FOOTNOTE:
[CHAPTER XLII.]
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY AND THE INDIANS.
The Company's Indian policy—Character of officers—A race of hunters—Plan of advances—Charges against the Company—Liquor restriction—Capital punishment—Starving Indians—Diseased and helpless—Education and religion—The age of missions—Sturdy Saulteaux—The Muskegons—Wood Crees—Wandering Plain Crees—The Chipewyans—Wild Assiniboines—Blackfeet Indians—Polyglot coast tribes—Eskimos—No Indian war—No police—Pliable and docile—Success of the Company.
From time to time the opponents of the Company have sought to find grounds for the overthrow of the licence to trade granted by the Government of Britain over the Indian territories. One of the most frequent lines of attack was in regard to the treatment of the Indians by the fur traders. It may be readily conceded that the ideal of the Company's officials was in many cases not the highest. The aim of Governor Simpson in his long reign of forty years was that of a keen trader. A politic man, the leader of the traders when in Montreal conformed to the sentiment of the city, abroad in the wilds he did very little to encourage his subordinates to cultivate higher aims among the natives. Often the missionary was found raising questions very disturbing to the monopoly, and this brought the Company officers into a hostile attitude to him. Undoubtedly in some cases the missionaries were officious and unfair in their criticisms.
But, on the other hand, the men and officers of the Company were generally moral. Men of education and reading the officers usually were, and their sentiment was likely to be in the right direction. The spirit of the monopoly—the golden character of silence, and the need of being secretive and uncommunicative—was instilled into every clerk, trapper, and trader.
BLOOD INDIANS.
(Squaws and Papooses.)
ASSINIBOINES.
(Indians and Squaws on their ponies.)
INDIANS OF THE PLAINS.
But the tradition of the Company was to keep the Indian a hunter. There was no effort to encourage the native to agriculture or to any industry. To make a good collector of fur was the chief aim. For this the Indian required no education, for this the wandering habit needed to be cultivated rather than discouraged, and for this it was well to have the home ties as brittle as possible. Hence the tent and teepee were favoured for the Indian hunter more than the log cottage or village house.
It was one of the most common charges against the Company that in order to keep the Indian in subjection advances were made on the catch of furs of the coming season, in order that, being in debt, he might be less independent. The experience of the writer in Red River settlement in former days leads him to doubt this, and certainly the fur traders deny the allegation. The improvident or half-breed Indian went to the Company's store to obtain all that he could. The traders at the forts had difficulty in checking the extravagance of their wards. Frequently the storekeeper refused to make advances lest he should fail in recovering the value of the articles advanced. Fitzgerald, a writer who took part in the agitation of 1849, makes the assertion in the most flippant manner that to keep the Indians in debt was the invariable policy of the Company. No evidence is cited to support this statement, and it would seem to be very hard to prove.
The same writer undertakes, along the line of destructive criticism, to show that the Hudson's Bay Company does not deserve the credit given it of discouraging the traffic in strong drink, and asserts that "a beaver skin was never lost to the Company for want of a pint of rum." This is a very grave charge, and in the opinion of the writer cannot be substantiated. The Bishop of Montreal, R. M. Ballantyne, and the agents of the missionary societies are said either to have little experience or to be unwilling to tell on this subject what they knew. This critic then quotes various statements of writers, extending back in some cases thirty or forty years, to show that spirituous liquors were sold by the Company. It is undoubted that at times in the history of the fur trade, especially at the beginning of the century, when the three Companies were engaged in a most exacting competition, as we have fully shown, in several cases much damage was done. On the Pacific Coast, too, eight or ten years before this critic wrote, there was, as we have seen, excess. At other times, also, at points in the wide field of operations, over half a continent, intoxicating liquor was plentiful and very injurious, but no feeling was stronger in a Hudson's Bay Company trader's mind than that he was in a country without police, without military, without laws, and that his own and his people's lives were in danger should drunkenness prevail. Self-preservation inclined every trader to prevent the use of spirits among the Indians. The writer is of opinion that while there may have been many violations of sobriety, yet the record of the Hudson's Bay Company has been on the whole creditable in this matter.
The charges of executing capital punishment and of neglecting the Indians in years of starvation may be taken together. The criticism of the people of Red River was that the Company was weak in the execution of the penalties of the law. They complained that the Company was uncertain of its powers and that the hand of justice was chained. The marvel to an unprejudiced observer is that the Company succeeded in ruling so vast a territory with so few reprisals or executions. In the matter of assisting the Indians in years of scarcity, it was the interest of the fur company to save the lives of its trappers and workers. But those unacquainted with the vast wastes of Rupert's Land and the Far North little know the difficulties of at times obtaining food. The readers of Milton and Cheadle's graphic story or our account of Robert Campbell's adventures on the Stikine, know the hardships and the near approach to starvation of these travellers. Dr. Cheadle, on a visit to Winnipeg a few years ago, said to the writer that on his first visit the greatest difficulty his party had was to secure supplies. There are years in which game and fish are so scarce that in remote northern districts death is inevitable for many. The conditions make it impossible for the Company to save the lives of the natives. Relief for the diseased and aged is at times hard to obtain. Smallpox and other epidemics have the most deadly effect upon the semi-civilized people of the far-off hunter's territory.
The charge made up to 1849 that the Hudson's Bay Company had done little for the education and religious training of the Indians was probably true enough. Outside of Red River and British Columbia they did not sufficiently realize their responsibility as a company. Since that time, with the approval and co-operation in many ways of the Company, the various missionary societies have grappled with the problem. The Indians about Hudson Bay, on Lake Winnipeg, in the Mackenzie River, throughout British Columbia, and on the great prairies of Assiniboia, are to-day largely Christianized and receiving education.
The Saulteaux, or Indians who formerly lived at Sault Ste. Marie, but wandered west along the shore of Lake Superior and even up to Lake Winnipeg, are a branch of the Algonquin Ojibways. Hardy and persevering, most conservative in preserving old customs, hard to influence by religious ideas, they have been pensioners of the Hudson's Bay Company, but their country is very barren, and they have advanced but little.
Very interesting, among their relations of Algonquin origin, are the Muskegons, or Swampy Crees, who have long occupied the region around Hudson Bay and have extended inland to Lake Winnipeg. Docile and peaceful, they have been largely influenced by Christianity. Under missionary and Company guidance they have gathered around the posts, and find a living on the game of the country and in trapping the wild animals.
Related to the Muskegons are the Wood Crees, who live along the rivers and on the belts of wood which skirt lakes and hills. They cling to the birch-bark wigwam, use the bark canoe, and are nomadic in habit. They may be called the gipsies of the West, and being in scattered families have been little reached by better influences.
Another branch of the Algonquin stock is the Plain Crees. These Indians are a most adventurous and energetic people. Leaving behind their canoes and Huskie dogs, they obtained horses and cayuses and hied them over the prairies. Birch-bark being unobtainable, they made their tents, better fitted for protecting them from the searching winds of the prairies and the cold of winter, from tanned skins of the buffalo and moose-deer. For seven hundred miles from the mouth of the Saskatchewan they extend to the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains. Meeting in their great camps, seemingly untameable as a race of plain hunters, they were, up to the time of the transfer to Canada, almost untouched by missionary influence, but in the last thirty years they have been placed on reserves by the Canadian Government and are in almost all cases yielding to Christianizing agencies.
North of the country of the Crees live tribes with very wide connections. They call themselves "Tinné" or "People," but to others they are known as Chipewyans, or Athabascans. They seem to be less copper-coloured than the other Indians, and are docile in disposition. This nation stretches from Fort Churchill, on Hudson Bay, along the English River, up to Lake Athabasca, along the Peace River into the very heart of the Rocky Mountains, and even beyond to the coast. They have proved teachable and yield to ameliorating influences.
Probably the oldest and best known name of the interior of Rupert's Land, the name after which Lord Selkirk called his Colony of Assiniboia, is that belonging to the Wild Assiniboines or Stony River Sioux. The river at the mouth of which stands the city of Winnipeg was their northern boundary, and they extended southward toward the great Indian confederacy of the Sioux natives or Dakotas, of which indeed they were at one time a branch. Tall, handsome, with firmly formed faces, agile and revengeful, they are an intelligent and capable race. These Indians, known familiarly as the "Stonies," have greatly diminished in numbers since the time of Alexander Henry, jun., who describes them fully. In later years they have been cut down with pulmonary and other diseases, and are to-day but the fragment of a great tribe. They have long been friendly with the Plain Crees, but are not very open to Christianity, though there are one or two small communities which are exceptions in this respect.
Very little under Hudson's Bay Company control were the Blackfoot nation, along the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains, near the national boundary. Ethnically they are related to the Crees, but they have always been difficult to approach. Living in large camps during Hudson's Bay Company days, they spent a wild, happy, comfortable life among the herds of wandering buffalo of their district. Since the beginning of the Canadian régime they have become more susceptible to civilizing agencies, and live in great reserves in the south-west of their old hunting grounds.
A perfect chaos of races meets us among the Indians of British Columbia and Alaska, and their language is polyglot. Seemingly the result of innumerable immigrations from Malayan and Mongolian sources in Asia, they have come at different times. One of the best known tribes of the coast is the Haidas, numbering some six thousand souls. The Nutka Indians occupy Vancouver Island, and have many tribal divisions. To the Selish or Flatheads belong many of the tribes of the Lower Fraser River, while the Shushwaps hold the country on the Columbia and Okanagan Rivers. Mention has been made already of the small but influential tribe of Chinooks near the mouth of the Columbia River.
While differing in many ways from each other, the Indians of the Pacific Coast have always been turbulent and excitable. From first to last more murders and riots have taken place among them than throughout all the vast territory held by the Hudson's Bay Company east of the Rocky Mountains. While missionary zeal has accomplished much among the Western Coast Indians, yet the "bad Indian" element has been a recognized and appreciable quantity among them so far as the Company is concerned.
Last among the natives who have been under Hudson's Bay Company influence are the Eskimos or Innuits of the Far North. They are found on the Labrador Coast, on Coppermine River, on the shore of the Arctic Sea, and on the Alaskan peninsula. Dressed in sealskin clothing and dwelling in huts of snow, hastening from place to place in their sledges drawn by wolf-like dogs called "Eskies" or "Huskies," these people have found themselves comparatively independent of Hudson's Bay Company assistance. Living largely on the products of the sea, they have shown great ingenuity in manufacturing articles and implements for themselves. The usual experience of the Company from Ungava, through the Mackenzie River posts, and the trading houses in Alaska has been that they were starved out and were compelled to give up their trading houses among them. Little has been done, unless in the Yukon country, to evangelize the Eskimos.
The marvel to the historian, as he surveys the two centuries and a quarter of the history of the Hudson's Bay Company, is their successful management of the Indian tribes. There has never been an Indian war in Rupert's Land or the Indian territories—nothing beyond a temporary émeute or incidental outbreak. Thousands of miles from the nearest British garrison or soldier, trade has been carried on in scores and scores of forts and factories with perfect confidence. The Indians have always respected the "Kingchauch man." He was to them the representative of superior ability and financial strength, but more than this, he was the embodiment of civilization and of fair and just dealing. High prices may have been imposed on the Indians, but the Company's expenses were enormous. There are points among the most remote trading posts from which the returns in money were not possible in less than nine years from the time the goods left the Fenchurch Street or Lime Street warehouses. With all his keen bargaining and his so-called exacting motto, "Pro pelle cutem," the trader was looked upon by the Indians as a benefactor, bringing into his barren, remote, inhospitable home the commodities to supply his wants and make his life happier. While the Indians came to recognize this in their docile and pliable acceptance of the trader's decisions, the trader also became fond of the Red man, and many an old fur trader freely declares his affection for his Indian ward, so faithful to his promise, unswerving in his attachment, and celebrated for never forgetting a kindness shown him.
The success of the Company was largely due to honourable, capable, and patient officers, clerks, and employés, who with tact and justice managed their Indian dependents, many of whom rejoiced in the title of "A Hudson's Bay Company Indian."
[CHAPTER XLIII.]
UNREST IN RUPERT'S LAND (1844-69).
Discontent on Red River—Queries to the Governor—A courageous Recorder—Free trade in furs held illegal—Imprisonment—New land deed—Enormous freights—Petty revenge—Turbulent pensioners—Heart-burnings—Heroic Isbister—Half-breed memorial—Mr. Beaver's letter—Hudson's Bay Company notified—Lord Elgin's reply—Voluminous correspondence—Company's full answer—Colonel Crofton's statement—Major Caldwell, a partisan—French petition—Nearly a thousand signatures—Love, a factor—The elder Riel—A court scene—Violence—"Vive la liberté"—The Recorder checked—A new judge—Unruly Corbett—The prison broken—Another rescue—A valiant doctor—A Red River Nestor.
The fuller organization of Assiniboia, after its purchase by the Hudson's Bay Company from the heirs of the Earl of Selkirk, encouraged the authorities at Red River to assert the rights which the Company had always claimed—viz. the monopoly of the fur trade in Rupert's Land and the imposition of heavy freights on imports and exports by way of Hudson Bay. The privilege of exporting tallow, the product of the buffalo, had been accorded on reasonable terms to a prominent resident of the Red River, named James Sinclair. The first venture, a small one, succeeded; but a second larger consignment was refused by the Company, and, after lying nearly two years at York Factory, the cargo was sold to the Company.
Twenty leading half-breeds then petitioned the Company to be allowed to export their tallow and to be given a reasonable freight charge. No answer was returned to this letter. The half-breeds were thus rising in intelligence and means; being frequently employed as middlemen in trafficking in furs, they learned something of the trade and traffic. The half-breed settlers of the Red River settlement have always claimed special privileges in Rupert's Land as being descended from the aboriginal owners. It was under such circumstances that Governor Christie, following, it is supposed, legal direction, in 1844 issued two proclamations, the first, requiring that each settler, before the Company would carry any goods for him, should be required to declare that he had not been engaged in the fur trade; the second, that the writer of every letter write his name on the outside of it, in order that, should he be suspected of dealing in furs, it might be opened and examined.
This was a direct issue, and they determined to bring the matter to a crisis. Twenty leading natives (half-breeds of Red River settlement), among them a number well known, such as James Sinclair, John Dease, John Vincent, William Bird, and Peter Garrioch, in 1845 approached Alexander Christie, Governor of the settlement, requesting answers to fourteen queries. These questions required satisfaction as to whether half-breeds could hunt, buy, sell, or traffic in furs, and also what were the restrictions in this matter upon Europeans, &c. A pacific and soothing reply was made by Governor Christie, but the Company soon began to take steps to repress the free trade in furs, and the Council of Rupert's Land passed certain regulations, among others one placing a duty of twenty per cent. upon imports, but exempting from their tax settlers who were free of the charge of trading in furs. This was a vexatious regulation and roused great opposition.
All these devices had a legal smack about them, and were no doubt the suggestions of Judge Thom, the Recorder of Red River, a remarkable man, who, six years before this time, had come from Montreal to put legal matters in order in the Red River settlement. The Recorder entered con amore into the matter, and advised the assertion of claims that had fallen into disuse for many years among the different classes of residents in the settlement. The redoubtable judge, who, it will be remembered, was said to have been at the elbow of Sir George Simpson in writing his "Journey Round the World," now evolved another tyrannical expedient.
A new land deed was devised, and whosoever wished to hold land in the settlement was compelled to sign it. This indenture provided that if the land-holder should invade any privileges of the Company and fail to contribute to the maintenance of clergy and schools, or omit to do his work upon the public roads, or carry on trade in skins, furs, peltry, or dressed leather, such offender should forfeit his lands.
This was certainly un-British and severe, and we may look upon it as the plan of the judge, who failed to understand the spirit of his age, and would have readily fallen in with a system of feudal tenure. The writer in after years met this judge, then very old, in London, and found him a kindly man, though with Scottish determination, willing to follow out his opinions logically, however rash or out of place such a course might be. If the Hudson's Bay Company found itself in a sea of trouble, and hostile to public sentiment in the settlement, it had to blame its own creation, the valorous Recorder of Red River.
