POTTS, JOHN, HBC surgeon and post factor; d. 27 June 1764 at Prince of Wales Fort (Churchill, Man.).

John Potts was one of several “surgeons” (their formal medical qualifications were often sketchy) who were sent to Hudson Bay in the 18th century and became factors at Hudson’s Bay Company posts. First engaged in 1738 to serve as surgeon for three years at York Factory (Man.), he was described in 1740 by the post’s chief factor, James Isham, as “a very sober, honest and industrious young man, and I believe very capable of the station.” After a brief return to England he went back to the bay in 1745, this time as surgeon at Moose Factory (Ont.). In the season 1747–48 he took command of the latter post when the factor returned to England because of ill health; and in 1750 he replaced the disgraced Thomas Mitchell as factor of the new trading post at Richmond Gulf (Lac Tasiujaq, Que.), far to the north along the East Main coast.

Though Potts was initially optimistic, when he arrived he found the settlement in disarray, with a “Lifeless, Spiritless, discontented crew.” He was given three main objectives: to complete the building of the post, to develop the fur trade among the Indigenous peoples of the interior, and to supervise the three miners sent out with the aim of working mineral deposits just south of Richmond Gulf. His years at the post were ones of frustration and failure. In 1751 he sent home the trio of “disorderly and intolerably idle” miners, whose efforts had produced only some sulphur and low-grade brass; the next year he declared of the fur trade that “we Realy think (having now had Experience) that it never will turn out to Your Honours Satisfaction.” They failed to persuade servants to venture inland to make contact with an elusive people known to the HBC as the Naskapi of the Labrador interior, and although a few Naskapi and some of the coastal Cree [see Robinson Crusoe] came to the post, they brought little trade. The Indigenous people preferred to hunt caribou, and those Cree to the south were already engaged in trade with the HBC, generally continuing to trade with Eastmain House (at the mouth of the Eastmain River) or the other established posts towards James Bay. As Potts’ deputy pointed out, “Richmond Fort can never rise but on the ruins of Eastmain.”

The company had hoped that the post’s northerly situation would attract Inuit traders, and Potts himself attempted to use sign language to express a desire for exchange. In 1754, however, tensions escalated into a violent clash. A young HBC servant named Matthew Warden was carried off from the nearby outpost at Little Whale River (Petite rivière de la Baleine, Que.) by a group of Inuit. In the ensuing months Potts captured two Inuit men whom he hoped to exchange for the boy, but when the hostages attempted to escape, Potts was “Oblig’d to Shoot” and then had their bodies dumped through a hole in the ice. Letters to the posts at Albany (Fort Albany, Ont.) and Moose Factory reported the incident and included grisly tokens. In May, Warden’s remains were found near the site of his abduction.

Afterwards, the Inuit avoided the area. Potts’ own journal acknowledged the long-term impact of the affair: “We have had very few Indians here this Winter they being fearfull … we have had little or no Trade.” The incident, together with Potts’ commercial ineffectiveness and the suspicion that he was engaged in private trade, brought a heavy reproof from the London committee, which told him, “We are greatly displeased with your management.” With the post receiving only the derisory total of £100 worth of furs in six years, the HBC decided in 1756, apparently on Potts’ recommendation, to move it southward to Little Whale River, where it would be better placed for the white whale (beluga) fishery.

Potts met with no more success here, and in 1759 the company abandoned the post, since “no Trade of any sort can possibly be Obtained in that part of Hudsons Bay the least beneficial to the Company or Advantageous to the Nation.” Lack of country provisions, mutual fears and antagonisms among the First Nations and Inuit, and the reluctance of the garrison to journey inland all made the factor’s task an unenviable one. Potts’ gloomy journals and letters give little indication that he was the right man for this difficult post.

After a year’s leave in England, Potts returned in 1761 to the less strenuous position of surgeon at Prince of Wales, and there he served until his death from gout three years later. Most of his clothes he had already given to his son John, also serving at the post; his feather bed and a cloth banyan were sent home to his wife, Elizabeth. A George Potts, recorded as James Isham’s personal servant and a skilled “inland traveller,” may have been another son. John Potts’ only obituary was written by the chief factor, Moses Norton*, in the Churchill post journal for 30 June 1764: “We also Buried Mr. Potts in as Decent a manner as I possibly Could, and as he had been Hon^rd with ye Command of one of your Hon^rs Forts and has always Beheaved well Ever Since he has been here, and on those Considerations I fired 7 of our 1 lb. Guns at his Funaral.”

Glyndwr Williams