THE SCOTTISH MERCHANTS OF MONTREAL.
Unyielding old Cadot--Competition--The enterprising
Henry--Leads the way--Thomas Curry--The older Finlay--Plundering
Indians--"Grand Portage"--A famous mart--The plucky Frobishers--The
Sleeping Giant aroused--Fort Cumberland--Churchill River--Indian
rising--The deadly smallpox--The whites saved.
The capture of Canada by General Wolfe in 1759 completely changed the
course of affairs in the Western fur country. Michilimackinac and Sault
Ste. Marie had become considerable trading centres under the French
_régime_, but the officers and men had almost entirely been withdrawn
from the outposts in the death struggle for the defence of Quebec and
Montreal.
The conquest of Canada was announced with sorrow by the chief captain of
the West, Charles de Langlade, on his return after the capitulation of
Montreal. The French Canadians who had taken Indian wives still clung to
the fur country. These French half-breed settlements at Michilimackinac
and neighbouring posts were of some size, but beyond Lake Superior,
except a straggler here and there, nothing French was left behind. The
forts of the western post fell into decay, and were in most cases burnt
by the Indians. Not an army officer, not a priest, not a fur trader,
remained beyond Kaministiquia.
The French of Michilimackinac region were for a time unwilling to accept
British rule. Old trader, Jean Baptiste Cadot, who had settled with his
Indian wife, Anastasie, at Sault Ste. Marie, and become a man of wide
influence, for years refused to yield, and a French Canadian author
says: "So the French flag continued to float over the fort of Sault Ste.
Marie long after the _fleur-de-lis_ had quitted for ever the ramparts
of Quebec. Under the shadow of the old colours, so fruitful of tender
memories, he was able to believe himself still under the protection of
the mother-country." However, Cadot ended by accepting the situation,
and an author tells us that like Cadot, "were the La Cornes, the
Langlades, the Beaujeus, the Babys, and many others who, after fighting
like lions against England, were counted a little later among the number
of her most gallant defenders." For several years, however, the fur
trade was not carried on.
The change of flag in Canada brought a number of enterprising spirits as
settlers to Quebec and Montreal. The Highland regiments under Generals
Amherst and Wolfe had seen Montreal and Quebec. A number of the military
became settlers. The suppression of the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland
in 1745 had led to the dispersion of many young men of family beyond
the seas. Some of these drifted to Montreal. Many of the Scottish
settlements of the United States had remained loyal, so that after the
American Revolution parties of these loyalists came to Montreal. Thus in
a way hard to explain satisfactorily, the English-speaking merchants who
came to Canada were largely Scottish. In a Government report found in
the Haldimand papers in 1784, it is stated that "The greater part of the
inhabitants of Montreal (no doubt meaning English-speaking inhabitants)
are Presbyterians of the Church of Scotland." It was these Scottish
merchants of Montreal who revived the fur trade to the interior.
Washington Irving, speaking of these merchants, says, "Most of the
clerks were young men of good families from the Highlands of Scotland,
characterized by the perseverance, thrift, and fidelity of their
country." He refers to their feasts "making the rafters resound with
bursts of loyalty and old Scottish songs."
The late Archbishop Taché, a French Canadian long known in the
North-West, speaking of this period says, "Companies called English, but
generally composed of Scotchmen, were found in Canada to continue to
make the most of the rich furs of the forests of the North. Necessity
obliged them at first to accept the co-operation of the French
Canadians, who maintained their influence by the share they took in the
working of these companies.... This circumstance explains how, after
the Scotch, the French Canadian element is the most important."
The first among these Scottish merchants to hie away from Montreal to
the far West was Alexander Henry, whose "Travels and Adventures in
Canada and the Indian Territories between the years 1760 and 1766" have
the charm of narrative of an Irving or a Parkman. He knew nothing of the
fur trade, but he took with him an experienced French Canadian, named
Campion. He appeared at Michilimackinac two years after the conquest
by Wolfe, and in the following year visited Sault Ste. Marie with its
stockaded fort, and formed a friendship with trader Cadot. In the
following year, Henry was a witness of the massacre at Michilimackinac,
so graphically described by Parkman in his "Conspiracy of Pontiac."
Henry's account of his own escape is a thrilling tale.
In 1765 Henry obtained from the Commandant at Michilimackinac licence
of the exclusive trade of Lake Superior. He purchased the freight of
four canoes, which he took at the price of 10,000 good, merchantable
beavers. With his crew of twelve men, and supplies of fifty bushels
of prepared Indian corn, he reached a band of Indians on the Lake who
were in poverty, but who took his supplies on trust, and went off to
hunt beaver. In due time the Indians returned, and paid up promptly
and fully the loans made to them. By 1768 he had succeeded in opening
up the desired route of French traders, going from Michilimackinac to
Kaministiquia on Lake Superior and returning. His later journeys we may
notice afterwards.
Of the other merchants who followed Henry in reviving the old route,
the first to make a notable adventure was the Scotchman Thomas Curry.
