The Canadian West, its discovery by the Sieur de La Vérendrye, its development by the fur-trading companies, down to the year 1822;

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THE
A. H. U. COLQUHOUN

LIBRARY
OF CANADIAN HISTORY

ITS DISCOVERY

By the Sieur De La Vérendrye.

ITS DEVELOPMENT

By the Fur-Trading Companies, down to the year 1822,

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
of Abbé G. DUGAS,

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MONTREAL

LIBRAIRIE BEAUCHEMIN (Limirep.)
256 SAINT PAUI, STREET

; 1905

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__. Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year one
A: thousand nine hundred and five, by Abbé G. DuGas, priest,
in the office of the Minister of Agriculture. £

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INTRODUCTION

When I published the history of the Canadian West in
French, it was my intention subsequently to issue an Eng-
lish edition; but, the translating and printing of such a
work demanding considerable outlay, | have been obliged
to await more tavorable circumstances before putting the
project into execution. ‘1'o-day, with the assistance of a
few generous friends, I feel capable of starting afresh and
of carrying the enterprise to a successful issue.

My first purpose, in penning a history of the Canadian
West, was to recall the memories of two illustrious
names, that !to-day are too frequently ignored, even by
those who enjoy the fruits of their labors, and to justify
them against the calumnies of their contemporaries; my
second aim was to disabuse the public mind of certain
false impressions regarding events of great importance
which occurred in the North-West at a time when exact
information was difficult to be obtained. Rarely is his-
tory impartially written. We are generally inclined to
excuse the mistakes of our fellow-countrymen and to ex-
aggerate those of foreigners. Had the writer allowed
himself to be swayed by such feelings, he would have
passed a very different judgment upon certain facts from
that which is here expressed.

The reader may perhaps be astonished to find a French-
Canadian missionary priest defending Scotch Protestants
who were persecuted and calumniated by a Company
that flaunted the title of a French company, and consti-
tuting himself the apologist of Lord Selkirk, who was
vilified by the members of the same company. But, after
having carefully weighed the value of the documents that

-

6 INTRODUCTION

I had in hand, I felt, in conscience, that I could not other-
wise judge the facts which lay before me. |

If the celebrated North-West Company does not herein
play the glorious part that has at times been attributed to
it, 1 make answer that success, no matter how brilliant
it may be, can never alone justify the means used in its
attainment.

During the twenty-two years that the writer spent at
the Red River, he gleaned traditions, he questioned the
older ones of the country, he visited the places where all
the facts here related happened, he learned by heart all
that was told about the battle of Frog Lake, and the death
of Governor Semple, who fell with twenty-one of his
men near Fort Douglas; since then, he has read all that
has been written by the North-West Company, and by
Lord Selkirk on the subject, and, in fine, he has reduced
to a compendium the huge record of the law-suit insti-
tuted by Lord Selkirk against the Company and, from all
these sources, has reached the conclusions that will be
found set forth in this history.

La Vérendrye and Selkirk are the most interesting
figures on the historical canvas of the North-West,—the
former as a discoverer, the latter as the colonizer and
civilizer of those wild regions —for it was he, Selkirk,
' who carried there the first seeds of real civilization by as-
sisting in conducting -thither the earliest missionaries.
Wherefore the Catholics of Manitoba owe him an im-
mense debt of gratitude.

It would be a praiseworthy deed were a monument
erected in Winnipeg in honor of these two heroes of the
North-West; we trust that this project may be some day
realized.

Abbé Ducas.

MO BIRR 3 7

PRELIMINARY REMARKS

The Hudson Bay from its discovery by Hudson, in 1610,
to the discovery of the North-West, by the Sieur
de la Vérendrye, in 1731.

Before conducting the reader into the wilds of the
Canadian West, along the pathway trod by de la Vérendrye
and the Frenchmen who followed him, we consider it ne-
cessary to supply a few ideas about the history of the
Hudson Bay, which now constitutes part of the Dominion
. of Canada. The events that took place in that wild
country, from its discovery, are not without interest for
us, since many of our. fellow-countrymen played distin-
guished parts in the early struggles for the possession of
that territory. On those bleak shores, bound up in ice,
and closed out during the three-fourths of the year from
the rest of the world, under that lowering sky, whose veil
of fog the sun’s beams can scarcely pierce, strange as it
may seem, men pitched their habitations almost as early |
‘as upon the enchanting shores of Mexico. :

While the vast, and as yet uninhabited, expanses of the
United States allured men by the richness of their soil and
the charms of their climate, the Hudson Bay — that dis-
tant corner of earth in the neighborhood of the Pole —
awakened the covetousness of the Trading Companies,
and for more than a century they wrangled over the pos-
session of those eternal snows. Many a battle was there

8 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

waged, and many a soldier or sailor, performed feats of
arms that were worthy the most renowned heroes of an-
tiquity. :
To-day, the earnestly-undertaken project of construct-
ing a railway in that direction, for the purpose of estab-
lishing more rapid communication between the Canadian
West and Europe, will lend a two-fold interest to the

history of that country and of its first settlements. ‘That

story will, moreover, serve as an introduction to the dis-
covery of the North-West by de la Vérendrye, for, at
every step, we have occasion to mention the Hudson
Bay as we relate the adventurous voyages of the dis-
coverer.

Scarcely had the existence of the New World been
made known, by Christopher Columbus, to Europe, than
ambition at once led the navigators of those times into the
higher latitudes along the North American coast. They
expected, north of the newly-discovered lands, to find a
passage conducting to the rich fields of India, which the
Portuguese reached by way of the Orient.

The first navigator who, after the discovery of Amer-
ica, pushed into the northern seas over the Atlantic, was
John Cabot, who discovered the island of Newfoundland,
in 1497. His son, Sebastian Cabot, under the protection
of King Henry VII. of England, undertook a voyage,
in 1498. He set out in the beginning of the summer, and
sailed towards the North-West, with the idea of reaching
China in a direct manner; but, to his great dissatisfac-
tion, after a few weeks’ sailing, he came upon the
American coast, which he followed northerly to the 56th
degree. There, finding that the land sloped to the East,

Fd ee Oe ee

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 9

he gave up all hope of finding the desired passage, and so
retraced his steps.

Two years after this voyage of Cabot— about the
year 1500—a Portuguese, named Corteréal, followed the
coast of Labrador to the point where it bends westward
to form the southern shore of the strait leading into the
Hudson Bay. (The Hudson Strait.) Without going
any farther to verify his discovery, he imagined that he
was in presence of the passage leading to China, and at
once hastened back to Portugal to make known the happy
result of his voyage.

The following year he set out afresh, this time intend-
ing to pass through the strait, the entrance to which he
had only seen; but he and his crew were lost in the ice
and no traces of them were ever found. A few years
later his brother met the same fate in going to find him.

We read in the Relations of the Jesuits (Vol. 1, page
2), that in the year 1524, a Florentine, named Verrazzano,
by order of Francis the First . of France, visited the
American coast, from Florida to Cape Breton, and took
possession of all those lands in the name of the French

_ king; however, he did not go as far north as his prede-

cessors.

Martin Forbisher, a noted English navigator, having
sought in vain, by three consecutive voyages (1577 —
1578— 1579), to find the desired passage across the
continent, ended his explorations in northern seas with
the discovery of a few islands in the vicinity of Green-
land. . i

Eight years later, in 1587, John Davis, another Eng-
lish navigator, sailed past the entrance of the Hudson
Bay ; and if any navigator were aware of the existence of
that inland sea before 1610, none ever described it.

10 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

It was at the beginning of the Seventeenth century, in
the year 1610, that Henry Hudson was sent by England
in search of the famous passage —supposed to exist, but
never discovered. He was a mariner of consummate ex-
perience and dauntless bravery. During the previous
years, Hudson had sailed along the north of Asia, skirting
the coast of Nova-Zembla, and touching at Spitzbergen.
This intrepid sailor had launched his vessel into the laby-
rinth of those terrible ice-bergs and fast-ice, but he was
unable to penetrate beyond the 82° parallel. Checked on
that side, he steered south-west, wound round Green-
land, and discovered, in sailing towards the west, the im-
mense strait where Corteréal thought he beheld a route to
the Pacific Ocean. The vessel which carried him was
called the “Discoveries,” a ship of seventy tons.

He pushed on to the end of the Bay, carefully exam-

ining the western shore, and in the month of November he

worked his way into a sheltering recess at the south-west
extremity. Into this recess he towed his vessel for winter
quarters.

On leaving England, Hudson had taken supplies for
only six months. The season was rigorous, but Hudson
was the first to share the privations. The provisions on
board became scarce, but as long as the snows lasted the
partridge and other game that they killed kept the crew
free from the terrors of hunger. With the spring thaw
hunting failed them. Hudson, in a canoe, spent nine
days ranging along the shores in search of some Indians
from whom he might secure food. Not meeting with
any he returned to the vessel, which he launched into
deep water to return to England. He distributed his few
remaining biscuits amongst his sailors and settled each
one’s account, accompanying the same with a certificate of

>

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 1

service that might be used to secure their future in case
he should happen to die.

Deeply affected by their sufferings, and as he had a pre-
sentiment that he would never reach England, he wept
bitter tears as he completed the final settlements. But
these evidences of his solicitude made no impression upon
the men who had vowed his ruin.

In the previous month of September, on account of the
mutinies that he stirred up amongst the crew, Robert
Ivett had been relieved of his position as mate. His ac-
complices resolved to avenge him. At their head was a
scoundrel named Henry Green, an Irishman, whose life
Hudson had saved in London, by keeping him in his own
house and later on, unknown to the owners, on board the
vessel. On the 11th June, 1611, when the vessel was
ready to sail, they seized the captain, his son, who was
only a child, Mr. Woodhouse, a mathematician, who had
taken the trip as a volunteer, the carpenter and five others,
placed them in a row-boat, and left them to their fate,
without either provisions or arms. The boat touched an
island where they went ashore, and where they all died of
hunger; their bodies were found, the following year, by
Thomas Button.

Heaven did not permit such a crime to go unpunished.
Green and two of his accomplices were killed in a fight
that the vessel’s crew had with some Indians; Robert
Ivett died miserably during the homeward voyage; and it
was only after having met with untold calamities that
_ the shattered remnant of the crew reached England.
Nabacus Prickett, who related the sad story of those mis-
adventures, was, probably, as deeply dyed as the rest of
the murderous crew, but having been able to make hime

oa

12 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

self exceedingly useful to the ship-owners, he managed to
escape the punishment that he so well merited.

In the beginning of May, 1612, Thomas Button, who
was an able sailor, started for the Hudson Bay with two
vessels, the “Discoveries” and the “Resolution.” While
crossing the Bay, he touched on an island where he found
the bodies of the unfortunate Hudson and his com-
panions. On the 15th August he entered a creek, to the
north of a river, which he called Nelson; later on the
French gave it the name of Bourbon. (1)

Having made up his mind to winter there, he placed his
two vessels side by side, and fortified them with a barri-
cade of spruce piles driven into the ground and cemented
‘together with clay,— a safeguard against the snow, the ice
and the waves. Button had a complete association of
able and experienced men with him: Nelson, his lieut-
enant on board the “Resolution ;” Ingram, commander of
the “Discoveries ;’ Gibbon, an able sailor; Hawbridge,
who wrote an account of the voyage; Hubert, an observ-
ant and discerning character; Prickett, one of the unfor-
tunate Hudson’s companions. ‘Three large fires kept the
crew from the cold; abundance covered their table; dur-
ing the course of the winter they killed twenty thousand
partridges. In a word, perfect contentment would have
reigned in that little town, had it not been marred by the
extreme rigour of the winter and the sickness that carried
off several members of the crew. ‘To prevent all lone-
liness and murmurings, Button had the wisdom to find
occupation for his men; some he employed blazing paths
through the woods and measuring distances, others he

(1) Nelson was the master on one of Button’s ships. He “
died at the Bay, and was buried on the bank of the river that,

beara his name,

PRELIMINARY REMARKS ; 13

set to studying certain subjects of practical utility in the
prosecution of their discoveries.

Button put to sea again in the month of June, 1613,
pushed northward to the 65th degree, and returned to
England firmly convinced of the existence of the passage
that he sought to discover. He gave his name to the
islands that we find in groups at the entrance of the strait
leading into the Hudson Bay. Hence, by a mistransla-
tion of the the name Button, the French called those
islands the tiles Boutons, or Button Islands.

In 1614, Captain Gibbons, a relative of Button, to
whom the latter had given instructions, was sent on a
voyage of discovery to the Hudson Bay; but his was an
unfortunate trip. He missed the entrance to the Hudson
Strait, and was carried by the ice to the 57th degree of
latitude at the north-east extremity of the continent.
He entered a bay where for three weeks he remained
in a state of constant peril. So shattered was his vessel
that he had great difficulty in returning to England.

The following year, 1615, the vessel was repaired and
sent out again under command of Captain Robert Bylot,
an able seaman who had taken part in the three preceding
expeditions. He took with him the famous William
Baffin, who had already considerable experience on the
northern seas. Great results were expected of this expe-
dition. | ee at Sage Spee apes

Bylot set sail on the 18th April. He forged northward
to the 65th degree, but was no more successful than his
predecessors in discovering the passage to the Western
Océan,,,He returned to England convinced that no such
passage existed. After Bylot’s failure, expeditions in
the direction’,of | the Hudson.| Bay,!;werée abandoned for
some: fifteen years, |. It. was ‘captain! Lagas: Fox, ‘who, in

14 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1631, first attempted another expedition in that direction.
He was a born sailor. Twenty years before undertaking
the voyage in question, he had commenced to make
studious researches into the project of discovering a-
passage to the Western Ocean. Merchants of Bristol and
London formed an association together to raise funds to.
defray the cost of this expedition. Fox was given a
twenty-ton vessel, the “Charles” provisioned for eighteen
months, and perfectly equipped in every respect. He
prepared everything for a start in the beginning of May,
1631. So certain was he that he would succeed in reach-
ing the Pacific Ocean that he carried with him a letter
from the King of England to the Emperor of Japan.

Fox had a successful voyage: he ascended a consider-
able distance one of the many arms of the sea that reach
into the Arctic Ocean, and better than any of his prede-
cessors, he explained the currents as well as the laws that
govern the tides. He gave his name to a strait that is
still known as Fox Strait.

In the year 1631, another mariner, captain James, start-
ed from England, at the same time as Fox, and found his
way to the very end of the Hudson Bay: he was the first
to sail over the James Bay, which derives its name from
him.

Fox returned to England perfectly disillusioned regard-
ing the much sought for passage; and captain James
made such a fearful report of all the hardships that he
had endured, that it spread consternation amongst the
English people. For over thirty years, the frightened ex-
plorers would not dare to steer their vessels in that direc-
tion.

Historians relate that about 1634, a Danish vessel en-
tered the Hudson Bay and proceeded along its shores

LS

4K

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 15

a distance of about one hundred and eighty miles north
of the Nelson river. There, they entered the mouth of a
river, which they called the Danish River and which the
Indians styled the Manitew-sipi (or river of the
strangers.) The vessel being icebound, the crew spent
the winter on the shores of the Bay. ‘The sufferings they
underwent caused most of them to perish; only five or six
were able to resist sufficiently to take to sea in the spring,
and to reach, after countless dangers, the port of Copen-
hagen.

In 1646, Latour, whose name became famous in Aca-
dia, undertook to go fur-trading at the Hudson Bay; but
he did,not repeat his attempt. In 1656, Jean Bourdon,

of Quebec, went as far as the Hudson Strait, and then
turned back.

Down to this point we see that these numerous voyages
to the northern seas were undertaken in the name of
science, and that no person, so far, ever dreamed of set-
tling upon those inhospitable shores to develop the
wealth that they contain. The glory of discovery was the
sole passion of these mariners and of the powerful asso-
ciations that furnished them with means. About 1662,
England had almost lost sight of the fruits of her dis-

coveries, when a Canadian stepped in to revive the idea

of the immense advantages to trade and commerce that a
country deemed “uninhabitable” might afford. (1)

(1) Are the lands that stretch along the shores of the Hud-
son Bay habitable? If, by the word “habitable” is implied the
possibility of human beings living in those regions — exactly
speaking, we say, “yes.” For there, on the shores of that Bay,
for over two centuries, there have been establishments where
Europeans lived and carried on the fur-trade; but if by habitable
is meant the cultivation of the soil, we must reply in the nega-
tive —it is not habitable. It is a country where the Indians

) 2

16 PRELIMINARY REMARKS
Ti;

Chouart des Groscilliers—His voyages ‘to the Hudson
Bay.

The name of Chouart des Groseilliers must henceforth be
celebrated in the annals of the Hudson Bay settlements,
for it was he, who first had the honor of building a fort in
that distant corner of North America.

Of French origin, des Groseilliers was but a child when
he arrived in Canada. For several years he lived with
the Ursulines in Quebec. Mother Marie de l’Incarnation
speaks of him as a very intelligent youth, blessed with an

alone can eke out an existence by hunting (and happily game is
abundant).

The soil never thaws more than to the depth of one foot,
and during all the summer months there are heavy frosts. The
breaking up of the spring scarcely ever comes before the middle
of June, and the rivers are ice-bound at the end of September.
The sea is completely open only in July, August and September,
and even during these months vessels are constantly exposed to
meet with ‘huge icebergs, when the wind blows from the North.
It is not unfrequent that vessels are stopped at the entrance to
the Bay, in August, by the ice.

To-day, with steam ships, whose progress does not depend
on the caprice of the wind, it is easier to reach the end of the
Bay than it was formerly with sailing vessels, and during three
months of the year a regular line of vessels for the transporta-
tion of our Western Canadian products could be established be-
tween Port Nelson and England.

If such a project were to succeed, it would be of immense
advantage for all the establishments along the great Saskat-
chewan. A railway, constructed from the lower part of that
river to the sea, would be relatively very short for the exporta-
tion of grain, which could be sent to Europe at a cost much
’ Jower than by way of the Canadian Pacific line.

But, if that vast scheme should ever be realized, the country
around the Hudson Bay will remain none the less a land where
white men could never attempt the raising of cereals,-and we
might say that those regions are only truly habitable for Indians
born under that sky and in those latitudes.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 17

energetic and enterprizing character. He soon became
- familiar with the Indian languages and spoke them with
great facility. Early in life he made lengthy excursions
amongst the Indians, for the purposes of discovery and -
of fur trading. He associated with himself, in such trips,
Pierre E'sprit Radisson, who was born in Paris, and came
to Canada to give free rein to his adventurous inclinations.

On the 24th August, 1653, des Groseilliers married
Marguerite Hayet, a sister of Radisson, on the mother’s
side.

It has frequently been said that des Groseilliers was a
Huguenot. As to Radisson, there is no doubt on that
score. Perhaps, even, the wife of des Groseilliers be-
longed to the same religion as her brother; but as to des
Groseilliers, himself, it is quite certain that he was a
Catholic; his name appears in the registers of Three
Rivers, as having been god-father to several children.

Before entering into partnership with des Groseilliers
for those voyages, Radisson had already taken flying
trips to the Indians of the West. These two, daring to
temerity as they were, had a passionate ambition to make
fortunes and above all to gain Sais hila ah were fash-
ioned to move together.

In the year 1658 they went as far as Lake Superior and
made the acquaintance of the different tribes that inhabi-
ed that region. They spent the years 1658 and 1659 in
wandering around that great lake and carrying on a fur
trade. During all that time, they had numerous oppor-
tunities of securing information regarding the countries
more to the north and the west. A band of Cree Indians
from the shores of the James Bay, spent the winter of
1659 in their camp and invited them to go and trade with
them at the sea coast. Des Groseilliers promised them

18 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

to do so on another occasion, and he learned from them
a great deal concerning the distances to be traversed in
order to reach their country.

Early in the spring of 1660, Radisson and des Grosell?
liers went down to Quebec. Their cargo of furs was
simply enormous. Five hundred Indians accompanied
them on the trip. When the little fleet reached Quebec,
in order to astonish the Indians, the authorities caused
the canons to be fired and the flags to be unfurled.

Such a harvest of rich furs could not but excite the
curiosity of a great many people in Quebec as well as in
Three Rivers. The governor of the latter place would
have been glad to have had a share in the prosecution of
that branch of trade. It is well known that certain gov-
ernors of Canada were no strangers to the same ambi-
tion. He, of Three Rivers, offered des Groseilliers and
Radisson to associate with them two of his followers, on
condition that they would have half of the profits. The
two trappeurs knew that they could easily have the entire
profits for themselves, so they refused the offer. The
governor, for revenge, forbade them, for the future, to go
trading with the Indians, and even ordered them to leave
the colony under pain of imprisonment.

For the time being, they gave up the idea of a second
trip to the West and matters so remained until the month
of August 1661, when seven canoes filled with Indians
arrived at Three Rivers.

Des Groseilliers’ mind was soon made up. He notified
the Indians to wait for him and his brother-in-law, at the
foot of Lake St. Peter, and he watched for a favourable
moment to escape from the fort. It was not a difficult
matter, for he was a captain at Three Rivers, and in vir-

tue of that rank he held the keys of the fort. About mid-

Se

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 19

night, he opened the gate and, accompanied by Radisson,
went to join the Indians. Once outside he was at ease,
for he knew well that no pursuit would be attempted.

They went to Lake Superior; probably to the same
place where they had traded so successfully during the
previous years. It is almost certain that this time they
carried their discoveries as far north as the James Bay.
Radisson, in his notes, says positively that, in 1663, they
reached the shores of a sea. “where they found an old
house all demolished.” But his notes are so far from
precise that there is always an uncertainty as to the
places that he wishes to designate.

After three years of wandering in different directions,
trusting that the governor had forgotten their escapade,
they thought of returning to Quebec. They secured
seven hundred Indians to accompany them and _ they
reached Three Rivers during the summer of 1664.

Their reception at the hands of the governor was far
different from that which they had expected. Their
great success only helped to sour him the more against
them and to cause him to exercise a personal vengeance
upon them. The sight of the rich furs that the canoes
contained rekindled his rancour; and he made des Gro-
seilliers pay a fine of two thousand dollars.

Des Groseilliers reckoned upon all the profits of his
trading for means to go to the Hudson Bay by sea. The -
sum exacted from him by the governor made an enormous
hole in his little fortune; still, he was not discouraged, nor
did he abandon his project. He applied to Quebec mer-
chants, proposing to them the formation of a company of
which he would be one of the principal shareholders ; but
as the merchants did not meet his views, he resolved to
apply to the Court of France, to have his plans adopted,

20 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

and, at the same time, to have tle $2.000, which the gov-
ernor of Three Rivers extorted from him, refunded.

His stay in Paris was very short. While he was re-
ceived with politeness, he soon learned that fair words
were all that he would receive. He returned to Quebec,
where, by dint of applying, he secured a small vessel on
which he, his brother-in-law and only seven sailors set
out for the Hudson Bay.

On his way, he stopped for a few days to trade at St.
Pierre, Cape Breton. Thence, he sailed for Port Royal.

(1) Time pressed, for the season was advanced and the -

sea was becoming dangerous for northern navigation.
He proposed to his crew a visit to the New England coast
to see if he could not find a better vessel for his expedi-
tion. ‘There happened to be, by chance, at that moment,
some Boston shipowners at Port Royal; des Groseilliers
laid certain proposals before them wiiich were accepted,
and it was resolved that they would furnish him with a
vessel to start immediately on his exploration of the Hud-
son Bay coast.

His vessel merely touched shore at the Hudson Bay;
he only had time to exchange a few words with the na-
tives, when he returned.to Boston for the winter.

In the spring of 1665, the English shipowners, who had
promised des Groseilliers two vessels, sent him, with
Radisson, to Sable Island to fish, while awaiting the break-
ing up of the ice in the north. From that time forward a
series of adventures and mishaps, delayed for three years
the realization of his scheme.

(1) Port Royal was an ancient fort in Acadia, now Nova
Scotia.

~—

RELIMINARY REMARKS 21

He set sail towards the end of July. Scarcely had he
got to sea, when a furious tempest drove his vessel ashore
and wrecked it. He returned to Boston; there he met
with Colonel George Cartright, a member of the Royal
Commission appointed to regulate, the most important
questions in the colony. He offered des Groseilliers to
take him with him to London, and there to present him to
the King of England, who would not fail to look with
favor upon his undertaking. Des Groseilliers expecting
help from nowhere else, and having so far met only with
indifference in Canada, accepted the Colonel’s offer and,
with his brother-in-law, sailed away to present his plans
to the Court at London.

They started from Boston on the 1st August, 1665;
their ship was unfortunately attacked by a Dutch vessel ;
they were all made prisoners and taken to Spain. Thence,

' they proceeded to England, where they arrived on the

25th October of the same year (1665).

At once on his arrival, des Groseilliers obtained an
audience with the King. ‘The account that he gave of his
discoverics and of the hopes that he entertained for the
future, so interested Charles II., that he promised to sup-
ply him with a vessel for the following spring (1666).
In the meanwhile the King had an allowance of 40 shil-
lings a week each supplied to the two travellers.

The war between England and Holland caused the ex-
pedition to be postponed until the year 1668. Wearied
by so much delay, des Groseilliers asked to be presented to
Prince Rupert, the King’s cousin, with the hope of inter-
esting him in the enterprise. The Prince received him

~ most heartily and equipped two ships for him that were

to be ready for the spring of 1668. The names of the
two ships were the “Aigle” and the “Incomparable.”

‘

~22 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

These two vessels sailed from Gravesend, on the 3rd
June, 1668. Des Groseilliers was on board the “Incom-
parable,’ commanded by captain Zacharias Gillam. A
terrible storm struck them off the coast of Ireland. The
vessel which carried Radisson was so badly wrecked that
it had to return to England; des Groseilliers continued the
voyage alone.

Captain Gillam landed in the Hudson Bay at the mouth
of a river, to which he gave the name Rupert; he there
built a fort where they might pass the winter and be shel-
tered against any Indian attacks. Fur-trading was plen-
tiful ; the vessel was loaded, and in the springtime the ex-
-pedition returned to London.

The success of that trip was a perfect revelation for the
merchants of England. There could be no longer any
doubt; the Hudson Bay was a rich mine to be worked;
but, for that purpose, a well-organized company would
have to be formed.

A number of leading personages of the Court request-
ed Charles II. to accord them a, charter, granting them
the exclusive privilege of fur-trading on all the lands the
waters of which flowed into the Hudson Bay. That
charter was accorded to Prince Rupert, on the 2nd May,
1670.

The following is a list of the first shareholders of the
Hudson Bay Company:

Prince Rupert,

Christopher, Duke of Albermale.
William, Count Craven,

Henry, Lord Arlington.
Anthony, Lord Ashly,

Sir John Robinson, Kt.,’

an SN

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 23

7. Sir Robert Voyer. Baronet,
8. Sir Peter Culleton, Baronet,
g. Sir Edward Hungerford, Kt.,
10. Sir John Griffith, Kt.,

11. Sir Paul Neele, Kt.,

12. Sir Philippe Carteret, Kt.,

13. James Hynes. Esgq.,

14. John Kirk, Esq.,

15. Francis Millington. Esq.

16. William Prettyman, E'sq..

17. John Fenn, Esq.,

18. John Portman, E‘sq.,

Such was the origin of the famous Hudson Bay Com-
pany.
% *% *

As soon as the charter was granted, the Company sent
Charles Bayley, as Governor, to the Bay; he went with des
Groseilliers, who took him to Fort Rupert, where he had
spent the previous winter. However, before the end of
the autumn, the governor had the Fort removed to the
Moose river, at the end of the James Bay, as it was a
more suitable place for trading.

Des Groseilliers resided at that post for about three
years — until 1674. During that time Radisson made
several journeys to Europe.

From the extremity of the James Bay, governor Bayly
neglected no opportunity of extending the Company’s
trade, and of drawing the natives to him. He visited
the Albany river and pushed his discoveries along the
shores of the Bay as far as Cape Henrietta, situated at
the 55th degree of latitude.

24 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

The French, who were exploring the Western country
in the direction of Lake Superior, and the Canadian
coureurs de bois —on the Lake Abitibi side — vigourous-
ly opposed the operations of the Hudson Bay Company.
The French had a Fort built about eight days’ walk from
that on the Moose river, and there they stopped the
Indians who were going to the Bay. The Canadian trap-
peurs, who knew so well how to work in with the Indians
and win their confidence, drew them towards the French
posts. Thus, not only the Indians from the neighborhood
of Lake Superior, but even those that were much nearer
the Hudson Bay preferred to trade with the Canadians
who came within a few hours distance from Moose Fac-
tory. |

The Governor perveiving that the Company’s traffic de-
creased daily, and threatened to disappear on that side, re-
solved to send able traders up the Moose river to meet the
Indian hunters and purchase their furs. He selected des
Groseilliers to lead that little expedition. In the spring,
he returned to Moose Factory with one hundred and fifty
beaver skins. .

While Governor Bayly, assisted by des Groseilliers, la-
boured to secure the Company’s trade along the shores of
the Hudson Bay, very important events had occurred in
Europe.

FRANCE LAYS CLAIM TO HER RIGHTS ON THE HUDSON BAY.

The organization of a great company in London for
the prosecution of the fur trade, at the Hudson Bay, could
-not have remained unnoticed. The expensive privileges
accorded by the King of England to that company of trad-

Soo ee a

ar,

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 25

ers, the sending of a governor to establish posts in those
regions, had all the effect of awakening France to a real-
ization of the mistake made by the Court, in not paying
more attention to the representations of des Groseilliers.
That mistake entailed enormous losses for the whole
nation. :

During the summer of 1671 Father Albanel, a Jesuit
missionary in Canada, left Quebec with letters for Gov-
ernor Bayly and ‘des Groseilliers. He had been sent se-
cretly, by the French government, to convey to des Gro-
seilliers a note requesting him to return to France. The
missionary was accompanied by M. de Saint-Simon, and
the Sieur Couture. He left Tadousac on the 8th August,
ascended the Saguenay to Lake St. John, the windings of
which he followed until he reached the river Mistassini,
which, in turn, he went along as far as a chute, or falls,
where to-day is the establishment of the Trappist Fathers.
As the season was advanced, the three travellers and their
Indian guides spent the winter at that place. In the
spring they continued their journey and reached the
shores of the James Bay on the 28th June, 1672. At the
foot of a large tree they buried a brass plate, on which
were carved the arms of the great monarch — the French
King — and there, amidst the waste lands of the north,
they claimed all that country for France.

Despite that solemn proclamation, England remained
convinced that she had rights to those territories.

Father Albanel went to Moose Factory, handed to the
governor and to des Groseilliers the letters that had been
confided to him for each of them, and immediately started
back for Quebec. |

The letters, which the missionary Father had given des
Groseilliers as well as the conversations which he had

26 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

with him, created a suspicion in the minds of the English
at Moose Factory. Des Groseilliers had betrayed his own
nation, he could equally as well betray strangers. The
officers of the Company began to make him feel that they
were suspicious of him. Humiliated by such treatment
on their part, and despite the error he had committed, des
Groseilliers thought seriously of returning to France.
He left the Hudson Bay with the vessels that sailed for
London, in July, 1674, and in October of that same year
he reached Paris, where he presented himself before the
great minister Colbert.

At different times Colbert had invited des Groseilliers
and Radisson to return to the service of France. It was
well known at the Court that these two men were neces-
sary for the regaining of lost ground at the Hudson Bay.
Under any other circumstances the two traitors would
have been punished; but, in this instance, Colbert simply
upbraided them for their disloyal conduct, and promised
them letters of pardon. He even offered them lucrative
employment which they accepted; for the moment, how-
ever, he did not speak to them of any fresh expedition to
the Hudson Bay, for he wished to first feel assured of
their sincerity in coming back to the French cause. Des
Groseilliers returned to Canada and settled down at
Three-Rivers; Radisson entered the marine service. In
1682, we find them both again at the Hudson Bay.

During the years that elapsed, from 1676 to 1682, we
.nowhere find that England had been disturbed in her
establishments at the Hudson Bay. The Company took
advantage of that quietness to extend its trade and to
erect other Forts, or Factories as they were called. Their
only rivals, that we have any knowledge of, were the cou-
reurs des bois from the great lakes.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 27

During those six years of peace the Company realized
huge profits, for the richest of furs came to them from the
North and the West.

In Canada, the Quebec merchants, who were aware of
the ‘immense profits derived from the fur trade, beheld,
not without vexation, the planting of so many English
establishments at their very doors.

The Intendant of the colony, M. de la Chesnaie, sien!
ed to place des Groseilliers at the head of an expedition to
Hudson Bay, telling him that it would be fair opportun-
ity for him to redeem his former treason. He engaged
to supply two vessels for the spring of 1682. Des Gro-
seilliers accepted. In the month of July, he and his
brother-in-law, Radisson, started away on the “Saint-
Pierre” and the ‘“‘Charente.”

The vessel that carried des Groseilliers was an excellent
one; the other was old and not very safe for such a voy-
age. They called at Percé Island, and continued on the
11th July. ‘They were again forced to halt in a roadstead
off the coast of Labrador ; they took advantage of the de-
lay to trade with the Esquimaux. On the 28th August,
the two vessels entered the Hayes river on the west coast
of the Bay. They ascended that river for about fifteen
miles, to a place-where they fixed their winter quarters.

Their trading, during that winter, was very extensive.
From the moment of his arrival there, des Groseilliers,
who was acquainted with all the Indians, and who spoke
their language fluently, formed an alliance with the dif-
ferent tribes, and obtained their promise not to go to the
James Bay with their furs nor to treat with the English.
They kept their word.

Shortly after his advent two English vessels arrived at
the mouth of the Hayes river, and there went into winter

28 PRELIMINARY REMARKS _

quarters. Radisson, with some fifteen men, went to warn

them that the French had prior possession there, that their —

post, a few miles further up, was well supplied with men,
provisions and munitions, and that they intended to have
their rights respected. The English believed them and
remained shut up in their encampment, without ever at-
tempting to trade with the Indians. In the spring time,
des Groseilliers and Radisson, with a rich cargo of fur,
started home to France, leaving a son of the former in
charge of the Fort. They brought with them the rem-
nants of the English crews, their numbers having been
greatly diminished by hunger and sufferings during the
winter.

Des Groseilliers and Radisson were well received in
France. ‘The Minister of Marine ordered two new ves-
sels for them to be ready by the following spring, and he

rewarded them liberally for the services they had render- ,

ed.

Matters seemed to have taken a favourable turn for
France when Radisson was again won over by the Eng-
lish; and he drew des Groseilliers after him. (1)

On the 17th May, 1684, Radisson departed for the
Hudson Bay, on board the “Happy Return,” while des
Groseilliers, who was worn out from his many trips, re-
mained in England. In Canada and in France, it was
believed that he had gone again to the Hudson Bay, and
efforts were made to secure anew his services for his own
country which he had twice betrayed. In the month of
August, 1684, M. de la Barre sent a letter to M. Duluth,
who was trading near Lake Nepigon, to be transmitted
des Groseilliers. Duluth confided the letter to a half-breed,

(1) All these details we have found in Radisson’s own diary.

3
le ie as

——

PRELIMINARY REMARKS : 29

named Péré, charging him to convey it to des Groseilliers
at the Nelson river.

“As I came out from Lake Nepigon,” wrote Duluth to
de la Barre, “I met de la Croix with his two companions,
who handed me your letters, in which you charge me to
spare nothing in having your letters reach Chouart des
Groseilliers, at the Nelson river. In order to fulfil your
instructions, it was necessary that M. Péré should him-
self go.” (1)

It can be seen by those despatches of de la Barre how
anxious they were to have des Croseilliers back in Can-
ada. But while he was resting in England, his brother-
in-law, Radisson, reached the Hudson Bay and delivered
over the French Fort to the English, who found therein
one thousand dollars worth of furs.

In the autumn of 1684, the “Compagnie du Nord,” at
Quebec, fitted out, at its own expense, a vessel for the
purpose of retaking, by surprise, the French Fort; but the
attempt completely failed, and the company suffered a loss
of over twenty-five thousand dollars.

In the following year (1685), the French Court com-
plained to the cabinet at London, and demanded the resti-
tution of the French Forts on the Hudson Bay. The
negotiations dragged along, and, in 1686, the English gov-
ernment had not yet made answer to the complaints of
France. The “Compagnie du Nord,” to indemnify itself
for the losses of the second year previous undertook to do
justice to itself. It obtained from the Marquis de De-
nonville a detachment of eighty men, nearly all Cana-
dians, under the command of the Chevalier de Troyes, to
proceed overland and retake all the English Forts at the ©

(1) M. Péré was taken prisoner at Fort Albany and sent to
England.

30 PRELIMINARY REMARKS

Hudson Bay. The famous Sainte Héléne d’Iberville and —

de Méricour formed part of that expedition.

They started from Montreal in the month of March
and reached the Hudson Bay on the 18th June. No per-
son at the English Forts, or Factories, could have had the
slightest suspicion of an attack from that direction ; espe-
cially at that time of the year. They were all taken by
surprise and idid not offer the slightest resistance.

The little troop took possession of all the Company’s
Forts, with the exception of Fort Bourbon, and the
French held possession of them until 1692. In 1693,

England succeeded in retaking Fort Sainte Anne, which '

was only occupied by five Canadians.

In 1694, d’Iberville made a fresh attempt to secure pos-
session of Fort Bourbon, which was the most important
one of the lot; after a siege of a few weeks, he succeeded
in his purpose. The Fort capitulated on the 15th Octo-
ber, 1694. However, the French did not long remain in
peaceful possession of that post.

On the 2nd September, 1696, the English arrived at the
Hudson Bay with four men-of-war and a bomb-galley.
On the 15th of the same month they attacked the Fort,
which was defended by only fourteen men. At the end
of acouple of days, the garrison capitulated. All the
members of that little band were taken to England,
where, for four months, they were detained in Prison.

The following year d’Iberville set out again, this time
with four vessels, to reconquer the Hudson Bay. In
that expedition he was successful beyond all his expecta-
tions ; he took every one of their trading posts from the
English, and France became mistress of all that region
until the year 1714, when, by the treaty of Utrecht, the
Hudson Bay territory was restored to England — and has
ever since remained in her possession.

Re AL eee

THE CANADIAN WEST

CHAPTER I.

SUMMARY.

How far the trappers had advanced into the West before de la
Vérendrye. — Voyage of the Canadian De Noyon to the Lake
of the Woods.— Various exploration schemes.

One fact is certain, that from the earliest days of the
Canadian colony on the banks of the St. Lawrence, the
hunters — coureurs des bois — carried away by the spirit
of adventure and the charms of a life in the wilds of the
New World, found their way far into the West amongst
the Indian tribes. It is even probable that a number of
these trappers settled down amongst them and never re-
turned to civilization. These white men, who adopted
the Indian mode of existence, were brave, hardy, enter-
prizing and fearless. The civilized life, that they had led
in the beginning, imparted to them a great superiority
over the most able amongst the Indians. These latter ad-
mitted them to their councils, and frequently selected
them as chiefs of different tribes, especially on account of
their resourcefulness in difficult situations.

The adventurous life of the Canadian trapper, whereon
many a novelist based his stories, and after which he
painted his heroes, was perhaps more real than is com-
monly believed.

The first missionaries, wha went among the Indians of

: , 3

32 THE CANADIAN WEST

the West, met with many striking examples of the des-
cendants of white people intermixed with the Indian race.
The color of the hair and of the eyes as well as the oval
form of their faces left no room for doubt as to the blend-
ing of their blood. You can never be mistaken with re-
gard to the pure-blooded Indian. ‘Their cheek-bones are

always prominent and their hair is invariably black and

crisp.
THE CANADIAN WEST

The renowned Cree Chief, Poundmaker, who played
such an important role in the North-West Rebellion, of
1885, although born of an Indian tribe, had certainly
French blood in his veins. His beautiful, wavy, auburn
looks, and his soft blue eyes did not denote a full-blood
Indian.

* OK

In the year 1688, a Canadian, named De Noyon, a na-
tive of Three-Rivers, spent the winter with the Indians on
the islands of the Lake of the Woods. On his return he
gave a very detailed account of the route he had followed
to reach the lake where he had wintered.

In a memorandum annexed to a letter from Messrs. de
Vaudreuil and Bégon, addressed to His Grace the Duke
of Orleans, on the 13th February, 1717, we find that re-
port im extenso:

“In coming out, we enter the Kaministiquia river. We
go up that river for thirty miles, after which there is a
portage of about ten acres, where we shoulder the canoes.
After the portage there is a rapid about thirty miles long,
and from the said rapid there is a portage of one acre.

“Nine miles from the said portage there is another one

mot tee THE CANADIAN WEST 3

of three miles in length, called the Dog Portage, after
which we enter a lake about nine miles long to reach the
same river Kaministiquia, which we follow for forty-five
miles. After which we find a portage of three miles, and
there is a lake without any outlet, being in the middle o a
swamp. (1)

“This lake is about thirty acres wide, and is at the
Height of Land.

“At the end of this lake we have to portage through a
swamp for about three miles; then we enter a river that is
about thirty miles, and which goes down into a lake called
Canoe Lake. We cross this lake for some eighteen miles
to the right, and enter a bay, where we portage over a-
poplar point for about three accres. Thence we come
upon a little river filled with wild oats, and along which
we travel for two days in canoes, making thirty miles a
day. After that we come toa fall where there is about
an acre of portage.

“At the end of this portage there is a rocky strait about
an acre long, which extends to the foot of Christinaux
Lake. This lake is about fifteen hundred miles around.
We coast along the left bank for a distance of twenty-four
miles,at the end of which the lake empties into and forms
the river Takamamiwen, otherwise called Ouichichick, by
the Crees. For eight days we go down that river for a
distance of two hundred anid forty miles, without meeting
any rayids. (2)

” “Six miles from the entrance to this river, however, a
. little portage of about an acre must be made. On coming

(1) The Canadian Pacific Railway has to-day at that point
a station of considerable importance, called Savanne

(2) This is the river now called Rainy River,

34 THE CANADIAN WEST

out of this river we enter the Lake of the Islands (Lac des

Iles), otherwise called, by the Blackstone people, Lake of

the Assiniboines.

“This lake, on the south side, is lined with barren ex-
panses, while on the north side it is covered with all kinds
of wood and fringed with islands. At the end of this
lake is a river that flows into the Western Sea, according
to the Indian reports.”

The Indians had offered de Noyon to take him with
them to the Western Sea. ;

The above memorandum proves, in the first place, that
the route from Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods,
and even to the Winnipeg river had been explored long
before the voyage of de la Vérendrye. Moreover, it was
the route which he, himself, followed on his way to the
places where he built Fort St. Charles and it was exactly
the route taken, later on, by all the explorers in the ser-
vice of the fur-trading companies. The names which
those early explorers gave to the rivers and portages have
been almost all retained down to our time. In that West-
ern Sea, of which the Indians spoke, and which they
reached by way of the Winnipeg river, which falls into
the Lake of the Woods, we recognize Lake Winnipeg.

The Indians who furnished this information were some
of those that had taken the trip to the Hudson Bay. There
they had seen vessels on the sea, had heard the booming
of cannons, had marvelled at the solid construction of the
forts ; there they had witnessed the flow anid the ebb of the
tide, which rises for a considerable distance in the rivers
around the great Bay. All these details, coming from
such a source, caused the French to suspect that the Sea
of the West could not be very far from Lake Superior. It

required a great many years to undeceive them on that

—— a

- png Fe eal

THE CANADIAN WEST , 3

point. ‘The route followed by the Indians was by way of
the Winnipeg river, Lake Winnipeg and Nelson river.

In the year 1717, M. de la Noué was sent to the Kami-
nistiquia, there to erect a Fort, which he did and which
Fort he occupied until 1721. During his sojourn at that
Fort he invited all the Indians of the West to visit him
and to give him information concerning their country.
As usual, the information thus given by the Indians was
far from being exact. On his return to Quebec de la
Noué wrote the governor that all he had learned of cer-
tain, regarding the North-West, “was that the cold there
was excessive, and that it was impossible to raise any
grain there.”

Experience has since taught us that this latter piece of
information was absolutely false, for the North-West is
now recognized as the granary of America. As to the
cold, it is not more severe than in the northern parts of
Europe, that for long centuries, have been inhabited and
cultivated. “However,” says de la Noué in his report,
“it is the section that furnishes the best furs and that con-
stitutes the entire trade of the English at Hudson Bay.”
To prevent the Indians from going there, it would be ne-
cessary to establish a post at Takimamiwen, which is
three hundred miles from Kaministiquia, and upon the
lands situated on the shores of the lake that bears that
name. (1)

Since, then, the country west of Lake Superior to the

‘Lake of the Woods, had been known for forty years,

when de la Vérendrye undertook to seek out the Western
Sea, that sea, or Ocean that so many navigators and trav-

(1) This Indian name, Taki-mamiwen, is a corruption of two
Cree words: Taki Kimiwen, “it always rains.” Thence comes
Rainy Lake.

36 THE CANADIAN WEST

ellers had vainly sought to discover, how comes it that no
person in Canada had dared to push an expedition into»
that region? They contented themselves with making
reports to the King of France, concerning the immense
advantages that his country would derive from the fur-_
trade — so abundant in that region; but the officers in the
King’s service in Canada limited their zeal to the fabrica-
tion of such reports.

If an ambition to have one’s name associated with a
great undertaking were sufficient to carry the same to a
successful issue, men were not lacking in the French col-
ony to hazard everything in such an enterprise; but other
qualities were needed that are not always the handmaids
of ambition: a certain amount of money, a great amount
of energy, physical and moral force calculated to over-
come the obstacles that nature presented, and to withstand
the persecutions that jealousy inspired; bu, above all, the
lofty motive of action for God and king. ‘These are some
of the requisites that were entirely. or in part, wanting
in the men who would have gladly immortalized them-
selves by the discovery of the Western Ocean.

The King of France would not contribute anything
from his treasury to aid in any way, whatsoever, a North-
West expedition. .

The French officers who served in the colony were first
of all anxious to do their own little business, while doing
that of the king, to a certain extent. In France, they
scarcely imagined the enormous expenses that those dis-

coveries entailed and, we may add, that at a period when
- the Court was more concerned in its own pleasures than
in the extension of the colonies, they cared far less about
‘them.

Yet, the time had arrived, in the wise plans of the Pro-

- PHE CANADIAN WEST 37

vidence, when the beams of faith should be made to illu-
minate the countless hordes of infidels scattered over the
untrodden wilds of this northern land. ‘Then it was that
God infused into the heart of a noble Canadian —Sieur
Pierre Gaulthier de Varennes de la Vérendrye, a native of
Three-Rivers — the heroic resolution of attempting, at
his own expense, and at the risk of his fortune and the
future of his family, the discovery of the West.

CHAPTER II.

SUMMARY.

M. de la Vérendrye; his determination to attempt the discov-
ery of the North-West.— His. departure from Montreal. —
His arrival at Lake Superior.— The Great Portage. — Delay
experienced at that point. — Establishment of Fort Saint-
Pierre, by M. de la Jemmeraie, at Rainy Lake. — Losses sus-
tained by M. de la Vérendrye during the winter. — Return
of the expedition to Rainy Lake, in the spring of 1732. —
De la Vérendrye continues his voyage.; he reaches the Lake
of the Woods and builds Fort Saint-Charles

Pierre Gaulthier de Varennes de la Vérendrye, the son
of René Gaulthier de Varennes, was born at Three-
Rivers, in 1686. He was in his fortieth year when he
formed the determination of going to discover the coun-
try west of the Great Lake Superior. When eighteen
years of age—in 1704— he had taken part in a cam-
paign in the New England colonies, and again, in the
following year, he joined another one. On his return to
Three-Rivers, being possessed of a military taste, he en-
tered the service of France, and crossed over to Europe.
In 1709, he took part in the battle of Malpaquet, and there
received nine wounds. After having spent a few years
in the French army, he returned to Canada, and in 1728
held command at the Nipigon post on the shores of Lake
Superior. It was while there that he gleaned his first in-
formation regarding the great regions of the West.

In 1730, he went down to Montreal to communicate ‘his
plans to the Governor, M. de Beauharnois, by whom they
were approved. During the winter of 1730-1731, he

40 THE CANADIAN WEST

made arrangements with the merchants who were to fur-
nish him with goads, for the purposes of fur-trading with
the Indians. He hired his men, and in the springtime
started from Montreal, taking along with him his three
sons, his nephew, M. de la Jemmeraie and fifty men to
paddle the canoes and carry the baggage. (1)

Although the number of men engaged for the expedition
is not mentioned in de la Vérendrye’s diary, still there can
be no doubt on that point, for we find in several letters
addressed to the Court of France, concerning the discov-
ery of the North-West, that the attempt in that direction
necessitated at least fifty men on the start. (2)

De la Vérendrye moreover formed partnership with a
few merchants who would aid him in bearing the cost of
the enterprise.

“I associated several persons with me,” he wrote, “
as to more easily secure means to meet the expenditure
that the enterprise might occasion, and, in passing Michil-
limacinac, I took the Jesuit Father Messaiger as our mis-
sionary.” i

Like all the discoverers of new countries in America,
de la Vérendrye wished to have a priest with him. Those
men of strong faith never set out upon distant expedi-

(1) M. de la Jemmaraie, who accompanied de la, Vérendrye
was the brother of the Venerable Mother d’Youville, foundress
of the community of the Grey Nuns of Montreal.

(2) In a memorandum addressed by the French King to the
Marquis of Vaudreuil, in 1717, His Majesty approved of the pro-
ject of establishing trading posts at Kaministiquia, Rainy Lake
and the Lake of the Woods. “To realize that undertaking,” said
he, “it is necessary to have fifty good men (voyageurs), of whom
twenty-four will occupy the three trading posts and the other —
twenty-six will be employed in explorations, from the Lake of the
Woods to the Western Ocean.”

THE CANADIAN WEST rl

‘tions without placing themselves under the xgis of. reli-

gion and having a missionary accompany them.

T’o form an idea of the difficulties of travel in those wild
countries at that period, it will suffice to say, that despite
all the diligence exercised by the explorers, it took seven-
ty-eight days to traverse the distance between Montreal
and Thunder Bay, on the north shore of Lake Superior.
In our time we can cover the same distance in two days,
by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

“On the 26th August,” says de la Vérendrye, “we ar-
rived at the Grand Portage at Lake Superior, which is
forty-five miles from Kaministiquia.”

The Kaministiquia river flows into Lake Superior, near
Port Arthur.

It was from this point (the Grand Portage) that the
travellers were to leave the Lake, and to venture into the
unknown larids of the interior. From that point of de-
parture there were ten miles of portage before reaching
a navigable river.

These portages, for which we have no expression equi-
valent in English, are places where navigation is inter-
rupted by rapids, or falls, or orther like obstacles, and
over which the canoes, provisions and entire paraphernalia
must be carried on the back, until the next navigable
stretch of water is reached. A long portage is always a
formidable drudgery for the voyageur.

