Pemmican Proclamation

In January 1814 Governor Miles MacDonell, appointed by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk issued to the inhabitants of the Red River area a proclamation which became known as the Pemmican Proclamation. The proclamation was issued in attempt to stop the Métis people from exporting pemmican out of the Red River district. Cuthbert Grant, leader of the Métis, disregarded MacDonell's proclamation and continued the exportation of pemmican to the North West Company. The proclamation overall, became one of many areas of conflict between the Métis and the Red River settlers.. Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk had sought interest in the Red River District, with the help of the Hudson's Bay Company as early as 1807. However, it was not until 1810 that the Hudson's Bay Company asked Lord Selkirk for his plans on settling in the interior of Canada.

The Red River Colony or the Selkirk Settlement included portions of present-day southern Manitoba, northern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, in addition to small parts of eastern Saskatchewan, northwestern Ontario and northeastern South Dakota.

The Proclamation defined the borders of the lands ceded to Lord Selkirk by the Hudson's Bay Company over which Miles MacDonell had been appointed Governor.

The proclamation next outlined the reasons and the means by which the governor would control the flow of food, mostly pemmican from the area.

The Proclamation was submitted as evidence during the Pemmican War Trials held in Montreal in 1818. and published in the: Report of trials in the courts of Canada, relative to the destruction of the Earl of Selkirk's settlement on the Red River With observations (p. 61-62) by Amos Andrew in 1820.

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