The Indian, the Metis and the Fur Trade Class, Sexism and Racism in the Transition from "Communism" to Capitalism

Home , Exploitation colonialism, James Isham

Ron G. Bourgeault

Native peoples' modern history has as its basis class exploitation and oppression. As a consequence of class exploitation, their struggle has been one against racism and national oppression.' Native peoples' social and material productivity, and their varied forms of labour, arise from their relationship to different forms of capital and to the resulting exploitation of their labour by capital. To understand the historical, political and economic existence of the native (including mixed-blood) people in North America, it is necessary to analyze them within the context of the political economy of mercantilism. It is within this system that the contradictions of race, class and nationalism have their antecedents and that the foundations were laid for the formation of Canada as a nation- state. The object of this paper is to argue that the fur trade of the Hud- son Bay basin, in what is now northern Canada, initially transformed Indian labour into that of a peasantry caught in the web of feudal relations of production. 2 The paper will also show the nature of Indian women's subjugation, a subjugation undertaken to establish the fur trade. Class, racial and sexist divisions came to be imposed upon the indigenous Indian population through colonial relations based upon a particular form of exploitation. Just as mercantilism created class differences within the Indian population, so class and racial differences were created among the

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Europeans. These class differences were created by capital within the society from whence the Europeans were recruited, but within the context of the fur trade, they manifested themselves as racial differences. So long as merchants capital was dominant, there were always basic divisions between European wage labourers and Indians engaged in fur production. This followed from constantly maintaining Indian labour in fur production, while on the surface it appeared as a very distinct racial split. Resident within the fur trade territory were both the servant or working class and the officer or petty bourgeois managers, who by the turn of the nineteenth century were assuming an overt role as British colonial administrators. Ownership was maintained by the British merchant bourgeoisie in London. Over a period of two hundred years (1670 to 1870), racial differences in relation to class differences came to manifest themselves within the Europeans. The mass of the unskilled European labour that was recruited was French, together with some Scots from the Orkneys and the Islands. Among the Scots themselves, there were very distinct differences. Skilled labour came predominantly from the Highlands; the petty bourgeoisie came from the Lowlands. The merchant bourgeoisie remained predominantly English. Currently, Marxist analysis on natives in Canada as a whole, and the North in particular. is for the most part exceptionally lacking. Recently some debate and some general theories have been initiated by individuals who are attached to native organizations either as consultants or advisors and who might claim in some sense to be Marxist. 3 These theories of the nature and struggle of the native in the North do not recognize the history of class exploitation originat- ing in the first contacts with European capital and its different forms over the centuries. Nor do they recognize in the same way the basis of colonial relations emanating from the natives' relationships with different forms of capital. Presently, as a result, they are incapable of dealing with the crises that exist between the native and monopoly capitalism, especially given the increasing influx of natives into the cities and the labour market in the southern part of western Canada, and the rapid imperialization of the North. These theories deny that class even' exists as a basis of the oppression of native people. Rather, they see northern natives as having existed in the past in some sort of pluralistic relationship with the capitalist world, and contend that the contradictions that now exist, such as unemployment and colonialism, are only the result of the recent movement of monopoly capital and the Canadian state, on its behalf, into the North. They perceive the destruction of the "tra-

------~~---~--~ Ron Bourgeault/lndians, Metis

ditional" economy rather than a new stage in the long history of class transformations of native labour due to different forms of capital. Therefore, the strategy they espouse would preserve the native "way of life" and advocate that natives engage in de-colonization from the Canadian state through the use of aboriginal rights or land claims so as to achieve a negotiated co-adventure status with the national bourgeois state and imperialism. Those who advocate this are wrong. First, "traditional" society cannot be "preserved," just as any other traditional society under the same circumstances cannot be preserved, let alone return to some period in the past. Second, aboriginal rights through bourgeois nationalism is not the real issue; if anything, that strategy is going to create a form of neo- colonialism. The real issue is one of class - to do away with the sources of oppression, not to manage them. The native struggle must be seen and dealt with within the context of class and colonialism. Mercantilism The advent of British mercantilism into the Hudson Bay basin during the seventeenth century heralded the beginning of the class I national struggle of the native population within what is now the north of Canada. Here, mercantilism entailed the search for fur as a commodity for the European market. Since the accumulation of wealth or capital through the exchange of commodities was the economic driving force of the mercantilist, and since an alternate source of labour could not be introduced within the area, mercantile capitalism was compelled to transform the Indian population to produce the desired commodity. However, the resident Indian population was not a source of labour that was organized to produce that commodity directly for exchange. The northern Indian was operating within varied forms of the primitive communist mode of production, and as such the production of commodities for exchange was not a part of their economic activity. What shape did the transformation of the native population then take? Mercantilism as a system was the transitory stage between feudalism and the formation of capitalism. It had as its main char- acteristic the elementary accumulation of capital. The modern history of capital dates back to the feudal societies of the sixteenth century, with the rise of production for the market. In order for capital to develop and accumulate it was necessary for the circulation of commodities to take place on a world scale. The production and circulation of commodities and the creation of a world market drove the mercantile system to expand beyond Europe and engage

47 Studies in Political Economy

other peoples around the world in various forms oflabour. The societies confronted by the Europeans existed, for the most part, as different forms of pre-capitalist formations. As contact was established, each society established barriers or engaged in forms of resistance to the penetration of capital. How a society either resisted or accommodated the capital penetration determined the level, extent and duration of the penetration." In some situations merchant capital actually preserved, consolidated and even reproduced pre- capitalist relations as a condition of its penetration.' Some societies completely rejected overtures to establish economic relationships, mainly because the relationships to be established were completely foreign to them. Such was the case with some primitive communist societies in which commodity production and exchange did not exist. It was, therefore, necessary for mercantile capital either to destroy or alter communal social units that prohibited or prevented their exploitation. S The accumulation of merchant capital and its imposition over other pre-capitalist modes of production did not require the creation of a capitalist mode of production within those societies." In Europe, in order for capital to grow, it required a free labour market. Merchant capital, outside of the capitalist mode of production in Europe, required only the production and circulation of commodities as the basic condition of its existence. In fact, merchant capital was quite compatible with different pre-capitalist modes of production, so long as it could gain control of the respective societies and either change, alter or introduce productive mechanisms towards what was required. In the case of the fur trade in the northern part of North America, the primitive communism of the Indian was slowly undermined and destroyed. The relations of production that were created in the new society were essentially feudalistic. 7 The fur trade was feudalistic in the sense that the Indians as a primary source of labour for mercantilism, were transformed from producers of goods and services entirely for collective use, into a peasant or serf labour force bound to particular trading posts, with the commanding officer (on behalf of the merchant capitalist) functioning as a feudal lord. The method was to appropriate surplus production through a form of tithe in recognition of European land ownership and colonial dominance. The Indians' class position in the production of fur came to be the basis of their economic exploitation and racial oppression and, as well, the basis of the colonialism and colonial relations that developed. Although existing within a form of feudal relations under merchants capital, the

48 Ron Bourgeault/lndians, Metis

northern Indians were still formally within the emerging capitalist system as a whole because what they were producing was a commodity for the developing capitalist market.

Primitive Communism It is difficult to determine what constituted the actual existence of a primitive communist society. As for information from anthro- pologists studying pre-class societies, it should be borne in mind that those societies have for centuries been incorporated, for the most part, into varied forms of capitalist relations of production. Marx characterized a primitive communist society as being one in which the basic mode of production was based "on ownership in common of the means of production .... "8 Marx recognized that primitive communism, as an overall system, was made up of various groupings, not all of which were the same. Some groups or societies might be at different phases of development than others. Each would, of course, find different means of subsistence and different means of producing what was needed within their natural environment. Also, the phase of development and the productive organization of the society in relationship to the natural environment determined the quantity of surplus and how it was to be distributed. 9 However, what little work Marx dedicated to analyzing primitive communism dealt very little with any internal relations of production.'? In the broadest sense, primitive communism was a mode of production governed by egalitarian social relations of production and the communal appropriation of surplus-labour. 11 Since the appropriation of surplus labour was communal, there were no social divisions of labour as between a class of non-labourers and a class of labourers. The only division of labour within primitive communism was according to sex and age. Since there were no class divisions, there was no distinct state apparatus existing as an effect of the social division of labour. In the case of the northern Indians' primitive communism, its social relations of production were egalitarian in the sense that what the people produced and how it was distributed, exchanged and consumed were mutually decided upon.P The existence of egalitarian relations varied from group to group depending upon objec- tive conditions of natural environment and the level of development of the productive forces. Land within the primitive communist society of the northern Indians did not entail a question of ownership; rather land was seen as existing for all and as producing what was to be used in a collective capacity. For the northern Indians,

49 Studies in Political Economy

then, land functioned as a subject of the labour-process. In this sense labour extracted the necessities of life (which existed naturally) through the process of hunting and gathering. 13 Although there was a division of labour according to sex, that did not necessarily involve men exercising decision-making powers or engaging in exploitive relations with women. Inasmuch as women did particular kinds of work, the work they did and the overall relations between the sexes were based upon the reciprocal and mutual exchange of goods and services. Both men and women mutually exercised decision-making powers over the production and distribution of that which was their responsibility to produce. Within the egalitarian society of northern Indians, all individuals were as dependent upon the larger collective society as upon the nuclear family. The nuclear family functioned as an integral part of the collective society, and as such it was not an individual unit of production as within class society. Since women held mutual decision-making powers with men within the collective society, they were not economically or socially bound or dependent upon men within the family. Although household management within the family was exercised perhaps mostly by women due to varied ex- pressions of the division of labour by sex, it was an integral part of the collective society as a whole and was not deemed to be of less or more importance than any other work.

