A Kindred Spirit.
It might not be right to say that it was John Black's intermarriage with
the native people of the country and the fact of his own children having
Indian blood rather than the Christian sentiment in favor of carrying
the Gospel to the wandering Indian tribes of the prairies, that more
strongly influenced him, but it is certain that early in his ministry he
began to cry out for a Presbyterian mission among the Indians. His
ardent appeal led to the synod so early as 1857 passing a resolution in
favor of undertaking this work. The comforting task of passing favorable
resolutions was indulged in for ten years, but toward the end of this
decade some money had been accumulated and the church undertook its
first work among the Red Indians of the plains.
This period was a time of much anxiety to John Black, the ardent
advocate of the project. Sitting in his lonely study on Red River it was
discouraging to read letters from Toronto telling how one year more, and
another year, and so on was deemed necessary to mature the scheme. One
year he refers to the agitation going on at the Red River in favor of
union with Canada and to a petition signed by upwards of five hundred
heads of families being forwarded to the British government to further
this object. John Black's chief thought was that if the petition were
granted, and the northwest became a part of Canada, something would
surely then be done for the poor Indian.
A SELECTION MADE.
While not quite prepared to undertake the mission the church went so far
in 1862 as to send to Mr. Black's assistance at Red River, one of its
ministers who should be engaged in learning the Indian language, and
otherwise preparing himself for the Indian work resolved on. This agent
was Rev. James Nisbet, minister of Oakville, Upper Canada. James Nisbet
was of a missionary family, his brother, Dr. Nisbet, who paid a visit to
Canada, more than a quarter of a century ago, having been honored to
take a leading place in the South Sea mission of the Free Church of
Scotland. James Nisbet had come out to Canada from Scotland full of the
fervor of the period of the disruption and though a skillful tradesman,
had thrown in his lot with the first band of students which entered Knox
College. The minister of Kildonan and he had been fellow students and
co-workers, and now that James Nisbet had been appointed to Red River,
John Black found in him a kindred spirit.
On his arrival in 1862, being an unmarried man, he became a resident at
the Kildonan Manse, and we find frequent reference, in the collection of
letters, to the hearty co-operation of the two ministers, and the spirit
of rejoicing that now they could overtake Kildonan, Little Britain,
Headingly, and the new station to which the Governor had given an
invitation at Fort Garry. Mr. Nisbet while an earnest preacher, and as
Mr. Black writes, "working diligently and acceptably," yet had a
remarkable liking for building. At Kildonan there is still pointed out
the parish schoolhouse, a stone building, much of the woodwork of which
was done by Mr. Nisbet personally. Mr. Nisbet very readily fell into the
ways of the Red River people, and two or three years after his arrival
was married to Mary McBeth, a member of one of the best known Kildonan
families, and sister of the present minister of Augustine Church,
Winnipeg.
HEATHEN INDIANS.
The question of how and where to begin work among the Indians was a
difficult one, and on Mr. Black largely fell the responsibility of
determining the question. He had the confidence of the committee in the
east, and he was the friend of the Hudson's Bay Company in the far west.
The Church of England and Roman Catholics were carrying on work among
the Swampy Crees, Saulteaux, and other Ojibways about Lake of the Woods
and Lake Manitoba, as well as in the far off Mackenzie River district,
while the former had almost a monopoly of the missions around Hudson
Bay. The English Wesleyans had for years carried on missions among the
Indians near Norway House and the north end of Lake Winnipeg, and after
the visit of John Ryerson, whose letters about the region were
published, the work was taken over by the Methodist Church in Canada. It
was manifest that the call sent the Presbyterian Church was to the
Indians of the western prairies, who had only seen the passing
missionary and were still in absolute heathenism. After much
deliberation it was decided to undertake work among the Crees of the
plains, of whom there were said to be from ten to fifteen thousand
largely without the gospel.
