The Silver Chief: Lord Selkirk and the Scottish Pioneers of Belfast, Baldoon and Red River

Clint MacNeil teaches history, geography, and world religion at St.
Charles College in Sudbury, Ontario.

Despite unfair appraisals of Thomas Douglas (1771–1820), Lucille
Campey presents him as a man with a genuine desire to help fellow Scots
leave their homeland in search of a new life in British North America.

A young nobleman, Douglas attended the University of Edinburgh, where
he studied the humanities and law and immersed himself in the ideas of
the Enlightenment. Liberal notions of social justice to create
egalitarian societies appealed to him, but became especially important
when he travelled through the Scottish Highlands in 1792 and saw the
plight of Scottish crofters. In 1799, he inherited his title, 5th Earl
of Selkirk, from his father, and immediately thereafter made
preparations to transport and colonize dispossessed Highlanders across
the Atlantic to the British colonies.

His first venture brought settlers to Belfast, Prince Edward Island,
where he established a successful colony in 1803. At his own
considerable expense, Lord Selkirk provided the settlers with cheap
land, interest-free credit, and assistance in clearing the land. He then
set his sights on Upper Canada and founded his second colony at Baldoon
in 1804, which turned out to be a costly disappointment. Settlers there
endured flooding, which brought mosquitos and malaria, and plundering
and mismanagement by settlement manager Alexander McDonell. For his next
colony, established in 1811 in the Red River region of Manitoba, Lord
Selkirk had difficulty recruiting settlers due to the region’s harsh
climate and isolation, and those who did come found themselves caught in
a bitter territorial struggle between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the
North West Company that culminated in the deaths of 21 settlers.

This thoroughly researched account of Douglas’s achievements is based
on a wealth of primary and secondary sources. Although there may be just
cause to question Lord Selkirk’s motives, readers will appreciate the
author’s authoritative insight into this dynamic visionary and
philanthropist.