The Indian, theMetis and theFurTrade...Ron G.Bourgeault The Indian, theMetis and theFurTrade Class, Sexism and Racism in the Transition from "Communism" to Capitalism Native peoples

Ron G. Bourgeault

The Indian, the Metisand the Fur Trade

Class, Sexism and Racism in theTransition from "Communism"

to Capitalism

Native peoples' modern history has as its basis class exploitationand oppression. As a consequence of class exploitation, theirstruggle has been one against racism and national oppression.'Native peoples' social and material productivity, and their variedforms of labour, arise from their relationship to different forms ofcapital and to the resulting exploitation of their labour by capital.To understand the historical, political and economic existence ofthe native (including mixed-blood) people in North America, it isnecessary to analyze them within the context of the political eco-nomy of mercantilism. It is within this system that the contradic-tions of race, class and nationalism have their antecedents and thatthe foundations were laid for the formation of Canada as a nation-state.

The object of this paper is to argue that the fur trade of the Hud-son Bay basin, in what is now northern Canada, initially trans-formed Indian labour into that of a peasantry caught in the web offeudal relations of production. 2 The paper will also show the natureof Indian women's subjugation, a subjugation undertaken to estab-lish the fur trade. Class, racial and sexist divisions came to be im-posed upon the indigenous Indian population through colonial rela-tions based upon a particular form of exploitation.

Just as mercantilism created class differences within the Indianpopulation, so class and racial differences were created among the

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Studies in Political Economy

Europeans. These class differences were created by capital withinthe society from whence the Europeans were recruited, but withinthe context of the fur trade, they manifested themselves as racialdifferences. So long as merchants capital was dominant, there werealways basic divisions between European wage labourers andIndians engaged in fur production. This followed from constantlymaintaining Indian labour in fur production, while on the surface itappeared as a very distinct racial split. Resident within the fur tradeterritory were both the servant or working class and the officer orpetty bourgeois managers, who by the turn of the nineteenth cen-tury were assuming an overt role as British colonial administrators.Ownership was maintained by the British merchant bourgeoisie inLondon. Over a period of two hundred years (1670 to 1870), racialdifferences in relation to class differences came to manifest them-selves within the Europeans. The mass of the unskilled Europeanlabour that was recruited was French, together with some Scotsfrom the Orkneys and the Islands. Among the Scots themselves,there were very distinct differences. Skilled labour came predom-inantly from the Highlands; the petty bourgeoisie came from theLowlands. The merchant bourgeoisie remained predominantlyEnglish.

Currently, Marxist analysis on natives in Canada as a whole, andthe North in particular. is for the most part exceptionally lacking.Recently some debate and some general theories have been initiatedby individuals who are attached to native organizations either asconsultants or advisors and who might claim in some sense to beMarxist. 3 These theories of the nature and struggle of the native inthe North do not recognize the history of class exploitation originat-ing in the first contacts with European capital and its differentforms over the centuries. Nor do they recognize in the same way thebasis of colonial relations emanating from the natives' relationshipswith different forms of capital. Presently, as a result, they areincapable of dealing with the crises that exist between the native andmonopoly capitalism, especially given the increasing influx ofnatives into the cities and the labour market in the southern part ofwestern Canada, and the rapid imperialization of the North.

These theories deny that class even' exists as a basis of the oppres-sion of native people. Rather, they see northern natives as havingexisted in the past in some sort of pluralistic relationship with thecapitalist world, and contend that the contradictions that now exist,such as unemployment and colonialism, are only the result of therecent movement of monopoly capital and the Canadian state, onits 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 ofclass transformations of native labour due to different forms ofcapital. Therefore, the strategy they espouse would preserve the na-tive "way of life" and advocate that natives engage in de-coloniza-tion from the Canadian state through the use of aboriginal rights orland claims so as to achieve a negotiated co-adventure status withthe national bourgeois state and imperialism. Those who advocatethis are wrong. First, "traditional" society cannot be "preserved,"just as any other traditional society under the same circumstancescannot be preserved, let alone return to some period in the past.Second, aboriginal rights through bourgeois nationalism is not thereal issue; if anything, that strategy is going to create a form of neo-colonialism. The real issue is one of class - to do away with thesources of oppression, not to manage them. The native strugglemust be seen and dealt with within the context of class andcolonialism.

MercantilismThe advent of British mercantilism into the Hudson Bay basin dur-ing the seventeenth century heralded the beginning of the class Inational struggle of the native population within what is now thenorth of Canada. Here, mercantilism entailed the search for fur as acommodity for the European market. Since the accumulation ofwealth or capital through the exchange of commodities was the eco-nomic driving force of the mercantilist, and since an alternatesource of labour could not be introduced within the area, mercantilecapitalism was compelled to transform the Indian population toproduce the desired commodity. However, the resident Indianpopulation was not a source of labour that was organized to pro-duce that commodity directly for exchange. The northern Indianwas operating within varied forms of the primitive communist modeof production, and as such the production of commodities for ex-change was not a part of their economic activity. What shape didthe transformation of the native population then take?

Mercantilism as a system was the transitory stage betweenfeudalism and the formation of capitalism. It had as its main char-acteristic the elementary accumulation of capital. The modern his-tory of capital dates back to the feudal societies of the sixteenth cen-tury, with the rise of production for the market. In order for capitalto develop and accumulate it was necessary for the circulation ofcommodities to take place on a world scale. The production andcirculation of commodities and the creation of a world marketdrove the mercantile system to expand beyond Europe and engage

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other peoples around the world in various forms oflabour. The so-cieties confronted by the Europeans existed, for the most part, asdifferent forms of pre-capitalist formations. As contact was estab-lished, each society established barriers or engaged in forms of resis-tance to the penetration of capital. How a society either resisted oraccommodated the capital penetration determined the level, extentand duration of the penetration." In some situations merchantcapital actually preserved, consolidated and even reproduced pre-capitalist relations as a condition of its penetration.' Some societiescompletely rejected overtures to establish economic relationships,mainly because the relationships to be established were completelyforeign to them. Such was the case with some primitive communistsocieties in which commodity production and exchange did notexist. It was, therefore, necessary for mercantile capital either todestroy or alter communal social units that prohibited or preventedtheir exploitation. S

The accumulation of merchant capital and its imposition overother pre-capitalist modes of production did not require the crea-tion of a capitalist mode of production within those societies." InEurope, in order for capital to grow, it required a free labour mar-ket. Merchant capital, outside of the capitalist mode of productionin Europe, required only the production and circulation of commo-dities as the basic condition of its existence. In fact, merchantcapital was quite compatible with different pre-capitalist modes ofproduction, so long as it could gain control of the respectivesocieties and either change, alter or introduce productive mechan-isms towards what was required. In the case of the fur trade in thenorthern part of North America, the primitive communism of theIndian was slowly undermined and destroyed. The relations of pro-duction that were created in the new society were essentiallyfeudalistic. 7

The fur trade was feudalistic in the sense that the Indians as a pri-mary source of labour for mercantilism, were transformed fromproducers of goods and services entirely for collective use, into apeasant or serf labour force bound to particular trading posts, withthe commanding officer (on behalf of the merchant capitalist) func-tioning as a feudal lord. The method was to appropriate surplusproduction through a form of tithe in recognition of European landownership and colonial dominance. The Indians' class position inthe production of fur came to be the basis of their economic ex-ploitation and racial oppression and, as well, the basis of thecolonialism and colonial relations that developed. Although existingwithin a form of feudal relations under merchants capital, the

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northern Indians were still formally within the emerging capitalistsystem as a whole because what they were producing was a com-modity for the developing capitalist market.

Primitive CommunismIt is difficult to determine what constituted the actual existence of aprimitive communist society. As for information from anthro-pologists studying pre-class societies, it should be borne in mindthat those societies have for centuries been incorporated, for themost part, into varied forms of capitalist relations of production.Marx characterized a primitive communist society as being one inwhich the basic mode of production was based "on ownership incommon of the means of production .... "8 Marx recognized thatprimitive communism, as an overall system, was made up of variousgroupings, not all of which were the same. Some groups or societiesmight be at different phases of development than others. Eachwould, of course, find different means of subsistence and differentmeans of producing what was needed within their natural environ-ment. Also, the phase of development and the productive organiza-tion of the society in relationship to the natural environment deter-mined the quantity of surplus and how it was to be distributed. 9

However, what little work Marx dedicated to analyzing primitivecommunism dealt very little with any internal relations of produc-tion.'?

