Seven oaks massacre

Who? A rich and powerful Scot named Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, wanted to provide a place for the Scottish farmers that had been cleared off their land by landlords and replaced by sheep that were meant to provide wool for the textile factories and England.

At first, the British government would not grant him the land so he and the famous explorer Alexander Mackenzie bought enough shares in the Hudson’s Bay Company so they would be able to grant 300 000 square kilometers in Rupert’s Land in the area controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company to themselves.

Where? The area they granted themselves is in present-day Manitoba and was called Assiniboia.

Why? The reason they chose this area was so they could cut the Northwest Company’s supply line (the Natives of the Red River area supplied them with pemmican and other supplies for their fur trading trips) and block the NorWesters from traveling along the transportation route through the Red River area to their head office in Montreal with their furs. This of course angered the NorWesters. However, the NorWesters were not the only ones to protest the establishment of the Selkirk settlers in the area.

Who again…. The Metis and Cree First Nation of the area relied heavily on the income they received from the sale of pemmican to the NorWesters and were also concerned that the establishment of this new farming community would result in the clearing off of land that had been used for hunting and trapping by the Cree for generations. As well, the Metis had also been farming in the area for several generations with no legal title to their land and they feared they would lose it to the new settlers. (remember this point when we discuss Louis Riel in Saskatchewan!)

What? In 1814, the concern of the Metis and NorWesters came to fruition when there began to be some concern that the Selkirk settlers would starve to death. (bad farming year) The governor of Assiniboia, Miles Macdonnell issued a law called the “Pemmican Proclamation” stating that for the next year no food could be taken from Assiniboia without a license that only he could issue.

As mentioned, the Metis and Cree First Nation of the area relied heavily on the income they received from the sale of pemmican to the NorWesters but they also felt that Macdonnell had no right to pass laws in their land. The Northwest Company told the Metis that if they destroyed the crops and homes of the settlers, then maybe they would leave, and the land would be returned to the Metis.

By 1815, only 60 settlers remained. The situation grew worse when a group of Metis decided to barricade Fort Douglas (the location of the remaining Scottish settlers) until the colonists inside the fort came out desperate for food. The new governor, Robert Semple, and an armed group of men went to find out what Grant and the Métis were doing. Semple met Grant near a group of trees called Seven Oaks

There is no agreement among historians as to which side fired the first shot, but at the end of the brief battle one Metis and 20 settlers, including governor Semple, were dead. Selkirk did eventually settle some Scots in the area. This so-called “Seven Oaks Massacre” was a significant catalyst in the merging of the Northwest Company and the HBC in 1821. It was in 1821 that many of the tensions between the groups subsided.