great gratification he has received from conversing with several of the
Indians who have been under your instruction at Fort Simpson, and who
are now at Victoria; and his pleasure at witnessing the great
improvement in manners, bearing, and religion which you have succeeded
in effecting in their condition. His Excellency trusts you will
continue to show the same energy, perseverance, and zeal which he is
sure you must already have applied to the work, and that your labour
will be rewarded by a still larger measure of success. His Excellency
also wishes me to say that he would feel obliged by your reporting to
him from time to time on the progress of your Mission. Any suggestions
you may make with regard to measures which may occur to you as likely
to prove beneficial to the Indians under your care, such as settling
them in any particular locality, or setting apart a reserve of land for
their use, will receive his Excellency's best attention; who will also,
if necessary, represent any such measures, with his favourable
recommendation to her Majesty's Government."
Commander Mayne, R.N., mentions in his interesting book, _Four Years
in British Columbia_ (p. 212), that Captain G. Y. H. Richards, of H.
M. S. _Hecate_, who was in command on the coast at this time, was
so much struck by Mr. Duncan's success, that he said to him, "Why do
not more men come out? Or, if the missionary societies cannot afford
them, why does not Government send out fifty, and place them up the
coast at once? Surely it would not be difficult to find fifty good men
in England willing to engage in such a work; and their expenses would
be almost nothing compared with the cost which the country must sustain
to subdue the Indians by force of arms. And such," adds Commander
Mayne, "are the sentiments of myself--in common, I believe, with all my
brother officers--after nearly five years' constant and close
intercourse with the Natives of Vancouver's Island and the coast."
V.
THE NEW SETTLEMENT.
As early as July, 1859, Mr. Duncan had foreseen the necessity, if the
Mission were not only to save individual souls from sin, but to
exercise a wholesome influence upon the Indian tribes generally, of
fixing its head-quarters at some place removed from the contamination
of ungodly white men. "What," he wrote, "is to become of children and
young people under instruction when temporal need compels them to leave
school? If they are permitted to slip away from me into the gulf of
vice and misery which everywhere surrounds them, then the fate of these
tribes is sealed." What that fate would be may be gathered from one of
Bishop Hills' first letters in 1860. He found that of one tribe more
than half had been cut off in a dozen years by drink and dissolute
habits; and the traffic in Indian females for immoral purposes was
openly carried on, from L40 to L60 per head being paid for them.
"Victoria," wrote Mr. Duncan, "although it is 500 miles from Fort
Simpson, will always prove the place of attraction to these tribes, and
to many even further away. There they become demoralised and filled
with disease; and from thence they return, laden with rum, to spread
scenes of horror too awful to describe."
The Tsimsheans who had come under Mr. Duncan's influence, themselves
implored him to devise some way of escape from the ruin they saw
impending on their nation. And he laid before the Society a plan for
establishing a colony, where well-disposed Indians might be gathered
together. His objects are thus succinctly stated in an official report
presented by him to the Canadian Government some years afterwards:--
"1st. To place all the Indians, when they became wishful to be taught
Christianity, out of the miasma of heathen life, and away from the
deadening and enthralling influence of heathen customs.
"2nd. To establish the Mission where we could effectively shut out
intoxicating liquors, and keep liquor vendors at bay.
"3rd. To enable us to raise a barrier against the Indians visiting
Victoria, excepting on lawful business.
"4th. That we might be able to assist the people thus gathered out to
develop into a model community, and raise a Christian village, from
which the native evangelist might go forth, and Christian truth radiate
to every tribe around.
"5th. That we might gather such a community around us, whose moral and
religious training and bent of life might render it safe and proper to
impart secular instruction.
"6th. That we might be able to break up all tribal distinctions and
animosities, and cement all who came to us, from whatever tribe, into
one common brotherhood.
"7th. That we might place ourselves in a position to set up and
establish the supremacy of the law, teach loyalty to the Queen,
conserve the peace of the country around, and ultimately develope our
settlement into a municipality with its native corporation."