These Indians are among the finest physically and mentally of the
Canadian Indians. They are of the same race as the Ojibways, belonging
to the great Algonquin family known on the Atlantic sea-board and
continuing along the Laurentian country to the north of our Canadian
lake chain. Leaving behind the rocky regions where the birch-bark canoe
and wigwam, and the fish of the streams, with the game of the forest,
had been their chief dependence, the Crees of the Plains used horses, of
which they had numerous bands, chased the buffalo to obtain a bountiful
subsistence, and lived in leathern teepees. The language of the Crees,
while the same in structure as that of the Ojibways, has yet its
vocabulary much modified from that of the parent tongue. While the
Crees, in their love of the buffalo and fondness for following the herds
over the plains, were thoroughly nomadic and likely to be difficult to
evangelize, yet the task was undertaken cheerfully. Their great camps
were the scenes of the wildest excitement and greatest excesses, and yet
they were a brave, self-reliant, and able people. The cut given of four
of their chiefs who visited Brantford at the time of the unveiling of
the Brant statue in 1886, gives a good illustration of the appearance of
staidness and solidity found among them.
THE TASK BEGUN.
In 1865 Mr. Nisbet was recommended to the synod for a mission among this
uncivilized but interesting people. The gravity of the enterprise is to
be borne in mind. Hudson's Bay Company traders had for many years
ventured among the tribes of the plains. The Hudson's Bay Company
trader, however, had the Union Jack flying over him; he was housed in a
strong fort; in his hands were weapons, and the power of the company was
felt over the whole land; but the missionary came with a message of
peace; he had no emblem of force about him, he preached the doctrine,
"If one cheek was smitten to turn the other also," and so to proceed 500
miles from Red River and break ground on the Saskatchewan, to be largely
dependent on the locality for sustenance, and to trust to the good-will
of the Indians, required courage and resource. And these qualities James
Nisbet had. He was not a man of display, was a man of quiet,
undemonstrative manner, but had no cowardice or surrender in him. Like
his countryman, the Highland piper, who was asked to play the "retreat,"
he could reply that he had never learned that tune. Mr. Nisbet's
theology was of a very exact kind. He was in the habit of advising
complete reliance in God, perhaps there was a strain of the severe, even
of the stoical, in it; but in the case of our pioneer Indian missionary,
he lived out and exemplified it as well as preached it.
FOR CHRIST AND COUNTRY.
A journey from the Red River to the Saskatchewan by the Canadian Pacific
Railway to-day is a comparatively trifling matter, taking twenty-five or
thirty hours; but thirty years ago it meant much. It required an outfit
that could serve the purpose for forty or fifty days. The sending of a
missionary, known to the people of Kildonan and by marriage one of
themselves, profoundly stirred the Highland parish. In one of Mr.
Black's letters he states that the people of the parish had raised
between £80 and £100 sterling for the purpose of making a suitable
send-off for the man who had become so popular among them.
Mr. Nisbet's plan, in so far as we can gather, was from the first to be
practical and industrial. His effort was to induce the nomadic Indians
to settle, to cultivate the land, and to make the Indian independent of
the precarious results of the chase. In order to accomplish his ideal it
was necessary to provide himself with a considerable establishment, so
that the mission party, inclusive of his wife and little child and two
other children, numbered ten persons. They were provided with the
necessary outfit for hunting, fishing, building, and farming. The day of
departure was the 6th of June, 1866, and it was a day of great moment
for Kildonan. The Saskatchewan was being looked to as the land of
promise. Gold had been discovered in its sands, and one of Mr. Black's
letters mentions that a number of Kildonan young men had been among the
fortunate explorers. The establishment had about it the air of a
Kildonan enterprise, and these elements added wider interest to the
Christian effort to evangelize the heathen, which was so dear to Mr.
Nisbet's heart. It was a high day for John Black, for he had felt it a
scandal that his church should be the only one of the four churches at
work in Rupert's Land not doing something for the aborigines of the
country.
INTO THE WILDERNESS.
We are fortunate in having a letter, quoted in Dr. Gregg's "Short
History," giving in Mr. Nisbet's own words an account of the journey
into the wilderness. From this we make a few extracts:
"All our goods were carried in carts; each cart was drawn by one ox,
harnessed something like a horse. Mrs. Nisbet and our little girl and a
young woman rode on a light wagon with a canvas top, such as you
sometimes use in Canada. For myself I was generally on horseback but
frequently walking, as the oxen do not go very fast. We had tents, such
as soldiers use, which we pitched every night, and in them we were
generally very comfortable. The Sabbaths were delightful to us. Both men
and animals were prepared for the weekly rest. It was pleasant to see
the poor oxen evidently enjoying the rich pasture of the wilderness and
the rest they had from their daily toil. We had regular Sabbath
services, and they were very devout.
