Kitabı oku: «Masters of the Wilderness»

Charles Bert Reed

Masters of the Wilderness

Published by Good Press, 2022

goodpress@okpublishing.info

EAN 4064066355043

Table of Contents

In Affection and Gratitude

Preface

The Masters of the Wilderness

The Masters of the Wilderness

The Beaver Club

SOME SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE FUR TRADE

The Beaver Club

A Dream of Empire

THE ADVENTURES OF TONTY IN OLD LOUISIANA

A Dream of Empire

The Adventures of Tonty in Old Louisiana

Bibliography

In Affection and Gratitude

Table of Contents

Preface

Table of Contents

The most insistent fact in history is the struggle between man and Nature, or between man and man with Nature for the prize.

Everywhere the puny human forces have dashed themselves with gallant idealism or reckless enthusiasm against the obduracy of primeval things.

In America the effort has not been in vain nor devoid of dramatic interest. A myriad of industrial adventures have found success, and the papers herewith offered may possibly renew a flagging interest in the first phases of the comprehensive movement which now takes so conspicuous a part in our national life.

History and story, it is said, are both narratives, but while history is regarded merely as a record, story stimulates the imagination.

In truth history should stimulate more powerfully than fiction, for it concerns the ideals which have moved mankind. The greed of commerce, the greed of thought, the greed of faith, and the greed of love are alike masters of our destiny.

If kindling the mind is the mark of literary excellence, then it belongs to the historian, as to the novelist, to present his subject so that events will appear, not only in due order, but with appropriate values and the necessary climax.

This is particularly true in the narrative of inherently adventurous persons or peculiarly dramatic events. These lives or actions must be reinvested, if possible, not only with the atmosphere of their time, but with those unconscious accessory features which are visible only to a sympathetic posterity. Neither the romantic nor the indifferent, the lavish nor the sordid can be overlooked without bald misrepresentation. Every chronicler, however veracious in intent, must pass his material through his own personality, be it colored or neutral. It is this which develops the human interest and keeps history in its rightful place as a branch of literature.

In reproducing these romantic episodes of our exploration era the writer believes that he has neither exaggerated the color nor distorted the facts of that intensely human period. He realizes that he is open to reproach for not keeping more closely to modern methods of historical presentation, but in adopting the light rather than the solemn style, he is convinced that this particular subject receives a not inappropriate dress, and that a page which can be read without fatigue need not necessarily be untruthful.

This new edition of the "Masters of the Wilderness" is made possible through the generosity of the Chicago Historical Society, and its extreme devotion to developments in the Mississippi valley. The opportunity is, therefore, grasped by the writer to express his appreciation to the Society and to add the subsidiary papers which are so vitally allied to the titular essay.

In compiling and arranging his material the author has used unsparingly every available source of information, both primary and secondary. Most of these works are mentioned in the appended bibliography, and to them the writer gladly acknowledges his indebtedness. Thanks are also due to Miss Lillian Quealy who assisted with the manuscript, and to Miss Caroline M. McIlvaine for many courtesies.

C. B. R.

December, 1913

The Masters of the Wilderness

Table of Contents

A STUDY OF
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY
FROM ITS ORIGIN TO
MODERN TIMES

"I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods;

Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods.

Long have I waited lonely, shunned as a thing accurst,

Monstrous, moody, pathetic, the last of the lands and the first;

Visioning camp-fires at twilight, sad with a longing forlorn,

Feeling my womb o'er-pregnant with the seed of cities unborn.

Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway,

And I wait for the men who will win me—and I will not be won in a day."

—Service, "The Law of the Yukon."

The Masters of the Wilderness[1]

Table of Contents

The question of a Northwest Passage to India and the South Seas has stimulated the mind and kindled the imagination of mankind for four hundred years. From the very first a fascinating theory, it soon became a necessary obsession, for the fierce activities of the triumphant Turks rendered the usual routes to the Indies too perilous for commerce, and Christian nations, especially Holland and England, turned with intense eagerness to the solution of this problem. Defeated in the immediate object, their efforts nevertheless exercised an incalculable influence over the entire world. With the single exception of the cognate adventure, the search for the North Pole, it is probable that no other quest has added so immensely to those arts and industries which make for the promotion of science and the advancement of civilization. That such a passage actually existed has been recognized since the voyage of Sir Edward Parry in 1820 and the fact was confirmed by the expedition of McClure in 1857, yet the complete passage from sea to sea had never succeeded until the recent memorable voyage of Captain Amundsen in 1903-6. Among the earlier navigators who received the crown of immortality through their efforts to achieve this quest, none is more meritoriously conspicuous than Henry Hudson, who in 1607 hammered his way through the ice floes to 80° north latitude. Next he thought to break through on the south, and in 1609 he discovered and explored the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, the harbor of New York, where he was attacked by natives, and sailed up the Hudson River as far as the present site of Albany. But the lure of the Northern route was strong upon him, and in 1610 he undertook the voyage which was at the same time the source of his greatest renown and the cause of his dreary death.

