The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists: The Pioneers of ManitobaBryce, George
History
The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists: The Pioneers of Manitoba
Bryce, George
Red River Settlement
The joy of all classes of the people was unbounded. The English
halfbreeds had been loyal through the whole of the disturbances.
Kildonan Church had been the headquarters of the Loyalists in their
attempted rally, and after the execution of Scott, the French
half-breeds had gradually dropped off from Riel, until he and his two
companions formed a helpless trio shorn of all power.
CHAPTER XXIX.
MANITOBA IN THE MAKING.
Close in the wake of Wolseley's Expedition, there arrived on the 2nd of
September, Adams G. Archibald, the newly-appointed Governor of the new
Province of Manitoba. His arrival was greeted with joy, for he was a man
of high character, and of much experience in his native Province of Nova
Scotia. The two volunteer regiments, the Quebec and Ontario battalions,
were quartered for the winter, the former in Lower Fort Garry, the
latter in Fort Garry. The new Governor took up his abode in Fort Garry,
in the residence with which our story is so familiar. The organization
of his government began at once. The first Government Building stood
back from the street in Winnipeg on the corner of Main Street and
McDermott Avenue East, of the present-day. The Legislative Council--a
miniature House of Lords--of seven members, was appointed, and electoral
divisions for the election of members to the Legislative Assembly were
made to the number of twenty-four--twelve French and twelve English. The
time for the opening of Parliament was the spring of 1871. It was a
notable day, for the citizens were much interested in scrutinizing those
who were to be their future rulers. The opening passed off with eclat.
During the first session certain elementary legislation was passed
including a short school act. There was yet no division of parties, and
a sufficient cabinet was chosen by the Governor. Thus, institutions
after the model of the mother of Parliaments at Westminster were evolved
and Manitoba--the successor of our Red River Settlement--had conceded to
it the right of local self-government.
In the year of the first parliament of Manitoba it was the fortune of
the writer to take up his abode here. Winnipeg, a village of less than
three hundred inhabitants was in that year, still four hundred miles
distant from a railway. From the railway terminus in Minnesota, the
stage coach drawn by four horses with relays every twenty miles, sped
rapidly over prairies, smooth as a lawn to the site of the future city
of the plains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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