In the broadest sense, primitive communism was a mode of pro-duction governed by egalitarian social relations of production andthe communal appropriation of surplus-labour. 11 Since the appro-priation of surplus labour was communal, there were no social divi-sions of labour as between a class of non-labourers and a class oflabourers. The only division of labour within primitive communismwas according to sex and age. Since there were no class divisions,there was no distinct state apparatus existing as an effect of thesocial division of labour.

In the case of the northern Indians' primitive communism, its so-cial relations of production were egalitarian in the sense that whatthe people produced and how it was distributed, exchanged andconsumed were mutually decided upon.P The existence of egal-itarian relations varied from group to group depending upon objec-tive conditions of natural environment and the level of developmentof the productive forces. Land within the primitive communistsociety of the northern Indians did not entail a question of owner-ship; rather land was seen as existing for all and as producing whatwas 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 thissense labour extracted the necessities of life (which existednaturally) through the process of hunting and gathering. 13

Although there was a division of labour according to sex, that didnot necessarily involve men exercising decision-making powers orengaging in exploitive relations with women. Inasmuch as womendid particular kinds of work, the work they did and the overall rela-tions between the sexes were based upon the reciprocal and mutualexchange of goods and services. Both men and women mutuallyexercised decision-making powers over the production and distribu-tion of that which was their responsibility to produce.

Within the egalitarian society of northern Indians, all individualswere as dependent upon the larger collective society as upon thenuclear family. The nuclear family functioned as an integral part ofthe collective society, and as such it was not an individual unit ofproduction as within class society. Since women held mutualdecision-making powers with men within the collective society, theywere not economically or socially bound or dependent upon menwithin the family. Although household management within thefamily was exercised perhaps mostly by women due to varied ex-pressions of the division of labour by sex, it was an integral part ofthe collective society as a whole and was not deemed to be of less ormore importance than any other work.

Economic Conquest and tbe Creation of Class SocietyThe process of transforming the population in order to producewhat was needed was the process of imposing one mode of pro-duction upon another. In order to accomplish this, it was necessaryto conquer the communal society economically so as to changethe Indians' productive mechanisms from producing goods for in-ternal use to producing goods for commodity exchange. Once thisoccurred, the communal appropriation of surplus-labour and thegoverning egalitarian relations of production were terminated orruptured. As commodity production began to occur, and as theEuropean market increased its demand for commodity furs, feudalmodes of production and feudal relations of production developed. 14

During the course of this development, the internal social relationsamong the people were altered, inequalities were created betweenwomen and men, and unequal external relations were created be-tween Indians and Europeans. The fact of a foreign economic sys-tem imposing itself upon another national or indigenous groupingbecame the basis of colonialism and colonial relations. The natureof the development of colonialism depended upon the political and

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economic system being imposed upon the population; the type ofsociety before colonization; the strategies undertaken by thecolonizer in the exploitation of the population; and the strategies ofresponse - either resistance or accommodation - by the colonized.

Analysis of the fur trade as the imposition of feudalistic relationsof production should not be perceived as a reference to classicalEuropean medieval feudalism. Indeed, first indications suggest thatthe Indians existed in the form of independent commodity produc-tion. The process of commodity production of fur was initiated bythe merchant traders who introduced through trade, tools of labourand clothing, such as the gun, steel trap, axe, and knife, all of whichserved to displace the communal production of their equivalent forinternal use. IS The foreign-introduced goods in effect replacedindigenous tools and goods by causing them to lose their use-value- a change which then halted the production of indigenous goodsas the producer's immediate means of subsistence. Dependencyupon foreign goods was thus created through their acquired utilityand in return for further goods - specified goods - that no longerhad any use-value (such as fur). The foreign commodity trade goodswere introduced in such a manner as to intentionally create a notionof private property. Trade was conducted on an individual basis,thus undermining collective trade. With individual trade cameindividual production, which then became the private property ofthe producer. Since communal society had no notion of individualproperty, its intentional creation through barter served to breakdown the communal society into individual units of production.

The production and exchange of fur as a commodity, and thespecialization of labour around it, created a social division oflabour between the Indian as commodity producer and the mer-chant capitalist. Eventually, the labour-process went more andmore into the production of goods as a commodity for exchange inexcess of what was needed to live. The surplus-labour of the Indian,which previously had been appropriated communally, was increas-ingly appropriated by the merchant capitalist, resulting in the crea-tion of surplus-value from the circulation of the commodities in theEuropean marketplace.

If we take the situation in 1716, when the British were developingtrade relationships with the Dene-Chipewyan people northwest ofYork factory, we can see that select individuals were brought backto York Factory and trained in the use of the rifle, which was thentraded on an individual basis. As well, the British taught theChipewyans which furs were of value and in what manner theywished 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 com-munal use. However, once particular goods such as the rifle came tohave utility, then trading was slowly directed towards individuals.Hence, the process of development of individual units of productiontook place. As individualized trading developed, the introductionof European goods and technological tools of labour wasaccomplished through men, as opposed to women. This slowly re-sulted in the establishment of men as the dominant source of labourin the production of commodities for exchange. I? The followingquote is illustrative of instructions given on how to develop tradewith inland Indians who were still independent.

You are by presents of Brandy, tobacco, knives, Beads etc. by kindusage to draw the natives to trade with you .... and when a leadercomes to trade with you, if you think his goods will amount to 500Made Beaver, give Him a Captains Coat, Hat, Shirt and other thingsas usual. ... A man that brings You 300 Made Beaver give him aLieutenants coat. . . .18

Once engaged in commodity production, the Indians aroundHudson Bay then began to work the land in a different capacity.Whereas under primitive communism land had been the object oftheir labour in the production of goods for communal use, it now be-came the object of their labour in the production of commodities.As individual commodity production developed, so the communalnotion of land slowly broke down and individual trap lines startedto appear.

To this point, the Indian in the fur trade indeed seems to bear thecharacteristics of an independent commodity producer. Yet we in-sist that the Indian was more akin to a peasant and that relations ofproduction and the appropriation of surplus was in fact basicallyfeudalistic. In the development of the relationship between theIndians and the European officers, the latter were in fact overseeingmasters, in positions emanating from the pattern of ownership ofland. The basis of feudalism as a mode of production was the exis-tence of "lordship" or a lord who owns the land, generation aftergeneration, with the serfs continuing to work the land under him.This basic relationship existed in the northern fur trade. Once en-gaged in commodity production, the Indian became physicallybound to continue.

With the introduction of technologically advanced tools of pro-duction, the European arranged that the repair and maintenance ofthese tools could only be undertaken at the respective tradingposts.l? Thus, although the Indians were given possession of themeans 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 crea-tion of servility within the peasantry. This took the form of extra-economic motivation or psychological dependency towards the furtrade post and the officers in charge. Certain gratis services wereoffered at the posts that served to enforce the developing servi-tude; in return certain donated duties and support work were ex-pected from the Indian peasantry as a recognition and acceptance ofthe "new order of things." The creation of servility was necessaryas a means of completing the destruction of independence derivedfrom primitive communism. It also served another purpose: theexplicit ideological recognition of feudalistic relations. A certainamount of the Indians' labour, beyond that which went towards theproduction of commodities, was required to be donated gratis as atoken of their servitude. The donation was a result of their labourapplied to the land and was a recognition of the property relation-ship entailed in the fur trade.j? It was a subjective donation oflabour outside the exchange of commodities through barter - aform of labour-rent.

Merchant capital did not require that all production of goods befor exchange; there could still exist within the dependent society theproduction of goods for internal use." The dependent society wasnot totally dominated by the production of commodities; somesurplus-labour was still communally appropriated.P In this way thepenetration of that pre-capitalist society by mercantilism servedboth to undermine and perpetuate the society at the same time.23

The mercantile companies were not responsible for the social repro-duction of Indian labour - that was left to the people themselvesand to their "traditional economies. "24 There was no real internalmarket consumption, just dependent subsistence. The Indians' re-sponsibility for their own social reproduction was an importantelement in their formation as a peasantry. Hence, much of what wasprimitive communism, now no longer independent, was allowed toreproduce itself and become a facilitating mechanism by whichIndian labour was exploited. The northern Indians became a par-ticular type of peasantry, and unlike the classical Europeanpeasantry, one that was transitional and ultimately subject to theevolution of different capital formations.

