The 1794 Voyageur Strike
Montréal - This day in labour and peoples' history
Aug 3rd, 1794 – The earliest recorded strike in Canada took place. Voyageurs in the fur trade... industry struck against the North West Company. Communist historian Stanley Ryerson included a description of the strike in his 1960 book, “The Founding of Canada”:
Montréal - This day in labour and peoples' history
Aug 3rd, 1794 – The earliest recorded strike in Canada took place. Voyageurs in the fur trade... industry struck against the North West Company. Communist historian Stanley Ryerson included a description of the strike in his 1960 book, “The Founding of Canada”:
“The trader Duncan McGillivray in 1794 reported on a strike of voyageurs at Rainy Lake [Lac la Pluie, Quebec]. The tone of his account has the familiar ring of company news-releases on such occasions:
‘A few discontented persons in their Band, wishing to do as much mischief as possible assembled their companions together several times on the Voyage Outward & represented to them how much their Interest suffered by the passive obedience to the will of their masters, when their Utility to the Company, might insure them not only of better treatment, but of any other conditions which they would prescribe with Sprit & Resolution… They all declared with one voice that unless their wages would be augmented, and several other conditions equally unreasonable granted them they would immediately set off to Montreal.’ Threats and intimidation induced some to ‘return to their duty’; but ‘a few of the most resolute were obstinate enough to hold out… and were therefore sent down to Montreal in disgrace.’
Only rarely was the authority of the Company thus directly challenged. Its wealthy partners wielded a power equivalent to that of rulers of the colony. Backed by British garrisons, they were able to carry through, by means of voyageur and Indigenous labor, the profitable commercial conquest of a sizable portion of the continent. These “Lords of the lakes and forests” were the precursors of the modern Canadian capitalist class.”
-“The Founding of Canada” by Stanley B Ryerson
Available at New Labour Press
‘A few discontented persons in their Band, wishing to do as much mischief as possible assembled their companions together several times on the Voyage Outward & represented to them how much their Interest suffered by the passive obedience to the will of their masters, when their Utility to the Company, might insure them not only of better treatment, but of any other conditions which they would prescribe with Sprit & Resolution… They all declared with one voice that unless their wages would be augmented, and several other conditions equally unreasonable granted them they would immediately set off to Montreal.’ Threats and intimidation induced some to ‘return to their duty’; but ‘a few of the most resolute were obstinate enough to hold out… and were therefore sent down to Montreal in disgrace.’
Only rarely was the authority of the Company thus directly challenged. Its wealthy partners wielded a power equivalent to that of rulers of the colony. Backed by British garrisons, they were able to carry through, by means of voyageur and Indigenous labor, the profitable commercial conquest of a sizable portion of the continent. These “Lords of the lakes and forests” were the precursors of the modern Canadian capitalist class.”
-“The Founding of Canada” by Stanley B Ryerson
Available at New Labour Press
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