THE "FREE TRADER."
The origin of the term "Free Trader" dates back considerably over
three-quarters of a century and was first used as a distinction by
the Hudson's Bay Company between their own traders, who traded
directly from their posts and others who in most cases had been
formerly in their employ, but had turned "Free Traders." Men with a
small outfit, who roamed amongst the Indians on their hunting grounds
and bartered necessary articles that the hunters were generally short
of.
The outfit mostly consisted of tobacco, powder, ball, flints,
possibly one or two nor' west guns, white, blue and red strands for
the men's leggings, sky blue second cloth for the squaw's skirts,
flannel of several bright colors, mole skin for trousers, a few H. B.
cloth capots, fancy worsted sashes, beads, ribbons, knives, scissors,
fire steels, etc. Some of the foregoing articles may not be
considered necessary requirements, but to the Indian of those days
they were so looked upon and a "Free Trader" coming to an Indian's
camp who had the furs, a trade, much to the trader's profit was
generally done.
In those away back days the Free Trader was always outfitted by the
"Great Company." He endured all the labor, hardships and privation of
following the Indians to their far off hunting grounds and of a
necessity charged high for his goods. Being a former servant of the
company he got his outfit at a reduced price from what the Indians
were charged at the posts. The barter tariffs at each of the posts
was made out in two columns, i. e., Indian Tariff and Free Man's
Tariff. Say, for example, a pound of English tobacco was bartered to
the Indian at the posts for one dollar a pound, the Free Trader would
get it in his outfit for 75 cents, and when he bartered it to some
hunter, probably hundreds of miles off, he would charge one and half
to two dollars for the same pound of tobacco.
I mention, to illustrate the amount in dollars and cents, but the
currency of those days all over the northwest and interior was the
"Made Beaver." As a round amount the M. B. was equivalent to 50 cents
of our money of today. At all the posts on Hudson's Bay the company
had in coinage of their own, made of brass of four amounts; an eight,
quarter, half and whole Beaver. The goods were charged for at so many
or parts of Made Beaver and the furs likewise valued at the same
currency.
Like most uneducated men who have to remember dates, people and
places, these Free Traders had wonderful memories. One who had been
away on his venture for eight or ten months could on opening his
packs, tho there might be two or three hundred skins in his
collection, if so requested, tell from what particular Indian he
received any skin picked out at haphazard.
Observation and remembrance entered into every phase of their lives
as it does into that of the pure Indian. Their very lives at times
depended on their faculties and one might say all their bumps were
bumps of locality and these highly developed all the way back from
childhood.
Of their nationality they were mostly French Canadians or French half
breeds, and as a rule went on their trading expeditions accompanied
by their Indian wives and children. Time was of no object and as they
traveled they trapped and hunted as they went. Their very living and
subsistence depended on their guns and nets. Loaded as they were with
goods to trade and their necessary belongings they could not take
imported provisions. After their hardships of several months, after
the breaking up of the lakes and rivers, they once more found
themselves at the post from whence they received their outfit.
From the factor down to the old pensioners, the people of the fort
went down to welcome the new arrivals. Their advent was heralded by
the firing of guns on rounding the point at which they first came in
view of the post. On landing a general handshaking was gone thru by
the two parties, the factor mentally estimating the probable contents
of the rich packs.
The men, engaged servants, of the post, carried up to the house the
peltries, while the Free Traders followed the factor to the trade
shops where a plug of tobacco for the men and sugar for the women
were given out by the clerks and with a generous tot of rum in which
to cement their continued friendship, the Free Trader took his
departure to put up his tepee and get his family and belongings under
cover.
Later on the servants brought him pork, lard, flour and tea enough
for him and his family for supper and breakfast. No accounts were
gone into on the day of arrival. The next morning, however, the
Trader repaired to the store with the factor and his clerk, the
latter carrying his ledger and day blotter. The pads being unlaced
the different kinds of skins were placed in separate piles and then
classified according to value. The sum total being arrived at the
amount of his outfit and supplies being deducted he was given a "bon"
on the trade shops for his credit balance.
Shortly after the Free Trader and his wife would be seen in the shop
decking themselves out with finery, bright and gay colored clothes
and fixings were the first consideration. After if there still
remained a credit, luxuries in the eating way were indulged and that
night a feast given by the Free Traders to the employes and hangers
on at the post.
Yes, they were a jolly, childlike race of men and as improvident as
an Indian for the requirements of tomorrow. I have described the Free
Trader of the past, and now I propose to describe the Free Trader of
today, and as he has been for the last two decades.
The building of the Canadian Pacific transcontinental road brought in
its trail a class of very undesirable men. All rules have exceptions.
