confirm the peace with certain Indians, were three months in going, and
that the Indians in question live beyond a range of mountains beyond
the Assiniboins (a plains tribe). Then he goes on to say that still
farther beyond those Indians "are nations who have not the use of
firearms, by which many of them are made slaves and sold"--to the
Assiniboins and others. These are plainly the Pacific coast Indians. And
even so long ago as that (about 1740), half a century before Mackenzie
and Vancouver met on the Pacific coast, La France had told the story of
an Indian who had gone at the head of a band of thirty braves and their
families to make war on the Flatheads "on the Western Ocean of America."
They were from autumn until the next April in making the journey, and
they "saw many Black Fish spouting up in the sea." It was a case of what
the Irish call "spoiling for a fight," for they had to journey 1500
miles to meet "enemies" whom they never had seen, and who were peaceful,
and inhabited more or less permanent villages. The plainsmen got more
than they sought. They attacked a village, were outnumbered, and lost
half their force, besides having several of their men wounded. On the
way back all except the man who told the story died of fatigue and
famine.
The journeys which Indians made in their wildest period were tremendous.
Far up in the wilderness of British America there are legends of visits
by the Iroquois. The Blackfeet believe that their progenitors roamed as
far south as Mexico for horses, and the Crees of the plains evinced a
correct knowledge of the country that lay beyond the Rocky Mountains in
their conversations with the first whites who traded with them. Yet
those white men, the founders of an organized fur trade, clung to the
scene of their first operations for more than one hundred years, while
the bravest of their more enterprising rivals in the Northwest Company
only reached the Pacific, with the aid of eight Iroquois braves, 120
years after the English king chartered the senior company! The French
were the true Yankees of that country. They and their half-breeds were
always in the van as explorers and traders, and as early as 1731 M.
Varennes de la Verandrye, licensed by the Canadian Government as a
trader, penetrated the West as far as the Rockies, leading Sir Alexander
Mackenzie to that extent by more than sixty years.
But to return to the first serious trouble the Hudson Bay Company met.
The investigation of its affairs by Parliament produced nothing more
than the picture I have presented. The committee reported that if the
original charter bred a monopoly, it would not help matters to give the
same privileges to others. As the questioned legality of the charter was
not competently adjudicated upon, they would not allow another company
to invade the premises of the older one.
At this time the great company still hugged the shores of the bay,
fearing the Indians, the half-breeds, and the French. Their posts were
only six in all, and were mainly fortified with palisaded enclosures,
with howitzers and swivels, and with men trained to the use of guns.
Moose Fort and the East Main factory were on either side of James Bay,
Forts Albany, York, and Prince of Wales followed up the west coast, and
Henley was the southernmost and most inland of all, being on Moose
River, a tributary of James Bay. The French at first traded beyond the
field of Hudson Bay operations, and their castles were their canoes. But
when their great profits and familiarity with the trade tempted the
thrifty French capitalists and enterprising Scotch merchants of Montreal
into the formation of the rival Northwest Trading Company in 1783,
fixed trading-posts began to be established all over the Prince Rupert's
Land, and even beyond the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. By 1818
there were about forty Northwest posts as against about two dozen Hudson
Bay factories. The new company not only disputed but ignored the
chartered rights of the old company, holding that the charter had not
been sanctioned by Parliament, and was in every way unconstitutional as
creative of a monopoly. Their French partners and _engages_ shared this
feeling, especially as the French crown had been first in the field with
a royal charter. Growing bolder and bolder, the Northwest Company
resolved to drive the Hudson Bay Company to a legal test of their
rights, and so in 1803-4 they established a Northwest fort under the
eyes of the old company on the shores of Hudson Bay, and fitted out
ships to trade with the natives in the strait. But the Englishmen did
not accept the challenge; for the truth was they had their own doubts of
the strength of their charter.