Passing through Hudson Straits, he entered the Bay which also bears his name and guided his ship cautiously southward. Sustained by an indomitable spirit, he rose superior to many difficulties and dangers, and spent over a year exploring the harbors, inlets, and adjacent coasts of this great inland sea. On attempting the homeward passage, however, he found he had delayed too long, and his crew, already disaffected by reason of the long voyage and the many strange hardships, suddenly became enraged at Hudson on account of his irascible temper, and rose in mutiny on June 11, 1611. They put Hudson, his little son, and five others into a shallop with a small amount of ammunition and provisions and sailed away.

In the narrative of this expedition written by Abaccus Prickett, one of the mutineers who succeeded in reaching England after a wearisome and perilous voyage, it is told how the old man, with set features and flying gray locks, grimly made sail in pursuit of his ship until he was dropped below the horizon and never seen again.

We now know only too well the barriers which lie in the path of the Northwest Passage. Almost directly northeast of the mouth of the Fish River which Lieutenants Back and Simpson both found, there lies a vast mass of ice which can neither move toward Behring Strait on account of the shallow water, nor to Baffin Bay on account of the narrowness and crookedness of the channels. We know also, from the reports of the Low expedition of 1903-4, that there are two open currents always flowing in the straits that lead to Hudson Bay; one along the northern shore inward and to the west, and one along the southern shore outward and eastward, bearing the raft ice of the Bay. These currents are so suitably disposed that by a slight change of course ships can navigate the straits and have the benefit of the current in either direction and sail with the ice floes rather than against them. We also know that Hudson Bay is simply a vast whirlpool 800 miles wide by 1,000 miles long which has been cut, grooved, and gouged out of the solid rock by those two powerful currents which bear in their puissant grasp the raft ice of the Arctic Sea, the ice of prehistoric ages.

Like a giant sand-blast these huge masses of ice have been whirled grinding and eroding around the Bay only to be disgorged through Hudson Straits upon the bosom of the broad Atlantic. Into this channel of rock, the Hudson Straits, 450 miles long, is jammed from the west, churned together and concentrated the area of an ice continent, and up this channel from the east runs a "tide-rip" thirty-five feet high. When the "tide-rip" and the ice meet there occurs what the old navigators of the Hudson's Bay Company called "the furious overfall."

With difficulty one resists the temptation to pursue this interesting subject farther, but this is not the story that we started to relate, it is merely the scene of its beginning.

Impressed by the reports which various navigators brought back from this region, a company was formed for the purpose of exploiting the shores of the Bay and the wooded fastnesses of the interior. The company was organized originally at the instance of the French explorers, Radisson and his brother-in-law, Groseilliers, whose visit to the Hudson Bay country had revealed its boundless possibilities. Disappointed in enlisting an interest in the venture in Montreal, they applied to Sir George Carteret, who was then in America as a member of the Royal Commission appointed to settle a number of disputed questions between New York and New England.

It was through his influence that they met the King in 1666, but it was only after a long delay, and some say not without insistence on the part of Louise Querouaille, the King's mistress, who was also under deep obligations to Lord Arlington, that the charter was granted by Charles II in May, 1670. Quite early in the venture the promoters had obtained audience with Prince Rupert, who with historical fieriness entered enthusiastically into the undertaking and became the first Governor of the "Honorable Hudson's Bay Company." There is an uncontradicted story to the effect that the Prince received a lump sum of £10,000 for his interest and influence in securing the charter, but we much prefer to believe that his interest was engaged and his romantic mind inflamed by the adventurous nature of the project, rather than by monetary considerations. When the Prince died he was succeeded in the governorship by the Duke of York, the King's brother, who afterward resigned to become James II of England. The Duke indeed had been associated with the adventure from the beginning and the records show that his was the first name on the stock book, while opposite the name on the credit side of the account it states: "By a share presented to him in the stock and adventure by the Governor and Company, £300." We learn that among the many subscribers to the stock were to be found the King's cousin, his brother, afterward King James, the Duke of Albemarle, General Monk, who was largely responsible for the restoration of Charles, Henry, Earl of Arlington, a member of the ruling cabal, and Anthony, Earl of Shaftsbury, the versatile minister of the King, all of whom became directors in the new undertaking.

