USA > North Dakota > Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history > Part 6
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"And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."-Jonathan Swift.
THE POST NAMED
May 17, 1801, Alexander Henry selected the spot for building a fort at Pembina. The post was completed October 1, 1801, and thereafter Henry's scattered forces made their headquarters at Pembina.
The post was named "Fort Panbian," and was later called the "Pembina House." It was built on the north side of the Panbian River-afterward changed to Pembina-between that and the Red River, 100 paces from each, on land afterwards entered by Joseph Rolette, and in 1870, James J. Hill, subsequently president of the Great Northern Railroad, purchased of Mr. Rolette the identical ground on which the establishment stood, embracing five acres, where he built a bonded warehouse for trade with the Indians and settlements in Manitoba.
Norman W. Kittson, a later trader at Pembina, and identified with transpor- tation and other interests of the Red River country and of Minnesota, was a relative of Alexander Henry. Henry's post consisted of a storehouse, 100x20 feet, built of logs. Later a stockade and other buildings, including store rooms. shops, warehouses and a stable for fifty horses, were added.
The Hudson's Bay Company built, the fall of 1801, a post on the east side of the Red River, near Peter Grant's old post, and the X. Y. Company built just below Henry on the Pembina River. The Hudson's Bay Company built a post, also, on the Pembina River at the Grand Passage, which was destroyed by fire April 1, 1803.
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STEAMER SELKIRK
Floating palace of the Red River of the North. Built in 1871
OLD FORT PEMBINA, 1840-84 Norman Kittson's trading post.
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EARLY HISTORY OF NORTH DAKOTA
ORIGIN OF THE NAME
The name of Pembina, applied to the post and the mountains, previous to 1801 known as Hair Hills, is claimed by recognized authorities to be derived from the Chippewa words anepeminan sipi, a red berry known among the whites as the "high bush cranberry."
The early efforts to create the "Territory of Pembina" were antagonized because it was alleged that the word was insignificant, and when in the debates in Congress it was pronounced "Pembyny," by a usually well informed congress- man, all efforts in that direction ceased. Early in 1882, the Bismarck Tribune, then edited by the author of these pages, used "North Dakota" in the date line of that paper, and from that time the friends of "North Dakota" were united in their efforts to secure "North Dakota" for the name of the proposed new state. Dakota had become noted for its great wheat fields, and it was desired, also, to retain whatever benefit might accrue from that fact, as the famous farms were in the northern part of the territory.
THE FIRST FARMING
John Tanner claims that the cultivation of Indian corn was introduced on the Red River by an Ottawa friend of his of the name of She-gaw-kee-sink, and it is known that Indian farming was carried on successfully for many years by the Arikaras, Mandans and Hidatsa, at the Mandan villages, prior to the advent of Alexander Henry. They raised corn, potatoes, squashes, etc., but to Henry belongs the credit of the first attempt to raise vegetables and corn in the upper Red River Valley. He was the first white farmer in North Dakota. May 17, 1801, he planted a few potatoes and garden seeds on the site of Peter Grant's old fort, and harvested 11/2 bushels of potatoes October Ist. The other vegetables had been consumed by the horses.
The following year on May 15, 1802, he began to sow his garden, and planted a bushel of potatoes, received from Portage La Prairie.
May 7, 1803, he planted potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, onions, sowed cab- bage and planted cabbage stalks for seed. Three days later he finished planting eight kegs of potatoes. The yield October 17th, amounted to 420 bushels of potatoes from 7 bushels planted, exclusive of those used, destroyed and stolen by the Indians, estimated at 200 bushels ; 300 large heads of cabbage, 8 bushels of carrots, 16 bushels of onions, 10 bushels of turnips, some beets, parsnips, etc. One onion measured 22 inches in circumference at the thick end; a turnip with its leaves weighed 25 pounds, the leaves alone 15 pounds. The weight without the leaves was generally 10 to 12 pounds.
