Editing Rupert's Land (section)

==Governance==
[[File:Oregoncountry2.png|thumb|upright|Map of the [[Columbia District]], also referred to as [[Oregon Country]]]]
Before 1835, the Hudson's Bay Company had no formal legal system in Rupert's Land, creating "courts" on an ''[[ad hoc]]'' basis.{{Sfn|Baker|1999|p=213}} The Hudson's Bay Company's "laws" in the 17th and 18th centuries had been the regulations setting out the rules governing the relationships between various employees in the company's posts in Rupert's Land and to interact with Indigenous peoples.{{Sfn|Baker|1999|p=214}} The 1670 charter granting the company control of Rupert's Land had said trials were to be conducted by the governor of Rupert's Land together with three of his councillors.{{Sfn|Baker|1999|p=215}} There were only three cases before the 19th century with the one with the most detailed notes being the trial of one Thomas Butler in 1715 at the [[York Factory]] who was convicted of theft, slander and fornication with a native woman.{{Sfn|Baker|1999|p=215}} In the early 19th century, the HBC had waged a violent struggle with the rival North West Company based in Montreal for the control of the fur trade culminating in the [[Battle of Seven Oaks]] of 1816, which led to an investigation by the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom]], and which in turn led to the [[Second Canada Jurisdiction Act 1821]], ordering the Hudson's Bay Company to establish [[justice of the peace]] courts in Rupert's Land.{{Sfn|Baker|1999|p=213}} Instead of establishing courts, the company directed the governor and the council of Assiniboia to mediate disputes as they arose.{{Sfn|Baker|1999|p=214}}

In 1839, the Hudson's Bay Company were convinced of the need to dispense formal justice throughout Rupert's Land and established a court at the [[Red River Colony]], in the "District of Assiniboia", south of [[Lake Winnipeg]]. A recorder and president of the court would act as legal organizer, adviser, magistrate, and councillor and be responsible for the rationalization and formalization of Rupert's Land's judicial system. The first recorder was [[Adam Thom]], who held the post until 1854, although relieved of most of his duties by his deputy some years before.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/thom_adam_11E.html|title= THOM, ADAM|dictionary= Dictionary of Canadian Biography|access-date= 10 July 2017}}</ref> He was succeeded as President of the Court from 1862 to 1870 by [[John Black (Canadian judge)|John Black]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/black-john-3000|title=Black, John (1817–1879)|chapter=John Black (1817–1879) | publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |dictionary=Australian Dictionary of Biography|access-date=10 July 2017}}</ref>

Baker (1999) uses the Red River Colony, the only non-native settlement on the northwest prairies for most of the 19th century, as a site for critical exploration of the meaning of "law and order" on the Canadian frontier and for an investigation of the sources from which legal history might be rewritten as the history of legal culture. Previous historians have assumed that the Hudson's Bay Company's representatives designed and implemented a local legal system dedicated instrumentally to the protection of the company's fur trade monopoly and, more generally, to strict control of settlement life in the company's interests. But this view is not borne out by archival research. Examination of Assiniboia's juridical institutions in action reveals a history formed less through the imposition of authority from above than by obtaining support from below. Baker shows that the legal history of the Red River Colony – and, by extension, of the Canadian West in general – is based on English [[common law]].{{Sfn|Baker|1999}}

Following the forced merger of the [[North West Company]] with the HBC in 1821, [[British Parliament]] applied the laws of [[Upper Canada]] to Rupert's Land and the [[Columbia District]] and gave enforcement power to the HBC.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}} The Hudson's Bay Company maintained peace in Rupert's Land for the benefit of the fur trade; the [[Plains Indians]] had achieved a rough balance of power among themselves; the organization of the Métis provided internal security and a degree of external protection. This stable order broke down in the 1860s with the decline of the Hudson's Bay Company,{{citation needed|date=July 2016}} [[smallpox]] epidemics and the arrival of American whisky traders on the Great Plains, and the disappearance of the [[bison]]. The rule of law was, after the transfer of Rupert's Land to Canada, enforced by the [[North-West Mounted Police]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Irene M. |last=Spry |title=The Transition from a Nomadic to a Settled Economy in Western Canada, 1856–1896 |journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada |date=1968 |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages=187–201}}</ref>