The Conquest Of The Great Northwest - free ebook by Agnes C. Laut

THE CONQUEST OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST

Collier’s famous picture of Hudson’s Last Hours....

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THE CONQUEST OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST

Being the story of the ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND known as THE HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY. New pages in the history of the Canadian Northwest and Western States. BY AGNES C. LAUT Author of “Lords of the North,” “Pathfinders of the West,” etc. IN TWO VOLUMES Volume I TORONTO THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED Copyright, 1908, by THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London, England All Rights Reserved TO G. C. L. and C. M. A....

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FOREWORD

It HAS become almost a truism to say that no complete account of the Hudson’s Bay Adventurers has yet been written. I have often wondered if the people who repeated that statement knew what they meant. The empire of the fur trade Adventurers was not confined to Rupert’s Land, as specified by their charter. Lords of the Outer Marches, these gay Gentlemen Adventurers setting sail over the seas of the Unknown, Soldiers of Fortune with a laugh for life or death carving a path through the wilderness—

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PART I

1610-1631 Being an Account of the Discoveries in the Great Sea of the North by Henry Hudson and the Dane, Jens Munck. How the Search for the North-West Passage Led to the Opening of two Regions—New York and the North-West Territories....

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CHAPTER I

1607 HENRY HUDSON’S FIRST VOYAGE Practical men scorn the dreamer, especially the mad-souled dreamer who wrecks life trying to prove his dream a reality. Yet the mad-souled dreamer, the Poet of Action whose poem has been his life, the Hunter who has chased the Idea down the Long Trail where all tracks point one way and never return—has been a herald of light for humanity. Of no one is this truer than the English pilot, Henry Hudson. Hudson did not set out to find the great inland waters that bear

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CHAPTER II

1608 HUDSON’S SECOND VOYAGE Henceforth Hudson was an obsessed man. First, he possessed the Idea. Now the Idea possessed him. It was to lead him on a course no man would willingly have followed. Yet he followed it. Everything, life or death, love or hate, gain or loss, was to be subservient to that Idea. That current drifting across the Pole haunted him as it was to haunt Nansen at a later date. By attempting too much, had he missed all? He had gone to Spitzbergen in the Eighties. If he had kept

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CHAPTER III

1609 HUDSON’S THIRD VOYAGE While Hudson was pursuing his phantom across Polar seas, Europe had at last awakened to the secret of Spain’s greatness—colonial wealth that poured the gold of Peru into her treasury. To counteract Spain, colonizing became the master policy of Europe. France was at work on the St. Lawrence. England was settling Virginia, and Smith, the pioneer of Virginia, who was Hudson’s personal friend, had explored the Chesapeake. James II, Duke of York, Second Governor of the Huds

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CHAPTER IV

1610 HUDSON’S FOURTH VOYAGE Three years almost to a day from the time he set out to pursue his Phantom Dream along an endless Trail, Hudson again set sail for the mystic North. This time the Muscovy Gentlemen did not send him as a company, but three members of that company—Smith, Wolstenholme and Digges—supplied him with the bark, The Discovery . In his crew of twenty were several of his former seamen, among whom was the old mate, Juet. Provisions were carried for a year’s cruise. One Coleburne

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CHAPTER V

1619 THE ADVENTURES OF THE DANES ON HUDSON BAY—JENS MUNCK’S CREW Though Admiral Sir Thomas Button came out the very next year after Hudson’s death to follow up his discoveries and search for the lost mariner—the sea gave up no message of its dead. Button wintered on the bay (1612-13) at Port Nelson, which he discovered and named after his mate who died there. With him had come Prickett and Bylot of Hudson’s crew. Hudson’s old ship, The Discovery , was used with a larger frigate called The Resolu

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PART II

1662-1713 How the Sea of the North is Discovered Overland by the French Explorers of the St. Lawrence—Radisson, the Pathfinder, Founds the Company of the Gentlemen Adventurers of England Trading to Hudson’s Bay and Leads the Company a Dance for Fifty Years—He is Followed by the French Raiders Under d’Iberville....

