Kitabı oku: «The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company», sayfa 32
Songs, hymns, sermons, and translations of portions of the Bible are made in the jargon, and used by missionaries and teachers. Several dictionaries of the dialect have been published.
Among the out-standing men who were contemporaries upon the Pacific Coast of Finlayson were the two brothers Ermatinger. Already it has been stated that they were nephews of the famous old trader of Sault Ste. Marie. Their father had preferred England to Canada, and had gone thither. His two sons, Edward and Francis, were, as early as 1818, apprenticed by their father to the Hudson's Bay Company and sent on the Company's ship to Rupert's Land, by way of York Factory. Edward, whose autobiographical sketch, hitherto unpublished, lies before us, tells us that he spent ten years in the fur trade, being engaged at York Factory, Oxford House, Red River, and on the Columbia River. Desirous of returning to the service after he had gone back to Canada, he had received an appointment to Rupert's Land again from Governor Simpson. This was cancelled by the Governor on account of a grievous quarrel with old Charles, the young trader's uncle, on a sea voyage with the Governor to Britain. For many years, however, Edward Ermatinger lived at St. Thomas, Ontario, where his son, the respected Judge Ermatinger, still resides. The old gentleman became a great authority on Hudson's Bay affairs, and received many letters from the traders, especially, it would seem, from those who had grievances against the Company or against its strong-willed Governor.
Francis Ermatinger, the other brother, spent between thirty and forty years in the Far West, especially on the Pacific Coast. An unpublished journal of Francis Ermatinger lies before us. It is a clear and vivid account of an expedition to revenge the death of a trader, Alexander Mackenzie, and four men who had been basely murdered (1828) by the tribe of Clallam Indians. The party, under Chief Factor Alexander McLeod, attacked one band of Indians and severely punished them; then from the ship Cadboro on the coast, a bombardment of the Indian village took place, in which many of the tribe of the murderers were killed, but whether the criminals suffered was never known.
That Francis Ermatinger was one of the most hardy, determined, and capable of the traders is shown by a remarkable Journey made by him, under orders from Sir George Simpson on his famous journey round the world. Ermatinger had left Fort Vancouver in charge of a party of trappers to visit the interior of California. Sir George, having heard of him in the upper waters of one of the rivers of the coast, ordered him to meet him at Monterey. This Ermatinger undertook to do, and after a terrific journey, crossing snowy chains of mountains, fierce torrents in a country full of pitfalls, reached the imperious Governor. Ermatinger had assumed the disguise of a Spanish caballero, and was recognized by his superior officer with some difficulty. Ermatinger wrote numerous letters to his brothers in Canada, which contained details of the hard but exciting life he was leading.
Most unique and peculiar of all the traders on the Pacific Coast was John Tod, who first appeared as a trader in the Selkirk settlement and wrote a number of the Hargrave letters. In 1823 he was sent by Governor Simpson, it is said, to New Caledonia as to the penal settlement of the fur traders, but the young Scotchman cheerfully accepted his appointment. He became the most noted letter-writer of the Pacific Coast, indeed he might be called the prince of controversialists among the traders. There lies before the writer a bundle of long letters written over a number of years by Tod to Edward Ermatinger. Tod, probably for the sake of argument, advocated loose views as to the validity of the Scriptures, disbelief of many of the cardinal Christian doctrines, and in general claimed the greatest latitude of belief. It is very interesting to see how the solemn-minded and orthodox Ermatinger strives to lead him into the true way. Tod certainly had little effect upon his faithful correspondent, and shows the greatest regard for his admonitions.
