Cavanagh on Sovereignty and the HBC

The new issue of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society includes an interesting article by Edward Cavanagh of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, on the constitutional apects of the Hudsons' Bay Company in the 17th and 18th century.  Cavanagh (not to be confused with Edward D. Cavanagh of St. John's University  in New York), is a research postgraduate affiliated with the University of the Witwatersrand’s History Project. He studied history at the Australian National University and the University of Alberta, and is a member of editorial board of the brand new journal, Settler Colonial Studies. In  this article "A Company with Sovereignty and Subjects of Its Own? The Case of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1670–1763," Cavanagh makes use of the state-like aspects of the HBC to reflect on the legal theory of sovereignty. If you think it sounds familiar, that may be because it was also recently posted on SSRN. But everyone should subsribe to the CJLS. Just saying.

Here's the abstract:

Questions about the ways in which colonial subjects were acquired and maintained, and how it was that multiple and often contradictory sovereignties came to overlap in history, may not be purely academic. We raise them today because they spring from issues that remain unresolved, concerning rights to land, resources, and selfdetermination. Following recent scholarship on the English East India Company, the author redefines the Hudson's Bay Company, during the period before widespread settler colonialism, as a state (or "company-state"), and in this way argues that the HBC-state possessed its own kind of sovereignty. The article make three main arguments: that it was up to the HBC, not the Crown, to found Rupert's Land, defend its establishments, make alliances with locals, and challenge intruders; that HBC rule extended to cover not only the company's employees but, eventually, an indigenous "home guard" population; and that the HBC welfare regime transformed the relationship between ruler and ruled.

Résumé:

Nous nous intéressons aux façons dont les colonies furent acquises et maintenues en sujétion ainsi qu'aux raisons pour lesquelles des souverainetés souvent contradictoires se sont chevauchées au fil du temps. Nous soulevons ces questions, à présent, puisqu'elles abordent des problèmes concrets et irrésolus, à savoir les droits territoriaux, les ressources ainsi que l'autodétermination. Suivant les écrits récents sur la Compagnie anglaise des Indes orientales, je redéfinirai la Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson (CBH), à l'époque qui précède l'établissement répandu de colonies, comme un état (ou Compagnie-état), c'est-à-dire un régime qui possédait une souveraineté particulière. J'avancerai trois points : 1) que c'était à l'état de la Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson, plutôt qu'à la couronne, d'établir la Terre de Rupert, de défendre ses établissements, de s'allier avec les locaux et de se défendre contre les intrus ; 2) que les lois de la Compagnie s'appliquaient non seulement aux employésde la CBH mais aussi, éventuellement, à la population autochtone ; et 3) que le régime de bien-être social de la CBH a eu pour conséquence de transformer la relation entre maître et sujets.