years of settlement, the landed officer class
was required to subdivide their lands among their Metis children,
thereby creating a landed Metis petty bourgeois class. It was the
landed petty bourgeois elite - both Metis and European - that
had appointed access to the colonial civil government, the Council
of Assiniboia. The land allotments to the labouring class and buffalo hunters were designed to support low wages for the workers
and exploitive trade returns from the hunters. Small land ownership
or squatting rights centralized the labour pool in the Red River.
Wage labour was never completely divorced from its own means of
production.
The petty bourgeoisie in the Red River consisted of more than
land owners; the Company created a commercial petty bourgeoisie
by contracting out certain enterprises it considered too costly to
manage itself. Either retired officers or their Metis children were allowed to establish themselves in such enterprises as transportation,
fur trading or buffalo trading. The Company determined the price
6S
for transportation contracts and provided the only market for
individual fur or buffalo traders. What emerged from this colonial
economy was the exploitation of a national (Metis) petty
bourgeoisie, a small working class, and a large peasantry. During
the 1840s the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie eventually came
into conflict with the merchant bourgeoisie. There was a struggle
for both free trade and democratic institutions in the Red River.
It was not until the turn of the nineteenth century that the question of religion was considered as a further means of establishing
rule over the Indian population. The Company, in conjunction with
the British Colonial Office, brought in both the Anglican and
Roman Catholic churches. Their prime function was to collaborate
with British rule and to assist in maintaining their economic and
political interests within Rupert's Land and Assiniboia. To the
native population as a whole they brought ideological colonialism.
Both churches operated mostly within Assiniboia during the
1820s and 1830s. Their presence provided control over the labour
market. Through church-sanctioned marriages the formalization of
individual families as the basic unit was guaranteed. Families were
needed for the reproduction of labour within the internal labour
market. This also meant the further subjugation of native women in
their dependent relationship within the family. Within the petty
bourgeoisie the Church maintained the colonial subservience and allegiance between the indigenous Half-breed petty bourgeoisie and
its European counterpart. The Church also served to divide both
classes - the labouring class and petty bourgeoisie - on religious
grounds by polarizing French- and English-speaking Half-breeds.
The Church did not move upon the interior Indian population effectively until the early 1840s. Until then the exploitation and colonialism had been political and economic, relying only marginally on
the ideological influences of the post officers to cajole the Indian
peasantry to consistently produce furs. It was with Christianity that
the ideological conquering of the Indian finally took place. The
levelling of the rate of profit and the increased demand from the
markets required further thrusts into the interior and more Indian
labour in production. As the Indian population increasingly internalized the need and the value of European commodity goods, they
correspondingly became more conscious of the exploitation of their
labour. Thus, Christianity served the British interests by allowing
them more systematically to exploit the Indian peasantry and to deal
with any overt reaction to the exploitation. As well, Christianity
served to extend British political sovereignty over the Indian
population. A Protestant missionary described the inherent oppres-
66
Ron Bourgeault/lndians, Metis
sion and the exploiting contradictions created through maintenance
of the Indian as a peasant.
I have for some time found that Ruperts Land is not a desirable place
of residence for a person of my feelings. There is something so
gloomy and repulsive in that state of barbarism in which the Indians
live, and the obstacles in the way of civilization are so great, that you
can scarcely expect that progress which will satisfy your own
conscience and the expectations of your employers. Were the
tendency of the trade of Ruperts Land and the disposition of the
Hon'ble Company's agents towards civilization we would then have
some reason to hope for success. But as the only trade is in furs,
which can only exist while the country continues in a state of
barbarism and be a lucrative one, while the Indian remains as
ignorant of merchandize as the animal he hunts; we perceive every
step which we make is uphill against the poverty, prejudices, and
habits of the Indian on the one hand; and interests of the European
on the other. It may be said with certainty "if we increase, the
interest of the Hon'ble Company must decrease." There I may relate
an anecdote of an Indian who is settled amongst us, and who brought
a moose skin to sell to a settler who had been once in the fur trade.
