The Great Canadian North West - Its Past History, Present Condition And Glorious Prospects (1881) (Hardcover)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. The original Indian tribes of the North West: a description of the several great bands?The Swampy Settlement?The conduct of the Fur Companies towards the Indians?The good influence of the Hudson's Bay Co. over the red men. We will now retrace our steps once more in order to give some particulars concerning the Indian tribes of the North West. The original bands living to the East of the Eocky Mountains as far as Lake Winnipeg and Eed Eiver, within British territory, were as follows: Cree, Shonshwap, Yellow Knife, Assiniboine, Mountain, Dog Rib, Blood, Saulteaux, Strong Bow, Blackfeet, Takall, Inland, Beaver, Nahany, Copper, Carrier, Chipewan, Swampy. The population of the above in 1855 was, as near as it could be estimated, 47,000 souls, and from Lake Winnipeg and Eed Eiver to the north of Lake Superior, and along the St. Lawrence clear to the coast of Labrador, the number of Indians was calculated at over 17,000, so that the total Indian population in British North America east of the Rocky Mountains may be reckoned at 64,000 in the year 1855. Many of the above bands, however, have become extinct since then, or they have become merged into other tribes. The Saulteaux and Swampies were looked upon as intruders by the other Indians, the former having been brought into the country from the older provinces of Canada by the North West Company, and the latter having wandered into the settlement from the vicinity of Hudson's Bay. The earliest date that any Saulteaux found his wayinto the neighbourhood of the Eed Eiver country-was about the year 1780. The Swampies were first a docile, peaceful people, and were employed a great deal by the Scotch settlers to assist in farming operations and othe r work about the settlement. In 1832 Eev. Mr. Cochr...