The Hudson Bay Company would only grant land titles to Metis
if they would agree not to engage in the fur trade.
They would not hire Metis as merchants, laborers or mechanics
unless they agreed not to engage in the fur trade.
METIS HISTORY 1850-1854
METIS HISTORY Return to METIS 1800-1849 index
The Metis cry continued to be liberty and free trade.
1848
Some time in the late 1840's, Robert Campbell of the Hudson Bay Company reported the presence of gold on the Yukon River.
Doroshin discovered gold near Fort Kenai, along the Kakni River, on the Kenai Peninsula, far to the westward of Juneau, Alaska.
John Augustus Sutter and James Marshall discovered gold in California and tried to keep it a secret. They didn't discover any gold worth mentioning and both died poor men.
Fort Ripley on the west bank of the Mississippi, about seven miles downstream from the mouth of the Crow Wing River, Minnesota, is built to keep an eye on the Chippewa in this area.
Father George A. Belcourt sided with the Metis against the Hudson Bay Company over import duties, and is driven out of Red River to Pembina.
Father Georges Belcourt, from Pembina, came to Montreal seeking alms for his work among the Indians. He talked of the battling Saulteaux and Sioux ; of thundering buffalo; of a alternating feast and famine in Indian lodges; of suffering thirst in the scorching summer heat and of hardship and death in bitter winter blizzards. He talked of great rivers, the Missouri, the Athabasca and the Saskatchewan. His speech inspired the 'mon petit sauvage'- Father Albert Lacombe (1827-1916), son of Albert Lacombe and Agathe Duhamel, to become a missionary to the North West. On June 13, 1849 Albert was raised to the priesthood.
The Minnesota census suggests that St. Paul numbered 840 people, Little Canada & St. Anthony numbered 571 people, and La Pointe, Wisconsin numbered 22 people. La Pointe must be only Europeans, or there is a La Pointe in Minnesota??
Sanford and Thomas Bringham discovered gold and other minerals in a canyon to be called Bringham Canyon, Utah. A reprimand was dispatched to the boys "instead of hunting gold, let every man go to work at raising wheat, oats, barley, corn and vegetables in abundance that there may be plenty in the land'. The prospect hole was covered over. The secret was held until 1863 when a sample was given to Patrick Connor and proved rich in silver and gold. The rush was on.
May 29: San Francisco, California: The whole country resounds with the sordid city of gold! Gold! GOLD! While the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything is neglected but the manufacturer of shovels and pickaxes. San Francisco became a ghost town, as the 900 residents departed for the gold fields. However, within two years the population became 30,000 men and only about 10-12 women.
May 29: Wisconsin became a state.
1849
Joseph Gagnon born 1766 Canada and his son Joseph Gagnon born 1805 Red River are both living Red River census 1849.
Bonne Helm (1828-1864), of Kentucky, killed his friend Littlebury Shoot over a disagreement to go to Texas or California and fled to Missouri where he was convicted of murder and sent to an asylum. He escaped and fled to California.
Father Albert :Lacombe (1827-1916) began his journey to the North West. On his trip to Lachine, most of the passengers and crew displayed their hatred of his religion and race and jeered his cassock, calling it a petticoat. When he reached the Mississippi River and St. Paul, he found folks more ready to accept strangers, regardless of race or religion. He said " I began to breath freely at last; I felt myself a new man." Lacombe joined a Red River cart train to Red River. The brigade was driven by two Canadian freemen, a Metis and an Indian. He found them to be competent and cheerful companions, even on the dreary, rainy days when, time after time, they had to put their shoulders to the wheels of the carts to get them through mud holes. These men remained cheerful throughout the six week journey which ended in November. They arrived at Pembina where only a hand full of Metis held small garden plots. Most Metis had departed this now American settlement for Red River, the White Horse Plains a..k.a. Grantown, located on the Assiniboina River- 12 miles from the mouth.
James Savage, the man who had explored the Yosemite Valley, is said to have married five Indian women discovered gold at Big Oak Flat, California. The yield from this area was $25 million. The town peaked at 3,000 people. James Savage, a linguist, learned the languages of all the local communities and married women from each tribe in order to establish a power base. He was also not beyond cheating the Indians. He often charged the local people a pound of gold for a pound of sugar and sold beef, given to him by the federal government for distribution to the tribes, to the white miners. He also famously gambled away the gold that the Native miners entrusted to him for sale in San Francisco.
Father Pierre de Smet proposed establishing French Mixed-Blood colonies this year and it was supported by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.
Shingwaukonse (a Metis), a leading chief of the Ojibwa of Sault Ste Marie, son of a French Metis and Anishinable, headed the Quebec Resistance Movement of this year against Quebec and the Lake Superior Mining Company.
The Hudson Bay Company would only grant land titles to Metis if they would agree not to engage in the fur trade. They would not hire Metis as merchants, laborers or mechanics unless they also agreed not to engage in the fur trade.
