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Article Excerpt
Throughout its long first century (1670-1782), the Hudson s Bay Company (HBC) drew its labour force almost entirely from the competitive labour "market" of early modern Britain, with the movement of men to and from the Bay reflective of the domestic labour mobility of the period. The relationship between the London Committee and their employees was that of master and servants, heavily influenced by the circumstances of trading in Hudson Bay. Men at all levels of the Company hierarchy could try to shape the reality of their HBC experiences, but did so in terms of commonly accepted ideals. The Committee and their servants all understood the nature of ideal master-servant relationships, but they also had experience of the realities of life in various kinds of social and economic households. The Company's servants internalized and practised the expected values of deference and submission, but did so without abandoning or deferring their own self-interest; indeed, they could use their mastery of the language to advance their own interests.
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Eighteenth-century HBC servants seem to resemble later industrial wage-earners, in that they sold their labour for cash and were provided with most of the tools and raw materials with which they worked. (1) However, the terms of their service also invite comparisons to "pre-industrial" domestic servants or servants in husbandry (agriculture), though the length of service was much longer in Hudson Bay. Bayside servants' relationship with their employer was based not entirely on contract, but contractual obligations were the most visible aspects of that relationship. (2) Underlying them was the much older institution of the patriarchal household-family, which served as the fundamental social unit on the shores of Hudson Bay (as in Britain). (3) Although membership changed, that institution maintained continuity over time.
Signing On
Early modern employment contracts were economic, social and even moral covenants. The term "covenant" was used in the HBC through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Committee's minutes of 27 February 1684 referred to "9 of the Covenant Servants" at Port Nelson (later known as York Fort). In mariner Daniel Lane's testimony in a 1684 legal case, he described himself as "a Covenant Servant of the Hudsons Bay Company." A 1688 letter to Port Nelson mentioned a new form of contract, and a marginal note summarized this paragraph of the letter as "new Covenants for Servants Sent." The earliest known surviving contracts (1776) began, "I ... do hereby Covenant and Agree to and with the Governor and Company." (4)
In general, service contracts in early modern Britain set out what the employee and employer could expect from one another in terms of remuneration and behaviour. This usually included (explicitly or implicitly) binding the servant to serve the master for a specified period of time and to obey his reasonable commands, while binding the master to maintain the servant for the duration of the contract and to pay the agreed wages (whether or not there was daily work, and whether or not the servant remained fit for work). These contractual terms were reinforced in the HBC by an Oath of Fidelity taken by all employees. On Christmas Eve 1718, for instance, each servant at York swore:
I do hereby Engage myself by Oath to Use my uttmost Power With fidelity and Courage to defend the Intrest of the Hudsons Bay Comp[an]y against all Enimies either forrain or as Our Nation And will Obey all Such lawful commands as the Govr or Chief factor Shall Impose upon me and in my Station Shall Endeavour the Defending keeping & Secureing all the Rights & Priveledges of the foresaid Comp[an]y against all oppossers whatever & this I Will do without any discontent or Cowardize to the Utmost Perrill of my Life.
Further I do hereby Oblige myself not to have any Dealing Trade Traffick or Commerce with Any Natives lying being or Inhabiting in any part within the fores[ai]d Comp[an]ys Charter unless I shall be orderd so to by the Govr or Chief factor in being & if I should know any Person or Persons that shall drive any Private Trade their Names I will Detect the Commodities so traded I will discover to the Govr or Chief Factor & in Case I shall be found guilty of any Clandastine or private trade or abeting or Coniveing with any other Person or Persons in Perloining or Confiscate any of the afores[ai]d Comp[an]ys Goods to my own or any other Person or Persons Use then & in Case I will Remitt not only Such Wages as Shall be due to me from the sd Compy but will be answerable for all Damages that Shall arise thro my Neglect or Breach of any of the Above Mentioned Articles.
Jurat Coram me
Henry Kelsey Govr (5)
York Fort America
Decbr 24 1718
Several of the phrases used here are found in HBC contracts more than fifty years later, reflecting continuity in the London Committee's expectations of its servants.