The time of Sir George Simpson's visit to the coast on his journey round the world was one of much agitation as to the boundary line between the British and United States possessions on the Pacific Coast. By the treaty of 1825 Russia and Britain had come to an agreement that the Russian strip along the coast should reach southward only to 54 deg. 40´ N. lat. The United States mentioned its claim to the coast as far north as the Russian boundary. However preposterous it may seem, yet it was maintained by the advocates of the Monroe doctrine that Great Britain had no share of the coast at all. The urgency of the American claim became so great that the popular mind seemed disposed to favour contesting this claim with arms. Thus originated the famous saying, "Fifty-four, forty, or fight." The Hudson's Bay Company was closely associated with the dispute, the more that Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River might be south of the boundary line, though their action of building Fort Victoria was shown to be a wise and timely step. At length in 1846 the treaty between Great Britain and the United States was made and the boundary line established. The Oregon Treaty, known in some quarters as the Ashburton Treaty, provided that the 49th parallel of latitude should on the mainland be the boundary, thus handing over Fort Vancouver, Walla Walla, Colville, Nisqually, and Okanagan to the United States, and taking them from their rightful owners, the Hudson's Bay Company. Article two of the great treaty, however, stated that the Company should enjoy free navigation of the Columbia River, while the third article provided that the possessory rights of the Hudson's Bay Company and all other British subjects on the south side of the boundary line should be respected.
The decision in regard to the boundary led to changes in the Hudson's Bay Company establishments. Dr. McLoughlin, having lost the confidence of the Company, threw in his lot with his United States home, and retired in the year of the treaty to Oregon City, where he died a few years after. His name is remembered as that of an impulsive, good-hearted, somewhat rash, but always well-meaning man.
Though Fort Victoria became the depôt for the coast of the trade of the Company, Fort Vancouver, with a reduced staff, was maintained for a number of years by the Company. While under charge of Chief Trader Wark, a part of the fields belonging to the Company at Fort Vancouver were in a most high-handed manner seized by the United States for military purposes. The senior officer, Mr. Grahame, on his return from an absence, protested against the invasion. In June, 1860, however, the Hudson's Bay Company withdrew from the Columbia. The great herd of wild cattle which had grown up on the Columbia were disposed of by the Company to a merchant of Oregon. The Company thus retired to the British side of the boundary line during the three years closing with 1860.
Steps were taken by the Hudson's Bay Company to obtain compensation from the United States authorities. A long and wearisome investigation took place; witnesses were called and great diversity of opinion prevailed as to the value of the interest of the Company in its forts. The Hudson's Bay Company claimed indemnity amounting to the sum of 2,000,000 dols. Witnesses for the United States gave one-tenth of that amount as a fair value. Compensation of a moderate kind was at length made to the Company by the United States.
On its withdrawal from Oregon the Hudson's Bay Company decided on opening up communication with the interior of the mainland up the Fraser River. This was a task of no small magnitude, on account of the rugged and forbidding banks of this great river. A. Caulfield Anderson, an officer who had been in the Company's service for some fourteen years before the date of the Oregon Treaty and was in charge of a post on the Fraser River, was given the duty of finding the road to the interior. He was successful in tracing a road from Fort Langley to Kamloops. The Indians offered opposition to Anderson, but he succeeded in spite of all hindrances, and though other routes were sought for and suggested, yet Anderson's road by way of the present town of Hope and Lake Nicola to Kamloops afterwards became one great waggon road to the interior. No sooner had the boundary line been fixed than agitation arose to prepare the territory north of the line for a possible influx of agriculturists or miners and also to maintain the coast true to British connection. The Hudson's Bay Company applied to the British Government for a grant of Vancouver Island, which they held under a lease good for twelve years more. Mr. Gladstone opposed the application, but considering it the best thing to be done in the circumstances, the Government made the grant (1847) to the Company under certain conditions. The Company agreed to colonize the island, to sell the lands at moderate rates to settlers, and to apply nine-tenths of the receipts toward public improvements. The Company entered heartily into the project, issued a prospectus for settlers, and hoped in five years to have a considerable colony established on the Island.
Steps were taken by the British Government to organize the new colony. The head of the Government applied to the Governor of the Company to name a Governor. Chief Factor Douglas was suggested, but probably thinking an independent man would be more suitable, the Government gave the appointment to a man of respectability, Richard Blanshard, in the end of 1849.
The new Governor arrived, but no preparations had been made for his reception. No salary was provided for his maintenance, and the attitude of the Hudson's Bay Company officially at Fort Victoria was decidedly lacking in heartiness. Governor Blanshard's position was nothing more than an empty show. He issued orders and proclamations which were disregarded. He visited Fort Rupert, which had been founded by the Company on the north-east angle of the island, and there held an investigation of a murder of three sailors by the Newitty Indians. Governor Blanshard spent much of his time writing pessimistic reports of the country to Britain, and after a residence of a year and a half returned to England, thoroughly soured on account of his treatment by the officers of the Company.
