Fort Albany was a Hudson's Bay Company trading post established in 1679 near the site of the present day Fort Albany First Nation. The fort was one of the oldest and most important of the Hudson's Bay Company's posts. It was also involved in Anglo-French tensions leading to the Battle of Fort Albany in 1688.
The area was explored by Charles Bayly, the first overseas governor of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), around 1675, and the original Fort Albany was established in 1679. [1] The fort was named in honour of Henry Stuart, 6th Duke of Albany. [2] :39 It was one of the original Hudson's Bay Company trading posts, the others being Moose Factory on the south shore of James Bay, Charles Fort (later Rupert House) on the east, York Factory in the Port Nelson region, and New Severn (aka Fort Severn). [3] :21 In these early days of the company, each fort was run by a governor, who served for a number of years and oversaw the company employees, managing the trade of their fort. [3] :22
The original fort was built inland from the mouth of the Albany River, partly for defense, and moved several times. Ships from England had to lay at the river mouth at Albany Roads. In 1683, Governor Henry Sergeant was directed to make it the primary trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company; it was the largest fort on the Bay at that point, with four bastions and forty-three guns. [3] :51 In 1684 a Monsieur Péré reached the fort from French Canada. He was arrested and his two companions were sent to Charlton Island. In 1685, the French built Fort des Français at the juncture of the Albany and Kenogami Rivers to block the indigenous people from coming north to trade with the HBC.[ citation needed ]
In 1686, all three posts on James Bay (Moose Factory, Rupert House, and Fort Albany) were captured by an overland expedition from Quebec. Fort Albany was named Fort Saint-Anne by the French. In 1688 the English sent ships to reestablish their posts but were defeated by French ships that had come to re-supply the forts. In 1693 the English retook the fort and held it thereafter. [3] :52 By the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Albany was to be returned to the French, but nothing was done before the war resumed in 1702. In 1709 the French tried and failed to capture the fort. In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht gave Hudson and James Bays (along with the rest of Rupert's Land) to the English.
Following the end of decades of conflict with the French, sloops from Albany traded along the east coast until a new post was built on the Eastmain River in 1723-24 and Moose Factory was reestablished in 1730.[ citation needed ] By 1771, one ship serviced Albany, Moose Factory, and the East Main sub-house on the east shore. [3] :112
During the 18th century, trade between the Cree and the Hudson's Bay Company continued. In the 1720s and 1730s, 50% of the value of all trade to the Cree at Fort Albany was arms, while cloth and blankets accounted for approximately 25%. This pattern had reversed by the 1780s, when arms accounted for less than 25% and cloth and blankets more than 75% of the trade to the Cree from Fort Albany. By the 1790s, the Cree were using European cloth to make jackets and other clothes, which had acquired ceremonial and practical significance. [2] :49
Around the mid-1700s, the company's policy was to primarily engage in trade with indigenous people at their forts on the coast. By 1743, Chief Factor Joseph Isbister had found that trade at Albany was being undercut by coureurs des bois that had established trading posts upriver from the fort. So, going against company policy, he took a team 160 miles up river to establish the subsidiary Henley House and re-establish HBC authority. [4] This policy officially changed in the 1770s, and the company began establishing series of inland posts that fed into the coastal forts and factories, which would function as depots for storage and ports for trade back to Europe. According to a report by long-time company factor Andrew Graham, by 1771, around the time of the change in policy, Fort Albany was staffed by 30 men in addition to the chief factor and his officers, and oversaw the sub-houses Henley House and East Main, each with eleven men governed by a sloop master. [3] :111
Another official policy of the company was to not allow any of the indigenous people they traded with into any forts. This policy, relaxed by Chief Factor George Spence (1747-1752), was strictly enforced by Chief Factor Joseph Isbister when he returned to the fort in 1752. This sudden removal of access to Fort Albany and Henley House angered Wappisis, a Cree man influential over the indigenous people of the area, and in December 1754 he and a few others destroyed Henley House, killing the five HBC men there and raiding the stores, threatening death to anyone that told the Company people that they had done it. Wappisis went to Albany in May 1755 to trade and attempted to blame "French Indians" on the destruction of Henley House. Isbister heard in June from another indigenous person that Wappisis had done it, and Isbister hanged Wappisis and his two sons on June 21, 1755. The employees at Moose and Albany were concerned following the destruction of Henley House, since this was the first such incident of indigenous violence in the company's history. [5] [4] Henley House was re-established under Chief Factor Humphrey Marten by 1768. [6]
In 1777, Gloucester House was built 243 miles upriver from Henley House and in 1786, Osnaburgh House was built at the outflow of Lake St. Joseph. This westward expansion significantly increased the trade of Fort Albany. In 1793, the Governor of Albany Fort established posts on the Rainy River and Winnipeg River. Posts supplied from the HBC-run Fort Albany competed with North West Company men from Lake Superior and even HBC posts supplied from York Factory, until the union of the two companies in 1821. [7] [ verification needed ]
Fort Albany was the headquarters of the Albany District of the Hudson's Bay Company, which, as of 1830, bordered Severn District to its northwest, Moose District to its southeast, the far western reaches of Upper Canada to its south, Lac La Pluie District to its southwest, and Winnipeg District to its west. [8] The east-flowing Albany River drew furs from as far west as Lake St. Joseph. From there, a portage ran west to Lac Seul, the English River, the Winnipeg River and beyond. A north-flowing branch, the Kenogami River led upstream toward Lake Superior at Wawa, Ontario and another branch, the Ogoki River led toward Lake Nipigon.[ citation needed ]
Following the 1821 merger of HBC with the North West Company, Albany District thrived, recovering from the decline in trade caused by competition while the supply of fur-bearing animals dwindled. In order to curb the extinction of fur-bearing animals, the Governor of Rupert's Land George Simpson established beaver preserves throughout the district.