April 28, 1804, he was working in his garden, and September 9th, gathered cucumbers and made a nine-gallon keg of pickles. October 22d the crop gathered was 1,000 bushels of potatoes-the product of 21 bushels-40 bushels of turnips, 25 bushels of carrots, 20 bushels of beets, 20 bushels of parsnips, 10 bushels of cucumbers, 2 bushels of melons, 5 bushels of squashes, 10 bushels of Indian corn, 200 large heads of cabbage, 300 small and savoy cabbage; all of these exclusive of what had been eaten and destroyed.
Here is doubtless the first record of Indian corn grown in the Red River
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Valley. Henry claims that he furnished the Indians at Dead River, Manitoba, seed corn and seed potatoes in 1805.
POULTRY RAISING AND MANUFACTURES
In 1807 Henry brought a cockerel and two hens from Fort William to Pembina. One hen died, and the other began to lay March 29, 1808. May 8th, she hatched eleven chickens and seven more were added later in the season; giving him a flock of eighteen chickens, the first domestic fowl raised in North Dakota.
At this time there was a manufactory at Pembina, where Red River carts were made, and a cooper shop turning ont kegs and half barrels.
THE FIRST CHILD, PIERRE BONGA
March 14, 1801, the first child, not of Indian blood, was born at Pembina, to Pierre Bonga and his wife, both negroes. Pierre Bonga had been a slave of Capt. Daniel Robertson of Mackinaw, brought home from the West Indies, and was in the first canoe of the Red River Brigade of July, 1800.
An amusing story of riding a buffalo is told of him at Pembina. A buffalo cow had fallen on the ice near the fort, and in her struggle to get up had become entangled in a rope, but finally gained her feet, when Pierre and Crow (an Indian) got on her back, but without paying any attention to them, she attacked the dogs, and was as nimble in jumping and kicking as she was before taking the load of nearly four hundred pounds.
In the fall of 1802, Joseph Duford of the X. Y. Company threatened to kill Bonga, and himself received a sound beating. Bonga left numerous descendants, one of whom was an interpreter at the Fort Snelling treaty of 1837.
THE FIRST WHITE CHILD
The first white child was born at Pembina December 29, 1807. Its father was John Scart of Grand Forks, and its mother was a native of the Orkney Islands, who dressed in men's clothes and for several years had been doing a man's work at Pembina.
MANAGERS, EMPLOYEES AND TRADING STATISTICS
Jean Baptiste Demerais, interpreter for Henry's Red River brigade, had charge of the garden, horses and fishing, etc., at Fort Pembina the first season, and the winter of 1801-2, took at his station near where Morris, Manitoba, now stands, 130 beaver skins, 8 wolf, 2 fox, 3 raccoon, 38 fisher, 2 otter and 5 mink.
BUFFALO, THE IIUNTER
Buffalo, a member of the Henry cxpedition of 1800, in 1801, was chosen hunter for the post at Pembina. As recorded in the annals of the post he was one of the most demoralized in his domestic relations, offering, like Charlo, to
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EARLY HISTORY OF NORTH DAKOTA
sell his nine-year-old daughter to Henry for a dram of his "mixture" at Park River. In the spring of 1803, he quarreled with his wife, and struck her with a club, cutting a gash in her head six inches long from the effects of which she was so long recovering that she was believed to be dead, and a year later he repeated the brutality by stabbing his young wife in the arm; all of which was attributed to his frenzied condition while in his cups.
MICHAEL LANGLOIS
Michael Langlois of the Red River Brigade, after the trading post was established the fall of 1801, on the Pembina River, was sent to the Pembina Mountains, then known as Hair Hills, to establish a post at the foot of the steep, sandy banks, where the river first issues from the mountains, and the X. Y. Company sent four men there to build alongside of his establishment ; also, aside from the two houses mentioned, there was another trading post in the Pembina Mountains, known as the De Lorme House, where Henry called on his rounds, visiting his several outlying posts that winter. These trips were made with dog sledges and snow shoes.