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CHAPTER VI

1662-1674 RADISSON, THE PATHFINDER, DISCOVERS HUDSON BAY AND FOUNDS THE COMPANY OF GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS For fifty years the great inland sea, which Hudson had discovered, lay in a silence as of death. To the east of it lay a vast peninsular territory—crumpled rocks scored and seamed by rolling rivers, cataracts, upland tarns—Labrador, in area the size of half a dozen European kingdoms. To the south, the Great Clay Belt of untracked, impenetrable forests stretched to the watershed of the St. Law

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CHAPTER VII

1668-1674 THE ADVENTURES OF THE FIRST VOYAGE—RADISSON DRIVEN BACK ORGANIZES THE HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY AND WRITES HIS JOURNALS OF FOUR VOYAGES—THE CHARTER AND THE FIRST SHAREHOLDERS—ADVENTURES OF RADISSON ON THE BAY—THE COMING OF THE FRENCH AND THE QUARREL At last , then, five years from the time they had discovered the Sea of the North, after baffling disappointments, fruitless efforts and the despair known only to those who have stood face to face with the Grim Specter, Ruin, Radisson and Grosei

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CHAPTER VIII

1670-1870 “GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND”—LORDS OF THE OUTER MARCHES—TWO CENTURIES OF COMPANY RULE—SECRET OATHS—THE USE OF WHISKEY—THE MATRIMONIAL OFFICES—THE PART THE COMPANY PLAYED IN THE GAME OF INTERNATIONAL JUGGLING—HOW TRADE AND VOYAGES WERE CONDUCTED Just where the world’s traffic converges to that roaring maelstrom in front of the Royal Exchange, London—on Lime Street, off Leadenhall Street—stands an unpretentious gray stone building, the home of a power that has held unbroken sway ov

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CHAPTER IX

1674-1685 IF RADISSON CAN DO WITHOUT THE ADVENTURERS, THE ADVENTURERS CANNOT DO WITHOUT RADISSON—THE ERUPTION OF THE FRENCH ON THE BAY—THE BEGINNING OF THE RAIDERS While Radisson became once more a man without habitat or country, the Hudson’s Bay Adventurers were in the very springtime of wonderful prosperity. Despite French interlopers coming overland from the St. Lawrence, the ships of 1679 brought home cargoes totaling 10,500 beaver, 1,100 marten, 200 otter, 700 elk and a vast quantity of suc

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CHAPTER X

1683-1685 THE ADVENTURERS FURIOUS AT RADISSON, FIND IT CHEAPER TO HAVE HIM AS FRIEND THAN ENEMY AND INVITE HIM BACK—THE REAL REASON WHY RADISSON RETURNED—THE TREACHERY OF STATECRAFT—YOUNG CHOUART OUTRAGED, NURSES HIS WRATH AND THERE GAILY COMES ON THE SCENE MONSIEUR PÉRÉ—SCOUT AND SPY The Hudson’s Bay Adventurers were dazed by the sudden eruption of Radisson at Port Nelson. Their traders had gone there often enough to have learned that the finest furs came from the farthest North. Here was a reg

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CHAPTER XI

1685-1686 WHEREIN THE REASONS FOR YOUNG CHOUART GROSEILLERS’ MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE TO OUR GOOD FRIEND “PÉRÉ” ARE EXPLAINED—THE FOREST ROVERS OF NEW FRANCE RAID THE BAY BY SEA AND LAND—TWO SHIPS SUNK—PÉRÉ, THE SPY, SEIZED AND SENT TO ENGLAND It is now necessary to follow the fleet of seven ships—four large frigates, three sloops for inland waters—to the bay. Radisson goes as general superintendent with Captain Bond and Captain Lucas to Nelson—the port farthest north. In these ships, too, go young Ch

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CHAPTER XII

1686-1687 PIERRE LE MOYNE D’IBERVILLE SWEEPS THE BAY With Captain Outlaw’s crew adding strength to Albany, and Governor Bridgar’s crew wintering at Rupert River, the Adventurers on Hudson Bay once more felt secure. Like a bolt from the blue came the French raiders into the midst of this security. It was one of the long summer nights on the 18th of June, 1686, when twilight of the North merges with dawn. Fourteen cannon in all protruded from the embrasures of the four stone bastions round Moose F

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CHAPTER XIII

1686-1697 D’IBERVILLE SWEEPS THE BAY ( Continued ) The French were now in complete possession of the south end of Hudson Bay. Iberville’s brother, Maricourt, with a handful of men remained at Albany to guard the captured forts. Some of the English, who had taken to the woods in flight, now found the way to Severn River, half-way north between Albany and Nelson, where they hastily rushed up rude winter quarters and boldly did their best to keep the Indians from communicating with the French. Amon

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CHAPTER XIV

1688-1710 WHAT BECAME OF RADISSON? NEW FACTS ON THE LAST DAYS OF THE FAMOUS PATHFINDER What became of Radisson? It seems impossible that the man, who set France and England by the ears for a century, and led the way to the pathfinding of half America, should have dropped so completely into oblivion that not a scrap is recorded concerning the last twenty-five years of his life. Was he run to earth by the bailiffs of London, like Thackeray’s “Virginian?” Or did he become the lion tamed, the eagle

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PART III

1700-1820 The Search for the North-West Passage, the Fall of France, the Inlanders, the Coming of the Colonists and the Great Struggle with the North-West Company of Montreal....

