Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T10:46:52.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Indians, the Beaver, and the Bay: The Economics of Depletion in the Lands of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1700–1763

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Ann M. Carlos  and
Frank D. Lewis
Ann M. Carlos
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 and a fellow of the Institute for Economic Research, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
Frank D. Lewis
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Indians depleted the beaver, yet we do not understand why. We analyzed the pattern and determinants of beaver exploitation in the hinterlands of three Hudson's Bay Company posts. Simulating beaver population, we found declining beaver stock within each hinterland, but overharvesting in only two. Central to this process was the Company reaction to French competition. Managers raised prices in the Albany and York hinterlands, and in response the Indians increased their harvests. Churchill, which did not experience French competition, had more stable fur prices and showed no evidence of overexploitation of the beaver.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , September 1993 , pp. 465 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allaire, Gratien, “Le Commerce Des Fourrures a Montréal: Documentation et Méthode d'Analyse,” in Trigger, Bruce et al., eds., Le Castor Fait Tout: Selected Papers of the Fifth North American Fur Trade Conference, 1985 (Montreal, 1987), pp. 93–121.Google Scholar
Bergerud, Arthur T., and Miller, Donald R., “Population Dynamics of Newfoundland Beaver,” Canadian Journal of Zoology, 55 (Sept. 1977), pp. 1480–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berkes, Fikret, Feeny, David, McCay, Bonnie J., and Acheson, James M., “The Benefits of the Commons,” Nature, 340 (July 13, 1989), pp. 91–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyce, Mark S., “Beaver Life-History Responses to Exploitation,” Journal of Applied Ecology, 18 (Dec. 1981), pp. 749–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlos, Ann M., and Hoffman, Elizabeth, “The North American Fur Trade: Bargaining to a Joint Profit Maximum under Incomplete Information, 1804–1821,” this Journal, 46 (Dec. 1986), pp. 967–86.Google Scholar
Carlos, Ann M., and Lewis, Frank D., “Optimal Beaver Harvests: The Hudson's Bay Company and the English Market, 1700–1770” (Photocopy, Department of Economics, University of Colorado at Boulder, 1993).Google Scholar
Carlos, Ann M., and Nicholas, Stephen, “Agency Problems in Early Chartered Companies: The Case of the Hudson's Bay Company,” this Journal, 50 (12. 1990), pp. 853–75.Google Scholar
Davies, K. G., ed., Letters from Hudson Bay (London, 1965).Google Scholar
Demsetz, Harold, “Toward a Theory of Property Rights,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 57 (May 1967), pp. 347–59.Google Scholar
Feeny, David, Berkes, Fikret, McCay, Bonnie J., and Acheson, James M., “The Tragedy of the Commons: Twenty-Two Years Later,” Human Ecology, 18 (03. 1990), pp. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harris, R. Cole, ed., Historical Atlas of Canada (Toronto, 1987), vol. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, R. Cole, and Warkentin, John, Canada Before Confederation (New York, 1974).Google Scholar
Heidenreich, Conrad, and Noël, Françoise, “France Secures the Interior, 1740–1755,” in Harris, R. Cole, ed., Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. 1, plate 40.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. V., and Tugwell, M., “Exploitation of the Lobster Fishery: Some Empirical Results,” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 33 (12. 1979), pp. 287–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, Dale B., and Bookhout, Theodore A., “Productivity of Beavers in Northeastern Ohio,” Journal of Wildlife Management, 33 (10. 1969), pp. 927–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson's Bay Company Archives (microfilm copy), Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Post Records, MG20B.Google Scholar
Innis, Harold, The Fur Trade in Canada (rev. edn., Toronto, 1956).Google Scholar
Jenkins, Stephen H., and Busher, Peter E., “Castor Canadensis,” Mammalian Species, no. 120 (1979).Google Scholar
Krech, Shepherd III, ed., Indians, Animals, and the Fur Trade: A Critique of Keepers of the Game (Athens, GA, 1981).Google Scholar
McManus, John, “An Economic Analysis of Indian Behavior in the North American Fur Trade,” this Journal, 32 (03. 1972), pp. 36–53.Google Scholar
Martin, Calvin, Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade (Berkeley, 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Novak, Miles, “Beaver,” in Novak, Miles et al., eds., Wild Furbearer Management and Conservation in North America (Toronto, 1987).Google Scholar
Novakowski, Nicholas S., “Population Dynamics of a Beaver Population in Northern Latitudes” (Ph.D. diss., University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, 1965).Google Scholar
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Land Use Guidelines, various districts (Toronto, 1983).Google Scholar
Paterson, D. G., and Wilen, J., “Depletion and Diplomacy: The North Pacific Seal Hunt, 1886–1910,” Research in Economic History, 2 (1977), pp. 81–139.Google Scholar
Payne, Neil F., “Mortality Rates of Beaver in Newfoundland,” Journal of Wildlife Management, 48 (01 1984), pp. 117–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, Arthur J., Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters, and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay 1660–1870 (Toronto, 1974).Google Scholar
Ray, Arthur J., “Bayside Trade, 1720–1780,” in Harris, R. Cole, ed., Historical Atlas of Canada (Toronto, 1987), vol. 1, plate 60.Google Scholar
Ray, Arthur J., and Freeman, Donald, “Give Us Good Measure”: An Economic Analysis of Relations Between the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company before 1763 (Toronto, 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, Arthur J., Moody, D. Wayne, and Heidenreich, Conrad, “Rupert's Land,” in Harris, R. Cole, ed., Historical Atlas of Canada (Toronto, 1987), vol. 1, plate 57.Google Scholar
Rea, K. J., A Guide to Canadian Economic History (Toronto, 1991).Google Scholar
Rich, E. E., ed., James Isham's Observations on Hudson's Bay, 1743–1749 (Toronto, 1949).Google Scholar
Rich, E. E., The History of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1670–1870, 2 vols. (London, 1958).Google Scholar
Rich, E. E., “Trade Habits and Motivation among the Indians of North America,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 26 (02. 1960), pp. 35–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trigger, Bruce, “Ontario Native People and the Epidemics of 1634–1640,” in III, Shepherd Krech, ed., Indians, Animals, and the Fur Trade: A Critique of Keepers of the Game (Athens, GA, 1981), pp. 19–38.Google Scholar
Wien, Thomas, “Castor, Peaux, et Pelleteries Dans Le Commerce Canadien Des Fourrures, 1720–1790,” in Trigger, Bruce et al. , eds., Le Castor Fait Tout: Selected Papers of the Fifth North American Fur Trade Conference, 1985 (Montreal, 1987), pp. 72–92.Google Scholar