The fur trade, wrote Sylvia Van Kirk, “generated a distinctive regional way of life.”¹ This early expression of Western regionalism was a reflection of distinctive modes and patterns of work, transport, food, clothing and especially of marriage “according to the custom of the country.” The result of the union of European traders and Indian women, despite local variations and “sub-cultures” connected to the distinct practices of the fur-trading concerns, is what is meant by the term, fur-trade society.

Fur-trade society expressed a pre-political form of what now we call Western regional identity. Regionalism has been, and continues to be, the...

Alexander Kennedy Isbister was born in the late spring of 1822 at Cumberland House, Rupert’s Land, now east-central Saskatchewan. He was the eldest son of Thomas Isbister, Clerk and later Postmaster in the Hudson’s Bay Company, and of Mary Kennedy.¹ The year 1822 marked an important transition in the history of the fur trade. The long and difficult struggle between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North-West Company had finally ended in December of the previous year. Consolidation of the new organization under the hand of George Simpson was about to commence.

Both of Alexander’s parents had been connected with...

Isbister is best known to Canadian historians as a persistent opponent of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Very little attention, however, has been devoted to the constituent elements of his strategy of opposition. By using the term, “strategy of opposition,” I do not wish to imply Isbister possessed a conscious long-term design so much as to indicate that he was led by motives, about which we are both ignorant and not particularly concerned, from one situation, condition, or circumstance to another in an intelligible way. The first element of this strategy was knowledge. Isbister helped make a body of knowledge public...

During the late 1840s and up to the Parliamentary Enquiry of 1857, Alexander Kennedy Isbister was a corresponding member of the Aborigines’ Protection Society (APS). Beginning in 1856, he was a member of the executive of that body, a position he maintained into the late 1860s. His influence on the direction of the Society’s concerns was greatest during the late 1850s. During 1856-7, for example, the report to the annual meeting of the society indicated that the largest share of the Executive Committee’s attention since the last report had been “the history and condition of the Indian tribes of British...

In the decade after 1846 Isbister was directly involved in events critical to the continued operations of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Prior to his direct opposition to the Company, and conditioning the later events, was the Oregon Crisis. From the perspective of the Company, the Red River troubles over free trade in the late 1840s were connected to those of Oregon a few years earlier. In the final analysis, both were derived from the colonizing movement of European agricultural civi­lization across the continent. The fact that the Hudson’s Bay Company was part of that same European civilization meant that their...

Following the meetings of February, 1846, at Red River, Sinclair, now dubbed by Ross, “chief of the half-breeds,” journeyed with several others to Britain bearing a petition. In London he contacted Isbister and persuaded him to serve as an agent for the interests of the Settlement population. On 6 February 1847 Isbister wrote Lord Grey to in form the Colonial Secretary of the deputation of “natives” from the Company territories and their desire to lay the Petition before him.¹

Isbister signed the note A. Koonaubay Isbister.² Benjamin Hawes, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, replied a few days later that Earl Grey had...

The differences that led to the crisis over Oregon during the winter of 1845-46 had long been a source of concern to the Company. Much as Simpson rejoiced in the treachery of the Columbia Bar as a barrier to shipping, he was greatly concerned about the economic and ultimately, the political vulnerability of Fort Vancouver.¹ During the early 1830s, the area was considered unhealthy because it was the scene of several outbreaks of an “Intermitting Fever,” apparently akin to malaria.² With the growing importance of the coastal trade, the Governor and Committee suggested the main depot be removed “to Whidby’s...

Isbister’s first dispute with the Company involved debate on the meaning of certain facts as well as controversy over the existence of facts alleged. Any decision made on the basis of the dispute would be a prudential judgement that weighed probabilities, interests, loyalties and consequences as well as argumentative cogency or logical coherence. One of the distinctions between a judicial and a political decision is that the former places less weight on the interests and weight of the parties to the dispute. The practice of the common law has been tofindwhat the law is in any particular case....

At the same time that he was corresponding with the Colonial Office and privately with Pelly, Isbister also was attempting to influence public opinion through the daily press, the pages of theAborigines’ Friendand throughChambers’s Magazine.He assisted his uncle, William Kennedy, in his agitation at Red River, wrote a notable pamphlet advocating the use of Rupert’s Land as a penal colony, and made his own contribution to the search for Captain John Franklin by advising the public and the Admiralty on a likely place to look for the lost explorers. The immediate effects of these activities on...

During the mid-1850s several large and new factors influenced the course of events in Rupert’s Land. In the aftermath of the free-trade movement, the Charter, as Simpson complained, “is almost a nullity as we are unable to enforce its provisions; it is set at nought by the Americans and their half-breed allies in the Country.¹ Moreover, the population growth at the Settlement as inevitably diminished the economic importance of the fur trade as it increased the possibility of political action. The use of steam technology in transportation saved a year’s interest on goods shipped via St. Paul rather than through...

On 11 May 1863 the International Financial Society was organized, with the active participation of several important London banks, to invest in financial, commercial and industrial prospects in Britain and overseas. Within two weeks the Society had underwritten shares on the Egyptian Commercial and Trading Company and by 15 June had concluded an agreement to purchase the stock of the Hudson’s Bay Company at three times its nominal price. Since the majority of the stock in the old Company was held by the Governor and Committee, no extensive consultations were needed.¹ Under the terms of the existing Deed Poll, the...