By H. V. Arnold
The vast region now comprised in the Canadian provinces to the north of our boundary was controlled by the Hudson Bay Fur Company. As the charter granted to the original company had never been annulled, the region in question could be opened up to general settlement only by an act of Parliament that would terminate their control over this region. On the other hand, the portion of the valley within the United States could be occupied by settlers at any time, subject only to the extinguishment of Indian titles, which, in this case, was effected about as early as any need of actual settlement required it. Both the agents of the fur company and the independent traders were doubtless opposed to the opening up of the country on either side of the boundary line so long as they could by any means prevent or hinder its inevitable occupation.
The colonization of a region in which the larger game and the smaller fur-bearing animals abound leads to the gradual extinction of the fur trade. When such a region begins to be settled, the larger animals quickly retire before this first wave of advancing civilization; then, a little later, as the settlements spread and agriculture and its associated commercial operations are introduced into the newly occupied country, the smaller ones lessen in number, or, as in the case of the beaver, entirely disappear. Hence the reason for the hostility that the Northwest Fur Company exercised toward Lord Selkirk’s colonists in 1815 and 1816. They saw in the planting of this colony in the wilderness a menace to their business and its profitable gains. Had not Lord Selkirk possessed the requisite influence, the province of Manitoba would never have contained an agricultural population for nearly sixty years later, as, in this instance, happened to be the case.
The fur traders of later times are believed to have circulated exaggerated reports respecting the rigors of the climate so as to deter emigration to the valley. In the nature of the case, considering the steady and continuous west-by-north movement of the surplus population of the northern states, ever on the increase by the yearly arrival of thousands from Europe, the possession of the Northwest by the fur traders necessarily became limited in time, being one of those conditions of life, which, both in the Canadian Dominion and in United States territory, must sooner or later reach its destined end, and be terminated, either by peaceable or violent measures. The former method happily prevailed, but in the meantime, those engaged in the fur trade held a close grip upon the country. It is apparent that they preferred that things should remain much as they had been and continue so as long as it was possible to maintain this phase of life. This long period of seventy or more years’ duration, devoted to the fur trade in the Red River valley, has very aptly been called the “half breed epoch.” Its duration was too long for it to be classed as an incident in the history of the Northwest.
In 1857, the English House of Commons took the initial step toward opening the British possessions in North America in the control of the Hudson Bay Company to civilization and unrestricted commerce. The committee having the matter in charge reported in favor of terminating the control of the Hudson Bay Company at the end of their then 21-year term expiring in 1869.
In 1857 the Hudson Bay Company completed arrangements with the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States whereby goods for that company could be carried in bond through the United States, thus practically doing away with the Hudson Bay post known as York Factory, to which goods were then being shipped, vessels arriving and departing once a year. In the summer of 1858 two or three shipments of goods were so made, leaving the Mississippi River at St. Paul and conveyed thence by Red River carts under the direction of James McKey. (Sketch by Capt. Russell Blakeley: We do not know in what publication this valuable historical article on the opening up of the Red River Valley first appeared; but it is contained in the Record Magazine for April, 1897; also “The Long Ago,” pp. 36-40. The sketch is also nearly all used in this work, but owing to our plan of following in as strict chronological order as convenient, it was necessary to use it in detached paragraphs.)
As soon as boat navigation on the northern lakes and streams opened in the spring, the company’s fleet of Mackinaw boats was put into active service. These boats had a capacity of about five tons each. There were distant posts on the Saskatchewan, Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers to which supplies had to be forwarded that had come by vessel from England the previous year, and were brought by the boats up as far as Norway House near the foot of Lake Winnipeg. Leaving Fort Garry, the boats took down to Norway House the collected stores of furs, which, for the time being, were left at this post, then reloading with the supplies mentioned, the boats passed up the Saskatchewan, some of them going as far as Edmonton. On their return to Norway House they brought back the winter’s catch of furs forwarded from the distant posts, and taking on the boats again the peltries that had been left there, they proceeded down Nelson River to York Factory where a vessel was ready to ship these collected stores to England. Reloading with the cargo that the vessel had brought over, the boats returned up to Norway House where the goods were stored as first mentioned, and then returned to Fort Garry, by which time September had come. Boats merely going from Fort Garry to York Factory and back, could make two round trips a year. Meanwhile, such stock of furs as had been collected at Fort Garry after the departure of the fleet in the spring, was forwarded through the United States. The freight taken through this country in bond, was merely for the supplying of Fort Garry and its outlying posts. (From information furnished by John Cromarty, of Larimore.)
Fort Abercrombie
In 1858 a military post called Fort Abercrombie was founded on the west bank of the Red River, fifteen miles below the site of Wahpeton. The fort was laid out in August, and was occupied but one year, when Secretary of War Floyd, as a part of his plan to despoil the North of government property and supplies and prepare the South for rebellion, dismantled the fort, sold the buildings at a great sacrifice, and withdrew the troops. In 1860 the post was again occupied and rebuilt under the charge of Major Day, and maintained until the building of the Northern Pacific railroad rendered its further occupation unnecessary.
About the time the fort was established, speculative parties endeavored to create a number of townsites in western Minnesota, some of them being located on the Red River. There being then so few white inhabitants in this region and the country undeveloped, these ventures, even if attempted in good faith, could not be otherwise than unsuccessful.
Natives Bury the Hatchet
It was to the interest of the fur traders to keep the separate tribes of Indians at peace with one another as much as possible, but in this undertaking they were not always successful. In the fur trading days the allied tribes of the Sioux were the deadly enemies of the Chippeway (also spelled Ojibway) and the more northern tribes. About the year 1858, members of these tribes, or of most of them, met on the plains of Nelson County, near Stump Lake, and agreed at this council to bury the hatchet. The pipe of peace was smoked, and they mutually agreed, one tribe with another, to cease from their murderous forays against each other. William H. Moorhead, one of the old timers of the Red River Valley who came in 1857, happened to be in the Devils Lake region and was present at this peace council.
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