RCMP in the west

In 1873 the federal government created the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), a forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to bring Canadian law to the west. By the 1880s the duties of the NWMP, which had hitherto focused on the Indigenous population and the prevention of liquor importation, began to change rapidly with the coming of the transcontinental railway. The NWMP were required to police the disputes generated by settlement and construction. Conflicts with First Nations and Métis groups marked the early years of the force.