1816-1820
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS CONTINUED--GOVERNOR SEMPLE AND TWENTY
COLONISTS ARE BUTCHERED AT SEVEN OAKS--SELKIRK TO THE RESCUE CAPTURES
FORT WILLIAM AND SWEEPS THE NOR’WESTERS FROM THE FIELD--THE SUFFERING
OF THE SETTLERS--AT LAST SELKIRK SEES THE PROMISED LAND AT RED RIVER.
Here, then, is the position, June 17, 1816.
My Lord Selkirk is racing westward from Montreal to the rescue of his
Red River colonists with two hundred men made up of disbanded De Meuron
and De Watteville soldiers and French canoemen.
William McGillivray has gathered all the Eastern partners of the
Northwest Company together--McLoughlin, the doctor; Simon Fraser,
the explorer; McLeod, the justice of the Peace; Haldane, McLellan,
McGillis, Keith and the rest--and with a hundred armed men and two
cannon, is dashing for Red River to outrace Selkirk, rescue Duncan
Cameron, restore Fort Gibraltar, and prevent the forcible eviction of
the Northwest Company from Assiniboia.
Selkirk goes by way of Lake Ontario and the modern Simcoe. The
Nor’Westers follow the old trail up the Ottawa.
In the West, blacker gathers the storm. Deprived of their pemmican
by Semple’s raids, the Nor’Westers rally their Plain Rangers under
Cuthbert Grant to Alexander McDonell of Qu’ Appelle, determined to
sweep down the Assiniboine and meet the up-coming express from Montreal
at all hazards. This will prevent Semple capturing those provisions,
too. Incidentally, the Plain Rangers intended to rescue Cameron from
the Hudson’s Bay men. They do not know he has been sent to the bay.
Incidentally, too, they intend “_to catch Robertson and skin him and
feed him to the dogs_.” They do not know that he, too, has gone off in
a huff to the bay. Gibraltar is to be restored. They do not know that
it has been dismantled. Then, when the Nor’West partners come from the
East, the Hudson’s Bay people are to be given a taste of their own
medicine. No attack is planned. The Plain Rangers are to keep away
from Fort Douglas; but the English company is to be starved out, and
if there is resistance--then, in the language of Alex McDonell, mad
with the lust of revenge for the death of Eneas--“_the ground is to be
drenched with the blood of the colonists_.”
In Fort Douglas sits Robert Semple, Governor of the Colony, his cannon
pointed across Red River to stop all trespassers on Selkirk’s domain.
One other chessman there is in the desperate game. Miles MacDonell,
the captured governor of Red River, has been released at Montreal
and is speeding westward in a light canoe with good cheer to the
colonists--word of Selkirk’s coming.
Red River is the storm center. Toward it converge three different
currents of violence: the Plain Rangers from the West; Selkirk’s
soldiers, and the Nor’Westers’ men from the East. What is it all about?
Just this--shall or shall not the feudal system prevail in the Great
Northwest? Little cared the contestants about the feudal system. They
were fighting for profits in terms of coin. They were pawns on the
chess board of Destiny.
* * * * *
Comes once more warning to the blinded Semple, secure in his beliefs
as if entrenched in the castle of a feudal baron. A chance hunter
paddles down the Assiniboine to Red River. “My governor! My governor!”
the rough fellow pleads. “Are you not afraid? The Half-breeds are
gathering! They are advancing! They will kill you!”
“Tush, my good man,” laughs Semple, “I’ll show them papers proving that
we own the country.”
“_Own_ the country? What does _that_ mean?” The freeman shakes his
head. No man owns these boundless plains.
Comes again Moustache Batino, whom Doctor White had healed of a wound.
“A hundred and fifty Bois Brulés (Burnt Wood Runners) are at the
Portage of the Prairie! They will be here by to-morrow night.”
“Well, what of it? Let ’em come,” smiles Semple.
The Indian ruminates--Is this Englishman mad?
“Mad! Nonsense,” says Semple to his secretary, Wilkinson. “They will
never be such fools as to break the law when they know we have right on
our side.”
But old Chief Peguis of the Sauteurs knows nothing at all about that
word “law.” June 18th, at night when the late sunset is dyeing the
Western prairies blood red, Peguis knocks at the fort gates.
“Governor of the gard’ners and land workers,” he declares, “listen to
me--listen to me, white man! Let me bring my warriors to protect you!
The Half-breeds will be here to-morrow night. Have your colonists sleep
inside the fort.”
Semple grows impatient. “Chief,” he declares, “mark my words! There is
not going to be any fighting.”
All the same Peguis goes to Marie Gaboury, Lajimoniere’s wife. “White
woman,” he commands, “come you across the river to my tepee! Blood is
to be shed.”
And Marie Gaboury, who has learned to love the Indians as she formerly
feared them, follows Chief Peguis down the river bank with her brood of
children, like so many chickens.
Such is her fright as she ensconces the children in the chief’s canoe,
that she faints and falls backward, upsetting the boatload, which
Peguis rescues like so many drowned ducklings, but Lajimoniere’s family
hides in the Pagan tent while the storm breaks.
* * * * *
On the evening of June 19th, the boy on watch in the gate tower calls
out, “the Half-breeds are coming.” Semple goes up to the watchtower
with a spyglass. So do Heden, the blacksmith; and Wilkinson, the
secretary; and White, the doctor; and Holte, the young lieutenant of
the Swedish Marines; and John Pritchard, who has left the Nor’Westers
and joined the colony; and Bourke, the storekeeper.
“Those certainly are Half-breeds,” says Pritchard, pointing to a line
of seventy or a hundred horsemen coming from the west across the swamps
of Frog Plain beyond Fort Douglas toward the colony.
“Let twenty men instantly follow me,” commands Semple. “We’ll go out
and see what those people want.”
Bayonets, pistols, swords are picked up in confusion, and out sallies a
little band of twenty-seven men on foot.
