COUNTERWEIGHT TO THE AMERICAN DELUGE – RED RIVER COLONISTS IN OREGON

Métis Family in Ontario – photo by Robert Bell, courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, e011156727_s1

Hudson’s Bay Company – HBC – ran things in the Pacific Northwest from 1813 until the mid-1840’s. Then American emigrant numbers began to overwhelm their control.  While political control in 1818 over the Oregon Country officially split between the governments of Great Britain and the United States, true economic control from a Eurocentric standpoint remained in the bailiwick of the HBC. The story of the Red River colonists featured an attempt by the HBC to help out on the political side.

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