Thread by @JAWalker

*Things I should've learned in school, but didn't No. 872,381*

I was today years old when I learned that seed money for Hudson's Bay Company (and therefore Canada as we know it) likely came from the trans-Atlantic slave trade. #CDNpoli #CDNhistory

/1

Remember Prince Rupert from Grade 4 Canadian history?

Colonial governor?
Big-time shaper of Canada's political geography?
Guy they named Rupert's Land after?
Founder of the Hudson's Bay Company?

/2

Turns out Rupes was a pioneer of the early transatlantic slave trade!

In school they told me he was a renaissance man - soldier, art afficionado, entrepreneur, quite a character - but left out that he was an innovator and an early adopter in monetizing human misery!

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Lemme explain.

Rupert was a founding shareholder & board member in the Royal African Company, the British Crown's original official foray into gold, silver & slaving enterprise in West Africa.

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Between 1662 and 1731, the Royal African Company transported and traded in around 212,000 enslaved people, of whom 44,000 died en route.

From 1668 to 1722, the RAC also provided most of the English Mint's gold... which is where the name for the guinea coin comes from!

/5

Meanwhile....

Our lil' Bohemian Butcher Rupeypie used his own fortune - we just heard about where he made some of it, remember - to seed a 'trade expedition' to the Hudson's Bay region.

This culminated in the 1670 founding of HBC with him as Governor.

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Or....

as HBC's website puts it...

"It took the vision and connections of Prince Rupert, cousin of King Charles II, to acquire the Royal Charter"

/7

Anyway, I've known for a while (but def didn't learn in school) that European wealth & the Canadian state couldn't exist without colonialism, Indigenous dispossession, land theft, the transatlantic slave trade, etc.

But this individual wrinkle? News to me.

/FIN

EXTRA CREDIT!

HBC's second governor was James Stuart, the Duke of York. You might remember him because he resigned as governor to become James II, the frickin King of England.

So about him... 1/3

Before he was the 2nd Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Jimmy Stew was the 1st Governor of... the Royal African Company!

*gasp*

Bless up to his big bro Charles II for the assist. He prolly coulda gotten lil bruv into Stanford or Wake Forest too.

2/3

Stu Beef w/ no seasoning was *ALSO* commander of the Royal Navy during the 2nd & 3rd Anglo-Dutch wars.

He personally directed English efforts to muscle in on the Dutch & their lucrative slaver racket on the African coast, paving the way for easy trading of gold & people.

3/3

Well this blew up! No Soundcloud here, but I'll add this:

The past is never dead. It's not even past. The ongoing white supremacist renaissance is no accident. If we don't get serious abt facing down & exorcising these demons, things'll get worse before they get better. #CDNpoli