[Illustration: A FUR-TRADER IN THE COUNCIL TEPEE]
They pursued a different and for them an equally bold course. That
hard-headed old nobleman the fifth Earl of Selkirk came uppermost in the
company as the engineer of a plan of colonization. There was plenty of
land, and some wholesale evictions of Highlanders in Sutherlandshire,
Scotland, had rendered a great force of hardy men homeless. Selkirk saw
in this situation a chance to play a long but certainly triumphant game
with his rivals. His plan was to plant a colony which should produce
grain and horses and men for the old company, saving the importation
of all three, and building up not only a nursery for men to match the
_coureurs du bois_, but a stronghold and a seat of a future government
in the Hudson Bay interest. Thus was ushered in a new and important era
in Canadian history. It was the opening of that part of Canada; by a
loop-hole rather than a door, to be sure.
Lord Selkirk's was a practical soul. On one occasion in animadverting
against the Northwest Company he spoke of them contemptuously as
fur-traders, yet he was the chief of all fur-traders, and had been known
to barter with an Indian himself at one of the forts for a fur. He held
up the opposition to the scorn of the world as profiting upon the
weakness of the Indians by giving them alcohol, yet he ordered
distilleries set up in his colony afterwards, saying, "We grant the
trade is iniquitous, but if we don't carry it on others will; so we may
as well put the guineas in our own pockets." But he was the man of the
moment, if not for it. His scheme of colonization was born of
desperation on one side and distress on the other. It was pursued amid
terrible hardship, and against incessant violence. It was consummated
through bloodshed. The story is as interesting as it is important. The
facts are obtained mainly from "Papers relating to the Red River
Settlement, ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, July 12,
1819." Lord Selkirk owned 40,000 of the L105,000 (or shares) of the
Hudson Bay Company; therefore, since 25,000 were held by women and
children, he held half of all that carried votes. He got from the
company a grant of a large tract around what is now Winnipeg, to form
an agricultural settlement for supplying the company's posts with
provisions. We have seen how little disposed its officers were to open
the land to settlers, or to test its agricultural capacities. No one,
therefore, will wonder that when this grant was made several members of
the governing committee resigned. But a queer development of the moment
was a strong opposition from holders of Hudson Bay stock who were also
owners in that company's great rival, the Northwest Company. Since the
enemy persisted in prospering at the expense of the old company, the
moneyed men of the senior corporation had taken stock of their rivals.
These doubly interested persons were also in London, so that the
Northwest Company was no longer purely Canadian. The opponents within
the Hudson Bay Company declared civilization to be at all times
unfavorable to the fur trade, and the Northwest people argued that the
colony would form a nursery for servants of the Bay Company, enabling
them to oppose the Northwest Company more effectually, as well as
affording such facilities for new-comers as must destroy their own
monopoly. The Northwest Company denied the legality of the charter
rights of the Hudson Bay Company because Parliament had not confirmed
Charles II.'s charter.
[Illustration: BUFFALO MEAT FOR THE POST]
The colonists came, and were met by Miles McDonnell, an ex-captain of
Canadian volunteers, as Lord Selkirk's agent. The immigrants landed on
the shore of Hudson Bay, and passed a forlorn winter. They met some of
the Northwest Company's people under Alexander McDonnell, a cousin
and brother-in-law to Miles McDonnell. Although Captain Miles read the
grant to Selkirk in token of his sole right to the land, the settlers
were hospitably received and well treated by the Northwest people. The
settlers reached the place of colonization in August, 1812. This place
is what was known as Fort Garry until Winnipeg was built. It was at
first called "the Forks of the Red River," because the Assiniboin there
joined the Red. Lord Selkirk outlined his policy at the time in a letter
in which he bade Miles McDonnell give the Northwest people solemn
warning that the lands were Hudson Bay property, and they must remove
from them; that they must not fish, and that if they did their nets were
to be seized, their buildings were to be destroyed, and they were to be
treated "as you would poachers in England."
