South from Hudson Bay: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys

by Ethel C. Brill

  III THE SELKIRK COLONY AND THE RIVAL FUR TRADERS

  What was the Selkirk Colony, and how did it happen that this party ofSwiss had come so far to join it?

  When Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, one of the famous Douglas family ofthe Scottish border, planned the settlement on the Red River of theNorth, his purpose was to find homes and livelihood for thepoverty-stricken Scotch Highlanders. Hundreds of those unfortunate peoplehad been turned out of their homes through changes in the system ofmanagement of the great landed estates in Scotland, and there was littleopportunity in the old country for them to make a living. Though aLowlander himself, Lord Selkirk had often visited the Highland glens. Heknew the people, and had learned their native Gaelic language. Hesympathized with them in their misfortunes. Seeking for some way to helpthem, he realized that their only chance for prosperity and success layin emigration to a country where land was cheap and plentiful. He hadheard of the rich soil of the Red River valley, and decided that was theplace to plant his colony.

  The lower Red River valley was included in the vast domain of the HudsonBay Company. The charter from King Charles II of England issued in 1670had given to Prince Rupert and the "Company of Adventurers of England,trading into Hudson Bay"--"the whole trade of all those seas, streights,and bays, rivers, lakes, creeks, and sounds,--that lie within theentrance of the streights commonly called Hudson's Streights, togetherwith all the lands, countries, and territories upon the coasts andconfines of the seas, streights, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks, and soundsaforesaid, which are not now actually possessed by any of our subjects,or by the subjects of any other Christian prince or State." Not only didthe royal charter grant the "Adventurers" the trade of that vastregion,--which, in the widest interpretation of the terms, included aquarter or a third of the whole of North America,--but it conferred uponthe Company the right to hold the land "in free and common socage" whichmeans absolute proprietorship. Whether King Charles really had the rightto give away this vast territory to anyone may be questioned, but theHudson Bay Company claimed proprietorship under the charter.

  The Red River empties into Lake Winnipeg, and the northern end of thelake drains into the Nelson River which flows to Hudson Bay. Accordinglythe valley of the Red was included in the territory claimed by theCompany. However, before the time of this story, the purchase from Franceby the United States of a vast extent of country west of the MississippiRiver,--the Louisiana Purchase--and the boundary treaties with theBritish government, gave the greater part of the Red River to the UnitedStates. Only the stretch from what is now the northern limit of Minnesotaand North Dakota to Lake Winnipeg remained in English possession. It wasto this lower part of the valley that Lord Selkirk wished to take hiscolonists. He knew well enough that the Hudson Bay Company would not beinclined to part with any of its domain for such a purpose, but he hadset his heart upon planting his colony in that particular spot.

  Accordingly he laid his plans to get possession of the required land.Quietly, by buying shares himself and persuading his friends to buy also,he obtained control over a majority of the stock of the great tradingcompany. Then he offered to purchase a wide strip of land on the Red andAssiniboine rivers. As he controlled the majority of votes in theCompany, he got what he wanted, about one hundred and sixteen squaremiles, of which he became absolute proprietor.

  The first settlers he sent over were of course Scotch Highlanders, with afew Irish. They arrived at Fort York in the autumn of 1811, too late togo to the Red River that year. The next summer they reached their newhome on the Red, and were followed within three years by other parties,numbering in all a little more than two hundred, most of them Scotch.

  The troubles of the settlers were many and discouraging. Had the Earl ofSelkirk been a more practical man he would scarcely have undertaken toplant a farming colony in the midst of a wilderness, hundreds of milesfrom any other settlement, and without communication with the civilizedworld except by canoe and rowboat over long and difficult river trails.Not all of the colonists' troubles were due to natural conditionshowever.

  The Hudson Bay Company had a strong trading rival in the Northwest FurCompany. The latter was a Canadian organization with headquarters atMontreal, while the Hudson Bay Company was strictly English, its chiefoffices in London. The Northwest men had established trading posts alongthe Great Lakes and far to the west and north beyond Lake Superior. Theyhad penetrated farther and farther into the country claimed by the HudsonBay Company. The Hudson Bay men themselves had done almost nothing todevelop trade in the interior, until the Canadian traders began to goamong the Indians and secure furs that might otherwise have been broughtto the posts on the Bay. Awakening to the realization that the NorthwestCompany was actually taking away the trade, the Hudson Bay men alsosought the interior. In this way began a race and a fight for the fursthat grew hotter and fiercer with each year. Everywhere on the principallakes and streams of the west and northwest, rival posts wereestablished, sometimes within a few hundred rods of each other.

