Miles Macdonell

Miles Macdonell
MacDonell
Born	c. 1767 Inverness-shire, Scotland
Died	1828-06-28 Pointe-Fortune, Upper Canada
Occupation	Army officer; colonial administrator; first governor of Assiniboia
Father	John McDonell of Scothouse
Partner	Catherine McDonell of Collachie Isabella McDonell of Morar Nancy Macdonell

Miles Macdonell (also MacDonell; c. 1767 – (1828-06-28)28 June 1828) was a Scottish-born army officer and colonial administrator who served as the first governor of Assiniboia, appointed by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1811 to oversee Lord Selkirk's planned Red River Settlement.

Early life and military service

Macdonell was born around 1767 in Inverness-shire, Scotland, into a prominent Catholic family with a long military tradition. His father, John McDonell of Scothouse (known as "Spanish John"), had fought with Spanish forces in the 1740s before joining Butler's Rangers during the American Revolution. In 1773, the family emigrated to North America at the invitation of Sir William Johnson, settling with approximately 600 Macdonell clan members in New York's Mohawk Valley.

The Macdonells supported the Crown during the American Revolution. Miles's father eventually settled at St Andrews in what is now Stormont County, Ontario, in 1783. Miles entered military service early, receiving an ensign's commission in the King's Royal Regiment of New York in 1782, serving until the regiment's reduction in 1784. He may have returned to Scotland, where he married Isabella McDonell of Morar. By 1791 the couple were farming in Osnabruck Township, Upper Canada.

Macdonell received a lieutenant's commission in the Royal Canadian Volunteer Regiment in 1794. His first wife died that year, leaving him with two sons and two daughters. He was promoted to captain in 1796. In 1798 he married his second cousin Catherine McDonell of Collachie, sister of Angus and Alexander McDonell of Collachie; she died the following year without children. He subsequently married Nancy Macdonell, sister of Alexander Macdonell (Greenfield) and John Macdonell (Greenfield).

From 1800 to 1802, Macdonell was stationed at Fort George at Niagara-on-the-Lake. When his regiment disbanded in 1802 he returned to farming. He sought election to the House of Assembly for Glengarry but was unsuccessful. Throughout the early 1800s he petitioned for military and civil appointments, writing in 1804 that "Mere farming" would "hardly support my family in the manner I would wish." In 1807 he was appointed registrar of the Court of Probate and sheriff of the Home District, on the recommendation of his cousin Alexander McDonell, vicar general of Upper Canada.

Governor of Assiniboia

Macdonell first met Lord Selkirk in Osnabruck Township in January 1804. Selkirk found him personable and capable, and thereafter worked to secure him a suitable position. Beginning in 1808, Selkirk and his allies acquired shares in the Hudson's Bay Company with the aim of reorganizing its operations and establishing an agricultural colony at Red River. In June 1811, Macdonell received his commission as first governor of Assiniboia from the HBC's deputy governor, Joseph Berens. The appointment offered a regular salary, a large land grant in the northwest, and shares in a joint-stock company — the prospect of an end to his chronic indebtedness.

The North West Company immediately recognized the colony as a threat to its fur-trade operations, since the Selkirk grant lay across the major river routes connecting the fur country to the pemmican-producing plains. NWC partner Simon McGillivray warned in April 1812 that Selkirk "must be driven to abandon it, for his success would strike at the very existence of our Trade."

Macdonell's first task was to meet recruits at Stornoway, Scotland, accompanied by William Hillier. More than 100 men had been waiting since early June under inadequate conditions. An article in the Inverness Journal, attributed to the NWC's McGillivray, warned recruits of harsh conditions and hostile Indigenous peoples. Macdonell handled the situation poorly — he attempted to reduce wages promised to workers from Glasgow and reneged on commitments made to other recruits. Customs delays pushed departure to 26 July 1811, the latest departure for Hudson Bay recorded up to that time. The voyage lasted 61 days — the longest on record — arriving 24 September. The lateness of the season meant the men wintered at York Factory in log huts on the Nelson River.

The party reached the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers on 30 August 1812. Macdonell initially cultivated cordial relations with the NWC. He invited Nor'Westers, Métis, and Indigenous peoples to a ceremony on 4 September at which Selkirk's title to the colony was proclaimed. Arriving too late to harvest or build adequate shelter, Macdonell sent most of his men south to winter near the HBC post at Pembina (present-day North Dakota), within the Selkirk grant and close to buffalo herds. He remained to lay out Fort Douglas and clear land, then joined his party at Pembina, where he built Fort Daer.

