The Pemmican War was a series of interactions through violent confrontations between the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and the North West Company (NWC) in the Canadas from 1812 to 1821. It started after the establishment of the Red River Colony by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk in 1812, and ended in 1821 when the NWC was merged into the HBC. The conflict was sparked by the Pemmican Proclamation issued by Governor Miles Macdonell, which disallowed any person from exporting pemmican, a key foodstuff for those involved in the North American fur trade, out of the Red River Colony. This was fiercely opposed by the Métis, who were mostly affiliated with the NWC and opposed to both the colony and the HBC's dominance in the region.
Background
At the beginning of the 19th century, Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk attempted to resettle his fellow Scotsmen in North America. By 1808, Selkirk had founded two colonies, one on Prince Edward Island, another at Baldoon in Western Ontario, and was looking to establish a third. The eastern coastline of Canada was already settled and no longer had any tracts of land large enough to support a colony, so Selkirk looked for a location with good soil and a temperate climate far in the interior. He quickly discovered the region best fitting his needs fell within the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Selkirk began in 1808 buying shares of the HBC in order to acquire the land he needed. Because of the crippling competition with the North West Company (NWC), the HBC's stock at this time was down from 250% to 50%, and he was able to buy a majority share equalling £100,000 (in comparison the whole of the HBC stock was worth about £150,000).
In May 1811 the HBC granted Selkirk 116,000 square miles of company territory which encompassed most of the Red River watershed. Today this region is shared by Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, North and South Dakota and Minnesota. The region was already occupied at that time by numerous tribes of Native Americans and Métis, as well as containing outposts belonging to both the North West and Hudson's Bay companies. For 100 years the London-based Hudson's Bay Company dominated the North American fur trade operating almost exclusively from their depots along the shores of Hudson Bay (though their charter, granted by Charles II in 1670 gave them exclusive rights to trade along the banks of any connected waterway), but competition from various Montréal merchants and later the North West Company in the 1770s changed this. The North West Company and others generally traded beyond the actual reach of the HBC, but generally still within their territory, easing the burden for natives of those regions to travel the long distance to Hudson Bay to trade. To compete with the North West Company, the HBC began expanding inland. In 1774 they built Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan River delta and soon had outposts situated throughout the northwest, in some cases directly across from their adversaries, sparking a period of intense competition. The Red River region also contained the North West Company's pivotal provisioning depots.
Pemmican trade
Unlike the Hudson's Bay Company, which imported most of its provisions from England, the NWC relied heavily upon locally procured pemmican. Pemmican was made of dried buffalo meat pounded into a powder and mixed with melted buffalo fat in leather bags. To procure pemmican in sufficient quantities, the NWC traded for it at several outposts in the Red River District and transported it to their Bas de la Rivière depot on Lake Winnipeg where it was distributed to brigades of north canoes passing between Fort William and Athabasca or transported to Fort William where it was issued to brigades going to the company's eastern and southern districts. The majority of the NWC's pemmican was purchased from the local Métis and to a lesser degree from the local First Nations people and freemen.
The Métis were the descendants of French Canadian, Scottish, and English fur traders and their native wives. By the early 1800s, the Métis had formed large communities and were in the process of creating their own unique identity. The particular Métis band around Red River was referred to as Bois-Brûlés or "burnt wood," which was a French translation of the Ojibwe word meaning "half-burnt woodsmen;" a name the Métis earned because their skin was generally lighter than that of the full-blooded Natives.
The natives of the Red River district were primarily of the Saulteaux nation, known today as the northern or plains Ojibwa. They traded with both the NWC and HBC and, despite frequent attempts by the NWC to pit them against its rival, remained neutral in the dispute between the fur companies. The Red River District was also home to a small community of retired NWC voyageurs, called "freemen" because they were free of their contracts with the company.
The Red River pemmican was absolutely vital to the NWC. Without it, the company could not adequately feed its employees. William McGillivray later swore in a court of law that the NWC could not function without it. The Nor'westers saw a HBC-backed colony in the Red River as a direct threat to their existence. The NWC first protested directly to the HBC, hired lawyers to dispute the HBC's charter, and even published anonymous articles in newspapers to dissuade prospective settlers by pointing out the hardships of the journey, the harshness of the land and stating that the settlers would all be massacred by Indians. However, despite the NWC's best efforts, Selkirk's colony was to proceed.
Selkirk's colony
In July 1811, Scottish and Irish settlers consisting of 25 families embarked aboard HBC and private ships led by the colony's appointed governor Miles Macdonell (whom the local First Nations would later dub "chief of the gardeners"). Those colonists who could not afford their passage indentured themselves to the HBC. They brought with them everything they needed to build a colony, as well as arms to protect it from the Indigenous inhabitants and Americans (Great Britain and the United States then being on the brink of war), consisting of 200 muskets, 4 brass 3-pound field pieces, 1 howitzer and 3 swivel guns courtesy of the British Colonial Department. In September the settlers arrived at York Factory and entered winter quarters there.
