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Article: Hudson's Bay Company
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY
HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.
The Hudson's Bay Company resulted from the western explorations of Pierre Esprit Radisson and M
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dard Chouart, Sieur de Groseilliers, in the mid-seventeenth century. On trips into Wisconsin and Minnesota country, they learned from Native Americans of a great fur country northwest of Lake Superior that might be reached via Hudson Bay. This idea, linked with one of a probable northwest passage through Hudson Bay, led the Frenchmen to England in the middle 1660s. There they assembled a sort of syndicate of wealthy and influential men that grew into the Hudson's Bay Company, and received its charter on 2 May 1670, as the Governor and Company ...