Assiniboia

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Poster with a map of Assiniboia and neighboring areas at the time of the Northwest Rebellion in 1885

Assiniboia was the name of various administrative units on the soil of what is now the Canadian provinces of Manitoba , Saskatchewan and Alberta . The name is derived from the Indian Assiniboine .

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) left part of their concession area Ruperts Land to the Scottish philanthropist and partner in the Lord Selkirk Society for settlement by landless Scottish farmers, the so-called Red River Colony . In 1812, construction of the Fort Douglas trading post and the first farm buildings began at the confluence of the Assiniboine River and Red River ( The Forks ) . The surrounding areas became Assiniboia's first administrative area and the fort became the seat of its first governor Miles Macdonell .

The establishment was a sensitive blow to the rival company North West Company (NWC) and the Métis , who were in close trade relations with it and settled around The Forks . There were real clashes, the pemmican war . The two companies occupied each other's forts or burned them down. In the end, both were financially strong and in 1821, with a merger, they avoided further disputes, the new company was still called Hudson's Bay Company. In 1822 Fort Gibraltar, formerly the trading post of the NWC at the Forks, was expanded and renamed Fort Garry as the new administrative center of Assiniboia.

In 1869, the Canadian federal government bought their territories from HBC and in 1870 the area around Fort Garry became the new province of Manitoba with the Manitoba Act and the fort became its capital. The remaining areas, and thus the rest of Assiniboia, were initially administered from Fort Garry, or from 1874 from Winnipeg , the center of which is the former area of ​​Fort Garry to this day. In 1905 most of Assiniboia was absorbed into the new province of Saskatchewan, with a smaller remainder in Alberta.

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