The trouble began at once. Miles accused Alexander of trying to inveigle
colonists away from him. He trained his men in the use of guns, and
uniformed a number of them. He forbade the exportation of any supplies
from the country, and when some Northwest men came to get buffalo meat
they had hung on racks in the open air, according to the custom of the
country, he sent armed men to send the others away. He intercepted a
band of Northwest canoe-men, stationing men with guns and with two
field-pieces on the river; and he sent to a Northwest post lower down
the river demanding the provisions stored there, which, when they were
refused, were taken by force, the door being smashed in. For this a
Hudson Bay clerk was arrested, and Captain Miles's men went to the
rescue. Two armed forces met, but happily slaughter was averted. Miles
McDonnell justified his course on the ground that the colonists were
distressed by need of food. It transpired at the time that one of his
men while making cartridges for a cannon remarked that he was making
them "for those ---- Northwest rascals. They have run too long, and
shall run no longer." After this Captain Miles ordered the stoppage of
all buffalo-hunting on horseback, as the practice kept the buffalo at a
distance, and drove them into the Sioux country, where the local Indians
dared not go.
But though Captain McDonnell was aggressive and vexatious, the Northwest
Company's people, who had begun the mischief, even in London, were not
now passive. They relied on setting the half-breeds and Indians against
the colonists. They urged that the colonists had stolen Indian real
estate in settling on the land, and that in time every Indian would
starve as a consequence. At the forty-fifth annual meeting of the
Northwest Company's officers, August, 1814, Alexander McDonnell said,
"Nothing but the complete downfall of the colony will satisfy some, by
fair or foul means--a most desirable object, if it can be accomplished;
so here is at it with all my heart and energy." In October, 1814,
Captain McDonnell ordered the Northwest Company to remove from the
territory within six months.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN HUNTER OF 1750]
The Indians, first and last, were the friends of the colonists. They
were befriended by the whites, and in turn they gave them succor when
famine fell upon them. Many of Captain Miles McDonnell's orders were in
their interest, and they knew it. Katawabetay, a chief, was tempted with
a big prize to destroy the settlement. He refused. On the opening of
navigation in 1815 chiefs were bidden from the country around to visit
the Northwest factors, and were by them asked to destroy the colony. Not
only did they decline, but they hastened to Captain Miles McDonnell to
acquaint him with the plot. Duncan Cameron now appears foremost among
the Northwest Company's agents, being in charge of that company's post
on the Red River, in the Selkirk grant. He told the chiefs that if they
took the part of the colonists "their camp-fires should be totally
extinguished." When Cameron caught one of his own servants doing a
trifling service for Captain Miles McDonnell, he sent him upon a journey
for which every _engage_ of the Northwest Company bound himself liable
in joining the company; that was to make the trip to Montreal, a voyage
held _in terrorem_ over every servant of the corporation. More than
that, he confiscated four horses and a wagon belonging to this man, and
charged him on the company's books with the sum of 800 livres for an
Indian squaw, whom the man had been told he was to have as his slave for
a present.
[Illustration: INDIAN HUNTER HANGING DEER OUT OF THE REACH OF WOLVES]
But though the Indians held aloof from the great and cruel conspiracy,
the half-breeds readily joined in it. They treated Captain McDonnell's
orders with contempt, and arrested one of the Hudson Bay men as a spy
upon their hunting with horses. There lived along the Red River, near
the colony, about thirty Canadians and seventy half-breeds, born of
Indian squaws and the servants or officers of the Northwest Company.
One-quarter of the number of "breeds" could read and write, and were fit
to serve as clerks; the rest were literally half savage, and were
employed as hunters, canoe-men, "packers" (freighters), and guides. They
were naturally inclined to side with the Northwest Company, and in time
that corporation sowed dissension among the colonists themselves,
picturing to them exaggerated danger from the Indians, and offering them
free passage to Canada. They paid at least one of the leading
colonists L100 for furthering discontent in the settlement, and four
deserters from the colony stole all the Hudson Bay field-pieces, iron
swivels, and the howitzer. There was constant irritation and friction
between the factions. In an affray far up at Isle-a-la-Crosse a man was
killed on either side. Half-breeds came past the colony singing
war-songs, and notices were posted around Fort Garry reading, "Peace
with all the world except in Red River." The Northwest people demanded
the surrender of Captain McDonnell that he might be tried on their
charges, and on June 11, 1815, a band of men fired on the colonial
buildings. The captain afterwards surrendered himself, and the remnant
of the colony, thirteen families, went to the head of Lake Winnipeg. The
half-breeds burned the buildings, and divided the horses and effects.
