The history of Winnipeg comprises its initial population of Aboriginal peoples through its settlement by Europeans to the present day. The first forts were built on the future site of Winnipeg in the 1700s, followed by the Selkirk Settlement in 1812. Winnipeg was incorporated as a city in 1873 and experienced dramatic growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Following the end of World War I, the city's importance as a commercial centre in Western Canada began to wane. Winnipeg and its suburbs experienced significant population growth after 1945, and the current City of Winnipeg was created by the unicity amalgamation in 1972.
Pre-European history Winnipeg lies at the confluence of the Assiniboine River and the Red River, known as The Forks, an historic focal point on canoe river routes travelled by Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years. The general area was populated for thousands of years by First Nations. In prehistory, through oral stories, archaeology, petroglyphs, rock art, and ancient artifacts, it is known that natives would use the area for camps, hunting, fishing, trading, and further north, agriculture. The rivers provided transportation far and wide and linked many peoples-such as the Assiniboine, Ojibway, Anishinaabe, Mandan, Sioux, Cree, Lakota, and others—for trade and knowledge sharing. Ancient mounds were once made near the waterways, similar to that of the mound builders of the south. Lake Winnipeg was considered to be an inland sea, with important river links to the mountains out west, the Great Lakes to the east, and the Arctic Ocean in the north. The Red River linked ancient northern and southern peoples along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The first maps of some areas were made on birch bark by the Ojibway, which helped fur traders find their way along the rivers and lakes.
The name "Winnipeg" is named after the nearby Lake Winnipeg to the north, and the name is related to a native word referring to the cloudy, silt-filled water flowing off the prairies. The first farming in Manitoba appeared to be along the Red River, near Lockport, Manitoba, where maize (corn) and other seed crops were planted before contact with Europeans.
European contact (1700–1869) Fur trade The first aboriginal fur traders in the area traded with the Hudson's Bay Company forts to the northeast or with the North West Company forts to the south and east. The Hudson's Bay Company and British colonialists laid claim to the entire area of Rupert's Land in the late 17th century. This entire Hudson Bay drainage basin included the area now known as Winnipeg. Fur traders working with and trading with the Hudson's Bay Company would have travelled and lived along the major rivers, including the Red River.
In 1738, Sieur Louis Damours de Louvières built Fort Rouge on the Assiniboine River for Sieur de La Vérendrye. This early trading post was later abandoned, and its exact location is unknown. The French traded in the area for several decades before Hudson Bay traders arrived. The first English traders visited the area about the year 1767.Narrative of an expedition to the source of St. Peter's River, Lake Winnepeek, Lake of the Woods, &c., &c. performed in the year 1823, by order of the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, secretary of war, under the command of Stephan H. Long, major U.S.T.E. / Author: Colhoun, James Edward. Fort Gibraltar was built at The Forks by the North West Company in 1809.
Early settlement
In 1811, the Scottish aristocrat and humanitarian Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, received from the Hudson's Bay Company a grant of 116,000 square miles in the basins of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, which he named Assiniboia. His goal was to establish the first permanent agricultural settlement along the Red River near the junction of the two rivers, to be inhabited by displaced Scottish Highland families and retired Rupert's Land employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. The Red River Settlement was founded in 1812 and the construction of Fort Douglas was overseen by Miles Macdonell, Lord Selkirk's first Governor of Assiniboia, in 1813–14. This would be the first European agricultural colony on the northern great plains.
The presence of the Selkirk Settlement, which saw much of the open land along the Red and Assiniboine Rivers converted to agricultural uses, added to the growing hostilities between the two main fur trading companies, the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company. In the 1810s, the two companies fought fiercely for control of the fur trade in the area, and each destroyed some of the other's forts over the course of several violent skirmishes, like the Battle of Seven Oaks. In 1821, rivalry between the two companies ended with a forced merger, under the Hudson's Bay name.
With a virtual monopoly on the northwestern fur trade, the Hudson's Bay Company relocated their operations at Red River to Fort Gibraltar in 1822, renaming it Fort Garry. This fort, which was demolished in 1852, was located on the present-day site of The Forks National Historic Site in Winnipeg. In 1835, the Hudson's Bay Company began constructing a substantial new Fort Garry, a short distance to the west. This new fort, constructed of stone, would remain the company's leading post until the collapse of the fur trade in the Red River region in the 1870s.
Beginning in the early to mid-19th (the 1820s to 1840s) century the Métis, an ethnic group descended from the mixing of indigenous Canadians and European traders, began settling in the Red River Valley. They were heavily involved in the fur trade as hunters and traders.Risjord (2005), p. 41. Important British trading posts included Fort Alexander, operated by the Hudson's Bay Company, and Fort Bas-de-la-Rivière, operated by the North West Company.Wilson (2009), p. lx. Additionally as settlers from the U.S. established posts in what is now Minnesota, illegal trade routes known as the Red River Trails developed between the Red River Colony and Saint Paul.Gilman (1979), pp. 8, 14.