The following winter of 1801-02, Michael Langlois took at the Pembina Mountains, 200 beaver skins, 24 black bear, 5 brown bear, ICo wolf, 39 fox, 14 raccoon, 57 fisher, 5 otter and 15 mink. In September, 1802, he was ordered by Mr. Henry to Red Lake, but failing to make that point, spent the winter at Leech Lake, accompanied by Joseph Duford. The winter of 1803-04, he passed at the Pembina Mountains post with Le Sieur Toussaint and turned in 182 beaver skins, 51 bear and 148 wolf. Maymiutch, Charlo's brother, an Indian who went up the river with the "brigade," while under the influence of liquor, shot at Michael Langlois December 21, 1803. The following season, 1804-05, Langlois was in charge of the same station with James Caldwell. The returns of catch are as follows: 16 beaver skins, 37 bear, 251 wolf.
Other employees at Fort Pembina in 1801, or about that period, who con- ducted the work of the post, were Jean Baptiste Le Duc (possibly Larocque), Joachim Daisville, André La Grosser, André Beauchemin, Jean Baptiste Larocque, Jr., Etienne Roy, Francois Sint, Joseph Maceon, Charles Bellegarde, Joseph Hamel, Nicholas Pouliotte and Joseph Dubois-all of Henry's Red River Brigade.
JOIIN CAMERON
John Cameron who had been at Park River the previous season, was sent by Mr. Henry September 1, 1801, to Grand Forks, to build a post there, and he was followed by the X. Y. Company ; wherever the one company went the other was sure to follow. Cameron took in at Grand Forks, the season of 1801-02, 410 beaver skins, 22 black bear, 2 brown bear, 30 wolf, 20 fox, 20 raccoon, 23 fisher, 29 otter and 6 mink.
September 20, 1802, he was sent from Pembina for the same purpose, to Turtle River, and took in 337 beaver skins, 40 bear and 114 wolf. The winter of 1803-04, he passed at Park River with Joseph Ducharme and the post turned in 147 beaver skins, 25 bear and 14 wolf.
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AUGUSTINE CADOTTE
Augustine Cadotte was sent September 20, 1802, to the Pembina Mountains, to trade with the Crees and Assiniboines and remained there through the winter, taking 30 beaver skins, 47 bear and 364 wolf. April 1, 1803, he was sent to Grand Forks to rebuild the post there, erecting a building 100x20 feet in extent, the same size as the original post at Pembina. The X. Y. and the Hudson's Bay Company followed, and that spring the Hudson's Bay Company erected a new post on the north side of the Pembina River at Pembina.
JOIIN CREBASSE
John Crebasse with Mr. Henry at Fort Pembina, in the winter of 1801-02, took in 629 beaver skins, 18 black bear, 4 brown bear, 58 wolf, 16 fox, 39 raccoon, 67 fisher, 24 otter, 6 marten, 26 mink. At the same place he passed the follow- ing winter, 1802-03, with Mr. Henry, taking 550 beaver skins, 38 bear and 104 wolf.
The winter of 1805-06, John Crebasse was in charge at Grand Forks, and Mr. Henry at Pembina. Crebasse turned in from the former station 343 beaver skins, 24 bear, 310 wolf, 171 fox, 75 raccoon, 59 fisher, 27 otter and other skins.
Of course there were other products of the chase from all of these points each year.