"We had a good many creeks and rivers to cross, and I dare say you would
have been much amused had you seen the plans that were fallen upon for
crossing such as were too deep for loaded carts. Few of my friends in
the east have seen a boat made with two cartwheels tied together and an
oilcloth spread over them, or one made of ox hides sewed together and
stretched on a rough frame, that would take two carts and their loads at
a time. Such were the contrivances for getting over streams where there
are no bridges or large boats by which we could cross. We passed over a
great deal of beautiful country, with hills and valleys, streams, lakes,
and ponds. Hundreds of ducks were swimming about in the little lakes,
and sometimes they furnished dinners for us. Sandhill cranes were also
seen occasionally, and a few of them were shot for our Sabbath dinners.
Forty days after we left our Red River homes we got to a place called
Carlton House, on the north branch of the great Saskatchewan River, and
there we camped for one week, while I went to see some places that I
could fix upon for our future home."
PRINCE ALBERT FOUNDED.
At Carlton, George Flett, the interpreter of the mission, who had been
in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company at Edmonton, met the party.
He has since become known to the Church as its oldest living Indian
missionary. Born on the Saskatchewan of Scottish and Indian extraction,
he had received a good English education at the schools on Red River.
His wife was a member of the Ross family, being a sister of Mrs. John
Black. The gathering of missionary agents also included Mr. John McKay,
a Scoto-French-Indian native, who belonged to a family well known at Red
River for its energy and influence. John McKay was married to a sister
of Mrs. Nisbet, and he steadfastly clung to Mr. Nisbet in the
prosecution of the Indian work.
The party at Fort Carlton made a considerable impression upon the
Indians. While the Indians were glad to see so many of the Red River
people coming to them, yet some trouble arose when the decision was made
to settle at a point sixty miles south-east of Carlton House and not far
from the forks where the north and south branches of the Saskatchewan
unite. No treaties had as yet been made with the Indians, and they
objected to the incomers erecting buildings, ploughing fields, and
taking possession of the land as the agents of the mission proposed to
do. George Flett was the useful man for the occasion. His mother's
people were Crees, and he was among the very band, whose members he
recognized as relations. With his characteristic shrewdness he claimed
his portion and gave permission to the Red River party to utilize his
rights. This claim seems to have been at once admitted by the Cree band
of the locality. The new mission was appropriately named after the
Prince Consort, Albert the Good, who had passed away a few years before.
MISSION WORK BEGUN.
The plan of the establishment was soon vigorously worked out. During the
first year two small buildings were erected, and what was since known as
the large mission building in the year after. A school was immediately
opened, a farm begun, and every means taken to attract the Indians to
the place. As was not unnatural, the maimed, the halt, and the blind
were brought to the kind-hearted missionary, and it must be stated that
no small trouble was experienced in protecting the missionary from the
cunning and the lazy among the Indian bands. The Indian's view of
salvation is very often a willingness to accept the white man's religion
provided the consideration offered is sufficient. How to meet this
difficulty was one of Mr. Nisbet's chief concerns.
For four years Mr. Black was the sole intermediary between the Foreign
Mission Committee of the Church and Mr. Nisbet. When the Presbytery of
Manitoba was established in 1870 matters took a slightly different
shape. A Foreign Mission Committee of Presbytery was formed, of which
Mr. Black was convener.
Mr. Nisbet did such itinerant work as he was able. He journeyed to
Edmonton, a point upwards of 400 miles west of Prince Albert. He visited
the Indians of Carlton House once a month and had success with them. But
the management of an industrial centre, such as Prince Albert had
become, was plainly inconsistent with any large amount of sowing the
Gospel "broadcast" among the wandering tribes, from fifty to five
hundred miles away. Another difficulty overtook Prince Albert as an
Indian mission in a few years after its founding. It was the centre of a
fertile region very attractive to white settlers. The white settlement
led the bands of wandering Crees to retreat to more remote districts.
