| Summary: | CHAPTER II OCCUPIED FOR INDIAN TRADE THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY—RUPERT's LAND—^THE NORTH-WEST AND X. Y. COM-PANIES— ALEXANDER HENRY's RED RIVER BRIGADE—^THE EMBARKATION THE INDIAN CONTINGENT—^THE INDIAN HUNTING GROUNDS, ABOUNDING IN BEARS, BEAVERS AND BUFFALO—^TERRORIZED BY THE SIOUX THE PARK RIVER POST STORY OF THE BRITISH FLAG—^THE VICIOUS ELEMENT OF LIQUOR—SACRIFICE AND THANKSGIVING—^AN ATTEMPT AT BRIBERY—HUNTERS 'AND THE SPOILS CON-TRACTS WITH THE LORDS OF THE FORESTS—EARLY TRADING POSTS PEMBINA POST ESTABLISHED. "For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong, Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame, Through its ocean-sundered fibres, feels the gush of joy or shame — In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim." —James Russell Lowell. THE Hudson's bay company—rupert's land . In 1609 Henry Hudson, a navigator of English birth, sailing under the flag of the Dutch West Indies, ascended the stream now known as Hudson River, discovered by Giovanni de Verrazano in 1524. The next year he explored Hud-son Bay, and perished on the voyage. In 1667, the Duke of York and Prince Rupert formed a company in England for the exploration of Hudson Bay with a view to trade, and two vessels were dispatched for the purpose; one of them the Nonsuch Ketch, commanded by Capt. Zachariah Gillam of Boston, reach-ing Hudson Bay in September of the following year. The winter was spent in that region at Fort Charles. They returned to Boston, and thence to London in 1669, and proceeded to organize the Hudson's Bay Company, which was char-tered by Charles II, May 2, 1670, the king himself, his brother the Duke of York, and his nephew Prince Rupert, leading a long list of distinguished stockholders. They were granted exclusive privileges on Hudson Bay and along the streams flowing into the bay and their tributaries, embracing a vast region which came to be known as Rupert's Land, including the Red River country and the streams tributary to the Red River, until restricted by the location of the international boundary after the Revolutionary war. The Hudson's Bay Company had full power to own, occupy, govern, sell and convey, and were authorized to maintain armies and levy war, if necessary for defense, but for more than one hundred years they had been content to con- Vol. 1—2 17 Internet Archive
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