But in the autumn all came back with Colin Robertson, of the Bay
Company, and twenty clerks and servants. These were joined by Governor
Robert Semple, who brought 160 settlers from Scotland. Semple was a man
of consequence at home, a great traveller, and the author of a book on
travels in Spain.[2] But he came in no conciliatory mood, and the foment
was kept up. The Northwest Company tried to starve the colonists, and
Governor Semple destroyed the enemy's fort below Fort Garry. Then came
the end--a decisive battle and massacre.
Sixty-five men on horses, and with some carts, were sent by Alexander
McDonnell, of the Northwest Company, up the river towards the colony.
They were led by Cuthbert Grant, and included six Canadians, four
Indians, and fifty-four half-breeds. It was afterwards said they went on
innocent business, but every man was armed, and the "breeds" were naked,
and painted all over to look like Indians. They got their paint of the
Northwest officers. Moreover, there had been rumors that the colonists
were to be driven away, and that "the land was to be drenched with
blood." It was on June 19, 1816, that runners notified the colony that
the others were coming. Semple was at Fort Douglas, near Fort Garry.
When apprised of the close approach of his assailants, the Governor
seems not to have appreciated his danger, for he said, "We must go and
meet those people; let twenty men follow me." He put on his cocked hat
and sash, his pistols, and shouldered his double-barrelled
fowling-piece. The others carried a wretched lot of guns--some with the
locks gone, and many that were useless. It was marshy ground, and they
straggled on in loose order. They met an old soldier who had served in
the army at home, and who said the enemy was very numerous, and that the
Governor had better bring along his two field-pieces.
"No, no," said the Governor; "there is no occasion. I am only going to
speak to them."
Nevertheless, after a moment's reflection, he did send back for one of
the great guns, saying it was well to have it in case of need. They
halted a short time for the cannon, and then perceived the Northwest
party pressing towards them on their horses. By a common impulse the
Governor and his followers began a retreat, walking backwards, and at
the same time spreading out a single line to present a longer front. The
enemy continued to advance at a hand-gallop. From out among them rode a
Canadian named Boucher, the rest forming a half-moon behind him. Waving
his hand in an insolent way to the Governor, Boucher called out, "What
do you want?"
[Illustration: MAKING THE SNOW-SHOE]
"What do _you_ want?" said Governor Semple.
"We want our fort," said Boucher, meaning the fort Semple had destroyed.
"Go to your fort," said the Governor.
"Why did you destroy our fort, you rascal?" Boucher demanded.
"Scoundrel, do you tell me so?" the Governor replied, and ordered the
man's arrest.
Some say he caught at Boucher's gun. But Boucher slipped off his horse,
and on the instant a gun was fired, and a Hudson Bay clerk fell dead.
Another shot wounded Governor Semple, and he called to his followers.
"Do what you can to take care of yourselves."
Then there was a volley from the Northwest force, and with the clearing
of the smoke it looked as though all the Governor's party were killed or
wounded. Instead of taking care of themselves, they had rallied around
their wounded leader. Captain Rogers, of the Governor's party, who had
fallen, rose to his feet, and ran towards the enemy crying for mercy in
English and broken French, when Thomas McKay, a "breed" and Northwest
clerk, shot him through the head, another cutting his body open with a
knife.
Cuthbert Grant (who, it was charged, had shot Governor Semple) now went
to the Governor, while the others despatched the wounded.
Semple said, "Are you not Mr. Grant?"
"Yes," said the other.
"I am not mortally wounded," said the Governor, "and if you could get me
conveyed to the fort, I think I should live."
But when Grant left his side an Indian named Ma-chi-ca-taou shot him,
some say through the breast, and some have it that he put a pistol to
the Governor's head. Grant could not stop the savages. The bloodshed had
crazed them. They slaughtered all the wounded, and, worse yet, they
terribly maltreated the bodies. Twenty-two Hudson Bay men were killed,
and one on the other side was wounded.