Economic Conquest and tbe Creation of Class Society The process of transforming the population in order to produce what was needed was the process of imposing one mode of production upon another. In order to accomplish this, it was necessary to conquer the communal society economically so as to change the Indians' productive mechanisms from producing goods for internal use to producing goods for commodity exchange. Once this occurred, the communal appropriation of surplus-labour and the governing egalitarian relations of production were terminated or ruptured. As commodity production began to occur, and as the European market increased its demand for commodity furs, feudal modes of production and feudal relations of production developed. 14 During the course of this development, the internal social relations among the people were altered, inequalities were created between women and men, and unequal external relations were created between Indians and Europeans. The fact of a foreign economic system imposing itself upon another national or indigenous grouping became the basis of colonialism and colonial relations. The nature of the development of colonialism depended upon the political and

50 Ron Bourgeault/lndians, Metis

economic system being imposed upon the population; the type of society before colonization; the strategies undertaken by the colonizer in the exploitation of the population; and the strategies of response - either resistance or accommodation - by the colonized. Analysis of the fur trade as the imposition of feudalistic relations of production should not be perceived as a reference to classical European medieval feudalism. Indeed, first indications suggest that the Indians existed in the form of independent commodity production. The process of commodity production of fur was initiated by the merchant traders who introduced through trade, tools of labour and clothing, such as the gun, steel trap, axe, and knife, all of which served to displace the communal production of their equivalent for internal use. IS The foreign-introduced goods in effect replaced indigenous tools and goods by causing them to lose their use-value - a change which then halted the production of indigenous goods as the producer's immediate means of subsistence. Dependency upon foreign goods was thus created through their acquired utility and in return for further goods - specified goods - that no longer had any use-value (such as fur). The foreign commodity trade goods were introduced in such a manner as to intentionally create a notion of private property. Trade was conducted on an individual basis, thus undermining collective trade. With individual trade came individual production, which then became the private property of the producer. Since communal society had no notion of individual property, its intentional creation through barter served to break down the communal society into individual units of production. The production and exchange of fur as a commodity, and the specialization of labour around it, created a social division of labour between the Indian as commodity producer and the merchant capitalist. Eventually, the labour-process went more and more into the production of goods as a commodity for exchange in excess of what was needed to live. The surplus-labour of the Indian, which previously had been appropriated communally, was increasingly appropriated by the merchant capitalist, resulting in the creation of surplus-value from the circulation of the commodities in the European marketplace. If we take the situation in 1716, when the British were developing trade relationships with the Dene-Chipewyan people northwest of York factory, we can see that select individuals were brought back to York Factory and trained in the use of the rifle, which was then traded on an individual basis. As well, the British taught the Chipewyans which furs were of value and in what manner they wished them to be dressed.P On first contact, trading was conducted

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on a collective basis, which then came under the authority of communal use. However, once particular goods such as the rifle came to have utility, then trading was slowly directed towards individuals. Hence, the process of development of individual units of production took place. As individualized trading developed, the introduction of European goods and technological tools of labour was accomplished through men, as opposed to women. This slowly resulted in the establishment of men as the dominant source of labour in the production of commodities for exchange. I? The following quote is illustrative of instructions given on how to develop trade with inland Indians who were still independent. You are by presents of Brandy, tobacco, knives, Beads etc. by kind usage to draw the natives to trade with you .... and when a leader comes to trade with you, if you think his goods will amount to 500 Made Beaver, give Him a Captains Coat, Hat, Shirt and other things as usual. ... A man that brings You 300 Made Beaver give him a Lieutenants coat. . . .18 Once engaged in commodity production, the Indians around Hudson Bay then began to work the land in a different capacity. Whereas under primitive communism land had been the object of their labour in the production of goods for communal use, it now became the object of their labour in the production of commodities. As individual commodity production developed, so the communal notion of land slowly broke down and individual trap lines started to appear. To this point, the Indian in the fur trade indeed seems to bear the characteristics of an independent commodity producer. Yet we in- sist that the Indian was more akin to a peasant and that relations of production and the appropriation of surplus was in fact basically feudalistic. In the development of the relationship between the Indians and the European officers, the latter were in fact overseeing masters, in positions emanating from the pattern of ownership of land. The basis of feudalism as a mode of production was the existence of "lordship" or a lord who owns the land, generation after generation, with the serfs continuing to work the land under him. This basic relationship existed in the northern fur trade. Once engaged in commodity production, the Indian became physically bound to continue. With the introduction of technologically advanced tools of production, the European arranged that the repair and maintenance of these tools could only be undertaken at the respective trading posts.l? Thus, although the Indians were given possession of the means or their own production, they did not have any control over

52 Ron Bourgeault/Indians, Metis

the maintenance and reproduction of these means. Apart from the economic motivation to acquire the foreign goods, feudalistic relationships of production required the creation of servility within the peasantry. This took the form of extra- economic motivation or psychological dependency towards the fur trade post and the officers in charge. Certain gratis services were offered at the posts that served to enforce the developing servitude; in return certain donated duties and support work were expected from the Indian peasantry as a recognition and acceptance of the "new order of things." The creation of servility was necessary as a means of completing the destruction of independence derived from primitive communism. It also served another purpose: the explicit ideological recognition of feudalistic relations. A certain amount of the Indians' labour, beyond that which went towards the production of commodities, was required to be donated gratis as a token of their servitude. The donation was a result of their labour applied to the land and was a recognition of the property relationship entailed in the fur trade.j? It was a subjective donation of labour outside the exchange of commodities through barter - a form of labour-rent. Merchant capital did not require that all production of goods be for exchange; there could still exist within the dependent society the production of goods for internal use." The dependent society was not totally dominated by the production of commodities; some surplus-labour was still communally appropriated.P In this way the penetration of that pre-capitalist society by mercantilism served both to undermine and perpetuate the society at the same time.23 The mercantile companies were not responsible for the social reproduction of Indian labour - that was left to the people themselves and to their "traditional economies. "24 There was no real internal market consumption, just dependent subsistence. The Indians' responsibility for their own social reproduction was an important element in their formation as a peasantry. Hence, much of what was primitive communism, now no longer independent, was allowed to reproduce itself and become a facilitating mechanism by which Indian labour was exploited. The northern Indians became a particular type of peasantry, and unlike the classical European peasantry, one that was transitional and ultimately subject to the evolution of different capital formations. The development of the Indian peasantry within the fur trade was a process that took place at the same time as the development of the European (British) working class. The Hudson's Bay Company was adamant that the labour market exist only within Britain and

53 Studies in Political Economy

not within the fur-trade territory. Although the European workers came out of the capitalism which developed within Britain as "free labour," the predominant social conditions into which they entered were feudalistic. All skilled and unskilled labour was recruited individually, legally bound to the Company by contract, and economically dependent upon the particular post to which it was sent. 2' As feudal relations were developed, it was Company policy that each post attempt to be self-sufficient. In so doing, part of the Indian peasantry - the Homeguard Indians - was responsible for the production of food for its respective post. All crafts produced by European craftsmen were entirely for an internal local market, either for use by other workers around the post or as trade goods for the Indian fur producers. In return for the loyalty and permanence of the labour force, the Company assumed most overhead expenses of the individual workers. A basic division was created between European labour and northern Indian labour. This division was based primarily upon maintaining the Indian as a peasant. Any change in productive relations, such as allowing Indians access to wage labour jobs around the posts, was forbidden, since such change would contribute to the breakdown of the peasantry. Together with an already highly developed ideology of racism among the colonizers, which served to justify the nature of the exploitation, this division enhanced subjective racial ideas of differences among the European labourers around the posts. This difference was also maintained economically between the two divisions of labour, primarily through the tariff or the rate at which labour was exchanged or sold for goods. The tariff was much higher for the primary producer than for the wage worker. In this way Indian labour could also function as a cheap source of reserve labour within the system. As one post officer commented to another in 1791: "Poor indeed are the prospects of trade at the Factory, great part of the homeguard debts remain for them to work out by Inland journeys. "26 Class antagonisms were not all that uncommon between the Company's officers and servants. Usually these were expressed on an individual basis and occurred in relation to wages, treatment, and working conditions. If the conflict was severe enough, the individual workers responsible would be fined and/or sent back to Britain and possibly blacklisted.F It was not until the growth of inland water transportation in the late 1700s that the collective class antagonisms occurred and became overt in the form of mutinies or strikes over wages and working conditions.P In fact it was the voyageurs who became the advanced elements of the working class within the fur trade. During the late eighteenth century they were almost

54 Ron Bourgeault/lndians, Metis completely European, but by the early to middle nineteenth century they were Half-breed and nationals of the territory, that is, Metis. The Indian, once transformed into a feudalistic form of commodity production, became the basis of the whole fur trade. The mode in which the surplus-labour of the Indian was extracted in the production of fur determined the form of society. The social structure of society, the form of colonialism that developed, and the state that emerged, were all related to the form in which the surplus- labour of the Indian as a peasant was extracted.