De la Vérendrye’s men, who were already weary from
their long journey, were scared when he proposed to un-
dertake the passage of the Grand Portage. Here is how
he tells of the unfortunate misadventure that befell him
at that point.

“On the 27th August, all our men being terrified at the
length of the portage, which is nine miles (three leagues)

a2 THE CANADIAN WEST

long, mutinied, and all asked to relinquish (the expedi-
tion). But, with the help of our missionary Father, I
found a way to gain over a few, out of the number of my
employees, to go with my nephew, who was my lieutenant,
and my son to establish a trading post at Rainy Lake. I
secured a sufficient number to equip four canoes. I gave
them a good guide and had them make the portage at
once. ry

“I was obliged to winter at Kaministiquia, which ©
caused me a remarkable loss, both as to the payment of
my employees and for the goods with which I was
charged, without any hope of deriving any benefit from
all such costs, which were considerable.”

(Mémoires of Sieur de la Vérendrye.)

As we have already mentioned, all the route from Lake
Superior to the Lake of the Woods had been explored
several years before, nor does de la Vérendrye speak of
any discoveries in connection with that part of the coun-
try. He sends his son and his nephew to Rainy Lake, as
to a place well known already, to there build a Fort that
might serve as a first depot.

M. de la Jemmeraie happily reached Rainy Lake, with
all his men, in sufficient time before the winter, to build
a Fort, which he called Fort Saint-Pierre.

During the winter he entered into communication with
the Indians, inviting them to come and trade their furs
with the French; but as the arrival of these strangers was
not known early enough, the Indians only came in small
numbers to the Fort.

In the spring, de la Vérendrye’s son returned. to the
Grand Portage to give an account to his father of the
work done at Rainy Lake. He reached Lake Superior
‘on the 29th May, bringing with him a few furs —a poor

THE CANADIAN WEST 43

compensation for the losses sustained by his father dur-
ing the previous autumn.

“When the canoes, which I had sent to the interior ar-
rived,” says de la Vérendrye, “I sent my son to Michilli-
macinac to fetch the small amount of fur that was coming
to me, and to bring with him the goods that should have
come to me from Montreal.”

On the 8th June, de la Vérendrye set out with all his
following, fully determined to push the expedition as far
as his means and strength would allow.

He took good care, all along the route, to put in order
the portages over which he would have to pass again.

On the 14th July, he reached Fort Saint-Pierre. This
Fort was built at the outlet of Rainy Lake. There fifty
canoes, manned by Indians, awaited to accompany the dis-
coverers onward.

De la Vérendrye only stopped at the Fort sufficiently
long to examine the works done, and to take a fresh sup-
ply of provisions ; he then continued on his way, escorted
by the Indian canoes.

In the month of August, the explorers entered the great
Lake of the Woods, which the Indians called the Lake of
the Islands, on account of the multitude of islands that it
contains. They coasted along the south shore of the lake,
then turned westward towards the mouth of a small river
that flows into the lake at a point known to-day as the
North-West Angle. De la Vérendrye considered that
spot a suitable place for the construction of a Fort.

According to a letter of Father Auneau, who spent the
winter of 1735 at the Fort, it was built on that little river,
three miles from its mouth. (Letter of Father Auneau,
1735), That second Fort was called St. Charles. De la

44 ; THE CANADIAN WEST

_Vérendrye’s plan was to constitute that place his base of
operations between the East and the West.

_ His son, whom he had sent to Michillimacinac, did not
return until the 12th November. ‘The ice had already
taken upon the lake; the escort had to leave the canoes
thirty miles from the Fort, and to carry the provisions
and merchandise for trading purposes on their backs.
This first disappointment experienced at Fort St. Charles
was destined to be followed by many others. De la Vé-
rendrye had selected that Fort as the centre of his opera-
tions between the East and the West, and, in the designs
of Providence, it was to be the scene of his most bitter
sorrows and most cruel trials.

7)
i,
a
v/
°f4

ery ial CHAPTER III.

SUMMARY.

De la Vérendrye’s plans for the spring of 1733.— De la Jemmeraie
goes down to Montreal. — Father Messaiger returns. — De
la Vérendrye’s disappointment on being deceived by his sup-
pliers. — Momentary impossibility to continue his discov-
eries. — His eldest son is sent down the Maurepas river, to
there build a fort.—— Death of De la Jemmeraie.

In the spring of 1733, de la Vérendrye had formed the
design of going to build a fort in the neighborhood of Lake
Winnipeg. The northern tribes persuaded him to this
course; moreover, it was the sole means of drawing the
fur trade to the French and of preventing the Indians
from going to the Hudson Bay. He desired to put his
plan into immediate execution, but his council advised
him, before pushing his explorations further west, to
await the return of the canoes that had been sent to
Michilimacinac. During that time, de la Vérendrye sent
his nephew, de la Jemmeraie, to Montreal, to render an
account to the governor of the works already done, of the
friendly manner in which he had been received by the In-
dian tribes and of the additional information, concerning
the West, that they had given him.

Father Messaiger, feeling severely the effects of the
rigorous climate, returned with de la Jemmeraie to Mont-
real. |

The canoes sent to Michillimacinac were to have
brought back merchandise for trading purposes; on these
did de la Vérendrye depend to recoup himself for his ex-

46 : THE CANADIAN WEST

penditure and to place himself in a position to continue
his exploration.

Unhappily, matters did not go as well as he had
anticipated. In the spring of 1733 only one empty canoe
reached Fort St. Charles. The news that it brought was
bad. The guardians left there, by those interested in the
enterprise, to take care of the provisions and trade with
the Indians, had spent everything, and it was now neces-
sary that they should await the. autumn season to equip
the other canoes.

These latter did not reach Fort St. Charles until Sep-
tember, and even then they were poorly supplied. This
vexatious disappointment made it impossible for de la
Vérendrye to do anything towards the plan of discovery.
He spent, with all his men, the winter of 1733-1734, at
Fort St. Charles.

The Assiniboine Indians having renewed their request
to have a fort built in their neighborhood, de la Vérendrye
sent his eldest son, in the beginning of March, down the
river Maurepas, to explore the country and to select a —
suitable place for a fort.

His son returned from that expedition on the 27th
May, 1734.

Seeing the bad turn things had taken, de la Vérendrye
decided to go down to Montreal. He placed everything
in order, at Fort St. Charles, and commissioned his son
to go with three well-supplied canoes to build Fort
Maurepas, as soon as de la Jemmeraie, who was to have
charge of Fort St. Charles, during | the absence of de la
Vérendrye, had returned.

De la Vérendrye reached Montreal on the 25th August,
1734. He gave an account of the establishments he had
created, and of his hopes for the future; he acquainted

THE CANADIAN WEST 47

the Governor with all the advantages the colony would
derive from his discoveries, and of all the honor that
would redound to France. His exposition of the subject —
won him a most favorable reception and the honor of
fresh orders to continue his discoveries. On the 6th June,
1735, he again set out from Montreal and reached Fort
St. Charles on the 6th September.

He found the place completely destitute. Provisions
had run out. The high waters had destroyed the crop of
wild rice, which was, at least, an important item. The
Indians suffered as well as the French from that famine,
and it forced them to go back into the woods to hunt for
a means of livelihood.

At once, on his arrival, de la Vérendrye sent his
nephew to his eldest son at Fort Maurepas.

“T fitted him out,” he says, “with what I had brought
with me for my discoveries, in the hope that those inter-
ested therein would return me the advances I had made
them.”

Before leaving Montreal, de la Vérendrye had given his
suppliers the trading and business of the posts that he
established.

Father Messaiger, who had returned to Montreal on ac-
count of his health, was replaced, in 1735, by another
Jesuit, Father Auneau, who left Montreal with de la
Vérendrye.

For a long time, at the Red River, those who spoke
about the voyages of de la Vérendrye, were under the im-
pression that the first missionary to reach Winnipeg was
Father Messaiger. We have just seen that he did not go
beyond the Lake of the Woods. No more did his succes-
sor, Father Auneau, ever see the Red River.

On going up from Montreal to Fort St. Charles, de la

4,

48 THE CANADIAN WEST

Vérendrye had preceded the canoes that carried the mer-
chandise and provisions. He expected them early in the
fall for the trading business and for the feeding of his
men. But, on account of the bad management of the
leader, their canoes only went as far as the Grand Port-
age, a mishap which reduced the people at Fort St.
Charles to a state of famine ‘during the winter.

In the spring of 1736, de la Vérendrye found himself
once again stripped of everything. He had sent his two
sons and two men to de la Jemmeraie at Fort Maurepas.
On the 4th June, de la Vérendrye’s two sons came back to
Fort St. Charles with the sad news of the death of dela
Jemmeraie. It was a fearful blow for de la Vérendrye.
His nephew had been the one upon whom he most relied
for assistance; he had made him his lieutenant, and con-
fided all the forts to his care.

At Fort St. Charles the provisions were almost exhaust-
ed, and famine stared them in the face. In order not to
expose his men to death by hunger, he sent, in all haste,
three canoes to Michillimacinac to secure food.

Father Auneau, who had spent the winter at Fort St.
Charles went, with that expedition. At the request of the
missionary, de la Vérendrye allowed his eldest son to go
with them.

They started on the 8th June, 1736, and camped, the
first night, on an island some twenty-one miles from the
Fort.

As the Indians had so far never evidenced any hostile
sentiment towards the French, the little band of travellers
did not take any precautions to guard their encampment
during the night.

However, a band of Indians, consisting of five Sioux
of the prairies, and a dozen of Sioux of the woods, had

THE CANADIAN WEST ae

watched them all day. When night fell, they landed on
the island, and, under the veil of darkness, massacred the
entire little company.

On the 23rd August, two canoes of Indians that carried
letters to M. Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, at Sioux Fort on
the Mississippi, told the story of the massacre. (1)

De la Vérendrye spent the summer at Fort St. Charles.
In the fall he received only very poor assistance for the
winter, so that when the spring of 1737 came, he was
without even the necessaries of life. He, therefore, re-
solved to go down again to Montreal.

“T started on the 6th June,” he says, “and arrived in
Montreal on the 24th August. I went to pay my respects
to the General, and gave him the reasons that forced me
to come down. He was kind enough to approve of them
and did me the honor to continue his orders for the prose-
cution of the discovery with which I had been intrusted.”

De la Vérendrye did not leave for the West again until
the following spring (1738). He started on the 18th
June, after having taken all the means necessary for the
continuation of his enterprise. He reached Fort St.
Charles on the 2nd September. During his absence, his
two sons had guarded the Fort. By their skillful and
tactful course, they had won the friendship of the Indians.

A fact worthy of note, and which has not escaped the
attention of the historians, is the kindly feeling of the
American Indians for the French and the Canadians,
which sprang up the moment there was any intercourse
between them. |

(1) It is by this letter, of M. de Saint-Pierre, that it became
known how and by whom the French under de la Vérendrye
were massacred...

50 THE CANADIAN WEST

The Indians admitted that their friendship for the

French was due to the fact that they recognized their

great sincerity, and saw in them faithful and generous
friends. Our Canadian trappers have always been well
liked by the Indians. For them the word “French” meant
“Friend.”

Tribes that were at enmity with each other sought to re-
main allies of the French; these poor children of the
woods expected neither silver nor presents in return ; they
felt sufficiently honored by the friendship alone.

On the other hand, wherever the English found their
way into the North-West they became at once objects of
Indian antipathy. I do not state this to hurt the feelings
of a race, but simply to establish a fact, which a quarter
of a century of observation in the North-West has taught
me. I have frequently questioned old voyageurs on this
subject; I have read, moreover, a great number of his-
tories dealing with the relations between the English and
the Indians and, in each case, these stories and histories
have served to convince me that the Indian does not like
the English.

This same sentiment is still to be found amongst the
Indians of Manitoba.

It is quite probable that the missionary priests, whom
the early French discoverers always had with them anid
who evidence a deep interest in the Indians, had largely

contributed to this gaining over of the aborigines to the
French.

5 oe

CHAPTER IV.

SUMMARY.

Departure of de la Vérendrye for Fort Maurepas. — Discovery of

the Red River and of the Assiniboine. — Construction of Fort

La Reine. — Journey into the country of the Mandans. —
Return to Fort La Reine.

After his return from Montreal, de la Vérendrye
thought of taking advantage of the fine autumn days to
advance farther into the interior.

At the request of the Indians, he left his two sons at
Fort St Charles and, having put everything in order there,
started with six well-equipped canoes for Fort Maure-
pas, which he reached on the 23rd September. All that
section of the country had already been explored, in 1734,
by de la Vérendrye’s son. In 1735, de la Jemmeraie had
been sent to winter there; there it was that he died and
was buried.

At present, the spot occupied by Fort Maurepas is well
known; it is on the north bank of the Winnipeg river, not
far from the mouth. Would it not be proper to erect, at
least, a simple cross to the memory of that illustrious
Canadian who had partaken of the labors of the one who
discovered the Red River and who died at the task? His
name, now too rarely recalled, would well deserve to be
embalmed in history and to be carved on a monument.

De la Vérendrye remained only one day at Fort Maure-
pas; on the morrow of his arrival he continued his march

. towards the mouth of the Red River.

52 THE CANADIAN WEST

This river was then called the river of the Assiniboines..
The Assiniboine River of to-day was looked upon as the
principal stream of which the Red River was but a tribut-
ary. De la Vérendrye was guided by Indians. Their
canoes ascended the numerous windings of that river,
which seemed to constantly turn back in the direction
whence it came.

It was towards the last days of September that the dis-
coverer of the Red River passed in front of the place
where to-day rise the beautiful city of Winnipeg and the
smaller town of St. Boniface; there, where a century
later, a relative of that noble Canadian, Mgr Alexandre

Taché, was to impart lustre to his name by a life of sacri-

fice in the glorious work of spreading the blessings of
Christian civilization, among the unututored tribes of
those vast territories.

De la Vérendrye ascended the Assiniboine as far as the
place where to-day stands the town of Portage de la
Prairie. On the 3rd of October, he and all his following
landed and commenced the construction of a fort wherein
to spend the winter. He called it Fort La Reine.

For a long time, the historians of the Red River were
uncertain as to the site of that Fort, but there is now no
longer any doubt that it was built at Portage de la
Prairie; (1) de la Vérendrye says so in his diary.

“My fourth Fort,” he says, “is Fort La Reine, on the
north bank of the Assiniboine River. (2).

Pee Several thought that it was at the mouth of the Souris
River. De la Vérendrye called it Fort de la Reine, but we use
the shorter expression of Parkman and others— Fort La Reine.

(2) De la Vérendrye calls this the river of the Assiniboéls.

THE CANADIAN WEST 53

“From Fort La Reine there is a nine mile portage lead-
ing to Lac des Prairies.” ‘The “Lac des Prairies,” of
which de la Vérendrye speaks, is our Lake Manitoba.

The name Manitoba was given to it by the Assiniboine
Indians, who lived along its shores at the time of the dis-
covery of that country. The explorers got the names of
the lakes and rivers along their route from the Indians;
they wrote them down in their diaries just as they heard
them pronounced, or else, they translated them into
French.

In our days, it has been claimed and sustained that the
name Manitoba comes from two Indian words, Manito,
Wapan. ‘This is, however, not at all certain and no per-
son could establish the contention in a satisfactory man-
ner. I would like to know by what transmutation Manito
Wapan could be changed into Manitoba. It was not the
Sauteux Indians, themselves, that could have changed the
name, which belonged to their own language; certainly,
they would have continued to pronounce it Manito
Wapan. Might it have been the French that made the
change? Not at all likely, for they retained a great num-
ber of Indian names that are harder to pronounce than
Manito Wapan. In de la Vérendrye’s diary, we find per-
fectly conserved such names as Missilimakinaw, de Kam-
inistigoya, Winipigon, Takamamiwen. (1)

Why, then, distort Manito Wapan into Manitoba?

The Indians, that inhabited the shores of Lake Mani-
toba and the banks of the Assiniboine at the time of the
discovery, were of the Assiniboine tribe, whose language

(1) Although these names are thus written in de la Véren-
drye’s dary, the tramslater spells them as do the English his-
torians, and as they are written on the map to-day.

a

54 THE CANADIAN WEST |

resembles that of the Sioux. ‘There were the Mata toba,
the Hic toba and the Ti toba tribes. ‘The terminal “toba,” -
in their language, means “prairie,” and the word “mine”
means “water.” Mi ne sota means yellow water; mine
apolis means city of the waters.

Mine toba means water of the prairies, or else Lake of
the Prairies. ‘The English, who came into the country
after the French, pronounced mine like my mt; hence
Manitoba. De la Vérendrye, in calling—in his diary
— Manitoba the lake of the prairies, did nothing else than
simply translate the Indian name.

Besides, this lake should naturally be called the Lake
of the Prairies, and not “the Strait where the Great Spirit
speaks.”

During a long time an origin was assigned to the
word Canada, which did not belong to it. It was
said that it came from the Cree words, piko anata,
which mean without design. Now, it has been discovered
that the word Canada is an Iroquois expression, which
means a heap, or a group of huts. Very natural, indeed,
would be this explanation, since the country was inhabit-
ed by the Iroquois. In a like manner Manitoba is of
Assiniboian origin, for the country there, at the time of
its discovery, was inhabited by the Assiniboines. In vain
do they attempt to make it spring from Manito Wapan.

On the 8th October, two canoes, that had remained be-
hind and were manned by a dozen voyageurs, arrived at
Fort La Reine; the Sieur de la Marque and his brother
‘were in one of these canoes. They had come with the
intention of following de la Vérendrye amongst the In-
dians of the West.

Although the season was already well advanced (for, in

4

THE CANADIAN WEST 55

those northern countries the winter frequently begins in
November), de la Vérendrye resolved to go and visit the
‘Mandans, a numerous and important tribe that lived on
the banks of the Missouri, south-west from Fort La
Reine.

He left, accompanied by twenty Frenchmen, of whose
number were de la Marque and his son. ‘They also took
four Indians as guides.

De la Vérendrye declares that he and his crew had to
undergo numberless hardships before reaching the Man-
dans. All who are acquainted with the North-West know
how imprudent it is to undertake a long journey there at
such a season. The Red River people dreaded long
journeys over the prairies in November. ‘The hunters,
who were well accustomed to the climate, often came near
perishing amidst the terrific snowstorms that, in the com-
mencement of the winter, sweep over those expanses.

De la Vérendrye’s following increased along the way.
A large village of Assiniboine Indians had joined them.
The curiosity of those Indians was stirred up at the sight

of the white men, whom they then saw for a first time;

but their hopes of plunder, or, at least, of presents from
the new-comers, was the principal motive that actuated
them in following the expedition.

De la Vérendrye had brought a casket or sack with him,
filled with trinkets to use as presents to the Mandans, for
the purpose of gaining their good will. But, on the very
day of their arrival at the Mandan camp, an Assiniboine
Indian, who had discovered the treasure, stole it and ran
away to the prairies. That theft caused de la Vérendrye
considerable loss under the circumstances. The Assini-
boines, who had followed him, also cleared out and went

56 THE CANADIAN WEST

after the robber in order to have a share of his plunder.
(1) With them went the interpreter who had been richly
paid in advance. All these trials so discouraged the dis-
coverers that they determined, despite the severity of the
season, to return to Fort La Reine.

De la Vérendrye left two Frenchmen with the Mandans,
to learn their language and to secure information about
the country and the peoples that inhabited it.

Although in a great state of suffering, de la Vérendrye

set out with his following to return to Fort La Reine. He -

had hoped to feel better on the way, but the reverse was
the case.

He travelled during the month of January, the most
severe: month of the year. He did not reach Fort La
Reine until the 11th February (1739), after having un-
dergone all the sufferings and hardships that it were ever
possible for a man to endure — without dying.

(1) This is an evidence that the Indians had their politics
as have the whitemen and that they knew the value of boodle.

Ne a a ee

CHAPTER V.

SUMMARY.

Fresh requests of the Indians to have forts further West. —
Civilization makes the Indians more exacting. — Hesitation
of de la Vérendrye as to the directiom to take on leaving
Fort La Reine.— He sends his sons to explore the country
around the Lake of the Prairies. — His suppliers send him
no merchandise for trading purposes. — He returns to Mont-

According as de la Vérendrye advanced into the inter-
ior of the country, the more distant Indians came in depu-
tations to meet him and to ask for the construction of new
forts in their neighborhood. After Fort St. Pierre and
Fort St. Charles, Fort Maurepas was built, and then Fort
La Reine. Now, the tribes from the shores of the Lake
of the Prairies wanted to have one nearer to their terri-
tory, that is to say, on the shores of that same lake.

For over a century, all the Indians of the North and the
West were in the habit of going yearly to the Hudson Bay
to sell their furs to the English traders. Although the
journey was a long and wearisome one, they undertook it
with pleasure, for they commenced, since their acquaint-
ance with the white men, to feel the need of the goods
that they then procured. They never dreamed of any
better condition of things until the arrival of the French
at Lake Superior. The first forts built to the west of
Lake Superior saved the Indians a tramp of nine hundred
miles. Their position was becoming improved. Indians

and all as they were, they felt the benefits of that amelior-
ation, and they were far from being indifferent thereto.

58 THE CANADIAN WEST

Although Fort La Reine. was only a dozen miles from the .
Lake of the Prairies, the Assiniboines considered their
condition miserable, unless they could have a fort on the
shores of the lake itself. In this world all things — good
and evil — are relative.

One day, in 1850, a missionary at one of the forts saw
an Indian, apparently in great distress, coming towards
him. He imagined that the native was either ill, or else
suffering from extreme hunger — something not unusual
amongst the Indians.

“How are you?” asked the missionary, “you look sick.”

“Ah!” replied the Indian, with a sigh, “I am to be
greatly pitied these days.”

“How so: have you nothing to eat?”

“Yes, I have enough to eat, but I am in need of mus-
tard.”

He had seen a foreman at a fort make use of mustard,
and he believed that it was an ingredient absolutely in-
dispensable for a chief, or leader.

The Hudson Bay Company claimed that the multiplica-
tion of forts was an injury both to the Indians and to the
trade; that is to say, from their point of view.

In any case, de la Vérendrye, in order to meet the
desires of the Indians and to learn more about the coun-
try, sent his eldest son to explore the region around the
Lake of the Prairies. The latter set out on the toth
April: he had instructions to proceed to the mouth of the
-Paskoyac river, of which the Indians had spoken, and to
there select the most favorable places for the erection of a
couple of forts—one on the shore of the lake and the
other at the mouth of the river. (1)

(1) The mouth of the Paskoyae river is fifty miles south-
east of Fort Cumberland.

\

- THE CANADIAN WEST 59
/

The elder de la Vérendrye hesitated as to which direc-
tion he should take in the prosecution of his own explora- '
tion. Should he continue in the direction of the North-_
west, or turn to the South-west, or continue on ascending
the Assiniboine River?

Since he left Lake Superior there was only one route
that he could follow: to either go up or down the rivers
that led into the interior; the forests and the mountains
forbade all other roads. But once west of the Red River
the aspect of the country was entirely changed and it be-
came more difficult to select a course. The vast prairies,
level as the sea, presented as many routes to the traveller
as does the ocean, itself. No longer any water courses,
no longer any valleys to indicate the path. De la Véren-
drye’s aim, in sending his son to the Paskoyac river, was to
learn the nature of the country and to make certain whe-
ther or not it would be more advantageous to carry his
expedition in that direction.

While awaiting his son’s return de la Vérendrye re-
mained at Fort La Reine.

His furnishing partners had promised to send to the
Grand Portage, on Lake Superior, supplies for fur-trad-
ing and for stocking the forts. On the 27th May, he sent
canoes from Fort La Reine to bring up the expected
goods. Unfortunately, through an unpardonable neglect
on the part of the furnishers, nothing had been sent.

During eighteen days de la Vérendrye’s men, almost
starved and at the risk of their lives, waited in vain at the
Grand Portage.

At last the canoe men, seeing that nothing arrived for
them at the Grand Portage, took upon themselves to go
down as for as Michillimacinac. On reaching that post,
instead of finding an equipment ready for them, they had

a

60 THE CANADIAN WEST

their furs seized by the fur-curer (or stripper), for four
thousand pounds ($20,000), although he had broken his —
own word and had caused de la Vérendrye, by not send-
ing the goods for trading purposes to the Grand Portage,
as he had agreed to, an immense amount of loss.

Such conduct on the part of the dealers had a most in-
jurious effect upon de la Vérendrye.

Deprived of assistance it became impossible for him to
continue his explorations. His forts did not contain any
more goods wherewith to trade with the Indians. The
trinkets that he had brought for the purpose of drawing
the aborigines to him had been stolen in the country of
the Mandans, and now his suppliers, after having seized
his furs, refused to advance him any more merchandise.

If his canoes were to go back empty, what was to be-
come of his staff at the forts?

His men applied to the commandant of Fort Michilli-
macinac, and represented to him all the risks incurred by
those who depended entirely, for their livelihood in the
interior regions, upon the provisions that the canoes might
bring back. But as it was with his permission that the
suppliers had seized the furs, he did not appear to be very
favorably inclined, and it was only after persistant urg-
ing that they succeeded in obtaining a small amount of
merchandise for traffic.

The canoes started back for the North-West, and on the
20th October they were again at Fort La Reine.

De la Vérendrye’s sons, who had left in April to ex-
plore the Lake of the Prairies and the lower part of the
Paskoyac river, had carried out their father’s instructions
and had returned to give him an account of their voyage.

They had found two very suitable places for forts, and
would have built them, had the provisions expected from.

THE CANADIAN WEST 61

Montreal been sent. But, for the moment, de la Véren-
drye had to renounce all new undertakings. To build
forts and have no provisions wherewith to supply them
would simply be useless and unprofitable work.

Seeing himself without resources, with a large number
of followers to pay and to feed, he decided to go to Mont-
real and to there explain to the Governor the sad plight in
which he was. However, he spent the winter of 1739 at
Fort La Reine, and it was only in the spring of 1740 that
he set out for Montreal

He reached Michillimacinac on the 16th July.. There
he secured some goods and sent them up to his children
who had remained behind in the woods.

He had given charge of Fort La Reine to one of his
sons. He wrote him to go, in the early autumn, to the
country of the Mandans, and to take with him the two
Frenchmen who had learned their language, and there to
secure reliable guides to conduct them to the Western Sea.

His business at Michillimacinac delayed him several
days, and it was the end of August when he reached
Montreal.

)

CHAPTER VI. :

SUMMARY.

Arrival of de la Vérendrye in Montreal (1740).— The law-suit
taken against him.—The Governor of Canada treats him with
kindness and gives him his confidence.—-He spends the
winter at Quebec.— A few reflections upon his work. — De-
parture for the West in the spring time.

In Montreal, de la Vérendrye learned that an action at
law had been instituted against him, on account of the
trading posts that he had established. “I,” he says, “who

~ abhors them (law-suits), never having had any in my life,

I settled at a great sacrifice, being, however, scarcely at
all in the wrong.” (1)

He does not state what blame was attached to him con-
cerning the trading posts, but very likely he was accused
of having needlessly increased their number and thus to
have kept back the work of discovery.

Still, in 1740, nine years after the commencement of his
explorations, de la Vérendrye had only built four trading
posts, and all four were indispensable for the success of
the undertaking. ©

They who subsequently succeeded de la Vérendrye dis-
covered that it was much easier to criticize that man of
true genius than it was to carry on the work he had com-
menced.

The Governor, to whom de la Vérendrye had given a
detailed account of his work and of the unnumbered dif-

(1) Memoires of de la Vérendrye,

64 THE CANADIAN WEST RAO a aayad

ficulties that he had to overcome, saw clearly that envy
alone loosened the tongues of his accusers. Moreover,
he treated him with respect, received him in his home, and
testified the greatest confidence in him.

De la Vérendrye spent the winter in Quebec, and in the
spring the Governor gave him fresh instructions to con-
tinue his discoveries. Once more the plots of his enemies
had failed. ‘They had written, to the Court of France,
letters full of calumnies, accusing him of spending all his
time trading in furs with the Indians for his own benefit,
and of amassing a huge fortune at the expense of France
and of the colony.

It may be well to note that all works, destined to contri-
bute to the glory of God and the salvation of souls, are
stamped with the seal of persecution. The discovery of
the West was destined to bring salvation to the Indians
by opening up a pathway for the Apostles of Christianity,
the missionaries of the Gospel. Those countless tribes,
living heretofore in the night of ignorance were soon to
enter the bosom of the Church and to participate in the
the benefits of redemption. This alone would suffice to
stir up the powers of evil against the instruments that God
had selected for the accomplishment of that glorious work.

Christopher Columbus, in discovering the New World,
had opened a way for the bearers of the great good news;
hence did God permit that the enmity of evil-mind ones
should fall upon him. Those envious men, after having
pursued him during his lifetime with unrelenting ferocity,
continued to calumniate him in death and consigned his
name, for centuries, to oblivion.

So will it be with de la Vérendrye. For a century and
a half his name will be forgotten, while the great commer-

cla] companies which, later on, will develop the wealth of

THE. CANADIAN WEST 65

those vast regions of the West, will not accord to his
memory the slightest honor. Worse still, historians will
arise who will deny him the glory of having: discovered
the Red River.

“T am misunderstood,” he writes, himself. “I have
sacrificed myself with my children, in the service of His
Majesty, and for the good of the colony. In the future
the advantages that may be the result will be recognized.
Besides, does the large number of people, for whom that
enterprise was a livelihood, count for nothing?” .....

“In all my misfortunes I have the consolation of know-
ing that the Governor-General sees through my designs,
recognizes my straightforwardness, and continues to do me
justice, despite the opposition that is sought to be made
thereto.”

Not only did de la Vérendrye fail to make a fortune,
but in 1740, nine years after his first voyage, he had spent
all that he owned, and moreover, had contracted a debt of
forty thousand pounds —all this apart from the sorrow
he experienced in the loss of his nephew, de la Jemmeraie,
who died of privation at Fort Maurepas, and of his sons,
who were massacred by the Sioux at the Lake of the
Woods, with Father Auneau and a dozen of his faithful
French followers.

In the spring of 1741, de la Vérendrye left Montreal,
accompanied by a Jesuit missionary, Father Coquart.
Since the death of Father Auneau, murdered at the Lake
of the Woods, there is no further mention of any priest
with de la Vérendrye’s expeditions to the North-West.

We have seen that the first missionaries, Fathers Mes-
saiger and Auneau, did not go beyond Fort St. Charles.
Father Claude Coquart is the first priest who went as
far as the Western prairies and wha affered up the Holy.

66 THE CANADIAN WEST

Sacrifice of the Mass on the banks of the Assiniboine riv-
er, at Fort La Reine — where to-day stands the town of |
Portage La Prairie.

However, it was only in 1742 that Father Coquart
reached Fort La Reine. At Michillimacinac, the author-
ities prevented him from going any farther. “Intrigues,
arising from jealousy,” says de la Vérendrye, “prevented
the missionary from continuing his route with us.”
(Memoires of de la Vérendrye.)

It may, perhaps, be asked what fear the authorities
could have of a poor missionary priest in an Indian coun-
try?

It is quite possible that this annoyance originated with
those who coveted de la Vérendrye’s place. Everything
that might discourage him was brought into play.

De la Vérendrye was back at Fort La Reine on the 13th >
October, 1741. He had stopped over a few days at Fort
St. Charles, to pacify the Indians who were on the war-
path. As usual, in order to get the presents, the Indians
made all manner of promises to keep the peace; but they
- were not slow to break their promises.

While de la Vérendrye was at Quebec, his sons, accord-
ing to the instructions they had received, had gone to the
country of the Mandans with the intention of proceeding
to the Western Sea; but having failed to secure guides,
they returned to Fort La Reine.

That disappointment obliged de la Vérendrye to turn
the course of his operations in another direction. In the
- autumn of 1741, he sent his eldest son to build Fort
Dauphin at the Lake of the ‘Prairies and Fort Bourbon at
the Riviére aux Biches. (1) The discoverer thus de-
scribes the location of these two forts.

(1) On Lake Manitoba,

THE CANADIAN WEST 67

“From Fort La Reine there is a nine mile portage to the
north-east, reaching to the Lake of the Prairies. The
south side of the lake is followed to the outlet of a river
that comes from the great prairies, at the foot of which is
Fort Dauphin, the fifth establishment built at the request
of the prairie Crees and the canoe Assiniboines.. There
is a trail from there to Fort Bourbon, which is the sixth
establishment. But the road is not advantageous. The
custom is, on leaving Fort Maurepas, to pass along the
north of Lake Winnipigon to its first strait, where a cros-
sing is made to the south, from island to island, then the
land is coasted along to the river aux Biches, where Fort
Bourbon stands near a lake of the same name. From
Fort Bourbon to the Paskoyac river is ninety miles
(trente lieues.)” (1)

Two other small forts were built on the Red River by
de la Vérendrye’s eldest son, one fifteen miles from Lake
Winnipeg; the other at the mouth of the Assiniboine ; but
they were both abandoned on account of their too close
proximity to Fort Maurepas and Fort La Reine.

Forts Dauphin and Bourbon were completed during
the autumn and winter of 1741 to 1742.

(1) Parkman spells this name Paskoiac —the translater
prefers to retain the author’s and de la Vérendrye’s spelling.
This is the Saskatchewan river of to-day.

CHAPTER VII.

SUMMARY.

Voyage of de la| Vérendrye’s sons to the Rocky Mountains, —
Discovery of the Mountains on the Ist January, 1743. — Re-
turn to Fort La Reine. —Hstablishment of a Fort at the
Paskoyac river. — Recall of the Chevalier de la Vérendrye to
Montreal. — De la Verendrye, senior, replaced in the North-
West by M. de Noyelles.— The Chevalier returns to the
West in 1747. — The Governor again intrusts de la Vérendrye
with the explorations.

In the spring of 1742, de la Vérendrye’s two sons and
two Frenchmen (four travellers in all), set out from Fort
La Reine for the land of the Mandans, with the intention
of following up their expedition as far as the Western
Sea. (1)

They commenced their journey on the 29th April, 1742,
and, on the 19th May, twenty-two days after their depart-
ure, they reached the banks of the Mississippi, where that
tribe lived.

It is not easy to give the precise route taken by them
from that place to the Rocky Mountains, nor to say at
what point of that range they touched after their eight
long months of travel.

According to their day-journal, they seemed to con-
stantly have turned to the south-west and west-south-

(1) By the Western Sea is meant the Pacific Ocean.
Earlier in this work there is mention of the sea in the West,
which was the name that the Indians gave to Lake Winnipeg.
But de la, Vérendrye refers to the Western Ocean, which so long
had been sought for, as the highway to China.

70 THE CANADIAN WEST

west. The-historian Parkman says that very probably
they first sighted the white crests of the Rockies at a place.
called Big Horse Range, one hundred and twenty miles
to the west of Yellow Stone Park.

They did not* meet with any hostile Indians on their
way. The length of time taken in that great tramp was
due to the fact that they found it very difficult to secure
guides.

It was on the Ist January, 1743, that they first caught
sight of the mountains. They would have liked to have
climbed to the summits, there to get a look at the sea —
as they hoped — but their guides, who had gone willingly
so far, refused to go any farther, “because,” they said,
“the fierce tribes on whose territory they now were would
not fail to massacre them all.”

It was not without deep regret that they found them-
selves forced to retrace their steps. After a march of
twelve days they reached a place, which Mr. Edmond
Mallet, of Washington, believes to be the site of the town
of Helena, Montana.

Then, turning towards the south, the travellers passed
Musselshell, where they met the Flat Heads. They
crossed the Yellow Stone as far as the Windy River, near
Fremont Peak (in Wyoming), where the Snake Indians
told them about the Green River on the other side of the
Rocky Mountains, and the Windy River, which is a tribu- °
tary of the western Colorado flowing into the Gulf of Cal-
ifornia.

On the 19th March, having got back to the Upper Mis-
souri, they took possession of the country in the domain of
a tribe called the Choke-Cherry Indians. The 2nd July,
1743, they were again back at Fort La Reine. Their
journey had lasted fourteen months.

‘

THE CANADIAN WEST 71

The long absence of his sons caused de la Vérendrye
considerable anxiety concerning their fate; and great was
his joy when he met them once more.

De la Vérendrye at once wrote to the Marquis de Beau-
harnois, giving him an account of that trip and thus prov--
ing to him that the jealous-minded people, who had ac-
cused the discoverer of spending his time trading with the
Indians, were calumniators. Unfortunately, those cal-
umnies were believed at the Court, for, despite the im-
mense services that de la Vérendrye had rendered to.
France, neither he nor his sons ever received any promo-
tion. .

Le Marquis de Beauharnois, who was favorable to de la
Vérendrye and who was able to fully appreciate his de-
votedness and that of his sons, hastened to send de la Vé-
rendrye’s memorandum to the colonial Minister and to
add thereto the following letter:

“27th October, 1744.

“T have the honor to send you herewith the diary

which the Sieur de la Vérendrye’s son sent me on the occa-

sion of the journey he took to the land of the Mandans to
continue the search for the Western Sea, in accordance
with the orders and instructions of the Sieur de la Véren-
drye, and whereof I had the honor of giving you an ac-
count last year. Although he has not yet attained the
object he had in view, it does not appear, Monseigneur,
that he was at all negligent in the diligence that he should
have brought to bear, and he flatters himself with the hope
that you will so judge, should you be good enough to at-
tach due importance to the obstacles that he had to sur-
mount, be it in obtaining the friendship of the nations

72 THE CANADIAN WEST

heretofore unvisited, or in making use of them, as was ne-
cessary, in order to secure from them the information and,
the assistance needed in such an enterprise.

“This officer, Monseigneur, appears to me to be in the
last stage of distress on account of the attempts made to
attribute to the purity of his motives in following up this
discovery a character entirely opposite to that which ani-
mated him. I will not take the liberty of entering into
details concerning the reasons that might justify his con-
duct; but I cannot deprive him of testimonies that appear
to be due him, to the effect that, in this discovery-expedi-
tion, he did only good for the colony by the establishment
of numerous posts in places as yet unvisited, which to-
day furnish us large quantities of beaver and other fur,
which the English would have had — and without that
such establishments cost anything to His Majesty; that
the idea formed regarding the wealth that he accumulated
in these places is shattered in presence of the indigence in
which he is; that, as I can assure you, Monseigneur, with-. .
out any favor or predilection for him, the twelve years
which he spent at these posts only brought him about
4,000 pounds, which is all he possesses, or all that may re-
main to him after he has paid the debts that he contracted
for the carrying on of that undertaking; in fine, Monsei-
gneur, affairs in the condition in which he has left them
seem to be well worthy of your kindness in his regard.
It is, also, in the hope which I possess that you will ac-
cord him the same, that I beg of you, Monseigneur, to
give him a tangible evidence of your confidence, by pro-
curing his promotion at the first convenient opportunity.

“I know of no reason why he should have merited the
mortification which he has experienced in not being prom-
oted, and I can only attribute it to your having overlook-

HE CANADIAN WEST 73

ed, Monseigneur, the proposal I had the honor of making -
to you regarding the Sieur de la Vérendrye as the oldest of
the King’s lieutenants, and as a subject who seems to me
to be the most worthy of his grace. In fact, Monseigneur,
six years of service in France, thirty-two in the colony,
without any blame —at least I know of none that could
be attributed to him — and nine wounds on his body, are
motives that would not allow me to hesitate in proposing
him to you for one of the vacant commands; and if I had
i reason, Monseigneur, to think that you were persuaded
Hs that I placed on the list of my officers only men capable
of good service and deserving of your bounty, in a parti-
cular manner did I draw your attention, in the hope of
favor to the Sieur de la Vérendrye.

“T am with deep respect, Monseigneur, your very
humble and very obedient servant,

ibe
iq
i
fe.
Nis
ra
th
Me

“BEAUHARNOIS.”

Despite this high recommendation, calumny had work-
ed its way so well, that we will soon see de la Vérendrye
and his sons completely despoiled of the fruits of their
labors.

A few Indian tribes, from the banks of the Saskatch-
ewan, still continued to take their furs to the English at
Hudson Bay, even after the construction of Forts Dau-
phin and Bourbon.

The English had made use of all manner of means to
turn the Indians against the French. A memoire sent by
the Chevalier de la Vérendrye to Mgr Rouillé, the col-
onial minister, shows that officers, employed at the Hud-

74 THE CANADIAN WEST

son Bay posts, went so far as to offer money to the In-
dians to make war upon de la Vérendrye’s traders.

If the French competed with the English in the fur-
trading business, on their side, it was always a loyal en-
deavor in which they respected the rights of each one and
the laws of nations. ‘I'o benefit by the trade with the
Saskatchewan Indians, de la Vérendrye sent his eldest son
to build a fort at the mouth of the Paskoyac river. The
latter sought, at the same time, to efface from the minds
of the Indians the bad impressionss that the English had
left upon them concerning the French; he invited them to
come, without any dread, to trade with the French, and
he succeeded in re-establishing a confidence in them. He
returned to spend the balance of the winter at Fort La
Reine.

In the spring of 1745, de la Vérendrye’s eldest son was
recalled to Montreal by the Marquis de Beauharnois,
who gave him a commission in the army under the com-
mand of M. de Saint-Pierre.

The same year, the Rev. Father Claude Coquart, who
had been three years in the woods of the West, returned
to Montreal, and from that time till 1750, there is no
mention of any missionary with de la Vérendrye’s people.

In 1746, de la Vérendrye, being again the victim of
calumnies, was obliged to return to Montreal.

He was replaced by M. de Noyelles who does not ap-
pear to have gone farther than Lake Superior.

After the departure of de la Vérendrye and his eldest
son, the Indians ceased frequenting the French forts, and
took the way once more to the Hudson Bay.

Until 1747, the Chevalier de la Vérendrye was con-

stantly kept in service under the command of M. de Saint-

Pierre, in order to prevent him from having sufficient leis-

aS

:
7
).
q

nee
2 e

a a ie a a

, THE CANADIAN WEST 75

oe

ure to return to the posts in the West, while his father re-
mained in Quebec to answer the accusations of his ene-

mies.

In 1747, he led a campaign against the Agniers who
had taken prisoners almost at the gates of Montreal.
After that campaign, in which he had greatly distinguish-
ed himself, he was allowed to go back to the Forts to re-
establish order there, for the Indian tribes had been on
the war path ever since the departure of M. de la Véren-
drye. | |

Before he left for the West, he received the shoulder-
knot as a reward and in recognition of his services to the
colony.

On reaching Michillimacinac, he met de Noyelles who
sought to turn him from his undertaking, on the pretense
that it was unsafe to go amongst the Indians when they
were on the war-path. However, after a time, he re-
solved to reach the trading posts, which he did, but not
without much trouble,— but he found no Indians there.

In order to meet them he was obliged to go to their
camps, where he succeeded in persuading them to return
to the French.

Already had the English of the Hudson Bay given them
Indians collars (neck-laces), to induce them to make war
on de la Vérendrye’s people and to wipe out all the
Frenchmen. (Mémoire of the Chevalier de la Vérendrye.)

The Chevalier spoke to them of his father’s goodness
towards the Indian tribes and of all the presents he had
made them. Touched by his kind words they became more
docile and better disposed.

The youngest of his brothers was left with the Indians
at Fort St. Charles, while he returned to Michillimacinac,

>A eae eee
mbes antsy)
ie ey 2 hy

76 THE CANADIAN WEST

where he received, with the orders of M. de la Galisson-
niére, a promise of a second lieutenant.

Thence he went to Fort La Reine, which he found all
fallen in ruins. He had it rebuilt and put in good or-
der, as well as Fort Maurepas which had been burned by
the Indians.

The Chevalier de la Vérendrye, after having completed
these works, undertook, in accordance with his father’s
orders, to re-ascend the great Saskatchewan. In the
autumn of 1749, with good guides, he succeeded in reach-
ing the confluence of the north and south branches of that
river. The Indians called that place Les Fourches (the
Forks). There, all the tribes, from the prairies, the
forest and the mountains, met in the spring of each year
to consult upon questions of the hunt and of trading.

In the spring of 1750, the Chevalier de la Vérendrye,
took advantage of this meeting to get more exact informa-
tion concerning the countries more to the west. He ask-
ed came whence came that large river? They all made
answer that it came from a great distance, from an elevat-
ed region where there were very lofty mountains; that
beyond those mountains “there was an immense lake
whose waters could not be drunk.”

The Chevalier made an alliance with all those tribes;
he invited them to come to the French the following year
with all their furs and to receive the presents that he in-
tended for them.

The repairing of the Forts and the expenditure caused
by those journeys had exhausted all the provisions and
merchandise intended for trading purposes. De la Vé-
rendrye’s son went down to Michillimacinac to secure
fresh supplies, in the expectation of at once going back to
the trading posts with his father; but Providence had
otherwise ordained,

38
SS > ee

<<

CHAPTER VIII. ae

SUMMARY.

Death of the Sieur de la Vérendrye. — Sad plight of his sons;
they were refused permission to continue his works of dis-
covery. — Legardeur de Saint-Pierre succeeds de la Véren-
drye. — His sojourn in the Western trading posts. — His dis-
graceful conduct towards de la Vérendrye’s son. — Nothing
is done towards the discovery of the Western sea.

From the day of his arrival in Quebec, in 1746, de la
Vérendrye explained and proved to the Government that,
with the feeble resources placed at his disposal and the
annoyance that envious people unceasingly caused him, it
was impossible for him to have pushed his work of dis-
covery more actively than he had done.

Far from being a source of fabulous wealth for him, the
undertaking of those explorations menaced the future
prospects of his family, the members of which sacrificed
their youth and their health in the unprofitable pursuit.

M. de Noyelles, who was sent to the Western trading
posts, in 1746, had not been long there when he found that
it was much easier to criticise the labors of the discoverer
and his sons than it was to continue them. In fact, the
very next year he hastened to ask for his recall to Mont-
real. ‘

De la Vérendrye wrote, from Quebec, to the Minister
of Marine, in France, that he had been given to under-
stand, by M. de Beauharnois, that he would have his order
to follow up his explorations continued,

78 THE CANADIAN WEST _ Sh a

“Quebec, 1st November, 1741.

“Monseigneur,

“Tt is with the liveliest gratitude that I take the
liberty of thanking you for the boon you have been good
enough to accord me in procuring my promotion. I feel
all the value of that favor, which can but increase the
emulation and zeal which I have always had for the ser-
vice. :

“The Marquis de Beauharnois, our General, has done
me the honor of informing me of his intentions to have
me continue the expeditions to discover the Western Sea,
as M. de Noyelles has asked to be relieved.

“T assure you, Monseigneur, that I will make every ef-
fort to correspond with the confidence he has kindly re-
posed in me. The knowledge I have of that country,
combined with that possessed by my sons, one of whom is
at present at that post, will place me in a position to make
fresh and still more satisfactory discoveries; at least, it
will be no fault of mine, if I do not.

“T beg of you, Monseigneur, to be perfectly assured of
the attention I will give to this undertaking, keeping, as
I will, more in mind its success than my personal inter-
ests, which I would always gladly sacrifice when the
King’s service is in question.

“T am, with very deep respect,
Monseigneur,
“Your Grace’s very humble
“and very obedient servant,

“LA VERENDRYE.”

;
:
j

THE CANADIAN WEST 79

As may be seen by this letter, the Marquis de Beau-
harnois did not allow himself to be deceived by the con-
stantly renewed accusations of the jealous-minded and
ambitious ones, but continued to honor de la Vérendrye
with his confidence.

In 1747, the Marquis de Beauharnois was recalled to
France and was replaced by the Marquis de la Galisson-
niére. On his arrival the same old accusations against
de la Vérendrye were carried to him. But he, like his
predecessor, had the good sense not to mind them, as the
following letter which he addressed to the Minister of
Marine, will show:

“Quebec, 23rd October, 1747.
“Monseigneur,

“T thought better not to answer regarding the sub-
ject of the discovery of the Western Sea, being as yet too
slightly informed thereon. Merely, it seems to me that
what had been told you, regarding the Sieur de la Vé-
rendrye’s working more for his own interests than for
the discovery, is false, and that further any officer who
may be so employed will have to give, of necessity, a por-
tion of his attention to the fur trading, so long as the King
does not supply him with the means of support; a thing
that probably might not be convenient. But it is not the
best way to encourage them to begrudge them a few
small profits or to stay their advancement upon such a
pretext, as de la Vérendrye claims has been done to him.

“These discovery expeditions entail great expenses,
and expose men to greater hardships and dangers than
does open warfare.

6

80 THE CANADIAN WEST

“The Sieur de la Salle, and de la Vérendrye’s son,

and so many others who perished therein constitute suf-.

ficient proof of this.
“Moreover, I rely entirely upon what M. de Beauhar-

nois reported to you on the 15th October, 1746.

“T am, with deep respect,
Monseigneur, etc., etc.,

“La GALISSONNIERE.”

This letter produced a good effect with the Minister of
Marine, for, soon after, de la Vérendrye was decorated
with the Cross of St. Louis, while his sons, who had re-
mained in the West, received promotions. This is how,
in a letter dated from Quebec, the 17th September, 1749,
he personally thanked the Minister.

“Monseigneur,

“T take the liberty of offering you my humble
thanks for your having procured for me from His Ma-
jesty, a Cross of Saint-Louis and for my sons their pro-
motions.

“My zeal, combined with my gratitude, prompts me to
start out next spring, honored with the instructions of our
General the Marquis de la Jonquiére, to continue the
establishments and discoveries in the West, which for
several years have been interrupted. (1)

“TI gave the Marquis de la Jonquiére the map and

(1) De la Jonquiére had just succeeded de la Galissonniére.

i

y

J

i)
if
2.
\)

’
”

THE. CANADIAN WEST : 81

description of that route that I must for the present take.
The Count de la Galissonniére has a similar one. :

“T will keep a most exact diary of the route from our
entrance upon those lands to the furthest points that I and
my sons may reach.

“T can only start from Montreal in the month of May.
next, the season when there is free navigation in the
Upper Country.

“T expect to do all that is possible by way of diligence
to reach Fort Bourbon for the winter, which is the last —
down the river des Biches — of all the Forts that I have
established.

“Only too happy would I be, if, after all the hardships,
fatigues and risks that I will undergo in that long discov-
ery expedition, could I prove to you my disinterestedness,
and my zeal, as well as that of my children, for the glory
of the King and the welfare of the colony.

“T am, with deep respect,
“Monseigneur,
“Your very humble and
“very obedient servant,

“LA V&RENDRYE.”

The order to prosecute those discoveries had been given
de la Vérendrye by de la Galissonniére, whose views, as
he had said, were the same as those of the Marquis de
Beauharnois. But de la Galissonniére had only been
sent out to the colony while awaiting the coming of de la
Jonquiére, who had been retained a prisoner in England.

82 THE CANADIAN WEST

The latter did not reach Canada until 1749, when de la

Vérendrye had already commenced to prepare nt his -

departure to the West.

