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Districts, Documentation, and Population in Rupert’s Land (1740–1840) pp 63–90Cite as

The Codification of Natural History: From Observation to Inspection

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on how the social vision of the HBC naturalist formed some of the preconditions of district-inspection. The chapter argues that the categories that had made up the Linnaean system of classification became the categories through which the district was inspected. This argument is developed by first examining the journals of HBC employees and naturalists, Peter Fidler and David Thompson, to show how the eighteenth-century observational registers provided the categories that would structure the district report. The chapter then demonstrates how the company mobilized the district report to rationalize the company’s rule over the newly leased “Indian Lands” in 1821. Through this study, I argue that although the district report initially emerged to rationalize the company’s costs of administration, it soon became a more encompassing practice that was used to individualize and document indigenous hunters.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Stuart Houston et al., Eighteenth-Century Naturalists of Hudson’s Bay (Montreal and Kingston: McQuill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 15–97.

  2. 2.

    Ted Binnema notes that when English naturalists visited British North America, they were often invited by Simpson to examine the collection of specimens gathered at the different forts and posts. What remains less discussed is what these private collections disclose about the role the company played in connecting natural history to administration. See Ted Binnema, “Chapter Five Benevolent Intentions: The Hudson’s Bay Company, the Royal Navy, and the Search for the Northwest Passage, 1818–1855,” in Enlightened Zeal: The Hudson’s Bay Company and Scientific Networks, 1670–1870 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014).

  3. 3.

    There is no clear account of Fidler’s early life. However, that he was employed as a clerk suggests that he may have been recruited from one of the two preferred institutions of the company: Christ’s Hospital and the Grey Coat School. Both these institutions were preferred by the HBC as orphans and the poor were prime candidates for employment. In addition, the company deemed the curriculum offered by these schools useful to the trade. Navigation, cartography, astronomy, and instruction in natural history as well as writing and arithmetic formed the foundation of the education offered by these institutions. Whether Fidler came from these particular institutions cannot be said with certainty, but his activities and interests suggest he received the type of education that the company prized.

  4. 4.

    Fidler married a “Swampy Cree” woman named Mary. It has been that suggested Fidler’s marriage and his frequent use of “Indian words for geographic sites, common objects and important places” indicate that Fidler had a firm belief in the “equality between men, white and native,” see Judith Beattie, “Indian Maps in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives: A Comparison of Five Area Maps Recorded by Peter Fidler 1801–1802,” in Archivia Winter, 1985–1986, 165–175. Yet his private journal reveals a far colder attitude towards indigenous people. In an entry from 1796, Fidler witnessed a summary execution of two native men suspected of murder the previous winter. Fidler noted, “there was only one Indian man present for the execution and a boy, and they appeared very much terrified and shocked, never seeing or hearing of the like before…the [execution] will be a means of deterring the Indians in the future,” Peter Fidler , “Private Journal 1796,” in Peter Fidler, Trader and Surveyor 1769–1822, ed. J.B. Tyrrell (Ottawa: Royal Society of Canada, 1913 [1796]), 121.

  5. 5.

    HBCA, AM, Fur Trade Library, Fidler’s Private Library, P4642/1. Fidler’s notebooks of astronomical observations make up much of the library’s content. That Fidler possessed A New method of stating and explaining the scripture chronological upon mosaic astronomical principles, mediums and data as laid down in the Pentateuch [1751] [sic] suggests his attentiveness to his regimen of observation may have been motivated by a similar drive to observe as the naturalists of the mid-eighteenth century. One of Fidler’s issues of the Monthly Magazine stresses the importance of being cognizant of nature. One essay in his possession stressed that “the enlarged views of science lay open to the mind a state of existence, the result of such a curious and profound contrivance that we cannot but feel anxious to study…nature, our incomprehensible lawgiver”. See Daniel Mackinnen, “An Account of the Country South of Lake Ontario,” Monthly Magazine, A British Register, vol. VIII (1800): 613.

  6. 6.

