The American army drove the Dakota Sioux into South Dakota.
04/07/2008
METIS HISTORY 1860-1862
METIS HISTORY Return to METIS 1850-1899 index
1857
Oliver LaPointe married 1857 Archange Wabigon (Lafleur) aka Madjiassinokwe born Sault Ste Marie.
Feleman Dumont (Metis b-1857 British Columbia) settled Trail Creek, Alberta by 1878- a Metis settlement.
George Millward McDougall (1821-1876) is stationed at the United Church (Wesleyan mission) at Rama (1857-1860).
Toussant Pelletier, Metis, b-1857, Cypress Hills, (Saskatchewan) son Norbert Pelletier, Metis, b-1840 and Marie Therese Deschamp (1852-1879); married Angelique Adam, born July 4, 1876 daughter, Moise Adam, b-1849 and Marie Leveille Otikanang (nee Chariot).
The half-breed (Metis) say that no slaughter by large parties of hunters or Indians can turn large herds of buffalo from the general direction they have taken.
A petition was signed by 575 settlers at Red River Metis Colony against the Hudson Bay Company, claiming they were ruling with a hard and heavy hand. They also claimed they had paid large sums of money for land and yet cannot obtain deeds for the land. The Hudson Bay Company would only issue deeds if the settlers signed papers making themselves virtual slaves to the Company. The Hudson Bay Company used armed constables to break into our homes and steal any furs found. One settler had his home burned to the ground, and he was sent as a prisoner to York Factory. These Hudson Bay men are strangers to ourselves and to our country. We are forced to pay 100 to 400% tax on Hudson Bay goods. These foreigners appoint governors and chief traders, set prices and taxes, make laws, and set punishment. Allen, at this time, provided proof that the Hudson Bay Company did not have charter rights to Canada.
Mid- century is an Indian renaissance by the Europeans and Eastern Canadians. It is my guess that 70-80% of writings about these noble people is recorded about this time. Some folks finally realized that if they didn't capture some of this culture, it would be lost forever. It is noteworthy that French contact is 250 years old, and research during this period is already culturally contaminated. It is also important to remember, especially among the Ojibwa, that French and Ojibwa mixed blood is extremely common. The Metis and Ojibwa, culturally are often very difficult to differentiate.
The following photo's were removed by request
Canoe of Indians: This painting is called a canoe of Indians near Grand Portage. Some of the models are called Ojibwa in other paintings, so it is safe to assume these are also Ojibwa.
Ojibwa Camp: This painting is called an Ojibwa Camp near Grand Portage. It is also common practice for the Metis to live among their relatives, the Ojibwa. Note the log cabin in the back ground. Mobile Metis also used the tipi as a home.
Ojibwa Women: This painting is called Ojibwa Women, also near Grand Portage. Notice that the woman on the left is the same woman in the front of the canoe. This painting leaves nothing to the imagination as to why the French married the Ojibwa Women.
The Canadian House of Commons received this scathing indictment concerning the British Hudson Bay Company: The Management of their affairs is inscrutable; it is like a commercial tomb, closed with the key of death to all except a favored few; its councils unfathomable and its secrets unknown; its revenuers are acquired in secret and distributed in silence. It is noteworthy that most of present day Canada is being governed by this foreign Company.
James McKey (1828-1879), a Metis, married most likely Fort Ellice to Margaret (Marguerite) Rowland daughter of the late Chief Factor John Rowland Sr. of Fort Edmonton. However, this year he provided as a guide service and as an interpreter to John Palliser from Fort Ellice to Fort Carlton, and returned with him that fall. He could have married at Fort Carlton. Others suggest he married on June 17, 1859 Red River. Its also possible he took her as a country wife and later church as they called it. The Rowlans were considered to be the wealthiest family in the Hudson Bay service. McKey, through marriage, became one of the rich of Red River.
Land-hungry white settlers began again to crowd close to the Dakota reservation boundaries in Minnesota.