Had de la Jonquiére been in the colony two years
earlier, it is quite probable, not to say certain, that the
commission to prosecute the discoveries would have been
given to some person other than de la Vérendrye; but it
was hard to withdraw that order from a man of such
recognized merit.

The jealous people, who for fifteen years had persist-

ently brought accusations against him without ever hav-
ing been able to substantiate one of them, had to give in
for the moment, and to await a more favourable oppor-
tunity to carry out their designs. Unfortunately, that
opportunity was not long in coming.
It is well known that de la Jonquiére was noted for his
sordid avarice; that he was not ashamed, Governor and
all as he was, to take a hand in business, and to close up
all establishments that might compete with his. The fur
trade could not fail to awaken his attention and to stimul-
ate his cupidity. Moreover, he had at hand the very men
to serve him and feed his passion for money. A goodly
number of the French officers, who then held some of the
leading places under the Government, were a regular
scourge for the country.

The Intendant Bigot, that infamous extortioner, who
robbed everywhere and urged on his friends to pillage,
_ wanted nothing better than companions of his own kind
to work for all it was worth the fur trading business.

The Governor and he understood each other to perfec-
tion.

All means, with them, were good that helped to fill their
coffers, and they knew how to get rid of all those who
might be obstacles in the way of their designs.

=

THE CANADIAN WEST 83

On the 6th December, 1749,'in the very midst of his
preparations, de la Vérendrye died suddenly at Montreal ;
he was only in his sixty-third year, and still full of
strength and energy.

At once de la Jonquiére notified the Colonial Minister in
France of the event and, at the same time, announced to
him that he had already confided the continuation of the
works of discovery to Legardeur de Saint-Pierre.

“I have the honor,” he wrote, “to give you a report of
the death of M. de la Vérendrye, Captain at Montreal,
which took place on the 6th December.

“As the latter was charged to continue, in person, the
expeditions of discovery of the Western Sea, and as it
seems to me to be the King’s desire that this project
should be followed up, I have entrusted M. de Saint-
Pierre with the execution of it, and I calculate upon him
starting in the early spring. He is the only officer in all
the colony who has as much knowledge of that coun-

try.” (1)

This statement of de Saint-Pierre’s knowledge of the
country, that de la Vérendrye had travelled, was a lie in-
vented by the governor to deceive the minister and palli-
ate the odious manner in which he was about to treat de

la Vérendrye’s sons.

The best evidence that de Saint-Pierre was not the best

_acquainted man with the Red River country is the fact

that he had. never been there. Not only was he unac-
quainted with the country to which the Governor sent him,
but he was in no way prepared to carry on the difficult

(1) He probably means “He has more knowledge than any
other officer of that country.”

84 THE CANADIAN WEST

work commenced by de la Vérendrye; he was ignorant of

the language, the customs and the habits of the tribes with

which he was to trade.

Had de la Jonquiére been the least interested in the dis-

covery he had simply to do an act of justice to de la Vé-
rendrye’s sons by appointing them to continue their
father’s work.

The Chevalier de la Vérendrye, who, for twenty years,
had lived with his father and brothers, amongst the In-
dian tribes of the West, had traversed the vast prairies to
the foot of the Rocky Mountains, was, beyond all question,
better qualified than de Saint-Pierre to bring those ex-
ploring and discovery expeditions to a successful issue.

Had they the slightest sentiment of honor, the Gov-
ernor, Bigot and de Saint-Pierre would have blushed
with shame to have thus despoiled of their rights men
who, during so many years, had sacrificed themselves for
France and for the colony.

But in the hearts of those vampires, that sucked the
best blood out of the colony of New France, egotism and
selfishness alone held sway.

They were only too happy to have got rid of the father
to be bothered with the sons. They would not even en-
trust them with the smallest trading post in the West;
the three were ordered to return to Montreal. ‘They
would have been embarrassing eye-witnesses, did they
remain, of the high-handed trading business that the
high-born traders intended to carry on. This conduct
towards de la Vérendrye’s sons will forever remain as a
black spot upon the memory of each of these infamous
speculators.

ia

CHAPTER IX.

SUMMARY.

The Chevalier de la Vérendrye’s return to Montreal; he asserts
his claims to his father’s succession. — The Governor is deaf
to his entreaties. — His letter to the minister of Marine. —
The vile conduct of the Governor, of Bigot, and of de Saint-
Pierre towards de Ja Vérendrye’s sons.

To satisfy the greed of Bigot and to fill the coffers of
the Marquis de la Jonquiére, “there was not enough of
gold in all the colony,” says a writer of that day.

The rich furs from the West were the Californian gold
mines of those days, and the French officers who came to
the colony showed more zeal in extracting wealth for
themselves from those mines, than in colonizing New
France. It was the selfishness and ambition of those
men that paved the way to the loss of Canada. Had the
Canadian people been obliged for a few years longer to
submit to the system that obtained during the last years
of the French possession, their attachment for that mother
country would not be as great as it is at present. The
separation came just in time to prevent our affection from
changing to contempt, in view of the injustices perpe-
trated against us.

The Chevalier de la Vérendrye heard of his father’s
death on reaching Michillimacinac, to which place he had
come down to buy provisions to supply his Forts. Fore-
seeing that the ambitious ones would seek to oust him
from the western trading posts, he went on, in all haste,
‘to Montreal to insist upon his right to his father’s succes-

86 THE CANADIAN WEST

sion. ‘But, already was everything arranged beforehand;
his claims were not even listened to. Seeing that any.
steps he might take in Canada would be useless, and
that his fate, as well as that of his brothers, had been de-
cided by the Governor’s council, he took upon himself to
address the Colonial Minister in France, and to acquaint
him with the odious proceedings of de Saint-Pierre in his
regard. Here is his letter; a beautiful document that de-
serves to be quoted in full.

“30th September, 1750.

“Monseigneur,

“T have no course left but to cast myself at your
Grace’s feet and to trouble you with the recital of my
misfortunes.

“My name is La Vérendrye. My deceased father is
known here and in France through the discovery of the
Western Sea, to which work he consecrated more than
fifteen of the years of his life. He travelled, and made
us travel — my brothers and J —in a manner calculated
to attain the end, whatever it might be, had he been assist-
ed a little more and, above all, had he not been crossed by
those who were envious of him. Envy is still here, more
than in any place, a passion developed into a fashion and
against which there is no safeguard.

“While my father and I were over-doing ourselves | in
- fatigue and expenses, his every step was represented as
a step after beavers, his expenditure as squanderings and
his statements as lies. The envy of this country has no
half measures ; its principle is to say evil, in the hope that,
should half of the wrongs told be believed, it may suffice

THE CANADIAN WEST ; 87

to do the harm. Positively, our father being thus treat-
ed had the grief of turning back, and of causing us to turn
back, more than once for lack of aid and protection. He
even sometimes met the censure of the Court, as he was
more concerned in his work than in the exactness of the
style that described it. He had no share in the promo-
tions given and he yet no less zealous in his undertak-
ing, convinced as he was that sooner or later his efforts
would not be without some success, nor would they re-
main unrewarded.

“While he was most taken up with those good inten-

tions, envy had the upper hand. He saw fully established

trading posts, the work of his own hands pass into the
hands of others. (1)

“While he was thus checked in his career, the beavers
came in abundance to another; but the trading posts, far
from multiplying only decreased in numbers, and there
being no progress made on the line of discovery worried
him more than all.

‘“At this juncture the Marquis de la Galissonniére ar-
rived in this country, and from out the mass of what was
told him, both of good and evil, he judged that a man who
had pushed his discoveries at his own cost and expense,
without that they ever cost aught to the King, and who
had incurred debt to create good establishments deserved
a different treatment. A great deal of beaver more in the
colony and for the benefit of the Compagnie des Indes;
four or five trading posts established afar off in the form
of forts as strong as could be built in those distant re-

(1) It was de Noyelles who was sent to replace him, and
who remained only one year at the trading posts and did not go
beyond Michillimacinac. —

88 ‘THE CANADIAN WEST

gions; a large number of Indians that became subjects of
the King and of whom some, in the section I commanded,
set the example to our resident Indians to strike down
the Indians that were attached to England — seem to be
real services rendered, independent of the project of dis-
covery begun, and the success of which could neither
have been more prompt nor more effective than had it re-
mained in his hands.

“Tt is true the Marquis de la Galissonniére desired to
explain the case, and doubtless he has thus explained it to
the Court, since my father, last year, was honored with
the Cross of St. Louis, and invited to continuue the work
commenced by his children.

“He was getting ready, with a good heart, to set out and
he spared nothing to ensure success; he had already pur-
chased and prepared all the merchandise to be used in
trading; he inspired me and my brothers with his ardor,
when death came, on the 6th of last December, to carry
him away.

“Great as may have then been my sorrow, I could never
have imagined nor foreseen all that I lost in losing my
father. Succeeding, as I did, to his engagements and his
duties, I had hoped also to succeed to the same advantages
that he enjoyed. I had the honor of at once writing to
the Marquis de la Jonquiére and informing him that I had
recovered from an illness that had come upon me, and
which might have served as a pretext for some one to
supplant me. He replied that he had selected M. de
Saint-Pierre to go to the Western Sea. I, thereon, left
Montreal, where I was, for Quebec. I explained the po-
sition in which my father had left me; that there was
‘more than one trading post at the Western Sea; that my
brother and I would be delighted to be under the com-

THE CANADIAN WEST 89

mand of M. de Saint-Pierre ; that we would be satisfied, if
needs be, with only one post, and with the most distant
post; that even we only asked to be allowed to go on
ahead; that in carrying on the discovery we could utilize
the last purchases made by our father and what remain-
ed in the forts; that, at least, we would thus have the con-
solation of using our best endeavors to correspond with
the views of the Court. The Marquis de la Jonquiére, at
bay through my persistant representations, at last told me
that M. de Saint-Pierre did not want either myself or my
brothers. I asked what was to become of our credits.
M. de Saint-Pierre settled that: there was nothing coming
to me.

“T returned to Montreal with that consoling enlighten-
ment. I sold a small farm, the sole asset of my father’s
estate, the price of which served to satisfy the most press-
ing creditors. Still the season was advancing. It be-
came necessary to proceed in the ordinary way to the
meeting-place agreed upon with my employees to save
their lives and to secure their return — exposed as_ they
were, otherwise, to be robbed and abandoned. I obtained
that permission with a grat deal of difficulty, in spite of M.
de Saint-Pierre, and only on conditions such as are of-
fered the commonest voyageur. Again, scarcely had I
set out when de Saint-Pierre complained that my depart-
ure did him over ten thousand francs of damage and he
accused me of having loaded my canoe beyond what the
permission accorded me allowed. The accusation was
considered; my canoe was pursued, and had they then
caught up to me de Saint-Pierre would have been sooner
satisfied.

“He came up with me at Michillimacinac, and if I am
to believe him, he was wrong in so acting. He is very

90 THE CANADIAN WEST

sorry to have neither me nor my brothers with him. He

expressed many regrets to me and paid me many com-
pliments. (1)

“Howsoever, such was his proceeding; it would be dif-
ficult to find any good faith or humanity in it. M. de
Saint-Pierre could have obtained all that he desired, sec-
ured his particular interests by advantages that are sur-
prising and have taken a relative with him, without hav-
ing entirely excluded us.

“M. de Saint-Pierre is an officer of merit, but I am all
the more to be pitied in having him thus against me, and
with all the good impressions regarding himself that he
may have left on many occasions, he would find it hard to
show, in this instance, that he had the welfare of the busi-
ness in view, that he conformed to the wishes of the
Court, and that he respected the kindliness with which
the Marquis de la Galissonniére honored us. In order to
cause us such an injury he must have hurt us very much
in M. de la Jonquiére’s mind. (2) |

“Tam none the less ruined. My returns, for this year,
gathered in only half, and after a thousand difficulties,
have completed that ruin. ‘Taking the stopped accounts,
both of my father and myself, I find myself in debt to the
extent of twenty thousand pounds; I remain without
means or patrimony—I am simply a second lieutenant, my
eldest brother has only the same rank that I have, and
my youngest brother is only a striped cadet: such the pre-

(1) De Saint-Pierre was simply playing the hypocrite; for
it would have then been easy for him to have repaired the
wrongs done to the Chevalier de la Vérendrye.

(2) De la Jonquiére, Bigot and de Saint-Pierre understood
each other well in the case; they were the great boodlers of that
day.

!

THE CANADIAN WEST 91

sent fruits of all that my father, my brothers and I have
done. ye

“My brother who was assassinated, a few years ago by
the Sioux, was not the most unfortunate one. His blood
has no merit for us, that our father’s and our own sweat
has become useless. We must abandon that’ which has
cost us so much, unless M. de Saint-Pierre changes his
sentiments and communicates them to the Marquis de la
Jonquieére.

“Certainly, we would not have been useless for M. de
Saint-Pierre. I never kept anything from him that I
thought might serve him, but able as he may be, even sup-
posing him to have the best intentions, I believe that
he risks making many false moves and of losing
himself more than once, by excluding us from his ex-
pedition. It is an advantage to have once gone astray,
and it seems to us that we would now be sure of the pro-
per route to reach the terminal object, be it what it may.
Our greatest agony is to see ourselves snatched away
from a sphere of action that we had intended to complete
with all our endeavors.

“Deign, Monseigneur, decide the case of three orphans.
Great as the wrong may be, can it be without a remedy?
It is in Your Grace’s hands. I fain would hope for com-
pensation and consolation.

“To find ourselves thus excluded from the West, is to
find ourselves, in a most cruel manner, deprived of a
species of heritage — the entire burden of which would be
ours, the entire benefits would be for others.”

This noble letter of the Chevalier de la Vérendrye re-
veals a great deal of the bad treatment of himself and his
brothers at the hands of M. de Saint-Pierre ; it is the con-

92 THE CANADIAN WEST

firmation of an account of that period which says :—“that
the Intendant Bigot and M. de Saint-Pierre had arranged :
to work for their own benefit the fur trade of the West
after the death of de la Vérendrye, and that at the end of
three years they had realized immense fortunes at the ex-

pense of the State.”

The Marquis de la Jonquiére had not the satisfaction of

placing his hands on his own profits, for, in 1752, one

year before de Saint-Pierre’s return, he died.

There cannot be the least doubt that he favored the am-
bitious projects of those two men. The indifference, we
might say the cruelty, with which he treated the discov-
erer’s sons, is evidence enough. He knew well the inten-
tions of the Court and the views of the two governors who
had preceded him in the colony; he also knew the great
worth of that family which had, for nearly twenty years,
been devoted to the service of France; had he not been
blinded by covetousness, he never would have allowed it
to be so criminally despoiled of its patrimony. History
can never too severely blast the reputations of those three
men for such conduct. (1)

(1) The translations of such parts of this work as the letters
of the different Governors, of de la. Vérendrye and others, may
seem somewhat stiff, But the translater has deemed it better
to preserve, as much as possible, the exact expressions of the
writers than to substitute more rounded periods. The French of
that day, and especially as written by diplomatists, on the one
hand, and colonists, on the other, was not always classical nor

even clear. We must take it, however, as we find it.

CHAPTER X.

SUMMARY.

Departure of de Saint-Pierre for the West. — Michillimacinae. —
Fort Saint-Pierre— Address to the Indians. — Fort Maure-
pas.— De Niverville sent to Paskoyac. — Arrival of de Saint-
Pierre at Fort La Reine. — The Fort devoid of provisions. —
Establishment of Fort La Jonquiére. — Sickness of De Niver-
ville. — De Saint-Pierre spends the winter quietly at Fort
La Reine.

We will now see de Saint-Pierre at work in the trading-
posts of the West. Henceforth the names of the de la
Vérendrye will disappear from the annals of the Red
River, and, strange irony of human affairs, the wealth
that those vast regions contain, for the discovery of which
they had sacrificed their lives and their fortunes, will
serve to enrich obscure traders whose only merit was to
have been daring travellers and vigorous walkers.

Despoiled most abominably of the fruits of their labors,
the sons of the discoverer of the great prairies of the West
were left without protection and without the slightest
indemnification for all the losses to which they had been
subjected by the Marquis de la Jonquiére, Bigot and Le-
gardeur de Saint-Pierre; for this was the trio that decided
their fate.

On the 5th June, 1750, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre
started for the trading-posts of the West, having with
him, as lieutenant, M. de Niverville. On the 12th July,
they reached Michillimacinac. He tarried there three

{4 PS aaa

94 THE CANADIAN WEST |

weeks, to give the men some rest as well as to get over his
his own fatigue; for, he tells us, in his memoires, that he .
found that portion of the journey very hard — yet he was
only at the commencement of his hardships.

“T started again,” he says, “on the 6th August, from
Michillimacinac, and on the 29th September I reached
Rainy Lake. ‘That is the first establishment in the West.
I may remark that the route is most difficult, and that a
thorough practice is needed to be able to find the roads;
bad as I may have imagined them to be, I could not but be
surprised at them. ‘There are thirty-eight portages. The
first of those portages is twelve miles (quatre lieues) in
length, and the smallest of the others is a quarter of a
league.”

From the very first line, de Saint-Pierre’s report indi-
cates a man who is anxious to magnify beyond measure
his services; it is a regular net-work of exaggerations and
lies. The missionaries who to-day know the Red River
can estimate at their proper value those reports of the
voyageurs of former times in those wild countries.

De Saint-Pierre’s recital will deceive no man who has
the least knowledge of his fellow-men.

We know that from Lake Superior to Rainy Lake there
are ten portages and not thirty-eight; that the longest of
them is only nine miles, and that several of them are less
than an acre. I touch upon these exaggerations in order
to recall what I said in a previous chapter, namely, that
Legardeur de Saint-Pierre knew nothing about the Red
‘River country and that he was not, what de la Jonquiéres
styled him in his letter to the Colonial minister, “the man
best acquainted with the Indian countries.”

The rest of the report is all like the beginning. De
Saint-Pierre’s language, all through, denotes a vain

THE CANADIAN WEST 95

character, devoid of loyalty and seeking to make capital at.

_. the expense of his predecessor.

Before his departure from Montreal, de Saint-Pierre
ignored a lot of information that the Chevalier de la Vé-
rendrye had been good enough to give him. He had not,
as he admits, formed any idea of the difficulties to be met
with by the traveller in those distant countries. Hence it
is that he made blunder after blunder, and ended by ruin-
ing entirely the trading-posts that had cost de la Véren-
drye eighteen years of labor, all his possessions and those
of his family.

At Rainy Lake, de Saint-Pierre met the Indians. “I
made them feel greatly the goodness of the King, my
master, in having them visited and all their wants sup-
plied. I confined myself in this regard to what was pre-

_scribed for me in my instructions. I was very well re-

ceived, and to judge from external appearances, these In-
dians were well disposed towards the French. I was not
long, however, in perceiving that all these nations (tribes)
were very much disordered and impertinent, which may
be attributed to the too great indulgence shown
them.” (1)

The greatest impertinence, according to our view, is
that of de Saint-Pierre in attempting to criticise the con-
duct of de la Vérendrye, whom he would represent as
having brought disorder amongst the Indians, by giving
them too many presents and not treating them severely
enough. We have already said that de Saint-Pierre knew
nothing about the country, nor the Indian habits, and that
he was the man least qualified to continue de la Vérend-

(1) Whatever other qualities de Saint-Pierre has, he was not
an adept in the use of the French Janguage,—Translater.

96 THE CANADIAN WEST Rey

drye’s work. Nor did he do aught else than destroy it.

When passing by Fort Saint-Charles, de Saint-Pierre-
promised the Indians that he would have a fort built at
the foot of the Rocky Mountains. “I promised,” he
says, “to all the tribes that M. de Niverville would go and
create an establishment nine hundred miles farther up
than that on the Paskoyac. I agreed with all the tribes
that they should unite with me at that new trading post.”

This project, which he proposed to the Indians, in view
of which they would be dragged twelve hundred miles to
sell their furs, while they were within four hundred miles
of the James Bay, must not have charmed them over
much. But de Saint-Pierre’s memoire was only for the
form, assured as he was that the Government would never
inquire as to the truth of it.

On reaching Fort Maurepas, de Niverville took the
~ road to Fort Paskoyac. The season was too far advanced
to travel in a canoe; from the mouth of the Red River he
went through the woods to Fort Bourbon. It was a
journey full of hardships for him. Obliged to carry the
baggage and provisions on his back, or to drag them on
small sleds, he was forced, through fatigue and ex-
haustion, to leave a portion of them on the way. |

Finding nothing in the Forts he and his men were ex-
posed to starvation. When he reached Paskoyac, de Ni-
verville had nothing to eat, except some boiled fish, which
he caught from day to day; this state of famine lasted un-
til the spring.

De Saint-Pierre had no better luck; but we can say
that he deserved it. ‘The autumn season was drawing to
a close when he reached Fort La Reine. That Fort,

being abandoned since the departure of de la Vérendrye, ~

was devoid of provisions, At that season, the Indians

ee
a ee

THE CANADIAN WEST 97

had gone into their winter encampment in the woods and
along the rivers. De Saint-Pierre sent his men at once in
search of some camp; but the small amount of food that
they brought back did not check the rigid fast that was
undermining de Saint-Pierre’s health.

In the spring, de Niverville, who had received Ne to
go up the Saskatchewan and to construct an establishment
at the foot of the Mountains, was so ill that he could not
undertake the long journey.

However, on the 29th May (1751), he started ten men
ahead, giving them to understand that a month later he
would join them. He had not forgotten the hardships
that he endured the previous autumn in going to Fort
Paskoyac; with his health shattered by the fast and sick-
ness of the winter he did not dare start out again.

Happily the ten voyageurs reached the foot of the
Mountains and built a Fort to which they gave the name
of de la Jonquiére, in honor of the Governor of the colony.
As there was a large amount of game in that section, they
had abundance of provisions.

Some historians say that the Fort in question was
built about the place where Calgary now stands: but the
older voyageurs, who knew the country and the Indian
traditions, state that it was much nearer the Mountains, in
a place where it is believed traces of that establishment
have been found. It is said that when an Indian passes
that spot he casts a stone on it (I).

Persons who have visited the place say that it was
much better situated than Calgary for a trading-post.

(1)In truth there is a large heap of stones there. This was
an ancient Irish custom also; each one in passing the burial place
of a murderer or of one who was murdered, placed a stone there,

_and the heap was called the Cairn, scores of which are to be
found in Ireland —Translater,

98 THE CANADIAN WEST

When the news of de Niverville’s illness reached Fort
La Reine, where de Saint-Pierre was, the latter prepared
to go down to the Grand Portage of Lake Superior to re-
ceive provisions and merchandise. For the time being de
Niverville was left to himself in his fort at Paskoyac,
where he spent the summer — being prevented by his
sickness from going to join his ten men at Fort de la
Jonquieére.

De Saint-Pierre was not back at Fort La Reine until
the 7th October (1751). All that time the discoveries did
not make much progress.

On the 14th November, he undertook to go to de Niver-
ville, at Fort Paskoyac.

“T started,” he says, “to go to Fort La Jonquiére on the
ice and to follow up the discovery. (1)

“T was getting along with the best grace in the world
and everything seemed to combine to favor my wishes,
when I met two Frenchmen and four Indians who in-
formed me of the continuation of M. de Niverville’s sick-
ness and, in addition, of the treason of the Assiniboines
towards the Jhateolinis who were to be my guides to the
country of the Kinon-geolinis.”

After this, de Saint-Pierre entered into long and in-
significant details concerning this treason, which was of
no consequence to him, especially at that moment, since
the event took place at nine hundred miles from Fort La
Reine, and the ten men at Fort La Jonquiére suffered no-
thing thereby. Moreover, there was no danger in going
to Fort Paskoyac, where de Niverville lay seriously ill.
De Saint-Pierre found it easier to turn back to Fort La

(1) You will soon see that he did not go far, and that he
soon had good reason to retrace his steps to Fort La Reine.

THE CANADIAN WEST 99

Reine where he could quietly exchange his goods for furs
without running any risk of going astray.

“In the impossibility,” (1) he says, “of continuing my
discovery, I sought to secure all the information possible
from the Indians to learn if there were not some river that
led elsewhere than to the Hudson Bay.

“An old Indian assured me that, recently, the tribe of
Snake Indians had reached an establishment very far dis-
tant from their country, and that the route that they had
followed to reach it went straight towards the setting sun.

“T used every means to have that Indian go to that
establishment. I promised him a rich reward if he would
bring me an answer to a letter that I would give him.

“Those I sent off with that letter did not return, I did
not even heard from them.”

This is the way that de Saint-Pierre labored to discover
the Western Sea. We know how de la Vérendrye’s sons
adopted a very different method.

(1) The word “impossibility” comes in well in this case.

a ee

CHAPTER XI.

SUMMARY.

De Saint-Pierre in the trading posts of the West (continued) .—
An adventure at Fort La Reine. —De Saint-Pierre returns
with Indian chiefs to Fort La Reine. — His recall to Mont-
real by Governor Duquesne,— The Chevalier de la Corne,
Trading-posts of the West are abandoned,—End of the
French denomnation in the West.

During the winter of 1752, de Saint-Pierre had an ad-
venture at Fort La Reine that is worth relating. Here is
how he tells it, himself :—

“T had had the pleasure of repairing Fort La Reine
without ever expecting to have the adventure that I am
going to relate.

“On the 22nd February, about nine in the afternoon, I
was in the Fort with five Frenchmen. (1) I had sent the
rest of my men to get provisions, as I had been without
any for some days. I was quiet in my room, when two hun-
dred armed Assiniboines came into my Fort. These In-
dians were, in a moment, scattered through all the houses ;
several, without arms, came into my place, the others re-
mained in the Fort. My men came to notify me of the
appearance of the Indians. I hastened to them. I told
them plainly that they were very daring to come ina
crowd, thus armed, into my Fort. One of them made

(1) The number of men then at the Fort was nineteen.
Fourteen were absent at this particular time.

102 THE CANADIAN WEST

answer, in the Cree language, that they had come to

smoke. I told them that such was not the manner to do

things and that they would have to retire at once. I
thought that the firmness with which I had spoken to
them had intimidated them, especially as I had put four of
the most insolent Indians out, without they saying a word.
I felt at once at home; but, in a moment, a soldier came
to inform me that the guard-room was full of Indians,
and that they had taken possession. of the arms. I hast-
ened to the guard-room. I asked those Indians, through
my Cree interpreter, what were their intentions, and, at
the same time, I prepared: with my little troop, for battle.
My interpreter, who deceived me, said that the Indians
had no bad intentions, and, at the same instant, an Assini-
boine orator, who had unceasingly delivered beautiful
harangues, told my interpreter that, in spite of him, the
tribe wanted to pillage and to kill me. No sooner had I
learned their determination than I forgot about the neces-
sity of taking up arms. I seized hold of a burning brand.
I burst in the door of the powder magazine; I smashed
two barrels of powder over which I waved my burning
torch, making it be told in a positive tone to the Indians,
that I would not perish by their hands and that in dying I
would have the glory of making them suffer the same
fate. The Indians saw more of my torch than they
heard of my words. ‘They all flew to the gate of the Fort,
which they fairly shook in their hurry. I soon dropped my
_ torch and was not slow in closing the gate of my Fort.

“The peril which I had happily escaped, by thus placing
myself in danger of destruction, caused me a great anxi-
ety concerning the fourteen men whom I had sent after
food. I kept a good watch on my bastions; I saw no more
of the enemy, and, in the evening, my fourteen men ar-
rived without having met with any misadventure.”

oN ae

THE CANADIAN WEST 103

De Saint-Pierre spent the rest of the winter quietly in
his Fort. In the spring the Assiniboines came to Fort
La Reine to explain their miserable attempt at pillage, the
previous February. De Saint-Pierre neither repelled, nor
entirely pardoned them; he made answer that he would
lay the case before his master, the Governor, and would
intercede for them. We all know the value of that kind
of soit-sawder and, barbarians and all as they were, the
Indians were not taken in by it. No more did de Saint-
Pierre place any faith in their expressions of regret.
Being about to go down to the Grand Portage to secure
some merchandise, he dare not leave any person to guard
Fort La Reine. The adventure of the month of February
had frightened all his men. He asked the Indians to take

.care of the Fort, which they gladly agreed to do. We

will see, after a while, how they kept their promise.

On the 24th July, 1752, de Saint-Pierre arrived safely
at the Grand Portage. It is probable that he had left a
part of his men at the different Forts along the way.

He started back to the West with provisions, munitions
and goods for trading purposes. Despite the war going
on amongst hte Indians, de Saint-Pierre did not neglect
the trading. Each year he brought up quantities of pro-
visions, and never did he complain that any were stolen
from him. He seemed to only find danger in his path
when there was question of prosecuting the discovery.

On the 29th September, down the Winnipeg river, he
learned that, four days after his departure for the Grand
Portage, the Assiniboine Indians had burned Fort La
Reine. It was the simplest way for them to get rid of the
trouble of taking care of it.

104 THE CANADIAN WEST

“Reaching the mouth of the Nipik (1) river,” says de
Saint-Pierre, “I was grieved to learn from the Crees that, —
four days after my departure from Fort La Reine, the
Indians had burned it down. ‘This, combined with the
lack of provisions I found, obliged me to go spend the
winter at the Red River, where game is abundant.”

We have seen that de la Vérendrye’s son had built a
small fort at the mouth of the Assiniboine at a place that
is still called Fort-Rouge. It was probably in that Fort
that de Saint-Pierre wintered in 1753.

During the winter he received a letter from officer
Marin, who had been sent by de la Jonquiére among the
Sioux. Marin, like de Saint-Pierre, did his utmost to
pacify the Indians, but without much success. He was
likewise one of Bigot’s creatures sent to trade in the
West. According to a document of that period, “he had
been charged, in conjunction with de Saint-Pierre, to go
and trade in the West, while exploring the countries as
far as the sea, if that were possible.”

Marin, in his letter, said that the Sioux chiefs desired
to have an interview with the Cree chiefs, and invited
them to come and meet them in council at Michillimaci-
nac. De Saint-Pierre communicated that letter to the
Crees, who consented to send three of their number with
him.

On the 18th June, he started from the Winnipeg river,
with the three Cree chiefs, for the Grand Portage and
thence to Michillimacinac.

On the 10th July he passed Fort Saint-Charles, on the
Lake of the Woods. There he had the pleasure of find-

_ (1) The name used by de Saint-Pierre, for the Winnipeg
river. Cee

THE CANADIAN WEST 105

ing two Frenchmen who had been a long time prisoners
with the Sioux. ‘These latter had sent them to meet de
Saint-Pierre to show their willingness to conclude a treaty
of peace at the Grand Portage — supposing that the dele-
gates of the different tribes could not go as far as Michil-
limacinac.

The Chevalier de Niverville met de Saint-Pierre, at
Lake Superior, on the 28th July. He, too, had aban-
doned his Fort Paskoyac, from which he had not moved
in three years. The two continued on the route with the
Cree chiefs. A few days before they reached Michilli-
macinac, they met the Chevalier de la Corne, who was
going to the West to take charge of the trading posts.
De Saint-Pierre was recalled to Montreal by Governor
Duquesne. The Sioux chiefs, who had gone as far as
Michillimacinac, had already gone back, with officer
Marin, in the direction of their own tribes; they had not
awaited de Saint-Pierre’s arrival to assert their good dis-
positions and to promise to keep the peace. The Cree
chiefs turned back with and under the command of the
Chevalier de la Corne, while Saint-Pierre and the Cheva-
lier de Niverville went on to Montreal — where they ar-
rived on the 20th September.

Thus ended de Saint-Pierre’s expedition. De la Vé-
rendrye’s work was falling all to pieces.

The Chevalier de Niverville had not gone any farther
than Fort Paskoyac. ‘The men he had sent to the foot of
the Rocky Mountains had there built Fort La Jonquiére,
but he had never gone that far in person. De Saint-
Pierre had barely gone to Fort La Reine. Thus, under |
his command, the work of discovery had not progressed
one step. On the other hand, he got a splendid harvest
of furs, and he and Bigot realized immense fortunes, at

106 THE CANADIAN WEST

the expense of the State, which derived no benefit from _

the expedition.

On the 2nd November, de Saint-Pierre was given by
the Governor, the Marquis Duquesne, command of the
Belle-Riviére, in place of Marin, who was dying. In
1755, he commanded a band of six hundred Indians at
Lake Saint-Sacrament; he was killed by an Englishman.
Bigot was recalled to France and cast into the Bastille.
The Marquis de la Jonquiére died in 1752. ‘Thus the
three conspirators, who had combined to do de la Véren-
drye’s sons out of their rights, did not have the pleasure
of enjoying the fruits of their rapacity.

After de Saint-Pierre’s expedition, the Chevalier de la
Corne was the last French officer to have charge of the
Forts in the West. He had a Fort built a little way be-
low the confluence of the two branches of the Saskat-
chewan. He called it Fort La Corne—a name it still
retains. It is the only one, of all the Forts built by the
French, that exists to-day. Of Forts La Reine, Maure-
pas, St. Charles, Bourbon, Dauphin and La Jonquiére, not
a single trace is left, and the merchant trading companies,
that came into the country later on, did not try to rebuild
them. .

After 1756, the Forts were abandoned, and to the great
delight of the English, the Indians again took the trail to
the Hudson Bay. It is quite probable, however, that
several of the Frenchmen and Canadians, who had fol-
- lowed the discoverers and the traders into the West, had
become enamored of that life of adventure, and continued
to live with the Indian tribes.

The Indians long remembered the Frenchmen who had
lived amongst them and who had brought the light of
civilization to their tribes. And, even for long years did
they retain the vestiges of that civilization.

Uh AMA

THE CANADIAN WEST 107

In 1811, an English traveller, named Cox, in his work,
“Adventures on the Columbia River,” says that during his
journey, he was very often shown, in those wild deserts,
little wooden huts still ornamented with crucifixes and
other emblems of Christianity. ‘These homes are now
deserted,” he adds, “but they are still looked upon with
pious respect by the traveller. The poor Indians, them-
selves, who, since the departure of the Jesuits, have fallen
back into their old habits, have the greatest respect for
those houses that were inhabited, they say, by the good
white fathers who never robbed them, nor ever cheated
them like other whitemen.”

Here ends the reign of the French in the West.

THE SECOND PERIOD

1760 to 1822

THE TRADING COMPANIES

CHAPTER 1,

SUMMARY.

The “Coureurs des bois” (1) (trappers), and the scattered
traders.

The second period of the history of the Canadian West
commences with the year 1760, that is to say, with the
conquest of Canada by England, and closes with the year
1822, when the Catholic hierarchy was established in the
North-West. To understand the history of those sixty-
two years, the designs of Divine Providence must be taken
into account and studied by the light of Faith, otherwise
the reader will find but chaotic confusion through which,
at very rare intervals, darts a ray of civilization.

The wonderful adventures of a few trappers —coureurs
des bois — who sought their fortunes amongst the In-

(1) Although the term “Coureur des bois,” is used in English,
the translater prefers to use the single word “trapper,”

110 THE CANADIAN WEST

dian tribes, and who returned home to close their days,
belong more to the realm of romance than to the domain —
of history. Interest is soon lost in these marvellous
events when they can no longer be made to serve a gen-
eral plan. Such legends suit well to amuse the household
gathered around the domestic hearth. The historian’s
field is more expansive than the limits of the fireside;
this we shall recognize while speaking of the various per-
sonages who passed over the stage of the North-West
during the sixty-two years that we have styled the second
period in the history of the Canadian West.

In the eye of God, the paramount plan is the establish-
ment of Holy Church for the salvation of souls and the
greater glory of His Divine Son. Such appears to be the
sole end of all the events that history unfolds before our
eyes. Whether the facts are accomplished on a large or
a small stage; whether they are accompanied by greater
or less noise; whether they attract the attention of the
world for a longer or a shorter time, in the end they are
all of equal importance to God, since He makes use of the
all for the one grand purpose of bringing saints to
heaven. It is from this lofty standpoint that we should
study history, and above all that it should be written;
otherwise we risk finding a series of purposeless events
and a mere upheaval of hap-hazard causes. Everything
that takes place here below can only be of real interest
when seen from this supreme view-point. Thus do we
perceive in the successes accorded by the Almighty to
men the scaffolding of the edifice He wishes to construct,
and we are not surprised to find the same men cast down
once the building has been completed.

THE CANADIAN WEST 111

xe *

The Sieur de la Vérendrye had discovered the West-
ern country as far as the foot of the Rocky Mountains;
but that was the limit of his mission. Yet, with the aid
of the missionaries whom he had taken with him in his
long voyages, he had afforded the infidel tribes, that in-
habited those regions, glimpses of true civilization. They
began to wish for a knowledge of the truth, and the time
was at hand when apostles of Christianity would come
amongst them and instruct them.

But, before all this could take place, safe routes had to
be found and highways of communication a had to be creat-
ed in those desert wilds.

The early discoverers, occupied as they were with the
urgent work of exploration, had no time to mark out
roads, nor to augment the number of depots where re-
serves of provisions might be established. Moreover, the
expenses required for the execution of such works were
beyond the means of individuals; the large and perfectly
organized associations alone could meet them.

To make the North-West accessible to the missionaries
and to afford them a way of carrying the boon of Faith
to the Indian tribes that inhabit that country, for some
years, God will leave it in the hands of a great Company,
which, for the purpose of obtaining the wealth therein
contained, will open up roads and create safe avenues of
communication. Still more: to stimulate the zeal of that
Company, and to hasten the works in operation, He will
summon the missionaries to that field and the Company
will disappear. It is evident that the colossal fortunes
built up by the masters of the North-West were not the
terminal design of Divine Providence on that country dur-
ing the second period of its history. 8

112 THE CANADIAN WEST

* OK

During the French domination in Canada, the business
of fur trading was carried on under a system of exclu-
sive privileges. The Governor of the colony granted cer-
tain officers a license to go and trade within the limits of a
defined territory. The Indians amongst whom they went
had no permission to apply to others, than these licensed
traders, for the goods that they required.

By means of that system the Government more easily
attained its object, which was the civilizing of the Indians
by grouping them in families and in villages. It could
thus accustom them to the habit of work and have them
instructed by the missionaries. The favored traders were
generally persons of good education, who sought to cor-
respond with the intentions of those who sent them.
Besides, their conduct was closely watched by the mis-
sionaries who spared no pains to prevent the sale of in-
toxicating liquors to the Indians. At the time of the con-
quest, there were still to be founda few villages that
were formed by Indian families under the French regime.

After the ceding of Canada to England, the system of
trading privileges was abandoned, and each one was free
to do business with the Indians on his own account. The
rivalry that resulted from that unbriddled liberty opened
the door to all sorts of disorders and crimes, and, in less
than twenty years, all traces of civilization has disappear-
ed. This was a great misfortune for the colony, for
trade, and for the Indians. Therein the merchants found
the ruin of their fur business and the Indians found the
ruin of their morals —and, consequently, they found
misery.

Every one knows the unconquerable passion that pos-

vu) See

a ae al

THE CANADIAN WEST 113

sesses the Indian for intoxicating liquor. In order to get

it, he will gladly abandon all he has; he would sell him-

self to procure drink. The traders did not fail to play
upon that weakness for their own benefit. It was the
great means used by them to defeat competition. All those
rival traders, scattered over an immense territory, and at
long distances from civilization, knew that the law could
not reach them, and they could count on impunity in the
perpetration of every crime.

A Mr. Henry, who carried on fur trading, says in his
diary, that when, in 1775, he reached the Grand Portage
of Lake Superior (1), “he found the traders in a state of
mutual enmity ; each one carried on his affairs in the man-
ner that he believed to be the most likely to injure his
neighbor’s.” “Conduct,” he adds, “which had a danger-
ous effect with the Indians.”

Like facts are reported by Sir Alex. MacKenzie, in his
“Observations on the Fur Trade.” “This trading was
carried on,” he says, “in a country very remote from all
legal restraint; where there was nothing to prevent the
employment of all manner of means that might lead to
success. The bad conduct of the traders not only caused
them to lose opportunities of making profits, but also the
esteem of the Indians and the respect of their employees,
who were only too ready to follow their example. For
them the winter was nothing but an uninterrupted scene
of quarrels and battles. The Indians had only contempt
for people who acted with such disorder and bad faith.”

If four or five of these traders had not distinguished
themselves, amongst others, if not by more disgraceful

(1) The Grand Portage is on the north side of Lake Super-
ior, at the point where the traders started inland to reach the
Red River. For a long time it was an important trading post.

114 THE CANADIAN WEST

conduct, at least by the success they obtained and the
fortunes they accumulated, the first twenty years of the:
history of the North-West might be given in a few pages.

Alexander Henry was one of the first Englishmen who
ventured into the Upper Country, after the abandonment
of the Forts by the French. He associated with himself,
or rather he took for guide, an old French trader named
Etienne Campion — an able hunter, and especially a man
of remarkable fidelity. They both set out from Lachine
in August, 1760. Alexander Henry was only twenty-
three years of age. He had never done any trading, and
he knew nothing of the country into which he and his
guide were about to venture. He was one of the first
who, for the sake of the trading business, thought of tak-
ing advantage of the Indians’ unfortunate passion for
rum. He had secure a good supply for exchange pur-
poses, but his first attempt was not successful.

The first Indians that Henry met stole a part of his
rum and told him, by way of consolation, that the same
thing would happen to him further on.
In fact, at Michillimacinac, he lost all the merchandise
that he had brought with him for trading, had to hide for
a long time to avoid being killed, and succeeded, after un-
told hardships, in reaching Niagara. After such a begin-
ning any other man would have been discouraged and
would never again have dreamed of returning to the
North-West. Henry wanted to tempt fortune for a sec-
_ond time. He started in 1765, with another companion,
named J. Bte. Cadotte,a man well known in the Upper
Country. (1) He was bound not to come back to Can-

(1) In Manitoba there are still several Cadotte families, de-
scendants of this trader, who had married a squaw. One of
these families reside at St. Norbert, near Winnipeg.

THE CANADIAN WEST 115

ada till he had made his fortune. In fact he did not re-
turn to Montreal until 1776, after an absence of sixteen
years. His success in the fur trade became the subject of
general conversation. At that period, the accounts given
by travellers who had lived long among the Indians. were
more interesting than are those of to-day.

After taking a trip to Europe, Henry established him-
self in Montreal, and in 1784, took part in the organiza-
tion of the North-West Company. |

Whilst Alex. Henry had made wealth in the North-
West, the other traders, until 1770, had scarcely gone be-
yond the Grand Portage and Lake Nepigon. In that
year, one Curry, went as far as Lake Bourbon, and
spent the winter near the Fort Bourbon, which’a son of |
de la Vérendrye had built in 1741. His success surpass-
ed all his expectations; he returned the following year
with a sufficiently rich cargo of furs to save him the ne-
cessity of ever again bothering himself with the fur
trade.

Others wished to follow his example and to go the
farthest Forts that the French had built. In 1771, a Mr.
Finlay went as far as Fort La Corne. That was certain-
ly the last Fort built by the French; but it was not the
most remote one, for, in 1751, de Niverville had con-
structed Fort La Jonquiére, at the headwaters of the Sas-
katchewan, six hundred miles farther away. Fort La
Corne was not built until five years later.

As all the Northern Indians, since the conquest, had
ceased to frequent the French Forts and had again taken
the trail to the Hudson Bay, it is quite probable that trad-
ing on the Saskatchewan was not very brisk. In 1772,
Joseph Frobisher, of Montreal, thought that it would be
more profitable to go straight north to meet the Indians

116 THE CANADIAN WEST

on the Hudson Bay route. He went firstly to Fort Pas-—
koyac, not far from the mouth of the Saskatchewan, and
thence he went in the direction of Churchill river, where
no person had as yet ever gone to trade. Indians in great
numbers arrived there with heavy loads of rich furs.
These furs were intended to be used to pay off debts that
the Indians had contracted the previous year with the
English at the Hudson Bay.

When Frobisher offered to purchase their entire stock
they refused to sell, as they were scrupulous about break-
ing their word and doing an injustice to the merchants
who had advanced them provisions and merchandise.
But Frobisher insisted so strongly, and especially in con-
sideration of the high prices that he offered, they at last
gave in. The quantity of furs that they sold him was so
great that he was obliged to leave a portion behind, and
to build a fort — ever since called Trade Fort —to shel-
ter the same. When he returned, the following year, to
get his furs, he found them untouched. The poor In-
dians had shown themselves to be more honest than the
white men, who came to teach them how to deceive and
to be unfair in their bargains.

On his return to Montreal, Frobisher sold his cargo
and realized $50,000 clear profit. Such a fortune, made
in such a brief space of time, created a regular fever
amongst the fur merchants; all of them wanted to set out
for the Upper Country. During several years a crowd of
other individual travellers ventured into the West with
their merchandise, and especially with liquor, which they
distributed amongst the Indians. These traders, scatter-
ed in all directions amongst the different tribes, set them
the example in every kind of vice and fairly robbed the
poor Indians. All means were good in their eyes. Their

ae

THE CANADIAN WEST 117

unique object was to make fortunes as quickly as possible,
without any regard for the consequences of their conduct.

By dint of witnessing their avarice and covetousness,
the Indians began to detest the traders who were clearly
robbing them, and they secretly conspired to put them all
to death at a given time. In the autumn of 1780, the
Assiniboine Indians, to avenge the death of one of their
number who had been killed by an over-dose of liquor,
which a clerk had given him, attacked two Forts and
killed three Canadians. Several trading posts were at-
tacked at the same time, and the plot to exterminate all
the whites was about to be put in execution, when an
event took place which threw the entire country into a
state of consternation and, at the same time, saved the
traders from certain death. :

A band of Assiniboines, that had started on the war-
path in search of scalps in the land of the Mandafis, re-
turned bringing with them a sickness never before known
in the North: it was the small-pox. That terrible scourge,
which carries fear and horror with it, created indiscrib-
able scenes amongst the Indians. Only an eye-witness
could ever form any conception of them.

The hygienic means used by civilized peoples to count-
eract that awful epidemic were totally undreamed of
amongst the Indians. Huddled together under miser-
able tents where the temperature is as varied as without,
exposed day and night to the cold drafts of wind that
constantly whistle over the immense prairies, it is easy to
understand how they fall victims to the scourge once it
makes its appearance in a tribe. Scarcely one of those
attacked with it ever escapes.

In 1780 the traders reported that the three-fourths a
the Assiniboine nation were carried off. ‘Thus did the

118 THE CANADIAN WEST AN f es
ponte a /
white men escaped the massacre prepared for them; | uit,
the other hand, the trading business was ruined on account °
of the deaths of the hunters. For two years the Montreal
merchants received no furs from the North-West. Fore-
seeing the losses that would result, and being desirous of
establishing a trading system on a better basis, they met
during the winter of 1783 and 1784, and laid the founda-
tions of the North-West Company.

‘CHAPTER II.

The formation of the North-West Company

SUMMARY.

Why the Company took the name of French Company. — Its
first organization; names of its first members (Bourgeois).
— First secession. — Struggle with certain discontented trad-
ers. — Establishment of Forts on the northern extremity of
La Crosse island and at Lake Athabaska. — Meeting of the
traders in 1787.

In beginning this chapter we may as well at once state
that the name French Company adopted by the North-
West Company belonged no more to it than it did to its
rival, the Hudson Bay Company, since all its partners
and the three-fourths of its clerks were English or
Scotch. From the very commencement it was composed
of Englishmen and, in 1804, out of forty partners, thirty-
eight were English, and only two were French — Messrs.
Chaboillez and Rocheblave. It was about the same with
the clerks. It is true that all the servants were Cana-
dians, but those porters and manual laborers, who work-
ed like slaves, under the orders of English masters, were
no more members of the Company than were the Indian
hunters who came to trade at the forts.

The Indians had long remembered the French who had
gone into the West; they recalled their fair dealings with
them, and also the spirit of peace which their miSsignaries
had brought with them. The word. S tecdhelin. Bae. 0
pleasant to their ears, and awakened the sentiments that

120 THE CANADIAN WEST

they had entertained for de la Vérendrye and his sons.
The North-West Company wished to benefit by the
prestige attached to the French name, in order to capture
the confidence, not only of the aborigines but of all the
Canadians in its service ,and at the same time to render
their great rival odious by calling it the English Com-
pany. ‘This title was abused of for the purpose of having
the faults of its partners, which history will adjudge, ex-
cused.

Although, during several years, this Company played a
very important part in Canada, still its history is scarcely
known outside the mercantile domain. It was known to
be doing an immense business in furs with the Indians |
of the West; that the greater number of its partners real-
ized large fortunes, and that it kept in its service a whole,
army of Canadian employees, known as the “voyageurs of!
the Upper Country” (les voyageurs des pays d’En-Haut.)

But how matters were going on amongst the Indians
out there; what kind of life did those partners, all those
clerks and all those trappers lead; what morals prevailed,
what justice was obtainable,— all so many things that
were unknown, if not wholly, at least in part.

Like all large organizations, the North-West Company
had influence in high places, and by means of its gold it
had created favorable opinions in the highest strata of
society.

Certainly it is not desirable that all the mysteries of the
North-West should be revealed in the light of day; a de-
tailed history of all the acts and doings of those traders
would be far from edifying. But it is the historian’s
duty to reveal all that may have done so in decency

The shareholders of the Company were generally men

\ who had received a high education; they were, in the

\

THE CANADIAN WEST 121

’ worldly sense, gentlemen. At Montreal and Quebec
they were admitted to and courted in high society on ac-
count of the rank they held and the agreeable manners
they displayed on returning from the Upper Country.
They were called the North-Westers (les Nord-Ouest).
They lived the princely lives of millionaires. Their con-
versation was interesting and everyone liked to hear tell of
their distant travels. They clung to external forms and
formalities, and to everything calculated to increase their
prestige. But in their own sphere each was a double
man; a civilized person anda trader. If, in Canada,
they showed amiable and delightful qualities, amongst
the Indians, as traders, they were without heart or sym-
pathy, and for the preservation of what they called their
trading rights, they would stop at nothing. From top to
bottom, from the leading partner down to the last em-
ployee, they all were filled with the same spirit

In taking the places of the individual, or isolated, trad-
ers, the partners of this Company placed themselves in
the way of more surely realizing immense fortune, but the
North-West did not gain anything thereby, either from
the standpoint of morality or that of civilization. The
Indians were more systematically taken advantage of and
demoralized, and the trappers, as in the past, continued to
beset themselves with all manner of vices. These things
the continuation of this history will fully establish.

