The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies

by Sir Daniel Wilson

And all as brave as Sioux.

Thus the same process still repeats itself along the widening frontier of the far West, which has been in operation on the American continent from the days of Columbus and Cabot. Hardy bands of pioneer adventurers, or the solitary hunter and trapper, wander forth to brave the dangers of the prairie or savage-haunted forest, and to such, an Indian bride proves the fittest mate. Of the mixed offspring a portion cling to the fortunes of the mother’s race, and are involved in its fate; but more adhere to those of the white father, share with him the vicissitudes of border life, and cast in their lot with the first nucleus of a settled community. As the border land slowly recedes into the further West, new settlers crowd into the clearing; the little cluster of primitive log-huts grows up into the city, perhaps the capital of a state, and with a new generation the traces of Indian blood are well nigh forgotten. If any portion of the aboriginal owners of the soil linger in the neighbourhood, they are no less affected by the predominant intruding race.

The transfer of the rich prairie lands of the great North-West from the care of Hudson Bay factors and trappers, the organisation of it into the Province of Manitoba, and the territories already in preparation for new provinces, under the government of their own legislatures, has necessarily brought to an end the condition of things so favourable to friendly relations between the White and Red races. The region, moreover, is now traversed by the Canadian Pacific Railway; and the herds of buffalo, on which the Indian mainly depended for his supplies of food, fur robes, and teepe skins, have finally disappeared. Railways, telegraph lines, and other appliances of civilisation are equally incompatible with the existence of the wild buffalo and the wild Indian. The former inevitably vanished from the scene. It remains to be seen if the latter can adapt himself to the novel conditions of such an environment.

As some preparation for the inevitable revolution, the half-breeds, already numbering thousands, accustomed to mingle on perfect equality with the Whites, and trained in some partial degree to agricultural industry, entered on the possession of farms allotted to them by the Government. But such a transitional stage, forced into premature development, could scarcely be expected to pass through all its revolutionary stages without a conflict, and clashing of interests; and the efforts of the Dominion Government to deal with this novel condition of things were only partially successful. But perhaps the most notable feature in the results has been that the chief difficulty was, not with the wild tribes transferred from the management of the fur-traders to the direct jurisdiction of the Government, but with the half-breeds, claiming civil rights, and jealously resenting encroachments on lands appropriated for their own settlement.

The reports of the Indian Department supply interesting glimpses of the process of adjustment with the various tribes of natives reluctantly yielding to the new condition of things. Returns made to an address of the House of Commons at Ottawa, dated March 1873, disclose the jealousies and suspicions of the native tribes, and the anxiety evinced by the Government officials to remove all just grounds of complaint. Mr. Beatty, a contractor for certain surveys on the Upper Assiniboine, reports that the Portage Indians, under their chief, Yellow Quill, had absolutely forbidden any survey of their lands, and driven him and his party off the field. The Lieutenant-Governor thereafter held an interview with Yellow Quill and a party of his braves, and after a long pow-wow succeeded in pacifying him. Again, a party of about two thousand Sioux are reported to have left in high dudgeon, with a threat to return in force next spring; and the Hon. Alexander Morris—now Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba—writes to the Provincial Secretary at Ottawa, that “The Red Lake Indians on the American side have been sending tobacco to the Sioux in our territory, as it is believed, with the view of common action with regard to the Boundary Survey.” For the settlement of provinces, and the surveying of the prairie for disposal to its new occupants, had necessitated the determination of a well-defined boundary between the Canadian territories and those of the United States. Only a few years had elapsed since the State of Minnesota was desolated by a cruel war, carried on by the Sioux at the instigation, as was then affirmed, of Southern agents, with a view to a diversion in favour of the South during the great Civil War. A large number of the Sioux have since crossed the boundary, and settled within the British lines; and the Hon. Mr. Morris writes from Fort Garry in December last: “Some of the Sioux assist the white settlers as labourers in the summer. They have asked for land, and were led to believe that they would be assigned a reserve, and, if so, they would plant crops, and could then be removed from the settlement.” But Mr. Morris specially draws the attention of the provincial authorities to the excited state apparent among all the Western tribes, and adds: “I believe it to be in part created by the Boundary Commission. They do not understand it, and think the two nations are uniting against them.” The difficulties, however, were overcome; and the reports of the Indian agents contain some curious illustrations of the difficulties inevitable in the first attempt at transforming wild Indian tribes into prairie farmers. One of them thus writes: “The full demands of the Indians cannot be complied with; but there is, nevertheless, a certain paradox in asking a wild Indian, who has hitherto gained his livelihood by hunting and trapping, to settle down on a reservation and cultivate the land, without at the same time offering him some means of making his living. As they say themselves: ‘We cannot tear down the trees and build huts with our teeth, we cannot break the prairie with our hands, nor reap the harvest, if we had grown it, with our knives.’ ” But even among the wild tribes of the prairies a great diversity in habits, and in aptitude for the new life now forced upon them as their only chance of survival, is apparent. The Portage Indians clung to their old status as hunters living in their buffalo-skin lodges on the prairies; the St. Peter Indians form permanent settlements, not only of birch-bark wigwams, but many of them have built log-houses for themselves. Even among the tribes already settling down to steady agricultural labour, such as the Saulteux and the Swampies of Manitoba, a very great difference both in sentiments and customs prevail. Thirty-four Indian families from one tribe in Pembina are reported by the agent as demanding their allocation of farms; the chiefs and headmen of other tribes are in negotiation for farming implements, stock, etc., and some of their demands curiously illustrate the form in which the new life thus opening up to them presents its most tempting aspects. Hoes, axes, and other indispensable implements have been readily granted to them. Ploughs, harrows, and oxen are in request, and have been conceded or promised where the Government agent is satisfied that they will be turned to good account. But in special demand is “a bull and cow for each chief, and a boar for each reserve.” The incipient idea of the stock farm is indeed apparent in the universal demand of all: “A promise,” says one of the agents, “which the Indians never omit to mention, that they shall be supplied with a male and female of each animal used by a farmer.” But the transformation of the wild hunter into an industrious agriculturist is a difficult process; and even in the new generation, born under such changed conditions, the Indian boy shows much greater aptitude for mechanical employments; and takes more readily to the work of the carpenter than to that of tilling the soil, which, so long as the Indian was its lord, was practised exclusively by the women of the tribe.

