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Fort Simpson was a fur trading post established in 1831 by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) near the mouth of the Nass River in present-day British Columbia, Canada. In 1834, it was moved to the Tsimpsean Peninsula, about halfway between the Nass River and the Skeena River, and was later referred to as Port Simpson or as the native name Lax Kw'alaams . The fort was part of the HBC's Columbia Department.
One of the primary reasons for the establishment of Fort Simpson, as well as Fort McLoughlin to the south, was to undermine the American dominance of the Maritime Fur Trade. By 1830, the higher prices paid for furs by American coastal traders had resulted in an indigenous fur trading system that diverted furs from the interior New Caledonia district of the HBC to the coast. Fort Simpson and Fort McLoughlin were built to intercept these furs before they could reach American traders, who had no permanent posts on the coast. The strategy was ultimately successful. By 1837, American competition was essentially over. [1]
In 1829 George Simpson, HBC administrator, informed the Russian-American Company, that the HBC was planning to build a fort at the river's mouth, on the frontier between the two companies' territories. In July 1830 Aemilius Simpson [2] visited the area, confirmed that furs from New Caledonia were being brought to the coast, and made plans for the fort's construction. Fever among Simpson's crew prevented construction from beginning right away. A second voyage, under Aemilius Simpson, Peter Skene Ogden, and John Work, left Fort Vancouver in March 1831, and began construction in April 1831. [1]
Aemilius Simpson and Peter Skene Ogden spent the summer of 1831, trading at the new post and the Queen Charlotte Islands. Simpson died in September 1831, and the new post was named in his honor. Ogden was placed in charge of the post as Chief Trader. The first clerks at Fort Simpson were Donald Mason and John Kennedy. [1] At the foundation of the fort there were 23 Hawaiian Kanakas, though by 1837, none of these original employees remained at Fort Simpson after being reassigned to other HBC trading posts like Fort McLoughlin. [3] While small in number, Hawaiians continued to work at Fort Simpson until the 1850s. [3]
In 1834, Fort Simpson was moved from the mouth of the Nass River to a more favourable location on the nearby Tsimpsean Peninsula. The village that grew around the fort later became known as Port Simpson. In 1986, the name was officially changed to Lax Kw'alaams. [4] Port Simpson is also the name of the body of water upon which Lax Kw'alaams and the site of Fort Simpson are located. [5]
Fort Simpson rapidly became a profitable success, becoming the central trading point of a large region. In 1841, for example, Fort Simpson was visited by about 14,000 people, mostly indigenous. The Tsimshian people came to dominate the trade and collected furs from any other coastal people including the Tongass, Haida, and Kaigani, as well as the Dakelh (Carrier) people in the interior. The fort was soon surrounded by a village of the Tsimshian "homeguard" of at least 800 people. The homeguard controlled most of the indigenous trade and was the fort's main source of provisions, security, and labour. By the end of the 1830s Fort Simpson's fur trade profits exceeded those of any other HBC post along the Pacific coast. Unable to provide its own food, provisions were at first brought from Fort Vancouver and other posts, but in time native trade supplied most of the fort's needs. [1] [6]
During the 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic thousands of indigenous people were evicted from large semi-permanent camps near Victoria and forced to return to their homelands, spreading smallpox throughout the Pacific Northwest coast. Groups of Tsimshian thus brought smallpox from Victoria to the Fort Simpson area, whence it spread widely starting in June of 1862. While authorities at other Hudson's Bay Company forts, as well as at nearby Metlakatla, administered smallpox vaccine and tried to limit the epidemic, no preventative measures were taken at Fort Simpson. Smallpox deaths at the fort began in late May and peaked in late June. Through the summer Nisga'a, Haida, Tlingit, and other indigenous people arrived regularly at the fort to trade, contributing to the spread of smallpox throughout the Northern Coast, up the Skeena River and the Nass River into the British Columbia interior. [7] [8]
By early July the native settlement outside the fort was deserted due to deaths and people fleeing the area. All Tsimshian peoples suffered high death rates from smallpox in 1862–63: About 67% among the Southern Tsimshian (Kitkatla, Kitkiata, and Kitasoo), 37% among the Nisga'a, 22% among the Gitxsan, and about 23% for the Coast Tsimshian. [7] [8]