The development of the Indian peasantry within the fur trade wasa process that took place at the same time as the development ofthe European (British) working class. The Hudson's Bay Companywas adamant that the labour market exist only within Britain and

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not within the fur-trade territory. Although the European workerscame out of the capitalism which developed within Britain as "freelabour," the predominant social conditions into which they enteredwere feudalistic. All skilled and unskilled labour was recruitedindividually, legally bound to the Company by contract, and eco-nomically dependent upon the particular post to which it was sent. 2'

As feudal relations were developed, it was Company policy thateach post attempt to be self-sufficient. In so doing, part of theIndian peasantry - the Homeguard Indians - was responsible forthe production of food for its respective post. All crafts producedby European craftsmen were entirely for an internal local market,either for use by other workers around the post or as trade goodsfor the Indian fur producers. In return for the loyalty and per-manence of the labour force, the Company assumed most overheadexpenses of the individual workers.

A basic division was created between European labour and north-ern Indian labour. This division was based primarily upon main-taining the Indian as a peasant. Any change in productive relations,such as allowing Indians access to wage labour jobs around theposts, was forbidden, since such change would contribute tothe breakdown of the peasantry. Together with an already highlydeveloped ideology of racism among the colonizers, which served tojustify the nature of the exploitation, this division enhancedsubjective racial ideas of differences among the European labourersaround the posts. This difference was also maintained economicallybetween the two divisions of labour, primarily through the tariff orthe rate at which labour was exchanged or sold for goods. The tariffwas much higher for the primary producer than for the wageworker. In this way Indian labour could also function as a cheapsource of reserve labour within the system. As one post officercommented to another in 1791: "Poor indeed are the prospects oftrade at the Factory, great part of the homeguard debts remain forthem to work out by Inland journeys. "26

Class antagonisms were not all that uncommon between theCompany's officers and servants. Usually these were expressed onan individual basis and occurred in relation to wages, treatment,and working conditions. If the conflict was severe enough, the in-dividual workers responsible would be fined and/or sent back toBritain and possibly blacklisted.F It was not until the growth of in-land water transportation in the late 1700s that the collective classantagonisms occurred and became overt in the form of mutinies orstrikes over wages and working conditions.P In fact it was the voya-geurs who became the advanced elements of the working class with-in the fur trade. During the late eighteenth century they were almost

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completely European, but by the early to middle nineteenth centurythey were Half-breed and nationals of the territory, that is, Metis.

The Indian, once transformed into a feudalistic form of commo-dity production, became the basis of the whole fur trade. The modein which the surplus-labour of the Indian was extracted in theproduction of fur determined the form of society. The social struc-ture of society, the form of colonialism that developed, and thestate that emerged, were all related to the form in which the surplus-labour of the Indian as a peasant was extracted.

Indian Women and Economic Conquering: The Impact ofColonization and Class SocietyIn the course of developing commodity production, which led to thedestruction of egalitarian relations, mercantile capitalism was com-pelled both to exploit and destroy Indian women's egalitarian rolewithin the society. 29 They were exploited in the sense that Indianwomen were found to be an important commodity in themselves inorder to gain access to the particular societies. Since the relation-ships between Indian women and men were reciprocal, the colonialexploitation of society created a transformation in the social rela-tions over the years resulting in a particular subjugation of Indianwomen.

The social division of labour and the specialization of commodityproduction by men became the basis of social inequalities whichwere to develop between Indian women and men. Given the depen-dency of women developed under colonial relations, particular un-equal and exploitive relations were created between Indian womenand European men. As communal society slowly became under-mined by trade goods and commodity production, womenbegan to lose the decision-making powers they had over their labourand the use of the goods they produced. The creation of individualcommodity production was the beginning of a decline in the com-munal family and the beginning of the formation of the individualfamily as the unit of production. With men established as respon-sible for the production of commodities, they assumed the role ashead of the family and women became dependent support workerswithin each family unit. With the development of colonial relationsand the growing dependency of Indian women upon men, somewomen began to realize it would be in their interests to take advan-tage of relationships with European men. As well, the Europeancolonizers saw it in their interests to avail themselves of the Indianwomen, especially insofar as they provided the mercantilists withthe opportunity to penetrate the communal society. Indian womenbecame a valuable commodity and were exploited both politically

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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. Inthe early 1700s the British desired to move northwest from YorkFactory, where they had established themselves with the Creepeople during the late 1600s. The desire of the British was to estab-lish trade with the Dene-Chipewyan people. The British, throughtrading with the Cree, captured a Chipewyan woman whom theyreferred to as the Slave woman. Their strategy was to familiarize theSlave woman with the value and use of British goods and then to useher to penetrate Chipewyan society in order to establish traderelations. While in York Factory she learned quite well the nature ofthe trading that was to be imposed on her people. Thereafter shewent to great efforts to implement it. The Slave woman was sentthroughout the interior and organized 400 Chipewyan people forthe first trade meeting, at which 160 men were present to conductthe trade negotiations. The Slave woman knew that the Britishwished to establish trade through men, as they were the producers,even though the first trading would have been collective. Shearranged for some people to be brought back to York Factory to betrained in the selection and preparation of furs which were "ofvalue" for trade. She also arranged for the men to be trained in theuse of the rifle. The Slave woman was so committed that she made asolemn promise that she would not rest until the whole of the Denepeople were delivered into trade relationship with the British. Inreturn for her work she requested only to be rewarded with a socialposition for her brother - that he be made a trade captain.

The journal was kept by the officer as a means of recording howthe British developed the initial trading with the Chipewyans. Thejournal reveals the process of economic conquering - first trade,then private property and servility - and the use of women's powerin order to establish that process. The journal ends with the death ofthe Slave woman in 1717:

but these Poor people have none but are forced to liveby the bowsand arrows and they cannot livea great many together, becausetheyhavenothing to subsiston but what they hunt. . . . but if pleaseGodwhen I have settled a trade amongst them and can bring what I amworkingupon to pass I willstopp the trade with those Indians for ayear or two and lett them make . . . . on them and drive theDogg's to the Devill.... the northern Slavewomandeparted her lifeafter about sevenweeksillness.The misfortunein loosingher willbevery prejudical to the Company's interests....

As I have been writing about the Slavewoman (deceased)it willnot be amiss to mention one thing. Last June she gave away a little

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kettle as I had givenfor to carrywithher whenshewentback into herCountry again. I (tax'd) her about it she said she had not gave itaway. I sent to the Indian as had it and fetched it away& show'd ither. She told me was a lyer for he had stole it for she did not giveithim& saidher Indians should killmewhenI cometo ChurchillRiverand did rise in such a passion as I never did see the like before & Icuff'd her Ears for her but the next morning shecame& cry'd to meand said shewas a fool & mad & told me that I wasa father to themall & that she and all her Indians would love me & I should nevercome to any harm. She hade been very good ever sincein givingmeany information& alwaysspeakingin our praise to theseIndiansandher own. We buried her ab't 4 a clock.... 30

The journal reveals the power and status that the Slave womanhad within the egalitarian society of the Chipewyans, and for thatmatter the Crees, who had been already going through the processof transformation. Although the Slave woman may have appearedto be exceptional, her exceptionalism was an expression and out-growth of egalitarian society. We can see that just the process ofdeveloping trade towards commodity production was not enough.The idea of communism had to be ended. A notion of privateproperty and subservience had to be created. Hence, the strategy ofdeveloping trade, creating dependency or use-value for Europeangoods, then terminating the trade. This destroyed any notion ofmutuality of trade and established the basis for a lord-peasantrelationship. The kettle became symbolic of accepting privateproperty and at the same time the conflict around it was symbolic ofboth colonial and sexual subservience. The Slave woman's role inIndian society was being used and at the same time her role wasbeing destroyed.

Apart from Indian women being exploited politically by Euro-peans to gain control of their society's productive mechanisms, theywere also exploited sexually. At no time throughout the fur tradewere European women allowed into the territory of Rupert's Land.The absence of women, therefore, made Indian women a valuablesexual commodity to the colonizer. It was a common practice forthe resident officers to have permanent, or even casual sexualrelationships with influential Indian women as a means of develop-ing and maintaining trade relations with the surrounding Indiangroups. One officer commented in 1743 on the importance of aparticular Indian woman to the continuing of trade at Moose Fac-tory. She apparently lived for a period of time within the fort andhad a child by the officer.