"Charles, what is the price of your moose skin?" Indian "8
shillings." Settler "0, you stingy fellow, what has put such a notion
as that into your head, I have seen the day when you would have sold
it for 8 inches of tobacco." Indian, "I did not know the value of my
skin then, it is only since I have had to purchase leather from the
Company's store that I have learned to know its value .... "52
Inasmuch as a "national" (Metis) labour force was created within
Rupert's Land, so there was created a "national" (Metis) petty
bourgeoisie. The Company created and allowed such petty bourgeois elements to operate commercially so long as they provided a
service for the Company at a rate cheaper than what it could provide itself. It was a colonial class, subject to exploitation as a result
of the overall high exploitation of the entire economy, and
politically suppressed, as only the basic forms of "democracy" were
extended. Politically the petty bourgeoisie was granted only the
basic colonially appointed representative institutions that
functioned to advise the resident British/Company colonial
governor. The petty bourgeoisie was also divided economically
between French-speaking and English-speaking Half-breeds, a
situation which expressed itself in the colonial appointments to the
advisory council. It was the English-speaking Half-breeds who were
established in the stronger commercial enterprises and accordingly
received the political representation.
Half-breed children (but now female as well as male), continued
to be sent to Britain for a colonial education and returned to be as
67
part of the Red River colonized elite. By the middle of the 184Os,
distinct class formations were created within the overall native
population. One officer's European wife described, from York Factory in 1840, the class formations that had taken place:
the state of society seems shocking. Some people educate & make
gentlemen of part of their family & leave the other savages. I had
heard of Mr. Bird at Red River & his dandified sons. One day while
the boats were here a common half breed came in to get order for
provisions for his boatmen. Mr. H.(argrave) called him Mr. Bird to
my amazement. This was one who had not been educated & while his
father & brothers are Nobility at the Colony, he is a voyageur & sat at
a table with the house servants here. Dr. MacLaughlin, one of our
grandees at a great expense gave 2 of his sons a regular education in
England & keeps the 3rd a common Indian. One of them had been
for years at the Military College in Lon'n but they have both entered
the Coy Service - I daresay the heathen is the happiest of them as
the father is constantly upbraiding the others with the ransom they
have cost him .... 53
For young, well-educated Half-breed women, the only course and
access to the petty bourgeoisie was as marriageable partners to Halfbreed men, or if they were lucky, to the very elite officers. However,
during the 1830s and onward Half-breed women within the elite
ranks of the European colonial! Company administrators (officer
class) were being displaced by European women. This produced the
basis for common class action with their male Half-breed counterparts who were being denied access to capital and representative
institutions. The contradictions of the native petty bourgeoisie with
the merchant bourgeoisie and their colonial administrators
crystallized in the free trade struggles of the 184Os.
The first instance of resistance against British colonial rule occured in the late 1830s. A movement called the Indian Liberation
Army formed, led by some Half-breeds educated in Upper Canada
who may have been influenced by the politics of the 1837 rebellion
in the Canadas. Their program was the elimination of all British
capitalists and their rule from Rupert's Land and moreso from Assiniboia, and the establishment of a native country. The movement
failed to gather support, and the leadership was co-opted by being
offered junior positions within the Company.
From the late 1830s onwards, the Half-breed petty bourgeoisie
saw the monopoly of the Company as being responsible for their
class exploitation and oppression, preventing them from growing as
a class." Together with the inherent colonial social relations and
racism within the ruling circles of Assiniboia, resistance to the economic and political suppression by the Half-breed petty bourgeoisie
68
and workers grew into nationalist consciousness. The Metis petty
bourgeoisie began to strategize about how to displace British mercantilism to become bourgeois mercantilists themselves. During the
184Os,in an attempt to expand their class interests, commercial
elements in Assiniboia began trading furs into the United States.
Rapid moves then followed to acquire fur markets within Britain
and to engage in private import of merchant trade goods separate
from that allowed by the Company.
British colonialism, in turn, was afraid that once the Metis grew
as an economic class, they would inevitably develop aspirations to
gain political control of their national territory, even independence.
Reprisals were quickly initiated by the British. Agreements were
made with the Americans to curtail trading into the United States.