The winter of 1856-57 is unusually severe, causing hunger in the Sioux City region (Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota). The army, under orders, began harassing the Dakota Sioux on the Little Sioux River and prevented the Dakota Sioux from moving south to their traditional wintering sites. The army drove the Dakota Sioux into South Dakota. On March 8 the Dakota Sioux attacked and killed a number of settlers at Spirit Lake, Iowa Other accounts suggest it was Inkpaduta (Scarlet Point), an outlawed Wahpekute Chief who murdered thirty persons at Lake Okoboji, Iowa and several persons in Jackson County, Minnesota. The Indian office in Washington notified the Minnesota Dakota Sioux that no annuities will be paid until Inkpaduta is apprehended.
The Company of Royal Canadian Rifles is called in to assist in maintaining law and order in the Assiniboia District. They would remain in Red River until 1861.
Rumors are circulating at Red River that the
Committee of the British House of Commons is considering challenging the
Hudson Bay Company's monopoly position. The Hudson Bay Company, when
providing testimony before the select committee in London, England, lied
to the House of Commons when they declared:
Indians are never restrained.
No distinction is made between Indian and Metis.
They (the Company) exercise no authority over Indians, except if a crime is
committed against whites.
The Hudson Bay Company does not possess any rights over the people of Rupert's
Land.
Native people can free trade and half-breeds (Metis) can freely trade among themselves.
This need to lie indicates the changing beliefs and values, and that those in authority knew they are in violation of basic human rights. Father Grandin is promoted to the Episcopate with the title of Coadjutor to the Prelate of Red River.
1857 A METIS SETTLEMENT AT PEMBINA
A sketch of Pembina on the Red River by John Fleming. In the early days the
whole region of the Red River was called the Red River of the North. If
more accurate reference was required, it was usually said that it was on or near Red River
and Pembina River, or Assiniboine River and/or by fort or trading post names.
Mr. Cochran moved to Portage La Prairie to establish St. Mary's Anglican Church which catered to his civilized settlers and some Plain and Swampy Cree Indians. David Thompson died February 16, 1857 without a penny to his name, unable to provide sustenance for himself or his thirteen children during the last years of his life.
The Oblate and Sisters of Charity (Grey Nuns) of Montreal entered into a permanent association.
Some of the leaders of the Metis Settlement at Lac Ste Anne included Abraham Salois, Louis Paul, Alex Nault, George Ward, one of the Hamlins, a Loyer, Joe Gray and Gabtiel Dumont; the elder. Rather than being settlement leaders in the traditional European sense, these are likely the leaders of the buffalo hunt. They had cultivated little patches but they produced very little. The mission garden, however, was very productive. Cows were added this year to the missions operation.
Red River de Metis was nearly self sufficient, they harvested forty bushels of wheat to the acre and grew oats, barley, Indian corn, Indian potatoes, turnips, peas, cabbage, rhubarb, radishes, mangels, carrots, hops, pumpkin and melons. The put up hay for the animals and every man his own butter and cheese maker, tanner, carpenter and mason. He distilled his own whisky and brewed his own bear. Women wove cloth, baked, gardened and made sugar. Salt was harvested from Lake Manitoba and surplice was sold to the fur trade. Hunting, fishing and of course the great buffalo hunt was a chief occupation of the whole family. Paper money and coins were rarely used as trading was the primary method of exchange.
The Oregon constitution reads in part "no free Negro, or Mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside, or be within this state, or hold any real estate." This law is still on the books as at 2000 A.D.
The Province of Canada sent out their own Palliser Type Expedition headed by Henry Youle Hind and Simon Daeson. The Americans and British also had a hundred man surveying party in the west establishing the 49th parallel.
William T. (Billy) Ballou, born in the deep south of French heritage was in Olympia, Washington when McDonald arrived with tales of gold in the north. McDonald had murdered his partner Adams at the mouth of the Frazer River for his gold poke. A party of prospectors rushed up the Fraser River and discovered a rich bar near Yale, B.C. W.T. Moore one of this party noted that a man named Taylor brought in a shipment of whiskey. William T. (Billy) Ballou, the express-man was the next to arrive at Yale.
In the Mountain Meadows Massacre at Parowan, Southern Utah, the Mormons executed 120 men, women and children. John Higbee ordered the killing of women and children.
January: A Major earthquake at Fort Tejon, California showed a displacement of 30 feet.