In their application for a charter the Company had urged the desirability of such a corporation as they contemplated as a means of (1) continuing the search for the Northwest Passage, (2) that in the progress of trade with the nations the blessings of civilization and religion should be brought to the Indians, and finally (3) that settlements could be affected to the glory of the King. We shall learn in the course of the narrative how quickly the Company lost sight of these high aims in the pursuit of a less noble purpose. The right of the King to grant such an instrument may be seriously questioned, but there was apparently no doubt in his own mind, and without evident qualms of conscience the "Merry Monarch" disposed of an expanse equal to the United States, except Alaska, "To our dear and entirely beloved cousin Prince Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, etc. (with the others), constituting the Governor and Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay." The charter states that the incorporators deserve the privileges because they "have at their own great cost and charges undertaken an expedition for Hudson's Bay in the northwest parts of America, for a discovery of a new passage into the South Sea and for the finding of some trade for furs, minerals and other considerable commodities and by such their undertakings, have already made such discoveries as to encourage them to proceed farther in pursuance of their said design, by means whereof there may probably arise great advantage to us and our kingdom."

With truly royal, if unconscious, generosity Charles gives "The whole trade of all those seas, streights and bays, rivers, lakes, creeks and sounds, in whatsoever latitude they shall lie within the entrance of the streights commonly called Hudson's Streights, together with all the lands, countries and territories upon the coasts and confines of the seas, streights, bays, lakes and rivers, creeks and sounds aforesaid which are not now actually possessed by any of our subjects, or by the subjects of any other Christian Prince or State."

Now the country watered by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay extended two hundred miles to the east, three hundred miles to the south, and sixteen hundred miles to the west, although by the terms of the charter it might extend to China as men at that time undoubtedly believed. From near the western end of Lake Superior, streams find their way by Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods to Lake Winnipeg and thence by Nelson River to Hudson Bay. From southwestern Minnesota the "Red River of the North" flows into Lake Winnipeg and thence into Hudson Bay. Hither also flows the mighty Saskatchewan, which, wide as the Mississippi, draws out its lingering and serpentine course for sixteen hundred miles from its origin in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains to that huge collecting basin, Lake Winnipeg, where its turbulent flood first finds temporary peace. This vast extent of territory was quite commensurate with the powers and privileges conferred, for the charter also reads that the "fisheries within Hudson's Streights, the minerals including gold, silver, gems and precious stones, shall be possessed by the Company." The whole land was to be held in "free and common socage," that is, as absolute proprietors. The Company was empowered to make laws not only for its own servants, but having force over all persons upon the lands. And further, "To judge all persons belonging to said Governor or Company, or that shall live under them, in all cases civil or criminal according to the laws of this kingdom and to execute justice accordingly."

"The Company is empowered to send ships of war, men or ammunition into their plantations and appoint commanders and officers and even to issue to them their commissions."

To make peace or war with any non-Christian people.

To build forts and fortifications and, what was more to the point, they were to have "the whole and only liberty of Trade and Traffick," and free power was given to seize upon the persons of all who might attempt to violate this provision.

This, then, was the origin of that famous Company which for two hundred years held lordly sway over the "wintry lakes and boundless forests of the Canadas, exercising a power more absolute, if possible, than that of the potentates of the East India Company over the voluptuous climes and magnificent realms of the Orient."

It will be interesting now to consider briefly how rightfully Charles indulged his kingly bounty. The bestowal of such great privileges as those given to the Hudson's Bay Company may be accounted for in the prevailing idea as to the royal prerogative, but even in those days the grant was attacked and called invalid since it had not received the sanction of Parliament. A most troublesome feature of the charter was the exclusion of the "portion possessed by subjects of any other Christian Prince or State."

At that time Canada was undeniably French and there was no distinct boundary drawn between the territory of France on the south and that granted to the English Company on the Bay, but in the contemporaneous maps acknowledged as correct by both nations, the Saskatchewan and Red Rivers were alike recognized as belonging to France, though both drained into Hudson Bay. By the eighth article of the treaty of Ryswick in 1697, the whole of Hudson Bay, excepting only Fort Albany, was recognized as belonging to the Crown of France. The Company already somewhat uncertain as to its rights did not feel easier under the terms of the treaty and considerable anxiety was produced by the continual attacks of the French upon the Company's forts, which had been so far successful as almost to dispossess the English. In the same year that this treaty had been signed and by the terms of which each side was to keep what each then occupied, the indefatigable Iberville had conducted an expedition into the Bay, and secured possession of all the forts including even the long defiant Nelson (or York) after a brilliant naval engagement. But in spite of the attacks by Iberville and others, in spite of the capture and demolition of its forts, the Company held grimly to its privileges which every year of possession bound closer.

