Historical Relations Between T

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fur trade posts from the Great Lakes to the Mackenzie Delta. Then, as now, Metis communities shared a common outlook shaped by their historical circumstances. As provisioners to the North West Company, the Metis of the prairies organized the commercial buffalo hunt. They left their permanent settlements periodically, electing a provisional government for each expedition to make and enforce the law of the hunt. This activity increased the political consciousness of the Metis and was further heightened by the rivalry between the fur trade companies.

In 1811, the Hudson's Bay company made a land grant to Lord Selkirk of 116,000 square miles of land in the Red River Valley (southern Manitoba) for an agricultural settlement and source of provisions for the fur trade. Efforts by the Scottish settlers to restrict Metis hunting and trading practices eventually led to their defeat in 1816 at the Battle of Seven Oaks where the victorious Metis led by Cuthbert Grant, Jr. first unfurled ...

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By 1869 the population of the Red River Settlement-one of the largest west of the Mississippi and north of the Missouri on the plains of North America-consisted of 5,720 francophone Metis, 4,080 anglophone Metis and 1,600 non-Aboriginals.

The Hudson's Bay Company brought a market oriented, mercantile economy into contact with the non market oriented, barter economies of the western natives. For this trading system to work, a variety of complex economic devices and relationships had to be established.

The fur trade forced the Hudson's Bay Company to use two monetary systems. Economic transactions in Europe, the sale of furs, and the purchase of goods were handled with the ...

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