Could the older condition of interblended prairie life have been sufficiently long perpetuated, the results would far more fully have presented results in close analogy to the intermingling of Europe’s aboriginal and Aryan races in prehistoric times. A settlement begun by Lord Selkirk in 1811, was formed on the Red River within the area now embraced in the Province of Manitoba. It consisted of hardy Orkney men and Sutherlandshire Highlanders; and on the amalgamation of the North-West and the Hudson Bay Companies, the settlement received considerable additions to its numbers. When at length the great fur Companies’ supremacy came to an end, the community numbered upwards of two thousand whites, chiefly occupied in farming, or in the service of the Company. At a later date, another settlement was formed on the Assiniboine river, chiefly by French Canadians. In those, as at the forts and trading-posts of the Hudson Bay Company, the settlers consisted chiefly of young men. They had no choice but to wed or cohabit with the Indian women; and the result has been, not only the growth of a half-breed population greatly out-numbering the Whites, but the formation of a tribe of half-breeds, divided into two distinct bands, according to their Scottish or French paternity, who kept themselves distinct in manners, habits, and allegiance, alike from the Whites and the Indians.

This rise of an independent half-breed tribe is one of the most remarkable results of the great, though undesigned, ethnological experiment which has been in progress ever since the meeting of the diverse races of the Old and New World on the continent of America; and when the peculiar circumstances which favoured this result came to an end, it became a matter of great interest to note the most striking phases presented by it, before they are effaced by the influx of European emigration. I accordingly printed and circulated as widely as possible a set of queries relative to the Indian and half-breed population both of Canada and the Hudson Bay territory; and from the returns made to me by Hudson Bay factors, missionaries, and others, most of the following results are derived. The number of the settled population, either half-breed or more or less of Indian blood, in Red River and the surrounding settlements was about 7200. The intermarriage there has been chiefly with Indian women of the plain Crees, though alliances also occur with the Swampies (another branch of the Crees), and with Sioux, Chippeway, and Blackfeet women. But the most noticeable differences are traceable to the white paternity. The French half-breeds have more demonstrativeness and vivacity, but they are reported to take less readily to the steady drudgery of the farm than those of Scotch descent. But, at best, the temptations of a border settlement, with its buffalo hunts and its chief market for peltries, were little calculated to develop the industrious habits of a settled community; and the intrusion of farmers from the old provinces, and immigrants from Europe, ignorant of their habits and wholly indifferent to their interests, necessarily interfered with the healthful process of transformation into a settled industrious community of civilised half-breeds.

