The Scottish peer and philanthropist Thomas Douglas, Fifth Earl of Selkirk, is best known for his sponsorship of immigrant settlements in Canada, particularly in Manitoba’s Red River Valley, and the controversy surrounding early years there.
Born on Scotland’s St. Mary’s Isle in Kircudbrightshire, the seventh son of the fourth earl, with no expectation of inheriting the title, he entered the University of Edinburgh at the age of 14. Following his education there he traveled in the Highlands in 1792 where he became aware of the poverty of crofters following the Highland clearances after the Battle of Culloden; he determined to find ways to help them find new land in the British colonies. He then spent time in 1796 working on one of his father’s farms to learn what being a landowner entails.
His chance to put to test his theories on emigration came when he succeeded to the earldom at his father’s death in 1799, all six of his brother having died (two in infancy, two of TB, and two of Yellow Fever). In 1803 he was able to buy land and arrange for 800 Scottish farmers to settle successfully in Belfast on Prince Edward Island in Canada. A second settlement in Baldoon, Upper Canada was less successful, but his next project carried out a dream he had nourished for years of establishing a settlement in the Red River Valley near to what is now Winnipeg.
In Britain meanwhile, he made a name for himself writing a book in 1805, Observations on the present state of the Highlands of Scotland with a view of the causes and probable consequences of emigration. In 1806 he was appointed to the House of Lords, and in 1807 he was named Lord-lieutenant of Kircudbright. That same year he married Jean Wedderburn-Colville, sister of Andrew Wedderburn, a member of the Hudson Bay Company’s governing committee, and in 1808 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. With his celebrity and connections he was able to acquire enough Hudson Bay Company shares to induce the company to allow him to start a settlement in the Red River Valley (Assiniboia) which the company controlled, in return for supplying 200 men every year to the company and agreeing that the settlers would not participate in the fur trade. However, a feud developed with a competitor in the fur trade, the North West Company, which had the support of the region’s Metis inhabitants. Violence followed, culminating in 1816 with the Battle of Seven Oaks, and Selkirk himself was involved in seizing the trading post of Fort William that belonged to the North West Company.
The resulting violence led to Selkirk being sued, charged with four offences all relating to the occupation of Fort William. In January 1818, the North West Company won heavy damages against him and he returned to Britain in poor health, having spent most of his fortune unsuccessfully defending himself in court. With his family, he went to southern France for his health, but in 1820, died at Pau at the age of 48, leaving three young children.