The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian paramilitary police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada. The Red River Rebellion and reports of lawlessness in the West, demonstrated by the subsequent Cypress Hills Massacre and fears of United States military incursions into Canada's new hinterland had pushed the Canada government to provide the means of enforcement of law and order. The NWMP, later renamed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, combined military, police and judicial functions along similar lines to the Royal Irish Constabulary. A small, mobile police force was chosen as the best way to reduce potential for tensions with the United States and with First Nations. The NWMP uniforms included red coats deliberately reminiscent of British and Canadian military uniforms.
The NWMP was established by the Canadian government during the ministry of Prime Minister Sir John Macdonald who defined its purpose as "the preservation of peace and the prevention of crime" in the vast NWT. Macdonald envisioned the police force as a para-military force, writing that the "best force would be mounted riflemen, trained to act as cavalry... and styled police". Macdonald's principal fear was that the activities of American traders such as the Cypress Hills Massacre would lead to the First Nations peoples killing the American traders, which would lead to the United States military being deployed into the NWT to protect the lives of American citizens on the grounds that Canada was unable to maintain law and order in the region. Macdonald's greatest fear was that if the Americans occupied the NWT that they would not leave and the region would be annexed to the United States.
In 1874, the NWMP were deployed to the area of the present Alberta border. Their ill-planned and arduous journey of nearly 900 miles (1,400 km) became known as the March West and was portrayed as an epic journey of endurance. A separate group pressed northwest-wards to Edmonton. Over the next few years, the NWMP established a wide network of forts, posts and patrols and extended Canadian law across the region. The living conditions of the NWMP on the prairies were spartan and often uncomfortable, and only slowly improved over the course of the century.
By 1896, the government planned to pass policing responsibilities to the provinces and ultimately disband the NWMP. However, with the discovery of gold in the Klondike, the NWMP was redeployed to protect Canada's sovereignty over the region and to manage the influx of prospectors. NWMP volunteers were sent to fight in the Second Boer War and, in recognition for their sacrifice during the war and for 30 years of service policing the North-West and Yukon Territories, King Edward VII, granted the force permission to use the prefix Royal, making them the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP) in 1904. Plans for disbanding the Royal North-West Mounted Police were abandoned in the face of popular oppositions and regional politicians. Large numbers of the RNWMP volunteered for military service during the First World War and the future of the badly depleted force was once again in doubt. Towards the end of the war, however, fears grew about a potential Bolshevik conspiracy and the authorities tasked the RNWMP to investigate the threat. In the aftermath of the violence of the Winnipeg General Strike, the government amalgamated the RNWMP and Dominion Police, to form the modern Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 1920.
The NWMP was created due to the expansion of the newly formed Dominion of Canada into the NWT during the 1870s. The Dominion had been formed in 1867 by the confederation of the British colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but the extensive lands to the north-west known as Rupert's Land remained governed by the Hudson's Bay Company as a proprietary colony. The new Dominion government was keen to expand westwards, in part due to fears that the United States might annex the region. It agreed to purchase the company's lands in exchange for £300,000 and various grants of land, adding around 2,500,000 square miles (6,500,000 km2) of territory to the Dominion in 1870.
The NWT varied geographically from the extreme conditions of the far north, through to the edges of the Great Plains in the south, covered by flat, semi-arid grasslands. A rocky area known as the Shield, which was unsuitable for arable farming, had formed a natural barrier to European colonists gradually spreading across from the eastern colonies. As a result, the territories remained thinly populated, with only around 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and occasional small groups of Europeans, and more substantial communities of around 12,000 Métis settled in the Red River valley of Manitoba and a further 8,500 European settlers in the colony of British Columbia. Surveys referred to the territories as the "Wild North Land" and the "Great Lone Land".
The Canadian border along the southern edge of Alberta was occupied by the Blackfoot Confederacy, a First Nation whose economy was based on hunting bison. The Blackfoot had suffered badly from smallpox, and were under increasing pressure from rival groups of Sioux and Piegans that had crossed into Canada, fleeing the expansion of the United States military across the southern plains. Whisky-traders from the United States had come across the border, selling alcohol to the indigenous peoples, fuelling social problems and outbreaks of violence. Although the region remained relatively safe, there was no civil government, and military explorers highlighted the "lawlessness" and lack of "security for life or property" that resulted from the absence of a formal justice system.
In 1869, the government of John A. Macdonald, made plans to create a 200-strong mounted police force to maintain order along the border; such a force, he thought, would enable the colonization of the region and be much cheaper than deploying regular militia units for the task. The implementation of this proposal was delayed, however, first by the rebellion of the Métis, and then by the threat of a Fenian invasion. Meanwhile, a survey conducted in 1871 by Lieutenant William Butler recommended establishing a mounted force of up to 150 men under a magistrate or commissioner, based along the northern trade routes, leaving the border area as a liminal, ungarrisoned zone. Colonel Patrick Robertson-Ross conducted another survey in 1872, and recommended an alternative strategy of recruiting a larger force of 550 men who would be tasked to push south into the border region itself and establish law and order there.
Macdonald acquired approval for his new force on May 23, 1873, after Parliament, following a cursory debate, passed the Mounted Police Act into law unopposed. At this point, Macdonald appears to have intended to create a force of mounted police to watch "the frontier from Manitoba to the foot of the Rocky Mountains", probably with its headquarters in Winnipeg. He was heavily influenced by the model of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which combined aspects of a traditional military unit with the judicial functions of the magistrates' courts, and believed that the new force should be able to provide a local system of government in otherwise ungoverned areas. Originally, Macdonald also had wanted to form units of Métis policemen, commanded by white Canadian officers in a similar manner to the British Indian Army, but he was forced to abandon this approach after the Red River Rebellion of 1870 called their loyalty into question.
In June 1873, around 30 members of the Assiniboine First Nation were killed in the Cypress Hills Massacre, creating a national furore. In response, Macdonald used a Privy Council order to enact the new legislation, formally creating the NWMP with the intention of mobilizing the force and deploying it early the next year. A report then arrived from Alexander Morris, the Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories, blaming the massacre on the activities of whisky traders at Fort Whoop-Up; Morris predicted that if action was not taken immediately, there would be a major uprising by the First Nations across the region, into which the United States might choose to intervene. Macdonald was not entirely convinced by the governor's analysis, but nonetheless he agreed to recruit 150 men and send them west to Lower Fort Garry before winter weather blocked the route.