WOLSELEY'S WELCOME.
Canada's military experience, ever since the excitement of the "Trent Affair," had been in dealing with a persistent band of Irishmen, posing as Fenians, and egged on by sympathizers in the United States. Now there was trouble, as we have seen, in her own borders, and though here again, American influence of a hostile nature played its part, yet it was those connected with one of the two races in Canada who were now giving trouble in the Northwestern prairies. Such an outbreak was more dangerous than Fenianism, for to the credit of the Irish in Canada, it should be said that they gave no countenance to the Fenian intruders. The French people in Quebec, however, had strong sympathies for their race in the Red River Settlement. No one in Canada believed that any injustice could be done to either the English or French elements on the banks of Red River, but Sir George Cartier fought strongly for his own, and was very unwilling to allow an expedition to go out to Manitoba with hostile intent. Ofthe two battalions of volunteers that went out to Red River, one was from Quebec, but one military authority states that there were not fifty French-Canadians all told in the Quebec battalion. It had been proposed that Col. Wolseley, who was to command the Red River Expedition, should be appointed Governor of the new province of Manitoba, but this was sturdily opposed by the French-Canadian section of the Cabinet, and Hon. Adams G. Archibald, a Nova Scotian, was appointed to the post of Governor. Hampered thus, in so far as exercising any civil functions were concerned, Col. Garnet Wolseley was chosen by the British officer in command in Canada—General Lindsay—to organize this expedition. Wolseley was very popular, having served in Burmah, India, the Crimea and China.The Ontario battalion soon had to refuse applications, and from Ontario the complement of the Quebec battalion was filled up. It was decided also that a battalion of regulars, with small bodies of artillery and engineers should take the lead in the expedition. Thus, a force of 1,200 men was speedily gathered together and put at the disposal of Colonel Wolseley. Two hundred boats, each some 25 to 30 feet long, carrying four tons as well as fourteen men as a crew, were built; the voyageurs numbered some four hundred men. No sooner did the Fenians in the United States hear of this expedition than they threatened Lower Canada, and spoke of interrupting the troops as they passed Sault Ste. Marie. The United States also refused to allow soldiers or munitions of war to pass up their Sault Canal. The rallying began in May, and though the troops were compelled to debark themselves and their stores at Sault Ste. Marie, portage them around the Sault and replace them in the steamers again, yet all the troops were landed at Port Arthur on Lake Superior by the 21st of June, their officers declaring "our mission is one of peace, and the sole object of it is to secure Her Majesty's Sovereign authority." Some time was lost in endeavoring to use land carriage up from Port Arthur as far as Lake Shebandowan. The difficulties were so great that the scouts were ledto find another route for the boats up the Kaministiquia River. In this they were successful; in all this worry from mosquitoes, black flies and deer flies in millions, the troops preserved their good temper, and Col. Wolseley said, "I have never been with any body of men in the field so well fed as this has been." (July 10th.) The real start of the expedition was from Lake Shebandowan. The three brigades of boats—A. B. and C.—seventeen in all, got off from Shebandowan shore on the evening of July 16th; by the 4th of August Rainy River was reached, and at Fort Frances Colonel Wolseley met Captain Butler, who had acted as intelligence officer, having adroitly passed under Riel's shadow, and being able now to give the news required. It was still the statement and belief of Riel that "Wolseley would never reach Fort Garry." Crossing Lake of the Woods the regular troops were pushed ahead, and on descending Winnipeg River they reached Fort Alexander and Lake Winnipeg on August 20th. Here Commissioner Donald A. Smith, having come through in a light canoe, met Colonel Wolseley. After a short delay Colonel Wolseley's command hastened to the Red River, ascended it, and cautiously approached Fort Garry. It was still uncertain whether Riel was to oppose the expedition or not. The troops formed for what emergency might arise, and two small guns werein readiness should they be required. When Fort Garry was sighted, its guns were mounted, and everything seemed ready for defence. The officers of the expedition, as they approached it were quite ready for a shot to be fired from the battlements, but there was no movement, Riel, Lepine, and O'Donoghue alone, were left of the Metis levy, and as the 60th Rifles drew near the Fort the three were seen to escape from the river gate and to flee across the bridge of boats on the Assiniboine River. Capt. Huyshe states that the troops took possession of the fort with a bloodless victory, the Union Jack was hoisted, three cheers were given for the Queen and the Riel regime was at an end. The militia regiments arrived on the 27th of August, and two days afterwards the Imperial troops started back to their headquarters in Ontario. Captain Buller, who afterward became so celebrated in South Africa, took his company down the Dawson road to the northwest angle of the Lake of the Woods, and thus returned eastward, while Colonel McNeil left the country by way of Red River, through the United States. Shortly afterward, on September 2nd, Lieutenant-Governor Archibald arrived by the Winnipeg River route, and began his work.
