Hudson's Bay Company PODs...

Hey. You remember me. The gear whore from post-1900...


A question on PoliChat got me wondering: everyone seems to remember the East India Company, and talks about how it blazed all these trails in commercial history despite the fact that the Dutch were there first.

But yet there seems to be a decided lack of PODs involving the Hudson's Bay Company, which ran British North America (and Western Canada in particular) for a very long time. Up until the early-1870s, when the company was going down the tubes, it was what many people in (what is now) Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and BC thought of when they had to deal with a government.

This all changed after the American Civil War and the decision by the Canadian government to directly administer the land, which was a large reason for the Red River Resistance, or Metis Rebellion.


So...what things could've gone different for the Bay?

The Crown sells it piece by piece to the Americans? I know, you usually don't hear me talk about Ameriwanks, but in order to let the Americans have enough money to buy Alaska later, you can't sell it all to America at once. So, maybe 10% now, 25% in five years, 15% in another ten, and that last 50% in twenty years. Canada is now tiny, but can be populated much faster in that regard, while the USA is pretty much stuck with a giant swath of land that makes it unwieldy. Much easier to control a democracy from the outside if they don't know what's going on half the time in a lot of their own nation.

Well, Mmmeee0, it would've left the US with a decidely different round of Indian Wars, that's for sure.

I mean...stop me if I'm wrong, but if the US buys British North America, then that means that the Crown just sold The Medicine Line. And that could have some big changes later on.

MacCaulay said:

Well, Mmmeee0, it would've left the US with a decidely different round of Indian Wars, that's for sure.

I mean...stop me if I'm wrong, but if the US buys British North America, then that means that the Crown just sold The Medicine Line. And that could have some big changes later on.

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If the United States had more than double the territory it could handle in OTL... yeah I'd say it wouldn't last very long, a second civil war would simmer in the West. Instead of South vs North it would be East vs West America. In 1902.

But if they need to buy OTLs Alaska as well, then the civil strain would be evident. Unless someone got lucky and discovered gold in the mountains so hard that it finances this giant capitalist nation until the industrial age and oil is about to hit the market as a fuel for machinery.

...but how many times has that happened?



Also, stop capitalizing my name.

There is a difference between the VOC and the HBC; the VOC had its own private navy.

Canada takes over HBC territory earlier?

mmmeee0 said:

If the United States had more than double the territory it could handle in OTL... yeah I'd say it wouldn't last very long, a second civil war would simmer in the West. Instead of South vs North it would be East vs West America. In 1902.

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What.

Umbric Man said:

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What.

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Yes. Filler.

Radisson and des Groseilliers get the backing from the French Crown they originally sought. England and then Britain never enter the picture...until the conquest of course. Then there is just more for them to conquer. or perhaps the French crown then turns Canada into a true settler colony with more defined limits negotiated with its native allies.

\France ends up then with a far greater interest perhaps in the entirety of Newfoundland instead of just the western half.

Well, here's a couple ideas that DON'T involve Ameriwank/Civil War redux.

For starters, have the HBC realize sooner that fur pelts are not going to be the way of the future. Instead, they could trade inuit teas(yes, they exist and yes, they're quite good) and get into the whaling/seal hunting business. To further invest in their assets, they bring over more explorers and settlers to settle the Hudson Basin which was their main area of control.

With the advent of railroads, you could have the HBC cut deals with rail tycoons that would help diversify HBC assets. Throw logging into the mix, along with a dash of polar exploration and a colonization of the west you could see a still-surviving HBC that has veritable cities in what is now western Canada.

Have the NWC develop into a viable competator to the HBC.