Synopses & Reviews
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III ENLISTMENT IN THE COMPANY 1838-1848 George Simpson, the King of the Fur-Trade and the Emperor of the Plains (to quote but a pair of the titles he demurely admitted in the circle of his flatterers), merits a somewhat more prominent place in Canadian history than Canadian historians commonly accord him. For forty years Simpson (not yet Sir George) was easily the one outstanding figure in a territory larger than Europe, whose simple word was law amongst a legion of brave and hardy white traders and hunters and amongst twenty tribes of savages from the Esquimaux of Ungava, the Crees of Assini- boine, and the Chinooks of New Caledonia. He was born in 1796 in Loch Broom, Ross Shire, Scotland. From 1809 to 1820, he was employed as a clerk in the West India trade. Lord Selkirk, hearing of his ability, appointed him, just before the coalition of the two rival fur-trading companies, Superintendent of the Hudson's Bay Company's affairs, and after one year of successful service, he was chosen Governor of Rupert's Land.1 1 This was the official designation. There was a Governor of Assiniboia, Red River Settlement, which office, however, was ostensibly confined to the administration of government ? such as it was ? in the Settlement, but had nothing to do with the trade proper. This designation of attribute and duty, however, does not apply in all strictness to the earlier Governors of Assiniboia, who were generally, if not invariably so for a time, Chief Factors in theservice of the Company. The supreme Governor was he of the London Board; but for the regulation of the trade, and the working of its machinery, a Governor was appointed by the Governor and Committee of Directors in London, for their territories, who with a Council of Commissioned Officers, meeting at ...
Synopsis
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