'Give Us Good Measure': an economic analysis of relations between the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company before 1763

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 Bay 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.

Arthur J. Ray is a professor in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia, and author of Indians in the Fur Trade and I Have Lived Here Since the World Began: An Illustrated History of Canada's Native People.