The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirks Colonists

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The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists

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Colonists, by George Bryce
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Title: The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists The Pioneers of Manitoba
Author: George Bryce

Release Date: December 19, 2005 [eBook #17358]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE ROMANTIC SETTLEMENT OF LORD SELKIRK'S COLONISTS
(The Pioneers of Manitoba)
by
DR. GEORGE BRYCE
Of Winnipeg
President of the Royal Society of Canada, etc., etc.

[Illustration: THOMAS, 5TH EARL OF SELKIRK, The Founder of Red River Colony, 1812. From copy of painting by Raeburn, obtained by author from St Mary's Isle, Lord Selkirk's seat.]

Toronto The Musson Book Company Limited "Copyrighted Canada, 1909, by The Musson Book Company, Limited, Toronto."

CONTENTS
Page.
Chapter 1.
Patriarch's Story 9 An Extinct Race. The Gay Frenchman. The Earlier Peoples. The Montreal Merchants and Men. The Dusky Riders of the Plain. The Stately Hudson's Bay Company.
Chapter 2.
A Scottish Duel 33
Chapter 3.
Across the Stormy Sea 44
Chapter 4.
A Winter of Discontent 58
Chapter 5.
First Foot on Red River Banks 69
Chapter 6.
Three Desperate Years 80
Chapter 7.
Fight and Flight 95
Chapter 8.
No Surrender 107
Chapter 9.
Seven Oaks Massacre 117
Chapter 10.
Afterclaps 133
Chapter 11.
The Silver Chief Arrives 142
Chapter 12.
Soldiers and Swiss 152
Chapter 13.
English Lion and Canadian Bear Lie Down Together 161
Chapter 14.
Satrap Rule 170
Chapter 15.
And the Flood Came 178
Chapter 16.
The Jolly Governor 185
Chapter 17.
The Oligarchy 194
Chapter 18.
An Ogre of Justice 202
Chapter 19.
A Half-Breed Patriot 210
Chapter 20.
Sayer and Liberty 216
Chapter 21.
Off to the Buffalo 224
Chapter 22.
What the Stargazers Saw 232
Chapter 23.
Apples of Gold 239
Chapter 24.
Pictures of Silver 256
Chapter 25.
Eden Invaded 276
Chapter 26.
Riel's Rising 284
Chapter 27.
Lord Strathcona's Hand 291
Chapter 28.
Wolseley's Welcome 300
Chapter 29.
Manitoba in the Making 307
Chapter 30.
The Selkirk Centennial 315
Appendix 320

PREFACE
The present work tells the romantic story of the Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists in Manitoba, and is appropriate and timely in view of the Centennial celebration of this event which will be held in Winnipeg in 1912.
The author was the first, in his earlier books, to take a stand for justice to be done to Lord Selkirk as a Colonizer, and he has had the pleasure of seeing the current of all reliable history turned in Lord Selkirk's favor.
Dr. Doughty, the popular Archivist at Ottawa, has put at the author's disposal a large amount of Lord Selkirk's correspondence lately received by him, so that many new, interesting facts about the Settlers' coming are now published for the first time.
If we are to celebrate the Selkirk Centennial intelligently, it is essential to know the facts of the trials, oppressions and heartless persecutions through which the Settlers' passed, to learn what shameful treatment Lord Selkirk received from his enemies, and to trace the rise from misery to comfort of the people of the Colony.
The story is chiefly confined to Red River Settlement as it existed--a unique community, which in 1870 became the present Province of Manitoba. It is a sympathetic study of what one writer has called--"Britain's One Utopia."

The Romantic Settlement
OF
Lord Selkirk's Colonists
* * * * *

Lord Selkirk's Colonists
CHAPTER I.
THE EARLIER PEOPLE.
A PATRIARCH'S STORY.
This is the City of Winnipeg. Its growth has been wonderful. It is the highwater mark of Canadian enterprise. Its chief thoroughfare, with asphalt pavement, as it runs southward and approaches the Assiniboine River, has a broad street diverging at right angles from it to the West. This is Broadway, a most commodious avenue with four boulevards neatly kept, and four lines of fine young Elm trees. It represents to us "Unter den Linden" of Berlin, the German Capital.
The wide business thoroughfare Main Street, where it reaches the Assiniboine River, looks out upon a stream, so called from the wild Assiniboine tribe whose northern limit it was, and whose name implies the "Sioux" of the Stony Lake. The Assiniboine River is as large as the Tiber at Rome, and the color of the water justifies its being compared with the "Yellow Tiber."
The Assiniboine falls into the Red River, a larger stream, also with tawny-colored water. The point of union of these two rivers was long ago called by the French voyageurs "Les Fourches," which we have translated into "The Forks."
One morning nearly forty years ago, the writer wandered eastward toward Red River, from Main Street, down what is now