June 26: A Cercie (Sarcee) informed Fort Edmonton that the Cree had broken the peace treaty by killing several Cercies.
July 11: (I)-John Palliser (1817-1887), an Irishman, working for the British, arrived Red River to hire some men of the Country for an expedition. Dr. James Hector whose first love was geology was an obvious choice. He acquired two wagons and five Red River carts with horses. (I)-John Palliser recorded there were 1,082 families at the Red River Settlement, five hundred of whom were Indian-European Metis living above the forks of the two rivers. He did not estimate the numbers living below or to the west of the forks, to say nothing of those off on the hunt. Lieutenant Blakiston part of the Palliser expedition wrote: Red River Settlement is neither a city, town or even a village, but, as the name indicates, a settlement consisting of a straggling chain of small farm establishments, extending for a distance of forty miles along the banks, but mostly on the west bank of the Red River of the North, the dwellings being from fifty yards to a mile apart, while at intervals along this line are a few churches and windmills, besides two establishments of the Hudson Bay Company, built in the form of forts, one at the junction of the Assiniboine with the main river, the other twenty miles below. On the north bank of the Assiniboine also, which has a general course, the settlement extends about 25 miles up, and about 50 miles further is a collection of homesteads, usually called the Portage.
Late July: (I)-John Palliser (1817-1887) summed up the colony of Red River as half-developed, a place where the people were lazy and serious farmers handicapped by lack of laborers. The reason. he wrote, was that the Metis were child-like. They hunt three months of the year, beg, borrow and starve the remaining time. This is the same man who spent 11 months in Missouri hunting for sport.
September: A great fire started at Quill Lakes by La Combe, the Roman Catholic missionary to the Crees, swept the Prairies.
September: The Blackfoot reported they had killed thirty Cree near Fort Pitt
Mid September, (I)-John Palliser (1817-1887) arrived Qu'Appelle Lake (Saskatchewan) and noted the Indians cultivated corn, barley and potatoes.
Late September, (I)-John Palliser (1817-1887) arrived Moose Jaw Creek and said the whole region as far as the eye could reach was covered with buffalo, in bands varying from hundreds to thousands. So vast were the herds that I began to have serious apprehensions for my horse as the grass was eaten to the earth.
1858
The Red River Metis are running 600 red river carts per year to St. Paul, Minnesota, causing great resentment from the Hudson Bay Company.
Pierre C. Pambrun is on the upper Missouri, River, as is a Virginian, a Missourian and two gold-seekers.
(III)-Ellen Spence, Metis, b-1858 Totogan, daughter (II)-Jean Baptiste Spence aka We-tcha-mash, Metis (1807-1889), and Marie Roulette aka Matche-Kameko, Metis b-1816, Source Ida A. Spence
It was noted that Canada wants to assert its rights to occupy a section of Indian and Metis Country fir for cultivation. The Imperial authorities felt the duty to impose their mode of government to present the most favorable characteristics of progression in civilization. Eliminate democratic rights, eliminate free-trade, forced land clearance to reservations, subjugation to church and state.
It is noteworthy that the Hudson Bay Company monopoly of the fur trade cannot cope with illicit trade. These foreign English consider the Indians and half-breeds (Metis) as British subjects and therefore subject to their rules. The native peoples of America didn't agree, they were never conquered by these interlopers. These so called illicit traders understood that the transactions must be kept secret from the Company as they tried to impose their foreign rights by force of arms. The fundamental rights of the free traders is being violated and resentment continues to build. Writes of the time noted that these illicit free traders are honest honorable men and resent the attempts of the HBC to restrict trade.
The HBC contended that Indians are unfit from their habits and want of education to mix with white men but it was noted that the HBC had not employed a single teacher in the last 200 years to educate them. It is reasonable to assume they didn't want the Indians educated. They assumed if you keep the natives ignorant then they can be made servants of the English. It is noteworthy that the wintering employees of the HBC considered the Indian women good enough to have their children. In reality without these Indian women the Englishmen could not survive due to their ignorance.
