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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #60152 Hard The Hudson's Bay Company charter of 1670: a trading grant over a third of a continent

Read the following passage.

A. On May 2, 1670, King Charles II of England granted a royal charter that created the Hudson's Bay Company, officially called 'The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay.' The charter gave the company a monopoly over trade in all the lands whose rivers flow into Hudson Bay. This huge region was named Rupert's Land after the king's cousin Prince Rupert, the company's first governor, and it covered roughly one third of present-day Canada. The charter also allowed the company to act as both a business and a colonial government, and historians see it as critical to the development of Canada.

B. The charter began with two French explorers, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Des Groseilliers. On a journey that began in 1658, they found plentiful beaver north and west of Lake Superior, at a time when beaver had become scarce in Europe. The governor of New France showed little interest in their plans, took their furs and briefly jailed Des Groseilliers. The two men reached England in 1665, where Prince Rupert organized a group of private investors. Two ships left London on June 3, 1668, but a storm forced one back. The other, the Nonsuch, returned the next year with a rich cargo of furs, which finally persuaded Charles II to act.

C. The company built trading posts along the rivers that led to Hudson Bay. Its traders, mostly Scottish, waited for Indigenous trappers and their middlemen to bring furs, which they exchanged for goods such as guns and wool. To standardize the trade, the company set up its own currency, known as Made Beaver, which measured goods against one prime beaver pelt. The fur trade could not work without the labour and knowledge of Indigenous peoples. Over two centuries, posts were built on most major waterways, and by 1870 Rupert's Land had 97 posts within its borders.

D. Today the charter is judged in very different ways. It claimed land where First Nations and Inuit lived, while setting aside only lands already held by 'any other Christian Prince or State.' Legal scholar Kent McNeil argues that Britain did not have the sovereignty to grant it. In 1869 the charter was the legal basis for selling Rupert's Land to Canada for $1.5 million, without the consent of First Nations, Inuit or Metis peoples. Some historians credit the grant with discouraging Americans from expanding northward. Historian Cody Groat, however, calls it a clear example of a monarch trying to erase the political sovereignty of First Nations and Inuit and giving it to a private company.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
The company created a way of pricing goods that was based on a single animal skin.

- 2.
Before crossing to England, the two travellers had their load of skins seized by the man in charge of New France.

- 3.
Besides trading, the company was permitted to rule over the territory it was given.

- 4.
Only one of the vessels completed the first trip, and its valuable load won over the king.

- 5.
One legal expert questions whether Britain had the power to issue the document at all.

- 6.
Company staff at the posts relied on others to carry the animal skins to them.

- 7.
Prince Rupert brought together nine other backers to pay for the venture.

- 8.
The territory took its name from a relative of the king.

- 9.
The grant later provided the lawful grounds for a land deal that Indigenous nations had not agreed to.

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