Rupert's Land in the context of "Height of Land Portage"

The British colonization of the Americas is the history of establishment of control, settlement, and colonization of the continents of the Americas by England, Scotland, and, after 1707, Great Britain. Colonization efforts began in the late 16th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first permanent English colony in the Americas was established in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Though most British colonies in the Americas eventually gained independence, some colonies have remained under Britain's jurisdiction as British Overseas Territories.

The first documented settlement of Europeans in the Americas was established by Norse people around 1000 AD in what is now Newfoundland, called Vinland by the Norse. Later European exploration of North America resumed with Christopher Columbus's 1492 expedition sponsored by Spain. English settlement began almost a century later. Sir Walter Raleigh established the short-lived Roanoke Colony in 1585. The 1607 settlement of the Jamestown colony grew into the Colony of Virginia. Virgineola—settled unintentionally by the shipwreck of the Virginia Company's Sea Venture in 1609, and renamed The Somers Isles—is still known by its older Spanish name, Bermuda. In 1620, a group of mostly Pilgrim religious separatists established a second permanent colony on the mainland, on the coast of Massachusetts. Several other English colonies were established in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries. With the authorization of a royal charter, the Hudson's Bay Company established the territory of Rupert's Land in the Hudson Bay drainage basin. The English also established or conquered several colonies in the Caribbean, including Barbados and Jamaica.

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.

The Hudson's Bay Company (abbreviated HBC and colloquially Hudson's Bay) is a Canadian holding company of department stores and commercial property. It is the oldest corporation in North America, founded in 1670, although the company is in the process of being liquidated. It is headquartered at the Simpson Tower in Toronto.

The founding royal charter, issued by King Charles II, granted the company the right of "sole trade and commerce" over the Rupert's Land territory, the borders of which were based on the Hudson Bay drainage basin. It controlled the fur trade throughout English and later British North America, and was its de facto government until it relinquished control of the land to Canada in 1869. The company then diversifed with the ownership and operation of several retail businesses throughout the latter country. It established its namesake department stores in 1881, the Home Outfitters home furnishings stores in 1999, and acquired the Zellers and Fields discount stores in 1978. It also owned several regional department stores that were eventually converted to The Bay, including Morgan's, Simpsons, and Woodward's. Expansions beyond Canada included the United States, where it owned department stores including Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Saks Off 5th in the 2010s; and the Netherlands, where it sold its remaining stores in 2019.

A number of states and polities formerly claimed colonies and territories in Canada prior to the evolution of the current provinces and territories under the federal system. North America prior to colonization was occupied by a variety of indigenous groups consisting of band societies typical of the sparsely populated North, to loose confederacies made up of numerous hunting bands from a variety of ethnic groups (Plains region), to more structured confederacies of sedentary farming villages (Great Lakes region), to stratified hereditary structures centred on a fishing economy (Plateau and Pacific Coast regions). The colonization of Canada by Europeans began in the 10th century, when Norsemen explored and, ultimately unsuccessfully, attempted to settle areas of the northeastern fringes of North America. Early permanent European settlements in what is now Canada included the late 16th and 17th century French colonies of Acadia and Canada (New France), the English colonies of Newfoundland and Rupert's Land, the Scottish colonies of Nova Scotia and Port Royal.

France lost nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War to the British Empire. Britain's imperial government over a century later then ceded the land to Canadian control in 1867 after confederation. Since then, Canada's external borders have changed several times, and had grown from four initial provinces to ten provinces and three territories by 1999.

The Convention respecting fisheries, boundary and the restoration of slaves, also known as the London Convention, Anglo-American Convention of 1818, Convention of 1818, or simply the Treaty of 1818, is an international treaty signed in 1818 between the United States and the United Kingdom. This treaty resolved standing boundary issues between the two nations. The treaty allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country, known to the British and in Canadian history as the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company, and including the southern portion of its sister district New Caledonia.

The two nations agreed to a boundary line involving the 49th parallel north, in part because a straight-line boundary would be easier to survey than the pre-existing boundaries based on watersheds. The treaty marked both the United Kingdom's last permanent major loss of territory in what is now the Continental United States and the United States' first permanent significant cession of North American territory to a foreign power, the second being the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842. The British ceded all of Rupert's Land south of the 49th parallel and east of the Continental Divide, including all of the Red River Colony south of that latitude, while the United States ceded the northernmost edge of the Missouri Territory north of the 49th parallel.