RED RIVER SETTLEMENT.
1817-1846.
Chiefly Scottish and French settlers--Many
hardships--Grasshoppers--Yellow Head--"Gouverneur
Sauterelle"--Swiss settlers--Remarkable parchment--Captain
Bulger, a military governor--Indian troubles--Donald Mackenzie,
a fur trader, governor--Many projects fail--The flood--Plenty
follows--Social condition--Lower Fort built--Upper Fort
Garry--Council of Assiniboia--The settlement organized--Duncan
Finlayson governor--English farmers--Governor Christie--Serious
epidemic--A regiment of regulars--The unfortunate major--The people
restless.
The cessation of hostilities between the rival Companies afforded
an opportunity to Lord Selkirk's settlement to proceed with its
development. To the scared and harassed settlers it gave the prospects
of peace under their Governor, Alexander Macdonell, who had been in
the fur trade, but took charge of the settlement after the departure
of Miles Macdonell. The state of affairs was far from promising. The
population of Scottish and Irish settlers was less than two hundred.
There were a hundred or thereabout of De Meurons, brought up by Lord
Selkirk, and a number of French voyageurs, free traders or "freemen" as
opposed to _engagés_, and those who, with their half-breed families,
had begun to assemble about the forks and to take up holdings for
themselves. For the last mentioned, the hunt, fishing, and the fur trade
afforded a living; but as to the settlers and De Meurons, Providence
seemed to favour them but little more than the hostile Nor'-Westers had
done.
The settlers were chiefly men who were unacquainted with farming, and
they had few implements, no cattle or horses, and the hoe and spade
were their only means of fitting the soil for the small quantity of
grain supplied them for sowing. Other means of employment or livelihood
there were none. In 1818 the crops of the settlers were devoured by an
incursion of locusts. On several occasions clouds of these destructive
insects have visited Red River, and their ravages are not only serious,
but they paralyze all effort on the part of the husbandmen. The
description given by the prophet Joel was precisely reproduced on the
banks of the Red River, "the land is as the Garden of Eden before them,
and behind them is a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape
them." There was no resource for the settlers but to betake themselves
to Pembina to seek the buffalo. In the next year they sowed their scanty
seed, but the young "grasshoppers," as they were called, rose from the
eggs deposited in the previous year, and while the wheat was in the
blade, cleared it from the fields more thoroughly than any reaper could
have done. This scourge continued till the spring of 1821, when the
locusts disappeared suddenly, and the crop of that year was a bountiful
one.
During these years the colony was understood to be under the personal
ownership of Lord Selkirk. He regarded himself as responsible, as lord
paramount of the district, for the safety and support of the colonists.
In the first year of the settlement he had sent out supplies of food,
clothing, implements, arms, and ammunition; a store-house had been
erected; and this continued during these years to be supplied with what
was needed. It was the Governor's duty to regulate the distribution of
these stores and to keep account of them as advances to the several
settlers, and of the interest charged upon such advances. Whilst the
store was a boon, even a necessity, to the settlers, it was also an
instrument of oppression. Alexander Macdonell was called "Gouverneur
Sauterelle" ("Grasshopper Governor"), the significant statement being
made by Ross "that he was so nicknamed because he proved as great a
destroyer within doors as the grasshoppers in the fields." He seems,
moreover, to have been an extravagant official, being surrounded by
a coterie of kindred spirits, who lived in "one prolonged scene of
debauchery."
With the departure of the grasshoppers from the country departed also
the unpopular and unfaithful Governor. It was only on the visit of Mr.
Halkett, one of Lord Selkirk's executors, that Macdonell's course of
"false entries, erroneous statements, and over-charges" was discovered,
and the accounts of the settlers adjusted to give them their rights. The
disgraceful reign of Governor Macdonell was brought to a close none too
soon.
During the period of Governor Macdonell's rule a number of important
events had taken place. The union of the two rival Companies was
accomplished. Clergy, both Roman Catholic and of the Church of England,
had arrived in the colony. A farm had been begun by the Colony officers
on the banks of the Assiniboine, and the name of Hayfield Farm was borne
by it. Perhaps the most notable event was the arrival at Red River of a
number of Swiss settlers. These were brought out by Colonel May, late of
the De Watteville regiment. A native of Berne, he had come to Canada,
but not to Red River.