The Half-breeds are not approaching Fort Douglas. They are advancing
toward the colony. Half a mile out, Semple meets the colonists rushing
for the fort in a wild panic. Alex McBeth, a colonist who had been a
soldier, calls out, “Keep your back to the river, Governor! They are
painted! Don’t let them surround you.”
“There is no occasion for alarm! I am only going to speak to them,”
answers Semple, marching on, knee-deep through the hay fields. All
the same, he sends a boy back with word for Bourke, the storekeeper,
and McLean, the farmer, to hitch horses and drag out the cannon. As
the Half-breeds approach Semple sees for himself they are daubed in
war paint and galloping forward in a semi-circle. Young Holte of the
Marines becomes so flustered that he lets his gun off by mistake, which
gives the Governor a start.
“Mind yourself,” Semple orders. “I want no firing at all.”
“My God, Governor! We are all lost men,” mutters Heden, the blacksmith;
and Kilkenny, a fighting Irishman, begs, “Give me leave, Governor! Let
me shoot; or we shall all be shot. There’s Grant, the leader. Let me
pick off Grant!”
“No firing, I tell you,” orders Semple angrily, and the two parties
come in violent collision on a little knoll of wooded ground called
Seven Oaks.
With Grant are our old friends of the Saskatchewan--Falçon, the rhyming
poet; and Boucher, son of the scout shot on the South Saskatchewan;
and Louis Primo, old reprobate who had deserted Cocking fifty years
ago; and two of Marguerite Trottier’s brothers from Pembina; and a
blackguard family of Deschamps from the Missouri; and seventy other
Plain Rangers from the West.
Followed by a bloodthirsty crew hard to hold, Cuthbert Grant was
appalled to see Semple march out courting disaster.
“Go tell those people to ground their arms and surrender,” he ordered
Boucher.
“What do you want?” demanded Semple as Boucher galloped up.
“Our fort,” yelled Boucher forgetting his message.
“Then go to your fort!” vehemently ordered Semple.
“Rascal! You have destroyed our fort,” roared the angry Half-breed.
“Dare you address me so?” retorted Semple, seizing the scout’s gun.
“Men--take him prisoner!”
“Have a care you do me no ill,” shouted Boucher slipping off the other
side of his horse, prancing back.
“Take him prisoner--I say! Is this a time to be afraid?” shouts Semple.
“My God! We are all dead men,” groans Sutherland, the Scotch colonist,
for the dread war whoop had rent the air. There was a blaze of
musketry, and there reeled back with his arms thrown up--young Holte,
the officer who had boasted that with the Lake Winnipeg schooner “he
would give the Northwest scoundrels a drubbing.” Another crash, and
Semple is down with a broken thigh. Cuthbert Grant dismounts and
rushes to stop the massacre. “I am not mortally wounded! Take me to
the fort,” gasps Semple. Grant turns to call aid. The Deschamps stab
the Governor to death on the spot. The firing lasts less than fifteen
minutes, but twenty of the Hudson’s Bay men have fallen, including all
the officers, four colonists, fifteen servants. Captain Rodgers is
advancing to surrender when he is hacked down. Of the twenty-seven who
followed out, Pritchard, the former Nor’Wester, is saved by surrender;
and five men escape by swimming across the river. As for the cannon,
Bourke is trundling it back as fast as the horses can gallop. McLean,
the settler, has been slain. One, only, of the Plain Rangers, Batoche,
has been killed; only one wounded--Trottier of Pembina; and Cuthbert
Grant at last succeeds in stopping the infuriated rabble’s advance and
drawing off to camp west of Seven Oaks.
No need to describe the blackness of the work that night on the
prairie. The Half-breeds wreaked their pent-up vengeance on the
bodies of the slain. Let it be said to the credit of the Nor’Westers,
they had no part in this ghoulish work. The worst miscreants were
the Deschamps of the Missouri, whose blood-stained hands no decent
Indian would ever touch after that night. In camp, Pierre Falçon,
the rhymster, was chanting the glories of the victory, and Pritchard
was pleading with Grant for the lives of the women and children. For
years afterward--yes, even to this day--terrible stories were told
of the threats against the families of the colonists; but let it be
stated there was never at any time the shadow of a vestige of a wrong
contemplated against the women and children. What Indians might do, old
Chief Peguis had shown. What the Deschamps, who were half-white men,
might do--the mutilated bodies of the dead at Seven Oaks revealed.
Pritchard was sent across to the fort with word that the colonists
must save themselves by surrender. Otherwise, Grant could not answer
for their safety among his wild Plain Rangers. The panic of the two
hundred people inside was pitiable. For a second time they were to be
driven houseless to the wilderness, and yet the bolder spirits were for
manning the fort and resisting siege. If only they could have known
that Selkirk was coming; but Lajimoniere lay captive in the butter-vat
prison at Fort William, and Miles MacDonell had not yet come. Without
help, how could two hundred people subsist inside the palisades? A
white sheet was tied on the end of a pole, and the colonists marched
out on June 22nd, at eight in the morning, Grant standing guard to
protect them as they embarked in eight boats for Lake Winnipeg. Before
abandoning Fort Douglas, Angus Matheson and old Chief Peguis gather a
few of the dead and bury them in a dry coulée near the site of the old
Cree graveyard at the south end of modern Winnipeg’s Main Street. Other
bodies are buried as they lie at Seven Oaks; but the graves are so
shallow they are ripped open by the wolves. Grant rides along the river
bank to protect the colonists from marauders till they have passed the
Rapids of St. Andrew’s and are well beyond modern Selkirk.
Beyond Selkirk, at the famous camping place of Nettley Creek, whom
should the colonists meet but the Nor’ West partners galloping their
canoes at racehorse pace to reach the field of action before Selkirk.
“What news?” calls Norman McLeod; but the news is plain enough in the
eight boat loads of dejected colonists.
