Meanwhile the bounds of the Dominion were being pushed westward to the Pacific. The old province of Canada, as the heir of New France, had vague claims to the western plains, but the Hudson's Bay Company was in possession. The Dominion decided to buy out its rights and agreed, in 1869, to pay the Company 300,000 pounds for the transfer of its lands and exclusive privileges, the Company to retain its trading posts and two sections in every township. So far all went well. But the Canadian Government, new to the tasks of empire and not as efficient in administration as it should have been, overlooked the necessity of consulting the wishes and the prejudices of the men on the spot. It was not merely land and buffalo herds which were being transferred but also sovereignty over a people. In the valley of the Red River there were some twelve thousand metis, or half-breeds, descendants of Indian mothers and French or Scottish fathers. The Dominion authorities intended to give them a large share in their own government but neglected to arrange for a formal conference. The metis were left to gather their impression of the character and intentions of the new rulers from indiscreet and sometimes overbearing surveyors and land seekers. In 1869, under the leadership of Louis Riel, the one man of education in the settlement, able but vain and unbalanced, and with the Hudson's Bay officials looking on unconcerned, the metis decided to oppose being made "the colony of a colony." The Governor sent out from Ottawa was refused entrance, and a provisional Government under Riel assumed control. The Ottawa authorities first tried persuasion and sent a commission of three, Donald A. Smith (afterwards Lord Strathcona), Colonel de Salaberry, and Vicar General Thibault. Smith was gradually restoring unity and order, when the act of Riel in shooting Thomas Scott, an Ontario settler and a member of the powerful Orange order, set passions flaring. Mgr. Tache, the Catholic bishop of the diocese, on his return aided in quieting the metis. Delegates were sent by the Provisional Government to Ottawa, and, though not officially recognized, they influenced the terms of settlement. An expedition under Colonel Wolseley marched through the wilderness north of Lake Superior only to find that Riel and his lieutenants had fled. By the Manitoba Act the Red River country was admitted to Confederation as a self-governing province, under the name of Manitoba, while the country west to the Rockies was given territorial status. The Indian tribes were handled with tact and justice, but though for the time the danger of armed resistance had passed, the embers of discontent were not wholly quenched.