The Red River Settlement 1821-1870

1. The Red River Settlement1821-1870

2. The Merger of the HBC and the NWC • By 1820, both the HBC and NWC were suffering financially. There were not enough furs in the Northwest to justify both companies staying in business as they weren’t making much of a profit. • In 1821 both companies merged to form The Hudson’s Bay Company. • The British parliament gave the new company control over Rupert’s Land as well as giving it control west of the Rocky Mountains. • The HBC decided to reduce its workforce. As a result, the Native peoples became even more important to the success of the business. • The Native were important to the HBC as trappers, translators, guides, and map makers. They also built, repaired and paddled canoes for the HBC.

3. George Simpson • George Simpson, a Scottish sugar bro.ker, was appointed the new head of the HBC • Eventhough he was not very experienced about furs, George Simpson developed a hands-on approach and ventured into the territory he controlled. • Simpson was nicknamed the “Little Emperor” by his workers, because of his small stature and autocratic (in a manner suggesting absolute power) manner. • After talking a leave of absence in 1829, Simpson now at a age of forty returned a year later with his 18-year old bride. • Simpson, who had married at Red River, and had several children of Métis heritage, did not want his new bride to meet his family members. They were packed off before the Simpsons arrived at Fort Garry. • George Simpson left the Red River, settled in Montreal, was knighted in 1841 for his services to the HBC, and continued to travel far and wide throughout his empire. He died in 1860.

4. Cuthbert Grant • Grant was born in 1793. His mother, a Métis, and his father, a Nor’wester, sent him to Montreal and Scotland to be educated. • Fluent in both English and French, he quickly became a leader of the Métis and a rising star in the NWC. • After the Battle of Seven Oaks, he was arrested and sent to Montreal to face several murder charges, but he was acquitted. • Simpson made Grant “Warden of the Plains.” Grant came to assume a number of roles: he was the Captain of the Hunt for decades; he used his medical knowledge to treat the sick; he allowed his home to be used as a school; and he policed the area, acting as both magistrate and sheriff. • By the 1840s, Grant’s time as a leader of his people was passing. Many young Métis resented his close association with the HBC, whose trade monopoly was despised. • He retired to his farm, where he died in 1851 after falling off his horse.

5. The Red River Settlement 1821-1860 After 1821, peace came to the RR Settlement. For the next forty years, it was a remarkably stable, close-knit community. •      The settlement included the Métis, the country-born, Scottish and Swiss colonists, and HBC employees (European settlers). The population was evenly divided between the three groups. As time went on, more and more of the population was of mixed descent. • The economy of the RR Settlement was built around the needs of the HBC. The Scottish settlers grew many of the crops and sold their produce to the HBC, who used this food to supply its network of fur –trading posts throughout the Northwest. • The Métis contributed to the economy by supplying pemmican to the HBC, as well as buffalo robes and other goods to the settlers. • The country-born tended to see themselves as superior to the Métis because they held typically white-collar jobs -as clerks, teachers, magistrates, and store owners.

6. Fighting to Trade • Despite their different backgrounds, the inhabitants of the settlement got along fairly well. However, a disagreement eventually arose over the free trade of furs. It was a crime in the RR Settlement for anyone to trade in furs or other goods because it violated the HBC monopoly, which had been upheld in the 1821 merger with the NWC. • The Métis started fighting for the right to trade furs in the 1840s and in 1849, four Métis fur traders were charged with illegal trading. • When the trial began, the courtroom was packed and 300 Métis surrounded the building. The presiding judge (Adam Thom) requested that the jury find the defendants guilty, which they did. The foreman recommended mercy for the four offenders, and Thom quickly agreed and ordered no sentence. • While the HBC felt it had made its case, the Métis proclaimed: “Le commerce est libre! Vive la liberte! (Business is open! Long live freedom!”)” The HBC monopoly had been broken.

7. A Self-Sufficient Community • Because of its isolation from the rest of the continent, the Red River Settlement fostered a sense of self- reliance among its members. • Women and men worked side by side, though a woman’s life was must harder. Women helped in the grain harvest, using sickles to cut the wheat by hand. They also processed all the wool used in the community, including the cleaning, carding, and spinning, tasks that took a great deal of time. • Once the day’s labour was over, the men rested, but the women could not—they had to bake the bannock (a kind of flatbread) for the next day’s meal. In addition, families were large. Many women had as many as fifteen children, despite the shortage of health care.

8. Changes in the Red River Settlement • As we saw earlier the bison were disappearing from the prairies, and this was coupled with crop failures and the cash-strapped HBC was losing interest in the area. • An additional complication was that the Métis, although long-time farmers, had never made a legal claim to their territory. • In the tradition of the RR Settlement, all employees of the HBC were entitled to take up farmland and live on it after three years. • On the surface, this posed no problem for the Métis, who believed that if a person cleared land and farmed it, he or she had a right to it. This attitude would lead to problems in the late 1860s.

9. Canada Purchases Rupert’s Land • When the Fathers of Confederation drew up the British North America Act in London in 1866 and 1867, they included provisions for the eventual admission of all colonies in BNA an for the acquisition of Rupert’s Land from the HBC. • The HBC realized that if it were going to survive as a business, it would have to focus on and branch out its commercial operations and drop its administrative duties to the territory. • This aided in the purchase of Rupert’s Land (1869), and moved John A. Macdonald and D’Arcy McGee closer to fulfilling their dream of a dominion (a country that rules itself) of Canada from sea to sea. • The HBC failed to consult the people who lived in the RR Settlement, and paid no attention to the special interests of the people, in particular the Métis.

10. Canada Purchases Rupert’s Land • With the acquisition of Rupert’s Land, Canada doubled in size as it joined this territory with the North-Western Territory. They were renamed as the North-West Territories. • In return, the HBC received a cash payment of 300 000 ($ 1.5 million), 2.8 million hectares of prairie farmland, and the right to continue the fur trade, although without the monopoly it had previously enjoyed.

11. Canada Purchases Rupert’s Land • The surveyors who arrived at the RR area operated on the assumption that the current occupants of the Northwest did not own their property. • The surveyors did not recognize the seigneurial pattern of farms that had existed along the Red and Assiniboine rivers since the 1820’s. • This infuriated the Métis, as they felt it was their land.