| Summary: | In 1811, under the auspices of Thomas Douglas, the Fifth Earl of Selkirk, the Red River Colony was started in the heart of the North American continent. For the first decade after their arrival the pioneers of this colony were exposed to the long-standing rivalry of the Hudson's Bay and North West Companies. In 1816 fur trading hostilities reached a bloody climax in the "Skirmish at Seven Oaks". Open conlfict between the two corporations was precipitated by the introduction of the colony, which the "Nor'Westers" believed had been planted by the Hudson's Bay Company as a means of elimninating Canadian trading competition. Finally, in 1821, the two corporations amalgamated, and the new Hudson's Bay Company took over undisputed control of "Rupert's Land". ...St. Peter's today is no longer a Christian Indian settlement, and only one resident family descended from the original Indian inhabitants holds any appreciable amount of agricultural land.
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