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CHAPTER XV

1699-1720 THE FIRST ATTEMPT OF THE ADVENTURERS TO EXPLORE—HENRY KELSEY PENETRATES AS FAR AS THE VALLEY OF THE SASKATCHEWAN—SANFORD AND ARRINGTON, KNOWN AS “RED CAP,” FOUND HENLEY HOUSE INLAND FROM ALBANY—BESET FROM WITHOUT, THE COMPANY IS ALSO BESET FROM WITHIN—PETITIONS AGAINST THE CHARTER—INCREASE OF CAPITAL—RESTORATION OF THE BAY FROM FRANCE The Peace of Ryswick in 1697, which decreed that war should cease on Hudson Bay, and that France and England should each retain what they chanced to poss

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CHAPTER XVI

1719-1740 OLD CAPTAIN KNIGHT BESET BY GOLD FEVER, HEARS THE CALL OF THE NORTH—THE STRAITS AND BAY—THE FIRST HARVEST OF THE SEA AT DEAD MAN’S ISLAND—CASTAWAYS FOR THREE YEARS—THE COMPANY BESET BY GOLD FEVER INCREASES ITS STOCK—PAYS TEN PER CENT. ON TWICE-TREBLED CAPITAL—COMING OF SPIES AGAIN From the time of the first voyage up to Churchill River, in 1686, the fur traders had noticed tribes of Indians from the far North, who wore ornaments of almost pure copper. Chunks of metal, that melted down

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CHAPTER XVII

1740-1770 THE COMPANY’S PROSPERITY AROUSES OPPOSITION—ARTHUR DOBBS AND THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE AND THE ATTACK ON THE CHARTER—NO NORTHWEST PASSAGE IS FOUND BUT THE FRENCH SPUR THE ENGLISH TO RENEWED ACTIVITY For fifty years, the Company had been paying dividends that never went lower than 7 per cent. and generally averaged 10. These dividends were on capital that had been twice trebled. The yearly fur sales yielded from £20,000 to £30,000 to the Adventurers—twice and three times the original capita

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CHAPTER XVIII

1754-1755 THE MARCH ACROSS THE CONTINENT BEGINS—THE COMPANY SENDS A MAN TO THE BLACKFEET OF THE SOUTH SASKATCHEWAN—ANTHONY HENDRY IS THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO PENETRATE TO THE SASKATCHEWAN—THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO WINTER WEST OF LAKE WINNIPEG—HE MEETS THE SIOUX AND THE BLACKFEET AND INVITES THEM TO THE BAY Nothing lends more romantic coloring to the operations of the fur traders on Hudson Bay than the character of the men in the service. They were adventurers, pure and simple, in the best and the w

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CHAPTER XIX

1770-1800 EXTENSION OF TRADE TOWARD LABRADOR, QUEBEC AND ROCKIES—HEARNE FINDS THE ATHABASCA COUNTRY AND FOUNDS CUMBERLAND HOUSE ON THE SASKATCHEWAN—COCKING PROCEEDS TO THE BLACKFEET—HOWSE FINDS THE PASS IN ROCKIES While Anthony Hendry, the English smuggler, was making his way up the Saskatchewan to the land of the Blackfeet—the present province of Alberta—the English Adventurers were busy making good their claim to Labrador. Except as a summer rendezvous, Rupert, the oldest of the Company’s fort

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CHAPTER XX

1760-1810 “THE COMING OF THE PEDLARS”—A NEW RACE OF WOOD-ROVERS THRONGS TO THE NORTHWEST—BANDITS OF THE WILDS WAR AMONG THEMSELVES—TALES OF BORDER WARFARE, WASSAIL AND GRANDEUR—THE NEW NORTHWEST COMPANY CHALLENGES THE AUTHORITY AND FEUDALISM OF THE HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY La Perouse’s raid on Churchill and York was the least of the misfortunes that now beset the English Adventurers. Within a year from the French victory, the English prisoners had been ransomed from France and the dismantled forts w

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THE CONQUEST OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST

Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, formerly Donald Smith; Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company....

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THE CONQUEST OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST

Being the story of the ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND known as THE HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY. New pages in the history of the Canadian Northwest and Western States. BY AGNES C. LAUT Author of “Lords of the North,” “Pathfinders of the West,” etc. IN TWO VOLUMES Volume II NEW YORK THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY MCMVIII Copyright, 1908, by THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London, England All Rights Reserved...

