Hudson's Bay Company N/A

The Hudson’s Bay Company was incorporated by British royal charter in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, and functioned as the de facto government in parts of North America before European states and later the United States laid claim to those territories. The company controlled the fur trade throughout much of British-held North America for several centuries. Undertaking early exploration, its traders and trappers forged early relationships with many groups of First Nations/Native Americans. Its network of trading posts formed the nucleus for later official authority in many areas of Western Canada and the United States. In the late nineteenth century, its vast territory became the largest component in the newly formed Dominion of Canada, in which the company was the largest private landowner. With the decline of the fur trade, the company evolved into a mercantile business selling vital goods to settlers in the Canadian West. The Company’s archives are kept in Winnipeg, Manitoba.