It is pretty evident that Governor Archibald has by no means come to a bed of roses in coming to Manitoba.
— Robert Cunningham, Daily Telegraph, September 15, 1870
It is unfortunate that the inauguration of the new Province is attended by the Chinese puzzle which the Dominion Cabinet devised, and called the Manitoba Bill…. What between an Executive Council, a Legislative Assembly, a Legislative Council that may or may not be continued, and the locking up of 1,400,000 acres of land, the framers of the constitution of Manitoba have contrived to add as many difficulties as possible to the situation.
— Molyneux St. John, Globe, September 10, 1870
Three hours after Colonel Wolseley left Fort Garry on Sunday, September 10, St. John reported hearing a “strange, loud noise” coming from outside the south gates. Upon inspection, the noise turned out to be from a group of 40 “Saulteaux engaged in some type of noisy performance.” The men, women, and children were “painted and decorated with feathers, beads, thimbles, and similar articles.” When the group finished, it marched round the fort to the north gate and sought permission to enter and meet with Lieutenant Governor Archibald.
The delegation was led into the fort by a man on a small pony “who had eschewed his clothing in favour of brightly coloured paints.” Proceeding with obvious knowledge of the place, the leader headed for the small garden in front of the governor’s house, dismounted, and planted in the middle a brightly painted long staff decorated with hawks’ feathers and a “broad band of parti-coloured cloth.” The leader mustered the members of the troupe into their proper places — four men in the centre on drum duty, behind them a dozen or so, including five young boys. In between, the leader had the dancers and orators form up.
The painted leader inspected the group, gave a shout, and the drummers began a steady beat followed by the orators and their chants. As these settled into syncopation, the leader had the dancers begin their movements, marked off at intervals by a “synchronized series of shouts.” The troupe continued for 20 minutes or so until the paint on the dancers’ faces began to run and the musicians “were out of breath.” And then, of a sudden, “everybody stopped,” gave a “yell of self-congratulation,” sat down, and smoked their pipes.
A few minutes later, the leader had the drummers drumming and the dancers dancing again, this time as a prelude to an oratory series. Speaker followed speaker, with frequent interruptions of a loud “Ho,” which St. John said was “the Indian” for “Hear, Hear.” While there were a lot of them, the length of the speeches was made short by all the “strenuous dancing.” St. John was inspired: “If members of some parliaments could be made to perform a mazurka or waltz upon the floor of the house, continuing until the speaker ordered them to stop, how much might be spared to those who are compelled to read the debates?” Throughout the ceremony, the troupe leader walked and clapped and shouted, encouraging everyone to have their best say.
With some predetermined gesture or shout unknown to the observers, the group let out a collective “Ho!” and the formal discussions with Archibald — the grand powwow — began. St. John provided no coverage, except to note “sometime later” that the lieutenant governor brought the meeting to a close with the presentation of “some tobacco, molasses, and flour.”
“Establishing friendly relations” with Indigenous Peoples was just one piece of the “Chinese puzzle” the Dominion had tasked Archibald with solving. According to the instructions of John Young, the Canadian governor general, Archibald was to “open communications” with First Nations between Thunder Bay and Fort Garry to “secure year-round passage” and “facilitate settlement” on those lands. He was also tasked with figuring out how to administer section 31 of the Manitoba Act, which granted 1.4 million acres to Métis residents. St. John said that uncertainty over property title was the key obstacle holding back “waves of settlers anxious to settle in the province.” According to him, “No one can take up land until this question is settled, for no one knows what land will be given away, and no one will run the risk of being turned off his claim.”
In the North-West Territories, Archibald was responsible for laying the groundwork for future treaty-making. His tasks there included: describing “the state of Indian Tribes now in the territories; their numbers, wants, and claims”; developing recommendations for their protection and improvement of condition; and figuring out the best method (“by treaty or otherwise”) for removing “any obstructions that may be presented to the flow of population into the fertile lands that lie between Manitoba and the Rocky Mountains.”
Another piece of Archibald’s Chinese puzzle was unravelling the Manitoba Act into some semblance of functional government. Archibald’s first challenge here was appointing an Executive Council (“the governor cannot constitutionally act without advisers”) from a candidate pool drained shallow by the effective disqualification of most capable individuals. St. John said that most people with direct experience in government — either under the Hudson’s Bay or the Provisional Government — were regarded by “large sections of the people with distrust” and their appointment would likely “alienate the confidence and support of a large body.” On top of this, Archibald had to administer a census, “parcel out the country into electoral districts,” and hold elections so “the voice of the country” could be heard. Manitobans didn’t wait for such constitutional niceties to voice their opinions on how Archibald and the new government should proceed.
