History of New Brunswick Part 9

The attempts that have been made to civilize them by educating their children have been equally unsuccessful. The Romish religion appears to be the most congenial to them, as well as to the French. This arises in a great measure from its outward pomp and external forms imposing on the uncultivated mind. They yield an implicit obedience to the Romish Missionaries, who instruct them in religion, regulate their marriages, and censure or approve their conduct, and so successful have been their endeavours, that but few depredations are committed by the Indians on property, although they are frequently reduced to the most extreme want.--The Baron LA HOUTAN, who has enumerated forty-nine Nations of Indians in Canada, and Acadia, names the following Tribes as the original inhabitants of Nova-Scotia:--The Abenakie, Micmac, Canabus, Mahingans, Openangans, Socc.o.kis, and Etechemins, from whom our present Indians are descended. As the customs, manners, and dress, of the Indians have been often described, I shall not therefore swell this article by repeating old stories. Besides the conical cap, the blanket, leggins, and moccasins, worn by all the tribes; the women among the New-Brunswick Indians frequently wear a round hat, a shawl, and short clothes, resembling the short gown and petticoat worn by the French and Dutch women. The Indian language is bold and figurative, abounding in hyperbolical expressions, and is said to be susceptible of much elegance. To give the reader some notion of the manner in which these people conduct their conferences with each other, and with Europeans, I shall subjoin an extract of a conference, or talk, held at Quebec, with the Governor General of Canada, during the last American War.

QUEBEC, 17TH MARCH, 1814.

Thursday having been appointed for holding the Council, the Chiefs and Warriors a.s.sembled, and after shaking hands with His Excellency, as before, NEWASH accompanied by his Interpreter, again presented himself in the middle of the room, and p.r.o.nounced the following Speech, or talk.

SPEECH OF NEWASH.

"Father--Listen.--You will hear from me truth. It is the same as what the Chiefs and Warriors now here have to say.

"Father--Listen.--Open your ears to your children, to your red children that are in the west. They are all of one mind: although they are so far off and scattered on different lands, they hear what I am now saying.

"Father--Listen.--You have told us by the talk of your Warriors, twice Father, that we were to fight on the flanks and in the rear of your Warriors, but we have always gone in front Father; and that it is in this way we have lost so many of our young Warriors, our women and children.

"Father--Listen.--The Americans have said they would kill you first Father, and then destroy your red children; but when you sent us the hatchet we took hold of it Father and made use of it Father, as you know.

"Father--Listen.--Your red children want back their old boundary lines, that they may have the lands which belong to them, and this Father when the war began, you promised to get for them.

"Father--Listen.--Your red children have suffered a great deal, they are sad, indeed they are pitiful, they want your a.s.sistance Father. They want arms for their Warriors, and clothes for their women and children. You do not know the number of your red children Father. There are many who never yet received any arms or clothing.

It is necessary at present, Father, to send more than you formerly did.

"Father--Listen.--At the beginning of the war you promised us when the Americans would put their hand forward you would draw yours back. Now Father we request when the Americans put their hand out, (as we hear they mean to do) knock it away Father, and the second time when they put out their hand, draw your sword.--If not Father, the Americans will laugh at us, and say our Great Father, who is beyond the Great Lake is a coward Father.

"Father--Listen.--The Americans are taking our lands from us every day, they have no hearts, Father, they have no pity for us. They want to drive us beyond the setting sun. But Father, we hope, although we are few, and are here as it were upon a little Island, our Great and Mighty Father, who lives beyond the Great Lake, will not forsake us in our distress, but will continue to remember his faithful red children.

"This is all I have to say. This is from our Chiefs and Warriors, this is all they have to say."

NEWASH then advanced to His Excellency, and presented him with the Black Wampum and b.l.o.o.d.y Belt.

His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief then made the Chiefs and Warriors the following answer to the talks or speeches that had been addressed to him in their behalf.

"My Children.--I thank the Great Spirit for his protection of you on your long journey, and I rejoice to meet you at Quebec, the Great Council Fire on this side the Great Lake.

"My Children.--You have freely and forcibly spoken your sentiments, and I am happy to have heard from your own mouths, your thoughts, as I know on these occasions you always speak the truth. I am therefore delighted to hear my red children declare their attachment to the King our Great Father, beyond the Great Lake, and to myself and my Warriors.

"My Children.--I have opened my ears and listened with attention to what you have said. My heart was sore when I heard of the death of a great warrior. It still bleeds when I think of his loss, and the misfortunes my children have met with during the war, in the death of many a wise chief and brave warrior, and some of your women and children who are gone to see the Great Spirit, before whom we must all one day appear.