JOSEPH DUFORD
Joseph Duford, a member of the X. Y. Company, who threatened to kill Pierre Bonga, and was the companion of Michael Langlois at Leech Lake the winter of 1802-03, was with Henry Hesse in charge of the Salt River post in 1804-05, and it appears on the returns of Salt River for that winter, that they turned in 160 beaver skins, 24 bear and 346 wolf. Duford was killed by a visiting Indian, October 30, 1805, and under this date the following particulars are given :
A visiting Indian and his chief had accepted a quart of rum and were being entertained at the fort. In the course of the night they quarreled, made up, fought their battles with the Sioux over again, sang war songs, discussed the Sioux, boasted of their own exploits, sometimes maneuvering as in actual battle, with a pipe stem for a weapon, and finally the chief fell, exhausted and the other continued the performance alone, until he worked himself into a frenzy and thinking he was really in a battle and the Sioux were upon him, grabbed his gun, called upon his imaginary comrades to follow him and fired-mortally wound- ing Joseph Duford.
The next morning when sober, the Indian was in great distress, insisting that he intended no harm, that he knew that he was a bad Indian; that he had killed three of his own children, but he had never hurt a white man before.
According to the record-"he was forgiven."
ETIENNE CHARBONNEAU
Etienne Charbonneau went up the river with Henry's Red River Brigade to Park River, and the winter of 1803-04 was with Henry at Fort Pembina, where they turned in 211 beaver skins, 29 bear and 37 wolf.
Painting by Eastman
BALL PLAY OF THIE DAKOTA (SIOUX) INDIANS
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EARLY HISTORY OF NORTH DAKOTA
For the winter of 1804-05, the returns of the catch at Fort Pembina were 829 beaver skins, 36 bear and 102 wolf.
There were ten grizzly bear skins in the returns of that year from the three posts, viz .: Salt River, Pembina Mountains and Pembina post.
THE STAIN ON THE RECORD
"Oh! stay not to recount the tale- 'Twas bloody-and 'tis past, The firmest cheek might well grow pale To hear it to the last. The God of heaven, who prospers us, Could bid a nation grow.
And shield us from the red man's curse Two hundred years ago !" -Grenville Mellen.
From the 28th of August, 1801, to the close of the year 1804, the record of the life at Fort Pembina is a series of complaints, demands, quarrels and casual- ties, the revolting details of which involve the characters of many brave Indians, who doubtless merit honorable mention, but who appear at best as "trouble- some" and many of them as answerable for a long list of crimes, invariably with direct reference to an abnormal state of mind, attributed to over-indulgence on one side and criminal adulteration of the means of it on the other.
The record of Alexander Henry, as made up by himself, during five years of the early history of the Red River Valley, is bad enough. Others were work- ing on the same lines. In some of their journals the record is far more shameful than Henry's, and of his Doctor Coues says :
"The seamy side of the fur trade Henry shows us with a steady hand that we can scarcely follow with unshaken nerves, is simply hell on earth; people with no soul above a beaver skin, fired by King Alcohol in the workshop of Mammon."
Ingenious excuses were framed by the Indians for obtaining the stimulant which the white traders had encouraged them to use and taught them to prize above all things, and in the dealing out to them of the poison, there was often a nefarious liberality, let alone their questionable forms of trade, for which there can be no condemnation too severe.
Henry in commenting on the degeneracy of the Indians, said :
"The Indians totally neglect their ancient ceremonies, and to what can this degeneracy be ascribed but to their intercourse with us; particularly as they are so unfortunate as to have a continual succession of opposition parties to teach them roguery and destroy both mind and body with that pernicious article, rum! What a different set of people they would be, were there not a drop of liquor in the country ! If a murder is committed among the Saulteurs (Chippewa), it is always in a drinking match. We may truly say that liquor is the root of all evil in the Northwest. Great bawling and lamentation went on, and I was troubled most of the night for liquor to wash away grief."
The use of intoxicating liquor rouses the passions, among all races of men ; it deadens the sensibilities, impairs and frequently destroys the memory. Love and virtue cannot long endure where alcohol holds sway ; prosperity cannot abide
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in the home of the man who is addicted to its use, his business will fail, his home will be broken, and his parents, his wife and daughters may expect to go in sorrow to their graves. There is no evil known to man that can or does bring the distress to the human race that follows its unrestrained use.