Winnipeg in 1871WINNIPEG IN 1871
WINNIPEG IN 1870WINNIPEG IN 1870
The joy of all classes of the people was unbounded. The English half-breeds had been loyal through the whole of the disturbances. KildonanChurch had been the headquarters of the Loyalists in their attempted rally, and after the execution of Scott, the French half-breeds had gradually dropped off from Riel, until he and his two companions formed a helpless trio shorn of all power.
MANITOBA IN THE MAKING.
Close in the wake of Wolseley's Expedition, there arrived on the 2nd of September, Adams G. Archibald, the newly-appointed Governor of the new Province of Manitoba. His arrival was greeted with joy, for he was a man of high character, and of much experience in his native Province of Nova Scotia. The two volunteer regiments, the Quebec and Ontario battalions, were quartered for the winter, the former in Lower Fort Garry, the latter in Fort Garry. The new Governor took up his abode in Fort Garry, in the residence with which our story is so familiar. The organization of his government began at once. The first Government Building stood back from the street in Winnipeg on the corner of Main Street and McDermott Avenue East, of the present-day. The Legislative Council—a miniature House of Lords—of seven members, was appointed, and electoral divisions for the election of members to the Legislative Assembly were made to the number of twenty-four—twelve French andtwelve English. The time for the opening of Parliament was the spring of 1871. It was a notable day, for the citizens were much interested in scrutinizing those who were to be their future rulers. The opening passed off with eclat. During the first session certain elementary legislation was passed including a short school act. There was yet no division of parties, and a sufficient cabinet was chosen by the Governor. Thus, institutions after the model of the mother of Parliaments at Westminster were evolved and Manitoba—the successor of our Red River Settlement—had conceded to it the right of local self-government.
In the year of the first parliament of Manitoba it was the fortune of the writer to take up his abode here. Winnipeg, a village of less than three hundred inhabitants was in that year, still four hundred miles distant from a railway. From the railway terminus in Minnesota, the stage coach drawn by four horses with relays every twenty miles, sped rapidly over prairies, smooth as a lawn to the site of the future city of the plains.
Since that time well-nigh forty years has passed away. The stage coach, the Red River cart, and the shaganappi pony are things of the past, and several railways with richly furnished trains connect St. Paul and Minneapolis with the City of Winnipeg. More important, the skill of the engineer has surpassed what we then even dreamt of in his blasting of rock cuttings and tunnels through the Archæan rocks to Fort William, and this has been done by three main trunk lines of railway. The old amphibious route of the fur traders and of Wolseley's Expedition has been superseded, the tremendous cliffs of the north shore of Lake Superior have been levelled and the chasm bridged. To the west the whole wide prairie land has been gridironed by railways all tributary to Winnipeg, the enormous ascent of the four Rocky Mountain ranges, rising a mile above the sea, have been crossed by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The giddy heights of the Fraser River Canyon are traversed, and this is but the beginning, for three other great corporations are bending their strength to pierce the passes of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. We see to-day scenes more after the manner of the Arabian Nights Entertainments than of the humble dream that Lord Selkirk dreamt one hundred years ago.
Hon. John NorquayHON. JOHN NORQUAYA native of Red River Settlement.Became Cabinet Minister in 1871 afterward Premier of Manitoba.
