Hudson's Bay Company

Historical Context Essay

Marion Spies (Bergische Universität-GHS Wuppertal)
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Two French

coureurs de bois

managed to interest English merchants in the opportunities of Hudson's Bay, the inland sea in North America. On May 2, 1670, the English therefore established the Company of Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay (HBC). With his charter of the same year, King Charles II granted the company the largest empire any private company has ever controlled. The founding charter granted the company control over all lands draining into Hudson's Bay, a very large area called Rupert's Land, which included much of the western prairie and northern subarctic regions. In the northwestern reaches of North America, English rule from then on was sustained by the HBC.

Compared with the French, the HBC's traders benefited from the direct sea voyage to London and cheaper English

575 words

Citation: Spies, Marion. "Hudson's Bay Company". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 April 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=521, accessed 28 March 2024.]

521 Hudson's Bay Company 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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