FROM 1812 TO 1846
Selkirk's colony--Troubles on passage--Winter on the bay--First winter on
Red River--First conflict--Nor'westers rally to defense--The storm
gathers--The Nor'westers victorious--Selkirk to the rescue--Banditti
warfare in Athabasca--In Athabasca--Robertson escapes--Frobisher's
death--The Pacific empire--Secede from Oregon
When Sir Alexander MacKenzie, the discoverer, went home to retire on an
estate in Scotland, he found the young nobleman and philanthropist, Lord
Selkirk, keenly interested in accounts of vast, new, unpeopled lands,
which lay beyond the Great Lakes. A change in the system of farming,
which dispossessed small farmers to turn the tenantries into sheep runs,
had caused terrible poverty in Scotland at this period. Here in Scotland
were people starving for want of land. There in America were lands idle
for lack of people. Selkirk had already sent out some colonists to the
Lake St. Clair region of Ontario and to Prince Edward Island, but what he
heard from MacKenzie turned his attention to the new empire of the
prairie. Then in Montreal, where he had been dined and wined by the
Northwest Company's "Beaver Club," he had heard still more of this vast
new land, of its wealth of furs, of its untimbered fields, where man had
but to put in the plowshare to sow his crop. The one great obstruction
to settlement there would be the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company to
exclusive monopoly of the country; but as Selkirk listened to the
descriptions of the Red River Valley given by Colin Robertson, who had
been dismissed by the Nor'westers, he thought he saw a way of overcoming
all difficulties which the fur traders could put in the way of settlement.
Owing to competition Hudson's Bay stock had fallen from two hundred and
fifty to fifty pounds sterling a share. On returning to Scotland Lord
Selkirk had begun buying up Hudson's Bay stock in the market, along with
Sir Alexander MacKenzie; but when MacKenzie learned that Selkirk's object
was colonization first, profits second, he broke in violent anger from
the partnership in speculation, and besought William MacGillivray to go
on {381} the open market and buy against Selkirk to defeat the plans for
settlement. What with shares owned by his wife's family of
Colville-Wedderburns, and those he had himself purchased, Selkirk now
owned a controlling interest in the Hudson's Bay Company.
Early in 1811 the Company deeds to Lord Selkirk the country of Red River
Valley, exceeding in area the British Isles and extending, through the
ignorance of its donors, far south into American territory. Colin
Robertson, the former Nor'wester, who first interested Selkirk in Red
River, has meanwhile been gathering together a party of colonists. Miles
MacDonell, retired from the Glengarry Regiment, has been appointed by
Selkirk governor of the new colony.
[Illustration: SELKIRK]
What of the Nor'westers while these projects went forward? Writes
MacGillivray from London, where he has been stirring up enmity to
Selkirk's project, "_Selkirk must be driven to abandon his project at any
cost, for his colony would prove utterly destructive of our fur trade_."
How he purposed doing this will be seen. Writes Selkirk to the governor
of his colony, Miles MacDonell: "_The Northwest Company must be compelled
to quit my lands. If they refuse, they must be treated as poachers_."
Selkirk believed that the Hudson's Bay Company charter to the Great
Northwest was legal and valid. He believed that the vast territory
granted to him was legally his own as much as his parks in Scotland. He
believed that he possessed the same right to expel intruders on this
territory as to drive poachers from his own Scotch parks. It was the
spirit of feudalism. As for the Nor'westers, let us look at their
rights. They disputed that the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company
applied beyond the bounds {382} of Hudson Bay. Even if it did so apply,
they pointed out that by the terms of the charter it applied only to
lands not possessed by any other Christian power; and who would dispute
that French fur traders and Nor'westers, as their successors, had
ascended the streams of the interior long before the Hudson's Bay men?
It was the spirit of democracy. It needed no prophet to foresee when
these two sets of claims came together there would be a violent clash.
It is evening in the little harbor of Stornoway, off the Hebrides, north
of Scotland, July 25, 1811. Waning midsummer has begun to shorten the
long days; and lying at anchor in the twilight a few yards offshore are
the three Hudson's Bay Company boats, outward bound. For a week the
quiet little fishing hamlet has been in a turmoil, for Governor Miles
MacDonell and Colin Robertson have ordered the Selkirk settlers here--129
of them, 70 farmers, 59 clerks--to join the Hudson's Bay boats as they
swing out westward on their far cruise to the north, and the atmosphere
has literally been on fire with vexations created by spies of the
Northwest Company. In the first place, as the settlers wait for the
ships coming up from London, trouble makers pass from group to group
scattering a miserable little sheet called "The Highlander," warning "the
deluded people" against going to "a polar land of Indian hostiles."
Besides, dark hints are uttered that the settlers are not wanted for
colonists at all, but for armed battalions to fight the Nor'westers for
the Hudson's Bay Company, in proof whereof the prophets of evil point
ominously to the cannon and munitions of war on board the three old fur
boats. Then there is too much whisky afloat in Stornoway that week.
Settlers are taken ashore and farewelled and farewelled and farewelled
till unable to find their way down to the rowboats, and then they are
easily frightened into abandoning the risky venture altogether. On the
settlers who have come as clerks to the Company Governor MacDonell can
keep a strong hand, for they have been paid their wages in advance and
are seized if they attempt to desert. Then the excise officer here is a
friend of the Nor'westers, and he creates {383} endless trouble rowing
round and round the boats, bawling . . . bawling out . . . to know "if
all who are embarking are going of their own free will," till the ship's
hands, looking over decks, become so exasperated they heave a cannon ball
over rails, which goes splash through the bottom of the harbor officer's
rowboat and sends him cursing ashore to dispatch a challenge for a duel
to Governor MacDonell. MacDonell sees plainly that if he is to have any
colonists left, he must sail at once. Anchors up and sails out at eleven
that night, the ships glide from shore so unexpectedly that one
faint-heart, desperately resolved on flight, has to jump overboard and
swim ashore, while two other settlers, who have been lingering over
farewells, must be rowed across harbor by Colin Robertson to catch the
departing ships. Then Robertson is back on the wharf trumpeting a last
cheer through his funneled hands. The Highlanders on decks lean over the
vessel railings waving their bonnets. The Glasgow and Dublin lads
indentured as clerks give a last huzza, and the Selkirk settlers are off
for their Promised Land.