Ausiskashagancame in here hawlinghis sick wife on a Sledge, re-

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lieved them with provisions .... she having been brought up at Al-bany & used to these comforts, as being of ye blood Royal & has achild by Mr. Adams, is very industrious in catching Martins, I havinghad above two hundred from her husband already & must use themwith 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 deniedto the European servant class; it was a privilege in much the samemanner as a feudal lord expected to enjoy with peasant women inEurope. 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 nativeswithout the Chief's orders .... However, the Factors for the mostpart at proper times allowes an Officer to take in an Indian lady tohis apartment, but by no means or on any account whatever to har-bour her within the Fort at night. However, the Factors keepsa bed-fellow within the Fort at all times, and have carried several of theirchildren home as before observed.P

As the communal Indian society broke down under commodityproduction, Indian women gradually became more dependent uponmen. The colonial situation presented an opportunity to somewomen for seeking economic security or benefits from varied rela-tionships with European men. If a woman was able to become alive-in companion or even wife of a high officer, or just as a living-out companion of any junior officers, the material benefits could beconsiderably greater than living the life that was unfolding for apeasant. The creation of dependency conditions that forced womento seek these particular opportunities laid the basis for privilegedpositions or differences which were to occur among Indian women.To the officer class, such was seen as a class privilege, but in realityit was class prostitution. These same privileges were denied the ser-vant or working class, hence any relations between Indian womenand working class European men took the form of a more overtform of prostitution. As a newly arrived officer reported in his jour-nal at York Factoryin 1762: "the worst Brothel House in London isnot so common a (Stew) as the mens House in this Factory wasbefore I put a stop to it .... "33

During the first century of its existence, the mercantilism of thefur trade did not allow any formal formations of families betweenEuropean men and Indian women around the different posts. Infact, one of the reasons why European women were not broughtinto the country was that the internal formation of feudalistic rela-tions of production did not require any form of a free labour mar-

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ket within the territory. If allowed to develop it would have lead tothe growth of a surplus wage labour pool which would be a burdenupon the trade. Any Mixed-blood children born out of clandestinerelationships between Europeans and Indian women were as amatter of policy to be brought up as Indians. This prevented theformation of a wage labour pool, since the capitalist labour marketwas to remain in Britain. As the Board of Governors complained in1747 to the officers in charge of Fort Prince of Wales (Churchill):

Weeare sorry to find by information, that not withstandingour for-mer orders often repeated, that no family of Indians especiallyWomen be suffered to remain within the Factory. That you suffertwo such familys to be in your appartment which in consequencemust be detrimental to the Companys interest. . . .34

As the initial development of feudalistic relations did not allowindividual mixed or European family formations to take place inand around the creation of a surplus wage labour pool, so these re-lations necessitated the creation of individual family units amongthe Indian peasantry out of the destruction of communal familyunits. With the establishment of commodity trade, the basic unit offur production slowly became the individual family, with the mendominant and the women dependent, doing support work. Each furtrade post demanded that groups or bands, made up of individualfamilies 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 thecommunal family, the officers would offer to maintain women andchildren of individual families while the men went out to trap orhunt food for the post. Thus individual family units in associationwith others became tied to their respective fur trade posts andbound to the land producing commodities for exchange. Withdependency upon the fur trade post, women's work became exploit-able in support of each post. In 1724, at Fort Prince of Wales, notten years after the death of the Slave woman, we can see how in-dividual families were being formed, with dependency and exploit-able support work coming into place, eventually taking the form ofunpaid and expected servitude:

The Indian whichcarnehereye22'd of last month wentawaywithhiswife in order to look for some deer, he leaving .... children byreason they would be a hindrance if he had taken them with him, hehaving been employedall this fall a making things necesaryfor ourMen which lay abroad this Winter. So I think to Entertain him hehaving a Small family for to hunt for us this Winter, also to knittSnowShooes& making Indian Shooes& other things is wanting for

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ye Men in ye Winter time & itt being Usual to Entertain an Indian forye same purpose .... 36

The Age of Mercantile Competition and the Creation of the LabourMarket, 17605-1821As the first half of the eighteenth century was characterized by mer-cantilism establishing itself and creating feudalistic relations of pro-duction, so the latter part of the eighteenth century and first part ofthe nineteenth century came to be characterized by the entrench-ment of these relations and an increase of British colonialism andimperialism. However, it also included the rapid inland penetrationof both mercantile companies - the Hudson's Bay Company andthe North West Company - the continued process of economicconquering, and the increased exploitation of Indian labour as aresult of monopoly competition and the increased demands of theEuropean market. Finally, there was the further internaldevelopment of class and racial divisions, as well as the increaseddependency of Indian women.

The competition and inland penetration by both mercantile com-panies created an increased need for more permanent labour andofficers to work and manage the increased post and transportationinfrastructure. As a concession to permanence, European labourerswere informally allowed to take Indian women as "country wives"or companions, but any mixed-blood children still had to be raisedas Indians. However, the cost of maintaining the infrastructure andincreased importation of labour became astronomical. 37 Togetherwith labour shortages in Europe, due to wars, and increases in theprice of labour, due to industrialization, there began to emerge theneed for a source of wage labour within the territory. There was aneed for a form of labour market, a market from which mercan-tilism could draw wage labourers when they were needed and couldexpel them when no longer needed. However, at the foundation ofthe fur trade was the Indian peasantry and the feudalistic socialrelations encompassing them. Merchant capital could not destroythe peasantry in order to create a "free labour" force. TheCompany therefore- started to see the potential benefits fromrelaxed relations between European workers and Indian women -the value of mixed-blood children as a source of wage labour. Alabour pool could form separate from the peasantry and at the sametime pressure the peasantry.

This process was begun under competition between the two mer-cantile companies, but did not become formalized until after themerger of the two companies in 1821. Before the merger, the labour

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market was developed only insofar as cheaper native wage labourwas occasionally needed and was drawn upon sporadically withinfeudalistic relations. There was no formal discharge of labour intoany established labour pool or reserves.

Inasmuch as merchant capitalists were increasingly in need of acheaper internal source of wage labour, so they were also in need ofa national elite that could function in association with them undertheir colonial rule. The new indigenous class structure had to formoutside of the peasantry and this could only be accomplishedthrough the evolution of individual family units by means ofintermarriage. Thus there came into being a native petty bourgeoisand wage labour class, which for reasons of class and race, were nolonger to be considered as Indians and were not allowed to becomeEnglish. They were, as their colonizers called them, "Half-breeds."In turn this created a radically oppressive situation for Indianwomen.

The creation of a native petty bourgeoisie began in the 1760swithofficers being granted the formal privilege of sending their Mixed-blood male children to Britain for education." On their return theMixed-blood young men were not allowed to have the same classposition as their fathers. The colonial officer class constituted afeudal enclave whose responsibilities and allegiances remained inBritain. Their Mixed-blood children were seen as nationals and werenot entrusted with running the fur trade.

The first generation of mixed-blood elites were given junior posi-tions as clerks within the fur trade and used as middle men in trad-ing with the Indians. Mixed-blood female children as a rule were notallowed to be sent to Britain for an education, remaining instead tobecome the wives of European officers or servants. The residentEuropean ruling elite eventually found it to be more "desirable" totake a mixed-blood woman than an Indian woman as a companion.Mixed-blood women were thus forced to become the wives ofincoming officers. Such was the case of a mixed-blood wife of anofficer making a request that their child be educated in Britain:

An infant that has the tenderest claims upon me, and looks up to mefor protection and support, demands that I should not. ... increaseit by leaving him in this country. . . . unprotected to the mercy of un-feeling Indians .... the request arises not from a sudden fit of affec-tion from the infant but from a long-wished-for desire; from a duty Iowe him, as well as from the affection I bare him, and I the morestrongly wish it as his Mother is the daughter of an Englishman andhas few or no Indian friends to protect the child should any accidenthappen to me."

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Thus an elite of mixed-blood women took shape, in the form of aclass and racial division among Indian women as a whole. Theywere no longer Indians, because as dependent women their new roledid not prepare them for that, but like their "brothers" they werenot allowed to be English. So mixed-blood women also becameHalf-breeds.

Mixed-bloods were employed permanently in the same capacityas Europeans, but did not have the same status. To be allowed thesame status would have meant that they would have had to be paidthe same wages as a European and be allowed to emigrate toBritain. The mixed-blood potential labourers were denied both,since to have allowed either would have gone against the formationof a cheaper labour pool. Take the case of Thomas and JohnRichards in 1783-84:

We are sorry to acquaint you we are five men short of our intendedcompliment being only 59 Men, but there is two young lads by thename Thomas & John Richards - sons of Mr. Richards late Masterat Henley - who have made repeated application to your chief andofficers to be retained in your Honors service as Englishmen, theformer 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 wasnot allowed to go to England.F) As the intent was to form a labourpool at a cheaper rate than labour from Britain, emigration couldnot be allowed. The labour pool had to be captivated andreproduced within the territory. With the only job source being theCompany, the surplus wage labour had no choice - except to goback into primary production as a peasant.