The imposition of enormous freights, adopted at this time for carrying goods by way of York Factory to England, in order to check trade, was a part of the same policy of "Thorough" recommended by this legal adviser. Sinclair, already mentioned, became the "Village Hampden" in this crisis. Taking an active part in his opposition to this policy of restriction, he found that he was to be punished, by the "Company's Ship" from England to York Factory refusing to carry for him any freight. It was partly the Oregon question and partly the unsettled state of public opinion in Red River that led to a British regiment being for a time stationed at the Red River settlement. On the removal of these troops the pensioners, a turbulent band of old discharged soldiers, came from Britain and were settled upon the Assiniboine, above Fort Garry. A writer who knew them well ventures to suggest that they were of the same troublesome disposition as the former De Meurons of Lord Selkirk. Coming ostensibly to introduce peace they brought a sword. Sooner or later the discontent and irritation produced by Judge Thorn's inspiration was sure to reach its culmination, and this it did in the Sayer affair afterwards described.
The cause of the complaints from the Red River settlement found a willing and powerful advocate in Mr. Alexander K. Isbister, a young London barrister, and afterwards a prominent educationalist. He was a native of Rupert's Land, and had a dash of Indian blood in his veins, and so took up the brief for his compatriots in a formidable series of documents. Mr. Isbister's advocacy gave standing and weight to the contention of the Red River half-breeds, and a brave and heroic fight was made, even though the point of view was at times quite unjust to the Company.
In 1847, Isbister, with five other half-breeds of Red River, forwarded, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a long and able memorial, setting forth the grievances of the petitioners. The document sets forth in short that the Company had "amassed a princely revenue" at the expense of the natives, allowed their wards to pass their lives in the darkest heathenism, broke their pledges to exclude strong drink from the Indian trade, were careless of the growing evil of want and suffering in the territory, paid little for the furs, and persecuted the natives by checking them in their barter of furs, and followed a short-sighted and pernicious policy.
This was assuredly a serious list of charges. Earl Grey in due time called on Isbister and his friends for a more specific statement of the grievances, and wrote to the Governor of Assiniboia, to the London Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and to the Governor-General of Canada, Lord Elgin, asking their attention to the allegations of the petition.
Some two months after Lord Grey's letter was received, the Hudson's Bay Company Governor, Sir J. H. Pelly, submitted a long and minute answer to the various charges of the petitioners. As is usually the case, both parties had some advantages. As to the enormous profits, the Company were able to show that they had unfortunately not been able to make "more than the ordinary rate of mercantile profit." They replied as to the religious interests of the natives, that their sole objects, as stated in the Charter, were trade and the discovery of a North-West Passage, but that they had helped at a considerable annual expense the Church Missionary Society, Wesleyan Missionary Society, and a Roman Catholic Missionary Society. The Company gives a most indignant denial to the charge that they had resumed the trade in spirituous liquors with the Indians, though admitting in the neighbourhood of Red River the use of small quantities of strong drink in meeting the American traders.
This answer did not, however, quiet the storm. Isbister returned to the attack, giving the evidence of Mr. Alexander Simpson, a trader on the Pacific Coast, and the extensive and strong letter of the Rev. Herbert Beaver, the former chaplain of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. Isbister also raised the question of the validity of the Company's Charter. The Company again replied, and so the battle raged, reply and rejoinder, quotations and evidence ad libitum. Isbister may not have proved his case, but his championship won the approbation of many independent observers.
Lord Elgin, the efficient and popular Governor-General of Canada, gave such reply as he was able. He states that the distance of Red River was so great and the intercourse so little, that taking into account the peculiar jurisdiction of the Company, he found it difficult to obtain the information sought. As to the complaints about the religious neglect of the Indians, Lord Elgin states that disappointments in this matter occur in other quarters as well as in the Hudson's Bay Company territories, but declares that the result of his inquiries in the matter "is highly favourable to the Company, and that it has left in his mind the impression that the authority which they exercise over the vast and inhospitable region subject to their jurisdiction is on the whole very advantageous to the Indians."
Lord Elgin states that he is much indebted for his information to Colonel Crofton, the commander of the 6th Royal Regiment, which we have seen was stationed for a time at Red River. Colonel Crofton afterwards gave to the Colonial Secretary what one would say was rather an unjudicial reply. He said, "I unhesitatingly assert that the government of the Hudson's Bay Company is mild and protective, and admirably adapted, in my opinion, for the state of society existing in Rupert's Land, where Indians, half-breeds, or Europeans are happily governed, and live protected by laws which I know were mercifully and impartially administered by Mr. Thom, the Recorder, and by the magistrates of the land." In regard to this opinion, while no doubt an honest expression of views, it is plain that Colonel Crofton did not understand the aspiration for self-government which prevails in Western communities. The reply of the Governor of Assiniboia, Major Caldwell, was likewise favourable to the Company. Alexander Ross, in his "Red River Settlement," criticizes the method taken by Major Caldwell to obtain information. According to Ross, the Governor sent around queries to a few select individuals, accepting no one "below what the Major considered a gentleman." This, the critic says, was the action of a man "who had never studied the art of governing a people." Ross, who did not admire the Company greatly, however, sums up the whole matter by saying, "The allegations of harsh conduct or maladministration preferred against the Hudson's Bay Company by Mr. Isbister and his party were in general totally unfounded and disproved," and therefore neither Major Caldwell's inquiries nor the inspiration of his genius were required.
Notwithstanding Major Caldwell's optimism and Lord Elgin's favourable reply, there was really a serious condition of affairs in Red River settlement. Along with the petition of Isbister and his five English half-breed compatriots, there was one far more formidable from the French half-breeds, who to the number of nine hundred and seventy-seven subscribed their names. Presented to Her Majesty the Queen, in most excellent terms, in the French language, their petition sought, decrying the monopoly as severe:—
1. That as good subjects they might be governed by the principles of the British Constitution;
2. That as British subjects they demanded their right to enjoy the liberty of commerce;
3. They requested the sale of lands to strangers, and that a portion of the proceeds should be applied to improve the means of transport.
French and English half-breeds were now united in a common purpose. A strange story is related as to the way in which the English-speaking half-breeds came to throw in their lot with their French fellow-countrymen. A Company officer had left his two daughters at Fort Garry to be educated. One of them was the object of the affection of a young Scotch half-breed, and at the same time of a young Highlander. The young lady is said to have preferred the Metis, but the stern parent favoured the Highlander. The Scotchman, fortified by the father's approval, proceeded to upbraid the Metis for his temerity in aspiring to the hand of one so high in society as the lady. As love ruined Troy, so it is said this affair joined French and English half-breeds in a union to defeat the Company.
The agitation went on, as Isbister and his friends corresponded with the people of Red River and succeeded so well in gaining the ear of the British Government. Among the French people one of the fiercest and most noisy leaders was Louis Riel, the revolutionary "miller of the Seine." This man, the father of the rebel chief of later years, was a French half-breed. A tribune of the people, he had a strong ascendency over the ignorant half-breeds. He was ready for any emergency.
It is often the case that some trifling incident serves to bring on a serious crisis in affairs. A French settler, named Guillaume Sayer, half-breed son of an old bourgeois in the North-West Company, had bought a quantity of goods, intending to go on a trading expedition to Lake Manitoba. The Company proceeded to arrest him, and, after a stiff resistance, he was overcome by force and imprisoned at Fort Garry.
As the day of trial drew near the excitement grew intense. Governor Caldwell was a well-known martinet; the Recorder was regarded as the originator of the policy of restriction. He was, moreover, believed to be a Francophobe, having written a famous series of newspaper communications in Montreal, known as the "Antigallic Letters." The day of trial had been fixed for Ascension Day, May 17th, and this was taken as a religious affront by the French. The Court was to meet in the morning.
On the day of the trial hundreds of French Metis, armed, came from all the settlements to St. Boniface Church, and, leaving their guns at the church door, entered for service. At the close they gathered together, and were addressed in a fiery oration by Riel. A French Canadian admirer, writing of the matter, says, "Louis Riel obtained a veritable triumph on that occasion, and long and loud the hurrahs were repeated by the echoes of the Red River."
Crossing by way of Point Douglas, the Metis surrounded the unguarded Court House at Fort Garry. The governor, judge, and magistrate arrived, and took their seats at eleven o'clock. A curious scene now ensued: the magistrates protested against the violence; Riel in loud tones declared that they would give the tribunal one hour, and that if justice were not done them, they would do it themselves. An altercation then took place between Judge Thom and Riel, and with his loud declaration, "Et je déclare que de ce moment Sayer est libre——" drowned by the shouts of the Metis, the trial was over. Sayer and his fellow-prisoners betook themselves to freedom, while the departing Metis cried out, "Le commerce est libre! le commerce est libre! Viva la liberté!" This crisis was a serious one. Judge Thom, so instructed by Governor Simpson, never acted as Recorder again. The five years' struggle was over.
The movement for liberty continued to stimulate the people. Five years afterward the plan of the agitators was to obtain the intervention of Canada. Accordingly a petition, signed by Roderick Kennedy and five hundred and seventy-four others, was presented to the Legislative Assembly of Canada. The grievances of the people of Red River were recited. It was stated that application had been made to the Imperial Parliament without result, and this through "the chicanery of the Company and its false representations." In 1857 the Toronto Board of Trade petitioned the Canadian Assembly to open the Hudson's Bay Company territories to trade. Restlessness and uncertainty largely prevailed in Red River, though there were many of the colonists who paid little attention to what they considered the infatuated conduct of the agitators.
No truer test of the success of government can be found than the respect and obedience shown by the people for the law. Red River settlement, judged by this standard, had a woful record at this time. After the unfortunate Sayer affair, Recorder Thom was superseded, and for a time (1855 to 1858) Judge Johnson, of Montreal, came to Fort Garry to administer justice and to act as Governor.
Judge Black, a capable trader who had received a legal training, was appointed to the office of Recorder, but soon found a case that tried his judicial ability and skill. A clergyman named Corbett, who had been bitterly hostile to the Company, testified to certain extreme statements against the Company in the great investigation of 1857. He then returned to his parish of Headingly in the settlement. A criminal charge was brought against him, for which he was found guilty in the courts and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. The opponents of the Company, seemingly without ground, but none the less fiercely, declared that the trial was a persecution by the Company and that Corbett was innocent. Strong in this belief, the mob surrounded the prison at Fort Garry, overawed the old French jailor, and, rescuing Corbett, took him home to his parish.
Among those who had been prominent in the rescue was James Stewart, long afterward a druggist and meteorological observer in Winnipeg. Stewart and some of his companions were arrested for jail-breaking and cast into prison. Some forty or fifty friends of Stewart threatened violence should he be kept a prisoner. The Governor, bishop, and three magistrates met to overawe the insurgents, but the determined rescuers tore up the pickets enclosing the prison yard, broke open the jail, and made the prisoner a free man.
Such insubordination and tumult marked the decline of the Company's power as a governing body. This lawlessness was no doubt stimulated by the establishment of a newspaper in 1859—The Nor'-Wester—which from the first was hostile to the Company. The system of government by the Council of Assiniboia had always been a vulnerable point in the management by the Company, and the newspaper constantly fanned the spirit of discontent. In the year 1868, when the Hudson Bay Company régime was approaching its end, another violent and disturbing affair took place. This was the arrest of Dr. Schultz, a Canadian leader of great bodily strength and determination, who had thrown in his lot with the Red River people. As a result of a business dispute, Schultz was proceeded against in the Court, and an order issued for seizure of his goods. On his resisting the sheriff in the execution of his duty, he was, after a severe struggle, overpowered, taken captive, and confined in Fort Garry jail.
On the following day the wife of Dr. Schultz and some fifteen men forcibly entered the prison, overpowered the guards, and, breaking open his cell, rescued the redoubtable doctor. Hargrave says, "This done, the party adjourned along with him to his house, where report says, 'They made a night of it.'"
These events represented the decadence of the Company's rule; they indicated the rise of new forces that were to compel a change; and however harmful to those immediately involved they declared unmistakably that the old order changeth, giving place to new.
Typical of his times, there sat through the court scenes of these troublous days the old "clerk of court and council," William Robert Smith. With long grey beard he held his post, and was the genius of the place. He was the Nestor of Red River. A Bluecoat boy from London, he had come from school far back in 1813, to enter on the fur trade in Rupert's Land. At Oxford House, Ile à la Crosse, Little Slave Lake, and Norway House, he served eleven faithful years as a clerk, when he retired and became a settler of Red River. He was the first to settle near Lower Fort Garry, and named the spot "Little Britain," from one of his old London localities. Farming, teaching, catechizing for the church, acting precentor, a local encyclopædia, and collector of Customs, he passed his versatile life, till, the year before the Sayer émeute, he became Clerk of Court, which place, with slight interruption, he held for twenty years. How remarkable to think of the man of all work, the Company's factotum, reaching in his experience from the beginning to well-nigh the ending of the Selkirk settlement! One who knew him says, "From his long residence in the settlement he has seen governors, judges, bishops, and clergymen, not to mention such birds of passage as the Company's local officers, who come and go, himself remaining to record their doings to their successors."
COUNCIL OF HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY COMMISSIONED OFFICERS HELD IN WINNIPEG, 1887.
(See [Appendix G] for names.)
[CHAPTER XLIV.]
CANADA COVETS THE HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORY.
Renewal of licence—Labouchere's letter—Canada claims to Pacific Ocean—Commissioner Chief-Justice Draper—Rests on Quebec Act, 1774—Quebec overlaps Indian territories—Company loses Vancouver Island—Cauchon's memorandum—Committee of 1857—Company on trial—A brilliant committee—Four hundred folios of evidence—To transfer Red River and Saskatchewan—Death of Sir George—Governor Dallas—A cunning scheme—Secret negotiations—The Watkin Company floated—Angry winterers—Dallas's soothing circular—The old order still—Ermatinger's letters—McDougall's resolutions—Cartier and McDougall as delegates—Company accepts the terms.
As is well known to those who have followed the history of the Hudson's Bay Company, while the possession of Rupert's Land was secured by charter, the territory outside Rupert's Land was secured to the Company by licence. This licence ended every twenty-one years. The licence in force at the time of the troubles which have been described was to terminate in 1859. Accordingly, three or four years before this date, as their Athabasca, New Caledonia, and British Columbia possessions had become of great value to them, the Company with due foresight approached the British Government with a request for the renewal of their tenure. Men of understanding on both sides of the Atlantic saw the possible danger of a refusal to their request, on account of the popular ferment which had taken place both in Red River and British Columbia. Others thought the time had come for ending the power of the Company.
Sir Henry Labouchere, Secretary of State for the Colonies, entered into correspondence with Sir Edmund Head, Governor-General of Canada, on the subject. Anxious about the state of things in every part of the Empire as the Colonial Office always is, the turbulence and defiance of law in Red River settlement called for special attention. Accordingly the Governor-General was informed that it was the intention of the Home Government to have, not only the question of the licence discussed, but also the "general position and prospects" of the Company considered, by a Committee of the House of Commons. The Canadian Government was therefore cordially invited to have its views, as well as those of the Canadian community, represented before the Committee.
This invitation was the thing for which Canada had been waiting. A despatch was sent by the Canadian Government, in less than seven weeks from the time when the invitation left Downing Street, accepting the proposal of the Mother Country. The Canadian Ministry was pleased that British-American affairs were receiving such prominent notice in England. It suggested the importance of determining the limits of Canada on the side towards Rupert's Land, and went on to state that the general opinion strongly held in the New World was "that the western boundary of Canada extends to the Pacific Ocean." Reference is made to the danger of complications arising with the United States, and the statement advanced that the "question of the jurisdiction and title claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company is to Canada of paramount importance."
In 1857 Chief Justice Draper crossed to Great Britain as Canadian representative, with a very wide commission to advance Canadian interests. He was called before the Committee appointed by the House of Commons, and answered nearly two hundred questions relating to Canada and to the Hudson's Bay Company interests in Rupert's Land and beyond. The capable and active-minded Chief Justice kept before the Committee these points:—
(1) What he conceived to be the true western boundary of Canada, and in so doing gave his opinion, based on the Quebec Act of 1774, that Canada should be allowed to extend to the Rocky Mountains and should have the privilege of exploring and building roads in that region.
(2) The earnest desire of the Canadian people that Rupert's Land and the Indian territories should be maintained as British territory.
(3) That Canada should be allowed to extend her settlements into these territories.
Chief Justice Draper argued his case with great clearness and cogency, and made an excellent impression upon the Committee.
