The Council of Assiniboia () was the first appointed administrative body of the District of Assiniboia, operating from 1821 until 1870. It was this council who is credited for the arrival of a functioning legal system, a local police force, and a militia to the vast wilderness that was the fur-trading territory of Rupert's Land. Over its existence, the Council of Assiniboia transformed numerous times in an effort to bring law and order to a young colonial settlement that was rife with tension and hardship.
History
The District of Assiniboia consisted of land that was in a radius around Upper Fort Garry, including the Red River Colony—which, until his death in 1820, was owned by Lord Selkirk. This council was created by the Hudson's Bay Company to govern the territory following its merger with the North West Company in 1821. The same year, the British Parliament also passed the Second Canada Jurisdiction Act 1821, which allowed the Governor of Lower Canada and the Crown to appoint justices of the peace in Rupert's Land in order to enact courts of record for the first time. As diverse as the Red River Colony was, so was its governing council. Both the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy were represented on the council, and members had diverse ancestry including Scottish, Irish, Francophone, Métis, and Anglophone. and secondly, the tariff was lowered to 5%, and then 4% the consecutive year as decided by officers in London. The rate was never again changed until 1870, when Canada legally acquired the territory. When Louis Riel sought counsel with the Council of Assiniboia insisting that negotiations needed to be made with Canada, on behalf of the local Métis, his demands were rejected. In response Riel created the council's successor, the short-lived Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia, soon followed by the Red River Rebellion. This was the early development of the judiciary in Manitoba, but even broader, "Assiniboia's legal history is central to the legal history of the Canadian frontier."
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|Councillor
|John Bunn
|1835-1861?
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|Councillor
|John MacCallum
|1836-1849?
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|Councillor
|Alexander Ross
|1836-1850
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|Councillor
|George Marcus Cary
|1837-1847
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|Councillor
|William Hemmings Cook
|1839-?
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|Councillor
|Cuthbert Grant
|1839-?
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|Councillor
|Andrew McDermot
|1839-1846
1847-1851
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|Councillor
|Roderick Mackenzie
|1839-1852
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|Councillor
|John Peter Pruden
|1839-?
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|Recorder
|Adam Thom
|1839-1851
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|Councillor
|François-Jacques Bruneau
|1853-?
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|Councillor
|William Cowan
|1853-?
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|Councillor
|Robert McBeath (McBeth)
|1853-1870
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|Councillor
|Pascal Breland (Berland)
|1857-1868
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|Councillor
|John Inkster
|1857-1868
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|President
|William Mactavish
|1858-1870
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|Councillor
|John Black
|1862-1870
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|Councillor
|Andrew Graham Ballenden Bannatyne
|1868-1870
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|Councillor
|Curtis James Bird
|1868-1870
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|Clerk
|Thomas Bunn
|1868-1870
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|Councillor
|James McKay
|1868-1870
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