USA > North Dakota > Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history > Part 12
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When the Indian lands were opened to settlement the "grafter" very fre- quently claimed, for his influence, 50 per cent of the contract price for surveys. When the mail routes were established, and the transportation routes opened, he was still there, and when counties and cities were organized, he lingered near, and he is sometimes found about legislative halls.
COUNTRY OVERRUN BY TRADERS
Traders, both Spanish and American, were operating in 1805 in the country around St. Louis. British traders had overrun Minnesota and the Dakotas, and the Spanish authorities had equipped galleys to patrol the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, in order to protect the interests of licensed traders and pre- vent the occupation of the country by others.
The Indians, themselves, had no objection to traders, for the opportunity to trade gave them the means to buy the essentials to Indian happiness. They were generally friendly to the British traders and unfriendly to the Spanish, and would frequently lie in wait to destroy the galleys, or to attack the Spanish traders making their way up the rivers. Occasionally they would be incited by one trader to make war upon another, and they were quick to recognize the advantage in trade held by the British over those of the United States, by reason of the high duties the latter were compelled to pay on the leading articles the Indians desired to buy.
There was little, if any, attention paid to the international boundary, and goods were being shipped into the United States territory without the payment of duty by the British traders. Rival British traders occupied the whole of the Canadian boundary ; the British flag was flying over their fortified posts at almost every available point for trade, and when the hour of national distress came, they led the Indians as their allies in the War of 1812.
Although the Hudson's Bay Company claimed the Red River Valley and had made an attempt to occupy it, the aggressive force was the North-West Company, which was occupying every available point for trade.
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THE UNITED STATES AN INDIAN TRADER
Lieutenant Pike left the impression among the Indians and traders that it was the intention of the Government to not only interfere with and restrict the sale of intoxicating liquors, but to establish Government stores at which goods should be sold to the Indians at cost, allowing them a reasonable price for fur in exchange for goods, and in accordance with this policy, an attempt to do this was made by the Government. The treaty with the Osage in November, 1808, by Capt. Meriwether Lewis, then governor of Louisiana, provided that the United States should establish permanently a well assorted store to be kept at Fort Clark, Mo. (also known as Fort Osage), for the purpose of bartering with the Indians on moderate terms for their furs and peltries, such store to be kept open at all seasons of the year. This article of the treaty was eliminated by amendment, in the treaty of 1822, the United States paying the Indians $2,329.40 to be relieved from that provision of the treaty. Similar agreements had been made for trading facilities with other Indian tribes, from which the Government, also, secured release.
It was believed that it was the true policy of the Government to draw the Indians within the plane of civilization, and that to furnish them goods at cost and pay them the full value for their peltries, would be an object lesson that would lead them in that direction.
The factories established by the Government were mainly east of the Mis- sissippi River. There was only Fort Osage west of the Missouri.
While undertaking to furnish the Indians with goods at cost, the Govern- ment issued licenses to other traders desiring to enter into competition. The private trader advanced supplies, and whatever the Indian might require when he started on the hunt, generally accompanying him, and securing his furs as fast as taken. The Government stores could not give credit, nor could they sell intoxicating liquors to the Indians, but the private traders smuggled liquors into the country and satisfied their yearning for it. The Government traders were required to sell American goods, but the American blankets and other goods were not then equal to those imported, and could not be sold to the Indians in competition with English goods. The private trader usually spoke the Indian language, was personally acquainted with the Indians and had an interest in securing trade and in the profits resulting therefrom, but the Government trader was a salaried person, had nothing to gain by making sales and nothing to lose if he failed. The system was abandoned in 1822, largely through the persistent efforts of United States Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, who led the assaults upon it in the interests of the American Fur Company, having its west- ern headquarters at St. Louis.
THE AMERICAN FUR COMPANY
The American Fur Company was organized under a charter granted by the State of New York, approved April 6, 1808. John Jacob Astor was the com- pany. Auxiliary companies were organized for special purposes and special places, and called by various names, Astor retaining a controlling interest in
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each, and merging the business of each with that of the American Company, for which he sought the markets of the world.
