Early Charters and the Hudson Bay Company

The first claim to the territory was established in the year 1670, just 50 years after the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock in the State of Massachusetts in 1620, generally recognized as the first migration to the New England Colonies.

In that year, King Charles II of England issued to his nephew, Prince Rupert, and 17 Englishmen a charter giving them the exclusive right to trade under the corporate name of The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's Bay. The name was later changed and is now known as The Hudson's Bay Company.

The territory covered by the charter was described therein as "All that part of North West Canada drained by the streams, rivers and lakes; the waters of which empty into Hudson Bay."

At that time, the territory was totally unexplored, consequently neither the King, the Prince, nor any of the Englishmen had the slightest knowledge of the extent or value of the territory covered by their charter. They did not know that the Red River drained land to the south, deep into the area which is now the States of Minnesota and North Dakota; or that the Saskatchewan River drained the whole prairie country extending west to the Rocky Mountains; both of which rivers empty into Hudson Bay.

The significance of the charter to Canadians lies in the fact that it established the first claim to this enormous and potentially valuable territory.

The operations of the Hudson's Bay Company under their charter consisted exclusively of barter with the native Indian tribes for furs inexchange for the requirements of these primitive people. This continued for two hundred years with little change in the business pattern.

When the Dominion of Canada was formed in 1867, the government took steps to acquire full control of Western Canada and began negotiations with the Company with that end in view. An agreement was reached in 1869 under which the Company consented to relinquish all rights held under their charter; its monopoly of trade; its ownership in the land; and its authority to govern; in return for a cash payment by Canada of 300,000 pounds sterling; title to the land occupied by forts and trading posts; and the right to retain ownership of one twentieth of all land in the fertile belt, that is the land lying south of the North Saskatchewan River, from Lake Winnipeg and the Lake of the Woods on the east to the Rocky Mountains, totaling approximately 20 million acres, including the mineral rights therein.