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.