Talk:Red River Colony

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 September 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cassidy.herman. 20:56, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled
Does anyone know if the Colony was set up where it was deliberately to cut off the North West company? IE, was the colony a purely business move that Selkirk made to help the Hudson's Bay, or did he buy the Hudson's Bay to start the colony?

Maury 22:03, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, he definately had close ties to the HBC, since he married Andrew Colvile (Wedderburn)'s sister Jean, so he would have known the strong rivallry between the HBC and NWC. Hmm.. can't find anything right now - I'll look tonight. Chances are there's no easy answer. CWood 22:31, 13 May 2005 (UTC)


 * The colony wasn't deliberately set up to cut of the NWC. I can't find the reference for this right now, but Selkirk first tried to obtain a land grant from the NWC, but they did not agree, only then did he try to take over the HBC in order to set up his settlement project. He genuinely wanted to resettle Scots and at the same time he was already worried about retaining the Northwest for Britain/Canada. This gets discussed at length in the various books written about the Ontario-Manitoba boundary dispute in the 1870s and 1880s. Ontario tried to establish that the colony was "not a real colony" and some in Upper Canada/Canada West/Ontario were campaigning for all of the prairies to be annexed to Ontario.Kpgokeef (talk) 01:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

A cynical view of the colony, that I heard from someone who grew up in Manitoba in the 1930's; that Lord Selkirk's wife exercised her displeasure over the callous displacement of the Selkirk farmers. Most Scottish clan chiefs - who technically owned the land - simply booted their sharecroppers off; they were free to find their way anywhere in the UK at their own expense. Lady Selkirk told him to find something better and his solution was to send them halfway around the world to a hell that alternated between frozen and mosquito-ridden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.77.212.72 (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

The end of the article refers to "Swiss mercenaries". This has to be a reference to the Regiment de Meuron. At this time, the unit was formally known as "His Majesty's Regiment De Meuron", and all members were enlisted as British soldiers at the regular British rates of pay. It is true that the de Meuron Regiment had been a Swiss mercenary regiment, but they were absorbed into full service in the British army in 1798, so they could hardly be mercenaries in 1816. Indeed, they had served in Canada for several years by then. --Country Wife 22:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Outline for additional information to be added for the Red River Colony (Post Amalgamation)
As I have mentioned previously,this Wikipedia article needs some work in terms of adding additional information (History) about the Red River Colony. This does not detract from the fact that this article does have potential. The ways in which I plan to improve this article is primarily through its section on Post Amalgamation. I hope to refine some of the information presented in the article and build on it. For example, the underlying reason why the Red River Colony was ideal for the expansionists views of the Canadian Parliament was based on accounts that the land was very fertile. Along with this, the North West Company had previosly hated the link between the Red River Colony and the Hudson's Bay Company based on the monopoly on furs. This in turn had a dramatic effect on the agricultural input produced from the colony. In fact,the available labor force would determine this,as more jobs were shifting towards agricultural input (wheat). Before the relationship between the Red River Colony abnd the Husdon Bay Company, HBC had resisted agricultural development in order to protect their monopoly on the fur trade. This resulted in the downsizing of a region-wide labor crisis as the majority of fur trade workers were unemployed. This in turn would help booster the agricultural development of the Red River Colony and change the dynamic of Canadian interests in the West. This would also lead to the Red River Rebellion which was based on this. This one of the major elements I hope to improve for this Wikipedia article based on the Red River Colony. Tasobouzinelos (talk • contribs)12:06PM, 24 February 2015.

