Читать книгу First Furrows - Rev. Alfred Campbell Garrioch - Страница 6

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One of the principal traders during this early period was Alexander Henry, but his operations were confined chiefly to the district around Lake Superior. In 1767 Thomas Currie penetrated as far north-west as Verandrye and his sons had gone, but he made only the one venture. In the year following, James Finley, taking the same route as the one used by Currie, was equally successful. But of all the Montreal traders of this period the most successful were two Englishmen—the Frobisher brothers, who cleared $50,000 in one year.

As to the principles and methods of trading employed by these independent trading concerns, whether English or Scotch, they were no improvement to those employed by the French. Indeed drink was more freely sold to the Indians, and under its demoralizing influence murder and robbery became more common. These traders had a golden opportunity to grow rich quietly and honestly, but they abused it and it was taken from them. Before a terrible epidemic of small pox, every trader in the country had to flee for his life. The disease was contracted by some Crees and Assiniboines who had gone to the Mandan country to purchase horses. With fearful rapidity it swept northward and westward, and thousands of Indians died. It took all of the years 1781 and 1782 to run its course and to give nature time to disinfect.

Note that when this small pox and the resulting scare were over, it was not by a number of small competing concerns that the fur trade was resumed, but by the North-West Company formed for that purpose in 1783, which was the same year in which Great Britain conceded independence to her American colonies. Just why these two events happened in the same year is not easy to say, but when it is remembered that following the concession of independence there took place a considerable influx to Canada of United Empire Loyalists, it is reasonable to believe that among those immigrants would be some enterprising capitalists, who would regard the fur trade as a profitable and ready-to-hand investment, and after the experience of those who had last traded in the North-west, it is not strange that they decided to form a company instead of each trying to work his own independent and individual concern. Besides, they probably did not forget the Honourable Hudson’s Bay Company which had now been in existence one hundred and twelve years, and which being relieved of any fear of a military attack from either France or the Americans, would be likely to throw an energy and determination into their business, which would spell disaster to anything less than a well organized corporation that might venture to oppose them.

The leading spirits in the North-West Company were Simon McTavish and Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher. Something in the personnel or schemes of this company must have touched the susceptibilities of certain Americans, for two men, Peter Pond and Peter Pangman, came to Montreal expressly to form an opposition company. This they succeeded in doing, being joined by John Gregory, Alexander McLeod and Roderick McKenzie, noted fur traders who had stood aloof from the North-West Company owing to their dislike of Simon McTavish.

These companies entered into fierce competition, and side by side penetrated far north of the Saskatchewan, where the criminal acts too common to the agents of both companies reached an unhappy climax in the murder of John Ross, a trader belonging to the new company. Peter Pond, who went over to the North-West Company, was regarded as the perpetrator of this dastardly deed, which was looked upon with such horror and loathing by the better men of both companies that they decided on amalgamation, an event which took place in 1787. The trade of the united company the first year was $200,000, and in twelve years reached the sum of $600,000.

Owing to the unpopularity of Simon McTavish some of the Nor’-Westers seceded, and joined a trading firm known as the Forsythe-Richardson Company. This opposition company which was formed in 1795 was known as the X Y Company, being so named because they marked their packages of merchandise X. Y. to distinguish them from the N. W. of the other company, the letters X Y being selected for no other reason except that in the alphabetical order X follows W, and it can certainly be said that the “Little Company,” as the Nor’-Westers called them, lived up to the order of the alphabet—they went after the other.

This enterprising company pushed up the Red and Assiniboine Rivers and established a fort at the confluence of the Assiniboine and Souris in 1798. In the following year they were joined by Sir Alexander McKenzie, and the competition, which was lively enough before, then became decidedly fierce, and there were few points in the country reached by the N. W. into which the X Y also did not penetrate, and struggle to capture their share of the trade. Hand to hand conflicts with fist or club were of frequent occurrence, and after demoralizing the Indians with drink, and pounding one another into something like common sense, the crisis would seem to have been passed, the fur trading fever subsided, and even Simon McTavish lost his relish for the fray; and having decided to retire, was perfecting plans to enable him to spend the rest of his life in peace and comfort; but in the middle of his arrangements death stepped in, and his plans were overturned. He died in 1804.

After his death the N. W. and X Y companies merged into one under the name of the North-West Company, and thus united, entered into a doubly strong and keen competition for the fur trade of Canada and North-west America until a repetition of the N. W.-X Y experiences culminated in a further amalgamation—that of the North-West and the Hudson’s Bay companies, when in 1821 the two united under the name of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

DR. S. P. MATHESON,

Archbishop of Rupert’s Land, and Primate of all Canada. Consecrated in 1904.

Perhaps there was something in the fur trade of those days apart from the killing and skinning of fellow creatures, and a carnivorous living, that tended to engender strife; but allowing that the two companies engaged in the traffic were in the main of a different race and creed, they were after all both British as to leadership, and having half a continent in which to prosecute their business there was no justifiable reason for flying at each other and perpetuating a condition similar to the actual state of war through which they had recently passed.

