After signing
Treaty 1 with the
Anishinabe and
Swampy Cree First Nations in 1871, the Government of Canada sent
William Hespeler to
Russia to recruit
Mennonite farmers to the region of Manitoba, which had just joined
Confederation. The first Mennonites to visit the area in 1872 were Bernhard Warkentin and
Jacob Yost Shantz, a Swiss Mennonite from Ontario, who wrote a
Narrative of a journey to Manitoba, a report which helped convince Russian Mennonites to move to the area. In 1873, twelve Mennonite delegates from the
Russian Empire, toured Manitoba and
Kansas. The group looked at various locations in Manitoba, including the
western part of the province, but chose the
eastern region because of its proximity to
Winnipeg. On March 3, 1873, the Canadian government set aside eight townships in the area for exclusive use of Russian Mennonite settlers, with the area initially being named "The Mennonite Reserve". The Mennonite settlers established dozens of villages, a few of which remain today, including
Steinbach, now an independent municipality, as well as
Grunthal,
Kleefeld, and
Blumenort. The first village settled was Gruenfeld, now Kleefeld, though most of the other villages were settled within months. The reserve was governed using the system the Mennonites had learned in
Prussia. Each village had a Schulz, or mayor, while the whole reserve had an Oberschulz. Delegate Jacob Peters of Vollwerk (now part of
Mitchell, Manitoba) was the first oberschulz. As the home of the Bergthaler Bishop Gerhard Wiebe, the village of
Chortitz (now Randolph, Manitoba) quickly became the centre for trade and local government and an unofficial "capital" of the East Reserve, though over time the
Kleine Gemeinde village of Steinbach overtook Chortitz in prominence. A smaller
Scratching River settlement was also established in 1875 on the
Morris River. In 1877,
Lord Dufferin visited the Mennonite villages of the East Reserve and, from a rise just west of Steinbach could see "half a dozen villages" in the distance. Lord Dufferin was greeted by Oberschulz Jacob Peters along with more than a 1000 local residents who showed up to greet him. By the 1880s, approximately half the population of the East Reserve moved to the West Reserve due to superior soil conditions. Rather than using open field farming, Mennonites lived in street villages called
Strassendorfs, and built
housebarns, none of which are extant and in situ in the East Reserve, though two original examples can be seen at the
Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach. Beginning in 1909, the villages began to be disbanded in favour of open-field farming and by the 1920s no traditional Strassendorfs were left in the region, with some dissolving completely and others, such as Steinbach, evolving into modern communities. Almost 150 years later, the area still retains a significant presence of Mennonites to this day. ==References==