Early history of North Dakota: essential outlines of American history

• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Cornell University Library
• Subjects: assiniboine
• Online Access: http://cdm16921.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndsl-books/id/52936

EARLY HISTORY OF NORTH DAKOTA 95 were piloted to the Hudson's Bay Company factory, on Lake Winnipeg, by friendly Indians. The distrust natural to the Indians had gradually been displaced by a liking for the colonists, not only because they offered a market for meats the traders refused to buy, but for their sturdy integrity. Unlike the majority of their race, whose preconceived opinions, as will be noted further on, were not flattering to the whites in general, they had found white men who were not liars, and were not trying to harm or take advantage of them, and though they ridiculed their "tender feet," they stood ready to act in their defense, and ah efforts to induce them to attack the colonists failed. On the arrival of the new settlers in June, 1815, the colonists who had been driven away, returned and rebuilt their cabins and harvested their crops. Because no preparations had been made to receive the colonists of that year, and on ac-coimt of the scarcity of .provisions, seventy-five of the strongest went to Pembina where there was a deserted trading post, which was fitted up for their comfort, and a number of new cabins erected. The buffalo were, also, abundant near Pembina, and pemmican could be obtained for food from the Indians. The succeeding winter was a severe one, the mercury sometimes falling to 45 degrees below zero, with deep snows. Their supplies of food were very low, but with pemmican obtained from the Indians, fish—caught through holes in the ice—from the river, and an occasional dog, which they relished under the cir-cumstances, they managed to subsist during the winter, and in the spring they gathered the seed-balls of the wild rose and acorns, which, cooked with buffalo fat, afforded nutritious aliment. During the trouble with the settlers in the summer of 181 5, Governor Miles Macdonnell had been arrested arid carried away from the colony by Duncan Cameron, the North-West Company governor, acting as an alleged Canadian officer, and the artillery belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company post had been seized, on the ground that it had been used to break the peace, when used in defense of the colony. But among the new arrivals that year was Robert Semple, a former officer of the British army, who assumed the duties of governor of the colony. He spent a portion of the winter at Pembina, where the North-West Company had a trading post, known as the Pembina House. This he seized, and arrested the managers—who were afterwards released—and, also, in May, 1816, attacked and razed a post belonging to the company, known as Fort Gibraltar, which was in charge of Cameron, using the material to strengthen the defenses at Fort Douglas, the Hudson's Bay Company post, and to rebuild the homes of the settlers. Fort Gibraltar was erected for the old X. Y. Company, the Montreal rival of the North-West Company, represented by John Wills. The stockade was made of oak logs, split in two, fifteen feet high. There ") were eight buildings, viz., four, 64, 36, 28 and 32 feet in length, respectively, and r a blacksmith shop, a stable, a kitchen and an ice house. Twenty men wereJ engaged a year in its construction. Fort Douglas, the site of the settlement of the Selkirk Colony, was one mile below the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. Here was the residence of the governor. Selkirk gave it the name Kildonan, in 1817, in honor of the set-tlers who came from Kildonan parish in Scotland. Internet Archive