The Early Settlers on Red River.
On the banks of the Red River of the North for well nigh forty years
before the coming of John Black, there had existed the Red River
Settlement. Fort Garry was its centre for upwards of thirty years of
that period. The fur trader on the Mackenzie River looked to the
settlement as his probable haven of rest when he should have finished
his days of active service and retired; the half-breed hunter of the
plains thought of it as the paradise to which he might make his annual
visit, or the place where he might at last settle, while the Kildonan
settler boasted that there was no place like his "oasis" in the
Northwest wilderness, and that the traveller who had tasted the magical
waters of Red River would always return to them again. The Canadian
youth read in his school-book of a far distant outpost, Fort Garry, and
chilled by the very sound of the name, whispering "cold as Siberia,"
passed on to the next subject. The Canadian statesman dreamed of a
Canada from ocean to ocean, but as he thought of the thousand miles of
impassable rocks and morasses between him and the fur-traders, he could
only shudder and say, "perhaps sometime," while the secretary of the
Hudson's Bay Company House in London with darkest secrecy folded
together his epistles, addressed them "_via_ Pembina," and then slipped
quietly away to his suburban residence, knowing that he had the key in
his pocket to unlock the door to half a continent, around which was
built an impenetrable Chinese wall.
As early as 1802 the Earl of Selkirk, a man of philanthropic and liberal
views, stirred by the accounts given by Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1801)
and other traders to the Indian country, wrote to the British Government
of the day a letter now in the British archives, proposing the
establishment in Red River of a colony for the purpose of relieving
Irish disaster and Highland misery. It was not until 1811 that Lord
Selkirk succeeded in obtaining, by purchase from the Hudson's Bay
Company, of which in the meantime he had become a member, the district
of Assiniboia on Red River, comprising 116,000 square miles. By way of
Hudson Bay was the route chosen, and in the letters of the founder occur
the words--words of still unfulfilled, but no doubt true prophecy: "To a
colony in these territories the channel of trade must be the river of
Port Nelson."
THE HIGHLANDERS.
At this time (1811) there were sad times in the Highlands of Scotland.
Cottars and crofters were being driven from their small holdings by the
Duchess of Sutherland and others, to make way for large sheep farms.
Strong men stood sullenly by, women wept, and wrung their hands, and
children clung to their distressed parents as they saw their steadings
burnt before their eyes. The "Highland clearances" have left a stain on
the escutcheons of more than one nobleman. Lord Selkirk, whose estates
were in the south of Scotland, and who had no special connection with
the Celts, nevertheless took pity on the helpless Highland exiles. Ships
were prepared, and the following are the numbers of Highland colonists
sent out in the respective years:
In 1811, reaching Red River in 1812, there were 70
In 1812, reaching Red River in 1813, there were (a part
Highland) 15 or 20
In 1813, reaching Red River in 1814, there were 93
In 1815, reaching Red River in the same year, there were 100
---
Total Selkirk Highland colonists, about 270
The names of these settlers were those still well known in Manitoba, as
Sutherland, McKay, McLeod, McPherson, Matheson, Macdonald, Livingstone,
Polson, McBeth, Bannerman, and Gunn.
From the above list it will be seen that at the end of 1814 the colony
had reached the number of one hundred and eighty or two hundred. Over
these ruled the Hudson's Bay Company governor, Capt. Miles Macdonell, a
U. E. Loyalist from Glengarry, in Canada. The fact that the Highland
settlers were under the protection of the Hudson's Bay Company roused
against them the opposition of the Northwest Fur Company, of Montreal,
which had for thirty or forty years before their coming carried on trade
in the country.
The two companies had their rival posts side by side at many points
throughout the Territories. The Nor'wester fort standing immediately at
the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers was called Fort
Gibraltar. The fort occupied by the colony was less than a mile down the
bank of the Red River, and was known as Fort Douglas from Lord Selkirk's
family name. It is of no consequence to our present object to determine
who opened hostilities or who was to blame in the contest of the
companies. Strife prevailed, and through this the colonists suffered. In
1814 arrived on the scene a jauntily-dressed officer of the Nor'west
Company, brandishing a sword and signing himself captain--one Duncan
Cameron. This man was a clever, diplomatic, and rather unscrupulous
instrument of his company, and coming to command Fort Gibraltar,
cultivated the colonists, spoke Gaelic to and entertained them with much
hospitality, and ended by inducing about one hundred and fifty of the
two hundred of them to desert Red River and go with him to Upper Canada.
