The Battle of Seven Oaks
On June 19th, 1816 a group of armed Métis hunters and Scottish settlers met at a place called Seven Oaks on the banks of the Red River in what is present day Winnipeg. A span of less than fifteen minutes saw the Métis victorious and all of the Scottish settlers dead save three.
Background
The early 1800s was a time of change in Scotland. Thousands of tenant farmers were being evicted from their land to be replaced by sheep and cattle. They were left with no place to go. A Scottish nobleman Thomas Douglas, the Earl of Selkirk, was moved by the plight of so many of his countrymen that he decided to move some of them to Canada to start new settlements. He purchased land from the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in the area known as Rupert’s Land, and began moving settlers across the Atlantic in 1811. In August of 1812, just over a year since they had left Scotland, the settlers arrived in the Red River valley and built Fort Douglas at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. Little did the settlers know they were about to become the focal point of a fur war.
Tensions Mount
Also at the Forks was Fort Gibraltar, a Northwest Company (NWC) trading post. The NWC had been originally been French, but now it was owned by a number of Scotsmen. The NWC didn’t recognise the HBC’s claim to Rupert’s Land, and therefore didn’t recognize the settler’s right to settle at the Forks. They perceived the settlement as a HBC ploy to take control of the Forks and all the furs traveling through the area. The new settlement also angered the Métis, a new nationality created by the union of French and Aboriginal parents. They hunted buffalo in the area and they we worried that the settlement would disrupt the buffalo herd’s movements. Their fears seemed justified when Miles Macdonell, the governor of the HBC Fort Douglas, made a proclamation that no pemmican could be taken out of the Red River valley for one year so that the food could go to the starving settlers. Also, he decreed that no buffalo could be hunted from horseback on Lord Selkirk’s land, making it easier for the settlers who had no horses to hunt. The Métis were furious over these restrictions as they survived on supplying the NWC’s voyagers with Pemmican. One of the Métis leaders, Cuthbert Grant, decided the settlers had to be forced to leave.
Armed Conflict
Grant led the Métis in a number of raids against the settlers, eventually forcing them to pack up and leave. The disheartened settlers left the Red River Valley and the Métis burned what was left of the settlement. The settlers made their way up Lake Winnipeg to start the journey back to Scotland when they met the next group of settlers going to the Red River. They were lead by Colin Roberts, a HBC man whom the Métis respected. He convinced some of the settlers to try again and in 1815 they started to rebuild the Selkirk Settlement. They were joined in November by Robert Semple, the new HBC Governor for the Red River. Semple didn’t learn from the trials the settlers had gone through or the advice from Roberts. He maintained the Pemmican Proclamation, once again inciting anger in the Métis. Grant once again called his men to ride against the Selkirk Settlement.
The Battle
In the evening of June 19th, 1816 a lookout on the walls of Fort Douglas saw around sixty Métis riding across the plain in the direction of the settlement. Semple called for twenty men to follow him to protect the settlers. They set out and met the Métis riders at a grove of oak trees near the Red River. There they could see the Métis riding out on the plain. One of the HBC men fired, probably by accident, and the Métis were alerted to their presence. They rode over and formed a semi circle with their horses around the HBC men. Semple stepped away from the group and addressed a Métis named François Boucher, who had ridden out from the group. Heated words were exchanged and Semple tried to grab either the bridle of Boucher’s horse or his gun. Another shot was fired, it is not known by whom, and a general firing occurred. Semple went down in the first volley with a shot through his hip. He was later killed by a shot through his head. The HBC men were not soldiers, and they were surrounded by a group of skilled hunters on horseback. After a few minutes of firing all of the HBC men were down except for one. He was saved from death by a friend who was among the Métis. Two others were wounded but escaped by crawling into the bush. The Métis had lost only one of their own. After the fight the bodies of the HBC men were looted and mutilated, although Grant claimed that was done by two aboriginal men who were riding with the his Métis.
Aftermath
The battle of Seven Oaks, or massacre as it was referred to by the Scottish settlers, was the beginning of the end for the NWC. The British government was tired of the fighting between the two companies and they demanded that a settlement be reached. The NWC eventually folded into the HBC. The Selkirk colony was bolstered by more settlers and it eventually grew into what is now Winnipeg Manitoba. As for the Métis, the battle marked the beginning of their view of themselves as a separate nation, not French and not Aboriginal, but Métis.
Sources:
Ed Butts, Stories of Canadian Battlefields
Jim Blanchard, edited by, A Thousand Miles of Prairie: the Manitoba Historical Society and the History of Western Canada
J.M. Bumsted, Fur Trade Wars: The Founding of Western Canada
