Pemmican proclamation (1814)

In 1814 Miles Macdonell, named the first governor of Assiniboia by the Hudson’s Bay Company, prohibited the exportation of all provisions supplied to the North West Company by the Métis, in an effort to counter the threat of famine that hung over the Red River colony. This prohibition included pemmican – dried meat, traditionally bison, sometimes mixed with berries. From the point of view of the Nor’Westers and the Métis, the “pemmican proclamation,” as it came to be known, was an open declaration of war. The pemmican war finally resulted in the massacre at Seven Oaks (Winnipeg) on 19 June 1816 and played a key role in the swift decline of the North West Company after 1810.