By a long and wearisome journey to Fort William, and then in small boats
along Lakes Superior and Huron, they reached Penetanguishene, and found
new homes near Toronto, London, and elsewhere. To the faithful half
hundred who remained true to their pledges all honor is due.
The arrival of the third party of Highlanders in 1815 reinforced the
remnant who had resisted Cameron's seductive proposals. The Colony again
rose to three-fourths its original strength. In 1816 the Nor'westers
adopted still more extreme measures to destroy the colony. An attack was
made on the settlers on the 19th of June, and the new Governor, Robert
Semple, was killed, with a number of his attendants, at a spot a short
distance north of the present city of Winnipeg. Lord Selkirk on the
receipt of the news of the colony in 1815 had come to Montreal, and was
proceeding up the lakes to assist his people in 1816, when the news
reached him, on the way, of the skirmish of "Seven Oaks" and the death
of the governor. He was at the very time bringing with him as settlers,
a number of disbanded soldiers, who have usually been known as the "De
Meurons."
The regiments to which these men belonged were part of the body of
German mercenaries which had been raised during the Napoleonic wars. The
name of Col. De Meuron, one of the principal officers, was given to the
whole.
These new settlers were not all Germans, but had among them a number of
Swiss and Piedmontese. The regiments had been employed by Britain in the
war of 1812-15, and were disbanded in Montreal at its close. Lord
Selkirk engaged four officers and one hundred men to go to Red River.
The men were promised certain wages, as well as land grants at Red
River. In the autumn of 1816 the party arrived at Fort William, which
they seized and the camping place on the Kaministiquia River is still
called Point De Meuron. Employed during the winter in opening out for a
distance a military road, the party under command of Capt. D'Orsonnens
in early spring pushed on by the way of the western shore of the Lake of
the Woods, surprised the Northwesters, and retook Fort Douglas from
them. Lord Selkirk arrived at the Red River in the last week of June,
1817. In accordance with his agreement he settled all the De Meurons who
wished to remain, along the banks of the little river, the Seine, which
empties into the Red River opposite Point Douglas. This stream has among
the old settlers always been known as German Creek in consequence. Being
mostly Roman Catholics they were the first settlers among whom the
priests Provencher and Dumoulin took up their abode on their arrival in
1818. From the nationality of the De Meurons the first Roman Catholic
parish formed in the country was called St. Boniface, from Winifred, or
Boniface, the German apostle and patron saint. The first Roman Catholic
parish is now the town of St. Boniface, and is the residence of the
Roman Catholic Archbishop of the country.
Some severe things have been said of the character of the De Meuron
settlers. They have been charged with turbulence, insobriety, and with
having had predatory inclinations towards their neighbours' cattle. They
almost all left the country after the disastrous year of 1826, for the
United States. No doubt like all bodies of men they had good and bad
among them, but the fact of their having been disbanded mercenaries
would not incline us to expect a very high morality of them.
THE SWISS.
In the same year (1820) in which Lord Selkirk went to France, to find,
in the little town of Pau, his death and burial place, a former officer
of a disbanded regiment--Col. May--a native of the Swiss capital of
Berne, went as an agent of Lord Selkirk to Switzerland. He had been in
Canada, but not at Red River, and accordingly his representations among
the Swiss Cantons were too much of the kind circulated by Government
emigration agents still. He succeeded in inducing a considerable number
of Swiss families to seek the Red River settlement. Crossing the ocean
by Hudson's Bay Company ships, they arrived at York Factory in August,
1821, and were borne in York boats to their destination.
Gathered, as they had been, from the towns and villages of Switzerland,
and being chiefly "watch and clock makers, pastry cooks, and musicians,"
they were ill-suited for such a new settlement as that of Red River,
where they must become agriculturists. They seem to have been honest and
orderly people, though very poor. It will be remembered that the De
Meurons had come as soldiers; they were chiefly, therefore, unmarried
men. The arrival of the Swiss, with their handsome daughters, produced a
flutter of excitement in the wifeless De Meuron cabins along German
creek. The results may be described in the words of a most trustworthy
eye-witness of what took place: "No sooner had the Swiss emigrants
arrived than many of the Germans, who had come to the settlement a few
years ago from Canada, and had houses, presented themselves in search of
a wife, and, having fixed their attachment with acceptance, they
received those families in which was their choice into their
habitations. Those who had no daughters to afford this introduction were
obliged to pitch their tents along the banks of the river and outside
the stockades of the fort, till they removed to Pembina in better
prospects of provisions for the winter."
THE METIS.
Alongside the Selkirk settlers others began to settle on the vacant
banks of Red River. Most worthy of notice among them were the
half-breeds of French or English descent, whose mothers were Indian
women.
