The Orkneymen of the Hudson's Bay Company

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The company's records, held in the Hudson's Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg, document recruitment in detail. The proportion of Orkneymen varied over time; the figure is usually given as around three-quarters at its peak. The start of regular recruitment is dated differently: ships called at Stromness from the early eighteenth century, but the minister of St Andrews and Deerness, writing in the Statistical Account of the 1790s, dated the company's recruiting in Orkney to the 1740s. The figures for 1830 and 1855 come from Marjory Harper's Adventurers and Exiles (2003), drawing on the company's archives.

Stromness

established Company ships sailing from London to Hudson Bay passed north of Scotland and called at Stromness for fresh water and supplies. The company's agents recruited men from Orkney on contracts, usually for several years. The agent at Stromness received a commission on each man engaged, and until 1891 the town was the ships' last port of call before the Atlantic. Login's Well in Stromness, where the ships took on water, is still marked.

Why Orkney?

established Orcadians were recruited because they were accustomed to hard physical labour, boats and a harsh climate, and because they accepted lower wages than many others. In the 1790s the minister of St Andrews and Deerness reported that the company engaged up to 100 islanders a year, preferring them "as they find them more sober and tractable than the Irish", and because they worked for less than either the English or the Irish. Company officers valued them as steady and obedient, though some complained they were slow. Wages earned abroad helped many Orkney families buy land.

established The company's ideal recruit was a single man of at least twenty-one on a five-year contract. Younger men were thought not yet at full strength, and married men were thought unlikely to re-engage. In practice, the historian Marjory Harper notes, many recruits were married and past their first youth.

established The historian T. M. Devine, in To the Ends of the Earth (2011), explains why the company turned north. Many early recruits had come from London, and managers complained of their drinking and their promiscuity with Indian women; they wanted men "not debauched with the voluptuousness of the city". Orkney offered literate men used to work on both sea and land, many of whom had already served in the Greenland whale fishery and whose families had long sought work away from the islands. For the islanders even the Canadian wilderness paid better than subsistence farming and fishing. By 1799, Devine writes, 78 per cent of the men on the overseas payroll were Orcadian. The numbers involved were small: as late as 1811 the company had only 320 employees at its 76 Canadian posts.

shared Orkneymen did the work but rarely ran the company. Devine notes that only a handful rose from labourer, apprentice, tradesman or clerk to Chief Trader or Chief Factor; most of the company's famous leaders, such as George Simpson, James Douglas and Donald Smith, were mainland Scots. Before the merger of 1821 the fur-trade war set the Bay's Orcadian servants against the Highland partners of the North West Company, so that, in Devine's phrase, the struggle was one between "different groups of Scots".

Orkney and Lewis

established Orkney's dominance did not last. In 1832 Governor George Simpson, himself from Lochbroom, told the London board that recent Orkney servants were "weak, undersized, many of them Sickly", though "quiet, orderly well behaved". Lewismen were stronger, he wrote, but "so clannish that it is scarcely possible to deal with them singly". He still asked for thirty Orkneymen, and urged the Orkney agent to choose before the Davis Strait whalers took the best men. Orcadians made up 88 per cent of the Northern Department's servants in 1830 but under half by 1855, and Lewis recruits outnumbered them by the early 1870s. In famine-stricken Lewis in the 1840s and 1850s, company service became an outlet for the surplus and rent-defaulting tenants of Sir James Matheson, whose cousin Alexander Matheson was one of the company's governors.

Money home

established Arctic wages were a vital part of island household economies. Alexander Kennedy of South Ronaldsay retired as a chief factor in 1829 after thirty-one years and left money to his sisters and to his wife and nine children at home. William Tomison, who served the company for forty-seven years, founded a school for poor children on South Ronaldsay and left £200 to the poor of his parish. When remittances failed, families suffered: in 1857 Christina Anderson of Shetland wrote to the London office that without a merchant's credit "I and my children could not have been alive", as quoted by Harper.

shared Not everyone welcomed the trade. Ministers writing in the Statistical Account of the 1790s complained that returned men spent their earnings "in idleness, and often in dissipation" (Kirkwall and St Ola), drained the farming, fishing and kelping workforce, and pushed up rents by bidding for small farms. One noted drily that unhappy marriages could be eased by "the husband's retreat to the Hudson's Bay settlements".

