MacDonell averred that he issued the proclamation to prevent starvation. This was nonsense. If he feared starvation, his Hudson’s Bay hunters could have killed enough buffalo in three months to support five thousand colonists as the Northwesters supported five thousand men—let alone a sparse settlement of three hundred souls.
The Nor’Westers declared that McDonell had issued the order because he knew the War of 1812 had cut off their Montreal supplies and they were dependent solely on Red River. Proofs seemed to justify the charge, for Peter Fidler, the Hudson’s Bay man, writing in his diary on June 21, 1814, bewails “if the Captain (MacDonell) had only persevered, he could have starved them (the Nor’Westers) out.”
The Nor’Westers ignored the order with the indifference of supreme contempt. Not so the Half-breeds and Indians! What meant this taking of their lands by a great Over-lord beyond the seas? Since time immemorial had the Indians wandered free as wind over the plains. Who was this “chief of the land workers,” “governor of the gardeners,” that he should interdict their hunts?
“You are to enforce these orders wherever you have the physical means,” Selkirk instructed MacDonell. It will be remembered that the buffalo hunter between Pembina and the Missouri came back to Red River by two trails, (1) west to Pembina, (2) north to Souris. A party of armed Hudson’s Bay men led by John Warren came on the Northwest hunters west of Pembina—in American territory—and at bayonet point seized the pemmican stores of those Plain Rangers who had helped the wandering colonists. Then John Spencer with more men ascended the Assiniboine armed with a sheriff’s warrant and demanded admittance to the Northwest fort of Souris. Pritchard, the Nor’Wester inside, bolted the gates fast and asked what in thunder such impertinence meant. Spencer passed his warrant in through the wicket. Pritchard called back a very candid and disrespectful opinion of such a warrant, adding if they wanted in, they would have to break in; he would not open. The warrant authorizing Spencer “to break open posts, locks and doors,” his men at once hacked down palisades and drew the staples of the iron bolts. Six hundred bags of pemmican were seized and only enough returned to convey the Nor’Westers beyond the limits of Selkirk’s domain.
When news of this was carried down to the annual meeting of Nor’Westers at Fort William, in July, 1814, the effect can be more readily guessed than told. Rumors true and untrue filled the air; how Northwest canoes had been held up on the Assiniboine; how cannon had been pointed across Red River to stop the incoming Northwest express; how the colonists refused to embroil themselves in a fur traders’ war; how Peter Fidler threatened to flog men who refused to fight. Such news to the haughty Nor’Westers was a fuse to dynamite. “It is the first time the Nor’Westers have ever permitted themselves to be insulted,” declares William McGillivray. The fiery partners planned their campaign. At any cost “a decisive blow must be struck.” Cuthbert Grant, the Plain Ranger, is to keep his hand on all the buffalo hunters. James Grant of Fond du Lac and Red Lake, Minnesota, is to see to it that the Pillager Indians are staunch to Nor’Westers. Duncan Cameron, who had worked so dauntlessly in Albany region and who had title to the captaincy of a Canadian regiment, was to don his red regimentals, sword and all, and hold the Forks at Red River to win the colonists across to the Nor’Westers. And on the Assiniboine—it is to be a MacDonell against a MacDonell; he of the murderous work in the Albany region with revenge in his heart for the death of his brother at Hudson’s Bay hands—Alex MacDonell is to command the river and keep the trail westward open.
“Something serious will take place,” writes Alex MacDonell on August 5, 1814. “Nothing but the complete downfall of the colony will satisfy some by fair or foul means—So here is at them with all my heart and energy.” “I wish,” wrote Cameron to Grant of Minnesota, “that some of your Pilleurs (Pillagers) who are full of mischief and plunder would pay a hostile visit to these sons of gunpowder and riot (the Hudson’s Bay). They might make good booty if they went cunningly to work; not that I wish butchery; God forbid.”
Dangerous enough was the mood of the Northwesters returning to their field without adding fuel to flame; but no sooner were they back than Miles MacDonell served them with notices in Lord Selkirk’s name, to remove their posts from Assiniboia within six months, otherwise the order ran, “if after this notice, your buildings are continued, I shall be under the necessity of razing them to the foundations.”
