The Red River colony: Scotland's Little Hoose on the Prairie | Caledonian Mercury - Heritage
The Red River colony: Scotland’s Little Hoose on the Prairie
Letitia Bird, a mixed-ancestry Cree, Red River 1858 Picture: Humphrey Lloyd, 1833–1903
It was the experiences and adventures of Sir Alexander Mackenzie (Alasdair MacCoinnich, 1764–1820), a Scottish explorer from the Isle of Lewis, that inspired a fellow Scot to attempt to colonise a huge area of Canada with Scottish emigrants.
Reading a book written by Mackenzie on his time spent fur trading in the North American west, the aristocratic Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk (1771–1820), reckoned he too could venture into the wilderness – and he hatched a plan to realise his dreams.
His interests lay with helping displaced Highlanders, but the possibility of a expansive kingdom with vast tracts of wilderness was not without its appeal and potential. Highland farmers would provide an invaluable asset to colonise new lands and make them viable.
Douglas’s approach and work gained him much respect, and he sponsored and settled many poor Scottish families in various parts of Canada, including Prince Edward Island and Upper Canada.
When, however, he approached the British government for aid to help him continue his good work in settling the displaced Scottish crofters, they refused. They had already – in true British fashion – granted a monopoly on fur trading rights in that area to the giant Hudson’s Bay Company and did not wish to tamper with that arrangement.
However, Douglas was not going to let that set him back and he utilised his inheritance – along with some useful marriage connections – to buy enough stock from Hudson’s Bay Company in 1811 to be the main shareholder and thus control the company. He went on to acquire from the company 300,000 square kilometres of land along the banks of the Red River (now known as Manitoba) in Canada.
With his acquisition being four times the size of Scotland, Douglas may have seemed optimistic when he promised to provide settlers and militia to cover the land over the following ten years. The opportunity to have a slice (or a crumb, perhaps) of this land was the enticement for poor Scots farmers who fancied their chances.
The initial voyage undertaken under Douglas’s orders was not a great success. The 100 or so recruited Highlanders lived and sailed for two months in awful conditions. When they finally arrived, they were too late to make the 1,300-mile trek to Red River as winter closed in.
Enduring an incredibly harsh winter, only 22 of the original men were fit enough to make the final journey to their destination when the snow finally melted.
However, they were an industrious lot and built boats for the planned journey to their destination while they waited that winter – and, upon arrival at their destination, built a fort which they named Fort Douglas.
For the Scots who did finally make it to the prairie at Red River, life did not begin easily. While they simply wanted to farm the land and keep their livestock, the fur trading Nor’westers (who worked for the North West Company) were less than delighted with the new neighbours. This was a wilderness rich in wildlife and furry critters such as beaver, and the encroachment of farming was deemed to interfere with their trapping.
The local Métis were also displeased. These were a people of both French and First Nations heritage (many French fur traders married First Nations women and had families). For them, the change of land-use and extra hungry mouths could affect their main food supply – the buffalo.
So it was that the locals were not too friendly towards the Scottish incomers at the start, and refused to trade with them – which would have made life very difficult. The only farming equipment they had with them were hoes, and early attempts at growing crops were fairly unsuccessful. In the face of starvation in the winter, the settlers had to follow the buffalo south, only returning in the spring.
The governor of Red River than made an error of judgement and decided that no food was to be allowed out of the colony. This backfired and initiated a violent time for Red River. The fur traders always took pemmican – a rich food source – on their long journeys. Made from dried and powdered meat, usually buffalo, mixed with an equal amount of animal fat and possibly some berries, this could be carried in a leather satchel on long journeys and wouldn’t spoil.
They showed their displeasure by burning down Fort Douglas and many surrounding buildings. Douglas sent in a new governor to deal with the troubles, but he was little better. His great idea was to demand via proclamation that the Métis and fur traders were not allowed to be violent towards the Red River colony. At that particular meeting, in 1816, the governor, 20 of his men and one of the Métis lay dead after just a few minutes.
Being Scots, and not afraid of a bit of aggro, the settlers endured the hardships of violence, drought, floods and all that was thrown at them. The settlement remained a turbulent place right up until 1870, and by that time Red River had a population of 10,000 people.