The great disadvantages resulting from a competition
carried too far gave rise to the formation of the North-
West Company. This organization, from its very incep-
tion, was careful to close the North-West to all individual
traders who sought to trade in furs on the same territory.
These merchants, who thus constituted themselves into a
company, had no special rights. Any British subject

122 THE CANADIAN WEST

could claim the same. ‘They did not ignore the fact that |
any steps taken by them to ask Parliament to accord
them exclusive trading privileges, would be absolutely
useless. In the absence of a legal title they had hoped
to preserve this monopoly by force and audacity

The trading business, which had been completely ruined
by the disgraceful conduct of the whitemen among the
Indians, and by the death of the greater number of the
hunters, through the small-pox of 1780, began, in 1784,
to revive. The fur-bearing animals, that had been left in
peace for three years, had multiplied toa large degree,
and the hunters, who had become careless after the epi-
demic that carried off so many of their number, com-
menced afresh to follow their old-time mode of living.

The English traders, however, did not desire to follow
the former system. The losses they had sustained dur-
ing latter years convinced them that another method of
trading would have to be adopted. /During the winter
of 1783 and 1784, the most important of their number
met to do business in the form of a society. The leaders
of that association were Messrs. Benjamin and Joseph
Frobisher, the oldest North-West traders, and Mr. Simon
McTavish who received the commission of agent. A
number of those who were to be associated with them
were then in the North-West and could not come down to
Montreal to consult with the heads of the organization,
but the latter had promised the new partners to give
entire satisfaction to the absent shareholders.

The fundamental principle of the arrangement was that
the separate capital of each merchant should go into the
common fund, and that each individual shareholder would
receive profits in proportion to the capital he had in-
vested. ;

‘\

‘THE CANADIAN WEST 123°

In the early spring the associates, or members of the
Company, went with their letters of credit, to the Grand
Portage, and there met those who had not been able to
reach Montreal in time to assist at the convention.

Messrs. Peter Pond and Peter Pangman, with a few
others, were very dissatisfied with the shares allotted to
them and refused to unite with the others. This unex-
pected difficulty disturbed the calculations of the bud-
ding Company that had such need of all its force and all
its men to take immediate possession of the trading posts
in the North and in the West. Pangman and Pond were
able and energetic men and accustomed to the Indians:
they could have done considerable injury to the Company
by drawing away its employees and by turning the fur-
sellers against it. But, on the other hand, to at once
give in to the demands of a few discontented individuals
would be, in the eyes of the leaders, to pave the way to —
a host of other annoyances in the future; they preferred
to accept the challenge in the hope that the opposition
would not last long. It required no ordinary audacity in
the separatists to face a Company as powerfully organized
as that of the North-West, with its army of employees.

Pangman and Pond went down to Montreal to make
arrangements with a commercial house for supplies to
carry on fur trading. The firm of Gregory and McLeod
accepted their proposals and even took shares in the new
Company.

In the spring of 1785, Pangman and Ross were early
at the Grand Portage to select a convenient site and to
build a store and store-houses. Their associates went to
them in the month of June. The plan of the North-West
Company was to immediately proceed to the extreme
north, to there erect forts and to cut off the route from

é

124 THE CANADIAN WEST f Death ies eA

the Hudson Bay Company. For over a century, all the
Indians of Athabaska and La Crosse Island had taken’
their furs to the Company at the seashore. We have seen
how, in 1775, Frobisher met them carrying their furs at
Churchill river and had succeeded in having them sell
him the products of their hunt; but, ever since then they
had kept on going to the Hudson Bay. ‘The finest and
the most beautiful fur came from that region, which was
the land of the otter and the beaver.

The North-West Company had at its disposal sufficient
employees to man trading posts all the way from Lake
Superior to Lake Athabaska, and to have a foothold
wherever their antagonists might chance to settle. It
may be said that from the very first year the Company
was master of the territory. However, the Company of
the separatists was so energetic in its attitude towards its
rival that the latter dare not at first use any violence,
But that truce was only an apparent one; ambition soon
put an end to it. During the winter of 1787, serious en-
gagements took place between the employees of the two
companies in the northern Forts; both dead and wounded
were to be found there.

The scenes of disorder that the North-West had wit-
nessed during the twenty years prior to the formation of
the companies were repeated and even outdone. They
had once destroyed the trading business ; they now threat-
ened to destroy it again. The partners of the Companies
were frightened by this condition of affairs, and thought
even of combining the two organizations. You should
hear Sir Alexander MacKenzie tell of those days of
rampant crime. “After the strongest opposition ever seen
in that part of the world,” he says, “after having suffer-
ed all the.opposition that jealousy and rivalry could cre-

re
>

THE CANADIAN WEST 125

ate; after one of our associates had been killed, another
maimed, and that one of our clerks had with difficulty
escaped death, having received a ball through his powder-
horn, while on duty, our adversaries were at last obliged
to accord us a share in the business. As we had had
enormous losses, the joining of the Companies was in
every respect much to’ be desired by us; it took place in
the month of July, 1787.”

The struggle had lasted scarcely two years, but it was
severe, and the same Sir Alexander MacKenzie admitted
some years later that it took him four years to repair the
losses that he had sustained. (1)

(1) The word “Bourgeois,” is represented in English by
“Gentlemen-Partners”; from an obvious reason the translater
omits the word “Gentlemen,” and simply uses “Partners.”

CHAPTER III..

SUMMARY.

The North-West Company after 1787.— Their plans to remain
sole mistress of the fur-trading business. — They build forts
in the extreme north to prevent the Indians from going to
the Hudson Bay. — Works of the discoverers Alex. Macken-
zie, Fraser and Quesnel.— Journey to the country of the
Mandans. — Reflections of an Indian chief.

Freed, after 1787, from all serious competition, the
Company no longer thought of anything other than the
extension of the field of its commercial operations and the
securing of the exclusive monopoly of the fur trade in
all the North-West. Whilst, to the south of the Saskat-
chewan, the tribes, since the discovery, sought to have
relations with the French traders, those on the north side
always kept on, for over a century, to take their furs to
the English at the Hudson Bay. To turn these latter In-
dians southward, and to draw them away from the Hud-
son Bay, the only. way was to get in their path and to
form an alliance with them.

The members of the Company were able men who were
impregnated with the genius of commerce. They were
aware that, to become masters of that immense region,
they should not stop at any expenditure, for the mine to
be worked would infallibly return manifold whatever
might be sent in the operations.

They consequently erected their forts at regular dis-
tances along the route from Lake Superior to the Great
Slave Lake, and supplied all their trading posts with a

9

128 THE CANADIAN WEST

sufficient number of men to prevent any Indian camp from
escaping their watchfulness. Thus the Hudson Bay
Company, confined to the seashore, would have to face
the ordeal of famine or else come out and enter the com-
petition; in the latter alternative the members of the
North-West Company would, in a short space, ruin their
great rival and be forever more rid of it. Such was the
calculation. Later on we will see that they miscalculated,
and that after a determined struggle, with alternating suc-
cesses and reverses, the Hudson Bay Company would
finally absorb its great antagonist when the latter’s mis-
sion would be accomplished.

With associations of men, as with individuals, bad as
they may be, they do not fail, from time to time, to per-
form praiseworthy acts that are remarkable in their series
of crimes. The North-West Company, which history
will judge with impartiality, had done many a wrong in
the course of its brief career; what we shall relate re-
garding it will be the whole truth. Its great success and
the brilliant part it played in those days did not give it
any claim to impunity. It was guilty of great crimes,
and it is well that posterity should know this; history is
intended to serve as a lesson. But, as several members of
that Company, despite the numerous faults of others
among them, had performed works deserving of high
praise, we will hasten to give them due credit for the same
before entering upon the story of the wrongs committed.

Unlike other incorporated mercantile companies, whose
privileges are stibject to conditions, such as the obligation
of helping colonization or some work of public utility, and ~~
which privileges come from the government; the North-
West Company, which formed itself, depended upon itself —
alone and was free from all restrictions in regard to ~
whomsoever it might be.

THE CANADIAN WEST 129

The sole object of its existence was the building up of -
fortunes for a few individuals. No thought of civilizing
influences entered into the calculations of its organizers.
The main and the unique ambition of its promoters was
to turn to their own benefit, by all and any means imagin-
able, the wealth of the vast North-Western country and,
if it were necessary in order to attain that end, to strew
their pathway with moral and material ruins. With such
principles as a basis we can readily: imagine all that
might take place in those distant regions.

Among the members of that remarkable organization
there were men noted for their striking intelligence, and
who sought larger horizons than those that merely fram-
ed in the profitable trading business.

The works accomplished by these men alone shed a
lustre upon the Company. Whilst to-day the names of
the great lords of the Northland, who once reigned su-
preme over lake and prairie, have fallen into oblivion,
those of Mackenzie, Fraser and Quesnel still live in the
memories of men and will so live as long as the results of
their discoveries survive.

In this instance, have we the evidence that, in order to
leave a name in the world, it does not suffice to have been
wealthy and to have managed great business enterprises,
but that it is necessary to have that name connected with
some lasting achievement, associated with some work of
general benefit to society.

The notoriety of the egotist dies with himself. This is
easily understood; for, having labored for himself alone
his memory must pass with his person: Memoria eorum
pertit cum sonitu. Y

‘On account of his discoveries, which were undertaken
in the interests of science, the name of Sir Alexander

130 _ THE CANADIAN WEST SN

MacKenzie will remain a most conspicuouus mark -in the
history of the North-West. bie
Born in Scotland, he came to Canada when quite young.
On his arrival in Montreal he entered the service of the
firm of Gregory and McLeod. He was still there in 1784,
at the time of the formation of the North-West Company.
Here is how the Honorable Mr. Masson, in his interesting
book, speaks of him:—‘The Partners of the North-West
Company.”

“Of an energetic nature, a vigorous temperament, and
an iron will, he was one of those men cut out for struggle
and great enterprises. For some years he had rendered
great service to his patrons who had conceived a high
esteem for the young Scotchman. Up to that time his
name had been unknown; but it was soon to be written in
ineffacible characters in the history of the North-West,
even as, later on it was stamped upon the barren cliffs of
the Pacific coast, which he was destined to be the first to
reach after crossing the vast solitudes of the West.”

In 1789, Alexander MacKenzie was given command of
the Athabaska district in the place of the factor Ross who
had been killed two years earlier in a quarrel between the
men of the two Companies. For a long time he had form-
ed the plan of going northward in search of a large river,
which the Indians said flowed into the Arctic Ocean. The
Company was not in favor of such a journey, as it pre-
sented no promise of immediate and clear profit for its
business. But young MacKenzie’s determination was
deep-rooted ; he wanted, at all cost, to undertake that dan-
gerous trip, even though he had to leave the Company
in consequence. Finally, however, he obtained the con-
sent of his colleagues, on the condition that the Company
would suffer no loss thereby, and that the Northern dis-
tricts would continue to be well governed.

-.
ory

THE CANADIAN WEST 131

Alex. MacKenzie had the good fortune to find, in his
cousin Rodrick MacKenzie, an intelligent and faithful
substitute, upon whom he could count without the least
anxiety during his absence.

He, thereupon, began to prepare for his journey and,
on the 3rd June, 1789, with four Canadians and one Ger-
man, as companions, he set out.

In his account of his voyage to the Arctic Ocean, Alex.
MacKenzie gives us the names of those faithful ser-
vants whose energy and devotedness contributed so large-
ly to the success of his dangerous expedition. They
were Frangois Barrieau (1), Charles Doucette, Joseph
Landry, Pierre Delorme and John Steinbuck.

Lake Athabaska, whence the explorers started, is con-
nected with the Great Slave Lake by a very rapid river
about two hundred miles in length. They went down this
river in a light bark canoe loaded with provisions, arms
and tools.

At that period of the year in those boreal regions, the
sun remains constantly above the horizon; in fact, it
might be said that during the months of June and July
there is no night.

It is easy to understand how favorable such long days
are to travellers who have lengthy marches to make. In
those latitudes, during the summer, the variations of the
temperature are less frequent than in the more temperate
zones,— possibly a compensation for the apparently end-
less nights of the interminable winters.

Had Mackenzie’s companions not been gifted with in-
domnitable courage, the information given them by the _

(1) The name should be written Bériau. He married in the
North-West, and left many descendants. There are several fam-
ilies of the name in Manitoba.

132 THE CANADIAN WEST

Indians would have sufficed to have caused them to turn .

back in their tracks. On all sides terrific pictures of the
cruelty of the aboriginal inhabitants of the seashore were
painted for them. They were told that they would
never come back and that, if by any chance they escaped
death, they would be old men when they would return, so
great was the distance to the Ocean.

But nothing could shake their determination. Al-
though neither they nor their Indian interpreters knew
anything of the country into which they were going, still
they advanced with as much assurance as if they were
walking long explored territory. Thus, scarcely three
months after their departure they had gone down the
great river as far as the Artic Ocean, had taken possession
of the region in the name of England, and were all back,
safe and sound, at Lake Athabaska. The great Macken-
zie river, one of the four largest rivers of America, was
discovered. :

You imagine, very likely, that the Company would
shower praise on the hardy explorer whose glory reflect-
ed upon its members? By no means. The Company not
only did not congratulate him, but even it had harsh
terms of blame to launch against his undertaking. As
we have said, the Company existed solely for the fur
trade. Outside of that business it recognized and knew
nothing. This simple fact sets that great organization
before us in a very different light.

“During the summer of 1790,” says Hon. Mr. Masson,
“Mackenzie came down to the Grand Portage to assist at
a general meeting of the Gentlemen Partners, that was to
decide upon the reorganization of the Company. His
sojourn there was not of a character to encourage him to
remain in the association, many of the members of which

THE CANADIAN WEST 133

did not seem to appreciate the relief in which his expedi-
tion to the Polar Sea had placed the Company. ‘My ex-
pedition was hardly spoken of’ he wrote to a friend, on
the 16th July, 1790, ‘but it is what I expected.’ He left
the Grand Portage with a sad heart, and returned to his
post with a soul full of bitterness against his colleagues.”
(Les Bourgeois du Nord-Ouest, page 42.)

A high soul, like that of Sir Alex. Mackenzie, could
not long remain satisfied with the life of a fur-trader ; the
sojourn in the fort is too monotonous, too stupefying, so
to speak, to suit a man of thought and spirit.

* OK Ok

As soon as America was discovered, the leading
thought that occupied the navigators was to find a pas-
sage across the continent to the Western Sea. Christ-
opher Columbus sought for it along the coast of Mexico,
saying that if it did not exist, nature had erred. Others
after him sought for it in the northern seas, until, after
long years, they became certain that it did not exist.

Later on, the mariners who ascended the great rivers
were not any more successful in reaching that Western
Ocean. In fine, the sons of de la Vérendrye had stopped
at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and de la Vérendrye,
himself, had died as he was preparing to scale that form-
idable barrier. Since then no traveller had dared to risk
such an undertaking. However, towards the end of the
eighteenth century the Americans had pushed their ex-
plorations westward, and, in virtue of the right of first
occupation, threatened to take possession of those splendid
territories. It would have been to the Company’s interest
to have forestalled them in that, and, without the genius

134 THE CANADIAN WEST

of Alexander Mackenzie, it certainly could never have
done so.

Cheered on by the success of his first expedition, Mac-
kenzie resolved to cross the Rocky Mountain range and
to reach the Pacific Ocean. It was a daring project; but
he prepared well ahead for it. In 1791, he went to
Europe to familiarize himself with certain knowledge, or
facts, he was lacking in. Supplied with all the instru-
ments needed in such a voyage, he returned to the North-
West, and in the spring of 1703, he set out without any
guide, accompanied only by six Canadian voyageurs and
two Indian interpreters.

Among the Canadians who went with him on this ex-
pedition two had gone with him to the Northern Ocean
in 1789— Charles Doucette and Joseph Landry. The
others were Francois Beaulieu, Frangois Comtois, Bap-
tiste Bisson and Jacques Beauchamp. (1)

We should read the interesting details of that perilous
journey as related in Mackenzie’s own diary.

To reach the Artic Ocean he had overcome the fears that
are natural in one who ventures into an unknown and
dangerous country. But in reality, in going down the
Mackenzie river he had. met with no dangerous passes
such as those that awaited him in the defiles of the
Mountains. ‘To reach the North he had traversed barren
steppes, desert moors, desolate-looking expanses. But
there, at least, the traveller’s foot was on sure ground.
Here, at the entrance to the Mountains, it was a very dif-

(1) It is regrettable that we do not know from what Cana-

dian parishes came these men, especially the two who went on
both expeditions. These names deserve to go down to posterity.
Francois Beaulieu settled down, later on, at La Crosse Island,
married a Montagnaise squaw, and left a large family that has
been highly esteemed in the missions.

- HE CANADIAN WEST 135

ferent thing. During four months, through those gorges
and recesses, where wild torrents rushed down on all
sides, he passed from one danger to another. ‘T'wice his
men, done out with fatigue, were on the point of turning
back and giving up the idea of reaching the Ocean. One
day Mackenzie said to them :—“If you abandon me, I will
continue the journey alone.” These words gave them
fresh courage, and they promised to follow him to the end.

On the 2nd July, a little less than two months after
their departure, they reached the shores of the Pacific
Ocean. ‘There they saluted that “Western Sea,” which,
for two centuries, had been the dream of navigators and
explorers. |

Alexander Mackenzie, taking possession of that coun-
try in the name of Canada, carved upon the cliffs of the
coast :—

“ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, from Canada, by
land, the 22nd of July, one thousand seven hundred and
ninety-three.”

Without taking one day to rest, Mackenzie and his men
took the Mountain route again and were back at Atha-
baska towards the end of August.

Done out with the fatigue of such a journey, Mackenzie
was ill all winter. In the spring he left for the Grand
Portage, leaving forever the Upper Country. He con-
tinued, however, as a member of the Company till 1801,
when he took it into his head to form a new association
for the purpose of competing with the North-West Com-
pany — for which he never had any great love.

The other members of the Company who, after the time
of Mackenzie, undertook expeditions of a general inter-
est to the world, were Simon Fraser, Jules Maurice

136 THE CANADIAN WEST

Quesnel and David Thompson. They were the first to go
down the Fraser river, and the north branch of the Col-.
umbia river, as far as the Ocean. By their discoveries
they secured for our country the possession of vast and
beautiful territories that are now in danger of being hand-
ed over to the Americans. ‘Those hardy travellers evi-
denced an indomnitable energy and an astonishing perse-
verance; and their names shall remain fixed in history.

As to those who made long and wearisome journeys
into the West for the sole purpose of establishing relations
with new tribes of Indians, in the eyes of posterity, their
merits are no greater than those of the other partners of
the Company — for, beyond all doubt, they were all as
brave and hardy as Corsairs.

About the year 1800, Chaboillez and Larocque went to
the country of the Mandans, on American soil. (1)
Theirs was a journey of hardships. On the banks of the
Missouri they met Captains Clarke and Lewis, who had
been sent by the American Government to explore the
upper Missouri, and to cross the Rocky Mountains. La-
rocque had taken intoxicating liquor with him; Lewis
warned him that he would not be allowed to give any of
it to the Indians. Those poor Indians, in their ignorance,
said to the whitemen who came into their country: “If
you come to us with charitable intentions you would bring
with you things that are of use to the Indians.”

The Mandan chief said to Lewis :—“There are only two
sensible men among you: the one who works iron and
the one who mends guns.” And, speaking to Larocque,
he added: “Whitemen do not know how to live; they

(1) De la Vérendrye had taken the same Wid sixty-two
years earlier, but for a more noble purpose.

THE CANADIAN WEST 137

leave their country, in small bands; they risk their lives on
the big lake and among Indian tribes that will take them
for enemies. What use is the beaver for them? Can it
keep them from sickness? will it follow them after
death ?” .

What true philosophy from the mouth of an Indian!
Larocque’s attempt to establish relations with the Indians
of the South was unsuccessful. Soon the Company gave
up the project.

In 1790, after Alexander Mackenzie’s journey to the
North Sea, the Company, in a general meeting, at the
Grand Portage, adopted, for nine years, a new constitu-
tion. By the withdrawal of some of the shareholders the
interests of the Company were centered in the hands of
ten partners. Several clerks, instead of having fixed
salaries, received shares in the profits ; these shares reach-
ed the half of the trading profits. This was a powerful
means of stimulating the zeal and increasing the activity
of the employees. They prepared for a powerful compe-
tition with the Hudson Bay Company. The latter, how-
ever, persisted for a long time in confining its operations
to the seashore, and it was only at the end of the century
that it stirred up sufficiently to enter into a struggle that
drove it to within an ace of its ruin.

Vy

Mee BS?

CHAPTER IV.
SUMMARY.

The North-West Company, an instrument of corruption for the
Indians and for its own employees.— The Company’s system
was injurious to our Canadian companies and to the well-
being of the Indians.

Once an old dealer in furs, who had belonged to the
trading Company, asked Mer. Provencher: “How comes
it that all the old-time partners in the North-West Com-
pany, after having been very wealthy, died in poverty
and left nothing to their children?”

“Ah!” replied the Bishop, “because, ‘the devil’s meal
turns to bran.’ ”

The North-West Company, disregarding every senti-
ment of honor and humanity, blinded with the craving
for riches, speculated upon the souls and bodies of the In-
dians even as the slave owners speculated upon the unfor-
tunate African negroes. By its system of trade it worked
knowingly and willingly to bring about the moral de-
gradation of the Indian peoples of the West, by giving
them floods of intoxicating liquor and inoculating them
with the germs of every vice.

When Bishop Provencher went on the Red River mis-
sion in 1818, the very first thing that the Indians asked
him to give them was rum. “They were surprised,” says
Mgr. Plessis, “when we replied that we had none.”

140 THE CANADIAN WEST

Before the coming of that Company the Indians, guided
by a sentiment of natural honesty, were scrupulous in pay-
ing with exactness their debts. The following facts de-
monstrate this. Five years after the conquest, an Eng-
lish trader had advanced goods to the Indians to the value
of three thousand beaver skins. The following year he
was paid most faithfully by all the hunters; but as one of
those who had received credit had died during the winter,
his relatives combined to pay his debt, in order that his
soul might be freed from unrest in the life to come. They
were convinced that, if his name remained on the mer-
chant’s books, his soul would never enjoy peace in the
realm of souls.

About the same time, another trader, being unable to
carry all the fur he had purchased to Montreal, piled the
skins in a small hut, and the following year he returned
for them and did not find one missing.

In a previous chapter we saw how, in 1775, the Indians
had long resisted the solicitations of Frobisher, who want-
ed to prevent them from going to the Hudson Bay with
their furs to settle the debts contracted the previous year.

In this chapter we will see how the partners and clerks
of the North-West Company made a regular game of
turning the Indians dishonest and how they even used
violence to make them neglect the payment of debts and
become thieves.

In Mr. McGillivray’s diary, which Hon. Mr. Masson
quotes in his work, “Les Bourgeois du Nord-Ouest,”
(‘page 26), that gentleman says: “I gave Hequimash
(chief of a tribe) a roll of tobacco, and eight measures of
powder, and I promised him a coat, when he would return
in the spring, on the condition that he would not go to the

a

“owen di eg THE CANADIAN WEST 141

Hudson Bay that summer and would not send his furs

there; he owes the English 45 plus.” (1)

Again, in the same diary, he says: “The Flag (Le Pa-
villon), another Indian chief, came to visit us, and during
the first twelve days Indians come in daily, so that we
have seen them all. About the half of them had been to
the Hudson Bay during the summer and had got credit
there; I am very much afraid that they feel like going to
pay their debts in the spring. However, if they do so, it
will be because I cannot prevent them, either by promises,
or by threats, if my goods fail.”

Thus it was that threats were added to promises and
cften blows to threats to convince the Indian that he was
not obliged to remain honest. But more generally his
scruples were overcome by making him drunk. And this
was the Company’s method during the thirty-seven years
of its sway.

It is scarcely possible to form an idea of all
the evil it did and caused to be done in the North-West.
The older voyageurs long recalled the infernal scenes en-
acted in the forts when the Indians gathered in numbers
and rum flowed freely. Then were there battles,
murders, and the howling of wild beasts on the air.
Often, amidst those savage orgies the clerks and guard-
ians of trading posts ran the risk of their lives, and fre-
quently had great trouble in escaping. No matter; for
the sake of getting the furs they were ready to begin all
over the next day the same scenes. Never could the

(1) Plus means a beaver skin, or its equivalent in other
skins. A better word is pelu. You would say of an article, “ it
is worth one plus, two plus, or ten plus,” The plus, or pelw, was
a standard, like a dollar,

142 THE CANADIAN WEST + iwweteuge

greatest success achieved by the Company in its transac-
tions palliate such crimes.

It did not limit its system to the corrupting of the In-
dians, it was extended to all its surroundings; the white-
men, as well as the red-skins, fell victims to its rapacity.

Count Andréani, travelling in America in 1791, visited
the Grand Portage, where he had an opportunity of learn-
ing how things were done in the North-West. In his
diary he says:—‘The employees of the Company are gen-
erally libertines, drunkards, and spend-thrifts, and the
Company does not want any other kind. Such is the
speculation on their vice that any employee, who shows
any dispositions for economy or sobriety, is given the
most fatiguing kind of work, until by dint of ill-treatment
he can be converted to drunkenness and to love for the
women who come to sell (themselves) for rum, blankets
and ornaments. In 1791, there were over nine hundred
employees of the Company who owed it more than the
value of ten or fifteen years of their future wages,”
(Voyage en Amérique, by La Rochefoucault-Liancourt,
vol. IT., page 225).

That speculation of the Company was not an abuse that
had accidentally slipped in; on the contrary, it was an
essential part of its system. ‘They calculated upon it to
realize their immense profits.

The moment an employee showed any disposition to be-
come extravagant, he was allowed every facility to obtain
advances, so that he might become indebted to the Com-
pany. Once in that condition he became a regular slave,
and had to elect between going to prison and blindly doing
the will of his masters. ‘The first instruction given to a
clerk, on taking charge of a trading-post, was to see to it
that the employees would have as little money as possible

THE CANADIAN WEST 143°

to draw at the end of the year; his ability in that direc-
tion was relied upon; and that ability consisted in know-
ing how to turn the employee into a libertine and a drunk-
ard.

The rum, which the Company bought in Montreal for
one dollar a gallon, was sold to the employees for four
dollars a quart, or sixteen dollars per gallon. This shows
how easy it was, provided the employee had an inclination
for drink, to bring his account up to fifteen of twenty
pounds sterling for one article. All the goods for trading
purposes were quoted at proportionate rates

Thus, instead of banking up a little money and im-
proving their condition, the Northern voyageurs did not
save a cent for their old age, and nearly all of them end-
ed their days in misery. Any of them who had families
in Canada generally left them in dire poverty. If, by
chance, they came back to their own country, which did
not often happen, they did so merely to drag out a miser-
able existence. The kind of life that they led in the West
totally unfitted them for ordinary work on the farm, or
for the exercise of any kind of trade.

As to the young men who went to the North-West, be-
fore being married, they nearly all settled there and mar-
ried squaws,— that is, when they had the good luck of
not leaving their bones in the lakes or on the prairies.

Hundreds and hundreds of our people have left their
corpses on the wild deserts of the West. Some of them
lost on the plains, died of hunger and fatigue, others
perished with the cold, and again others were killed by
the Indians. Sometimes they lost their lives in obeying
the barbaric orders of leaders who treated them like
slaves.

On one occasion, in a fort at the extreme north, a guar-

10

144 THE CANADIAN WEST

dian of the trading-post, addressing a guide, said :—Take.
this canoe, and with six men, you will convey provisions
to the next post.”

“The river is very rapid,” answered the guide, “and the
canoe is not strong enough to resist the current. We will
be drowned.”

“You’re a set of cowards,” replied the guardian, “the
canoe is strong enough; so, go ahead.”

The seven men set out; two days later the guide, one
Brousse, returned to the fort with only one man; all the
others had been drowned in the rapids in which the canoe
was smashed in two. With such a blind obedience we
can easily imagine all that the Company got out of the em-
ployees.

During more than the three-fourths of the time the
trading business was carried on amidst deadly quarrels
that resembled more the operations of brigands than of
honest traders.

To carry their point in all directions the Company had
need of fighting men. It knew well how to mould them.
It encouraged all its pugilists to commit deeds of violence
on all outside traders who might venture into the country.
Even those who had gained renown for their more brutal
efforts were rewarded. Such exploits were what the men
of the North gloried in. One of the great amusements of
the Partners was to assist at those pugilistic scenes in
which English and Canadian combatants smashed each

other, as was done in the time of the Greeks.

The Company claimed and historians have since said
that it was a public benefit that was rendered in hiring so
many Canadians to work in the North-West. Even from
that standpoint, we consider that it was something to be.
deplored, and that it caused Canada, in those days, injury

3

THE CANADIAN WEST 145

such as is now produced by our Canadian emigration to
the United States.

A century ago Canada had as much need — and may be
more need than to-day —of the bone and sinew of our
youth. The beautiful lands in the valley of the St. Law-
rence were still covered with virgin forests. We had to
erect our parishes and to strengthen our position by col-
onization. Each Canadian that then left the country
was a greater loss than would be twenty Canadians to-
day. And, it was by hundreds and by thousands that the
Company robbed our farming regions of these young
men, for the number of the voyageurs was over two thou-
sand, and each year some of them had to be replaced by
fresh recruits.

If those thousands of our fellow-countrymen, instead of
having squandered their energy and strength in the ser-
vice and for the benefit of the fur-traders, had settled on
farms, cleared up land, and raised large families, would
not the service to the country have been preferable to that
of which the Company boasts?

It is almost impossible for us to calculate the injury
done by the departure of so many for the Indian regions.
Persons who have admired the energy of the Northern
traders must not have reflected seriously upon this phase
of the question. For our part, looking at it in this light,
we are forced to consider the Company more as a scourge
than as a blessing for the country.

As to the Indian tribes, they lost as much as did the
whitemen from the standpoint of their well-being. Their
country was invaded and ruined by hunters who unceas-
ingly, and at all seasons, slaughtered all their fur-
bearing animals — young and old alike. The Company
hired hunters — Iroquois and Algonquins — in the Indian

146 THE CANADIAN WEST

villages of Canada, and paid thema fixed price for the
furs that they brought in. These Indians, having no in-
terest in the preservation of game in a country through
which they were only passing for the time being, destroy-
ed entirely some of the richest classes of fur-bearing ani-
mals. ‘The unfortunate natives, intimidated by the war-
like reputation of the strangers and fearing to offend the
Company, looked on at that wonton destruction without
a word of protest.

Another thing, that helped ears to impoverish and
make miserable the Indians, was the facility with which
they could get advances from the Company. It was a
clever plan of taking advantage of the red-skin, whilst, at
the same time, presenting an appearance of honesty. As
these goods were advance a year ahead, they were sold at
the highest price, and as the furs had to be waited for,
during an entire year, they were paid for at the lowest
price. Thus, the poor Indian, if not very successful in his
hunt, had scarcely enough in the fall to pay his debt of the
spring. If, then, a strange trader came along and offer-
ed the Indian more for his fur than he would get from the
Company in paying his debt, a regular warfare insued.
The Company would seize all the Indian’s furs and then
ill treat the trader who had dared to come into the country.

The following incident will show how little it took to
excite the Company’s jealousy and to cause it to resort to
acts of violence.

-One day, a man named Fidler, a surveyor in the employ
of the Hudson Bay Company, had been sent to explore a
point where they desired to open communications with
Athabaska. Fidler had an Indian guide with him. The
North-West Company denied the right of the Hudson
Bay Company to a monopoly, but claimed the same for
itself.

THE CANADIAN WEST 147

Suspecting Fidler of wanting to do some trading, the
Company sent a fighting-fellow, called Larocque, to hunt
him up and not to allow any stranger in the district. La-_
rocque met the Indian, who was Fidler’s guide, beat him
fearfully and broke two of his ribs.

It was not necessary that an Indian should be in debt to
the Company for the latter to punish him severely for
selling furs to strangers. This was a crime that it never
forgave, and the Indians were absolutely incapable of re-
sisting those acts of violence against them.

To say that the North-West Company had been useful
to the Indians and its own employees, one must know very
little about it and its operations. It was rather a scourge,
both morally and materially speaking, for them.

CHAPTER V.

SUMMARY.

Our Canadian voyageurs in the Upper Country.— Their engage-
ment with the North-West Company.— The recruiting
agents.—Departure from Montreal in canoes.—The jour-
ney.— Hard labor to which the hired men are subjected.—
Regrets for having left Canada and their homes.— Arrival
at the Red River.

Our voyageurs, who hired with the North-West Com-
pany, nearly all settled in the Upper Country; they mar-
ried squaws, and their families constituted the roots of
the métis, or half-breed, race of to-day. As these Cana-
dian voyageurs played an important part in the history of
the North-West, it may be well to devote a chapter to
their story, in order that the reader may be made better
acquainted with them.

The class of people with which the Company was care-
ful to surround itself contributed greatly to its success in
its trade with the Indians. Nearly all of its servants
were French-Canadians. The Company, for many rea-
sons, preferred them to any other nationality. They
were brave, hardy, persevering and handy in the long
journeys across the desert plains. Better than any other
people they knew how to get out of difficulties. They
were also very clever hunters ;-in fact, in that respect, they
were not inferior to the Indians. But what won for them
the hearts of the red men was their frankness, and the
facility with which they learned the Indian languages.
It.is easy to understand that such servants were of incal-

150 THE CANADIAN WEST

culable use to the Company; nor was the Company
sparing in promises when it wished to secure their ser-
vices. a

Every spring, a little while before the departure of an
expedition, in Montreal and its suburbs, there were num-
bers of recruiting agents who went about hiring novices.

The old trappers, who had already been in the West,
used to meet in the city, at the large fur depots, to pre-
pare their provisions and load their canoes. For about
fifteen days these “old prairie-wolves” enjoyed a series of
merry-makings and feasts. ‘They invited all their friends
and they had a regular jollification. You would imagine
that they were bound to spend their last cent and to start
off empty-pocketed.

During those days liquor flowed in streams and the
night always brought a ball. Each one told a story —
true or ortherwise — of some adventure in the land of the
Indians; mystery and the supernatural general formed
the basis of the anecdotes.

According to the pictures painted by the hiring agents,
the trip from Montreal to the Red River was nothing else
than a continued picnic. ‘The boating over the lakes and
along the rivers, the open-air camping, the new and glor-
ious scenery that unceasingly unfolded its panoramic at-
tractions before the traveller, the hunt on the prairies—so
abundant that the least experienced could, in a few hours,
secure enough game for six months’ provisions,— in fine,
the freedom of the wilds, that dream of all young men
-of ardent spirit and restive under the yoke of authority ;
all these attractions were pictured in a manner calculated
to dazzle the youthful Canadians and to make them dizzy
with delight. These poetic descriptions were well pre-
pared beforehand to intice all who were willing to lend
an ear to them.

. THE CANADIAN WEST 151

Generally it was during those days of revilry that the
recruits were hired.. The poor young country lads, who
had never gone beyond the limits of their different par-
ishes, looked with envy and admiration upon their former
companions who had become voyageurs, who wore orna-
mented belts and moccasins (1), and were treated like
princes — rolling in money.

Many of them would be heard saying: “I, too, will be
a voyageur, and go into the Upper Country, and when I
come back to the village they will feast me as they do
these lads.”

On the other hand, the Indian life had charms for
them. They imagined that out in the wilds, freed from
all restraint, dressed in Indian fashion, sleeping with them
in wigwams, and hunting for a livelihood, nothing more
could be desired.

When the days of merry-making were over and. the
time for departure had arrived, the recruits began to re-
flect and to regret their folly. In the warmth of their
cups they had bound themselves without any calculation
as to consequences; coming to their senses the poor lads
would weep and beg of the Company to release them from
their engagements and to take back the money they had
accepted in advance. Vain regrets! The Partners were
not men to be softened by tears. Those who knew the old-
time fur traders knew that a beaver-skin was the only
thing that could touch their hearts; moreover, they never
consented to cancel a contract made with an employee.
The service of a young Canadian was worth too much to
them to give it up for mere sentimentality.

(1) Moccasins are moose-skin shoes, ornamented generally
with bright-colored embroidery of Indian design.

152 THE CANADIAN WEST

When the day for departure arrived, the new voyageur,
willing or unwilling, had to get into a canoe and to bury
his sorrow in his heart.

When the fleet was ready, a solemn “hurrah,” from
united voices, made the echoes ring, and, as Moore sang:

“Our voices keep tune
And our oars keep time,”—

while the loaded skiffs were launched on the stream and
commenced to breast the current.

The hardest work was given to the novices. ‘There, as
in war, each one had to “win his spurs.” The new
hands, during their first year of service, were given the
unpoetic nickname of ‘“Pork-eaters.” This expression
originated in the complaints generally made by the young
lads, who, when they found themselves, on a long journey,
reduced to a fare of dried biscuits, clamored for meat.

The Canadians in our country districts, are accustomed
to eating pork boiled in a soup. The countrymen, fam-
ished in consequence of the heavy work they had to do,
always relished that dish. So was it with the young men;
as soon as they found themselves deprived of the old
home-made and savory food, they began, like the Hebrews
who lamented for the onions of Egypt, to cry out: “If we
only had some pork.” During the entire two months of
the trip from Montreal to the Red River, the same lamen-
tation was kept up.

The daily rations for each man consisted in a quart of
shelled Indian-corn and one ounce of grease. It was very
little for a man, considering the roughness of the work
and the length of the days. The crew never stopped for
dinner.

==

THE CANADIAN WEST - 163

The voyageurs in the Company’s service were divided
into different classes: that of clerks, that of interpreters,
that of canoe pilots and that of oars men. (1)

The canoe pilots were divided into two classes — the
pilots, or helmsmen, and the rowers, or oarsmen.

Each canoe, in starting from Canada, (the Province of
Quebec of our day), apart from the crew of men (each
with his baggage, limited to ninety pounds) carried six
hundred pound of biscuits, two hundred pounds of salted
meat, three bushels of beans, two tarpaulin-sails to cover
the goods and protect against the rain, one regular sail,
one hawser, or large rope, one axe, one cook-pot, one
sponge —to take up the water that might leak into the
boats or canoes, some rosin, hemp, or tow, and birch bark
to mend the canoes in case of accident. .

When, for a first time, a European laid eyes on these
frail vessels, so heavily loaded that the gunwales were
scarcely six inches above the water, his impression in-
variably was that, considering the dangers of the route to
be followed, escape from a wreck was impossible; but the
Canadian oarsmen knew so well how to handle the paddle
and steer the canoe that rarely an accident occurred. (2)

On leaving Lachine (3) the voyageurs went as far as

(1) The word canoe, used in those days generally, now ap-
plies only to small bark canoes, propelled and steered with pad-
dies; the large boats, propelled with oars and built of wood, are
what we, moderns, call shanty, or driving boats. But the tran-
slater retains the word canoe, as it was then the generic term for
all river craft.

(2) Note that the author constantly speaks of oars and pad-
dles and canoes, as if they were one and the same kind of propel-
ling instrument. Oars are used in large wooden boats, and are
worked in row-locks, at the sides; paddles are used in bark
canoes, and handled, independent of any support.

(3) A town, nine miles above Montreal,

154 THE CANADIAN WEST

Ste. Anne’s, at the western extremity of the Island of
Montreal. Although the distance between these two
points is only fifteen miles, still the first camping ground
was always at St. Ann’s—or Ste. Anne. Before leaving
that place and really commencing their great journey, the
voyageurs would go to the shrine of Good St. Ann, and
place themselves under her protection. The next day
they bade farewell to Canada, and their voyage was com-
menced. (1)

Many were the dangers along the route. To avoid the
falls and the rapids numerous portages had to be made;
and that meant carrying the provisions and canoes on
their backs. Sometimes these portages were several miles
in length. ‘The men of the last class — that is to say the

pew so
ST

novices, or the ‘pork-eaters”’— were always selected as.

the porters or carriers.

As soon as the canoe reached the foot of a rapid it was
stopped about twenty or thirty paces from the shore, so
as not to run upon any rocks that might work holes in its
frail bottom.

(1) The translater takes the liberty of here recalling the
fact that, in 1804, Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, travelled up that
way with a band of voyageurs. and under the charm of their
romantic life, he wrote his immortal “Canadian Boat Song.”

“Faintly as tolls the evening chime,

Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
Row, brothers, row; the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near and the day-light’s past.

Soon as the woods on the shores grow dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann’s our parting hymn:
Saint of this green Isle, hear our pray’r.
Grant us cool heavens and a favoring air, ete.

Ottawa’s tide, this trembling moon
Shall see us float on thy surges soon, ete.”

THE CANADIAN WEST 155

Without any hesitation the oarsmen jumped into the
water ; two of them held the canoe steady by its ends. If
there happened to be a partner, or a clerk in the canoe, he
was carried ashore on the shoulders of some stalwart riv-
erman, while the others carried the cargo.

When the canoe was empty, six or eight men, carried it
up the portage to the head. There, before putting it into
the water again, it was thoroughly examined to see if it
needed any repairs. The same precautions were used in
loading as had been used in unloading it; two men, up to
their arm-pits in the water constituted an anchor, and
when everything was replaced, the oarsmen, all soaking
wet, got in and began to paddle away.

In the spring time, when the floating ice is still on the
rivers, when the breeze has still the chill of winter, and
when the sun’s beams are not yet strong enough to temp-
er the air, a plung into the water and sometimes several
hours in that position, are proceedings likely to cause un-
pleasant sensations to the one who has to undergo them.
Yet to that cruel necessity were all the voyageurs, or
oarsman, who travelled between Montreal and the Red
River, subjected.

The carrying —with a thumb-line—the cargo from
one end of the portage to the other, and the walking, had
the good effect of making the blood circulate and of re-
viving the limbs that had been stiffened and benumbed by
the icy waters.

A load, or package, generally weighed ninety pounds.
A man of medium strength and accustomed to lifting such
heavy weights could easily carry two of them at a time,
Even some, solid fellows, who wanted to show off their
strength, would carry as many as six packages in one trip.
By means of.a leather strap placed around the forehead

156 THE CANADIAN WEST

and thrown back over the shoulders, they held the loads
on their back, and at a rapid pace would carry them
several acres. (In the woods to-day, the shantymen and
Indians call these straps, thumb-lines.) One José Paul
had been long celebrated for his exploits of this kind. (1)

The paths that the voyageurs followed were sometimes
scarcely passable for men who would have no loads to
carry. Now, they would skirt along the edge of a rock
at the foot of which yawned a precipice, again, they would
cross swamps where their feet sank into the soft, slimy
ground; and still again they would scale abrupt decliv-
ities, with their loads on their back.

From Montreal to Lake Huron, there were forty-four
portages to pass. Further on, from Fort William to Fort
Winnipeg, there were about as many. One of those port-
ages was nine miles long; for this it was called the Grand
Portage.

Apart from the fatigues caused by the heavy exertions,
the voyageurs had to endure the bites and torments of
myriads of mosquitoes, which, night and day followed
them in clouds.

(1) José Paul was a Canadian, from Sorel, in the Province
of Quebec. His muscular strength was prodigious: the follow-
ing incident is evidence enough of it. One day, in a Hudson Bay
Company’s store, a clerk wanted to have a trial of strength with
him. In a corner of the shop were piled a lot of barrels of sugar,
and among them had been slipped a barrel of shot—(lead).
While José was chatting with some friends, the clerk, as if ask-
ing a service, told José to place the barrels he would indicate
upon the counter. A hundred pound barrel was of slight weight
in José’s hands; he set the work to hand them up quickly. He
suddenly detected the trick, for he got hold of the barrel of
lead. Then, like Sampson lifting the gates of Gaza, he made a
supreme effort, lifted the barrel and brought it down on the
counter with a crash. The clerk’s laugh vanished, for the boards

were smashed into splinters, the floor was broken in, and the.

barrel rolled in the cellar.“Go, my little lad,” said José, “and,
pick up your lead — shot.”

THE CANADIAN WEST 157

It is generally about the end of June that these insects
appear. People who have never travelled, in the month
of June, in the northern regions, can form no idea of the
tortures inflicted by these legions of winged enemies of
man. ‘They are so numerous and so blood-thirsty, that
they kill some of the largest animals of the forest, such as
the red deer and the moose. They get into their nostrils
and choke them. It has even happened that horses and
oxen have died by their tiny darts. At the approach of
rain, when the sky is clouded and the atmosphere calm
and heavy, mosquitoes come in clouds so thick that it is
not possible to keep a candle lit; only by means of dense °
smoke can they be kept off, and not always.

In the day time the young novice, who is busy with his
paddle, suffers enormously, loses lots of blood, and knows
the fate in store for him if he dares to complain; at once
the nickname of “pork-eater,” like a plaster, is made to do
service in closing him up. Wisdom and experience teach
him that it is better to “grin and bear.”

At night the voyageurs camp on the shore and sleep in
the open air, exposed to rain, wind, and mosquitoes. Yet
they had to hurry and take advantage of the few hours of
darkness to rest, for the nights are short. ‘They pitched
their camps late and were off again by day-break. At the
first faint glimmer of the dawn the guide gave the signal
to rise.

It was not the cry of “Benedicamus Domino” (1) that
the guide uttered; his signal was: ‘“Léve, léve nos gens,”
or “Up, up, boys.”

(1) Benedicamus Domino is the prayer or salutation with which
college boys and seminarians are awakened in the morning — it means
‘* Let us Bless the Lord.” In our modern shanties and on the drives,
the foreman’s cry ; ‘‘ Léve, léve, grand matin,” or “ Up, up, it is day-

light ”

158 THE CANADIAN WEST

The voyageurs then lose no time in folding the leader’s
tent, in putting the canoes in the water, and, after loading
them, taking up their paddles to lay them down only at

their breakfast time — when the next portage is reached.

In the canoes the helmsmen, or endmen, constantly
kept their eyes on the oarsmen to prevent them from re-
laxing for a moment. The rapidity of the march, or
journey, was calculated by so many hours to reach such
or such a place; just as a railway train is now scheduled.
The distance from Montreal to Winnipeg took two
months. :

Such was the apprenticeship that, for the first two
months after their departure from Canada, our young
Canadian voyageurs had to undergo.

CHAPTER VI:

SUMMARY.

Fresh divisions in the North-West Company.—Organization of the
X. Y. Company. — Struggle to the death between the two
Companies. — Fearful scenes enacted in the North-West.

Despite the evil designs of men, God always attains His
own end, for He is Almighty, and can draw good out of
evil. ‘That which is bad remains charged to the evil-doer ;
and the good, by a miracle of Divine Goodness, is done
without that the creature has any merit thereby — for his
intentions were perverse.

The North-West Company wanted wealth, and God
gave it to them; but, at the same time, He made use of the
work done by them to carry into execution His own plans.

In ancient times, through motives of pride and ambi-
tion, the Romans sought to conquer the world: God al-
lowed them to reap that glory. They did much evil
among men; but, without knowing it, they prepared the
ways for the propagation of the Gospel. God acted ever
with the same great motive. Above all does He desire
the glory of His Church and the salvation of souls — and
to attain this two-fold end, He makes use of all that is in
the world.

The North-West Company was a source of corruption
for the Indians; but it discovered all the lands occupied
by the Indians in the vast territories of the North-West;
it explored that country as far as the Arctic Ocean, in the
North, and as far as the Pacific Ocean, in the West,

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160 THE CANADIAN WEST

Everywhere it marked out roads, built forts, organized
systems of safe travel over prairies, through forests,
across lakes and along rivers. It undertook all these
great works under the inspiration of a desire to become
wealthy and to enjoy, later on, a life of ease; and all these
things, in the designs of God, were destined to help the
missionaries who were soon to penetrate into those wild
regions, and to carry the “good news” to the infidel tribes
that inhabited them.

We will now return to the Company, and follow its
progress. We have seen that, immediately after the first
organization, it had a struggle with a certain number of
traders who were dissatisfied with the shares they had in
the association ; that, in 1787, tired of the fruitless warfare
between them, the two parties combined, and that, in
1790, they reorganized the Company, for nine years, on a
fresh basis.

During that lapse of time there were still many clash-
ings, murmuring and inklings of division among the
Lords of the Northland; but the interest of self-preserva-
tion was sufficiently strong to keep them united, and, after
the manner of politicians, discipline was sufficiently re-
spected to prevent a few malcontents from breaking loose;
they needed to retain all their patronage in Canada, so as
not to injure their business; they, therefore, were careful
not to allow the noise of any of their quarrels or differ-
ences to be carried beyond the limits of the Indian coun- -
tries.

Yet, in 1795, four years before the agreements of 1790
were to expire, a few partners, more impatient than the
others, determined to separate from their associates, and
to form a new company. .Powerful and well organized as.
it was, the North-West Company was seriously disturbed |

THE CANADIAN WEST 161

in presence of the threatened divisions. Those who
separated from it were not numerous, but they were able,
energetic and determined men. Moreover, as they had |
been trained in the old Company’s school, they were in no
way scrupulous as to means to be adopted, and it was
likely to be a question of “diamond cut diamond.” |

~ Another matter that caused the North-West Company
considerable anxiety was the attitude which then recently
the Hudson Bay Company had begun to assume. Threat-
ened with famine, and finding that the Indians no longer
came to their far off factories, the Hudson Bay Company
awoke from its olden lethargy and began to advance into
the interior of the country. Already had it commenced
to build Forts in close proximity to those of the North-
West Company, and to show a determination to insist on
the rights accorded by its charter. The new Company
thus arose at a’ very critical moment, since the old one
had then need of all its forces to retain the ground that it
had taken possession of.

Alexander Mackenzie, whose energy, ability and ami-
able character had won for him the good will of the part-
ners of the old Company, remained with it till 1799. But
that year he resigned and sailed for England. In 1801 he
returned, with his knighthood, and went back to‘ the
North-West. There he placed himself at the head of the
new organization, which was called the X. Y. Company.

-The old Company, which therefore had pretended to
despise what they called “the little traders,’ understood
that with Sir Alexander Mackenzie at its head, and his
prestige at its service, their rival became formidable. War
was to be the order of the day; but a war suchas the
North-West had never seen the like.

From that moment forward, in the land of the Indian,

162 THE CANADIAN WEST

one long series of crimes and brigandage was kept up.
The picture of the scenes enacted defies pen. and pencil. -

The quarrels of 1785-86 were mere petty diffrences com- .

pared to them. Rum became the only standard of ex-
change between the Indians and the traders, and you
would have to read the diaries kept by the clerks at the
trading-posts, during those years of pandemonium, to
form an idea of the class of liquor given to the Indians.
Here are a couple of extracts from one clerk’s diary :—

“IT gave some Indians who came to the Fort four two-
gallon barrels of rum and one three-gallon barrel, I was
alone with my servant G.... The Indians were all arm-
ed.... we were nearly being killed....”

On another page he writes:

“We had a lot of trouble last night, the Indians were in

liquor; they quarrelled between themselves.... We all

came to blows.”

But the debasing of the Indians, by means of drunken-
ness, was a mere venial sin compared to the other crimes
of these men, who would not hesitate at assassination for
the sake of a few beaver skins.