The Swiss were in many ways an element of interest. Crossing the ocean
by Hudson's Bay Company's ships they arrived at York Factory in August,
1821, and were borne in the Company's 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 sons and daughters, produced a flutter of excitement
in the wifeless De Meuron cabins along German Creek. The result is
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 the better prospects of provisions for the
winter." The whole affair was a repetition of the old Sabine story.
In connection with these De Meurons and Swiss, it may be interesting to
mention a remarkable parchment agreement which the writer has perused.
It is eleven feet long, and one and a half feet wide, containing the
signatures of forty-nine settlers, of which twenty-five are those of De
Meurons or Swiss, the remainder being of Highlanders and Norwegians.
Among these names are Bender, Lubrevo, Quiluby, Bendowitz, Kralic,
Wassloisky, Joli, Jankosky, Wachter, Lassota, Laidece, Warcklur, Krusel,
Jolicoeur, Maquet, and Lalonde.
This agreement binds the Earl of Selkirk or his agents not to engage
in the sale of spirituous liquors or the fur trade, but to provide
facilities for transport of goods from and into the country, and at
moderate rates. The settlers are bound to keep up roads, to support
a clergyman, and to provide for defence. The document is not only a
curiosity, but historically valuable. There is no date upon it, but the
date is fixed by the signatures, viz. "for the Buffalo Wool Company,
John Pritchard." That Company, we know, began, and as we shall see
afterwards, failed in the years 1821 and 1822. This, accordingly, is the
date of the document marking the era of the fusion of the Hudson's Bay
Company and the Nor'-Westers.
The De Meurons and Swiss never took kindly to Red River. So early as
1822, after wintering at Pembina, a number of them, instead of turning
their faces toward Fort Garry, went up the Red River into Minnesota,
and took up farms where St. Paul now stands, on the Mississippi. They
were the first settlers there. Among their names are those of Garvas,
Pierrie, Louis Massey, and that of Perry, men who became very rich in
herds in the early days of Minnesota.
On the removal of Governor Macdonell, Captain A. Bulger was, in June,
1822, installed as Governor of Assiniboia. His rule only lasted one year
and proved troublous, though he was a high-minded and capable official.
There lies before the writer, "Papers Referring to Red River,"
consisting chiefly of a long letter published by the Captain in India,
written in 1822 to Andrew Colville, one of the executors of Lord Selkirk.
One of his chief troubles was the opposition given him by the Hudson's
Bay Company officer Clarke, who was in charge of their establishment
at the Forks. Every effort was put forth by Clarke to make Bulger's
position uncomfortable, and the opposition drove the Captain away.
Bulger also had a worrying experience with Peguis, the chief of the
Indians on the Lower Red River. Though Peguis and the other chiefs had
made a treaty with Lord Selkirk and ceded certain lands to his Lordship,
they now, with the fickleness of children, repented of their bargain and
sought additional payment for the concession. Bulger's military manner,
however, overcame the chief, and twenty-five lashes administered to an
Indian who had attempted violence had a sobering effect upon the Red man.
Governor Bulger expresses himself very freely on the character of the De
Meuron settlers. He says: "It is quite absurd to suppose they will ever
prove peaceable and industrious settlers. The only charm that Red River
possesses in their eyes, and, I may say, in the eyes of almost all the
settlers, is the colony stores. Their demands are insatiable, and when
refused, their insolence extreme. United as they are among themselves,
and ferocious in their dispositions, nothing can be done against them."
It is but fair, however, to state that the Captain had a low opinion
both of the Hudson's Bay Company's officers and of the French Canadian
freemen.
Governor Bulger, on retiring, made the following suggestions, which show
the evils which he thought needed a remedy, viz. "to get courts and
magistrates nominated by the King; to get a company of troops sent out
to support the magistrates and keep the natives in order; to circulate
money; to find a market for the surplus grain; to let it be determined
whether the council at York Factory are justified in preventing the
settlers from buying moose or deer skin for clothing and provisions."