The Pacific Fur Company, organized June 10, 1810, was one of these special organizations. A part of the company was sent by sea to the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific coast, and other members went overland, leav- ing the Arikara villages on the Missouri River June 12, 1811, reaching Astoria the following January. In 1816 Congress passed an act, excluding foreigners from the fur trade in the territory of the United States, excepting in subordinate capacities under American management. This was brought about, in part, by the activity of the traders during the War of 1812, on behalf of Great Britain, but due largely to the influence of Mr. Astor. This gave him the opportunity to take up the interests of the North-West Company in the United States, which he consolidated with the South-West Company, previously organized, and the Pacific Fur Company, and enabled him to recoup his previous losses on the Pacific coast.
The American Fur Company was reorganized in 1817, and a western depart- ment established with headquarters at St. Louis. Ramsey Crooks became the general agent, assisted by Robert Stuart. Russell Farnham was the chief repre- sentative on the Mississippi, and to him is given the credit of being the first to carry the trade of the American Fur Company into the Missouri River region. Pierre Choteau, and his associates, became interested in the company in 1829.
The Missouri Fur Company was reorganized in 1818, its membership then consisting of Manuel Lisa, Thomas Hempstead, Joshua Pilcher, Joseph Perkins, Andrew Wood, Moses Carson, John B. Immel and Robert Jones.
FORT WILLIAM
For many years Grand Portage was the headquarters of the fur trade on the great lakes, but under the treaty of amity and commerce of 1794, between the United States and Great Britain, known as the John Jay treaty, it was pro- vided that all British forts within the territory of the United States should be evacuated within two years. Accordingly Grand Portage was abandoned, Fort William-so named for William McGillivray, the Montreal manager of the North-West Company-was established, and the headquarters were transferred to that post.
Fort William overlooking the bay on the north side of Lake Superior was surrounded by a palisade and in its center stood the headquarters building, with its walls hung with costly paintings, and beautifully decorated. There was a council chamber and parlor where the members of the company, known as part- ners, and their guests were entertained. The dining room, supplied with tables for the various employees as well as for the managers, the partners and their guests, was 60 by 30 feet in extent. There were private rooms for the partners at either end of the dining hall, which was flanked by sleeping rooms, and a large kitchen and other conveniences. There were, also, the general store, within the stockade, the canteen or liquor store, the warehouses and workshops, and the home of the resident partners and employees. Several hundred persons were usually camped in the vicinity of the fort, some seeking pleasure and others waiting for employment when the busy season should commence.
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The members of the company who spent the winters in the field were called the "wintering partners." Others were at Fort William in order to receive and forward general goods and furs, and still others, at Montreal, managing the general interests of the company, buying and selling supplies and products.
They practically controlled the trade of the lakes and forests, and the streams entering the lakes.
Washington Irving wrote of the power of these autocrats:
"The partners held a lordly sway over the wintry lakes and boundless forests of the Canadas, almost equal to the East India Company over the voluptuous climes and magnificent realms of the Orient."
And of its decadence :
"The feudal state of Fort William is at an end; its council chambers no longer echo in the old world ditty; the lords of the lakes and forests have passed away."
The annual meeting of the company was held at Fort William, and on these occasions, and on holidays, banquets were given to the visiting partners that were almost regal in character. The tables were supplied with every luxury from the east and the west-with game from the forests, and choicest of the finny tribes from the lakes and streams, and the most costly wines and liquors. As the morning hours approached and the festivities reached the carousal stage, restraint was relaxed and the doors were thrown open, when the voyageurs, servants and attendants were permitted to look on and laugh, if not to participate in the merry pranks and songs of the wine-heated partners and their guests.
