OF THE RED INDIAN RACE. 455 



nev/ provinces to be formed between Lake Superior and the Rocky 

 Mountains, and that under circumstances peculiarly favouring the 

 intermixture of the races. One of the Indian Agents, in writing to 

 Ottawa, says: "The Indian can, of course, be dealt with on this 

 basis : ' $3 a head, and continue hunting and fishing till you die, or 

 are civilized off West;' or he can be induced to settle on his reserve, 

 and add to the working portion of the population." The latter more 

 generous and philanthropic process is that which is now aimed at; 

 and the experience on older reserves of Ontario and Quebec should 

 teach the authorities rather to favour and facilitate the interblending 

 of the White and Red population of the prairies, than to foster rival 

 and conflicting interests, which are sure to end in impeding the White 

 settlers, and injuring still more the civilized Indians. 



But the intermingling of the Red and White races is no novelty 

 in the region where the Province of Manitoba now invites the influx 

 of European emigration. ' There has long existed on the Red River a 

 settlement, begun in 1811 under the auspices of Lord Selkirk, and 

 afterwards transferred to the Hudson's Bay Company, originally 

 formed of hardy Orkney men and Sutherlandshire Highlanders. 

 But in 1813 the population did not exceed a hundred in number; 

 and in the subsequent rivalrj'- between the Hudson's Bay and North- 

 west Companies, no effort was spared to break up the infant colony. 

 On the amalgamation of the companies, the settlement revived ; and 

 immediately prior to the great fur company's supremacy coming to 

 an end, it numbered upwards of two thou.sand Whites, chiefly occu- 

 pied in farming, or in the service of the company. At a later date, 

 another settlement was formed on the Assinniboine River, chiefly by 

 French Canadians. In those, as at the forts and trading-posts of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, the settlers consisted chiefly of young men. 

 They had no choice but to wed or cohabit with the Indian women ; 

 and the result has been, not only the growth of a Half-breed popula- 

 tion greatly outnumbering the Whites : but the formation of a race 

 of Half-breeds, divided into two classes or tribes, according to their 

 Scottish or French paternity, who have hitherto kept themselves 

 distinct in manners, habits, and allegiance, alike from the Whites 

 and the Indians. 



This rise of an independent Half-breed tribe is one of the most 

 remarkable results of the great, though undesigned, ethnological 

 experiment which has been in progress ever since the meeting of the 



