The Swampy Cree and the Hudson's Bay Company at Oxford House

Abstract

Oxford House was established in 1798 as a supply depot for the Hudson's Bay Company. Over the next thirty years, a symbiotic relationship developed between the HBC and the local population which grew up around the post. This relationship then slowly shifted from one based upon mutual dependence to an association dominated by the traders. Due to this dependence, the changed from semi-nomadic, big-game hunters and gatherers to territorially restricted trappers. Oxford House, Manitoba, is located at the northeast end of Oxford Lake on the Hayes River system. The Hayes River drains a region of boreal forest on the Canadian Shield southeast of the Nelson River and north of Lake Winnipeg in northern Manitoba, and flows to the northeast emptying into Hudson Bay at York Factory, five miles south of the Nelson River. The Hayes River played a significant role in the European fur trade to the southwest of Hudson Bay from the end of the 17th century until the late 19th century when the advent of the transcontinental railroad and steamboats on Lake Winnipeg eclipsed the route from the Bay. During that time the smaller less turbulent Hayes was consistently preferred by traders and Indians alike, over the larger rapid ridden Nelson River. Trade was carried out via ships from Europe which brought goods to the depot at York Factory on Hudson's Bay. Supplies were then moved inland via the Hayes and Echmamish Rivers to the Upper Nelson River, then across Lake Winnipeg to the Saskatchewan River and on to the west. Oxford House was established in 1798 as a depot to facilitate this movement of goods inland and not as a post intended to draw a large Indian trade (Hanks 1980:54). The formation and growth of the Oxford House Band was the result of the depot requiring natives to provide provisions and labor for transporting goods to and from the interior. The historic resettlement of the near Oxford House can be traced to the period following the establishment of the HBC post in 1798. Initially the settlement was not intended as a trading post, but rather as a supply depot for maintaining the HBC western trade. According to William Sinclair, the first factor at Oxford House at the time the post was established, the region had long since been trapped out by the Home Guard Cree from York Factory. As a result, Sinclair notes that although there were few Indians living in the region when the post was established, it was ideally suited for the purpose of supplying the inland trade (PAM, HBCA, B. 239/b/66, fo. 107). Therefore, the Oxford House Band is the result of the historic late 18th and early 19th century interaction between the fur trade and native groups and was not an in situ development of the aboriginal population.