Indian Women and Economic Conquering: The Impact of Colonization and Class Society In the course of developing commodity production, which led to the destruction of egalitarian relations, mercantile capitalism was compelled both to exploit and destroy Indian women's egalitarian role within the society. 29 They were exploited in the sense that Indian women were found to be an important commodity in themselves in order to gain access to the particular societies. Since the relationships between Indian women and men were reciprocal, the colonial exploitation of society created a transformation in the social relations over the years resulting in a particular subjugation of Indian women. The social division of labour and the specialization of commodity production by men became the basis of social inequalities which were to develop between Indian women and men. Given the dependency of women developed under colonial relations, particular unequal and exploitive relations were created between Indian women and European men. As communal society slowly became undermined by trade goods and commodity production, women began to lose the decision-making powers they had over their labour and the use of the goods they produced. The creation of individual commodity production was the beginning of a decline in the communal family and the beginning of the formation of the individual family as the unit of production. With men established as responsible for the production of commodities, they assumed the role as head of the family and women became dependent support workers within each family unit. With the development of colonial relations and the growing dependency of Indian women upon men, some women began to realize it would be in their interests to take advan- tage of relationships with European men. As well, the European colonizers saw it in their interests to avail themselves of the Indian women, especially insofar as they provided the mercantilists with the opportunity to penetrate the communal society. Indian women became a valuable commodity and were exploited both politically

55 Studies in Political Economy

and sexually in the conquest of Indian society. The particular subjugation of Indian women is well documented in the journal of the officer in charge at York Factory in 1716-17. In the early 1700s the British desired to move northwest from York Factory, where they had established themselves with the Cree people during the late 1600s. The desire of the British was to establish trade with the Dene-Chipewyan people. The British, through trading with the Cree, captured a Chipewyan woman whom they referred to as the Slave woman. Their strategy was to familiarize the Slave woman with the value and use of British goods and then to use her to penetrate Chipewyan society in order to establish trade relations. While in York Factory she learned quite well the nature of the trading that was to be imposed on her people. Thereafter she went to great efforts to implement it. The Slave woman was sent throughout the interior and organized 400 Chipewyan people for the first trade meeting, at which 160 men were present to conduct the trade negotiations. The Slave woman knew that the British wished to establish trade through men, as they were the producers, even though the first trading would have been collective. She arranged for some people to be brought back to York Factory to be trained in the selection and preparation of furs which were "of value" for trade. She also arranged for the men to be trained in the use of the rifle. The Slave woman was so committed that she made a solemn promise that she would not rest until the whole of the Dene people were delivered into trade relationship with the British. In return for her work she requested only to be rewarded with a social position for her brother - that he be made a trade captain. The journal was kept by the officer as a means of recording how the British developed the initial trading with the Chipewyans. The journal reveals the process of economic conquering - first trade, then private property and servility - and the use of women's power in order to establish that process. The journal ends with the death of the Slave woman in 1717:

but these Poor people have none but are forced to liveby the bows and arrows and they cannot livea great many together, becausethey have nothing to subsiston but what they hunt. . . . but if pleaseGod when I have settled a trade amongst them and can bring what I am working upon to pass I willstopp the trade with those Indians for a year or two and lett them make . . . . on them and drive the Dogg's to the Devill.... the northern Slavewomandeparted her life after about sevenweeksillness.The misfortunein loosingher willbe very prejudical to the Company's interests.... As I have been writing about the Slavewoman (deceased)it will not be amissto mention one thing. Last June she gave away a little

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kettleas I had givenfor to carry withher whenshewentback into her Country again. I (tax'd) her about it she said she had not gave it away. I sent to the Indian as had it and fetchedit away & show'd it her. She told me was a lyer for he had stole it for she did not giveit him & saidher Indiansshould killme whenI cometo ChurchillRiver and did rise in such a passion as I never did see the like before & I cuff'd her Ears for her but the next morning she came & cry'd to me and said she was a fool & mad & told me that I wasa father to them all & that she and all her Indians would love me & I should never come to any harm. She hade been very good ever sincein givingme any information & alwaysspeakingin our praiseto theseIndiansand her own. We buried her ab't 4 a clock.... 30

The journal reveals the power and status that the Slave woman had within the egalitarian society of the Chipewyans, and for that matter the Crees, who had been already going through the process of transformation. Although the Slave woman may have appeared to be exceptional, her exceptionalism was an expression and outgrowth of egalitarian society. We can see that just the process of developing trade towards commodity production was not enough. The idea of communism had to be ended. A notion of private property and subservience had to be created. Hence, the strategy of developing trade, creating dependency or use-value for European goods, then terminating the trade. This destroyed any notion of mutuality of trade and established the basis for a lord-peasant relationship. The kettle became symbolic of accepting private property and at the same time the conflict around it was symbolic of both colonial and sexual subservience. The Slave woman's role in Indian society was being used and at the same time her role was being destroyed. Apart from Indian women being exploited politically by Euro- peans to gain control of their society's productive mechanisms, they were also exploited sexually. At no time throughout the fur trade were European women allowed into the territory of Rupert's Land. The absence of women, therefore, made Indian women a valuable sexual commodity to the colonizer. It was a common practice for the resident officers to have permanent, or even casual sexual relationships with influential Indian women as a means of developing and maintaining trade relations with the surrounding Indian groups. One officer commented in 1743 on the importance of a particular Indian woman to the continuing of trade at Moose Fac- tory. She apparently lived for a period of time within the fort and had a child by the officer.

Ausiskashagan came in here hawling his sick wife on a Sledge, re-

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lieved them with provisions .... she having been brought up at Al- bany & used to these comforts, as being of ye blood Royal & has a child by Mr. Adams, is very industrious in catching Martins, I having had above two hundred from her husband already & must use them with tenderness on acc't of ye Comp'ys Interest.I'

In addition, officers, as a condition and privilege of their class, took possession of women as concubines. This privilege was denied to the European servant class; it was a privilege in much the same manner as a feudal lord expected to enjoy with peasant women in Europe. An officer during the late 1700s wrote:

No European women are allowed to be brought to Hudson's Bay, and no person is allowed to have any correspondence with the natives without the Chief's orders .... However, the Factors for the most part at proper times allowes an Officer to take in an Indian lady to his apartment, but by no means or on any account whatever to har- bour her within the Fort at night. However, the Factors keepsa bed- fellow within the Fort at all times, and have carried several of their children home as before observed.P As the communal Indian society broke down under commodity production, Indian women gradually became more dependent upon men. The colonial situation presented an opportunity to some women for seeking economic security or benefits from varied relationships with European men. If a woman was able to become a live-in companion or even wife of a high officer, or just as a living- out companion of any junior officers, the material benefits could be considerably greater than living the life that was unfolding for a peasant. The creation of dependency conditions that forced women to seek these particular opportunities laid the basis for privileged positions or differences which were to occur among Indian women. To the officer class, such was seen as a class privilege, but in reality it was class prostitution. These same privileges were denied the servant or working class, hence any relations between Indian women and working class European men took the form of a more overt form of prostitution. As a newly arrived officer reported in his journal at York Factoryin 1762: "the worst Brothel House in London is not so common a (Stew) as the mens House in this Factory was before I put a stop to it.... "33 During the first century of its existence, the mercantilism of the fur trade did not allow any formal formations of families between European men and Indian women around the different posts. In fact, one of the reasons why European women were not brought into the country was that the internal formation of feudalistic relations of production did not require any form of a free labour mar-

