Battle of Seven Oaks (1816)

On 19 June 1816 a skirmish at Seven Oaks (Winnipeg) escalated into a gruesome massacre. A party of Métis in the North West Company’s employ killed the governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territories, Robert Semple, and some 20 colonists. The events were part of the life-and-death struggle between the two businesses for fur-trade dominance, which had intensified when the HBC allowed the establishment of the Red River colony in 1812. In the battle at Seven Oaks the violence reached a climax and became a determining factor in the amalgamation of the two rivals in 1821.