Abstract
The
case of the “Canadian” buffalo, which ranged north of the Missouri
River, raises questions about the way a market economy can tragically
ruin a common resource. After 1821 the monopolizing Hudson's Bay Company
(HBC), based in London, drove down prices offered to Indian provisions
hunters in British territory. In these northern areas of the Great
Plains, where bison was commonly hunted not for robes and skins but for
food to support the British fur trade, the provisions trade became an
important factor in the herds' destruction. By the 1830s, plains
pemmican was valued at least four times lower than it had been three
decades before. The company concurrently suppressed prices on dried
meats and fats. These lowered prices in turn help explain someof the
strategies and increased bison slaughter of Indian hunters. Their needs
for European goods, especially firearms, generally increased in the
nineteenth century, but their abilities to benefit from the market were
undermined in monopolized conditions. In effect, the HBC played Indian
hunters against each other by purchasing from them selectively and
establishing a district quota system. Ultimately, the HBC enjoyed cheap
access to plains-trade pemmican that led to purchasing more of it to
expand the company's commercial reach and, in a larger context, amplify
colonial expansion itself.
- © 2012, Western History Association
