Apart from Selkirk’s friends, the Hudson’s Bay Company had never been favorable to the idea of colonizing Red River. Now that the colonists had opened connections with American traders of St. Paul, it became evident that the Hudson’s Bay must relinquish sovereignty over Red River Colony, or buy out Selkirk’s interests and own the colony, lock, stock and barrel. In 1835, the heirs of Lord Selkirk sold back to the Hudson’s Bay Company the vast grant of Red River for some £84,000. The sum seems large, but I doubt if it covered a tenth of what Selkirk had spent, for it will be recalled, though he intended in the first place to sell the land, he ended by giving it to the settlers scot free. To-day, the sum for which Selkirk’s heirs sold back Red River, would hardly buy a corner lot on Main Street, Winnipeg. Selkirk’s heirs retained their shares in Hudson’s Bay stock, which ultimately paid them back many times over what Selkirk had lost.
Why did the Company buy back Red River? Behold the sequence! Settlers are crowding into Minnesota. The settlers of Red River are beginning to ask for a form of government. They want to rule themselves as the Americans do south of the boundary. Good! The Company will take care there is no independent government such as was set up in Oregon and ended by ousting the fur trader. The Company will give the settlers a form of government. The Council of Assiniboia is organized. President of the Council is Sir George Simpson, governor of the Company. Vice-president is Alex Christie, governor of the colony; and the other thirteen members are old Hudson’s Bay officers. The government of Assiniboia is nothing more or less than a Company oligarchy; but that serves the Hudson’s Bay better than an independent government, or a government friendly to the American traders. But deeper and more practical reason lies beneath this move. Selkirk’s colony was not to interfere with the fur trade. Before the Red River carts set out for St. Paul it is customary for the Hudson’s Bay officers to search the cargoes. More! They search the settlers’ houses, poking long sticks up the deep set chimney places for hidden furs; and sometimes the chimney casts out cached furs, which are confiscated. Old French Nor’Westers begin to ask themselves—is this a free country? The Company responds by burning down the shanties of two hunters on Lake Manitoba in 1826, who had dared to trade furs from the Indians. These furs, the two Frenchmen no doubt meant to sell to St. Paul traders who paid just four times higher than the Hudson’s Bay. Altogether, it is safer for the Company to buy out Selkirk’s colony themselves and organize laws and police to enforce the laws—especially the supremest law—against illicit fur trading.
First test of the new government comes in 1836, when one St. Dennis is sentenced to be flogged for theft. A huge De Meuron is to wield the lash, but this spectacle of jury law in a land that has been ruled by paternalism for two hundred years, ruled by despot’s strong right arm—is something so repugnant to the Plain Rangers, they stone the executioner and chase him till he jumps into a well. In 1844 is issued proclamation that all business letters sent through the Company must be left open for perusal, and that land will be deeded to settlers only on condition of forfeiture if illicit trade in furs be discovered. In fact, as that intercourse with the American traders of the Mississippi increases, it is as difficult for the Company to stop illicit fur trading as for customs officers to stop smuggling.
That provisional government in Oregon had caught the Company napping. Not so shall it be in Red River. If the despot must have a standing army to enforce his laws, an army he shall have. The experience in Oregon furnishes a good excuse. The Company asks and the British Government sends out the Sixth Royal Regiment of five hundred men under Colonel Crofton. Now laws shall be enforced and provisional governments kept loyal, and when Colonel Crofton leaves, there comes in 1848, Colonel Caldwell with one hundred old pensioners, who may act as an army if need be, but settle down as colonists and impart to Red River somewhat of the gayety and pomp and pleasure seeking, leisurely good fellowship of English garrison life. Year after year for twenty years, crops have been bounteous. Flocks have multiplied. Granaries are bursting with fullness of stores. Though there is no market, there is plenty in the land. Though there is little coin current of the realm, there is no want; and the people stuck off here at the back of beyond take time to enjoy life. Thatched shanties have given place to big, spacious, comfortable houses; dog sleighs to gay carioles with horses decked in ribbons. Horse racing is the passion and the pastime. Schools and embryo colleges and churches have been established by the missionaries of the different denominations, whose pioneer labors are a book in themselves. It is a happy primitive life, with neither wealth nor poverty, of almost Arcadian simplicity, and cloudless but for that shadow—illicit trade, monopoly. Could the life but have lasted, I doubt if American history could show its parallel for quiet, care-free, happy-go-lucky, thoughtless-of-the-morrow contentment. The French of Acadia, perhaps somewhat resembled Red River colony, but we have grown to view Acadia through Longfellow’s eyes. Beneath the calm surface there was international intrigue. Military life gave a dash of color to Red River that Longfellow’s Acadians never possessed; but beneath the calm of Red River, too, was intrigue.
