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home-guard (Indian)
Fur Trade, Hist.
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
1an.
an Indian, usually a Cree, living in or near a fur post on Hudson's Bay and employed by the traders. See 1965 quote.
Quotations
1743
. . . a remnant [of Crees] remain'd about the Factories and at present constitute what we call the Home-guard Indians who are become dependant on the English and retain'd by them to procure provisions and perform any other Services. . . .
1784
Some few of my Homeguard whom have been in have done tolerably well & others as bad indeed the bad outweighs the good.
1959
. . . there had also arisen a considerable body of Indians dependent on the posts in a different manner, 'home-guard' Indians who hunted in spring and fall to provide geese and partridges for the English to live on.
1965
The traders divided the Indians into two broad classes, the "Home Guards" and the "Uplanders." The Home Guards, as Samuel Hearne put it [1795), were "certain of the natives who are immediately employed under the protection of the Company's servants, reside on the plantation and are employed in hunting for the Factory."
1bn.
any Indian who lived in or near a fur post, especially those employed as hunters.
Quotations
1849
"Home Guards,"--a term generally applied to the Indians attached to a trading post.
1957
The "home guard" Indians who lived in or near a post became the constant friends and familiars of the trader and his staff, and the Indian women helped with the daily chores.
2n.
a Cree Indian from the vicinity of the fur posts on Hudson Bay.
See: Home Indian
Quotations
1777
To me it appears a matter of much consequence to our Welfare as it may happen & Time may prove us only to be fighting about a few Home Guards or Shore Indians, rather confounding the Company's Interest more than we annoy the Inland Pedlars.
1783
A family of home guard Indians came in, paid their debts in Rabbits and brought only 5 Martin skins.
1795
However, the Northern Indians had address enough to talk my home-guard Indians out of all they had: so that before we left them, they were as cleanswept as myself, excepting their guns, some ammunition, an old hatchet, an ice-chissel, and a file to sharpen them.
1908
Indeed, he says the [Crees] were called by the Hudson's Bay Company's officers at York Factory "their home guards."
1938
. . . the place was alive with . . . the "home guard Indians," as the Crees were called, in fringed leggings and bright capotes. . . .