Hudson's Bay Company in the context of "British colonization of the Americas"

The history of post-confederation Canada began on July 1, 1867, when the British North American colonies of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were united to form a single Dominion within the British Empire. Upon Confederation, the Province of Canada was immediately split into the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In 1870, Canada acquired the vast expanse of the continent controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company, which was eventually divided into new territories and provinces. British Columbia joined in 1871, and Prince Edward Island in 1873. Canada evolved into a fully sovereign state by 1982.

Before being part of British North America, the constituents of Canada consisted of the former colonies of Canada and Acadia from within New France which had been ceded to Great Britain in 1763 as part of the Treaty of Paris. French Canadian nationality was maintained as one of the "two founding nations" and legally through the Quebec Act which ensured the maintenance of the Canadian French language, Catholic religion, and French civil law within Canada, a fact which remains true today.

Oregon Country was a large region of the Pacific Northwest of North America that was subject to a long dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States in the early 19th century. The area, which had been demarcated by the Treaty of 1818, consisted of the land north of 42° N latitude, south of 54°40′ N latitude, and west of the Rocky Mountains down to the Pacific Ocean and east to the Continental Divide. Article III of the 1818 treaty gave joint control to both nations for ten years, allowed land to be claimed, and guaranteed free navigation to all mercantile trade. However, both countries disputed the terms of the international treaty. Oregon Country was the American name, while the British used Columbia District for the region.

British and French Canadian fur traders had entered Oregon Country prior to 1810 before the arrival of American settlers from the mid-1830s onwards, which led to the foundation of the Provisional Government of Oregon. Its coastal areas north of the Columbia River were frequented by ships from all nations engaged in the maritime fur trade, with many vessels between the 1790s and 1810s coming from Boston. The Hudson's Bay Company, whose Columbia Department comprised most of the Oregon Country and north into New Caledonia and beyond 54°40′ N, with operations reaching tributaries of the Yukon River, managed and represented British interests in the region.

Manitoba is a province of Canada at the longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's fifth-most populous province, with a population of 1,342,153 as of 2021. Manitoba has a widely varied landscape, from arctic tundra and the Hudson Bay coastline in the north to dense boreal forest, large freshwater lakes, and prairie grassland in the central and southern regions. Manitoba's capital and largest city is Winnipeg.

Indigenous peoples have inhabited what is now Manitoba for approximately 10,000 years. In the early 17th century, English and French fur traders began arriving in the area and establishing settlements. The Kingdom of England secured control of the region in 1673 and created a territory named Rupert's Land, which was placed under the administration of the Hudson's Bay Company. Rupert's Land, which included all of present-day Manitoba, grew and evolved from 1673 until 1869 with significant settlements of Indigenous and Métis people in the Red River Colony. Negotiations for the creation of the province of Manitoba commenced in 1869, but deep disagreements over the right to self-determination led to an armed conflict, known as the Red River Rebellion, between the federal government and the people (particularly Métis) of the Red River Colony. The resolution of the conflict and further negotiations led to Manitoba becoming the fifth province to join Canadian Confederation, when the Parliament of Canada passed the Manitoba Act on 15 July 1870.

The Hudson Bay drainage basin is the drainage basin in northern North America where surface water empties into the Hudson Bay and adjoining waters. Spanning an area of about 3,861,400 square kilometres (1,490,900 sq mi) and with a mean discharge of about 30,900 m/s (1,090,000 cu ft/s), the basin is almost entirely within Canada. It encompasses parts of the Canadian Prairies, Central Canada, and Northern Canada. A small area of the basin is in the northern part of the Midwestern United States.

The Hudson Bay drainage basin coincides almost completely with the former territory of Rupert's Land, claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company in the 17th century. It was an ideal area for the early North American fur trade.

Rupert's Land (French: Terre de Rupert), or Prince Rupert's Land (French: Terre du Prince Rupert), was a territory in British America (British North America after 1783) based on the Hudson Bay drainage basin. The right to "sole trade and commerce" over Rupert's Land was granted to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), based at York Factory, effectively giving that company a commercial monopoly over the area. The territory operated for 200 years from 1670 to 1870. Its namesake was Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who was a nephew of King Charles I and the first governor of the HBC. In December 1821, the HBC monopoly was extended from Rupert's Land to the Pacific coast.

The areas formerly belonging to Rupert's Land lie mostly within what is today Canada, and included the whole of Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southern Nunavut, and northern parts of Ontario and Quebec. Additionally, it also extended into areas that would eventually become parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. The southern border west of Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains was the drainage divide between the Mississippi and Red/Saskatchewan watersheds until the Anglo-American Convention of 1818 substituted the 49th parallel.

1816 (MDCCCXVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1816th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 816th year of the 2nd millennium, the 16th year of the 19th century, and the 7th year of the 1810s decade. As of the start of 1816, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

This year was known as the Year Without a Summer, because of low temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly the result of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, causing severe global cooling, catastrophic in some locations.