The towns and cities of Manitoba have sprung up on every hand where the railway has gone and these are but the centres of business of twenty thousand farms whose owners have come to this land, many of them empty-handed, and are now blessed with competence and in many cases wealth. What a vindication ofLord Selkirk's prospectus of a hundred years ago when he said: "The soil on the Red River and the Assiniboine is generally a good soil, susceptible of culture and capable of bearing rich crops." Lord Selkirk's dream is fulfilled, for his land is fast becoming the grainary of the world. As the traveller of to-day passes along the railways in the last days of August or early in September, he beholds the sight of a life-time, in the rattling reapers, each drawn by four great horses, turning off the golden sheaves of wheat and other cereals. A little later the giant threshers, driven by steam power, pour forth the precious grain, which is hurried off to the high elevators for storage, till the railways can carry it to the markets of the world to feed earth's hungry millions. When the historian recalls the statement that the few cattle of the early settlers had degenerated in size on account of the climatic conditions, that the shaganappi pony could never do the work of the stalwart Clydesdale, and that nothing could result from the straggling flock of foot-sore and dying sheep, driven by Burke and Campbell from far-distant Missouri, we look with astonishment at the horses now taken away by hundreds to supply with chargers the crack cavalry regiments of the Empire, at the vast consignments of cattle passing through Winnipeg every day to feed the hungry, and flocks of sheep supplying wool for Eastern manufacturers to clothe the naked.
One of the greatest trials of the early Selkirk Settlers was to get schools sufficient to give the children scattered along the river belt, even the three R's of education. Kildonan parish manfully raised by subscription the means, unaided by Government help, to give some opportunity to their children. It is a notable fact which emerged in the great School Contention of twenty years ago in Manitoba, that not a dollar had been given to schools as aid by the old Government of Assiniboia. To-day the glory of Manitoba is its school system. For school buildings, school organization, attainments of the teachers, and efficient school management, the schools of Winnipeg are probably unsurpassed in any country, and the same is true of many other places in the Province. Two Winnipeg schools bear the names of Selkirk and Isbister. The University of Manitoba, with its seven affiliated colleges and twelve hundred and forty candidates in 1909 for its several examinations has its seat at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, and one of the colleges is on the very lot where Lord Selkirk stood and divided up their lands to the Colonists.
Alexander Isbister, LL.B.ALEXANDER ISBISTER, LL.B.Red River Patriot and Benefactor of University of Manitoba.
One of the most continued and aggressive struggles which Lord Selkirk's Colonists maintained was seen in the efforts put forth to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and after the manner of theirfathers. Their perseverance which showed itself in the erection of old Kildonan Church in the year immediately after the destructive flood of 1852, bore fruit in succeeding years. They were always a religious people. No one can even estimate what their religious disposition did in amiscellaneous gathering of people who had, being scattered over the posts of the fur traders, been in most cases, without any religious opportunities whatever, before their coming to settle on Red River. The sturdy stand for principle which the Selkirk Colonists made created an atmosphere which has remained until this day. The well-nigh forty years of religious life of Manitoba has been marked by a good understanding among the several churches, by an energetic zeal in carrying church services in the very first year of their settlement to hundreds of new communities. The generosity of the people in erecting churches for themselves in maintaining among themselves their cherished beliefs, is in striking contrast to the new settlements of the United States. In the new Western States the religious movements fell behind the Western march of the immigrant. In the Canadian West from the very day that old Verandrye took his priest with him, from the time when the first Colonists brought a devout layman as their religious teacher with them, from the hour when the stalwart Provencher came, from the era when the self-denying West visited the Indian camps and Settlers' camp alike, from the time when the saintly Black came as the natural leader of the Selkirk Colonists, and during the forty years of the development of Manitoba, the foundations have been laid in that righteousness which exalteth a nation.
symbol
How strange and wonderful is the web of destiny, which is being woven in our national, provincial and family life, which we poor mortals are simply the individual strands.
