Editing Manitoba (section)

=== Economic history ===
[[File:Red River cart train 2.jpg|thumb|right|alt=A line of wooden carts with wagon wheels pulled by oxen move down a path through a prairie|Red River cart train]]
Manitoba's early economy depended on mobility and living off the land. Indigenous Nations (Cree, Ojibwa, Dene, Sioux and Assiniboine) followed herds of bison and congregated to trade among themselves at key meeting places throughout the province. After the arrival of the first European traders in the 17th century, the economy centred on the trade of beaver pelts and other furs.<ref name="prairies">{{vcite book|author=Friesen, Gerald|title=The Canadian prairies: a history|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=1987|pages=22–47, 66, 183–184|isbn=978-0-8020-6648-0}}</ref> Diversification of the economy came when Lord Selkirk brought the first agricultural settlers in 1811,<ref name="lord selkirk">{{vcite journal|author=Morton, William L|date=April 1962|title=Lord Selkirk Settlers|journal=Manitoba Pageant|publisher=Manitoba Historical Society|volume=7|issue=3}}</ref> though the triumph of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) over its competitors ensured the primacy of the fur trade over widespread agricultural colonization.<ref name="prairies"/>

HBC control of Rupert's Land ended in 1868; when Manitoba became a province in 1870, all land became the property of the federal government, with homesteads granted to settlers for farming.<ref name="prairies"/> Transcontinental railways were constructed to simplify trade. Manitoba's economy depended mainly on farming, which persisted until drought and the Great Depression led to further diversification.<ref name="easterbrook"/>