|
Guy Carleton | Jay's
Treaty | Black
Loyalists | Alexander
Mackenzie | Simon Fraser |
David Thompson |
John Graves Simcoe |
Captain George Vancouver |
The Northwest Company |
Prevost's Conciliation |
Tecumseh |
The War of 1812 |
Lord Selkirk |
Newfoundland |
Constitution Act 1791
In 1801, Thomas Douglas the Earl of
Selkirk read a book about the adventures and exploits in
western Canada, of a fur trader and explorer named
Alexander Mackenzie. Selkirk was thrilled by the
potential opportunities and options this vast land
seemed to offer and decided that he would organize and
back a program which would recruit and send his fellow
Scotsmen to this land to settle it and start a new
civilization. He felt that Scottish farms who had no
land , or had lost their land would be perfect
candidates for this venture.
In order to initiate
this process Selkirk bought shares of the Hudson Bay
Company which he felt held the rights to vast tracts of
the Canadian North and would provide a homestead for his
settlers. The Hudson Bay Charter granted it all of the
lands which had waters that ran into the Hudson Bay. In
1811 Selkirk choose some property along the Red River in
Manitoba. This land was about 300,000 Square kilometres
and was good farm land. Problems arose however when the
Northwest Company claimed that the land actually
belonged to them and they believed that Selkirk
was actually trying to cut off their trade routes
between the west and the Great Lakes. The other group
which was upset by these plans was the Métis who
believed that farming the land would destroy the Buffalo
habitat and drive them and the Métis away.
The Settlers arrived in North America at
York Factory on the Hudson's Bay in 1811 during the winter and
prepared to travel up the Churchill River to Lake Winnipeg and
then up the Red River. Upon arriving at their destination on
August 29, 1812 they built Fort Douglas, near the
current site of downtown Winnipeg, and the second group arrived
in October. They had no crops to harvest and were forced to
survive on the supplies that they had brought with them and the
limited amount of game they were able to kill.
Selkirk's first choice as governor of
Fort Douglas was Miles Macdonnell who sent a group to
form a second settlement about 100 miles to the south
near Pembina, North Dakota. Food production remained the
over riding issue and on January 8, 1814 Macdonell
issued the "Pemmican Proclamation which forbad the
export of provisions from the area. This directly
threatened the administration and support of the
Northwest Company system. In 1815 the North-westerners
convinced many of the settlers that land in Canada
was better were assisted in leaving the Red River area
to travel to Canada. Macdonell was arrested and the
settlement disbanded by the Métis and the Northwest
Company but was re-occupied that same year by new
settlers under Robert Semple. By 1816 matters came to a
head and the Seven Oaks Incident occurred in which many
were killed. Selkirk arrived on August 16th with
mercenary soldiers and took the NWC Fort William. By
July he had arrived at the Red River settlement and
re-established the colony yet again. The settlement
began to grow and the HBC eventually absorbed the NWC
which pacified affairs until many of the same issues
re-emerged in 1870 with Louis Riel. |
