The History of Native People and the Hudson's Bay Company
Culture does not justify cruelty. However, those who accept the idea that "culture" justifies anything should be aware that a truly aboriginal culture (without such intrusions as rifles and snowmobiles) no longer exists in Canada, and when it did, trapping for fashion was not part of it. The fur trade was brought to Canada by her European conquerors, and used by them to help bring her native people into subjection. Hudson's Bay Governor George Simpson wrote in 1822: "I am convinced they (native people) must be ruled with a rod of Iron to bring and keep them in a proper state of subordination, and the most certain way to effect this is by letting them feel their dependence on us..."
Attempts to have garments made from native-trapped furs labeled as such have been abandoned by the fur industry, which obviously cares about as much for our native people now as it has done in past centuries. Peter C. Newman sums it up in his book Caesars in the Wilderness: "The (Hudson's Bay) Company's trading methods left Canada's Indians in a position of dependence from which they have yet to emerge".
Indigenous person and animal rights activist, Rod Coronado states:
The fur trade today is the modern incarnation of those very same people who murdered and destroyed my people and my homeland".
For more information:
- The Native People: Playing the Ethnic Card. Published by Care for the Wild and the European Federation for Nature and Animals