Parkman, in his account of Pontiac's conspiracy, has well shown the
facility with which the French voyageurs and Indian people coalesced.
Though a poor colonist, the French-Canadian is unequalled as a voyageur
and pioneer runner. When he settles on a remote lake or untenanted
river, he is at home. Here he rears in contentment his "dusky race." The
French half-breed, called also Metis, and formerly Bois-brulé, is an
athletic, rather good-looking, lively, excitable, easy-going being. Fond
of a fast pony, fond of merry-making, free-hearted, open-handed, yet
indolent and improvident, he is a marked feature of border life. Being
excitable, he can be aroused to acts of revenge, of bravery, and daring.
The McGillivrays, Grants, McLeods, and Mackays, who had French, Scotch,
and Indian blood, were especially determined. The Metis, if a friend,
is true, and cannot in too many ways oblige you.
The offspring of the Montreal traders with their Indian spouses, so
early as 1816, numbered several hundreds, and they possessed a
considerable esprit-de-corps. They looked upon themselves as a separate
people, and, headed by their Scoto-French half-breed leader, Cuthbert
Grant, called themselves the New Nation. Having tasted blood in the
death of Governor Semple, they were turbulent ever after. Living the
life of buffalo hunters, they preserved their warlike tastes. Largely
increased in numbers in 1849, they committed the grave offence of
rising, taking the law into their own hands, defying all authority, and
rescuing a French half-breed prisoner named Sayer.
This was in the time of Recorder Thom. Adam Thom, the judge, deserves a
word of notice. A native of Scotland, of large frame, great
intelligence, and strong will, he had had experience as a journalist in
Montreal. Sent up to establish law and order, he certainly did his best,
and should have had a proper force to support him. True, exception has
been taken to his decisions, but where is the judge that escapes that?
Among the leaders in this affair was one with the ominous name of Riel,
a Scoto-French half-breed, who owned a mill on the Seine River. He was
the father of Louis Riel, who afterwards led the French half-breeds in
their two rebellions. Louis Riel, the younger, was the embodiment of the
restless spirit of his race. Ambitious, vain, capable of inspiring
confidence in the breasts of the ignorant, yet violent, vacillating and
vindictive, the rebel chieftain died to atone for the turbulence of his
people.
ENGLISH HALF-BREEDS.
As different as is the patient roadster from the wild mustang, is the
English speaking half-breed from the Metis. So early as 1775 the
traveller, Alexander Henry, found Orkney employees in the service of the
Hudson's Bay Company at Cumberland House. The Orkney Islands furnished
so many useful men to the company that in 1816, when the Bois-brulés
came to attack the colony, though the colonists were mostly Highlanders,
they were called "Les Orcanais." Since 1821 the same supply of employees
to the company has continued and increased with occasionally an
admixture of Caithness-shire and other Highlanders.
Accordingly the English-speaking half-breeds are almost entirely of
Scotch descent. From Hudson's Bay to distant Yukon the steady-going
Orkney men have come with their Indian wives and half-breed children and
made the Red River their home. We have but to mention such well-known
respectable names as Inkster, Fobister, Setter, Harper, Mowat, Omand,
Flett, Linklater, Tait, Spence, Monkman, and others, to show how
valuable an element of population the English half-breeds have been,
though, of course, there are those bearing these names as well who are
of pure Orkney blood.
HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY OFFICERS.
No element, however, did so much for Red River of old as the intelligent
and high-spirited officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, of whom many
settled in the country. There was among them also a strong Highland and
Orkney strain. In few countries is the speech of the people generally so
correct as it was in the Red River settlement. This undoubtedly arose
from the influence of the educated Hudson's Bay Company officers. At
their distant posts on the long nights they read useful books and kept
their journals. Numbers of them collected specimens of natural history,
Indian curiosities, took meteorological observations, and the like.
Though all may not have been the pink of perfection, yet very few bodies
of men retained, as a whole, so upright a character as they. We have but
to mention such names as that of the notable governor, Sir George
Simpson, of Pruden, Bird, Bunn, Stewart, Lillie, Campbell, Christie,
Kennedy, Heron, Ross, Murray, MacKenzie, Hardisty, Graham, McTavish,
Bannatyne, Cowan, Rowand, Sinclair, Sutherland, Finlayson, Smith,
Balsillie, McLean, McFarlane, and Hargrave, and others who have settled
on the Red River, to establish this.
THE PENSIONERS.
Most portions of the new world have grown from additions from the
military, who have for some reason or other come to them. So it was in
Red River settlement. In 1846 the 6th Regiment of foot, some three
hundred and fifty strong, was sent out by way of Hudson's Bay under Col.
