GOVERNOR:
A governor was appointed to act on behalf of the shareholders once the company crews reached the bay area. District managers for the various areas of British North America met annually in council meetings presided over by the governor. Governor Sir George Simpson held this post from 1826-60.
CHIEF FACTOR (TRADER):
A chief factor and his group of officers commanded each trading post. The company governor and committee in London would study the company's annual reports; journals kept at the trading posts, and account books given to them by the officials at the Hudson's Bay. From this they would decide all the policies which would be implemented in Rupert's Land by the Chief Factor.
CLERKS:
The Hudson's Bay Company clerks were equivalent to non commissioned officers.
LABORERS AND VOYAGEURS:
The men who worked for the fur trade; conducting trading, fort construction, navigating trade routes.
*http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/helmcken/people/hbc.html* ~Info taken from~
"In the years after the granting of the Royal Charter in 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company showed a certain measure of success but it was not without its difficulties. Not the least of which was the loss of two of its founders Radisson and Des Groseilliers.
With the Company doing so well, the two men were getting frustrated with the lack of response to their requests for further exploration. The situation got so strained that in 1674 they switched their allegiance back to the King of France.
At this point, the French were already in heavy competition with the English for control of the fur trade in North America. In 1682, Radisson and Des Groseilliers had established La Compagnie du Nord to offer direct competition to the Hudson's Bay Company. But the troubles grew worse. War broke out in Europe between England and France. In North America this hostility resulted in military flotillas and overland raiding parties to capture each other's fur trading outposts.
One of the most famous of these French raiding parties was led by Chevalier des Troyes. It set out from Montreal in March 1686 and embarked on an epic 800 mile overland journey that would take them all the way to James Bay, the southern extension of Hudson Bay.
There the first Hudson's Bay Company fort they captured was Moose Factory. It was taken with little resistance. The most harrowing tale from this siege involves one of Chevalier des Troyes Commanders, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville. For a brief time he was trapped inside the fort with the gate shut behind him. With his sword and musket he was able to hold off the entire garrison until his companions forced the gate open to rescue him and take the fort.
The next Company forts to fall were Rupert House, seventy five miles up the east coast of James Bay, and Fort Albany located on the Bay's west coast at the mouth of the Albany River. With enough men left behind to guard the forts the raiding party then returned home to Montreal.
As a result of his extreme heroism, d'Iberville was appointed Commander in Chief of the recently captured forts and the fur trading areas around them. As Commander, his most remarkable accomplishment happened during the largest Arctic naval battle in North American history. In 1697 the English Royal Navy clashed with the French Navy during the struggle for control over the HBC trading post called York Factory, located on the west coast of Hudson Bay at the mouth of the Nelson River.
In the waters off of York Factory d'Iberville, in the French warship, the Pelican, was ambushed by the British Navy frigate, the Hampshire and two armed HBC ships, the Dering and the Hudson's Bay. Although out-manned and out-gunned, d'Iberville refused to surrender the Pelican and after a four hour battle, he eventually sank the Hampshire and forced the surrender of the other two vessels.
Four of the five fur trading posts (all except Fort Albany including Fort Carlton, Fort Langley, Fort William, Fory Vermilion ect.*See picture*) were now under French control. As a result, the Hudson's Bay Company spent the next 16 years plotting to recapture those four posts and their monopoly of the region's rich fur trade.
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht ended the war between France and England and the fighting in Europe and the North American colonies stopped. Included in this Treaty were two articles that returned all the trading posts, forts and lands taken from the Hudson's Bay Company during the war."
Above varied from roiginal text!
ILE A LA CROSSE
In the summer of 1820, Douglas was transferred to Ile-a-la-Crosse, on the Church Hill River in Northern Saskatchewan. Here Hudson's Bay Company Traders were also active in the area, and there were bitter struggles between the two company's as well as the Crees and the Chipewyans First Nations who hunted near the Fort.
