Ted Binnema. “Enlightened Zeal”: The Hudson's Bay Company and Scientific Networks, 1670–1870.

Abstract

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) held a royal charter to trade in the bay's watershed from 1670, and its territories expanded, after an 1821 merger with the North West Company, along the Arctic and Pacific coasts. Ted Binnema surveys the HBC's involvement with learned communities in Britain, Canada, and the United States from the HBC's founding until its monopoly was ended and its territories transferred to the Dominion of Canada in 1870. The HBC was involved in exploration, surveying, cartographic and observational sciences, astronomy, meteorology, natural history, and ethnology. Binnema's introduction promises a case study in the history of knowledge networks in the British Empire, but this ambition is limited by a narrow definition of “science.” Several thematic chapters on the period after 1821 are more successful in reconstructing the networks to which the HBC contributed during the heyday of natural history. Binnema's central argument is that after a century of secrecy, the HBC became a “generous patron of science” (p. 7) as the result of networks linking HBC directors and officers in the field, metropolitan savants and institutions, and aboriginal trading partners. These networks were held together by rewards and recognition. The main motive for the HBC's support of scientific endeavors was to burnish its reputation. Binnema catalogs every printed acknowledgment of HBC assistance as a public “tribute,” and claims that these expressions of thanks redefined the HBC “brand” as enlightened, disinterested, and benevolent (pp. 11, 13). Tributes countered criticism of its commercial monopoly or its treatment of aboriginal peoples. Many HBC officers had time on their hands in the field and natural history provided intangible benefits such as male companionship, self-improvement, or a sense of meaning.