Thesis (M.A.)--University of Alberta, 1952. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-170). Also available online as part of: Our roots/Nos Racines.

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Between 1760 and 1833, English explorers systematically filled in the map of British North America. Many of those explorers worked for two fur-trading companies: the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company. In pursuit of new sources of fur, they opened western Canada to European comprehension. Their published accounts of geographic exploration provided the British audience with new geographical information about North America. New geographic information often paved the way for settlement. However, in the case of the Canadian West, increased geographic comprehension did not necessarily lead to settlement. By 1833, the explorers had built a base of knowledge from which the British conceptualized the Canadian wilderness. Over the course of seventy years, the British conception of western Canada remained remarkably consistent. The popular British image of western Canada, persisting into the 1830s, was of a wasteland fit only for the fur trade. The British, who had been expanding around the world for several hundred years, were not yet interested in settlement in western Canada. This thesis seeks to expand upon the link that existed between the fur trade, its employees, and their influence on the British conception of western Canada. / Master of Arts

A l’arrivée des premiers colons à Assiniboia en 1811, le territoire n’est encore qu’un terrain de chasse pour les grandes compagnies de commerce des fourrures, qui obéissent aux codes d’une lex non scripta propre au milieu et à l’économie des Territoires Indiens. La colonie dépend ensuite de la tutelle juridique de la Compagnie de la Baie d’Hudson, qui gère ses institutions légales et gouvernementales à l’abri d’interventions canadiennes ou britanniques. Jusqu’à son annexion au Canada en tant que province du Manitoba en 1869, Assiniboia est le seul district de l’Ouest canadien continental doté d’institutions législatives et judiciaires. Cette thèse analyse l’évolution de la loi et du droit dans la société métisse de la Rivière Rouge (Assiniboia). A travers les sources des fonds législatifs et judiciaires de la colonie, les récits, correspondances et journaux de dirigeants, de missionnaires et d’habitants d’Assiniboia, ce travail observe les usages de l’outil juridique et ses effets normatifs sur les colons. Cette étude postule qu’un demi-siècle après sa création, la Rivière Rouge est un espace légal hybride, où le droit coutumier coexiste avec le droit institutionnel. Cette recherche démontre l’importante participation de la population à sa propre gouvernance et l’établissement progressif d’un pluralisme juridique qui savait reconnaître et respecter les altérités sociales de la Rivière Rouge, où se rassemblaient des Eurocanadiens, des Autochtones et une majorité d’individus métissés et semi-nomades. Enfin, cette étude met en évidence le rôle fondamental des Métis et du métissage dans tous les processus de changements légaux du territoire. / This dissertation examines the evolution of law in Red River (Assiniboia) through the systems, ideas and events that informed the inhabitants’ concepts of rights, from the colony’s creation until its entry into the Canadian Confederation (as the province of Manitoba). Assiniboia was founded in 1811 in the unsettled Indian Territories which were used as hunting grounds by fur-trading companies, who developed the codes and practices of a lex non scripta on-site to regulate social norms, trade and competition. In the 1820s, the District of Assiniboia came under the management of the Hudson’s Bay Company and was placed under its jurisdiction, and, until the late 1860s, it was the only settlement of the western interior to have its own government and institutions. By looking at the legislative and judicial records of the district, the narratives, correspondence and journals composed by settlers, missionaries and rulers of Red River, this dissertation studies the uses of the law as a form of symbolic violence and a normative tool in the social context of the colony. This study contends that, half a century after its creation, Assiniboia was a hybrid legal space ruled simultaneously by customary and institutional law. It demonstrates the population’s active role in its own governance, and the gradual establishment of a legal pluralism that recognized and respected Red River’s multicultural society, one composed of French and English speaking settlers, Amerindians, and a majority of semi-nomadic people of mixed descent. Ultimately, this study highlights the fundamental role played by the Métis and their Native background in all of the changes to the territory’s legal system.