The matter of the Company's hold on Vancouver Island seems to have been settled without any great difficulty. Mr. Richard Blanshard, the former Governor, who received so cool a reception in Vancouver Island, gave a plain and unvarnished tale. The Company had evidently made up its mind to surrender all its claims to Vancouver Island. And the island, as we have seen, became independent.
Canada entered with great spirit into the case presented before the Committee. The question of the licence was quite overshadowed by the wider discussion covering the validity of the Hudson's Bay Company charter, the original boundary line of the province of Canada, and the manner in which the Company had carried out its responsibilities. An industrious minister of the Canadian Government, Hon. Joseph Cauchon, with true Gallic fire and a French Canadian spirit, prepared a memorandum of a most elaborate kind on the Hudson's Bay Company's claim and status. In this, Mr. Cauchon goes back to the earliest times, shows the limits of occupation by the French explorers, follows down the line of connection established by the North-West traders, deals with the troubles of Lord Selkirk, and concludes that the Red River and the Saskatchewan are not within the limits of the Company's charter. This vigorous writer then deals with the Treaty of Paris, the Quebec Act, and the discoveries of Canadian subjects as giving Canada a Jurisdiction even to the Rocky Mountains.
As might have been expected, the Committee of 1857 became a famous one. The whole economy of the Company was discussed. The ground gone over by Isbister and others during the preceding decade supplied the members with material, and the proceedings of the Committee became notable for their interest. The Committee held eighteen meetings, examined twenty-nine witnesses, and thoroughly sifted the evidence.
The personnel of the Committee was brilliant. The Secretary of State was Chairman. Mr. Roebuck and Mr. Gladstone represented the inquiring and aggressive element. Lord Stanley and Lord John Russell added their experience, Edward Ellice—"the Old Bear"—watched the case for the Company, and Mr. Lowe and Sir John Pakington took a lively interest in the proceedings and often interposed. Altogether the Committee was constituted for active service, and every nook and cranny of Rupert's Land and the adjoining territories was thoroughly investigated.
Among the witnesses was the distinguished Governor Simpson. He was at his best. Mr. Roebuck and he had many a skirmish, and although Sir George was often driven into a corner, yet with surprising agility he recovered himself. Old explorers such as John Ross, Dr. Rae, Col. Lefroy, Sir John Richardson, Col. Crofton, Bishop Anderson, Col. Caldwell, and Dr. King, gave information as to having visited Rupert's Land at different periods. Their evidence was fair, with, as could be expected in most cases, a "good word" for the Company. Rev. Mr. Corbett gave testimony against the Company, Governor Blanshard in the same strain, A. K. Isbister, considerably moderated in his opposition, gave evidence as a native who had travelled in the country, while John McLoughlin, a rash and heady agitator, told of the excitement in Red River settlement. Edward Ellice became a witness as well as a member of the Committee, and with adroitness covered the retreat of any of his witnesses when necessity arose.
From time to time, from February to the end of July, the Committee met, and gathered a vast amount of evidence, making four hundred pages of printed matter. It is a thesaurus of Hudson's Bay Company material. It revealed not only the localities of this unknown land to England and the world, but made everyone familiar with the secret methods, devices, and working of the fur trade over a space of well-nigh half a continent. The Committee decided to recommend to Parliament that it is "important to meet the just and reasonable wishes of Canada to assume such territory as may be useful for settlement; that the districts of the Red River and the Saskatchewan seem the most available; and that for the order and good government of the country," arrangements should be made for their cession to Canada. It was also agreed that those regions where settlement is impossible be left to the exclusive control of the Hudson's Bay Company for the fur trade. The Committee not only recommended that Vancouver Island should be made independent, but that the territory of the mainland in British Columbia should be united with it.
Four years after the sitting of this Committee, which gave such anxiety to the Hudson's Bay Company, Sir George Simpson, after a very short illness, passed away, having served as Governor for forty years. In an earlier chapter his place and influence have been estimated and his merits and defects shown.
Sir George, in his high office as Governor of Rupert's Land, was succeeded by A. J. Dallas, a Scottish merchant, who had been in business in China, had retired, and afterwards acted as Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Victoria, in Vancouver Island, and had then married the daughter of Governor James Douglas. Dallas had shown great nerve and judgment in British Columbia, in a serious brush with the United States authorities in 1859. Three years after this event he was called to succeed the great Governor of Rupert's Land. On his appointment to this high position, he took up his residence at Fort Garry, and had, in conjunction with the local Governor, William McTavish, to face the rising tide of dissatisfaction which showed itself in the Corbett and Stewart rescues. Writers of the period state that Dallas lacked the dignity and tact of old Sir George. In his letters, however, Governor Dallas shows that he thoroughly appreciated the serious state of matters. He says: "I have had great difficulty in persuading the magistrates to continue to act. Mr. William McTavish, Governor of Assiniboia, has resigned his post." Governor Dallas says he "finds himself with all the responsibility and semblance of authority over a vast territory, but unsupported, if not ignored, by the Crown." He states that people do not object to the personnel of the Hudson's Bay Company government, but to the "system of government." He fears the formation of a provisional government, and a movement for annexation to the United States, which had been threatened. He is of opinion that the "territorial right should revert to the Crown." These are strong, honest words for an official of the Company whose rule had prevailed for some two centuries.
And now Governor Dallas appears co-operating in an ingenious and adroit financial scheme with Mr. E. W. Watkin, a member of the British House of Commons, by which the Hudson's Bay Company property changed hands. Edward Watkin was a financial agent, who had much to do with the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, and had an intimate knowledge of Canadian affairs. He had succeeded in interesting the Colonial Secretary of State, the Duke of Newcastle, in a railway, road, and telegraphic scheme for connecting the British possessions in North America.
Difficulties having arisen in inducing staid old Governor Berens, the London head of the Company, to accept modern ideas, a plan was broached of buying out the whole Hudson's Bay Company possessions and rights. Difficulty after difficulty was met and surmounted, and though many a time the scheme seemed hopeless, yet in the end it succeeded, though not without much friction and heart-burning. Watkin describes graphically the first interview between three members of the Hudson's Bay Company, Berens, Eden Colville, and Lyall, of the first part, and Glynn, Newmarch, himself, and three other capitalists of the second part. The meeting took place in the Hudson's Bay Company House, Fenchurch Street, February 1st, 1862. "The room was the 'Court' room, dark and dirty, faded green cloth, old chairs almost black, and a fine picture of Prince Rupert. Governor Berens, an old man and obstinate, was somewhat insulting in his manner. We took it patiently." It was a day of fate for the old Company.
Many interviews afterwards took place between Watkin and the accountant and solicitors of the Company. The Company would hear of no dealings, except on the basis of a cash payment. The men of capital accordingly succeeded in interesting the "International Financial Association," a new corporation looking for some great scheme to lay before the public.
At length the whole shares, property, and rights of the Hudson's Bay Company were taken over, the final arrangements being made by Mr. Richard Potter on June 1st, 1863. Thus the Company begun in so small a way by Prince Rupert and his associates nearly two centuries before, sold out, and the purchase money of one and a half millions of pounds was paid over the counter to the old Company by the new Association.
A new company was now to be organized whose stock would be open for purchase, and the International Association would, on such organization being formed, hand over the Company's assets to the new stockholders. In a short time the Company was reconstituted, Sir Edmund Head being the new Governor, with, as prominent members of the Board of Directors, Richard Potter, Eden Colville, E. B. Watkin, and an American fur trader of experience, Sir Curtis Lampson.
Secretly as the negotiations for the formation of a new company had been conducted, the news of the affair reached Canada and Rupert's Land, and led to anxious inquiries being made and to a memorial from the Company's officers being presented to the Board of Directors asking for information. So thoroughly secret had the interviews between the London parties been carried on that the officials of the London office knew nothing of them, and stated in their reply to the memorialists that the rumours were incorrect. In July, when the transfer had been consummated and the news of it appeared in the public press, it created surprise and indignation among the chief factors and chief traders, who, under the deed poll or Company arrangement which had been adopted in 1821, though somewhat modified thirteen years later, had been regarded as having certain partnership rights in the Company.
Mr. Edward Watkin informs us, in his interesting "Reminiscences," that he had intended that the "wintering partners," as the officers in Rupert's Land were called, should have been individually communicated with, but that on account of his hasty departure to Canada the matter had been overlooked. It certainly was irritating to the officers of the fur trade to learn for the first time from the public press of an arrangement being perfected involving their whole private interests.
Watkin expresses his great apprehension lest the news in a distorted form should reach the distant regions of the fur country, where the Company had one hundred and forty-four posts, covering the continent from Labrador to Sitka, Vancouver Island and San Francisco. He feared also that there would be a new company formed to occupy the ground with the old.
On reaching Canada, Mr. Watkin was agreeably surprised at the arrival of Governor Dallas from Red River in Montreal. After consultation it was decided on that the Governor should send a conciliatory circular to the commissioned officers of the Company, explaining the objects of the new Company, and stating that all the interests of the wintering partners would be conserved. It is evident that the attitude of the officers had alarmed even such stout-hearted men as Watkin and Dallas. There lies before the writer also a personal letter, dated London, July 23rd, 1863, signed by Edmund Head, Governor, to a chief trader of the Company, stating that it was the intention of the Committee "to carry on the fur trade as it has been hitherto carried on, under the provisions of the deed poll." None of the collateral objects of the Company "should interfere with the fur trade." He begs the officers to "have with him free and unreserved communication through the usual channel." Evidently the echo of the angry voices in Athabasca had been heard in London.
The old deed poll, which they had intended to suspend, as shown by Watkin, was thus preserved. This document secured them as follows: According to both deed polls of 1821 and 1834, forty per cent. of the net profits of the trade, divided into eighty-five shares of equal amount, were distributed annually among the wintering partners of the Company. A chief trader received an eighty-fifth share of the profits, and a chief factor two eighty-fifth shares. Both had certain rights after retiring.
The proposed abolition of these terms of the deed poll and the substitution therefor of certain salaries with the avowed purpose of reducing the expenses, of course meant loss to every wintering partner. The interests thus involved justified the most strenuous opposition on the part of the partners, and, unless the proposal were modified, would almost certainly have led to a disruption of the Company.
In harmony with Governor Head's circular letter no action in the direction contemplated was taken until 1871, when, on the receipt of the three hundred thousand pounds voted by Canada to the Company, the sum of one hundred and seven thousand and fifty-five pounds was applied to buying out the vested rights of the wintering partners, and the agitation was quieted.
The effect of the arrangement made for the payment of officers of the Company since 1871, as compared with their previous remuneration, has been a subject of discussion.
There lies before the writer an elaborate calculation by an old Hudson's Bay Company officer to the effect that under the old deed poll a chief factor would receive two eighty-fifth shares, his total average being seven hundred and twenty pounds per annum; and under the new (taking the average of twenty-five years) two and one half-hundredths shares, amounting to five hundred and thirty-two pounds annually, or a loss nearly of one hundred and eighty-eight pounds; similarly that a chief trader would receive three hundred and nineteen pounds, as against three hundred and sixty formerly, or a loss per annum of forty-one pounds.
Besides this, the number of higher commissioned officers was reduced when the old deed poll was cancelled, so that the stockholders received the advantage from there being fewer officials, also the chances of promotion to higher offices were diminished.
During the progress of these internal dissensions of the Hudson's Bay Company public opinion had been gradually maturing in Canada in favour of acquiring at least a portion of Rupert's Land. At the time of the Special Committee of 1857, it will be remembered the Hind-Gladman expedition had gone to spy out the land. A company, called the North-West Transportation Company, was about the same time organized in Toronto to carry goods and open communication from Fort William by way of the old fur traders' route to Fort Garry.
The merits and demerits of the north-western prairies were discussed in the public press of Canada. Edward Ermatinger, whose name has been already mentioned, was a steady supporter of the claim of the Hudson's Bay Company in a series of well-written letters in the Hamilton Spectator, a journal of Upper Canada. Taking the usual line of argument followed by the Company, he showed the small value of the country, its inhospitable climate, its inaccessibility, and magnified the legal claim of the Hudson's Bay Company against the Canadian contention. It is amusing to read in after years, when his opinion of Sir George Simpson was changed, his declaration of regret at having been led to so strenuously present his views in the Spectator.
Ten years had passed after the setting of the great Committee of 1857, and nothing practical as to the transfer of the country to Canada had been accomplished. The confederation movement had now widened the horizon of Canadian public men. In the very year of the confederation of the Canadian provinces (1867), Hon. William McDougall, who had been a persistent advocate of the Canadian claim to the North-West, moved in the Dominion Parliament a series of resolutions, which were carried. These resolutions showed the advantage, both to Canada and the Empire, of the Dominion being extended to the Pacific Ocean; that settlement, commerce, and development of the resources of the country are dependent on a stable Government being established; that the welfare of the Red River settlers would be enhanced by this means; that provision was contained in the British North-American Act for the admission of Rupert's Land and the North-West territory to the Dominion; that this wide country should be united to Canada; that in case of union the legal rights of any corporation, as the Hudson's Bay Company, association, or individual should be respected; that this should be settled judicially or by agreement; that the Indian title should be legally extinguished; and that an address be made to Her Majesty to this effect. The resolutions were carried by a large majority of the House. This was a bold and well-conceived step, and the era of discussion and hesitancy seemed to have passed away in favour of a policy of action.
The Hudson's Bay Company, however, insisted on an understanding being come to as to terms before giving consent to the proposed action, and a despatch to the Dominion Government from Her Majesty's Government called attention to this fact. As soon as convenient, a delegation, consisting of Hon. George E. Cartier and Hon. William McDougall, proceeded to England to negotiate with the Company as to terms. The path of the delegates on reaching England proved a thorny one. The attitude of the Imperial Government was plainly in favour of recognizing some legal value in the chartered rights of the Company, a thing denied by some, specially Mr. McDougall. No progress was being made. At this juncture D'Israeli's Government was defeated, and a delay resulted in waiting for a new Government. Earl Granville was the new Secretary of State for the Colonies. While negotiations were going on, the Hudson's Bay Company sent in to the Secretary of State a rather hot complaint that Canadian surveyors and road builders had entered upon their territory to the west of the Lake of the Woods. This was quite true, but the action had been taken by the Canadian Government under the impression that all parties would willingly agree to it. Not being at this juncture able to settle anything, the commissioners returned to Canada.
The Imperial Government was, however, in earnest in the matter, and pressed the Hudson's Bay Company to consent to reasonable terms, the more that the government by the Company in Red River was not satisfactory—an indisputable fact. At length the Company felt bound to accept the proposed terms. The main provisions of bargain were that the Company should surrender all rights in Rupert's Land; that Canada pay the Company the sum of three hundred thousand pounds; that the Company be allowed certain blocks of land around their posts; that they be given one-twentieth of the arable land of the country; and that the Company should be allowed every privilege in carrying on trade as a regular trading company. Thus was the concession of generous Charles the Second surrendered after two centuries of honourable occupation.
[CHAPTER XLV.]
TROUBLES OF THE TRANSFER OF RUPERT'S LAND.
Transfer Act passed—A moribund government—The Canadian surveying party—Causes of the rebellion—Turbulent Metis—American interference—Disloyal ecclesiastics—Governor McDougall—Riel and his rebel band—A blameworthy Governor—The "blawsted fence"—Seizure of Fort Garry—Riel's ambitions—Loyal rising—Three wise men from the East—The New Nation—A winter meeting—Bill of Rights—Canadian shot—The Wolseley expedition—Three renegades slink away—The end of Company rule—The new Province of Manitoba.
The old Company had agreed to the bargain, and the Imperial Act was passed authorizing the transfer of the vast territory east of the Rocky Mountains to Canada. Canada, with the strengthening national spirit rising from the young confederation, with pleasure saw the Dominion Government place in the estimates the three hundred thousand pounds for the payment of the Hudson's Bay Company, and an Act was passed by the Dominion Parliament providing for a government of the north-west territories, which would secure the administration of justice, and the peace, order, and good government of Her Majesty's subjects and others. It was enacted, however, that all laws of the territory at the time of the passing of the Act should remain in force until amended or repealed, and all officers except the chief to continue in office until others were appointed.
And now began the most miserable and disreputable exhibition of decrepitude, imbecility, jesuitry, foreign interference, blundering, and rash patriotism ever witnessed in the fur traders' country. This was known as the Red River rebellion. The writer arrived in Fort Garry the year following this wretched affair, made the acquaintance of many of the actors in the rebellion, and heard their stories. The real, deep significance of this rebellion has never been fully made known. Whether the writer will succeed in telling the whole tale remains to be seen.
