The Bastard of Fort Stikine Read online

  Simpson dismissed the aboriginal threat as ephemeral, as though sculpted from clouds, but denial was no hedge against a tangible threat. To show just how real the danger was, Dr. McLoughlin recounted his chance encounter with the son of a local chief named Saix. One afternoon, Saix’s son came to trade skins at Dr. McLoughlin’s fort; during the transaction, the doctor discovered his own son had known for some time of the men’s plan to mutiny. The chief’s son claimed that in the months before the murder, he had told John Jr. in confidence that four of Stikine’s men had approached him and offered him liquor and trade goods to shoot McLoughlin. The man also told McLoughlin that every time he traded at Fort Stikine, the men “were in the habit of talking of murdering the deceased as a common topic of conversation.” Saix’s son could not say what (if anything) McLoughlin had done with this information.

  Dr. McLoughlin’s rage burned: even the indigenous traders of Stikine knew what the men were planning, yet Simpson had refused to act. The Governor could have saved his son, but instead chose to play ostrich. The doctor demanded to know precisely what warning sign Simpson had been waiting for, given the mutiny had been overt and well-orchestrated, conceived in broad daylight, and discussed ad nauseam. Dr. McLoughlin’s hand visibly shook as he wrote that Antoine Kawannassé “had heard Heroux state some hours before that he would shoot my Son like a Dog.”

  Armed with this new evidence, Dr. McLoughlin had no choice but to conclude “there were three men of very Bad Characters who formed a plot to murder him.” The treachery did not end there, for the doctor’s conspiracy theory meant all of the “men at the fort were accomplices to one degree or another.”

  To determine how organized the plot had been, Dr. McLoughlin charged his trusted lieutenant Donald Manson to investigate. Manson immediately subjected Thomas McPherson to a second round of questioning, prompted by Kannaquassé’s whispers of a murderous contract. McPherson vehemently denied there was a signed agreement to kill John Jr., but admitted he had prepared a petition demanding the chief trader’s removal. When asked why he had not forwarded his complaint to the Governor, McPherson replied: “I destroyed the paper about a month ago because I did not want anyone to see it, as it was so badly written.” Neither Manson nor McLoughlin Sr. believed McPherson’s disavowal, and Manson searched the fort thoroughly for the document, but found nothing. Dr. McLoughlin took this as evidence, informing his superiors that “we cannot find the paper, yet there are no proofs of its not being so.” The doctor was forced to concede that without the damning paper it would be “impossible to convict them en masse of conspiracy.” Still, the doctor found solace in Manson’s declaration: “In my opinion, almost all the Canadians and Iroquois more or less are implicated.”

  Dr. McLoughlin’s fervour proved contagious, and the more Manson heard, the more he was convinced John Jr.’s death had been a premeditated act of treason. At Dr. McLoughlin’s behest, Manson travelled to Fort Stikine to interview the remaining witnesses. Before departing, he sent word to the fort’s chief trader, Charles Dodd, to disarm the men as a precaution. Mr. Dodd went one better, placing all the Canadians in irons under Kanaka guards. Both Dodd and Manson trusted the Kanakas implicitly and were convinced the Sandwich Islanders had nothing to do with McLoughlin’s death, having remained loyal to their leader to his bloody end.

  After interrogating the men of Stikine and McLoughlin’s wife, Manson revised his thinking and laid out a new narrative of the crime in a private letter to Dr. McLoughlin. Manson believed McLoughlin had known of the plot against him, and “in order to secure the principal ringleaders he gave them rum, thinking no doubt that when intoxicated he could more easily accomplish” their arrest. On the night in question, McLoughlin had armed the Sandwich Islanders and imprisoned Pressé, and he intended to do the same with Heroux and Kannaquassé. According to the Kanakas, Kannaquassé was as guilty as Heroux, and the conspiracy did not stop there, as Kawannassé and several others were clearly involved. In closing, Manson urged the chief factor to step up security around the Iroquois, warning that Kannaquassé would likely escape at the first opportunity, “and perhaps might be inclined to do something worse.” Before he took leave of Stikine, Manson ordered that six prisoners be sent to Fort Simpson for incarceration, pending trial.