Le litige concernant la frontière de l’Oregon, ou la question de l’Oregon, est le résultat des revendications britanniques et américaines pour la région du Pacifique Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique du Nord pendant la première moitié du XIXe siècle. Le Royaume-Uni et les États-Unis ont des aspirations territoriales et commerciales sur cette région. La région est pour les Britanniques une zone d’exploitation pour le commerce de la fourrure pour la Compagnie de la Baie d’Hudson, tandis que les Américains y voient une région peuplée de fermiers. Le différend sur l’Oregon est devenu important dans la diplomatie entre l’Empire britannique et la république américaine. / The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon Question, arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both Great-Britain and the United States had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region. For the British, the area was a fur-trading division of the Hudson’s Bay Company, while for the Americans the region was to be settled by farmers. The Oregon dispute became an important diplomatic issue between the British Empire and the American Republic.

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At the end of the 18th century, Anglo Americans and Europeans entered the mouth of the Columbia River for the first time. There they encountered large villages of Chinookan and other Native Americans. Soon afterwards, the Chinookan People became involved in the global fur trade. Pelts, supplies, and native made goods were exchanged with fur traders, who in return provided Chinookans with a number of trade goods. Over the next 40 years, life changed greatly for the Chinookans; new trade and political alliances were created, foreign goods were introduced, and diseases killed large portions of the population (Hajda 1984; Gibson 1992; Schwantes 1996; Boyd 2011; Boyd et al. 2013). Additionally, fur trade forts, like the Hudson's Bay Company's (HBC) Fort Vancouver, were established. At these forts, new multiethnic communities were created to support the fur trade economy (Hussey 1957; Kardas 1971; Warner and Munnik 1972; Erigero 1992; Burley 1997; Mackie 1997; Wilson 2010). This thesis is an historical archaeological study of how Chinookan peoples at three villages and employees of the later multicultural Village at Fort Vancouver negotiated the processes of contact and colonization. Placed in the theoretical framework of practice theory, everyday ordinary activities are studied to understand how cultural identities are created, reinforced, and changed (Lightfoot et al. 1998; Martindale 2009; Voss 2008). Additionally uneven power relationships are examined, in this case between the colonizer and the colonized, which could lead to subjugation but also resistance (Silliman 2001). In order to investigate these issues, this thesis studies how the new foreign material of vessel glass was and was not used during the everyday practice of tool production. Archaeological studies have found that vessel glass, which has physical properties similar to obsidian, was used to create a variety of tool forms by cultures worldwide (Conte and Romero 2008). Modified glass studies (Harrison 2003; Martindale and Jurakic 2006) have demonstrated that they can contribute important new insights into how cultures negotiated colonization. In this study, modified glass tools from three contact period Chinookan sites: Cathlapotle, Meier, and Middle Village, and the later multiethnic Employee Village of Fort Vancouver were examined. Glass tool and debitage analysis based on lithic macroscopic analytical techniques was used to determine manufacturing techniques, tool types, and functions. Additionally, these data were compared to previous analyses of lithics and trade goods at the study sites. This thesis demonstrates that Chinookans modified glass into tools, though there was variation in the degree to which glass was modified and the types of tools that were produced between sites. Some of these differences are probably related to availability, how glass was conceptualized by Native Peoples, or other unidentified causes. This study suggests that in some ways glass was just another raw material, similar to stone, that was used to create tools that mirrored the existing lithic technology. However at Cathlapotle at least, glass appears to have been relatively scarce and perhaps valued even as a status item. While at Middle Village, glass (as opposed to stone) was being used about a third of the time to produce tools. Glass tool technology at Cathlapotle, Meier, and Middle Village was very similar to the existing stone tool technology dominated by expedient/low energy tools; however, novel new bottle abraders do appear at Middle Village. This multifaceted response reflects how some traditional lifeways continued, while at the same time new materials and technology was recontextualized in ways that made sense to Chinookan peoples. Glass tools increase at the Fort Vancouver Employee Village rather than decrease through time. This response appears to be a type of resistance to the HBC's economic hegemony and rigid social structure. Though it is impossible to know if such resistance was consciously acted on or was just part of everyday activities that made sense in the economic climate of the time. Overall, this thesis demonstrates how a mundane object such as vessel glass, can provide a wealth of information about how groups like the Chinookans dealt with a changing world, and how the multiethnic community at Fort Vancouver dealt with the hegemony of the HBC. Chinookan peoples and the later inhabitants of the Fort Vancouver Employee Village responded to colonization in ways that made sense to their larger cultural system. These responses led to both continuity and change across time.

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