The Nor’Westers utter a war whoop, beat the gun’els of their canoes,
shout their victory. “_Thank Providence_,” writes one partner, Robert
Henry, “_that the battle was over before we got there, as it was our
intention to storm the fort. Our party consisted of one hundred men,
seventy firearms, two field pieces. What our success might have been,
I will not pretend to say; but many of us must have fallen in the
contest._” The Nor’Westers have always maintained that they had not
planned to attack Fort Douglas and that the onus of blame for the
fearful guilt of Seven Oaks Massacre rested on Semple for coming out to
oppose the Half-breeds, who were going to meet the Montreal express.
Such excuse might do for Eastern law courts, whose aim was to suppress
more than they revealed; but the facts do not sustain such an excuse.
The events are now a century past. Let us face them without subterfuge.
The time had come, the time was bound to come, when the rights of
a Feudal Charter would conflict violently with the strong though
lawless arm of Young Democracy. Therein lies the significance of what
apologists and partisans have called the Skirmish of Seven Oaks.
Norman McLeod, the Justice of the Peace, hails the harried colonists
ashore at Nettley Creek. They notice among the Northwest partners
several soldiers dressed in regimentals--mark that, those who condemn
Selkirk for hiring De Meuron soldiers! Two can play at the game of
putting soldiers in red coats to bluff the Indians into believing the
government is behind the trader. The settlers notice also, carefully
hidden under oilcloth, two or three brass cannon in the Nor’Westers’
boats. Mark that, those who condemn Selkirk for bringing cannon along
with his bodyguard!
As justice of the peace, Norman McLeod seizes the dead Semple’s baggage
for incriminating papers. As justice of the peace--though it was queer
kind of peace--he arrests those men who escaped from Seven Oaks,
and claps them in irons that prevent Bourke, the storekeeper, from
dressing his wounds. The colonists are then allowed to proceed to their
wintering ground amid the desolate woods of Lake Winnipeg at Jack River.
The triumphant Nor’Westers do not wait long at Red River. McLeod goes
on to rule like a despot in Athabasca. The others hurry back to their
annual meeting at Fort William, for they know that Selkirk is coming
West. Bourke and the prisoners are carried along to be thrown into
the butter-vat prison. Dark are the plots the prisoners overhear as
they journey up Winnipeg River and Rainy Lake down to Lake Superior.
Alex McDonell of the Assiniboine, burning for revenge as usual,
urges the partners to make “_his Lordship pay dearly for his conduct
coming west; for I will say no more on paper--but there--are fine
quiet places along Winnipeg River, if he comes this way_!” And one
night in camp on Rainy Lake, Bourke, the prisoner, lying in the dark,
hears the Nor’West partners discussing affairs. Selkirk’s name comes
up. Says Alex McDonell, “_The Half-breeds could easily capture him
while he is asleep._” Bourke does not hear the other’s answer; but
McDonell rejoins, “_They could have the Indians shoot him._” Were they
planning to assassinate Selkirk coming West? Who knows? Alex McDonell
was ever more violent than the rest. As for Selkirk, when word of
this conversation came to him, he took care neither to come nor go by
Winnipeg River.
* * * * *
In passing back from Red River across Winnipeg Lake, the Nor’Westers
pause to destroy that armed Hudson’s Bay schooner, which was “to sweep
Northwest canoes” from the lake. Down at Fort William, the Hudson’s Bay
prisoners are flung into the prison along with the captured scout,
Lajimoniere. “Things have gone too far; but we can throw the blame on
the Indians,” says William McGillivray.
“But there was not an Indian took part in the massacre,” retorts Dr.
John McLoughlin, always fair to the native races, for he has married
the Indian widow of that Alex McKay of MacKenzie’s voyages and Astor’s
massacred crew.
* * * * *
In the despatches which were stolen from Lajimoniere, Selkirk had
written to Colin Robertson that he was coming to Red River by way of
Minnesota to avoid clashes with the Nor’Westers at Fort William. By
July he had passed from Lake Simcoe across Georgian Bay to the Sault.
Barely had he portaged the Sault to Lake Superior when he meets Miles
MacDonell, his special messenger, galloping back from Red River in a
narrow canoe with word of the massacre.
What to do now? Selkirk could go on to Red River by way of Minnesota;
but his colonists are no longer there. At the Sault are two magistrates
of the Indian country--Mr. Askin and Mr. Ermatinger. Lord Selkirk
swears out information before them and appeals to them to come with
him and arrest the Northwest partners at Fort William. They refuse
point-blank. They will have nothing to do with this quarrel between
the two great fur companies--this quarrel that really hinges on
feudalism versus democracy; English law as against Canadian. To obtain
justice in Eastern Canada is impossible. That, Selkirk has learned
from a winter of futile bickering for military protection to prevent
this very disaster. Selkirk writes fully to the new governor of
Canada--Sir John Sherbrooke--that having failed to obtain protection
from the Canadian courts he has determined to go on, strong in his own
right--as conferred by the charter and as a justice of the peace--to
arrest the Northwest partners at Fort William. “_I am reduced to the
alternative of acting alone, or of allowing an audacious crime to pass
unpunished. I cannot doubt it is my duty to act, though the law may be
openly resisted by a set of men accustomed to consider force the only
criterion of right._”
The Nor’Westers had forcibly invaded and destroyed his colony. Now he
was forcibly to invade and destroy their fort. Was his decision wise?
Was it the first misstep into the legal tangle that broke his courage
and sent him baffled to his grave? Let who can answer! Be it remembered
that the Canadian authorities had refused him protection; that the
Canadian magistrates had refused him redress.
His De Meuron soldiers had not worn their military suits. He bids them
don their regalia now and move forward with all the accouterments of
war--a feudal lord leading his retinue!
