The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company

Active measures were then taken by the Earl of Selkirk to advance his scheme, and it was determined to send out the first colony immediately. Some years before, Lord Selkirk had carried on a correspondence with a U. E. Loyalist colonist, Miles Macdonell, formerly an officer of the King's Royal Regiment of New York, who had been given the rank of captain in the Canadian Militia. Macdonell's assistance was obtained in the new enterprise, and he was appointed by his lordship to superintend his colony at Red River.

Many incorrect statements have been made about the different bands of colonists which found their way to Red River. No less than four parties arrived at Red River by way of York or Churchill Factories between the years 1811 and 1815. Facts connected with one of them have been naturally confused in the memories of the old settlers on Red River with what happened to other bands. In this way the author has found that representations made to him and embodied in his work on "Manitoba," published in 1882, were in several particulars incorrect. Fortunately in late years the letter-book of Captain Miles Macdonell was acquired from the Misses Macdonell of Brockville, and the voluminous correspondence of Lord Selkirk has been largely copied for the Archives at Ottawa. These letters enable us to give a clear and accurate account of the first band of colonists that found its way to the heart of the Continent and began the Red River settlement.

In the end of June, 1811, Captain Miles Macdonell found himself at Yarmouth, on the east coast of England, with a fleet of three vessels sent out by the Hudson's Bay Company for their regular trade and also to carry the first colonists. These vessels were the Prince of Wales, the Eddystone, and an old craft the Edward and Anne, with "old sail ropes, &c., and very badly manned." This extra vessel was evidently intended for the accommodation of the colonists. By the middle of July the little fleet had reached the Pentland Firth and were compelled to put into Stromness, when the Prince of Wales embarked a number of Orkneymen intended for the Company's service. The men of the Hudson's Bay Company at this time were largely drawn from the Orkney Islands.

Proceeding on their way the fleet made rendezvous at Stornoway, the chief town of Lewis, one of the Hebrides. Here had arrived a number of colonists or employés, some from Sligo, others from Glasgow, and others from different parts of the Highlands. Many influences were operating against the success of the colonizing expedition. It had the strenuous opposition of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, then in Britain, and the newspapers contained articles intended to discourage and dissuade people from embarking in the enterprise. Mr. Reid, collector of Customs at Stornoway, whose wife was an aunt of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, threw every impediment in the way of the project, and some of those engaged by Lord Selkirk were actually lured away by enlisting agents. A so-called "Captain" Mackenzie, denominated a "mean fellow," came alongside the Edward and Anne, which had some seventy-six men aboard – Glasgow men, Irish, "and a few from Orkney" – and claimed some of them as "deserters from Her Majesty's service." The demand was, however, resisted. It is no wonder that in his letter to Lord Selkirk Captain Macdonell writes, "All the men that we shall have are now embarked, but it has been an herculean task."

A prominent employé of the expedition, Mr. Moncrieff Blair, posing as a gentleman, deserted on July 25th, the day before the sailing of the vessels. A number of the deserters at Stornoway had left their effects on board, and these were disposed of by sale among the passengers. Among the officers was a Mr. Edwards, who acted as medical man of the expedition. He had his hands completely full during the voyage and returned to England with the ships. Another notable person on board was a Roman Catholic priest, known as Father Bourke. Captain Macdonell was himself a Roman Catholic, but he seems from the first to have had no confidence in the priest, who, he stated, had "come away without the leave of his bishop, who was at the time at Dublin." Father Bourke, we shall see, though carried safely to the shores of Hudson Bay, never reached the interior, but returned to Britain in the following year. After the usual incidents of "an uncommon share of boisterous, stormy, and cold weather" on the ocean, the ships entered Hudson Bay. Experiencing "a course of fine mild weather and moderate fair winds," on September 24th the fleet reached the harbour of York Factory, after a voyage of sixty-one days out from Stornoway, the Eddystone, which was intended to go to Churchill, not having been able to reach that Factory, coming with the other vessels to York Factory.