The writer in 1871 became a member of the Presbytery's Committee, of
which Mr. Black was convener, and well remembers the unrest of the
period.
At this time the large expense of an establishment like Prince Albert
was meeting opposition in the Church and this, along with the other
considerations stated, brought much trouble to the venerable convener in
regard to the mission which he loved as a child of his own. In 1872 Dr.
Moore, of Ottawa, went as a delegate to the Saskatchewan, in behalf of
the General Assembly. His report led to the discontinuance of the
industrial phase of the mission, but it also rendered a tribute of
commendation and praise to the faithful work that had been done by the
founder, to the high reputation borne by the mission among all the bands
of Crees, and to the steady influence for righteousness attached to the
name of James Nisbet. In the course of time the Indian mission at Prince
Albert ceased to be, unless the mission school among a wandering band of
Sioux still maintained there be so regarded. John McKay, afterwards
ordained, was invited to a band of Crees north of Carlton, and till his
death ministered to Mistawasis' band. Other churches have taken hold of
the bands about Prince Albert, and to-day as a result direct or
indirect, of James Nisbet's work, few Indians of the district are
without the Gospel.
Shortly after Dr. Moore's visit to Prince Albert, Mr. Nisbet and his
wife visited his old home in Ontario, and he was present at the General
Assembly of 1873. He returned to his dear Prince Albert, but being left
alone by the resignation of Rev. Edward Vincent who had come to
Manitoba, and finding his plans somewhat changed by the action of the
Church, he arrived with his wife at Kildonan, in September, seeking a
temporary rest. The writer well remembers them as they returned. Their
work seemed to be done, and the Presbytery soon decided to lay hands on
Hugh McKellar, an earnest student, and license and ordain him for the
work in Prince Albert. Mrs. Nisbet soon passed away in the home where
she was born, and eleven days afterward her husband followed her. They
are together in Kildonan churchyard. His grave marks the spot where lies
as true, brave and single-minded a man as ever laid a foundation stone
in the work of missions.
A NEW DEPARTURE.
Though Mr. Black as Convener of the Foreign Mission Committee of the
Presbytery had some sympathy for the industrial ideal of Missions among
the Indians held by Mr. Nisbet, yet, on the decision of the General
Assembly being given, he loyally accepted the plan proposed, of
attending simply to evangelistic work among the tribes and to teaching
the young. It is to be remembered, however, that between 1866 and 1874
circumstances had changed. It was evident in 1874 that the buffalo was
soon to be a thing of the past, and the Canadian Government approved the
plan of settling the Indians upon reserves and of teaching them to be
farmers. The policy of the Government thus left the Church to pursue its
own method.
The Committee now began to extend its work. George Flett, who had left
Prince Albert Mission in 1869, was sent to two bands, one near Fort
Pelly, the other on the west side of Riding Mountain. These missions
were very successful. Mr. Flett was ordained as an Indian missionary,
and lived to see the Okanese Reserve on Little Saskatchewan entirely
Christianized. The Fort Pelly band was left to a young half-breed of Red
River, Cuthbert McKay, since dead, and has grown to be the Crowstand
Mission of to-day. In 1875 the Sioux or Dakota band of refugees from the
United States living on the Birdtail Creek were taken under the care of
the Presbytery's Foreign Mission Committee and a pure blooded Sioux
missionary from the States obtained for them. This mission is still
maintained, and is part of the constituency of the Birtle Indian
boarding school.
Mr. Black lived long enough to see the Mistawasis, Okanese, Pelly, and
Birdtail missions fairly established. Nothing delighted him more than to
preside at the meeting of his committee, read the letters from the
missionaries, and then to write the necessary letters of counsel and
advice, and at times even of gentle fault-finding, which were agreed on.
All his friends lament that he passed away too soon to know of Round
Lake, File Hills, the western Qu'Appelle Valley reserves and the Portage
la Prairie, Birtle and Regina Indian schools. He saw enough, however, to
assure him that his dream of a Christianized Indian population would in
the end be realized.