In Britain, market creation and import of private goods was sabotaged. Most important, colonial tariffs on all imported goods into
Rupert's Land were imposed. All these reprisals had the effect of
curtailing the development of the Metis petty bourgeoisie and curtailing the capital base on which it could grow to become a threat.
During the 1840s the class interests of the Half-breed working
class were also taking form. Efforts were being made by the voyageurs to have a day of rest on Sunday - often referred to as antiSunday travelling. Although initiated by radical elements within the
Protestant church, it eventually became a labour issue and a
struggle with the Company over the rights of workers. The Company in turn saw it as a threat to their control and "ownership" of
the labour force. Many a strike and mutiny occurred over this issue,
as well as other issues such as wages and working conditions.
During the free trade struggles of the 184Os,elements of the working
class - the voyageurs - aligned themselves politically with the
petty bourgeoisie. In the summer of 1846, James Sandison, a leader
in organizing anti-Sunday travelling, organized a mutiny of
voyageurs at Portage La Loche (now northern Saskatchewan). He
rallied the voyageurs in a statement: "My Brothers! It is the Half
Breeds that make the laws at Red River for themselves and for the
Canadians (French) and Scotch people, and if we do not do it here it
is our own fault. We have the same power here that they have
there."ss
In 1849 an armed insurrection occurred, led by Louis Riel Sr.,
against the authority and internal repression of the company. The
rebellion was not staged by just a few individuals from the petty
bourgeoisie. While some opposed it, there was mass support, including support from the labour force. Inasmuch as the free trade
struggle was for the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie, so
69
struggles were being engaged by elements of the working class. The
fact that the latter made political alliances with the former provided
the basis for another struggle, the overall struggle for democracy
and national liberation from colonialism. The intensity of the
struggles in the 1840s prompted one Company officer to state in a
letter to the colonial governor:
We can no longer hide from ourselves the fact, that free trade notions and the course of events are making such rapid progress, that
the day is certainly not far distant, when ours, the last important
British monopoly, will necessarily be swept away like all others. By
the force of public opinion, or by the still more undesirable but inevitable course of violence and . . . . within the country itself. I
would therefore in my humble belief be far better to make a merit of
necessity than to await the coming storm, for come it will.56
The free trade struggles in the Red River should be viewed in the
same context as the struggles to repeal the corn laws in Britain and
the bourgeois revolutions in 1848 throughout continental Europe.
The response of the British Colonial Office and the Company was
to bring in colonial troops to suppress both the rebellion and free
trade. The actual presence of troops continued throughout the
1850s up until the early 1860s. The Company also responded with
particular reforms designed to co-opt the petty bourgeoisie. Concessions towards representative government within Assiniboia were
granted. The Council of Assiniboia was still to function as an
advisory body to the colonial governor. The internal economy was
"liberalized," but total free trade was still not allowed. The petty
bourgeoisie was allowed to expand through further contracts for
particular Company operations, but it was not allowed to develop
or acquire capital that would compete with British interests. These
concessions were able temporarily to stave off internal discontent
and at the same time maintain British imperialist interests.
British imperialism since the mid-l 850s had been planning the end
of mercantilist administration and interests in Rupert's Land and
the confederation of all British North American possessions into
one nation-state. The Anglo-Canadian bourgeoisie was also interested in expanding its national and capitalist interests and was simultaneously advocating annexation of Rupert's Land to Upper
Canada. The initial strategy of British Imperialism, in conjunction
with Anglo-Canadian capitalist interests, was to have Rupert's
Land confederated with territorial status. In order to help British
financial interests to function, the old mercantile class within the
Company was bought out by the International Financial Society in
70
1862 and the Company reorganized around financial capital. The
strategy was to open the plains area of Rupert's Land to settlement
and capitalist agricultural production for the industrial east and the
world market. The question of the fur trade was also reconsidered,
and this involved debate about what would happen to the North
and the Indian population. The decision was that the Company
would continue with the trade after confederation, but that there
would be no movement of any capital into the North other than the
continued presence of merchant capital. The administration of the
Indian people would continue to be assumed by both the Company
and Church; there was to be no semblance of a democratic state. 57
As a result there would be very little or no change in the mode and
relations of production in the North. Despite the formation of
Canada and capitalist production, the North was intentionally kept
under the dictates of merchant capital and increasingly became
more backward.
