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Unfair Masters and Rascally Servants? Labour Relations Among Bourgeois, Clerks and Voyageurs in the Montréal Fur Trade, 1780-1821
| Type of resource | |
|---|---|
| Author/collaborator |
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| Title |
Unfair Masters and Rascally Servants? Labour Relations Among Bourgeois, Clerks and Voyageurs in the Montréal Fur Trade, 1780-1821
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| Abstract |
The author points out that the eighteenth-century Montreal-based post-Conquest fur trade labour system was organized around indentured servitude, paternalism, and cultural hegemony. French Canadian labourers (voyageurs) signed legal contracts promising to obey their master in exchange for board and wages. The masters, who the author claims called themselves bourgeois, were Scottish, British, American and a few French Canadians. The author points out that the legal contracts between masters and voyageurs were overshadowed by "social contracts" which signified continual negotiating for fair working conditions. She argues that although voyageurs did not challenge the structure of the master and servant relationship, they continually pushed at the boundaries of their rights as workers. They diminished master authority through a "counter-theatre" of resistance, which included working slowly, complaining, stealing provisions, and deserting the service.
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| Publication |
Labour / Le Travail
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| Volume |
Vol. 43
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| Pages |
43-70
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| Date |
Spring 1999
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| Language |
en
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| URL | |
| Citation |
Podruchny, Carolyn. “Unfair Masters and Rascally Servants? Labour Relations Among Bourgeois, Clerks and Voyageurs in the Montréal Fur Trade, 1780-1821.” Labour / Le Travail Vol. 43 (Spring 1999): 43–70. http://www.lltjournal.ca/index.php/llt/article/view/5148/6017.
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Page 34 of 57