For the first time in 1713 by the treaty of Utrecht was a portion of the shores of the Bay ceded to England. Thus forty-three years after the granting of the charter and twenty-eight years after the death of the grantor, could the English claim undisputed possession of a part of Hudson Bay, and then only was such a grant legally possible which Charles had made to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670.

Throughout it all, however, the disastrous results of actual and of threatened treaty action never betrayed the dignity of the directorate into clamor nor unseemly lamentation. Delegation after delegation, to be sure, besought and frequently received the benefit of royal influence and protection in the early history of the adventure, while in later times the best counselors of the United Kingdom fought its legal battles in court, parliament, and forum, but from first to last the inner workings of the Company were consistently and carefully veiled in obscurity.

The meeting of the directors in the old Hudson Bay House on Fenchurch Street, London, were invariably conducted with the utmost secrecy and ceremony. The officers arrived and departed like conspirators and held their sessions in the semi-gloom which the few scattered candles could only accentuate. The solemnity and secrecy of these occasions was such that, as might be expected, Dame Rumor was soon busily spreading exaggerated and fanciful reports of the unknown events which took place behind the closed doors. These reports delivered in mysterious whispers and accompanied by significant shrugs of the shoulders generally referred to the enormous financial success of the adventure. Doubtless much of the secrecy was due to the weight of the responsibility which each of the directors felt in the gigantic undertaking, but also it was wise business policy.

Let us now look forward for a moment to a consideration of the results of the enterprise and learn if possible why the Company should maintain a dense cloud over its American dominions, and why any attempt to disperse the cloud and allow light to fall upon the mystery beneath should be met with serious obstacles and not infrequently with death. Let us take advantage of our privilege as narrators and peer for an instant through the obscurity which has hidden, as much as may be, the financial operations of this Company which have been conducted so quietly and shrewdly for two hundred and forty years.

The Company was originally capitalized for £10,500, and on this amount it admittedly earned 125 per cent in the next twenty years; in 1690 the stock was trebled, and thirty years later the directors were startled out of their habitual calm and caution by the general excitement attending the South Sea Bubble and the stock was again trebled; that this was not, however, an example of high finance is shown by the fact that they paid a 25 per cent dividend on the trebled stock in the same year. From 1690 to 1800, a period of 110 years, the stock earned, according to the admission of Governor Pelly before a Legislative committee, from 60 per cent to 70 per cent a year, the stock being again trebled during this period and an increase of £9,450 added to the trebled amount. When we consider that these figures have been yielded up under extreme pressure by parties interested in their concealment, it is not probable that they are in any degree overstated, but rather the contrary.

According to Beckles Wilson, the value of the merchandise sent to the Bay in 1676 was £650 sterling, while the furs brought back sold for £19,000, a profit of nearly 3,000 per cent. In 1748 the value of goods sent out amounted to £5,000 sterling, and the furs received in exchange sold in England for £30,000 or 600 per cent profit; the profit in dull times according to the same authority being 40 per cent on a paid-up capital. From 1800 to 1821, owing to the competition of other companies, especially of its energetic and aggressive rival, the Northwest Company, the stock paid a trivial 4 per cent for sixteen years and nothing at all for five years. This was the period, however, in which the Company, constantly harried by its unrelenting opponent, expanded most broadly. It broke away from its traditional policy of keeping forts in the vicinity of the Great Bay only, and threw out a network of posts, that covered every important point on the principal trails and water courses of the Northwest.

In 1821 the Northwest Company was merged into the Hudson's Bay Company, and upon the new and enlarged capital of £400,000 they received an annual profit of £250,000.

With this knowledge we cannot wonder that the directors came and went with the stealthiness of thieves, nor that they resented the attempts that were continually made to penetrate the gloom and obscurity in which they had carefully enveloped their activities in the adventurous, lawless, and fascinating fur trade.

The executive staff of the Company, elected by the stockholders, consisted of the governor and seven directors, who ruled with an imperious hand over their more than kingly domain. They controlled the annual fur sales and apportioned the dividends, they established forts and appointed and removed governors, they made war and peace not only with "non-Christian people," as provided in the charter, but with their at least equally Christian competitors. They purchased ships and sent them laden with supplies annually to the shores of the Bay whence the cargoes were distributed to the interior.

Neither friend nor enemy succeeded in disturbing or altering their authority. Under their jealous eyes every detail of the adventure was industriously worked out.