The colonization of Vancouver Island proved very slow. A company of miners for Nanaimo, and another of farmers from Sooke, near Victoria, came, but during Governor Blanshard's rule only one bonâ-fide sale of land was made, and five years after the cession to the Company there were less than five hundred colonists. Chief Factor Douglas succeeded to the governorship and threw his accustomed energy into his administration. The cry of monopoly, ever a popular one, was raised, and inasmuch as the colony was not increasing sufficiently to satisfy the Imperial Government, the great Committee of the House of Commons of 1857 was appointed to examine the whole relation of the Company to Rupert's Land and the Indian territories. The result of the inquiry was that it was decided to relieve the Hudson's Bay Company of the charge of Vancouver Island at the time of expiry of their lease. The Hudson's Bay Company thus withdrew on the Pacific Coast to the position of a private trading company, though Sir James Douglas, who was knighted in 1863, continued Governor of the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island, with the added responsibility of the territory on the mainland.
At this juncture the gold discovery in the mainland called much attention to the country. Thousands of miners rushed at once to the British possessions on the Pacific Coast. Fort Victoria, from being a lonely traders' post, grew as if by magic into a city. Thousands of miners betook themselves to the Fraser River, and sought the inland gold-fields. All this compelled a more complete organization than the mere oversight of the mainland by Governor Douglas in his capacity as head of the fur trade. Accordingly the British Government determined to relieve the Hudson's Bay Company of responsibility for the mainland, which they held under a licence soon to expire, and to erect New Caledonia and the Indian territories of the coast into a separate Crown Colony under the name of British Columbia. In Lord Lytton's dispatches to Governor Douglas, to whom the governorship of both of the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia was offered, the condition is plainly stated that he would be required to sever his connection with the Hudson's Bay Company and the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and to be independent of all local interests. Here we leave Sir James Douglas immersed in his public duties of governing the two colonies, which in time became one province under the name of British Columbia, thus giving up the guidance of the fur-trading stations for whose up-building he had striven for fifty years.
The posts of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Pacific Coast in 1857 were: —
CHAPTER XLI
PRO GLORIA DEI
A vast region – First spiritual adviser – A locum tenens– Two French Canadian priests – St. Boniface founded – Missionary zeal in Mackenzie River district – Red River parishes – The great Archbishop Taché – John West – Archdeacon Cochrane, the founder – John McCallum – Bishop Anderson – English Missionary Societies – Archbishop Machray – Indian Missions – John Black, the Presbyterian apostle – Methodist Missions on Lake Winnipeg – The Cree syllabic – Chaplain Staines – Bishop Cridge – Missionary Duncan – Metlakahtla – Roman Catholic coast missions – Church of England bishop – Diocese of New Westminster – Dr. Evans – Robert Jamieson – Education.
Wherever British influence has gone throughout the world the Christian faith of the British people has followed. It is true, for one hundred and fifty years the ships to Hudson Bay crossed regularly to the forts on the Bay, and beyond certain suggestions as to service to the employés, no recognition of religion took place on Hudson Bay, and no Christian clergyman or missionary visitor found his way thither. The Company was primarily a trading company, its forts were far apart, and there were few men at any one point.
The first heralds of the Cross, indeed, to reach Rupert's Land were the French priests who accompanied Verendrye, though they seem to have made no settlements in the territory. It is said that after the conquest of Canada, when the French traders had withdrawn from the North-West, except a few traditions in one of the tribes, no trace of Christianity was left behind.
The first clergyman to arrive in Rupert's Land was in connection with Lord Selkirk's colony in 1811. A party of Lord Selkirk's first colonists having come from Sligo, the founder sent one Father Bourke to accompany the party to Red River. The wintering at York Factory seems to have developed some unsatisfactory traits in the spiritual adviser, and he did not proceed further than the shore of the Bay, but returned to his native land.