Thus began a further class and race division: mixed-bloodsentering the labouring class were no longer allowed to be an"Indian," in the sense that they were being separated from theirown means of production; nor were they allowed to become"English." Half-breeds soon comprised the mass of the labourforce outside the peasantry. By the end of the eighteenth century,Half-breed children of the working class and the officer class weregiven the rudiments of education to prepare them for Companyservice. Training programs were designed so that youths mightapprentice for upwards of seven to ten years, either to becomeunskilled labour or craftsmen." Women's dependency on men,either inside or outside the peasantry, or now between Half-breedand European men within the working class, was becoming

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complete - as support workers within the individual family and asreproducers of labour. As one officer wrote in his daily postjournal: "the men employed about Sundry Duty's as before ExceptMag's Twait. ... and I man plaining woodwork for 2 canoes andthe Men's Women mak'g Pitch and splitting meat for drying."44

Merchant capital, from the 1780s to the 1820s, began to create acapitalist labour market within the fur trade's predominantfeudalistic relations of production. It did so without at the sametime destroying those relations. During that same time period, mer-chant capital lost its independence, as industrial capital was becom-ing the dominant form of capital in Britain; it became absorbedwithin the developing capitalist mode of production. Industrialcapital had no designs of applying itself within the fur tradeterritory until the mid-1850s. In the meantime, merchant capital wasallowed to retain its position within the fur trade so long as itfunctioned within the interests of industrial capital. Because mer-chant capital did not develop the productive mechanisms of the so-ciety in which it operated, its constant presence served only to "un-derdevelop" the society. The predominance of the feudalistic rela-tions of production within the fur trade did not change so long asmerchant capital itself remained the dominant form, even when itwas an agent of industrial capital. Thus, as capitalism continued todevelop with industrial capital, the fur trade and the northernIndian became underdeveloped, as they were still under the in-fluence of merchant capital. In short, the North did not change; itstayed the same, producing fur with a subsistance peasantry, even asglobal patterns changed. Any internal changes that resulted fromthe implementation of a labour market - the formation of a wagelabour class and a petty bourgeoisie - did not serve to develop thesociety, but rather served to create underdeveloped classes in asociety that overall, was underdeveloped. However, as anincreasingly minor aspect of the overall development of capital,merchant capital's previously high rate of profit was reducedcorrespondingly." In the fur trade this created greater exploitationof the northern Indian population and the further erosion of Indiansociety.

The Age of British Colonialism and Imperialism, 1821-1870From 1821, when the two mercantile companies merged, until 1870,when Rupert's Land was annexed to Canada, an era of formalBritish colonialism existed. The class formations and contradictionsthat developed during the era of monopoly competition started tocrystallize after 1821, resulting in overt class and national struggles.

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The rise of national consciousness among the Metis populationgrew out of the class oppression and racial hierarchy formed withinthe mercantile system. The Hudson's Bay Company no longer exer-cised political power solely as an independent mercantile concern;rather it came more closely under the control of the British parlia-ment and Colonial Office. The Company became, in effect, anagent of British imperial.interests. The British created a politicaland state organization to deal with the developing internal class for-mations and divisions of labour, as a means of maintaining their im-perial interests in the area.46

Soon after the merger, the Hudson's Bay Company initiated aseries of radical changes to economize and streamline the operationof the industry." The Company retrenched and centralized all itsoperations in Red River. All posts, labour and management con-sidered redundant were dispensed with. Labourers and officers wereeither retired or discharged and sent home or settled at Red River.The labourers were the Metis or Half-breeds that had been engagedin different wage labour capacities in the interior or around Hud-son's Bay, the plains Metis buffalo hunters that emerged under theNorth West Company, European labourers, and French labourersand free hunters, all with their native families. The labourers sent toRed River constituted a free labour force that the Company coulddraw upon when needed. It could be employed seasonally, as in thesummer as voyageurs, and discharged during slack periods. It couldfunction as a pool for any permanent labour that might be neededand at a cheaper rate than in Europe or Quebec.

Those who could not obtain wage labour positions, either by con-tract or consistently on a seasonal basis, spilled over to become theplains buffalo hunters. The internal post infrastructure needed thesurplus production of food and its distribution throughout the in-terior. The harvest of the buffalo had to be effective and complete;the disciplined labour needed to accomplish this had to come fromwithin capitalism. Surplus food accumulation could not rely uponthe arbitrary trading with the plains Indian, who was as yetunconquered and still communally organized. This quote from aProtestant missionary illustrates the formed and functioning labourpool and market:

I say this not to the disparagement of either parties for many followthese callings from necessity more than choice: these being the onlylawful means within their reach to obtain clothing for themselves andfamilies. By making a voyage to York a man will earn £6 or £7 ster-ling .... the same defence may be made for many who leave theirhomes, their children and churches to go to hunt on the plains,

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Pemican, Dried meat and fat, which they sell to raisemoney to pur-chase the European articles wanted for their individual or familyuse.48

By the 1830s, 20 per cent of the contracted servants were Half-breeds; 50 per cent were Half-breeds by the 1850s. As well, therewas all the seasonal labour in transportation - either with RedRiver carts or boats - and general labour around the differentposts."

Those who settled in the Red River were given land grants in ac-cordance with their class position. Retired officers with their nativefamilies were given the largest land grants, some upwards of 1000acres, others less than 100 acres. The already present Selkirk Settlersreceived one- or two-hundred-acre grants from Lord Selkirk'sestate. European tradesmen received upwards of 50 acres, withother labourers, either Half-breed or European, receiving about 25acres. Many of the common unskilled labourers and plains buffalohunters were not given any grants outright, but were allowed tosettle as squatters. so The Red River was not designed to be a freecolony in the sense that the land was public property and each in-dividual settler had a right to turn part of it into private propertyand individual production. Rather, tenure remained with the Com-pany in feudalistic fashion. However, individual allotments weremade in order to create a landed petty bourgeois ruling elite and alarge agrarian peasant population which produced food for theinternal use of mercantile enterprise, with the only market beingthat provided by the Company. SI

Over the first twenty years of settlement, the landed officer classwas required to subdivide their lands among their Metis children,thereby creating a landed Metis petty bourgeois class. It was thelanded petty bourgeois elite - both Metis and European - thathad appointed access to the colonial civil government, the Councilof Assiniboia. The land allotments to the labouring class and buf-falo hunters were designed to support low wages for the workersand exploitive trade returns from the hunters. Small land ownershipor squatting rights centralized the labour pool in the Red River.Wage labour was never completely divorced from its own means ofproduction.

The petty bourgeoisie in the Red River consisted of more thanland owners; the Company created a commercial petty bourgeoisieby contracting out certain enterprises it considered too costly tomanage itself. Either retired officers or their Metis children were al-lowed 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 forindividual fur or buffalo traders. What emerged from this colonialeconomy was the exploitation of a national (Metis) pettybourgeoisie, a small working class, and a large peasantry. Duringthe 1840s the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie eventually cameinto conflict with the merchant bourgeoisie. There was a strugglefor both free trade and democratic institutions in the Red River.

It was not until the turn of the nineteenth century that the ques-tion of religion was considered as a further means of establishingrule over the Indian population. The Company, in conjunction withthe British Colonial Office, brought in both the Anglican andRoman Catholic churches. Their prime function was to collaboratewith British rule and to assist in maintaining their economic andpolitical interests within Rupert's Land and Assiniboia. To thenative population as a whole they brought ideological colonialism.

Both churches operated mostly within Assiniboia during the1820s and 1830s. Their presence provided control over the labourmarket. Through church-sanctioned marriages the formalization ofindividual families as the basic unit was guaranteed. Families wereneeded for the reproduction of labour within the internal labourmarket. This also meant the further subjugation of native women intheir dependent relationship within the family. Within the pettybourgeoisie the Church maintained the colonial subservience and al-legiance between the indigenous Half-breed petty bourgeoisie andits European counterpart. The Church also served to divide bothclasses - the labouring class and petty bourgeoisie - on religiousgrounds by polarizing French- and English-speaking Half-breeds.