As long ago Cartier's first colonists to the St. Lawrence had their
mettle tested by tempestuous weather and pioneer hardships, so now the
first colonists to the Great Northwest must meet the challenge that fate
throws down to all who leave the beaten path. Though the season was
late, the weather was extraordinarily stormy. Sixty-one days the passage
lasted, the tubby old fur ships lying water-logged, rolling to the angry
sea. MacDonell was furious that colonists had been risked on such
unseaworthy craft, but those old fur-ship captains, with fifty years ice
battling to their credit, probably knew their business better than
MacDonell. The fur ships had not been built for speed and comfort, but
for cargoes and safety, and when storms came they simply lowered sails,
turned tails to the wind, and rolled till the gale had passed, to the
prolonged woe of the Highland landsmen, who for the first time suffered
seasick pangs. Then, when Governor MacDonell attempted drills to pass
the time, he made the discovery that seditious talk had gone the rounds
of the deck. "The Hudson's Bay had no right to this {384} country."
"The Nor'westers owned that country." "The Hudson's Bay could n't compel
any man to drill and fight." Selkirk could not give clear deed to their
"lands," and much more to the same effect, all of which proved that some
Nor'wester agent in disguise had been busy on board.
September 24, amid falling snow and biting frost, the ships anchored at
Five Fathom Hole off York Factory, Port Nelson.
[Illustration: NELSON AND HAYES RIVERS (From Robson)]
The Selkirk settlers had been sixty-one days on board, and they were
still a year away from their Promised Land. Champlain's colonists of
Acadia and Quebec had come to anchorage on a land set like a jewel amid
silver waters and green hills, but the Selkirk settlers have as yet seen
only rocks barren of verdure as a billiard ball, vales amidst the domed
hills of Hudson Straits, dank with muskeg, and silent as the very realms
of death itself, but for the flacker of wild fowl, the roaring of the
floundering {385} walrus herds, or the lonely tinkling of mountain
streams running from the ice fields to the mossy valleys bordering the
northern sea. It needed a robust hope, or the blind faith of an almost
religious zeal, to penetrate the future and see beyond these sterile
shores the Promised Land, where homes were to be built, and plenty to
abound. If pioneer struggles leave a something in the blood of the race
that makes for national strength and permanency, the difference between
the home finding of the West and the home finding of the East is worth
noting.
There were, of course, no preparations for the colonists at York Fort,
for the factor could not know they were coming, or anything of Selkirk's
plans, till the annual ships arrived. On the chance of finding better
hunting farther from the fort, MacDonell withdrew his people from Hayes
River, north across the marsh to a sheltered bank of the River Nelson.
Winter had set in early. A whooping blizzard met the pilgrims as they
marched along an Indian trail through the brushwood. There is a legend
of Miles MacDonell, the governor, becoming benighted between York Fort
and Nelson River, and losing his way in the storm. According to the
story, he beat about the brushwood for twenty-four hours before he
regained his bearings. Rude huts of rough timber and thatch roof with
logs extemporized for berths and benches were knocked up for wintering
quarters on Nelson River, and the next nine months were passed hunting
deer for store of provisions, and building flatboats to ascend the
interior. All winter a mutinous spirit was at work among the young
clerks, which MacDonell, no doubt, ascribed to the machinations of
Nor'westers; but the chief factor quickly quelled mutiny by cutting off
supplies, and all hands were ready to proceed when the fur brigades set
out for the interior on the 21st of June, 1812.
Up Hayes River, up the whole length of Winnipeg Lake, then in August the
flatboats are ascending the muddy current of Red River, through what is
now Manitoba, and for the first time the people see their Promised Land.
High banks fringed with maple and oak line the river at what is now
Selkirk. Then the cliffs lower, and through the woods are broken gleams
{386} of the rolling prairie intersected by ravines, stretching far as
eye can see, where sky and earth meet. From the lateness of the season
one can guess that the river was low at the bowlder reach known as St.
Andrew's Rapids, and that while the boats were tracked upstream the
people would disembark and walk along the Indian trails of the west bank.
There was no Fort Garry near the rapids, as a few years later.
Buffalo-skin tepees alone broke the endless sweep of russet prairie and
sky, clear swimming blue as the purest lake. Then the people are back
aboard, laboring hard at the oar now, for they know they are nearing the
end of their long pilgrimage. The river banks rise higher. Then they
drop gradually to the flats now known as Point Douglas. Another bend in
the sinuous red current, looping and curving and circling fantastically
through the prairie, and the Selkirk settlers are in full view of the old
Cree graveyard,--bodies swathed in skins on scaffolding,--down at the
junction of the Assiniboine. Hard by they see the towered bastions of
the Northwest Company's post, Fort Gibraltar. Somewhere between what are
known to-day as Broadway Bridge and Point Douglas, the Selkirk settlers
land on the west side. Chief Peguis and his Cree warriors ride
wonderingly among the white-faced newcomers, marveling at men who have
crossed the Great Waters "to dig gardens and work land." The barracks
knocked up hastily is known after Selkirk's family name as Fort Douglas;
but the store of deer meat has been exhausted, and the colonists are on
the verge of a second winter. They at once join the Plain Rangers, or
Bois Brulés (Burnt Wood Runners), half-breed descendants of French and
Nor'west fur traders, who have become retainers of the Montreal Company.