THE VOYAGEURS
The canoe, which was the only means of transportation between the East and the West, was made of birch bark, and carried from one and one-half to four tons of freight, or an equivalent number of passengers, and swiftly sped over the lakes and streams, manned by voyageurs, merrily singing some favorite ditty, such as :
"kow, brother, row; the stream runs fast, The rapids are near and the daylight is past,"
and when the rapids were reached, they would as merrily carry boat and freight over the portage, around the rapids, or, from one stream to another, and pass on, singing :
"Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time."
Also for the evening the following was a favorite:
"Sing nightingale, keep singing, Thou hast a heart so gay; Thou hast a heart so merry, While mine is sorrow's prey."
Several hundred descendants of these people became residents of North Dakota. They had passed through all the experiences to be encountered in
PONCA INDIANS ENCAMPED ON THE BANKS OF THE MISSOURI From a painting by Charles Bodmer from "Travels to the Interior of North America in 1832-3-4," by Maximilian, Prince of Wied, 1843.
THE VOYAGEURS AT THE PORTAGE
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frontier life, beginning with the happy life of the voyageur, participating in the dangers of war, and in the excitement of the chase, settling down, at last to the quiet life of the rancher and farmer.
Peter Grant, who established the first trading post at the mouth of the Pem- bina, heretofore mentioned, was an interesting writer. Of the canoe service he said :
"The North-West Company's canoes, manned with five men, carry about three thousand pounds. They seldom draw more than eighteen inches of water, and go generally at the rate of six miles an hour in calm weather. When arriving at a portage, the bowman instantly jumps into the water, to prevent the canoe from touching the bottom, while the others tie their slings to the packs in the canoe and swing them on their backs to carry over the portage. The bowman and steerman carry the canoe, a duty from which the middlemen are exempt. The whole is conducted with astonishing expedition, a necessary consequence of the enthusiasm which always attends their long and perilous voyages. It is pleasant to see them, when the weather is calm and serene, paddling in their canoes, sing- ing in chorus their simple, melodious strains and keeping exact time with their paddles, which effectually beguiles their labors. When they arrive at a rapid, the guide or foreman's business is to explore the waters previous to their running down with their canoes, and, according to the height of water, they either lighten the canoe by taking out part of the cargo and carry it overland, or run down the whole load.
TIIE SELKIRK COLONY
In 1801 Sir Alexander Mackenzie published an account of his explorations, which attracted the attention of Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, who conceived the idea of colonizing a considerable number of the homeless people of his own land where a strong and loyal community might be built up. He endeavored to interest the Hudson's Bay Company in a colonization scheme, but failed to secure concessions from them; it being their policy to prevent settlement and to retard development, and hold the country for the Indian trade entirely. Thereupon he proceeded quietly to purchase, through his own resources and the assistance of his friends, a controlling interest in the stock of that company, and having accom- plished this, on May 30, 1811, the company sold to him 110,000 square miles of the land, embracing all of the Red River within the British possession, and the streams tributary thereto, with other lands. Selkirk was materially assisted in accomplishing his purpose by the accounts of the explorations of Lewis and Clark published in England and other foreign countries.
THE SELKIRK PURCHASE
The country purchased by Selkirk, without other consideration than his agree- ment to colonize it, covered an area of upwards of seventy million acres, described, in detail, as follows :
"Beginning at the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, at a point on 52° 50' north latitude, and thence running due west to Lake Winnipegoosis, otherwise called Little Winnipeg; thence in a southerly direction through said lake, so as
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to strike its western shore in latitude 52°; thence due west to the place where parallel 52° intersects the western branch of the Red River; thence due south from that point of intersection to the height of land which separates the waters running into Hudson Bay from those running into the Missouri and Mississippi rivers; thence in an easterly direction along the height of land to the source of the River Winnipeg, meaning by such last named, the principal branch of the waters which unite in the Lake Saginalis ; thence along the main stream of those waters and the middle of the several lakes through which they flow, to the mouth of the River Winnipeg, and thence in a northerly direction through the middle of Lake Winnipeg to the place of beginning, which territory shall be called Assiniboia."