58 Ron Bourgeault/Indians, Metis

ket within the territory. If allowed to develop it would have lead to the growth of a surplus wage labour pool which would be a burden upon the trade. Any Mixed-blood children born out of clandestine relationships between Europeans and Indian women were as a matter of policy to be brought up as Indians. This prevented the formation of a wage labour pool, since the capitalist labour market was to remain in Britain. As the Board of Governors complained in 1747 to the officers in charge of Fort Prince of Wales (Churchill):

Weeare sorry to find by information, that not withstandingour former orders often repeated, that no family of Indians especially Women be suffered to remain within the Factory. That you suffer two such familys to be in your appartment which in consequence must be detrimental to the Companysinterest. . . .34

As the initial development of feudalistic relations did not allow individual mixed or European family formations to take place in and around the creation of a surplus wage labour pool, so these relations necessitated the creation of individual family units among the Indian peasantry out of the destruction of communal family units. With the establishment of commodity trade, the basic unit of fur production slowly became the individual family, with the men dominant and the women dependent, doing support work. Each fur trade post demanded that groups or bands, made up of individual families of Indians, be tied to it in producing what was required. 3~ To enhance this and at the same time aid in the breakdown of the communal family, the officers would offer to maintain women and children of individual families while the men went out to trap or hunt food for the post. Thus individual family units in association with others became tied to their respective fur trade posts and bound to the land producing commodities for exchange. With dependency upon the fur trade post, women's work became exploit- able in support of each post. In 1724, at Fort Prince of Wales, not ten years after the death of the Slave woman, we can see how individual families were being formed, with dependency and exploit- able support work coming into place, eventually taking the form of unpaid and expected servitude:

The Indian whichcarnehereye22'd of last month wentawaywithhis wife in order to look for some deer, he leaving .... children by reason they would be a hindrance if he had taken them with him, he having been employedall this fall a making things necesaryfor our Men which lay abroad this Winter. So I think to Entertain him he having a Small family for to hunt for us this Winter, also to knitt SnowShooes& making Indian Shooes& other thingsis wanting for

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ye Men in ye Winter time & itt being Usual to Entertain an Indian for ye same purpose .... 36

The Age of Mercantile Competition and the Creation of the Labour Market, 17605-1821 As the first half of the eighteenth century was characterized by mercantilism establishing itself and creating feudalistic relations of production, so the latter part of the eighteenth century and first part of the nineteenth century came to be characterized by the entrench- ment of these relations and an increase of British colonialism and imperialism. However, it also included the rapid inland penetration of both mercantile companies - the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company - the continued process of economic conquering, and the increased exploitation of Indian labour as a result of monopoly competition and the increased demands of the European market. Finally, there was the further internal development of class and racial divisions, as well as the increased dependency of Indian women. The competition and inland penetration by both mercantile companies created an increased need for more permanent labour and officers to work and manage the increased post and transportation infrastructure. As a concession to permanence, European labourers were informally allowed to take Indian women as "country wives" or companions, but any mixed-blood children still had to be raised as Indians. However, the cost of maintaining the infrastructure and increased importation of labour became astronomical. 37 Together with labour shortages in Europe, due to wars, and increases in the price of labour, due to industrialization, there began to emerge the need for a source of wage labour within the territory. There was a need for a form of labour market, a market from which mercantilism could draw wage labourers when they were needed and could expel them when no longer needed. However, at the foundation of the fur trade was the Indian peasantry and the feudalistic social relations encompassing them. Merchant capital could not destroy the peasantry in order to create a "free labour" force. The Company therefore- started to see the potential benefits from relaxed relations between European workers and Indian women - the value of mixed-blood children as a source of wage labour. A labour pool could form separate from the peasantry and at the same time pressure the peasantry. This process was begun under competition between the two mercantile companies, but did not become formalized until after the merger of the two companies in 1821. Before the merger, the labour

60 Ron Bourgeault/Indians, Metis

market was developed only insofar as cheaper native wage labour was occasionally needed and was drawn upon sporadically within feudalistic relations. There was no formal discharge of labour into any established labour pool or reserves. Inasmuch as merchant capitalists were increasingly in need of a cheaper internal source of wage labour, so they were also in need of a national elite that could function in association with them under their colonial rule. The new indigenous class structure had to form outside of the peasantry and this could only be accomplished through the evolution of individual family units by means of intermarriage. Thus there came into being a native petty bourgeois and wage labour class, which for reasons of class and race, were no longer to be considered as Indians and were not allowed to become English. They were, as their colonizers called them, "Half-breeds." In turn this created a radically oppressive situation for Indian women. The creation of a native petty bourgeoisie began in the 1760swith officers being granted the formal privilege of sending their Mixed- blood male children to Britain for education." On their return the Mixed-blood young men were not allowed to have the same class position as their fathers. The colonial officer class constituted a feudal enclave whose responsibilities and allegiances remained in Britain. Their Mixed-blood children were seen as nationals and were not entrusted with running the fur trade. The first generation of mixed-blood elites were given junior positions as clerks within the fur trade and used as middle men in trading with the Indians. Mixed-blood female children as a rule were not allowed to be sent to Britain for an education, remaining instead to become the wives of European officers or servants. The resident European ruling elite eventually found it to be more "desirable" to take a mixed-blood woman than an Indian woman as a companion. Mixed-blood women were thus forced to become the wives of incoming officers. Such was the case of a mixed-blood wife of an officer making a request that their child be educated in Britain:

An infant that has the tenderest claims upon me, and looks up to me for protection and support, demands that I should not. ... increase it by leaving him in this country. . . . unprotected to the mercy of un- feeling Indians .... the request arises not from a sudden fit of affection from the infant but from a long-wished-for desire; from a duty I owe him, as well as from the affection I bare him, and I the more strongly wish it as his Mother is the daughter of an Englishman and has few or no Indian friends to protect the child should any accident happen to me."

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Thus an elite of mixed-blood women took shape, in the form of a class and racial division among Indian women as a whole. They were no longer Indians, because as dependent women their new role did not prepare them for that, but like their "brothers" they were not allowed to be English. So mixed-blood women also became Half-breeds. Mixed-bloods were employed permanently in the same capacity as Europeans, but did not have the same status. To be allowed the same status would have meant that they would have had to be paid the same wages as a European and be allowed to emigrate to Britain. The mixed-blood potential labourers were denied both, since to have allowed either would have gone against the formation of a cheaper labour pool. Take the case of Thomas and John Richards in 1783-84:

We are sorry to acquaint you we are five men short of our intended compliment being only 59 Men, but there is two young lads by the name Thomas & John Richards - sons of Mr. Richards late Master at Henley - who have made repeated application to your chief and officers to be retained in your Honors service as Englishmen, the former has frequently been employed in caes of necessity.t"

The following year the two young mixed-bloods were hired as "Englishmen," but did not gain the right to emigrate to England." (Thomas Richards, however, declined the position because he was not allowed to go to England.F) As the intent was to form a labour pool at a cheaper rate than labour from Britain, emigration could not be allowed. The labour pool had to be captivated and reproduced within the territory. With the only job source being the Company, the surplus wage labour had no choice - except to go back into primary production as a peasant. Thus began a further class and race division: mixed-bloods entering the labouring class were no longer allowed to be an "Indian," in the sense that they were being separated from their own means of production; nor were they allowed to become "English." Half-breeds soon comprised the mass of the labour force outside the peasantry. By the end of the eighteenth century, Half-breed children of the working class and the officer class were given the rudiments of education to prepare them for Company service. Training programs were designed so that youths might apprentice for upwards of seven to ten years, either to become unskilled labour or craftsmen." Women's dependency on men, either inside or outside the peasantry, or now between Half-breed and European men within the working class, was becoming

------Ron Bourgeault/Indians, Metis

complete - as support workers within the individual family and as reproducers of labour. As one officer wrote in his daily post journal: "the men employed about Sundry Duty's as before Except Mag's Twait. ... and I man plaining woodwork for 2 canoes and the Men's Women mak'g Pitch and splitting meat for drying."44 Merchant capital, from the 1780s to the 1820s, began to create a capitalist labour market within the fur trade's predominant feudalistic relations of production. It did so without at the same time destroying those relations. During that same time period, merchant capital lost its independence, as industrial capital was becoming the dominant form of capital in Britain; it became absorbed within the developing capitalist mode of production. Industrial capital had no designs of applying itself within the fur trade territory until the mid-1850s. In the meantime, merchant capital was allowed to retain its position within the fur trade so long as it functioned within the interests of industrial capital. Because merchant capital did not develop the productive mechanisms of the society in which it operated, its constant presence served only to "un- derdevelop" the society. The predominance of the feudalistic relations of production within the fur trade did not change so long as merchant capital itself remained the dominant form, even when it was an agent of industrial capital. Thus, as capitalism continued to develop with industrial capital, the fur trade and the northern Indian became underdeveloped, as they were still under the in- fluence of merchant capital. In short, the North did not change; it stayed the same, producing fur with a subsistance peasantry, even as global patterns changed. Any internal changes that resulted from the implementation of a labour market - the formation of a wage labour class and a petty bourgeoisie - did not serve to develop the society, but rather served to create underdeveloped classes in a society that overall, was underdeveloped. However, as an increasingly minor aspect of the overall development of capital, merchant capital's previously high rate of profit was reduced correspondingly." In the fur trade this created greater exploitation of the northern Indian population and the further erosion of Indian society.

