MANITOBA, AND THE NORTH-WEST OF THE DOMINION, ITS RESOURCES AND ADVANTAGES TO THE EMIGRANT AND CAPITALIST

Toronto: Hunter, Rose and Company, 1871. 1st edition. Hardcover. Frontispiece, ads. pp. 46, [2],12mo. This copy is ex-lib. (hence, the binding in bds), with three small horizontal 'excises' from the LR of the title page where the lib. info. was neatly cut out. The front cover is missing a small piece in the TR (not affecting text). The conts. are clean and, except as noted, untouched. The two pages of ads advertise the new St. Paul (Minnesota) to Winnipeg railway, and the publisher's new book entitled: A HISTORY OF THE RED RIVER REBELLION, which had just been put down. Altogether, a very scarce and historically significant document. Orig. pamphlet encased in bds, with hand-lettered title on spine,'The first of the flood of pamphlets written to advertise the agricultural possibilities of the West. Spence may be regarded as the father of prairie immigration literature' - Peel #336 (see also Lande #1456). Spence emigrated from England in 1862, arriving in the Red River in 1866, where he became involved in local politics. In 1867, he settled in Portage la Prairie, where he organized a provisional government, with himself as president, and which he called the Republic of Manitoba.