Food scarcity became the dominant problem throughout the settlement's early years. The winter of 1812–13 was especially difficult, and by spring shortages had deepened. NWC partner John Dugald Cameron fanned discontent among settlers and worked to draw local employees away from the colony. In April 1813, Macdonell — convinced that his own brother-in-law Alexander Macdonell (Greenfield) had turned against him — ordered all contact with the NWC to cease.

The Pemmican Proclamation

On 8 January 1814, Macdonell issued a proclamation prohibiting the export of provisions of any kind from within Assiniboia without a special licence from the governor. He intended the measure to secure food supplies for the settlers. For the Nor'Westers and the Métis who supplied them with pemmican, the "pemmican proclamation" amounted to an open declaration of war. Armed constables and artillery were stationed along the Red River to intercept and confiscate pemmican. The NWC constructed a blockhouse to challenge river control, and violent confrontation seemed imminent before a compromise was reached in mid-June under which Macdonell returned seized pemmican stocks in exchange for promised supplies and a ceasefire.

By July 1814, worn down by the conflict, by Lord Selkirk's criticism of his conduct and accounts, and by what he considered inadequate support from HBC superintendent William Auld, Macdonell wrote to Selkirk asking him to send a replacement. He departed for York Factory on 25 July and appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown on arrival in late August. He returned to the colony in October 1814 in an unstable condition to find that John Spencer, the colony's sheriff, had been arrested by the NWC.

Surrender and aftermath

During the winter and spring of 1815, the colony was subjected to continuous harassment by Métis raiders and NWC intrigues. NWC partner Duncan Cameron challenged the legality of the Selkirk land grant, raised fears of Indigenous attacks, and offered free passage to Upper Canada; more than forty settlers accepted and abandoned the colony. On 17 June 1815, Macdonell surrendered himself to NWC representatives in exchange for a promise that the remaining settlers would not be harmed. On 25 June, Peter Fidler, the HBC surveyor temporarily in command, surrendered the colony and led settlers north to Jack River House. Macdonell was taken to Montreal by the Nor'Westers to stand trial for the "illegal" confiscation of pemmican; he was never brought to trial.

Fort William and the Seven Oaks crisis

In spring 1816, Macdonell set out to return to Red River. At Lake Winnipeg he learned that the colony had again been overrun, and he hurried south to inform Lord Selkirk, meeting him at Sault Ste Marie with news that Robert Semple and approximately twenty men had been killed at Seven Oaks (present-day Winnipeg) on 19 June 1816.

Macdonell accompanied Selkirk to Fort William (present-day Thunder Bay, Ontario), where on 13 August 1816 they seized the North West Company's principal inland depot. William McGillivray and other NWC partners were arrested on charges of aiding, abetting, and instigating the murders at Red River, and were dispatched to York (Toronto) for trial. The NWC's papers and furs were seized.

In October 1816, acting on behalf of NWC partner Daniel McKenzie, Macdonell sent letters to Roderick McKenzie of the NWC's Nipigon department urging wintering partners to break with Montreal and redirect their furs through Hudson Bay. In mid-December, Macdonell and members of the De Meuron Regiment departed Rainy Lake. On 10 January 1817 they recaptured Fort Douglas from the NWC. Macdonell served briefly as governor again before travelling to Montreal to appear at the legal proceedings; he never returned to the northwest.

Later life

Macdonell spent his remaining years semi-retired on his Osnabruck Township farm. He devoted much of this time to pursuing claims against the Selkirk estate for the salary, land grant, and company shares he believed he had been promised — £300 a year, 50,000 acres of land, and shares in the joint-stock company. These efforts were unsuccessful. Unable to realize value from his Upper Canada landholdings or recover the sums he felt were owed him, he remained in debt throughout his life.

He died on 28 June 1828 at Pointe-Fortune, Upper Canada, and was buried at Rigaud in Lower Canada. Historians have generally agreed that, while the difficulties facing the Red River colony were inherent in its position in the midst of fur-trade competition, Macdonell must bear a share of the responsibility for its initial failure — particularly his inability to inspire loyalty among his own people, his obstinacy, and his poor judgment in issuing the pemmican proclamation at a time when the colony was too weak to defend itself.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography