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
At the time of Governor Garry's visit the population of the settlement
may be considered to have been about five hundred. These were made up of
somewhat less than two hundred Selkirk Colonists, about one hundred De
Meurons, a considerable number of French Voyageurs and Freemen, Swiss
Colonists perhaps eighty, and the remainder Orkney, employees of the
Hudson's Bay Company. The Colony was, however, beginning to organize
itself. The accounts of the French settlers are very vague, an
occasional name flitting across the page of history. One family still
found on Red River banks, gains celebrity as possessing the first white
woman who came to Rupert's Land. With her husband she had gone to
Edmonton in ----, and had wandered over the prairies. In 1811, with her
husband, she first saw the Forks of Red River and wintered in 1811-12 at
Pembina, the winter which the first band of Colonists spent at York
Factory. Lajimoniere became a fast adherent of Lord Selkirk, and made a
famous and most dangerous winter journey through the wilds alone,
carrying letters from Red River to Montreal, delivered them personally
to Lord Selkirk in 1815.
The Lajimonieres received with great delight in 1818 the first Roman
Catholic missionaries who reached Red River. These were sent through
Lord Selkirk's influence, and the large gift of land known as the
Seigniory lying east of St. Boniface was the reward given to the early
pioneer missionaries--Provencher and Dumoulin, men of great stature and
manly bearing. In the year of their arrival James Sutherland, the
Presbyterian chaplain of the Selkirk Colonists, was taken by the
Nor'-Westers to Upper Canada, whither his son, Haman Sutherland, had
gone in 1815 with Duncan Cameron. The Earl of Selkirk had promised to
send to his Scottish Colonists a minister of their own faith. On his
death in France his agent in London was Mr. John Pritchard. Seventeen
days after the death of Lord Selkirk, Rev. John West was appointed to
come as chaplain to the Colonists and the other Protestants of Red
River. Pritchard arrived by Hudson's Bay ship at York Factory 15 Aug.,
1820, having Mr. West in company with him.
And now Colville wrote to Alexander Macdonell, the Governor of the
Settlement: "Mr. West goes out and takes with him persons acquainted
with making bricks and pottery." Macdonell was a Roman Catholic, but
Colville wrote: "I trust also that by your example and advice you will
encourage all the Protestants, Presbyterians as well as others to attend
divine service as performed by Mr. West. He will also open schools." As
to Mr. West's support a curiosity occurs in one of Mr. West's letters
written in the following year from York Factory. He speaks of an
agreement between Lord Selkirk and the Selkirk Settlers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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