  The rivalry between the fur traders was approaching its height when LordSelkirk founded his colony. From the first, the Northwest Company opposedthe scheme. The fur trader never likes to see the country from which thepelts come opened up to settlement. He knows that as the land is settledthe wild animals disappear. Moreover Lord Selkirk was now the controllingpower in the Hudson Bay Company, and the Northwesters suspected him ofsome deep laid plan to interfere with and ruin their trade. Several yearsbefore, they had established a post called Fort Gibraltar at the junctionof the Red and the Assiniboine, and their route to the rich fur districtsof the west lay up the latter river. They believed that the settlementwas merely a scheme to cut off their trade. So they looked withunfriendly eyes upon the colony, and even persuaded a considerable numberof the colonists to leave and settle on lands farther east in Canada.Most of the Northwest traders were of Scotch blood, many of them ofHighland descent, and doubtless they honestly thought that theircountrymen would find better homes elsewhere. The chance that the RedRiver settlement would ever succeed seemed, to practical-minded men, veryslender indeed.

  The ill feeling between the two great trading companies and between theNorthwest Company and the Selkirk settlement grew stronger and bittereras time went on. Mistakes and high handed acts on both sides, in a landwhere there was no law, led at last to open conflict. In 1815 thecolonists were driven from their homes and obliged to flee to the shelterof a Hudson Bay post at the northern end of Lake Winnipeg. The Hudson Baymen made reprisals by capturing the Northwesters' posts and interruptingtheir trade. The settlers were rallied and taken back to their homes,only to face a worse disaster the next year. An open fight between themen of Governor Semple of the colony and a party of half-breeds in theemploy of the Northwest Company resulted in the killing of the Governorand his twenty followers, and the capture of their stronghold, FortDouglas.

  Lord Selkirk was in America at the time seeking from the Canadiangovernment some means of protection for his colonists. Failing to getsatisfaction from a government whose sympathies were with the Northwestrather than with the Hudson Bay company, he had hired, to guard hiscolony, one hundred men from two regiments of mercenary soldiers that hadbeen disbanded after the War of 1812. While he was traversing LakeSuperior on his way west with these men, he met canoes bringing word ofthe disastrous fight of Seven Oaks, the death of Governor Semple, and thecapture of Fort Douglas. Skirting the shores of the lake, Lord Selkirkwent to Fort William, the headquarters of the Northwest Company onThunder Bay. There he demanded the release of the prisoners who had beenbrought from the Red River. The controversy that followed finally led tohis taking possession of the fort. The fact that he had been appointed amagistrate for the Indian country and sought the arrest of theNorthwesters who had taken part in or instigated the troubles at FortDouglas, gave his action some color of legal right. From Fort William hewent on to his disordered and devastated colony, and gathered togetherall the settlers who were
willing to remain.

  In spite of all the settlement had been through, Lord Selkirk had nointention of giving up his plans. So many of the colonists had beendriven or enticed away and would not return, that he sought to findothers to take their places. It was then that he hit upon the idea ofbringing over the steady, hard-working Swiss, who would, he believed,make the very best of settlers.

  Captain Mai or May,--the English spelling of his name,--a Swiss who hadserved as a mercenary soldier in the British army, and other agents weresent to Switzerland to secure settlers. Throughout the cantons ofNeuchatel, Vaud, Geneva, and Berne, they traveled, explaining theadvantages of emigration to the Red River country. The pamphlets theydistributed, printed in French and German, gave a highly colored andalluring description of that country with its many miles of fertile soilto be had for the asking. Like all emigration agents, Captain Mai and hisassistants told all the good things about both country and colony andleft out the bad. About the civil war between the fur companies and thetroubles it had led to, they said nothing.

  Early in May 1821, about one hundred and sixty emigrants were gatheredtogether at a small village on the Rhine near Basel. In great barges theywere taken down the Rhine, a delightful trip on that famous river withits beautiful and striking scenery, to Dordrecht in Holland. There theyembarked on the _Lord Wellington_ for the trip to Hudson Bay. The voyagetook far longer than they had realized it would take, the food providedwas inferior to what they were used to, the drinking water became bad,and storms and ice caused delay. At Hudson Straits the _Lord Wellington_overtook the two Hudson Bay Company supply ships, and the three were heldfor three weeks in the ice with which the Straits were filled. The heavyswell coming in from the open ocean and rushing between the icebergs,caused rapid tides and currents in which sailing ships were almosthelpless. Luckily the _Lord Wellington_ escaped serious injury, but oneof the supply ships was nearly wrecked and badly damaged by collisionwith a berg. Not far away were two other vessels also caught in the ice,the _Fury_ and the _Hecla_ carrying Captain Parry and his Arcticexploring expedition. The _Hecla_ had one of her anchors broken andseveral hawsers carried away.

  The Swiss emigrants were a hopeful, cheerful folk. They had been togetherso long they had become like a large family party, and they made the bestof their hardships. When it was safe to do so, the young and activeclimbed down from the ship to the solid ice field, ran races, and evenheld a dance on a particularly smooth stretch. At last the shipssucceeded in entering the bay. Skirting the barren shores, the threevessels destined for the Hudson Bay post reached anchorage off YorkFactory in safety.