SEMPLE, sem’p’l, Robert (1766-1816), a Canadian traveler and governor under the Hudson’s Bay Company, who played a brief but prominent role in the development of the Northwest. Semple was born at Boston Mass., but early in life became a wanderer in mercantile pursuits, and between 1803 and 1815 he appeared in turn in South Africa, London, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Turkey, again Portugal and Spain, and finally in Venezuela. In 1815, through the influence of the Earl of Selkirk, he was appointed governor of Rupert’s Land for the Hudson’s Bay Company.
At the time of Sempe’s arrival in Northwest there was considerable bitterness between the employees of the old Northwest Company and the Selkirk settlers in the Red River Valley. The Nor’ Westers, knowing that Lord Selkirk was a shareholder in the Hudson’s Bay Company, suspected that the real object of the colony was to interfere with the Canadian company’s trade. While Semple was away on a tour of inspection, one of his assistants destroyed Fort Gibraltar, a Northwest Company post half a mile from the settlement. The Nor’ Westers prepared to retaliate, and on the nineteenth of June a body of them on horseback were seen to approach Winnipeg. At a spot now marked by the Seven Oaks Monument Semple, with a small party, met the Nor’ Westers in a pitched battle which cost Semple’s life. See Selkirk, Thomas Douglas, for the final result of the struggle.