The Hudson's Bay Company officials at Red River were still the government. This fact must be distinctly borne in mind. It has been stated, however, that this government had become hopelessly weak and inefficient. Governor Dallas, in the words quoted, admitted this and lamented over it. Were there any doubt in regard to this statement, it was shown by the utter defiance of the law in the breaking of jail in the three cases of Corbett, Stewart, and Dr. Schultz. No government could retain respect when the solemn behests of its courts were laughed at and despised. This is the real reason lying at the root of the apathy of the English-speaking people of the Red River in dealing with the rebellion. They were not cowards; they sprang from ancestors who had fought Britain's battles; they were intelligent and moral; they loved their homes and were prepared to defend them; but they had no guarantee of leadership; they had no assurance that their efforts would be given even the colour of legality; the broken-down jail outside Fort Garry, its uprooted stockades and helpless old jailor, were the symbol of governmental decrepitude and were the sport of any determined law-breaker.
It has been the habit of their opponents to refer to the annoyance of the Hudson's Bay Company Committee in London with Canada for in 1869 sending surveyors to examine the country before the transfer was made. Reference has also been made to the dissatisfaction of the local officers at the action taken by the Company in dealing with the deed poll in 1863; some have said that the Hudson's Bay Company officials at Fort Garry did not admire the Canadian leaders as they saw them; and others have maintained that these officers cared nothing for the country, provided they received large enough dividends as wintering partners.
SOUTH AND EAST FACES, 1840.
From sketch by wife of Governor Finlayson.
EAST FACE, IN YEAR 1882, WHEN FORT WAS DISMANTLED.
X Spot where Scott was executed.
FORT GARRY—WINTER SCENES.
Now, there may be something in these contentions, but they do not touch the core of the matter. The Hudson's Bay Company, both in London and Fort Garry, were thoroughly loyal to British institutions; the officers were educated, responsible, and high-minded men; they had acted up to their light in a thoroughly honourable manner, and no mere prejudice, or fancied grievance, or personal dislike would have made them untrue to their trusts. But the government had become decrepit; vacillation and uncertainty characterized every act; had the people been behind them, had they not felt that the people distrusted them, they would have taken action, as it was their duty to do.
The chronic condition of helplessness and governmental decay was emphasized and increased by a sad circumstance. Governor William McTavish, an honourable and well-meaning man, was sick. In the midst of the troubles of 1863 he would willingly have resigned, as Governor Dallas assures us; now he was physically incapable of the energy and decision requisite under the circumstances. Moreover, as we shall see, there was a most insidious and dangerous influence dogging his every step. His subordinates would not act without him, he could not act without them, and thus an absolute deadlock ensued. Moreover, the Council of Assiniboia, an appointed body, had felt itself for years out of touch with the sentiment of the colony, and its efforts at legislation resulted in no improvement of the condition of things. Woe to a country ruled by an oligarchy, however well-meaning or reputable such a body may be!
Turn now from this picture of pitiful weakness to the unaccountable and culpable blundering of the Canadian Government. Cartier and McDougall found out in England that sending in a party of surveyors before the country was transferred was offensive to the Hudson's Bay Company. More offensive still was the method of conducting the expedition. It was a mark of sublime stupidity to profess, as the Canadian Government did, to look upon the money spent on this survey as a benevolent device for relieving the people suffering from the grasshopper visitation. The genius who originated the plan of combining charity with gain should have been canonized. Moreover, the plan of contractor Snow of paying poor wages, delaying payment, and giving harsh treatment to such a people as the half-breeds are known to be was most ill advised. The evidently selfish and grasping spirit shown in this expedition sent to survey and build the Dawson Road, yet turning aside to claim unoccupied lands, to sow the seeds of doubt and suspicion in the minds of a people hitherto secluded from the world, was most unpatriotic and dangerous. It cannot be denied, in addition, that while many of the small band of Canadians were reputable and hard-working men, the course of a few prominent leaders, who had made an illegitimate use of the Nor'-Wester newspaper, had tended to keep the community in a state of alienation and turmoil.
What, then, were the conditions? A helpless, moribund government, without decision, without actual authority on the one hand, and on the other an irritating, selfish, and aggressive expedition, taking possession of the land before it was transferred to Canada, and assuming the air of conquerors.
Look now at the combustible elements awaiting this combination. The French half-breeds, descendants of the turbulent Bois Brûlés of Lord Selkirk's times; the old men, companions of Sayer and the elder Riel, who defied the authority of the court, and left it shouting, "Vive la liberté!" now irritated by the Dawson Road being built in the way just described; the road running through the seigniory given by Lord Selkirk to the Roman Catholic bishop, the road in rear of their largest settlements, and passing through another French settlement at Pointe des Chênes! Further, the lands adjacent to these settlements, and naturally connected with them, being seized by the intruders! Furthermore, the natives, antagonized by the action of certain Canadians who had for years maintained the country in a state of turmoil! Were there not all the elements of an explosion of a serious and dangerous kind?
Two other most important forces in this complicated state of things cannot be left out. The first of these is a matter which requires careful statement, but yet it is a most potential factor in the rebellion. This is the attitude of certain persons in the United States. For twenty years and more the trade of the Red River settlement had been largely carried on by way of St. Paul, in the State of Minnesota. The Hudson Bay route and York boat brigade were unable to compete with the facilities offered by the approach of the railway to the Mississippi River. Accordingly long lines of Red River carts took loads of furs to St. Paul and brought back freight for the Company. The Red River trade was a recognized source of profit in St. Paul. Familiarity in trade led to an interest on the part of the Americans in the public affairs of Red River. Hot-headed and sordid people in Red River settlement had actually spoken of the settlement being connected with the United States.
Now that irritation was manifested at Red River, steps were taken by private parties from the United States to fan the flame. At Pembina, on the border between Rupert's Land and the United States, lived a nest of desperadoes willing to take any steps to accomplish their purposes. They had access to all the mails which came from England to Canada marked "Vià Pembina." Pembina was an outpost refuge for law-breakers and outcasts from the United States. Its people used all their power to disturb the peace of Red River settlement. In addition, a considerable number of Americans had come to the little village of Winnipeg, now being begun near the walls of Fort Garry. These men held their private meetings, all looking to the creation of trouble and the provocation of feeling that might lead to change of allegiance. Furthermore, the writer is able to state, on the information of a man high in the service of Canada, and a man not unknown in Manitoba, that there was a large sum of money, of which an amount was named as high as one million dollars, which was available in St. Paul for the purpose of securing a hold by the Americans on the fertile plains of Rupert's Land.
Here, then, was an agency of most dangerous proportions, an element in the village of Winnipeg able to control the election of the first delegate to the convention, a desperate body of men on the border, who with Machiavelian persistence fanned the flame of discontent, and a reserve of power in St. Paul ready to take advantage of any emergency.
A still more insidious and threatening influence was at work. Here again the writer is aware of the gravity of the statement he is making, but he has evidence of the clearest kind for his position. A dangerous religious element in the country—ecclesiastics from old France—who had no love for Britain, no love for Canada, no love for any country, no love for society, no love for peace! These plotters were in close association with the half-breeds, dictated their policy, and freely mingled with the rebels. One of them was an intimate friend of the leader of the rebellion, consulted with him in his plans, and exercised a marked influence on his movements. This same foreign priest, with Jesuitical cunning, gave close attendance on the sick Governor, and through his family exercised a constant and detrimental power upon the only source of authority then in the land. Furthermore, an Irish student and teacher, with a Fenian hatred of all things British, was a "familiar" of the leader of the rebellion, and with true Milesian zeal advanced the cause of the revolt.
Can a more terrible combination be imagined than this? A decrepit government with the executive officer sick; a rebellious and chronically dissatisfied Metis element; a government at Ottawa far removed by distance, committing with unvarying regularity blunder after blunder; a greedy and foreign cabal planning to seize the country, and a secret Jesuitical plot to keep the Governor from action and to incite the fiery Metis to revolt!
The drama opens with the appointment, in September, 1869, by the Dominion Government, of the Hon. William McDougall as Lieutenant-Governor of the north-west territories, his departure from Toronto, and his arrival at Pembina, in the Dakota territory, in the end of October. He was accompanied by his family, a small staff, and three hundred stand of arms with ammunition. He had been preceded by the Hon. Joseph Howe, of the Dominion Government, who visited the Red River settlement ostensibly to feel the pulse of public opinion, but as Commissioner gaining little information. Mr. McDougall's commission as Governor was to take effect after the formal transfer of the territory. He reached Pembina, where he was served with a notice not to enter the territory, yet he crossed the boundary line at Pembina, and took possession of the Hudson's Bay Fort of West Lynn, two miles north of the boundary.
Meanwhile a storm was brewing along Red River. A young French half-breed, Louis Riel, son of the excitable miller of the Seine of whom mention was made—a young man, educated by the Roman Catholic Bishop Taché, of St. Boniface, for a time, and afterwards in Montreal, was regarded as the hope of the Metis. He was a young man of fair ability, but proud, vain, and assertive, and had the ambition to be a Cæsar or Napoleon. He with his followers had stopped the surveyors in their work, and threatened to throw off the approaching tyranny. Professing to be loyal to Britain but hostile to Canada, he succeeded, in October, in getting a small body of French half-breeds to seize the main highway at St. Norbert, some nine miles south of Fort Garry.
The message to Mr. McDougall not to enter the territory was forwarded by this body, that already considered itself the de facto government. A Canadian settler at once swore an affidavit before the officer in charge of Fort Garry that an armed party of French half-breeds had assembled to oppose the entrance of the Governor.
Here, then, was the hour of destiny. An outbreak had taken place, it was illegal to oppose any man entering the country, not to say a Governor, the fact of revolt was immediately brought to Fort Garry, and no amount of casuistry or apology can ever justify Governor McTavish, sick though he was, from immediately not taking action, and compelling his council to take action by summoning the law-abiding people to surround him and repress the revolt. But the government that would allow the defiance of the law by permitting men to live at liberty who had broken jail could not be expected to take action. To have done so would have been to work a miracle.
The rebellion went on apace; two of the so-called Governor's staff pushed on to the barricade erected at St. Norbert. Captain Cameron, one of them, with eyeglass in poise, and with affected authority, gave command, "Remove that blawsted fence," but the half-breeds were unyielding. The two messengers returned to Pembina, where they found Mr. McDougall likewise driven back and across the boundary. Did ever British prestige suffer a more humiliating blow?
The act of rebellion, usually dangerous, proved in this case a trivial one, and Riel's little band of forty or fifty badly-armed Metis began to grow. The mails were seized, freight coming into the country became booty, and the experiment of a rising was successful. In the meantime the authorities of Fort Garry were inactive. The rumour came that Riel thought of seizing the fort. An affidavit of the chief of police under the Government shows that he urged the master of Fort Garry to meet the danger, and asked authority to call upon a portion of the special police force sworn in, shortly before, to preserve the peace. No Governor spoke; no one even closed the fort as a precaution; its gates stood wide open to friend or foe.
This exhibition of helplessness encouraged the conspirators, and Riel and one hundred of his followers (November 2nd) unopposed took possession of the fort and quartered themselves upon the Company. In the front part of the fort lived the Governor; he was now flanked by a body-guard of rebels; the master of the fort, a burly son of Britain, though very gruff and out of sorts, could do nothing, and the young Napoleon of the Metis fattened on the best of the land.
Riel now issued a proclamation, calling on the English-speaking parishes of the settlement to elect twelve representatives to meet the President and representatives of the French-speaking population, appointing a meeting for twelve days afterwards.
Mr. McDougall, on hearing of the seizure of the fort, wrote to Governor McTavish stating that as the Hudson Bay Company was still the government, action should be taken to disperse the rebels. A number of loyal inhabitants also petitioned Governor McTavish to issue his proclamation calling on the rebels to disperse. The sick and helpless Governor, fourteen days after the seizure of the fort and twenty-three days after the affidavit of the rising, issued a tardy proclamation condemning the rebels and calling upon them to disperse. The Convention met November 16th, the English parishes having been cajoled into electing delegates, thinking thus to soothe the troubled land. After meeting and discussing in hot and useless words the state of affairs, the Convention adjourned till December 1st, it being evident, however, that Riel desired to form a provisional government of which he should be the joy and pride.
The day for the reassembling of the Convention arrived. Riel and his party insisted on ruling the meeting, and passed a "Bill of Rights" consisting of fifteen provisions. The English people refused to accept these propositions, and, after vainly endeavouring to take steps to meet Mr. McDougall, withdrew to their homes, ashamed and confounded.
Meanwhile Mr. McDougall was chafing at the strange and humiliating situation in which he found himself. With his family and staff poorly housed at Pembina and the severe winter coming on, he could scarcely be blamed for irritation and discontent. December 1st was the day on which he expected his commission as Governor to come into effect, and wonder of wonders, he, a lawyer, a privy councillor, and an experienced statesman, went so far on this mere supposition as to issue a proclamation announcing his appointment as Governor. As a matter of fact, far away from communication with Ottawa, he was mistaken as to the transfer. On account of the rise of the rebellion this had not been made, and Mr. McDougall, in issuing a spurious proclamation, became a thing of contempt to the insurgents, an object of pity to the loyalists, and the laughing-stock of the whole world. His proclamation at the same time authorizing Colonel Dennis, the Canadian surveyor in Red River settlement, to raise a force to put down the rebellion, was simply a brutum fulmen, and was the cause to innocent, well-meaning men of trouble and loss. Colonel Dennis succeeded in raising a force of some four hundred men, and would not probably have failed had it not transpired that the two proclamations were illegal and that the levies were consequently unauthorized. Such a thing to be carried out by William McDougall and Colonel Dennis, men of experience and ability! Surely there could be no greater fiasco!
The Canadian people were now in a state of the greatest excitement, and the Canadian Government, aware of its blundering and stupidity, hastened to rectify its mistakes. Commissioners were sent to negotiate with the various parties in Red River settlement. These were Vicar-General Thibault, who had spent long years in the Roman Catholic Missions of the North-West, Colonel de Salaberry, a French Canadian, and Mr. Donald A. Smith, the chief officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, then at Montreal. On the last of these Commissioners, who had been clothed with very wide powers, lay the chief responsibility, as will be readily seen.
A number of Canadians—nearly fifty—had been assembled in the store of Dr. Schultz, at the village of Winnipeg, and, on the failure of Mr. McDougall's proclamation, were left in a very awkward condition. With arms in their hands, they were looked upon by Riel as dangerous, and with promises of freedom and of the intention of Riel to meet McDougall and settle the whole matter, they (December 7th) surrendered. Safely in the fort and in the prison outside the wall, the prisoners were kept by the truce-breaker, and the Metis contingent celebrated the victory by numerous potations of rum taken from the Hudson's Bay Company stores.
Riel now took a step forward in issuing a proclamation, which has generally been attributed to the crippled postmaster at Pembina, one of the dangerous foreign clique longing to seize the settlement. He also hoisted a new flag, with the fleur-de-lis worked upon it, thus giving evidence of his disloyalty and impudence. Other acts of injustice, such as seizing Company funds and interfering with personal liberty, were committed by him.
On December 27th—a memorable day—Mr. Donald A. Smith arrived. His commission and papers were left at Pembina, and he went directly to Fort Garry, where Riel received him. The interview, given in Mr. Smith's own words, was a remarkable one. Riel vainly sought to induce the Commissioner to recognize his government, and yet was afraid to show disrespect to so high and honoured an officer. For about two months Commissioner Smith lived at Fort Garry, in a part of the same building as Governor McTavish.
Mr. Smith says of this period, "The state of matters at this time was most unsatisfactory and truly humiliating. Upwards of fifty British subjects were held in close confinement as political prisoners; security for persons or property there was none.... The leaders of the French half-breeds had declared their determination to use every effort for the purpose of annexing the territory to the United States."
Mr. Smith acted with great wisdom and decision. His plan evidently was to have no formal breach with Riel but gradually to undermine him, and secure a combination by which he could be overthrown. Many of the influential men of the settlement called upon Mr. Smith, and the affairs of the country were discussed. Riel was restless and at times impertinent, but the Commissioner exercised his Scottish caution, and bided his time.
