Walter Robert BOWN, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Nor’Wester, the first newspaper to be published in Red River (1859), defended the position of those who supported annexation of the colony to Canada:
“Bown’s first direct brush with controversy came early in 1868 when [John Christian] Schultz, in jail for debt, was broken out by his wife, Agnes Campbell Farquharson. Acting as the editor of the Nor’Wester in Schultz’s absence, Bown portrayed the jailbreak as an action which had the support of the majority of Red River’s inhabitants, and which constituted a blow for freedom against the tyranny of HBC [Hudson’s Bay Company] rule in general and its system of justice in particular. That this view was shared by only a handful of recent Canadian immigrants was soon demonstrated by a petition from 804 residents questioning the veracity of Bown’s assertions. When a delegation of these memorialists asked that their petition be inserted in the Nor’Wester, Bown refused, pleading a lack of paper. After being threatened with the seizure of the Nor’Wester’s plant and with forcible removal from the colony, he agreed to print 50 copies. An apparent misunderstanding concerning payment ensued. Bown publicly accused the two Métis who had picked up the printed petition with thievery, a charge which was met with a suit for defamation of character. Bown was convicted and briefly imprisoned when he failed to pay the costs and damages amounting to £14 19s. 6d.
“The events of March to May 1868 strengthened Bown’s convictions concerning the impropriety of HBC rule, the company’s inability to control the settlement (the threats against him had been made in the presence of the governor of Assiniboia and Rupert’s Land, William Mactavish*), and the unfair nature of company-dominated courts. Thus, both he and Schultz redoubled their efforts to discredit HBC rule and to encourage annexation of Rupert’s Land to Canada, using the columns of the Nor’Wester to promote their views.”