Critical Evaluation of the Red River Colony
It is clearly evident that this Wikipedia article needs a substantial amount of editing. One element that weakens the article's credibility is the amount of citations provided. This leaves me to believe that the person creating this article used information that was related to the time period and region of the Red River Colony. However, this can be deceiving if one has not done substantial research on the topic. For example, in the last heading "Annexation proposed", the article very broadly talks about American expansionism and its intent of annexing Canada. This is historically accurate, however, the article does not link the information provided in this section to the Red River Colony. In other words, the major reasons why American expansionism had a direct impact on the Red River Colony. Contrary to this, the Wikipedia article talks about the "Fenian efforts to use the U.S. as a base to attack Canada" and "Americans were angry at the British support for the Confederacy". The main problem with this is that it leaves many questions for the reader: Who were the Fenians? How do they relate to the Red River Colony? What was America's intent on taking British North America? These are only but a few questions that one would ask about this section. Another element about this Wikipedia article that needs editing is organization. The Wikipedia article is broken down into five sections: 1) Early History, 2) Pemmican War, 3) Post Amalgamation, 4) Annexation proposed, 5) Governors of Red River Colony. In each of these subsections, the article describes its topic from a one- sided view (i.e. it does not link it to the Red River Colony). For example, the subtitle "Pemmican War" lists out some basic information about the Pemmican War, what it was and when it happened. However, the subtitle lacks not only relevant dates to the title of the article but how it relates to the Red River Colony in terms of chronology and significance. In fact, this is a similar situation from every section. Each section should give relevance back to the Red River Colony. Citations and good research on the Red River Colony would help with these problems. Overall, the major problems of this Wikipedia article are the following: citations, organization of the subtopics "associated" with the Red River Colony, the significance of the Red River Colony in relation to Canadian Confederation and key individuals of the Red River Colony. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tasobouzinelos (talk • contribs) 16:23, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Review of a classmate's article
I really like what is there about the Annexation of the Red River Colony; it is very precise and is a starting point to explaining a lot of feuds between the American's and the First Nations peoples. I would suggest perhaps expanding on this part of the article, and providing more detail as to what the economic prospects were, but also as to why the Americans did not achieve this. Other than that, this article is rich full of detail and was thoroughly enjoyable to read Emower193 (talk) 19:43, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Assignment 4: Review of the Red River Colony article
I think that it would be very helpful for each of you to edit all the work that has been posted. Also I think that all the paragraphs that have been added could use more work with adding more detailed sentences. It is a good start and has a great deal of work with good intentions. I think that organizing the article and getting some more good sources would really benefit the overall article. I noticed there are some unanswered question that should have answers too! Keep up the good work, Im sure this article will turn out great!! Paulina.Staikopoulos (talk) 01:25, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggestions
This is a great start. I second the pervious suggestion that the Annexation section should be expanded, adding in why this failed would really bring it to the next level. The Pemmican War section I think could be benefited from splitting the second paragraph, and creating a new subheading regarding Selkirk's treaties. Post-amalgamation section would benefit from more examples of the colony's growth, especially population statistics if you can get them. I would also be careful of the way you are writing about these events - though the way you have it is informative and engaging, it is a little bit 'narrative' and bordering on colloquial at points. It could be improved by simplifying your sentence structure to make it more accessible and straight forward.Lindzcrymble (talk) 20:19, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggestions
I think the article is well on its way, although there are areas to improve upon. Firstly, there should be some section discussing the Red River Rebellion, despite the fact that it has its own dedicated Wikipedia section. Many wiki articles have subsections that give a brief outline on the topic with the option to redirect the reader to the dedicated article on that particular subject. Secondly, I am interested the proposed annexation of the Red River Colony by the Americans, but there is little information that describes how Canada reacted to these propositions. How did the Canadian government dissuade the United States from taking the colony? In general I think this article is well written, and I like the fact that it follows a strict timeline. Rpypker (talk) 01:25, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review Article
I think this is off to a lovely start. The one think that stuck out to me was the extremely confusing way that the introduction is written. The second paragraph of the introduction seemingly connects but at the same time quite honestly feels like a huge waste of time. In my opinion many of your sections can use much more frequent citations. Also there feels like there is no conclusion to your article, it is extremely abrupt the way that it ends with that list of governors. Even a short paragraph on what the Red River Colony became, if anything would be useful to allow people to draw a connection to the modern day. Another question in regard to your sources would be whether some of them are extremely dated, is it possible to find more recent sources on the Red River Colony? I know you have some stuff from 2010 but things more recent than the 1960s would be useful. I wish you all the best of luck. Sydpphillips (talk) 03:13, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion
In addition to what everyone has already said about the article i think that this article could be improved with another map. I find that the one that is provided difficult to situate in my current understanding of Canadian geography. Perhaps one that shows it in context to the rest of canada, rather than one that only shows the colony. HillaryViolet (talk) 15:12, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Review and Edit
Overall

I really liked your use of hyperlinks. They are well placed and bring this article to the next level of really looking like a professional article. I also like how there is so much information. Little space is wasted with unnecessary words. Additionally, your heading titles are straight forward and draw in the reader’s interest. Great work! My comments on improvement are below. Thank you for creating this article.

