A Legacy of Exploitation: Early Capitalism in the Red River Colony, 1763–1821 by Susan Dianne Brophy (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Legacy of Exploitation: Early Capitalism in the Red River Colony, 1763–1821 by Susan Dianne Brophy Ted Binnema Brophy, Susan Dianne–A Legacy of Exploitation: Early Capitalism in the Red River Colony, 1763–1821. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2022. 298 p. Susan Brophy explains that two events—the production of celebratory vignettes by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 2015 and the public inquiry that followed the 2014 murder of Tina Fontaine—inspired this book. It examines the history of the Red River Colony, primarily between 1812 and 1817, as a case study. Brophy approaches the history of the colony through a Marxist framework which she has modified to be “more appropriate for the study of settler colonialism” (p. 5). Her central arguments are not about the Red River Colony per se. In her introduction, Brophy explains that her “objective in this book is to contest two rival ideas: that the transition to capitalism and settler colonialism alike necessarily entailed a shift from violent chaos to peaceful order, and that the relative lack of violence as the direct, primary means of compulsion in exchanges with Indigenous producers implied equanimity or complicity” (p. 10). And on the second-last page of the book, she concludes that “patently, the existing Marxist framework for understanding capitalism as a mode of production requires a foundational rethink when it comes to the settler colonial context, and my close study of the Red River Colony lends veracity to this thesis” (pp. 186–187). Scholars interested in developing an increasingly nuanced and sophisticated Marxist lens through which to understand the process of dialectical materialism may appreciate this new book, but those interested in a contextual history of the Red River Colony will be disappointed in it. Unlike many scholarly studies that relegate theoretical discussions almost solely to introductions and conclusions, theoretical considerations permeate throughout. Finding the framework established by Marx and Engels inadequate, Brophy relies heavily on the work of Marxist revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), a scholar who thought about the historical connection between capitalism and imperialism. In her Accumulation of Capital (1913), Luxemburg argued that capitalism could persist (workers within the capitalist mode of production could afford the goods they produced) only if capitalists were permitted to exploit people outside the mode of production to purchase its surplus goods, supply inexpensive resources, and provide cheap labour. Luxemburg argued, however, that “natural economies”—ones in which there was little surplus production, little demand for foreign products, and a close connection between the means of production and labour—were useless to capitalists, and therefore capitalists need to annihilate or transform such economies. She averred that any evidence that these transformations were peaceful is illusory. The framework put forward by Luxemburg, with some modification, is the one upon which Brophy bases her analysis and arguments. Brophy appears to have begun with a position and sought to gather the evidence to support it. Ignoring almost all of the relevant documents in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Brophy appears to assume a Romantic image of Indigenous societies and economies, and the motivations that led Indigenous people to participate in the fur trade. While Brophy claims to take Indigenous people seriously, she portrays them very superficially, without attention to the complex circumstances they faced. Instead, she finds them interesting only insofar as they shed light on the [End Page 194] newcomers. Documents can certainly be mined to find enough evidence to make some of her arguments plausible—for example that the “relative autonomy of the Indigenous producers was a primary factor in the merger” of the Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company (p. 182). However, even though she recognizes Indigenous agency, Indigenous people are nonetheless reduced to bit players in the service of a grand theory that the history of Red River was “a microcosm of the larger transition to capitalism that occurred in the settler colonial context of Canada” (p. 185). The typical historian’s attention to the thoughts and intentions of the historical actors (Indigenous or non-Indigenous) is rarely evident. Brophy interprets historical events and developments superficially, emphasizing the evidence that can support her interpretation, but neglecting other evidence. The treatment of...