The Age of British Colonialism and Imperialism, 1821-1870 From 1821, when the two mercantile companies merged, until 1870, when Rupert's Land was annexed to Canada, an era of formal British colonialism existed. The class formations and contradictions that developed during the era of monopoly competition started to crystallize after 1821, resulting in overt class and national struggles.

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The rise of national consciousness among the Metis population grew out of the class oppression and racial hierarchy formed within the mercantile system. The Hudson's Bay Company no longer exercised political power solely as an independent mercantile concern; rather it came more closely under the control of the British parlia- ment and Colonial Office. The Company became, in effect, an agent of British imperial.interests. The British created a political and state organization to deal with the developing internal class formations and divisions of labour, as a means of maintaining their imperial interests in the area.46 Soon after the merger, the Hudson's Bay Company initiated a series of radical changes to economize and streamline the operation of the industry." The Company retrenched and centralized all its operations in Red River. All posts, labour and management considered redundant were dispensed with. Labourers and officers were either retired or discharged and sent home or settled at Red River. The labourers were the Metis or Half-breeds that had been engaged in different wage labour capacities in the interior or around Hud- son's Bay, the plains Metis buffalo hunters that emerged under the North West Company, European labourers, and French labourers and free hunters, all with their native families. The labourers sent to Red River constituted a free labour force that the Company could draw upon when needed. It could be employed seasonally, as in the summer as voyageurs, and discharged during slack periods. It could function as a pool for any permanent labour that might be needed and at a cheaper rate than in Europe or Quebec. Those who could not obtain wage labour positions, either by contract or consistently on a seasonal basis, spilled over to become the plains buffalo hunters. The internal post infrastructure needed the surplus production of food and its distribution throughout the interior. The harvest of the buffalo had to be effective and complete; the disciplined labour needed to accomplish this had to come from within capitalism. Surplus food accumulation could not rely upon the arbitrary trading with the plains Indian, who was as yet unconquered and still communally organized. This quote from a Protestant missionary illustrates the formed and functioning labour pool and market:

I say this not to the disparagement of either parties for many follow these callings from necessity more than choice: these being the only lawful means within their reach to obtain clothing for themselves and families. By making a voyage to York a man will earn £6 or £7 ster- ling .... the same defence may be made for many who leave their homes, their children and churches to go to hunt on the plains,

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Pemican, Dried meat and fat, whichthey sell to raise money to purchase the European articles wanted for their individual or family use.48

By the 1830s, 20 per cent of the contracted servants were Half- breeds; 50 per cent were Half-breeds by the 1850s. As well, there was all the seasonal labour in transportation - either with Red River carts or boats - and general labour around the different posts." Those who settled in the Red River were given land grants in ac- cordance with their class position. Retired officers with their native families were given the largest land grants, some upwards of 1000 acres, others less than 100 acres. The already present Selkirk Settlers received one- or two-hundred-acre grants from Lord Selkirk's estate. European tradesmen received upwards of 50 acres, with other labourers, either Half-breed or European, receiving about 25 acres. Many of the common unskilled labourers and plains buffalo hunters were not given any grants outright, but were allowed to settle as squatters. so The Red River was not designed to be a free colony in the sense that the land was public property and each individual settler had a right to turn part of it into private property and individual production. Rather, tenure remained with the Com- pany in feudalistic fashion. However, individual allotments were made in order to create a landed petty bourgeois ruling elite and a large agrarian peasant population which produced food for the internal use of mercantile enterprise, with the only market being that provided by the Company. SI Over the first twenty years of settlement, the landed officer class was required to subdivide their lands among their Metis children, thereby creating a landed Metis petty bourgeois class. It was the landed petty bourgeois elite - both Metis and European - that had appointed access to the colonial civil government, the Council of Assiniboia. The land allotments to the labouring class and buffalo hunters were designed to support low wages for the workers and exploitive trade returns from the hunters. Small land ownership or squatting rights centralized the labour pool in the Red River. Wage labour was never completely divorced from its own means of production. The petty bourgeoisie in the Red River consisted of more than land owners; the Company created a commercial petty bourgeoisie by contracting out certain enterprises it considered too costly to manage itself. Either retired officers or their Metis children were allowed to establish themselves in such enterprises as transportation, fur trading or buffalo trading. The Company determined the price

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for transportation contracts and provided the only market for individual fur or buffalo traders. What emerged from this colonial economy was the exploitation of a national (Metis) petty bourgeoisie, a small working class, and a large peasantry. During the 1840s the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie eventually came into conflict with the merchant bourgeoisie. There was a struggle for both free trade and democratic institutions in the Red River. It was not until the turn of the nineteenth century that the question of religion was considered as a further means of establishing rule over the Indian population. The Company, in conjunction with the British Colonial Office, brought in both the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. Their prime function was to collaborate with British rule and to assist in maintaining their economic and political interests within Rupert's Land and Assiniboia. To the native population as a whole they brought ideological colonialism. Both churches operated mostly within Assiniboia during the 1820s and 1830s. Their presence provided control over the labour market. Through church-sanctioned marriages the formalization of individual families as the basic unit was guaranteed. Families were needed for the reproduction of labour within the internal labour market. This also meant the further subjugation of native women in their dependent relationship within the family. Within the petty bourgeoisie the Church maintained the colonial subservience and al- legiance between the indigenous Half-breed petty bourgeoisie and its European counterpart. The Church also served to divide both classes - the labouring class and petty bourgeoisie - on religious grounds by polarizing French- and English-speaking Half-breeds. The Church did not move upon the interior Indian population ef- fectively until the early 1840s. Until then the exploitation and colonialism had been political and economic, relying only marginally on the ideological influences of the post officers to cajole the Indian peasantry to consistently produce furs. It was with Christianity that the ideological conquering of the Indian finally took place. The levelling of the rate of profit and the increased demand from the markets required further thrusts into the interior and more Indian labour in production. As the Indian population increasingly inter- nalized the need and the value of European commodity goods, they correspondingly became more conscious of the exploitation of their labour. Thus, Christianity served the British interests by allowing them more systematically to exploit the Indian peasantry and to deal with any overt reaction to the exploitation. As well, Christianity served to extend British political sovereignty over the Indian population. A Protestant missionary described the inherent oppres-

66 Ron Bourgeault/lndians, Metis

sion and the exploiting contradictions created through maintenance of the Indian as a peasant.

I have for some time found that Ruperts Land is not a desirable place of residence for a person of my feelings. There is something so gloomy and repulsive in that state of barbarism in which the Indians live, and the obstacles in the way of civilization are so great, that you can scarcely expect that progress which will satisfy your own conscience and the expectations of your employers. Were the tendency of the trade of Ruperts Land and the disposition of the Hon'ble Company's agents towards civilization we would then have some reason to hope for success. But as the only trade is in furs, which can only exist while the country continues in a state of barbarism and be a lucrative one, while the Indian remains as ignorant of merchandize as the animal he hunts; we perceive every step which we make is uphill against the poverty, prejudices, and habits of the Indian on the one hand; and interests of the European on the other. It may be said with certainty "if we increase, the interest of the Hon'ble Company must decrease." There I may relate an anecdote of an Indian who is settled amongst us, and who brought a moose skin to sell to a settler who had been once in the fur trade. "Charles, what is the price of your moose skin?" Indian "8 shillings." Settler "0, you stingy fellow, what has put such a notion as that into your head, I have seen the day when you would have sold it for 8 inches of tobacco." Indian, "I did not know the value of my skin then, it is only since I have had to purchase leather from the Company's store that I have learned to know its value .... "52

Inasmuch as a "national" (Metis) labour force was created within Rupert's Land, so there was created a "national" (Metis) petty bourgeoisie. The Company created and allowed such petty bourgeois elements to operate commercially so long as they provided a service for the Company at a rate cheaper than what it could provide itself. It was a colonial class, subject to exploitation as a result of the overall high exploitation of the entire economy, and politically suppressed, as only the basic forms of "democracy" were extended. Politically the petty bourgeoisie was granted only the basic colonially appointed representative institutions that functioned to advise the resident British/Company colonial governor. The petty bourgeoisie was also divided economically between French-speaking and English-speaking Half-breeds, a situation which expressed itself in the colonial appointments to the advisory council. It was the English-speaking Half-breeds who were established in the stronger commercial enterprises and accordingly received the political representation. Half-breed children (but now female as well as male), continued to be sent to Britain for a colonial education and returned to be as