With them the Selkirk settlers proceed south to Pembina and the Boundary
to hunt buffalo. No instructions had yet come to Red River of the
Northwest Company's hostility to the colony, and the lonely Scotch clerks
of Fort Gibraltar were glad to welcome men who spoke their own Highland
tongue. Volumes might be written of this, the colonists' first year in
their Promised Land: how the rude Plain Rangers conveyed them to the
buffalo hunt in their {387} creaking Red River carts,--carts made
entirely of wood, hub, tire, axle, and all, or else on loaned ponies; how
when storm came the white settlers were welcomed to the huts and skin
tents of the French half-breeds, given food and buffalo blankets; how
many a young Highlander came to grief in the wild stampede of his first
buffalo hunt; how when the hunters returned to Fort Gibraltar (Winnipeg),
on Red River, with store enough of pemmican for all the fur posts of the
Nor'westers, many a wild happy winter night was passed dancing mad Indian
jigs to the piping of the Highland piper and the crazy scraping of some
Frenchman's fiddle; how when morning came, in a gray dawn of smoking
frost mist, a long line of the colonists could be seen winding along the
ice of Red River home to Fort Douglas, Piper Green or Hector McLean
leading the way, still prancing and blowing a proud national air; how
when spring opened, ten-acre plots were assigned to each settler, close
to the fort at what were known as the Colony Buildings, and one
hundred-acre farms farther down the river. All this and more are part of
the story of the coming of the first colonists to the Great Northwest.
The very autumn that the first settlers had reached Red River in 1812
more colonists had arrived on the boats at {388} Hudson Bay. These did
not reach Red River till October of 1812 and the spring of 1813. By
1813, and on till 1817, more colonists yearly came. The story of each
year, with its plot and counterplot, I have told elsewhere. Spite of
Nor'westers' threats, spite of the fact there would be no market for the
colonists when they had succeeded in transforming wilderness prairie into
farms, Selkirk's mad dream of empire seemed to be succeeding.
[Illustration: FORT GARRY, RED RIVER SETTLEMENT]
The cardinal mistake in the contest between Hudson's Bay Company and
Nor'westers, between feudalism and democracy, was now committed by the
governor of the colony, Miles MacDonell. The year 1813 had proved poor
for the buffalo hunters. Large numbers of colonists were coming, and
provisions were likely to be scarce. Also, note it well, while the War
of 1812 did not cut off supplies through Hudson Bay to the English
Company, it did threaten access to the West by the Great Lakes, and cut
off all supplies by way of Detroit and Lake Huron for the Nor'westers.
Was MacDonell scoring a point against the Nor'westers, when they were at
a disadvantage? Who can answer? Selkirk had ordered him to expel the
{389} Nor'westers from his lands, and if the violent contest had not
begun in this way, it was bound to come in another. What MacDonell did
was issue a proclamation in January of 1814, forbidding taking provisions
from Selkirk's territory of Assiniboia. It practically meant that the
Plain Rangers must not hunt buffalo in the limits of modern Manitoba, and
must not sell supplies to the Nor'westers. It also meant that all the
upper posts of the Nor'westers--the fur posts of Athabasca and British
Columbia, which depended on pemmican for food--would be without adequate
provisions. The Plain Rangers were enraged beyond words, and doubly
outraged when some Hudson's Bay men began seizing buffalo meat at Pembina
River, which was beyond the limits of Selkirk's territory. Writes Peter
Fidler, one of the Hudson's Bay factors, "_If MacDonell only perseveres,
he will starve the Nor westers out_."
[Illustration: FORT DOUGLAS]
One can guess the anger in the annual meeting of the Nor'westers at Fort
William in July of 1814. Like generals on field of war they laid out
their campaign. Duncan Cameron, a United Empire Loyalist officer of the
1812 War, is to don his red regimentals and proceed to Red River, where
his knowledge of the Gaelic tongue may be trusted to win over Selkirk
settlers. "_Nothing but the complete downfall of the colony will satisfy
some_," wrote one of the fiery Nor'westers to a brother officer. Such
was the mood of the Nor'westers when they came back from their annual
meeting on Lake Superior to Red River, and MacDonell fanned this mood to
dangerous fury by threatening to burn the Nor'westers' forts to the
ground unless they moved from Selkirk's territory. For the present
Duncan Cameron contents himself with striking up a warm friendship with
the Highlanders of the settlement and offering to transport two hundred
of them free of cost to Eastern Canada. MacDonell seizes still more
provisions from northwest forts. Cameron, the Nor'wester, comes back
from the annual meeting of 1815 still more bellicose. He carries the
warrant to arrest Governor Miles MacDonell for the seizure of those
provisions. MacDonell, safe behind the palisades of Fort Douglas, laughs
{390} the warrant to scorn; but it is another matter when the Plain
Rangers ride across the prairie from Fort Gibraltar armed, and pour such
hot shot into Fort Douglas that the colonists, frenzied with fear, huddle
to the fort for shelter. To insure the safety of his colonists,
MacDonell surrenders to the Nor'westers and is sent to Eastern Canada for
a trial which never takes place. No sooner has Governor MacDonell been
expelled than Cuthbert Grant, warden of the Plain Rangers, rides over to
the colony and warns the colonists to flee for their lives, from Indians
enraged at "these land workers spoiling the hunting fields." What the
Indians thought of this defense of their rights is not stated. They were
silent and unacting witnesses of the unedifying spectacle of white men
ready to fly at each other's throats. It was too late for the colonists
to reach Hudson Bay in time for the annual ships of 1815, so the
houseless people dispersed amid the forests of Lake Winnipeg, where they
could be certain of at least fish for food.
Word of the two hundred settlers having been moved from Red River by the
Nor'westers, of MacDonell's forcible expulsion, and of the dispersion of
the rest of the colony had, of course, been sent to Selkirk and his
agents in both Montreal and London. Swift retaliation is prepared.
Colin Robertson, who speaks French like a Canadian and knows all the
Nor'west voyageurs of the St. Lawrence, is sent to gather up two hundred
French boatmen under the very noses of the Nor'westers at Montreal. With
these Robertson is to invade the far-famed Athabasca, whence come the
best furs, the very heart of the Nor'westers' stamping ground. Robert
Semple is appointed governor of the colony on Red River, with
instructions to resist the aggressions of the Nor'westers even to the
point of "_a shock that may be felt from Montreal to Athabasca_."
