Red River, in the 1830s, was a mix of Scottish farmers, Indians, traders, mixed-bloods of Scottish-Indian origin and Metis of French-Indian origin. The colony was a challenge to missionaries who set out to create an English rural parish at the forks of the Red and Assibiboine, believed and taught that indolence - the unchristian nomadic lifestyle of the buffalo hunt - must be replaced by the work of the Lord: agriculture. The traditional fur-trade marriage must be replaced by the Christian marriage which, they insisted, was 'the parent not the child of society'; the Christian marriage, however, could never correct the disastrous dilution of the Britannic race by Indian blood. In the 'strife of blood' that followed, Red River became a society in which white looked down on mixed-blood, Catholic suspected Protestant, Halfbreed distrusted Metis and clergy opposed the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company. The end result was the 'civil war' of 1869.
Record details
ISBN:0920486509 (pbk.) :
ISBN:0920486487 (bound) :
ISBN:9780920486504 (pbk.) :
ISBN:9780920486481 (bound) :
Physical Description:vii, 276 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm. print
Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-267) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
The Red River setting -- A question of leadership -- The first years -- A little Britain in the wilderness -- Free trade and social fragmentation -- A strife of blood -- The Rev. G. O. Corbett and the uprising of the people -- The halfbreeds and the Riel protest -- The Metis and the Riel protest -- Conclusion.
Book
