History of the Ojibway Nation/Chapter 34
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE FUR TRADE AND FUR TRADERS AMONG THE OJIBWAYS FROM THE FORMATION OF THE NORTHWEST COMPANY IN 1787 TO 1834.
Among the first traders who pushed their enterprise to the villages of the Ojibways on Lake Superior, after France had ceded the Canadas to Great Britain, the names of Alexander Henry and the Cadottes appear most conspicuous. The Northwest Fur Company was not formed till the year 1787. It originated in the following manner:—
Three or four rival traders, or small companies, had proceeded from Montreal and Quebec, and located trading posts on the north coast of Lake Superior, about the mouth of Pigeon River, up which stream they sent outfits to the "Bois Fort" and Muskego Ojibways, and then to the Kenisteno and Assineboines of Red River. The rivalry between these different traders became extremely bitter, and at last resulted in the murder of Waddon, who was shot in cold blood, within his trading house, at Grand Portage. This outrage brought the most sensible portion of the traders to their senses, and they immediately made efforts to compromise their difficulties, and to join their interests into one. These efforts resulted in the formation of the Northwest Company, which soon became so rich and powerful that for a long time they were enabled to monopolize the northern fur trade, and cope with the most powerful and favored combinations which the capitalists of Great Britain could bring against them.
In the year 1792, immediately after the noted expedition of John Baptiste Cadotte to the Upper Mississippi, the Northwest Company extended their operations over the whole Ojibway country within the limits of the United States, on Lake Superior and the Mississippi. Their trade in these regions was divided into four departments:—
The Fond du Lac department consisted of the country at the head of Lake Superior, and the sources of the St. Louis and Mississippi Rivers. The Folle Avoine department consisted of the country drained by the waters of the St. Croix. The Lac Coutereille department covered the waters of the Chippeway; and the Lac du Flambeau department, the waters of the Wisconsin.
The depot for this portion of their trade was located at Fond du Lac, but their great depot was at Grand Portage on the north coast of Lake Superior and within the limits of what is now known as Minnesota Territory. From this point they sent their outfits up Pigeon River, towards the northwest, and occupied the country of the Kenisteno and Assineboines. Here, each summer, the partners and clerks of the company, who had passed the winter amongst the inland posts, collected their returns of fur, and were met by the partners from Montreal with new supplies of merchandise. These yearly meetings were enlivened with feastings, dancing, and revelry, held in the great hall of the company. In the style of the feudal barons of old, did these prosperous traders each year hold their grand festival surrounded by their faithful and happy "coureurs du bois" and servitors. The eyes of an "old northwester," while relating these happy scenes of by-gone times, will sparkle with excitement—his form will become momentarily erect as he imagines himself moving off in the merry dance, and his lips will water, as he enumerates the varied luxuries under which groaned long tables in the days of these periodic feastings.
Amongst the different partners of this company on its first formation, the names of Frobisher, McTavish, Pond, Gregory, and Pangman are mentioned as most conspicuous. In their future operations, the names of Sir Alex. McKenzie and McGilvray soon became prominent as the most active partners. They were early opposed at some of their northern posts by the Forsyths and Ogilvys, but were not much troubled by the rivalry of these men till, through some unfortunate misunderstanding with members of the company, Sir Alex. McKenzie was forced to draw out his means and leave the firm. He thereupon joined with the Forsyths, and under the denomination of the X.Y. Company, through his great tact and experience in the trade, he caused the Northwest for several years to suffer severe losses. After his death, the two rival companies came to an amicable understanding, and joined as partners.
It is about this time that the Northwest first began to be materially harassed by the Hudson's Bay Company, who not only met them in their most lucrative northern posts, from the direction of Hudson's Bay, but followed them up, through their usual route from Canada. This company, formed principally of influential lords and gentlemen in England, supported by the favor of government and possessing a charter, eventually proved too powerful for the old Northwest. They, however, did not crush this old firm till after a protracted and severe struggle. The Northwest Company, by the honorable and humane course which they are noted as having pursued towards the Indians, and also towards their numerous Canadian and half-breed servitors and dependants, were, in return, loved by them, and in the efforts of these people to retain them in their country, blood was unfortunately made to flow.