The Indians themselves pointed out the locality for such a settlement,
a place called METLAKAHTLA, [Footnote: Metlakahtla = the inlet of Kahtla,
Kahtla was the name of the tribe formerly settled there.] occupying a
beautiful situation on the coast, seventeen miles from Fort Simpson. It
had formerly been their own home; but they had removed their tents to
Fort Simpson twenty years before for convenience of trade. Here they
would be free from the influences of the Fort, which were decidedly
adverse to the well-being of the Mission; they would have more
opportunity of social improvement; they would have plenty of beach room
for their canoes; and they would have plenty of land suitable for
gardens, which they did not possess at their present station, and a
channel always smooth, and abounding with salmon and shell-fish, while
its beauty formed a striking contrast to the dreary country around.
The project met with the entire approval of the Governor, and the
winter was occupied in preparing wood for the buildings, in the
expectation that the removal would be effected in the spring. But the
departure of Mr. Tugwell delayed the accomplishment of the scheme, and
it was not until the summer of 1862 that Mr. Duncan found himself able
to carry it out.
On May 18th, 1862, he began taking down the large temporary school
which had been put up at Fort Simpson, and three days later its
materials were rafted, and were on their way to the new site. Just then
a message from God of a most solemn kind came to the coast tribes. Only
two days after the raft had gone away, canoes from Victoria arrived
with the news that the smallpox had broken out among the Indians there;
and, worse still, it immediately became evident that the canoes had
brought the fell disease with them. "It was," wrote Mr. Duncan,
"evidently my duty immediately to see and warn the Indians. I had
previously determined to do this in a farewell visit to each tribe
before my departure from Fort Simpson, but I now felt doubly pressed to
call upon all quickly to surrender themselves to God. I therefore spent
the next few days in assembling and addressing each tribe (nine in all)
separately. Thus all in the camp again heard a warning voice; many,
alas! for the last time, as it proved. Sad to relate, hundreds of those
who heard me were soon and suddenly swept into eternity."
Even at that moment of alarm very few of the Indians could make up
their minds, when the time for departure came, to throw in their lot
with the new colony. Nor can we be surprised at this, when we read the
rules Mr. Duncan had framed for its guidance, admirable in themselves,
and now abundantly justified by their signal success, but still
involving a radical change in the habits of the Indians, and the
abandonment of some of their most cherished practices. They were
fifteen in number:--
1. To give up their "Ahhed," or Indian devilry;
2. To cease calling in conjurors when sick;
3. To cease gambling;
4. To cease giving away their property for display;
5. To cease painting their faces;
6. To cease drinking intoxicating drink;
7. To rest on the Sabbath;
8. To attend religious instruction;
9. To send their children to school;
10. To be clean;
11. To be industrious;
12. To be peaceful;
13. To be liberal and honest in trade;
14. To build neat houses;
15. To pay the village tax.
Nevertheless, when the day of removal came, fifty Indians accompanied
Mr. Duncan to Metlakahtla:--
"On the 27th May, in the afternoon, we started off. All that were
ready to go with me occupied six canoes, and we numbered about fifty
souls--men, women, and children. Many Indians were seated on the beach,
watching our departure with solemn and anxious faces; and some promised
to follow us in a few days. The party with me seemed filled with solemn
joy as we pushed off, feeling that their long-looked-for flit had
actually commenced. I felt we were beginning an eventful page in the
history of this poor people, and earnestly sighed to God for His help
and blessing.
"The next day, the 28th May, we arrived at our new home about two p.m.
The Indians I had sent on before me with the raft I found hard at work,
clearing ground and sawing plank. They had carried all the raft up from
the beach, excepting a few heavy beams; erected two temporary houses;
and had planted about four bushels of potatoes for me.
"Every night we assembled, a happy family, for singing and prayer. I
gave an address on each occasion from one portion of Scriptural truth
suggested to me by the events of the day."