  It remained an open question whether there would ever be a trial, and no one could predict the fate of Urbain Heroux. In his letter to Pelly, Dr. McLoughlin complained bitterly that Simpson “distinctly told me that all he could do in reference to Heureux [sic] was in the meantime to remove him to the island of Kodiak or some other distant Settlement,” all the while insisting he “had no desire to screen the prisoner from justice.”

  The problem was one of jurisdiction, at least according to Simpson. McLoughlin’s death was an international debacle involving the murder of a Canadian “at a British post in Indian Country, on land leased from the Russians.” As such, the issue of jurisdictional authority was not readily resolved. The territory was controlled by Nicholas I, who could pursue the matter if he so desired. The British government could also lay claim, thanks to a historic Tudor statute that authorized the English courts to try anyone accused of murdering a British subject, even on lands outside the Crown’s dominions. Even Canada had the right to prosecute. In 1803, the British Parliament passed the Canada Jurisdiction Act specifically to address lawlessness in the fur trade. The act authorized trials for offences committed on Crown lands or in “other Parts of America not within the Limits of Canada or the United States.” Both Heroux and his victim were Canadians employed in the fur trade, and the crime had been committed “in other Parts of America,” making it exactly “the sort of case that the Canada Jurisdiction Act had been designed to catch.”

  Ultimately, the sticking point was not authority, as no fewer than three countries had legitimate claims for jurisdiction over the case. The problem was apathy. Russia, England, and Canada had collectively thrown up their hands, happy to foist the prosecution onto any nation that wanted it. The only institution less interested in pursuing the case was the Hudson’s Bay Company, which had the most to lose if the crime was made public. Dr. McLoughlin, consumed with impotent fury, played the only card left to him, telling his superiors he “might prosecute the case personally if the HBC did not.” Although the chief factor no doubt meant what he said, everyone knew it was a toothless threat.

  McLoughlin Sr.’s vow may have lacked bite, but that did not stop him from sinking his teeth firmly into Simpson’s backside. The remainder of his rambling missives were dedicated to an all-out assault on the overseas governor. The doctor’s opening salvo was a scathing critique of Simpson’s investigative method: “Instead of conducting the examination so as to endeavour to find out what had led to the murder; you conducted it as if it had been an investigation into the moral conduct of the Deceased, and as if you were desirous to justify the conduct of the murderers.”

  Dr. McLoughlin was not surprised by the Governor’s vitriolic attacks on his son, having watched Simpson continually disparage his colleagues in the past, but he could not let them stand. Rhetoric was all he had, and so the doctor refuted Simpson’s allegations with a rhetorical question: “If the Deceased had been the Bad master these men pretend, would all those whose time was about to Expire have Re Engaged to him as they did?” McLoughlin argued Simpson himself was the strongest evidence to contradict any claims of abuse, as “the Best proof that these men were not ill treated by the Deceased is that you passed and repassed in the same Season and no complaint was made to you.” Kannaquassé had tried to raise his concerns about the chief trader during the Governor’s October 1841 visit to Stikine, but according to Kannaquassé, Simpson “put me off, saying by & bye.” Such disregard was very much in keeping with Simpson’s contempt for his inferiors, particularly those of mixed blood. Sir George had often voiced his belief that, when confronted with a troublesome “half-breed,” the offender must “be allowed to make the discovery that he cannot mend his Fortune by a change of Maste
rs.”

  To prove Simpson had conducted a shoddy investigation, the chief factor offered a final argument: Sir George had refused to have McLoughlin’s body exhumed and autopsied. Dr. McLoughlin challenged his overlord, charging: “If you Sir had had the Corpse of the deceased taken out of the Grave and Examined…you would have found out the truth.” Simpson ignored the protest, ordering that John Jr. would rest in peace at any price.

  Having laid bare Simpson’s inept handling of his son’s murder, Dr. McLoughlin then turned his attention to the Governor’s overall failings as a leader and a human being. Topping his litany of complaints was Simpson’s notorious inconsistency. On this point, the doctor had ample support, for Simpson’s colleagues often described his conduct as “vacillating, unsteady and arbitrary.” Dr. McLoughlin believed the Governor’s caprice had directly contributed to John Jr.’s demise, and his son had come to his “untimely End in consequence of Sir George’s most injudicious arrangements.” The case could be reduced to a simple syllogism, and the doctor “insisted, with fanatical perseverance, that the transfer of Finlayson had been the direct cause of the tragedy, and as Simpson had made the transfer he held him responsible for his son’s death.”