"My Children.--I thank the Great Spirit that I see you in my own dwelling, and converse with you face to face. Listen to my words--they are the words of truth. You have always heard this from my chiefs, and I now repeat them. We have taken each other by the hand and fought together. Our interests are the same--we must still continue to fight together: for the King, our great father, considers you as his children, and will not forget you or your interests at a peace. But to preserve what we hold, and recover from the enemy what belongs to us, we must make great exertions; and I rely on your courage, with the a.s.sistance of my chiefs and warriors, to drive the big knives from our land the ensuing summer.

"My Children.--Our great father will give us new warriors from the other side of the great water, who will join with you in attacking the enemy, and will soon open the great road to your country, by which you used to receive your supplies, and which the enemy having stopped, has caused the distress and scarcity of goods you complain of: for I have never been in want of goods for you, but could not send them.

"My Children.--Our success in the war must depend on our bravery and your young men listening to the advice of their chiefs--this you must always bear in mind. I recommend to you to open your ears when my chiefs speak to you, for they only wish for your good. Tell your brother warriors whom I may not see, that these are my words; and that though they are to destroy their enemies in battle, they must spare and shew mercy to women and children, and all prisoners.

"My Children.--I have but one thing more to recommend to you, which you will not forget--you know that the only success that the enemy gained over us, last season, was owing to the want of provisions.

There was much waste at Amherstberg--the consequence was that you and my warriors were forced to retreat. In future you must be careful of provisions, and use only what may be necessary; they are the same as powder and ball, we cannot destroy our enemies without them.

"My Children.--You will not forget what I have said to you. This is my parole to the nations. (Here the black wampum is presented to NEWASH.) Let them know what I have said. Tell them they shall not be forgotten by their great father nor by me.--Take courage my children--be strong--and may the Great Spirit preserve you in the day of battle." (Here the b.l.o.o.d.y belt is presented.)

After the interpreter had presented the belt to NEWASH, he with several of the chiefs chaunted parts of the war song:

"Under the Cloud Island With this belt I go; By this my heart is strong, I shall have courage to die by the foe.

"Now I take hold of this belt, Light as birds fly in the air; Strong is my heart, and round I go, Seeking to die by the foe."

While this song was chaunting, several short speeches were made by the Indians. One of them said--"There is our father--here is the belt--there you are--the Great Spirit presides--now we are one, and none can flinch--if we stand by our father, he will stand by us. Our path is in the west--the war shall brighten there--the sky begins to clear--the light falls on our lands, and soon again shall our women and children be on them. You Saulks--you Chippeways, and all you of different nations, we are all one. We will fight them with our father, and never cease to fight while we have life, or until we have got back our lands."

The names of twelve Indian chiefs, inhabiting the coast of Acadia at the time the French peasants submitted to the British Government, will be found in the appendix to this work.

Lands in New-Brunswick are held in fee simple or free socage. The grants are immediately from the Crown. The subjoined table will shew the fees on single Grants, or where a number of Grantees are included in one patent, at present taken at the several offices.

TABLE OF FEES ON GRANTS.

+---+-------+-------+-----+---------+---------+------+-----+--------+ | |G | | | | | | | | | |o | | | | | | | | | |v | S | | | | | | | | N |e | e | | | | |C | | | u |r | c | | | p | |o | | | m |n | ? | | A |R u | S |m | | | b |o | y | | t |e r | u |m | | | e |r t | | | t |c c | r |i | | | r | h | a | | o |e h | v |s C | | | |i e o| n | | r |i i a | e |s r | | | o |n f| d | | n |v n s | y |i o | | | f |c w | | A | e |e c e | o |o w | Total. | | |l a s| R | u | y |r l | r |n n | | | a |u r u| e | d | - |- u m | - |e | | | c |d r r| g | i | G |G d o | G |r L | | | r |i e v| t | t | e |e i n | e | a | | | e |n n e| r | o | n |n n e | n |o n | | | s |g t y| . | r | . |. g y | . |f d | | +---+-------+-------+-----+---------+---------+------+-----+--------+ | | s d | s d | s d | s d | s d | s | s d | s d | |100| 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 |13 4 | 1 10 10 | 0 13 4 | 2 0 | 5 0 |12 11 8 | |200| 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 |13 4 | 1 10 10 | 0 13 4 | 2 0 | 5 0 |12 11 8 | |300| 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 |13 4 | 1 10 10 | 1 4 6 | 2 0 | 7 6 |13 5 4 | |400| 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 |13 4 | 1 10 10 | 1 15 8 | 2 5 |10 0 |14 4 0 | |500| 4 1 8 | 3 7 6 |13 4 | 1 10 10 | 2 6 10 | 2 10 |10 0 |15 0 2 | +---+-------+-------+-----+---------+---------+------+-----+--------+