Procuring the requisite band of voyageurs and interpreters, in 1766
he pushed through with four canoes, along Verendrye's route, even to
the site of the old French Fort Bourbon, on the west of Cedar Lake, on
the lower Saskatchewan River. Curry had in his movement something of
the spirit of Verendrye, and his season's trip was so successful that,
according to Sir Alexander Mackenzie, his fine furs gave so handsome
a return that "he was satisfied never again to return to the Indian
country."
[Illustration: JUNCTION OF THE OTTAWA AND ST. LAWRENCE (near Cedars).]
Another valorous Scotchman, James Finlay, of Montreal, took up the
paddle that Curry had laid down, and in 1768, with a force equal to that
of Curry, passed into the interior and ascended the Saskatchewan to
Nipawi, the farthest point which Verendrye had reached. He was rewarded
with a generous return for his venture.
But while these journeys had been successful, it would seem that
the turbulent state of the Indian tribes had made other expeditions
disastrous. In a memorial sent by the fur traders a few years later
to the Canadian Government, it is stated that in a venture made from
Michilimackinac in 1765 the Indians of Rainy Lake had plundered
the traders of their goods, that in the next year a similar revolt
followed, that in the following year the traders were compelled to
leave a certain portion of their goods at Rainy Lake to be allowed to
go on to Lake Ouinipique. It is stated that the brothers, Benjamin and
James Frobisher, of Montreal, who became so celebrated as fur traders,
began a post ten years after the conquest. These two merchants were
Englishmen. They speedily took the lead in pushing forward far into
the interior, and were the most practical of the fur traders in making
alliances and in dealing successfully with the Indians. In their first
expedition they had the same experience in their goods being seized by
the thievish Indians of Rainy Lake; but before they could send back
word the goods for the next venture had reached Grand Portage on Lake
Superior, and they were compelled to try the route to the West again.
On this occasion they managed to defy the pillaging bands, and reached
Fort Bourbon on the Saskatchewan. They now discovered that co-operation
and a considerable show of force was the only method of carrying on a
safe trade among the various tribes. It was fortunate for the Montreal
traders that such courageous leaders as the Frobishers had undertaken
the trade.
The trade to the North-West thus received a marvellous development at
the hands of the Montreal merchants. Nepigon and the Kaministiquia,
which had been such important points in the French _régime_, had been
quite forgotten, and Grand Portage was now the place of greatest
interest, and so continued to the end of the century.
It is with peculiar interest a visitor to-day makes his way to
Grand Portage. The writer, after a difficult night voyage over the
stormy waters of Lake Superior, rowed by the keeper of a neighbouring
lighthouse, made a visit a few years ago to this spot. Grand Portage
ends on a bay of Lake Superior. It is partially sheltered by a rocky
island which has the appearance of a robber's keep, but has one
inhabitant, the only white man of the region, a French Canadian of very
fair means. On the bay is to-day an Indian village, chiefly celebrated
for its multitude of dogs. A few traces of the former greatness of
the place may be seen in the timbers down in the water of the former
wharves, which were extensive. Few traces of forts are now, a century
after their desertion by the fur traders, to be seen.
The portage, consisting of a road fairly made for the nine or ten miles
necessary to avoid the falls on Pigeon River, can still be followed. No
horse or ox is now to be found in the whole district, where at one time
the traders used this means of lightening the burden of packing over the
portage. The solitary road, as the traveller walks along it, with weeds
and grasses grown up, brings to one a melancholy feeling. The bustle of
voyageur and trader and Indian is no more; and the reflection made by
Irving comes back, "The lords of the lakes and forests have passed away."
And yet Grand Portage was at the time of which we are writing a place
of vast importance. Here there were employed as early as 1783, by the
several merchants from Montreal, 500 men. One half of these came from
Montreal to Grand Portage in canoes of four tons burden, each managed
by from eight to ten men. As these were regarded as having the least
romantic portion of the route, meeting with no Indians, and living
on cured rations, they were called the "mangeurs de lard," or pork
eaters. The other half of the force journeyed inland from Grand Portage
in canoes, each carrying about a ton and a half. Living on game and
the dried meat of the buffalo, known as pemmican, these were a more
independent and daring body. They were called the "coureurs de bois."
For fifteen days after August 15th these wood-runners portaged over
the nine or ten miles their burdens. Men carrying 150 lbs. each way
have been known to make the portage and return in six hours. When the
canoes were loaded at the west end of the portage with two-thirds
goods and one-third provisions, then the hurry of the season came, and
supplies for Lake Winnipeg, the Saskatchewan, and far distant Athabasca
were hastened on apace. The difficulties of the route were at many a
décharge, where only the goods needed to be removed and the canoes
taken over the rapids, or at the portage, where both canoes and load
were carried past dangerous falls and fierce rapids. The dash, energy,
and skill that characterized these mixed companies of Scottish traders,
French voyageurs, half-breed and Indian _engagés_, have been well
spoken of by all observers, and appeal strongly to the lovers of the
picturesque and heroic.
[Illustration: MAP OF ROUTE OF SCOTTISH MERCHANTS UP THE OTTAWA TO LAKE
ATHABASCA.]
