'The comforts of married life': Metis family life, labour, and the Hudson's Bay Company

Labour/Le Travail, Spring, 2008 by Brenda Macdougall

SINCE THE 1980S, scholars have sought to understand how the Canadian fur trade shaped the Metis. Less attention has been paid to the impact of Metis concepts of family and community on the nature of their relationship with their employer, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). This article focuses on how Metis family structures in the English River District molded the contours of the community's relationship with the HBC in the 19th century. More specifically, only certain families established a relationship with the Company, wherein male servants and their extended families laboured for the HBC in return for wages and/or access to Company resources. The Company's willingness to participate in these types of exchanges with its employees' families cultivated an intergenerational loyalty amongst those Metis, as successive generations were employed by the Company and, in turn, drew upon it as part of their economic resource network. Still, Company officials faced a dilemma. They recognized that these extended families were loyal contributors to the Company's trading successes, but likewise regarded them as burdensome and a drain on precious resources. Throughout the 19th century, the ambivalence of the Company grew, negatively impacting its relationship with once loyal HBC servants and their families. The loyalty of families to the Company was only as strong as its loyalty to them. By the end of the century, as the Company's focus turned to reducing its obligations to families, Metis loyalties also shifted to competing economic ventures, thereby threatening the HBC monopoly in the region.

DEPUIS LES ANNEES 1980, les universitaires ont cherche a comprendre la maniere dont l'industrie canadienne de la fourrure a faconne les Metis. Moins d'attention a ete accorde a l'impact des concepts des Metis de la famille et de la communaute sur la nature de leurs relations avec leur employeur, la compagnie de la Baie Hudson. Cet article se concentre sur la facon les structures des familles Metis dans le district du fleuve anglais a moule les contours des relations de la communaute avec la compagnie de la Baie Hudson du 19e siecle. Plus precisement, seulement certaines familles ont etabli des relations avec la compagnie, alors que les servants et leurs personnes a charge ont travaille pour la compagnie pour le salaire et/ou l'acces aux ressources de la compagnie. La volonte de la compagnie de participer dans ce genre d'echanges avec ses employes a cultive une loyaute intergenerationnelle parmi les Metis, a mesure que des generations successives ont ete employees par la compagnie et qui, a leur tour, ont accede a leur reseau de ressources economiques. Neanmoins, les responsables de la compagnie ont fait face a un dilemme. Ils ont reconnu que les familles des Metis etaient des contributeurs loyaux au succes de la compagnie, mais en meme temps, ils les consideraient comme un fardeau economique et une purge de leurs ressources precieuses. Au cours du 19e siecle, l'ambivalence de la compagnie s'est accrue, influencant de maniere negative ses relations avec les servants et leurs familles qui etaient autrefois loyaux. La loyaute des familles envers la compagnie etait aussi solide que celle de la compagnie envers les familles. A la fin du siecle, etant donne que la compagnie s'est concentree sur la reduction de ses obligations envers les familles, la loyaute des Metis a aussi change pour des entreprises economiques concurrentielles, menacant ainsi le monopole de la compagnie dans la region.

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IN 1888, HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY (HBC) servant John Harper starved to death near Ile a la Crosse, the main depot for the English River District. Five years later, the Company received a request from Harper's daughter for assistance in securing her and her family's future. Charlotte Harper requested that Henry J. Moberly, Ile a la Crosse's chief trader, write the Half-Breed Claims Commission in Ottawa with details about her father's life, which were required to complete her application for scrip as his heir. Moberly described John Harper as coming from Kildonan, Manitoba before entering the HBC'S service and being stationed in the Athabasca District. Moberly stated that Harper was legally married in 1872 to Margaret Tastawitch, a Dene woman from the Fort Chipewyan area, before being stationed in the English River District. (1) The parish registers of the Mission de Saint-Jean-Baptiste at Ile a la Crosse record that John and Margaret had two daughters, Charlotte and Helene, born in the District and while Moberly identifies their mother as being from Fort Chipewyan, the surname Tastawitch was associated with the English River District in the early 19th century. (2) According to Moberly, by 1893 Charlotte was married to an "Indian" man from the English River District and "living in very poor circumstances." (3) While the exact nature of Charlotte's "poor circumstances" was not revealed, it was Moberly's opinion that a successful scrip application would greatly alleviate her situation. Furthermore, although not explicitly stated in the letter, Moberly may have felt that if successful in obtaining scrip, Charlotte and her family would expect no further help from the HBC.