Lord Selkirk and the Red River Colony

In 1811 lord selkirk, an earl from england, bought an extremely large amount of land in what is now manitoba. He called the land the red river colony, and used it to house impoverished scottish farmers. In doing this, he was killing two birds with one stone, in that not only was he giving starving immigrant farmers a chance at a better life, but he was also helping to expand canadian territory, and secure canada’s ownership over the west. But this

brought with it a problem. The land he was taking over was not uninhabited, and this lead to a violent clash with lord selkirk, and the native and metis people. I am not sure that this is something to be proud of as a canadian.Certainly it is good that lord selkirk helped impoverished Scottish farmers by giving them a home, But I am less proud that it so adversely affected the lives of the natives.