The Hudson's Bay Company was founded by a Royal Charter in 1670, which granted a group of investors a monopoly on trade in the Hudson Bay region of North America, known as Rubert's Land. The early years of the Company witnessed fighting between the British and French over control of the region. This conflict was settled by the Peace of Utrecht, 1713-1714, although rivalry continued between the British and French traders from Montreal and Quebec. After the transfer of Canada from France to England in 1763, the Company faced a new challenge from Montreal fur traders, who formed the North West Company. After years of a bitter rivalry, the companies merged in 1821, and the Hudson's Bay Company went on to expand its influence throughout Canada and in the United States. In 1869 the Company surrendered its ownership of the Rubert's Land territory to the Dominion of Canada in return for a payment and agricultural land, which it gradually sold to settlers. In succeeding years the Company shifted its focus to the retail trade, developing department stores in western Canada before expanding into the east in the second half of the twentieth century. During the 1980s the Company divested itself of its interests in the fur trade and peripheral concerns and concentrated fully on retailing.