Riel and the Failed Revolution
In Assiniboia it was known as early as 1857 that the British had
political designs of annexing their territory to form a confederated
British North America. What was not known was when it would
occur and whether their interests would be retained by such a move.
Liberal intellectuals like James Ross, a Half-breed from the Red
River who had studied at the University of Toronto and who was
editor of the Globe newspaper under George Brown, returned to
Assiniboia in the 1860s and began agitation against the Company
and British colonial rule. Ross, who was to become Riel's archrival, was agitating for annexation of Assiniboia and Rupert's Land
to Upper Canada, in order to gain access to industrial capital. Ross
saw the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie of Assinoboia existing in relationship with the bourgeoisie in Toronto or Upper
Canada. The land owners - Metis and Selkirk Settlers - would
have access to open markets for their grains and would no longer be
required to sell only to the Company. As the anti-colonial struggle
began to unfold, Ross ultimately placed himself in the political
centre with the petty bourgeois land owners, Metis and Selkirk.
After re-organization of the Company in 1862, the internal
politics and economic structures of Assiniboia began to crumble.
Elements of the labouring class were becoming radicalized: reduced
wages, unemployment and over-work increased their suffering.
Strikes were more numerous among the voyageurs: the La Loche
boat brigades engaged in work shut downs every summer throughout the 1860s.58 Anglo-Canadian merchants, who immigrated
71
----------
~-----
throughout the 1860s and whose political leadership was Orangist,
also called for annexation to Upper Canada. The Orangists had no
mass political base in Assiniboia other than their own transplanted
class interests. They were racist, anti-Indian, anti-French and antiCatholic - nothing more than a reactionary petty bourgeois extension of the coming imperialism. They wanted only political and
economic access to Anglo-Canadian capitalism. Whatever political
differences existed in Assiniboia, all classes were unanimous in one
thing: their opposition to mercantile and British colonialism.
With the return of Riel in 1868, a more radical democratic wing
emerged. Whereas the other two political formations - the reactionary Orangists and the landowners under James Ross - were
anti-colonial, they were acting only on behalf of their own particular class interests. Neither had made any political inroads into the
mass of the population. Both Ross and the racist Orangists found it
impossible to gain mass support because they did not express the
political class interests of the mass of the labouring population.
Armed with a political program, Riel and other radical liberal intellectuals set out to develop a base within the mass of the population.
This base included the voyageurs, plains hunters and poorer elements of the petty bourgeoisie such as small landowners and Red
River cart operators. They believed that all the mechanisms of
British colonialism, both political and economic, were useless and
oppressive. The whole history of their class exploitation and oppression would be allowed to continue if there was not a fundamental
change in the political and economic system. That fundamental
change could only take place with the establishment of responsible
democracy and the creation of a state over which they held political
power. With the creation of a political state and internal control
over the economy, they could then "liberate" the mass of the population from the form of their exploitation. Colonialism would again
be recreated against them if territorial annexation to Canada was
allowed without any guarantees of political power. The only way
towards emancipation and liberation was to separate themselves
from the colonial process and to decolonize through a declaration
of independence. They could not allow the old colonial structures to
be recreated within the new political relationships that were coming.
Internal popular support and external recognition were vital.
Riel's political position was in fact the minority position within the
provisional government that he created. Yet it contained within it
the most democracy for the people. Internally, while under political
siege from Ottawa and London, Riel attempted to keep the different political forces aligned with his program and at the same time
72
Ron Bourgeault/lndians, Metis
to maintain a political front to deal with the external political
forces. Thus he saw it as necessary that Thomas Scott, who was an
Orangist reactionary and political element of Ottawa and London,
be shot as a counter-revolutionary agent.