The necessity of providing certain spiritual oversight for his Scottish colonists occupied Lord Selkirk's mind. In 1815 James Sutherland, an elder authorized by the Church of Scotland to baptize and marry, arrived with one of the bands of colonists at Red River. The first point in the agreement between Lord Selkirk and his colonists was "to have the services of a minister of their own church." This was Lord Selkirk's wish, and Mr. Sutherland was sent as locum tenens. For three years this devout man performed the duties of his sacred office, until in the conflict between the rival Companies he was forcibly taken away to Canada by the North-West Company.
Lord Selkirk entered into correspondence with the Roman Catholic authorities in Lower Canada as to their appointing priests to take charge of the French and De Meurons of his colony. We have already seen in the sketch of John McLeod that two French priests, Joseph Norbert Provencher and Sévère Dumoulin, proceeded to the North-West and took up a position on the east side of Red River nearly opposite the site of the demolished Fort Gibraltar. On account of the preponderance of the German-speaking De Meurons, the settlement was called St. Boniface, after the German patron saint. Though these pioneer priests endured hardships and poverty, they energetically undertook their work, and maintained a school in which, shortly after, we are told, there were scholars in the "Humanities."
With great zeal the Roman Catholic Church has carried its missions to the Indians, even to distant Athabasca and Mackenzie River. In 1822 the Priest Provencher was made a bishop under the title of Bishop of Juliopolis (in partibus infidelium). His jurisdiction included Rupert's Land and the North-West or Indian territories. Besides the work among the Indians, the Bishop organized the French settlements along the Red and Assiniboine Rivers into parishes. In addition to St. Boniface, some of these were St. Norbert, St. François Xavier, St. Charles, St. Vital, and the like, until, at the close of the Hudson's Bay Company's rule in 1869, there were nine French parishes.
The Indian missions have been largely carried on by a Society of the Roman Catholic Church known as the Oblate Fathers. A sisterhood of the Grey Nuns have also taken a strong hold of the North-West.
In the year 1844 a young French priest named Alexandre Antonin Taché came to the North-West and led the way in carrying the faith among the Indians of the Mackenzie River. A most interesting work of Father Taché, called "Vingt Années de Missions," gives the life and trials of this devoted missionary. In a few years the young priest was appointed coadjutor of Bishop Provencher, and on the death of that prelate in 1853, young Monseigneur Taché succeeded to the see under the name of the Bishop of St. Boniface. Bishop Taché became a notable man of the Red River settlement. He was a man of much breadth of view, kindliness of manner, and of great religious zeal. As an educational and public man, he wielded, during the whole time of the Hudson's Bay Company's later régime, a potent influence. A year or two after the elevation of Bishop Taché to the vacant place of Bishop Provencher, Bishop Grandin was appointed a bishop of the interior and took up his abode at Ile à la Crosse. The Roman Catholic Church has done much in bringing many wild tribes under the civilizing influence of Christianity.
Though Lord Selkirk was compelled to betake himself to France in 1820 in search of health, he did not forget his promise to his Scottish colonists on Red River. He entrusted the task of procuring a clergyman for them to Mr. John Pritchard, who, we have seen, had entered the service of his Lordship. Pritchard, acting under the direction of the committee of the Hudson's Bay Company, seems to have taken a course that Lord Selkirk would hardly have approved. To some extent disregarding the promise made to the Scottish settlers, either the agent or the committee applied to the Church Missionary Society to appoint a chaplain for the Hudson's Bay Company at Red River.
The choice made was a most judicious one, being that of Rev. John West, who wrote a very readable book on his experiences, in which the condition of the settlement, along with an account of his missionary labours, are described. A little volume, written by Miss Tucker, under the name of "The Rainbow of the North," also gives an interesting account of the founding of the Protestant faith in the settlement.
Mr. West arrived in Red River settlement in October, 1820, and at once began his labours by holding services in Fort Garry. For a time he was fully occupied in marrying many who had formerly lived as man and wife, though already married after the Indian fashion, and in baptizing the children. He at once opened a school. Mr. West made an exploratory journey five or six hundred miles westward, visiting Indian tribes. In 1823 he erected the first Protestant place of worship on the Red River, and in the same year was joined by Rev. David Jones, who was left in charge when Mr. West returned to England.