  Next the good doctor called out his adversary for his blatant duplicity, marvelling at “Simpson’s capacity to speak from both sides of his mouth.” As illustration, McLoughlin pointed to Simpson’s feigned disgust over the use of corporal punishment at Fort Stikine, even though floggings and beatings were commonplace within the HBC. McLoughlin recalled the Governor had no qualms keeping violent “blood hounds” — quick-fisted men he called “bruisers” — on the Company’s payroll as “a necessary evil.” And Simpson had promoted John Jr. to chief trader largely because of his demonstrated strength as a disciplinarian. Yet, in a perverse display of delusion and self-deception, the Governor once claimed, “I have, as you know, always Believed Kindness to Be the Best Disciplinarian.”

  Dr. McLoughlin mocked Simpson for having “become all at once very sensitive about striking the men.” His point was well taken, as the Governor had always found his own lapses charming, but found similar transgressions in others unforgivable. McLoughlin claimed Simpson often resorted to corporal punishment, compensating for his diminutive stature with a big stick. McLoughlin once watched Simpson knock a man down, leading the doctor to remark, “I never saw a man get a neater blow.” He also recalled that “on at least two occasions…Sir George had himself inflicted floggings and beatings, and on a third, he ‘tickled’ a man’s shoulders ‘with a canoe pole’ until he had to be restrained from beating the man further.” Such occurrences were legion and legendary in the fur trade.

  George Simpson’s incurable cognitive dissonance often left his contemporaries shaking their heads. With the brutal honesty found only in letters of resignation, one long-suffering HBC employee accused Simpson of lacking “the principles of honour and integrity which you so strongly recommend in others.” Dr. McLoughlin accused Simpson of “writing for Effect on others,” recounting many instances in which the Governor paid lip service to policies he had set, then refused to obey. For example, Simpson universally despised any man who was overly fond of the bottle. Simpson once complained that his house servant “washed his Throat occasionally,” but he believed he could cure the man’s alcoholism through sheer willpower and a clenched fist, boasting that his manservant only drank “until I gave him such a pounding as made his Bones ache for a month, which has cured him.” Yet Simpson was known to hoist a glass or three in his time, partaking freely of wine and spirits wherever and whenever the opportunity arose.

  Dr. McLoughlin’s bile-soaked diatribe was an accurate depiction of Simpson and his personality defects, but it did more damage to its author than to its target. McLoughlin stripped his attack of all power by making it too personal, and he hurt his cause further by following up his initial letters with a handful of subsequent harangues, each longer and more vitriolic than the last.

  McLoughlin’s crusade bordered on obsession, and it did not escape the notice of his colleagues. J.E. Harriott observed: “The Big Doctor is in a deplorable state, poor man, what anxiety he has experienced about that young man, and to be murdered at last with such a character as his murderers have given him.” Dr. McLoughlin simply would not, could not, let the matter rest, “making each new fragment of evidence an excuse for reviewing the entire matter at what the recipients soon came to consider wearisome length.” He “had lost both his self-control and sense of proportion.”

  More’s the pity, for the Hudson’s Bay Company elite had come to the realization that the shooting at Fort Stikine was anything but a “justifiable homicide.” Despite Simpson’s concerted efforts to plug the holes in his own investigation, “a number of new facts came to light, all of which pointed strongly to the conclusion that his assessment of what had happened was not only hastily conceived but seriously flawed.”

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  Prior Bad Acts

  The best predictor of future action is prior behavior. To understand a man’s choices, you need look no further than his past, where his character is forged by the incidents and accidents of his days. Dr. McLoughlin’s barbs regarding Simpson’s biased investigation stuck because everyone involved — the letter’s author, recipients, and subject — knew Simpson had done the exact same thing many times before. The Governor’s dismissal of the Siveright matter was one example, but Simpson’s tendencies were most evident during his “investigation” into the strange death of his cousin Thomas.

