The original Scottish settlers, reinforced by many of the retiring servants of the company, formed a thrifty and contented community. The French Metis, however, though served by a devoted Roman Catholic priesthood, formed a much less stable element of the population. Accustomed to live by the buffalo chase or by fishing, they were readily susceptible to influen ces with which the primitive patriarchal author ity of the company soon proved powerless to cope. The process of "smoothing' the mal contents by adroit management postponed the conflict without averting it. In 1849 the primi tive judiciary at the settlement was openly in timidated into acquitting one of the "free traders" in furs. Thereafter the monopoly of the fur-trade was openly contravened. The Red River Settlement began to attract attention in Canada and in the United States. In 1857 the Committee of the British House of Commons drew up its famous 'Report) on the Hudson's Bay Company, and it became apparent that Canada had the ear of the British government in the dream of expansion to the Pacific.
From 1857 to the transfer of the Hudson's Bay territories to Canada in 1870, the develop ment of the Red River Settlement was rapid and at times turbulent During 1856 no fewer than 500 Red River carts with produce and furs plied to the American outposts. Three years later two Canadian journalists brought in a printing-press, and the No?-Wester advocated insistently a union with Canada. American opinion was scarcely less pronounced; as late as 1869 Governor McTavish of the Hudson's Bay Company regarded annexation to the United States as the "manifest destiny" of the Red River district The Canadian party, however, though enterprising and aggressive, bitterly an tagonized the company and many of the older The improvident and credulous French Metis, particularly, were suspicious and resentful. Generous "reserves" of land and scrupulous tact on the part of Canadian officials might have allayed their fears of the impending change. In 1869 the purchase of the Hudson's Bay territories by Canada for f300,000 ($1,500 000) was arranged under the auspices of the British government. The company had changed hands in 1863, and the resident officials in Ru pert's Land could not be expected to be enthu siastic either to the new directorate or to Can ada. The Scottish settlers readily acquiesced in the change, but the fears of the French Metis were fomented by a few agitators into open in surrection against the transfer.
The Dominion of Canada had been formed only in 1867, and the Rid Insurrection at Red River reflected largely the attitude of Quebec in the Canadian Confederation. The establish ment of a smaller Quebec on the banks of the Red River had long been the policy of the French clergy. The prospect of union with Canada without guarantees for their race, lan guage and religious control over the Metes oc casioned the bitterest resentment. During Arch bishop's Tache's absence from Red River a ris ing of Metis led by Louis Rid received the support and for a time submitted largely to the guidance of French clerical influence in touch with Canadian politics. Riel seized Fort Garry and dominated the settlement for 10 months until the arrival of a military expedition under Colonel Wolseley on 24 Aug. 1870. 'Land scrip" was issued for the Metis, and clauses in tended to safeguard the French language and separate schools found their way into the Mani toba Act by which the province was formally incorporated into the Dominion; but the vio lence of Riel and his confederates, and partic ularly the violent death of Thomas Scott, a Canadian, on 4 March 1870, embittered provin cial and even federal politics for many years.
The ruthless repeal of these special privileges for the French minority 20 years later was due in no small measure to resentment against the methods employed •in seeking to obtain them during the Riel Insurrection. The total popula tion of the new province was less than 12,000, of whom but 1,565 were white. The first pro vincial government consisted of a legislative as sembly of 24 members (with an executive coun cil of five) and a legislative council (abolished in 1876) of seven members. The new province inherited from the past a series of problems which kept public feeling at high tension. Cross-currents of race and religion —a Fenian raid in 1871, the "amnesty question° and the trial of Lowe for the death of Scott — com plicated for many years the work of provincial government. The chronic poverty, moreover, of the °postage stamp province" reduced ad ministration after administration to a• degree of economy bordering upon parsimony. The agitation for °better terms" and "provincial rights° became increasingly insistent with the responsibilities attendant upon rapid immigra tion. Within a decade the population grew from 12,000 to 60,000. The railway from Saint Paul was completed in 1878; with the Canadian Pacific in prospect east and west the province began an 1879 to experience a "boom* which added $5,000,000 in buildings and doubled the population of Winnipeg within a single year. After 1882 the return to normal conditions was slow and difficult. Under the Norquay admin istration particularly (1878-87) the provincial government was found to be struggling against intolerable disabilities. The control of natural resources had been retained by the federal gov ernment The provincial treasury was depend ent chiefly upon meagre grants from the Do minion under the form of direct allowance for government, per capita allowance for institu tions, "debt allowance" for Dominion indebted ness in 1870, subsidy in lieu of public lands, etc. The national importance of the Canadian Pacific Railway was held to justify "a monopoly clause" against the granting of provincial char ters to competing railways. The grant of one• twentieth of settled land to the Hudson Bay Company by the terms of the transfer in 1869 and the generous grants of land to the Canadian Pacific Railroad had created a “land-lock" which interfered seriously with settlement. An increase of federal subsidy to $227,000 in 1882' and the extension of the boundaries proved quite inadequate concessions. The Canadian Pacific Railroad was completed in 1885 but the province proceeded to contest the °monopoly clause° by undertaking the Red River Valley Railway as a (government work. The new Greenway administration '(1888-99) forced the Dominion at last to repeal the objectionable "monopoly clause." This first substantial vic tory for "provincial rights" was regarded as "the advent of a new era." "The Manitoba School Question" which dominated provincial' politics and eventually even federal politics in 1896 is dealt with else where. The Roblin administration, from 1900, was marked by few fundamental political issues.