I was alerted to a new-to-me website this morning – one that mentions the Red River Colony. So, naturally, I went in to have a look!

Many of us are tempted to accept as truth what we see in print. Unfortunately, and this is something that is particularly evident in material one finds on the Internet, a lot of what is written for our edification is either poorly researched, mistaken, or just downright misleading! Such is the case with Scottish Government site I was refered to today, Learning and Teaching Scotland: Scots and Canada.

The site looks very professional, and has a slide show of historic maps, paintings and sketches that add to the sense of authority of the site. But for the historian well-versed in Red River history, several errors are evident in the text. I’ll point out a few right now:

1. Lord Selkirk agreed that he would provide settlers and militia for the region over the next decade. According to Bumstead’s biography of Lord Selkirk (Lord Selkirk: A Life, 2008), Selkirk was constantly stymied by the British and Canadian Governments in his efforts to provide military protection for the RRS. He overcame the obstacle by settling retired Swiss soldiers in the Colony. They came (officially) as settlers, not soldiers. I wonder who the author of this site is inferring the agreement was between?
2. In 1811, a hundred Scots emigrants set sail for Hudson’s Bay under the leadership of Miles MacDonnell [sic]. The first Scottish (and Irish) settlers set sail in 1812. The group of 1811 was a work party made up of mostly Irish, Scottish and Orcadian men, and certainly fewer than 100! According to the list in the Miles Macdonell Papers as reprinted in Martin (p.10), 18 men were included in the work party. The 1812 group of Scottish settlers engaged was 56, according to A list of Settlers and Servants engaged in Ross, Brolas, Greenburn in the Island of Mull, for the service of the Honorable H. B. Coy and the Right Honorable Earl of Selkirk. [Selkirk Papers M-734 Vol. 2 pp. 558-559].
3. They arrived in Canada too late to make the 60-day trek inland to Red River before winter and were forced to camp near York Factory. The Scots barely survived the harsh winter. By spring, only 22 men were healthy enough to make the 1300-mile trek to Red River. The work party of 1811 did winter near York Factory, and encountered the usual hardships of winter life in the far north. There was a lot of strife and unrest in the two camps (one mainly Irish, the other mainly Scottish), and several Irish men were sent home on the next available ship as a result. The work party was never intended to be much larger than the group that headed for the intended site of the RRS in 1812, although there was some argument in the spring of 1812 about who would be part of it and whether HBC employees would augment the numbers. According to the list mentioned in the point above, 18 men left York Factory in 1812 as a work party for the RRS.
4. Nor’Westers refused to trade with the Scots settlers… On the contrary, NWCo. officials at Red River did everything they could to coerce the settlers to accept relocation to Canada from the RRS, and providing them with food was one of the main methods of dividing the settlers and the RRS officials and creating a rebellious spirit among the settlers. Metis and First Nations hunters supplied food for the RRS and were paid or traded for their services and provisions.
5. MacDonnell [sic] called himself the Governor of the Red River Colony. Of course he did. He was appointed such by Lord Selkirk himself! This site is pretty hard on Miles Macdonell, who, although he was admittedly not the best man for the job and made several serious mistakes in his leadership, was working in circumstances that even he would have had difficulty forseeing. Answers to his reports, which could only be sent out once annually with the ships from York Factory, were only received a year after he requested instructions, when the next ships arrived with the mail! How much can occur under volatile situations over the period of a year!
6. Cameron tried to convince the settlers to relocate but most refused. Actually, the majority (about three quarters of the settlers, according to lists made at the time of the events) accepted Cameron’s offer to relocate to Canada in 1815. Several families were forced by officials/servants of the NWCo. Only a handful removed to Jack River at the north end of Lake Winnipeg to await aid, instructions and the 1815 group’s arrival to augment their numbers and to start all over again.
7. Cuthbert Grant and 60 of his men massacred a group of 25 Hudson’s Bay Company employees at a place called Seven Oaks. Settlers were also slain in this massacre. Cuthbert Grant and ‘his’ men were acting under orders of NWCo. officials.

Having said all that (and more could be said…), the same site provides a link to an interesting educational page on the Red River Settlement, one that would be of interest to teachers and young people. It is simply written and hazy on detail. But it would be a good starting point for introducing children to their Red River roots! Check it out: The Red River Colony: Lord Selkirk has a Plan.