Naturally both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in Canada, favoured the North-West Company because they more strictly belonged to the country, and did not quite so openly claim that the country belonged to them. Their employees were mostly French-Canadian or Hybrid French, of whom many were old and experienced voyageurs, trappers and Coureurs des Bois. In their palmy days—1812 to 1814—it has been claimed that their employees numbered five thousand. In the Oregon district alone, where they were doing a flourishing business, and where their principal competitor was Jacob Astor, the American fur monopolist, they had over three hundred men, and their trade extended as far north as New Archangel. The Hudson’s Bay Company notwithstanding their Imperial patronage and famous charter, were inferior to them both in volume of trade and amount of capital. When amalgamation took place in 1821, the Hudson’s Bay Company had to increase its stock from $500,000 to $1,000,000 to bring it up to that of the North-West Company.

The first inland distributing point of the Nor’-Westers was Grand Rapids, soon after changed to Fort William. At the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers they built Fort Gibraltar, near the site of Verandrye’s Fort Rouge. Up the Assiniboine they built a fort near the mouth of the Souris River, and another at Qu’Appelle. Further northward they built a fort at Cumberland, and another at Isle a la Crosse and still another at Lake Athabasca.

In the meantime the Hudson’s Bay Company remained in undisputed possession of the country around Hudson’s Bay, and it was not until 1793 that they may be said to have thrown down the gauntlet to their opponents in regard to the fur trade of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. In that year Donald McLeod headed a party upstream along the Assiniboine River, trading with the Crees and Assiniboines as he went along until he reached the Souris River, and there, about fifteen miles from where now stands the City of Brandon, he built a fort which was usually spoken of as Brandon house.

At the Red River it may be said that the Hudson’s Bay Company made good in 1799 when Fidler, the first surveyor, who if a fiddler, was by no means the first, built Fort Fidler which was so named after himself. Besides these the Hudson’s Bay had a fort at Rainy Lake, another at Red Lake, and another at Lake Winnipeg, near where now stands Fort Alexander. On the Saskatchewan they had Forts Cumberland, Carlton and Edmonton; and two other forts on the Assiniboine, one near where Fort Pelly now stands, and one at Portage la Prairie, near the site of Fort de la Reine.

Among the advantages enjoyed by the Hudson’s Bay Company over their opponents, was the no mean one of standing higher in the estimation of the Indians, for poor Lo, if not very clever, could tell which company was more strictly honest and reliable. He might not bother his head about the meaning of pro pelle cutem, but he could tell when he was getting it, and he might not know A B C, but he knew H. B. C., and had found it to be synonymous with honesty.

It is a difficult matter for any corporation to live up to the title of honourable, and the greater the power the greater the difficulty. Considering the latitude allowed the Hudson’s Bay Company by their chapter, to do very much as they pleased in this northern part of the continent, and considering the efforts of the North-West Company and others to prevent their doing so, it must be admitted that they lived up to their title of honourable, in a manner highly creditable to themselves, and favourable to the interests of the six or seven generations of Whites and Indians who lived under their regime.

One of the many things laid to their charge is that they systematically misrepresented the country, claiming that it was unsuited to an agricultural population, owing to the prevalence of summer frosts, and the length and severity of the winters. As to this, it may be remarked, that during the first one hundred and fifty years of its occupancy of the country, the company had all its time fully occupied studying how to get furs, and the conditions during that period, made the question of the country’s fitness for raising wheat and potatoes, an uninteresting one even to the people living in it, so that they were ill able to give reliable information to outsiders who might have cared to know. But in the opening years of the nineteenth century Lord Selkirk’s representation in England and Scotland aroused a great interest in this country, and the question of its fitness for agricultural pursuits became a live one both in Great Britain and Canada. When he advocated a policy of emigration to North-West America, and a colony or settlement on the Red River, its bitterest opponents were not the agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company, but those of the North-West Company, who did all in their power to strengthen the prejudice and dislike of the British people for a policy of emigration. Whatever opinions the Hudson’s Bay officials may have had as to the country’s fitness for farming, they certainly gave it a chance to speak for itself, when they took Lord Selkirk and his colonizing scheme under the shelter of their wing, making him a partner in their business by allowing him to buy £35,000 worth of stock, which was about a third of their entire capital.

During the first decade or so after the introduction of farming into the Red River country it must be admitted that from time to time there were experiences of summer frosts that corroborated what had been said by some Hudson’s Bay officials. The following is an authentic record of one such experience:

“On the 8th June, 1836, a severe frost killed most of the barley and cut down the wheat, and on the 19th August of the same season a very heavy frost so injured the wheat that it was not even fit for seed.” After facts such as these, don’t blame the Hudson’s Bay Company for not being enthusiastic immigration agents. To the best of their knowledge, they spoke the truth, and say what one may about that, it must be admitted that their policy was much more innocent and harmless than that of some agents who subsequently brought down curses upon this country, and more deservedly upon their own heads, by representing this country as “the land of corn and wine” “with milk and honey blest.” The metaphors are all right, but naturally are increasingly metaphorical as one gets nearer the north pole.