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CHAPTER XXI

1760-1810 “THE COMING OF THE PEDLARS” CONTINUED—VOYAGE UP TO FORT WILLIAM, LIFE OF WILDWOOD WASSAIL AND GRANDEUR THERE—HOW THE WINTERING PARTNERS EXPLOITED THE NORTHWEST—TALES OF THE WINTERERS IN THE PAYS D’EN HAUT It was no easier for the Nor’Westers to obtain recruits than for the Hudson’s Bay Company. French habitants were no more anxious to have their heads broken in other men’s quarrels than the Orkneymen of the Old Country; but the Nor’Westers managed better than the Hudson’s Bay. Brigades

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CHAPTER XXII

1790-1810 “THE COMING OF THE PEDLARS” CONTINUED—HENRY’S ADVENTURES AT PEMBINA—THE FIRST WHITE WOMAN IN THE WEST—A STOLEN CHILD AND A POISONER AND A SCOUT—HOW HARMON FOUND A WIFE—THE STORY OF MARGUERITE TROTTIER. Striking across Lake Winnipeg from Winnipeg River, the southbound canoes ascend the central channel of the three entrances to Red River, passing Nettley Creek on the west, or River au Mort, as the French called it, in memory of the terrible massacre of Cree families by Sioux raiders in 1

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CHAPTER XXIII

1780-1810 “THE COMING OF THE PEDLARS” CONTINUED—THIRTY YEARS OF EXPLORATION—THE ADVANCE UP THE SASKATCHEWAN TO BOW RIVER AND HOWSE PASS—THE BUILDING OF EDMONTON—HOW MACKENZIE CROSSED TO THE PACIFIC. While fifty or a hundred men yearly ascended Red River as far as Grand Forks, and the Assiniboine as far as Qu’ Appelle, the main forces of the Nor’Westers—the great army of wood-rovers and plain rangers and swelling, blustering bullies and crafty old wolves of the North, and quiet-spoken wintering p

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CHAPTER XXIV

1780-1810 “THE COMING OF THE PEDLARS” CONTINUED—MACKENZIE AND MCTAVISH QUARREL—THE NOR’WESTERS INVADE HUDSON BAY WATERS AND CHALLENGE THE CHARTER—RUFFIANISM OF NOR’WESTERS—MURDER AND BOYCOTT OF HUDSON’S BAY MEN—UP-TO-DATE COMMERCIALISM AS CONDUCTED IN TERMS OF A CLUB AND WITHOUT LAW. The next spring, MacKenzie left the West forever. Again his report of discovery was coldly received by the partners on Lake Superior. The smoldering jealousy between Simon McTavish of the old Nor’Westers and Alexand

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CHAPTER XXV

1800-1810 DAVID THOMPSON, THE NOR’WESTER, DASHES FOR THE COLUMBIA—HE EXPLORES EAST KOOTENAY, WEST KOOTENAY, WASHINGTON AND OREGON, BUT FINDS ASTOR’S MEN ON THE FIELD—HOW THE ASTORIANS ARE JOCKEYED OUT OF ASTORIA—FRASER FINDS HIS WAY TO THE SEA BY ANOTHER GREAT RIVER. Let us follow Thompson first. He had joined the Nor’Westers just when the question of the International Boundary was in dispute between Canada and the United States. (1) In 1796, lest other Northwest forts were south of the Boundary

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CHAPTER XXVI

1810-1813 THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS—LORD SELKIRK BUYS CONTROL OF THE H. B. C.—SIMON M’GILLIVRAY AND MACKENZIE PLOT TO DEFEAT HIM—ROBERTSON SAYS “FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE” AND SELKIRK CHOOSES A M’DONELL AGAINST A M’DONELL—THE COLONISTS COME TO RED RIVER—RIOT AND PLOT AND MUTINY. Not purely as a fur trader does my lord viscount, Thomas Douglas of Selkirk, begin buying shares in the Company of Honorable Adventurers to Hudson’s Bay. Not as a speculator does he lock hands with Sir Alexander MacKenzie,

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CHAPTER XXVII

1813-1820 THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS CONTINUED—MACDONELL ATTEMPTS TO CARRY OUT THE RIGHTS OF FEUDALISM ON RED RIVER—NOR’WESTERS RESENT—THE COLONY DESTROYED AND DISPERSED—SELKIRK TO THE RESCUE—LAJIMONIERE’S LONG VOYAGE—CLARKE IN ATHABASCA. Yearly the Hudson’s Bay boats now brought their little quota of settlers for Red River. On June 28, 1813, more than ninety embarked in The Prince of Wales at Stromness. Servants and laborers took passage on The Eddystone . On the third ship—a small brig—went m

