The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-07-28
The HAIE-BREEOS.
Something About Them and Their Great
Land Troubles.


ago. 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 claim
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 coded 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 Me-
Dougall TO Winnipeg to enter upon the
duties of Northumberland had Its
natural result, and the half-breeds,
under the lead of Louis Riel, resolved
to prevent his entrance into the settle
ment until some guarantee was re-
ceived 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 a writer,
the log-huts of the French half-breeds
lined both sides of the Red and Assina-
boine rivers for many miles up and
down the streams from Winnipeg. They
cultivated each man few acres over
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 quanti-
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 iu undisturbed 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 vears 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
and their homes gone. The arbitrary
course of Mr.. McDougall bore its legit-
innate fruit in Riers 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
Iirst place there were ], 400 900 acres OF
land set apart for the half-bre infants;
subsequent grants were made of land
and scrip to the half-breed heads OF
families. Afterward came an order in
council dividing the l, 400, 900 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 saws that children
were '.lent" from one family to anoth-
er, those already counted by the COM
missioners being sent abroad to be
scounted 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 affidavits had to be struck OH in
great numbers uniformly deposing that
the deponent was the father of such and
such an infant; that he was hopeleSsly
III or disabled that he was destitute and
unable TO keep ms cnlIQren; Ior sOIue
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 that
interest is accommodating. Some of them
are not remarkable for industry. While
there is the certainty of a few dollars
being paid out of court to them in few
weeks or months they will live in utter
idleness and exist on almost nothing
rather than work. When the interest
is due they show great activity. They
may be seen, hale, strong men, looking
for their lawyers to make them draft
affidavits for them, telling ia Juge' a.
the ''palaiS de Justice that they are al
sick unlo diving, that they can't support
their families, that they are destitute,
From this state of affairs it is evident
that the granting of lands to the Erenct