In the year 1800, Frederick Schultz, a clerk in the old
North-West Company, had command of a trading-post
near Lake Nepigon. He had in his service a young
Canadian named Lebeau, who, during the previous win-
ter had made fellowship with the servants of the Hudson
Bay Company. In the spring time Lebeau decided to
join them and go down to the sea with them. When
Schultz heard this he said: “If that scoundrel
wants to go off I’ll know how to prevent him.” He got
a sharp-pointed dagger, hid it in his cloak, and started to
find Lebeau at the Hudson Bay Company’s Fort. ‘The
latter, when he saw Schultz coming, was frightened and

' pretended to jump out by a window, Schultz, on seeing —

2
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THE CANADIAN WEST 163

‘this movement, drew his dagger and struck Lebeau such

a blow that he died from the effects of it that day.

The North-West Company, instead of blaming Schultz
for the crime, kept him in its employ and even promoted
him.

At Fort Cumberland, in 1796, an Indian, who had been
annoyed to the extreme by a clerk, had the misfortune, in
defending himself, to mortally wound his persecutor.
Immediately and without any form of trial, the guardians
of the Fort put two Indians of the same band to death,
one of them was shot and the other was hanged to a tree
—as an example for others.

In 1802, in a little Fort on Pike River, two employees
of the North-West Company — Comtois and Roussin —
for revenge, killed an Indian and his wife, because two
years before the Indian woman had taken part in the
murder of a friend of theirs. The husband vainly begged
for mercy from his executioners ; vainly he told them that
he was innocent in the matter; he and his wife were
slaughtered with clubs. Numerous cases of this class
might be cited.

We need not be surprised at such crimes being commit-
ted by under-strappers, when we know that, a few years
later, Archie McLellen, a Partner of the North-West
Company, had an officer of the Hudson Bay Company,
named McKeveny, brutally assassinated at the Lake of
the Woods. Reinhard, the one who committed the mur-
der, on McLellen’s order, was condemned by a Canadian
court to be hanged, while the Partner purchased his own
exoneration. (1)

(1) In 1818, when Mgr. Provencher went up to his mission, ~
he saw McKeveny’s skeleton lying on a pile of branches, on the
island, where he had been murdered. His executioners did not

even bury his remains—(Letter of Mgr. Provencher.)

164 THE-CANADIAN WEST

We will give in another chapter the details of that mur- »
der. At the time it made quite a noise in Canada, and it
helped greatly in making known to the world the spirit
that animated the North-West Company.

During the winter of 1801, in the Athabaska district,
Mr. John McDonnell represented, as superintendent, the
old North-West Company, and Mr. de Rocheblave, the
new one.

The former had in his service a clever trader, of Her-
culian proportions, named King. Mr. de Rocheblave
was assisted by a young Canadian, named Lamothe, a
courageous and active lad, son of a very good family,
but much younger and less experienced than King.

During the course of the winter, two Indians, that were
in debt to both Companies, came to notify the traders,
saying that their band had deputed them, that they had
furs in their camp at a distance of about four or five days’
walk from there. King was sent to bring the furs be-
longing to the old Company, and Lamothe to get those be-
longing to the new one. Both had received instructions
to make as much haste as possible and to maintain the
rights of their respective employers.

On reaching the Indian camp each one of them set to
work to gather up all the furs that were due to his own
Company. But, as King had more servants to. help him,
he took possession of all the packages, except one, which
Lamothe got from an Indian. King and his men went:to
Lamothe’s tent and ordered him to give up that package,
and if he did not do so freely they would take it by force.

Lamothe, who was determined to defend to the last his
master’s property, notified King that if he touched that
package of furs he would do so at his own risk and peril.
King started to put his threats into execution, when La-

THE CANADIAN WEST tS 165

mothe fired his pistol and killed the other in his tracks.
King’s men wanted to avenge his death, but the Indians
interfered.and declared that he only got what he deserved.

When it suited its purpose the old Company ordered
the committing of murders; but now, when one of its own
men was the victim, it raised a howl of distress. A thou-
sand attempts were made to get hold of Lamothe, but it
was only in 1804, three years later, that he fell into the
Company’s hands. He was cast into prison, where he re-
mained until the subsequent union of the two Companies.
Then only was Lamothe set free; but there was no longer
any idea of having him tried.

That Company, which denied to the Hudson Bay Com-
pany a right to the trading monopoly that it had received
by Royal Charter, claimed the same right for itself, al-
though it had no title to show—jit sought to become
queen and mistress of the entire expanse of the North-
West.

In 1801, Mr. Dominique Rousseau, of Montreal, equip-
ped canoes that he sent, under the command of Mr. Her-
vieux, his clerk, to Lake Superior. These canoes were
loaded with trading goods. Rousseau expected to make
a good profit out of his little cargo, with the Indians of
the Grand Portage. As a British subject he had just as
much right to trade with the Indians as had the Partners
of the Noth-West Company.

One would think that this enterprise on the part of a
simple individual would not be of sufficient importance to
stir up the jealousy of the great Company. Hervieux,
confident in his right, went and pitched his tent within an
acre of the Company’s Fort.

_, Scarcely was he three hours there, when he saw three

officers of the Company coming towards him. One of

166 THE CANADIAN WEST

them, Duncan McGillivray, began by telling him that he
would have to get out of there at once, or else they would
make him go. Hervieux replied that, as he had as much
right as they had to trade there, he would not go until he
saw their title to the place. However, after some slight
amount of argument, he said that, to avoid any further
annoyance, he would take his tent to the place that they
would indicate. McGillivray and his companions went
back to the Fort to report what had been done.

The doubt that Hervieux expressed regarding the Com-
pany’s rights appeared to them a crime worthy of any
punishment. ‘They went back to his tent, where he had
not quite completed the packing of his goods, and they
cut it into pieces with their daggers. “There’s for you,”
they said, ‘“‘you wanted to see our titles, you have them
now. And if you dare go farther inland we will cut your
throat.” Not content with destroying his tent, they spoil-
ed his goods and ill-treated some servants who had
bought things from him. ‘They took them away from
the purchaser, broke them up, to teach them to never again
buy anything from a strange trader.

Hervieux was obliged, after having lost all his goods
through the action of the Company, to return thirteen
hundred miles to Montreal.

Mr. Rousseau took an action-at-law against McGilli-
vray, but he only succeeded in getting some slight com-
pensation for his heavy losses.

In 1806, Rousseau made another attempt to trade in the
Indian country. He took a Mr. Delorme into partnership
and sent him to the North-West with two canoes loaded
with merchandise.

To avoid all trouble with the Company, Delorme, once
he reached Lake Superior, took the Grand Portage route

THE CANADIAN WEST 167

which the North-West traders had abandoned, to go settle
at the new Fort William. He took precautions to pass
without being seen by the people at the Fort, but he had
not calculated upon the Company’s watchfulness which
kept sentinels placed on vedette.

After a four days march, Delorme was joined by one
McKay, a member of the Company, who, with a dozen
men, set about felling trees across the trail so as to make
it impassible. They thus closed up all the paths and all
the streams both ahead of Delorme and behind him, so
that he could neither advance nor return. At last De-
lorme and his companion were regular prisoners, and
were forced to abandon their goods, which they had to sell
to the Company at the prices paid for them in Montreal.

Rousseau was the last trader who attempted alone and
without protection to send goods into the North-West.

As we now see, the Company of the North-West, which

cried out against all monopoly, had, without either chart-

er or recommandation from any one, taken possession of
the Indian country to the exclusion of all other British
subjects and had made use of any and all means to retain
its position.

It is well that the reader should remember these facts,
in order to properly understand and properly judge the
series of events that we shall treat of later on.

CHAPTER VIL.

SUMMARY.

New organization of the North-West Company. — Means en
ployed to stimulate the zeal of the subordinates. — Timidity
of the Hudson Bay Company’s servants. — Inequality of the
struggle between the two Companies.

_ The warfare carried on between the two Companies in
the North-West could not but end in ruin. ‘The Partners
of the old Company understood this very well, and for
some time they had been desirous of coming to an under-
standing. But Simon McTavish, their principal agent,
having had his pride stung at the time of the separation,
had thought well to refuse all arrangements with the new
Company, which he pretended to hold in utter contempt.
To crush it out he had made superhuman exertions. His
efforts to extend his Company’s operations in every direc-
tion had not always been crowned with the success that
he expected. The Partners, his colleagues, had frequent-
ly complained without, however, going as far as to open-
ly blame him in their large official meetings. They con-
sequently awaited a favorable opportunity to come to an
understanding with him, when death came, in the month
of July, 1804, to put an end to the matter, by taking
away Simon McTavish.

Thenceforth the union of the two Companies, so much
desired by both sides, for both were weary of the fruitless
struggle, became an easy matter.

_ The most conspicuous and most important personage
among the Partners was, without question, Sir Alex. Mac-

170 THE CANADIAN WEST -

kenzie. Proposals of union were submitted to him, and,
from the 5th November, 1804, all difficulties were cleared
away, peace was signed, and the Great North-West Com-
pany was reorganized on a new basis.

Taught by the regretable scenes of the past few years,
the Partners in the North-West Company, while reorgan-
izing, were careful, by means of special clauses, to pre-
vent any future division.

It was ordained in the rules that any member, who,
under the new conditions, desired to withdraw from the
Company, would receive, for seven years, half of the pro-
fits of his investment in the Company, without that he
should have any service to do or any responsibility to in-
cur; but, at the same time, he was forbidden, under pain
of a fine of five thousand pounds sterling, to have any in-
terest, direct or indirect in any other organization doing a
trading business on the same territory as the North-West
Company. Thus the retiring Partner was in no way
tempted to go into any undertaking that might militate
against the Company’s interests.

In the case of a Partner’s death, his heirs could not suc-
ceed him without accepting the same restrictions and
obligations that he had.

In the new organization the aggregate of the capital
was divided into one hundred shares. A considerable
portion of those shares were held by commercial firms in
London and Montreal, on account of advances made by
them to the Companies. The other rei were held by
individuals. Rr ep «|

- Out of seventy-five shares seid to the old Company,
thirty were held by one commercial firm in Montreal. Of
the other twenty-five shares, assigned to the new Com-
pany, nineteen belonged to Montreal and London firms ;

sone ania THE CANADIAN WEST 71

the balance were distributed among the “Wintering Mem-
bers:’’ (1)

The members, that is to say those who had one or more
shares in the Company, were to meet each year, in the
month of July, at Fort William, on Lake Superior.

There it was that the business of the Company was re-
gulated. All questions were decided by a majority of the
votes. Fach share gave a right to one vote; the absent
shareholders could be represented by proxy. There and
then all plans for the coming year were agreed upon and
all accounts of the past year were regulated.

The “Wintering Partners” were bound to make a:de-
tailed statement to the meeting of all events or transac-
tions in their respective departments since the last gen-
eral meeting.

Those who had shown themselves indifferent to the
Company’s interests were publicly blamed in open meet-
ing; while those who had achieved success, no matter by
what means, were promoted. This system was well cal-
culated to promote emulation ; but no safeguards were af-
forded the respect due to law and justice. The desire to
deserve public praise and to rise to “honorable” positions
in the Company filled the subalterns with an emulation
unequalled save by that of the leaders.

As we have already remarked, the Partners who lived in
Canada desired to preserve a good reputation in the eye
of the public, and they watched carefully that no com-
plaint against the Company should ever be ventilated in
Montreal or Quebec. But it was otherwise with the Part-

(1) The French term is “Associés hivernants” —meaning the
members of the Company, or shareholders, who lived in the
North-West, spent the winter there, and looked after the active
er practical end of the business,

172 THE CANADIAN WEST ba RRG Hs

ners who lived in the North and spent the entire year a
thousand miles and more away from all civilized society.
The great distances and the difficulties of communica-
tions secured them against public opinion, above all when
they knew that as long as they brought in lots or furs they
would never be criticised by their superiors.

It is easy to understand how little dread there was of
the law in those distant regions and with what ease
wrongs could be done that were never to be known to the
courts.

After their union the two Companies took great care to
cast a veil over all the abominable scenes enacted in the
days of their quarrels; but Sir Alexander Mackenzie has
spoken, to some extent, about them in his works, and
tradition has handed down the story of the remainder.

From its formation, in 1784, to its reorganization, in
1804, the North-West Company had in reality to suffer
only intestine divisions. No individual trader was in a
position to measure strength with it. All such like com-
petition had no more effect on it than has the wave upon
the rock which it lashes. The Hudson Bay Company had
not so far bothered it much; but, from that period for-
ward, it is with this giant foe that we will find it in a strug-
gle to the death. Facts would seem to establish that the
intention of the North-West Company was to make the
Hudson Bay Company abandon its trading business and
to reduce it to a condition in which it would have to give
up its charter rights.

The North-West Company circulated all over that it
did nothing more than retaliate on the Hudson Bay Com-
pany. Itis like the man who was brought to court be-
cause his dog had killed a rabbit and who pleaded, as a

rere THE CANADIAN WEST. 173

justification, that it was the rabbit that had attacked the
dog. (1) |

All, who are acquainted, no matter how slightly, with
the history of the Hudson Bay Company, know that its
employees never counted bravery among their virtues,
and that its traders were most pitifully timid. It is well
known that, despite the premiums offered to those who
would leave the seashore and penetrate into the interior,
they never found one man to respond to such alluring
solicitations. If, for a century its operations were con-
fined to the Hudson Bay, it was because its employees
obstinately declined to go, as did the French, into the In-
dian countries.

It is certain that the superior officers of the Company,
in England, desired to have the regions inhabited by the
Indians explored, and that they offered large sums for
that purpose.

On the 15th May, 1682, the managing Board wrote to
John Bridgor, at Fort Nelson, as follows:—‘‘Make an
establishment on the river for your safety; but at the
same time, make haste to go inland; make discoveries and
establish there commercial relations with the Indians.”

In the following year (1683), the London Committee
renewed its urging and wrote thus to Henry Sergeant,
one of the Governors :—‘“‘We instruct you to select from
among our servants the most robust and the best versed in
the Indian languages; you will send them into the inter-
ior of the country, to draw the Indians by fair treatment
and conciliatory manners, and thus bring them to deal
with us.” In reply the Governor wrote to London that
the servants refused to undertake the journey.

(1) The number of the Hudson Bay Company’s employees
was scarcely the third of that of the North-West Company.

174 THE CANADIAN WEST ay aan

Two years after the order given to Sergeant, on the -
22nd March, 1685, things being in the same state, the
Committee wrote again, as follows :—

“We have learned that our servants refuse to go into
the interior of the country on account of the danger that
they dread, but also, perhaps, on account of the small en-
couragement given to them. Make it known that the
wages of those who are willing to make the journey will
be £30 sterling.” ;

The hope of rewards had no better effect, for on the
24th August, 1685, the Governor of the Hudson Bay re-.
plied to the London Committee that his men refused the
premiums and that they preferred to return to England
rather than venture among the Indians. “None of them,”
he says, “will consent to make the journey, despite all the
means I have used.”

Such the heroes that, in 1700, the Hudson Bay Com-
pany had in its service.

Had matters change a century later, in 1800? No: at
that period the employees of the Hudson Bay Company
were not any more war-hardened, for, during a whole
century, they did nothing beyond trading with the Indians
around the walls of the forts.

In 1733, Joseph Robson, an employee of the Hudson
Bay Company, reported that, “when the Indians came to
supply the forts with the products of their hunt, the sus-
picious prudence of the Governor of Fort York was such
that he would not permit more than two or three Indians
to enter the Fort together, and only very rarely consented
to allow the Indian chiefs to spend the night within its en-
closure.” Yet that Fort was protected by nineteen can-
nons.

_ Robson adds that while he was at Fort York, he once

THE CANADIAN WEST 175

risked himself on a forty mile expedition into the interior.

It was only in 1774, after Frobisher’s jouruney to
Churchill river, that the Hudson Bay Company made its
appearance on the banks of the Saskatchewan, and that it
took courage to break through the circle that bound it to
its icy regions. Nineteen years later it advanced as far
as the Red River, but always with the same class of men,
proverbial for their awkwardness, unable to steer a canoe
and perpetually afraid to meet the hardy Canadian trad-
ers who were men of unsurpassed ability and of wonder-
ful influence over the Indians.

Unwarlike by instinct and understanding the danger of
measuring its strength with a Company much stronger
than itself, both as to numbers and as to the fighting qual-
ities of its men, the Hudson Bay Company naturally was
chary of any aggression and confined itself to the safe-
guarding of its own business. f

As soon as the North-West Company’s traders came in
contact with the employees of the Hudson Bay Company
in the interior of the country, they displayed the greatest
antagonism.

Apart from their numerical superiority the men of the
North-West Company were so devoted to their masters
that they believed themselves obliged to follow their
every instruction, no matter how illegal it might be.

Thence forward all the Hudson Bay Company’s em-
ployees became the targets for a serious of most unde-
served attacks.

The following incidents will give us an idea of the
manner in which the North-West Company considered all
rivalry in trade.

In the month of May, 1806, a Hudson Bay Company’s
trader happened to be with some men at a place called

Uae “AMY 12

176 THE CANADIAN WEST

Bad Lake, within the limits of Fort Albany. Certainly,

this was a part of the country that belonged to the Hud-
son Bay. Corrigal was the trader’s name. The North-
West Company had erected a trading post in the neigh-
borhood of Corrigal’s establishment and had placed a
clerk named Holdane and some servants there. One
night, while Corrigal and his men were asleep in their
house, Holdane’s men came along, seized him and his ser-
vants, pillaged their store, which contained four hun-
dred and eighty beaver skins, and carried off all the furs
to their own place. In the spring time they carried them
down to the Grand Portage, where the North-West Com-
pany received and accepted them with all the other skins.

Holdane’s justification of his conduct was expressed
to Corrigal in these words :—“I came out here to get furs,
PA IAS and I mean to take them wherever I can find them.”

A similar robbery took place a short time after this at
a post near Red Lake. The post was broken into by
eight men, armed with pistols and knives, who threat-
ened to murder all the Hudson Bay Company’s servants,
if they were not allowed to take all the furs in the store.
A few days later they smashed in the same store and
carried off a considerable quantity of cloth, highwines,
tobacco, amunition, etc.

In the fall of 1806, a trader named John Crear, in the
service of the Hudson Bay Company, was in charge,
with five men, of a place called High Falls(Grosse
Chute), near Lake Winnipeg. One evening two canoes
appeared, manned by North-West Company’s servants
under one Alexander McDonell, who camped near Crear’s
trading post. The following morning four of Crear’s
men went out to fish at about a mile from the camp. As
soon as they were gone McDonell went with his men to

Pee NN

4 aa ce ie ae THE CANADIAN WEST i 17%

accuse Crear of having bought furs from Indians that
were in the North-West Company’s debt. That was con-
sidered a grave crime. All the Partners and clerks of the
North-West Company prevented the Indians from paying
their debts to the Hudson Bay Company, and in their
case, such was not considered dishonest; but when an In-
dian owed them anything, woe to the trader who, even in
good faith, bought any of his furs.

McDonell ordered Crear to deliver up to him the skins
he had purchased from the Indians, otherwise he would
take them by force. On Crear’s refusal, he burst in the
store door. William Plowman, the only one of Crear’s
followers present, sought to prevent him from getting in,
but he was knocked down by one of McDonell’s men,
while another one of them floored Crear with his gun.
As McDonell prevented his man from firing the gun, the
latter hit Crear with the butt-end of the fire-arm, and laid
him out bleeding — meanwhile McDonell gave Plowman
a dangerous wound with his dagger. During all this
scene, the employees of the North-West Company were
robbing the store, taking possession of all the furs, a
quantity of beef and salt pork, dry meat, and a new canoe.

In February, 1807, the same McDonell sent one of his
clerks and some men to again attack Crear. They beat
him and his followers most unmercifully, and took away
a large quantity of their furs. And, what was still worse,
they forced them, on pain of death, to sign a paper ac-
knowledging that they had freely handed over those furs
to the North-West Company.

In 1808, John Spencer, a Hudson Bay official, had com-
mand of a trading post at Cariboo, in the neighborhood
of another post belonging to the North-West Company.
In the spring, William Linklater, an, employee of the

178 THE CANADIAN WEST

Hudson Bay Company, was sent to meet some Indians
and get their furs. On his way back, he was met by ~
Duncan Campbell, a ‘““Wintering Partner’ of the North-
West Company. The packages of furs .were tied on a
sled. Campbell summoned Spencer to give up the furs,
and, on the latter’s refusal, he drew his knife, cut the
traces of the sled, and ordered his men to carry the furs
to the North-West Company’s Fort. One of Campbell’s
men caught Spencer by the snow-shoes and held him
down on the ice, while the others drew the furs to the
Fort. ‘These skins were taken to Lake Superior, as the
product of trading and the Hudson Bay Company never
got one cent of compensation for them.

On another occasion, at La Crosse Island, the same
Campbell attacked two other employees of the Hudson
Bay Company and took their furs from them in the same
manner.

Some of their companions, who came to their assistance,
were beaten off, with considerable blood-shed, by a great-
er number of North-West Company employees.

In 1809, Fidler, a Hudson Bay clerk, was sent, with
eighteen men, from Churchill, to establish a trading post
at La Crosse Island. During the first winter, he had
some success, but he afterwards had to face numberless
difficulties. Several times before had officials of the Hud-
son Bay Company tried to do trading in that locality,
where beaver is plentiful, but each time they were forced
-to give up their undertaking. The methods employed
against Fidler will explain their lack of success.

During the first winter, Fidler’s competitor was one
McDonnell, who was afterwards replaced by Robert
Henry. McDonnell was not sufficiently disposed to set all
the laws of uprightness and justice at defiance. Henry,

THE CANADIAN WEST 179

in turn, was replaced by Duncan Campbell, because he
was too conciliatory. .

The North-West Company had secured, at La Crosse
Island, what they called the “attachment” of the Indians;
which means that the Company held them through fear,
and so much so that the sight of an employee of’ that
organization sufficed to terrify them.

To keep them in that state of slavery, Campbell in-
.creased the number of his men at La Crosse. He thus
wished to prevent the Indians from having any dealings
with the Hudson Bay Company’s traders and, at the same
_time, to frighten Fidler by the presence of a force ever
ready to crush him, should he attempt to defend himself.
They built a small house near his fort, so that no Indian
could go in unnoticed. A gang of professional fighters
was lodged there — not only to keep an eye on the natives,
but also to harrass, day and night, the Company’s men.

Their fire-wood was stolen, their gardening was spoiled,
they were bothered in the hunt, their fishing lines were
carried off at night, and their fishing-nets, their main
source of livelihood, were cut into pieces. The black-
guards, thus left to watch Fidler, went from one deed of
violence to another, and, gaining more and more con-
fidence on account of the absence of any resistence, they
ordered. the Hudson Bay men, in a formal manner not to
stir out of their Fort again. .They accompanied their
order with such acts of violence that Fidler’s men aban-
doned the post, and the entire establishment was imme-
diately burned down. (1)

(1) All these facts, taken from the works of Lord Selkirk,
have been corroborated by the testimony of old traders whom
we knew, and by a tradition that was still alive at the Red
River, when we arrived there, in 1866; they may, therefore, be ac-
cepted as most authentic and worthy of belief—AuTHoR’s NOTE.

180 THE CANADIAN WEST

Five years of such acts of violence sufficed to ruin the
Hudson Bay Company’s trade. In 1809, the shares in
England, after having been quoted at 250 per cent., fell to
50 per cent. During all that time, the North-West Com-
pany went on growing; it was at the zenith of its prosper-
ity, its Partners, in Canada, were “on top” everywhere,
when an unforeseen event took place, which entirely
changed the aspect of affairs and, in one moment, caused
all the luck of these Lords of the North, to vanish.

ieee

CHAPTER YIII.

SUMMARY.

Appreciation of the events that constitute the subject matter of
the following chapters.— Difficulty in picking out the truth
, from the mass of contradictory stories. — Lord Selkirk’s
voyage to Americca, and his sojourn in Montreal. — His re-
turn to London.— His negotiations with the Hudson Bay
Company.— The attitude taken by the North-West Company.

The events that shall be related in the following chap-
ters have been appreciated in various ways by different
historians down to the present. The two contending
parties, to defend their respective causes, wrote regular
pleas, and those who have read them have accepted them
as true the facts just as they have been presented.

In order to discover the truth in all those contradictory
stories of that unhappy period — stories affirmed upon
oath by some and denied (also upon oath) by others —
we were obliged to ransack a number of other documents
relating to the history of that epoch. (1) But this was
not sufficient; the places where the events described by
the Companies took place had to be visited; the topo-
graphy of those places had to be examined; a mass of
comparisons had to be made; tradition had to be consult-
ed; in a word, it meant the work of long years. It was
only after having learned all the antecedents of the
North-West Company, all the crimes that have remained

(1) This is what we did when writing the life of Mgr. Pro-
vencher, a contemporaneous witness of the struggles between the
two Companies.

182 THE CANADIAN WEST

hidden and were about to sink into oblivion, that it was
possible for us to bring to bear upon the subject a judg-
ment that may, perhaps, seem severe to some, but which
is, nevertheless, most strictly impartial.

In 1809, the North-West Company was at the climax of
its power and glory, whilst its rival was almost ruined.

“Half ruined by the struggle it had to sustain,’ writes
Hon. Mr. Masson, in his ‘Histoire des Bourgeois du
Nord-Ouest,’ page 115, “it had been almost completely
pushed back to the shores of the Hudson Bay, and every-
thing promised, for the Canadian traders, a period of
prosperity that would compensate them for all the sacri-
fices they had made, when, from a quarter undreamed of,
burst forth an unexpected storm that was destined to make
their powerful Company disappear.”

All the indemnity that the Company merited was the
punishment of its crimes, and it was Divine Providence
who took in hand the inffliction thereof, by making it dis-
appear completely and suddenly from the country, as we
have said in a previous chapter, whose scourge it had
been.

“For some years,’ continues Hon. Mr. Masson,
“Thomas Douglass, Earl of Selkirk, a descendant of one
of the great Scottish families, a man of broad and philan-
thropic ideas, as well as a distinguished man of letters,
interested himself in his fellow-countrymen, the High-
landers, who, among their mountains, led lives of privation: -
and misery, without any expectation of amelioration in
their condition. He sought to find them a less difficult
existence in the English colonies in America, and he had
succeeded, despite great obstacles and at the cost of consi-
derable personal sacrifice, to send several hunudred of
them to Prince Edward Island.

THE CANADIAN WEST 183

“After hard beginnings, the colony began to rise; the
colonists soon became prosperous, and their descendants,
to-day, occupy the lands whereon, in 1803, their fathers
settled and sought from American soil a relief from the
miseries they had endured at home.”

It is with pleasure that we quote these passages, for,
coming, as they do, from a friend of the North-West
Company, they have a special weight, and they serve to
make known the fine qualities of heart that characterized
Lord Selkirk, whom some have sought to brand as ambi-
tious and egotistical. .

On account of the part he played in the founding of the
Red River colony, that Lord is one of the most remarkable
personages that figure in the annals of Canadian history.

Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, was the seventh
son of Dunbar, the fourth Earl of Selkirk. He was born
on the 5th June, 1771, at the family castle, on the Island of
St. Mary’s Kirkendbrighshire, Scotland. The family
name is illustrious in Scottish history.

From his youth, Thomas Douglas gave evidence of
remarkable qualities, which a high education perfectioned.
He was passionately fond of books on travels and expedi-
tions — especially those that related to America —and,
while yet a young man, he had dreams of colonization.

As all his other brothers had died before coming of age,
he succeeded to his father’s title, when the latter died, in
1779.

The 24th November, 1807, Lord Selkirk married Miss
Colville, daughter of James Colville of Ocheltrie, a gentle-
man possessed of a large fortune, and a member of the
Hudson Bay Company. (1)

(1) Lord Selkirk’s wife had been, from 1818 until the death j
of her husband in 1821, a _ benefactress of the Catholic missions on
the Red River. ;

184 THE CANADIAN WEST

After his marriage, being master of an immense for-_
tune derived from his father and from his wife, he gave
full play to his colonizing projects.

In 1809, he wished to visit the United States and Can--
ada, where his reputation as a distinguished man of large
and elevated views had already preceded him. In Mont-
real, very naturally, he was the guest of the Partners of
the North-West Company, who, according to the language
of that day, were masters of the city in which the Scotch
element ruled.

As Lord Selkirk wished, during his journey, to glean
information regarding all parts of America most suitable
for colonization, he desired to learn all about the Red
River district: the opportunity was favorable, and he took
advantage of it.

The North-West Partners, mistrusting and suspicious,
did not give their secrets to every one. With strangers
to the Company, they were very reserved regarding their
business; but with one of their fellow-countrymen they
allowed themselves to go farther than was customary, and
they gave him sufficient information for the purposes of
his scheme — that of colonization.

From them, he learned that the valley of the Red River
was a fertile region, that the climate there was not more
severe than in Canada, and that hunting and fishing were
plentiful. A few old Partners, more suspicious than
others, were afraid that they had been too confident and

-had overstopped the limit of prudence; still, for the time
being, they gave expression to no harsh words against
their illustrious fellow-countryman.

After visiting a part of Canada, Lord Selkirk returned
to England, to there perfect and ripen his plans of emig-
ration to America.

THE CANADIAN WEST 185

In a pamphlet, published in London, in 1817, by a Part-
ner of the North-West Company, Lord Selkirk is accused
of having had no other object than the ruin of their Com-
pany when he obtained such minute information about the
Red River, and that he had abused of the cordial hospital-
ity that had been shown him.

It needs but slight reflection to see how false such an
accusation, based only on suppositions, really was.

Lord Selkirk’s aim, in all the conversations he had
with the Partners of the North-West Company, was very
naturally to obtain information, not about the fur-trade,
but about the means necessary to realize his long-medit-
ated plan of founding Scotch colonies in America. Had
he wished to double or triple his vast fortunes through
the fur-trade, he had only to have entered the North-
West Company, into which his fellow-countrymen would
have been happy to have received him, and to thereby aug-
ment their strength. That would have been shorter and
easier than to have sent colonists to the Red River, to help
make war on a Company whose power was formidable.
Lord Selkirk wanted to try at the Red River that which,
in 1805, he had attempted with success on Prince Edward
Island.

But we likewise understand that he wished, from the
start, to insure the success of an enterprise in which he
risked not only his life-repose, but also his immense for-
tune. So, with his rare intelligence, Lord Selkirk saw that
the only way to ensure the livelihood of a colony on the
banks of the Red River was to secure as large a tract of
territory as possible in the most advantageous section in
order to there help in establishing his unhappy Scottish
fellow-countrymen.

In order to get possession of that territory, he had to

186 THE CANADIAN WEST

become a large shareholder in the Hudson Bay Company.
His father-in-law, Mr. Colville, who had great influence
with the Company, backed up his plan very powerfully.
No doubt the Hudson Bay Company could see in that plan
a means of re-establishing its ruined trade; but, such was
not the exact aim of Lord Selkirk. What he wanted was
to establish a colony of his fellow-countrymen. But, to
dream of throwing a colony into an Indian country, with-
out having taken every necessary precaution and having
studied the situation in all its phases, would have been an
unpardonable act of imprudence, for which the North-
West Company could have accused him of a crime
against humanity.

Probably, it was because the North-West Company saw
the great wisdom of Lord Selkirk, when he sought to pur-
chase the valley of the Red River, that it resolved to pre-
vent the transaction and to later on ruin the colony, and
drive away from the North-West all witnesses of its own
crimes.

As soon as Lord Selkirk was back in England he
communicated to the agents of the Hudson Bay Company
his intention of entering their corporation. The shares
being quoted at only 50 per cent. the time was favorable to
purchase. The Company’s capital stock was divided into
one hundred shares: Lord Selkirk bought forty shares,
and, thereby, became the most important shareholder.
This first step being taken, he explained his scheme of
purchasing an immense tract of the best land along the
Red River, in the North-West territory, whereon to est-
ablish a colony of his fellow-countrymen. A meeting of
the shareholders of the Company was called; it took place
in May, 1811. But to give them time to study the scheme
the first meeting was adjourned for a few weeks. Mean-

THE CANADIAN WEST 187

while, notice was given to all interested parties to go to
the Company’s office to receive all information concern-
ing the conditions of the proposed concession. At the
second meeting the project was again discussed and the
measure was adopted. |

Some time before the conclusion of the transaction,
Lord Selkirk had been having conferences with a very
important member of the North-West Company — Sir
Alexander Mackenzie. He was on the point of getting
the latter to buy shares in the Hudson Bay Company, but
not being able to come to an understanding with him,
Lord Selkirk bought, in his own name, £40,000 sterling
worth of stock.

Had Sir Alexander Mackenzie been rich enough to have
purchased those shares he would not have hesitated a
moment, because he wanted to gain such a preponderance
of power in the Hudson Bay Company as would enable
him to amalgamate it with the North-West Company, and
thus make the latter mistress of all the trade from the
Hudson Bay to the Pacific coast. His was certainly a
grand idea, but it did not harmonize with that of Lord
Selkirk, whose aim was totally different.

“Tt is certain,” writes Hon. Mr. Masson, “that that dis-
tinguished man (Mackenzie), a friend of the North-West
Company, in which he had still large interests, had fore-
seen the realization of his dream, several years before, and
mention of which is made in his account of his travels:
which dream was the creation, by means of a combination
of the two Companies, of a powerful organization to se-
cure the establishment of a grand commercial highway
across the continent.

“Not having enough means to purchase alone a suf-
ficient number of shares to control the Hudson Bay Com-

188 THE CANADIAN WEST Dai Bi aru

pany, he had interviewed Lord Selkirk in the hope of

bringing that Company to terms with his former co-—

partners. He had hoped that a considerable part of the
money would be supplied by the North-West Company in
the name of which he would complete the transaction.

“This view of Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s actions is
sustained by one of his letters to Mr. Roderick Macken-
zie, dated London, 13th April, 1812.”

No person attempts to give any other interpretation of
the conferences between Sir Alexander Mackenzie and
Lord Selkirk. This one is enough, especially as there
would have been nothing wrong in the realization of the
meditated scheme—on the contrary, it displays the
grand and ever useful ideas of that remarkable man.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s scheme was realized seventy-
two years later by the Canadian Government, under the
inspiration of the country’s statesmen, and with the co-
operation of the powerful Canadian Pacific Company.
It was a project worthy of a man of genius, and although
Sir Alexander Mackenzie had in view, at the same time,
the greatness and wealth of the North-West Company,
still history cannot but praise his efforts to have sought
the success of such a magnificent plan. Here, also, we
have an evidence that Lord Selkirk, in his negotiations
with the Hudson Bay Company, was not actuated by a
desire to increase his own fortune through the fur trade,
for never could a better opportunity have come to him.
If he declined to take advantage of that chance, it was be-
cause his fixed determination was to found a colony of his
fellow-countrymen at the Red River, and not to go into
the Western fur trading, as he has been accused of wish-
ing to do. He pursued his colonizing scheme, despite all
the obstacles to it that, under pretence of protecting its
‘own, rights, the North-West Company raised..

THE CANADIAN WEST 189

Through a verbal agreement with Mr. McGillivray, the
shares acquired by Sir Alexander Mackenzie were to be-
long to the North-West Company, and, if McGillivray
had been present, he certainly would have bought all the
shares that later on fell into the hands of Lord Selkirk.

This first stroke having failed, six property-holders of
the Hudson Bay Company, of whom two were recognized
agents of the North-West Company in London, signed a
protest, which they presented to the meeting, against the
cession of lands to Lord Selkirk. On reading that docu-
ment it was easy to see that the North-West Company
was pulling the wires. The opposants lacked skill “in hid-
ing their hands.” They first alleged that, by the conditions
of the cession, Lord Selkirk was not sufficiently bound to
establish a colony; then, a few lines lower down, they ex-
plain their opposition on the ground that, since all time,
the establishment of colonies had been injurious to the
fur trade. In truth, this second reason was the only one
that actuated the North-West Company. What that body
wanted was beaver, and to obtain that commodity it was
ready to sacrifice all the blessings of. civilization.

The protest did not prevent the transaction being con-
summated. Later on, the North-West Company fre-
quently cited that document in attempts to prove that
Lord Selkirk had sacrificed the interests of the Hudson
Bay Company. It is well known how the North-West
Company, itself, had protected the Hudson Bay Company
when it obliged the latter to abandon all the hunting
grounds and drove it back to the seashore.

So far the opposition to Lord Selkirk only seemed to
come from the Hudson Bay Company; but, when the
Partners of the North-West Company saw that the Scot-
tish Lord persisted in the carrying out of his plans, they

190 THE CANADIAN WEST

dropped the mask and, before even the departure of a col-
onist for the Red River, declared themselves openly against —
him. Ina pamphlet, published in London, in 1817, by the
North-West Company, we read the following remarks :—

“The North-West Company frankly explained to
the Hudson Bay Company and to the Government the
motives of its opposition to Lord Selkirk’s attempt, and
of the firm resolution that it had made to defend its rights
and its possessions; it added that, in spite of the dis-
pleasure it felt at the measures adopted by the Hudson
Bay Company, it would always be ready to lessen the mis-
fortune of its unfortunate fellow-countrymen destined,
as colonists, to fall victims to Lord Selkirk’s visionary
projects. It reiterated its express declaration of never
recognizing the exclusive commercial rights of the Hud-
son Bay Company. (1)

We remember that, in 1670, at the time of its organiz-
ation, the Hudson Bay Company had obtained, from
Charles IT., King of England, a charter conferring on it
the exclusive right of fur-trading in all the extnent of ter-
ritory whose waters flowed into the Hudson Bay. For a
century and a half no person ever contested the validity
of that charter.

The North-West Company did not possess any privil-
eges from the Government, but as it had, for twenty-six
years (from 1784 to 1810), acted as queen and mistress
over all the Western trade, it claimed that it had just as
much rights as had the Hudson Bay Company, with its
chartet. Before concluding the transaction, Lord Selkirk

(1) Mr. Miles MacDonell, in a letter to Lord Selkirk, says:
—‘Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, in London, bound himself in a most
formal and most decisive manner, to oppose, by every means in
his own power, the establishment of the colony.” (Report of
Canadian Archives, volume for the year 1886, Ottawa.)

.

SUSE a en
ce’, Rare Ur oA

THE CANADIAN WEST ah 191

had submitted the charter of the Company to the most
learned legal authorities in London, and five of them told
him that the grant of the land expressed in the charter
was valid, and that the concession included all the coun-
tries the waters of which flowed into the Hudson Bay.

It was upon the advice of those legal lights that Lord
Selkirk closed the bargain. On the other hand, the North-
West Company consulted several lawyers, from whom it
received answers favorable to its claims. On these opin-
ions it based itself when it informed its rival that it cared
nothing for its old musty charter and that, for the future,
it would pay no attention to it. (1)

(1) The legality of the charter granted to the Hudson Bay
Company was recognized by the Canadian Government, in 1870,
at the time of the acquisition of the North-West Territories.

CHAPTER IX. .

SUMMARY.

Lord Selkirk’s announcement in Scotland of his intention to
establish a colony at the Red River— First steps taken, —
Miles MacDonell is placed in charge of the emigrants and is
made Governor of the colony.— That gentleman’s honorable
character.— ‘Difficulties and hardships common to all col-
onies at their origin.— Departure of the first Scotch settlers
for the Ned River.— Slowness of the voyage.— Wintering at
the Hudson Bay.—Arrival of the colonists at the Red River
in August, 1812.— Hostile manifestations on the part of the
Half-Breeds.— The colonists go to spend the winter at Pem-
bina. — A word about the Half-Breeds.

To make the country, in which he wished to establish a
colony known, Lord Selkirk published a prospectus
which he specially addressed to the Scotch farmers, and
in which he laid down the conditions that the emigrants
would have to fulfil.

The North-West Company attacked that document and
accused Lord Selkirk of seeking to deceive his fellow-
countrymen in an abominable manner. Yet, that pros-
pectus contained nothing more than may be found in all
the pamphlets on Manitoba to-day. He speaks of it asa
land of astonishing fertility and easy of cultivation, with
a very healthy climate and a temperature about the same
as in Canada.

While he unfolds the advantages of the new country,
at the same time he does not forget to draw attention to
the inconveniences to be found there —such as that of
isolation and remoteness from all civilized countries. But
he adds that, awaiting the day of easy communication with

194 “THE CANADIAN WEST

Canada, the natural resources of the country would suf-
fice for all the needs of its new inhabitants.

Was Lord Selkirk, as certain historians pretend, impru-
dent or over-confidant in this regard? Did he forget that,
while very abundant as a rule, both game and fish as
well as crops might fail, and that the colonists, being un-
able to obtain aid from other countries, might be exposed
to die of hunger? Not at all. Lord Selkirk had not over-
looked such possibilities. But he knew that calculating
upon all manner of possible inconveniences, that is to say,
regarding the future with pessimistic eye, means simply
drawing back from all useful undertakings. He knew that
famine and war may lay waste the most favored regions,
and, that while taking into due consideration the diffi-
culties that are to be found everywhere, it is also neces-
sary to count a great deal upon the ordinary help that
Divine Providence supplies.

We will see later on that it was exactly the same people
who so loudly censured Lord Selkirk, who accused Miles
MacDonell of criminal behavior, when, in 1814, he made
sure of a certain quantity of meat deemed necessary for
the sustenance of the colonists.

Lord Selkirk’s emigration agents, during the winter of
1811, had recruited about twenty Scotch and Irish fam-
ilies, and had brought them together at Stornoway, in the
Island of Lewis. It was from there that they started, in
June, 1811, on a Hudson Bay Company’s vessel. A Scotch
Catholic, named Miles MacDonell, was placed in charge
by Lord Selkirk, and instructed to follow the emigrants
to the Red River, and to take command of the infant col-
ony, of which he was named Governor.

It may be well to now make the acquaintance of this —

important personage, about whom much will be related in
connection with the unfortunate events of 1814.

PTAs

“=

THE CANADIAN WEST 195

In its writings the North-West Company sought to re-
present him as being violent, dishonest, quarrelsome and
devoid of judgment. He has even been accused, by its
members, of having been the primary cause of the ruin of
the colony. That the reader may be in a position to
estimate those accusations at their proper value, we will
reproduce a letter, addressed by this same man, to Mgr. -
Plessis, asking him for missionaries for the Red River.
The tone of that letter does not indicate a man of violent
and evil intentions.

After having laid before the Bishop of Quebec the ad-
vantages which the country offered for colonization, he
adds :—

“You are aware, Monseigneur, that without religion
there is no stability for governments, states or kingdoms,
Religion should be the corner-stone. The principal mo-
tive for which I desired to co-operate with all my strength
in Lord Selkirk’s praiseworthy enterprise, was to work
in having the Catholic Faith dominant in that settlement,
and the hope that I might be an instrument of Providence
in helping to spread that blessing. Our spiritual needs
grow with our numbers; we have many poor Scotch and
Irish Cotholics apart from about a hundred Canadians,
wandering about the colony with their families. All are
in a most deplorable condition and in most pressing need
of spiritual aid; it is an abundant religious harvest that
is offered. ‘There is also an amount of success to be ex-
pected among the infidels, whose language is almost the
same as that of the Algonquins in Canada. I learned that
you were to send two missionaries this summer to Rainy
Lake. I would be happy to offer one of those gentlemen
a passage in my canoe to the Red River, which is only six
days travel from Rainy Lake. I have no doubt that

196 THE CANADIAN WEST —

Your Grace’s zeal will make every effort to extend to our
rising colony the benefits of religion.” (Letter conserved
in the archives of the Archbishopric of Quebec.)

Such is the Christian and man of faith, whom the
North-West Company sought to picture as a brigand.
The tone of his letter indicates anything else.

A colony is not established without a hoste of tribula-
tions, anxieties and annoyances. In like manner, they
who consent to emigrate and to lay the basis of a new
nationhood in distant lands must always expect to meet
with hardships, unpleasantness and deceptions. From the
days of the Trojans, seeking out a new country, down to
those of the bands of European emigrants who came to
pitch their tents in the deserts of the New World, all, with-
out exception, have had much to suffer. If Lord Sel-
kirk’s colonists had a large share of such sufferings to
endure, there is nothing astonishing in it. Their fate was
the same as that of a multitude of others who landed on
the shores of North America, with the intention of set-
tling there. Countless examples might be cited.

When, towards the beginning of the 17th century, the
Puritans from England, flying from the persecution to
which they were subjected, came to settle in Massachu-
setts, they had to undergo hardships as great, if not great-
er, than those suffered by the Red River colonists — since
the half of them died in consequence. Here is how
Toqueville, a French writer, describes them :—

“The autumn was drawing to a close when they left the
European shores....... when they reached the end of
their voyage they found no friends to receive them, no
houses to give them shelter. It was mid-winter, and all
who are acquainted with North America know of the
severity of the winters and the furious storms that sweep

—

THE CANADIAN WEST 197

. the coasts. In that season of the year, it is difficult to

travel well-known places, and naturally more so shores
that are unknown. Around them spread nothing but an
ugly and desolate desert, peopled with wild animals and
wild men, the ferocity and numbers of which they
ignored. Everything bore an appearance of barbarism.
Before the return of the spring the half of the emigrants
had died on account of their sufferings. ”

The fate of the first colonists in Acadia is also well
known. |

We have quoted this passage in order to show that the
condition of Lord Selkirk’s colonists was no worse than
that of any pioneer colonists landed in America. No
matter in what latitude they were, when they had not to
struggle with the climate they were obliged to wrestle
with disease. The North-West Company, in order to
blacken the praiseworthy undertaking of Lord Selkirk,
took great pains to circulate most fearful stories of the
miseries endured by the families that emigrated to the
Red River in 1812.

The vessel carrying the colonists did not reach the Hud-
son Bay until the close of September. It was then too late
to think of starting them for the Red River. Through
an unfortunate misunderstanding the Hudson Bay officials
had made no preparations to receive them. They be-

lieved, no doubt, that the emigrants would arrive in time

to proceed on their journey, or else that they would not
come at all. As soon as they had landed, a large number
of them were sent up the Nelson river to spend the win-
ter in round shanties, like those built, to-day, by the
lumber firms in the woods; the remainder of them stayed
at Fort York.

The winter seemed very long to the emigrants, not only

198 THE CANADIAN WEST

on account of the rigor of the climate and the privations
they had to undergo in their miserable huts, but, especial-
ly because of the idleness in which they had to spend the
days — there was really no work to be done in that tem-
porary place. Yet the historians, Ross and Gunn, make
mention of no deaths among them.

Gunn says that there were quarrels between the emi-
grants and officials of the Company, regarding the food
served them. They found fault with both the quality and
the quantity. He says that the eatables given the colon-
ists were very inferior, consisting principally of pemican
and mud-pouts, and no salt was to be had.

One thing certain, in the spring-time, all of them were
able to start on foot upon a journey of seven hundred
and fifty miles across a country that would tax the
strength of robust men, and that they all reached the Red
River safe and sound. (See Ross, “ Red River Settlement,”
page 23.)

The start from the Bay did not take place till June, for
they had to await the breaking-up of the ice, which, in
those latitudes only takes place on the lakes and rivers
about the commencement of the summer. |

The march was a slow one, and the month of August
was drawing to its close when they reached the centre
selected for the settlement at Fort Douglas.

If their journey had been long and wearisome, their
arrival, thanks to the rumors circulated in advance by the
North-West Company, was far from encouraging.

Alexander Ross, the historian, says:—‘‘And but a few
hours had passed over their heads in the land of their
adoption, when an array or armed men, of grotesque
mould, painted, disfigured, and dressed in the savage

THE CANADIAN WEST 199

costume of the country, warned them that they were un-
welcome visitors. ‘These crested warriors, for the most
part, were employees of the North-West Company.”

Thus, the first demonstration that the colonists wit-
nessed was hostile.

The first care of the Governor of the colony was to pre-
pare lodgings, and to secure provisions for the families.
The carpenters set to work to construct little round cabins
of logs, like those in which the previous winter had been
passed. For years, that class of building remained in
use on the Red River. .

In 1862, fifty years after the arrival of the first colon-
ists, the half of the inhabited houses were just as shabby.
Often there were neither ceilings nor floors; and as for
light, they had only a scraped skin fixed in a frame of
wood, like a window frame, and this alone gave light to
the twenty-by-twenty foot hut. And without going so far
back, the Mennoties of Manitoba had no better lodging
places than had the first inhabitants of the country.

Once those lodgings were completed, they had to find
provisions, and that was no easy matter. In this regard,
some writers have found it strange that in a country
where there were tens of thousands of buffalos the food
should be so scarce. Their astonishment is simply due
to their want of knowledge of the country.

While the prairies along the Red River, in 1812, were
dotted with buffalos, we must not imagine that those wild
animals allowed themselves to be felled with mallets as if
they were domestic cattle. To bring them down, numer-
ous as they were, it required a cunning in the hunter
that only the Half-Breeds and Indians possessed: Few
strangers would risk the danger of chasing after the buf-
falo. The poor emigrants, fresh from the mountains of

200 THE CANADIAN WEST

Scotland, were no more prepared for that class of hunt-
ing than would be children. Moreover, they would have
required horses, trained for the purpose, and they had
none; and, again, the buffaloes ranged one hundred miles
to the south of them on the plains of Dakota.

Governor MacDonell soon found that it would be im-
possible to find a sufficient quantity of food for those
families, so he resolved to send a number of them to
spend the winter at Pembina, some seventy miles south
of Fort Douglas. A greay many of the Company’s ser-
vants, both Canadians and Half-Breeds, went there every
autumn to be in the neighborhood of the buffaloes. ‘The
place where they wintered was called Grand Camp. To
reach that place with their wives and children, the
Scotchmen applied to the Half-Breeds, whom they took
to be Indians, and concluded a bargain, whereby the latter
agreed to carry the children on horseback to Pembina,
while all who could walk were to get there on foot. In
return, they were to receive certain articles that the Scotch
had brought with them into the country. The journey
was very fatiguing for the poor people, already done out
with their exertions of the summer. Happily, their guides
were good to them and adhered faithfully to the conditions
of their agreement.

Strange to say, however, they were nearly all the same
men who had gone to Fort Douglas to threaten the emi-

grants.
Alexander Ross, in his “ Red River Settlement” (page
23), says: — “They were a mixed company of freemen,

Half-Breeds, and some few Indians, and most of them had
been attached, at the time to the hostile party by whom the
emigrants had been ordered to leave the colony. They
were then acting under the influence of the North-West

THE CANADIAN WEST 201

Company ; but in going to Pembina, on the present occa-
sion, they were free and acting for themselves. And here
it is worthy of remark, that the insolence and overbearing
tone of those men, when under the eye of théir masters,
were not more conspicuous than their kind, affable, and
friendly department towards the emigrants, when follow-
ing the impulse of their own free-will. T’o the Scotch
emigrants, who were completely in their power, they
were everything they could wish; mild, generous, and
trustworthy.

“The Scotch were convinced that, when not influenced
or roused by bad counsel, or urged on to mischief by des-
igning men, the natural disposition of the Half-Breeds is
humble, benevolent, kind, and sociable.”

