The conquest of the great Northwest, Volume 1 (of 2) /

by Agnes C. Laut

(3) Pegonow, or Muddy Water Indians.

(4) Sassewuck, or Woody Country Indians.”

CHAPTER XIX

1770-1800

EXTENSION OF TRADE TOWARD LABRADOR, QUEBEC AND ROCKIES—HEARNE FINDS THE ATHABASCA COUNTRY AND FOUNDS CUMBERLAND HOUSE ON THE SASKATCHEWAN—COCKING PROCEEDS TO THE BLACKFEET—HOWSE FINDS THE PASS IN ROCKIES

While Anthony Hendry, the English smuggler, was making his way up the Saskatchewan to the land of the Blackfeet—the present province of Alberta—the English Adventurers were busy making good their claim to Labrador. Except as a summer rendezvous, Rupert, the oldest of the Company’s forts, at the southeast corner of the bay—had been abandoned, but far up the coast of Labrador on the wildest part of this desolate shore, was that fort which the Company was shortly forced to dismantle at great loss—Richmond. When Captain Coates was sent to cruise the east coast of Hudson Bay, thirty men under John Potts and Mr. Pollexfen, had been left on Richmond Gulf to build a fort. There was no more dangerous region on the bay. It was here Hudson’s crew had been attacked by the Eskimos, and here the Eskimos yearly came to winter and hunt the white whale. Between the rugged main shore and the outer line of barren islands was usually open water. Camped on the rocky islets, the timid Eskimos were secure from Indian foe, and if the white whale fisheries failed, they had only to scud across the open water or portage over the ice to the mainland and hunt partridge on Richmond Gulf. From one hundred and fifty to three hundred Eskimos yearly wintered within trading distance of Richmond.

Quickly, storehouses, barracks, wareroom and guardroom were erected just inside the narrow entrance from Hudson Bay to Richmond Gulf, and round all thrown a ten-foot palisade. This was in 1749. Coates had been attracted to Richmond Gulf—which he calls Artiwinipack—by its land-locked, sheltered position and the magnificent supply of lumber for building. The Eskimo whale fisheries were farther south at Whale River and East Main, with winter lodges subordinate to Richmond. The partridges of the wooded slopes promised abundance of food, and there was excellent fox and beaver trapping. Compared to the other rocky barrens of northern Labrador, Richmond Harbor seemed Paradise, “but oh, my conscience,” wrote Captain Coates, “there is so profound silence, such awful precipices, no life, that the world seems asleep. The land is so tremendous high that wind and water reverberate between the cliffs entering two miles to our gulf. Inside are mountains, groves, cascades and vales adorned with trees. On the Hudson Bay side nothing is seen but barren rocks. Inside, all is green with stately woods.... On the high mountains is only snow moss; lower, a sort of rye grass, some snow drops and violets without odor, then rows of evergreens down to the very sea. On the right of the gulf is Lady Lake’s Grove under a stupendous mountain, whence falls a cascade through the grove to the sea. In short, such is the elegant situation of Richmond Fort that it is not to be paralleled in the world.”

Such were the high hopes with which Richmond Fort was founded. To-day it is a howling wilderness silent as death but for the rush of waters heard when white men first entered the bay. Partridge there were in plenty among the lonely evergreens, and game for trapping; but not the warmest overtures of Chief Factor Potts and Mr. Pollexfen and Mr. Isbister, who yearly came up from Albany, could win the friendship of the treacherous Eskimos. They would not hunt, and the white men dare not penetrate far enough inland to make their trapping pay. Potts kept his men whale fishing off Whale River, but in five years the loss to the Company had totaled more than £24,000. The crisis came in 1754. Day and night, the stealthy shadow of Eskimo spies moved through the evergreens of the gulf. In vain Potts gave the chiefs presents of gold-laced suits, beaver hats with plumes, and swords. “They shaked my hands,” he records, “and hugged and embraced and smiled”; but the very next trapper, who went alone to the woods, or attempted to drive his dog train south to Whale River, would see Eskimos ambushed behind rocks and have his cache rifled or find himself overpowered and plundered. One day in February, Mr. Pollexfen had gone out with his men from Whale River trapping. When they returned in the afternoon they found the cook boy had been kidnapped and the house robbed of every object that could be carried away—stores of ammunition, arms, traps, food, clothes, even the door hinges and iron nails of the structure.

Waiting only till it was dark, the terrified hunters hitched their dog sleighs up, tore off all bells that would betray flight, and drove like mad for the stronger fort of Richmond. Potts hurriedly sent out orders to recall his trappers from the hills and manned Richmond for siege. It was four days before all the men came under shelter, and nightly the Eskimos could be heard trying to scale the palisades. The fort was so short of provisions, all hands were reduced to one meal a day. Potts called for volunteers, to go to the rescue of the kidnapped cook—a boy, named Matthew Warden; and thirteen men offered to go. The Eskimos had taken refuge on the islands of the outer shore. Frost-fog thick as wool lay on the bay. Eskimos were seen lurking on the hills above the fort. A council was held. It was determined to catch three Eskimos as hostages for the cook’s safety rather than risk the lives of thirteen men outside the fort. Some ten days later, when a few men ventured out for partridges, the forest again came to life with Eskimo spies. Potts recalled his hunters, sent two scouts to welcome the Eskimos to the fort and placed all hands on guard. Three Indians were conducted into the house. In a twinkling, fetters were clapped on two, and the third bade go and fetch the missing white boy on pain of death to the hostages. The stolid Eskimo affected not to understand. Potts laid a sword across the throats of the two prisoners and signaled the third to be gone. The fellow needed no urging but scampered. “I had our men,” relates Potts, “one by one pass through the guardroom changing their dresses every time to give the two prisoners the idea that I had a large garrison. They seemed surprised that I had one hundred men, but they spoke no word.” The next day, the fettered prisoners drew knives on their guard, seized his gun and clubbed the Company men from the room. In the scuffle that followed, both Eskimos were shot. The danger was now increased a hundredfold. Friendly Montagnais Indians, especially one named Robinson Crusoe, warned Potts that if the shooting were known, nothing could save the fort. The bodies were hidden in the cellar till some Montagnais went out one dark night and weighting the feet with stones, pushed them through a hole in the ice. How quickly white men can degenerate to savagery is well illustrated by the conduct of the cooped-up, starving garrison. Before sending away the dead bodies, they cut the ears from each and preserved them in spirits of alcohol to send down by Indian scouts to Isbister at Moose with a letter imploring that the sloop come to the rescue as soon as the ice cleared. For two months the siege lasted. Nothing more was ever heard of the captured boy, but by the end of May, Isbister had sent a sloop to Richmond. As told elsewhere, Richmond was dismantled in 1778 and the stores carried down to Whale River and East Main.