Arthur Ray – författare

First published in 1974, this best-selling book was lauded by Choice as ''an important, ground-breaking study of the Assiniboine and western Cree Indians who inhabited southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan'' and ''essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Canadian west before 1870.''

Indians in the Fur Trade makes extensive use of previously unpublished Hudson''s Bay Company archival materials and other available data to reconstruct the cultural geography of the West at the time of early contact, illustrating many of the rapid cultural transformations with maps and diagrams. Now with a new introduction and an update on sources, it will continue to be of great use to students and scholars of Native and Canadian history.

Throughout most of the pre-confederation period the fur trade dominated the life of Indians and Europeans alike. Arthur Ray’s earlier book, Indians in the Fur Trade, studied the role of the Indians as they responded to the changing environmental and economic conditions between 1660 and 1870. ‘Give Us Good Measure’ concentrates on the early contact between the Indians and the Hudson’s Bay Company. It offers a path-breaking analysis of the differing European and Indian economic customs and the ways in which the two cultural groups accommodated their differences in order to establish a long-lasting partnership. The authors also examine the way in which the partnership responded to changing economic conditions around Hudson Bay.

The book’s approach is innovative in several ways. Extensive use is made of Hudson’s Aby Company business records, little-studied sources which have proved to be highly illuminating. The data have been subjected to a variety of statistical treatments in an effort to obtain new understandings of the economic behaviour of European and Indian traders alike. In assessing their findings, the authors consider whether models drawn from comparative economics, economic anthropology, and economic geography provide any new and useful insights into trading relations that developed between European and Indians before 1763.

The book’s clear focus and wide-ranging perspective result in a fresh and important reassessment of early Canadian history.

Fur trade scholarship has changed considerably in recent years. The tempo of research has quickened and the field has become more multidisciplinary, bringing together scholars in archaeology, economics, ethnohistory, geography, history, and anthropology. The papers in this volume reflect recent developments in several specific areas of research: mapping, native cultures, social and labour history, personalities, the Pacific coast, and economics.

The moving of the Hudson''s Bay Archives from London to Winnipeg in 1974 has patriated an incredibly rich source of information on many aspects of Canadian history, and the effects of this superb collection being available to Canadian scholars are just beginning to be felt. In this volume we can see that the history of the fur trade in Canada is not merely the story of the world''s first great multi-national – the Hudson''s Bay Company – but a study of a complex society during a period of more than two centuries. Languages, customs, transportation, personalities, marriage, and even sex are looked at in the wide-ranging papers in this book.

Fur trade scholarship has changed considerably in recent years. The tempo of research has quickened and the field has become more multidisciplinary, bringing together scholars in archaeology, economics, ethnohistory, geography, history, and anthropology. The papers in this volume reflect recent developments in several specific areas of research: mapping, native cultures, social and labour history, personalities, the Pacific coast, and economics.

The moving of the Hudson''s Bay Archives from London to Winnipeg in 1974 has patriated an incredibly rich source of information on many aspects of Canadian history, and the effects of this superb collection being available to Canadian scholars are just beginning to be felt. In this volume we can see that the history of the fur trade in Canada is not merely the story of the world''s first great multi-national – the Hudson''s Bay Company – but a study of a complex society during a period of more than two centuries. Languages, customs, transportation, personalities, marriage, and even sex are looked at in the wide-ranging papers in this book.