Selkirk himself comes to Canada to interview the Governor General about
military forces to protect his colony.
Robertson, with his two hundred voyageurs for Athabasca, follows the old
Ottawa trail of the French explorers, from the St. Lawrence to the Great
Lakes, and from the Great Lakes to {391} Red River by way of Winnipeg
Lake. Whom does he find on the shores of the lake but Selkirk's
dispersed colonists! Ordering John Clarke, an old campaigner of Astor's
company on the Columbia, to lead the two hundred French voyageurs on up
to Athabasca, Colin Robertson rallies the colonists together and leads
them back to Red River for the winter of 1815-1816. Feeling sure that he
had destroyed Selkirk's scheme root and branch, Cameron has remained at
Fort Gibraltar with only a few men, when back to the field comes
Robertson, stormy, capable, robust, red-blooded, fearless, breathing
vengeance on Selkirk's foes.
[Illustration: SKETCH OF THE CITY OF WINNIPEG, SHOWING THE SITES OF THE
EARLY FORTS]
By the spring of 1816 the tables have been turned with a vengeance.
Cameron, the Nor'wester, has been seized and sent to Hudson Bay to be
expelled from the country. Fort Gibraltar has been pulled down and the
timbers used to strengthen Fort Douglas, whose pointed cannon command all
passage up and down Red River. It was hardly to be supposed that the
haughty Nor'westers would submit to expulsion without a blow. From
Athabasca, from New Caledonia, from Qu'Appelle . . . they rally their
doughtiest fighters under Cuthbert Grant, the {392} half-breed Plain
Ranger. From Montreal and Fort William come spurring the leading
partners, with one hundred and seventy French-Canadian bullies, and a
brass cannon concealed under oilcloth in a long boat. The object of the
Plain Rangers is to meet the up-coming partners with supplies for the
year; but is that any reason for the riders who are striking eastward
from Assiniboine to Red River, decking themselves out in war paint and
stripping like savages before battle? The object of the partners is to
meet the Plain Rangers on Red River; but is that any reason for bringing
a cannon concealed under oilcloth all the way from Lake Superior? Or do
men fighting a life-and-death struggle for the thing the world calls
success ever acknowledge plain motives within themselves at all? Is it
not rather the blind brute instinct of self-protection, forfend what may?
[Illustration: RED RIVER SETTLEMENT, 1816-1820]
"Listen, white men! Beware! Beware!" the Cree chief Peguis warns
Governor Semple. What means the spectacle of white brothers, who preach
peace, preparing for war over a few beaver pelts? Chief Peguis cannot
understand, except this is the way of white men.
{393} And now, unluckily for Governor Semple, he quarrels with his
adviser, Colin Robertson. Robertson, from his early training in
Northwest ranks, reads the signs, and is for striking a blow before the
enemy can strike him. Semple is still talking peace. Robertson leaves
Red River in disgust, and departs for Hudson Bay to take ship for
England. The Plain Rangers, it may be explained, have uttered the wild
threat that if they "can catch Robertson," they will avenge the
destruction of Fort Gibraltar "by skinning him alive and feeding him to
the dogs." Also it is well known, Nor'westers of Qu'Appelle have
muttered angry prophecies about "the ground being drenched with the blood
of the colonists."
Still Semple talks peace, which is a good thing in its place; but this is
n't the place.
"My Governor! My Governor!" pleads an old hunter of the Hudson's Bay
with Semple; "are you not afraid? The half-breeds are gathering to kill
you!"
Semple laughs. Pshaw! _He_ has law on _his_ side. Law! What is law?
The old hunter of the lawless wilds does n't know that word. That word
does n't come as far west as the _Pays d'en Haut_.
It is sunset of June 18, 1816. Old chief Peguis comes again to the
Hudson's Bay fort on Red River.
"Governor of the gard'ners!" he solemnly warns; "governor of the land
workers and gard'ners, listen! . . ." Not much does he add, after the
fashion of his race. Only this, "_Let me bring my warriors to protect
you_!"
Semple laughs at such fears.
It is sunset of June 19. A soft west wind has set the prairie grass
rippling like a green sea between the fort and the sun hanging low at the
western sky line. A boy on the lookout above one of the bastion towers
of Fort Douglas suddenly shouts, "The half-breeds are coming!"
Semple ascends the tower and looks through a field glass. There is a
line of sixty or seventy horsemen, all armed, not coming to the fort, but
moving diagonally across from the Assiniboine to the Red towards the
colony. And then, north {394} towards the colony, is wildest
clamor,--people in ox carts, people on horseback, people on foot,
stampeding for the shelter of the fort. And up to this moment absolutely
nothing has occurred to create this terror.
"Let twenty men follow me," orders Semple; and he marches out, followed
by twenty-seven armed men.
As they wade through the waist-high hay fields they meet the fleeing
colonists.
"Keep your back to the river!" shouts one colonist, convoying his family.
"They are painted, Governor! Don't let them surround you."
Semple sends back to the fort for a cannon to be trundled out.
Young Lieutenant Holte's gun goes off by mistake. Semple turns on him
with fury and bids him have a care: there is to be no firing.
The half-breeds have turned from their trail and are coming forward at a
gallop.
"There 's Grant, the Plain Ranger, Governor! Let me shoot him," pleads
one Hudson's Bay man.
"God have mercy on our souls!" mutters one of the colonists, counting the
foe; "but we are all dead men."
All the world knows the rest. At a knoll where grew some trees, a spot
now known in Winnipeg on North Main Street as Seven Oaks, Grant, the
Ranger, sent a half-breed, Boucher, forward to parley.
"What do you want?" demands Semple.
"We want our fort!"
"Go to your fort, then!"
"Rascal! You have destroyed our fort!"