On the 17th of June, 1816, Governor Semple, of the Hudson's Bay Company, with some British troops, in trying to prevent the march of a body of mounted half-breeds, was suddenly cut down, and his troops killed, by a sweeping charge of these hardy buffalo hunters. A bloody partisan warfare was only prevented by the strong interference of the British government. In 1819 the Northwest became merged into the Hudson's Bay Company, and ceased to exist. With it may be said to have ended the Augustan age of the fur trade. With deep regret do the old voyageurs and Indians speak of the dissolution of this once powerful company, for they always received honorable and charitable treatment at their hands. The principal traders who operated among the Ojibways during the era of the Northwest Company, and who may be mentioned as contemporary with John Baptiste and Michel Cadotte, are Nolin, Gaulthier, McGillis, St. Germain, Bazille Beauleau, Chabolier, Wm. Morrison, Cotte, Roussain, Bonga, J.B. Corbin, and others. These early pioneer traders all intermarried in the tribe, and have left sons and daughters to perpetuate their names. Wm. Morrison of Montreal, and J.B. Corbin, of Lac Coutereille, are now[1] the only survivors of all these old traders.
For the above brief account of the early fur trade, I am indebted to Hon. Allan Morrison of Crow Wing, who has been for upwards of thirty years a trader among the Ojibways, and who is a grandson of Waddon, whose murder led to the formation of the Northwest Company.
To Mr. Bruce, of St. Croix Lake, now in his seventy-ninth year, mostly passed in the northwest, I am also indebted for information. At the dissolution of the Northwest Company, citizens of the United States began seriously to turn their attention to the Ojibway fur trade, and from this time a new class of individuals, as traders, began to penetrate to the remotest villages of this tribe. In the year 1818, the Astor Fur Company first commenced their operations on Lake Superior. They confined themselves, however, during the years 1816 and 1817, to trading posts at Sault Ste. Marie, Grand Island, and Ance-ke-we-naw. John Johnston, with a capital each year, of $40,000, managed this portion of their trade.
In 1818, the company sent outfits to cover the whole Ojibway country, within the limits of the United States. William Morrison, Roussain, Cotte, and others, as traders on salary, with an outfit amounting to $23,606, were sent to the Fond du Lac department, which included the Upper Mississippi country. These traders continued during the years 1819–20–21–22, with small increase of capital. The department of Lac du Flambeau was placed in charge of Bazil Beauleau and Charatte as traders, on salary, in 1818, with a capital of $5100; Hawley and Durant, with a capital of $5299.
For the Lac Coutereille department, the company outfitted John Baptiste Corbin, as a trader on salary, with goods to the amount of $5328. For the St. Croix district, Duchene acted as trader, on salary, for the company in 1818. Capital $3876.
In 1822, the capital of the Lac Coutereille and St. Croix departments amounted to $19,353, in charge of Duchene as trader. In 1818, the Ance department was placed in charge of John Holliday as trader on salary; his capital, or amount of outfit, averaged till 1822, $6000 per annum.
In 1822, the Astor Fur Company made a slight change in the system of their trade in the Ojibway country. The Fond du Lac department was given to Wm. Morrison on halves, and this arrangement continued to 1826, when Messrs William A. Aitkin and Roussain took charge with a share of one-sixth each. In 1820, Mr. Aitkin bought out Roussain, and for one year he had charge, with a share of one-third. In 1881, Mr. Aitkin took charge of this important department on halves with the Astor Company, and continued thus till 1834.
In 1824, Lyman M. Warren, after having traded in opposition to the American Fur Company for six years, in the Lac du Flambeau, Lac Coutereille and St. Croix departments, entered into an arrangement with them, and took charge as a partner, and under a salary of these three departments, making his depot at La Pointe. He continued with the same arrangement till the year 1834.
These items respecting the fur trade are here introduced to give the reader an idea of the importance of the trade amongst the Ojibways, and to introduce the names of the principal traders who, at this time, were remaining in the country. The Astor Fur Company followed the example of the Northwest Company in hiring as traders, men whom they found already in the country, holding influential positions among the Ojibways, and in some cases connected with them by marriage. Some of these men had traded in connection with the old Northwest Company, as William Morrison, Cotte, Roussain, Corbin, and others, while others of more recent date had traded as opposition traders, and distinguished themselves by their success. Among these may be mentioned Wm. A. Aitkin, Esq., who first came into the Chippeway country about 1815, a mere boy, and as a servant for a trader named John Drew. Intermarrying into an influential Indian family, he was soon enabled to trade on his own account, and he gradually increased his business till, in 1831, he takes charge of the important department of Fond du Lac, on halves, with John Jacob Astor. Mr. Aitkin’s name is linked with the history of the Upper Mississippi Ojibways for the last half century. He was one of the old pioneers of the northwest. He died in the fall of the year 1851, and lies buried at Aitkinsville (Swan River), on the banks of the Upper Mississippi.