The Church did not move upon the interior Indian population ef-fectively until the early 1840s. Until then the exploitation and colon-ialism had been political and economic, relying only marginally onthe ideological influences of the post officers to cajole the Indianpeasantry to consistently produce furs. It was with Christianity thatthe ideological conquering of the Indian finally took place. Thelevelling of the rate of profit and the increased demand from themarkets required further thrusts into the interior and more Indianlabour in production. As the Indian population increasingly inter-nalized the need and the value of European commodity goods, theycorrespondingly became more conscious of the exploitation of theirlabour. Thus, Christianity served the British interests by allowingthem more systematically to exploit the Indian peasantry and to dealwith any overt reaction to the exploitation. As well, Christianityserved to extend British political sovereignty over the Indianpopulation. A Protestant missionary described the inherent oppres-

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sion and the exploiting contradictions created through maintenanceof the Indian as a peasant.

I have for some time found that Ruperts Land is not a desirable placeof residence for a person of my feelings. There is something sogloomy and repulsive in that state of barbarism in which the Indianslive, and the obstacles in the way of civilization are so great, that youcan scarcely expect that progress which will satisfy your ownconscience and the expectations of your employers. Were thetendency of the trade of Ruperts Land and the disposition of theHon'ble Company's agents towards civilization we would then havesome reason to hope for success. But as the only trade is in furs,which can only exist while the country continues in a state ofbarbarism and be a lucrative one, while the Indian remains asignorant of merchandize as the animal he hunts; we perceive everystep which we make is uphill against the poverty, prejudices, andhabits of the Indian on the one hand; and interests of the Europeanon the other. It may be said with certainty "if we increase, theinterest of the Hon'ble Company must decrease." There I may relatean anecdote of an Indian who is settled amongst us, and who broughta 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 "8shillings." Settler "0, you stingy fellow, what has put such a notionas that into your head, I have seen the day when you would have soldit for 8 inches of tobacco." Indian, "I did not know the value of myskin then, it is only since I have had to purchase leather from theCompany's store that I have learned to know its value .... "52

Inasmuch as a "national" (Metis) labour force was created withinRupert's Land, so there was created a "national" (Metis) pettybourgeoisie. The Company created and allowed such petty bour-geois elements to operate commercially so long as they provided aservice for the Company at a rate cheaper than what it could pro-vide itself. It was a colonial class, subject to exploitation as a resultof the overall high exploitation of the entire economy, andpolitically suppressed, as only the basic forms of "democracy" wereextended. Politically the petty bourgeoisie was granted only thebasic colonially appointed representative institutions thatfunctioned to advise the resident British/Company colonialgovernor. The petty bourgeoisie was also divided economicallybetween French-speaking and English-speaking Half-breeds, asituation which expressed itself in the colonial appointments to theadvisory council. It was the English-speaking Half-breeds who wereestablished in the stronger commercial enterprises and accordinglyreceived the political representation.

Half-breed children (but now female as well as male), continuedto be sent to Britain for a colonial education and returned to be as

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part of the Red River colonized elite. By the middle of the 184Os,distinct class formations were created within the overall nativepopulation. One officer's European wife described, from York Fac-tory in 1840, the class formations that had taken place:

the state of society seems shocking. Some people educate & makegentlemen of part of their family & leave the other savages. I hadheard of Mr. Bird at Red River & his dandified sons. One day whilethe boats were here a common half breed came in to get order forprovisions for his boatmen. Mr. H.(argrave) called him Mr. Bird tomy amazement. This was one who had not been educated & while hisfather & brothers are Nobility at the Colony, he is a voyageur & sat ata table with the house servants here. Dr. MacLaughlin, one of ourgrandees at a great expense gave 2 of his sons a regular education inEngland & keeps the 3rd a common Indian. One of them had beenfor years at the Military College in Lon'n but they have both enteredthe Coy Service - I daresay the heathen is the happiest of them asthe father is constantly upbraiding the others with the ransom theyhave cost him .... 53

For young, well-educated Half-breed women, the only course andaccess to the petty bourgeoisie was as marriageable partners to Half-breed men, or if they were lucky, to the very elite officers. However,during the 1830s and onward Half-breed women within the eliteranks of the European colonial! Company administrators (officerclass) were being displaced by European women. This produced thebasis for common class action with their male Half-breed counter-parts who were being denied access to capital and representativeinstitutions. The contradictions of the native petty bourgeoisie withthe merchant bourgeoisie and their colonial administratorscrystallized in the free trade struggles of the 184Os.

The first instance of resistance against British colonial rule oc-cured in the late 1830s. A movement called the Indian LiberationArmy formed, led by some Half-breeds educated in Upper Canadawho may have been influenced by the politics of the 1837 rebellionin the Canadas. Their program was the elimination of all Britishcapitalists and their rule from Rupert's Land and moreso from As-siniboia, and the establishment of a native country. The movementfailed to gather support, and the leadership was co-opted by beingoffered junior positions within the Company.

From the late 1830s onwards, the Half-breed petty bourgeoisiesaw the monopoly of the Company as being responsible for theirclass exploitation and oppression, preventing them from growing asa class." Together with the inherent colonial social relations andracism within the ruling circles of Assiniboia, resistance to the eco-nomic and political suppression by the Half-breed petty bourgeoisie

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and workers grew into nationalist consciousness. The Metis pettybourgeoisie began to strategize about how to displace British mer-cantilism to become bourgeois mercantilists themselves. During the184Os,in an attempt to expand their class interests, commercialelements in Assiniboia began trading furs into the United States.Rapid moves then followed to acquire fur markets within Britainand to engage in private import of merchant trade goods separatefrom that allowed by the Company.

British colonialism, in turn, was afraid that once the Metis grewas an economic class, they would inevitably develop aspirations togain political control of their national territory, even independence.Reprisals were quickly initiated by the British. Agreements weremade with the Americans to curtail trading into the United States.In Britain, market creation and import of private goods was sabo-taged. Most important, colonial tariffs on all imported goods intoRupert's Land were imposed. All these reprisals had the effect ofcurtailing the development of the Metis petty bourgeoisie and cur-tailing the capital base on which it could grow to become a threat.

During the 1840s the class interests of the Half-breed workingclass were also taking form. Efforts were being made by the voya-geurs to have a day of rest on Sunday - often referred to as anti-Sunday travelling. Although initiated by radical elements within theProtestant church, it eventually became a labour issue and astruggle with the Company over the rights of workers. The Com-pany in turn saw it as a threat to their control and "ownership" ofthe 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 workingclass - the voyageurs - aligned themselves politically with thepetty bourgeoisie. In the summer of 1846, James Sandison, a leaderin organizing anti-Sunday travelling, organized a mutiny ofvoyageurs at Portage La Loche (now northern Saskatchewan). Herallied the voyageurs in a statement: "My Brothers! It is the HalfBreeds that make the laws at Red River for themselves and for theCanadians (French) and Scotch people, and if we do not do it here itis our own fault. We have the same power here that they havethere."ss

In 1849 an armed insurrection occurred, led by Louis Riel Sr.,against the authority and internal repression of the company. Therebellion was not staged by just a few individuals from the pettybourgeoisie. While some opposed it, there was mass support, in-cluding support from the labour force. Inasmuch as the free tradestruggle was for the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie, so

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struggles were being engaged by elements of the working class. Thefact that the latter made political alliances with the former providedthe basis for another struggle, the overall struggle for democracyand national liberation from colonialism. The intensity of thestruggles in the 1840sprompted one Company officer to state in aletter to the colonial governor:

We can no longer hide from ourselves the fact, that free trade no-tions and the course of events are making such rapid progress, thatthe day is certainly not far distant, when ours, the last importantBritish monopoly, will necessarily be swept away like all others. Bythe force of public opinion, or by the still more undesirable but in-evitable course of violence and . . . . within the country itself. Iwould therefore in my humble belief be far better to make a merit ofnecessity than to await the coming storm, for come it will.56

The free trade struggles in the Red River should be viewed in thesame context as the struggles to repeal the corn laws in Britain andthe bourgeois revolutions in 1848 throughout continental Europe.The response of the British Colonial Office and the Company wasto bring in colonial troops to suppress both the rebellion and freetrade. The actual presence of troops continued throughout the1850sup until the early 1860s. The Company also responded withparticular reforms designed to co-opt the petty bourgeoisie. Conces-sions towards representative government within Assiniboia weregranted. The Council of Assiniboia was still to function as anadvisory body to the colonial governor. The internal economy was"liberalized," but total free trade was still not allowed. The pettybourgeoisie was allowed to expand through further contracts forparticular Company operations, but it was not allowed to developor acquire capital that would compete with British interests. Theseconcessions were able temporarily to stave off internal discontentand at the same time maintain British imperialist interests.