Since 1857, hundreds of white settlers had gathered on the Dakota Territory borders waiting to claim land. The Dakota Sioux would not let them enter until they completed the treaty later this year. With the treaty complete, Chief Strike-the-nee, camped at Yankton, South Dakota, moved to a reservation about sixty miles north. Chief Smutty Bear, camped nine miles west of Yankton on the river, also moved to reservation.
Fort Abercrombie on the Red River of the north, near present day McCauleyville, Dakota Territory, was built to watch the Yankton Dakota Sioux. It was also to spur white settlement in the Red River Valley and to guard the steamboat traffic on the Red River, as well as the wagon trains traveling overland from Minnesota to the gold fields of Montana. The freight traffic between Red River, North West Territories and St. Paul, Minnesota had reached some six thousand carts per year. Minnesota had a population of one hundred and seventy two thousand people. Red River, North West Territory only had some ten thousand people.
(I)- George Simpson (1787-1860) finally abandoned the old supply route from Hudson Bay to Britain, for the Metis free trader route by way of Fort Garry and St. Paul, Minnesota. The one hundred and twenty officers and men of the Royal Canadian Rifles are still in Red River at this time.
1858 CUMBERLAND HOUSE by John Fleming
The
original Cumberland house was built in 1774 by Samuel Hearne as the first inland
House of the Hudson Bay Company. It is located in the south east corner of
Cumberland Lake on the route to the Saskatchewan and Churchill Rivers. This marked a change in
H.B.C. policy, where they expected the natives
to bring their furs to them on the Hudson Bay Trading Posts.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota established a Provisional Territorial Government. The Dakota Democrat paper started publication this year. Iowa established the Frontier Guard under Henry Martin at the Little Sioux River, north of Sioux City. This position was to ensure that the Dakota Sioux did not return to their traditional Iowa wintering territory after having been effectively driven from Iowa. Historically, the Dakota Sioux had traded to Lake Michigan and Iowa before the Europeans invaded their territory.
James Hector, of the Palliser Expedition while looking for a rail route through the Rocky Mountains, is kicked unconscious by a horse: so they called it Kicking Horse Pass, British Columbia. Peter Erasmus, Metis, b-1840 says it was a mule not a horse that kicked Hector.
Alfred Waddinton wrote concerning the growing anti-British element: An indescribable array of Polish Jews, Italian fishermen, French cooks, jobbers, speculators, land agents, auctioneers, hanger on, bummers, bankrupts, and brokers converged on Victoria after news of the Fraser gold strikes spread.
At China Bar the Indians attacked and killed fifteen miners. Up to this point in time the natives were fairly docile but the miners were pilfering their fishing grounds, destroying their equipment and ravishing their women. Enough was enough. When the makeshift militia arrived and banned all Chinese from the area for a month in the misguided belief that they had somehow supplied the Indians with rifles and ammunition. A miner named Snyder negotiated peace with the local chiefs.
January: Father Lacombe (1827-1916) joined the Metis on a buffalo hunt, hoping to meet up with some Blackfoot.
February 8: Fort Edmonton assumed a lively appearance this afternoon due to the arrival of the Metis hunters from the plain with 40 horse sleighs loaded with buffalo meat. There were 18 men, and the horses were all half-broken animals that had been brought from the mountains of Jaspar (Jasper) House the previous summer.
February 12: Dr. Hector visited Lac Ste Anne and wrote: There are two villages, each with 30 to 40 houses, but there is very little ground under cultivation. Barley, potatoes and turnips are the crops that succeed best, and wheat has never been raised. The temperature was running -20 to -47 F.
May 11: Minnesota became a State, having been effectively cleared off most Dakota Sioux from the territory. There still remained many Ojibwa in the northern region and in the two Dakota Sioux Reservations. Joseph R. Brown successfully persuaded the Dakota Sioux to give up nearly a million acres of their remaining reservations for thirty cents an acre. The delay of payment for two years and, after, the deduction for the 'trader claims' little settlement, remained for the Indians. The unjustified claims of the traders caused bitter feelings among the Dakota Sioux.
1859
The Hudson Bay Company retained its territorial rights but lost its license for exclusive monopoly trade rights. The Company was insistent that it receive compensation for any transfer of rights or privileges. The Ontario Reform convention laid the ground work to annex the North West for Ontario's economic interests. St. Paul, Minnesota reported that the Red River Metis spent $100,000 in St. Paul this year. More than 500 Red River carts were used to transport trade goods between the two Metis centers.