The chief factors were directly responsible to the board, and were frequently ordered before it to explain or justify their actions and to receive the discipline which the board was not backward in applying. A most servile obedience was exacted at all times. The factors in turn were not unready to hand down the law with undiminished force to the Company's servants, both within and without the fort. Dependent as they were for supplies upon the annual ship and exposed in the interval to manifold dangers, the little isolated garrisons were expected to possess a high degree of individual responsibility, together with a loyal subordination to the lawful head of the post. In each fort the ranks were kept with almost military precision from governor or chief factor through chief trader, clerk, apprentice clerk, postmaster and interpreters to laborers and Indians. The apprentice clerks were engaged for a period of five years, which promised in from fifteen to twenty years to bring the apprentice to a clerkship with the munificent income of $200 per year. The first five years were invariably spent at a remote and desolate post where, cut off from home or kindred, he learned to look to the Company as a dog to his master. He thus became bound to the Company for life, since other avenues of business were effectually closed to him, and progress was possible only along the line of Company promotion, which involved a lifetime. He embarked upon a career in which his position was as definitely ordained, his course as perfectly controlled and his escape as improbable as if he belonged to a sodality of feudal knights or had membership in a religious brotherhood. The personnel of the forts was recruited almost entirely from the Highlands of Scotland and the Orkney Isles, and therein the Company showed great business acumen, since by nature, education, and early environment they possessed the taciturnity, the thrift, the love for solitude and wildness, the simplicity and sturdiness of character which eminently fitted them for the arduous and lonesome life which they were called upon to endure. They dwelt in the grim and grinding wilderness inhabited by savage beasts and still more savage men, and against such adversaries they were expected to hazard their lives in ceaseless warfare to wring out profits for the Company. As they were liable to be sent at a moment's notice from the Atlantic to the Pacific, they were expected to be self-reliant and resolute in the presence of danger to themselves or to the property in their charge and keep friendly with a notoriously uncertain and childish people. The spirit of monopoly, the golden character of silence, the need of being secretive and uncommunicative, was instilled into every clerk, trapper, and trader. At length after thirty-five or forty years of faithful service, the clerk became a factor, and as factor he secured command of a post, be it on the Arctic shore, on the plains of Assiniboia, or beside a rushing stream that forms a highway to the St. Lawrence, to the Pacific or to Hudson Bay; the command was his and he ruled like a proconsul over an immense territory interlaced with trails and waterways and inhabited by barbarous tribes. Surrounded by his Indian vassalage, and in the company of one or two white men, the factor lived his life until such time as his length of service permitted him to retire on a pension and return to his native land.

On a little knoll, a hundred yards or so from the water, stands the factor's house, and arranged in the form of a square are the other buildings of the post, consisting of the general store, the warehouse, the blacksmith shop, the canoe house, and the carpenter shop, all of which in the olden time were surrounded by high, pointed and not-easily-to-be-scaled palisades, dominated by a great flagstaff in the midst of the square, from the top of which for honored guest or festal day the banner of the Company waved its lazy folds over a strange and heterogeneous population. The close relationship of the Crown and Company was shown on the crimson field where the Union Jack and the initials of the great company occupy adjoining but diagonal quadrants.

The life at the forts became a routine like a frontier army post. In winter snowshoeing, trapping, and hunting could be made incidental to supplying the factory with fresh meat, while the evenings were spent in chess, backgammon, and whist when players enough could be obtained. In summer canoe sailing and dog racing were cherished sports, but the great event of the year was the arrival or departure of the brigade. This was the fleet of three or four "North-canoes," each manned by eight men and all under the guidance of a conductor. The brigades took out the fur from the fort and brought back supplies from the coast, a journey that sometimes required two years for its completion. The "North-canoes" had skilful men in bow and stern at double the wages of the rest, who were responsible for the canoe and its contents to the conductor of the brigade, or to the head of the expedition, when two or more brigades traveled in company. The freight of these canoes would consist of sixty pieces or packages of merchandise weighing from 90 to 100 pounds each, together with provisions to the amount of 1,000 pounds. Added to this was the weight of eight men and the 40 pounds of "duffle" or personal baggage which each was allowed to carry, and the whole weight would, therefore, exceed 8,000 pounds, or possibly four tons as an average. When the brigade arrived or departed all was excitement, since it brought the isolated post into touch with the great world without and would bring back from the coast a fund of new experiences for winter's consumption. Sometimes on the return of the brigade there would be found a file of newspapers a year old, and these would be opened day by day on the corresponding date and the world's news of the previous year eagerly followed. Thus each lonely post constituted an oasis of civilization in the midst of the wilderness, a peripheral ganglion in more or less close communication with the central nervous system.