At this time a newspaper, called The New Nation, appeared as the organ of the provisional government. This paper openly advocated annexation to the United States, thus showing the really dangerous nature of the movement embodied in the rebellion.
During all these months of the rebellion, Bishop Taché, the influential head of the Roman Catholic Church, had been absent in Rome at the great Council of that year. One of his most active priests left behind was Father Lestanc, the prince of plotters, who has generally been credited with belonging to the Jesuit Order. Lestanc had sedulously haunted the presence of the Governor; he was a daring and extreme man, and to him and his fellow-Frenchman, the curé of St. Norbert, much of Riel's obstinacy has been attributed. Commissioner Smith now used his opportunity to weaken Riel. He offered to send for his commission to Pembina, if he were allowed to meet the people. Riel consented to this. The commission was sent for, and Riel tried to intercept the messenger, but failed to do so. The meeting took place on January 19th. It was a date of note for Red River settlement. One thousand people assembled, and as there was no building capable of holding the people, the meeting took place in the open air, the temperature being twenty below zero.
The outcome of this meeting was the election and subsequent assembling of forty representatives—one half French, the other half English—to consider the matter of Commissioner Smith's message. Six days after the open-air meeting the Convention met. A second "Bill of Rights" was adopted, and it was agreed to send delegates to Ottawa to meet the Dominion Government. A provisional government was formed, at the request, it is said, of Governor McTavish, and Riel gained the height of his ambition in being made President, while the fledgling Fenian priest, O'Donoghue, became "Secretary of the Treasury."
The retention of the prisoners in captivity aroused a deep feeling in the country, and a movement originated in Portage La Prairie to rescue the unfortunates. This force was joined by recruits at Kildonan, making up six hundred in all. Awed by this gathering, Riel released the prisoners, though he was guilty of an act of deepest treachery in arresting nearly fifty of the Assiniboine levy as they were returning to their homes. Among them was Major Boulton, who afterwards narrowly escaped execution, and who has written an interesting account of the rebellion.
The failure of the two parties of loyalists, and their easy capture by Riel, raises the question of the wisdom of these efforts. No doubt the inspiring motive of these levies was in many cases true patriotism, and it reflects credit on them as men of British blood and British pluck, but the management of both was so unfortunate and so lacking in skill, that one is disposed, though lamenting their failures, to put these expeditions down as dictated by the greatest rashness.
The elevation of Riel served to awaken high ambitions. The late Archbishop Taché, in a later rebellion, characterized Riel as a remarkable example of inflated ambition, and called his state of mind that of "megalomania." Riel now became more irritable and domineering. He seemed also bitter against the English for the signs of insubordination appearing in all the parishes. The influence of the violent and dastardly Lestanc was strong upon him. The anxious President now determined to awe the English, and condemned for execution a young Irish Canadian prisoner named Thomas Scott. Commissioner Smith and a number of influential inhabitants did everything possible to dissuade Riel, but he persisted, and Scott was publicly executed near Fort Garry on March 4th, 1870.
"Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad." The execution of Scott was the death-knell of Riel's hopes. Canada was roused to its centre. Determined to have no further communication with Riel, Commissioner Smith as soon as possible left Fort Garry and returned to Canada.
The arrival of Bishop Taché, who had returned at the request of the Canadian Government, took place in due time. Probably the real attitude of Bishop Taché will never be known, though his strong French Canadian associations and love of British connection make it seem hardly possible that he could have been implicated in the rebellion. Bishop Taché endeavoured to overcome the terrible mistake of Riel. Commissioners were despatched to Ottawa, the most important of them Father Ritchot, of St. Norbert, whose hand had been in the plot from the beginning. Carrying down a "Bill of Rights" from the provisional government, which, however, there is clear evidence Ritchot and others took the liberty of altering, they were instrumental in having a Bill passed through the Dominion Parliament, establishing Manitoba as a province.
For the establishment of peace, an expedition was organized by Canada, consisting of British regulars and Canadian volunteers, under Colonel Wolseley. Coming from Canada up the fur-traders' route, through Lake of the Woods, down Winnipeg River, across Lake Winnipeg, and up the Red River, the expedition arrived, to the great joy of the suffering people of the settlement, on August 24th, 1870. After eleven months of the most torturing anxiety had been endured, the sight of the rescuing soldiery sent the blood pulsing again through their veins. As the troops approached Fort Garry, three slinking figures were seen to leave the fort and escape across the Assiniboine. These were the "President Riel," "Adjutant-General" Lepine, and the scoundrel O'Donoghue. "They folded their tents like the Arabs, and as silently stole away." Colonel Wolseley says, "The troops then formed line outside the fort, the Union Jack was hoisted, a royal salute fired, and three cheers were given for the Queen, which were caught up and heartily re-echoed by many of the civilians and settlers who had followed the troops from the village."
The transfer of Rupert's Land had been completed, and the governing power of the famous old Company was a thing of the past.
[CHAPTER XLVI.]
PRESENT STATUS OF THE COMPANY.
A great land Company—Fort Garry dismantled—The new buildings—New v. Old—New life in the Company—Palmy days are recalled—Governors of ability—The present distinguished Governor—Vaster operations—Its eye not dimmed.
Relieved of the burden of government, the Hudson's Bay Company threw itself heartily into the work of developing its resources. Mr. Donald A. Smith, who had done so much to undermine the power of Riel, returned to Manitoba as Chief Commissioner of the Company, and proceeded to manage its affairs in the altered conditions of the country. Representing enormous interests in the North-West, Mr. Smith entered the first local legislature at Winnipeg, and soon after became for a time a member of the Canadian House of Commons. One of the most important matters needing attention was the land interests of the Company. The Company claimed five hundred acres around Fort Garry. This great tract of land, covering now one of the most important parts of the City of Winnipeg, was used as a camping-ground, where the traders from the far west posts, even as far as Edmonton, made their "corrals" and camped during their stay at the capital. Some opposition was developed to this claim, but the block of land was at length handed over to the Company, fifty acres being reserved for public purposes.
The allotment of wild land to the Company of one-twentieth went on in each township as it was surveyed, and though all this land is taxable, yet it has become a great source of revenue to the Company. Important sites and parcels of land all over the country have helped to swell its resources.
The great matter of adapting its agencies to meet the changed conditions of trade was a difficult thing. The methods of two centuries could not be changed in a day. The greatest difficulty lay in the officers and men remote from the important centres. It was reported that in many of the posts no thorough method of book-keeping prevailed. The dissatisfaction arising from the sale made by the Company in 1863, and the uncertainty as to the deed poll, no doubt introduced an element of fault-finding and discontent into the Company's business. Some of the most trusted officers retired from the service. The resources of the Company were, however, enormous, its credit being practically unlimited, and this gave it a great advantage in competing with the Canadian merchants coming to the country, the majority of whom had little capital. Ten years after the transfer Fort Garry was sold, and though it came back on the hands of the Company, yet miserabile dictu, the fort had been dismantled, thrown down, and even the stone removed, with the exception of the front gate, which still remains. This gate, with a portion of ground about it, has been given by the Hudson's Bay Company to the City of Winnipeg as a small historic park. Since the time of sale, large warehouses have been erected, not filled, as were the old shops, with bright coloured cloths, moccasins, and beads, fitted for the Indian and native trade, but aiming at full departments after the model of Maple and Shoolbred, of the mother city of London. These shops are represented in the plate accompanying this description.
HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S STORES AND GENERAL OFFICES, WINNIPEG.
The trade thus modified has been under the direction of men of ability, who succeeded Mr. Donald A. Smith, such as Messrs. Wrigley, Brydges, and a number of able subordinates. The extension of trade has gone on in many of the rising towns of the Canadian West, where the Hudson's Bay Company was not before represented, such as Portage La Prairie, Calgary, Lethbridge, Prince Albert, Vancouver, &c. In all these points the Company's influence has been a very real and important one.
The methods of trade, now employed, require a skill and knowledge never needed in the old fur-trading days. The present successful Commissioner, C. C. Chipman, Esq., resident in Winnipeg, controls and directs interests far greater than Sir George Simpson was called upon to deal with. Present and Past presents a contrast between ceaseless competition and a sleepy monopoly.
COMMISSIONER CHIPMAN (WINNIPEG).
Executive Officer of H.B. Co. in Canada.
The portions of the country not reached, or likely to be reached by settlement, have remained in possession of the Hudson's Bay Company almost solely. The Canadian Government has negotiated treaties with the Indians as far north as Lake Athabasca, leaving many of the Chipewyans and Eskimos still to the entire management of the Company.
The impression among the officers of the Company is that under the deed poll of 1871 they are not so well remunerated as under the former régime. It is difficult to estimate the exact relation of the present to the past, inasmuch as the opening up of the country, the improvement of transportation facilities, and the cheapening of all agricultural supplies has changed the relative value of money in the country. Under this arrangement, which has been in force for twenty-four years, the profits of the wintering partners are divided on the basis of one-hundredth of a share. Of this an inspecting chief factor receives three shares; a chief factor two and a half; a factor two; and a chief trader one and a half shares. The average for the twenty-five years of the one-hundredth share has been 213l. 12s. 2-1/2d Since 1890 a more liberal provision has been made for officers retiring, and since that time an officer on withdrawing in good standing receives two years' full pay and six years' half pay. Later years have seen a further increase.
A visit to the Hudson's Bay House on the corner of Leadenhall and Lime Streets, London, still gives one a sense of the presence of the old Company. While in the New World great changes have taken place, and the visitor is struck with the complete departure from the low-ceiling store, with goods in disorder and confusion, with Metis smoking "kinni-kinnik" till the atmosphere is opaque—all this to the palatial buildings with the most perfect arrangements and greatest taste; yet in London "the old order changeth" but slowly. It is true the old building on Fenchurch Street, London, where "the old Lady" was said by the Nor'-Westers to sit, was sold in 1859, and the proceeds divided among the shareholders and officers for four years thereafter. But the portraits of Prince Rupert, Sir George Simpson, and the copy of the Company Charter were transferred bodily to the directors' room in the building on Lime Street. The strong room contains the same rows of minutes, the same dusty piles of documents, and the journals of bygone years, but the business of a vast region is still managed there, and the old gentlemen who control the Hudson's Bay Company affairs pass their dividends as comfortably as in years gone by, with, in an occasional year, some restless spirit stirring up the echoes, to be promptly repressed and the current of events to go on as before.
Since 1871, however, it is easy to see that men of greater financial ability have been at the head of the councils of the Hudson's Bay Company, recalling the palmy days of the first operations of the Company. After five years' service, Sir Edmund Head, the first Governor under the new deed poll, gave way, to be followed for a year by the distinguished politician and statesman, the Earl of Kimberley. For five years thereafter, Sir Stafford Northcote, who held high Government office in the service of the Empire, occupied this position. He was followed for six years by one who has since gained a very high reputation for financial ability, the Rt. Hon. G. J. Goschen. Eden Colville, who seems to carry us back to the former generation—a man of brisk and alert mind, and singularly free from the prejudices and immobility of Governor Berens, the last of the barons of the old régime—held office for three years after Mr. Goschen.
For the last ten years the veteran of kindly manner, warm heart, and genial disposition, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has occupied this high place. The clerk, junior officer, and chief factor of thirty hard years on the inhospitable shores of Hudson Bay and Labrador, the Commissioner who, as Donald A. Smith, soothed the Riel rebellion, and for years directed the reorganization of the Company's affairs at Fort Garry and the whole North-West, the daring speculator who took hold, with his friends, of the Minnesota and Manitoba Railway, and with Midas touch turned the enterprise to gold, a projector and a builder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the patron of art and education, has worthily filled the office of Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and with much success reorganized its administration and directed its affairs.
The Company's operations are vaster than ever before. The greatest mercantile enterprise of the Greater Canada west of Lake Superior; a strong land Company, still keeping up its traditions and conducting a large trade in furs; owning vessels and transportation facilities; able to take large contracts; exercising a fatherly care over the Indian tribes; the helper and assistant of the vast missionary organizations scattered over Northern Canada, the Company since the transfer of Rupert's Land to Canada has taken a new lease of life; its eye is not dim, nor its natural force abated.
[CHAPTER XLVII.]
THE FUTURE OF THE CANADIAN WEST.
The Greater Canada—Wide wheat fields—Vast pasture lands—Huronian mines—The Kootenay riches—Yukon nuggets—Forests—Iron and coal—Fisheries—Two great cities—Towns and villages—Anglo-Saxon institutions—The great outlook.
In 1871, soon after Rupert's Land and the Indian territories were transferred to Canada, it was the fortune of the writer to take up his abode in Winnipeg, as the village in the neighbourhood of Fort Garry was already called. The railway was in that year still four hundred miles from Winnipeg. From the terminus in Minnesota the stage coach drawn by four horses, with relays every twenty miles, sped rapidly over prairies smooth as a lawn to the site of the future City of the Plains.
The fort was in its glory. Its stone walls, round bastions, threatening pieces of artillery and rows of portholes, spoke of a place of some strength, though even then a portion of stone wall had been taken down to give easier access to the "Hudson's Bay Store." It was still the seat of government, for the Canadian Governor lived within its walls, as the last Company Governor, McTavish, had done. It was still the scene of gaiety, as the better class of the old settlers united with the leaders of the new Canadian society in social joys, under the hospitable roof of Governor Archibald.
Since that time forty years have well-nigh passed. The stage coach, the Red River cart, and the shagganappe pony are things of the past, and great railways with richly furnished trains connect St. Paul and Minnesota with the City of Winnipeg. More important still, the skill of the engineer has blasted a way through the Archæan rocks to Fort William, Lake Superior, more direct than the old fur-traders' route; the tremendous cliffs of the north shore of Lake Superior have been levelled and the chasm bridged. To the west the prairies have been gridironed with numerous lines of railway, the enormous ascents of the four Rocky Mountain ranges rising a mile above the sea level have been crossed, and the giddy heights of the Fraser River cañon traversed. The iron band of the Canadian Pacific Railway, one of whose chief promoters was Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, the present Governor of the Company, has joined ocean to ocean. The Canadian Northern Railway runs its line from Lake Superior through Winnipeg and Edmonton to British Columbia. It has in prospect a transcontinental Railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway has in operation a perfectly built line from Lake Superior through Winnipeg and Edmonton to the Rocky Mountains, and with the backing of the Canadian Government guarantees a most complete connection between the eastern and western shores of the continent.
A wonderful transformation has taken place in the land since the days of Sir George Simpson and his band of active chief factors and traders. It is true, portions of the wide territory reaching from Labrador to the Pacific Ocean will always be the domain of the fur-trader. The Labrador, Ungava, and Arctic shores of Canada will always remain inhospitable, but the Archæan region on the south and west of Hudson Bay undoubtedly contains great mineral treasures. The Canadian Government pledges itself to a completed railway from the prairie wheat fields to York Factory on Hudson Bay. This will bring the seaport on Hudson Bay as near Britain as is New York, and will make an enormous saving in transportation to Western Canada. What a mighty change from the day when the pessimistic French King spoke of all Canada, as "only a few orpents of snow." Mackenzie River district is still the famous scene of the fur trade, and may long continue so, though there is always the possibility of any portion of the vast waste of the Far North developing, as the Yukon territory has done, mineral wealth rivalling the famous sands of Pactolus or the riches of King Solomon's mines.
Under Canadian sway, law and order are preserved throughout this wide domain, although the Hudson's Bay Company officers still administer law and in many cases are magistrates or officers for the Government, receiving their commissions from Ottawa. Peace and order prevail; the arm of the law has been felt in Keewatin, the Mackenzie River, and distant Yukon.
But it is to the fertile prairies of the West and valleys and slopes of the Pacific Coast we look for the extension of the Greater Canada. While the Hon. William McDougall was arguing the value of the prairie land of the West, his Canadian and other opponents maintained "that in the North-West the soil never thawed out in summer, and that the potato or cabbage would not mature." With this opinion many of the Hudson's Bay Company officers agreed, though it is puzzling to the resident of the prairie to-day to see how such honourable and observing men could have made such statements. The fertile plains have been divided into three great provinces, Manitoba (1871), Saskatchewan and Alberta (1905). Manitoba, which at the time of the closing of the Hudson's Bay Company régime numbered some 12,000 or 15,000 whites and half-breeds and as many more Indians, has (in 1909) a population of well-nigh half a million—the city of Winnipeg itself exceeding more than one quarter of that number. Saskatchewan and Alberta probably make up between them another half million of people in this prairie section. These being the three great bread-providing provinces of the Dominion, produced in 1909 on 297,000,000 of acres, which is but 8 per cent. of their total arable land, of wheat, oats, barley and flax, 132-1/3 million dollars' worth of cereals.