Crofton, in connection with the Oregon question, then disturbing the
relations of Great Britain and the United States. Few of the regiment
remained in the country. The troublous state of affairs in Recorder
Thom's time induced the company to send out a number of pensioners and
settlers who should be settled near the fort, and be useful in time of
emergency as police. It was in 1848 that Col. Caldwell, with fifty-six
non-commissioned officers and men, of whom forty-two were married and
had families, came out by way of Hudson's Bay, each man being promised
twenty acres of land and each sergeant forty. It was after their arrival
that the Sayer emeute took place.
THE CENSUS.
The nucleus of 150 Kildonan settlers in 1816 had with it a few Metis,
already settled down, but there was a need for a settlement for the
heart of the vast fur territories. The North-west Company, ever opposed
to settlement, we learn from Harmon's book, had a scheme on foot at this
time to establish a native settlement on Rainy River, and had the money
subscribed for an educational institution there. A settlement having
been once established on Red River, many flocked to it. Thus it was that
in ten years after the death of Governor Semple there were of
Highlanders, De Meurons, Swiss, French voyageurs, Metis, and Orkney
half-breeds, not less than fifteen hundred settlers. It was certainly a
motley throng. The Rev. Mr. West the first missionary, tells us that he
distributed copies of the Bible in English, Gaelic, German, Danish,
Italian, and French, and they were all gratefully received in this
polyglot community. Though the colony lost by desertion, as we have
seen, yet it continued to gain by the addition of retiring Hudson's Bay
Company officers and servants, who took up land, as allowed by the
company, in strips along the river, after the Lower Canadian fashion,
for which they paid small sums. There were in many cases no deeds,
simply the registration of the name in the company's register. A man
sold his lot for a horse, and it was a matter of chance whether the
registration of the change in the lot took place or not. This was
certainly a mode of transferring land free enough to suit the greatest
radical. The land reached as far out from the river as could be seen by
looking under a horse, say two miles, and back of this was the limitless
prairie, which became a species of common where all could cut hay, and
where herds could run unconfined.
Wood, water and hay, were the three r's of a Red River settler's life;
to cut poplar rails for his fences in spring and burn the dried rails in
the following winter was quite the proper thing. There was no inducement
to grow surplus grain, as each settler could only get a market for eight
bushels of wheat from the Hudson's Bay Company. It could not be
exported. Pemican from the plains was easy to get; the habits of the
people were simple, their wants were few, and while the picture was
hardly Arcadian, yet the new order of things since that time has borne
pretty severely upon many, so that they feel as did the kindly old lady,
"granny" Ross, of whom we have spoken, that they were "shut in" by so
many people coming to the country. The census of the whole settlement in
1849 amounted to 5,291.
THE PARISHES.
No municipal government was ever provided for the people of Red River,
though extensive petitions were forwarded to Britain for changes to be
made in the government of the country. The Assiniboia council, however,
passed certain ordinances, appointed road overseers, and from a slight
tariff of four per cent. on imports, enough was raised to carry on
public affairs. The local sub-divisions of Assiniboia were national and
religious. French and Roman Catholics taking up a certain portion of
river bank, Church of England half-breeds another, Scottish settlers and
Presbyterians another. This was done sometimes by the will of the
Hudson's Bay Company and sometimes without it. The first parish was
Kildonan, so set apart and named by Lord Selkirk, on his visit in 1817;
the De Meuron and Swiss settlement (1817-20) on the Seine, was the next,
resulting in the parish of St. Boniface.
It was to this community with its varied elements and many conflicting
interests that John Black found his way. It was here his life was spent,
and with this people we shall see he at length threw in his lot. The
population when he reached Red River was estimated at about 5,500 in
all. The settlement was at length swallowed up in the Manitoba of
to-day. It did its work though what that was will probably never be
quite appreciated by those who see the Manitoba of to-day.
It marked the slow but sure process of an influence of the
christianization and semi-civilization of many of our Indians; it gave
the introduction from a barbarous and wandering life to habits of order
and settled work; it furnished a valuable pioneering and trading agency
for the fur trade, for surveying our plains, and for our Canadian
exploration. It gave the nucleus of the present educational and
religious organizations, it made the Hudson's Bay Company not only a
trading company but a company helping forward in different ways, the
improvement of the Indians, and made them the friends of education and
religion, and if we read the story of its history aright, it saved to
Britain and Canada, the vast northwest which would otherwise not
unlikely have met the fate of Oregon. And to do so great a work was not
to fail.