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part of the Red River colonized elite. By the middle of the 184Os, distinct class formations were created within the overall native population. One officer's European wife described, from York Fac- tory in 1840, the class formations that had taken place:

the state of society seems shocking. Some people educate & make gentlemen of part of their family & leave the other savages. I had heard of Mr. Bird at Red River & his dandified sons. One day while the boats were here a common half breed came in to get order for provisions for his boatmen. Mr. H.(argrave) called him Mr. Bird to my amazement. This was one who had not been educated & while his father & brothers are Nobility at the Colony, he is a voyageur & sat at a table with the house servants here. Dr. MacLaughlin, one of our grandees at a great expense gave 2 of his sons a regular education in England & keeps the 3rd a common Indian. One of them had been for years at the Military College in Lon'n but they have both entered the Coy Service - I daresay the heathen is the happiest of them as the father is constantly upbraiding the others with the ransom they have cost him .... 53

For young, well-educated Half-breed women, the only course and access to the petty bourgeoisie was as marriageable partners to Half- breed men, or if they were lucky, to the very elite officers. However, during the 1830s and onward Half-breed women within the elite ranks of the European colonial! Company administrators (officer class) were being displaced by European women. This produced the basis for common class action with their male Half-breed counter- parts who were being denied access to capital and representative institutions. The contradictions of the native petty bourgeoisie with the merchant bourgeoisie and their colonial administrators crystallized in the free trade struggles of the 184Os. The first instance of resistance against British colonial rule oc- cured in the late 1830s. A movement called the Indian Liberation Army formed, led by some Half-breeds educated in Upper Canada who may have been influenced by the politics of the 1837 rebellion in the Canadas. Their program was the elimination of all British capitalists and their rule from Rupert's Land and moreso from As- siniboia, and the establishment of a native country. The movement failed to gather support, and the leadership was co-opted by being offered junior positions within the Company. From the late 1830s onwards, the Half-breed petty bourgeoisie saw the monopoly of the Company as being responsible for their class exploitation and oppression, preventing them from growing as a class." Together with the inherent colonial social relations and racism within the ruling circles of Assiniboia, resistance to the economic and political suppression by the Half-breed petty bourgeoisie

68 Ron Bourgeault/Indians, Metis

and workers grew into nationalist consciousness. The Metis petty bourgeoisie began to strategize about how to displace British mercantilism to become bourgeois mercantilists themselves. During the 184Os,in an attempt to expand their class interests, commercial elements in Assiniboia began trading furs into the United States. Rapid moves then followed to acquire fur markets within Britain and to engage in private import of merchant trade goods separate from that allowed by the Company. British colonialism, in turn, was afraid that once the Metis grew as an economic class, they would inevitably develop aspirations to gain political control of their national territory, even independence. Reprisals were quickly initiated by the British. Agreements were made with the Americans to curtail trading into the United States. In Britain, market creation and import of private goods was sabo- taged. Most important, colonial tariffs on all imported goods into Rupert's Land were imposed. All these reprisals had the effect of curtailing the development of the Metis petty bourgeoisie and curtailing the capital base on which it could grow to become a threat. During the 1840s the class interests of the Half-breed working class were also taking form. Efforts were being made by the voyageurs to have a day of rest on Sunday - often referred to as anti- Sunday travelling. Although initiated by radical elements within the Protestant church, it eventually became a labour issue and a struggle with the Company over the rights of workers. The Com- pany in turn saw it as a threat to their control and "ownership" of the labour force. Many a strike and mutiny occurred over this issue, as well as other issues such as wages and working conditions. During the free trade struggles of the 184Os,elements of the working class - the voyageurs - aligned themselves politically with the petty bourgeoisie. In the summer of 1846, James Sandison, a leader in organizing anti-Sunday travelling, organized a mutiny of voyageurs at Portage La Loche (now northern Saskatchewan). He rallied the voyageurs in a statement: "My Brothers! It is the Half Breeds that make the laws at Red River for themselves and for the Canadians (French) and Scotch people, and if we do not do it here it is our own fault. We have the same power here that they have there."ss In 1849 an armed insurrection occurred, led by Louis Riel Sr., against the authority and internal repression of the company. The rebellion was not staged by just a few individuals from the petty bourgeoisie. While some opposed it, there was mass support, including support from the labour force. Inasmuch as the free trade struggle was for the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie, so

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struggles were being engaged by elements of the working class. The fact that the latter made political alliances with the former provided the basis for another struggle, the overall struggle for democracy and national liberation from colonialism. The intensity of the struggles in the 1840sprompted one Company officer to state in a letter to the colonial governor:

We can no longer hide from ourselves the fact, that free trade no- tions and the course of events are making such rapid progress, that the day is certainly not far distant, when ours, the last important British monopoly, will necessarily be swept away like all others. By the force of public opinion, or by the still more undesirable but in- evitable course of violence and . . . . within the country itself. I would therefore in my humble belief be far better to make a merit of necessity than to await the coming storm, for come it will.56

The free trade struggles in the Red River should be viewed in the same context as the struggles to repeal the corn laws in Britain and the bourgeois revolutions in 1848 throughout continental Europe. The response of the British Colonial Office and the Company was to bring in colonial troops to suppress both the rebellion and free trade. The actual presence of troops continued throughout the 1850sup until the early 1860s. The Company also responded with particular reforms designed to co-opt the petty bourgeoisie. Conces- sions towards representative government within Assiniboia were granted. The Council of Assiniboia was still to function as an advisory body to the colonial governor. The internal economy was "liberalized," but total free trade was still not allowed. The petty bourgeoisie was allowed to expand through further contracts for particular Company operations, but it was not allowed to develop or acquire capital that would compete with British interests. These concessions were able temporarily to stave off internal discontent and at the same time maintain British imperialist interests. British imperialism since the mid-l 850shad been planning the end of mercantilist administration and interests in Rupert's Land and the confederation of all British North American possessions into one nation-state. The Anglo-Canadian bourgeoisie was also interested in expanding its national and capitalist interests and was si- multaneously advocating annexation of Rupert's Land to Upper Canada. The initial strategy of British Imperialism, in conjunction with Anglo-Canadian capitalist interests, was to have Rupert's Land confederated with territorial status. In order to help British financial interests to function, the old mercantile class within the Company was bought out by the International Financial Society in

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1862 and the Company reorganized around financial capital. The strategy was to open the plains area of Rupert's Land to settlement and capitalist agricultural production for the industrial east and the world market. The question of the fur trade was also reconsidered, and this involved debate about what would happen to the North and the Indian population. The decision was that the Company would continue with the trade after confederation, but that there would be no movement of any capital into the North other than the continued presence of merchant capital. The administration of the Indian people would continue to be assumed by both the Company and Church; there was to be no semblance of a democratic state. 57 As a result there would be very little or no change in the mode and relations of production in the North. Despite the formation of Canada and capitalist production, the North was intentionally kept under the dictates of merchant capital and increasingly became more backward.

Riel and the Failed Revolution In Assiniboia it was known as early as 1857 that the British had political designs of annexing their territory to form a confederated British North America. What was not known was when it would occur and whether their interests would be retained by such a move. Liberal intellectuals like James Ross, a Half-breed from the Red River who had studied at the University of Toronto and who was editor of the Globe newspaper under George Brown, returned to Assiniboia in the 1860s and began agitation against the Company and British colonial rule. Ross, who was to become Riel's arch- rival, was agitating for annexation of Assiniboia and Rupert's Land to Upper Canada, in order to gain access to industrial capital. Ross saw the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie of Assinoboia existing in relationship with the bourgeoisie in Toronto or Upper Canada. The land owners - Metis and Selkirk Settlers - would have access to open markets for their grains and would no longer be required to sell only to the Company. As the anti-colonial struggle began to unfold, Ross ultimately placed himself in the political centre with the petty bourgeois land owners, Metis and Selkirk. After re-organization of the Company in 1862, the internal politics and economic structures of Assiniboia began to crumble. Elements of the labouring class were becoming radicalized: reduced wages, unemployment and over-work increased their suffering. Strikes were more numerous among the voyageurs: the La Loche boat brigades engaged in work shut downs every summer throughout the 1860s.58 Anglo-Canadian merchants, who immigrated