And a much larger number were not long in following. On June 6th a
fleet of thirty canoes arrived from Fort Simpson, bringing nearly three
hundred souls; in fact nearly the whole of one tribe, the Keetlahn,
with two chiefs. Not many days, however, elapsed before the dreaded
cloud overshadowed the coast. Small-pox broke out at Fort Simpson, and
seized upon the Indians; and although for awhile they were content to
ward it off, as they thought, by incessant conjuring, yet when some of
the leading medicine men themselves fell victims to the disease, a
great fear fell upon all, and they fled in all directions, but only
spread the fatal scourge more widely by so doing. Many came to
Metlakahtla, and though Mr. Duncan refused to receive some, he could
not refuse all. "For the temporal and spiritual welfare of my own
people," he wrote, "who now clung to me like timid children, I was kept
in constant labour and pressing anxiety. Death stared us in the face on
every hand. But God remembered us in the day of our calamity;" and of
the original settlers only five were cut off. One of these was Stephen
Ryan, one of the first group baptized by Mr. Tugwell in the preceding
year. A touching account is given of his end:
"He died in a most distressing condition, so far as the body is
concerned. A way from everyone whom he loved, in a little bark hut on a
rocky beach just beyond the reach of the tide, which no one of his
relatives or friends dared to approach except the one who nursed him;
in this damp, lowly, distressing state, suffering from the malignant
disease of small-pox, how cheering to receive such words as the
following from him: 'I am quite happy. I find my Saviour very near to
me. I am not afraid to die; heaven is open to receive me. Give my
thanks to Mr. Duncan: he told me of Jesus. I have hold of the ladder
that reaches to heaven. All Mr. Duncan taught me I now feel to be
true.' Then, saying that he wished to be carried to his relatives, his
words were, 'Do not weep for me. You are poor, being left; I am not
poor: I am going to heaven. My Saviour is very near to me: do all of
you follow me to heaven. Let not one of you be wanting. Tell my mother
more clearly the way of life: I am afraid she does not yet understand
the way. Tell her not to weep for me, but to get ready to die. Be all
of one heart and live in peace.'"
Notwithstanding this heavy trial, the infant settlement grew and
prospered; and in the following March, 1863, Mr. Duncan, in a letter to
the Society, summed up the results of the Mission so far in these
remarkable words:--
"The Lord has sustained His work, and given marked evidence of His
presence and blessing. Above one-fourth of the Tsimsheans from Fort
Simpson, a few Tongass, Nishkah, Keethrathla, and Keetsahlass Indians
(which tribes occupy a circle of about seventy miles round Fort
Simpson), have been gathered out from the heathen, and have gone
through much labour, trial, and persecution, to come on the Lord's
side. About 400 to 600 souls attend Divine service on Sundays, and are
being governed by Christian and civilized laws. About seventy adults
and twenty children are already baptized, or are only waiting for a
minister to come and baptize them. About 100 children are attending the
day schools, and 100 adults the evening school. About forty of the
young men have formed themselves into two classes, and meet for prayer
and exhorting each other. The instruments of the medicine-men, which
have spell-bound their nation for ages, have found their way into my
house, and are most willingly and cheerfully given up. The dark and
cruel mantle of heathenism has been rent so that it cannot be healed.
Numbers are escaping from under its deadly embrace. Customs, which form
the very foundation of Indian government, and lie nearest the Indian's
heart, have been given up, because they have an evil tendency. Feasts
are now characterized by order and good will, and begin and end with
the offering of thanks to the Giver of all good. Thus the surrounding
tribes have now a model village before them, acting as a powerful
witness for the truth of the Gospel, shaming and correcting, yet still
captivating them; for in it they see those good things which they and
their forefathers have sought and laboured for in vain, viz., peace,
security, order, honesty, and progress. To God be all the praise and
glory! Amen and amen."
