Red River Colony

The Red River colony, English Red River Colony, Red River Settlement or Selkirk Settlement, was originally a colonization project of the Scottish Earls Lord Selkirk and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC ), which was initiated in 1812 in Canada. Until the founding of the Canadian province of Manitoba in 1870 the settlement area around present-day Winnipeg has been so designated, in part as a Red River District or The Red River.

The HBC left Selkirk 1812 a 300,000 sq km large area from under its fur trade monopoly managed by it, Rupert's land. Selkirk wanted there to settle Scottish peasants who had become landless in their home country (see Highland Clearances ). The HBC promised next to shorter supply routes to their hunting grounds, especially the weakening of their biggest rivals, the North West Company ( NWC ). The NWC had to achieve its headquarters in Montreal and around the located mainly in the Canadian Rockies hunting areas on their fur trade monopoly, they had to just pass through the area which was now left to Lord Selkirk. In addition, there also moved the Métis, who supplied the NWC with the elemental for the fur trade food pemmican.

The huge area extended far beyond the present provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and the northern edge of the Midwest, but should be settled first only a small area around the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red River, the Forks called, and probably not coincidentally also the center of Métis settlements and location of Fort Gibraltar, a major trading post of the NWC. Therefore, the arrival of the first settlers triggered the Pemmican War between HBC and NWC. After its end, and the merger of the HBC and NWC weakened competitor 1821 However, only a few Scots settled there. Under Red River colony, or the Red River was understood from now on, the area around the Forks, which was still inhabited mainly by Métis. The combined fur traders named Fort Gibraltar in 1822 to Fort Garry, from which the settlement area and other parts of the original Red River colony were managed as Assiniboia.

Already in 1818 the south of the 49th degree of north latitude location of the Red River colony territory of the United States, today North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota and Montana belong. For the settlement area at The Forks but that had no meaning.

1869 sold the land to the HBC quite Rupert founded two years earlier Canadian Dominion and 1870 was the area around The Forks in the wake of the Red River Rebellion of the new province of Manitoba (see Manitoba Act ). Manitoba's capital was initially Fort Garry, which in 1873 merged with the rapidly developing surrounding settlements to the new city of Winnipeg. By 1912, the area of Manitoba has been extended far beyond its initial expansion to its present size to Hudson Bay.