Miles MacDonell ( – 28 June 1828) was the first governor of the

Red River Colony The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assinboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hudson's Bay ...

(or,

Assiniboia Assiniboia District refers to two historical districts of Canada's Northwest Territories. The name is taken from the Assiniboine First Nation. Historical usage ''For more information on the history of the provisional districts, see also Distri ...

), a 19th-century Scottish settlement located in present-day

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

and

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, So ...

. Miles Macdonell Collegiate, opened in 1952, in

Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

, was named in his honour.

Biography

He was born in Inverness,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, around 1767. In 1773, his father, Colonel John MacDonell of Scothouse (Spanish John),

Inverness-shire Inverness-shire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Nis) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Covering much of the Highlands and Outer Hebrides, it is Scotland's largest county, though one of the smallest in popula ...

, and three of his cousins chartered the

Pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

and brought over five hundred of their families and friends, at the invitation of Sir William Johnson, and settled at Caughnawaga, on the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...

, in the

Province of New York The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the U ...

. Miles, who showed military tendencies at an early age, was appointed

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in the

King's Royal Regiment of New York The King's Royal Regiment of New York, also known as Johnson's Royal Regiment of New York, King's Royal Regiment, King's Royal Yorkers, and Royal Greens, were one of the first Loyalist regiments, raised on June 19, 1776, in British Canada, duri ...

in 1792, lieutenant in the Royal Canadian volunteers in 1794, and captain in the same corps in 1796. At the request of Lord Selkirk, he came to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1803, and was induced by that nobleman to assume the post of governor of Selkirk's planned colony on the Red River in the Northwest territory. Selkirk, a shareholder in the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

, had bought 300,000 km² (116,000 mi²) of land in the Red River Valley from the company in order to provide a home in the New World for destitute Scots and to deny the land to Hudson's Bay's commercial rival, the North West Company. Macdonell collected the first body of colonists, composed principally of evicted

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from the Sutherland estates, in 1812. He sailed from Stornoway for the colony in 1811. The group wintered at

York Factory York Factory was a settlement and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) factory (trading post) located on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay in northeastern Manitoba, Canada, at the mouth of the Hayes River, approximately south-southeast of Churchill. ...

, and reached the Red River the following August. On his arrival, he was at once met with opposition from the agents of the North West Company, whose headquarters were at

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

. On 11 June 1815, representatives of the North West Company attacked and fired upon the colonists, and demanded the surrender of Governor Macdonell, who, to avoid the loss of blood, gave himself up voluntarily. He was taken to Montreal as a prisoner, and charges were laid against him by his enemies, but his case was not tried. During his ten or twelve years' connection with the

, he was its leading spirit and took an active and decided part in the feuds of the Hudson's Bay Company and North West trading companies, after which he returned to his farm at Osnabruck,

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...

. Historians have generally agreed that, despite the inherent difficulties of establishing a colony at the Red River amid the fierce competition between the fur-trading companies, Macdonell must bear some of the responsibility for the colony’s initial failure. They have focused upon his character faults, his inability to inspire trust and loyalty among his people, his obstinacy, his arrogance, his unaccommodating temper, and his lack of staying power. It was these flaws, as well as his lack of shrewdness and diplomatic skill, that led to his failures. Either he never understood his situation, or worse, refused to come to grips with it. Nowhere is this better shown than in the decision to issue the Pemmican Proclamation. It was promulgated at a time when the colony was too weak to defend itself and it offered the NWC excellent propaganda against both the HBC and Lord Selkirk. His behaviour during those years suggests that he saw the colony as entirely separate from the fur trade but his point of view does not excuse an insensitivity that blinded him to the provocative nature of his actions. Through a similar blindness he alienated his own people, seeking out the company of "gentlemen" in preference to theirs. In later years, he lived at the residence of his brother John at

Pointe-Fortune Pointe-Fortune () is a village municipality in southwestern Quebec, Canada, on the Ottawa River (Rivière des Outaouais) in Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality, northwest of Montreal. The population at the 2021 Census was 582. H ...

on the Ottawa River where he died in 1828.

References

External links

Miles MacDonell CollegiateMiles MacDonell Collegiate Alumni Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonell, Miles Miles Macdonell 1767 births Year of birth uncertain 1828 deaths Canadian fur traders People of Rupert's Land People from Inverness Scottish emigrants to pre-Confederation Ontario Immigrants to Upper Canada People of the Red River Rebellion Red River Colony Pemmican War