The Council of Assiniboia was, from 1821 until 1870, the appointed administrative body of Rupert's Land

Rupert's Land

Rupert's Land, or Prince Rupert's Land, was a territory in British North America, consisting of the Hudson Bay drainage basin that was nominally owned by the Hudson's Bay Company for 200 years from 1670 to 1870, although numerous aboriginal groups lived in the same territory and disputed the...

.

History

This Council was created by the Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

 to govern the territory following its merger with the North West Company

North West Company

The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what was to become Western Canada...

, and the death of Lord Selkirk

Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk

Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk was a Scottish peer. He was born at Saint Mary's Isle, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. He was noteworthy as a Scottish philanthropist who sponsored immigrant settlements in Canada at the Red River Colony.- Early background :Douglas was the seventh son of Dunbar...

. Both the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy were represented on the council, as were both Francophone

Francophone

The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....

, Métis

Métis people (Canada)

The Métis are one of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada who trace their descent to mixed First Nations parentage. The term was historically a catch-all describing the offspring of any such union, but within generations the culture syncretised into what is today a distinct aboriginal group, with...

, and Anglophone

English Canadian

An English Canadian is a Canadian of English ancestry; it is used primarily in contrast with French Canadian. Canada is an officially bilingual state, with English and French official language communities. Immigrant cultural groups ostensibly integrate into one or both of these communities, but...

 country born

Anglo-Métis

A 19th-century community of the Métis people of Canada, the Anglo-Métis, more commonly known as Countryborn, were children of fur traders; they typically had Orcadian, Scottish, or English fathers and Aboriginal mothers. Their first languages were generally those of their mothers: Cree, Saulteaux,...

s. However, it was not a form of responsible government

Responsible government

Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability which is the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy...

, since there were no elections, and the council was primarily composed of factors and traders of the Hudson's Bay Company.

The Council of Assiniboia was replaced by the short lived Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia

Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia

The Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia was a short lived legislature set up to pass laws for the North-Western Territory and Rupert's Land provisional government led by Louis Riel from 1869 to 1970. The Legislative Assembly was named after the Council of Assiniboia that previously managed the...

 after the Red River Rebellion

Red River Rebellion

The Red River Rebellion or Red River Resistance was the sequence of events related to the 1869 establishment of a provisional government by the Métis leader Louis Riel and his followers at the Red River Settlement, in what is now the Canadian province of Manitoba.The Rebellion was the first crisis...

.

Members

• Patrice Breland
• William Cowan
  William Cowan (fur trader)
  Doctor William Cowan was a physician and fur trader.He was born in Scotland in 1818 and studied medicine at the University of Glasgow. He caught cholera during the epidemic of 1848–1849 and decided to move to Canada for his health...
  
   1853 to ?
• William Fraser
  William Fraser (Canadian politician)
  William Fraser was a farmer, bureaucrat and politician from Manitoba, Canada....
  
   1868 to 1870.
• William Hemmings Cook
  William Hemmings Cook
  William Hemmings Cook was a Canadian fur trader, settler, and politician.William Cook was born in London, England to John and Elizabeth Cook and was baptized in the parish of St. Andrew in Holborn....
  
   1839 to ?
• Andrew McDermot
  Andrew McDermot
  Andrew McDermot was a Hudson's Bay Company employee who became a prominent independent fur trade merchant and member of the Council of Assiniboia.-McDermot's background and family relations:...
  
  
• James McKay
• John Sutherland
  John Sutherland (Canadian Senator)
  John Sutherland was a Manitoba political figure.Farmer, Senator.He was born in Point Douglas in what was then the Red River Settlement and was educated at St...
  
  
• John Inkster 1857 to 1868
• William Inkster