Robert Semple

This article deals with the Canadian governor, for the New Zealand politician see Bob Semple

Robert Semple (born February 26, 1777 in Boston , Massachusetts , USA ; † June 19, 1816 near Fort Gibraltar in what is now the Canadian province of Manitoba ) was the second governor of Assiniboia for the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and is from 1815 to 1816 the author of several travel books. He was killed in the Battle of Seven Oaks during the Pemmican War .

Youth and travel as a businessman

Robert Semple's parents, Robert Semple sen. and Anne Greenlaw, were loyalists to the British Crown, which is why they fled to England shortly after Semple was born in Boston before the American War of Independence . Semple grew up there and was trained as a businessman. As a native American, he was not subject to travel restrictions during the Napoleonic Wars , unlike the British, and so his work took him throughout Europe , North Africa , the Middle East and South America . From this Semple drew the material for some travel books that appeared between 1803 and 1814.

Governor of Assiniboia

In the northern prairie of what is now Canada, the Scot and shareholder of HBC Lord Selkirk founded the Red River Colony , where he wanted to settle Scottish farmers who had become landless during the Highland Clearances . But the company soon got into a trade war between HBC and its biggest competitor, the North West Company (NWC), the Pemmican War. This was not least thanks to the hapless administrator and first governor of Assiniboia, Miles Macdonell , and so they looked for a successor.

How exactly Selkirk knew Semple, and how the latter qualified for the vacant office, is not known, in any case Semple was appointed Macdonell's successor on April 12, 1815, and he left for Canada with a group of new settlers. However, when he arrived at York Factory on Hudson Bay by ship , he had to learn that the NWC had taken over the helm on the Red River and that most of the settlers had been evicted.

Semple sent his new settlers to Fort Daer , now Pembina and part of North Dakota , to hibernate and traveled on to the Red River himself. There he met Colin Robertson in November , also an employee of HBC, who had just started to rebuild the settlement with a trade expedition on the way from Montreal to the hunting grounds of Athabasca in order to overwinter there. In December Semple traveled on to his new settlers in Fort Daer and first visited the forts of the HBC on Qu'Appelle and Assiniboine in the spring .

When he returned to the Red River in late March, Robertson had already occupied Fort Gibraltar from the NWC, which Semple welcomed. The fort was strategically located at the confluence of the Red River and Assiniboine, and Robertson was determined to block the path of the Métis who drove downriver every year with supplies to equip the NWC expeditions. Semple was undecided whether to endorse the blockade or try to get the Métis to side with the HBC. There were disputes over the leadership claim between Semple and Robertson, whereupon the latter left Fort Gibraltar on June 11th.

On June 19, a group of Métis under Cuthbert Grant tried to avoid Fort Gibraltar by land with their supply canoes. Semple faced them at Seven Oaks with 25 of his men. He probably did this with peaceful intent, at least the low level of armament suggests in retrospect. However, under Semple's predecessor Macdonell, the Métis had to experience the seizure of supplies in many cases and so they feared an attack. After a brief verbal argument, the content of which is unknown, a skirmish broke out in which Semple, 20 of his men and one of the Métis were killed. The next day, Grant retook Fort Gibraltar.

Grant was tried with some of his people and other NWC staff in York for the murder of Semple, among others. Grant and most of the others were acquitted, but one of his officers, François-Firmin Boucher, was found guilty of Semple's murder.

Web links

• Robert Semple . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).

Footnotes

1. ↑ see Colin Robertson at Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
2. ↑ see Cuthbert Grant at Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

predecessor	Office	successor
Miles Macdonell	Governor of Assiniboia 1815–1816	?