    For an example of Fidler’s diligence and attentiveness to nature, see his astronomical observations and daily entries in his post journals such as HBCC, LAC, “Peter Fidler’s Winnipeg Post Journal 1815” 1M153, B.235/a/3.

  7. 7.

    HBCC, LAC, “Peter Fidler’s Fort Dauphin District Report 1820–1821,” 1M41/ B.51/A/3.

  8. 8.

    Houston et al., Eighteenth-Century Naturalists of Hudson’s Bay, 96.

  9. 9.

    In keeping with the company’s recruitment strategies, Thompson was educated at the Grey Coat Hospital. At fourteen, he was apprenticed for seven years to the company to keep accounts. Upon joining the company, he was assigned to Samuel Hearne and spent most of his first year copying Hearne’s natural history manuscript, A Journey from Prince of Wale’s Fort. At twenty, he joined Fidler at Cumberland House to study mathematics, surveying, and astronomy with Philip Turnor. While Thompson spent most of his career in the employment of the NWC, his training and mentorship tie him to eighteenth-century practice of observation. See David Thompson, David Thompson’s Narrative, 1784–1812, ed. Richard Glover (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1962), 55–56.

  10. 10.

    Thompson, David Thompson’s Narrative, 55–56.

  11. 11.

    Thompson, David Thompson’s Narrative, 58–76.

  12. 12.

    Thompson, David Thompson’s Narrative, 77.

  13. 13.

    Thompson, David Thompson’s Narrative, 79–80.

  14. 14.

    Cited in Simmons, Keepers of the Record, 76.

  15. 15.

    The retrenchment system is treated in depth in Gary Spraakman and Alison Wilkie, “The Development of Management Accounting at the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1670–1820,” Accounting History, vol. 5, no. 1 (2000): 59–84; see also Simons, Keepers of the Record, 92–101; Charles Bishop, “Cultural and Biological Adaptations to Deprivation: The Northern Ojibwa Case,” A paper prepared for the Symposium Extinction and Survival in Human Populations, American Anthropological Association, November (1974): 7; Christopher Hanks, “Swampy Cree and the Hudson’s Bay Company at Oxford House,” The American Society of Ethnohistory, vol. 29, no. 2 (1982): 114.

  16. 16.

    The objective for this system was to improve the system of trade by giving the traders and masters “in the trade more autonomy in decision-making and incentivizing traders by giving them a larger share of the profits,” see Simmons, Keepers of the Record, 92.

  17. 17.

    This was in fact a looming concern for the company as early as the late 1790s. The London committee was forced to acknowledge that it had “no sort of clue” about the trade and topography of Rupert’s Land cited in Michael O’Lear and Joanne Yates, “Distributed Work Over the Centuries: Trust and Control in the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1670–1826,” in Distributed Work, ed. Pamela Hinds and Sara Kiesler (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002).

  18. 18.

    Simmons, Keepers of the Record, 96.

  19. 19.

    Simmons, Keepers of the Record, 96.

  20. 20.

    HBCA, AM, “Sketch of York District 1815 by William Cook,” 11M1 G1/26; HBCA, AM, “Sketch of Carlton House, 1815–1817, by James Bird 11M1/G1/27; HBCA, AM, “Sketch of Cumberland District, 1815 by Alexander Kennedy,” 11M1/G1/30/30D; HBCA, AM, “Map of Severen District 1815, by James Swain,” 11M1/G1/33.

  21. 21.

    Simmons, Keepers of the Record, 96.

  22. 22.

    Simmons, Keepers of the Record, 96–97.

  23. 23.

    This appears to have been diligently enforced. In 1821, Simpson wrote to the London Council on the conduct of district master of Athabasca Lake, a Mr. Brown. “For several months past Mr. Brown has been industriously occupied in compiling a huge volume titled ‘private journal’. This seems to be a work of great labour not only occupying his attention throughout the day but his lubrications are unremittingly devoted…Within these few days he seems very solicitous to get possession of a variety of documents which are totally foreign to him in his capacity of district master of Athabasca lake”. Simpson informed him his “business was to keep a correct, particular and concise journal for the inspection of his superiors, and Simpson requested the private journal be discontinued”. See George Simpson, Journal of Occurrences in the Athabasca Department by George Simpson, 1820 and 1821, and Report (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1938), 227.

