page_title: North West Company
section_title: Frobisher–McTavish deal
hierarchical_section_title: North West Company / Frobisher–McTavish deal
caption_attribution_description: Location of Charlton Island
context_page_description: The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the British government to merge.
context_section_description: The death of Benjamin Frobisher opened the door to a takeover of the North West Company by Simon McTavish, who made a deal with Frobisher's surviving brother Joseph. The firm of McTavish, Frobisher and Company, founded in November 1787, effectively controlled eleven of the company's twenty outstanding shares. At the time the company consisted of 23 partners, but "its staff of Agents, factors, clerks, guides, interpreters, more commonly known today as voyageurs amounted to 2000 people."  In addition to Alexander Mackenzie, this group included Americans Peter Pond and Alexander Henry the elder.  Further reorganizations of the partnership occurred in 1795 and 1802, the shares being subdivided each time to provide for more and more wintering partners.
  Vertical integration of the business was completed in 1792, when Simon McTavish and John Fraser formed a London house to supply trade goods and market the furs, McTavish, Fraser and Company.  While the organization and capitalization of the North West Company came from Anglo-Quebecers, both Simon McTavish and Joseph Frobisher married French Canadians. Numerous French Canadians played key roles in the operations both in the building, management, and shareholding of the various trading posts scattered throughout the country, as well numbering among the voyageurs involved in the actual trading with natives.
  In the northwest, the Company expanded its operations as far north as Great Bear Lake, and westwards beyond the Rocky Mountains.  For several years, they tried to sell furs directly to China, using American ships to avoid the British East India Company's monopoly, but little profit was made there. The company also expanded into the United States' Northwest Territory (today's Midwest of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin). In 1796, to better position themselves in the increasingly global market, where politics played a major role, the North West Company briefly established an agency in New York City.
  Despite its efforts, the North West Company was at a distinct disadvantage in competing for furs with the Hudson's Bay Company, whose charter gave it a virtual monopoly in Rupert's Land, where the best furs were trapped. The company tried to persuade the British Parliament to change arrangements, at least so the North West Company could obtain transit rights to ship goods to the west needed for trading for furs.  It is said that Simon McTavish made a personal petition to Prime Minister William Pitt, but all requests were refused.
  A few years later, with no relief to the Hudson's Bay Company's stranglehold, McTavish and his group decided to gamble. They organized an overland expedition from Montreal to James Bay and a second expedition by sea. In September 1803, the overland party met at Charlton Island, in what is now Nunavut Territory, the Eddystone, a ship that Fraser acquired. At Charlton Island they laid claim to the region inhabited by the Inuit, in the name of the North West Company, and were able to capitalize on the rich furs of the area. Their expansion northwestward cut into the profits of the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1800, HBC profited £38,000 in trade compared to the North West Company's £144,000 in 1800. This bold move caught the Hudson's Bay Company off guard.  In succeeding years it retaliated rather than reaching a compromise, which McTavish had hoped might be negotiated.
caption: Charlton island
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