This is part one of a three-part series on how half of Canada nearly joined the United States in 1869. That year, one of the most underappreciated but vastly important events in the history of North America took place in today’s Canadian province of Manitoba. Because of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, the fate of a few thousand people nearly transformed the western half of Canada into part of the United States. You’ve never heard this story before. When you’ve finished, you’ll know why you’ve never heard it.

The center of the story is the Red River Valley. The Red River, sometimes called the Red River of the North, flows in both the US and Canada. (Thus, we include the word “north” to differentiate it from the river of the same name that forms the Texas-Oklahoma boundary.) It forms the boundary of the Dakotas and Minnesota in the US before flowing into Manitoba. The Red flows into Lake Winnipeg from the south, and the city of Winnipeg grew at its confluence with the Assiniboine River.

In the 1860s the Red River Valley was home to several thousand Métis. Who are the Métis? The word is French. The Spanish word would be mestizo, and the English translation is “mixed-blood.” The Métis were the offspring of the fur trade. Typically, they had European blood on the father’s side and Native American blood on the mother’s side. Most European ancestors were French or Scottish, with some Irish and English. Native American ancestors included Cree, Chippewa, Ojibwa, and Assiniboine. Because of the French influence, most Métis practiced Roman Catholicism. The Métis were a member of the Nehiyaw Pwat, a Cree-Assiniboine word that means “Iron Alliance.”

The Hudson’s Bay Company

In 1869, several events made the Red River a critical point in Canadian geography. One came when the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) elected to sell Prince Rupert’s Land to the Dominion of Canada. The HBC was transitioning out of its historic role in the fur trade and converting its activities to real estate development and resource extraction. This decision was critical to our story. Prince Rupert’s Land was enormous, 3.9 million square kilometers. To put it another way, it was five times the size of France. The Red River Valley was part of Prince Rupert’s Land.

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The HBC valued the sale at $40 million. The problem was that the Dominion of Canada had only existed since 1867. (More precisely, had achieved dominion status within the British Empire in that year.) It did not have $40 million to buy land. But the United States did.

This fact put the Canadian government in several binds. It was already frightened of  American expansion. After all, the US had just fought the  Civil War. It had hundreds of thousands of trained and experienced soldiers it might call on, and an industrializing economy to equip those soldiers. Not only that, the American doctrine of Manifest Destiny was still powerful.

What is Manifest Destiny?

Manifest Destiny was the belief that the US was destined to expand across the continent of North America. Although heavily reliant on racism, domination of so-called inferior people, and a vague faith that the Protestant God had chosen Americans as a special people, it was enormously popular. It was the American Exceptionalism of the 19th century. And it said nothing about the 49th parallel as a permanent boundary.

Plenty of recent American diplomatic moves stimulated fear in Ottawa. American diplomats had issued the Ostend Manifesto in 1854 demanding Spain sell Cuba to the US. William Walker was filibustering in Mexico and Central America all through the 1850s. The US had just bought Alaska from Russia in 1867. Many Americans believed Manifest Destiny would connect the Louisiana Purchase with Alaska by including all the lands in between. In retrospect, Canadian fears of American designs appear quite justified.

This series of posts on how half of Canada nearly joined the United States in 1869 will continue with part 2.

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