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CHAPTER XXVIII

1816-1820 THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS CONTINUED—GOVERNOR SEMPLE AND TWENTY COLONISTS ARE BUTCHERED AT SEVEN OAKS—SELKIRK TO THE RESCUE CAPTURES FORT WILLIAM AND SWEEPS THE NOR’WESTERS FROM THE FIELD—THE SUFFERING OF THE SETTLERS—AT LAST SELKIRK SEES THE PROMISED LAND AT RED RIVER. Here , then, is the position, June 17, 1816. My Lord Selkirk is racing westward from Montreal to the rescue of his Red River colonists with two hundred men made up of disbanded De Meuron and De Watteville soldiers and

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CHAPTER XXIX

1816-1821 BOTH COMPANIES MAKE A DASH TO CAPTURE ATHABASCA WHENCE CAME THE MOST VALUABLE FURS—ROBERTSON OVERLAND TO MONTREAL, TRIED AND ACQUITTED, LEADS A BRIGADE TO ATHABASCA—HE IS TRICKED BY THE NOR’WESTERS, BUT TRICKS THEM IN TURN—THE UNION OF THE COMPANIES—SIR GEORGE SIMPSON, GOVERNOR. It was mid-winter before word that Fort Douglas had fallen into the hands of the Nor’Westers and Fort William into the hands of Lord Selkirk, came to Colin Robertson ice-bound at Moose. Robertson was ever the s

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CHAPTER XXX

1821-1830 RECONSTRUCTION CONTINUED—NICHOLAS GARRY, THE DEPUTY GOVERNOR, COMES OUT TO REORGANIZE THE UNITED COMPANIES—MORE COLONISTS FROM SWITZERLAND—THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN BRIGADES—ROSS OF OKANOGAN. It fell to Nicholas Garry to come out and reorganize the united traders, because he chanced to be the only unmarried man on the Governing Committee. The task was not easy. Bitter hatreds must be harmonized. Indians must be conciliated. Fire-eaters must be transferred to new districts, where old animositi

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CHAPTER XXXI

1824-1838 JOURNALS OF PETER SKENE OGDEN, EXPLORER AND FUR TRADER, OVER THE REGIONS NOW KNOWN AS WASHINGTON, OREGON, CALIFORNIA, IDAHO, MONTANA, NEVADA AND UTAH—HE RELIEVES ASHLEY’S MEN OF 10,000 BEAVER—HE FINDS NEVADA—HE DISCOVERS MT. SHASTA—HE TRICKS THE AMERICANS AT SALT LAKE. Gay were the fur brigades that swept out from old Fort Vancouver for the South. With long white hair streaming to the wind, Doctor McLoughlin usually stood on the green slope outside the picketed walls, giving a personal

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CHAPTER XXXII

1825-1859 MCLOUGHLIN’S TRANSMONTANE EMPIRE CONTINUED—DOUGLAS’ ADVENTURES IN NEW CALEDONIA, HOW HE PUNISHES MURDER AND IS HIMSELF ALMOST MURDERED—LITTLE YALE OF THE LOWER FRASER—BLACK’S DEATH AT KAMLOOPS—HOW TOD OUTWITS CONSPIRACY—THE COMPANY’S OPERATIONS IN CALIFORNIA AND SANDWICH ISLANDS AND ALASKA—WHY DID RAE KILL HIMSELF IN SAN FRANCISCO?—THE SECRET DIPLOMACY. McLoughlin’s empire beyond the mountains included not only the states now known as Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah

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CHAPTER XXXIII

1840-1859 THE PASSING OF THE COMPANY—THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS TO OREGON—THE FOUNDING OF VICTORIA NORTH OF THE BOUNDARY—-WHY THE H. B. C. GAVE UP OREGON—MISRULE OF VANCOUVER ISLAND—MCLOUGHLIN’S RETIREMENT. Another subject had McLoughlin and Simpson laid before the Governing Board of London in that winter of 1838-39. The treaty of joint occupation continued between the United States and Great Britain; but Americans were yearly drifting into the valley of the Columbia. First came such occasional

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CHAPTER XXXIV

1857-1870 THE PASSING OF THE COMPANY The tide of American colonization rolling westward to Minnesota, to Dakota, to Oregon, was not without effect on the little isolated settlement of Red River. Oregon had been wrested from the fur trader, not by diplomacy, but by the rough-handed toiler coming in and taking possession. The same thing happened in British Columbia when the miner came. What was Red River—the pioneer of all the Western colonies—doing? The union of Nor’Wester and Hudson’s Bay had th

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