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In the 17th century the French had a monopolyAlternate use: Monopoly (game In economics, a monopoly (from the Greek monos one + polein to sell) is defined as a market situation where there is only one provider of a product or service. Monopolies are characterized by a lack of economic competition fo on the Canadian fur trade. However, two French traders, Pierre-Esprit RadissonPierre-Esprit Radisson (c. 1636- 1710) was a French-born explorer and fur trader. He came to New France as a teenager and was captured in an Iroquois raid, but was adopted by his captors and became accustomed to their way of life. After two years living w and Médard des GroseilliersMedard Chouart des Groseilliers ( 1618- 1696) was French explorer and fur trader in Canada. Des Groseilliers, a coureur des bois ("runner of the woods"), worked with the Jesuit missionaries among the Hurons near Lake Huron in the 1640s. From 1654 to 1656 defected to the EnglishEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England and told them of a route to the rich trading grounds to the north and west of Lake SuperiorLake Superior is the largest of North America's Great Lakes. It is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area with Lake Baikal in Siberia having more volume. The Caspian Sea is larger, but contains salt water. Lake Superior has a surface are, which could be reached from the north through Hudson Bay instead of over land from New FranceNew France ( French: la Nouvelle-France describes the area colonized by France in North America during a period extending from the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 to the cession of New France to the Kingdom of Great Brit. The English sent a successful expedition there in 1669Events Samuel Pepys stopped writing his diary. The Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb destroys several Hindu temples and banned the whole religion, so Hindus rebel. Antonio Stradivari makes his first violin Famine in Bengal kills 3 million people The Hanseatic Leagu, and the Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated on May 2, 1670, with a Royal Charter from King Charles II. The charter granted the company a monopoly over the Indian Trade, especially the fur trade, in the region watered by all rivers and streams flowing into Hudson Bay in northern Canada, an area known as Rupert's Land after the first director of the Company, Prince Rupert of the Rhine. This region constitutes 3.9 million km² (1.5 million square miles) in the watershed of Hudson Bay, comprising over one-third the area of modern-day Canada and stretching into the north central United States, but the specific boundaries were unknown at the time.
The company founded its first headquarters at Fort Nelson (later renamed York Factory) at the mouth of the Nelson River in present-day northeastern Manitoba. The location afforded convienent access to the fort from the vast interior waterway systems of the Saskatchewan and Red rivers. Other posts were quickly established around the southern edge of Hudson Bay in Manitoba and present-day Ontario and Quebec. Called "factories", these posts operated in the manner of the Dutch fur trading operations in New Netherland. During the spring and summer First Nations traders, who did the vast majority of the trapping itself, travelled by canoe and were received at the fort to sell their pelts. In exchange they typically received metal tools and hunting gear, often imported by the company from Germany, the center of inexpensive manufacturing in that era. The early coastal factory model contrasted with the system of the French, who established an extensive system of inland posts and sent traders to live among the tribes of the region.
The conservative nature of the company's factory system frustrated the company's founders, Radisson and Des Groseilliers, who urged bolder explorations of the continental interior. In 1674 they switched their allegiance back to France and in 1682 they founded La Compagnie du Nord to directly compete with the company. After war broke out in Europe between the France and England in the 1680s, the two nations regularly sent expeditions to raid and capture each other's fur trading posts. In March 1686 the French sent a raiding party under Chevalier des Troyes over 1300 km (800 mi) to capture the company's posts along James Bay. The French appointed Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who had shown extreme heroism during the raids, as commander of the company's captured posts. In 1697, d'Iberville commanded a French naval raid on the company's headquarters at York Factory. On the way to the fort, he defeated three ships of the Royal Navy in the Battle of the Bay , the largest naval battle in the history of the North American Arctic. D'Iberville's depleted French force captured York Factory by a ruse in which laid siege to fort while pretending to be a much larger army. York Factory changed hands several times in the next decade. It was finally ceded permanently to the English in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, after which the company rebuilt it as a brick star fort at the mouth of the nearby Hayes River , its present location.
In its trade with native peoples, the company adopted the widespread use of issuing wool blankets, called Hudson's Bay point blankets, in exchange for the beaver pelts trapped by native hunters. In the company's system, the point value of blanket was determined by the number of beaver pelts which it fetched in trade. For example, three beaver pelts fetched a three-point blanket, which was a blanket of moderately good warmth.