By 1844, Fort Simpson was the most profitable of any fur district in the HBC's Columbia Department, excepting New Caledonia. Furs collected along the coast by the steamship Beaver also generated large profits. The 1844 returns of Fort Simpson and the Beaver exceeded that of New Caledonia. The success of the Beaver in the early 1840s resulted in the closure of all HBC posts on the coast north of Fort Langley, including Durham (Taku), Fort Stikine, and Fort McLoughlin. Only Fort Simpson was kept as the company's anchor on the northwest coast. [6]
Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading post that was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington. The fort was a major center of the regional fur trading. Every year trade goods and supplies from London arrived either via ships sailing to the Pacific Ocean or overland from Hudson Bay via the York Factory Express. Supplies and trade goods were exchanged with a plethora of Indigenous cultures for fur pelts. Furs from Fort Vancouver were often shipped to the Chinese port of Guangzhou where they were traded for Chinese manufactured goods for sale in the United Kingdom. At its pinnacle, Fort Vancouver watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, six ships, and 600 employees. Today, a full-scale replica of the fort, with internal buildings, has been constructed and is open to the public as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
The Tsimshian are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace and Prince Rupert, and Metlakatla, Alaska on Annette Island, the only reservation in Alaska.
The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada. Since ancient times, the Skeena has been an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan—whose names mean "inside the Skeena River" ,and "people of the Skeena River," respectively. The river and its basin sustain a wide variety of fish, wildlife, and vegetation, and communities native to the area depend on the health of the river. The Tsimshian migrated to the Lower Skeena River, and the Gitxsan occupy territory of the Upper Skeena.
Fort Astoria was the primary fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). A maritime contingent of PFC staff was sent on board the Tonquin, while another party traveled overland from St. Louis. This land based group later became known as the Astor Expedition. Built at the entrance of the Columbia River in 1811, Fort Astoria was the first American-owned settlement on the Pacific coast of North America.
Alexander Caulfield Anderson was a British Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fur-trader, explorer of British Columbia and civil servant.
The trade center Fort Colvile was built by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) at Kettle Falls on the Columbia River in 1825 and operated in the Columbia fur district of the company. Named for Andrew Colvile, a London governor of the HBC, the fort was a few miles west of the present site of Colville, Washington. It was an important stop on the York Factory Express trade route to London via the Hudson Bay. The HBC for some time considered Fort Colvile second in importance only to Fort Vancouver, near the mouth of the Columbia, until the foundation of Fort Victoria.
The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the disputed Oregon Country. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811, and established as an operating fur district around 1810. The North West Company was absorbed into the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821 under which the Columbia District became known as the Columbia Department. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 marked the effective end of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department.
Lax-Kwʼalaams, previously called Port Simpson until 1986, is an Indigenous village community in British Columbia, Canada, not far from the city of Prince Rupert. It is located on Port Simpson Indian Reserve No. 1, which is shared with other residential communities of the Tsimshian Nation. The Nine Allied Tribes are: Gilutsʼaaw, Ginadoiks, Ginaxangiik, Gispaxloʼots, Gitando, Gitlaan, Gitsʼiis, Gitwilgyoots, and Gitzaxłaał.
Metlakatla, British Columbia is a small community that is one of the seven Tsimshian village communities in British Columbia, Canada. It is situated at Metlakatla Pass near Prince Rupert, British Columbia. It is the one Tsimshian village in Canada that is not associated with one particular tribe or set of tribes out of the Tsimshian nation's 14 constituent tribes.
Arthur Wellington Clah (1831–1916) was a Canadian First Nations employee of the Hudson's Bay Company at Lax Kw'alaams, B.C., known for having written extensive journals detailing his life and that of others in the settlement in the late 19th century. He was an hereditary chief in the Tsimshian nation, an anthropological informant, and a Methodist missionary.
Ligeex is an hereditary name-title belonging to the Gispaxlo'ots tribe of the Tsimshian First Nation from the village of Lax Kw'alaams, British Columbia, Canada. The name, and the chieftainship it represents, is passed along matrilineally within the royal house called the House of Ligeex. The House of Ligeex belongs to the Laxsgiik.