Such is also our firm belief. We, who have intimate-
ly known the Half-Breeds, are aware of their good dis-
position. Ever ready to do a service, they were kind and
polite for all. All the missionaries who have lived with
them pay them the same tribute.

If they had shown hostility towards the new emigrants,
it was because the agents of the North-West Company
had pushed them to it.

CHAPTER X.

SUMMARY.

Winter life in the North-West.— Why Pembina was selected as
a place of habitation— The whitemen readily become accus-
tomed to that kind of life— Description of the hunt.— Mu-
tual understanding between the Scotchmen and the Half-
Breeds. — Return of the colonists to the Red River. — Sec-
ond batch of emigrants.— Severe sufferings from sickness
during the voyage.— Their arrival at the Red River.— Sec-
ond winter spent at Pembina.— Great sufferings.— The
means adopted by the Government to procure food for the
colonists— A Proclamation Seizure of provisions.— The
North-West Company determines to ruin the colony.

At Pembina, the people passed their winter under tents,
or in huts, or wigwams, like the Indians. On account of
the splendid pasturage to the west and the south of that
river, the herds of buffaloes roamed about there in great-
numbers, so that food was rarely scarce with the emig-
rants. During many years, after the settlement of the
colony and even after the arrival of the missionaries in
the country, the Half-Breeds and the Canadians, who had
left the service of the Companies, continued to go to
Pembina to spend the winters. Monseigneur Provencher
was obliged to go spend the winter of 1819-20 there, be-
cause he could not procure provisions and food at St.
Boniface.

The Scotch emigrants lived on good terms with all the
inhabitants of that camp — Canadians, Half-Breeds and
Indians, all were kind towards them. So the winter was
spent by them agreeably enough. Moreover, the kind of
life that the hunters and their families led was not with-

204 THE CANADIAN WEST ager

out its charm. Once our Canadian voyageurs had adopt-
ed that mode of life, they preferred it to an existence in- :
side the bounds of civilization.

Those, who came later on to settle in the North-West,
wonder why the Half-Breeds preferred the life of a
hunter to that of a farmer, and despised agriculture. Yet,
there was nothing astonishing in that, and, if we only re-
flect a little upon it, we will find that it was quite natural.

Fifty years ago, the prairies were covered with herds
of buffaloes. A few weeks spent in hunting those animals
sufficed to supply an abundance of meat. ‘This meat,
added to the fish caught in the lakes and rivers, kept their
families during the greater part of the year.

In the spring-time, when the snow had disappeared and
the grass began to carpet the plains, bands of hunters,
armed with guns and mounted on nimble ponies, set out in
troops, as if they were certain of never being in need
again of anything.

As soon as they came upon the buffalo tracks, they
pitched their tents, settled their wives and children in
them, and then, under the command of a chief — elected
for the season — gave chase to the great game of the
prairies.

A race, or run, lasted generally about twenty minutes;
during that space of time, a good horseman could ordin-
arily felle ten head of buffalo, which were at once cut up
on the plain. Once that work over, the men spent their
time smoking and chatting, stretched out on the prairie-
grass, or betting upon the runs. ‘The season thus went
past, and towards the end of the summer, the caravan re-
turned to the big camp, with cart-loads of meat for the
winter. During the autumn they fished whitefish, which
abounds in Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba. Sometimes

THE CANADIAN WEST 205

the hunt was not up to expectations, but even the farmer
cannot always expect an abundant harvest: years of scarc-
ity alternate with years of plenty.

Having so much facility for procuring food, the Half-
Breeds were naturally indifferent to agriculture.

So cordial were the relations between the Scotch people
and the hunters, during the winter, that, when the spring
came, it was with regret that they separated. (1)

The colonists returned to Fort Douglas to commence
there their farm work. ‘They enjoyed peace, but suffered
from hunger. During several months, they had only
fish to eat, to which they added a kind of vegetable known
as prairie turnip.

During the summer of 1813, they worked to put their
fields under cultivation, in the hope of harvesting enough
to supply their wants during the following winter. The
grain sown gave abundant crops. One colonist gathered
twelve and a half bushels of potatoes from one gallon of
seed. Despite the privations they had to undergo, the
poor people were full of hope in the future. The kind
treatment they had received from the natives, at the Pem-
bina camp, had dispelled all the fears they experienced on
coming to the Red River, and everything was apparently
going well, when new clouds appeared on the horizon.

While the first emigrants, at the Red River, were strug-
gling against the ceaselessly recurring obstacles in their
way, Lord Selkirk and his agents were actively occupied
in Scotland with the preparing of a second detachment
for the autumn of 1813. Circumstances were very favor-
able for the success of that project.

(1) “They parted with regret, when in May, the Scotch re-
turned to the colony, (Ross, Red River Settlement, page 23.)

206 THE CANADIAN WEST

A certain number of Scotch peasants, on the domains of
the Marquis of Stafford and the Duchess of Sutherland,
found their condition growing daily more intolerable. The.
farms upon which they and their ancestors had lived, un-
der more humane landlords, were taken from them to be
leased to rich cattle-raisers. These families, being unable
any longer to live in their own country, sold out the few
things they had, and started for the American colonies.
In the spring of 1813, several of these dispossessed farm-
ers sailed for Nova-Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince
Edward Island. About a score of these families, having
heard Lord Selkirk’s agents speak well of the Red River,
where already some of their friends had settled, deter-
mined to go to them. On the 20th June, they sailed on
board the ‘Prince of Wales,’ a vessel doing service for
the Hudson Bay Company. ‘The passage from Scotland
to the Hudson Bay was rapid enough, since they landed,
at Fort York, in July. Unfortunately, typhoid fever had
broken out among them on the voyage. Several of the
‘colonists fell victims to the disease, which, for lack of
medical aid, continued its ravages even after they had set
foot on land. Gunn, the historian, does not say how
many of them died.

The season was not too far advanced to permit of the
emigrants proceeding to the Red River, where their
friends awaited them. In that country, the months of
August and September are the best for travelling, but
these people were so reduced from sickness and the bad
air of the vessels, that it was deemed more prudent to have
them spend the winter at the Hudson Bay. They select-
ed, as a campaign-ground, the same place that their
friends of the previous year had occupied. Like their
predecessors, they were subjected to a series of privations,

THE CANADIAN WEST 207

which they never forgot. Being unable to secure. the
help that their worn-out frames required, they had mere-
ly to await health and strength from the Hand of Provi-

dence. Despite the state of privation in which they

passed the rough winter, the fever disappeared little by
little, and by the first days of June, they were able to
start out for the Red River, where they arrived in the
month of July, when they explained to their friends the
cause of their tardiness.

In the autumn of 1813, the Scotch colonists, after hav-
ing ended their little harvesting of grain and vegetables,
and having put in supplies for the next year, decided to
go spend a second winter at Pembina. They expected to
there receive, from those wintering there, the same kind-
nesses as the previous year. Having done nothing to of-
fend them, they looked for the same good feeling. The
good treatment of the Scotch by the Half-Breeds, seemed
to have established, for a long time to come, a real harm-
ony between the two peoples; so it was without any mis-
givings that the emigrants returned to Pembina. But,
alas, they had not been there long when they found out
that they would not be treated as they had been the year
previous. ‘The Half-Breeds kept them at a distance, and
had only chilling expressions for them. ‘They were for-
bidden to hunt, and they had to pay high prices for all
they needed. Their slender resources were soon exhaust-
ed, and they returned to the Red River settlement minus
everything, having scarcely clothing enough to save
them from the cold. They vowed, no matter how pitiful
their state, never again to return to Pembina.

Such was the condition of the colonists at the beginning
of the disastrous year of 1814.

14

208 THE CANADIAN WEST

* OK *

- We have seen that during the two years, 1812 and 1813,
the Scotch colonists were obliged to take refuge at Pem-
bina, each autumn, in order to avoid starvation during the
winter season. ‘This was not a necessity peculiar to these
strangers, even the people of the country, after having
spent the summer around the Fort, were careful to
get away from the famine there, when the winter
approached. In the valley of the Red River, as is well
known by all who are acquainted with the North-West,
there was no game to be had, save that which was brought
from the prairie.

Had the historians of that country been aware of this,
they would have judged events differently from what
they have done, and would not have found fault, as they

did, with the course taken by Mr. Miles MacDonell, the —

Governor of the colony. (1)

During the year 1814, a third contingent of Scotch emi-
grants reached the Red River; they brought the number
of the colonists up to two hundred. ‘A fourth batch had
arrived at the Hudson Bay, to there spend the winter, and
others were expected during the following summer.

Governor Miles MacDonell felt all the responsibility of
_his position and the obligation that rested upon him of
providing the hunger-exposed families with food. Seeing
that the only way to procure provisions was to oblige the
hunters from the Assiniboia district to come and _sell the
produce of their chase at Fort Douglas, he published a
proclamation in which, after setting forth Lord Selkirk’s
claims on the Red River country, claims arising from

(1) See “La Vie de Mgr. Provencher,” by the present,
author, Abbé Dugas (page 90.)

THE CANADIAN WEST 209

concessions made to him by the Hudson Bay Company,
by means of a charter obtained from the King of Eng-
land, in 1670, he regulated as follows :—

“Whereas the Right Honorable Thomas, Earl of Selkirk,
is anxious to provide for the families at present forming
settlements on his lands at Red River, with those on the
way to it, passing the winter at York and Churchill Forts,
in Hudson Bay, as also those who are expected to arrive
next autumn, renders it a neccessary and indispensable
part of my duty to provide for their support. In the yet
uncultivated state of the country, the ordinary resources
derived from the buffalo and other wild animals hunted
within the territory, are not deemed more than adequate
for the requisite supply. Whereas, it is hereby ordered
that no person trading furs or provisions within the ter-
ritory for the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, or the
North-West Company, or any individual, or unconnected
traders or persons whatever, shall take any provisions,
either of flesh, fish, grain, or vegetables, procured or
raised within the said territory, by water or land carriage,
for one twelve-month from the date hereof; save and ex-
cept what may be judged necessary for the trading parties
at this present time, within the territory, to carry them to
their respective destinations ; and who may, on due appli-
cation to me, obtain a license for the same.

“The provisions, procured and raised as above, shall be
taken for the use of the colony; and that no loss may
accrue to the parties concerned, they will be paid for by
British bills at the customary rates. And be it hereby
further known, that whosoever shall be detected in at-
tempting to convey out, or shall aid and assist in carrying
out, any provisions prohibited as above, either by water or
land, shall be taken into custody, and prosecuted, as the

210 THE CANADIAN WEST

laws in such cases direct, and the provisions so taken, as
well as any goods and chattels, of whatsoever nature,
which may be taken along with them, and also the craft,
carriages, and cattle, instrumental in conveying away the
same to any part but to the settlement on Red River, shall
be forfeited.

“Given under my hand, at Fort Daer (Pembina), the
8th day of January, 1814.

(Signed,) “Mites McDonELL, Governor.
“By order of the Governor.
(Signed,) “JoHN SPENCER, Secretary.” (1)

The aim of this proclamation was not merely to attack
the North-West Company, nor to injure its trade, since it
refers equally to the Hudson Bay Companye, which was
in the same position as its rival, having the same number
of trading posts to supply with provisions.

As a result of this formal order, all the Hudson Bay
Company traders, and all the unconnected traders,
brought whatever provisions they could do without to
Mr. Miles Macdonell, and after being paid, obtained vii
to carry the balance elsewhere.

As agents of the North-West Company, at the Red
River, represented to the Governor, that their trade would
suffer, in other parts of the country, if deprived of those

(1) The above proclamation is merely summarized by Abbé
Dugas, in his work. The translater has taken the liberty of
transcribing the entire document, verbatim, as he finds it in
Alexander Ross’ “Red River Settlement, pages 25 to 27.

THE CANADIAN WEST 211

provisions, an arrangement was made whereby the North-
West Company, for the time being, kept all the provisions
it desired, but on the condition to supply a quantity equal
to that which it exported from the country, should the
colonists, later on, be in need. Thus the Company could
not claim that it was unnecessarily deprived of its goods.
Nothing could seem more reasonable than that arrange-
ment; yet, when it was submitted to the head agents, these
latter refused to sanction it, and, further, they instructed
their traders to pay no attention to the proclamation, and
to export from the Red River all the provisions that they
had in their possession, as well all those they might buy
from the Indians.

The North-West Company was well pleased with a
chance to declare open war. Fora year back they had
been sending letters to Lord Selkirk, in Scotland, to warn
him that the Indians threatened to destroy his colony and
to chase his settlers away from the place. This was a cute
way of hiding its own game, and having the Indians later
on blamed for the odious conduct of which it was to soon
become guilty. Lord Selkirk had less distrust of the In-
dians than he had of the members and agents of the Com-
pany. Still he deemed it prudent to send arms to Fort
Douglas, in order to place the Governor in a position to
protect his colonists, should the natives, in reality, mani-
fest any evil intentions in their regard. Further on, we
will give the testimony of an Indian chief, as declared be-
fore the Courts, that Partners of the Company had made
him the offer of rich rewards, if he would agree to make
war on the colonists. For the moment, we will return to
the events that followed the issuing of the proclamation.

To turn the individual or unconnected traders against
Governor Macdonell and the colonists, the agents of the

212 THE CANADIAN WEST

North-West Company told them that the proclamation

was an act of tyranny perpetrated on the natives, who —

were the rightful owners of the country; that their liberty
was done for, if they submitted to such an order, and that
soon the whitemen would drive them away from the Red
River. It did not require any more to irritate them and
cause them to detest the colonists.

After a few months Governor MacDonell, seeing that
not only the North-West Company, but also the Half-
Breeds and the unconnected traders were exporting pro-
visions from the district, and that soon he would be un-
able to get supplies, resolved to take vigorous action to
recover a part of what had been carried off to neighbor-
ing forts. (1)

At about one hundred and fifty miles from Fort
Douglas, on the Souris river, the North-West Company
had a Fort in which a large amount of dry meat was
stored ; the provisions taken from the Red River were car-
ried there. The Governor ordered one Spencer to go,
with soldiers, and take possession of that Fort, and to
bring back to the settlement all the provisions to be found
therein. The order was executed, but the exploit was
like a lit match on a powder fuse — war was declared.

The North-West Company could find no terms suf-
ficiently strong and offensive to characterize the Governor
and his act; they compared him to a brigand worthy of

; (1) The most favorable witnesses that the North-West Com-
pany had before the Courts, were obliged to admit that the Com-
pany’s employees went through the camps of the unconnected
traders to buy all the produce of their hunt, so as to deprive the
colonists of it,knowing that the latter, in case of need, could not
then get any provisions for love or money. The Company want-
ed to exterminate the colonists by famine.

een as ee ae

- THE CANADIAN WEST , 213

condign punishment. They forgot that ten years earlier,
in the Northern Forts, they had, with armed hand, stolen
—not provisions needed to preserve life, but — the furs
that belonged to the Hudson Bay Company, and that,
without any scruple, they had repeated their brute force
attacks time and again. But the roles were now changed.

The news of the taking of Fort La Souris was at once
carried by special runners to all the North-West Forts,
and all were advised to look to the means of being
avenged. It is easy to imagine the effect of such news
upon the already over-excited minds. Still the rest of the
summer and a part of the winter of 1814 were spent quiet-
ly enough. But all that while plans were being laid for
the destruction of the colony.

The general meeting of the Partners of the North-West
Company was held every summer, at Fort William, on
the shore of Lake Superior. It was there that all matters
of importance to the Company were discussed and then it
was that each one was assigned to his special duty for the
coming year.

At the mouth of the Assiniboine river the Company
had an unimportant fort called Fort Gibraltar. | Never
had it been considered necessary to place a factor or
Partner there; an ordinary clerk, with a few servants,
sufficed for the business of the place. It had, however,
the advantage of being in the neighborhood of Fort
Douglas, and from it a Partner could keep an eye upon
all Governor MacDonell’s movements.

In the month of July, 1814, Duncan Cameron was ap-
pointed to that post, and one of his friends, Alex. Mac-
donell, was sent to Fort Qu’Appelle.,They both had the
same mission,— to work together to ruin the colony.

214 THE CANADIAN WEST

A few days after his departure from Fort William,
Alexander Macdonell wrote the following letter to one of
his friends, in Montreal :—

5th August, 1814.

“My Dear Friend,

| . You see, me ond our mutual
ena Gaecon, about to commence open warfare with
the Red River enemy. If some persons are to be believed,
there is a lot expected of us, may be too much. One
thing certain, we will do our best to defend what we con-
sider as our rights in the interior. There will doubtless
be some serious work; there are those who will only be
satisfied with the complete ruin of the colony, no matter
by what means, which is much to be desired, if it can be
effected. So I am working for it with all my heart.”

ALEX. MACDONELL.”

Cameron and his comrade arrived at Fort Gibraltar
towards the end of August. It would be hard to say why
they called that fort “Gibraltar,” for it in no way sug-
gested the famous fortress that frowns down upon the
straits leading into the Mediterranean . Macdonell con-
tinued on to Fort Qp’Appelle where he was to spend the
winter, stirring up the Indians whom he was to bring
down to the Red River in the month of May. We will
soon see that he displayed a zeal in the accomplishment of
his task, that fully satisfied the members of the Company.

Duncan Cameron spent the autumn, the winter and

THE CANADIAN WEST 215

part of the spring at Fort Gibraltar. The Company de-
pended upon him, principally, to paralyse the advancement
of the colony before coming to extreme measures with it
— should trickery fail. In the following chapter, we will
see that Cameron had been well chosen for such a role;
since, by the month of June, 1815, thanks to his criminal
proceedings, all traces of the colony had vanished.

CHAPTER XI,

SUMMARY.

Bungling policy of the North-West Company.— Duncan Cameron
at Fort Gibraltar, on the Red River— His scheming to dis-
courage the settlers— He advises them to leave the Red
River and to steal all they could lay hands on at Fort
Douglas.— He seizes the arms, which the settlers had to de-
fend themselves against the Indians— He takes Governor
MadDonell prisoner.— He drives away the settlers who will
not go down to Canada with him.— The Company’s servants
burn down the houses of the settlers.

If the North-West Company, instead of setting itself
to the task of destroying in its cradle Lord Selkirk’s (1)
civilizing undertaking, had continued its business and al-
lowed the colony to peacefully grow on the banks of the
Red River, its traders, for several years more, would have
realized immense benefits.

Being mistress of the highways communicating between
the Red River and Canada, the Company controlled all
that part of the country washed by the great lakes and
the rivers that connect them.

In the North, its influence was felt by the Indian tribes,
as far as the Arctic Ocean; in the West, it had crossed
the Rocky Mountains, and its depots established on the
Pacific coast, assured it the trade of all those regions.
But, with the spirit which animated it, a continuation of

(1) The trading companies never helped in civilizing any
country; on the contrary, they were always an obstacle in the
way of true civilization.

218 THE CANADIAN WEST

of its existence would have been a misfortune for the

people of that country. Divine Providence had merciful
designs in their regard and He did not permit the Com-
pany to perceive the policy that would have been to its
_ advantage. This is an illustration of the saying that God
uses even the follies of men to attain His own ends.

The North-West Company was interested in keeping
the Red River country ina state of barbarism, and this
was exactly the reason of its adopting a course that open-
ed an avenue for real civilization.

Before coming down to extreme measures, Duncan
Cameron tried intrigue. To discocurage the settlers and
induce them to leave the Red River district and go to
Canada was a less odious proceeding than the employ-
ment of brute force.

Being a Scotchman by birth, and speaking the Gaelic,
it was easy for him to gain their confidence. He paid
them a visit, inquired about their condition, because ac-
quainted with the most influential among them, and in-
vited them to come and see him at Fort Gibraltar.

Affected by the interest he manifested in them, and
never suspecting any ulterior motive, the Scotch High-
landers gave him by degrees their confidence, and some of
them looked upon him as a sincere friend of their cause.

When he had once gained their confidence he began to
sow seeds of discontent among them, and to disgust them,
with their work he painted the future in the blackest dye
Amongst other things, he told them that he had it front a
reliable source, that bands of Indians were getting ready
to pounce on the colony in the springtime, and that their
only escape from the threatening danger was to place
themselves under the protection of the North-West Com-

pany.

THE CANADIAN WEST 219

It did not need any more to create general terror among
the poor people. And several of them thought that it
would be ill-advised to reject Cameron’s generous offer.

But that promised protection was not to be given them
at the Red River. The Company would only take pity on
them on condition that they would go to Canada at once,
where they were promised lands and provisions for one
year. We find the proof of these low designs in the evi-
dence given, on oath, by the settlers, before a Justice of
the Peace in 1815. (1)

It was easy for Cameron to play the prophet and to an-
nounce the coming of the Indians the following spring.
It was for the purpose of gathering them together that
MacDonell, his associate in this inglorious work, had
gone to Fort Qu’Appelle; and this he let slip in that letter,
to his friend in Montreal, in which he said: ‘There will
doubtless be some serious work. ... . perhaps the com-
plete ruin of the colony.”

Cameron not only promised to send them to Canada at
his own expense, but he also offered several of them large
sums if they would second him in his plot. Among the
emigrants were several carpenters and builders, who were
employed to erect houses and construct other edifices, and
who used tools supplied to them by Lord Selkirk.
Cameron tried to have them leave the Red River colony
and bring with them all that they possessed. He prom-
ised to buy all those articles, tools, arms, and the like,
from them.

Such conduct would seem incredible had we not auth-
entic evidence which only too exactly confirms all the
details.

(1) These documents are to be found in the Appendix,

220 THE CANADIAN WEST

On the roth February, 1815, from Fort Gibraltar,
where he had spent the winter, Cameron wrote two letters,
from which we will take extracts. ‘They were addressed
to a couple of colonists, who had long resisted his solicita-
tions, but who appeared to waver and to agree to go to
Canada. The letters were carried to them by Pangman,
a Bostonian in the service of the North-West Company.

“To Messrs. DoNALD LIVINGSTON

and Hector MCEKACHERN.

“Gentlemen,

“Your letter of the 28th January, that you sent me
by Jordan, was placed in my hands. I am delighted to
see that some of you are beginning to open your eyes re-
garding the situation in which you find yourselves in this
barbaric country, and that you at last recognize the folly
that you have committed in obeying the orders of a brig-
and, and if I may say it, a highway robber.

“Through pity for the deplorable position in which you
are placed, for I consider you as being in the most miser-
able of prisons here, I accept your offers and I feel happy
to be able to draw as many of my fellow-countrymen as
possible out of slavery. I know that Lord Selkirk will
never send any of you back to this country.

“You have already been deceived and he would not be
ashamed to deceive you again, for making dupes of people
is a most profitable business for him and MacDonell. I
will feel it an honor to be your liberator; I do not ask -”
you a cent or your passage, nor for the provisions that
you may need on the way. You are going to a good

,

THE CANADIAN WEST 221

country, where you can find an honest livelihood for your
families.

“We will bind ourselves to find farms for those who
wish to have them, and we will not place any of you on
the highway as beggars before you are in a position to
make your living. In making you these promises, I have
no other interest than that which a humane sentiment
suggests. .

“Do not fear that Captain MacDonell will ever know
any of my secrets, but be careful that Mrs McLean does
not learn any of yours, for she would sell even her own
brother.” (1)

“Your sincere friend,
“(Signed,) D. CAMERON.”

A few weeks later, at the beginning of March, Cameron
wrote again to the same persons, in the following terms:

“Your letter of the 6th March has been handed me by
- honest John Sommerville. I rejoice to see that you are
always of the same mind, especially that I will thus have
an opportunity of delivering a greater number of people
from slavery, and not only that, but of saving your lives,
for every day your lives are in danger from the Sauteux
and Sioux Indians.

“You need expect no justice in this country. How-
ever, before going, take all you can get hold of from the

(1) Alex. McLean was a settler devoted to Lord Selkirk’s.
cause and contented with his lot, at the Red River,

259, THE CANADIAN WEST

storehouse of the colony; J will buy the articles that may
be of use here, and I will pay you for them in Canada.
My door will be always open to all who may wish to come
to the Fort, and we will strive to have you live, as best
we can, from now till spring-time.”

“T am your sincere friend,

“(Signed), D. CAMERON.”

Among the emigrants who arrived the previous
autumn (1814), was one George Campbell, who, on ac-
count of the somewhat better position he had held in
Scotland before leaving, seemed to exercise a certain in-
fluence among his fellow-countrymen at the Red River.
As Cameron noticed this, he spared neither promises nor
money to win him over. He had him come with his
family to Fort Gibraltar, where he was fed, at the Com-
pany’s expense, until the spring. Besides, he was prom-
ised, over and above the cost of his fare to Canada, the
sum of one hundred pounds sterling, payable at Fort
William, all, on the condition that he would exercise all
his best influence in having his fellow-countrymen aban-
don the colony.

To show. that he succeeded only too well in his evil
design, we will here reproduce the evidence given, in
November, 1815, by a Scotch settler, in presence of Judge
J. N. Mondelet, at Montreal. This evidence is an af-

aa a | THE CANADIAN WEST | 223

EVIDENCE OF MICHAEL McDONELL,

28th November, 1815,
Montreal.

“Michael McDonell, late. of the Red River, in the
Hudson Bay Company’s territories, now of the City of
Montreal, in the Province of Lower Canada, swears that
he knows the person called George Campbell, one of the
colonists who emigrated from Scotland to settle at the
Red River colony; that the said George Campbell reached
the said colony in the year of Our Lord 1814; having ar-
rived at one of the Hudson Bay Company’s trading posts,
on the seashore, during the summer of 1813, and having
remained there until the following spring.

“That during the winter of 1815, the said George
Campbell abandoned the said colony and went to the
North-West Company’s trading post, in the neighbor-
hood of the colony. ‘That when the said George Camp-
bell abandoned the colony, he took with him a portion of
the inhabitants of the said colony, who left with him, and
that he, and the said portion of the in habitants stole, and
carried away, like felons, nine fieldpieces that had been
supplied for the defense of the colony and that were kept
in a building belonging to Lord Selkirk; that they took
them to the North-West Company’s post, called Fort
Gibraltar, where they were received by Duncan Cameron,
one of the members of the Narth-West Company, who
retains them. |

15

224 THE CANADIAN WEST

“That the said Campbell, in speaking to the deponant,
declared to him that he had taken those cannons to satisfy

Duncan Cameron’s wish and that he did not fear the |
consequences, as he had, to justify his course, a written’

order from the said Duncan Cameron.

“(Signed,) MicHar, McDonet..

* Sworn at Montreal,

the 28th nov. 1815, before me
(Signed,) J. N. Monpevet, J. P.”

In the beginning of April, 1815, Campbell had already
succeeded in bringing some sixty, out of the total two
hundred settlers at the Red River, to Fort Gibraltar.

The others persisted in remaining on their farms and
flatly declined all offers made by Cameron and Camp-
bell. To strengthen in their purpose they had Alexander
McLean He was a man entirely devoted to their real in-
terests, despite that Cameron had promised him £400
sterling, if he would follow Campbell’s example.

On the 13th April, 1815, while Governor Miles Mc-
Donell was absent from the colony’s Fort, Cameron sent
a party of armed men to take possession of the cannons
and arms that were there. He had given them the follow-
ing written order:

a
——e

THE CANADIAN WEST 225
“Monday, 3th April, 1815,
“To Mr ARCHIBALD McDONELL,
Guardian of the Fort.

“T have authorized the settlers to take possession of your
fieldpieces, but not for the purpose of using them in a
hostile manner, but only to prevent a wrong use being
made of them. I hope that you will not be blind enough
to your own interests to make any useless resistence,
especially as no body wants to do any harm either to you
or to your people.”

“(signed) : D. CAMERON,
“Captain of the corps of voyageurs.”

That order was handed to George Campbell, the most
active of those who had deserted the colony.

Every Sunday the settlers met at Fort Douglas (the
Fort of the Settlement) to Bible reading, which took the
place of a sermon. Each Monday, they returned there to
get their week’s provisions. After service on a Sunday
Campbell read to the settlers the order received from
Cameron and informed them that on the following day
it would be put into execution. Despite the warning and
notice, Archibald McDonell, the commander of the Fort,
believing that the Company would never go to such an
extreme, took no measures for self-protection and asked
no aid from the settlers.

After the dark predictions of Cameron, who had an-
nounced the approach of a band of Indians who were bent
on the destruction of the colony, it was an act of the most

226 THE CANADIAN WES1

infamous baseness to have deprived these settlers of the
arms that had been given them to defend themselves
against the Indians. But it will be soon seen that the
Indians were less to be feared than were the members of
the Company. ‘

On Monday, the 9th April, while the settlers were at the
store house of Fort getting their supply of food, George
Campbell, followed by several Half-Breeds, in the service
of the Company, (among whom were Cuthbert Grant,
William Shaw and Peter Pangman), went to Archibald
McDonell and summoned him to give up all the arms,
cannons and guns, that were in the Fort. To show that
they had not come merely to talk, they smashed in the
store doors and took out nine field-pieces. Cameron,
who had remained hidden, with an other band or armed
men, then came forward to help in carrying off the booty
to Fort Gibraltar.

Once Fort Douglas was deprived of arms all Cameron
had to do, in order to carry out his plan, was to seize
Governor McDonell and become master of the situation.
The Scotch farmers, being without leaders and without
protection, had nothing to do but quit their lands, and
either to return to Scotland by way of the Hudson Bay,
or else go down to Canada in the canoes that the North-
West Company offered them free of charge.

A few weeks before Cameron seized the cannons at
Fort Douglas, another member of the Company named
Norman McLeod, a magistrate in the Indian territory,
had issued a warrant for the arrest of Governor; Mc-
- Donell on an accusation of having taken possession of the
Company’s provisions.

Cameron and his men undertook the execution of that
warrant, :

4

THE CANADIAN WEST _ Bae

At first the Governor refused to submit to arrest, as he
did not recognize any authority on the part of McLeod
over his person. But, seeing that deeds of violence fol-
lowed threats, and to prevent the effusion of blood he fin-
ally gave himself up as a prisoner to be taken to Mont-
real. In reality, there was no desire to have him tried,
but they wished to deprive the settlers of his protection.
Cameron had promised the settlers that the moment the
Governor would become a prisoner all hostility, in their
regard, would cease. It was like the wolf of the fable,
advising the sheep to get rid of their shepherd. No
sooner had Miles MacDonell left with the canoes than
Cameron dropped his mask; things were going too well
for him to stop half-way.

About the middle of May, Alexander McDonell,
Cameron’s comrade, who had spent the winter at Fort
Qu’Appelle enlisting in their service the Indians and Half-
Breeds, arrived with the long-heralded bands of warriors.
The Company would have liked to have had the Indians
commit all the depredations that it had planned against
the colony. But the natives would not lend themselves to
such work, and thereby showed themselves to be more
civilized than their employers. After a few weeks, ill-
satisfied with their journey, they returned home; but, be-
fore going, as a gauge of their friendship they sent the
“Calumet of Peace” to the settlers.

About the same period of time, in the spring of 1813,
two members of the Company had offered an Indian chief,
from Lake du Sable, all the goods and rum in the stores
at Fort William, if he would declare war on the colony at
the Red River. ‘The following is the declaration made by
that Indian chief, at Drummond Island, before Mr. J.
Askin, a Justice of the Peace, of the Department of In-
dian Affairs :-—

228 THE CANADIAN WEST

“Katawabetay (the chief’s name), declares that in the
spring of 1815, as he was at Lake du Sable, McKenzie
and Morrisson told him that they would give him and his.
people all the goods or merchandise, as well as the rum
that they had at Fort William and at Lake du Sable, if,
he, Katawabetay and his warriors, would declare war
against the Red River settlers; on which, he asked Mc-
Kenzie and Morrisson if the request to make war on the
settlers by orders from the big chiefs at Quebec and at
Montreal, or by the officers in command at Drummond
Island, or in fine by the Justice of- the Peace, J. Askin.
The answer of McKenzie and Morrisson was that the re-
quest came from the agents of the North-West Company,
who desired that the settlement be destroyed because it in-
jured them; on which Katawabetay said that neither he
nor his people would acquiesce to their demand before
having seen and consulted the Justice of the Peace, J.
Askin; that after that, he, the Indian Chief, would be
governed according to the advice that he would receive.”
(Extract from the minutes kept in the Department of

Indian Affairs, for Drummond Island.)

Joun ASKIN, J. P.

Such was the infernal malice of those members of the
North-West Company. ‘They would stop at no crime, no
matter how horrible, even that of having Lord Selkirk’s
colony massacred, in order to become masters of the en-
tire country. And we have not yet reached the last of
their infamous doings.

The time for the departure of the canoes for Fort
William approached, and more than the two-thirds of the
settlers had not yet consented to abandon their lands and

THE CANADIAN WEST 229

accept Cameron’s promises. The Indians whom Mac-
Donell brought down had declined to make any attempts
against the colony. ‘Therefore the agents of the Com-
pany were obliged to act themselves, in conjunction with
the servants and Half-Breeds around Fort Gibraltar.

After several manifest threats, as Cameron saw that no-
thing was being done and that the settlers continued to
work their farms, he determined upon having recourse
to violence in order to drive them out of the country.

On the 11th June, in the morning (it was a Sunday),
Seraphin Lamarre, a clerk, Cuthbert Grant William
Shaw, and Peter Pangman, whose names have already
figured in this history, came out of Fort Gibraltar with a
quantity of guns wherewith to arm the Half-Breeds and
servants of the Company who lived in the surroundings.
To the number of about twenty, they went and hid in a
clump of trees near the Governor’s residence, and there
began operations by firing on Mr. White, the surgeon,
who was passing near by. As those within the house
wished to reply, the attacking party’s fire became livelier
and fiercer; four of the beseiged were severely wounded ;
‘one of them died the next day.

Cameron remained in his Fort to oversee the attack
from a distance. After a few hours he came out to meet
his men and to congratulate them on the manner in which
they acquitted themselves of their duty.

The settlers were, therefore, greatly in error when they
imagined that hostilities would cease the moment the
Governor would be delivered up a prisoner.

A few days after that cowardly attack, the hostilities
were commenced afresh. The people of the colony were
fired upon; several farmers, working in their fields, were
made prisoners. The horses were taken to Fort Gibral-

230 THE CANADIAN WEST

tar and the cattle was chased away. A splendid bull, be-
longing to the settlement, was killed and cut in pieces in
presence of the inhabitants of the Fort and of the colony.
To show that he was bent on completing his work of de-
struction, Cameron placed, in front of the Scotch estab-
lishment, a camp consistin of some sixty employees, clerks
and Half-Breeds, to drive back any assistance that might
be sent to the settlers.

From that moment forward, it was clear that the set-
tlers had simply to abandon everything and return to
Scotland, or else allow themselves to be taken down to
Canada.

On the twenty-second of June, they sent word to
Cameron that they would be all ready to start in a couple
of days. On the twenty-fourth of June, about sixty set-
tlers, guided by two Indians, reached Lake Winnipeg, on
their way to the Huduson Bay. On the twenty-fifth of
June, Seraphin Lamarre, the North-West Company’s
clerk, with five or six servants, went to the Scotch settle-
ment to burn down the houses and other buildings there
erected. By the evening everything had been reduced to
ashes: Lord Selkirk’s colony was destroyed and
Cameron’s work was completed.

CHAPTER XII.

SUMMARY.

The Partners of the Company rejoice in the destruction of the
colony and reward those who had assisted Cameron.— The
colony is re-established by an official of the Hudson Bay
Company.— Lord Selkirk comes out from Scotland in the
autumn, and spends the winter in Montreal.— A messenger
from the Red River brings him news of all that had taken
place since spring-time— The North-West Company gets
ready to again destroy the colony.— Lord Selkirk asks aid
from the Governor of Canada.— The Governor, deceived by
the North-West Company’s agents, refuses the assistance.

A few days after the complete destruction of the col-
ony, Duncan Cameron and his friend A. MacDonell
started for Fort William, taking with them those of the
settlers who had consented to go down to Canada. They
left Grant, a North-West Company’s clerk, in charge of
Fort Douglas.

On their arrival at Fort William, Cameron and Mc-
Donell were warmly congratulated by the Company’s
Partners, then in general meeting assembled at that place.
All who had helped them in that work of destruction re-
ceived bountiful rewards.

On Cameron’s recommendation, Campbell was granted .
one hundred pounds sterling, and the protection of the
Company was promised him on account of the zeal he
had displayed.

All the others received sums proportionate to the ser-
vices they had rendered.

232 THE CANADIAN WEST

The evidence of all this was found in the Company’s ©
books, when Lord Selkirk seized Fort William, where
those archives were deposited. Here are some of the
letters signed by Duncan Cameron and McDonell.

“George Campbell is a well-known man; he was a zeal-
ous partizan, who more than once exposed his life for the
Company. He rendered important services in the Red
River transactions ; he deserves a hundred pounds and the
protection of the Company.”

(Signed) Duncan CAMERON.

In another letter he says :—

“This man joined us in February and showed himself
very active and, since that time, has been very useful to
us; he deserves a reward from the Company.” el

(Signed) Duncan CAMERON.

Again in another one :—

“This one, in joining us, lost three years of his wages -
with the Hudson Bay Company. He deserves twenty
pounds.”

(Signed) Duncan CAMERON.

THE CANADIAN WEST 233

Alexander McDonell gave his men like certificates, so
that the Company had a goodly sum to pay out to the
authors of its criminal proceedings. Still, the joy of
having succeeded made the payment a matter of good-
will.

After spending a few days at Fort William, the Scotch
families continued their journey to Canada, where the
Company had promised to settle them on good farms and
to feed them for one year. As we may well imagine,
they did nothing of the sort. What it wanted had been
accomplished and little did it care for the fate of its vic-
tims.

Now, let us go back to the families that had refused to
go down to Canada and had left from Lake Winnipeg,
with the two Indian guides, for the Hudson Bay. At the
mouth of the river the guides left the colonists, expres-
sing, at the same time, the hope of seeing them return
some day to the same lands from which they had been so
cruelly banished. |

From that point they went on, as best they could, to the
other end of the lake, and stopped for a time at a trading
post of the Hudson Bay Company, called Jack River
House.

In the course of the month of July, a man, named Collin
Robertson, went to meet them there, and he offered to
take care of them and to defend them against any future
attacks, if they would agree to return with him to their
Red River farms.

The settlers asked nothing better, for they disliked to
return to Scotland, where they no longer owned anything.
The offer was consequently joyfully accepted; all of them
returned to the colony, and by the month of August they
were again settled down upon their farms.

234 THE CANADIAN WEST

This Collin Robertson was a former employee of the
North-West Company who had gone over to the service
of the Hudson Bay Company, and was entirely devoted to
Lord Selkirk’s work.

Towards the end of the summer a new detachment of
settlers came out from Scotland and swelled the number
of colonists to two hundred. ‘The fields that the farmers
had sown in the spring time, before their dispersion, were
not badly damaged. A man named McLeod, with the
help of some Hudson Bay Company’s servants, had taken
care of them. In the autumn the settlers were able to
harvest fifteen hundred bushels of wheat, a great deal of
other grain and a considerable quantity of potatoes.

In October, Collin Robertson, assisted by the Scotch-
men, succeeded in retaking Fort Douglas, which had re-
mained in the hands of the North-West Company.

Matters were in this state, in November, 1815, when
Lord Selkirk, on his way back from Scotland, heard, as
he landed in New York, about the destruction of his col-
ony. The Partners of the North-West Company wrote
him to say that all they had been long predicting had
come to pass, and that the Indians had driven out all the
settlers and burned the whole establishment.

However, at the same time, a messenger, sent by Collin
Robertson, started on the first of November, from the
Red River, to inform Lord Selkirk of the re-establishment
of his colony, and to ask for assistance to meet the new
dangers that threatened it. The bearer of the letters in
question was a Canadian trappeur, from Maskinongé, in
‘the Province of Quebec, named Jean-Baptiste Lajimo-
niére. He set out on All Saints’ Day, taking with him’
only his gun, a hatchet and a blanket to wrap around him-
_ self at night. The roads were all watched by the North-

THE CANADIAN WEST 235

West Company, whose desire was to prevent all messages
from reaching Canada. That journey of eighteen hun-
dred miles, on foot, in the midst of winter, was extremely
difficult to accomplish. At Fort William, sentinels were
on guard day and night, and the Indians had been warned
to allow no person to pass.

In spite of all, Lajimoniere was smart enough to get
past without being detected, and, on the 6th January, he
reached Montreal, where he handed the letters in person
to Lord Selkirk. (1)

Those letters informed Lord Selkirk that the Indians
had nothing to do with the destruction of the colony, and
that all the harm was done by the North-West Company.

Lord Selkirk confided replies to Lajimoniére and sent
him back to the Red River to inform them that he would
start, in person,in the spring time, to bring them assist-
ance. Unfortunately, this time Lajimoniére was stopped
near Fort William by Indians in the employ of the North-
West Company.

Norman McLeod, one of the members of the Company,
had instructed them to seize on him and to kill him if he
made the slightest resistence. They got hold of him dur-
ing the night, brutally ill-used him, and carried him pri-
soner to Fort William. (2)

During the course of the winter the rumor was abroad
‘in Canada that the Red River colony would be again at-

(1) We have published the details of that extraordinary and
most romantic journey in a pamphlet. It was Mer. Taché who
told us the story and incidents of Lajimoniére’s trip.

(2) From Lajimoniére’s own story to Mgr, Taché. The order
to arrest him had been issued from Fort William and signed by
Norman McLeod. The Indians who arrested him got one hun-
dred dollars of a reward which sum placed them in the North.

West Company's books,

‘

{
236 THE CANADIAN WEST

tacked in the spring. These rumors were set afloat by the
North-West Company’s agents, in order to create the im-
pression, while preparing the public mind for events, that .
the Indians had plotted a fresh attempt against the col-
ony.

Lord Selkirk was perfectly convinced, by the docu-
ments that he held, that it was the North-West Company
which meditated a repetition of the scenes that marked the
previous spring time. Immediately on his arrival from
Europe, before even he was informed of the re-establish-
ment of the colony by Robertson, he applied to the Sec-
retary of State, Lord Bathurst, in England, to be given
protection. The latter place the whole affair in the hands
of the Governor of Canada, Lord Drummond, leaving him
full liberty to accord the protection requested. But the
North-West Company’s agents, who were plotting at the
Red River, were also scheming in Canada to poison the
minds of the people against Lord Selkirk, and unfortun-
ately they only succeeded too well.

Among the Company’s agents William McGillivray, a
member of the Legislative Council, was one of the most
important. Being on good terms with Governor Drum-
mond, who gave him all confidence, he kept the latter
posted in regard to the Red River events. It is easy to
imagine the kind of information that McGillivray furnish-
ed. He made use of all his influence to prevent the Gov-
ernor from according Lord Selkirk a military force to
protect his colony.

_ He began by pointing out the impossibility of sending
a military corps such a distance over a country, through
which the hardiest voyageurs had difficulty in travelling.
Then he called attention to the needlessness of such an ex-
penditure for Canada, since it was easy to settle existing

THE CANADIAN WEST rye ad 237

difficulties without having recourse to such extreme meas-
ures. But his principal objection was that the presence
of a military force at the Red River would alone suffice
to bring about the destruction of all the white people.

When William McGillivray made this assertion, he
knew that he was deceiving the Governor, but, as a wiley
politician, he did not hesitate to lie in the interest of his
Company.

Lord Selkirk vainly insisted ; the Governor replied that,
on account of the information he had received from Mc-
Gillivray, his mind was made up not to send any soldiers
to the Red River.

The matter, however, was again brought to the Gov-
ernor’s attention, as will be seen by the following letter,
written to him by Lord Selkirk, on the 23rd April, 1816.

“Montreal, 23rd April, 1816.
“Your Excellency,

“In looking over the letters which I have recently
had the honor of addressing you, it seems that I had not
sufficiently acquainted you with the re-establishment of
the Red River colony effected last autumn, a little over
two months after the time when it appeared to have been
destroyed. Your Excellency had been informed that a
portion of the settlers had refused to accept the views of’
the North-West Company, but, being obliged to give way
to superior forces, had withdrawn in the direction of the
Hudson Bay shores. As soon as the brigands that had
been gathered from all sides to attack them, had separ-
ated, they returned to the Red River with a considerable
reinforcement of people recently arrived from Scotland.

238 THE CANADIAN WEST

According to the latest advices received, they live on the
best terms with the Indians and Half-Breeds of the
neighborhood and fear no enemy, unless it be those who
might stir up the North-West Company’s hatred against
them.

“Your Excellency did not condescend to make known
to me the reasons why you declined to execute Lord
Bathurst’s (1) instructions as to ‘grant the Red River
settlers such help as may not be injurious to His Ma-
jesty’s service in other parts of his dominions.’ It is not
impossible that you may have been led to this by the sup-
position that the settlement had been entirely and irre-
vocably destroyed. I think it my duty, therefore, to in-
form you of the real state of things, and at the same time
to make you perceive how likely it is that the same per-
sons who had completed the destruction of the colony,
last year, may renew their attacks this spring — encour-
aged therein by their knowledge of Your Excellency’s ex-
pressed resolve not to send any military succor for the
defence of the settlers.

“While I do not exactly know the motives of your re-
solution, yet I have been whispered important advices
concerning the apparent reasons that influenced Your
Excellency. ;

“Tn as far as I know them, I can assure you with con-
fidence that they are based on false explanations, and I can
bind myself to prove it in a most satisfactory manner.

“When I had the honor of seeing Your Excellency last
November, I understood that you feared the sight of a
military force at the Red River would be looked on with
distrust by the Indians. I also understood that you fear-

(1) Lord Bathurst was Secretary of State in England,

THE CANADIAN WEST 239

ed the necessary cost of sending troops there. Besides, I
am informed by the last letters I received from London
that, in one of your letters to Lord Bathurst, you allege
the impossibility of conveying troops through that coun-
try. If these objections have any weight with Your Ex-
cellency, I do not doubt that they may be removed.

“As to the Indians, I am so positively informed of their
good disposition that I have not the least doubt that His
Majesty’s troops would be received as friends and pro-
tectors by the Indians, as well as by the settlers; so that,
on the part of the officers, there would only be need of
ordinary prudence to preserve peace and concord.

“As to the difficulties and cost of transporting the
troops I am ready to relieve Your Excellency of all res-
ponsibility in the direction.

“All that I ask is that you should give orders to the
Commissary General to supply from his stores the neces-
sary articles for the equipment of the expedition, leaving
to the Government of England to decide whether those
things should be considered as being given for the public
service, or not, and, in the latter case, I will be responsible
for the return of those articles or the payment of their
value, as may be required.

“The only other difficulty that I now hear mentioned is
that the commanding officer would find himself in a very
embarrassing situation as to the course he would have to
take should he be called upon to support the civil author-
ity, in the case of difficulties arising between different per-
sons that lay claim to such authority. I flatter myself that
these difficulties would be soon raised, by referring the
pretentions in question to the opinion of the Attorney-
General, or of the Solicitor-General in England. My
inmost belief is that Your Excellency should refer the

16

240 : THE CANADIAN WEST

question to the Attorney-General of this Province, and if
his opinion be taken as a rule to follow, the commanding
officer would certainly be freed of all responsibility.

“In your letter of the 15th of last month, Your Excel-_

lency informs me that, having communicated to Lord
Bathurst the reasons of your refusal to send a detachment
to the Red River, you could not take any further steps be-
fore having received fresh instructions. I, however, take
the liberty of observing that your resolution having been
communicated to .Lord Bathurst before the reception of
my letter of the eleventh of November, it must have been
based upon information received from the North-West
Company, for, at that time, Your Excellency had not re-
ceived any of any: kind, either from me, or from the
Hudson Bay Company.

“At that period we could only talk of the fears we en-
tertained regarding the intentions of our enemies. Since
I have arrived in this Province, I have gathered together
decisive evidence as to the conduct they held; evidence of
which Your Excellency could have had no knowledge,
when you wrote to Lord Bathurst. You did not know
even the tenth part of the facts the proofs of which I bind
myself to furnish.

“In my letter of the 11th of last month, I offered to
place that evidence under Your Excellency’s eyes. By

your answer I understood that it was too late to take it.

into consideration.

“I suppose, however, that the instructions given by
Lord Bathurst, in March 1815, have not been recalled,
~ and I think that as long as they have not been, in a form-
al and positive manner, Your Excellency may-act in the
matter as you may judge fit; I equally believe that Your
Excellency could not be deprived of that right be the res-

— ee

THE CANADIAN WEST Al

olution that you have expressed, while you were in error
regarding the true state of things, or while the circum-
stances differed from those of the present time. The re-
establishment of the colony and the probability of it being
attacked again loudly demand that you should reconsider
the determination that you have manifested. The events
that took place last year clearly prove that the presence -
of a public force alone can protect the inhabitants of the
colony against the violence of their enemies; and the in-
structions which Your Excellency received last year from
Lord Bathurst places beyond all doubt that His Majesty’s
Government has the intention of according them the pro-
tection and of not abandoning them to their fate, as if
they were strangers to the British Empire.

“Tf, however, Your Excellency perseveres in declining
to do anything until you have received fresh instructions,
it is more than probable that another year will pass be-
fore the necessary help can be sent; during another year,
the settlers will remain exposed to the attacks of their en-
emies, and there is every reason to fear that many people
will pay for that delay with their lives.

“That there is no other means of avoiding that mis-
fortune than by enacting Lord Bathurst’s instructions,
and that there is no reasonable objection to such a meas-
ure are points upon which Your Excellency cannot fail
to be convinced, on examining again the subject with the
attention it deserves, when you will be in possession. of
all the evidence and when you shall give to both sides of
the question an equal attention.

“T have the honor to be, etc., etc.,

“SELKIRK.”

2492 THE CANADIAN WEST

His Lordship received from Governor Drummond the
following reply to the foregoing letter:

“Chateau St. Louis,
“Quebec, 27th August, 1816,
“My Lord.

“T received your letter of the 23rd instant, and I
am very sorry that Your Lordship thinks it necessary to
press me further on a point about which I have already
fully and frankly replied.

“T feel that what I wrote on the 25th instant, both to
Your Lordship and to the members of the North-West
Company, will have the desired effect of preventing the
repetition of the crimes and reciprocal proceedings of
which complaint has been made to His Majesty’s Govern-
ment, and which are mentioned in such strong terms in
Lord Bathurst’s despatch, which I cite in my letter.

“T have the honor to be, etc.,

“GorRDON DRUMMOND.”

After receiving this letter, Lord Selkirk made fresh
applications to the Government to grant an inquiry and
- to have the evidence he had gathered, during the course
of the winter, against the North-West Company, establish-
ed; the only reply he got was that there was nothing to
fear for the future, and that measures had been taken to
restore tranquility.

a A ee
ts

THE CANADIAN WEST 243

Notwithstanding, it was certain that the Company was -
making every preparation to prevent the re-establishment
of the colony. Unfortunately, William McGillivray, the
Company’s principal agent, had succeeded in capturing
the Governor’s entire confidence and of placing him under
the impression that the greater amount of the blame fell
to Lord Selkirk and his agents who, by their imprudent
conduct, had irritated the Indians. Events soon
proved to him that he had been infamously deceived.