J. E. Fletcher, Indian Agent in St. Peter, Minnesota, estimated the Metis from the Red River of the north is taking 20,000 buffalo each year from the American Territory of the Chippewa and Sioux. The Pembina census listed one hundred and seventy seven families, five hundred and eleven males and five hundred and fifteen females, totaling one thousand and twenty six people having six hundred carts, three hundred oxen, three hundred working horses, one hundred and fifty horses for the chase, one thousand five hundred heads of cattle and a few hogs and sheep. Another five thousand lived on the Canadian side and could be enticed to the American side. On the banks of the Red River the ploughs-share throws out large quantities of human bones; the remains of the destructive small pox scourge of years gone by. Mr. Wilky elected the leader of the Pembina Metis and represents their interests with the American Government. Father G.A. Belcourt wrote that the Chippewa is a heavy charge upon the half-breeds (Metis), to whom they have recourse in seasons of distress. Father Belcourt, however, held the Metis in low regard considering them as having little memory or intelligence and not over anxious of becoming rich. This was a commonly held belief among the religious community which they freely applied to all non-English and French peoples. Red River Metis is selling cattle to Fort Snelling.
Mr Lett took his own census of the White Horse Plain division near Chiefs' Mountain, not far from Shayenne River, Dacotah (Dakota) Territory; 603 Red River Carts, 700 half-breeds (Metis), 200 Indians, 600 horses, 200 oxen, 400 dogs and one cat.
No one could agree on the number of Metis living in the Pembina region. Norman W. Kittson, enumerator in a special census for Minnesota Territory, counted 637 people at Pembina. This same year Major Samuel Woods reported 1,026 people, 600 carts, 300 oxen, 300 work horses, 150 horses for the chase, 1,500 horned cattle, a few hogs and no sheep. The 1850 census counted 1,116 persons at Pembina and reported that most had been born north of the boundary. In 1853 Isaac I. Stevens reported that 4,000 Metis lived about the Pembina Hills.
Bishop Anderson acquired the Red River Boarding School and considered it as entirely his school. Things were not to change for the better. Adam Thom wrote Governor (I)- George Simpson (1787-1860) that the Red River Boarding School was in bad shape, through the uncongenial combination of Bishop Anderson disinterestedness- which amounts to apathy, and his sister's (Margaret Anderson) parsimony- which amounts to cruelty, their whole establishment has fallen into a sad condition. Palpable dirt in every department. Itch went uncared for among two thirds of the schoolboys. They had lice and were in want of water unless taken from the river for the youngest pupils. There was an insufficiency of food, both in terms of quality and quantity, at breakfast and supper. The fuel that was used for the school-room stove was obtained only by chopping it and, lastly, two girls, both of whom had long been with Reverend Macallum, are in a family way before the end of six months operation. The girls school was discontinued as a result of this scandal and the girls transferred to more respectable families in the settlement. The infamous Reverend Macallum died on October 3, 1849.
Major Samuel Woods, on his expedition to the Red River of the North, described the inhabitants as being, for the greatest part, descendents of the Canadian French. They speak French and are nearly all Catholic. They have a mild and gentile manner, great vivacity and are generous and honest in their transactions. They are disposed to be a civil and orderly community. They are hale and hearty, robust men and evidently accustomed to hardship and exposure.
It is believed the first Orkney 'York Boat' built in Canada is built for use on the Albany River by the Metis.
January 23: Pembina, North Dakota, marriage Gaspard Louis Gourneau, born December, 1824 son Joseph Grenon, Metis, b-1790 and Angelique Folle-Avoine; married Genevieve Allard, b-1831 daughter Pierre Allard and Louse Vivier, b-1812.
May 17: Four Metis charged with free trading draw three hundred angry Metis outside the Red River court. Pierre Guillaume Sayer, Metis, son of Fond du Lake John Sayer, is among those arrested. The Men are found guilty but they are freed to the delight of the Metis who spread the news that the Hudson Bay Company's monopoly has ended. The Metis' cry became liberty and free trade. Mr. Kittson of the American Fur Company, who was also arrested for trading, is released. James Sinclair (1805-1856 and Louis Riel Sr. (1817-1864) are among the angry, armed Metis. The English had feared for their own lives and could see no other course of action. The fuse of liberty and free trade is lit, the decline and fall of the suppressive English Empire had begun. This action resulted in the first Metis freeman representative being appointed to the council of Assiniboine. To pacify the entrepreneurs and divert their energy from free trade, the Hudson Bay Company contracted out most transportation to the Metis. Many central Canadians signed the annexation manifesto, calling for commercial union with the United States. Cuthbert Grant (1793-1854), a Metis, is in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company as the protector and provider of the Red River Colony. Grant tried to uphold the Hudson Bay Company monopoly at the Sayer trial and, as a result, lost all credibility among the Metis peoples. This activity ended his career as Warden and Sheriff of Assiniboina.
October: The abortive Montreal Annexationist Manifesto of the American Republic convinced the Canadians that they wanted no part of the American's greed philosophy. The Americans believed that these Eastern Canadians, like limpets, cling to their race, religion and their ancient way of life, not lifting their heads from the scythe or the plow.
David Anderson (1814-1885) arrived at Red River as the 1st Anglican Bishop.
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