British imperialism since the mid-l 850shad been planning the endof mercantilist administration and interests in Rupert's Land andthe confederation of all British North American possessions intoone nation-state. The Anglo-Canadian bourgeoisie was also in-terested in expanding its national and capitalist interests and was si-multaneously advocating annexation of Rupert's Land to UpperCanada. The initial strategy of British Imperialism, in conjunctionwith Anglo-Canadian capitalist interests, was to have Rupert'sLand confederated with territorial status. In order to help Britishfinancial interests to function, the old mercantile class within theCompany was bought out by the International Financial Society in

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1862 and the Company reorganized around financial capital. Thestrategy was to open the plains area of Rupert's Land to settlementand capitalist agricultural production for the industrial east and theworld market. The question of the fur trade was also reconsidered,and this involved debate about what would happen to the Northand the Indian population. The decision was that the Companywould continue with the trade after confederation, but that therewould be no movement of any capital into the North other than thecontinued presence of merchant capital. The administration of theIndian people would continue to be assumed by both the Companyand 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 andrelations of production in the North. Despite the formation ofCanada and capitalist production, the North was intentionally keptunder the dictates of merchant capital and increasingly becamemore backward.

Riel and the Failed RevolutionIn Assiniboia it was known as early as 1857 that the British hadpolitical designs of annexing their territory to form a confederatedBritish North America. What was not known was when it wouldoccur and whether their interests would be retained by such a move.Liberal intellectuals like James Ross, a Half-breed from the RedRiver who had studied at the University of Toronto and who waseditor of the Globe newspaper under George Brown, returned toAssiniboia in the 1860s and began agitation against the Companyand British colonial rule. Ross, who was to become Riel's arch-rival, was agitating for annexation of Assiniboia and Rupert's Landto Upper Canada, in order to gain access to industrial capital. Rosssaw the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie of Assinoboia exist-ing in relationship with the bourgeoisie in Toronto or UpperCanada. The land owners - Metis and Selkirk Settlers - wouldhave access to open markets for their grains and would no longer berequired to sell only to the Company. As the anti-colonial strugglebegan to unfold, Ross ultimately placed himself in the politicalcentre with the petty bourgeois land owners, Metis and Selkirk.

After re-organization of the Company in 1862, the internalpolitics and economic structures of Assiniboia began to crumble.Elements of the labouring class were becoming radicalized: reducedwages, unemployment and over-work increased their suffering.Strikes were more numerous among the voyageurs: the La Locheboat brigades engaged in work shut downs every summer through-out the 1860s.58 Anglo-Canadian merchants, who immigrated

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throughout the 1860sand whose political leadership was Orangist,also called for annexation to Upper Canada. The Orangists had nomass political base in Assiniboia other than their own transplantedclass interests. They were racist, anti-Indian, anti-French and anti-Catholic - nothing more than a reactionary petty bourgeois exten-sion of the coming imperialism. They wanted only political andeconomic access to Anglo-Canadian capitalism. Whatever politicaldifferences existed in Assiniboia, all classes were unanimous in onething: their opposition to mercantile and British colonialism.

With the return of Riel in 1868, a more radical democratic wingemerged. Whereas the other two political formations - the reac-tionary Orangists and the landowners under James Ross - wereanti-colonial, they were acting only on behalf of their own partic-ular class interests. Neither had made any political inroads into themass of the population. Both Ross and the racist Orangists found itimpossible to gain mass support because they did not express thepolitical class interests of the mass of the labouring population.Armed with a political program, Riel and other radical liberal intel-lectuals set out to develop a base within the mass of the population.This base included the voyageurs, plains hunters and poorer ele-ments of the petty bourgeoisie such as small landowners and RedRiver cart operators. They believed that all the mechanisms ofBritish colonialism, both political and economic, were useless andoppressive. The whole history of their class exploitation and oppres-sion would be allowed to continue if there was not a fundamentalchange in the political and economic system. That fundamentalchange could only take place with the establishment of responsibledemocracy and the creation of a state over which they held politicalpower. With the creation of a political state and internal controlover the economy, they could then "liberate" the mass of the popu-lation from the form of their exploitation. Colonialism would againbe recreated against them if territorial annexation to Canada wasallowed without any guarantees of political power. The only waytowards emancipation and liberation was to separate themselvesfrom the colonial process and to decolonize through a declarationof independence. They could not allow the old colonial structures tobe 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 theprovisional government that he created. Yet it contained within itthe most democracy for the people. Internally, while under politicalsiege from Ottawa and London, Riel attempted to keep the dif-ferent political forces aligned with his program and at the same time

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to maintain a political front to deal with the external politicalforces. Thus he saw it as necessary that Thomas Scott, who was anOrangist 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 na-tionalliberation struggle, a struggle that had been ongoing for thirtyyears. It could only be realized with the creation, by the subjugatedand the oppressed, of their own bourgeois democracy, state andnational territory. In this sense the events of 1869-70 can beconsidered as the basis of the bourgeois democratic revolution ofthe native population. It was definitely not just a rebellion as bour-geois history would have us believe. This idea of "national indepen-dence" and "control over a state" by a people who were not loyalwas considered a threat to bourgeois capital and the formation ofCanada as a nation-state. The period from 1870 until Riel wasdriven into exile was one in which Ottawa politically underminedManitoba as a state and re-created it as a province.

The uprising or rebellion of 1885was the last resistance in a battlebegun in 1869-70.The subjugation of the Metis was completed withthe formation of Canada as a nation-state. By 1885 Riel came toview imperialism as a system and saw what it was doing to the nativepopulation as a whole, and what it was doing to other peoplearound the world. Politically Riel became anti-imperialist, but hesaw the inevitability of what was coming. The only solution was toresist so that resistance could live for the future. The following istaken from an open letter by Riel to the Irish World, dated 6 May1885, just a few days before the battle of Batoche, and publishedfive days after he was hanged:

The outside world has heard but little of my people since the begin-ning of this war in the North-West Territory, and that little has beenrelated by agents and apologists of the bloodthirsty British Empire.... Our lands .... have since been torn from us, and given tolandgrabbers who never saw the country .... English lords .... andthe riches which these lands produce are drained out of the countryand sent over to England to be consumed by a people that fatten on asystem 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 theworld over, and you will find that everywhere, and at all times, theyadopt the same tactics, and operate on the same thievish lines.Ireland, India, the Highlands of Scotland, Australia, and the isles ofthe Indian Ocean - all these countries are the sad evidences, andtheir native populations are the witnesses to England's landrobberies .... The enemies who seek our destruction are strangers tojustice. They are cruel, treacherous and bloody .... In a little while

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it will be all over. We may fail. But the rights for which we contendwill not die. A day of reckoning will come to our enemies and ofjubilee to my people. The hated yoke of English domination andarrogance will be broken in this land, and the long-suffering victimsof their injustice will, with Gods blessing, re-enter into the peacefulenjoyments of their possessions. 59

On 16 November 1885, Riel was killed by the Canadian state inthe interests of capital.

Concluding RemarksWhatever the complexities of the politics at that time, one of thesingle most important reasons for the revolution's lack of successlay in the underdeveloped nature of the class formations and classforces. The radical intelligentsia was able to provide the political in-sight and direction, but the class power required to carry it throughdid not exist. If the class forces were not propitious then, do theyexist today within the native population, independent from the restof the class struggle within this country? The same question ledanother Metis leader by the name of Jim Brady to comment duringthe 1940s and 1950s: "We have no independent social base otherthan the working class. With the working class as the necessaryassisting force, we can be strong. If we go against the democraticforces we are converted into nothing."60

In a broad and general way this opens the question of the natureof the class struggle today. Liberation from oppression and ex-ploitation cannot be accomplished in isolation from the "white"working class. It is not a contradiction for the greater working classto be able to reflect or echo the struggles of the native, as the basisof the native struggle is the question of class. For far too long theLeft has failed or refused to recognize that class lies at the basis ofthe native question. Today, in the North, the whole existence of abackward form of production or labour, grossly exploited over thecenturies, lies crumbling before imperialism. Yet the strategy ofsome of the Left is to make alliances or pacts with imperialism andthe Canadian state in the vain hope that somehow this "traditionalsociety" can preserve itself in isolation. It all becomes convoluted ina romantic notion of what it is to be an Indian.