Petit Pierre Beaulieu, b-1859, Fort Resolution, Great Slave Lake, son Pierre Beaulieu, b-1833 and Delphine Cadieu, b-1840 married 1884, Fort Resolution (II)-Bella Sanderson, b-1869 Fort resolution daughter (I)-Henry Sanderson, born Orkney and Elizabeth Manager de Lard Chipewyan, b-1844, Buffalo Lake, Alberta.
The future Bishop Vital Justin Grandin (1829-1902) became Bishop Alexander Antonin Tache (1823-1894), coadjutor this year.
James McKey (1828-1879), a Metis, established a trading post at Sheyenne River.
Thomas Majeau, born January 25, 1830 St. Esprit, Quebec hearing of unclaimed land north of St. Paul, Minnesota paddled his canoe up the Mississippi River to St. Cloud, Minnesota. He then followed the Sauk River past the German speaking settlement of Cold Spring and Richmond and the English speaking settlement of Paynescille. About 6 miles past Paynesville he came to an unsettled area which is now known as Roseville Township and the community of Hawick, Minnesota.
Bill Miner (1843-1914), born Bowling Green, Kentucky arrived California and he joined a trio who robbed a stage coach of $75,000.00. The trio went on to three or four robberies before getting caught.
Georgetown is established by the Hudson Bay Company as a transfer point for goods from Red River to St. Paul, in an attempt to control the Metis trade route.
Sarnia Ontario witnessed the arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway.
Dakota became a State, with its westerly boundary extending no further than the Red River of the north.
(I)- George Simpson (1787-1860) of the Hudson Bay Company wrote on the subject of missions: I am quite aware of the inconvenience they (missionaries) are likely to occasion at our Posts and the trouble that may arise from the rivalry between the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy. The Company, however, feels that it is a necessary evil to which they must submit. Father Vital Justin Grandin arrived at Fort Rae to found the St. Michel Mission. He would become a key player in the demise of the Metis Canadian culture and would be responsible for driving many from the Roman Catholic Church.
This year Lawrence Garneau (1840-1921) decided to become a fur trader like his father. So at the age of nineteen, he set out with two companions from Bayfield, Wisconsin (Lake Superior) for Sioux City; a city of Iowa on the Missouri River. Sioux City, Iowa has a population of about 400 people, mostly Metis. The Lawrence Garneau party would canoe the Lake Superior from Bayfield to Duluth. Then they would travel the old Dakota Sioux war trail up the St. Louis River from Duluth, Minnesota and portage to the Mississippi. The Garneau party would stop at Saint Cloud, Minnesota to visit brother Simon Gurnoe, then go onward to St. Paul; a thriving Metis settlement that serves the Red River of the North. There is no record to verify if they reached Sioux City, Iowa. It remains un-verified as to whether or not they are on an American Fur Company assignment. Being a fourth generation fur trader, it is highly probable that they were on assignment. They, however, went into business, but some say the disagreeable attitude of the Sioux made business life so unpredictable and long lives so unlikely, that they ventured northward up the Minnesota. Others suggest they are pursued by a Dakota Sioux war party. Others speculated that, due to the incursion of the Dakota Sioux and the relationship between the Sioux, Ojibwa and Metis, they are forced to abandon this project. This conjecture, however, doesn't fit the family tradition that places Lawrence Garneau in the Minnesota and Dakota territories until about 1863, which would place him in the center of the Santee, Teton and Dakota Sioux War of Resistance. The Santee and Teton are of the Dakota Sioux Family. Lawrence Garneau, however, claimed in the 1901 census to have arrived at Red River in 1861. In 1860, the Metis and Ojibwa (Chippewa) had entered into a peace treaty with the Dakota Sioux, and there is no indication that this treaty is ever violated, except by the Chippewa in Red River in 1863 and then the Dakota Sioux did retaliate. This tradition went on to suggest that, speaking French and Ojibwa only, he found hospitality among the French Metis on the White Horse Plains where he continued to live for sometime. (II)-James Brady contends that Lawrence Garneau is a descendent of a Dakota Sioux half-breed (Metis) which, if true, would provide a higher probability of him being sympathetic with the Dakota Sioux in their pending war of Independence. His future actions in the Winnipeg Resistance Movement and the Edmonton Vigilance activities suggest he is not one to shirk moral responsibility.
