Isaac Batt

Isaac Batt was a Canadian fur trader, probably born in Stanstead Abbots, Hertfordshire, England. He came to America as an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1754 to serve as a laborer at York Factory (Man.) for five years at £10 per annum.

Batt served HBC in the "Inland trade"' aspect of the company business and was influential amongst the Indians near present day The Pas, Manitoba. His responsibilities expanded with the growth of the problems associated with the company’s inland trade. Part of his activities as an inland trader for HBC included negotiations with Indians in order to include them into the fur trade, and he also acted as a sort of a diplomat as he was instructed by the HBC to “Prevent Warr among the Natives, and get what Inteligence they could of the Approaches of the Interlopers (rival Canadian traders).”

Although skilled at dealing with the natives Batt never got a promotion inside the HBC because he was not literate, and as such he could not have kept diaries of his travels and dealings. Younger and less capable men got the promotions while his salary never exceeded £20 a year.

Batt epitomizes the type of service rendered by many of the early inland employees of the HBC. Although illiterate he won the trust of the natives and married into their society, leaving descendants in the country where he died. In 1791 he left Manchester House on the North Saskatchewan River to go hunting with some Indians he did not know. He ended robbed and shot through the head.