Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 463-471).

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-144).

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The North West Company, a Montreal based fur trading corporation, dominated by Scots, developed a commercial operation that between 1779 and 1821 extended to the Atlantic and Pacific axes of the British Empire. The enterprise emerged at a critical juncture in the development of Empire. It was a period of colossal growth and partial dismemberment as well as one of redefinition. Adapting Atlantic and trans-oceanic perspectives this dissertation examines the socio-entrepreneurial networks forged by the North West Company as it sought to expand its commercial reach to encompass Montreal, Quebec, London, New York, Calcutta, Bombay and Canton in a hitherto unexplored form of global economy. To date Imperial and fur trade studies have viewed the fur trade within the confines of a British North Atlantic triangle. This historiographical tendency towards a geographically limited concept of the trade has been exacerbated by the perceived political and economic dislocations brought about by the loss of the American colonies in 1783. The dissertation revises historical orthodoxies to reveal the scale and scope of the fur trade as a pan-imperial activity. Exploring the Company's multi-layered networks highlights not only how the merchants integrated their operation into the Anglo-American Atlantic and beyond but also demonstrates how the Empire actually operated, bringing together its maritime and continental spheres. Identifying the origin, character and evolution of their business practices and linkages modifies conceptions of an increasingly centralised imperial economy of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Merchants negotiated between competing and at times overlapping tensions on a local, provincial, imperial and global level as they traversed a plurality of political, cultural and legal frameworks. The manner in which the fur traders co-ordinated and structured their organisation in response to these tensions further challenges the idea of an uncomplicated metropolitan control to reveal the existence of a negotiated imperialism. Placing the North West Company in a broad context allows for a critical and meaningful revision of key geographic, economic, political and chronological disjunctures within the historiography of this crucial phase of Britain's Empire.

This thesis is a comparative economic study of domestic food production by the peasantry in two West Indian societies, Trinidad and Guadeloupe. It examines the period 1897 to 1946; Trinidad was then under British rule while Guadeloupe was a French colony. The study relates the evolution of domestic food production to fluctuations in export agriculture, revealing a strong inverse relationship between the two, in both colonies. The level of food imports also stimulated or stiffled domestic food production. Therefore, the domestic agricultural sector in Trinidad and Guadeloupe alike was never autonomous. The study draws on underdevelopment theory to highlight the analysis. The role of the colonial government is the major contrast between the two colonies. In Guadeloupe, except during W.W.II, the government was extremely supportive of the peasantry and their domestic food crops. In Trinidad, on the other hand, the government was largely indifferent, except during the Second World War. The difference in policy stemmed from republicanism in Guadeloupe and the Crown colony system in Trinidad. The study relies heavily on (basic) statistical information as well as other primary data. But information on domestic food production has, understandably, been difficult to come by. As a consequence the research has drawn on significant pieces of secondary works as well. As a comparative work, this thesis is distinctive as there are very few studies of West Indian history which compare British and French West Indian colonies. Moreover, there are equally few works in English on the French West Indies.

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