Masters and Servants: The Hudson’s Bay Company and Its North American Workforce, 1668–1786

Table of Contents:
Editorial Note Acknowledgements Introduction Abbreviations 1 | Early Modern Contexts 2 | The Hudson’s Bay Company as Enterprise and Employer | 1668–1786 3 | “No Certain Method for Any Thing” | Recruitment, 1670–1713 4 | “Men to Do the Business” | Recruitment, 1714–1786 5 | “Diligent Men” and “Idle Fellowes” | Evaluation and Retention of Personnel 6 | The Inland Experience 7 | Master-Servant Relationships 8 | Tensions within the Household Model Conclusion Appendix Choosing Our Words Carefully Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Scott P. Stephen is a historian with Parks Canada, specializing in the fur trade and early settlement eras in western Canada.

Review :
"Blacksmiths, bookkeepers, loggers, tanners, coopers, cooks, sail-makers, interpreters, surveyors, clergy, the list goes on as Stephen marches us through the lives of the early Hudson’s Bay worker. Some were unscrupulous fortune hunters. Some chose to abandon families in England and travel thousands of miles to seek their livelihood in furs…. We also read stories of belligerence, arson, thievery, and murder…. Everything is thoroughly documented using the Company’s voluminous archive." [Full review at https://ormsbyreview.com/2020/10/06/937-verzuh-stephen-hbc-workforce/] "[Masters and Servants] is an important and valuable contribution. Stephen has opened a new window into early HBC history, while revealing some of the good, some of the bad, and some of the ugly of a legendary institution.” [Full article at https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2020/04/the-human-factor/] "In sum, this is an important publication that will be of interest to labour historians as well as scholars of the North American fur trade and early modern Britain." "Overall, the book reflects the work of a historian comfortable with the hard work of archival research and with an eye for detail and insightful quotations. In many respects, it does for Hudson’s Bay Company employees what Carolyn Podruchny’s Making the Voyageur World did for employees of the Montreal-based fur trade companies in recreating their values, worldview, and distinctive work environment." "HBC posts were really an extension of early modern Britain, Stephen argues, and are best understood as microcosms of that strictly hierarchical society.... Stephen is a master of the vast documentary resources found in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, and he makes rich use of this material to make his point." [Full review at https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/books/masters-and-servants] "This is a richly textured and deeply researched work. It tells us much about how the HBC fits into the larger British Atlantic world, and how its masters and servants constituted new communities out on the edge of empire.... This will be a 'must read' for anyone involved in fur trade studies." [Full review at: DOI: 10.1080/02722011.2020.1852744] "Stephen’s emphasis on the familial and negotiated nature of the post community is the book’s most important historiographical contribution. His analysis upends older Marxist-informed studies of labour in the fur trade that tended to highlight the classed and ranked nature of the posts." "This study will be invaluable to those interested in the activities and ideals that underpinned long-distance trading companies in the British Atlantic world, and those interested in the experiences and expectations of early modern service. The originality of this study comes from its focus on understanding the internal relationships within the HBC between employers and employees, specifically looking at three groups: the London-based Committee, and in the Bay, the company’s masters (factors) of factories, and the servants who worked in them..." "Scott P. Stephen makes an important contribution to labour history in Masters and Servants: The Hudson’s Bay Company and its North American Workforce, 1668 – 1786. Drawing from the company’s labour contracts, correspondence, post journals, and other documents, Stephen offers key insights into how the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) mobilized its labour force during its early history in an isolated setting of the British Atlantic world." George Colpitts, Arctic, March 2021 (Full review at https://www.jstor.org/stable/27088560) "In Masters and Servants, Scott P. Stephen has probed the voluminous archival holdings of the Hudson’s Bay Company (correspondence, minute books, accounts, and post journals) to unpack the nitty-gritty details of labour relations within the Hudson’s Bay Company during the corporation’s long first century (1668-1786)." Scott Berthelette, Labour / Le Travail, Fall 2020