The Land Agreement of 1842 at Little Red River

Abstract

On May 1, 1842, an agreement was signed at Fort Vermilion by five members of the Beaver Indian Nation and by William Shaw, the Hudson's Bay Company clerk in charge. As a "mark of [their} regard and attachment," the Beaver people ceded land to Shaw on the Little Red River, running upstream from its confluence with the Peace River. The land grant is described variously as "nine miles square" and "nine square miles." In return, William Shaw promised to move ancestral graves to a "secluded spot beyond the Boundaries," once he was in possession and engaged in farming.