“_Between ten and eleven this morning, the Earl of Selkirk accompanied
by his bodyguard, came up the river in four canoes_,” writes Jasper
Vandersluys, a clerk of Fort William, on August 12, 1816. “_Between
one and two, he_ (Selkirk) _was followed by eleven or twelve boats,
each having from twelve to fifteen soldiers all armed, who encamped on
the opposite shore._” The afternoon passed with Selkirk’s men planting
cannon along the river bank, heaping cannon balls in readiness and
cleaning all muskets. Nor’West voyageurs and their wives rush inside
the palisades. The women are sheltered in a central building upstairs
above a trapdoor. The men are sent scurrying to hide one hundred loaded
muskets in a hay loft. In the watchtower above the gates stand the
Nor’West partners--William McGillivray, the three MacKenzies--Alex, son
of Roderick; Kenneth, and old drunken, befuddled Daniel--Simon Fraser,
the explorer; several of the McDonell clan, and Dr. John McLoughlin,
shaking his head sadly at these preparations for violence. “There has
been too much blood shed already,” he remarks.
Next afternoon comes a Hudson’s Bay messenger from Selkirk asking for
McGillivray. McLoughlin and Kenneth MacKenzie accompany McGillivray
across the river. One hour passes; two hours! The women, watching from
the loft windows above the trapdoor, began to hope that a truce had
been arranged. At seven in the evening the partners had come from the
watchtower to shut the gates when two boat loads of some sixty soldiers
glide up to the wharf. Fraser and Alex McDonell and old drunken Daniel
MacKenzie rush to slam the gates shut. One leaf is banged when a bugle
sounds! Captain D’Orsonnens of the soldiers, shouts “To arms, to arms,”
plants his foot in the gateway and with flourishing sword rushes
his men into the courtyard “with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets,
shouting, cursing, swearing death and destruction to all persons.” One
Nor’Wester rushes to ring an alarm bell. The others have dashed for
their apartments to destroy papers. In a twinkling, Selkirk’s men have
captured every cannon in Fort William and are knocking at the doors of
the central building. Not a gun has been fired; not a blow struck; not
a drop of blood shed; but the trampling feet terrify the women in the
attic. They crowd above the trapdoor to hold it down, when, presto!
the only tragedy of the semi-farce takes place! The crowding is too
much for the trapdoor. Down it crashes spilling the women into the
room below, just as the astonished De Meurons dash into the apartment
to seal all desks and papers. It is a question whether the soldiers
or the women received the greater shock; but the greatest surprise
of all is across the river where the three Northwest partners are
received by Selkirk between lines of armed soldiers and are promptly
arrested, bail refused, for complicity in the massacre of Seven Oaks.
Selkirk allows them to go back to the fort on parole for the night and
orders the liberation of those Hudson’s Bay prisoners in the butter-vat
prison--Lajimoniere and the survivors of Seven Oaks, who tell my lord a
tale that sharpens his vengeance. The night passes in alarm. Soldiers
on guard at the room of each partner detect the Nor’Westers burning
papers that might be used as evidence; and the loaded muskets are found
in the hay loft; and furs are discovered stamped R. R.--H. B. C.--which
have been rifled from some Hudson’s Bay post.
Day dawns in a drizzling rain. Across the river comes my Lord Selkirk,
himself, with the pomp of a war lord, bugles blowing, soldiers in
the boats with muskets on shoulders, a guard to the fore clearing
the way. The common voyageurs are forthwith ordered to decamp to the
far side of the river. Lord Selkirk takes up quarters in the main
house, the partners being marched at bayonet point to other quarters.
For four days the farce lasts. Lord Selkirk as justice of the peace
examines and commits for trial all the partners present. The partners
present scorn his assumption of authority and formally demand that
the voyageurs be sent West with supplies for the year. Selkirk’s
answer is to seize the voyageurs’ canoes and set his soldiers to using
the palisades of Fort William for firewood. Then, under pretense of
searching for evidence on the massacre at Seven Oaks, he seizes all
Northwest documents. Under pretense of searching for stolen furs,
he examines all stores. On August 18th, everything is in readiness
to conduct the prisoners to Eastern Canada, all except old Daniel
MacKenzie.
Drunken old MacKenzie is remanded to the prison for special
examination. MacKenzie had long since been incapacitated for active
service, and he treasured a grudge against the other partners for
forcing him to resign. Why is MacKenzie being held back by Selkirk?
Before the other partners are carried off, their suspicions are
aroused. Perhaps they see Miles MacDonell and the De Meurons plying
the old man in his prison with whiskey. At all events, they command
the clerks left in charge to ignore orders from Daniel MacKenzie. They
protest he has no authority to act for the Northwest Company. It may be
they remember how they had jockeyed John Jacob Astor out of his fort
on the Pacific by a forced sale; and now guess the game that is being
played with Daniel MacKenzie against them. The partners’ baggage is
searched. The De Meurons turn even the pockets of the haughty partners
inside out. Then the prisoners are embarked in four large canoes under
escort of De Meuron soldiers. The canoes are hurriedly loaded and badly
crowded. Near the Sault, on August 26th, one swamps and sinks, drowning
seven of the people, including the partner, Kenneth MacKenzie. Allan
McDonell and Doctor McLoughlin escape by swimming ashore. At what is
now Toronto, the prisoners are at once given bail, and they dispatch
a constable to arrest Selkirk at Fort William; but Selkirk claps the
constable in gaol for the month of November and then ignominiously
drums him from the fort. With Selkirk, law is to be observed only when
it is English. Canadian courts do not count.
* * * * *
Fuddled with drink, crying pitiably for more, Daniel MacKenzie passed
three weeks a prisoner in the butter vat, three more a prisoner in
his own room. Six weeks of dissipation, or else his treasured spite
against the other partners, now work so on MacKenzie’s nerves that he
sends for Miles McDonell on September 19th, and offers to sell out the
Nor’Westers’ possessions, worth £100,000, at Fort William, to Lord
Selkirk for £50 down, £2,000 in a year, and the balance as soon as the
whole price could be arbitrated by arbitrators appointed by the Lords
Chief Justice of England. “_I have been thinking_,” runs his rambling
letter in the hand-writing of Miles McDonell, “_that as a partner of
the North-West Company and the only one here at present that I can act
for them myself, that all the company’s stores and property here are
at my disposal; that my sale of them is legal by which I can secure to
myself all the money which the concern owes me and keep the overplus
in my hands until a legal demand be made upon me to pay to those
entitled.... I can not only dispose of the goods but the soil on which
they are built if I can find a purchaser._”
Naturally, MacKenzie finds a purchaser in my Lord Selkirk of the
Hudson’s Bay and almost at once receives his liberty. Just as McDougall
had sold out the Americans on the Columbia, so MacKenzie now sells out
the Nor’Westers at Fort William.