  24. 24.

    The Act went through a number of different iterations from 1821 to 1824. A principal sticking point was that the HBC had been subsidizing some of the costs of the Red River Colony, as the Earl of Selkirk was on the London Council and married to the sister of Andrew Wedderburn. Obviously, the NWC had no interest in helping support this venture from the profits of the trade. See Harold Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), 286.

  25. 25.

    Hudson’s Bay Company. Copy of the deed poll under the seal of the Governor and Company of the Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay, bearing the date 26 March 1821, stating the appropriation of the forty shares reserved by the principal deed for chief factors and chief traders, with their duties, the regulations relating there and for carrying on the trade (London: H.K. Causton) in Peel’s Prairie Provinces Archives, Digitalized (Peel 144), 6–8.

  26. 26.

    “The Deed Poll Act,” 6–8.

  27. 27.

    “The Deed Poll Act,” 15.

  28. 28.

    Simmons, Keepers of the Record, 97.

  29. 29.

    HBCA, AM, “Minutes of a Council Held at York Factory Northern Department of Rupert’s Land, 8th of July 1822, resolution 98,” 1M814/B239/K/1.

  30. 30.

    HBCA, AM, “Minutes of a Council Held at York Factory Northern Department of Rupert’s Land, 8th of July 1822, resolution 98,” 1M814/B239/K/1.

  31. 31.

    Innis gives us an overview of the changes in the company’s employment structure. See Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada, 325.

  32. 32.

    HBCA, AM, “Lac La Pluie District Report 1822–1823, by Donald Macpherson,” 1M778/B/105/e/2.

  33. 33.

    HBCA, AM, “Lac La Pluie District Report 1826, by D. Cameron,” 1M778/B105/e/6. The document was written as a letter and did not include an “Indian abstract”.

  34. 34.

    HBCA, AM, “Report for the Year 1828 Flying Post, Kanaquismie River District, William McRae,” 1M778/B/70/E/6.

  35. 35.

    HBCA, AM, “Report for the Year 1828 Flying Post, Kanaquismie River District, William McRae,” 1M778/B/70/E/6.

  36. 36.

    HBCC, LAC, “Lac Seul District Report 1823–1824 by John Davies,” 1M779/B107/E/1.

  37. 37.

    HBCC, LAC, “Lesser Slave Lake Report on District 1820–1821, by William Connolly,” 1M779/B115/E/2.

  38. 38.

    HBCA, AM, “Alexander Fort Report on District 1823 by Roderick Mackenzie,” 1M776/B/4/e/1.

  39. 39.

    HBCA, AM, George Simpson’s Correspondence, Official Report to the Governor and Committee in London, June 23, 1823, Sent From Norway House, 3M42/D/4/86.

  40. 40.

    HBCA, AM, “Assiniboia Council Minutes, July 23rd 1824,” 3M43/D.4/87.

  41. 41.

    Minutes of the Northern Council, July 1825, in The Minutes of the Council Northern Department of Rupert’s Land, 1821–31 (London: Champlain Society for the Hudson’s Bay Company Record Society, 1940), 135.

  42. 42.

    Minutes of the Northern Council, July 1825, The Minutes of the Council Northern Department, 135–136.

  43. 43.

    In the years after the signing of the Deed-Poll Act, Simpson reassigned many chief factors to new districts. Some were forced into resignation, some were transferred to the less productive Southern Department, and others were just shuffled to districts of little importance. For instance, after failing to manage the Red River District, Clarke was transferred to the less profitable Slave Lake. Connolly who had shown “efficient management” was moved in the same year from Slave Lake to the newly opened New Caledonia District. The motives behind these reassignments went beyond the quality of district reports, but nonetheless who Simpson reassigned and to where reveals some of the mechanisms that were used to enforce compliance. See Harold Innis, “Introduction,” in The Minutes of Council Northern Department, xli; see also, Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada, 325.

  44. 44.

