Twenty-four people are killed in the "Seven Oaks Massacre" near Winnipeg, Manitoba. The battle is between members of the Selkirk Colony and a group of métis people hired by the North West Company to prevent settler-colonists from destroying the fur market. The colony's founder, Thomas Douglas, the fifth Earl of Selkirk, owned a large interest in the Hudson's Bay Company, a rival to the North West Company. The massacre is a factor in the Selkirkers' decision to leave the Red River and move to the Fort Snelling military reservation. Forced by the army to move downriver in 1839, they would form the small community that grew into the city of St. Paul.