The late arrival of the colony on the shores of Hudson Bay made it impossible to ascend the Nelson River and reach the interior during the season of 1811. Accordingly Captain Macdonell made preparations for wintering on the Bay. York Factory would not probably have afforded sufficient accommodation for the colonists, but in addition Captain Macdonell states in a letter to Lord Selkirk that "the factory is very ill constructed and not at all adapted for a cold country." In consequence of these considerations, Captain Macdonell at once undertook, during the fair weather of the season yet remaining, to build winter quarters on the north side of the river, at a distance of some miles from the Factory. No doubt matters of discipline entered into the plans of the leader of the colonists. In a short time very comfortable dwellings were erected, built of round logs, the front side high with a shade roof sloping to the rear a foot thick – and the group of huts was known as "Nelson encampment!"

The chief work during the earlier winter, which the captain laid on his two score men, was providing themselves with fuel, of which there was plenty, and obtaining food from the Factory, for which sledges drawn over the snow were utilized by the detachments sent on this service. The most serious difficulty was, however, a meeting, in which a dozen or more of the men became completely insubordinate, and refused to yield obedience either to Captain Macdonell or to Mr. W. H. Cook, the Governor of the Factory. Every effort was made to maintain discipline, but the men steadily held to their own way, lived apart from Macdonell, and drew their own provisions from the fort to their huts. This tended to make the winter somewhat long and disagreeable.

Captain Macdonell, being a Canadian, knew well the dangers of the dread disease of the scurvy attacking his inexperienced colonists. The men at the fort prophesied evil things in this respect for the "encampment." The captain took early steps to meet the disease, and his letters to Governor Cook always contain demands for "essence of malt," "crystallized salts of lemon," and other anti-scorbutics. Though some of his men were attacked, yet the sovereign remedy so often employed in the "lumber camps" of America, the juice of the white spruce, was applied with almost magical effect. As the winter went on, plenty of venison was received, and the health of his wintering party was in the spring much better than could have been anticipated.

After the New Year had come, all thoughts were directed to preparations for the journey of 700 miles or thereabouts to the interior. A number of boats were required for transportation of the colonists and their effects. Captain Macdonell insisted on his boats being made after a different style from the boats commonly used at that time by the Company. His model was the flat boat, which he had seen used in the Mohawk River in the State of New York. The workmanship displayed in the making of these boats very much dissatisfied Captain Macdonell, and he constantly complained of the indolence of the workmen. In consequence of this inefficiency the cost of the boats to Lord Selkirk was very great, and drew forth the objections of the leader of the colony.

Captain Macdonell had the active assistance of Mr. Cook, the officer in charge of York, and of Mr. Auld, the Commander of Churchill, the latter having come down to York to make arrangements for the inland journey of the colonists. By July 1st, 1812, the ice had moved from the river, and the expedition started soon after on the journey to Red River. The new settlers found the route a hard and trying one with its rapids and portages. The boats, too, were heavy, and the colonists inexperienced in managing them. It was well on toward autumn when the company, numbering about seventy, reached the Red River. No special preparation had been made for the colonists, and the winter would soon be upon them. Some of the parties were given shelter in the Company fort and buildings, others in the huts of the freed men, who were married to the Indian women, and settled in the neighbourhood of the Forks, while others still found refuge in the tents of the Indian encampment in the vicinity. Governor Macdonell soon selected Point Douglas as the future centre of the colony and what is now Kildonan as the settlement. On account of the want of food the settlers were taken sixty miles south to Pembina and there, by November, a post, called Fort Daer from one of Lord Selkirk's titles, was erected for the shelter of the people and for nearness to the buffalo herds. The Governor Joined the colony in a short time and retired with them early in 1813 to their settlement.

