340 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to 1754. After the conquest of Canada by England, the fur-trade 

 ceased for some years ; but in 17GG the Montrealers began to push 

 northwestward, and from that time their agents, mostly French-Cana- 

 dians, mingled freely with the Indians — the consequence being the 

 growth of a half-breed community. There was a considerable popu- 

 lation, known by their chosen designation of Hois Hrules (for which 

 •they sometimes substituted the more ambitious style of " the new na- 

 tion"), when Lord Selkirk began his scheme of colonization in 1811. 

 That even then they were not all French is shown by some of their 

 surnames being Scotch or English. But it is from the years immedi- 

 atelyvfollowing the establishment of the Red River Colony that the 

 bulk of the English-speaking half-breeds date their first appearance. 

 In the year 1814 they numbered two hundred. In 1870 the Manitoba 

 half-breeds and metis (as those of British and French origin may be 

 distinguished) were estimated at ten thousand. Besides them, there 

 was a population of uncertain number scattered through the Territo- 

 ries, and a tribe of half-breed hunters which one early explorer deemed 

 to be six thousand strong. In 1874 Dr. G. M. Dawson, while engaged 

 in the British North American Boundary Commission, came upon the 

 camp of the latter body, consisting of two hundred buffalo-skin tents 

 and two thousand horses.* Dr. Wilson considers the rise in this way 

 of an independent tribe of half-breeds as " one of the most remarkable 

 phenomena connected with the grand ethnological experiment which 

 has been in progress on the North American Continent for the last 

 three centuries." The half-breeds, who were given to the chase, have 

 been credited with courage, discipline, and self-control. Those of 

 French paternity are said to be more lively and frank, and physically 

 stronger ; those of British origin, the more stable and industrious. 

 The Rev. Professor Bryce, of Winnipeg, says that "like all savage 

 races, the Hois Hrules are fickle. They must be appealed to by flat- 

 tery, by threats, or by working upon their animosities or well-known 

 dislikes, if they would be led in any particular direction"! — and the 

 truth of this characterization was painfully exemplified in the recent 

 rebellion under Riel, no less than in the sanguinary conflict into which 

 they were seduced in 1816. Now that the force of circumstances has 

 subjected them to the restraints of civilization, the likelihood is that 

 they will eventually become merged in the dominant race. Some of 

 them have proved themselves well able to compete with white rivals 

 for the prizes of life. A few of them have achieved success, not 

 only in business and the professions, but in the more trying arena 

 of politics ; and, at the very time when the unfortunate Riel was ex- 

 piating his crimes on the scaffold, a more worthy sharer in the blood 



* " Report of the Geology and Resources of the Region in the Vicinity of the Forty- 

 ninth Parallel, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains," etc. (British 

 North American Boundary Commission.) By G. M. Dawson, pp. 295, 296. 



f "Manitoba: its Infancy, Growth, and Present Condition," p. 204. 