The City of Winnipeg, which, when the writer first saw the hamlet bearing that name, had less than three hundred souls, has now become a beautiful city, which drew forth the admiration of the whole British Association on the occasion of their visit to it in 1909. Its assessment in 1910 was 157-3/5 millions of dollars, and the amount of building in that year reached 11,000,000 dollars. The city has under construction at Winnipeg River, fifty miles from the city, 60,000 horsepower of electric energy, which will be transmitted by cable to the city in 1911 for manufacturing purposes. Up till 1882 the Hudson's Bay Company store was a low building, a wooden erection made of lumber sawn by whip-saw or by some rude contrivance, having what was known in the old Red River days as a "pavilion roof." Its highly-coloured fabrics suited to the trade of the country did not relieve its dingy interior. To-day the Hudson's Bay Company departmental stores and offices, built of dark red St. Louis brick, speak of the enormous progress made in the development of the country. The Hudson's Bay Company store, great as it now is, has been equalled and even perhaps surpassed by private enterprises of great magnitude. Winnipeg, as being from its geographical position half way between the international boundary line and Lake Winnipeg, is the natural gateway between Eastern and Western Canada. It is becoming the greatest railway centre of Canada, and is familiarly spoken of as the "Chicago of Western Canada." It bids fair also to be a great manufacturing centre. In spite of its recent date and unfinished facilities for power its manufactured output has grown from 8-2/3 millions of dollars in 1900 to 25,000,000 in 1910. From 1902, when its bank clearings were 188-1/3 millions of dollars, these grew in 1909 to 770-2/3 millions. All this is not surprising when the marvellous immigration and consequent development is shown by the railway mileage of Western Canada, which has grown from 3,680 miles in 1900 to 11,472 miles in 1909; and when the annual product, chiefly of cattle and horses, reached in the latter year the sum of 175,000,000 of dollars.
British Columbia, including the New Caledonia, Kootenay Country, and Vancouver Island of the fur-traders, is a land of great resources. Its population has increased many times over. Its great salmon fisheries, trade in timber, coal mines, agricultural productiveness, and genial climate have long made it a favourite dwelling-place for English-speaking colonists.
PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, VICTORIA, B.C.
With statue of Capt. George Vancouver above; figures of Sir James Douglas and Chief Justice Begbie in niches; and the obelisk of Sir James Douglas, erected by the people of British Columbia.
In late years much prominence has been given to this province by the discovery of its mineral products. Gold, silver, and lead mines in the Kootenay region, which was discovered by old David Thompson, and in the Cariboo district, have lately attracted many immigrants to British Columbia; the adjoining territory of the Yukon, brought to the knowledge of the world by Chief Factor Robert Campbell, has surpassed all other parts of the fur-traders' land in rich productiveness, although the region lying between the Lake of the Woods and Lake Superior, along the very route of the fur-traders, is becoming famous by its production of gold, silver, and other valuable metals.
Throughout the wide West great deposits of coal and iron are found, the basis of future manufactures, and in many districts great forests to supply to the world material for increasing development.
What, then, is to be the future of this Canadian West? The possibilities are illimitable. The Anglo-Saxon race, with its energy and pluck, has laid hold of the land so long shut in by the wall built round it by the fur-traders. This race, with its dominating forcefulness, will absorb and harmonize elements coming from all parts of the world to enjoy the fertile fields and mineral treasures of a land whose laws are just, whose educational policy is thorough and progressive, whose moral and religious aspirations are high and noble, and which gives a hearty welcome to the industrious and deserving from all lands.
The flow of population to the Canadian West during the first decade of this century has been remarkable. Not only has there been a vast British immigration of the best kind, but some 150,000 to 200,000 of industrious settlers from the continent of Europe have come to build the railways, canals, and public works of the country, and they have been essential for its agricultural development. Several hundreds of thousands of the best settlers have come from the United States, a large proportion of them being returned Canadians or the children of Canadians.
On the shores of Burrard Inlet on the Pacific Ocean another place of great importance is rising—Vancouver City, the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Victoria, begun, as we have seen, by Chief Factor Douglas as the chief fort along the Pacific Coast, long held its own as the commercial as well as the political capital of British Columbia, but in the meantime Vancouver has surpassed it in population, if not in influence.
All goes to show that the Hudson's Bay Company was preserving for the generations to come a most valuable heritage. The leaders of opinion in Canada have frequently, within the last five years of the century, expressed their opinion that the second generation of the twentieth century may see a larger Canadian population to the West of Lake Superior than will be found in the provinces of the East. William Cullen Bryant's lines, spoken of other prairies, will surely come true of the wide Canadian plains:—
"I listen long
.... and think I hear
The sound of that advancing multitude
Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground
Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain
Over the dark brown furrows."
The French explorers are a reminiscence of a century and a half ago; the lords of the lakes and forests, with all their wild energy, are gone for ever; the Astorians are no more; no longer do the French Canadian voyageurs make the rivers vocal with their chansons; the pomp and circumstance of the emperor of the fur-traders has been resolved into the ordinary forms of commercial life; and the rude barter of the early trader has passed into the fulfilment of the poet's dream, of the "argosies of magic sails," and the "costly bales" of an increasing commerce. The Hudson's Bay Company still lives and takes its new place as one of the potent forces of the Canadian West.
[APPENDIX A.]
AUTHORITIES AND REFERENCES.
(Chapters I.-VI.)
Voyages among the North American Indians, 1652-84 (Prince Society).
Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale, 1772, by M. Bacqueville de la Potherie.
M. Jeremie.
The British Empire in America, 2 vols. London, 1708. Anon. (John Oldmixon.)
Minutes and Stock Book of Hudson's Bay Company, Hudson's Bay Company House, Lime Street, London.
Imperial (Hudson's Bay Company) Blue Book, 1749.
Memo. of Chief Justice Draper. Imperial Blue Book, 1857.
Imperial Hudson's Bay Company Blue Book, 1857. Appendix 9.
Stock Book of Hudson's Bay Company Offices, Lime Street, London.
Documents, &c., on Boundaries. (Ottawa, 1871.) Hudson's Bay Company Statement of Rights, 1850.
Documents, &c., on Boundaries. (Ottawa, 1871.)
Documents of Early French Settlements.
The materials for Chapters III. and IV. are almost exclusively obtained from the unpublished minutes of the Company, 1671-1690, at Hudson's Bay Company House, Lime Street, London.
The material of Chapter V. is largely from the minutes and letter-books of the Company at the Hudson's Bay Company's House, Lime Street, London. The complete story of Radisson's life is now for the first time given to the world by the Author.
Instructions to Sieur de Troyes. Documents, &c. Ottawa, 1871.
N.Y. Hist. Collection. Vol. IX., p. 67.
Massachusetts Archives, Boston. French Documents.
Hist, de la Nouvelle France, par Marc L'Escarbot (1618).
Minutes of Hudson's Bay Company, Lime Street, London.
Bacqueville de la Potherie. Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale.
Histoire du Canada, par F. X. Garneau.
Letter-books of Hudson's Bay Company, Lime Street, London.
(Chapters VII.-X.)
Extracts from Treaty of Ryswick in Documents on Boundary. Ottawa, 1873.
Minutes and Letter-book of Hudson's Bay Company. (London.)
Extracts from Treaty of Utrecht, in Documents, &c., on Boundary. (Ottawa.) 1873.
Letter-books of Hudson's Bay Company. (London.)
Account of the Countries adjoining Hudson Bay, by Arthur Dobbs, Esq. London, 1744.
Discovery of the N.-W. Passage. (Several authors. Ottawa Parliamentary Library.)
Middleton. Reply to Arthur Dobbs, 1744.
John Barrow—Voyages.
A Voyage to Hudson Bay by the Dobbs galley and California, by Henry Ellis, Gentleman. London, 1748.
Six Years' Residence in Hudson Bay, by Joseph Robson, late Surveyor, &c. London, 1759.
Imperial Blue Book of Imperial Parliament relating to Hudson's Bay Company. 1749.
N. Y. Hist. Coll., Vol. IX. pp. 205, 209.
Archives de Paris, 2nd series, vol. IV. p. 263.
Canadian Archives. Ottawa.
Manuscripts Canadian Parl. Lib. (Ottawa. Third series, vol. 6.)
Pierre Margry in Paris, Moniteur of 1852.
Journal of Verendrye (original), 1738, Canadian Archives. (Ottawa.)
De Bougainville's Memoir, given in Pierre Margry's Relations, &c. (Paris.) 1867.
"Memoirs and Documents, &c." from Library, Paris. Five Volumes by Pierre Margry.
(Chapters XI.-XIII.)
Canadiens de l'Ouest. Joseph Tassé, 2 vols. (Montreal.) 1878.
Papers of Governor Haldimand. Canadian Archives. (Ottawa.)
Astoria. Washington Irving.
Sketches of N.W. of America. Bishop Taché. (Montreal.) 1870.
Travels and Adventures, &c., between 1760-1766. Alex. Henry, Senr., 1809.
Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages. London, 1801.
Memorial of North-West Traders. Canadian Archives. (Ottawa.) (Original.)
Les Bourgeois du Nord-Ouest, par L. R. Masson. 2 vols., Quebec, 1889-90.
A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort, in Hudson Bay, to the Northern Ocean, by Samuel Hearne. 4to. London: Strahan and Cadell, 1795.
Voyage de la Perouse autour du Monde. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1798.
The Present State of Hudson Bay, by Edward Umfreville. Charles Stalker. London, 1796.
Observations on Hudson Bay, by Andrew Graham, Factor. Presented to James Fitzgerald. (Manuscript, 1771.) Hudson's Bay Company House, London.
(Chapters XIV.-XXII.)
Voyages of Alexander Mackenzie. (History of Fur Trade.) London, 1801. 8vo.
Haldimand Papers. Archives Dept. Ottawa. (Unpublished.)
Umfreville. (Supra.)
Masson's Bourgeois du Nord-Ouest. (Supra.)
Journal of Alexander Henry. Manuscript. (Ottawa Library.)
Journals of Alexander Henry and of David Thompson, by Elliott Coues. 3 vols. F. P. Harper. New York, 1897.
The Columbia River, by Ross Cox. 2 vols. London: H. Colbren and N. Bentley, 1832.
Simon Fraser's Journal, 1808. Masson. (Supra.)
Voyage, 1811-14, by Gabriel Franchère. (Translation, New York, 1854.)
Roderick McKenzie's Reminiscences. Masson. (Supra.)
James McKenzie. George Keith. John McDonald of Garth. Masson. (Supra.)
Journal, 1820, by Daniel Harmon. Andover.
Letters of John Pritchard. Edited by Writer, published in Winnipeg.
Charles McKenzie's Journeys. Masson. (Supra.)
Malhiot's Journeys. Masson. (Supra.)
Trader John Johnston, of Sault Ste. Marie. Masson. (Supra.)
Duncan Cameron and Peter Grant. (Masson.)
Astoria, by Washington Irving.
Ross Cox. (Supra.)
The Columbia River, by Alex. Ross, 1849.
Journal of Gabriel Franchère. (Supra.)
(Chapters XXIII.-XXVIII.)
(Selkirk Literature.)
Highland Emigration, by Lord Selkirk (1805).
Highland Clearances. Pamphlets, Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
Red River Settlement, by Alex. Ross. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Narrative of Destruction, &c. Archibald Macdonald, London, 1816.
Narrative of Occurrences in N.A. Anon., London, 1817.
Lord Selkirk's Settlement in N.A. Anon., London, 1817.
Blue-book on Red River Settlement of Imperial House of Commons, 1819.
Report of Canadian Trials, &c. A. Amos, London, 1820.
Do. Do. Anon., Montreal.
Memorial to Duke of Richmond. Earl of Selkirk, Montreal.
Canadiens de l'Ouest, by Joseph Tassé.
Diary of John McLeod, in Prov. Library, Winnipeg. (Unpublished.)
Manitoba, by the Writer. London, 1882.
(Chapters XXIX.-XXXI.)
Minutes of Council Meetings in Norway House, in Hudson's Bay House, London, and in Toronto. (Unpublished.)
Journey Round the World, by Governor Simpson, 1847.
"Peace River," by Archibald Macdonald. Annotated by Malcolm McLeod, Ottawa.
Peter Fidler's Will. Copy in possession of Writer.
Hudson's Bay Company Land Tenures, by Mr. Justice Martin, Victoria, B.C.
Journal of John McLeod. Parl. Library, Winnipeg. (Supra.)
Wentzel's Journal. F. Masson. (Supra.)
Journal of John Finlay. Manuscript, unpublished, property of Chief Factor MacDougall, Prince Albert, N.-W.T.
Collection of 100 letters from many fur traders to Chief Factor James Hargrave. Curwen, Edinburgh. (Unpublished.)
The Shoe and Canoe. London, 1850. Dr. J. Bigsby.
Gabriel Franchère. (Supra.)
Picturesque Canada. Toronto.
Collection of letters in possession of Judge Ermatinger, St. Thomas, Ont.
Letter of Judge Steere. Sault Ste. Marie.
Songs of Dominion, by W. D. Lighthall. London, 1889.
(Chapters XXXII.-XXXVI.)
Journey to Polar Sea, 1819-22, by John Franklin. London, 1823.
Second Journey, 1825-7. London, 1823.
Arctic Expedition, 1829, by John and James Ross.
Arctic Land Expedition, by George Back, 1836.
Arctic Searching Expedition. 2 vols., 1851.
Expedition to Shores of Arctic Sea, by John Rae, 1850.
Arctic Voyages (several authors, Parl. Library, Ottawa).
Travels, by Lewis and Clark, 3 vols. London, 1815.
Travels on the Western Territories, 1805-7, by Zebulon M. Pike.
Keating (and Long)'s Expedition, 2 vols., 1825.
J. C. Beltrami. Pilgrimage of Discovery of Sources of Mississippi. London, 1828.
Brewer (Cass and Schoolcraft), Sources of the Mississippi, published by Minn. Historical Society.
J. H. Lefroy. Magnetic Survey.
Journal of Explorations, by Palliser (and Hector). London, 1863.
Narrative of the Canadian Exploring Expedition, by Hind (and Dawson), 2 vols., 1860.
The North-West Passage by Land, by Milton and Cheadle. London, 1865.
Ocean to Ocean, by G. M. Grant, 1873.
Red River, by Alex. Ross. London, 1856.
Captain Bulger's letters, published for private circulation, 1823.
Notes on the Flood of Red River of 1852, by Bishop Anderson.
Red River. J. J. Hargrave, Montreal, 1871.
Parchment Roll, property of late George McTavish, Winnipeg.
Journal of the Red River Country, by the Rev. John West. London, 1824.
(Chapters XXXVII., XXXVIII.)
Hudson Bay, by R. M. Ballantyne. London, 1848.
Dr. Rae. (Supra.)
Notes on 25 Years of Service, by John McLean. 2 vols. London, 1849.
Ungava Bay, by R. M. Ballantyne. London, 1871.
Explorations in Labrador, by H. Y. Hind, 1863.
Moravian Missions.
The important Chapter XXXVIII. was largely prepared by a Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had long served on the Mackenzie River.
Chief Factor Campbell's discoveries were chiefly obtained from a journal of that officer now in the hands of his son, at Norway House.
(Chapters XXXIX.-XLVII.)
Bancroft's North-West Coast, 2 vols. San Francisco, 1884.
" History of British Columbia, 1890.
Begg's History of British Columbia.
Journal of Trader Ermatinger, property of Judge Ermatinger, St. Thomas, Ont.
Chinook Jargon, by Horatio Hall. London, 1890.
Todd, collection of letters belonging to Judge Ermatinger. (Supra.)
Coues, Alex. Henry. (Supra.)
Miles Macdonell's letters. Archives vol. Ottawa.
Vingt Années de Missions, &c., by Bishop Taché, 1888.
Rainbow of the North, by A.L.O.E. (Miss Tucker).
Notes by Rev. John West. (Supra.)
Red River, by Hargrave. (Supra.)