"Dare you to speak so to me? Arrest him!"
Boucher slips from his saddle. The Plain Rangers think he has been shot.
Instantaneously from both sides crashes musketry fire. Semple falls with
a broken thigh. Before Grant can control his murderous crew or obtain
aid for the wounded governor, a scamp of a half-breed has slashed the
fallen man to death. Two or three Hudson's Bay men escape through the
long grass {395} and swim across Red River. Two or three more save
themselves by instant surrender. For the rest of the twenty-seven, they
lie where they have fallen. They are stripped, mutilated, cut to pieces.
Only one Nor'wester is killed, only one wounded.
Later, in order to save the lives of the settlers, Fort Douglas is
surrendered. For a second time the colonists are dispersed. Before
going down Red River in flatboats two of the Hudson's Bay people go out
with Chief Peguis by night and bury the dead; but they have no time to
dig deep graves, and a few days later the wolves have ripped up the
bodies.
Near Lake Winnipeg the fleeing colonists meet the Northwest partners with
their one hundred and seventy men. No need to announce what the
spectacle of the terrified colonists means. A wild whoop rends the air.
"Thank Providence it was all over before we came," writes one devout
Nor'wester; "for we intended to storm the fort." Both crews pause. The
Nor'westers interrogate the settlers. Semple's private papers are
seized. Also, two Hudson's Bay men who took part in the Seven Oaks fight
are arrested, to be carried on down to Northwest headquarters on Lake
Superior. Then the settlers go on to Lake Winnipeg.
At the various camping places on the way down to Fort William, those two
Hudson's Bay prisoners overhear strange threats. It is night on the Lake
of the Woods. Voices of Northwest partners sound through the dark. They
are talking of Selkirk coming to the rescue of his people with an armed
force. Says the wild voice of a Nor'wester whose brother had been killed
by a Hudson's Bay man some years before, "There are fine quiet places
along Winnipeg River if he comes this way." . . . Then scraps of
conversation. . . . Then, "The half-breeds could capture him when he is
asleep." . . . Then words too low to be heard. . . . Then, "They could
have the Indians shoot him." . . . Then in voice of authority
restraining the wild folly of a bloodthirst for vengeance, "Things have
gone too far, but we can throw the blame on the Indians."
The wild words of a man gone mad for revenge must not be taken as the
policy of a great commercial company.
{396} Meantime, where was Selkirk? He had arrived in Montreal. Secret
coureur, whose adventures I have told elsewhere, had carried him word of
the dangers impending over his colony. He at once appealed to the
Governor General for a military force to protect the settlers, but it
must be recalled how Upper and Lower Canada were to be governed under the
Act of 1791. There were to be the governor, the legislative council
appointed by the crown, and the representative assembly. The legislative
council was entirely dominated by the Northwest Company. Of the
different Quebec courts, there was scarcely a judge who was not
interested directly or indirectly in the Northwest Company. Lord Selkirk
could obtain no aid which would conflict with that company's policy.
Then Selkirk petitioned the Governor that, in view of the threats against
himself, he might be granted the commission of a justice of the peace and
permission to take a personal bodyguard at his own cost to the west.
These requests the Governor granted.
Thereupon, Selkirk gathers up some two hundred of the De Meuron and De
Watteville regiments, mercenaries disbanded after the War of 1812, and
sets out for the west. Not aware that Robertson has left Red River, he
sends him word to keep the colonists together and to expect help by way
of the states from the Sault in order to avoid touching at the
Nor'westers' post at Fort William. The coureur with this message is
waylaid by the Nor'westers, but Selkirk himself, preceded by his former
governor, Miles MacDonell, has gone only as far as the Sault when word
comes back of the Seven Oaks massacre. What to do now? He can obtain no
justice in Eastern Canada. Two justices of the peace at the Sault refuse
to be involved in the quarrel by accompanying him. Selkirk goes on
without them, accompanied by the two hundred hired soldiers; but instead
of proceeding to Red River by Minnesota, as he had first planned, he
strikes straight for Fort William, the headquarters of the Nor'westers.
He arrives at the fort August 12, only a few days after the Northwest
partners had come down from the scene of the {397} massacre at Red River.
Cannon are planted opposite Fort William. Things have "gone too far."
The Nor'westers capitulate without a stroke. Then as justice of the
peace, my Lord Selkirk arrests all the partners but one and sends them
east to stand trial for the massacre of Seven Oaks. The one partner not
sent east was a fuddled old drunkard long since retired from active work.
This man now executes a deed of sale to my Lord Selkirk for Fort William
and its furs. The man was so intoxicated that he could not write, so the
afore-time governor, Miles MacDonell, writes out the bargain, which one
could wish so great a philanthropist as Selkirk had not touched with
tongs. Before midwinter of 1817 has passed, the De Meuron soldiers have
crossed Minnesota and gone down Red River to Fort Douglas. One stormy
night they scale the wall and bundle the Northwest usurpers out, bag and
baggage.
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO COMMEMORATE THE MASSACRE OF SEVEN OAKS]
July of 1817 comes Selkirk himself to the Promised Land. There is no
record that I have been able to find of his thoughts on first nearing the
ground for which so much blood had been shed, and for which he himself
was yet to suffer much; but {398} one can venture to say that his most
daring hope did not grasp the empire that was to grow from the seed he
had planted. He meets the Indians in treaty for their lands. He greets
his colonists in the open one sunny August day, speaking personally to
each and deeding over to them land free of all charge. "This land I give
for your church," he said, standing on the ground which the cathedral now
occupies. "That plot shall be for your school," pointing across the
gully; "and in memory of your native land, let the parish be called
Kildonan."
Of the trials and counter trials between the two companies, there is not
space to tell here. Selkirk was forced to pay heavy damages for his
course at Fort William, but the courts of Eastern Canada record not a
single conviction against the Nor'westers for the massacre of Seven Oaks.
Selkirk retired shattered in health to Europe, where he died in 1820.