Riel's political program and strategy were the basis of a real nationalliberation struggle, a struggle that had been ongoing for thirty
years. It could only be realized with the creation, by the subjugated
and the oppressed, of their own bourgeois democracy, state and
national territory. In this sense the events of 1869-70 can be
considered as the basis of the bourgeois democratic revolution of
the native population. It was definitely not just a rebellion as bourgeois history would have us believe. This idea of "national independence" and "control over a state" by a people who were not loyal
was considered a threat to bourgeois capital and the formation of
Canada as a nation-state. The period from 1870 until Riel was
driven into exile was one in which Ottawa politically undermined
Manitoba as a state and re-created it as a province.
The uprising or rebellion of 1885was the last resistance in a battle
begun in 1869-70.The subjugation of the Metis was completed with
the formation of Canada as a nation-state. By 1885 Riel came to
view imperialism as a system and saw what it was doing to the native
population as a whole, and what it was doing to other people
around the world. Politically Riel became anti-imperialist, but he
saw the inevitability of what was coming. The only solution was to
resist so that resistance could live for the future. The following is
taken from an open letter by Riel to the Irish World, dated 6 May
1885, just a few days before the battle of Batoche, and published
five days after he was hanged:
The outside world has heard but little of my people since the beginning of this war in the North-West Territory, and that little has been
related by agents and apologists of the bloodthirsty British Empire
....
Our lands ....
have since been torn from us, and given to
landgrabbers who never saw the country ....
English lords .... and
the riches which these lands produce are drained out of the country
and sent over to England to be consumed by a people that fatten on a
system that pauperizes us .... The result is extermination or slavery.
Against this monstrous tyranny we have been forced to rebel. ...
the behaviour of the English is not singular. Follow those pirates the
world over, and you will find that everywhere, and at all times, they
adopt the same tactics, and operate on the same thievish lines.
Ireland, India, the Highlands of Scotland, Australia, and the isles of
the Indian Ocean - all these countries are the sad evidences, and
their native populations are the witnesses to England's land
robberies .... The enemies who seek our destruction are strangers to
justice. They are cruel, treacherous and bloody ....
In a little while
73
it will be all over. We may fail. But the rights for which we contend
will not die. A day of reckoning will come to our enemies and of
jubilee to my people. The hated yoke of English domination and
arrogance will be broken in this land, and the long-suffering victims
of their injustice will, with Gods blessing, re-enter into the peaceful
enjoyments of their possessions. 59
On 16 November 1885, Riel was killed by the Canadian state in
the interests of capital.
Concluding
Remarks
Whatever the complexities of the politics at that time, one of the
single most important reasons for the revolution's lack of success
lay in the underdeveloped nature of the class formations and class
forces. The radical intelligentsia was able to provide the political insight and direction, but the class power required to carry it through
did not exist. If the class forces were not propitious then, do they
exist today within the native population, independent from the rest
of the class struggle within this country? The same question led
another Metis leader by the name of Jim Brady to comment during
the 1940s and 1950s: "We have no independent social base other
than the working class. With the working class as the necessary
assisting force, we can be strong. If we go against the democratic
forces we are converted into nothing."60
In a broad and general way this opens the question of the nature
of the class struggle today. Liberation from oppression and exploitation cannot be accomplished in isolation from the "white"
working class. It is not a contradiction for the greater working class
to be able to reflect or echo the struggles of the native, as the basis
of the native struggle is the question of class. For far too long the
Left has failed or refused to recognize that class lies at the basis of
the native question. Today, in the North, the whole existence of a
backward form of production or labour, grossly exploited over the
centuries, lies crumbling before imperialism. Yet the strategy of
some of the Left is to make alliances or pacts with imperialism and
the Canadian state in the vain hope that somehow this "traditional
society" can preserve itself in isolation. It all becomes convoluted in
a romantic notion of what it is to be an Indian.
The contradiction of the native lies with capital, not with the
working class. The occurrence of mass unemployment in the North
and in the cities of the South are the effects of capital, just as it is
capital that is causing mass unemployment to occur within the previously employed greater working class. The first step is to develop
relationships between the native and greater working class over the
74
root of their oppression. That does not mean, because of colonial
relations and high levels of unemployment in the North, that the
native should not engage in collective action alone (if necessary)
against the state in order to create employment. These actions
should also entail further strategic relationships with the working
class directed towards a greater political program. For the greater
working class, it is not a problem for them that the native should
struggle for democracy. The strength of that struggle can and
should be enhanced by its support.