How marvellous it is to look into the seeds of time—yes, and these may be small as mustard seeds—which are the smallest of all seeds—and see the bursting of the husks, the peering out of the plumule, the feeding of the sprout, the struggle through the clods, the fight with frost and hail and broiling sun, and canker worm and blight, the growth of the strengthening stem, and then the leaf and blossoms and fruit! We say it has survived, it becomes a great tree under whose leaves and under whose branches the fowls of Heaven find shelter. How passing strange it was to see the seed-thought rise inthe mind of Lord Selkirk, that suffering humanity transplanted to another environment might grow out of poverty, into happiness and content. See his sorrow as he meets with undeserved opposition from rival traders, from slanderous agents, from bitter articles in the press, from Government officials and even police officers who strive to break up his immigrant parties. Recall the troubles of the Nelson Encampment as they reach him in letters and reports. Think of the misery of knowing thousands of miles away that his Colonists were starving, were being imprisoned, banished, seduced from their allegiance, and in one notable case that men of honor, education and standing to the number of twenty, were massacred, while he, in St. Mary's Isle, in Montreal, or in Fort William, fretted his soul because he could not reach them with deliverance.
Marble Bust of Earl of SelkirkMARBLE BUST OF EARL OF SELKIRK, THE FOUNDERBy Chantrey, obtained by author from St. Mary's Isle, Lord Selkirk's seat.
The world looked coldly on and said, "A visionary Scottish nobleman! a dreamer a hundred years before his time! Is it worth while?" while he himself saw a dream of sunshine when he visited his Colonists on Red River, when he made allocations for their separate homes for them, when he pledged his honor and estate that the settlers might in time be independent, and when he made religious provision for both his Protestant and Catholic settlers, yet think of the unexampled ferocity with which he wasattacked upon his return to Upper Canada, in law suits, and illegal processes, so that his estates became heavily encumbered, so that he went to France to pine away and die. The world failed to see any glamour in him, and carelessly said, what does it profit? Folly has its reward.
Yet the answer. Here is Manitoba to-day, it is the fruitage of all that bitter sowing time. Next year Manitoba will be in the fortieth year of its history. Its people have seen pain, strife and defeat, they have gone through excitement and anxiety and patient waiting, and at times have almost given up the strife. But the province and its great city, Winnipeg, are the meeting place of the East and West, the pivotal point of the Dominion. The national life of Canada throbs here with a steadier beat and a more normal pulse than it does in any other part of Canada, its dominating Canadian spirit is so hearty and so sprightly, that, it is taking possession of the scores of different nations coming to us and they feel that we are their friends and brothers. This, while it may not be the noisy and blatant type of loyalty is a practical patriotism which is making a united, sane and abiding type of national character.
Again we answer: Three years from now will be the hundredth year since the landing on the banks of Red River of the first band ofSelkirk Colonists. It was as we have seen a struggle of an extraordinarily bitter type. To us it seems that no other American Colony ever had such a continuous distressing and terrific struggle for existence as had these Scottish Settlers, but we say it was worth while, judging by the loss to Canada of the northern portions of the tier of states of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Washington, which a line from Fond du Lac (Duluth) to the mouth of the Columbia would have given to us, and which should have been ours. We say that had it not been for the Selkirk Colonists we would have stood to lose our Canadian West. It was a settlement nearly a hundred years ago of families of men and women, and children that gave us the firm claim to what is now the three great provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Was it not worth while? Was it not worth ten, yes, worth a hundred times more suffering and discouragement than even the first settlers of Red River endured to preserve our British connection which the Hudson's Bay Company, loyal as it was, with its Union Jack floating on every fort, could not have preserved to us any more than it did in Oregon and Washington. It was the Red River Settlement that held it for us.
We are beginning to see to-day that Canada could not have become a great and powerfulsister nation in the Empire had the West not been saved to her. The line of possible settlement has been moving steadily northward in Canada since the days when the French King showed his contempt for it by calling it "a few arpents of snow." The St. Lawrence route was regarded as a doubtful line for steamships, Rupert's Land was called a Siberia, but all this is changing with our Transcontinental and Hudson's Bay railways in prospect. In territory, resources, and influence the opening up of the West is making Canada complete. And, if so, we owe it to Lord Selkirk and to Selkirk Settlers, who stood true to their flag and nationality. Very willingly will we observe the Selkirk Centennial in 1912. "Many a time and oft" it looked in their case to be one long, continued and alarming drama, but on the 30th day of August, the day of their landing on the banks of the Red River, shall we recite the epic of Lord Selkirk's Colonists, and it will be of the temper of Browning's couplet:
God's in His Heaven,All's right with the world.