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throughout the 1860sand whose political leadership was Orangist, also called for annexation to Upper Canada. The Orangists had no mass political base in Assiniboia other than their own transplanted class interests. They were racist, anti-Indian, anti-French and anti- Catholic - nothing more than a reactionary petty bourgeois exten- sion of the coming imperialism. They wanted only political and economic access to Anglo-Canadian capitalism. Whatever political differences existed in Assiniboia, all classes were unanimous in one thing: their opposition to mercantile and British colonialism. With the return of Riel in 1868, a more radical democratic wing emerged. Whereas the other two political formations - the reactionary Orangists and the landowners under James Ross - were anti-colonial, they were acting only on behalf of their own particular class interests. Neither had made any political inroads into the mass of the population. Both Ross and the racist Orangists found it impossible to gain mass support because they did not express the political class interests of the mass of the labouring population. Armed with a political program, Riel and other radical liberal intellectuals set out to develop a base within the mass of the population. This base included the voyageurs, plains hunters and poorer elements of the petty bourgeoisie such as small landowners and Red River cart operators. They believed that all the mechanisms of British colonialism, both political and economic, were useless and oppressive. The whole history of their class exploitation and oppression would be allowed to continue if there was not a fundamental change in the political and economic system. That fundamental change could only take place with the establishment of responsible democracy and the creation of a state over which they held political power. With the creation of a political state and internal control over the economy, they could then "liberate" the mass of the population from the form of their exploitation. Colonialism would again be recreated against them if territorial annexation to Canada was allowed without any guarantees of political power. The only way towards emancipation and liberation was to separate themselves from the colonial process and to decolonize through a declaration of independence. They could not allow the old colonial structures to be recreated within the new political relationships that were coming. Internal popular support and external recognition were vital. Riel's political position was in fact the minority position within the provisional government that he created. Yet it contained within it the most democracy for the people. Internally, while under political siege from Ottawa and London, Riel attempted to keep the different political forces aligned with his program and at the same time

72 Ron Bourgeault/lndians, Metis

to maintain a political front to deal with the external political forces. Thus he saw it as necessary that Thomas Scott, who was an Orangist reactionary and political element of Ottawa and London, be shot as a counter-revolutionary agent. Riel's political program and strategy were the basis of a real na- tionalliberation struggle, a struggle that had been ongoing for thirty years. It could only be realized with the creation, by the subjugated and the oppressed, of their own bourgeois democracy, state and national territory. In this sense the events of 1869-70 can be considered as the basis of the bourgeois democratic revolution of the native population. It was definitely not just a rebellion as bourgeois history would have us believe. This idea of "national independence" and "control over a state" by a people who were not loyal was considered a threat to bourgeois capital and the formation of Canada as a nation-state. The period from 1870 until Riel was driven into exile was one in which Ottawa politically undermined Manitoba as a state and re-created it as a province. The uprising or rebellion of 1885was the last resistance in a battle begun in 1869-70.The subjugation of the Metis was completed with the formation of Canada as a nation-state. By 1885 Riel came to view imperialism as a system and saw what it was doing to the native population as a whole, and what it was doing to other people around the world. Politically Riel became anti-imperialist, but he saw the inevitability of what was coming. The only solution was to resist so that resistance could live for the future. The following is taken from an open letter by Riel to the Irish World, dated 6 May 1885, just a few days before the battle of Batoche, and published five days after he was hanged:

The outside world has heard but little of my people since the beginning of this war in the North-West Territory, and that little has been related by agents and apologists of the bloodthirsty British Empire .... Our lands .... have since been torn from us, and given to landgrabbers who never saw the country .... English lords .... and the riches which these lands produce are drained out of the country and sent over to England to be consumed by a people that fatten on a system that pauperizes us .... The result is extermination or slavery. Against this monstrous tyranny we have been forced to rebel. ... the behaviour of the English is not singular. Follow those pirates the world over, and you will find that everywhere, and at all times, they adopt the same tactics, and operate on the same thievish lines. Ireland, India, the Highlands of Scotland, Australia, and the isles of the Indian Ocean - all these countries are the sad evidences, and their native populations are the witnesses to England's land robberies .... The enemies who seek our destruction are strangers to justice. They are cruel, treacherous and bloody .... In a little while

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it will be all over. We may fail. But the rights for which we contend will not die. A day of reckoning will come to our enemies and of jubilee to my people. The hated yoke of English domination and arrogance will be broken in this land, and the long-suffering victims of their injustice will, with Gods blessing, re-enter into the peaceful enjoyments of their possessions. 59

On 16 November 1885, Riel was killed by the Canadian state in the interests of capital.

Concluding Remarks Whatever the complexities of the politics at that time, one of the single most important reasons for the revolution's lack of success lay in the underdeveloped nature of the class formations and class forces. The radical intelligentsia was able to provide the political in- sight and direction, but the class power required to carry it through did not exist. If the class forces were not propitious then, do they exist today within the native population, independent from the rest of the class struggle within this country? The same question led another Metis leader by the name of Jim Brady to comment during the 1940s and 1950s: "We have no independent social base other than the working class. With the working class as the necessary assisting force, we can be strong. If we go against the democratic forces we are converted into nothing."60 In a broad and general way this opens the question of the nature of the class struggle today. Liberation from oppression and exploitation cannot be accomplished in isolation from the "white" working class. It is not a contradiction for the greater working class to be able to reflect or echo the struggles of the native, as the basis of the native struggle is the question of class. For far too long the Left has failed or refused to recognize that class lies at the basis of the native question. Today, in the North, the whole existence of a backward form of production or labour, grossly exploited over the centuries, lies crumbling before imperialism. Yet the strategy of some of the Left is to make alliances or pacts with imperialism and the Canadian state in the vain hope that somehow this "traditional society" can preserve itself in isolation. It all becomes convoluted in a romantic notion of what it is to be an Indian. The contradiction of the native lies with capital, not with the working class. The occurrence of mass unemployment in the North and in the cities of the South are the effects of capital, just as it is capital that is causing mass unemployment to occur within the previously employed greater working class. The first step is to develop relationships between the native and greater working class over the

74 Ron Bourgeault/Indians, Metis

root of their oppression. That does not mean, because of colonial relations and high levels of unemployment in the North, that the native should not engage in collective action alone (if necessary) against the state in order to create employment. These actions should also entail further strategic relationships with the working class directed towards a greater political program. For the greater working class, it is not a problem for them that the native should struggle for democracy. The strength of that struggle can and should be enhanced by its support.

Notes

This article is an outgrowth of seven years of research on behalf of the Asso- ciation of Metis and Non-Status Indians of Saskatchewan (AMNSIS). I would further like to state that it was AMNSIS which had the foresight to broaden itself into a comprehensive information-gathering project of the Metis and Indian people in western and northern Canada. The information is presently being deposited in The Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied Research, Regina, Saskatchewan. The information is being made available to native students and others who are interested in researching native history in western and northern Canada. I would as well like to thank Wallace Clement and Leo Panitch for their constructive criticism of the original paper, and also Stuart Ryan and Maija Kagis for their editorial suggestions.

I. For clarification, the term "native" should be taken to include Indian, Metis, and Half-breed or mixed-blood people.

2. Doug Daniels, "Dene Government: Middle Class Dream or Working Reality" (8 October 1980). Extracts from a position paper on native government for the Dene Nation. Daniels points out the difficulties of establishing native self-government without class differences being involved. It is argued that it would be the creation of neo-colonialism. Cf. Mel Watkins, Dene Nation - the Colony Within (Toronto 1977), 47-61, 84-99. Watkins et al. fail to acknowledge the historic class development and exploitation of the Indian population in the North. Instead their strategy is to employ nationalism as the basis of struggle, with aboriginal rights or land claims as a means of striking a legalized relationship with imperialism and the national bourgeois state and hence, access to capital. The intent is that somehow a cultural preserve can be made that will maintain the Indian people in some manner as they existed at some particular time in their past. In reality there is no turning back. At what particular time in history do a people turn back to? That is an illusion of the class struggle. The solution is to go forward and rid humanity of exploitation.

3. Karl Marx, Capital, 3 vols. (Moscow 1977), 1:45,668-9,703; 3:333-4

75 Studies in Political Economy

4. Claude Meillassoux, "From Reproduction to Production," Economy and Society 1:4 (February 1972), 103

5. Rosa Luxembourg, The Accumulation of Capital (New York), 370

6. Marx, Capital, 3:326-7. (See n. 3 above.)

7. Ernesto Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America," New Left Review 67 (1971), 33

8. Marx, Capital, 1:316

9. Ibid., 1:82-3, 332, 480

10.See Meillassoux, "From Reproduction to Production," 93. (See n. 4 above.)

II. Marx, Capital, I: 164, 173-4, 479-80. Marx saw labour or labour power and the fact that it was socialized, as a condition of the human being separate from that of an animal. With the socialization of labour there appears necessary-labour and surplus-labour. Surplus-labour appears in all modes of production and without it there cannot be a social formation.

12.Eleanor Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance (New York 1981), 13-29, 133-82

13.Marx, Capital, 1:174-6. See also Meillassoux, "From Reproduction to Production. "

14.See Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America," 28, 30 (see n. 7 above.) There is a paraIlel between feudal production in Latin America and in the "northern" part of Canada when mercantilism was dominant. That does not mean the situation is the same today. Laclau further states that the exploitation of the Latin American peasantry increased with demands by the world market.