The contradiction of the native lies with capital, not with theworking class. The occurrence of mass unemployment in the Northand in the cities of the South are the effects of capital, just as it iscapital that is causing mass unemployment to occur within the pre-viously employed greater working class. The first step is to developrelationships between the native and greater working class over the

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root of their oppression. That does not mean, because of colonialrelations and high levels of unemployment in the North, that thenative should not engage in collective action alone (if necessary)against the state in order to create employment. These actionsshould also entail further strategic relationships with the workingclass directed towards a greater political program. For the greaterworking class, it is not a problem for them that the native shouldstruggle for democracy. The strength of that struggle can andshould be enhanced by its support.

Notes

This article is an outgrowth of seven years of research on behalf of the Asso-ciation of Metis and Non-Status Indians of Saskatchewan (AMNSIS). Iwould further like to state that it was AMNSIS which had the foresight tobroaden itself into a comprehensive information-gathering project of theMetis and Indian people in western and northern Canada. The informationis presently being deposited in The Gabriel Dumont Institute of NativeStudies and Applied Research, Regina, Saskatchewan. The information isbeing made available to native students and others who are interested inresearching native history in western and northern Canada. I would as welllike to thank Wallace Clement and Leo Panitch for their constructivecriticism of the original paper, and also Stuart Ryan and Maija Kagis fortheir 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 WorkingReality" (8 October 1980). Extracts from a position paper on native gov-ernment for the Dene Nation. Daniels points out the difficulties of estab-lishing native self-government without class differences being involved.It is argued that it would be the creation of neo-colonialism. Cf. MelWatkins, Dene Nation - the Colony Within (Toronto 1977), 47-61,84-99. Watkins et al. fail to acknowledge the historic class developmentand exploitation of the Indian population in the North. Instead theirstrategy is to employ nationalism as the basis of struggle, with aboriginalrights or land claims as a means of striking a legalized relationship withimperialism and the national bourgeois state and hence, access tocapital. The intent is that somehow a cultural preserve can be made thatwill maintain the Indian people in some manner as they existed at someparticular time in their past. In reality there is no turning back. At whatparticular time in history do a people turn back to? That is an illusion ofthe class struggle. The solution is to go forward and rid humanity ofexploitation.

3. Karl Marx, Capital, 3 vols. (Moscow 1977), 1:45,668-9,703; 3:333-4

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4. Claude Meillassoux, "From Reproduction to Production," Economyand Society 1:4 (February 1972), 103

5. Rosa Luxembourg, The Accumulation of Capital (New York), 370

6. Marx, Capital, 3:326-7. (See n. 3 above.)

7. Ernesto Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America," NewLeft Review 67 (1971), 33

8. Marx, Capital, 1:316

9. Ibid., 1:82-3, 332, 480

10.See Meillassoux, "From Reproduction to Production," 93. (See n. 4above.)

II. Marx, Capital, I: 164, 173-4, 479-80. Marx saw labour or labour powerand the fact that it was socialized, as a condition of the human beingseparate from that of an animal. With the socialization of labour thereappears necessary-labour and surplus-labour. Surplus-labour appears inall modes of production and without it there cannot be a socialformation.

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 toProduction. "

14.See Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America," 28, 30 (seen. 7 above.) There is a paraIlel between feudal production in LatinAmerica and in the "northern" part of Canada when mercantilism wasdominant. That does not mean the situation is the same today. Laclaufurther states that the exploitation of the Latin American peasantryincreased with demands by the world market.

15.Governor and Committee Instructions, 23 June 1702, Hudson's BayCompany Archives, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereafterH.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 journalof the Chief Officer at then York Factory. It concerns the use of acaptured "Slave" woman of the Dene-Chipewyan people. The Britishwere interested in developing trade with the Dene-Chipewyans to thenorthwest of York Factory. The Slave woman was used "politicaIly,"because of her egalitarian power as a woman, to develop traderelationships 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 theleading (male) Indians.

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------------------------------------

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) fromaround their area who were involved in trade, to assist in developing newrelations.

19. Numerous mention was made in the post journals of Moose Factory,Albany, York Factory and Churchill all throughout the 1700s of therepair and maintenance of guns, hatchets, knives etc., by the postarmourer'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-rentwas built in from the very beginning as a condition of servility. Also,constant mention was made by officers to "our Indians" or "myIndians" 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 wasmade in all official correspondence and post journals of preventing totaldependence 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 beingeconomically beneficial to extend workers' contracts when they expiredin Rupert's Land. The main means of causing re-enlistment was to causeworkers 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 the1790s the transportation workers at Cumberland House started toorganize 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

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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'sBay, 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 ofWales Fort, 6 May 1747, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A617,f.222

35. There were divisions created within the Indian peasantry - the Home-guard Indians and Upland trappers or Indians. The Homeguard Indianswere induced to settle around the different posts on the "plantation."They were used as hunters in provisioning, some trapping and cheaplabour for post work and transportation, paid in goods and not wages.The Homeguard consisted of many mixed-bloods for the aforemen-tioned reasons concerning women and the labour market. The Uplandtrappers were exclusively for producing fur and were constantly kept inthe "bush" and never allowed to settle. The overall class formations thatdeveloped were: governor & committee - merchant bourgeoisie, Lon-don; overseas governor, chief factor, chief trader and clerks, doctors -petty bourgeoisie, Rupert's Land; servants - tradesman, voyageurs, la-bourers; 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 direc-tive stating that the cost of maintaining European labour was becomingenormously 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. CharlesPrice Isham son of James Isham, dec'd sent to Britain for education, re-turned in 1773in service of Company at £101yr. SeeGovernor and Com-mittee 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, 28September 1783, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A1l/4,f.208

40. Officers, Albany Fort to Governor and Committee, London, 28September 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

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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; Governorand 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., P.A.C.,B121/ a/4,f.48-50

45. Marx, Capital, 3:327-8

46. A colonial political structure was created with the formation of theCouncil of Rupert's Land, overseen by the Governor of Rupert's Landand responsible for the management of the political economy. It wasmade up of officers of the Company. Then there was the Council of As-siniboia overseen by the Governor of Assiniboia and responsible for themanagement of civil affairs within Assiniboia. The Council of Assin-iboia was neither representative nor responsible. It was appointed by theGovernor of Assiniboia in conjunction with the Governor of Rupert'sLand and served only to advise on civil affairs.

47. Governor and Committee, London, to Governor of Rupert's Land andCouncil, 1821-1828, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/20-21

48. Rev. Cockran to Rev. E. Bechersteth, 3 August 1829, ChurchMissionary Society Archives (hereinafter C.M.S.A.), P.A.C.

49. Carol Judd, "Native Labour and Social Stratification in the Hudson'sBay Company's Northern Department 1770-1870," Canadian Review ojSociology and Anthropology 17:4, p. 311

50. D.N. Sprague and R.P. Frye, "Fur-Trade Company Town: Land andPopulation in the Red River Settlement, 1820-1870" (I November 1980)University of Manitoba. This contains an analysis of land ownership andformations within the European and Mixed-blood population.

51. Joseph Berens, Governor of H.B. Co., to Lord Bathurst, Sec'y for Warand Colonies, 18 March 1815, British Colonial Officer, P.A.C., seriesQ, Vol. 133, p, 59

52. Rev. William Cockran to Secretaries, 8 August 1842, C.M.S.A.(incoming Correspondence).

53. Margaret Arnett MacLeod, The Letters oj Letitia Hargrave (New York1969), 84

54. See the testimony of A.K. Isbister to the Select Committee of the BritishHouse 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 BritishColumbia, file 120.

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56. Donald Ross, Norway House, to George Simpson, Governor ofRupert's Land, 21 August 1848, H.B.C.A., D5/22,f.543

57. E.W. Watkin Papers, Public Archives of Canada, MG24, E17. Withinthe 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, NorwayHouse; and B235/b/1O-12, Winnipeg. AII/128 and AI2/42-45 describethe issues and conditions of the voyageurs.

59. Irish World, 6 May 1885, George A. Flinn Papers, Minnesota HistoricalSociety, S1. Paul, Minn.

60. Murray Dobbin, The One-and-a-Half Men (Vancouver 1981), 135. Thequote of Brady to be found in Dobbin's very good book on two Metisorganizers and activists - Jim Brady and Malcolm Norris - who wereresponsible in part for the creation of the native movement from the1920s until the I96Os.

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