On Grants where more than one person is concerned, His Excellency has seven s.h.i.+llings per hundred acres; and the public offices have half the above-mentioned fees for each additional name, with the exception of the Attorney-General, who has nineteen s.h.i.+llings and two-pence for each additional name. The purchase money (which is a sum of five s.h.i.+llings sterling for every fifty acres above two hundred, payable to His Majesty, and called the King's purchase money,) is included in the above scale of fees to the Receiver-General. According to the Royal Instructions, a single man is ent.i.tled to one hundred acres of land, with an additional quant.i.ty provided he can produce sufficient testimonials of his ability to cultivate more. A married man is ent.i.tled to two hundred acres, with an additional quant.i.ty on proof of his ability to cultivate more: but no more than five hundred acres is allowed to be granted to any person by the Colonial Government.

The method of laying out lots in this Province, of a narrow front and extending a great distance back, is very inconvenient to the settler.

Being confined to a narrow front when he commences, clearing, supposing, (which is often the case,) the land adjoining to be unoccupied, he merely makes a lane through the wilderness, not half of which will produce a crop, on account of its being shaded by the adjoining woods: which not only exclude the sun, but impoverish the land by drawing the nourishment from the plants to the adjoining trees.

To obviate this, and many other inconveniences, it would be far better to lay out settlements, where the face of the country would admit of it, in square blocks, or parallelograms; to contain two ranges of lots, with roads at proper distances. The fronts of the lots to be extended, and their length contracted. The lots to abut on the road; and extend back one-half the depth of the block:--The rear of the lots in one range, ab.u.t.ting on the rear of lots in the next range. Or else, the settlements might be divided into squares and sections, after the method adopted by the United States in laying out new settlements, of which the following is a short outline:

Their towns.h.i.+ps are laid out in blocks of six miles square, the whole area containing 23,040 acres. Those squares are divided into thirty-six smaller squares or sections of a mile square, containing each 640 acres. The sections are numbered from right to left, and left to right, as in the following plan:--

six miles long. s +----+----+----+----+----+----+ i | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | x +----+----+----+----+----+----| | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | m +----+----+----+----+----+----+ i | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | l +----+----+----+----+----+----+ e | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | s +----+----+----+----+----+----+ | 30 | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26 | 25 | l +----+----+----+----+----+----+ o | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | n +----+----+----+----+----+----+ g .

The sections are again subdivided into quarters and half quarters. A quarter section is half a mile square, and contains one hundred and sixty acres. The sixteenth section of each towns.h.i.+p is reserved to maintain schools, and the sections two, five, twenty, twenty-three, thirty, and thirty-three, are sold in half-quarters.

By this method the limits of counties and parishes are accurately defined; the settlements are every where interspersed with roads, and each man's field, instead of a narrow strip of irregular figure and uncertain boundary, is a square laying compact and near a road, whose contents are always easily ascertained. The rectangular method of laying out settlements, cannot always be followed, on account of rivers, &c. which will cause gores and inequalities; but whenever it can be adopted it offers many advantages.

The estates of persons dying intestate are distributed a.n.a.logous to the custom of gavelkind in Kent. The heir at law of such intestate shall be ent.i.tled to and receive a double portion or two shares of the real estate left by such intestate, (saving the widow's right of dower.) The remander to be equally distributed among all the children or their legal representatives, including in the distribution the children of the half blood; and in case there be no children, to the next of kindred in equal degree, and their representatives. Provided that children advanced by settlement, or portions, not equal to the other shares, shall have so much of the surplusage, as shall make the estate of all to be equal, except the heir at law, who shall have two shares, or a double portion.

Advertis.e.m.e.nt.

_Having for reasons stated in the commencement of this Work, given up my first design of adding a brief connected history of the Province, I have inserted a few extracts relating to this Country, in an Appendix; as they may be satisfactory to the reader, and useful in conveying some knowledge of the early history of the Country. My reasons for abridging this Description I have also stated, and have omitted many particulars necessary in a full description of a Country, such as tables of Animals, Plants, Minerals, Weather, &c. as I could not obtain the necessary materials, as but little attention has been paid to these subjects by persons qualified for the task._

_I have endeavoured to be as correct in what I have stated as possible, but no doubt many inaccuracies will be discovered, as the information I have collected from different sources is liable to error. But it must be remembered that in a first Work like this many difficulties will occur, and having no tract to guide me, I have frequently wanted the necessary information. The Work, however imperfect, must be useful, as giving the first general outline of the Province, and interesting to every person who possesses a feeling of interest for his own fireside.

In short, persons who strike out a first tract in any thing, may be compared to pioneers who trace a road for others to use and improve._

APPENDIX No. 1

_Speech of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor at the meeting of the General a.s.sembly, at Fredericton, February 1, 1825._