The same year passed away Alexander MacKenzie, his old-time rival.
The truth is, each company had gone too far and was on the verge of ruin.
From Athabasca came the furs that prevented bankruptcy, and whichever
company could drive the other from Athabasca could practically force its
rival to ruin or union. When Colin Robertson had rallied the dispersed
colonists from Lake Winnipeg, he had left John Clarke to conduct the two
hundred Canadian voyageurs to Athabasca for the Hudson's Bay Company.
Clarke had been a Nor'wester before he joined Astor, and was a born
fighter, idolized by the Indians. So confident was he of success now
that he galloped his canoes up the Saskatchewan without pause to gather
provisions. Once on the ground on Athabasca Lake, he divided his party
into two or three bands and sent them foraging to the Nor'westers' forts
and hunting grounds up Peace River, down Slave Lake, at Athabasca itself.
Weakened by division and without food to keep together, his men fell easy
prey to the wily Nor'westers. Of those on Slave Lake eighteen died from
starvation. Those on Peace River were captured and literally whipped out
of the country, signing oaths never to return. Those at {399} Athabasca
being leading officers were held prisoners. Meanwhile the Hudson's Bay
Company is defeated at Seven Oaks and victorious at Fort William. The
Nor'westers at Athabasca were keen to keep the frightened Indians of the
north ignorant that Selkirk had triumphed at Fort William, but the news
traveled over the two thousand miles of prairie in that strange hunter
fashion known as "moccasin telegram," and the story is told how the
captured Hudson's Bay officers let the secret out for the benefit of the
Indians now afraid to carry their hunt to a Hudson's Bay man.
Revels and all-night carousals marked the winter with the triumphant
Nor'westers of Athabasca Lake. Often, when wild drinking songs were
ringing in the Nor'westers' dining hall, the Hudson's Bay men would be
brought in to furnish a butt for their merciless victors. One night,
when the hall was full of Indians, one of the Northwest bullies began to
brawl out a song in celebration of the Seven Oaks affair.
"The H.B.C. came up a hill, and _up_ a hill they came,
The H.B.C. came up the hill, but _down_ they went again."
Tired of their rude horseplay, one of the Hudson's Bay officers spoke up:
"Y' hae niver asked me for a song. I hae a varse o' me ain compaesin."
Then to the utter amaze of the drunken listeners and astonishment of the
Indians, the game old officer trolled off this stave:
"But Selkirk brave went _up_ a hill, and to Fort William came!
When in he popped and out from thence could not be driven again."
The thunderstruck Nor'wester leaped to his feet with a yell: "A hundred
guineas for the name of the men who brought that news here."
"A hundred guineas for twa lines of me ain compaesin! Extravagant, sir,"
returns the canny Scot.
From accounts held by the Hudson's Bay Company's Montreal lawyers it is
seen that Clarke's expedition cost the Company 20,000 pounds.
{400} Before the massacre of Seven Oaks Colin Robertson had gone down to
Hudson Bay in high dudgeon with Semple, intending to take ship for
England; but that fall the ice drive prevented one ship from leaving the
bay, and Robertson was stranded at Moose Factory for the winter, whither
coureurs brought him word of the Seven Oaks tragedy and Selkirk's victory
at Fort William. Taking an Indian for guide, Robertson set out on
snowshoes for Montreal, following the old Ottawa trail traversed by
Radisson and Iberville long ago. Montreal he found in a state of turmoil
almost verging on riot over the imprisonment of the Northwest partners,
whom Selkirk had sent east. Nightly the goals [Transcriber's note:
gaols?] were illuminated as for festivals. Nightly sound of wandering
musicians came from the cell windows, where loyal friends were serenading
the imprisoned partners. They were released, of course, and acquitted
from the charge of responsibility for the massacre of Seven Oaks.
Presently Robertson finds himself behind the bars for his part in
destroying Fort Gibraltar and arresting Duncan Cameron. He too is
acquitted, and he tells us frankly that a private arrangement had been
made beforehand with the presiding judge. Probably if the Nor'westers
had been as frank, the same influence would explain their acquittal.
Robertson found himself free just about the time Lord Selkirk came back
from Red River by way of the Mississippi in order to avoid those careful
plans for his welfare on the part of the Nor'westers at "the quiet places
along Winnipeg River." The Governor of Canada had notified members of
both companies unofficially that the English government advised the
rivals to find some basis of union, which practically meant that if the
investigations under way were pushed to extremes, both sides might find
themselves in awkward plight; but the fight had gone beyond the period of
pure commercialism. It was now a matter of deadly personal hate between
man and man, which, I am sorry to say, has been carried down by the
descendants of the old fighters almost to the present day. Each side
hoped to drive the other to bankruptcy; and the last throes of the {401}
deadly struggle were to be in Athabasca, the richest fur field. While
Selkirk is fighting his cause in the courts, he gives Robertson carte
blanche to gather two hundred more French voyageurs and proceed to the
Athabasca.
[Illustration: TRACKING ON ATHABASCA RIVER]
Midsummer of 1819 finds the stalwart Robertson crossing Lake Winnipeg to
ascend the Saskatchewan. At the mouth of the Saskatchewan a miserable
remnant of terrified men from the last Athabasca expedition is added to
Robertson's party; and John Clarke, breathing death and destruction
against the Nor'westers, goes along as lieutenant to Robertson.
Everywhere are signs of the lawless conditions of the fur trade. Not an
Indian dare speak to a Hudson's Bay man on pain of horsewhipping.
Instead of canoes gliding up and down the Saskatchewan like birds of
passage, reign a silence and solitude as of the dead. Though Robertson
bids his voyageurs sing and fire off muskets as signals for trade, not a
soul comes down to the river banks till the fleet of advancing traders is
well away from the Saskatchewan and halfway across the height of land
towards the Athabasca.