The Governor's closing words are, "if these things cannot be done, it
is my sincere advice to you to spend no more of Lord Selkirk's money
upon Red River."
Governor Bulger was succeeded by Robert Pelly, who was the brother of
Sir J. H. Pelly, the Governor of the Company in London. It seems to
have been about this time that the executors of Lord Selkirk, while
not divesting themselves of their Red River possessions, yet in order
to avoid the unseemly conflicts seen in Bulger's time, entrusted the
administration of their affairs to the Company's officers at Red River.
We have seen in a former chapter the appointment of the committee to
manage these Red River affairs at Norway House council.
After two years Pelly retired, and Donald McKenzie, a fur trader who had
taken part in the stirring events of Astoria, to which we have referred,
became Governor.
The discontent of the settlers, and the wish to advance the colony,
led the Company for a number of years after the union of the Companies
to try various projects for the development of the colony. Though the
recital of these gives a melancholy picture of failure, yet it shows a
heartiness and willingness on the part of the Company to do the best for
the settlers, albeit there was in every case bad management.
Immediately after the union of the two fur Companies in 1821, a company
to manufacture cloth from buffalo wool was started. This, of course,
was a mad scheme, but there was a clamour that work should be found
for the hungry immigrants. The Company began operations, and every one
was to become rich. $10,000 of money raised in shares was deposited
in the Hudson's Bay Company's hands as the bankers of the "Buffalo
Wool Company," machinery was obtained, and the people largely gave up
agriculture to engage in killing buffalo and collecting buffalo skins.
Trade was to be the philosopher's stone. In 1822 the bubble burst. It
cost $12.50 to manufacture a yard of buffalo wool cloth on Red River,
and the cloth only sold for $1.10 a yard in London. The Hudson's Bay
Company advanced $12,500 beyond the amount deposited, and a few years
afterwards was under the necessity of forgiving the debt. The Hudson's
Bay Company had thus its lesson in encouraging the settlers.
The money distributed to the settlers through this Company, however,
bought cattle for them, several hundred cattle having been brought from
Illinois that year. A model farm for the benefit of the settlers was
next undertaken. Buildings, implements, and also a mansion, costing
$3,000, for the manager, were provided. A few years of mismanagement and
extravagance brought this experiment to an end also, and the founders
were $10,000 out of pocket. Such was another scheme to encourage the
settlers.
Driven to another effort by the discontent of the people, Governor
Simpson tried another model farm. At a fine spot on the Assiniboine,
farm dwellings, barns, yards, and stables were erected and fields
enclosed, well-bred cattle were imported, also horses. The farm was well
stocked with implements. Mismanagement, however, again brought its usual
result, and after six years the trial was given up, there having been a
loss to the Company of $17,500.
Nothing daunted, the Red River settlers started the "Assiniboine Wool
Company," but as it fell through upon the first demand for payment of
the stock, it hurt nobody, and ended, according to the proverb, with
"much cry and little wool."
Another enterprise was next begun by Governor Simpson, "The Flax and
Hemp Company," but though the farmers grew a plentiful quantity of
these, the undertaking failed, and the crop rotted on the fields. A more
likely scheme for the encouragement of the settlers was now set on foot
by the Governor, viz. a new sheep speculation. Sheep were purchased in
Missouri, and after a journey of nearly fifteen hundred miles, only two
hundred and fifty sheep out of the original fourteen hundred survived
the hardships of the way.
A tallow company is said to have swallowed up from $3,000 to $5,000 for
the Hudson's Bay Company, and a good deal of money was spent in opening
up a road to Hudson Bay. Thus was enterprise after enterprise undertaken
by the Company, largely for the good of the settlers. If ever an honest
effort was made to advance an isolated and difficult colony, it was in
these schemes begun by the Hudson's Bay Company here.
