Experts renew calls for reparations from companies with historic ties to the slave trade

Open this photo in gallery: An exhibit shows trading goods in the Hudson’s Bay Company wing of Winnipeg’s Manitoba Museum in downtown Winnipeg, on March 5, 2023. HBC is known for shaping Canada’s economy through the fur trade, but it also has historic involvement in the slave trade.NASUNA STUART-ULIN/The New York Times News Service The Black Lives Matter protests that began in 2020 sparked international calls for reparations, and many companies and governments responded with apologies and new programs focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. But five years on, that momentum has stalled, resulting in renewed calls to Canadian companies with historic ties to slavery to repair the resulting generational harm. The Hudson’s Bay Company, known for shaping Canada’s economy through the fur trade, is one of them, due to its historic involvement in the slave trade. Joseph Lewis, a Black man from New England, worked for HBC as a slave in Manitoba, according to research into the company’s archives published in 2022 by Dr. Anne Lindsay, a settler scholar from the University of Manitoba. In addition, Dr. Lindsay discovered in the University College London’s Legacies of British Slavery database that many of HBC’s early governors amassed wealth in the...