The author notes the fact that the agents sent out by Lord Selkirk engaged (1) Labourers for the Company, (2) Settlers for the Red River Settlement. On this account in the lists given in the archives and other official documents, the labourers were often sent to the Posts of the Company, and after serving several years often became settlers. (List given in Manitoba Historical Society Transactions, 33.)
A.
List of men who arrived at Hudson Bay in 1811 and left York Factory for the interior in July, 1812:
The Author is not aware of the existence of any list of the first settlers other than these.
B.
Owen Keveny's party (list found in Archives, Ottawa). The total list of seventy-one was engaged by Keveny in Mull, Broan, Sligo, etc. The following are known to have come. They reached York Factory 1812, and arrived at Red River October 27th, 1812:
1 Andrew McDermott, became the famous Red River merchant.2 John Bourke, a useful man.3 James Warren, died of wounds in 1815.4 Chas. Sweeny.5 James Heron.6 Hugh Swords.7 John Cunningham.8 Michael Hayden Smith, evidently Michael Heden, blacksmith.9 George Holmes.10 Robert McVicar.11 Ed. Castelo.12 Francis Heron.13 James Bruin.14 John McIntyre.15 James Pinkham.16 Donald McDonald.17 Hugh McLean.
C.
The Churchill party, which landed from "Prince of Wales" ship convoyed by H.M.S. "Brazen," at Churchill in August, 1813, and some, marked C-Y., who walked overland on snowshoes to York Factory in April 14th, 1814, and reached Red River Settlement in 1814. This whole list is from Manitoba Historical Society Transactions, 33. Those marked C-Y. are from Archives, Ottawa.
D.
List of settlers who came with Duncan Cameron from Red River to Canada, 1815. List prepared by Wm. McGillivray, of Kingston, August 15th, 1815. About one hundred and forty, probably forty or fifty families, and some single men, arrived at Holland River, September 6th, 1815.
Made at York (Toronto), September 22nd, 1815.
I. OLD MEN.
Donald Gunn, wife and daughter.Alexander Gunn and wife.Angus McDonell, wife and two children.Neil McKinnon, wife and two boys.
II. SETTLERS.
Miles Livingston, wife and two children.Angus McKay, wife and one child.John Matheson, wife and one child.John Matheson, Jr., and wife.George Bannerman and wife.Andrew McBeath, wife and one child.William Sutherland, wife and one child.Angus Gunn, wife and one child.Alexander Bannerman and wife.Robert Sutherland and wife.William Bannerman and wife.James McKay and wife.
III. WIDOWS.
Mrs. Barbara McBeath.Mrs. Jeannet Sutherland and two boys.Mrs. Elizabeth Sutherland.Mrs. Christy Bannerman.Mrs. Jeannet McDonell.
IV. YOUNG WOMEN, UNMARRIED.
Jane Gray.Elizabeth Gray.Esther Bannerman.Elspeth Gunn.Jannet Sutherland.Isabella McKinnon.---- McKinnon.Catta McDonell.Elizabeth McKay.
V. YOUNG MEN, NOT MARRIED.
John Murray.Alexander Murray.William Gunn.Hugh Bannerman.Hector McLeod.George Gunn.Charles McBeath.Angus Sutherland.Thomas Sutherland.Alex. Matheson.John McPherson.Robert Gunn.George Sutherland.
VI. MENTIONED IN ARCHIVES, OTTAWA.
Miles Livingston.James McKay.Angus Sutherland.John Cooper.Mary Bannerman (wife of John McLean).Haman Sutherland.John Maburry.Alex. McLellan.
Young people capable of labour generally employed between York and Newmarket. The old people are stationed at Newmarket for the present. Some of the settlers who have gone to Montreal not included.
E.
List of passengers, chiefly from Old Kildonan, landed at York Factory, August 26th, 1815. Reached Red River Settlement in same year.