The most startling event during the rule of Governor Mackenzie was the
Red River flood in 1826. The winter of this year had been severe, and
a great snowfall gave promise of a wet and dangerous spring. The snow
had largely cleared away, when, early in the month of May, the waters
began rising with surprising rapidity. The banks of the rivers were soon
unable to contain the floods, and once on the prairie level the waters
spread for miles east and west in a great lake. The water rose several
feet in the houses of the settlers. When the wind blew the waves dashed
over the roofs. Buildings were undermined and some were floated away.
The settlers were compelled to leave their homes, and took flight to
the heights of Stony Mountain, Little Mountain, Bird's Hill, and other
elevations. For weeks the flood continued, but at last, on its receding,
the homeless settlers returned to their battered and damaged houses,
much disheartened. The crops, however, were sown, though late, and a
fair harvest was gathered in that unpromising year.
The flood was the last straw that broke the back of the endurance of De
Meurons and Swiss colonists. They almost all withdrew from the country
and became settlers in Minnesota and other States of the American Union.
Either from pride or real dislike, the Selkirk settlers declared that
they were well rid of these discontented and turbulent foreigners.
The year of the flood seems to have introduced an era of plenty, for
the people rebuilt their houses, cultivated their fields, received full
returns for their labour, and were enabled to pay off their debts and
improve their buildings. During Governor McKenzie's régime at the time
of the flood, the population of the Red River settlement had reached
fifteen hundred.
After this, though the colony lost by desertions, 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 an English Radical or even
Henry George. 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
necessaries 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 authorized 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. Pemmican
from the plains was easy to get; the habits of the people were simple;
their wants were few; and while the condition of Red River settlement
was far from being that of an Arcadia, want was absent and the people
were becoming satisfied.
To Governor McKenzie, who ruled well for eight years, credit is due
largely for the peace and progress of the period. Alexander Ross, who
came from the Rocky Mountains to Red River in 1825, is the chronicler
of this period, and it is with amusement we read his gleeful account
of the erection of the first stone building, small though it was, on
the banks of Red River. Lime had been burnt from the limestone, found
abundantly along the lower part of the Red River, during the time of
Governor Bulger. It was in 1830 that the Hudson's Bay Company built a
small powder magazine of stone, near Fort Garry. This was the beginning
of solid architecture in the settlement.
In the following year the Hudson's Bay Company, evidently encouraged
by the thrift and contentment of the people, began the erection of a
very notable and important group of buildings some nineteen miles down
the river from the forks. This was called Lower Fort Garry. It was
built on the solid rock, and was, and is to this day, surrounded by a
massive stone wall. Various reasons have been advanced for the building
of this, the first permanent fort so far from the old centre of trade,
and of the old associations at the "forks." Some have said it was done
to place it among the English people, as the French settlers were
becoming turbulent; some that it was at the head of navigation from Lake
Winnipeg, being north of the St. Andrew's rapids; and some maintained
that the site was chosen as having been far above the high water during
the year of flood, when Fort Douglas and Upper Fort Garry had been
surrounded. The motive will probably never be known; but for a time it
was the residence of the Governor of Rupert's Land when he was in the
country, and was the seat of government. Four years afterwards, when
Alexander Christie had replaced Mr. Donald McKenzie as local governor,
Fort Garry or Upper Fort Garry was begun in 1835 at the forks, but on
higher ground than the original Fort Garry of 1821, which had been
erected after the union of the Companies.
This fort continued the centre of business, government, education, and
public affairs for more than three decades and was the nucleus of the
City of Winnipeg. Sold in the year 1882, the fort was demolished, and
the front gate, now owned by the city, is all that remains of this
historic group of buildings. The destruction of the fort was an act
of vandalism, reflecting on the sordid man who purchased it from the
Hudson's Bay Company.
In Governor Christie's time the necessity was recognized of having a
form of government somewhat less patriarchal than the individual rule
of the local governor had been. Accordingly, the Council of Assiniboia
was appointed by the Hudson's Bay Company, the president being Sir
George Simpson, the Governor of Rupert's Land, and with him fourteen
councillors. It may be of interest to give the names of the members
of this first Council. Besides the president there were: Alexander
Christie, Governor of the Colony; Rev. D. T. Jones, Chaplain H. B. C.;
Right Rev. Bishop Provencher; Rev. William Cochrane, Assistant Chaplain;
James Bird, formerly Chief Factor, H. B. C.; James Sutherland, Esq.; W.