There is a story that Alexander McDonnell shouted for joy when he heard
the news of the massacre. One witness, who did not hear him shout,
reports that he exclaimed to his friends: "_Sacre nom de Dieu! Bonnes
nouvelles; vingt-deux Anglais tues!_" (----! Good news; twenty-two
English slain!) It was afterwards alleged that the slaughter was
approved by every officer of the Northwest Company whose comments were
recorded.
It is a saying up in that country that twenty-six out of the sixty-five
in the attacking party died violent deaths. The record is only valuable
as indicating the nature and perils of the lives the hunters and
half-breeds led. First, a Frenchman dropped dead while crossing the ice
on the river, his son was stabbed by a comrade, his wife was shot, and
his children were burned; "Big Head," his brother, was shot by an
Indian; Coutonohais dropped dead at a dance; Battosh was mysteriously
shot; Lavigne was drowned; Fraser was run through the body by a
Frenchman in Paris; Baptiste Moralle, while drunk, was thrown into a
fire by inebriated companions and burned to death; another died drunk on
a roadway; another was wounded by the bursting of his gun; small-pox
took the eleventh; Duplicis was empaled upon a hay-fork, on which he
jumped from a hay-stack; Parisien was shot, by a person unknown, in a
buffalo-hunt; another lost his arm by carelessness; Gardapie, "the
brave," was scalped and shot by the Sioux; so was Vallee;
Ka-te-tee-goose was scalped and cut in pieces by the Gros-Ventres;
Pe-me-can-toss was thrown in a hole by his people; and another Indian
and his wife and children were killed by lightning. Yet another was
gored to death by a buffalo. The rest of the twenty-six died by being
frozen, by drowning, by drunkenness, or by shameful disease.
It is when things are at their worst that they begin to mend, says a
silly old proverb; but when history is studied these desperate
situations often seem part of the mending, not of themselves, but of the
broken cause of progress. There was a little halt here in Canada, as we
shall see, but the seed of settlement had been planted, and thenceforth
continued to grow. Lord Selkirk came with all speed, reaching Canada in
1817. It was now an English colony, and when he asked for a body-guard,
the Government gave him two sergeants and twelve soldiers of the
Regiment de Meuron. He made these the nucleus of a considerable force of
Swiss and Germans who had formerly served in that regiment, and he
pursued a triumphal progress to what he called his territory of
Assiniboin, capturing all the Northwest Company's forts on the route,
imprisoning the officers, and sending to jail in Canada all the
accessaries to the massacre, on charges of arson, murder, robbery, and
"high misdemeanors." Such was the prejudice against the Hudson Bay
Company and the regard for the home corporation that nearly all were
acquitted, and suits for very heavy damages were lodged against him.
[Illustration: A HUDSON BAY MAN (QUARTER-BREED)]
Selkirk sought to treat with the Indians for his land, which they said
belonged to the Chippeways and the Crees. Five chiefs were found whose
right to treat was acknowledged by all. On July 18, 1817, they deeded
the territory to the King, "for the benefit of Lord Selkirk," giving him
a strip two miles wide on either side of the Red River from Lake
Winnipeg to Red Lake, north of the United States boundary, and along the
Assiniboin from Fort Garry to the Muskrat River, as well as within two
circles of six miles radius around Fort Garry and Pembina, now in
Dakota. Indians do not know what miles are; they measure distance by the
movement of the sun while on a journey. They determined two miles in
this case to be "as far as you can see daylight under a horse's belly on
the level prairie." On account of Selkirk's liberality they dubbed him
"the silver chief." He agreed to give them for the land 200 pounds of
tobacco a year. He named his settlement Kildonan, after that place in
Helmsdale, Sutherlandshire, Scotland. He died in 1821, and in 1836 the
Hudson Bay Company bought the land back from his heirs for L84,000. The
Swiss and Germans of his regiment remained, and many retired servants of
the company bought and settled there, forming the aristocracy of the
place--a queer aristocracy to our minds, for many of the women were
Indian squaws, and the children were "breeds."