Notes
This article is an outgrowth of seven years of research on behalf of the Association of Metis and Non-Status Indians of Saskatchewan (AMNSIS). I
would further like to state that it was AMNSIS which had the foresight to
broaden itself into a comprehensive information-gathering project of the
Metis and Indian people in western and northern Canada. The information
is presently being deposited in The Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native
Studies and Applied Research, Regina, Saskatchewan. The information is
being made available to native students and others who are interested in
researching native history in western and northern Canada. I would as well
like to thank Wallace Clement and Leo Panitch for their constructive
criticism of the original paper, and also Stuart Ryan and Maija Kagis for
their editorial suggestions.
I. For clarification, the term "native" should be taken to include Indian,
Metis, and Half-breed or mixed-blood people.
2. Doug Daniels, "Dene Government: Middle Class Dream or Working
Reality" (8 October 1980). Extracts from a position paper on native government for the Dene Nation. Daniels points out the difficulties of establishing native self-government without class differences being involved.
It is argued that it would be the creation of neo-colonialism. Cf. Mel
Watkins, Dene Nation - the Colony Within (Toronto 1977), 47-61,
84-99. Watkins et al. fail to acknowledge the historic class development
and exploitation of the Indian population in the North. Instead their
strategy is to employ nationalism as the basis of struggle, with aboriginal
rights or land claims as a means of striking a legalized relationship with
imperialism and the national bourgeois state and hence, access to
capital. The intent is that somehow a cultural preserve can be made that
will maintain the Indian people in some manner as they existed at some
particular time in their past. In reality there is no turning back. At what
particular time in history do a people turn back to? That is an illusion of
the class struggle. The solution is to go forward and rid humanity of
exploitation.
3. Karl Marx, Capital, 3 vols. (Moscow 1977), 1:45,668-9,703;
3:333-4
75
4. Claude Meillassoux, "From Reproduction to Production,"
and Society 1:4 (February 1972), 103
5. Rosa Luxembourg, The Accumulation
Economy
of Capital (New York), 370
6. Marx, Capital, 3:326-7. (See n. 3 above.)
7. Ernesto Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America," New
Left Review 67 (1971), 33
8. Marx, Capital, 1:316
9. Ibid., 1:82-3, 332, 480
10.See Meillassoux, "From Reproduction to Production,"
above.)
93. (See n. 4
II. Marx, Capital, I: 164, 173-4, 479-80. Marx saw labour or labour power
and the fact that it was socialized, as a condition of the human being
separate from that of an animal. With the socialization of labour there
appears necessary-labour and surplus-labour. Surplus-labour appears in
all modes of production and without it there cannot be a social
formation.
12.Eleanor Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance (New York 1981), 13-29,
133-82
13. Marx, Capital, 1:174-6. See also Meillassoux, "From Reproduction to
Production. "
14. See Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America," 28, 30 (see
n. 7 above.) There is a paraIlel between feudal production in Latin
America and in the "northern" part of Canada when mercantilism was
dominant. That does not mean the situation is the same today. Laclau
further states that the exploitation of the Latin American peasantry
increased with demands by the world market.
15.Governor and Committee Instructions, 23 June 1702, Hudson's Bay
Company Archives, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereafter
H.B.C.A., P.A.C.), A6/3,f.99
16. May 1716, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., B239/a/ ,f.28-30. This is a long journal
of the Chief Officer at then York Factory. It concerns the use of a
captured "Slave" woman of the Dene-Chipewyan people. The British
were interested in developing trade with the Dene-Chipewyans to the
northwest of York Factory. The Slave woman was used "politicaIly,"
because of her egalitarian power as a woman, to develop trade
relationships with the Chipewyans.
17. Instructions from Governor and Committee, London, 23 June 1702,
H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/3,f.99. The instructions were to trade with the
leading (male) Indians.
76
------------------------------------
Ron Bonrgeanlt/Indians, Metis
18. Humphrey Martin, Albany Fort, to Thomas Moore, East Main,
Instructions
on developing trade with particular Indians yet
"untouched" by mercantilism, 28 September 1767, H.B.C.A., P.A.C.,
B3/6/5,f.ld. The instructions also included using Indians (male) from
around their area who were involved in trade, to assist in developing new
relations.