The grant embraced nearly all of what is now Manitoba, and a small portion of North Dakota. Having thus secured the land, Selkirk sought to interest in his colonization scheme the Scotch Highlanders, who were at that time being evicted from the Sutherland and other estates in Scotland. The Sutherland estate em- braced some seven hundred square miles of well populated territory. All tenants within a defined district were ordered to vacate within a given time, and when that time expired, if any remained, they were forcibly evicted, whether sick or well, and their homes given to the flames. It was partly to meet the needs of this class of people, to find "homes for the homeless," who formed the bulk of his colony, that Selkirk undertook the work of colonization.
Under these conditions it was not difficult to obtain colonists, and that year he dispatched seventy persons to the Red River Valley, who arrived the year after, followed by fifteen or twenty more the next year, by ninety-three in 1814; by 100 in 1815; about two hundred and seventy being Scotch Highlanders, of whom 130 became permanent settlers.
The first party was in command of Capt. Miles Macdonnell, who had seen service in the British army, the colonists meeting with opposition and petty an- noyances from the start by agents of the North-West Company, who were, also opposed to the settlement of the country. Other parties leaving England for the colony were interrupted and annoyed by North-West Company influences ; some of its designing members having purchased stock in the Hudson's Bay Company, hoping to defeat Selkirk's project.
The colonists were not only distressed before they left for Rupert's Land, as the country came to be known, but there was sickness and trouble at sea, and when they arrived at York factory, Hudson Bay, September 24, 1811, they were landed without any previous preparations to receive them, and even the sick were without shelter. Their trip to the Red River the next spring, through an unset- tled country, though by canoe, was an arduous one.
After they reached the Red River they were annoyed in every conceivable manner, by persons dressed in Indian garb, threatening them and committing petty depredations upon their property, for the purpose of frightening them; out- rages which it was intended should be attributed to the Indians. Finally 140 of the colonists were led away by agents of the North-West Company, who prom- ised them land in Canada, a year's provisions, and other considerations, but the more sturdy ones refused to leave. June 25, 1815, these were attacked by the Bois Brule, as the half-bloods were called, one of their number killed, several wounded, and their homes burned. Those who survived were driven away, but
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were piloted to the Hudson's Bay Company factory, on Lake Winnipeg, by friendly Indians.
The distrust natural to the Indians had gradually been displaced by a liking for the colonists, not only because they offered a market for meats the traders refused to buy, but for their sturdy integrity. Unlike the majority of their race, whose preconceived opinions, as will be noted further on, were not flattering to the whites in general, they had found white men who were not liars, and were not trying to harm or take advantage of them, and though they ridiculed their "tender feet," they stood ready to act in their defense, and all efforts to induce them to attack the colonists failed.
On the arrival of the new settlers in June, 1815, the colonists who had been driven away, returned and rebuilt their cabins and harvested their crops. Because no preparations had been made to receive the colonists of that year, and on ac- count of the scarcity of provisions, seventy-five of the strongest went to Pembina where there was a deserted trading post, which was fitted up for their comfort, and a number of new cabins erected. The buffalo were, also, abundant near Pembina, and pemmican could be obtained for food from the Indians.
The succeeding winter was a severe one, the mercury sometimes falling to 45 degrees below zero, with deep snows. Their supplies of food were very low, but with pemmican obtained from the Indians, fish-caught through holes in the ice-from the river, and an occasional dog, which they relished under the cir- cumstances, they managed to subsist during the winter, and in the spring they gathered the seed-balls of the wild rose and acorns, which, cooked with buffalo fat, afforded nutritious aliment.
During the trouble with the settlers in the summer of 1815, Governor Miles Macdonnell had been arrested and carried away from the colony by Duncan Cameron, the North-West Company governor, acting as an alleged Canadian officer, and the artillery belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company post had been seized, on the ground that it had been used to break the peace, when used in defense of the colony. But among the new arrivals that year was Robert Semple, a former officer of the British army, who assumed the duties of governor of the colony. He spent a portion of the winter at Pembina, where the North-West Company had a trading post, known as the Pembina House. This he seized, and arrested the managers-who were afterwards released-and, also, in May, 1816, attacked and razed a post belonging to the company, known as Fort Gibraltar, which was in charge of Cameron, using the material to strengthen the defenses .at Fort Douglas, the Hudson's Bay Company post, and to rebuild the homes of the settlers.