Introduction

The second paragraph in the introduction could be placed in a section of its own titled ‘Geography’. The photograph pared with the ‘Early History’ section would fit well if pared to this section instead. I also thing that your introduction might do a better job at introducing you’re your topics. This seems to be how Wikipedia articles are written overall and you might wish to conform to this.

Early History

“Selkirk was interested in giving them a chance at a better life in a new colony, that he called Assiniboia.”

-	The comma is unnecessary. Example; “Selkirk was interested in giving them a chance at a better life in a new [North American] colony [ ] called Assiniboia.

Pemmican War

“Either way, the move touched off the Pemmican War.”

-	The term ‘touched off’ seems like a colloquial turn of phrase. It might be more in accordance to encyclopedic writing to write something like “This proclamation created tense conditions which directly lead to pemmican war” for example.

“The Red River metis challenged Indian hegemony and probably became the most important processors of pemmican for the Hudson's Bay Company trade.”

-	The word probably implies that it is your opinion that Metis people became the most important processors of pemmican for the Hudson's Bay Company. Unless you have research that contradicts their high position in the Hudson’s Bay Company, you might choose to omit the word and leave the sentence as it is. If you do have research that contradicts your assertion, you might write that "The Red River metis challenged Indian hegemony and had arguably become the most important processors of pemmican for the Hudson's Bay Company trade.” Overall, I really like how this paragraph is written. All information in her is very important to the topic and relevant to the subheading. All the fat has been trimmed, so to speak. It is eloquently written.

Post-amalgamation

The first line should have a comma beside the phrase “North West Company”. I liked that you didn’t try to talk about the Red River Rebellion because it would have distracted from your focus on the colony as it is a significant topic all on its own. It was a great idea to add in the link to the other Wikipedia page. Proposed Annexation of Red River

Just a couple of rewordings. This was a wonderful topic to incorporate.

“The result ended up being an annexation proposal of Red River”

-	could be reworded to say “the result was…” would make the writing sharper/more professional. “Due to Louis Riel's Red River rebellion, the American annexationists hoped to take advantage of the disruption caused by these political conflicts and present themselves in the forefront as the ideal leaders of the Red River land.”

-	[Because of] Riel’s Red River rebellion, the American annexationists hoped to take advantage of the [political instability caused] by these [ ] conflicts and present themselves [as the ideal occupants for] Red River land. “They all shared the same economic vision for the annexation: Ramsay believed Red River served as an important commercial adjunct for his state while Chandler and Howard believed that annexing Red River would benefit their Great Lakes Trade.”

-	It would be better to use a period here instead of a semi colon. The previous sentence also seems to contradict the next sentence. It was written that they all shared the same economic vision and then you list two contradicting vision. This doesn’t have to appear this way. You could present it as a list. “They all shared the same economic vision for the annexation. [Some visions include] Ramsay’s [belief that] Red River served as an important commercial adjunct for his state [as well as] Chandler and Howard’s [belief that the annexation of] Red River would benefit their Great Lakes Trade. [Overall, it was expected to be of great profit to Americans.] ”

--Caitlinmcgrath (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
Great article people! The content in this Wikipedia presents the readers good information about the Red River Colony. However, when reading this article. I have to ask you all, where does the English minority fit within the Red River Colony? Although they are only a minority in the Red River Colony, but it is worth mentioning the minorities since British North America was both French and English-speaking. Good job so far, the article will be a beautiful mater piece once it is completed! Hope this information helps! :) --StanLeehen (talk) 23:18, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

Colony Conception, Unsupported Claim
The section 'Colony Conception' ends with the sentence: 'The Red River Colony was created to disrupt trades between the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company.' This expansive claim has no connection to the preceding section text and includes no citation. RobotBoy66 (talk) 09:23, 30 June 2022 (UTC)