Currency of exchange

Founded on May 2, 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) is the oldest joint-stock company in the English-speaking world. Ironically, it was two Frenchmen who were behind its creation: the voyageurs and adventurers Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médart Chouart des Groseillers. Without French support for their project, they proposed to Prince Rupert, cousin of the King of England, the creation of a company to trade furs with the natives in the Hudson Bay basin. The British Crown accepted the project, granting the HBC a Royal Charter and exclusive rights to trade furs in a territory to be known as Rupert’s Land.

To facilitate trade between the voyageurs hired by the HBC and native hunters, a system of payment was gradually put in place. In exchange for furs, merchants and voyageurs used small decorative silver objects made by silversmiths in Montreal, Quebec and elsewhere. The beaver shown here is one of these objects, which were used as currency in exchange for furs. Decorated with a stone in its center, it is the work of Montreal silversmith Charles Arnoldi (1779-1817).