Fort Gibraltar was erected for the old X. Y. Company, the Montreal rival of the North-West Company, represented by John Wills.
The stockade was made of oak logs, split in two, fifteen feet high. There were eight buildings, viz., four, 64, 36, 28 and 32 feet in length, respectively, and a blacksmith shop, a stable, a kitchen and an ice house. Twenty men were engaged a year in its construction.
Fort Douglas, the site of the settlement of the Selkirk Colony, was one mile below the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. Here was the residence of the governor. Selkirk gave it the name Kildonan, in 1817, in honor of the set- tlers who came from Kildonan parish in Scotland.
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In the spring of 1816, the settlers left their quarters at Pembina, known as Fort Daer, occupied winters by members of the colony until 1823, and planting their crops, looked for favorable returns and for peace, yet fearing the worst, for the retaliatory measures adopted by Governor Semple had made bloodshed almost certain.
THE GOVERNOR AND SETTLERS KILLED
On June 16, 1816, the settlers were again attacked by the Bois Brule, and the governor and twenty-one out of twenty-eight of his officers and men were shot and killed at Seven Oaks, whereupon Fort Douglas was surrenderd to the representatives of the North-West Company. The attacking party was com- manded by Cuthbert Grant, and the attack was planned by Duncan Cameron, the chief officer of the North-West Company, especially instructed to destroy the colony. Through many kindnesses done the colonists, and through being able to speak their languages, he had succeeded in planting the seeds of discord, and in leading away the major portion of the colony before the attack of the previous year.
It may be doubted that murder was intended. The Montreal traders had been the first to explore and open the country to trade, followed .by the Hudson's Bay Company at every important point. The Hudson's Bay Company's grant to Selkirk embraced much of a country which the North-West Company regarded their own by right of discovery or original French leases or grants, and by occu- pation. Selkirk had given them a limited, time in which to leave the territory, and his agents had captured their Fort Gibraltar and razed it, taking absolute command of the river, interrupting their communication with their frontier posts and paralyzing their business; and he had also captured their post at Pembina. He failed to supply his colonists. with provisions or means of cultivating the soil, but had not neglected to furnish them with arms and ammunition, and a battery of artillery, and Governor Macdonnell had thoroughly drilled then, exciting the belief that the colony was to be used as a military force to crush the North-West Company and utterly destroy their business. This Cameron was expected to prevent.
At Sault Ste. Marie, on his way to this colony, Selkirk learned of the murder of Governor Semple and his party. His expedition consisted of about two hun- dred and fifty men; among them 100 men of the DeMeuron and Watteville regiment, whom he had hired to go to the colony and defend it, if need be; 150 canoe men and other employees. He immediately proceeded to Fort William, the headquarters of the North-West Company, and, acting as a magistrate, ar- rested all of the principal men connected with the company, and sent them to Canada for trial. He wintered at Fort William, proceeding to his colony the next spring, and upon his arrival in June, restored order and confidence. He gave deeds for the lands on which his settlers had made improvements, made treaties with the Indians for the extinguishment of their title to the lands he claimed, made a treaty of peace with the Sioux, and, though a Protestant, he urged the Catholic authorities to establish a mission at Fort Douglas, and for this purpose gave twenty-five acres for the church, and a tract of land, 5 miles long by 4 miles wide, promising any additional aid he or his friends might be able to render.
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THE CHURCH AND SCHOOLS ESTABLISHED
For 150 years the Hudson's Bay Company had owned and occupied Rupert's Land. They had generally prospered, and their stock had paid large dividends, and yet, in all that land, there was neither church nor chapel, priest nor teacher- not a single school had been founded. But this condition was to prevail no longer.
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