While Governor Macdonell was thus early engaged in making a beginning in the new colony, Lord Selkirk was seeking out more colonists, and sent out a small number to the New World by the Hudson's Bay Company ships. Before sailing from Stornoway the second party met with serious interruption from the collector of Customs, who, we have seen, was related to Sir Alexander Mackenzie. The number on board the ships was greater, it was claimed, than the "Dundas Act" permitted. Through the influence of Lord Selkirk the ships were allowed to proceed on their voyage. Prison fever, it is said, broke out on the voyage, so that a number died at sea, and others on the shore of Hudson Bay. A small number, not more than fifteen or twenty, reached Red River in the autumn of 1813.

During the previous winter Governor Macdonell had taken a number of the colonists to Pembina, a point sixty miles south of the Forks, where buffalo could be had, as has already been mentioned on the previous page. On returning, after the second winter, to the settlement, the colonists sowed a small quantity of wheat. They were not, however, at that time in possession of any horses or oxen and were consequently compelled to prepare the ground with the hoe.

Lord Selkirk had not been anxious in 1812 to send a large addition to his colony. In 1813 he made greater efforts, and in June sent out in the Prince of Wales, sailing from Orkney, a party under Mr. Archibald Macdonald, numbering some ninety-three persons. Mr. Macdonald has written an account of his voyage, and has given us a remarkably concise and clear pamphlet. Having spent the winter at Churchill, Macdonald started on April 14th with a considerable number of his party, and, coming by way of York Factory, reached Red River on June 22nd, when they were able to plant some thirty or forty bushels of potatoes. The settlers were in good spirits, having received plots of land to build houses for themselves. Governor Macdonell went northward to meet the remainder of Archibald Macdonald's party, and arrived with them late in the season.

On account of various misunderstandings between the colony and the North-West Company, which we shall relate more particularly in another chapter, 150 of the colonists were induced by a North-West officer, Duncan Cameron, to leave the country and go by a long canoe journey to Canada. The remainder, numbering about sixty persons, making up about thirteen families, were driven from the settlement, and found refuge at Norway House (Jack River) at the foot of Lake Winnipeg. An officer from Lord Selkirk, Colin Robertson, arrived in the colony to assist these settlers, but found them driven out. He followed them to Norway House, and with his twenty clerks and servants, conducted them back to Red River to their deserted homes.

While these disastrous proceedings were taking place on Red River, including the summons to Governor Macdonell to appear before the Courts of Lower Canada to answer certain charges made against him, Lord Selkirk was especially active in Great Britain, and gathered together the best band of settlers yet sent out. These were largely from the parish of Kildonan, in Sutherlandshire, Scotland. Governor Macdonell having gone east to Canada, the colony was to be placed under a new Governor, a military officer of some distinction, Robert Semple, who had travelled in different parts of the world. Governor Semple was in charge of this fourth party of colonists, who numbered about 100. With this party, hastening through his journey, Governor Semple reached his destination on Red River in the month of October, in the same year in which they had left the motherland.

Thus we have seen the arrival of those who were known as the Selkirk colonists. We recapitulate their numbers: —

Of these but two remained on the banks of the Red River in 1897, George Bannerman and John Matheson, and they have both died since that time.

We shall follow the history of these colonists further; suffice it now to say that their settlement has proved the country to be one of great fertility and promise; and their early establishment no doubt prevented international complications with the United States that might have rendered the possession of Rupert's Land a matter of uncertainty to Great Britain.

CHAPTER XXIV

TROUBLE BETWEEN THE COMPANIES

Nor'-Westers oppose the colony – Reason why – A considerable literature – Contentions of both parties – Both in fault – Miles Macdonell's mistake – Nor'-Wester arrogance – Duncan Cameron's ingenious plan – Stirring up the Chippewas – Nor'-Westers warn colonists to depart – McLeod's hitherto unpublished narrative – Vivid account of a brave defence – Chain shot from the blacksmith's smithy – Fort Douglas begun – Settlers driven out – Governor Semple arrives – Cameron last Governor of Fort Gibraltar – Cameron sent to Britain as a prisoner – Fort Gibraltar captured – Fort Gibraltar decreases, Fort Douglas increases – Free traders take to the plains – Indians favour the colonists.

