Rupert's Land

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.

Under the principles of the European doctrine of discovery, after the English visited and explored Hudson's Bay, they could claim any lands found that were not already owned or possessed by other European or Christian nations. England claimed ownership of the lands surrounding Hudson's Bay. After explorations in 1659, Prince Rupert took interest in the Hudson's Bay region. The 1668–1669 expedition of the Nonsuch to the Hudson's Bay area returned with £1,400 (equivalent to £284,123 in 2023) worth of furs. However, England was not ready to organize a government on those lands. Instead, a "Company of Adventurers of England" was formed to administer those lands for England, thereby taking possession.

In 1670, King Charles II of England granted a royal charter to create the Hudson's Bay Company, under the governorship of Prince Rupert, the king's cousin. According to the Charter, the HBC received rights to:

The sole Trade and Commerce of all those Seas, Streights, Bays, Rivers, Lakes, Creeks, and Sounds, in whatsoever Latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the Streights commonly called Hudson's Streights, together with all the Lands, Countries and Territories, upon the Coasts and Confines of the Seas, Streights, Bays, Lakes, Rivers, Creeks and Sounds, aforesaid, which are not now actually possessed by any of our Subjects, or by the Subjects of any other Christian Prince or State [...] and that the said Land be from henceforth reckoned and reputed as one of our Plantations or Colonies in America, called Rupert's Land.

The Charter applied to all lands within the drainage basin of Hudson's Bay. It spanned an area of about 3,861,400 square kilometres (1,490,900 sq mi), more than a third of all modern Canada.

The royal charter made the "Governor and Company ... and their Successors, the true and absolute Lords and Proprietors, of the same Territory", and granted them the authority "to erect and build such Castles, Fortifications, Forts, Garrisons, Colonies or Plantations, Towns or Villages, in any Parts or Places within the Limits and Bounds granted before in these Presents, unto the said Governor and Company, as they in their Discretion shall think fit and requisite". In 1821, following the merger with the North West Company, the Hudson's Bay Company's monopoly privileges and licence were extended to trade over the North-Western Territory.

The Rupert's Land Act 1868, which was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, authorized the sale of Rupert's Land to Canada with the understanding that "'Rupert's Land' shall include the whole of the Lands and Territories held or claimed to be held by the" Hudson's Bay Company. The prevailing attitude of the time was that Rupert's Land was owned by the Hudson's Bay Company because "From the beginning to the end, the [Hudson's Bay Company] had always claimed up to the parallel 49", and argued that the royal charter and various acts of Parliament granted them "all the regions under British dominion watered by streams flowing into Hudson Bay". Rupert's Land had been essentially a private continental estate covering 3.9 million km² in the heart of North America that stretched from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, and from the prairies to the Arctic Circle. Even John A. Macdonald, the then Prime Minister of Canada, saw the land as being sold to Canada: "No explanation has been made of the arrangement by which the country (Rupert's Land) is handed over to the Queen, and that it is her Majesty who transfers the country to Canada with the same rights to settlers as existed before. All these poor people know is that Canada has bought the Country from the Hudson's Bay Company, and that they are handed over like a flock of sheep to us".