19. Numerous mention was made in the post journals of Moose Factory,
Albany, York Factory and Churchill all throughout the 1700s of the
repair and maintenance of guns, hatchets, knives etc., by the post
armourer's and blacksmith's.
20. The main post journals, describing everyday life around the posts,
frequently mentioned Indians bringing in surplus-products like meat,
fowl, etc., above what was brought in to trade. This form of labour-rent
was built in from the very beginning as a condition of servility. Also,
constant mention was made by officers to "our Indians" or "my
Indians" and the fact that they were not allowed to trade at other posts.
See Marx, Capital, 3:633-5, 790-4 on ground-rent (labour-rent).
21. See "Facts about Merchants Capital," in Marx, Capital, 3:328
22. See "The Buying and Selling of Labour-power,"
in ibid., 1:166
23. See Meillassaoux, "From Reproduction to Production,"
103
24. Governor and Committee, London, to Mr. Thomas Bird, Albany Fort,
18 May 1738, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/6,f.16. Frequent mention was
made in all official correspondence and post journals of preventing total
dependence and keeping the Indian constantly producing in the "bush."
Only small handouts were given gratis.
25. Usually for three to five years, however, it was seen as being
economically beneficial to extend workers' contracts when they expired
in Rupert's Land. The main means of causing re-enlistment was to cause
workers to become indebted to the Company while in its service.
26. John Thomas, Moose Fort, to John McNab, Albany, 9 April 1794,
H.B.C.A. B3/b/31,f.l7
27. York Post Journal, 27 December 1715, H.B.C.A.,
B239/a/2,f.II,75
28. York Post Journal, 7 July 1791, H.B.C.A., B239/a/91,f.28. During the
1790s the transportation workers at Cumberland House started to
organize themselves into "combinations" and engaged in "mutinies"
over wages and working conditions.
29. Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock, eds., Women and Colonization:
Anthropological Perspectives (New York 1980), 1-22
30. Journal of James Knight, York Factory. May 1716. H.B.C.A .• P.A.C .•
B239/a/2,f.28-30. See also 5 February 1717, B239/a/3,f.23
77
31. Moose Fort
Post
Journal,
4 March
1743, H.B.C.A.,
P.A.C.,
B1351 a/14,f.63-65
32. Glyndwr Williams, ed., Andrew Graham's Observations on Hudson's
Bay, 1767-91 (London 1969), 248
33. York
Post
Journal,
22 September
1762, H.B.C.A.,
P.A.C.,
B239/a/50,f.3-7
34. Govenor and Committee, London, to Mr. Robert Pilgrim, Prince of
Wales Fort, 6 May 1747, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A617,f.222
35. There were divisions created within the Indian peasantry - the Homeguard Indians and Upland trappers or Indians. The Homeguard Indians
were induced to settle around the different posts on the "plantation."
They were used as hunters in provisioning, some trapping and cheap
labour for post work and transportation, paid in goods and not wages.
The Homeguard consisted of many mixed-bloods for the aforementioned reasons concerning women and the labour market. The Upland
trappers were exclusively for producing fur and were constantly kept in
the "bush" and never allowed to settle. The overall class formations that
developed were: governor & committee - merchant bourgeoisie, London; overseas governor, chief factor, chief trader and clerks, doctors petty bourgeoisie, Rupert's Land; servants - tradesman, voyageurs, labourers; peasants - Homeguard Indians, Upland trappers.
36. Prince of Wales Fort Journal, 8 October 1724, H.B.C.A., P.A.C.,
B42/a/5,f.7
37. Governor and Committee, London to Officers, York Factory, a directive stating that the cost of maintaining European labour was becoming
enormously heavy and that it had to be reduced, 31 May 1799,
H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A61l6,f.128.
38. Governor and Committee, London, to Ferdinand Jacobs and Council,
York Factory, 31 May 1763, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/10,f.l07.