In 1868, the Hudson's Bay Company surrendered their North American territory known as Rupert's Land to Great Britain, which then gave it to the newly-formed Dominion of Canada with an 1869 "deed of surrender." Following this transfer to the Dominion, the province of Ontario engaged in litigation, arbitration, and negotiation to define its northern and western borders. In 1878, arbitrators granted Ontario territory north to the English and Albany rivers, causing Fort Albany to become part of the province. The Canada (Ontario Boundary) Act, 1889 officially expanded the province of Ontario north to Albany River and west to Lake of the Woods. At the suggestion of magistrate E. B. Borron, Ontario initially allowed the old HBC regime to manage the territory, until the province was able to more substantially take on its management, which began by appointing HBC officers as justices of the peace. [9]
In 1905, Treaty 9 was signed by the Indigenous people living around Fort Albany, who had become concentrated in the area over the past few decades and who had been seeking a binding agreement with the government to protect their way of life. The signature of this treaty marked the legal creation of Fort Albany First Nation. [10]
The Hudson's Bay Company is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, it became the largest and oldest corporation in Canada, and now owns and operates retail stores across the country. The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay.
The Cree are a North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations.
James Bay is a large body of water located on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. It borders the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and is politically part of Nunavut. Its largest island is Akimiski Island.
The Missinaibi River is a river in northern Ontario, Canada, which flows northeast from Missinaibi Lake, north of Chapleau, and empties into the Moose River, which drains into James Bay. This river is 755 kilometres (469 mi) in length. It is one of the longest free-flowing and undeveloped rivers in Ontario.
York Factory was a settlement and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) factory located on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay in northeastern Manitoba, Canada, at the mouth of the Hayes River, approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) south-southeast of Churchill.
Winnipeg River is a Canadian river that flows roughly northwest from Lake of the Woods in the province of Ontario to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. This river is 235 kilometres (146 mi) long from the Norman Dam in Kenora to its mouth at Lake Winnipeg. Its watershed is 106,500 square kilometres (41,100 sq mi) in area, mainly in Canada. About 29,000 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi) of the watershed is in northern Minnesota, United States.
Waskaganish is a Cree community of over 2,500 people at the mouth of the Rupert River on the south-east shore of James Bay in Northern Quebec, Canada. Waskaganish is part of the territory referred to as "Eeyou Istchee" encompassing the traditional territories of Cree people in the James Bay regions of what is now Northern Quebec and Ontario.
Moose Factory is a community in the Cochrane District, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Moose Factory Island, near the mouth of the Moose River, which is at the southern end of James Bay. It was the first English-speaking settlement in lands now making up Ontario and the second Hudson's Bay Company post to be set up in North America after Fort Rupert. On the mainland, across the Moose River, is the nearby community of Moosonee, which is accessible by water taxi in the summer, ice road in the winter, and chartered helicopter in the off-season.
The Albany River is a river in Northern Ontario, Canada, which flows northeast from Lake St. Joseph in Northwestern Ontario and empties into James Bay. It is 982 kilometres (610 mi) long to the head of the Cat River, tying it with the Severn River for the title of longest river entirely in Ontario. Major tributaries include the Kenogami River and Ogoki River.
Fort Albany First Nation is a Cree First Nation in Cochrane District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada, within the territory covered by Treaty 9. Situated on the southern shore of the Albany River on the west coast of James Bay, Fort Albany First Nation is accessible only by air, water, or by winter road.
Cumberland House is a community in Census Division No. 18 in northeast Saskatchewan, Canada on the Saskatchewan River. It is the oldest community in Saskatchewan and has a population of about 2,000 people. Cumberland House Provincial Park, which provides tours of an 1890s powder house built by the Hudson's Bay Company, is located nearby.
Pierre de Troyes was a captain that led the French capture of Moose Factory, Rupert House, and Fort Albany on Hudson Bay 1686.
William Kennedy was a Canadian fur trader, politician, and historian.
The Moose Cree First Nation is a Cree First Nation band government in northern Ontario, Canada. Their traditional territory is on the west side of James Bay. The nation has two reserves: Factory Island 1 ; and Moose Factory 68, a tract of land about 15 km upstream on the Moose River covering 168.82 square kilometres (65.18 sq mi).
The Hudson Bay expedition of 1686 was one of the Anglo-French conflicts on Hudson Bay. It was the first of several expeditions sent from New France against the trading outposts of the Hudson's Bay Company in the southern reaches of Hudson Bay. Led by the Chevalier de Troyes, the expedition captured the outposts at Moose Factory, Rupert House, Fort Albany, and the company ship Craven.
This article covers the water based Canadian canoe routes used by early explorers of Canada with special emphasis on the fur trade.
Henley House, the first inland post established by the Hudson's Bay Company, was located in what is now Kenora District, Ontario, Canada. It was strategically situated west of James Bay about 160 miles (257 km) up the east-flowing Albany River at the mouth of the Henley River, 8 miles (13 km) downstream of the confluence of the major north-flowing Kenogami River with the Albany. From the head of the Albany at Lake St. Joseph, a portage led west to Lac Seul from which the English River (Ontario) led to the Winnipeg River and westward. The Kenogami led south toward Wawa, Ontario, but that does not seem to have been a practical canoe route all the way to Lake Superior.
Asleep by the frozen sea is a phrase coined by Joseph Robson to describe the policy of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from its foundation in 1670 until the establishment of its first inland post in 1774. Unlike the French who sent Coureurs des bois inland to trade, the HBC built posts on Hudson Bay and waited for the Indians to bring furs to them. The decision to abandon this policy and move inland gradually turned the HBC into an informal government for western Canada and led ultimately to the confederation of western and eastern Canada.