It included portions of Rupert's Land, or the watershed of Hudson Bay, bounded on the north by the line of 52° N latitude roughly from the Assiniboine River east to Lake Winnipegosis.

[3] During the first decade of the nineteenth century Selkirk established two unsuccessful agricultural colonies in British North America but continued to pursue the settlement of the Red River region.

A vital food source, bison numbers had been dwindling since the 1760s due to heavy hunting pressure by Euroamerican traders as well as the aboriginal inhabitants of the prairies.

[8] In July 1811, Miles Macdonell sailed from Yarmouth, England to the Hudson's Bay post at York Factory with 36 primarily Irish and Scottish settlers.

The Pemmican War that was initiated by Macdonell's proclamation was only the tail end of a much larger conflict between the Hudson's Bay Company and its fur trade rivals, both English and French, in Montreal.

[9] Cause for conflict arose from the inability of either the Montreal traders or the Hudson's Bay Company to gain a monopoly over the North American fur trade.

[5] Negotiations broke down again in 1805 and despite employing more aggressive agents and the provision of incentive programs, the Hudson's Bay Company was ready to abandon the fur trade in 1809.

[5] The establishment of a Hudson's Bay colony in the Red River region denied the Nor'Westers access to vital supplies and restricted the company's ability to expand westwards.

[6] Additionally, the establishment of an agricultural colony made the Hudson's Bay company nondependent on the profitable fur trade, a factor that the Nor'Westers simply could not compete with.

[5] Much of this new-found confidence hinged on the Selkirk's success at Red River and resulted in the colony becoming the central focus of seven years of inter-company warfare.

[3] Convinced that Macdonell's proclamation was a deliberate attempt to block Northwest trade, the company destroyed Fort Douglas and burned down all of the surrounding buildings.

While the end of the fur trade's inspired conflicts on the plains, the Red River settlement was able to grow in both population and economic importance with the expansion of commercially oriented agriculture (raising of staple crops).

[6] In 1841, James Sinclair guided 200 settlers from the Red River Colony west in an attempt to retain the Columbia District for British North America.

Despite such efforts, the British government eventually ceded all claim to land south of the 49th parallel of latitude west of the Rockies to the United States as a resolution to the Oregon boundary dispute.

The ideal soil, climate and socio-economic potential of the area convinced many Americans that they needed to make the territory part of the United States.

A notable example would be James W. Taylor: he was an American special agent and Winnipeg consul who used his political power to shape the destiny of the valley, which called for the removal of all English-Canadian influence.

The proposal was met with a significant amount of resistance from the inhabitants of the Red River as they were given the chance to address their grievances about the potential loss of land and becoming part of an American colonization project through a proclamation by the Governor-General of the dominion.

This rebellion also led to the Métis emerging as a unique, acknowledged group within Canada, and ultimately, the disappearance of the Aboriginal rights paradigm in the public view of Red River.

Once the rebellion ended, Riel and several of his comrades fled to the United States in 1870 upon being informed that several government soldiers and irregulars were looking to kill him to exact revenge for several incidents, in particular, the execution of Thomas Scott.

The Canadian government was starting to punish the rebels for their defiance, but the rebellion is still considered a success in the sense that the Metis were still able to acquire the land rights they hoped to achieve, as well as no longer being ignored when it came to federal matters.

[22] Due to the hurried nature of the creation of this province, the officials of this new government presented themselves as overwhelmed and unprepared, and this shows that Manitoba was essentially created to re-stabilize political unrest within Canada.

Many in French Canada had seen the establishment of Manitoba, officially bilingual and with a large francophone and Catholic population, as a counter-balance to English and Protestant dominance in the Canadian Confederation, while some hoped the province would be a political entity centered or at least heavily influenced by indigenous or Métis communities.

Once the rebellion was put down and Manitoba was admitted, thousands of largely Protestant, anglophone Ontarians quickly began migrating to the prairies, and their presence swiftly shifted the demographic, national, and linguistic profile of the province, which in turn meant the election of provincial governments decisively oriented towards Ontario and English Canada, rather than French Canada, Métis, First Nations, or balance between these groups.

A quarter-century after the implementation of the Manitoba Act which legally guaranteed a place for the French language in the province's administration, lawmaking, and judiciary along with a clause ensuring state funding for both Catholic (often de facto French) and Protestant schools, English had become the sole means of communication in the legislature and the judiciary, while the provincial government attempted the introduction of a secular, English-only public school system which would be the sole recipient of any public funding.

[24] When female settlers did eventually start emigrating to the settlement, tensions between the European and indigenous communities were heightened due to the highly restrictive gender norms these women brought with them from Europe.

Augustus Chetlain, an author who lived in the colony, wrote in his book that they were often called "Brules, Metifs, or half-breeds, the bastard sons of Indian concubines".

By studying the social network of the Trottier Brigade, a community of people from the White Horse Plains in Red River, it is notable that biologically related women brought the majority of the men together.

In the early 19th century, considerations were made by the Committee in London to open schools run by the Clergymen to benefit, in their opinion, from instruction in religion and civilization.

[29] John Halkett, a Committee member, wanted Metis families of retired HBC employees to be brought to Red River (from other nearby posts) to be put under the authority of the Roman Catholic Mission or Church Missionary Society.

[30] The above-mentioned differences in religion, ways of life, and ethnic origins largely followed a pattern based on the initial contact between individuals, groups, and institutions.