Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T08:44:35.916Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - The Great Northwest, 1763–1849

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2022

Margaret Conrad
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
Get access

Summary

This chapter explores fur trade societies in the British Northwest, including the emergence of a Métis people resulting from “county marriages” between French fur traders and Indigenous women. After 1763, competition between the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and Montreal-based traders, brought together in the Northwest Company (NWC), resulted in an explosion of posts throughout the interior and beyond the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast, which was also being approached by European explorers by sea. Britain vied with Russia, Spain, and the United States for control of the Pacific Northwest, avoiding wars by negotiating territorial boundaries that were largely set by 1846. Most Indigenous peoples welcomed the opportunities generated by European rivalries but conditions changed after Lord Selkirk sponsored a settlement in Red River (now Winnipeg) in 1812. Escalating violence between the rival companies and a depleted animal population forced a merger of the two companies in 1821. Under George Simpson’s management (1821-60), the HBC streamlined its operations to the disadvantage of their Indigenous trading partners. The HBC held a monopoly of trade in the Great Northwest, but its power and the numerical dominance of Indigenous peoples were increasingly threatened. In 1849, Vancouver Island became a Crown colony and the Métis successfully challenged the monopoly of the HBC

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×