CRUSOE, ROBINSON, Cree hunter from Great Whale River (Whapmagoostui, Que.); d. 9 Dec. 1755 at Richmond Fort.

The man who became known as Robinson Crusoe and his son Friday arrived at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s newly founded fort on Richmond Gulf (Lac Tasiujaq, Que.) in 1750. For the next five years Crusoe was of inestimable assistance to the fort’s factor, John Potts. Crusoe carried the annual packet to Eastmain House in 1751. The next year he was sent to Great Whale River with a captain’s coat and hat for Shewescome, a chief there, to invite him to bring his men to hunt whales at Little Whale River. The men came, accepted presents of brandy and tobacco, but did no hunting. Crusoe was a particularly effective killer of whales, and the smith at Richmond Fort made whaling instruments under his directions.

Crusoe’s conduct of his domestic affairs nearly brought about his death in 1753. Several years before, he had married his son-in-law’s mother. Then in 1753, when she was about 80, he turned her out and married another woman. Although other Cree supported his action, saying the woman and her relatives had given him much trouble, his son-in-law attacked him, inflicting six cuts on his head with a hatchet. Potts sent a sledge to bring him to the factory, as the death of “the best hunter, whale fisher, snowshoe maker, and best supplier of country provisions” would have been a serious blow to the settlement. Crusoe recovered.

The next year, on 9 February, some Inuit sacked the outpost at Little Whale River and carried off a boy named Matthew Warden. Crusoe supplied venison to Richmond’s uneasy defenders, who were afraid to leave their fort for fear of another attack. Potts later captured two Inuit men whom he had hoped to exchange for Warden, but they were shot dead while trying to escape. Crusoe advised against hanging the bodies on a gibbet, English style, as doing so would be an invitation for the Inuit to “kill and eat ye Boy” if he were still alive. Instead, Crusoe secretly disposed of the bodies, sinking them through a hole cut in the ice. In March Potts had Crusoe deliver to Eastmain letters describing the recent events and, reportedly, an ear from each dead Inuk, which were to be sent on to the forts at Albany (Fort Albany, Ont.) and Moose (Moose Factory, Ont.). On 25 May Matthew Warden’s bones and clothes were found not far from where he had been taken.

In November 1755 Crusoe was brought to the factory lame and ill. He took a fever and died on 9 December. Henry Pollexfen Jr, who was in charge during Potts’ absence, recorded: “This morning died Robinson Crusoe, an honest worthy Indian; a man that has been the greatest help if not the only one of real Service to the Factory, and on whome the Whale fishery chiefly depended which makes his death regreted by the Europeans here as well as by his Own Countrymen.”

George E. Thorman