  The cousins were born sixteen years apart and grew up in the same tiny house in the village of Dingwall, but they had never been close. Still, Simpson kept a paternalistic eye on his kin, and when Thomas came of age, the Governor convinced him to join the HBC in 1831.

  In his demagogic character book, Simpson atypically heaped praise on his nepotistic hire, calling Thomas “Perfectly correct in regard to personal conduct & character.” This high regard faded after the young man settled into his dual roles as Simpson’s “Secty and Confidential Clerk during the busy Season…and Shopman, Accountant & Trader at Red River Settlement during the Winter.”

  And speaking of character, the Simpson boys offer compelling proof that narcissism is genetic. Thomas had an ego to rival Sir George’s and an entrenched sense of entitlement born of being “considered one of the most finished Scholars in Aberdeen College.” Despite his lowly rank, Thomas possessed something his cousin did not: a college diploma, a fact he lorded over Simpson at every opportunity. Thomas was also as indiscreet as he was arrogant, openly mocking George Simpson’s management acumen in his dispatches home: “Entre nous, I have often remarked that his Excellency miscalculates when he expects to get more out of people by sheer driving; it only puts everyone in ill humour.” Thomas even hinted that “when the Governorship of the country became vacant, he himself would be the person best adapted to fill it,” a sentiment unlikely to endear him to the post’s current occupant. Whatever his endgame, Thomas was messing with the wrong egomaniacal tyrant.

  Thomas revealed his true colours at the Red River settlement. Just prior to Christmas Day, 1834, a Metis employee came to Thomas’s office asking for an advance in his pay. Thomas held the same racist views as his cousin and saw the request as sheer impertinence. He proceeded to beat the man unconscious. Thomas’s brother Alexander later downplayed the severity of the assault, saying only that the man “got the worst of the scuffle, coming off with a black eye and a bloody nose,” but it was no mere scuffle. To prevent a full-scale Metis rebellion, “Simpson was forced to remove him from authority with breathtaking speed.”

  Simpson needed to find a suitable placement for his hotheaded relation, a posting sufficiently remote to shield Thomas from possible criminal charges. His solution was to send his cousin north, as far north as it was possible to go. He appointed Thomas second-in-command of an Arctic expedition captained by famed navigator Peter Warren Dease, a man Simpson once dismissed as “not calculated to make a sh
ining figure.” Their mission was to explore the uncharted northernmost coastline of Rupert’s Land. The foray had the added benefit of fulfilling one of the oft-ignored covenants of the HBC’s charter: to map the territory and identify trading routes.

  To Simpson’s befuddlement, Thomas met with great success on the expedition, mapping over 150 miles of coastline in the first three years, as well as filling in the western tail of the Northwest Passage. Indeed, Thomas was so self-satisfied he petitioned his cousin to extend both his contract and the financial support of the expedition. Simpson refused, although he took credit for the expedition’s success when he met with his Russian counterpart, Baron von Wrangel. Thomas was livid when he learned Simpson had hoarded the glory, and in a full-throated tantrum he would not live to regret, he went over the Governor’s head. He appealed directly to the HBC’s London Committee, informing them George Simpson’s “jealousy of his rising name was not but ill disguised.” In a second missive sent directly to his cousin, Thomas declared: “Fame I will have, but it must be mine alone.” The war of the Simpsons had begun.

  Thomas’s playground antics were no match for his cousin’s Machiavellian games. The London Committee promptly drafted a letter to Thomas, granting his extension. The letter also contained their heartiest congratulations, as Thomas had recently been awarded the Royal Geographic Society’s Gold Medal in recognition of his Arctic discoveries. Simpson intercepted the Committee’s reply to Thomas and switched the missive into the wrong dispatch bag, leaving his cousin on tenterhooks in Red River for a letter that would never come.

  By June 1840, Thomas could wait no longer. He left the settlement and headed for St. Paul, intent on sailing to London and making his case directly to the Committee. The route to St. Paul ran through Sioux territory, a treacherous region with standing warnings for travellers to be armed and on alert. Two weeks later, Thomas’s body was discovered south of Fort Garry. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head.