Two years afterwards Rev. William Cochrane and his wife arrived at Red River. Mr. Cochrane, afterward Archdeacon Cochrane, was a man of striking personality, and to him has been given the credit of laying the foundation of the Church of England in the Red River settlement. The Indians to the north of the settlement on Red River were visited and yielded readily to the solicitations of the missionaries. Early among these self-denying Indian missionaries was the Rev. A., afterwards Archdeacon, Cowley. Churches were erected in the parishes that were set apart in the same way as the French parishes; St. John's, St. Paul's, St. Andrew's, St. Clement's, St. James, Headingly, and the like, to the number of ten, were each provided with church and school.
Rev. Mr. Jones did not neglect the educational interests of his wide charge. Having become convinced of the necessity of establishing a boarding-school to meet the wants of the scattered families of Rupert's Land, Mr. Jones brought out Mr. John McCallum, a student of King's College, Aberdeen, who had found his way to London. Coming to Red River in 1833, McCallum began the school which has since become St. John's College. At first this school was under the Church Missionary Society, but a decade after its founding it was conducted by McCallum himself, with an allowance from the Company.
In 1844 an episcopal visit was made to Red River by the first Protestant Bishop who could reach the remote spot. This was Dr. Mountain, Bishop of Montreal. He published a small work giving an account of his visit. Many confirmations took place by the Bishop, and Mr. Cowley was made a priest. John McCallum had taken such a hold upon the Selkirk settlers that it was deemed advisable to ordain him, and for several years he carried on the school along with the incumbency of the parish church. McCallum only lived for five years after the Bishop's visit.
In 1838 James Leith, a wealthy chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, bequeathed in his will twelve thousand pounds to be expended for the benefit of the Indian missions in Rupert's Land. Leith's family bitterly opposed this disposition of their patrimony, but the Master of the Rolls, hearing that the Hudson's Bay Company was willing to add three hundred pounds annually to the interest accruing from the Leith bequest, gave the decision against them, and thus secured an income to the see of seven hundred pounds a year. In 1849 the diocese of Rupert's Land was established by the Crown, and Rev. David Anderson, of Oxford University, was consecrated first Bishop of Rupert's Land. In the autumn of the same year Bishop Anderson arrived at Red River, by way of York Factory, and his first public duty was to conduct the funeral of the lamented John McCallum. After an incumbency of fifteen years Bishop Anderson returned to England and resigned the bishopric.
In 1865 Dr. Robert Machray arrived at Red River, having been consecrated Bishop by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Under Bishop Anderson the college successfully begun by McCallum languished, for the Bishop seemed more intent on mission work than education. In the year after his arrival, Bishop Machray revived the institution under the name of St. John's College. It was of much service to the colony.
By the time of the passing away of the power of the Hudson's Bay Company, four years after the arrival of Bishop Machray, substantial stone churches and school-houses had been erected in almost all of the parishes mentioned as organized by the Church of England. To the Church of England belonged nearly all the English-speaking half-breed population of the colony, as well as a large number of the Hudson's Bay Company officers.
Bishop Machray's diocese covered a vast area. From Hudson Bay to the Rocky Mountains was under his jurisdiction. Much work was done amongst the Indian tribes. At Moose Factory on the Bay, another devoted labourer was working diligently. It is true the missions were widely scattered, but of the twenty-four clergymen belonging to the diocese of Rupert's Land, fifteen were among the Indians at the time of the cessation of the Hudson's Bay Company's rule. The remainder were in the parishes of Red River such as St. John's, St. Andrew's, St. Paul's, Headingly, Poplar Point, and Portage la Prairie.
The assistance rendered not only by the Church Missionary Society, but also by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the Colonial and Continental Church Society, and the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, was very great, and future generations will be indebted to the benevolence and liberality of the English people in sending spiritual assistance to Rupert's Land.