To the most casual observer it must have been evident that the colony to be established by Lord Selkirk would be regarded with disfavour by the North-West Company officers. The strenuous opposition shown to it in Great Britain by Sir Alexander Mackenzie, and by all who were connected with him, showed quite clearly that it would receive little favour on the Red River.

First, it was a Hudson's Bay scheme, and would greatly advance the interests of the English trading Company. That Company would have at the very threshold of the fur country a depôt, surrounded by traders and workmen, which would give them a great advantage over their rivals.

Secondly, civilization and its handmaid agriculture are incompatible with the fur trade. As the settler enters, the fur-bearing animals are exterminated. A sparsely settled, almost unoccupied country, is the only hope of preserving this trade.

Thirdly, the claim of the Hudson's Bay Company under its charter was that they had the sole right to pursue the fur trade in Rupert's Land. Their traditional policy on Hudson Bay had been to drive out private trade, and to preserve their monopoly.

Fourthly, the Nor'-Westers claimed to be the lineal successors of the French traders, who, under Verendrye, had opened up the region west of Lake Superior. They long after maintained that priority of discovery and earlier possession gave them the right to claim the region in dispute as belonging to the province of Quebec, and so as being a part of Canada.

The first and second parties of settlers were so small, and seemed so little able to cope with the difficulties of their situation, that no great amount of opposition was shown. They were made, it is true, the laughing-stock of the half-breeds and Indians, for these free children of the prairies regarded the use of the hoe or other agricultural implement as beneath them. The term "Pork-eaters," applied, as we have seen, to the voyageurs east of Fort William, was freely applied to these settlers, while the Indians used to call them the French name "jardinières" or clod-hoppers.

A considerable literature is in existence dealing with the events of this period. It is somewhat difficult, in the conflict of opinion, to reach a basis of certainty as to the facts of this contest. The Indian country is proverbial for the prevalence of rumour and misrepresentation. Moreover, prejudice and self-interest were mingled with deep passion, so that the facts are very hard to obtain.

The upholders of the colony claim that no sooner had the settlers arrived than efforts were made to stir up the Indians against them; that besides, the agents of the North-West Company had induced the Metis, or half-breeds, to disguise themselves as Indians, and that on their way to Pembina one man was robbed by these desperadoes of the gun which his father had carried at Culloden, a woman of her marriage ring, and others of various ornaments and valuable articles. There were, however, it is admitted, no specially hostile acts noticeable during the years 1812 and 1813.

The advocates of the North-West Company, on the other hand, blame the first aggression on Miles Macdonell. During the winter of 1813 and 1814 Governor Macdonell and his colonists were occupying Fort Daer and Pembina. The supply of subsistence from the buffalo was short, food was difficult to obtain, the war with the United States was in progress and might cut off communication with Montreal, and moreover, a body of colonists was expected to arrive during the year from Great Britain. Accordingly, the Governor, on January 8th, 1814, issued a proclamation.

He claimed the territory as ceded to Lord Selkirk, and gave the description of the tract thus transferred. The proclamation then goes on to say: "And whereas the welfare of the families at present forming the settlements on the Red River within the said territory, with those on their way to it, passing the winter at York or Churchill Forts on Hudson Bay, as also those who are expected to arrive next autumn, renders it a necessary and indispensable part of my duty to provide for their support. The 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; wherefore, it is hereby ordered that no persons trading in furs or provisions within the territory, for the Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company, the North-West Company, or any individual or unconnected traders whatever, shall take out any provisions, either of flesh, grain, or vegetables, procured or raised within the territory, by water or land-carriage for one twelvemonth from the date hereof; save and except what may be judged necessary for the trading parties at the present time within the territory, to carry them to their respective destinations, and who may, on due application to me, obtain licence for the same. The provisions procured and raised as above, shall be taken for the use of the colony, and that no losses may accrue to the parties concerned, they will be paid for by British bills at the customary rates, &c."