Perhaps it has been, and may be used to some advantage in medicine and mechanic arts, but there is absolutely no compensation that it has given or can give the world, for the ruin it has wrought in its use as a beverage. A noble race that peopled the plains and forests of North America have been nearly destroyed by its use and the white man's greed for gold, and countless thousands, aye, millions of white men have been unfitted for life's duties, not to speak of the murders and suicides, and of the miserable wrecks in the hospitals for the insane and in the penitentiaries and jails.
The flagstaff for Fort Pembina, a single oak stick, "seventy-five feet without splicing," was erected November 28, 1801, and at the raising the men were given "two gallons of high wines, four fathoms of tobacco, and some flour and sugar, to make merry." But it was not alone the aborigines who exceeded the bounds of sobriety, for it is written, that on New Year's day the men of the X. Y. Com- pany and the Hudson's Bay Company came over to Fort Pembina, and the manager treated the company assembled to "two gallons of alcohol, five fathoms of tobacco and some flour and sugar, the neighbors and everybody else of both sexes and all classes losing their senses, and according to the narrator, 'becoming more troublesome than double their number of Indians.'"
Good drinking water was scarce on the hunt and in the midst of the winter of 1801-02 (February 28th), Henry returned from hunting almost famished, and declared that "a draught of water was the sweetest beverage he ever drank."
Of the Indian when not degenerated by the use of intoxicants it may be said · there is no selfishness in him. His anger and his appetite in those days were uncontrollable, but there is no human love stronger than his for home and kindred, and he seldom forgot to recognize "discretion" as "the better part of valor," and for that he has been called cowardly. No matter what the Indian's prospect for success in battle might be, the moment that he realized that his women and children were in danger he would retire. Their protection was his first con- sideration. Aside from that his creed was a life for a life, a scalp for a scalp. If the Indians traveled a thousand miles, enduring privation and dangers that were appalling, it was for scalps to recompense for similar losses. It was not the love of bloodshed, or for the wanton destruction of human life. It was for revenge, none the less sweet because indulged by the untutored tribesmen.
NORTH-WEST AND X. Y. CONSOLIDATION
In 1805 Hugh McGillis, partner in the North-West Company, had charge of the Fond du Lac district, with trading posts at every available point on the south side of Lake Superior, across the country to the Mississippi River, up that stream to its source, and down on the Red River. The company had extended its sphere of activity even to the very center of the Louisiana purchase; they were reaching out to the headwaters of the Missouri River, and pushing their way on to the Columbia and to the Arctic seas.
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The headquarters of Mr. McGillis were at Leech Lake, and he also had an important post at Cass Lake, Minnesota.
Cuthbert Grant had charge of the post at Sandy Lake, near grounds covered now by Aitkin, Minn., and had a number of other posts in the surrounding country.
Robert Dickson was an independent Canadian trader, having his main post on the Mississippi River, near what is now St. Cloud, and another at Cass Lake, in charge of George Anderson.
At all these posts English goods were being sold without the payment of duties; most of the posts being fortified, and many of them flying the British flag, the "Second Union Jack," which, since 1801 had embraced the cross of St. Patrick in addition to those of St. George and St. Andrew. Canadian traders assumed the right to make or break Indian chiefs, and were holding their friend- ship and confidence by the presentation of medals, and using intoxicating liquors to demoralize and debauch them.
Alexander Henry was much concerned in February, 1806, when he heard of Lieut. Zebulon Montgomery Pike's expedition, which was then at Leech Lake, understanding that it was proposed to force the traders to pay duties on the goods used by them in trade in United States territory.
The population of the Red River country in 1805 is given by Henry as seventy-five white men, forty women, mixed-blood, and sixty children, mixed- blood. The women were the wives of the traders and their men, all Indian and mixed-bloods, and the children were all mixed-bloods, although returned as whites.