To this may be added some extracts from a formal report which he sent
to the Governor at the same time, and which gives a most interesting
account of the material prospects of the settlement:--
"_Metlahkatlah, 6th March, 1863._,
"Sir,--The Tsimshean Indians, who have lately removed from Fort
Simpson under my superintendence and settled here, are very anxious to
tender your Excellency their warmest thanks for the liberal and timely
aid which you have rendered them in building their new village. The 150
window-sashes and 600lbs. of nails, which came of your bounty of L50,
arrived quite safely in September last by the Hudson Bay Company's
steamer 'Labouchere,' and have been duly distributed and appropriated
as follows:--To thirty-five houses (averaging about 34 feet by 18) four
window-sashes and 13lbs. of nails each; and to two smaller houses two
window-sashes and 6lbs. of nails each. Five window-sashes and about
130lbs. of nails remain.
"In obedience to your Excellency's kind wish, I will proceed to lay
before you a few particulars respecting our new Indian Mission
settlement.
"Your Excellency is aware of the dreadful plague of the small-pox with
which it pleased Almighty God to visit the Indians of this coast last
year, and by which many thousands of them were swept away. Though no
fewer than 500, or one-fifth of the Tsimsheans at Fort Simpson, have
fallen, I have gratefully to acknowledge God's sparing mercy to us as a
village. We had only five fatal cases amongst those who originally left
Fort Simpson with me, and three of these deaths were caused by
attending to sick relatives who came to us after taking the disease.
Yet so fearful was the amount of death and desolation on every side of
us till about the end of September, that the Indians had but little
spirit left for building, or even for the gathering necessary food for
the winter. Thus it was that they found inclement weather upon them
long before they were properly housed. In addition to the great amount
of labour and trouble attendant upon moving and building new houses, we
have had to encounter great opposition from many of the Indians from
Fort Simpson, who, in spite of the great warnings they have had,
continue still to be steeped in drunkenness and heathenism. Nor has the
conflict been one wholly outward, if indeed mainly so. For to many who
have joined me, the surrendering their national and heathen customs
performed over the sick--ceasing to give away, tear up, or receive
blankets, etc., for display, dropping precipitately their demoniacal
rites, which have hitherto and for ages filled up their time and
engrossed all their care during the months of winter--laying aside
gambling, and ceasing to paint their faces--had been like cutting off
the right hand and plucking out the right eye. Yet I am thankful to
tell you that these sacrifices have been made; and had your Excellency
heard the speeches made by the chiefs and some of the principal men at
our Christmas evening meeting, alluding to these and other matters, you
would, I am sure, have rejoiced.
"On New Year's Day the male adult settlers came cheerfully forward to
pay the village tax, which I had previously proposed to levy yearly,
viz., one blanket, or two and a half dollars of such as have attained
manhood, and one shirt or one dollar of such as are approaching
manhood. Out of 130 amenable we had only ten defaulters, and these were
excused on account of poverty. Our revenue for this year, thus
gathered, amounts to 1 green, 1 blue, and 94 white blankets, 1 pair of
white trousers, 1 dressed elk skin, 17 shirts, and 7 dollars. The half
of this property I propose to divide among the three chiefs who are
with us, in recognition of stated services which they will he required
to render to the settlement and the other half to spend on public works.
"As to our government, all disputes and difficulties are settled by
myself and ten constables, but I occasionally call in the chiefs, and
intend to do so more and more, and when they become sufficiently
instructed, trustworthy and influential, I shall leave civil matters in
their hands. I find the Indians very obedient, and comparatively easy
to manage, since I allow no intoxicating drinks to come into our
village. Though we are continually hearing of the drunken festivals of
the surrounding tribes, I am happy to tell you that Metlahkatlah has
not yet witnessed a case of drunkenness since we have settled here--a
period of ten months. Still, not all with me are true men. Some few, on
their visits to Fort Simpson, have fallen, and two, whose cases were
clearly proved and admitted of no extenuation, I have banished from our
midst.
"On Sabbath days labour is laid aside, a solemn quiet presides, and
the best clothing is in use. Scarcely a soul remains away from Divine
Service, excepting the sick and their nurses. Evening family devotions
are common to almost every house, and, better than all, I have a hope
that many have experienced a real change of heart. To God be all the
praise and glory!
"We have succeeded in erecting a strong and useful building, capable
of containing at least 600 people, which we use as church and school.