The Nor'-Westers then recalled the ceremonies with which Governor Macdonell had signalized his entrance to the country: "When he arrived he gathered his company about him, made before it some impressive ceremonies, drawn from the conjuring book of his lordship, and read to it his commission of governor or representative of Lord Selkirk; afterwards a salute was fired from the Hudson's Bay Company fort, which proclaimed his taking possession of the neighbourhood."

The Governor, however, soon gave another example of his determination to assert his authority. It had been represented to him that the North-West Company officers had no intention of obeying the proclamation, and indeed were engaged in buying up all the available supplies to prevent his getting enough for his colonists. Convinced that his opponents were engaged in thwarting his designs, the Governor sent John Spencer to seize some of the stores which had been gathered in the North-West post at the mouth of the Souris River. Spencer was unwilling to go, unless very specific instructions were given him. The Governor had, by Lord Selkirk's influence in Canada, been appointed a magistrate, and he now issued a warrant authorizing Spencer to seize the provisions in this fort.

Spencer, provided with a double escort, proceeded to the fort at the Souris, and the Nor'-Westers made no other resistance than to retire within the stockade and shut the gate of the fort. Spencer ordered his men to force an entrance with their hatchets. Afterwards, opening the store-houses, they seized six hundred skins of dried meat (pemmican) and of grease, each weighing eighty-five pounds. This booty was removed into the Hudson's Bay Company fort (Brandon House) at that place.

We have now before us the first decided action that led to the serious disturbances that followed. The question arises, Was the Governor justified in the steps taken by him? No doubt, with the legal opinion which Lord Selkirk had obtained, he considered himself thoroughly justified. The necessities of his starving people and the plea of humanity were certainly strong motives urging him to action. No doubt these considerations seemed strong, but, on the other hand, he should have remembered that the idea of law in the fur traders' country was a new thing, that the Nor'-Westers, moreover, were not prepared to credit him with purity of motive, and that they had at their disposal a force of wild Bois Brûlés ready to follow the unbridled customs of the plains. Further, even in civilized communities laws of non-intercourse, embargo, and the like, are looked upon as arbitrary and of doubtful validity. All these things should have led the Governor, ill provided as he was with the force necessary for his defence, to hesitate before taking a course likely to be disagreeable to the Nor'-Westers, who would regard it as an assertion of the claim of superiority of the Hudson's Bay Company and of the consequent degradation of their Company, of which they were so proud.

In their writings the North-West Company take some credit for not precipitating a conflict, but state that they endured the indignity until their council at Fort William should take action in the following summer. At this council, which was interesting and full of strong feeling against their fur-trading rivals, the Nor'-Westers, under the presidency of the Hon. William McGillivray, took decided action.

In the trials that afterwards arose out of this unfortunate quarrel, John Pritchard, whose forty days' wanderings we have recorded, testified that one of the North-West agents, Mackenzie, had given him the information that "the intention of the North-West Company was to seduce and inveigle away as many of the colonists and settlers at Red River as they could induce to join them; and after they should thus have diminished their means of defence, to raise the Indians of Lac Rouge, Fond du Lac, and other places, to act and destroy the settlement; and that it was also their intention to bring the Governor, Miles Macdonell, down to Montreal as a prisoner, by way of degrading the authority under which the colony was established in the eyes of the natives of that country."

Simon McGillivray, a North-West Company partner, had two years before this written from London that "Lord Selkirk must be driven to abandon his project, for his success would strike at the very existence of our trade."

Two of the most daring partners of the North-West Company were put in charge of the plan of campaign agreed on at Fort William. These were Duncan Cameron and Alexander Macdonell. The latter wrote to a friend, from one of his resting-places on his journey, "Much is expected of us … so here is at them with all my heart and energy." The two partners arrived at Fort Gibraltar, situated at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, toward the end of August. The senior partner, Macdonell, leaving Cameron at Fort Gibraltar, went westward to the Qu'Appelle River, to return in the spring and carry out the plan agreed on.