Why did manitoba join canada

Notify me of new posts via email. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Red River Population in Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. It was a land dotted by forts, homesteads and small settlements across a mostly empty rolling plain. There were no cities or towns. The largest village, at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, was just a scattering of buildings, dirt roads, a stone fort and a population of about , according to the online digital archive site Manitobia.

Most of the wood-clad buildings that marked the fledgling community that would be known in a few years' time as Winnipeg were located near Upper Fort Garry, which overlooked the junction of the rivers.

Founded on the fur trade, which thrived there since the s, the settlement's centre of commerce in was still focused around the forks, where steamboats brought travellers and trade. Five years prior, in , a man named Henry McKenney was ridiculed for purchasing a parcel of land covered in a tangle of scrub oak and poplar a quarter-mile north the forks. McKenney saw potential for a store where the north-south and east-west ox-cart paths crossed.

McKenney's site would eventually become the business and banking centre of the city at the intersection of Portage and Main.

In , however, the celebrations out east created a general sense of uncertainty in the Prairies, both for those new to the region and those whose ancestors had lived there for generations. Jackson wrote that the HBC, which had domain over Rupert's Land since , could also sense that uncertainty. The HBC's governors were increasingly aware they did not have the funds to administer such a large territory — and one that was evolving beyond simply a source of furs, according to Historica Canada.

It is debatable whether Ottawa intentionally impeded the allotment of land grants; or if this was the result of poor administration and lack of competence. But the fact remains that as little as 15 per cent of the original 1. The bilingual merits of the Manitoba Act were extended to the remainder of the North-West Territories in But most of these bilingual and bicultural provisions were abolished between and , creating a unilingual West. Many settled in the area of Batoche , in present-day Saskatchewan.

It was the scene of an even bloodier uprising against federal authority in Search The Canadian Encyclopedia. Remember me. I forgot my password. Why sign up? Create Account. Suggest an Edit. Enter your suggested edit s to this article in the form field below. Accessed 11 November In The Canadian Encyclopedia.

They began negotiating with the Hudson's Bay Company to buy much of Rupert's Land and started encouraging settlers to move west. Led by a passionate and articulate leader, Louis Riel, they seized Fort Garry, set up a provisional government and managed to persuade Sir John A.

Macdonald to agree to a List of Rights which they hoped would protect their lands and traditions just as the Quebec Act had created constitutional protections for the French-Canadian culture. The result was the Manitoba Act of which added a fifth province to the Canadian federation.