Then the old man writes rambling confessions and accusations which--he
boasts to Selkirk--contain evidence “_that will hang McGillivray_” for
the massacre of Seven Oaks. Selkirk decides to send him to Eastern
Canada as a witness against the partners, but before he is sent he
writes circular letters to the wintering partners of the Northwest
Company advising them to follow his example and save themselves from
ruin by turning over their forts to Lord Selkirk. In October he is sent
East, but by the time he reaches the Sault, his brain has cleared. He
meets John McLoughlin and other Northwest partners returning to the
Up Country and confesses what he has done. Instead of turning witness
against them, he proceeds East to sue Selkirk for illegal imprisonment.
If Selkirk’s first mistake was trying to enforce feudalism on Red River
and his second the raiding of Fort William, his third error must be set
down as using an old drunkard for his tool. For the first error, he had
the excuse that English law was on his side. For the second, he claimed
that “_Fort William had become a den of marauders and robbers and he
was justified in holding it till the Nor’Westers restored Red River_,”
but for the trickery with old MacKenzie there existed no more excuse
than for the lawlessness of the Nor’Westers. To say that Miles McDonell
wrote the letters with MacKenzie’s signature and that he engineered the
trick--no more clears Selkirk than to say that paid servants committed
the most of the crimes for the Northwest partners. It is the one blot
against the most heroic figure in the colonizing of the West. And the
trick fooled no one. Not a voyageur, not a trader, flinched in his
loyalty to the Northwest Company. Not a man would proceed west with
the canoes for the Hudson’s Bay officers.
The Lords of the North had fallen and their glory had departed; but not
a man of the service faltered in his loyalty. It was a loyalty strong
as the serf for the feudal baron.
* * * * *
From Fort William, Selkirk’s soldiers radiated to the Northwest posts
of Rainy Lake and Minnesota. Peter Grant was brought prisoner from
Fond du Lac for obstructing the Selkirk scout, Lajimoniere. At the
Pic, at Michipicoten, at Rainy Lake, the De Meuron soldiers appear and
the Northwest forts surrender without striking a blow. Then Captain
D’Orsonnens sets out in December with twenty-six men for Red River. He
is guided by J. Ba’tiste Lajimoniere and the white man who had lived
among the Ojibbways--Tanner. They lead him along the iced river bed
to Rainy Lake, then strike straight westward through the snow-padded
forests of Minnesota for the swamp lands that drain to Red River near
the Boundary. All travel by snowshoes, bivouacking under the stars.
Then a dash down Red River by night march on the ice and the Selkirk
forces are within striking distance of Fort Douglas by the first week
of January, 1817. Wind and weather favor them. A howling blizzard
enshrouds earth and air. They go westward to the Assiniboine in the
wooded region now known as St. James and Silver Heights. Here in the
woods, hidden by the snowstorm, they construct scaling ladders. On the
night of January 10th, the storm is still raging. D’Orsonnens rushes
his men across to Fort Douglas. Up with the scaling ladders and over
the walls are the De Meurons before the Nor’Westers know they are
attacked! As fell Fort William, so falls Fort Douglas without a blow
or the loss of a life. J. Ba’tiste learns with joy that his wife,
Marie Gaboury, has not been murdered at all but is living safe under
old Chief Peguis’ protection across Red River, and the French woman’s
amazement may be guessed when there appeared at the hut where Peguis
had left her, the wraith of the husband whom she had believed dead for
two years. Tanner, the other scout, stays in D’Orsonnens’ service till
Selkirk comes.
The dispossessed Nor’Westers scatter to Lake Winnipeg. After them
marches D’Orsonnens to Winnipeg River, where Alex McDonell is trying to
bribe the Indians to sink Selkirk’s boats when he comes in the spring.
The De Meurons capture the post at Winnipeg River, and send coureurs to
recall the scattered colonists. Alex McDonell escapes to the interior.
All the while, from June 19th to January 19th, the colonists had been
wandering like the children of Israel in a wilderness of woes. When
they had been driven to Lake Winnipeg by the massacre, they had begged
Mr. Bird of the Saskatchewan to forward them to Hudson Bay, whence
they could take ship for England, but Bird pointed out there was no
boat coming to the bay in 1816 large enough to carry two hundred
people. To go to the bay for the winter would be to risk death from
starvation. Better winter on the good hunting and fishing grounds
of Lake Winnipeg. It was well the majority took his advice, for the
Company ships this year were locked in the bay by the ice. Cameron, the
Northwest prisoner, and Colin Robertson, his inveterate enemy, were
both ice-bound at Moose. The few settlers who pushed forward to the bay
like the widow McLean, wife of the murdered settler, passed a winter of
semi-starvation at the forts.
