The Hudson's Bay Company
A company governing territory larger than India
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A trade monopoly gave one company the sole right to all commerce in an area, and the crown granted them readily in return for a share of the profit. Rupert's Land was sold to Canada in 1869, and selling a territory inhabited by people who had not been consulted immediately provoked the Red River Resistance. The company's archives are also an unusual resource: two centuries of daily observations from hundreds of trading posts are used in climate research today, because they provide a continuous series from before instrumental records.
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In 1670 an English trading company was granted a monopoly on all trade in the entire Hudson Bay watershed — an area covering almost a third of today's Canada. The company governed it like a state for two centuries, with its own laws and forts.
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