Some of the results elicited by the inquiries are of value in their bearing on the question of mixed races, and the apparent tendency to develop permanent varieties; and all the more so as the data thus obtained show the condition of the North-West community immediately prior to the formation of the Province of Manitoba, and the inauguration of the revolution which inevitably followed in its train. The half-breeds are a large and robust race, with greater powers of endurance than the native Indian. Mr. S. J. Dawson, of the Red River Exploring Expedition, speaks of the French half-breeds as a gigantic race as compared with the French Canadians of Lower Canada. Professor Hind refers in equally strong language to their great physical powers and vigorous muscular developments; and the venerable Archdeacon Hunter, of Red River, replied in answer to my inquiry: “In what respects do the half-breed Indians differ from the pure Indians as to habits of life, courage, strength, increase of numbers, etc.?” “They are superior in every respect, both mentally and physically.” Much concurrent evidence points to the fact that the families descended from mixed parentage are larger than those of the whites; and though the results are in some degree counteracted by a tendency to consumption, yet it does not amount to such a source of diminution on the whole as to interfere with their steady numerical increase. One of the questions circulated by me was in this form: “State any facts tending to prove or disprove that the offspring descended from mixed White and Indian blood fails in a few generations.” To this the Rev. J. Gilmour answered: “I know many large and healthy families of partial Indian blood, and have formed the opinion that they are likely to perpetuate a hardy race.” The venerable Archdeacon Hunter, familiar with the facts by long residence as a clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church among the mixed population of the Red River Settlement, answered still more decidedly: “The offspring descended from mixed White and Indian blood does not fail, but, generally speaking, by intermarriages it becomes very difficult to determine whether they are pure Whites or half-breeds.” Living, however, for many years among a people in whom the Indian traits are more or less traceable, it is probable that Archdeacon Hunter is less attracted by the modified, ample black hair, the large full mouth, and the dark, though gentle and softly expressive eye, which strikes a stranger on first coming among any frontier population of mixed blood. The half-breeds also retain much of the reserved and unimpressible manner of the Indian; though a good deal of intercourse with the native race has led me to the conclusion that this is more of an acquired habit than a strictly hereditary trait: a piece of Indian education akin to certain habits of social life universally inculcated among ourselves. When off his guard, the wild Indian betrays great inquisitiveness, and when relaxing over the camp-fire after a laborious day gives free play to mirth and loquacity.

So far, however, much that has been said applies to the mixed population of the Red River Settlement, living on a perfect equality with the white settlers, and constituting an integral part of the colony. They are neither to be confounded with the remarkable tribe of half-breed hunters, nor with the Indians of mixed blood already described, on older Canadian reserves. Remote as this settlement has hitherto been from ordinary centres of colonisation, and inaccessible except through the agency of the Hudson Bay Company, every tendency has been to encourage the introduction of the young adventurer, trapper, or voyageur, rather than the married settler. The habits of life incident to the fur trade made the distinction less marked between the Indian and the white man; and thus a people of peculiar type grew up there as intermediate in habits and mode of life as in blood from those of the old settled provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. Much property is now possessed by men of mixed blood. Their young men have in some cases been sent to the colleges of Canada, and, after creditably distinguishing themselves, have returned to lend their aid in the progress of the settlement. Thus a favourable concurrence of circumstances in all respects tended to give ample opportunity for testing the experiment of intermingling the blood of Europe and America, and raising up a civilised race peculiar to its soil. With the rapid influx of emigrants; the settling of the prairie lands with a population of yeomen farmers; and the rise of villages and towns along the railways and river highways; the ultimate absorption of this half-breed population, and its merging into the homogeneous community that will ultimately be fashioned out of a meeting of very diverse settlers, is inevitable. Icelanders and Danes, Germans, Russians, Italians, French, Highland crofters, and Irish Celts, are all being interfused into the new community of which the half-breed element will form no unimportant factor.

But a greater interest attaches to that other class of half-breeds already alluded to, which the new order of things has inevitably tended to efface, though not necessarily to eradicate, as an element in the population of the future province. Besides the civilised race of half-breeds, mingling on a perfect equality with the Whites; brought up in many cases in full enjoyment of such domestic training as the Hudson Bay factor and hunter could furnish in the wilderness; there remained apart from them a half-breed race, the offspring born to native women as the inevitable results of such a social condition as pertains to the occupants of the forts and trading-posts of that remote region. These half-breed buffalo hunters were wholly distinct from the civilised settlers, and yet more nearly related to them than to the wild Indian tribes. They belonged to the settlement, possessed land, and cultivated farms, though their agricultural labours were very much subordinated to the claims of the chase, and they scarcely aimed at more than supplying their own wants. The two bands numbered in all between 6000 and 7000. Each division had its separate tribal organisation and distinct hunting-grounds, extending beyond the British American frontier. In 1849 the White Horse plain half-breeds on the Strayenne river, Dakota territory, rendered the following returns to an officer appointed to take the census: “700 half-breeds, 200 Indians, 603 carts, 600 horses, 200 oxen, 400 dogs, and 1 cat.” This may illustrate the general character of a people partaking of the nomad habits of the Indian, and yet possessed of a considerable amount of movable property and real estate. They are a hardy race, fearless horsemen, and capable of enduring the greatest privations. They have adopted the Roman Catholic faith, and specially coveted the presence of a priest with them when on their hunting expeditions. The mass was celebrated on the open prairie, and was prized as a guarantee of success in the hunting-field. On such expeditions, it has to be borne in view, they were not tempted by mere love of the chase or by the prospect of a supply of game. Winter-hunting supplies to the trapper the valued peltries of the fur-bearing animals; but they depended on the summer and autumn buffalo hunts for the supply of pemmican, which furnished one of the main resources of the whole Hudson Bay population. The summer hunt kept them abroad on the prairie from about the 15th of June to the end of August, and smaller bands resumed the hunt in the autumn. With this as the favourite and engrossing work of the tribe, it is inevitable that farming could be carried on only in the most desultory fashion. Nevertheless, the severity of the winter compelled them to make provision for the numerous horses and oxen on which the summer hunt depended; and thus habits of industry and forethought were engendered.