Commercial Enterprises, Extractivism, and Contested Space in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Region

• In Event: What Do We Get Out of it? Extractivism in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 1759-1856

Abstract

Several years after the 1821 merger of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and the North West Company (NWC), the operations of the King’s Posts passed to the HBC. Under the HBC, the posts became nodes of both extractivism and settler colonialism. As the HBC acquired leases for the administration of King’s Posts, they were granted exclusive trading, hunting, and fishing rights. Additionally, by 1842, HBC could grant tracts of land within the King’s Posts for the purposes of settlement and agricultural pursuits. Even as the HBC was granted certain rights, other colonial endeavours challenged their operations. The HBC had lost lands as a result of granting of timber leases. Additionally, settlers began participating in the fur trade with Indigenous peoples, cutting into the HBC’s profit margins. Within this context, the HBC occupied a unique position with respect to extractivism and settler colonialism. While the HBC promoted and participated in the extraction of natural resources as well as the promotion of settlement within their King’s Posts, the HBC’s operations and profitability was threatened by timber extraction and the arrival of settlers who then turned to the fur trade. Focusing on the Gulf of St. Lawrence region, my paper will examine the HBC’s ambivalent role in the promotion and pursuit settler colonialism and extractivism. Additionally, I will examine the tensions between extractivism and settler colonialism and how this informed interactions between the HBC and Indigenous peoples.

Author

• Glenn Iceton, Mount Allison University