90 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



oraparison with which we, as we prided ourselves, were denizens of a pai'adise of high refine 

 ment and civilization. Now that the Red River district has attained the dignity of a province 

 and become a member of our Canadian Confederation, the trial referred to, arising out of the 

 very birth-throes of Manitoba, has acquired a fresh interest. 



The Earl of Selkirk, the fifth of that title, was a nobleman of enlightened and cultivated mind. 

 He was the author of several literary productions esteemed in their day ; among them, of a trea- 

 tise on Emigration, which is spoken of by contemporaries as an exhaustive, standard work on 

 the subject. For practically testing his theories, however. Lord Selkirk appears to have desired 

 a field exclusively his own. Instead of directing his fellow-countrymen to one or other of the 

 numerous prosperous settlements already in process of formation at easily accessible and very 

 eligible spots along the St. Lawrence and the Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron, he induced a 

 considerable body of them to find their way to a point in the far interior of our northern conti- 

 nent, where civilization had as yet made no sensible inroad ; to a locality so situated that if n 

 colony should contrive to subsist there, it must apparently of necessity remain for a very long 

 period dismally isolated. In 1803, Bishop Macdonell asked him, what could have induced a 

 man of his high rank and great fortune, possessing the esteem and confidence of the Government 

 and of every public man in Britain, to embark in an enterprise so romantic ; and the reply given 

 was, that, in his opinion, the situation of Great Britain, and indeed of all Europe, was at that 

 moment so very critical and eventful, that a man would like to have a more solid footing to 

 stand upon, than anything that Europe could offer.— The tract of land secured by Lord Selkirk 

 for emigration purposes was a part of the territory held by the Hudson's Bay Company, and was 

 approached from Europe not so readily by the St. Lawrence route as by Hudson's Strait and 

 Hudson's Bay. The site of the actual settlement was half-a-mile north of the confluence of the 

 Assiniboine and Red Rivers, streams that unitedly flow northward into Lake Winnipeg, wliich 

 communicates directly at its northern extremity with Nelson River, whose outlet is at Port Nelson 

 or Port York on Hudson's Bay. The population of the Settlement in the beginning of 1S13 was 

 100. Mr. Miles Macdonell, formerly a captain in the Queen's Rangers, appointed by the Hudson's 

 Bay Company first Governor of the District of Assiniboia, was made by the Earl of Selkirk super- 

 intendent of affairs at KUdonan. The rising village was called Kildonan, from the name of the 

 jiarish in the county of Sutherland whence the majority of the settlers had emigrated. 



The Montreal North West Company of Fur Traders was a rival of the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany. Wliilst the latter traded for the most part in the regions watered by the rivers flowing 

 into Hudson's Bay, the former claimed for their operations the area drained by the streams 

 running into Lake Superior. 



The North West Company of Montreal looked with no kindly eye on the settlement of 

 Kildonan. An agricultural colony, in close proximity to their hunting grounds, seemed a 

 dangerous innovation, tending to injure the local fur trade. Accordingly it was resolved to 

 break up the infant colony. The Indians were told that they would assuredly be made "poor 

 and miserable" by the new-comers if they were allowed to proceed with their improvements ; 

 because these would cause the buffalo to disappear. The Colonists themselves were informed 

 of the better prospects open to them in the Canadian settlements, and were promised pecu- 

 niary help if they would decide to move. At the same time, the peril to which they were 

 exposed from the alleged ill-will of the Indians was enlarged upon. Moreover, attacks with 

 fire-arms were made on the houses of the Colonists, and acts of pillage committed. The result 

 was that, in 1815, the inhabitants of Kildonan dispersed, proceeding, some of them, in the 

 direction of Canada, and some of them northwards, purposing to make their way to Port 

 Nelson, and to find, if possible, a conveyance thence back to the shores of old Scotland. Those, 

 however, who took the northern route proceeded only as far as the northern end of Lake Win- 

 nipeg, establisliing themselves for a time at Jack River House. They were then induceli to 

 return to their former settlement, by Mr. Colin Robertson, an agent of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, who assured them that a number of Highlanders were coming, via Hudson's Bay, 

 to take up land at Kildonan. This proved to be the fact ; and, in 1816, the revived colony 

 consisted of more than 200 persons. On annoyance being offered to the settlement by the 

 North West Company's agent, Mr. Duncan Cameron, who occupied a post called Fort Gib- 

 raltar, about half a mile off, Mr. Colin Robertson, with the aid of his Highlandmen, seized that 

 establisliment, and recovered two field-pieces and thirty stand of arms that had been taken 