The Indian population was given as 160 men, 190 women and 250 children.
FIRST FAMILY NAMES
The family names of nearly every mixed-blood family, now or recently residing in the Turtle Mountains, may be found among the employees of the several fur companies operating on the Red River or in that region. . Among those mentioned by Alexander Henry in connection with the fur trade in the Red River country are the following :
Francois Allaire, Michel Allaire, Michel Allary, Francois Amiot, Antoine Azure, Joseph Azure, Alexis Bercier, Joseph Bercier, Antoine Bercier, Joseph Boisseau, Francois Boucher, Louis Brozzeau, Augustin Cadotte, Michel Cadotte. Murdoch Cameron, Duncan Cameron, Antoine Dubois, Francois Dubois, Nich- olas Ducharme, Pierre Ducharme, Pierre Falcon, Michel Fortier, Pierre Fortier Jacques Germain, St. Joseph Germain, Antoine Gingras, Jean Baptiste Godin, Louis Gordon, Alphonso Goulet, Jacques Goulet, Jean Baptiste Goulet, Francois Hamel, Francois Henry, Francois Houle, Jerome Jerome, Francois Langie, Jacques Laviolette, Jean Baptiste Lemay, Louis Lemay, Pierre Lemay, Duncan McGillis, Hugh McGillis, Alexander McKay, Alexis Mckay, Ambrose Mar- tineau, Hy Norbert, Alexis Plante, Joseph Plante, Augustin Poisier, Andrew Poitras, Duncan Pollock, Joseph Premeau, John Roy Ross, Augustin Ross, Jean Baptiste Ross, Vincent Ross, John Sayers, Angus Shaw, Alex Wilkie.
January 1, 1805, Mr. Henry learned of the consolidation of the North-West
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Company and the X. Y. Company, and gave the following as his views of the exist- ing conditions :
"It certainly was high time for a change on this river. The country being almost destitute of beaver and other furs, and the Indians increasing in number daily from Red Lake and the Fond du Lac country. The X. Y. had been lavish of their property, selling very cheap, and we, to keep the trade in our hands, had been obliged to follow their example. Thus by our obstinate proceedings we had spoiled the Indians. Every man who had killed a few skins was considered a chief and treated accordingly; there was scarcely a common buck to be seen; all wore scarlet coats, had large kegs and flasks, and nothing was purchased by them but silver works, strouds and blankets. Either every other article was let go on debts and never paid for, or given gratis on request. This kind of com- merce had ruined and corrupted the natives to such a degree that there was no bearing with their insolence. If they misbehaved at our houses and were checked for it, our neighbors were ready to approve their scoundrelly behavior, and encourage them to mischief, even offering them protection if they were in want of it. By this means the most notorious villains were sure of refuge and resource. Our servants of every grade were getting extravagant in their demands, indolent, disaffected toward their employers and lavish with the property committed to their charge. I am confident that another year could not have passed without bloodshed between ourselves and the Saulteurs."
In May, following the consolidation of the two fur companies, the Indians were encamped about the fort drinking, when one Indian stabbed another to death. The murdered man left five children and the scene at his burial was heartrending. In the carousals that followed a son of Net-no-kwa, the foster mother of John Tanner, the "White Captive," had his face disfigured for life, and another Indian who came to his relief met the same fate.
HENRY SUFFERS FROM THE SIOUX
July 3, 1805, a large body of Sioux fell upon a small camp of Henry's Indians on the Tongue River, and killed or carried off as prisoners fourteen persons- men, women and children. Henry's father-in-law was the first one killed. His . mother-in-law reached the woods in safety, but finding that one of the younger children had been left by the young woman in whose charge it was placed, she kissed the older children and went back for that one. She recovered the child, but was stricken down by the Sioux. Springing to her feet she drew a knife and plunged it into the neck of her antagonist, but others coming up, she was dis- patched.
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