The journey from Sioux City, Iowa to St. Paul, Minnesota and then the six hundred miles to Red River settlement in the North West required a considerable amount of pluck; so travelers reported at this time. St. Paul, Minnesota, only twenty years old, is crowded with steamboats, passengers and goods. There are substantial stone buildings on the main streets that would impress the frontier folk.
James McKey (1828-1879), a Metis, provided guide service from St. Paul to Red River for the Earl of Southesk, (I)- George Simpson (1787-1860) and Dr. John Rae. The Earl wrote: Up to his waist or chest in the clinging mud or the sluggish black water of the creek, now passing heavy packages across, now dragging reluctant animals through the mire, all came alike to him, and his cheerfulness never flagged.
The route to Red River and the North West lay along the left bank of the Mississippi through beautiful prairie country. Some referred to this route as the Sioux Trail. After passing Crow Wing Fort, you had to cross the Mississippi and Gull Lake Rivers and then travel to the Crow Wing River through marshy country. After Crow Wing Hills, you have to travel sandy tracts, scattered woods, creeks and more scattered swamp to Leaf River and on to Otter trail Lake. Then to the Red River valley on Otter Trail to Breckenridge; the Assiniboine River Crossing. An average journey from St. Paul to Red River is twenty five days, but some times this could double depending on circumstances. There was talk of annexation of Red River by the United States. James Wicks Taylor, commissioned by the United States Treasury, reported on the route, by way of Red River and the Saskatchewan, to the British Columbia gold fields.
The Comstock Mine in Nevada, is believed to be the greatest single mineral strike in history, was discovered this year. The story goes that a prospector named Henry Comstock discovered the mine but abandoned it considering it of little interest. Then a man named James Finney came across the mine and also didn't place much importance to the discovery. Peter O'reilly and Patrick McLaughlin heard the Finney story and went to check it out. They filed claim and began working the mine. Henry Comstock returned to his claim and demanded why they were working his claim. After much discussion Comstock became a partner. Then James Finney arrived on the scene and demanded his just due. After much discussion he settled for $25, a horse and a jug of whisky. James Finny who was nick named 'Old Virginny' gave the name Virginny Town, later called Virginia City. He died a short time later being kicked by a mule.
It was known that the Similkameen and Tulameen Rivers and many of their tributaries were gold-bearing but because of the great gold discoveries in both the East Kootenays and the Cariboo country, few prospectors were attracted to this area. Lotairo, Young, McKillop and Marsden quietly worked the area. They also found a strange, silver colored and worthless metal (Platinum). They called it white gold or poor man's gold, but discarded it as worthless.
June 10: The first steamship from Georgetown, Minnesota arrives at Fort Garry on June 10, 1859, called the Anson Northrop, and collected a two thousand dollar prize from the St. Paul, Minnesota committee. The Hudson Bay Company responded to this threat by buying the steamship, changing its name to Pioneer and raising freight rates to prohibitive levels on any goods carried for the Metis free traders.
November 30: Archange Gourneau, married to Rouleau, (Roulleau or Rolleau), began to learn how to read; being taught by the good Fathers at Sault Ste Marie.
December 28: The first issue of the Red River Nor'wester, owned by Buckingham and Coldwell, came out on December 28, 1859. The Earl of Southesk, impressed with the Metis he met, spoke of them as tall, straight and well proportioned. These true riders of the prairies, he wrote, could run after their sled dogs, fifty or sixty miles a day for weeks on end. S .J. Dawson, on his Red River Expedition, wrote: I never once heard an oath or an indelicate expression made use of among the Metis. This is different from what may be too often observed among the lower order of other communities. Henry McKenny, who was a half brother to Dr. John Schultz, arrived to start a store in Red River. He would later build the first hotel near Fort Garry called the Royal Hotel.
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