Beginning in 1862, an unincorporated village began to form a short distance north of Fort Garry, near the present-day intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street. This village became home to a cluster of business enterprises of the longtime landowners of this part of the settlement such as Andrew McDermot and Andrew Bannatyne, as well as a small but growing number of entrepreneurs and small landholders who had recently arrived from the United States and Ontario. Notable among this latter group was the Ontario-born John Christian Schultz. While open commercial trade that was independent of the Hudson's Bay Company had been occurring in the Red River settlement since the Sayer trial of 1849, this concentration of businesses near the intersection of Portage and Main would form the basis of a new urban centre. As the city grew, this area would remain its commercial heart well into the 20th century.Artibise, Allan. Winnipeg: An Illustrated History. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company. 1977.
Early post-Confederation Winnipeg (1870–1913)
In 1869, the Hudson's Bay Company formally surrendered its charter rights over Rupert's Land, a territory that includes Winnipeg, back to the Crown. In 1870, the British ceded the territory to the Canadian government, under s. 146 of the Constitution Act, 1867. However, as a result of premature actions by the designated Lieutenant Governor of the area, William McDougall, the people of Red River formed a provisional government and seized Fort Garry in late 1869 until arrangements could be negotiated between its leaders and the Canadian government.
The following dispute resulted in the Red River Rebellion, a conflict between the local provisional government, led by Louis Riel, and the federal Canadian government. The rebellion eventually saw negotiations between the Metis and the government, which led to the passage of the Manitoba Act, and the admittance of Manitoba as a province into Canadian Confederation on 15 July 1870. Shortly before the passage of the Manitoba Act, the Wolseley expedition was dispatched from Toronto to Fort Garry in May 1870. Led by General Garnet Wolseley, and manned by British Army and Canadian militia units, the expedition was sent to quell the rebellion, and counter American settlers encroaching the Canada–United States border. The expedition arrived at Winnipeg on 24 August 1870, capturing the fort that was abandoned by Riel and his supporters. The capture of the fort marked the effective end of the rebellion.
Development and incorporation
This small cluster of houses and commercial buildings near Portage and Main soon began to be referred to as "Winnipeg" by the locals, in order to differentiate themselves from the Hudson's Bay Company operations at Fort Garry.Korneski, Kurt. Race, Nation, and Reform Ideology in Winnipeg, 1880s-1920s. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. 2015 The placename "Winnipeg" began to appear on the masthead of Red River's weekly newspaper, The Nor'Wester. By the early 1873, this settlement grew to be the main population and commercial centre in the Red River area, with business activity lining Main Street. On November 8, 1873, Winnipeg was incorporated as a city, and elected its first mayor, Francis Evans Cornish, and Council two months later. In 1876, three years after the city's incorporation, the post office officially adopted the name "Winnipeg".Artibise, Winnipeg: An Illustrated History.
In the vicinity of Fort Garry at The Forks, the Hudson's Bay Company had for decades held a land reserve to be used for company purposes. This reserve measured 465 acres (1.9 square kilometres), which fell within the boundaries of the newly incorporated City of Winnipeg. With the decline of the fur trade at Red River and the growth of its urban centre, the Hudson's Bay Company created a plan of subdivision so it could sell off much of its vast reserve. The Company subdivided the reserve into rectangular blocks on regular grid streets measuring one chain (66' feet), except for Main Street (sometimes called the Garry Road), Portage Avenue and Broadway, which each measured two chains (132 feet) in width. Despite the plan of subdivision, demand for properties remained low in the 1870s, and so building activity in the reserve was limited mainly to along Main Street.
Railways and economic growth
The first locomotive in Winnipeg, the Countess of Dufferin, arrived in Winnipeg via steamboat in 1877, and a railway connection to St. Paul began the following year, via the Pembina Branch. The Pembina Branch ran on the east side of the Red River and terminated in St. Boniface. From there, passengers and goods were transported across the river to Winnipeg by ferry. The Canadian Pacific Railway completed the first direct rail link from eastern Canada in 1881, when the railway crossed the newly constructed bridge across the Red River at Point Douglas, the Louise Bridge. The arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway opened the door to mass immigration and settlement of Winnipeg and the Canadian Prairies. Today, the history of Winnipeg's rail heritage and the Countess of Dufferin may be seen at the Winnipeg Railway Museum.
With the arrival of the railways, Winnipeg experienced a period of significant population growth, beginning in 1881 and lasting well until the 1910s. The city's population grew from 7,900 in 1881 to more than 179,000 in 1921. The only large city on the Canadian prairies in 1891, and a centre of railway transportation between eastern and western Canada, Winnipeg became the leading commercial centre of the prairie territories and provinces. In succeeding decades as other prairie centres such as Calgary, Edmonton, and Regina become regional centres of trade, Winnipeg's importance as the chief economic centre of Western Canada was reduced, though it retained strong regional importance, particularly as a Western Canadian centre of finance and the grain trade.