Thomas Douglas was a male Caucasian from Scotland born on June 20th, 1771, and died April 8th, 1820. Lord Selkirk was born at Saint Mary's Isle, Scotland. Thomas Douglas was the youngest of 13 children. Lord Selkirk was the 5th Earl of Selkirk. He was a well known Scottish philanthropist. He was also a lawyer, and owned land. Mr. Douglas became Earl when he inherited all of his family's wealth. Thomas Douglas was very angry about the treatment of the Scottish Clearance victims, and wanted to help. So, he bought enough shares of the Hudson's Bay Company, that he could buy a lot of land. He then offered this land to Scottish Clearance victims for free. The land he bought is now known as "The Forks" in Winnipeg. At the time however, it was Rupert's Land. Lord Selkirk bought about 40468 hectares of land. After the Battle of Seven Oaks, Thomas Douglas had four offence charges due to him taking over Fort William from the North West Company. A lot of money was spent by Selkirk defending his name in court against his charges. Not long after his court battle, he died (April 8th, 1820). Ironically, the two companies (HBC) and (NWC) merged only a year after his death.
References: Wikipedia, Thomas Douglas 5th Earl of Selkirk
last modified November 14th, 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Douglas,_5th_Earl_of_Selkirk
Its so weird how Tomas Douglas became the earl of Selkirk even though he was the seventh son in his family. I did some of my own reserch at http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/douglas_thomas_5E.html
ReplyDeleteand i found out a few things about his family. Two of his brothers died of infancy, two died from yellow fever, and two died from terbuculosus. I bet that was a shock when he received the claim, being the youngest son and all. Quite sad too. His whole family died and he gets rewarded for it. Mabe thats why he was so keen on helping others, because he felt bad at recieveing the title. who knows, but it was a good thing. Without this series of unfortunate events would of never received a bunch of settlers in manitoba, which helped us develop and become the province we have today