Because of a lack of boats to transport Selkirk's settlers and their vast supplies, they spent the spring and part of the summer of 1812 building four wooden boats, finally departing in mid-summer. The settlers arrived in the fall at the colony site, at a bend in the Red River about a half mile north of the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. The settlers built a fort along a small stream southwest of the colony, named Fort Douglas in honour of Lord Selkirk. The fort was to be shared by the settlers and HBC employees, and contained company store houses as well as the governor's house, often referred to as the "Government House." Settlers began constructing huts to see them through the winter, but the late season forced many of them to winter at nearby HBC posts. However, these posts had insufficient provisions to support the extra people and the settlers, though given provisions by the NWC, nearly starved.(p. 33)
Additional settlers arrived at the colony in the spring of 1813 and the settlers finally began building proper houses and planting crops. The NWC's John Wills ordered John Pritchard to buy as much Red River pemmican as possible. Pritchard succeeded in buying a third more than usual.
Pemmican Proclamation
Provisions were scarce in the colony at the beginning of 1814. Governor Macdonell, in an attempt to prevent much needed provisions from leaving the district issued the "Pemmican Proclamation" on January 8. It read, in part:
"Whereas the welfare of the families at present forming settlement on the Red River, within the said territory, with those on their way to it...as also those who are expected to arrive next autumn, renders it a necessary and indispensable part of my duty to provide for their support. In the yet uncultivated state of the country, the ordinary resources derived from the buffalo and other wild animals hunted within the territory, are not deemed more than adequate for the requisite supply, wherefore it is hereby ordered, that no person trading in furs or provisions within the territory for the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company, the North West Company, or any individual, or unconnected trader or persons whatever, shall take out any provisions, either flesh, dried meat, grain, or vegetable."
Both North West and Hudson's Bay companies formally protested the proclamation, but Lord Selkirk, being the majority shareholder of the HBC was able to deal with his company's complaints through official channels. Special Commissioner Coltman, the government official later charged with investigating the Battle of Seven Oaks, suggested that Gov. Macdonell waited for an opportune moment to release his proclamation, the idea of which he had brought up some time earlier, and suggested that moment was the American victory at the Battle of Lake Erie which occurred September 10, 1813 which gave the Americans command of Lake Erie and threatened the NWC's ability to transport goods, furs and provisions over the Great Lakes. Issuing the proclamation at this time therefore would have starved the Nor'westers out of the region. In fact, the Nor'Westers would later testify that the British loss of Lake Erie rendered the company more dependent on the Red River pemmican than ever. The NWC disregarded the proclamation and Gov. Macdonell was obliged to enforce it.
HBC blockades
On March 14, 1814, John Warren (who was a clerk in the colony) and 15 or 16 armed colonists travelled to the Métis hunting camp at Turtle River to acquire provisions. That night several NWC sleighs arrived to do the same, and Warren's men forced them back empty handed. Shortly afterward, Gov. Macdonell, hearing that a NWC boat loaded with pemmican was being sent down the Assiniboine from Qu'Appelle, sent John Warren with a party of fifty men with two field pieces to seize it. The men had instructions to fire their muskets at any boat that passed and drive them ashore, and any that might refuse should be sunk by cannon fire. The colonists openly refused to obey the latter order, however. The NWC's John Wills at Rivière la Souris, hearing of the blockade and not seeing the boat he expected, dispatched a party of six men to investigate, avoiding the blockade by taking the high-road around the river. Wills' men found the boat crew encamped on the river shore and ordered them to cache the provisions in a hidden place. Seeing this party of armed Nor'Westers, the HBC battery obtained reinforcements. When the boat did not appear as expected, the Baymen searched for it and found the three Canadians encamped with an empty boat. Warren questioned them about their provisions and threatened to arrest them, but he received no response. After a search of one or two days, the cache of 96 bags of pemmican was discovered and taken to Ft. Douglas.(p. 31) The HBC next blockaded the high-road the Nor'Westers used to circumvent the river blockade, which, besides disrupting the Nor'Wester's use of the road, also would prevent the local natives and Métis from passing. One native family was taken prisoner. Upon learning this, the local Métis offered aid to the Nor'Westers for an attack on the HBC blockade, but the offer was declined.
On May 29, 1814, Governor Macdonell sent John Spencer, the colony's sheriff, to seize provisions at the NWC's Rivière la Souris post. He confiscated 500 bags of pemmican, 96 kegs of grease and 9 bales of dried meat.(p. 28) He also confiscated two chests of NWC-owned guns to prevent them from being sold to the Métis and thus preventing them from hunting buffalo. Part of the confiscated provisions were taken across the river to Brandon House, while the rest was taken to Fort Douglas under an armed escort. Next, Macdonell's men confiscated 200 bags of pemmican from a HBC trader named Stett who was transporting 300 bags to York Factory. Shortly afterward, the NWC's Duncan Cameron took an armed party of voyageurs to locate and arrest an HBC trader named House who had helped break into the Rivière la Souris post. Governor Macdonell next built a battery on the Assiniboine River to more effectively command the river and another on the Red River near Fort Douglas. The Red River blockade soon captured two NWC light canoes with 2 clerks, 20 men and 2 chests of arms. The voyageurs were paroled, but the clerks and the chests of arms were sent to Fort Douglas.