Fort Albany (Ontario)

The area was explored by Charles Bayly, the first overseas governor of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), around 1675, and the original Fort Albany was established in 1679.

In 1685, the French built Fort des Français at the juncture of the Albany and Kenogami Rivers to block the indigenous people from coming north to trade with the HBC.

[citation needed] In 1686, all three posts on James Bay (Moose Factory, Rupert House, and Fort Albany) were captured by an overland expedition from Quebec.

Following the end of decades of conflict with the French, sloops from Albany traded along the east coast until a new post was built on the Eastmain River in 1723-24 and Moose Factory was reestablished in 1730.

So, going against company policy, he took a team 160 miles up river to establish the subsidiary Henley House and re-establish HBC authority.

[4] This policy officially changed in the 1770s, and the company began establishing series of inland posts that fed into the coastal forts and factories, which would function as depots for storage and ports for trade back to Europe.

This sudden removal of access to Fort Albany and Henley House angered Wappisis, a Cree man influential over the indigenous people of the area, and in December 1754 he and a few others destroyed Henley House, killing the five HBC men there and raiding the stores, threatening death to anyone that told the Company people that they had done it.

The employees at Moose and Albany were concerned following the destruction of Henley House, since this was the first such incident of indigenous violence in the company's history.

[citation needed] Following the 1821 merger of HBC with the North West Company, Albany District thrived, recovering from the decline in trade caused by competition while the supply of fur-bearing animals dwindled.

In order to curb the extinction of fur-bearing animals, the Governor of Rupert's Land George Simpson established beaver preserves throughout the district.

[9] In 1905, Treaty 9 was signed by the Indigenous people living around Fort Albany, who had become concentrated in the area over the past few decades and who had been seeking a binding agreement with the government to protect their way of life.