Bird set the colonists fishing for the winter, and they erected huts
at Jack River. Here, then, came De Meuron soldiers in the spring of
1817, to lead the wandering colonists back to Red River; and to Red
River came Selkirk by way of Minnesota in the summer. For the first
time the nobleman now saw the Promised Land to which he had blazed a
trail of suffering and sacrifice and blood and devotion for Earth’s
Dispossessed of all the world! D’Orsonnens had given out a few packs
of seed, grain and potatoes to each settler. Rude little thatch-roofed
cabins had been knocked together with furniture extemporized of trees
and stumps. Round each cabin there swayed in the yellow July light
to the rippling prairie wind, tiny checker-board patches of wheat
and barley and oats, first fruits of infinite sacrifice, of infinite
suffering, of infinite despair--type for all time, sacrificial and
sacred, of the Pioneer! For the first time Selkirk now saw the rolling
prairie land, the rolling prairie world, the seas of unpeopled,
fenceless, limitless fields, free as air, broad as ocean! To these
prairie lands had he blazed the Trail. Was it worth while--the
suffering on that Trail, the ignominy he was yet to suffer for that
Trail? Did Selkirk foresee where that Trail was to lead; how the
multitudinous feet of Life’s Lost, Earth’s Dispossessed, would trample
along that Trail to New Life, New Hope, New Freedom? Faith in God,
confidence in high destiny, had been to the children of Israel through
their wilderness, a cloud of shade by day, a pillar of fire by night.
Had Selkirk the comfort of the same vision, confidence of the same
high destiny for his people? I cannot answer that. From the despairing
tone of his letters, I fear not. All we know is that like all other
great leaders he made mistakes, and the consequences of those mistakes
hounded him to his death.
In August, he gathered the people round him on the spot where St.
John’s Cathedral now stands. He shook hands with each and learned
from each his tale of suffering. To each he gave one hundred acres of
land free of all charges, as compensation for their hardships. Then
he gave them two more lots. “This lot on which we stand, shall be for
your church,” he said. “That lot south of the creek shall be for your
school; and in memory of your native parish, this place shall be called
Kildonan.” To render the title of the colonists’ land doubly secure,
Selkirk had assembled the Swampy Crees and Saulteaux on July 18th
and made treaty with them for Red River on condition of a quit-rent
of one hundred pounds of tobacco. To Lajimoniere, the scout, Selkirk
assigned land in the modern St. Boniface, that brought to Marie
Gaboury’s children, and her children’s children, untold wealth in the
town lots of a later day. Tanner, the stolen white boy, Selkirk tried
to recompense by advertising for his relatives in American papers. A
brother in Ohio answered the advertisement and came to Red River to
meet the long lost boy. The restoration was fraught with just such
disaster as usually attends the sudden transplanting of any wild thing.
Tanner, the white boy, had become Tanner the grown Indian. He left
his Indian wife and married a Christian girl of Detroit. The union was
agony to them both. Tanner was a man at war in his own nature--neither
white man nor Indian. In a quarrel at the Sault some years later, he
was accused of shooting a man and fled from arrest to the swamps.
When spring came, his skeleton was found. He had either suicided in
despair, or wounded himself by accident and perished of starvation in
the swamp. Many years afterwards the confession of a renegade soldier
in Texas cleared Tanner’s reputation of all guilt. The soldier himself
had committed the murder, and poor Tanner had fled from the terrors of
laws he did not understand like a hunted Ishmaelite to the wilderness.
To-day, some of his descendants are among the foremost settlers of
Minnesota.
* * * * *
In May, 1817, Royal Proclamation had commanded both companies to desist
from disorders and restore each other’s property. William Bachelor
Coltman and Major Fletcher came as Royal Commissioners to restore order
and take evidence. Fort William passed back to the Nor’Westers and a
new Gibraltar arose on the banks of the Assiniboine. Urgent interests
called Selkirk East. Trials were pending in Upper and Lower Canada
against both companies for the disorders. With Tanner as guide to the
Mississippi, Selkirk evaded the plots of the Nor’Westers by going south
to St. Louis, east to New York, and north to Canada.
Volumes have been written and heads cracked and reputations broken on
the justice or injustice of the famous trials between the Nor’Westers
and Hudson’s Bay. Robertson, the Hudson’s Bay man, was to be tried for
seizing Gibraltar. The Nor’Westers were charged with being accomplices
to the massacre of Seven Oaks. Selkirk was sued for the imprisonment
of Daniel MacKenzie and the resistance offered to the Canadian sheriff
at Fort William. In every case except the two civil actions against
Selkirk, the verdict was “not guilty.” Whether the judges were bribed
by the Nor’Westers as the Hudson’s Bay charged, or the juries were
“unduly influenced” by Selkirk’s passionate address and pamphlets, as
the Nor’Westers declared--I do not purpose discussing here. Selkirk was
sentenced to pay £1,500 for imprisoning Daniel MacKenzie and £500 for
resisting the sheriff. As for the verdicts, I do not see how a Canadian
court could have given a verdict favorable to the Hudson’s Bay, without
repudiating rights of Canadian possession; or a verdict favorable to
the Nor’Westers, without repudiating the laws of the British Empire.
The truth is--the old royal charter had created a condition of dual
authority that was responsible for all the train of disasters. It was
unofficially conveyed to the leaders of both companies by the British
Government that if they could see their way to union, it would remove
the necessity of the British Government determining which company
possessed the alleged rights.
As for Selkirk’s fines, they were paid jointly by the Hudson’s Bay
Company and himself. William Williams, a swashbuckler military man, is
appointed at £1,000 a year to succeed Semple and force the trade so
that the Nor’Westers will be compelled to sue for union and accept what
terms are offered. More men are to be sent up from Montreal to capture
Athabasca. The Rev. John West is appointed clergyman of Red River in
1819, at £100 a year. Annuities of £50 each are granted for life to
Semple’s two sisters. Pensions are granted the widows of settlers
killed at Seven Oaks--to the widows McLean, Donovan, Coan and two
others. Oman Norquay, forbear of Premier Norquay of modern Manitoba, is
permitted to quit the Company service and join the colony. So are the
Gunn brothers and the Bannermans, and the Mathesons, and the Isbisters,
and the Inksters, and the Hardisties, and the Spencers, and the Fletts,
and the Birds. Selkirk has gone to France for his health, harried and
weary of the thankless strife. On November 8, 1820, he dies. The same
year, passes away his great opponent in trade and aim--Sir Alexander
MacKenzie, in Scotland. The year that these two famous leaders and
rivals died, there was born in Scotland the next great leader of the
next great era in the West, the nation building era that was to succeed
the pioneering--Donald Smith, to become famous as Lord Strathcona and
Mount Royal.
