Red River Settlement definition of Red River Settlement in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Red River Settlement, agricultural colony in present Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota. It was the undertaking of Thomas Douglas, 5th earl of Selkirk Selkirk, Thomas Douglas, 5th earl of, 1771–1820, Scottish philanthropist, founder of the Red River Settlement .
..... Click the link for more information. . Wishing to relieve the dispossessed and impoverished in Scotland and Northern Ireland, he secured enough control of the Hudson's Bay Company Hudson's Bay Company, corporation chartered (1670) by Charles II of England for the purpose of trade and settlement in the Hudson Bay region of North America and for exploration toward the discovery of the Northwest Passage to Asia.
..... Click the link for more information. to obtain from it a grant of land called Assiniboia. This project met opposition from the very start, principally from the North West Company 2)), was sold to the North West Company during the War of 1812 by Astor employees sympathetic to the British; however, it helped establish a U.S. claim to the Pacific Northwest.
..... Click the link for more information. , but also from the fur traders in the Hudson's Bay Company. Despite efforts to discourage the colony, Miles Macdonnell, a Selkirk man, brought a small group to the colony in 1812. The determined hostility of the North West Company mounted, especially after the company men had won the half-breeds, or métis, entirely to their side. By cajolery and threat they persuaded settlers to desert, but a new group of settlers came, and the colony was restored in 1815. North West Company men and half-breeds now resorted to violence on a large scale, killing 22 in the massacre of Seven Oaks (June 19, 1816). On hearing the news of the massacre, Selkirk fell upon the North West Company post, Fort William, and seized it. Other attacks followed. The result of these moves was a series of court charges and countercharges that impoverished Selkirk and helped to bring about the union (1821) of the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company. Agriculture had by this time been firmly established on the Western plains, and the Red River settlements were to grow and flourish. See Riel, Louis Riel, Louis (lwē rēĕl`), 1844–85, Canadian insurgent, leader of two rebellions, b.
..... Click the link for more information. .

Bibliography

See J. P. Pritchett, The Red River Valley, 1811–1849 (1942); J. M. Gray, Lord Selkirk of Red River (1964).