    Minutes of the Northern Council July 1824 in Minutes of Council Northern Department of Rupert’s Land, 87.

  45. 45.

    HBCC, LAC, “Lac La Pluie District Report, 1826–1827, D. Cameron,” 1M778/B/105/e/6.

  46. 46.

    HBCC, LAC, “Lac La Pluie District Report, 1826–1827, D. Cameron,” 1M778/B/105/e/6.

  47. 47.

    HBCC, LAC, “Lac La Pluie District Report, 1826–1827, D. Cameron,” 1M778 B/105/e/6.

  48. 48.

    HBCC, LAC, “Lac La Pluie District Report, 1827–1828, D. Cameron,” 1M778 B/105/e/6.

  49. 49.

    HBCC, LAC, “Lac La Pluie District Report, 1829–1830, D. Cameron,” 1M778/B/105/e/9.

  50. 50.

    HBCC, LAC, “Lac La Pluie District Report, 1829–1830, D. Cameron,” 1M778/B/105/e/9.

  51. 51.

    HBCC, LAC, “New Caledonia Report on District 1827–1828, W. Connolly,” 1M776B/5/e/1.

  52. 52.

    Bruce Curtis, “Representation and State Formation in the Canada, 1790–1850,” Studies in Political Economy, vol. 28 (1989): 80.

  53. 53.

    HBCC, LAC, “Albany District Report 1830–1831 by Jacob Corrigal,” 1M779, B3/E/16. He described his district report as being composed of a “narrative extracted from M. Tavishes’ Journal…from M. Corcoran’s Journal…from Corrigal’s Journal.” That Corrigal refers to himself in third person is also notable.

  54. 54.

    HBCC, LAC, “Winnipeg District Report, Roderick Mackenzie,” 1M776/B4/E1.

  55. 55.

    HBCC, LAC, “Albany District Report 1826–1827, Alex Kinnelly,” 1M776/B3/e/13.

  56. 56.

    HBCC, LAC, “Winnipeg District Report, Roderick Mackenzie,” 1M776/B4/E.

  57. 57.

    Developing district-inspection as a mode of social vision was not a clean-cut process. Rather, an “inspectoral practice did not spring forth ready made, but in reality was experimented, attempted contested and refined,” Curtis, “Mapping the Social: Notes from Jacob Keefer’s Educational Tour,” f.8.

  58. 58.

    In commenting on the breakdown of a social formation shaped by sovereign power and spectacle, Foucault suggested that the modern age was shaped by a compulsion “to procure for a small number, or even for a single individual, the instantaneous view of a great multitude” cited in Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 216.

  59. 59.

    James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation and the Loss of Aboriginal Life (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2013), 59; D.B. Freeman and F.L. Dungey, “A Spatial Duopoly: Competition in Western Canadian Fur Trade, 1770–1835,” Journal of Historical Geography, vol. 7, no. 3 (1981): 268–270.

  60. 60.

    HBCC, LAC, “Minutes of a Temporary Council Meeting of the Northern Department, July 1824, resolution 90,” 1M814/B239/k/1.

  61. 61.

    HBCC, LAC, “Minutes of a Temporary Council, July 1, 1824, Simpson’s resolution on the scale of wages,” 1M814/B239/K/2.

  62. 62.

    HBCC, LAC, “Minutes of a Temporary Council Meeting July 5, 1823, resolution 166,” 1M814/B239/K/1.

  63. 63.

    Minutes of the Northern Council, 1822, July.

  64. 64.

    Minutes of the Northern Council, 1824, July.

  65. 65.

    HBCA, AM, “George Simpson’s Correspondence, Official Report to the Governor and Committee in London, 1824,” 3M42/D4/87.

  66. 66.

    HBCA, AM, “George Simpson’s Correspondence, Official Report to the Governor and Committee in London, 1824,” 3M42/D4/87.

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    Aaron James Henry

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Henry, A.J. (2020). The Codification of Natural History: From Observation to Inspection. In: Districts, Documentation, and Population in Rupert’s Land (1740–1840). Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32730-9_4

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