_Notes to Chapter XXVIII._--The data for this chapter are gathered
from so many sources, it is almost impossible to give except in a
bibliographical list. Every book or pamphlet written on this era I
possess in my library and consulted, and I may add--ignored, for the
reason that all are so absurdly partisan, either a rabid defense of
the H. B. C. making no mention of the faults of the English, or a
rabid attack on the H. B. C. giving not a jot of the most damning
evidence against the N. W. C.
While consulting _all_ secondary authorities on this chapter, I have
relied solely on the confidential reports to the British Government
which I obtained from the Records Office by special permission of the
Colonial Secretary. These include Sherbrooke’s report to Bathurst,
Coltman’s confidential summary to Sherbrooke, the letters which
the N. W. C. showered upon the Home Government, the memorials with
letters appended which the H. B. C. filed. From these sources I got
the letters from which all direct quotations are made, such, for
instance, as the plan to assassinate Selkirk, which tells against
the Nor’Westers; or the trickery with Daniel MacKenzie, which tells
against Selkirk. Nor have I quoted the worst of these letters; for
instance, the details where Alex McDonell plans the death of Selkirk.
Alex McDonell must not be taken too seriously as representing the
Nor’Westers’ sentiment, for from the time his brother Eneas was killed
by a H. B. C. man, Alex McDonell was no longer sane on the subject. He
was a Highlander gone mad with revenge. Nor have I quoted the evidence
of an H. B. C. man about the N. W. C. partners walking over the field
of Seven Oaks cracking jokes about the mangled bodies of the slain.
The witnesses who gave such evidence were ignorant men with inflamed
minds, and in addition--I am sorry to add--liars! In the first place,
the bodies had been buried before the partners arrived. In the second,
though the wolves tore the bodies up, Dr. McLoughlin and Simon Fraser
were not the kind of men to exult ghoulishly over the scalped corpses
of dead white men. It shows the absurd lengths to which fanaticism
had run when such testimony was credited, and is of a piece with
that other vulgar slander that the N. W. C. intended to turn the
Half-breeds loose among the women and children.
It may be objected that “trickery” is too strong a term regarding
the treatment of old Daniel MacKenzie, especially in view of the
fact he himself was avowedly unreliable. The evidence must speak for
itself. MacKenzie had been induced to write letters to the wintering
partners advising them to turn things over to Selkirk. When his name
was signed, MacDonell undertook to change the letter. Here is one with
MacDonell’s changes in brackets:
TO RODERICK MACKENZIE
Fort William on Lake Superior. Sept. 1816.
DEAR RODERICK (Sir):
By a canoe that returned (to the interior) from near the Mountain
Portage, you must have heard the events that has taken place here.
Mr. McGillivray and all the partners including myself, were made
prisoners. All the gentlemen are sent down prisoners to take their
trial at York as aiding, abetting and instigating the murder, the
dreadful massacre. The N. W. C. is ruined beyond a hope. (The packs
here will not go down nor will goods be permitted to enter the
interior, the Red River being declared in a state of rebellion.)
The massacre that has taken place on Red River is the (principal)
cause of all this. Lord Selkirk may (perhaps) soften matters in your
favor provided you will (make your submission to him in time and)
honestly own all that you know about the instigators of this horrid
affair. I have his Lordship’s command to tell you so (I have heard
as much, though not direct from his Lordship) and I would advise you
as your own and the friend of your deceased father to (come forward
immediately with some proposal to save yourself) submit to his
Lordship’s pleasure. You should also explain to these deluded half
breeds (young men whom you may see and the unfortunate half breeds who
were guilty of such extremities) that it was the ambition of others
that rendered us all miserable. That is the real truth. (I am happy to
learn that you endeavored to save Gov. Semple’s life. This is much in
your favor.... The only advice I have to give is to submit, etc.)
I have some thirty pages of transcripts on the Athabasca Campaign
this year of 1816. Space does not permit the full story of the first
campaign. The second campaign, Colin Robertson tells in the next
chapter. I have also omitted the story of Keveney’s murder. It is
not an integral part of the struggle. Keveney had been Selkirk’s
recruiting agent in Ireland, and was hurrying from Albany to join
Selkirk at Red River in September, 1816. He proved a very brute to
his men, lying in state while they toiled at the oar, then at night
sticking a bayonet in any poor guard who chanced to fall asleep on
duty. His men deserted him. Keveney was captured by the N. W. C. on
Winnipeg River and treated as a gentleman among the officers. This
treatment he abused by trying to escape. The N. W. C. then handcuffed
him, but what were they to do with him? They did not want him in
Red River as a spy, and Selkirk held Fort William. They ordered an
Indian and a paid soldier (de Reinhard) to take him out in a boat and
kill him on the way up Winnipeg River. The Indian shot him. Reinhard
finished the murder by running a sword through his body. This sort of
high-handed ruffianism should be remembered when considering Selkirk’s
course at Fort William. Reinhard was carried prisoner to Montreal for
this, but there was no conviction.
* * * * *
The exact number of soldiers employed by Selkirk is given as one
hundred and forty. The other sixty men were voyageurs.
* * * * *
I have purposely omitted the name of another McDonell in this
chapter--namely the man who succeeded Governor Semple as commander
of Fort Douglas for two days before the surrender. There are so
many McDonells in this chapter and all related that I have avoided
mentioning any but the main actors. All of these who survived the
fights finally retired to live in Glengarry on the Ottawa and in
Cornwall. One may guess with so many members of the fiery clan on
opposing sides, how old age arguments must have waxed hot. The
McDonells of Toronto are kin of this clan. Governor Semple’s successor
was known as “grasshopper McDonell.”
* * * * *
Many writers state no colonists were killed at Seven Oaks.
Nevertheless, five widows were pensioned, one poor widow on condition
she could prove her claim, as another woman claimed the pension of the
deceased settler.
