12 JOHN EEADE Oî^ 



durance and, wliile manifesting- the reserve of the Indian, display considerable vivacity 

 under excitement. The civilized half-breeds of Manitoba differ from those of the half-breed 

 tribe and from Indians of mixed blood. Some of them are wealthy and their sons in some 

 cases, are sent to college, and on their return home use their knowledge and influence to 

 promote rehnemeut. Grenerally they resent the term " half-breed," preferring that of 

 " native." The testimony of Archdeacon Hunter and Mr. S. J. Dawson is favorable to 

 the phj'-sical and moral qualities of the mixed race as compared with the pure Indians. In 

 1874, Dr. Gr. M. Dawson, while employed on the British North American Boundary Commis- 

 sion, came upon the site of the Big Camp of the half-breed hunters to the west of "White 

 Mud River. It consisted of more than 200 lepees or buffalo-skin tents and about 2,000 

 horses.' In 1845, Mr. Paul Kane reckoned the half-breed hunters of Eed Eiver at 6,000. In 

 the hunt or in the war. Dr. Wilson credits them with discipline, courage and self-control, and 

 the conduct of some, at least, of the participators in the recent unhappy rising, confirms 

 that opinion. Marrying freely, as they are said to do, with the white population, there is 

 reason to believe that in the course of some generations the traces of red blood will disap- 

 pear, not by extinction but by absorption with the dominant race." 



Professor Gr. Bryce, in his work on Manitoba, characterizes the half-breed of an earlier 

 day somewhat differently. "A lithe, cunning, turbulent, but adventurous and lively race," he 

 writes, " were the Bois-Brulés, of those early times. They were chiefly the descendants of 

 the French voyageurs of the North-West Company who had taken Indian wives and settled 

 down on the shore of some lake or river in the Fur Country." Like Dr. Wilson, he is struck 

 with the strangeness of the phenomenon presented by the growth of such a mixed race in 

 the heart of the continent — ^" a race combining the characteristics of the French and the 

 Indian." Comparing the Bois-Brulés with the Scottish half-breeds, he says : " There can 

 be no doubt that the French half-breeds are of greater stature, are more restive under 

 restraint, more inclined to the wandering life of the Indian, and more given to the hunt 

 and to the use of arms than those of Orkney descent." Again, " like all semi-savage races, 

 the Bois-Brulés are fickle. They must be appealed to by flattery, by threats, or by working 

 upon their animosities or well-known dislikes, would they be led in any particular direc- 

 tion."^ And the truth of this statement was exemplified in the recent rebellion under Eiel 

 and Dumont, no less than in the sanguinary conflict into which they were seduced in 

 1816. 



To what extent Indian blood has been diffused among the white population of the 

 United States, we have no means of ascertaining, but in all likelihood the proportion is 

 much larger than is generally supposed. Attention in that country has been rather, per- 

 haps, directed to the results of miscegenesis between whites and negroes. That it was 

 largely practised in the South in the period before the Civil War, is an undoubted fact. That 

 escaped negroes, sheltered by Indians, in Florida and elsewhere, often took Indian com- 

 panions who bore them children, is also well established. Since the emancipation of the 

 slaves, intercourse between whites and negroes has decreased, notwithstanding the strong 



' Report of the Geology and Eesources of the Region in tlie vicinity of tlie Forty-ninth Parallel, from tlie 

 Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, etc. (British North American Boundary Commission.) By G. M. 

 Dawson, pp. 29.5, (S. 



^ Prehistoric Man, ii. 2GC. -'Manitoba: its Infancy, Growth and Present Condition, p. 204. 