Charles
Price Isham son of James Isham, dec'd sent to Britain for education, returned in 1773in service of Company at £101 yr. See Governor and Committee to Ferdinand Jacobs, York Factory, 12 May 1773, H.B.C.A.,
P.A.C., A6/Il,f.326.
Also many others from 1760s onward.
39. Edward Jarvis, Fort Albany, to Governor and Committee, London, 28
September 1783, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A1l/4,f.208
40. Officers, Albany Fort to Governor and Committee, London, 28
September 1783, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., AIl/4,f.200
41. Governor and Committee, London, to Edward Jarvis and Council,
Albany Fort, 19 May 1784, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/13,f.94
42. Edward Jarvis and Council, Albany Fort, to Governor and Committee,
London, 14 September 1784, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., AIl/5,f.1O
78
43. Governor and Committee, London, to John Hodgson and Council,
Albany Fort, 31 May 1806, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A61l7,f.103; Governor
and Committee, London to William Williams, Governor Rupert's Land,
3 February 1819, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A61l9,f.115
44. Manchester House Post Journal, 31 March 1790, H.B.C.A.,
B121/ a/4,f.48-50
P.A.C.,
45. Marx, Capital, 3:327-8
46. A colonial political structure was created with the formation of the
Council of Rupert's Land, overseen by the Governor of Rupert's Land
and responsible for the management of the political economy. It was
made up of officers of the Company. Then there was the Council of Assiniboia overseen by the Governor of Assiniboia and responsible for the
management of civil affairs within Assiniboia. The Council of Assiniboia was neither representative nor responsible. It was appointed by the
Governor of Assiniboia in conjunction with the Governor of Rupert's
Land and served only to advise on civil affairs.
47. Governor and Committee, London, to Governor of Rupert's Land and
Council, 1821-1828, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/20-21
48. Rev. Cockran to Rev. E. Bechersteth, 3 August 1829, Church
Missionary Society Archives (hereinafter C.M.S.A.), P.A.C.
49. Carol Judd, "Native Labour and Social Stratification in the Hudson's
Bay Company's Northern Department 1770-1870," Canadian Review oj
Sociology and Anthropology 17:4, p. 311
50. D.N. Sprague and R.P. Frye, "Fur-Trade Company Town: Land and
Population in the Red River Settlement, 1820-1870" (I November 1980)
University of Manitoba. This contains an analysis of land ownership and
formations within the European and Mixed-blood population.
51. Joseph Berens, Governor of H.B. Co., to Lord Bathurst, Sec'y for War
and Colonies, 18 March 1815, British Colonial Officer, P.A.C., series
Q, Vol. 133, p, 59
52. Rev. William Cockran to Secretaries,
(incoming Correspondence).
8 August
1842, C.M.S.A.
53. Margaret Arnett MacLeod, The Letters oj Letitia Hargrave (New York
1969), 84
54. See the testimony of A.K. Isbister to the Select Committee of the British
House of Commons on the Hudson's Bay Company, 1857.
55. Murdoch McPherson, Fort Simpson, to Donald Ross, Norway House,
26 February 1847, Donald Ross Papers, Public Archives of British
Columbia, file 120.
79
56. Donald Ross, Norway House, to George Simpson, Governor
Rupert's Land, 21 August 1848, H.B.C.A., D5/22,f.543
of
57. E.W. Watkin Papers, Public Archives of Canada, MG24, E17. Within
the papers is the debating between the International Financial Society,
the Company and Colonial Office over the status of Rupert's Land,
capitalist settlement, the fur trade and the native people in the North.
58. See the post correspondence found in H.B.C.A., BI54/b/9-1O, Norway
House; and B235/b/1O-12, Winnipeg. AII/128 and AI2/42-45 describe
the issues and conditions of the voyageurs.
59. Irish World, 6 May 1885, George A. Flinn Papers, Minnesota Historical
Society, S1. Paul, Minn.
60. Murray Dobbin, The One-and-a-Half Men (Vancouver 1981), 135. The
quote of Brady to be found in Dobbin's very good book on two Metis
organizers and activists - Jim Brady and Malcolm Norris - who were
responsible in part for the creation of the native movement from the
1920s until the I96Os.
80

The Indian, the Metis and the Fur Trade

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