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CHAPTER XIII.

SUMMARY.

Lord Selkirk takes at his own expense one hundred licensed
soldiers to the Red River, as settlers— After his departure
from Montreal he learns, on the way, that his colony is again
destroyed.— He marches on Fort William and seizes it.—
The members of the North-West Company are made prison-
ers, and are sent to Canada. — Explanation of what took
place at the Red River during the autumn of 1815 and the
winter of 1816— Cameron made prisoner.— Fort Gibraltar
destroyed.— Conspiracy in the North to totally destroy the
colony.

Lord Selkirk had lost all hope of securing help for the
colony when a circumstance arose that enabled him to
see to the safety of his settlement and at the same time
to increase the number of the settlers.

In consequence of a treaty of peace, concluded with
the United States of America, England had just licensed
three regiments of soldiers in Canada:—they were
the Meuron, Watteville and Glengary regiments. Any
of the soldiers belonging to these regiments, who did not
wish to return to Europe, had a right to lands in Canada.
whereon to settle. Some of them, wishing to go to the
Red River, engaged with Lord Selkirk on the same con-
ditions as the Scotch settlers. They exacted, however,
that if they were not satisfied with the country he would
have them sent back to Europe.

His Lordship hired them in a regular form, by writing,
and supplied them with arms, as he had done for the
other settlers—a very useful precaution, which had
beey sanctioned by the Government in 1813.

246 THE CANADIAN WEST

About the beginning of June, Lord Selkirk, accom-
panied by his little troop, set out for the Red River. ‘The
amount of preparations that he was obliged to make had
delayed him until that time.

However, from the first days of May he had sent ahead
a detachment of men, in light bark canoes, to announce
his coming to the settlers. He had hoped to reach the
Red River before fresh attacks would be made on the
colony. The Governor of Canada had granted him a
staff consisting of one sergeant and seven soldiers as a
special body-guard. It was from Drummond Island, in
Lake Huron, that the guard was to accompany him, as
that island was the last one that had an English garrison.

At the head of the little band, which Lord Selkirk had
sent ahead, was Miles Macdonell, the first Governor of the
colony and the man whom the North-West Company had,
the year previous, sent a prisoner to Montreal. But as
no proof was forthcoming of the accusations against him
he was not tried, and Lord Selkirk sent him back to his
post at Fort Douglas.

When Lord Selkirk and his men reached Sault Ste.
Marie, at the foot of Lake Superior, they found two
canoes, in one of which was Miles Macdonell. The
latter had come back to announce that the colony had
been destroyed a second time by the North-West Com-
pany and that it was left entirely in ruins.

The details of the event which he had gleaned on his
way were most heart-rending. Governor Semple, of the
Hudson Bay Company, to whom the care of Fort Douglas
had been confided, had been killed with twenty-one of his
men. Fort Douglas had fallen into the hands of the
North-West Company. A few of the settlers had been
brought as prisoners to Fort William, the others were
placed in boats and sent to the Hudson Bay.

- 'PHE CANADIAN WEST _ - 247

That afflicting piece of news obliged Lord Selkirk to
change his programme. He had, at first, intended to go
by way of Fond du Lac, at the extreme west of Lake
Superior, then by the St. Louis river and Red Lake,
where he was to meet the canoes and provisions that he
had ordered to be sent to him from the Red River. He
had chosen that route in order to avoid any collision with
the North-West Company’s establishments, above all with
Fort William, which was their strong-hold.

On learning that the colony was destroyed and its in-
habitants scattered, he changed his plan. He decided to
go direct to Fort William and demand the liberation of
his imprisoned people.

Before leaving Sault Ste. Marie, he wrote to Sir John
Coape Sherbrooke, the recently appointed Governor of
Canada, in these terms :—

“Sault Ste. Marie, 29th July, 1816.
“Your Excellency,

“It is with a feeling of the liveliest sorrow that

I have to announce to you the news which has recently
come to me of the success which, this year, crowns the
awful plottings of the North-West Company. Once more
they have succeeded in destroying the Red River settle-
ment, and, this time, they have added thereto the mass-
acre of the Governor and some twenty of the inhabitants.
“The circumstances surrounding that catastrophe and
those leading up to it have only reached me in an imper-
fect manner. I am convinced that the North-West Com-
pany is better informed, but the interest it has in present-
ing the facts under a false light is too evident to necessi-

248 THE CANADIAN WEST

tate any remark on that subject. All that I am certain of
is that Mr. Semple was not a man to act in a sufficiently

violent and illegal manner to justify such an attack as that

which has taken place. I expect to obtain, in a few days,
more exact information on the subject at Fort William,
where at present there are many persons who should have
personal knowledge of the facts and from whom, as a
magistrate, | purpose demanding information.

In the delicate position in which I find myself, being

an interested party, I would have wished that some other
magistrate would take charge of this affair.
- With this view, I applied to two magistrates for the
western district in Upper Canada, the only two persons so
commissioned (Messrs. Askin and Ermatinger), whom it
might be expected would be willing to go to such a dis-
tance. But these two gentlemen have engagements that
prevent them from acting on my request. I am, conse-
quently, reduced to the alternative of either acting alone
or of leaving this fearful crime unpunished. Under such
circumstances I think it my duty to act, although I am not
without doubts, whether that class of men, accustomed to
consider force as the only recognized right, may not
openly oppose the execution of the law.

“T have the honor to be, etc., etc.,
“SELKIRK.”

_ From Sault Ste. Marie, Lord Selkirk followed the
north shore of Lake Superior, and hastened on to Fort
William, reaching there in the afternoon of the 12th
August. He had his boats taken into the Kaministiquia
river, landed his men ‘and pitched his tents a mile above

Ra SUNY
‘VaR a
1 OO Ae

THE CANADIAN WEST 249

the Fort, on the south side of the river. His entire troop
numbered one hundred and ten men: two captains, two
lieutenants, eighty privates of the Meuron regiment,
twenty of the Watteville regiment, six men and one officer
of the 37th as Lord Selkirk’s body-guard, Captain De-
Lorimier, the interpreter, and one Indian from Caughna-
waga, near Montreal. There were a great many mem-
bers of the North-West Company in Fort William.
William McGillivray, their head agent, was there to
assist at the annual meeting. Around the Fort, two
hundred men, Canadians and Indians, were camped.

Lord Selkirk at once sent word to Mr. McGillivray to
liberate the persons brought from the Red River and de-
tained prisoners for having taken part in the defence of
the colony. Messrs. Pembrun, Pritchard, Nolin and a
few others, got permission to go out and to visit Lord
Selkirk’s camp. The information that they gave him re-
garding the affairs of the colony was of such a nature that
his lordship decided to at once issue warrants of arrest
against several of the members of the North-West Com-
pany.

The next day, the 13th August, he confided the war-
rants to John McNabb and M. McPherson, to be exe-
cuted. Accompanied by nine armed men, in boats, they
crossed the Kaministiquia river, and landed near the
Fort. Here is how John McNabb tells of their adven-
ture.

“When we had arrived opposite the gate, we landed and
we went to the Fort by passing between a number of
- men who were at the entrance. We.asked for Mr. Mc-
Gillivray who told us to go into his apartment, and
there, the warrant was given to him. He acted like
a gentleman and prepared to accompany us, asking

250 THE CANADIAN WEST

a little time to converse with two of his associates,

Messrs. Kenneth McKenzie and John McLaughlin.

The object of that interview was to have them accom-
pany him and to go bail for him. That was granted and
the three gentlemen accompanied us in one of their
canoes as they had requested. Shortly after our arrival
Lord Selkirk ordered us to arrest McKenzie and Mc-
Laughlin, because there were strong accusations against
them. That being done, we were told to return to the
Fort with Captain d’Orsonnens, Lieutenant Fauché and
twenty-five men of the Meuron regiment, to arrest all the
other members of the North-West Company. We

arrived in front of the gate of the Fort where a great.

many Indians were assembled. The warrant was given
to two of the members, but when we wanted to arrest the
third one there was resistance, and they declared that
they would not submit to any more orders unless Mr.
McGillivray were liberated. Consequently, I was pushed
out of the Fort, and they tried to shut the two wings of
the door. At that moment I expressed to Captain d’Or-
sonnens my desire for support; he at once ran to the
door with several men and prevented it from being closed.
The Captain ordered that the one who had resisted be
seized and taken to one of the boats. McPherson and I
then advanced into the Fort, supported by Lieutenant
Fauché. Captain d’Orsonnens came along promptly
with the rest of the men who were armed. They ran
ahead and took possession of the two little cannons in the
_-yard inside the door. The Canadians dispersed and all
appearance of resistance ceased. We then regularly exe-
cuted our duty by arresting the other gentlemen named
in the warrant.”

a

THE, CANADIAN WEST 251

The prisoners were sent to Lord Selkirk, who, after
examining them, allowed them to return for the night to
their respective apartments within the Fort, on the ex-
press condition that they would be guilty of no hostile act:
this they promised on their word of honor.

Twenty armed men, under Lieutenant Graffenreid,
spent the night in the Fort, and all the Company’s papers
were placed under seal.

Although the members of the North-West Company
had given their word of honor that everything should re-
main as his lordship had ordered, yet, in the middle of
the night, they sent off a canoe loaded with arms and
munitions, and they burned a number of letters of a
compromising character. The following day Lord
Selkirk’s men found, in a field near the Fort, eight barrels
of powder that had been carried there during the night.
They also found, under a pile of hay in a barn, about fifty
guns that had been recently loaded.

These discoveries created a suspicion that there was an
intention on the part of the Company’s employees of at-
tacking Lord Selkirk’s men unawares. For better secur-
ity the latter were sent to the other side of the Kaministi-
quia river; the canoes were secured by placing them in
the Fort and the prisoners were carefully watched.

As Lord Selkirk could no longer trust to the word of
honor of the North-West Company’s members, they were
imprisoned separately and kept carefully in sight. After
having taken all the necessary steps to safe-guard the
camp, Lord Selkirk proceeded to the examination of the
prisoners, and they appeared to him to be all sufficiently
guilty to be sent under escort to York (Toronto)
Upper Canada. They set out on the 18th August, in four
canoes that were well supplied with all the requisites for
the journey.

~

252 THE CANADIAN WEST

Let us now return to the Red River and take up the
thread of the events in the month of December, 1815, at .
the time when J. B. Lajimoniére started for Montreal, to
bring his message to Lord Selkirk.

That message, as we have seen, was sent by Colin
Robertson, who had brought the Scotchmen back from
Jack River House to the Red River, whence they had
been driven by Cameron after the destruction of the col-
ony. Robertson had also settled them again upon their
farms in August, 1815. Having done all this, Robertson
sent the news to Lord Selkirk and asked him at the same
time to send assistance to prevent any renewal of the
previous year’s trouble.

The little group of settlers, once more at work on their
farms, were strengthened in the autumn by the arrival
of a batch of emigrants from the Highlands of Scotland.

Duncan Cameron, the principal author of the wrongs
done the emigrants, had returned to the Red River and
settled down in the colonial Fort, which had remained in
the hands of the North-West Company’s servants after
the destruction of the colony. From that position he
began anew to harass the settlers. Colin Robertson
wanted to put an end to his plottings. In the month of
October, assisted by the settlers, he re-seized Fort
Douglas, drove Cameron out of it, and captured two
field pieces and thirty guns that the members of the Com-
pany had stolen the previous spring. A few weeks later,
finding Cameron among the settlers, he took him prisoner
to punish him because he sought again to create a bad
spirit in the settlement; he, however, liberated him on the
condition and promise that he would remain quiet in his
Fort Gibraltar.

Cameron’s friend, Alex. McDonell, had also been sent

THE CANADIAN WEST 253

to his post at Qu’Appelle, to stir up the Indians and Half-
Breeds. Letters that Colin Robertson had intercepted
revealed the workings of a fresh plot against the settle-
ment. On the 13th March, 1816, Alexander McDonell
wrote, from river Qu’Appelle, to his friend Cameron at
Fort Gibraltar, in these terms :—(1) ;

“T received your letter from River Souris. I see with
pleasure the hostile movements of our neighbors. A
storm is brewing in the North; it is ready to burst on the
heads of the miserable people who deserve it. They do
not know of the precipice that yawns at their feet. What
we did last year was mere child’s play.

The new nation (tribe) is advancing under its chiefs to
clear out from their country the assassins that have no
right thereto: Glorious news from ‘Athabaska.” (2)

Arex. McDoneEtt.”

On the same day A. McDonell wrote to one of his
friends at Sault Ste. Marie, as follows :—

“T am at my post at River Qu’Appelle, putting on airs
with my sword and golden epaulets, directing and doing
your business. Sir William Shaw is gathering together
all the Bois-Brulés (Half-Breeds) of the neighboring
departments. He has sent orders to his friends in these
quarters to hold themselves ready for the war-path. He
has already collected all the Half-Breeds as far as Fort
La Prairie. God alone knows what the result is going to
be.”

(1) Mostly all these letters, of Cameron, McDonell, etc., were
in Gaelic.

(2) The glorious news from Athabaska was the death of
eighteen employees of the Hudson Bay Company, who had perish-
ed of hunger during the winter.

+h,

254 THE CANADIAN WEST

Cuthbert Grant (a Half-Breed), a North-West Com-
pany’s clerk and a leader among the Half-Breeds, wrote

from the same place to Alexander Fraser, another Half- -

Breed and a clerk of the same Company :—
(13th May, 1816.) .

“T take the liberty of sending you a few lines to give
you news about our fellow-countrymen, the Half-Breeds
of Fort La Prairie and of the Riviére aux Anglais. I am
very pleased to tell you that the Half-Breeds are all
agreed and ready to execute our orders. They sent one
of their number here to learn all about the state of affairs
and to know if it is necessary for them all to come. I
sent them word to be all here about the middle of May.

“T recommend you to tell Bostonais (the Bostonian)
to keep all the Half-Breeds well together ; as to those here
I will answer for them all, except Antoine Houle, whom
I beat this morning and dismissed from the service.”

CUTHBERT GRANT.”

The same day he wrote to Dougald Cameron, at
Sault Ste. Marie, thus :—

“The Bois-Brilés of Fort La Prairie and of the Riviére
aux Anglais will be all here in the spring; I hope that we
will carry all with a high hand and that we will never
again see the people of the colony at the Red River. The
traders will also have to get out for having disobeyed our
orders last spring. We will spend the summer at the

THE CANADIAN WEST 255

Forks (1) for fear they might play us the same game as
last year and come back; but if they do so they will be
received in a proper manner.”

These letters, intercepted by Colin Robertson, were
not the only evidence of the plots that were prepared
against the colony. In the month of October Duncan
Cameron had united all his clerks and servants at Fort
Gibraltar to deliberate upon the best means to be taken to
chase the settlers out of the country. Peter Pangman,
surnamed Bostonais, or Bostonian, told a Canadian
named Nolin, a few days later, all about those delibera-
tions. Pangman was of opinion that they should act at
once, only he could find no pretext for opening hostilities.

During the whole of the autumn, despite his sworn
word, Dnncan Cameron constantly worked to discourage
the Scotch farmers and to draw them to his Fort. At
Fort Gibraltar, he had a goodly amount of arms that were
stolen from the settlers at the time of the taking of Fort
Douglas. During the month of March Colin Robertson
resolved to try a stroke of hand and to seize Fort Gibral-
tar. One Sunday evening, about six o’clock, he went
down on the ice, and, following the windings of the Red
River, he arrived unnoticed at the mouth of the Assini-
boine. He was accompanied by a number of settlers.
The gate of Fort Gibraltar was open; Robertson and all
his men, armed to the teeth, rushed in and ina few
moments they had taken Cameron and his clerks prison-
ers. In order to be rid of all further trouble from that
quarter, he raised the Fort to the ground, and brought
over to Fort Douglas all the arms, cannons and guns

(1) The Red River, at the place where the colony was estab-
lished, was called The Forks, or Les Fourches.
17

256 THE CANADIAN WEST

found therein. As to Cameron, he was sent to the Hud-
son Bay, to be sent to Europe at the opening of naviga-
tion. The clerks were all set at liberty on giving their
word to remain quiet. Robertson’s stroke was a daring
one; but from the news he had received from the North,
he knew that the colony was marked for destruction and
that nothing could be lost by taking immediate and ener-
getic measures.

CHAPTER XIV.

SUMMARY.

Sufferings of the Scotch settlers in the spring of 1816.— Com-
plete lack of provisions in the colony.— The Government
sends to Qu’Appelle for some.— The Hudson Bay Company’s
men who convey back the supplies are attacked by the
North-West Company’s people and made prisoners.— Pre-
parations made by the members of the North-West Com-
pany to destroy the colony.— Battle of the 19th June. —
The North-West Company takes Fort Douglas.— The colony
is destroyed for a second time. ~

The Scotch settlers had to undergo great privations
during the spring of 1816. All they had to live on was
the product of the hunt brought in by the Half-Breeds
camped at Pembina.’ From there the provisions had to be
carried seventy miles to Fort Douglas. It was heavy
work. ‘The meat was placed in small quantities on long
narrow sleds —like toboggans — and for want of horses
the men had to do the hauling. The journey lasted sev-
eral days. But in the month of March the situation be-
came more unbearable. The Half-Breeds, being threat-
ened by the Company, refused to sell meat to the colony.
A few, however, touched with pity, had some brought
over secretely, saying, at the same time, to the settlers :—
“Take care of what is being prepared against you. For
God’s sake take care,”

As the season advanced the rumors became daily more
threatening. It was circulated that armed bands of In-
dians and Half-Breeds, from the West and the North,

258 THE CANADIAN WEST

were on their way to exterminate the Red River settlers.
The anxiety of all these poor people was great; and, in
reality, there was good cause for fear. .

About the end of March, Mr. Semple, who had been
appointed Governor of the Hudson Bay Company, in
London, reached Fort Douglas, having, during the win-
ter, visited several of the trading posts in the North.

On the Qu’Appelle river, the Hudson Bay Company
had a Fort built near that of the North-West Company.
There they had in reserve a large quantity of meat and
furs. In the month of April Governor Semple, seeing
that the settlers could no longer secure provisions from
the Half-Breeds and that they suffered severely from
hunger, sent one Pambrun, an official of the Hudson
Bay Company, to the Qu’Appelle river to fetch some bags
of meat and furs.

When Pambrun had loaded five boats, he started back,
accompanied by Mr. Sutherland, the clerk of the trading
post and twenty-two servants. In those boats he had
six hundred bags of dressed meat and twenty packages
of furs.

On the 12th May, while they were descending the
Assiniboine river, Pambrun and his men were attacked by
some forty-five servants of the North-West Company, led
by Cuthbert Grant, Rodrick McKenzie, Peter Pangman
(the Bostonian), and a Canadian named Brisebois.

They were made prisoners and taken to a North-West
Company’s Fort, a short distance from that of the Hud-
son Bay Company. Pambrun’s men were let go and sent
back to their own Fort. But he was kept at the North-
West Company’s Fort.

Alexander McDonell informed him that his intention
was to starve the Red River settlers until they agreed to

THE CANADIAN WEST 259

accept the conditions that were offered them, and that he
intended to do the same with all the Hudson Bay Com-
pany’s employees. According to Pambrun’s sworn
declaration these conditions were that all the settlers
should leave the Red River and return to Europe.

Alexander McDonell left Fort Qu’Appelle in the middle
of May with all his force of Canadians, Indians and Half
Breeds. ‘They got into canoes that they had seized and
were escorted by a mounted band of Half-Breeds who
rode along the river bank.

On the way down he did not hesitate to say, in pre-
sence of Pambrun, that the previous year’s affair was no-
thing compared to what was going to happen to the
colony.

In passing by Brandon House, one of the Hudson Bay
Company’s posts, he sent twenty-five men to seize that
Fort and all that it contained of arms, provisions and
furs. The property of the employees in the neighborhood
was pillaged and destroyed.

A man name Lavigne, a Canadian, who happened to
be present, was forced to join their party and was placed
under Cuthbert Grant’s orders. To save his life he
submitted.

Their boats reached Portage de la Prairie on the 15th
June. McDoneil’s force numbered one hundred and
twenty-five men. He unloaded all the bags of meat,
built them into a barricade and flanked it with two can-
nons. ‘These cannons had been stolen from the colony
the year before. When the work of unloading was done
he divided his men into five small companies under com-
mand of Grant, Lacerte, Houle, Fraser and Lamarre.
All of they were well mounted and armed.

On the 18th June, seventy of these horsemen left Por-

260 THE CANADIAN WEST ©

tage de la Prairie to go to the Red River:.the others were
left to guard the meat and furs. On that same day, two.
Sauteux Indians, who knew of the plot against the col-
ony, hastened to the Governor to warn him that the set-
tlers would be attacked next day and that the Fort would
be taken by the Half-Breeds and the employees of the
Company; and, they, added, that every one would be
massacred if the slightest resistance were offered. (1)

The North-West Company, in writings intended for its
own defence, stated that seventy horsemen, sent from
Portage de la Prairie to the Red River, were on their way
to bring provisions to the Company’s men who were
going from Fort William to Lake Winnipeg. Even to
our day many readers have allowed themselves to be tak-
en in by that hypocritical explanation. It is extremely
important that the facts should be set forth in their true
light and that the lies invented to cover up crimes should
be eventually made known to posterity.

The seventy horsemen sent from Portage de la Prairie,
by Alex. McDonell, under command of Cuthbert Grant,
were all servants of the North-West Company ; there were: -
only five Indians among them. Being all on horseback,
they naturally only carried enough of provisions for their
purpose. None were sent after them.

Leaving on the 18th June from Portage de la Prairie,
which is sixty miles from the Red River, these horsemen
were in front of Fort Douglas the next day —the 19th
June. As they passed Fort Douglas they pretended to
‘go down towards the Red River; but such was not their
intention.

(1) Madame Lajimoniére and her children were at Fort
Douglas at the time, and it is from her that we have the story
of the warning given by the two Indians.

THE CANADIAN WEST 261

Canoes from Fort William, with about one hundred
men, were to have been down the Red River about the
16th June. These men, under the command of Norman
McLeod, a member of the North-West Company, were
armed from head to foot, and had two small cannons
with them. They had been sent by order of William
McGillivray, who, by the first of April, had left Montreal
for the purpose of reaching the Red River before Lord
Selkirk. He had taken with him, at his own expense, two
licensed officers of the Meuron regiment — Brumby and
Messani—and had also hired a Swiss soldier named
Reinhard. The canoes that he had sent to the Red River
contained cases of arms for the Half-Breeds and Indians.
All these soldiers had been sent to meet the northern
bands that McDonell had stirred up and to crush out the
settlers if they made the slightest resistance. MclLeod’s
canoes had been delayed and did not reach the lower part
of the Red River till the 2oth June, instead of the 16th.

These men were abundantly supplied with provisions
and did not need the assistance from Portage de la
Prairie.

The North-West Company, in a pamphlet published for
the purpose of explaining what it calls the unfortunate
affair of the 19th June, at the place called La Grenouil-
liére — Frog Lake — affirms that they had no intention
of attacking Fort Douglas and that the men, on leaving
Portage de la Prairie, had received formal orders to pass
far out on the prairie so as to avoid any eae 4 with the
Hudson Bay officials.

This is true enough, but it is about the only truth that.
we have been able to find in that pamphlet: the rest is all
a tissue of lies and hypocritical protestations, intended to
deceive all readers who are strangers to those events.
The whole truth is what we have just related.

\

262 THE CANADIAN WEST

The seventy horsemen, servants of the North-West
Company, had really received orders to pass several miles
away from Fort Douglas, not only to avoid meeting the
Hudson Bay people, but so as not to be seen by them, if
possible. Lakes and swamps, however, prevented them
from passing as far from the Fort as they would have
liked.

Alex. McDonell, who had hatched the plot all winter,
sent his men to meet those of Norman McLeod, who was
coming up from Fort William with an entire military
equipment. Measures had been taken to have all the
North-West Company’s brigades—from North, West
and East— meet, about the 2oth June, at the mouth of
the Red River. From that point, a perfectly equipped
band of about a hundred men were to attack the colony,
make the settlers prisoners, or else massacre them if they
offered any resistance. Once the settlers would be pri-
soners, Fort Douglas, which was only defended by some
thirty men who had not provisions for more than three or
four days, would fall an easy prey. As a military tactic
the plan was well conceived; but, under existing circum-
stances, it was merely an act of brigandage and a crime
of the worst kind.

Four accounts of the awful scenes of the 19th June,
1816, were given on oath by honest citizens who had been
present at the battle, and all four agree as to the facts.
We will reproduce that of Michael Heden, who was in
Fort Douglas and who accompanied Governor Semple,
- when the latter went out to meet the North-West Com-
pany’s seventy horsemen as they came in sight of the
Fort.

- THE CANADIAN WEST 263
EVIDENCE OF MICHAEL HEDEN.

Taken at Montreal, the 16th September, 1816, before
Thomas McCord, Justice of the Peace.

“On the 19th June, 1816, about five in the afternoon, a
man, who was in the watch house, came to notify Gov-
ernor, Semple that a party of horsemen was approaching
the establishment. ‘The Governor went to the watch-
house to observe them with a field-glass. Two persons,
Mr. Rogers, recently arrived from England, and Mr.
Bourke, \the colonial storekeeper, went with him and
also took\ observations of the party. Everyone then saw
that a eae armed horsemen was approaching the place
in hostile manner. In consequence, Governor Semple.
asked that \about twenty men should go with him to
meet the hoisemen and learn their intention. ‘The troop
entered the e\tablishment a little below the Fort. (1)

“When they saw Governor Semple coming towards
them they immediately galloped in his direction and sur-
rounded him as\well as his men; then they sent some of
their’s forward ty speak to the Governor. It was a man
named Boucher, \he son of a Montreal canteen-keeper,
whom they chose és spokesman.

“When they got\ear the Governor they asked him, in
an insolvent tone, what he and his men wanted. The Gov-
ernor, iv his turn, &ked what he and his men wanted.
We want our Fort, answered Boucher; ‘Why did you

(1) That is to say, abut a mile below the Canadian Pacific
Railway’s large station at Winnipeg.

264 THE CANADIAN WEST

destroy it, you d scoundrel, that you are?’ The
Governor then seized hold of the bridle of Boucher’s
horse and at once one of the horsemen fired his gun and
killed Mr. Nolt, a Hudson Bay Company’s clerk, who had
accompanied the Governor. Boucher then ran towards
his own men and immediately, from the same place, a sec-
ond shot was fired, which wounded Governor Semple.
On being wounded the Governor shouted to his men: ' do
all you can to save yourselves’; but those who accom-
panied him, instead of seeking to save themselves, gather-
ed around the Governor to see what injury he had sus-
tained, and while they weré thus gathered in a small
group in the centre, the party of horsemen, who had sur-
rounded them, fired a general discharge into then, killing
the greater number of them. Those that remained stand-
ing took off their hats and asked for quarter; but it was
in vain. The horsemen rushed upon them and killed
nearly all of them with skull-crackers or gun-stalks. The
deposant (Heden) ran away in the confusion down to
the river which he crossed in a canoe, with one Daniel
McKay, and both were able to get to the Fort by night-
fall.

Mr. Pritchard, in his account, says :—

“In a few minutes all our people w-re killed or wound-
ed. Captain Rogers, who had faller, got up and came to
me; seeing that all were killed or younded, I shouted to
him: ‘For the love of God, surrenler.’ He ran towards
the enemy, with that intention, aid I followed him. He
raised his hands and ask for grate. Then a Half-Breed,
a son of Colonel William McKuy, pierced his head with

THE CANADIAN WEST 265

a gunshot; another, while pronouncing fearful impreca-
tions, opened his stomach with a knife. Luckily for me,
aman named Lavigne united his efforts with my own and
succeeded, with great difficulty in saving me from my
friend’s fate

“The wounded were finished with guns, knives or
skull-crackers, and the barbarians perpetrated the most
horrible cruelties on their bodies. Mr. Semple, that kind
and mild man, lying upon his side (for his hip was brok-
en), and with his head resting on one of his hands, spoke
to the Commander in chief of the enemy and asked him if
he were not Mr. Grant. The latter having answered
‘yes, the Governor added: ‘I am not mortally wounded,
and if you could have me carried to the Fort, I think I
might recover.’ Grant promised to do so and confided him
immediately to the care of a Canadian who later on re-
ported that an Indian of their party had shot him in the
breast ‘with his gun. I begged of Grant to get me the
Governor’s watch, or at least his seals, in order to send
them to his friends, but it was useless.

“We numbered twenty-eight, and of that number
twenty-one were killed or wounded.

“The leaders of the enemy’s party were Grant, Fraser,
Ant. Houle, and Bourassa (three Half-Breeds).”

Amongst the seventy horsemen there were only six
Indians. These are their names: Kattigons, Shanicastan,
Okematan, Nidigonsojibwan, Pimicantous, Wegitané.
All the others were employees of the North-West Com-

266 THE CANADIAN WEST

pany, and English and Canadian Half-Breeds hired for the
occasion.

During the sean: of the massacre, there was a-
camp of Cree Indians near Fort Douglas, none of whom
took part in the affair: on the contrary, they gave evi-
dence of being deeply afflicted by the unfortunate trans-
action. It was these Indians that, on the morrow, gather-
ed up the bodies on the prairie and buried them. The
chief of that camp was called Pigouis. (1)

In the evening the prisoners that were taken at the
colony were conducted to Grant’s camp, at the place called
La Grenouilliére.

Pritchard, continuing his account says :—

“When I was at La Grenouilliére, Mr. Grant told me
that the Fort would be attacked during the night and
that, if our people fired a single shot, they would all be
massacred. “You see,’ he said, ‘that we gave no quarter;
now, if the slightest resistance is made, we will spare no
person, man, woman, or child.’

Fraser added: Robertson called us blacks, he will see
that the color of our hearts does not belie the color of our
bodies.’ Believing that the destruction of those unfor-
tunate people was inevitable, I asked Grant if there were
no way of saving those poor women and children; I beg-
ged of him to have pity on them, in the name of his own
father who was their fellow-countryman. He then re-
plied that if we would deliver up to him all the goods in
the Fort store, that he would let us go in peace and

(1) All the bodies were buried at the bottom of a dry ravine,
at the spot where to-day stands the Winnipeg city-hall. The
person who gave us this information was then a young child, and
assisted at the burial. It is there that the remains of Governor
Semple repose. (Statement of Reine Lajimoniére, an eye-witness.)

. THE CANADIAN WEST 267

would give us an escort to conduct us beyond the North-
West Company’s lives, at Lake Winnipeg; and he added
that the escort was to protect us against two other bands
of Half-Breeds that were expected every minute, and
that were commanded by William Shaw and by Simon
McGillivray — son of the Hon. William McGillivray.
I wanted to carry his proposal to Mr. MacDonell,
who was in command at the colony, but Grant’s
men would not allow me to go. I spoke to them for a
while, and then addressing Grant, I said:—‘Mr Grant,
you know me, and I am certain you will answer for my
return body for body.’ He then consented to let me go.

“On reaching the Fort I beheld a sight too fearful to
describe. ‘The wives and children and relatives of those
who had been killed were plunged in the depths of
despair, and while weeping over the dead they were filled
with terror over the fate of the survivors.

“T should say that when I left La Grenouilliére, the
night was already advanced and that Mr. Grant accom-
panied me as far as the spot where I had seen the best of
my friends fall under the blows of the barbarians. The
next morning, the day-light only showed me too well that
which the night had hidden; I mean the sight of those
disfigured and hacked up bodies. According to what I
saw, I believe that not more than four of our people had
been mortally wounded, and that the rest had been in-
humanly massacred.

“After three goings and comings between the Half-
Breed camp and the Fort, we arrived at an arrangement.
An inventory was taken of all the goods and delivered to

the North-West Company. Two days later the settlers

268 THE CANADIAN WEST

were flung pell-mell into boats and sent off unescorted

towards Lake Winnipeg.” (1)

The clerks of the North-West Company took possesion
of Fort Douglas and the Scotch settlement was wiped out
for a second time.

(1) When Alex. McDonell returned to Portage de la Prairie
to announce to his people the sad business at La Grenouillére,
he made use of this language: “Good news! G—— D—— it,
twenty-two Englishmen killed.” Such language does not indi-
cate any great sorrow for the event. (Hvidence of Chrysologue
Pamobrun.) -

(2) See Note 3, at the end of the book.

- eee

CHAPTER XV.

SUMMARY.

Fresh persecutions undergone by the settlers before their de-

parture for the Hudson Bay. — Assassination of Mr. Keveny,

a Hudson Bay Company official. — The prisoners in Montreal,

are admitted to bail— William McGillivray sends Mr. de

~Rocheblave to Fort William to arrest Lord Selkitk.— He

fails in the attempt.— Lord Selkirk sends soldiers to the Red
River.— Fort Douglas re-taken.

The barbaric expulsion of the Scotch settlers, driven
from their homes, cast without clothing and almost with-
out provisions into miserable boats, exposed to perish on
their journey, resembles somewhat the expulsion of the
Acadians a century earlier. In a certain sense, we may
say that this odious deed presents something even more
brutal and more inexplicable. The Acadians were
French Catholics, and their persecutors were English
Protestants ; there was, consequently, a race and creed
antipathy between the two peoples, which may sufficiently
explain their conduct towards each other. But at the Red
River no such conditions existed; there we find Scotch-
men persecuting Scotchmen, all of whom, or nearly all, |
were of the same religion. ‘The only crime of which the
victims were accused was that of having sought to intro-
duce civilization into the Red River country. Had the
North-West Company only this one crime in its record,
it would suffice to disgrace it before posterity: but this
was only one of very many.

The settlers who were thus hunted away numbered two

270 , THE CANADIAN WEST

hundred. From the north end of Lake Winnipeg, to
which point the boats took them, they had to walk to the

Hudson Bay, and thence they had to reach England by

means of the Company’s ships.

These poor people, so deserving of pity after all they
had suffered, hoped, at least, that when they would have
passed the limits of the colony, they would be free from
fresh annoyances and that their enemies would allow them
to go in peace; but the hatred that the members of the
Company entertained was not yet satisfied. Those heart-
less men were inaccessible to any feeling of compassion.

At the foot of the Red River, before entering Lake
Winnipeg, the exiles met Norman McLeod’s men coming
from Fort William. As soon as these latter saw the
boats containing the emigrants they set up a war-whoop,
like so many Indians, and asked at once if Governor
Semple was with them. They had not yet learned that
he had been killed, but as they expected that all the set-
tlers would be driven from the country, they naturally
expected that the Governor would be with them.

He — McLeod — ordered those who were steering the
boats to land them and to make all hands, men, women
and children get out. He then took possession of the keys
of all their trunks to open and examine them. He took
from the settlers all their books, papers, accounts, letters,
etc., and he even seized upon a few things that had be-
longed to Governor Semple. He had Pritchard, Heden
and Bourke made prisoners to be sent to Montreal. The
settlers were kept three days at that place, and during
- that time the women and children were seated on the shore
eating the remains of the small amount of provisions that
had been given them for their long journey. Finally,
after a thousand annoyances, they were allowed to em-
bark again and to continue their journey.

THE CANADIAN WEST O71

After the exposition of Mcleod’s abominable conduct,
in concert with his North-West fellow-associates, who
had kept him informed regarding the plottings during the
winter, it is hard to say how the Company could dare
claim that it had no bad intention in sending the horse-
men down the Red River on the roth June.

The details we have so far given leave no room for
doubt as to the evil intentions of those who caused the
massacre at LaGrenouillére. What we have further to
describe only serves to establish it the more.

Norman McLeod gave rewards to all those who had
helped in destroying the colony.

Augustin Lavigne, in the evidence which he gave on
the 17th August, 1816, at Fort William, before Lord
Selkirk, reports the words used by McLeod to the Half-
Breeds, when distributing the rewards. He said:—

“My relatives, my equals, who have helped us in our
need, I have brought you clothing. I had thought that I
would only find some forty of you with Mr. McDonell;
but you are more numerous than that. I have forty suits
of clothes; those who are in greatest need of them may
take them; the others will be dressed the same way this
fall, when the canoes come up.”

McLeod went on to Fort Douglas, and returned imme-
diately to his men down the Red River, to start with the
prisoners for Fort William.

In order to prevent the truth concerning the disastrous
scenes just related, reaching Montreal, the North-West
Company had cut all communications, and no message
could be sent from the Red River to Canada. The As-
sociates believed themselves to be absolute masters of the
situation, and were determined to hold their position at all
risks. The news that Lord Selkirk had left Montreal

18

/

272 THE CANADIAN WEST

with soldiers bothered them very little, and they expected
to rid themselves of him, as they did of the settlers,
either by force or by assassination.

One evening, in the camp near Rainy Lake, Burke, who
was a prisoner, overheard a conversation between Mc-
Gillis and Alex. McDonell, who had hatched the plot at
Lake Qu’Appelle.

Runners had come in to say that Lord Selkirk would
come by way of Red Lake. ‘The Half-Breeds,” said
McDonell, “will catch his lordship early in the morning,
while he is asleep. ‘They might use Bostonais to fire a
gun-shot into him.”

Burke was also able to catch these words:—“We have
pushed things pretty far: but we will say that the Gov-
ernor’s people came to attack the Half-Breeds, and they
met their fate.”

“What plan had you formed to destroy the settlement ?”
asked McDonell of McGillis. The latter made answer:
“to attack, in the first place, the Fort.” “Had you done
so,” said McDonell, “you would have lost the half of
your men; the safest way was to starve out the people in
the Fort, for they had only provisions for two or three
days.”

Burke related what he had heard to two other pri-
soners.

McLeod, with his prisoners, reached Fort William in
the month of July; he only remained there a few days.
He returned to meet the members of the Company from
_ Athabaska and to inform them that Lord Selkirk was
moving towards Fort William with a large body of men
and to warn them to redouble their watchfulness, so as to
prevent any one from getting inland or bringing news to
his lordship.

THE CANADIAN WEST 273

About the 1oth August, McLeod met the Athabaska
canoes, in one of which was Archie McLellen, a member
of the North-West Company. They told him that an
official of the Hudson Bay Company, named Keveny, had
reached Lake Bonnet, on the Winnipeg river, in a boat,
and that his attendants complained of having been ill-
treated by him. At once McLeod issued a warrant for
the arrest of Keveny and entrusted the execution of it six
Half-Breeds. Keveny was arrested in his tent, placed in
irons, and taken to McLeod’s camp. ‘There he was rob-
bed of his papers, which were compromising for the
North-West Company, and McLellen told Reinhard, one
of the Company’s clerks, to go and kill him in some out-
of-the-way place. Here is how Reinhard told the story
before the Courts.

“Make the prisoner believe,” said McLellen, “that he
must go down to Rainy Lake. We cannot kill him
among the Indians. We will go on farther, and when
you shall have found a favourable place you will know
what you have to do.”

“We went down the river,” continued Reinhard, “for a
quarter of a league, to a place where it formed an elbow.
Keveny, then wanting to go ashore, I told Mainville, who
was with us, that we were far enough. ‘You may fire,’ I
said, ‘when he returns to get on board again.’

“When he returned, Mainville fired a shot at him,
striking him in the neck. When I perceived that the shot
was not fatal and that Keveny wanted to speak again, I
ran my sword twice through his back, near the heart, so
as to end his suffering. Then, on returning to Mc-
Lellen’s camp, the latter sent Cadot to meet me and to find
out if Keveny had been killed. As I replied that he was
killed, he said: ‘Mr. McLellen warns you not to say that

274 THE CANADIAN WEST

he has been killed.’ I made answer: ‘I will not hide the
affair, for it was Mr. McLellen, himself, who ordered me
to kill him,’ ”

This declaration, made in Court, had been correborile
by the evidence of two Canadian voyageurs of the North-
West, J. Bte. Lapointe and Hubert Faye, both of whom
were aware of the murder and had attempted to prevent
it. Keveny’s body was left on an island and was not
buried.

This fresh crime need not surprise the reader. When
an organization comes to the point of massacring hun-
dreds of people in order to keep a country in a state of
savagery, because their commercial interests may benefit
thereby, the murder of a simple individual is for them a
matter of minor importance.

When the authors of this crime, on their way down, -
heard of the taking of Fort William and the arrest of the
members of the Company, they retraced their steps, and
when back to strengthen the northern trading-posts and
to await orders from Canada. Reinhard, the soldier who
had killed Keveny, went to Fort St. Pierre on Rainy
Lake.

Let us now return to the North-West Company’s
Partners, who were made prisoners by Lord Selkirk.
As soon as they reached Montreal they asked to be al-
lowed to go on bail until their trial. The privilege was
granted them, but the crimes of which they were accused
appeared so grave to Lord Drummond, that he would
take the responsibility of judging them without first con-
sulting Mr. Gone, a civil officer of Upper Canada. Com-
munication between the Provinces was not as rapid then
as to-day; the correspondence between the Governor and
Mr. Gone dragged too long for the liking of the North-
West Company’s associates.

THE CANADIAN WEST 275

Mr. McGillivray, seeing that the season advanced and
that all communication between the members of the Com-
pany in the North and those in Montreal were interrupt-
ed, took upon himself to send constables to Fort William
to arrest Lord Selkirk and to bring him, as a prisoner, to
Montreal. Such a proceeding must seem strange, for it
is a rare thing to find a prisoner over whom heavy accu-
sations rest, taking steps to have his accuser arrested.

He at once sent Mr. de Rocheblave to Sault Ste. Marie,
to there await a Sheriff who would soon meet him, and
who would have warrants for the arrest of his lordship
and his officers. The magistrate to whom McGillivray
confided the warrants was Mr. Smith, Sheriff of Upper
Canada.

De Rocheblave reached Sault Ste. Marie on the 19th
October ; he there await some days for the coming of the
Sheriff with the warrants; but seeing that the latter de-
layed too long and that the season was advancing, he
applied for other warrants to a magistrate at St.
Joseph’s. Then he set out with twelve constables for Fort
William, where he arrived on the seventh of November.
De Rocheblave had not counted upon Lord Selkirk’s
means of self-protection, nor upon his determination to
follow to the end his claims against the North-West
Company.

On reading Mr. De Rocheblave’s summons, Lord
Selkirk reflected a moment; then, considering the route
already followed in quest of justice, he refused point
blank to submit to the warrants of the constables. He at
once summoned all his soldiers, and ordered Mr. De
Rocheblave to leave the Fort at once, if he did not wish
to be made a prisoner himself.

Seeing that it was useless to insist, and that the object

276 THE CANADIAN WEST

of his mission was completely missed, he’ returned to
Sault Ste. Marie, where he met Mr. Smith who had just
arrived with his warrants. They got into boats, with a
large re-enforcement of men, and took the road to Fort
William. But the elements turned against them. The
wind arose to a violent pitch, and their boat was smashed
on the shore. With difficulty they escaped and returned
to Montreal, which they only reached in the end of De-
cember, having done most the journey on foot.

On his side, Lord Selkirk did not remain idle at Fort
William. After De Rocheblave’s departure he sent Cap-
tain d’Orsonnens to take Fort St. Pierre. As that Fort
contained munitions and provisions the North-West Com-
pany’s people refused to open the gates and made a pre-
tence of getting ready for a siege. But as their com-
munications were interrupted and they were not aware
how events might turn, they finally decided to give up the
Fort, on condition that they would be at liberty to go
away. However, Reinhard, the soldier, who had killed
Keveny and who had taken refuge in that Fort, was
made prisoner and sent to Fort William.

In return for all damage caused by: the: Company to
his colony, Lord Selkirk took possession of another Fort
that was built at the end of Lake Superior, at a place
called Fond du Lac. From that place his lordship’s
soldiers went to the Red River to take Fort Douglas,
which had remained in the hands of the North-West
Company. Conducted by Indians, they went by way of
Red Lake, and, in the month of February, reached the
Red River at a spot a little above Pembina.

Thence they followed the Red River to about a dozen
miles above Fort Douglas, and then taking a westerly
course, they went into camp on the banks of the Assini-

THE CANADIAN WEST 277

boine at about four miles from its mouth. As that river
was heavily wooded on either side they could easily
escape the notice of the people at the Fort. They took
advantage of a violent snow-storm to make a night attack
on the Fort, supplied with good rope ladders they easily
scaled the high palisades that protected the Fort, and,
without firing a single shot, they were, in less than half
an hour, masters of the place. No person in the Fort at-
tempted the slightest resistance. The sight of these well-
armed soldiers made the employees of the North-West
Company perceive that the roles had changed, and that,
thenceforth, the Red River settlers could count upon ef-
fective protection.

The next day the soldiers took up quarters in Fort
Douglas, there to await the arrival of Lord Selkirk.

Gah!

:
iv} We iy
4
wat

CHAPTER XVI.

SUMMARY.

The settlers recalled to their farms.— Lord Selkirk passes the
summer at Fort Douglas.— Free grants of lands.— Petition
drawn up, in the name of the Catholic population, by Lord
Selkirk, to have missionaries.— Letter of Lord Selkirk to the
Bishop of Quebec.— Plottings of the North-West Company to
prevent the missionaries from going to the Red River.—
Lord Selkirk’s generous gift to the Catholic mission.— In-
structions given by the Bishop of Quebec to the missionaries.
concerning their conducting of the missions.

The settlers driven towards the Hudson Bay stopped,
as they had done the first time, at the north end of Lake
Winnipeg. They still conceived a hope of returning to
their farms, which they had left with deep regret.

After the re-taking of Fort Douglas a messenger was
sent after them to bid them return to the colony, where
Lord Selkirk would indemnify them, at least in part, for
the losses they had sustained. They consequently all
took the road again to the Red River, which they reach-
ed in June, 1817. The colony arose from its ashes and
took on new life.

Lord Selkirk established his camp near the Fort and
began an investigation into the unfortunate events of the
previous year.

The Half-Breeds, freed for all time to come from the
malign influence of the North-West Company’s Partners,
became the best of friends with the settlers, and, for the
future, the best of understanding reigned among them.

280 THE CANADIAN WEST

Lord Selkirk granted his colonists lands free from all tax.
To the soldiers whom he had brought with him he gave
lands along a river that he called the German River (Ri-

viere des Allemands) (1), because the greater number of

the soldiers were Germans.

In his relations with the people of the country — Cana-
dians, Half-Breeds, and Indians around Fort Douglas —
Lord Selkirk felt that, to insure the future of the colony,
the life-imparting spirit of religion was needed and that
mere human prudence could not suffice for the firm ac-
complishment of such an undertaking. Moreover, a
number of the Canadian voyageurs, once out of the Com-
pany’s service, desired to have priests at the Red River
and looked forward to their arrival to settle permanently
in the country.

Lord Selkirk took advantage of the good dispositions
of his people to have them address a formal petition to
the Bishop of Quebec, expressing the ardent desire of all
the Catholics at the Red River to have resident priests
among them. On his part, Lord Selkirk promised them
to use all his influence to have their request granted.

The following is the petition, with the names of all who
signed it:

“To His Lordship, Mgr. Plessis,
Bishop of Quebec.

“The undersigned, inhabitants of the Red River, most
humbly represent that there is a Christian population
established in this country who propose to make it their
home; that the said population is composed, in part, of

(1) This river is now called the Seine.

——— eee

THE CANADIAN WEST) 281

Canadians who, having formerly been hired in the service
of the traders and having completed the term of their
engagement, are known as free Canadians, and in part of
new colonists who are natives of different European coun-
tries.

“That since their residence here the Canadians have
been without any religious instruction, without any pastor
to guide them by his counsels in the way of rectitude or
to administer to them the salutary rites of the Church.

“That the children of the native Christians, who are
vulgarly called Half-Breeds (Métis or Boits-Brulé),
amount to only three or four hundred men scattered over
a country several hundred leagues in extent.

“That these Half-Breeds are all well disposed people
and of a mild and peaceful character, and would not have
taken part in the unfortunate events that have taken
place, were it not that they were pushed on by their super-
iors; that being informed by evil-intentioned people that
they were the owner of the soil, that it was their duty to
drive off the people generally known as the English, (les
Anglais), and having received promises that they would
be supported and rewarded, they believed that in driving
them from the country they were doing a glorious and
meritorious deed.

“That to prove that no enmity exists between the Half-
Breeds and the white people, it suffices to know that they
have almost all hired in the service of the whites and that
those who are generally known as the English are the
only ones who received ill-treatment at their hands.

“That nearly all the Christian population, both free
Canadians and new colonists, belong to the Roman Cath-
olic religion.

“That everything is now quiet here and that the under-

989 THE CANADIAN WEST

signed firmly believe that, with the service of a Catholic
priest, nothing will be lacking to make that tranquility
permanent and to preserve for the future the happiness of |
the country.

“Wherefore, the undersigned beg, in the name of their
hope in a future life, that you should accord them the
assistance of a priest of their holy religion, an assistance
that their conduct will deserve, if it be irreproachable,
and that will be only the more necessary, if it should be
considered faulty.”

(Signed,) J. Bte. Marsolais.

Louis Nolin.

Augustin Cadotte.
Francois Eno dit Delorme.
Jacques Hamelin.

Angus McDonell.

Charles Bousquet.
Jacques Hamelin, jr.

J. Bte. Hamelin.

Louis Nolin.

Augustin Poirier dit Desloges.
Michel Monnet dit Bellehumeur.
Louis L’Epicier dit Savoie.
Charles Boucher.

Justin Latimer.

Pierre Brussel.

Jean Rocher.

Jacques Bain.

Pierre Souci.

Louis Blondeau.

Joseph Ducharme.

Joseph Bellegarde.

Joseph Fraser.

THE CANADIAN WEST 283

Before his departure for Montreal, in April, 1816,
Lord Selkirk, had himself, written the following letter
to the Bishop of Quebec. —

“To His Lordship, Mgr. Plessis,
Bishop of Quebec.

“My Lord,

“T have been informed by Mr. Miles McDonell, the
former Governor of the Red River, that in the course of a
conversation he had had with Your Lordship, last aut-
umn, he had suggested to you the sending of a missionary
into this country, to give the benefits of religion to the
large number of Canadians therein settled and who live,
according to Indian custom, with the Indian women
whom they have married. I am convinced that a zealous
and intelligent ecclesiastic would perform incalculable
good among those people with whom the spirit of religior
is not lost. It would be with the greatest satisfaction that
I would co-operate with all my strength for the success
of such a work, and if Your Lordship will select a suit-
able subject to undertake it, I do not hesitate to assure
him my consideration and to offer him all the help that
Your Lordship may deem necessary.