{402} The amazement of the Nor'westers at Fort Chippewyan in Athabasca
when Robertson pulled ashore at the conglomeration of huts known as Fort
Wedderburn, may be guessed. Two or three of the partners ran down to the
shore and called out that they would like to parley; but John Clarke,
filled with memory of former outrages and rocking the canoe in his fury
so that it almost upset, met the overtures with a volley of stentorian
abuse that sent the Nor'westers scampering and set Robertson laughing
till the tears ran down his cheeks.
The change of spirit on the part of the Nor'westers was easily explained.
The most of their men were absent on the hunting field. In a few weeks
Robertson had his huts in order and had dispatched his trappers down to
Slave Lake and westward up Peace River. Then, in October, came more
Nor'west partners from Montreal. The Nor'westers were stronger now and
not so peacefully inclined. Nightly the French bullies, well plied with
whisky, would come across to the Hudson's Bay fort, bawling out challenge
to fight; but Robertson held his men in hand and kept his powder dry.
Early on the morning of October the 11th, Robertson's valet roused him
from bed with word that a man had been accidentally shot. Slipping a
pistol in his pocket and all unsuspicious of trickery, Robertson dashed
out. It happened that the most of his men were at a slight distance from
his fort. Before they could rally to his rescue he was knocked down,
disarmed, surrounded by the Nor'westers, thrown into a boat, and carried
back to their fort a captive. In vain he stormed almost apoplectic with
rage, and tried to send back Indian messengers to his men. The
Nor'westers laughed at him good-naturedly and relegated him to quarters
in one room of a log hut, where sole furnishings were a berth bed and a
fireplace without a floor. Robertson's only possessions in captivity
were the clothes on his back, a jackknife, a small pencil, and a
notebook; but he probably consoled himself that his men were now on
guard, and, outnumbering the Nor'westers two to one, could hold the
ground for the Hudson's Bay that winter. As {403} time passed the
captive Robertson began to wrack his brains how to communicate with his
men. It was a drinking age; and the fur traders had the reputation of
capacity to drink any other class of men off their legs. Robertson
feigned an unholy thirst. Rapping for his guard, he requested that
messengers might be sent across to the Hudson's Bay fort for a keg of
liquor. It can be guessed how readily the Nor'westers complied; but
Robertson took good care, when the guard was absent and the door locked,
to pour out most of the whisky on the earth floor. Then taking slips of
paper from his notebook, he cut them in strips the width of a spool. On
these he wrote cipher and mysterious instructions, which only his men
could understand, giving full information of the Nor'westers' movements,
bidding his people hold their own, and ordering them to send messages
down to the new Hudson's Bay governor at Red River,--William
Williams,--to place his De Meuron soldiers in ambush along the Grand
Rapids of the Saskatchewan to catch the Northwest partners on their way
to Montreal the next spring. These slips of paper he rolled up tight as
a spool and hammered into the bunghole of the barrel. Then he plastered
clay over all to hide the paper, and bade the guard carry this keg of
whisky back to the H.B.C. fort; it was musty, Robertson complained; let
the men rinse out the keg and put in a fresh supply!
All that winter Robertson, the Hudson's Bay man, captive in the
Nor'westers' fort, sent weekly commands to his men by means of the whisky
kegs; but in the spring his trick was discovered, and the angry
Nor'westers decided he was too clever a man to be kept on the field.
They would ship him out of the country when their furs were sent east.
On the way east he succeeded in escaping at Cumberland House. Waiting
only a few hours, he launched out in his canoe and followed on the trail
of the Northwest partners, on down to see what would happen at Grand
Rapids, where the Saskatchewan flows into Lake Winnipeg. A jubilant
shout from a canoe turning a bend in the river presently announced the
news: "All the Northwest partners captured!" When Robertson {404} came
to Grand Rapids he found Governor Williams and the De Meurons in
possession. Cannon pointed across the river below the rapids. The
Northwest partners were prisoners in a hut. The voyageurs were allowed
to go on down to Montreal with the furs. This last act in the great
struggle ended tragically enough. What was to be done with the captured
partners? They could not be sent to Eastern Canada. Pending
investigations for the union of the companies, Governor Williams sent
them to York Factory, Hudson Bay, whence some took ship to England,
others set out overland on snowshoes for Canada; but in the scuffle at
Grand Rapids, Frobisher, one of the oldest partners, with a reputation of
great cruelty in his treatment of Hudson's Bay men, had been violently
clubbed on the head with a gun. From that moment he became a raving
maniac, and the Hudson's Bay people did not know what to do with such a
captive. He must not be permitted to go home to England. His condition
was too terrible evidence against them; so they kept him prisoner in the
outhouses of York Factory, with two faithful Nor'wester half-breeds as
personal attendants.
One dark cold night towards the first of October Frobisher succeeded in
escaping through the broken bars of his cell window. A leap took him
over the pickets. By chance an old canoe lay on Hayes River. With this
he began to ascend stream for the interior, paddling wildly, laughing
wildly, raving and singing. The two half-breeds knew that a voyage to
the interior at this season without snowshoes, food, or heavy clothing,
meant certain death; but they followed their master faithfully as black
slaves. Wherever night found them they turned the canoe upside down and
slept under it. Fish lines supplied food, and the deserted hut of some
hunter occasionally gave them shelter for the night. Winter set in
early. The ice edging of the river cut the birch canoe. Abandoning it,
they went forward on foot. From York Fort, Hudson Bay, the nearest
Northwest post was seven hundred miles. By the end of October they had
not gone half the distance. Then came one of those changes so frequent
in northern climes,--a sunburst of warm {405} weather following the first
early winter, turning all the frozen fields to swimming marshes, and the
travelers had no canoe. By this time Frobisher was too weak to walk. As
his body failed his mind rallied, and he begged the two half-breeds to go
on without him, as delay meant the death of all three; but the faithful
fellows carried him by turns on their backs. They themselves were now so
emaciated they were making but a few miles a day. Their moccasins had
been worn to tatters, and all three looked more like skeletons than
living men. Then, the third week of November, Frobisher could go no
farther, and the servants' strength failed. Building a fire in a
sheltered place for their master, the two faithful fellows left Frobisher
somewhere west of Lake Winnipeg. Two days later they crept into a
Northwest post too weak to speak, and handed the Northwesters a note
scrawled by Frobisher, asking them to send a rescue party. Frobisher was
found lying across the ashes of the fire. Life was extinct.