Rough Map of North America, showing Areas explored by Fur Trades, (1) Alaska by Russians, (2) Canada and U. S. by H. B. Co. & North-Western from 1670 to 1846.
Resentment against search for furs grew to anger. The explosion came over a poor French Plain Ranger, William Sayer, and three friends, arrested for accepting furs from Indians in May, 1849. Judge Thom, the Company’s recorder, was to preside in court. Thom was noted for hatred for the French in his old journalistic days in Montreal. The arrest suddenly became a social question—the French Plain Rangers of the old Nor’Westers against the English Company, with the Scotch settlers looking on only too glad of a test case against the Company. Louis Riel, an old miller of the Seine near St. Boniface, father of the Riel to become notorious later, harangued the Plain Rangers and French settlers like a French revolutionist discoursing freedom. The day of the trial, May 17th, Plain Rangers were seen riding from all directions to the Fort Garry Court House. At 10 A. M. they had stacked four hundred guns against the outer wall and entered the court in a body. Not till 1 P. M. did the court dare to call for the prisoner, William Sayer. As he walked to the bar of justice, the Plain Rangers took up their guns and followed him in. Boldly, Sayer pleaded guilty to the charge of trading furs. It was to be a test case, but test cases are the one thing on earth the Hudson’s Bay Company avoided. The excuse was instantly unearthed or invented that a man connected with the Hudson’s Bay Company had given Sayer permission; perhaps, verbal license to trade. So the case was compromised—a verdict of guilty, but the prisoner honorably discharged by the court. The Plain Rangers took no heed of legal quibbles. To them, the trial meant that henceforth trade was free. With howls of jubilation, they dashed from the court carrying Sayer and shouting, “Vive la liberté—commerce is free—trade is free”; and spent the night discharging volleys of triumph and celebrating victory.
Isbister, the young lawyer, forwards to the Secretary of State for the Colonies petition after petition against the Company’s monopoly. The settlers, who now number five thousand, demanded liberty of commerce and British laws. The petitions are ignored. Isbister vows they are shelved through the intrigue of the Hudson’s Bay Company in London. Then five hundred settlers petition the Legislature of Canada. The Toronto Board of Trade takes the matter up in 1857, and Canadian surveyors are sent west to open roads to Red River. “It is plain,” aver the various petitions and memorials of 1857-59, “that Red River settlement is being driven to one of two destinies. Either she must be permitted to join the other Canadian colonies, or she will be absorbed by a provisional American government such as captured Oregon.” Sir George Simpson, prince of tacticians, dies. Both the British Government and the Hudson’s Bay Company are at sea. There is no denying what happened to Oregon when the Company held on too long. They drove Oregon into Congress. May not the same thing happen in Red River—in which case the Company’s compensation will be nil. Then—there is untold history here—a story that must be carried on where I leave off and which will probably never be fully told till the leading actors in it have passed away. There are ugly rumors of a big fund among the Minnesota traders, as much as a million dollars, to be used for secret service money to swing Red River Settlement into the American Union. Was it a Fenian fund? Who held the fund? Who set the scheme going?