A perusal of the work, "Red River Settlement," by Alexander Ross, shows that a long and somewhat disappointing struggle was maintained by the Selkirk settlers to obtain the fulfilment of Lord Selkirk's promise to send them a minister of their own faith. Scottish governors came and departed, but no Scottish minister came. Sir George Simpson arrived on his yearly visits at Fort Garry, and was often interviewed by the settlers of Kildonan, but the Governor, though pleasant and plausible enough, was impenetrable as the sphinx. Petitions were sent to the Hudson's Bay Company and to the Scottish General Assembly, but they seldom reached their destination and effected nothing.
The people conformed to the service of the Church of England in the vicinity of their parish. They were treated by the Episcopal clergy with much consideration. Their own psalter was used in their worship, the service was made as simple as they could well desire, but the people, with Highland tenacity, held to their own tenets for forty years, and maintained among themselves regular cottage meetings for prayer and praise.
At length the question arose as to the possession of the church property and the right of burial in St. John's burial-ground. The Scottish settlers maintained their right to the church and churchyard. A very acrimonious discussion arose. In the end the matter was referred to Mr. Eden Colville, a Company director, who was in the settlement on business. Mr. Colville informed the writer that he claimed the credit of settling the dispute. Another site on the river bank two or three miles to the north of St. John's, called La Grenouillère, or Frog Plain, consisting of several hundred acres, was handed over to the Scottish settlers for church, manse, and glebe. This was in 1851, and though the Kildonan people were still given the right to bury their dead in St. John's, in the future their chief interest centred in the new plot.
The presence in Red River of Mr. Ballenden, a countryman of the Kildonan people, as Hudson's Bay Company Governor of Fort Garry, led to an application being made to their friends in Scotland to send them a minister. Indeed, the call had been made again and again for a generation. This request was transmitted to Canada to Dr. Robert Burns, a man of warm missionary zeal and great wisdom. Sir George Simpson had been communicated with, and deemed it wise to reverse his former policy of inaction and promised certain aid and countenance, should a Presbyterian minister be found to care for the parish of Kildonan.
Dr. Burns had among his acquaintances a recent graduate of Knox College, Toronto, named John Black. Him the zealous doctor urged, if not commanded, to go to Red River. This trust was accepted, and after a tedious and uncertain journey Rev. John Black arrived at Red River, September, 1851. The Kildonan people immediately rallied around their new clergyman, who, though not able to speak Gaelic as they desired, yet became an idol to his people. In 1853 a church was erected, with the aid of a small grant from the Hudson's Bay Company, and the foundations of Presbyterianism were laid.
In 1865 Rev. James Nisbet, who had come a few years before to assist Mr. Black, organized a mission to the Cree Indians, and named his mission church on the banks of the Saskatchewan, Prince Albert. Growing by slow degrees, the Presbyterian interest increased and was represented at the end of the Hudson's Bay Company's rule by four or five clergymen. Schools as maintained by voluntary contributions were erected in the Presbyterian parishes of Kildonan and Little Britain.
Manitoba College was planned and arranged for in the closing year of the Hudson's Bay Company's régime.
The Methodists, with the fervour and missionary zeal which has always characterized them, determined to aid in evangelizing the Indians of Rupert's Land. It was the English Methodists who first showed a desire in this direction. They agreed to send the Indians a clergyman suited for the work, if the Canadian Methodist Church would send a few labourers trained in Indian work in Canada.
James Evans, an Englishman who had been long in Canada, and had laboured for years among the Indians of Upper Canada, consented to go to Rupert's Land and take the superintendence of the others sent out. Leaving Montreal with the three English missionaries and two educated young Ojibways, Peter Jacobs and Henry B. Steinhauser, the party went by canoes up the lakes and then along the old fur traders' route, and arrived at Norway House, at the foot of Lake Winnipeg, in 1840. Evans made Norway House his headquarters, George Barnley went to Moose Factory, William Mason to Rainy Lake and River Winnipeg, and Robert T. Rundle to Edmonton.
The missions to the Hudson Bay and Rainy Lake were soon given up, but Rossville and Oxford House, on Lake Winnipeg, and several points near Edmonton, are the evidence to-day of the faithful self-denying work done by these early Methodist pioneers. Having no whites in the country, the operations of the Methodist Church in Rupert's Land were, up to the time of the Hudson's Bay Company's transfer, confined to the Indians of Rupert's Land.