I must therefore be just and not condemn all, but the majority of
them were toughs and whiskey peddlers. They were the forerunners of
the Free Traders of the present day, from Mattawa in the east to the
shores of the Pacific on the west. They would start from some town
back east with a keg of the strong alcohol, a few cheap gilt watches,
some fancy ribbons, colored shawls and imitation meerschaum pipes,
and if they found their bundles would bear a little more weight, they
generally put in a little more "whiskey." They could almost always
"dead-head" their way up the line on a construction train. Any place
where they saw a few camps of Indians or half-breeds they dropped off
with their stock in trade.
Such Indians as they found along the line were not hunters but they
could act as guides to the Free Trader, and for a gaudy shawl or a
few bottles of whiskey he could generally enlist one of them in his
service. With an old canoe (furnished by the Indian) some flour,
pork, tea and sugar, they could push their way up some river to a
favorable point known by the Indian, and wait the canoes of trappers
coming down on their way to one of the Hudson Bay posts at the mouth
of the rivers.
The route of the railway cutting the large navigable rivers at right
angles, at some parts of the line, as much as a couple of hundred
miles inland of our posts gave the Free Traders a great advantage as
they could intercept the Indians coming down from the height of land.
Even to those Indians who had never tasted liquor the very word
"fire-water" had a charm and an allurement not to be resisted.
Probably the whiskey trader could keep the Indians camped at the
place they first met for two or three days. Once he had got them to
take the second glass he could name his own price for the vile liquor
and put his own valuation on their furs.
I have heard of an Indian giving an otter skin for a bottle of
whiskey. The skin was worth $15 and the whiskey possibly thirty
cents. I knew positively of a trapper who gave a new overcoat worth
$6 for a second glass of whiskey and when this took effect on his
brain, for a third glass he gave a heavy Hudson Bay blanket that had
cost him $8. The trader seeing he had nothing else worth depriving
him of turned him out of doors on a bitter February morning.
Since these men have overrun the country the Hudson Bay Company has
spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to protect the Indians
against themselves. The laws of the Dominion are stringent enough as
they are set down in the blue book of the Indian Department, but they
are very seldom enforced. The difficulty is to get sufficient
evidence to secure judgment or committal of the offender.
The Hudson Bay Company seeing the giving of liquor to Indians abased
and impoverished him, abolished it by a law passed in committee in
1853. They saw that selling liquor to an Indian put him so much short
of necessary articles to make a proper hunt, it weakened his
constitution, laid the seeds of disease, and from a business point of
view, was bad policy.
To make their posts perfectly free from liquor, the very yearly
allowance to their officers, clerks and servants was discontinued and
each employe was given the equivalent as a cash bonus at the end of
each year. I must say a white man or two amongst a drunken band of
Indians ran considerable risk; several have paid for their greed of
gain with their lives. Amongst the Indians many lives have been
sacrificed thru the liquor curse, shooting, stabbing and drowning
being the principal results of their fatal debauches.
It is a most pitiful sight for one to travel on the C. P. U. line and
see at the stations along the interior the ragged bodies and
emaciated features of the Indians who hang about the stations. These
are some of the good hunters of twenty-five years ago and their
descendants. Back in those days an Indian's advances were only
limited by his demands on the company. He took only what, under
ordinary luck, he could pay for.
To-day hardly one of them can get trust for a dollar. They pass their
summer hanging about the stations, the women doing a little fishing
to keep body and soul together, and when the cold of winter drives
them to the shelter of the forests, they have nothing necessary to
prosecute a hunt even if they had the strength and energy to work. If
one of their children or wives is lucky enough to trap an animal, the
noble head of the family tramps off to the nearest Free Trader and
barters it for tobacco and whiskey.
Coming back to the Free Traders I must mention the exception to the
general run of them. In different parts of our territory organized
parties of twos or fours have tried to oppose the company by trading
in a straight way, that is, giving the Indian good, strong clothing
and good provisions in exchange for his furs, but with very few
exceptions the life of these small companies has been shortlived and
I only know of one or two who made money by this trading.
The rock upon which they invariably come to grief is giving credit to
Indians. A plausible story in the spring as to why they cannot pay is
generally accepted by the Free Trader and a second outfit given the
next autumn with the idea of enabling them to pay at the close of
another hunting season. The Trader being called upon to pay up his
supplies in either Montreal, Toronto or Winnipeg causes a sudden
stoppage to their adventures and the field is open for some other
party to go and have, most likely, the same disastrous ending.
No, I say it with unbiased mind that the opening up of the country to
outsiders was a sorry day for the Indians. While they were dealt with
exclusively by the Hudson Bay Company, they had the care and guidance
of a parent, but the progress of settlement cannot be stayed and the
end of the Indian is inevitable, and, like the buffalo, they will in
a very few years be of the past.
The Great Company, who for two and a quarter centuries has been
identified with the fur trade, is rapidly becoming a company of
shopkeepers in the new towns and villages of the west. With the
disappearance of the Indian will go the last of the class of men who
caused his undoing, "The Free Trader."