Journey of Bishop of Montreal, 1844. Pub. 1849.
Red River Settlement, by Alex. Ross. (Supra.)
John Black, Apostle of Red River, by the Writer, 1898.
Hudson Bay, by Rev. John Ryerson. Toronto, 1855.
James Evans. Wm. Briggs, Toronto.
Cree Syllabic.
History of British Columbia. (Supra.)
Hudson's Bay Territories, &c., by R. M. Fitzgerald and Martin. London, 1849.
Indian Tribes. "Canada."—An Encyclopedia. Article by Writer.
Bancroft's Tribes of the Pacific Coast.
Imperial Government Blue-books, 1849-51.
History of Manitoba, by Donald Gunn. Ottawa, 1880.
Imperial Blue-book of 1857.
Canada and the States, by Sir E. W. Watkin, London.
Blue-books of Canada.
Ermatinger letters. (Supra.)
Begg's Creation of Manitoba. Toronto, 1871.
Report of Donald A. Smith. Canadian Blue-book of 1871.
Boulton's Reminiscences of the North-West Rebellion, by Major Boulton, 1886.
Red River Troubles. Report of Canadian House of Commons.
Facts and figures, from Hudson's Bay Company Offices.
[APPENDIX B.]
SUMMARY OF LIFE OF PIERRE ESPRIT RADISSON.
A. Earlier Life and Voyages (1636-1663).
[APPENDIX C.]
List of Hudson's Bay Company Posts in 1856, with the Several Districts and the Number of Indians in Each.
- Athabasca District (1,550)—
- Fort Chipewyan.
- Dunvegan.
- Vermilion.
- Fond du Lac.
- Mackenzie River District (10,430)—
- Fort Simpson.
- Fort au Liard.
- Fort Halkett.
- Yukon.
- Peel's River.
- Lapierre's House.
- Fort Good Hope.
- Fort Rae.
- Fort Resolution.
- Big Island.
- Fort Norman.
- English River District (1,370)—
- Ile à la Crosse.
- Rapid River.
- Green Lake.
- Deer's Lake.
- Portage la Loche.
- Saskatchewan District (28,050)—
- Edmonton.
- Carlton.
- Fort Pitt.
- Rocky Mount House.
- Lac la Biche.
- Lesser Slave Lake.
- Fort Assiniboine.
- Jasper's House.
- Fort à la Corne.
- Cumberland District (750)—
- Cumberland House.
- Moose Lake.
- The Pas.
- Swan River District (2,200)—
- Fort Pelly.
- Fort Ellice.
- Qu'Appelle Lakes.
- Shoal River.
- Touchwood Hills.
- Egg Lake.
- Red River District (8,250, including half-breeds and whites)—
- Fort Garry.
- Lower Fort Garry.
- White House Plain.
- Pembina.
- Manitoba.
- Reed Lake.
- Lac la Pluie District (2,850)—
- Fort Frances.
- Fort Alexander.
- Rat Portage.
- White Dog.
- Lac du Bonnet.
- Lac de Boisblanc.
- Shoal Lake.
- Norway House District (1,080)—
- Norway House.
- Berens River.
- Nelson River.
- York District (1,500)—
- York Factory.
- Churchill.
- Severn.
- Trout Lake.
- Oxford House.
- Albany District (1,100)—
- Albany Factory.
- Marten's Falls.
- Osnaburg.
- Lac Seul.
- Kinogumissee District (400)—
- Metawagamingue.
- Kuckatoosh.
- Lake Superior District (1,330)—
- Michipicoten.
- Batchewana.
- Mamainse.
- Pic.
- Long Lake.
- Lake Nipigon.
- Fort William.
- Pigeon River.
- Lac d'Orignal.
- Lake Huron District (1,100)—
- Lacloche.
- Little Current.
- Mississangie.
- Green Lake.
- Whitefish Lake.
- Sault Ste. Marie District (150)—
- Sault Ste. Marie.
- Moose District (730)—
- Moose Factory.
- Hannah Bay.
- Abitibi.
- New Brunswick.
- East Main District (700)—
- Great Whale River.
- Little Whale River.
- Fort George.
- Rupert's River District (985)—
- Rupert's House.
- Mistasini.
- Teniskamay.
- Waswonaby.
- Mechiskan.
- Pike Lake.
- Nitchequon.
- Kaniapiscow.
- Temiscamingue District (1,030)—
- Temiscamingue House.
- Grand Lac.
- Kakabeagino.
- Lake Nipissing.
- Hunter's Lodge.
- Temagamingue.
- Fort Coulonge District (375)—
- Lac des Allumettes.
- Joachin.
- Matawa.
- Lac des Sables District (150)—
- Buckingham.
- Rivière Desert.
- Lachine District—
- Lachine House.
- St. Maurice District (280)—
- Three Rivers.
- Weymontachingue.
- Kikandatch.
- King's Posts District (1,100)—
- Tadoussac.
- Chicoutimé.
- Lake St. John's.
- Ile Jérémie.
- Godbout.
- Sepen Islands.
- Mingan District (700)—
- Mingan.
- Musquarro.
- Natosquan.
- Esquimaux Bay District (500)—
- North-West River.
- Fort Nascopie.
- Rigolette.
- Kikokok.
- Columbia District (2,200)—
- Fort Vancouver.
- Umpqua.
- Cape Disappointment.
- Chinook Point.
- Carveeman.
- Champoeg.
- Nisqually.
- Cowelitz.
- Colville District (2,500)—
- Fort Colville.
- Pend Oreilles River.
- Flat Heads.
- Kootenay.
- Okanagan.
- Snake Country District (700)—
- Walla Walla.
- Fort Hall.
- Fort Boisé.
- Vancouver Island District (12,000)—
- Fort Victoria.
- Fort Rupert.
- Nanaimo.
- Fraser River District (4,000)—
- Fort Langley.
- N.W. Coast District (45,000)—
- Fort Simpson.
- Thomson River District (2,000)—
- Kamloops.
- Fort Hope.
- New Caledonia District (12,000)—
- Stuart Lake.
- McLeod's Lake.
- Fraser's Lake.
- Alexandria.
- Fort George.
- Babines.
- Conolly's Lake.
- Honolulu (Sandwich Isles).
| Total, 34 Districts:— | ||
| Indians | 149,060 | |
| Not enumerated | 6,000 | |
| Eskimos | 4,000 | |
| Total | 159,060 | |
| Less whites and half-breeds | 10,000 | |
| 149,060 | ||
In all under Hudson's Bay Company rule, about 150,000.
[APPENDIX D.]
List of Chief Factors in the Hudson's Bay Company Service from the Coalition of 1821 to the Year 1896.
Note.—Under the Deed Polls of 1821, 1834, and 1871, there were 263 commissioned officers, and it is estimated that their nationalities were as follows:—
| French Canadian | 11 |
| Irish | 22 |
| English | 59 |
| Scotch | 171 |
| 263 |
- 1821.
- Thomas Vincent.
- John MacDonald.
- John Thompson.
- James Bird.
- James Leith.
- John Haldane.
- Colin Robertson.
- Alexander Stewart.
- James Sutherland.
- John George McTavish.
- John Clarke.
- George Keith.
- John Dugald Cameron.
- John Charles.
- John Stuart.
- Alexander Kennedy.
- Edward Smith.
- John M'Loughlin.
- John Davis.
- James Keith.
- Joseph Beioly.
- Angus Bethune.
- Donald McKenzie.
- Alexander Christie.
- John McBean.
- 1823.
- William McIntosh.
- 1825.
- William Conolly.
- John Rowand.
- 1827.
- James McMillan.
- 1828.
- Allan McDonnell.
- John Lee Lewis.
- Peter Warren Dease.
- 1830.
- Roderick McKenzie, Senr.
- 1832.
- Duncan Finlayson.
- 1834.
- Peter S. Ogden.
- 1836.
- John P. Pruden.
- Alex. McLeod.
- 1838.
- John Faries.
- Angus Cameron.
- Samuel Black.
- 1840.
- James Douglas.
- Donald Ross.
- 1842.
- Archibald McDonald.
- 1844.
- Robert S. Miles.
- James Hargrave.
- 1845.
- Nicol Finlayson.
- 1846.
- John E. Harriott.
- John Work.
- John Sieveright.
- 1847.
- Murdo McPherson.
- George Barnston.
- 1848.
- John Ballenden.
- 1850.
- John Rae.
- William Sinclair.
- 1851.
- Hector McKenzie.
- William McTavish.
- Dugald McTavish.
- 1854.
- Edward H. Hopkins.
- John Swanston.
- John McKenzie.
- 1855.
- James Anderson. (A).
- 1856.
- William McNeill.
- William F. Tolmie.
- 1859.
- James Anderson. (B).
- Roderick Finlayson.
- 1860.
- William J. Christie.
- Charles Dodd.
- 1861.
- John M. Simpson.
- James A. Grahame.
- 1862.
- James R. Clare.
- Wemyss M. Simpson.
- Donald A. Smith.
- 1864.
- James S. Clouston.
- Joseph Gladman.
- 1866.
- William McMurray.
- 1867.
- Robert Campbell.
- Robert Hamilton.
- 1868.
- William L. Hardisty.
- Joseph W. Wilson.
- 1869.
- James G. Stewart.
- 1872.
- James Bissett.
- George S. McTavish.
- Richard Hardisty.
- 1873.
- Robert Crawford (Factor).
- William H. Watt (Factor).
- John MacIntyre (Factor).
- 1874.
- William Charles.
- John H. McTavish.
- Alexander Munro.
- 1875.
- Lawrence Clarke.
- R. MacFarlane.
- Roderick Ross (Factor).
- 1879.
- Peter Warren Bell.
- Joseph Fortescue.
- Colin Rankin.
- Archibald McDonald.
- Samuel K. Parson.
- James H. Lawson (Factor).
- Ewen MacDonald (Factor).
- Joseph J. Hargrave (Chief Trader).
- 1883.
- James L. Cotter.
- 1884.
- Julian S. Camsell.
- 1885.
- Horace Belanger.
- 1886.
- William H. Adams (Factor).
- 1887.
- James McDougall.
- 1888.
- Peter McKenzie.
- E. K. Beeston (Chief Trader).
- 1892.
- William Clark.
- W. S. Becher (Chief Trader).
- 1893.
- William K. Broughton.
- 1896.
- Alexander Matheson (Factor).
[APPENDIX E.]
RUSSIAN AMERICA (ALASKA).
In 1825 Great Britain made a treaty with Russia as to the north-west coast of America. The boundary line that has since been a subject of much dispute with the United States, which bought out the rights of Russia, was thus laid down in the Treaty:—
III. "The line of demarcation between the possessions of the high contracting parties, upon the coast of the Continent and the islands of America to the north-west, shall be drawn in the manner following:—Commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales's Island, which point lies in the parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes, north latitude, and between the 131st and 133rd degree of west longitude (meridian of Greenwich); the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel, as far as the point of the Continent where it strikes the 56th degree of north latitude; from this last-mentioned point the line of demarcation shall follow the summits of the mountains situated parallel to the coast, as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude (of the same meridian); and finally, from the said point of intersection, the said meridian line of the 141st degree in its prolongation as far as the Frozen Ocean, shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions on the Continent of America to the north-west.
IV. "With reference to the line of demarcation laid down in the preceding article, it is understood:—
1st. "That the island called Prince of Wales's Island shall belong wholly to Russia.
2nd. "That wherever the summit of the mountains which extend in a direction parallel to the coast, from the 56th degree of north latitude to the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude, shall prove to be at the distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British possessions and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia, as above mentioned, shall be formed by a line parallel to the windings of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom."
The Hudson's Bay Company, in the year following the Treaty, pushed their posts to the interior, and obtained a hold on the Indians from the coast inward. Making use of their privilege of ascending the river from the coast, they undertook to erect a post upon one of these rivers. This led the Russian American Fur Company to make a vigorous protest, and a long correspondence ensued on the matter. At length, in 1839, the Hudson's Bay Company, chiefly in order to gain access to their Indians of the interior, leased the strip of coast territory from Fort Simpson to Cross Sound for a period of ten years. The following is an extract from the agreement made February 6th, 1839, between the Hudson's Bay and Russian American Fur Companies:—
"The Russian Fur Company cede to the Hudson's Bay Company for a period of ten years, commencing June 1st, 1840, the coast (exclusive of the islands) and the interior country situated between Cape Spencer and latitude 54° 40´ or thereabouts for an annual rental of two thousand seasoned otters.
"The Hudson's Bay Company agree to sell to the Russian Fur Company 2,000 otters taken on the west side of the mountains at the price of 23s. sterling per skin, and 3,000 seasoned otters taken on the east side of the Rocky Mountains at 32s. sterling per skin. The Hudson's Bay Company agree to sell to the Russian Fur Company 2,000 ferragoes (120 lbs. each) of wheat annually for a term of ten years, at the price of 10s. 9d sterling per ferrago, also flour, peas, barley, salted beef, butter, and pork hams at fixed prices, under certain provisions.
"The Hudson's Bay Company relinquish the claim preferred by them for damages sustained by them, arising from the obstruction presented by the Russian authorities to an expedition fitted out by the Hudson's Bay Company for entering the Stikine River."
The agreement was continued after the expiration of ten years, but the rental fine changed from a supply of otters to a money payment of 1,500l. a year. The Hudson's Bay Company, as we have seen, pushed their posts down the Yukon River, and only withdrew them after Alaska, in 1867, passed into the possession of the United States. An officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, James McDougall, at present a chief factor of the Company, was the last in command of the Company posts in Alaska, and performed the duty of withdrawing them.
[APPENDIX F.]
THE CREE SYLLABIC CHARACTERS.
I. INITIALS OR PRIMALS.
II. SYLLABICS.
III. FINALS OR TERMINALS.
EXAMPLES OF WORD FORMATION.
[APPENDIX G.]
[ Key to Plate facing page 442.]
![[ Key to Plate facing page 442.]](#i-517.jpg){kind=link}
| 5th ROW (standing) | E. K. Beeston, Jr. Chief Trader. | W. H. Adams, Factor. | Murdoch Matherson, Jr. Chief Trader. | |||||
| 4th ROW (standing) | W. J. McLean, Chief Trader. | Dr. W. M. McKay, Chief Trader. | Robert Campbell, Ex-Chief Trader. | Wm. Clark, Factor (now Chief Factor). | Jas. McDougall, Factor (now Chief Factor). | Arch. McDonald, Chief Factor. | Alex. R. Lillie, Ex-Chief Trader. | |
| 3rd ROW (standing) | Cuthbert Sinclair, Jr. Chief Trader. | Jas. Anderson, Jr. Chief Trader. | Colin Rankin, Chief Factor. | Saml. K. Parson, Chief Factor. | Peter Bell, Chief Factor. | Rodk. Macfarlane, Chief Factor. | Jas L. Lawson, Factor. | W. F. Gairdner, Jr. Chief Trader. |
| 2nd ROW (sitting) | Alex. Matheson, Chief Trader (now Factor). | Alex. Munro, Chief Factor. | Thos. Smith, Assist. Commissioner. | Richard Hardisty, Chief Factor. | Laurence Clarke, Chief Factor. | Commissioner Joseph Wrigley. | Horace Belanger, Chief Factor. | |
| 1st ROW (sitting) | David Armit, Jr. Chief Trader. | J. S. Camsell, Chief Factor. | Joseph Fortescuo, Chief Factor. | James L. Cotter, Chief Factor. | James Alexander, Chief Factor. |
[INDEX]
- "À la claire fontaine," [306].
- Albemarle, Duke of, [9].
- "Alouette," [312].
- Alliance, The Grand, [56].
- Allumette, [307].
- American Fur Company, [329].
- Anderson, A. C., [414].
- Arlington, Earl of, [9].
- Astor, John Jacob, [192].
- Astoria founded, [196].
- Assiniboia, Council of, [354].
- Assiniboine Indians, [87]. [432].
- " Wool Company, [351].
- Athabasca, First Traders of, [97].
- " Lake and River, [383].
- Back, Sir George, [317].
- Beaver Club, [190].
- Beaver, Ship, [200].
- Beaulieu, François, [127].
- Beltrami, J. C. (Explorer), [330].
- " Work of, [331].
- Black, Rev. John, Pioneer, [423].
- " Judge, [442].
- " Samuel, Trader, [402].