15.Governor and Committee Instructions, 23 June 1702, Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (hereafter H.B.C.A., P.A.C.), A6/3,f.99

16.May 1716, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., B239/a/ ,f.28-30. This is a long journal of the Chief Officer at then York Factory. It concerns the use of a captured "Slave" woman of the Dene-Chipewyan people. The British were interested in developing trade with the Dene-Chipewyans to the northwest of York Factory. The Slave woman was used "politicaIly," because of her egalitarian power as a woman, to develop trade relationships with the Chipewyans.

17. Instructions from Governor and Committee, London, 23 June 1702, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/3,f.99. The instructions were to trade with the leading (male) Indians.

------Ron Bonrgeanlt/Indians, Metis

18. Humphrey Martin, Albany Fort, to Thomas Moore, East Main, Instructions on developing trade with particular Indians yet "untouched" by mercantilism, 28 September 1767, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., B3/6/5,f.ld. The instructions also included using Indians (male) from around their area who were involved in trade, to assist in developing new relations.

19. Numerous mention was made in the post journals of Moose Factory, Albany, York Factory and Churchill all throughout the 1700s of the repair and maintenance of guns, hatchets, knives etc., by the post armourer's and blacksmith's.

20. The main post journals, describing everyday life around the posts, frequently mentioned Indians bringing in surplus-products like meat, fowl, etc., above what was brought in to trade. This form of labour-rent was built in from the very beginning as a condition of servility. Also, constant mention was made by officers to "our Indians" or "my Indians" and the fact that they were not allowed to trade at other posts. See Marx, Capital, 3:633-5, 790-4 on ground-rent (labour-rent).

21. See "Facts about Merchants Capital," in Marx, Capital, 3:328

22. See "The Buying and Selling of Labour-power," in ibid., 1:166

23. See Meillassaoux, "From Reproduction to Production," 103

24. Governor and Committee, London, to Mr. Thomas Bird, Albany Fort, 18 May 1738, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/6,f.16. Frequent mention was made in all official correspondence and post journals of preventing total dependence and keeping the Indian constantly producing in the "bush." Only small handouts were given gratis.

25. Usually for three to five years, however, it was seen as being economically beneficial to extend workers' contracts when they expired in Rupert's Land. The main means of causing re-enlistment was to cause workers to become indebted to the Company while in its service.

26. John Thomas, Moose Fort, to John McNab, Albany, 9 April 1794, H.B.C.A. B3/b/31,f.l7

27. York Post Journal, 27 December 1715, H.B.C.A., B239/a/2,f.II,75

28. York Post Journal, 7 July 1791, H.B.C.A., B239/a/91,f.28. During the 1790s the transportation workers at Cumberland House started to organize themselves into "combinations" and engaged in "mutinies" over wages and working conditions.

29. Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock, eds., Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives (New York 1980), 1-22

30. Journal of James Knight, York Factory. May 1716. H.B.C.A .• P.A.C .• B239/a/2,f.28-30. See also 5 February 1717, B239/a/3,f.23

77 Studies in Political Economy

31. Moose Fort Post Journal, 4 March 1743, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., B1351 a/14,f.63-65

32. Glyndwr Williams, ed., Andrew Graham's Observations on Hudson's Bay, 1767-91 (London 1969), 248

33. York Post Journal, 22 September 1762, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., B239/a/50,f.3-7

34. Govenor and Committee, London, to Mr. Robert Pilgrim, Prince of Wales Fort, 6 May 1747, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A617,f.222

35. There were divisions created within the Indian peasantry - the Home- guard Indians and Upland trappers or Indians. The Homeguard Indians were induced to settle around the different posts on the "plantation." They were used as hunters in provisioning, some trapping and cheap labour for post work and transportation, paid in goods and not wages. The Homeguard consisted of many mixed-bloods for the aforemen- tioned reasons concerning women and the labour market. The Upland trappers were exclusively for producing fur and were constantly kept in the "bush" and never allowed to settle. The overall class formations that developed were: governor & committee - merchant bourgeoisie, Lon- don; overseas governor, chief factor, chief trader and clerks, doctors - petty bourgeoisie, Rupert's Land; servants - tradesman, voyageurs, labourers; peasants - Homeguard Indians, Upland trappers.

36. Prince of Wales Fort Journal, 8 October 1724, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., B42/a/5,f.7

37. Governor and Committee, London to Officers, York Factory, a direc- tive stating that the cost of maintaining European labour was becoming enormously heavy and that it had to be reduced, 31 May 1799, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A61l6,f.128.

38. Governor and Committee, London, to Ferdinand Jacobs and Council, York Factory, 31 May 1763, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/10,f.l07. Charles Price Isham son of James Isham, dec'd sent to Britain for education, returned in 1773in service of Company at £101yr. See Governor and Com- mittee to Ferdinand Jacobs, York Factory, 12 May 1773, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/Il,f.326. Also many others from 1760s onward.

39. Edward Jarvis, Fort Albany, to Governor and Committee, London, 28 September 1783, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A1l/4,f.208

40. Officers, Albany Fort to Governor and Committee, London, 28 September 1783, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., AIl/4,f.200

41. Governor and Committee, London, to Edward Jarvis and Council, Albany Fort, 19 May 1784, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/13,f.94

42. Edward Jarvis and Council, Albany Fort, to Governor and Committee, London, 14 September 1784, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., AIl/5,f.1O

78 Ron Bourgeault/Indians, Metis

43. Governor and Committee, London, to John Hodgson and Council, Albany Fort, 31 May 1806, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A61l7,f.103; Governor and Committee, London to William Williams, Governor Rupert's Land, 3 February 1819, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A61l9,f.115

44. Manchester House Post Journal, 31 March 1790, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., B121/ a/4,f.48-50

45. Marx, Capital, 3:327-8

46. A colonial political structure was created with the formation of the Council of Rupert's Land, overseen by the Governor of Rupert's Land and responsible for the management of the political economy. It was made up of officers of the Company. Then there was the Council of As- siniboia overseen by the Governor of Assiniboia and responsible for the management of civil affairs within Assiniboia. The Council of Assin- iboia was neither representative nor responsible. It was appointed by the Governor of Assiniboia in conjunction with the Governor of Rupert's Land and served only to advise on civil affairs.

47. Governor and Committee, London, to Governor of Rupert's Land and Council, 1821-1828, H.B.C.A., P.A.C., A6/20-21

48. Rev. Cockran to Rev. E. Bechersteth, 3 August 1829, Church Missionary Society Archives (hereinafter C.M.S.A.), P.A.C.

49. Carol Judd, "Native Labour and Social Stratification in the Hudson's Bay Company's Northern Department 1770-1870," Canadian Review oj Sociology and Anthropology 17:4, p. 311

50. D.N. Sprague and R.P. Frye, "Fur-Trade Company Town: Land and Population in the Red River Settlement, 1820-1870" (I November 1980) University of Manitoba. This contains an analysis of land ownership and formations within the European and Mixed-blood population.

51. Joseph Berens, Governor of H.B. Co., to Lord Bathurst, Sec'y for War and Colonies, 18 March 1815, British Colonial Officer, P.A.C., series Q, Vol. 133, p, 59

52. Rev. William Cockran to Secretaries, 8 August 1842, C.M.S.A. (incoming Correspondence).

53. Margaret Arnett MacLeod, The Letters oj Letitia Hargrave (New York 1969), 84

54. See the testimony of A.K. Isbister to the Select Committee of the British House of Commons on the Hudson's Bay Company, 1857.

55. Murdoch McPherson, Fort Simpson, to Donald Ross, Norway House, 26 February 1847, Donald Ross Papers, Public Archives of British Columbia, file 120.

79 Studies in Political Economy

56. Donald Ross, Norway House, to George Simpson, Governor of Rupert's Land, 21 August 1848, H.B.C.A., D5/22,f.543

57. E.W. Watkin Papers, Public Archives of Canada, MG24, E17. Within the papers is the debating between the International Financial Society, the Company and Colonial Office over the status of Rupert's Land, capitalist settlement, the fur trade and the native people in the North.

58. See the post correspondence found in H.B.C.A., BI54/b/9-1O, Norway House; and B235/b/1O-12, Winnipeg. AII/128 and AI2/42-45 describe the issues and conditions of the voyageurs.

59. Irish World, 6 May 1885, George A. Flinn Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, S1. Paul, Minn.

60. Murray Dobbin, The One-and-a-Half Men (Vancouver 1981), 135. The quote of Brady to be found in Dobbin's very good book on two Metis organizers and activists - Jim Brady and Malcolm Norris - who were responsible in part for the creation of the native movement from the 1920s until the I96Os.