“T heard it said that Your Lordship had formed the
project of sending two ecclesiastics this summer to Lake
Superior and to Rainy Lake, to there meet the voyageurs
in the North-West Company’s service, when they return
from the interior. As all those people are in great need
of spiritual help, I am happy to learn that news; still, if
you will allow me to express an opinion, I think that a
missionary, resident at the Red River, would realize

284. THE CANADIAN WEST

much better your design; for, from that place, he could, in
the winter, visit the trading posts at Rainy Lake and at
Lake Superior, at a time when the people meet there in |
greatest numbers.

“However, if Your Lordship, for the moment, does not
find this proposition practicable, I think that an ecclesi-
astic, who would be ready to start from Montreal at the
opening of navigation, to go on to Rainy Lake, could still
do a great deal of good. Mr. McDonell is to set out with
a light canoe as soon as the ice breaks, so that he will
reach the Red River, about the end of May or the begin-
ning of June. He would be very happy to have with him
as companion, a missionary who might sojourn a few
weeks with the Canadians of the Red River, before the
return of the North-West voyageurs to Rainy Lake and
Lake Superior.”

“T have the honor to be, etc.,
(Signed,) “SELKIRK.”

Lord Selkirk started from the Red River at the begin-
ning of November, 1819, and reached Montreal about the
end of December. .

On the 29th January, 1818, Mr. Samuel Gale, who had
spent the winter at Fort Douglas with Lord Selkirk,
wrote a letter to Mgr. Plessis, in which he explained to
His Lordship the pressing needs of the poor Catholics,
scattered over the prairies of the North-West, for reli-
gious succor, and their ardent desire to have priests
among them to instruct them and their families. In the
same letter he stated that the Hon. Chartier de Lotbiniére
was the bearer of a petition signed by the Red River set-

THE CANADIAN WEST 285

tlers, and that he would soon go to Quebec to present the
same to His Lordship.

On the 11th February, 1818, Mgr. Plessis received the
petition in question, and in reply to Mr. Gale said that
he would second with all his strength Lord Selkirk’s laud-
able project. “He will find in my clergy,” said His
Lordship, “priests who will devote themselves to that
good work, and without other motive than the glory of
God and the salvation of souls.”

The North-West Company, that wanted to wipe out
Lord Selkirk’s colony in order to keep the Red River
country in a savage and uncivilized condition, looked with
unfavorable eye upon the negotiations commenced be-
tween His Lordship and the Bishop of Quebec. With
the missionaries Christian civilization would come to the
Red River, and thenceforth all the criminal methods used
by the partners of the North-West Company to monopoli-
ize the fur trade would be impossible. They knew this
well, and they did not fail to plot against Lord Selkirk’s
project. .

Everywhere they declared that it was fool-hardy to at-
tempt to send priests into those wild and barbaric regions ;
that the expense of supporting them there would be
enormous, and that their success would be almost null.
They even succeeded in winning over certain priests to
this opinion. One day, in Montreal, as Rev. Mr. Proven-
cher was starting out for that mission, the superior of a
religious community said in his presence: “What is the
use of sending missionaries so far away? Cannot every-
body give baptism?” “No doubt,” replied Mr. Proven-
_cher, “but the Church has other sacraments which every-
body cannot administer.” (Extract of a letter of Mgr.
Provencher.) | However, the most influential people in

aS a

286 THE CANADIAN WEST

Canada were in favor of that mission. Apart from Lord
and Lady Selkirk, the most important members of the
Hudson Bay Company (nearly all Protestants) asked to
have the Catholics missionaries. ‘The Governor-General
of Canada, himself, headed a subscription for the estab-
lishment of a permanent Catholic mission at the Red
. River.

It would be difficult not to see in this the Finger of
Divine Providence indicating the merciful designs of
heaven upon those poor people so abandoned in an un-
civilized land. When the subscription list, headed by the
Governor-General, was presented to the gentlemen of the
North-West Company they politely declined to add their
signatures thereto.

In the course of the month of March, 1818, Mer.
Plessis informed Rev. Mr. Provencher, of Kamouraska,
that he had selected him to go and establish a mission at
the Red River. Despite the magnitude of the sacrifice
that his Bishop asked him to make, he did not hesitate one
moment in accepting. On the 16th April he bade adieu
to his parishioners, and started for Montreal where, with
his companion, Rev. Sévére Dumoulin, he was to set
out for the Red River.

As Lord Selkirk feared that the North-West Company
would put obstacles in the way of the missionaries, he
suggested to Mer. Plessis that they should be accom-
panied by an official of the Indian Department. On
writing to Mer. Plessis, he said: “I would presume to re-
commend that Your Grace request of His Excellency the
Governor-General, that Captain J. Baptiste Chevalier De
Lorimier be appointed to accompany the missionaries as
far as the Red River; that gentleman has large experience
in travel and knows exactly how to deal with the voya-

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Wiha Sous fa ie Sk OAS ; wn) & ; Eye Ss meet! 4 OTE ‘
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THE CANADIAN WEST : 287
geurs. He is respected by the Indians as well as by the
Canadians in the North, so that he could defeat the
schemes whereby it might be sought to impede the jour-
ney of the missionaries.”

To secure the Red River mission Lord Selkirk gave, by
notarial deed, signed by seven assignees, twenty-five acres
of land for the erection of a church and of school houses ;
and by a second deed he gave a tract of land, five miles in
depth and seven miles in width, behind that belonging to
the Church. The following are the names signed to
those deeds :

LORD SELKIRK, J.-O. PLESSIS,

J.-N. PROVENCHER, Priest. Bishop of Quebec.
ROUX, Priest. SEVERE DUMOULIN, /7rees?.
S. DE BEAUJEU. W. HENRY.

It was on Tuesday, the 18th May, 1818, about noon,

that. the two missionaries bade farewell to Canada. A.
_ few days earlier, Mgr. Plessis had sent them the follow-
ing instructions :—

1. The missionaries must consider as the first otiaae of
their mission to draw the Indian tribes, scattered that
vast country, out of barbarism and the disorders that be-
long thereto.

2. Their second object must be to direct their atten-
tion to the bad Christians who have adopted the Indian
habits and who live in a state of license, and forgetfulness
of their duties.

3. Convinced that the preaching of: the Gospel is the
most certain means of obtaining such happy results, they
will lose no opportunity, be it in their private conversa-
tions or in their public instructions, of inculcating its
principles and maxims.

19

288 THE CANADIAN WEST ~

4. In order to be the § sooner useful to the natives of the :

country to which they are sent, they will apply themselves.

from the start, to the study of the Indian languages, and
will try to reduce them to regular principles, so as to be
able to publish a grammar, after a few years residence
there.

5. They will prepare, with as much expedition as pos-
sible, for baptism the heathen women who live in a state
of concubinage with Chrsitian men, so as to be able to
substitute legitimate marriage for irregular union.

6. They will apply themselves with particular care to
the Christian education of the children, will, for that pur-
pose, establish schools and catechism classes in all the
villages that they may visit.

7. In all places of conspicuous position, whether along
the route of the voyageurs, or at the meeting places of the
Indians, they will be careful to erect high crosses, as an
evidence of their taking possession of such places in the
name of the Catholic Church.

8. They will frequently inform the pscel to whom they
are sent how severely that religion ordains peace, meek-
ness, and obedience to the laws, both of the State and of
the Church.

9. They will make them uriderstand the advantages
they have in living under His Britanic Majesty’s Govern-
ment, teaching by word and example respect and fidelity
to the Sovereign, accustoming them to address fervent
prayers to heaven for the prosperity of His Most Gracious
Majesty, for his august family, and for the Empire.

10. They will remain perfectly impartial in regard to
the respective claims of the two Companies of the North-

West and of the Hudson Bay, remembering that they are _

sent exclusively for the spiritual good of the people, the —

" THE CANADIAN WEST 289

~

civilization of whom must be for the greater advantage of

- both Companies.

11. They will fix their residence near Fort Douglas on
the Red River, will there build a church, a house, a school,
and will draw their livelihood from the best that the lands
given to them will afford. Although that river, as well as
Lake Winnipeg, into which it flows, are within the terri-
tory claimed by the Hudson Bay Company, they will be
nonetheless zealous for the salvation of the clerks, em-
ployees and voyageurs in the service of the North-West
Company, being careful to go wheresoever the salvation
of souls demands their presence.

12. They will furnish us frequently and regularly with
whatever information may interest us concerning. the re-
tarding or advancement of the mission. If, notwithstand-
ing their impartial attitude, they are disturbed in the ex-
ercise of their functions, they will not abandon their mis-
sion before receiving orders from us.

(Signed,) + J. O., Bishop of Quebec.

The journey of the missionaries lasted two months;
they reached the Red River on the 16th July, 1818.

CHAPTER XVII

SUMMARY.

Legal action taken by Lord Selkirk against the North-West
Company.— The grasshopper plague at the Red River.— The
Pembina mission.— Interest taken by Lord and Lady Selkirk
in the missionaries— Union of the two Companies.— Sir
George Simpson praises the work of the missionaries — Peace
at last restored throughout the North-West.

After the departure of the missionaries, Lord Selkirk,
feeling confidence in the future of his colony, turned his
entire attention to the North-West Company, and to the
task of making its members render an account of all dam-
ages they had caused. He institute an action-at-law
against that Company, which made the Courts of Upper
and Lower Canada ring, and which entailed enormous
costs. 7

Such a powerful Company, as was that of the North-
West, is rarely at the end of its resources in defence. The
case was carried to England where it made a great deal of
commotion, until the month of April, 1820, when Lord
Selkirk died. In vain, however, were the ragings of the
North-West Company ; the arrival of the missionaries had
delt it a mortal blow.

On an order of the Colonial Minister, in the spring of
1818, the Forts were restored to their owners.

All along the Red River and throughout the district of
Assiniboia peace was completely restored.

It was true that in 1819, in the extreme northern Forts |
there were a few skermishes between the employees of the

292 THE CANADIAN WEST

two Companies, but, in 1821, wary of those fratrecidal
struggles that only resulted in ruin, the two combined in
one organization, to be thenceforth called the Hudson
Bay Company.

From that hour forward there was no longer any ques-
tion of the North-West Company; its very name disap-
peared ; the glory of the “Lords of the North Land” van-
ished ; a new reign — that of true civilization — had com-
menced.

Still the settlers had to face a number of. other and
very different trials.

“When we arrived at the Red River,” says Mgr. Pro-
vencher, “that colony, devastated as it had been by the
troubles of preceding years, was the picture of destitu-
tion, and in reality it combined all the privations of this
life.

“Though treated with every respect and attention, eat-
ing at the table of the Governor of the colony, the mis-
sionaries were not exempt from a participation in the.
miseries of the country.

“On that table there was neither bread nor vegetables,
only buffalo meat that had been dried in the sun or at the
fire, and a small amount of fish; there was no milk, no
butter, and often neither tea nor sugar.”

At that time the majority of the farmers only cultivated
their land with the hoe, and only sowed grain in order to
have seed for the next year, but never in the hope of using
the product of their labor to eat.

The small amount of grain that the settlers sowed in
1818 look very well and promised a fair harvest. When,
on the 3rd of August, a cloud of grasshoppers came down _~
on the colony, eat up all the grain, and, in a few weeks,
destroyed everything that might have served as toed for

the people. aes

ieitutlvb ed he
7

© HE CANADIAN WEST “998

At the end of two or three weeks the insects went otf
to die elsewhere, but before taking their departure they
left their eggs in the ground, and the next year those eggs
produced millions of fresh grasshoppers that eat all the
vegetation until the end of July. When they had their
wings they rose in clouds so thich that they completely
hid the rays of the sun—so much so that those who
watched their departure could look at the orb of day
without winking an eye-lid. (Notes by Mgr. Proven-
cher. )
That year there was no harvest of any kind. In the
spring of 1820 each one hastened to sow whatever quan-
tity of grain he had in reserve, for they always were care-
ful to put a little aside each year. The season was favor-
able, everything grew splendidly, hope for the future
caused the miseries of the past to be forgotten, when, on
the 26th July, another cloud of grasshoppers came down.

This time the poor settlers became entirely discour-
aged; everything was as completely destroyed as if fire
had swept the entire country. But still more discourag-
ing were the quantities of eggs that the insects had left
in the earth. In 1821 everything in the form of verdure
was eaten, and the soil of the fields and of the prairies
was left as black as the dust on the highway.

The grasshoppers penetrated everywhere and eat
everything — clothes, leather, etc., etc., nothing could be
left within reach of them. (Notes of Mgr. Provencher.)

They did not leave the colony till the month of August,
when their wings had grown sufficiently to permit them
to fiy. After that visit there was no seed left in the settle-
ment for the next year.

The Governor of the colony had to send to Dog Prairie
(Prairie du Chien), on the Mississippi, nine hundred |

294 ‘ THE CANADIAN WEST

miles from the Red River, to get grain for seed. This |
seed grain was brought too late for that spring’s sowing,

so that in the year 1821 there was no harvest.

In 1822, the fields were sown early in the spring-time. —

‘The season was very favorable for vegetation, and the
grain grew with exceptonal vigor. That year the grass-

hoppers did not come. But, as if it were destined that:

each year would bring its plague to the settlement, sud-
denly a vast swarm of field-mice overran the entire place;
these tiny animals cut the grain at the root and chopped
the stalk into small bits. Still the settlers were enabled
to gather in enough of grain to obviate the necessity of
going out of the country for seed.

* OK *

From 1817 till 1821 the Scotch settlers were in the
habit of going to spend each winter with the Half-Breeds
and the Canadian voyageurs at Pembina. They turned
to be hunters like the others and became quite expert in
hunting the buffalo on the prairies.

In the spring time, when the farmers returned to seed-
‘down their fields, their families, in order to escape the
fatigue of a seventy mile journey, remained at Pembina.
The best good feeling existed between the Half-Breeds
and the Scotch. That they lived together in the same

camp and assisted each other by mutual aid, is an evi-

dence that all the troubles of the past were caused by the
~ North-West Company.

In 1818, in the month of September, Rev. Sévére Du-
moulin, the missionary who had accompanied Mgr. Pro-
vencher, went to reside at Pembina to there administer

spiritual aid to the Catholic residents of that place. The ~

vo THE CANADIAN WEST 205 -

- population in that camp amounted to about three hundred

souls. That very same year they build a chapel, a school —
and a residence for the missionary there. All those poor
hunters, so long abandoned to themselves, were so glad,
so happy to have a priest in their midst that they would
have made any sacrifice to keep him. |

The Red River mission was called after St. Boniface.
Until the coming of Mgr. Provencher, the people of the
place called that locality La Fourche (the Fork), on ac-
count of it being at the confluence of the Assiniboine and
Red River. ;

The mission at St. Boniface was far from having the
resources of livelihood that existed at Pembina. Still,
three months after his coming, assisted by a few Cana-
dian colonists, the missionary had built a wooden chapel,
in which he managed to also find lodging for himself.

In order to get on with the work of construction and
to make the building habitable for the winter, he had to
become wood-cutter, carpenter and mason.

The frame of the house was raised in September. To
cover it he went to a neighboring swamp and there cut
reeds and flat hay which he wove into a thatch. Upon
the poor poplar boards that he used for a first roofing he
placed a layer of blue clay, into which he stuck the twigs
that he had gathered. We can understand that a con-
struction of that character was not an elaborate resid-
ence for a priest.

The historian Ross, sacaleitie of the coming of the
Catholic missionaries to the Red River, says that their
advent caused the poor Scotchmen to feel in a two-fold
manner the state of abandonment, spiritually speaking, in
which they existed. He says: “While the colonists were
thus bemoaning their hard fate and hopeless condition,

298 : THE CANADIAN WEST

several French families, headed by two Catholic priests, iy

arrived from Canada, and took up their abode as settlers
in the colony. .:... . The arrival of these people only
increased the evil of the day, by adding so many more
mouths to feed; besides the grief it caused the settlers

to see them in full enjoyment of their religion, while they,

themselves, who had borne the burden and heat of the
day, were wholly destitute of spiritual consolation.”

But what must have made them feel stranger still was
the fact of seeing Lord Selkirk, one of their own co-reli-
gionists, so zealous and so anxious to have a Catholic
mission established at St. Boniface, in the very neighbor-
hood of the Scotch settlement. They were fully aware of
Lortl Selkirk’s generous gifts to that Catholic mission,
and his efforts to secure the establishment of the same by
the Bishop of Quebec. No doubt all that was calculated
to grate on the religious feelings of the Scotchmen. Yet
they never openly murmured about it.

When Lord Selkirk heard, in Canada, of the fine re-
ception accorded his missionaries, he was as much over-
joyed as would have been a good and zealous Catholic.
He saw in that reception the assurance of lasting peace in
the colony, and, consequently, a solid support for his set-
tlers, who would derive as much benefit as would the
Catholics from such a happy state of affairs.

It was then that he wrote the following letter to Mgr.
Plessis, the Bishop of Quebec :— 3

“My Lord,
“During the trip that I have just taken to Upper

Canada, I had the pleasure of receiving the good news,
from the Red River, of the safe arrival there of Messrs.

THE CANADIAN WEST Lo 2. ODT

Provencher and Dumoulin. ‘These letters, as well as the
verbal report that I received from Mr. de Lorimier, on
reaching here, show me that the inhabitants, and above
all the Canadians, the former voyageurs and their Half-
Breed families, had evidenced the best of dispositions to
profit by the instructions of the missionaries, and that the
Indians also showed them a respect that gives reason to
believe that they will be equally docile. I trust that this
happy beginning will be confirmed by the reports that
those gentlemen will not fail to send Your Lordship.

“On reflecting upon the circumstances, as they have
been communicated to me, it seems to me that, if they
were known in England, assistance might be obtained
that would give solid support to the establishment of that
mission.

“There are, among the Catholics, some very high fam-
ilies in England (and I have no doubt that Protestants
could also be found), who would glory in contributing
to the maintenance of a mission of that kind, as soon as
they would be aware of the good results it would produce.

“If I were authorized by Your Lordship to commun-
icate that assurance to England, I am fully confident that
means would be there found to secure favorable results.

“T heard it said of late that probably Upper Canada
will be erected into a separate diocese. If that division
takes place, I hope that the Red River will remain in the
diocese of Quebec. I would be very sorry if that infant
establishment were not to remain under Your Lordship’s
jurisdiction, under which it has been so happily com-
menced.

“T remember that last spring, in Quebec, Your Lord-
ship suggested that in the end those distant regions

598 THE CANADIAN WEST

should have an independent establishment; but, while
awaiting the time when the population will have sufficient-_
ly increased to be able to support, without assistance, a
separate establishment, it seems to me that all those In-
dian countries should come under Quebec rather than any
other diocese; especially so, since the Catholics, scattered
over them, only speak the French language, and because
Upper Canada could not supply subjects suitable for the
duties of the ministry there.

“T have the honor to be, etc., etc.,
(Signed,) SELKIRK.”

Lady Selkirk was not any less zealous than her noble
husband in assisting the Catholic mission. She wrote to —
the missionaries that she was preparing a chest in which
she was placing linen and articles required for altar ser-
vice, and that, like Lord Selkirk, she was rejoiced to
hear of the good feeling of the Red River people for the
priests. :

It is clearly evident that Lord Selkirk was the instru-
ment of Divine Providence used to lead, the Apostles of
the Gospel into the North-West.

In the autumn of 1819, Lord Selkirk, weary from his
voyages and undermined in constitution by the worry
caused by unceasing struggles with the North-West
Company, went with his wife to the South of France to
seek repose and recuperation. But neither the mild
climate of France nor all the assistance of medical science

could restore his strength; he died in the city of Pau, at

the foot of the Pyrenees, on the 8th April, 1820. ints

\

THE CANADIAN WEST 299

His death brought about a new arrangement or re-
organization of the Hudson Bay Company, and gave a
new direction to the march of events in the North-West.
At that date, the two Companies had not yet been united.
There was merely mention of a treaty of peace between
them. It was a period of great anxiety for the colony as
well as for the mission — both of which had lost a power-
ful protector.

In writing on the subject to Mgr. Provencher, Mgr.
Plessis said :—

“There is talk of a treaty of peace between the two
Associations, that of the Hudson Bay and that of the
North-West. I do not know if religion will be taken into
consideration, nor if the colony will survive, should the
lot fall to the side of the North-West. The result will
show what may be thought of the matter. If, as I have
no doubt, God has His merciful designs on that part of
the New World, He will easily find a way of therein sus-
taining and extending His Kingdom.” —

In fact, Divine Providence, that laughs at all human
opposition to His plans, caused the North-West Company
and entirely disappear, within one year after the death
of Lord Selkirk, and when it was apparently at the zenith
of its glory and power.

The Red River Catholics may look upon Lord Selkirk
as the first and greatest benefactor of that mission. It is
only just that history should pay a tribute of gratitude
and of homage to the memory of that illustrious man who,
despite all the calumnies launched against him by his
enemies, shall forever remain a grand and imposing fig-
ure in the annals of our country.

300 THE CANADIAN WEST

* x* *

After the union of the two Companies it was Mr.

Walkett, Lord Selkirk’s brother-in-law, and testament-

ary executor, who was given charge of the Scotch colony.

Before his arrival there was a Governor at Fort Douglas
who had a very difficult task to perform. Despite the
best intentions in the world and the most careful adm-
inistration of affairs, it is easy to understand that he
could not create plenty in a land that had been devasted
by successive scourges, and in which the labor of the
farmers had not yet produced sufficient to feed the one-
tenth of population.

In 1818, at the time that the missionaries arrived
there, Mr. A. McDonell was Governor of the colony.
Ross, the historian, draws a picture of him that is far
{rom flattering. He shows him to be a scourge as terrible
as that of the insects; he says that the settlers called him
the Grasshopper Governor, because he did as much dam-
age inside the Fort as the grasshoppers did outside. (He
says that while the settlers endured all sorts of privations,
he and his friends lived in luxury in the Fort.) This is
-an accusation so exaggerated that it borders on calumny.

When the missionaries reached the Red River they
were received at Fort Douglas and remained there two
months, eating, as we have said, at the Governor’s table;
they were living witnesses of the life led in the Fort, and
. yet, Mgr. Provencher affirms “that at the Governor’s

table there was only dried buffalo meat, and that there

was neither bread nor vegetables, nor butter, nor tea, nor
sugar.” If that is what he calls living in luxury, it

must be admitted that the bill-of-fare at the Governor’s — a

table was not yery yaried.

THE CANADIAN WEST 301

Is it because Mr. A. McDonell was a Catholic that the
historian Ross launches such serious accusations against
him? We might justly suspect as much, for in different
places in his work, he allows his bigotry to come to the
surface when he sneeringly calls the Catholics Papists.
In taking up the defence of the Scotch people in this book,
we show, at least, more generosity and fairness than does
Mr. Ross, who avoids, in all his work, any mention of
Mgr. Provencher’s name. Yet, Mgr. Provencher is
surely one of the most remarkable figures in the story of
the Red River settlement; one would needs close his eyes
very tightly not to notice his presence.

Twice wiped out by the North-West Company, Lord
Selkirk’s colony was certainly destined to perish forever
had it not been for the life-imparting spirit brought by
the missionaries. If Mgr. Provencher was not its
restorer and main stay through the peace, which he, more
than all others, established in the Red River district.

It was their first Catholic Bishop who, after each fresh
trial, brought courage and confidence to the heart of the
people. After the grasshopper plague, and especially
after the floods of 1826, all the settlers wanted to leave
the country, as they believed it to be unhabitable. In truth,
there was reason for discouragement, and several in-
habitants did leave the Red River for good.

The Catholic Bishop, in the midst of several trials, est-
ablished lasting institutions at St. Boniface, created a
reliance in the future, and strengthened those whose firm-
ness was tottering.

Down to this day the English historians, who have writ-
ten about the early days of Lord Selkirk’s colony, have
never said a single word about Mgr. Provencher and have
ever confined their praise,for the spread of civilization

‘

302 THE CANADIAN WEST

in that land, to the Scotch and English settlers., We.do —
not wish to take one iota from the credit due to those who,’ *

in any way whatsoever, have contributed to the welfare
of that country and of its inhabitants, but history should
be just and give to each one that which belongs to him.
Therefore, when one undertakes to tell the story of the
country evangelized by such a man as Mgr. Provencher,
it is a flagrant injustice and a patent evidence of prejudice,
to pass his name over in silence. Of this grave fault,
without hesitation, do we accuse both Ross and Gunn —
the two historians of the Red River.

Sir George Simpson, a Hudson Bay Company’s Gov- >

ernor, although a Protestant, had much broader views re-
garding the merits of the first Bishop of St. Boniface,

and he did not hesitate to give expression to them. On

every available occasion he gave vent to the highest
eulogies of Mgr. Provencher and he wished to show his
gratitude for all, even in a temporal line, that the Bishop
had done for the prosperity of the North-West.

Here is an extract from a resolution adopted, at a
Council meeting at York Factory, on the motion of Sir

George Simpson, himself. We take it from the original |

text :—

“Extract from the Minutes of Council, held at York
Factory, 2nd July, 1825.

“Great benefit being experienced from the benevolent
and indefatigable exertion of the Catholic mission at the
Red River in the welfare and the moral and religious in-
struction of its numerous followers; and it being ob-

served, with much satisfaction, that the influence of the

mission under the direction of the Right Reverend Bishoy.

- THE CANADIAN WEST 303

of Juliopolis, has been uniformly directed to the best in-
terest of the settlement and of th country at large, it is
Resolved: That in order to mark our approbation of such
laudable and disinterested conduct on the part of said
mission, under the direction of the Right Rev’d Bishop
that a sum of £50 per annum be given towards the sup-
Hort, ¢ie.; cic.

Such is the manner in which large minded men knew
how to appreciate the good done for the Red River col-
ony, not only for the salvation of their souls, but also for
their temporal prosperity, by Mgr. Provencher.

The country that, until the coming of the missionaries,
only knew divisions, enmities, jealousies and deeds of
vengeance, beheld a most perfect union spring up be-
tween the inhabitants of every race and creed.

This good feeling among the first inhabitants of the
Red River district is a fact that deserves to be specially
noted, above all when we know that in America almost
all the colonies that consisted of peoples of different races
began their histories with manifestations of unfortunate
and fanatical bigotry. An illustration of this is to be
found in the early history of the New England States, in
which section the Catholics were long and fearfully per-
secuted. On the contrary, at the Red River, after 1818,
the English, Scotch, Irish, Canadians, Half-Breeds and
Indians all lived in perfect harmony and were of mutual
assistance to each other.

* *

In 1820, Rev. Mr. Provencher, as yet only a priest, left
the colony to go to Quebec. Mer. Plessis had asked for
and obtained from Rome a Bull erecting the Red River
district into a diocese ; and the Bull was addressed to Rev.

TS BES 20

304 THE CANADIAN WEST

Mr. Provencher. He remained two years in Canada.

Before returning to his mission he was consecrated ~

Bishop at Three-Rivers, on the 12th May, 1822, with the
title of Bishop of Juliopolis. He left Montreal on the
‘tgth May, and was back in his diocese on the 7th Aug-
ust. From that moment forward the Catholic hierarchy
was established in the North-West. From 1822 forward
the political and social history of the North-West walked
side by side with the story of the developing missions
down the highway of the years. That period will con-
stitute the subject matter of another volume.

NOTES OF EVIDENCE

TO JUSTIFY CERTAIN CONTENTIONS |

FIRST NOTE.

The North-West Company used the evidence of one Louis
Nolin, who resided at the Red River and who was at Fort
Douglas, when the battle of La Grenouillére took place; the
following is his evidence as it was given upon oath, at Fort
William, before a Justice of the Peace, on the 2lst August, 1816.

DEPOSITION OF LOUIS NOLIN.

The Deponent having been sworn declares as fol-
lows :—

“That at the end of the summer of 1815, he reached
the Red River with Mr. Robertson; that two days after
their arrival, a consultation was held at the North-West
Fort (Fort Gibraltar), occupied by Duncan Cameron, his
clerks and interpreters, for the purpose of devising means
to drive away, at one stroke, the colonists that returned to
settle at the Red River (after having been already driven
away from there).

That Peter Pangman (surnamed Bostonais), who was
one of the deliberating parties, had told him some time
afterwards about the affair, and that he, Pangman, had
insisted on chasing the colonists away at once, but that he
did not know what excuse to give to justify such an act,
and that it was therefore decided to await until a pretext
for action could be found, always in the hope that the col-
onists would, on account of the lack of provisions, leave
the country.

306 “THE CANADIAN WEST

“That during the month of October, 1815, two Indians, ©
‘coming from Fort Gibraltar that Duncan Cameron then

occupied, told him that Charles Hesse, of the North-
West Company had threatened to kill them if they had
any further relations with the Scotch settlers.

“That during the winter of 1815 and 1816, Séraphia
Lamarre, a North-West Company’s clerk, told him that
he had received a letter from Alexander Fraser (station-
ed at Lake Qu’Appelle), in which the writer bade him have
courage, because that he (Fraser) was the fifth who
could stir up the Bois-Brilés to go, the next spring, to
exterminate whatever Scotch settlers were still at the
Red River.
~ “That on the morning of the 17th June, 1816, Governor
Semple, of Fort Douglas, called him to act as interpreter

for two Indians named Moustouche and Courte Oreille, |

both of whom had left the Half-Breed camp, that Alex-
ander McDonell commanded (at Portage de'la Prairie).
These .two deserters informed the Governor that in two
days he would be attacked by the Bois-Brilés (Half-
Breeds) who were led by Cuthbert Grant, Houle, Pri-
meau, Fraser, Bourassa, Lacerpe and Thomas McKay,
all employees in the service of the North-West Company ;
that they were all determined to take Fort Douglas, and
that if they met with the slightest resistance they would
kill'men, women and children, and that if they put their
hands on Robertson they would cut him into a thousand
' pieces.

“That the 19th June, in the afternoon, he saw about
fifty Bois-Brulés coming towards the residences of the
Scotch settlers, above La Grenouillére, about three miles
from Fort Douglas.

The deponent, being in front of the Fort, saw Governor

ae
>; San

‘

THE CANADIAN WEST 307

Semple, with twenty-eight men, coming out of it; the
deponent got up on a bastion and thence saw the Gov-
ernor place his men in line; a few minutes later he sent a
horseman towards the Governor to find out what was
going on. The horseman soon returned to say that the
Half-Breeds were in great numbers, and that they had
taken the Governor; on which the deponent sent another
envoy to learn exactly the facts. Six minutes later the
second messenger was back and announced that five of
the English gentlemen, the Governor, and several others
had been killed. '

“On the 20th June the deponent went to the Half-
Breed camp that was at La Grenouillére; he recognized
in the enemy’s camp two men and one woman who be-
longed to the colony and who had been made prisoners
before Governor Semple had got up to the Half-Breeds.

“The deponent entered into a conversation with Cuth-
bert Grant, McKay, Houle, Primeau, Fraser, Bourassa,
and Lacerpe, who were each boasting of his own exploits
the evening before against the English. Cuthbert Grant
said that, if the Fort were not given up to him the fol-
lowing day, he would kill the men, women and children.

“On the 21st the English gave up Fort Douglas to the
Half-Breeds. ‘The deponent, who was in the Fort, learn-
ed from them that Governor Semple had first been wound-
ed by Cuthbert Grant, and that he had been killed by
Francois Deschamps who was engaged in the service of
the North-West Company.

“On the 22nd June, Cuthbert Grant drove the settlers
away and sent them to the Jack River (Riviére au Bro-
chet), and took possession of the Fort and of all their be-
longings.

“There was, on that day, a meeting of the North-West

308 | THE CANADIAN WEST

Company’s people and the Half-Breeds asked Mr. Mc-
Kenzie if Lord Selkirk had a right to establish a colony
at the Red River. Mr. McKenzie replied that he had no
such right, and that the only right he had was to send
traders there.

“Despite this last declaration, the deponent declares
that immediately the Hudson Bay Company’s traders
were driven away from the Red River.

“(Signed,) Louis Non.”

SECOND NOTE.

As the North-West Company frequently repeated in writings —
in its own defence, that the soldiers engaged by Lord Selkirk
were a gang of deserters, abandoned to debauchery and only good
to pillage, we will here give the eulogistic testimony, in their
regard, of Mr. Fauché, a lieutenant of the Meuron regiment.
That testimony will also serve to refute the historian Ross, who,
without ever having known those military men, constituted him-
self an echo of the Company,—doubtless because the greater
number of them were Catholics, and Ross held in holy horror all
that savored of the Papist.

“In 1809, while the Meuron regiment was stationed at
Gibraltar, the English Government allowed that all the
Germans and Piedmonteses who were forced by conscrip-
tion into the armies of Bonaparte and from which they
had deserted at the first chance, might take service in the
English Army. The Meuron regiment was sent to Malta
that same year, 1809, and remained there until 1813,
when it crossed to America. On the departure of the
regiment from the Island, His Excellency, Lieutenant
General Oakes, Governor of Malta, issue the te
Garrison Order :—

4

THE CANADIAN WEST 309

“Malta, 4th May, 1813.
“Garrison Order,

“Lieutenant General Oakes cannot allow the Meuron |
regiment to leave this garrison where it has been for such
a long time under his orders, without testifying to how
satisfied he has been with its good conduct and its disci-
pline, a conduct that was equally manifested in all ranks.
The regiment will leave her in as good order as any of
His Majesty’s regiments.

“The Lieutenant General has no doubt that this regi-
ment, by its good conduct, its bravery in the service in
which it will soon be employed, will confirm the high
opinion that he has formed regarding it, and will deserve
the praise and approbation of the General under whose
command it will be placed, and to whom he will not fail
to express the just praises that it deserves.

“He begs to assure the regiment of the ardent good
wishes which he entertains for its glory and successes,
and of the lively interest he will always feel in its happi-
ness. |

“(Signed,) P. ANpErson, D. A. G.”

When the regiment was finally licensed to Canada,
His Excellency, Sir John Sherbrooke, issued a Garrison
Order that would do honor to any regiment existing.

“Office of the D. A. G.,
“Quebec, 26th July, 1816.

_ “In separating from the Meuron and Watteville regi-
ments, both of which His Excellency has had the advan-

310 THE CANADIAN WEST

tage of commanding in other parts of the world, Sir John
Sherbrooke offers Lieutenant Colonel de Meuron and —
Lieutenant-Colonel May, as well as to the officers and

soldiers of the two corps, his congratulations in as much
as they have, by their excellent conduct in Canada, sus-
tained the reputation that their past services had justly
acquired for them.

“His Excellency cannot hesitate to declare that His
Majesty’s service has derived much advantage during the
last war from their bravery and their good discipline.

“(Signed,) J. Harvey, Lieut.-Col.,
Dep. Adj. Gen.

“As it is not to be expected that an English General is
the man to praise those who do not deserve it, can it be
believed that the men that were deemed worthy of such
eulogy, could have bemeaned themselves, and could have
become brigands in accompanying the Scottish nobleman,
Lord Selkirk, and in desiring to establish themselves
under the protection of a Government which they had
learned to appreciate during the time of their service
under its control.

“The North-West Company declares that they were
drunk the day they entered Fort William. I declare that
statement to be absolutely false; not one of the men was
the least intoxicated, and they had not the means and
_ ways of becoming so.”

‘

(Signed,) “G. A. Faucue,
Lieutenant of the de Meuron Regiment.

THE CANADIAN WEST | 311:

THIRD NOTE.

The North-West Company sought in all its writings in its
own defense to blacken the reputations of all who embraced the
cause of Lord Selkirk and of his colonists. There is no imagin-
able lie that it did not invent to injury him. According to, the
Company, Lord Selkirk, Miles MacDonell, the officers and soldiers
of the de Meuron regiment were nothing other than robbers and
banditti, unfit for civilized society. Twenty times is the same
thing repeated in the pamphiet published by the Company. But
whenever there is question of their own members, then they are all
mild gentlemen, who only used force to repel the attacks of a
vicious enemy. In speaking of Alexander McDonell, who had
collected the Half-Breeds at Fort Qu’Appelle during the winter
of 1815 and 1816 amd prepared the attack of the colony, the
Company’s pamphlet paints him as a man full of humanity and
regard for the colonists. The pamphlet shows him as recom-
mending Grant, when leaving Portage de la Prairie to attack —
the colony, to pass at a distance from Fort Douglas and to
molest no person.

“Yet the same McDonell, on learning of the massacre
at La Grenouillére, cried out, in a moment of philan-
thropic sentiment, ‘G—D— it! good news! ‘Twenty-
two Englishmen killed!!!”

The same man had declared, some time before, to an
Indian chief in council, “that if the settlers made the
slightest resistance the ground would be watered with
their blood.”

A few weeks earlier, Alexander McDonell, hearing
that eighteen employees of the Hudson Bay Company had
died of hunger in the extreme North, at once announced
the news to his friend Cameron in these terms: “glorious
news from Athabaska.”

The horrible assassination of Mr. Keveny, by order of
Archie McLellen, one of the North-West Company’s

. Associates; the barbarous conduct of Norman McLeod

towards the Scotch settlers driven out of the Red River

312 . HE CANADIAN WEST

!
|

district ; all these things abundantly prove that Lord Se : kK

kirk’s enemies were not models of humanity.

The North-West Company sought to have the respons-
ibility for the dark drama at La Grenouillére fall upon

the head of Governor Semple, stating that the deaths of
his men were simply due to his own imprudence in leay-
ing the Fort with armed men to go block the road of the
North-West Company’s employees.

It is an important question to know whether Governor
Semple had been guilty of imprudence or whether he
died a victim to duty.

At Fort Douglas the Governor was in charge of the
settlers and was in conscience bound to rush to their aid
if any danger threatened them, either on the part of the

Indians or from any other quarter. The men and the

arms that he had in the Fort had been given him’ for that
purpose. So was it in olden times, in the beginning of
the Canadian colony, that forts were built and garrisons
were placed in them to protect the colonists against the

incursions of the Indians. When, in vast numbers, the.

Iroquois poured in on the colony and threatened to de-
stroy it, the guardians of the Forts, without counting their
humbers, went out to meet them; Dollard Desormeau had
only sixteen companions with whom to face the great
Iroquois army at the foot of the Long-Sault.

Governor Semple knew from positive information (In-

dians had notified him two days before), that the colony -

was to be attacked on the 19th June by the servants of
the North-West Company, and that the settlers were to
be all driven out, or else massacred if beni made the least
resistance.

Well, then! We ask any military person who knows a

his duty and has at heart its fulfilment, even at the cost of

3 c
ee ese i >

THE CANADIAN WEST 313

his life, if, under the circumstances and in the situation
of that 19th June, 1816, Governor Semple could have re-

mained still in his Fort while the settlers that he was in
duty bound to protect were about to become the victims of
the servants of the North-West Company?

Let it not be said that the seventy horsemen whom
passed far out on the prairie were going down the river
Winnipeg to carry provisions to their people. ‘That story
is played out and can only be accepted by those who have
not made a serious study of the Red River history from °
1810 to 1816.

As for us, we do not hesitate to say that Governor
Semple died a victim to duty. It may be that he failed
in his tactics and that a military officer, accustomed to the
art of warfare, might have come safer out of the diffi-
culty: but that does not alter the question.

INDEX OF MATTERS,
orcas

INTRODUCTION...

Preliminary Remarks, 1—The Hudson Bay from its discov-
ery by Hudson, in 1610, to the discovery of the North-
West, by the Sieur de Ja Vérendrye, in 1731 .

Il, Ce aaa des Groseilliers — His inane to the Wadeon

CHAPTER I.—How far the trappers had advanced into the
West before de la Vérendrye— Voyage of the Canadian
De Noyon to the Lake of the Woods,— Various shin eee
tions schemes .. .. ... .

CHAPTER II.—M., de la Vérendrye; his determination to
attempt the discovery of the North-West.— His depart-
ure from Montreal— His arrival at Lake Superior.—
The Great Portage— Delay experienced at that point.—
Establishment of Fort Saint-Pierre, by M. de la Jemme-
raie at Rainy Lake.— Losses sustained by M. de la Vé-
rendrye during the winter— Return of the expedition
to Rainy Lake, in the spring of 1732— De la Vérendrye
continues his voyage; he reaches the Lake of the Woods
and builds Fort Saint-Charles .. .... : ‘

CHAPTER Ill.—De la Vérendrye’s plans for the spring of
1733,— De la. Jemmeraie goes down to Montreal.—Father
returns.— De la Vérendrye’s disappointment on

being deceived by his suppliers — Momentary impossibi-
lity to continue this discoveries— His eldest son is sent
down the Maurepas river, to there build a fort. — Death

of de la Jemmeraie, . ; : ws

CHAPTER IV.—Departure of de la Vérendrye to Fort Maure-

pas.— Discovery of the Red River and the Assiniboine.—
Construction of Fort La Reine.— Journey into the coun-
try of the Mandans.— Return to Fort La Reine .. .. .-

PaGcE
a,

16

31

51

316 " _ INDEX OF MATTERS |

Pace
CHAPTER V.—Fresh requests of the Indians to have forts oe

further West.— Civilization makes the Indians more ex- =
acting.— Hesitation of de la Vérendrye as to the direc-
tion to take on leaving Fort La Reine—He sends
his sons to explore the country around the Lake of the
Prairies,— His suppliers send him no merchandise for
trading pumposes,— He returns to Montreal, . 57

CHAPTER VI.—Arrival of de la Vérendrye in Montreal
(1740) .— The law-suit taken against him,— The Governor
of Canada treats him with kindness and gives him his
confidence— He spends the winter at Québec.— A few
reflections upon his Se POETS for the West in
the spring time.. .. . fe ieee .- 68

CHAPTER VII.—Voyage of de la Vérendrye’s sons to the
Rocky Mountains.— Discovery of the Mountains on the
Ist January, 1743.— Return to Fort La Reine— Estab-
lishment of a Fort at the Paskoyac river,— Recall of
the Chevalier de la Vérendrye to Montreal.— De la Vé-
rendrye, senior, replaced in the North-West by M. de
Noyelles.— The Chevalier returns to the West in 1747. .
The Govermor pri intrusts de la Miscciaisi dy with the
explorations.. .. . 69

CHAPTER VIII.—Death of the Sieur de la Vérendrye.—
Sad plight of his sons; they were refused permission to
continue ‘his work of discovery.— Legardeur de Saint-
Pierre succeeds de la Vérendrye—His sojourn in the
Western trading posts,— His disgraceful conduct towards
de la Vérendry’s son.— aay is done towards the dis-
covery of the Western sea.. ... 77

CHAPTER IX.—The Chevalier de la Vérendrye’s return to
Montreal ; he asserts the claims to his father’s succes-
sion. The Governor is deaf to hiis entreaties — His
letter to the Minister of Marine The vile conduct of
the Governor, of Bigot, and * a Saint-Pierre towards
de la Vérendrye’s sons... .. ’ 85

CHAPTER X,—Departure of de Saint-Pierre for the West.—
Michilimacinac,— Fort Saint-Pierre—— Address to the In- |
dians.— Fort Maurepas.— De Niverville sent to Paskoyac. a
— Arrival of de Saint-Pierre at Fort La Reine.— The
Fort devoid of provisions — Establishment of Fort. La
Jonquiére— Sickness of De Niverville— De Saint-Pierre
spends the winter quietly at Fort La Reime.. ........

INDEX OF MATTERS

317

PAGE

_ CHAPTER XI.—De Saint-Pierre in the trading posts of the
West (continued).— An adventure at Fort La Reine,—
De Saint-Pierre returns with Indian chiefs to Fort La

Reine.— His recall to Montreal by Governor Duquesne, —

The Chevalier de la Corne.— Trading posts of the West.
a wae End of the French domination in
e e 3

THE SECOND PERIOD, 1760 TO 1822.

SHE: TRADING COMPANIES, 60-6506 os cs ola oe es des

CHAPTER I.—The “Coureurs des bois,” Reece and the
scattered traders... .. .. 0.0. Seah ETOM ore" elias

CHAPTER II.—The formation of the North-West Com-
pany.— Why the Company took the name of French
Company.— Its first organization; names of its first
members (Bourgeois).— First secession,— Struggle with
certain discontended traders.— Establishment of Forts
on the northern extremity of La Crosse Island and at
Lake Athabaska.— Meeting of the traders in 1787.. ....

CHAPTER III.—The North-West Company after 1787,—
Their plans to remain sole mistress of the fur trading
business.— They build forts in the extreme north to pre-
vent the Indians from going to the Hudson Bay.—
Works of the discoverers Alex. MacKenzie, Fraser and
Quesnel. — Journey to the aia b of the Mandans. —
Reflections of an Indian chief, . , AE reer

CHAPTER IV.—The North-West Company, an instrument
of corruption for the Indians and for its own employees.
— The Company’s system was injurious to our Canadian
companies and to the well-being of the Indians, . ‘a

CHAPTER V.—Our Camadian voyageurs in the Upper Coun-
i try.— Their engagement with the North-West Company.
— The recruiting agents —— Departure from Montreal in
canoes.— The journey.— Hard labor to which the hired
men are subjected.— Regrets for pve left. Canada and
‘their homes.— Arrival at the Red River .. .. ....

. 107

.. 109

. 109

119

. 127

. 139

149

318 | INDEX OF MATTERS

, PAGE
CHAPTER VI.—French divisions in the North-West—- ~=—
Organization of the X. Y. Company.— Struggle to the ==
death between the two Cone Gch, scenes enact- _ BY
ed in the North-West. . sate : . 159. t

CHAPTER VII.—New organization of the North-West. Com-
pany.— Means employed to stimulate the zeal of the sub-
ordinates.— Timidity of the Hudson Bay Company’s ser-
vants.— Inequality of the eupahseayy sodditbevacs the two m

Companies .. .. .. ; eee a ee

CHAPTER VIII.—Appreciation of the events that constitute
the subject matter of the following chapters.— Difficulty
in picking out the truth from the mass of contradictory
stories.— Lord Selkirk’s voyage to America, and his
sojourn in Montrea!.— His return to London.— His nego-
tiations with the Hudson Bay teas a Siuisy: attitude
taken by the North-West Company . . 181

CHAPTER IX.—Lord Selkirk’s announcement in Scotland of
his intention to establish a colony at the Red River,— ;
First steps taken,— Miles MacDonell is placed in charge
of the emigrants and is made Governor of the colony.—
That gentleman’s honorable character. —Difficulties and
hardships common to all colonies at their origin.— De-
parture of the first Scotch settlers for the Red River,—
Slowness of the voyage.— Wintering at the Hudson Bay.
— Arrival of the colonists at the Red River, in August,
1812.— Hostile manifestations on the part of the Half-
Breeds.— The colonists go to spend the winter at Pem-
bina.— A word about the Half-Breeds.. -- ...... . 193

CHAPTER X.—Winter life in the North-West,— Why Pem-
bina was selected as a place of habitation.—The white-
men readily become accustomed to that kind of life —
Description of the hunt,— Mutual understanding between
the Scotchmen and the Half-Breeds.— Return of thie col-
onists to the Red River,— Second batch of emigrants.—
Severe sufferings from sickness during the voyage.— Their
arrival at the Red River.— Second winter spent at Pem-
bina,— Great sufferings The means adopted by the
Government to procure food for thet colonists—A Pro-
clamation.— Seizure of provisions.—The North-West o
Company determines to ruin the colony. . MPM a) abet

CHAPTERX XI.—Bungling policy of the North-West Company, i je
— Duncan Cameron at Fort Gibraltar, on the Red Riiver. a a
— His scheming to discourage the settlers.— He advises

INDEX OF MATTERS _

319°

PAGE

_ them to leave the Red River and to stea] all they could
Jay hands on at Fort Douglas.— He seizes the arms,

which the settlers had to defend themselves against the
Indians.— He takes Governor MacDonell prisoner,—He

drives away the settlers who will not go down to Canada’

with him.— The Company’s servants burn down the
houses of the settlers .. -: .. RT ee ie

the destruction of the colony and reward those who had
assisted Cameron,— The colony is re-established by an of-
ficial of the Hudson Bay Company.— Lord Selkirk comes
out from Scotland in the autumn, and spends the winter
in Montreal. A messenger from the -Red River brings
him news of all that had taken place since spring-time.
— The North-West Company gets ready to again destroy
the colony,— Lord Selkirk asks aid from the Governor
of Canada,— The Governor, deceived by the North-West
Company’s agents, refuses the assistance, . ; ents

CHAPTER XIII.—Lord Selkirk takes at his own expense one

hundred licensed soldiers to the Red River, as settlers.—
After his departure from Montreal he learns on. the way,
that his colony is again diestroyed.— He marches on Fort
William and seizes it— The members of the North-West
Company are made prisoners, and are sent to Canada.
Explanation of what took place at the Red River during
autumn of 1815 and the winter of 1816.— Cameron made
prisoner.— Fort Gibraltar destroyed.— Ce in the
North to totally destroy the colony..

CHAPTER XIV.—Sufferings of the Scotch settlers in the

spring of 1816— Complete lack of provisions in the col-
ony.— The Government sends to Qu’Appelle for some.—
The Hudson Bay Company’s men who convey back the
supplies are attacked by the North-West Company’s
people and made prisoners.— Preparations made by the
members of the North-West Company to destroy the
colony.— Battle of the 19th June.—The North-West
Company takes Fort eet” The eens is aacaa thy
for a second time. . ; '

- CHAPTER XV.—Fresh persecutions undergone by the set-

tlers before their departure for the Hudson Bay,— As-
sassination of Mr. Keveny, a Hudson Bay Company of-
ficial— The prisoners in Montreal are admitted to bail.
— William McGillivray sends Mr. de Rocheblave to Fort
William to arrest Lord Selkirk— He fails in the at-
\ tempt.— Lord Selkirk sends soldiers to the Red River.—

do eae Uthasneaes Sar ~ :

: | 21

.. 217
CHAPTER XII.— The Partners of the Company rejoice in

. 231

. 245

. 257

. 269

CHAPTER XVI.—The settlers recallled to their sain a re

ha Selkirk passes the summer at Fort Douglas.— Free grants —
Bid of lands.— Petition drawn up in the name of the Catholic

Bate A population, by Lord Selkirk, to have missionaries,—Letter

- ' of Lord Selkirk to the Bishop of Quebec.— Plottings bi esiithlh

the North-West Company to prevent the missionaries =

, from going to the Red River— Lord Selkirk’s gnonge es! 1 aie

gift to the Catholic mission. Instructions given by the oF ine

ae ‘ Bishop of Quebec to the missionaries, concerning their nae ;
‘ conducting of the missions .. .. 2. 2. 1. 6. ee ee thee 279 N44

CHAPTER XVII.—Legal action taken by Lord Sellkirk

- against the North-West Company, —The grasshopper.
j plague at the Red River— The Pembina mission.— In-
terest taken by Lord and Lady Selkirk in the mission-

aries. — Union of the two Companies,— Sir George

Simpson praises the work of the missionaries,— Peace at

last restored throughout the North-West .. .. .. .. .. 201°

Notes of Evidence to justify certain contentions... .. . us 301°

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