Peter Rindisbacher c. 1834. Self Portrait

Peter Rindisbacher set himself up in a studio in St. Louis Missouri during the latter years of his life. It was there that he earned a reputation as a miniature portrait artist. Although the image to the left is in black and white, there is a colour reproduction of both this and portraits of his parents and some of his siblings in the book The Artist was a Young Man. They are rare examples of portraits of original Selkirk Settlers.

I’ll leave you this week with another scene of life at the Red River Colony by Peter Rindisbacher:

Winter Fishing on the Ice of the Assynoibain and Red River, 1821 (National Archives of Canada)

A few more Rindisbachers related to the RRS:

Métis Family ca. 1826 (Bata Shoe Museum P80.982)

Chippewa mode of traveling in spring and summer by Peter Rindisbacher c. 1825 (Virtual Museum of Canada; West Point Museum Art Collection)

Settlers at Red River, early 1820s. (Canadian Heritage Gallery) This drawing depicts a Swiss immigrant wife, husband and two children, a German, a Scots Highlander, and a French Canadian

Peter Rindisbacher was the first artist of European descent to portray the First Nations people of the Great Plains. He was meticulous in recording the detail of their garb and ornaments, and was recorded as painting very accurate likenesses, also.

The Artist was a Young Man shows some of his earliest portraits, those he executed of Inuit people encountered at various points along the Colonists’ northern sea route. Even as a teenager he was able to capture facial expressions and details in the unique clothing in the short time he was able to meet these people. Having attempted the same in art classes where the model was actually posing for a portrait, I can vouch for this being a tremendous skill (one I did not excel at, I might add)!

Rindisbacher’s scenes were portrayed by someone who had obviously been there and studied carefully the means, attitudes, apparel, and environment of the people he painted.

A Labrador Eskimo in a sealskin kayak, c. 1821 (Canadian Heritage Gallery)

Inside an Indian tent 1824 (National Archives of Canada)

Indian hunters pursuing buffalo in the early spring ca. 1822 (National Archives of Canada)

The young Swiss artist Peter Rindisbacher always practiced his skills using materials at hand. People who knew of his gift and were in a position to supply him with paint often did. He preferred watercolours, and he often sketched in ink his subject prior to completing a painting. Rindisbacher sometimes used these sketches or studies to create several paintings, which he would sell to HBC employees, military or government officials and publishers.

One of his gifts to researchers of the RRS is a series he made of his own voyage from York Factory to the Colony.

Extremely wearisome journeys at the portages 1821 (National Archives of Canada)

Arrival at Norway House on the great Lake Winnipeg 1821 (National Archives of Canada)

Cold night camp on the inhospitable shores of Lake Winnipeg 1821 (National Archives of Canada)

Subtitled The Life Story of Peter Rindisbacher, this book was written as a supplement to the 1970 art exhibition of the same name. As a consequence, it is not very long, but it is filled with information of an often overlooked group of original Selkirk Settlers, the Swiss of 1821.

Peter Rindisbacher was a teenager when he arrived at Red River with his family. He began studying art in Switzerland prior to the family’s emigration to the RRS, and showed a great deal of promise as an artist. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that there was no way of furthering his education in the North American West, but then again, Rindisbacher’s work might not have had the fresh, original style that it was praised for during his lifetime.

The Rindisbacher family left the RRS after the flood of 1826 to seek their fortune further south. Eventually, Peter would end up in St. Louis, where he died suddenly – no one seems to know how – at the age of 28.

His paintings were the first ever of the native peoples of the plains and of pioneer and fur trade life there. They have added significance on two points: he lived for years among the people and scenes that he painted, unlike travelling artists like Paul Kane, for example, so he really knew his subjects; and Rindisbacher was meticulous in accurately portraying the detail of those subjects.

Thanks to him, we have a visual record of life at Red River in the early days. In an earlier posting I used one of his images to illustrate a dog carriole. Some of his most famous scenes depict the buffalo hunt in both summer and winter. But there are others that illustrate life near and at the RRS, too.

Two of the Companies Officers Travelling in a Canoe Made of Birchbark Manned by Canadians (1818 - 1828) (National Gallery of Canada)

The Governor of Red River, Driving his Family on the River in a Horse Cariole (1824 ) (National Gallery of Canada)

For more on Peter Rindisbacher See Clifford Wilson’s article in Canadian Art #83, Jan./Feb. 1963.