prophet, and urged to make war on the whites, and occasional local outbreaks followed. THE FORT MIMS MASSACRE Early in 1813, becoming alarmed at the threatening attitude of the Indians, 550 men, women and children-white, Indian, mixed bloods and negro slavesassembled at the plantation of Samuel Mims, near the confluence of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, and built a palisaded fort where they became overconfident of their security, as the spring and early summer had passed without manifestations of hostility; but on August 30, 1813, as the dinner bell sounded at noon, 1,000 savages who had been concealed in a nearby ravine, rushed to the fort with terrifying yells and effected an entrance before the gates could be closed. The well-organized settlers made strong resistance as the battle raged within that small inclosure, from noon until 5 P. M., but all fell except twelve who cut their way through and escaped, and the negroes who were saved for slaves. Not a white woman or child escaped. Four hundred of the inmates lay dead when the battle closed, and about an equal number of Creek warriors fell in the furious fighting. The massacre aroused the whites of the southwest and Maj.-Gen. Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, who was born in North Carolina, and a Revolutionary soldier at the age of fourteen, bred in an atmosphere of border warfare, and educated in its bitter school, was sent to punish the Indians. The war was soon over, the Indians paying dearly for their bloody work. THE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR In the spring of 1817 the Creeks, who had then become known as Seminoles, again began a war on the whites which through the rough and vigorous campaigning of General Jackson resulted in the cession of Florida to the United States by Spain in 1819. THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR This war, commencing in 1835, and lasting until 1842, was begun for the purpose of forcibly removing the Indians from lands which they had ceded to the United States and their removal to other lands. The cost in money was nearly seventy million dollars; 61,000 soldiers were employed and the losses, principally from disease, never fully ascertained, were frightful, but it gave the United States a trained nucleus for the army of occupation in Mexico, which so quickly followed and added lustre to American arms, which the Seminole wars failed to bring. CONFLICTS DUE TO THE FUR TRADE The early history and conflicts in all the colonies arose from the fur trade, as between the New York people and the five nations of Indians in Central New York, also between the Dutch and English and the French and English. It led the Russians down our western coast and to contest there till the gold discovery overcame it. The fur trade was the cause of the Oregon question in later years. It was the universal impulse and cause of struggle. THE BUFFALO AND BEAVER It is estimated that in 1787 there were ninety millions of buffalo in the present area of the United States proper. There were none north of the St. Lawrence or northeast of the great lakes, but the abundance continued northward from the great plains far into Canada. Indeed the vast herds swarmed from the plains nearer the Mississippi westward to the Rocky Mountains; the abundance being greatest in our territorial days and to preserve the great hunting grounds from the Missouri to the Big Horn region and from the Bear Paw Mountains, down to and beyond the Arkansas was the cause of the hostility and frequent Indian uprisings, including the Sitting Bull wars. The wealth springing from the fur trade was enormous. The great wealth of the times was concentrated from that source. This trade extended clear across the continent to the Pacific, and led to the successive discoveries of gold, but did not lead settlement like the fur trade which founded the towns and trading posts. We are surprised at the numbers of the buffalo, but the beavers were found in every state in the Union, and are yet to a limited extent. No other wild or fur bearing animal was so universal. A considerable fur trade is yet carried on in the older northwestern and western states. In 1890 to 1895, North Dakota trappers had nearly extinguished the beaver of that whole area. Desiring to restore them, a wise Legislature enacted a law for their preservation, with a heavy penalty attached. The result was satisfactory. United States surveyors in remote regions found thriving colonies of those remarkable rodents in 1898, repopulating many choice streams in happy security. CHAPTER II OCCUPIED FOR INDIAN TRADE THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY-RUPERT'S LAND-THE NORTH-WEST AND X. Y. COMPANIES ALEXANDER HENRY'S RED RIVER BRIGADE-THE EMBARKATION-THE INDIAN CONTINGENT-THE INDIAN HUNTING GROUNDS, ABOUNDING IN BEARS, BEAVERS AND BUFFALO TERRORIZED BY THE SIOUX-THE PARK RIVER POSTSTORY OF THE BRITISH FLAG-THE VICIOUS ELEMENT OF LIQUOR-SACRIFICE AND THANKSGIVING AN ATTEMPT AT BRIBERY-HUNTERS AND THE SPOILS-CONTRACTS WITH THE LORDS OF THE FORESTS-EARLY TRADING POSTS-PEMBINA POST ESTABLISHED. "For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong, -James Russell Lowell. THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY-RUPERT'S LAND In 1609 Henry Hudson, a navigator of English birth, sailing under the flag of the Dutch West Indies, ascended the stream now known as Hudson River, discovered by Giovanni de Verrazano in 1524. The next year he explored Hudson Bay, and perished on the voyage. In 1667, the Duke of York and Prince Rupert formed a company in England for the exploration of Hudson Bay with a view to trade, and two vessels were dispatched for the purpose; one of them the Nonsuch Ketch, commanded by Capt. Zachariah Gillam of Boston, reaching Hudson Bay in September of the following year. The winter was spent in that region at Fort Charles. They returned to Boston, and thence to London in 1669, and proceeded to organize the Hudson's Bay Company, which was chartered by Charles II, May 2, 1670, the king himself, his brother the Duke of York, and his nephew Prince Rupert, leading a long list of distinguished stockholders. They were granted exclusive privileges on Hudson Bay and along the streams flowing into the bay and their tributaries, embracing a vast region which came to be known as Rupert's Land, including the Red River country and the streams tributary to the Red River, until restricted by the location of the international boundary after the Revolutionary war. The Hudson's Bay Company had full power to own, occupy, govern, sell and convey, and were authorized to maintain armies and levy war, if necessary for defense, but for more than one hundred years they had been content to con Vol. I-2 |