Life in the fur trade

established Orkneymen worked at posts such as York Factory and Moose Factory and travelled inland by boat and canoe. Many stayed for years, and some for life. Many formed relationships, often lasting, with Cree and other Indigenous women "according to the custom of the country". Their children became part of the mixed-ancestry communities of the Red River and elsewhere, including the Métis.

shared The company encouraged these unions for business reasons. Devine quotes Governor George Simpson, who advised officers to form "connubial alliances" with leading Indigenous families as the best security for the natives' goodwill; by the 1830s almost all officers, and many lower-ranking men, had Indigenous partners. Simpson himself fathered at least five children by four women. Some men stayed with their families for life, brought wives to Scotland, educated their children there or provided for them in their wills. Others ended the relationships when they went home, a practice known as "turning off", and some officers spoke of the women they had left with open contempt. The custom declined by the mid-nineteenth century but is not forgotten: in 2004, Devine notes, twenty-five members of Saskatchewan First Nations travelled to Orkney on what one called a pilgrimage to the home of their grandfathers.

established Some Orkneymen are remembered warmly by Indigenous communities. William Tomison, the same South Ronaldsay man, led the company's inland trade on the Saskatchewan for nearly two decades, as inland master from 1778 and later inland chief. He earned the gratitude of local peoples for his help during the smallpox epidemic of 1781–82, burying the dead and caring for survivors, and his journal is the fullest record of that epidemic. (Devine spells his name "Thomson" and calls him Chief Factor.) Devine also notes the wider cost of the trade: imported disease, over-hunting and, as the companies competed, a flood of alcohol.

John Rae and Isobel Gunn

established John Rae, born in Orkney in 1813, joined the company as a surgeon and became one of the great Arctic explorers, travelling vast distances on foot and learning Cree and Inuit methods. Devine records that he covered 1,200 miles on snowshoes in 1844–45 and was nicknamed "Aglooka", which he translates as "he who takes long strides". Devine also calls Rae the first European to confirm the existence of the North West Passage; this is shared, since the credit is disputed between Rae and the Franklin and McClure expeditions. In 1854 he brought back evidence of the fate of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition, including reports of cannibalism, which caused outrage in Britain. Isobel Gunn, an Orkney woman, enlisted in 1806 disguised as a man, "John Fubbister", and was discovered only when she gave birth at a company post in 1807.

• HBC ships called at Stromness to take on water and men.
• Orkneymen formed most of the company's workforce around 1800.
• John Rae discovered what happened to the Franklin expedition.
• Isobel Gunn served the company disguised as a man.
• Many Orkneymen's descendants are Métis.
• In 1832 the company's governor said he preferred Lewismen to Orcadians for strength, but found them too clannish to manage.
• William Tomison spent forty-seven years with the company and founded a school on South Ronaldsay.
• In 1811 the whole company had only 320 employees at 76 posts in Canada.
• In 2004 twenty-five members of Saskatchewan First Nations visited Orkney, the home of their fur-trade grandfathers.

• Myth: Orkneymen made up a fixed share of the company's workforce. The proportion varied over time. It was about three-quarters of the men in the field in the 1790s, 78 per cent of the overseas payroll in 1799 and 88 per cent of the Northern Department's servants in 1830, but under half by 1855.
• Myth: Orkneymen dominated the workforce throughout the nineteenth century. By the early 1870s Lewis recruits outnumbered them.
• Myth: Orkneymen ran the company. Only a handful rose from labourer or clerk to Chief Trader or Chief Factor, and most of its famous leaders were mainland Scots.
• Disputed: when regular recruiting in Orkney began. Ships called at Stromness from the early eighteenth century, but the minister of St Andrews and Deerness dated the company's recruiting to the 1740s.
• Disputed: relationships with Indigenous women. Some unions lasted for life, while others were ended when the men went home, a practice known as "turning off". They were neither uniformly equal nor uniformly exploitative.
• Disputed: whether the trade helped Orkney. Wages supported many households, but ministers in the 1790s complained that returned men wasted their earnings and pushed up rents.
• Disputed: who first confirmed the North West Passage. T. M. Devine calls John Rae the first European to do so, but the credit is disputed between Rae and the Franklin and McClure expeditions.