Selkirk Concession

While The Hudson's Bay Company held the commercial monopoly in Rupert's Land, numerous aboriginal groups lived in the same territory and disputed the sovereignty of the area.

Selkirk's settlement, commonly known as The Red River Colony, was embroiled in these issues, meeting resistance from fur traders of The North West Company, commercial interests from the United States as well as from some local Métis population.

This confrontation involved a group of North West Company employees led by Cuthbert Grant and some local Métis against a group of Red River settlers and Hudson's Bay Company employees led by Governor Semple, with the battle claiming the lives of 1 North West Company-related and 21 Hudson's Bay Company-related men, including Semple.

In 1869 the HBC "sold" Rupert's Land (received compensation for surrendering its trading monopoly back to the British Crown) to the expanding Canada.

A lack of attention to concerns of the existing Red River settlers, Métis, and aboriginal groups caused Métis leader Louis Riel to establish a local provisional government to negotiate the political treatment of the local population in the handover to Canada, resulting in the Red River Rebellion of 1869-70 and Canada agreeing to create the province of Manitoba – on land that had been part of the Selkirk Concession – in 1870.