[Illustration: PLANS OF YORK AND PRINCE OF WALES FORTS]
In 1820 the union of the companies put an end to the ruinous and criminal
struggle. George Simpson, afterwards knighted, {406} who has been sent
to look over matters in Athabasca, is appointed governor, and Nicholas
Garry, one of the London directors, comes out to appoint the officers of
the united companies to their new districts. The scene is one for artist
brush,--the last meeting of the partners at Fort William, Hudson's Bay
men and Nor'westers, such deadly enemies they would not speak, sitting in
the great dining hall, glowering at each other across tables: George
Simpson at one end of the tables, pompously dressed in ruffles and satin
coat and silk breeches, vainly endeavoring to keep up suave conversation;
Nicholas Garry at the other end of the table, also very pompous and
smooth, but with a look on his face as if he were sitting above a powder
mine, the Highland pipers dressed in tartans, standing at each end of the
hall, filling the room with the drone and the skurl of the bagpipes.
[Illustration: SIR GEORGE SIMPSON, GOVERNOR OF HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, 1820]
By the union of the companies both sides avoided proving their rights in
the law courts. Most important of all, the Hudson's Bay Company escaped
proving its charter valid; for the charter applied only to Hudson Bay and
adjacent lands "not occupied by other Christian powers"; but on the union
taking place, the British government granted to the new Hudson's Bay
Company license of exclusive monopoly to _all_ the Indian territory,
meaning (1) Hudson Bay Country, (2) the interior, (3) New Caledonia as
well as Oregon. In fact, the union left the fur traders ten times more
strongly intrenched than before. {407} By the new arrangement Dr. John
McLoughlin was appointed chief factor of the western territories known as
Oregon and New Caledonia. When the War of 1812 closed, treaty provided
that Oregon should be open to the joint occupancy of English and American
traders till the matter of the western boundary could be finally settled.
Oregon roughly included all territory between the Columbia and the
Spanish fort at San Francisco, namely, Washington, Oregon, Northern
California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, parts of Montana and Wyoming. It was
cheaper to send provisions round by sea to the fur posts of New
Caledonia, in modern British Columbia, than across the continent by way
of the Saskatchewan; so McLoughlin's district also included all the
territory far as the Russian possessions in Alaska.
This part of the Hudson's Bay Company's history belongs to the United
States rather than Canada, but it is interesting to remember that just as
the French fur traders explored the Mississippi far south as the Gulf of
Mexico, so English fur traders first explored the western states far
south as New Spain. This western field was perhaps the most picturesque
of all the Hudson's Bay Company's possessions.
Fort Vancouver, ninety miles inland from the sea on the Columbia, was the
capital of this transmontane kingdom, and yearly till 1846 the fur
brigades set out from Fort Vancouver two or three hundred strong by pack
horse and canoe. Well-known officers became regular leaders of the
different brigades. There was Ross, who led the Rocky Mountain Brigade
inland across the Divide to the buffalo ranges of Montana. There was
Ogden, son of the Chief Justice in Montreal, who led the Southern Brigade
up Snake River to Salt Lake and the Nevada desert and Humboldt River and
Mt. Shasta, all of which regions except Salt Lake he was first to
discover. There was Tom McKay, son of the McKay who had crossed to the
Pacific with MacKenzie, who, dressed as a Spanish cavalier, led the
pack-horse brigades down the coast past the Rogue River Indians and the
Klamath Lakes to San Francisco, where Dr. Glen Rae had opened a fort for
the Hudson's Bay Company. {408} Then there was the New Caledonia
Brigade, two hundred strong, which set out from Fort Vancouver up the
Columbia in canoes to the scream of the bagpipes through the rocky
canyons of the river. Close to the boundary, shift was made from canoe
to pack horse, and, leaving the Columbia, the brigade struck up the
Okanogan Valley to Kamloops, bound for the bridle trail up Fraser River.
This brigade, in later days, was under Douglas, who became the knighted
governor of British Columbia. Tricked out in gay ribbons, the long file
of pack ponies, two hundred with riders, two hundred more with packs,
moved slowly along the forest trail with a drone as of bees humming in
midsummer. So well did ponies know the way that riders often fell
asleep, to be suddenly jarred awake by the horses jamming against a tree,
or running under a low branch to brush riders off, or hurdle-jumping over
windfall. Each of these brigades has its own story, and each story would
fill a book. For instance, Glen Rae at San Francisco has a difficult
mission. The company has a plan to take over the debts of Mexico to
British capitalists and exchange them for California. Glen Rae is sent
to watch matters, but he commits the blunder of furnishing arms to the
losing side of a revolution. The debt for the arms remains unpaid. Glen
Rae suicides, and the company withdraws from California.
[Illustration: JOHN MCLOUGHLIN]
{409} Presently come American settlers and missionaries over the
mountains. The American government delays settling that treaty of joint
occupancy, for the more American settlers that come, the stronger will be
the American claim to the territory. McLoughlin helps the settlers who
would have starved without his aid, and McLoughlin receives such sharp
censure from his company for this that he resigns. When the American
settlers set up a provisional government, the foolish cry is raised, "54,
40 or fight," which means the Americans claim all the way up to Alaska,
and for this there is no warrant either through their own occupation or
discovery. The boundary is compromised by the Treaty of Oregon in 1846
at the 49th parallel.
When settlers come, fur-bearing animals leave. Long ago the Hudson's Bay
Company had foreseen the end and moved the capital of its Pacific Empire
up to Victoria. A string of fur posts extends up Fraser River to New
Caledonia.
{410}