A quarter of a century after the conquest we have a note of alarm at the
new competition that the Company from Hudson Bay had at last undertaken.
In the Memorial before us it is stated that disturbance of trade is
made by "New Adventurers." It is with a smile we read of the daring and
strong-handed traders of Montreal saying, "Those adventurers (evidently
H. B. Co.), consulting their own interests only, without the least
regard to the management of the natives or the general welfare of the
trade, soon occasioned such disorders, &c.... Since that time business
is carried on with great disadvantages."
This reference, so prosaically introduced, is really one of enormous
moment in our story. The Frobishers, with their keen business instincts
and daring plans, saw that the real stroke which would lead them on
to fortune was to divert the stream of trade then going to Hudson Bay
southward to Lake Superior. Accordingly, with a further aggressive
movement in view, Joseph Frobisher established a post on Sturgeon Lake,
an enlargement of the Saskatchewan, near the point known by the early
French as Poskoiac.
A glance at the map will show how well chosen Sturgeon Lake Fort was.
Northward from it a watercourse could be readily followed, by which the
main line of water communication from the great northern districts to
Hudson Bay could be reached and the Northern Indians be interrupted in
their annual pilgrimage to the Bay. But, as we shall afterward see, the
sleeping giant of the Bay had been awakened and was about to stretch
forth his arms to grasp the trade of the interior with a new vigour.
Two years after Frobisher had thrown down the pledge of battle, it was
taken up by the arrival of Samuel Hearne, an officer of the Hudson's Bay
Company, and by his founding Fort Cumberland on Sturgeon Lake, about two
miles below Frobisher's Fort. Hearne returned to the Bay, leaving his
new fort garrisoned by a number of Orkney men under an English officer.
During the same year an explorer, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company,
visited Red River, but no fort was built there for some time afterward.
The building of Fort Cumberland led to a consolidation on the part of
the Montreal merchants. In the next year after its building, Alexander
Henry, the brothers Frobisher, trader Cadot, and a daring trader named
Pond, gathered at Sturgeon Lake, and laid their plans for striking a
blow in retaliation, as they regarded it, for the disturbance of trade
made by the Hudson's Bay Company in penetrating to the interior from the
Bay.
Cadot, with four canoes, went west to the Saskatchewan; Pond, with two,
to the country on Lake Dauphin; and Henry and the Frobisher brothers,
with their ten canoes and upwards of forty men, hastened northward to
carry out the project of turning anew the Northern Indians from their
usual visit to the Bay. On the way to the Churchill River they built a
fort on Beaver Lake. In the following year, a strong party went north to
Churchill or English River, as Joseph Frobisher now called it. When it
was reached they turned westward and ascended the Churchill, returning
at Serpent's Rapid, but sending Thomas Frobisher with goods on to Lake
Athabasca.
From the energy displayed, and the skill shown in seizing the main
points in the country, it will be seen that the Montreal merchants were
not lacking in ability to plan and decision to execute. The two great
forces have now met, and for fifty years a battle royal will be fought
for the rivers, rocks, and plains of the North Country. At present it is
our duty to follow somewhat further the merchants of Montreal in their
agencies in the North-West.
There can be no doubt that the competition between the two companies
produced disorder and confusion among the Indian tribes. The Indian
nature is excitable and suspicious. Rival traders for their own ends
played upon the fears and cupidity alike of the simple children of the
woods and prairies. They represented their opponents in both cases as
unreliable and grasping, and party spirit unknown before showed itself
in most violent forms. The feeling against the whites of both parties
was aroused by injustices, in some cases fancied, in others real. The
Assiniboines, really the northern branch of the fierce Sioux of the
prairies, were first to seize the tomahawk. They attacked Poplar Fort on
the Assiniboine. After some loss of life, Bruce and Boyer, who were in
charge of the fort, decided to desert it. Numerous other attacks were
made on the traders' forts, and it looked as if the prairies would be
the scene of a general Indian war.
The only thing that seems to have prevented so dire a disaster was the
appearance of what is ever a dreadful enemy to the poor Indian, the
scourge of smallpox. The Assiniboines had gone on a war expedition
against the Mandans of the Missouri River, and had carried back the
smallpox infection which prevailed among the Mandan lodges. This
disease spread over the whole country, and several bands of Indians
were completely blotted out. Of one tribe of four hundred lodges, only
ten persons remained; the poor survivors, in seeking succour from other
bands, carried the disease with them. At the end of 1782 there were
only twelve traders who had persevered in their trade on account of
the discouragements, but the whole trade was for two or three seasons
brought to an end by this disease.
The decimation of the tribes, the fear of infection by the traders, and
the general awe cast over the country turned the thoughts of the natives
away from war, and as Masson says, "the whites had thus escaped the
danger which threatened them."
Two or three years after the scourge, the merchants of Montreal revived
the trade, and, as we shall see, made a combination which, in the
thoroughness of its discipline, the energy of its operations, the
courage of its promoters, and the scope of its trade, has perhaps never
been equalled in the history of trading companies.