Sharp County record., 1885-05-21
THE HALF-BREEDS.
Something About Them and Their Great
Land Troubles.

The present uprising is due to the
agitation begun by Riel about a year
400. Riel was the leader in the Red
River barrier of 1869, and for his
completely in the troubles of that time
was banished for five years from the
Dominion. He returned to Canada last
wear and entered the Saskatchewan
country, when he advised the half
breeds as to the course to pursue to OBJ
tain recognition of their rights by the
Government The half-breeds clam
that patents should be issued for the
land occupied by them, and that each
man should have his homestead def
nitely defined and be allowed to use the
timber on his claims. The half-breedS,
in short, demand the same treatment as
is accorded other settlers.
Manitoba and the territory now the
scene of trouble was ceded to the
Dominion in 1869 by the Hudson Bay
Company, who until then had been
governors OF the country. The pre-
cipitation with which the Dominion
Government sought to assume posses
sion by sending Hon. William Nc
Dougall TO Winnipeg to enter upon the
duties of Lieutenant-Governor had Its
natural result, and the half-breeds,
under the lead of Louis Riel, resolved
to prevent his entrance into the settle
meat uutil some guarantee was re-
ceved for the rights of the inhabitants,
and the rebellion of 1869 was the result.
At the time of the transfer OF the ter
ritory to the Dominion, says q writer,
the log-huts of the French half-breeds
lined both sides of the Red and AsSna-
boine rivers for many miles up and
down the streams from Winn peg. They
cultivated each man few acres over a
large proportion of the broken land,
and for many years their large-wheeled
ox-carts were the only vehicles that
brought produce at all in large quantl-
ties to the settlements. Their fathers
had come to the Northwest many years
before as servants of the Hudson Bay
Company. They had married Indian
women, and many of the half-breeds,
at the time of the transfer, had been
living in undjsturbed possession OF their
little farms for thirty or forty years and
some for half century. Hitherto they
had known no one but the great corpo-
ration whose employees they were.
Rome was their church and the Hudson
Bay Company their State.
Suddenly word came up the river that
the land upon which they had lived
for so many years had been transferred
to the Dominion of Canada. Their In
dian blood took fright, and they pict-
ured their lands in the hands OF stran-
gers, themselves turned out of doors
aYsf th&sir 81 rFA FAAamss gaRe Tbe aEt5Btf3Ey alt5 y
innate fruit in Rie's rebellion The re-
bellion did not keep the strangers out,
but it had its effect in the half-breed
Land act, which was soon after passed
by the Dominion Parliament. In the
first place there were l, 100000 acres OF
land set apart for the half-breed infants;
subsequent grants were made of land
and scrip to the half-breed heads of
families. Afterward came an order in
council dividing the 100000 acres of
land among the infants per capita, and
granting 240 acres to each child Com
| missioners were sent about to take a
census of the families. and children
were at a premium; each child was
worth 240 acres of good land to its
parents, and tradition says that children
were ''lent" from one family to anoth-
er, those already counted by the COM
missioners being sent abroad to be
counted over again in the interest OF
another family further on.
Children ten, eleven and twelve years
of age were examined with the utmost
gravity, and the farce was again and
again enacted by obtaining their con-
sent to the sale of their lands. Strange
it was that these youngsters never with
held their consent. Lands were taken
out of chancery and sold with such
rapidity that to keep up WITH the times
printed at1idavts had to be struck off in
great numbers uniformly deposing that
tle deponent was the father of such and
such an infant; that he was hopelessly
i'll or disabled, that he was destitute AMI
unable to keep his children; for some
time after all effects of the Bale St Paul
floods had entirely passed away, injury
from the floods remained an invariable
clause in every affidavit that was in
tended to ''fetch" the Judge.
The custom still prevails very widely
among half-breeds in Manitoba of
swearing interest out of court The
money that remained in chancery on
the sale of infants lands is,not and has
not been allowed to lie and accumulate
interest. The half-breeds know tat
inte est is accumulating. Some of them
are not remarkable for industry While
there is the certainty of a few dollars