H. Cook, Esq.; John Pritchard, Esq.; Robert Logan, Esq.; Sheriff Alex.
Ross; John McCallum, Coroner; John Bunn, Medical Adviser; Cuthbert
Grant, Esq., Warden of the Plains; Andrew McDermott, Merchant.
It is generally conceded, however, that the Council did not satisfy the
public aspirations. The president and councillors were all declared
either sinecurists or paid servants of the Company. The mass of the
people complained at not being represented. It was, however, a step very
much in advance of what had been, although there was a suspicion in
the public mind that it had something of the form of popular government
without the substance.
At the first meeting of the Council a number of measures were passed.
To preserve order a volunteer corps of sixty men was organized, with
a small annual allowance per man. Of this body, Sheriff Ross was
commander. The settlement was divided into four districts, over each of
which a Justice of the Peace was appointed, who held quarterly courts
in their several jurisdictions. At this court small actions only were
tried, and the presiding magistrate was allowed to refer any case of
exceptional difficulty to the court of Governor and Council. This
higher court sat quarterly also. In larger civil cases and in criminal
cases the law required a jury to be called. A jail and court-house were
erected outside the walls of Fort Garry. To meet the expense involved
under the new institutions a tax of 7-1/2 per cent. duty was levied
on imports and a like duty on exports. The Hudson's Bay Company also
agreed to contribute three hundred pounds a year in aid of public works
throughout the settlement.
The year 1839 was notable in the history of the colony. A new Governor,
Duncan Finlayson, was appointed, and steps were taken also to improve
the judicial system which had been introduced. An appointment was made
of the first recorder for Red River settlement. The new appointee was
a young Scottish lawyer from Montreal, named Adam Thom. He had been
a journalist in Montreal, was of an ardent and somewhat aggressive
disposition, but was a man of ability and broad reading. Judge Thom
was, however, a Company officer, and as such there was an antecedent
suspicion of him in the public mind. It was pointed out that he was not
independent, receiving his appointment and his salary of seven hundred
pounds from the Company. In Montreal he had been known as a determined
loyalist in the late Papineau rebellion, and the French people regarded
him as hostile to their race.
The population of the settlement continued to increase. In the last year
of Governor Finlayson's rule, twenty families of Lincolnshire farmers
and labourers came to the country to assist with their knowledge of
agriculture. After five years' rule Governor Finlayson retired from
office, and was succeeded for a short time by his old predecessor, Mr.
Alexander Christie.
A serious epidemic visited the Red River in the year 1846. Ross
describes it in the following graphic way: "In January the influenza
raged, and in May the measles broke out; but neither of these
visitations proved fatal. At length in June a bloody flux began its
ravages first among the Indians, and others among the whites; like the
great cry in Egypt, 'There was not a house where there was not one
dead,' On Red River there was not a smiling face on 'a summer's day.'
From June 18th to August 2nd, the deaths averaged seven a day, or three
hundred and twenty-one in all, being one out of every sixteen of our
population. Of these one-sixth were Indians, two-thirds half-breeds, and
the remainder white. On one occasion thirteen burials were proceeding at
once."
During this year also the Oregon question, with which we shall
afterwards deal, threatened war between Great Britain and the United
States. The policy of the British Government is, on the first appearance
of trouble, to prepare for hostilities. Accordingly the 6th Royal
Regiment of Foot, with sappers and artillery, in all five hundred
strong, was hurried out under Colonel Crofton to defend the colony.
Colonel Crofton took the place of Alexander Christie as Governor. The
addition of this body of military to the colony gave picturesqueness to
the hitherto monotonous life of Red River. A market for produce and the
circulation of a large sum of money marked their stay on Red River. The
turbulent spirits who had made much trouble were now silenced, or betook
themselves to a safe place across the boundary line.