William Duncan was an English-born Anglican missionary who founded the Tsimshian communities of Metlakatla, British Columbia, in Canada, and Metlakatla, Alaska, in the United States. Although sometimes referred to as "Father Duncan" in subsequent reports, he was never ordained.
The Puget Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC), with common variations of the name including Puget Sound or Puget's Sound, was a subsidiary joint stock company formed in 1840 by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Its stations operated within the Pacific Northwest, in the HBC administrative division of the Columbia Department. The RAC-HBC Agreement was signed in 1839 between the Russian-American Company and the HBC, with the British to now supply the various trade posts of Russian America. It was hoped by the HBC governing committee that independent American merchants, previously a major source of foodstuffs for the RAC, would be shut out of the Russian markets and leave the Maritime fur trade.
Fort William was a fur trading outpost built in 1834 by the American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, a Boston merchant, backed by American investors. It was located on the Columbia River on Wappatoo Island near the future Portland, Oregon. After a few years, in 1837 Wyeth sold the post to the British Hudson’s Bay Company, which had much more power in the region from its base at Fort Vancouver on the north side of the Columbia River near Fort William.
Fort Rupert is the site of a former Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fort on the east coast near the northern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The unincorporated community on Beaver Harbour is about 11 kilometres (7 mi) by road southeast of Port Hardy.
Fort McLoughlin was a fur trading post established in 1833 by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) on Campbell Island in present-day British Columbia, Canada. At the time the Hudson's Bay Company performed quasi-governmental duties on behalf of the British Empire as well as undertaking trade for profit. The site is believed to have been at McLoughlin Bay on the northeast side of Campbell Island and is associated with the relocation of the Heiltsuk community of Bella Bella from its former location on islets near Denny Island. The McLoughlin name, which is that of John McLoughlin, regional head of company operations at that time, is also found in a lake and a creek entering that bay, and was conferred on these locations after the fort had closed.
Fort Stikine was a fur trade post and fortification in what is now the Alaska Panhandle, at the site of the present-day of Wrangell, Alaska. Originally built as the Redoubt San Dionisio or Redoubt Saint Dionysius in 1834, the site was transferred to the British-owned Hudson's Bay Company as part of a lease signed in the region in 1838, and renamed Fort Stikine when turned into a Hudson's Bay Company post in 1839. The post was closed and decommissioned by 1843 but the name remained for the large village of the Stikine people which had grown around it, becoming known as Shakesville in reference to its ruling Chief Shakes by the 1860s. With the Alaska Purchase of 1867, the fortification became occupied by the US Army and was renamed Fort Wrangel, a reference to Baron von Wrangel, who had been Governor of Russian America when the fort was founded. The site today is now part of the city of Wrangell.
The Lax Kw'alaams Band is a First Nations government at Lax Kw'alaams, formerly Port Simpson, close to Prince Rupert in British Columbia, Canada.
The maritime fur trade was a ship-based fur trade system that focused on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska. The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States. The maritime fur trade was pioneered by Russians, working east from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to the southern coast of Alaska. British and Americans entered during the 1780s, focusing on what is now the coast of British Columbia. The trade boomed around the beginning of the 19th century. A long period of decline began in the 1810s. As the sea otter population was depleted, the maritime fur trade diversified and transformed, tapping new markets and commodities, while continuing to focus on the Northwest Coast and China. It lasted until the middle to late 19th century.
The 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic was a smallpox outbreak that started in Victoria on Vancouver Island and spread among the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and into the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau, killing a large portion of natives from the Puget Sound region to Southeast Alaska. Two-thirds of British Columbia natives died—around 20,000 people. The death rate was highest in southeast Alaska and Haida Gwaii—over 70% among the Haida and 60% among the Tlingit. Almost all native nations along the coast, and many in the interior, were devastated, with a death rate of over 50% for the entire coast from Puget Sound to Sitka, Alaska, part of Russian America at the time. In some areas the native population fell by as much as 90%. The disease was controlled among colonists in 1862 but it continued to spread among natives through 1863.
Historic HBC operations in the Pacific Northwest | |||||
| Columbia Department |  | ||||
| New Caledonia District |
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