FORT VERMILION
June 1825 Douglas's contract was renewed for three years. That summer he was in charge of Fort Vermilion on the Peace River
FORT ST. JAMES
In 1825, at the age of 21, James was sent across the rockies to Fort St. James, the headquarters of the new district of Caledonia. Fort St. James was established in 1806 on Stuart Lake, in what is now Bella Coola, nestled in the Coastal and Rocky mountain ranges. William Connolly, father of his future wife Amelia, had been appointed chief Factor there.
Connolly took Douglas with him in 1826 on the annual journey with the packs of furs from New Caledonia to the headquarters of the Columbia Department at Fort Vancouver. Douglas took his first boat passage down the rivers to Fort Alexandria on the Fraser, then rode with the pack trains to Fort Kamloops and on over the main brigade trail down the Okanagan Valley to the Columbia River, where the convoy took the boats for the last lap of the five weeks journey.
Fort Journal records that in the summer of 1827 he was sent to establish a trading post on bear lake, and successfully traded nine packs of beaver and twenty-three and a half pounds of castoreum, a substance obtained from the beaver glands used in medicine and cosmetics. After returning from that, William Connolly put him in charge of the vitally important fishery.
After encountering some trouble with the Carrier Indians of the Fort St. James region, Douglas was transferred to Fort Vancouver under Dr. John McLoughlin.
FORT VANCOUVER
Douglas was to spend more than ninteen years at Fort Vancouver. James Douglas got a promotion to chief trader in 1835, and chief factor in 1839. Douglas and McLoughlin became good friends, and shared the "Governor's Mansion" - the residence of the Chief Factor McLoughlin and his family.
In 1842 Douglas accompanied Simpson to Alaska to negotiate with the Russian American Co.
During this time, the British Hudson's Bay Company interests were threatened by the northern expansion of American settlers. Dr. McLoughlin resigned, and James Douglas took his position. Douglas anticipated the eventual loss of Fort Vancouver among other HBC property once the final boundary was drawn at the 49th parallel.
FORT VICTORIA
In 1843 Douglas began to construct a new Company depot named "Victoria", for the new queen of England. Douglas had a new brigade trail blazed on British Territory from New Caledonia to Ft. Langely on the lower Fraser River, and Fouglas and his family moved across Puget Sound in 1849. On January 13, 1849, Britain leased leased Vancouver Island to the HBC for 10 years, and James Douglas moved to Victoria to become the Chief Agent for the Hudson's Bay Company. Douglas replaced Richard Blanshard as Governor of the Vancouver Island Colony in 1851. In addition to his duties as governor, Douglas was also the HBC Agent for the Vancouver Island Colony as well as the Agent of the Puget sound agricultural company.
but also the HBC agent for the Vanocuver Island colony as well as the Agent of the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company on Vancouver Island and in the territory of the United States. Blanchard had appointed a legislative council in 1851 and in 1856, Douglas was instructed to establish an Assembly for the island.
There was only about 200 people living in or near Fort Victoria in its early days. This number increased to 800 in just eight years. Worrying that it might loose its property, the Hudson's Bay company asked for sole possesion of Vancouver Island, which gave it the right to colnise. At first the Hudson's Bay Company wasn't to concerned about colonizing, in fact wanted to use it as a place for retired Company employees and their families. But gold fever was to hit the fraser, and the quite wilderness colony of Vancouver Island was turned into bustling city overnight.
FORT LANGLEY
In 1858 Douglas was appointed Governor of the new colony of Vanouver Island at Fort Langely.
Earliest The earliest posts were built in the north by the Northwest Company: Fort McLeod in 1805, Fort St. James in 1806, and Fort George (now Prince George) in 1807. Another early trading post was established at the junction of the North and South Thompson Rivers (now the city of Kamloops) in 1812. In the beginning companies such as the Northwest Company were involved in the trade, but by 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company was the only company trading west of the Rocky Mountains.
above information derived from:
*http://www.hbc.com/hbc/e_hi/historic_hbc/struggle.html*
Trading Posts Possitioned Amongst the HBC Territory
