page_title: Pugets Sound Agricultural Company
section_title: Red River colonists
hierarchical_section_title: Pugets Sound Agricultural Company / Red River colonists
caption_attribution_description: Ox cart train at Fort Smith near Edmonton, Alberta
context_page_description: The Puget Sound Agricultural Company, with common variations of the name including Puget Sound or Puget's Sound, was a subsidiary joint stock company formed in 1840 by the Hudson's Bay Company. Its stations operated within the Pacific Northwest, in the HBC administrative division of the Columbia Department. The RAC-HBC Agreement was signed in 1839 between the Russian-American Company and the HBC, with the British to now supply the various trade posts of Russian America. It was hoped by the HBC governing committee that independent American merchants, previously a major source of foodstuffs for the RAC, would be shut out of the Russian markets and leave the Maritime fur trade.
  Because its monopoly licence granted by the British Government forbade any activity besides the fur trade, the HBC created the PSAC to sidestep this issue. The PSAC was formed to produce or manufacture enough agricultural and livestock products to meet the Russian supply demands. In correspondence with British officials, the PSAC was long touted as a means to promote the British position in the Oregon boundary dispute with the United States.
context_section_description: The only successful source of early colonists for the PSAC would come from the Red River colony. In November 1839 Sir George Simpson instructed Duncan Finlayson to begin promoting the PSAC to colonists. If the initial movement of settlers from Red River was successful, company officials wanted at least fifteen families arriving at the Cowlitz Farm annually. While finding many men were reportedly favorable to offered terms, the inability to own the farmland they would till was a contentious issue.
  Finding many families unwilling to sign provisions, Finlayson felt pressure to get a number of willing emigrants as previously ordered. Without the approval of Simpson, Pelly or the Committee, he announced that the farmers could be able to purchase the farmlands they would work on around Cowlitz Farm. This new clause came with a major stipulation, as Finlayson later explained to his superiors. The sales would happen only if the Oregon Question was settled with British receiving the northern bank of the Columbia River, rather than a direct continuation of the 49th parallel.
caption: Red River carts in the 1870s. The carts used by the families led by Sinclair were largely the same design.
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