Rupert's Land was a vast expanse of land granted to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC)
in
1670 by
Charles II, King of England (
1630-85), who chose the name in homage to
Prince Rupert, his cousin and first governor of the HBC.
The charter was geographically, economically, and politically sweeping, with its heart
in the
Hudson Bay and its arteries extending throughout the Bay's various drainages: Rupert's Land
covered an area equivalent to roughly one third of present-day Canada. The territory included what is now
Northern Quebec and Labrador,
Northern and Western Ontario, all of
Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, South and Central Alberta, a portion of the
Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and parts of the United States. This territory held great commercial importance to the HBC, as it provided access
to the Northern “Frozen Sea,” and routes into the heart of the continent's best fur
country. The charter gave HBC merchants exclusive rights to trade and colonize all the lands
containing rivers flowing into the Hudson's Bay.
Over 200 years, the HBC built trading posts on most major waterways. By
1870, Rupert's Land had 97 posts within its borders.
The HBC held title to Rupert's Land for two years after the British North America
Act, and Canadian Confederation, to
1869, when they signed a deed drafted to transfer its chartered territories to the Crown
and governments of Great Britain and Canada. The vast territory was sold to the Canadian government for $1.5 million. The Canadian government and Indigenous nations within the territory negotiated seven
treaties in
1869.
The HBC charter and the transfer of the land to the Crown from the HBC, represents
a key moment in both Canadian history and Indigenous-settler relations. Scholar Kent
McNeil disputes the legality of the claims of sovereignty made by the charter. He
states that Britain did not have the sovereignty to grant HBC the charter. McNeil argues that Britain had to have title over the lands prior to granting them
to the HBC, which they claimed to have through settlement; however, in
1670, there was little to no settlement on Rupert's Land which was largely unexplored. The charter granted only areas of land within the
Hudson's Bay watershed. Effectively, the Crown used the HBC to settle the area and gain land title
of all those Seas, Streights [sic], Bays, Rivers, Lakes, Creeks, and Sounds, in whatsoever
Latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the Streights commonly called
Hudson's Streights, together with all the Lands, Countries and Territories, upon the
Coasts and Confines of the Seas, Streights, Bays, Lakes, Rivers, Creeks and Sounds,
aforesaid, which are not now actually possessed by any of our Subjects, or by the
Subjects of any other Christian Prince or State.
At the time of the land transfer to the Crown in
1870, Indigenous Nations made up the larger portion of the population and had considerable
influence over the activity in the region. The HBC claimed to hold no political or physical control over the local Indigenous
Peoples, who governed themselves and the territory, as seen in testimony given by
Simpson at the House of Commons, in which he states the following in conversation with Mr.
Grogan and
Lord Stanley:
They are at perfect liberty to do what they please; we never restrain Indians,
to which
Lord Stanley asks what authority is exercised over Indigenous Peoples, and
Simpson replies,
None at all.
However, as Canada's colonization scheme progressed through the end of the nineteenth
into the twentieth century, prairie Indigenous groups found themselves marginalized
from centres of power and influence and dispossessed from their traditional lands
through the treaty process.