| Summary: | IS HIST O R. V O F G R A N I) F O I,' 1C S C 0 II N 'J' Y destroyed their crops and want drove l.lip.m to the post of Pembina for food and shelter. But the Northwest Fur company were opposed to the settlement of an agricultural population in tlie country. They instigated their employees to annoy and harass the colonists in many ways. About 150 of them they induced to desert, and the remainder they tried to frighten away by setting their half'breed employees upon them disguised as Indians. In 1815 another contingent of tlie colonists arrived from Scotland. The Northwest company now endeavored to expel them from the country. An affray ensued at Seven Oaks near the site of Winnipeg, in 181(5, in which about twenty persons lost their lives, among whom was the Hudson Bay governor Senipie. Lord Sel- ■ kirk now interfered, protecting his colony by force of arms, and re-imbursed them for the losses of property they had sustained. The hostile criticism evoked by these troubles finally led to the coalition of these antagonistic fur companies, which was effected in .1821. In that year the first Fort Garry was built. The success of an agricultural colony such as this was, mainly depends upon favorable climatic and physical conditions, also a fair degree of competency to obtain subsistence from the region colonized, upon accessions in number, both to counterbalance losses and to increase the population, and largely, besides, upon the adaptability of the colonists themselves to adjust their mode of life to the usual changed conditions of new settlements. The Selkirk colonists found a fertile soil in tlie valley, that was in strong contrast with that of tlie partially sterile and mountainous region of the north of Scotland, well adapted to agricultural pursuits, and a country possessing a healthy and tolerable cli- mafe. Coming from a high northern latitude in their former homes, the long days of summer and short ones of winter in their new abode presented no marked contrasts; but the physical aspect of the country they found to be far different, and Climatic 'conditions considerably so. Already inured to hiird conditions of life in their old homes, they were tlie kind ol people to succeed and were deserving of the fair measure ol success to which they ultimately attained. Gradually the colony began to see some measure ol prosperity. Other additions came from time to time, and they began to enlarge and extend their settlements. In 1821 two hundred Swiss emigrants arrived, who had been induced to leave their native country by an agent of Lord Selkirk. The colonists built churches and established schools. They maintained amicable relations with tlie Indians from whom tliey purchased more land, extending their settlements up the Assiniboine and up Red river as far as Pembina. Their settlements were compact, the individual holdings being six chains in width, and extending back from the river two miles on each side. They hud mills for grinding grain, Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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