- Blackfeet Indians, [432].
- Blanshard, Governor, [414].
- Bois-brûlés turbulence, [219].
- Boothia Felix, Discovery of, [315].
- Boulton, Major, [467].
- Bourbon, Fort, [50], [52].
- Bourdon, Jean, [49].
- Bourke, Father, [417].
- Brandon House, [112].
- Brymner, Douglas, Archivist, [86].
- Buffalo Wool Company, [350].
- " hunting, [365].
- Bulger, Governor, [348].
- Butler, Capt. W. F., [343].
- Button, Sir Thomas, [48].
- Cadieux's lament, [308].
- Cadot, J. Baptiste, [91].
- Caldwell, Major, [440].
- California, Ship, [67].
- Calumet, [307].
- Campbell, Robert, [393]. et seq.
- Cameron, Duncan, [181-184], [219], [262].
- " Murdoch, Fur Trader, [326].
- Canada Company, [2].
- Canadian Boat Song, [305].
- Canoe voyage by Gov. Simpson, [273-275].
- Cart and cayuse, [361].
- Cart trails, [362].
- Carver, Jonathan, [193].
- Cass, Lewis, Explorer, [331].
- Cauchon, Joseph, Memo. of, [447].
- Calvalcade, The Hunting, [366].
- Charter, H. B. C., [13] et seq.
- Charters, Royal, [12].
- Charles, Fort, [11].
- Chilkats, The, [394].
- Chimo, Fort, [377].
- Chinook jargon, [409].
- Chipewyan, Fort, [124], [126], [384].
- " Tribe, [432].
- Chipman, C. C., [470].
- Christie, Governor, [354].
- Christinos (Kris), [5], [6].
- Christy, Miller, [7].
- Churchill, Lord, Governor, [30].
- " " in Tower, [31].
- Church Societies on Red River, [422].
- Cochrane, Archdeacon, [299], [420].
- Colbert, M., [49].
- Colleton, Sir Peter, [9].
- Coltman, W. B., Commissioner, [252-254].
- Columbia, British, of to-day, [477].
- Colville, Gov. Eden, [423].
- Committee of 1857, [446].
- Company, The Northern, [50].
- Conolly, Trader, [400].
- Coppermine River discovered, [104].
- Councils of Traders, [271].
- Couture, William, [49].
- Cox, Ross, [200].
- Craven, Earl of, [9].
- Cree syllabic, [424].
- Cridge, Bishop, [426].
- Crofton, Col., [439].
- Crosby and Evans, Revs. [426].
- Cumberland, first house built, [97].
- Curry, Thomas, [93].
- Daer, Fort, [212], [225].
- Dallas, Gov. A. J., [449].
- Dawson, S. J., surveyor, [340].
- " Road, [341].
- Dease Lake, [393].
- " and Simpson, Arctic Explorers, [318].
- Deed Polls, Old and new, [452].
- D'Iberville, [52], [53].
- " Victory of, [53].
- Demers, Bishop, [426].
- De Meurons, [239].
- Denonville, Marquis de, [47].
- De Witt, Dutch Ambassador, [8].
- Dickson, Robert, Free Trader, [327].
- Dionne, Dr. N. E., [38].
- Dividends, Company, [24].
- Dobbs, Arthur, [62].
- Dobbs, Galley, [67].
- Douglas, Fort, [224], [226].
- " Sir James, [397].
- " David, botanist, [403].
- Draper, Chief Justice, [446].
- Duluth, Greysolon, [79].
- Duncan of Metlakahtla, [426].
- Eaglet, Ship, [10].
- Elgin, Lord, [429].
- Ellice, Hon. Edward, [268].
- Ellis, Henry, [68].
- Enterprise, Fort, [388].
- Ermatinger, Miss, [309].
- " Family, [309], [310].
- " Traders, [410].
- " Francis, [411].
- " Edward, [410], [454].
- Eskimos, [433].
- Evans, Rev. James, [424].
- Falcon, Pierre, [235].
- " (Song of Triumph), [235].
- " Translation, [236].
- " Sketch of, [266].
- Faribault, J. B., [326].
- Fidler, Peter, Sketch of, [282].
- " " Will of, [284].
- Finlay, John, Journal of, [291-294].
- Finlay, James, [93].
- Finlayson, Gov. D., [355].
- " Roderick, [408].
- Fleming and Grant, Expedition of, [344].
- Flax and Hemp Co., [351].
- Flood, Red River, [351].
- Fort William built, [155].
- " " description of, [155] et seq., [189].
- Franchère, Gabriel, [155], [201].
- Franklin, Sir John, [314].
- " " Search for, [320].
- " " " " by Dr. Rae, [321].
- Franklin, Sir John, Search for, by Capt. McClintock, [322].
- Fraser, Simon, [142] et seq.
- French half-breeds' petition, [440].
- " " turbulent, 1869, [458].
- French priests interfere, [460].
- Garry, Fort, [355].
- " " camping-ground, [366].
- " " Lower, [353].
- Gibraltar, Fort, [189].
- " " destroyed, [226].
- Gillam, Capt. Zachariah, [10].
- Gold discovery in B.C., [415].
- Gonor, Father, [83].
- Good Hope, Fort, [390].
- Governors, Recent, [472].
- Graham, Andrew, Journal of, [108].
- Grand Portage, [95].
- Grant, Cuthbert, Senr., [120].
- " " Junr., [236].
- " P. (Historiographer), [184-7].
- Gravesend, [20].
- Gregory, McLeod and Co., [116].
- Groseilliers (Medard Chouart), [3], [33].
- Groseilliers, J. Baptiste, [37].
- Half-breeds dissatisfied, [436].
- Halifax, Lord, [71].
- Hargrave, Jas., Letters of Traders, [294].
- Hargrave, Joseph, Work of, [294].
- Harmon, Daniel, [165-7].
- Hayes, Sir James, [36].
- Head, Gov. Edmund, [452].
- Hearne, Samuel, [99] et seq., [383].
- Hector, Dr. James, [337].
- Henry, Alex., Senr., [93].
- " " Jr., [169-173].
- Hills, Bishop, [426].
- Hind, H. Y., explorer, [340].
- Hudson, Henry, [48].
- Hudson Bay, Early Governors on, [22].
- Hudson Bay, Early Forts, [108].
- " " Bleak shore of, [373].
- " " House, [20].
- " " Co. Ships, [20].
- " " " Claims of, [54].
- " " " Stores, [470].
- Hunt, William, Astorian, [198].
- Hunting regulations, [368].
- Indian chiefs on Red River, [248].
- Indians and H. B. C., [429].
- " in debt, [429].
- " of B. C., [433].
- " loyal to Co., [434].
- Isbister, A. K., [437] et seq.
- James, Capt., [48].
- Jamieson, Rev. Robert, [427].
- Johnson, Judge, [442].
- Johnston, John, Trader (Sault Ste. Marie), [179-181], [300].
- Johnston, Miss, [181].
- Jones, Rev. David, [300], [420].
- Kaministiquia, [94], [311].
- Kamloops rising, [403].
- Keating, W. H., Expedition of, [328].
- Keel and canoe, [359].
- Keith, George, Tales of, [160].
- Kelsey, Henry, [73].
- Kennedy and Bellot, Expedition of, [321].
- Keveny, Owen (Murdered), [254].
- King, Dr. Richard, [318].
- "King's Domains," [379].
- " Posts," [379].
- Kirke, Sir John, [20].
- Labrador, McLean on, [376].
- Lachine, [302].
- La France, Joseph, [67].
- Lefroy, Lieut. (Sir Henry), [335].
- " (Expedition), [335].
- Leith's bequest, [421].
- Le Moyne, The Brothers, [51].
- Lescarbot, [48].
- Lestane, The dastard, [466].
- Lewis and Clark, Expedition of, [324].
- Liard, River, [392].
- Lincolnshire farmers, [355].
- Locust visitation, [346].
- Long, Stephen H., Expedition of, [328].
- McCallum, Rev. John, [420].
- Macdonell, Miles, [207].
- " Estimate of, [260].
- Macdonell, Alexander (Grasshopper Governor), [346].
- McDonald of Garth (autobiography), [161].
- " on the Pacific, [163].
- " Grand, [167].
- McDonnell, John, Diary, [169].
- McDougall, Duncan, Astorian, [194].
- " Hon. William, [455], [461].
- McGillies, Hugh, Free Trader, [327].
- Machray, Archbishop, [421].
- Mackay, Alexander, [127], [196].
- McKay, Trader, [311].
- Mackenzie, Alexander, [116], [123] et seq.
- Mackenzie, Alexander, 1st Voyage, [124].
- Mackenzie, Alexander, 2nd Voyage, [127] et seq.
- Mackenzie, Alexander, Book of, [130].
- Mackenzie, River, [388].
- McKenzie, Roderick, [158].
- McKenzie, James, Journals, [163], [379].
- McKenzie, Charles (Journey to Mandans), [174].
- McKenzie, Governor, Donald, [350].
- McLeod, Alex. Norman, [116].
- " John, Diary of, [221], [285].
- McLean, John, On Labrador, [377].
- McLoughlin, Chief Factor, [400].
- " Young (murdered), [406].
- McTavish, Simon, [115], [121].
- McTavish, Governor William, [449].
- " " (sick and weak), [458].
- Magnetic Pole, Discovery of, [315].
- " " and Capt. Kennedy, [317].
- Magnet Survey by Lefroy, [335].
- Malhiot, François V., [177-179].
- Mandans, [98], [325].
- Manitoba College, [424].
- Margry, Pierre, [81].
- Maurepas, River, [85].
- Metis, [442].
- Michilimackinac, [81].
- Middleton, Capt. C., [64] et seq.
- Milton and Cheadle, Explorations by, [342].
- Mingan, [379].
- Missouri Company, [193].
- Model Farms, [351].
- Montague, [8].
- Moravians in Labrador, [380].
- Mulgrave, Lord, [313].
- Muskegons (Crees), [431].
- Nelson, Port, [52].
- Nemisco, River, [10].
- Nepigon, [79].
- New England Company, [2].
- Nicola's Eloquence, [403].
- Nisbet, Rev. James, [424].
- Nonsuch Ketch, [10].
- North-West Company formed, [115].
- " " officers, [152].
- Nor'-Westers unite, [188-191].
- North-West Passage sought (early), [63].
- North-West Passage by Land, [343].
- Norman, Fort, [390].
- Norton, Moses, [111].
- Noue, De la, [80].
- Ochagach, [82].
- Oldmixon, [4].
- Oppression of Judge Thom, [436].
- Orkneymen, Early, [97].
- " vs. French Canadians, [271].
- Ottawa, [302].
- Ouinipegon, Lake, [88].
- Paleocrystic sea, [320].
- Pacific Fur Company, [193].
- Palliser, Capt. J., [337].
- Pambrun's story, [229-30].
- Pangman, Peter, [116], [286], [287].
- Parker, Gilbert, Novelist, [38].
- Peace River, [386].
- Peel's River Post, [391].
- Pelly, Governor, [350].
- " Gov. J. H., [438].
- Perouse on Hudson Bay, [106].
- Pigeon River, [95].
- Pike, Zebulon M., Explorer, [326].
- Plain hunters, [364].
- Pond, Peter, [97], [116], [119], [125].
- Portaging, [307].
- Portman, Mr., [20].
- Posts on Pacific, [416].
- Potherie, De la, [4].
- Prince Society, [39].
- Prince of Wales Fort taken, [106].
- Pritchard, John (lost), [172-174].
- " Story of, [230].
- " Estimate of, [265].
- "Pro pelle cutem," [19].
- Provencher, Bishop, [288], [296], [299], [418].
- Providence, Fort, [388].
- Prudhomme, Judge, [38].
- Quesnel, Jules Maurice, [143].
- Radisson, Pierre Esprit, [3], [33] et seq.
- Rae, Dr. John, Explorer, [321].
- Red River Plague, [356].
- " Rebellion, [460].
- Reine, de la, Fort, [88].
- Reinhart, Charles, prisoner, [254].
- Reliance, Fort, [389].
- Renville, Joseph, guide, [328].
- Resolution, Fort, [388].
- Riel, Elder, [441].
- " Younger, rebellion, [461].
- Rigolette, [381].
- Robertson, Colin, [226], [228].
- Roberval, Sieur de, [48].
- Robinson, Sir John, [9].
- Robson, Joseph, [75].
- Roches Percées, [338].
- Rocky Mt. Passes, [339].
- Rolling Ball, The, [303].
- Ross, Captain John, [315].
- " Alexander, [353].
- Rouge, Fort, [88].
- Rupert, Prince, [8].
- " " Sketch of, [27] et seq.
- " " River, [10].
- Ryswick, [56] et seq.
- " Treaty, Terms of, [57].
- Ste. Anne's, [304].
- St. Charles, Fort, massacre, [86].
- St. James, Fort, outbreak, [398].
- St. John's College, [421].
- St. Pierre, Legardeur de, [89].
- Sargeant, Governor, [52].
- Saskatchewan River discovered, [89].
- Saulteaux Indians, [431].
- Sault Ste. Marie, [310].
- Sayer "rising," [441].
- Schoolcraft, H. R., Explorer, [332].
- " " discovers Lake Itasca, [333].
- Schultz, Dr., rescued, [444].
- Scoresby, Capt. W., [313].
- Scott, Thomas, executed, [467].
- Selkirk, Earl of, [202].
- " " purchases H.B.C. stock, [206].
- Selkirk, Earl of, on Emigration, [205].
- " " Colony to Prince Edward Island, [205].
- Selkirk, Earl of, colony to Red River, [208-213].
- Selkirk, Earl of, opposition to, [214].
- " " Rescue by, [237-242].
- " " Estimate of, [259].
- Semple, Governor, [225] et seq.
- Shagganappe, [362].
- Shelburne, Lord, [15], [323].
- Sherbrooke, Gov. Gen., [242], [251].
- Sieveright, Trader, [300].
- Simpson, Gov. G., [269], [297], [385], [410], [412].
- Simpson, Gov. G., knighted, [276].
- " " Voyage round the world, [277].
- Simpson, Lady, [280].
- " Fort, [389].
- " " on Pacific, [408].
- " " Thos., death of, [320].
- Sinclair, a leader, [436].
- Slave Lake, [387].
- Sledge and packet, [357].
- Smith, Donald A., [381], [464].
- " William Robert, clerk, [444].
- South-West Fur Company, [193].
- Staines, Rev. Robert, [425].
- Stannard, Captain, [10].
- Status, present, of Co., [473].
- Stewart, Jas., rescued, [443].
- Stikine River, [393].
- Strathcona and Mt. Royal, Lord, [381], [475].
- Stuart, John, [142].
- Sturgeon Lake, Fort, built, [96].
- Sutherland James, catechist, [418].
- Swiss settlers, [347].
- " " depart, [348].
- Taché, Archbishop, [419], [468].
- Tallow Company, [351].
- Terms of Company's Transfer, [455].
- Thom, Recorder Adam, [355].
- Thompson, David, Astronomer, [132] et seq.
- Thorn, Captain, [195].
- Tod, John, Trader, [411].
- Tonquin, Ship, [195].
- Trade standards, Early, [22].
- Transcontinental journeys (early), [146].
- Trials, North-West, [255], [256].
- Troyes, Chevalier de, [50].
- Turner, Astronomer, [126].
- Vancouver, Fort, [397].
- " Given up, [413].
- " Island, Lease of, [414].
- " Colonization, [415].
- " City, [478].
- Verendrye, [82] et seq.
- Victoria, Fort, founded, [406].
- Vyner, Sir Robert, [9].
- Wark, Chief Trader, [413].
- Watkin, E. W., Scheme of, [451].
- Wedderburn, Fort, [384].
- Wendigo, The, [308].
- Wentzel, W. F., Story of, [289].
- " Opinions of, [291].
- West, Rev. John, [420].
- Western Sea, [79].
- William and Ann, Wreck of, [402].
- William III., Address to, [25].
- " Great dividend paid, [25].
- Winnipeg, City of, [476].
- Wolseley, Col., [468].
- Woods, Lake of, [84].
- York, Duke of, [9].
- " " Made Governor, [29].
- " Factory, Description of, [374].
- Young, Sir William, [36].
- Yukon, Fort, [391].
- " Upper, Discovery of, [393].
- Zinzendorf, Count, [380].
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