Service contracts were more rigid in law than in practice, and could be broken with cause and/or with mutual consent. (6) The eighteenth-century conception of the master-servant relationship appears somewhat contradictory: while still seeing the relationship as a family one (a view inherited from the later Middle Ages), it acknowledged the mutual obligations involved as basically contractual. Masters may have been seeking the best of old and new labour relationships, clinging to the image of servants as unfree while profiting from an increasingly free and mobile population of wage workers. However, the servant's unfree status was often more than just an image, and the early modern employment contract certainly involved submission and subordination. (7) Evidence of men's experiences of these relationships in Hudson Bay supports British historian Patrick Joyce's argument that both workers and employers made sense of new values and circumstances in terms of older notions, and thus that new market ideologies operated within the context of older paternalistic language. (8)
The earliest surviving HBC contracts were signed in 1776. (9) The exact content of earlier contracts is unknown, although a set form certainly existed from at least the 1680s (and probably earlier). In 1688, the Committee mentioned sending Governor Geyer and his Council at Port Nelson "a New forme of Contracts for our Servants," but gave no details. (10) At Albany in 1757, when Robert Temple felt the need to remind his men of their contractual obligations, he "took the Contract & read to them beginning at I do oblige my Self to Stay according to the aforesaid limited time & so on." (11) Surgeon John Agnew's 1776 contract may not have differed very much from earlier forms, considering how similar the phrasing is to the 1718 Oath of Fidelity quoted above:
I John Agnew Surgeon of Wrighton in the Shire of Galloway Aged about 19 Years do hereby Covenant and Agree to and with the Governor and Company of Adventurers of ENGLAND, Trading into HUDSON'S-BAY, and their Successors to serve them for the Term of Three Years, to commence from the Time I shall arrive at HUDSON'S-BAY: (unless sooner recalled by the Committee of the said Company) after the rate of Forty Pounds p Year And to have Wages out and home as given to the Surgeons of the Ship those years; And if I intend to return at the Expiration of this Contract to give Notice to the Committee of the said Company the year before; But if no such Notice be given to stay another Year if required at the same Wages, and under the like Terms, Agreements, Provisions, Penalties and Forfeitures as in this Agreement mentioned; And during my to Voyage to Hudsons Bay and in my return to the Port of London, I will not quit or Desert the Ship in which I shall be ordered to embark, on any Account whatsoever without the Leave and Permission of the Commander of the Said Ship, in Writing; And, will do the Duty of Watch and Ward aboard the Said Ship and will Obey all such Orders and Instructions as shall be given me by the Commander of the said Ship. And to Ship myself upon the first Vessel or Ship that the Committee of the said Company shall Order me to imbark in, that shall go, or is bound for HUDSON'S-BAY; where I oblige myself to stay according to the aforesaid limited Time, and to do, and perform such Labour and Work, and obey such Commands as the Governor in HUDSON'S BAY, or chief Factor there, shall impose upon me. During my being in the said Company's Service, I will, with the utmost Hazard and Peril of my Life, in my Station, with Courage and Fidelity, maintain and defend the said Company's Factory and Factories, Territories, Rights, Privileges, Goods and Properties, against all Enemies whatsoever, either Foreign or of our own Country: and to the utmost of my Power, will cause the same to be maintained and defended by all others, according to the Duty of my Service: And I will in all Things submit myself to the Commands and Discipline of the Governor or Commander in Chief for the said Company, and all other my superior Officers, by his Directions. And during my Abode there, I will not directly or indirectly Trade to or from any Place within the Limits of this Company's Charter, for my own particular Account, or for any other Person or Persons, save only for the said Company, in any Furrs, Skins, or other Commodities whatsoever, with the Indians, or with any other Nation inhabiting or trading in or about HUDSON'S-BAY. And that whatsoever Commodities I shall Trade for there, or get into my Possession, shall be only in Trust, and for the sole Use and Benefit of the said Governor and Company and their Successors. Any Person that shall drive any private Trade, I will endeavour to hinder, their Names I will detect, the Commodities so Traded for I will discover, as much as in me lies, to the Governor in the BAY, and the Committee of the said Company for the Time being. And in Case I the said John Agnew shall make any Breach or Default of, or in Performance of all, or any the aforesaid Covenants, Agreements, or Things, then I and my Executors and Administrators will not only forfeit and lose all Wages, Salary, and Monies, as by Virtue of this Contract, or otherwise, shall be due to me, or them, from the said Governor and Company, or their Successors, which I do hereby enable them to detain to their own Use and Benefit; But also I and my Executors and Administrators will, for every such Breach or Default, also forfeit and pay to the said Governor and Company the Sum of Eighty Pounds of lawful Money of ENGLAND, over and above all Damages that may arise, or happen to them, by Reason or Means of such Breach or Default. In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my Hand and Seal this Fifteenth Day of May in the Year of our Lord God 1776.
John Agnew
Sealed and Delivered in the Presence of Us; Henry Jefferys Edward Lascelles (12)
Special conditions could be negotiated orally, particularly in the early...
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