Since returning from the second levee in St. Boniface on September 7, Archibald was besieged by a steady stream of advice on priorities for the new government. Cunningham said that the Anglican bishop, the Right Reverend Robert Machray, told Archibald they had worked hard to develop a network of missions throughout the province and territories and had made “considerable bodies of Indian converts in connection with them.” This gave the Anglican Church “a deep interest in the future of these tribes.” The bishop “ventured to express hope” that Archibald’s government would take measures “at the earliest convenience” for “entirely preventing the carrying of intoxicating liquors into the interior for traffic with the Indians.” In the past, free-flowing liquor had proven to be “a fruitful source of misery and degradation for that people, and a chief obstacle in the way of missionary exertion.”
According to St. John, members of St. James parish claimed “no wish to dictate any policy” but were clear with Archibald that they expected the “English-speaking portion of the province — the larger and more influential portion, they said — to be fully and fairly represented in the new government.” They were also clear about their “express wish” for a “full and impartial investigation to be made into the disastrous proceedings of the past few months” during which many of “Her Majesty’s loyal subjects were seized and imprisoned, the life of one of them cruelly taken, and a large amount of property stolen and made away with.”
On Monday, September 12, Archibald met parishioners from St. John’s — “the Canadians in the settlement” — including John Schultz. The meeting was fuelled with “the feeling of indignation that has swept over the whole settlement,” as Cunningham reported. The delegation told Archibald that it was they who had personally been “subjected to every species of indignity, imprisonment, and losses by men who had no cause of justification; whose sole aim was plunder and indiscriminate robbery; [and] whose political and social influence were of the lost type.” They expressed “alarm and indignation” that the “very murderers of the martyr Scott have been released without even the semblance of inquiry” and no steps had yet been taken by either Wolseley or Archibald to “bring to punishment the parties implicated in these treasonable practices.” “Pretty stiff kind of stuff,” wrote Cunningham. St. John said that Archibald responded by “expressing his determination to preserve order and enforce a compliance with the law” and told Schultz specifically “that on him depended much whether peace and harmony could not be restored.”
About the time the parishioners from St. John’s were meeting with Archibald on September 12, news reached Fort Garry of a smallpox outbreak at Carleton House in the future Province of Saskatchewan. According to St. John, “An Indian woman, sick with the smallpox, went into the fort, and numbers of the people residing there caught the disease.” The Plains and Woods Cree encamped there vacated “in great fear, and the [Hudson’s Bay] Company’s hunter being ill the supply of buffalo meat will not be forthcoming, and great privation is expected.” St. John said there were also reports of an outbreak at Portage la Prairie, “a place distance about 60 miles from here, and as there are many Indian camps in the neighbourhood of this place, some little alarm has been created.” The Anishinabe in and around Winnipeg were prompted to ask for vaccinations “and for vaccine matter to carry to their friends.” Cunningham added a week later that “the greatest anxiety” exists in the settlement regarding the smallpox epidemic. He had heard reports that it was “spreading with fearful rapidity and carrying off the Indians by the thousands,” and said the authorities had stopped all traffic between the infected localities and those not infected and that American authorities had “stopped the transport of furs.”
Prompted in part by news of the outbreaks, Archibald rode out to Indian Mission at St. Peter’s on September 13 to meet with Chief Henry Prince and about 200 of his Saulteaux. Owing to heavy rains, the meeting was held in the parish school.
Through an interpreter, St. John said that Archibald opened the proceedings by thanking Prince and his people for their loyalty to the Great Mother during the recent troubles and then explained his authority as lieutenant governor of Manitoba and the North-West Territories. On the question of settling their land claims, Archibald told Prince that these would be “duly considered at a later period” in light of the more pressing matters at hand, namely the smallpox outbreak. Archibald encouraged Prince to take his people and “make a speedy departure to their hunting grounds” to avoid catching the disease. To that end, he encouraged the chief to tell his people not to visit liquor stores in town “visited by Indians from Portage la Prairie,” and for that matter “against the admission of liquor among them at all.”
Prince began his reply by saying how glad he was to see the lieutenant governor, whose “appearance, manner, et cetera, assured him that the real representative of the Queen had at length arrived.” He assured Archibald that his people were “most loyal” and they “entirely disapproved” of the bad conduct of the men behind the “recent unpleasantness in the settlement.” Prince agreed about the “pernicious influence of liquor” and supported Archibald’s recommendation that none be sold in their countryside. The chief also agreed that his people should soon leave for their hunting grounds but said it would be useless, since they had no ammunition: they were, in fact, “the poorest people in the territory” despite all the talk about all the land that supposedly belonged to them.
Archibald told Prince he would leave orders at Lower Fort Garry on his way back “for certain quantity of ammunition to be placed at Mr. Prince’s disposal.” At this point, the meeting concluded and Archibald and his party returned to Fort Garry — only to find it in chaos once more.