Among others may be mentioned the names of Lyman M. and his brother Truman A. Warren. They first came into the Ojibway country from Vermont, in 1818. They hired the first year in charge of small outfits, to Charles Ermitinger, at the rate of $500 per annum. They soon took outfits on their own account, and traded with great success in the Lac Coutereille and Lac du Flambeau departments. In 1821, they married each a daughter of the old trader Michel Cadotte, and their trade increased to such a degree that in 1824, Lyman Warren made an apparently advantageous arrangement with the Astor Fur Company, becoming a partner thereof, besides receiving a handsome salary. Truman died in 1825, on board a vessel bound from Mackinaw to Detroit, from a severe cold caused by the extreme exposure incident to an Indian trader's life. He died much lamented by the Ojibways, who had already learned to love him for his many gentle and good traits of character.
Lyman M. Warren, the elder brother, located his permanent residence on La Pointe Island, and continued with slight interruptions and varied success, to trade with the Ojibways till his death in 1847. He lies buried at La Pointe, and his name may now well be mentioned among the early American pioneers of the northwest. Half a century hence, when the scenes of their wild adventures and hardships shall be covered with teeming towns and villages, these slight records of individuals who still live in the memory of the present generation, will be read with far greater interest than at the present day.
Samuel Ashmun, Daniel Dingley, Charles H. Oakes, and Patrick Conner, may be mentioned as prominent traders among the Ojibways during the early part of the nineteenth century. Some of these gentlemen commenced their career in opposition to the Astor Fur Company, but in accordance to the policy of this rich firm, they were soon bought out and engaged in its service.
When John Jacob Astor entered into arrangements with the British Fur Companies for the monopoly of the Ojibway trade within the United States territory, a new era may be said to have occurred in the fur trade. The old French Canadian traders so congenial to the Indians, who had remained in the country after the closing of the French supremacy, had all nearly died away, and disappeared from the stage of active life, and a new class of men, of far different temperaments, whose chief object was to amass fortunes, now made their appearance among the Ojibways. They were of the Anglo-Saxon race, and hailed from the land of the progressive and money-making "Yankee." To some degree the Indian ceased to find that true kindness, sympathy, charity, and respect for his sacred beliefs and rites, which he had always experienced from his French traders.
The Ojibways were more deserving of respect in those days, while living in their natural state, and under the full force of their primitive moral beliefs, than they are at the present day, after being degenerated by a close contact with an unprincipled frontier white population. The American fur traders, many of whom were descended from respectable New England families, did not consider their dignity lessened by forming marital alliances with the tribe, and the Ojibway women were of so much service to their husbands, they so easily assimilated themselves to their modes of life, and their affections were so strong, and their conduct so beyond reproach, that these alliances, generally first formed by the traders for present convenience, became cemented by the strongest ties of mutual affection. They kindly cherished their Indian wives, and for their sakes, as well as for the sake of children whom they begat, these traders were eventually induced to pass their lifetime in the Ojibway country. They soon forgot the money-making mania which first brought them into the country, and gradually imbibing the generous and hospitable qualities of the Indians, lived only to enjoy the present. They laid up no treasure for the future, and as a general fact, which redounds to the honor of this class of fur traders, they died poor. The money which has been made by the fur trade has been made with the sweat of their brows, but it has flowed into the coffers of such men as John Jacob Aster.
It is a fact worthy of notice, that the Anglo-Saxon race have mingled their blood with the Ojibways to a much greater extent than with any other tribe of the red race.
It reflects honor on this tribe, as it tends greatly to prove the common saying, that they are far ahead of other tribes in their social qualities, and general intelligence and morality. Of French and American extraction, the Ojibways number about five thousand persons of mixed blood, who are scattered throughout Canada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the British possessions. Many of the Ojibway mixed bloods are men of good education and high standing within their respective communities.
The American Board of Foreign Missions early established a mission school on the island of Mackinaw, to which most of the Ojibway traders sent their half-breed children. The school was sustained on the manual labor system, and great good was disseminated from it, which spread over the whole northwest country. Many of our most prominent half-breeds, now engaged as missionaries, or in mercantile pursuits, and women who figure in the best of civilized society, received their education at the Mackinaw mission. After its dissolution, such of the traders as were pecuniarily able, usually sent their children to receive an education in some of the Eastern States.
- ↑ A.D. 1852.