As might have been expected, events came thick and fast. Cameron spoke Gaelic. In six months he had won the confidence of the settlers. Dances were given at the Nor’Westers’ fort by Cameron all the winter of 1814-15, the bagpipes skirling reels and jigs dear to the hearts of the colonists, who little dreamed that the motive was to dance them out of the colony. The late daylight of the frosty winter mornings would see the pipers Green and Hector MacDonell plying their bagpipes, marching proudly at the head of a line of settlers along the banks of Red River coming home from a wild night of it. If the colonists objected to fighting, Cameron kindly advised, let them bring the brass cannon and muskets from the Colony Buildings across to Fort Gibraltar. Miles MacDonell had no right to compel them to fight, and the colony cannon were actually hauled across in sleighs one night to the Northwest fort. Then weird tales flew from ear to ear of danger from Indian attack. Half-breeds were heard passing the colony cabins at midnight singing their war songs. Mysterious fusillades of musketry broke from the darkness on other nights. Some of the people were so terrified toward summer that they passed the nights sleeping in boats on the river. Others appealed to Cameron for protection. The crafty Nor’Wester offered to convey all, who wished to leave, free of cost and with full supply of provisions, to Eastern Canada. One hundred and forty people went bodily across to the Nor’Westers. Is it any wonder? They had not known one moment of security since coming to this Promised Land. They had looked for peace and found themselves pawns in a desperate game between rival traders. Then Cameron played his trump card. Before the annual brigade set out for Fort William in June of 1815, he sent across a legal warrant to arrest Miles MacDonell for plundering the Nor’Westers’ pemmican. MacDonell was desperate. His people were deserting. The warrant, though legal in Canadian courts, had been issued by a justice of the peace, who was a Nor’West partner—Archibald Norman McLeod, For two weeks the Plains Rangers had been hanging on the outskirts of the colony firing desultory shots in an innocent diversion that brought visions of massacre to the terrified people. A chance ball whizzed past the ear of someone in Fort Douglas. MacDonell fired a cannon to clear the marauders from the surrounding brushwood. The effect was instantaneous. A shower of bullets peppered Fort Douglas. One of the fort cannon exploded. In the confusion, whether from the enemy’s shots or their own, four or five were wounded, Mr. Warren fatally. The people begged MacDonell to save the colony by giving himself up. On June 21st, the governor surrendered and was taken along with Cameron’s brigade and the deserting colonists to Montreal for trial. Needless to tell, he was never tried. Meantime, Cameron had no sooner gone, than the remnant of the colony was surrounded by Cuthbert Grant’s Rangers. The people were warned to save themselves by flight. Nightly, cabins and hay ricks blazed to the sky. In terror of their lives, abandoning everything—the people launched out on Red River and fled in blind fright for Lake Winnipeg. The Colony Buildings were burned to the ground. The houses were plundered; the people dispersed. By June 25th, of Selkirk’s colony there was not a vestige but the ruined fields and trampled crops. Inside Fort Douglas were only three Hudson’s Bay men.
The summer brigade from York usually reached Lake Winnipeg in August. The harried settlers camped along the east shore waiting for help from the North. To their amazement, help came from an opposite direction. One morning in August they were astonished to see a hundred canoes sweep up as if from Canada, flying the Hudson’s Bay flag. Signals brought the voyageurs ashore—two hundred Frenchmen led by Selkirk’s agent, Colin Robertson, bound from Quebec up the Saskatchewan to Athabasca. Robertson had all along advocated fighting fire with fire; employing French wood-runners instead of timorous Orkneymen, and forcing the proud Nor’Westers to sue for union by invading the richest field of furs—Athabasca, far beyond the limits of Red River. And here was Robertson carrying out his aggressive policy, with “fighting John Clarke” of Astor’s old company as second in command. The news he brought restored the faint courage of the people. Lord Selkirk was coming to Red River next year. A new governor had been appointed at £1,000 a year—Robert Semple, a famous traveler, son of a Philadelphia merchant. Semple had embarked for Hudson’s Bay a few months after Robertson had sailed to raise recruits in Quebec. With Semple were coming one hundred and sixty more colonists, a Doctor Wilkinson as secretary, and a Lieutenant Holte of the Swedish Marines to command an armed brig that was to patrol Lake Winnipeg and prevent the Nor’Westers entering Assiniboia.