* * * * *
Semple had been employed only a year when he met death. Yet the
company pensioned his two sisters for life, though the H. B. C. was on
the verge of bankruptcy. Semple’s father left Philadelphia for London
when the Revolutionary War broke out.
The N. W. C. say that Selkirk meant from the first to attack Fort
William. This is nonsense. The letters sent by Lajimoniere warned
Robertson to prepare for him in Minnesota. The letter was stopped by
the N. W. C. and found by Selkirk in a secret press at Fort William.
Did the Nor’Westers intend to attack Fort Douglas? They say not, but
between attacking a fort and starving it out is not wide difference.
* * * * *
In most of the evidence it is shown that Boucher ordered Semple in
French, Semple answering in English. I have given it all in English.
* * * * *
A full account of Seven Oaks will be found in the novel, “Lords of
the North,” with free rendering of Pierre’s song. The fate of the
Deschamps will be found in “The Story of the Trapper.”
* * * * *
Coltman’s official report is marvelously impartial, considering he had
formerly been an agent for the H. B. C. Major Fletcher did not count.
Tradition and private letters of Sherbrooke relate that the major was
scarcely sober during the journey of investigation.
* * * * *
Full account of Tanner’s life will be found in the Minnesota Hist.
Society’s Collections. Tanner was the son of a clergyman on the Ohio.
He was stolen by wandering Shawnees when barely eight years old, and
sold to a woman chieftain of the Ottawas at the Sault. Here at an
early age he married a native girl. When his brother found him at Red
River, Tanner was averse to going back to civilization: He hated the
white man clothes, which his brother induced him to wear, and appeared
at Mackinac a grotesque figure with coat sleeves and trouser legs
foreshortened. The Wisconsin Society’s Historical Collection contains
an account of him at this period. At Mackinac, his squaw wife, of
whom he was very fond, refused to go on with him to the white man’s
land, and she remained at Mackinac. Poor Tanner’s stay in civilization
was short. He came back to the Sault with a white wife. The man, of
whose death he was accused, was the brother of Henry Schoolcraft at
the Sault. The quarrel was over attentions to a young daughter of
Tanner’s. As stated in the main story, a blackguard soldier, not
Tanner, was the real murderer.
Instructions from Governor Semple to Colin Robertson.
FORT DOUGLAS, 12 April, 1816.
COLIN ROBERTSON, Esq.,
Sir:
I heard with pleasure of yr. having taken possession of the Fort
occupied by the N. W. C. at the Forks of Red River.
It was a measure on wh. I was fully determined and wh. was not
only justified but imperiously demanded by the conduct and avowed
hostilities of our implacable opponents.
With regard to intercepting the despatches of the N. W. C. it was
a step arising out of the former and wh. has happily furnished its
own justification to the fullest extent. A more complete disclosure
of plans of deliberate villainy has never yet met my eye and I can
only regret that such schemes of pillage, burning and murder should
have been planned and be so nearly on the point of execution by men
belonging to the same country as ourselves.
I am, Sir,
Yours sincerely,
(Signed) ROBERT SEMPLE.
[Illustration: Red River Settlement in 1816 to 1820, taken from the
Manuscript Drawing in Coltman’s Report, Public Records, London.
This diagram has been reproduced many times, but not so fully as in
Coltman’s original drawing for the Government.]
Governor Semple to Duncan Cameron
FORT DOUGLAS, 31 March, 1816.
Sir:
I regret that an indisposition subsequent to my arrival here has
prevented my addressing you till now. I think it my duty to tell you
as soon as possible the charges alleged against you and wh. I assure
you will demand yr. most serious consideration.
1st. You are accused of seducing His Majesty’s subjects settled on Red
River and the servants of the Earl of Selkirk to desert and defraud
their master and one to whom the former were largely indebted.
2d. Of collecting, harbouring and encouraging Half-breeds and
vagabonds with the avowed purpose of destroying an Infant British
Colony.
3d. Through the means of these men thus collected of firing upon,
wounding and causing the death of His Majesty’s subjects defending
their property in their own houses.
4th. Through the means of these men headed by yr. clerks or the clerks
of the N. W. C. such as Cuthbert Grant, Charles Hesse, Bostonais
Pangman, William Shaw and others of burning a fort, a mill, sundry
houses, carts, ploughs and instruments of agriculture belonging to the
said infant colony.
5th. Of wantonly destroying English cattle brought here at an immense
expense and of carrying off horses, dogs and other property to a large
amount.
The horses were collected in your own fort and distributed by
yourself and your partner Mr. A. McDonnell, to those men who had most
distinguished themselves in the above act of robbery and mischief.
6th. Of encouraging Indian tribes to make war upon British subjects
attempting to colonize, representing to them according to their
ideas that cattlemen would spoil their lands and make them miserable,
and expressing your hope they would never allow it.
7th. Without unnecessarily multiplying charges it appears now by
your own letters that you were making every preparation to renew the
same atrocities this year, if possible on a more extensive scale,
collecting the Half-Breeds from points still more distant than before
and endeavoring to influence both their rage and avarice by every
means in yr. power. You even breathe the pious wish that the Pilleurs
may be excited against us here saying “they may make a very good booty
if they only go cunningly to work.”
Such are the principal charges you will be called upon to answer. It
would be easy but at present unnecessary to swell the catalogue with
minor but serious accusations and however much a long residence here
may induce you to consider them of small importance, depend upon it
they will be viewed in a very different light by a British jury and a
British public.
The whole mass of intercepted papers now in my hands appears to
disclose such wicked principles and transactions that I think it my
duty to forward them to be laid before His Maj.’s ministers by the
director of the Honourable, the H. B. C. I am preparing a letter to
the agents and proprietors of the N. W. C. advising them of this my
resolution and the motives wh. have determined me to it, a copy of wh.
shall be handed to you meantime.
I remain, Sir,
ROBERT SEMPLE.
D. CAMERON, Esq.