We held our first meeting in this building on the night it was
finished, the 20th December last. I have about 100 children, who attend
morning and afternoon, and about 100 adults (often more) in the
evening. I occupy the principal part of the time in the adult school,
in giving simple lectures on geography, astronomy, natural history, and
morals. These lectures the Indians greatly prize.
"On the 6th February we commenced our first works, viz., making a road
round the village. This will take us some time to complete, as the
ground is very uneven, and much of it wooded. I propose, after the road
is conveniently finished, to set about building, out of our public
fund, two good sized houses for the accommodation of strange Indians
when they come to trade with us, and thus prevent the interference to
domestic comfort and improvement arising to the villagers from these
visits under the old system. I have other public works in view, such as
fixing proper rests for canoes when unemployed, laying slides for
moving canoes on the beach and into the water at low tides, also
sinking wells and procuring pumps for public use, etc., etc.
"I feel, also, that it is of vast importance to seek out profitable
employment for those with me, and thus keep them away from those labour
markets which exhibit temptations too strong and vices too fascinating
for the Indian, in his present morally infantile condition, to
withstand. Hence, I have already measured out and registered over 100
plots of ground for gardens, situated in various parts of the channel
in which we are settled. These, the Indians are anxious to cultivate. I
have also desired them to prepare salt and smoked fish, fish grease and
dried berries, which, with furs, will form our first articles of
exportation. Other branches of labour will arise in due course. But in
order to set about thus much, we need seed (especially the potato),
salt, direct means of communication with Victoria, and an agent there.
"I am anxious that even the trading vessel should be in our own hands,
first, because the Indians would, on that account, feel a deeper
interest in her, and exert themselves the more to keep her well and
profitably employed, secondly, the profits of the vessel would redound
to the village, and, thirdly, it is necessary to avoid having
intercourse with that barbarous class of men who are employed in running
the small vessels up the coast, which, by trading in intoxicating drink,
are all doing a work not easily described, and not readily believed by
those who do not witness it. Their visits to the Indian camps are
invariably marked by murder, and the very maddest riots. To purchase the
vessel we need, I suppose from L100 to L150 will be required. I
therefore propose that 100 Indians shall subscribe L1 or L1 10s, or the
equivalent in furs. The Indians are willing to do their utmost, and I
expect to have to render them little help, beyond seeking out the
vessel, and I do not intend to give them any pecuniary aid, except to
procure such things as, through ignorance or inexperience, they despise,
but such as are, nevertheless, essential to their well-being and
prosperity.
"Trusting, by God's blessing upon us, we shall go on improving, and
continue to merit your Excellency's favour and good-will,
"I have the honour to remain, with warmest gratitude,
"Your Excellency's humble and obedient Servant,
"W. DUNCAN.
_"To His Excellency, James Douglas, Esq., C. B,
"Governor of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia."_
VI.
METLAKAHTLA--SPIRITUAL RESULTS.
While the work at Metlakahtla was thus prospering materially, and
increasing in general moral influence, under the blessing of Him
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, higher spiritual
blessings were not withheld. Fresh classes of candidates for baptism
had been formed during the last winter at Fort Simpson, and were
continued diligently at the new settlement; and in April, 1862, the
Bishop of Columbia, at Mr. Duncan's request, took the journey to
Metlakahtla to baptize as many as might be found ready. But before
this, one of the most interesting converts, a miracle of grace indeed,
had been baptized, in the urgency of his special case, by Mr. Duncan
himself. This was Quthray, a cannibal chief, one of the two men whose
horrible orgies had met the eye of the newly-arrived missionary, at
Fort Simpson, four years and a half before, and who has also been
already mentioned as the one man who sullenly refused to kneel at Mr.
Duncan's second service. He had, however, become one of the most
regular and earnest attendants at the services and classes, and gave
unmistakable evidence that Divine grace had indeed changed his heart.
He joined the Metlakahtla party, but had not been there long before he
fell ill. In October he passed away, a ransomed soul, to be a jewel in
His crown who came to seek and to save the lost:--