Thomas Scott's Body: and Other Essays on Early Manitoba History

271 Pages·2000·5.628 MB·English

by  J. M. Bumsted

THOMAS SCOTT'S BODY
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AND OTHER ESSAYS ON
EARLY MANITOBA HISTORY
J. M. BUMSTED
UNIVERSITY
OFMANITOBA
P-R-E-S-S
© J.M. Bumsted 2000
The University of Manitoba Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2
www.umanitoba.ca/uofmpress
Printed in Canada
Printed on partially recycled, acid-free paper.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, or stored in a database and retrieval system, without
the prior written permission of the University of Manitoba Press, or, in the case
of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from CANCOPY
(Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency),6 Adelaide Street East, Suite 900, Toronto,
Ontario M5C 1H6.
Front cover illustration: Winnipeg c. 1870
Design: Steven Rosenberg/Doowah Design
All photographs are reproduced courtesy of the Provincial Archives of Manitoba.
Canadian Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Bumstead, J.M., 1938-
Thomas Scott's body : essays on early Manitoba history
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-88755-645-0
1. Manitoba--History--19th century. 2. Red River Settlment
I. Title.
FC3372.B85 2000 971.27COO-920206-4
F1063.B85 2000
The University of Manitoba Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support
for its publication program provided by the Government of Canada through the
Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP); the Manitoba Arts
Council; and the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism.
To the memory of Lovell Clark—scholar, teacher, gentleman.
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Red River Chronology xi
Thomas Scott's Body 3
Trying to Describe the Buffalo: An Historiographic 11
Essay on the Red River Settlement
Another Look at the Founder: 37
Lord Selkirk as Political Economist
The Swiss and Red River, 1819-1826 57
Early Flooding in Red River, 1776-1861 77
The Colonial Office, Aboriginal Policy, 91
and Red River, 1847-1849
Another Look at the Buffalo Hunt 115
The Queen v. G.O. Corbett, 1863 127
The Red River Famine of 1868 149
John Christian Schultz and the Founding Of Manitoba
(written with the assistance of Wendy Owen) 163
Reporting the Resistance of 1869-1870 179
Why Shoot Thomas Scott? A Study in Historical Evidence 197
Notes 211
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PREFACE
For more than twenty years I have been researching and writing on
various aspects of the Red River Settlement. The fruits of my labour
have been a series of books dealing with the writings of Lord Selkirk,
with the Red River Resistance, and with the fur-trade wars of the early
years of the nineteenth century. In the course of the research, I have
come across a number of fascinating questions about Red River that
had to be investigated but which did not find a place in the books.
Some of these subjects have resulted in published journal articles over
the years, but many have remained buried in my notes in various stages
of completion. This collection of essays is an attempt to put all this
material together and make it available to readers interested in the his-
tory of the Red River Settlement.
Most of these essays are in one way or another exercises in revision-
ism of a somewhat old-fashioned variety. I will admit to being pro-
foundly suspicious of history that does not tell a story, especially be-
cause such non-narrative history encourages a level of analytical
abstractionism that in effect minimizes chronology and the necessary
respect for the historical documentation. One of the first things I learned
as a neophyte historian was the importance of chronological sequence.
Getting chronology wrong is a disaster if there is to be any cause and
effect in the process of history. I have also always had a healthy scepti-
cism about political correctness and current fashion in historical inter-
pretation. It has always seemed to me that it is extremely dangerous to
join any academic bandwagon, whether it be quantification or trendy
social history or postmodernism. Perhaps the biggest problem with