Saga of The Bois-Brûlé

Saga of the Bois-Brl & Li Exovedes by Darcy John Bouchard, li Exule
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Darcy John Bouchard
Do not throw this manuscript away - and you wont want for it later.
Do not lend it out or give it away - and you will not lose it.
Store it safely (in a cool dry place) - and you will not damage it.
The day is coming when you will appreciate having access to this information.
Please feel free to copy and share this document with friends
- should you feel compelled to -
but not for the purpose of financial profit.
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Revised on Monday, 23 October 2017
Tnshi,
I am Darcy John Bouchard, li Exule an Exovede (meaning a living descendant of the heroes of Batoch). My
paternal ahnentafel ascends from St-Front (SK) Francophones through the First French and Acadian Family to France,
my grandmother Eleonore Tourond was descended from Franois Bruneau and Marguerite Harrison, and my mother is
related to the North-West Macutetis and South Branch Ukrainians of Alvena (i.e. Fish Creek) and area, who settled the
"Stolen Land" circa 1898.
I was raised White amongst other Exovedes, Mtis and Indians, and had to fight every day of my life when I was
schooled at St.-Mary's in Saskatoon. I grew up hating Indians and half-breeds because of their unprovoked violence
towards me... which lasted long afterwards, spilling out into the alleys and darkened streets of Saskatoon and Regina
until, at last, I moved away for good seventeen years ago. But I since learned of my hidden heritage and in my wish to
reclaim my stolen identity did much research, which I have freely shared with you all on the internet... unfortunately,
the Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont Institutes don't share my opinions or they'd render Mr. Barkwell more support - so
that he could create "our" own webpage instead of having to rely upon the internet source he is using to publish his
research). More-so, copies of this ms. and my work concerning the Exovedes was printed and bound under one cover,
spiral bound, and sent to both the Saskatoon Frances Morrison Branch Public Library and Main Branch of the Regina
Library prairie history rooms - to be accessible to poor peoples unfamiliar with the internet - I never received any sort
of a reply: no thank you nor even a kiss my ass - nothing. The same can be said of researcher Lawrence Barkwell, who
failed to respond. Gail Morin, too, has looked down on my work, claiming that I ain't listed resources. My resources,
though, are whatever internet genealogical sources were commonly available to me and it seemed redundant to state
(for every record) the same thing (i.e. Ancestry.com, Genii.com, Rootsweb - and such researchers as DN Sprague & RP
Frye, Stan Hume, Brenda Menard, Eileen Horan, Gary Still, etc. - more-so, the Latter Day Saints resource has
disappeared from the internet).
Thus, I am posting this history of our ancestors and the North-West Territories in protest.
In brief, A Saga of the Bois-Brle is a concise history of the origin of li Natio Macutetis, the Hudsons Bay
Company, the emergence of a buffalo-based horse culture, the North-West Company and the sea of beaver, as well
as a more detailed history of the Plains Mtis, and Saint Louis David Riel. It is plainly written non-fiction and
might be equally enjoyable to young adult or adult alike, and was written for a general audience interested in the
subject matter. The ms. is almost 60,000 words.
I first compiled notes for A Saga of the Bois-Brle about 1996, in Calgary, after becoming suspiciously aware of
my Otipemisiwak status. Ten years later, in Nanaimo, I typed up the last part of the book, and began adding
information. More recently, I have divided my efforts and am working on another ms. as well Batoch Birth of a
Nation. Both mss. are compiled from bits-and-pieces of hundreds of different source materials discounting the
Internet which I have been mindful of both fair use and plagiarism so as to be cautious not to infringe upon the
Spirit of the letter. I hope this ms. is acceptable.
You may contact me on Facebook if you wish:
Darcy John Bouchard, li Exule
Post-Script: Don't think for one second, though, that I wish to identify me with those same bullies who made my life miserable in
Saskatchewan... because I don't. But, neither do I have any great interest in associating me with the scummy White men
which, in my impoverishment, I am forced to live with in my skid row hotel here in Victoria... they are as dirty and stupid as
any of the gadom Indians who made my life miserably unbearable in Saskatchewan - and I suffered much as a child and for
many years as a troubled youth/young adult because of them. I have nothing but bad memories associated with every one of
those savages who tormented me every fucking day growing up on the prairies. I was involved in hundreds of violent
confrontations because of those ignorant no class low-life scumbags... but, I assure you, I never initiated a single one of
those battles. I was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time - which, in reality, was pretty much anywhere at any time.
Furthermore, I have merely presented on the internet what information concerning the Exovedes which I could - for the
younger generations, who should have some pride in their ancestral obligations to our once-great nation. They deserve to
know that they come from a great stock of truly pure-bred Canadian peoples. This is our land - from East to Western sea - our
own beloved home on Native land! Our true North, strong and free!
Remember and never ever forget - this land does not belong to the political traitors in our Zionist Occupied Government in
Ottawa, nor to the Blacks and Asiatics and Muslims being brought here from the Third World, which they are importing to
replace the White men who subjugated us as a nation and peoples in the first place. It is now as it always has been "Our
Homeland."
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WORKING COPY
A Saga of the Bois-Brle & li Geurre Nationale avec li Exovedes du Territoire Du Nord Ouest (Indtermine)
(Table of) CONTENTS
A Saga of the Bois-Brle ................................................................................................................................................................................ 7
li Exovedes - li Geurre Nationale du Territoire Du Nord Ouest (Indtermine) ......................................................................................... 93

The Four Delegates sent for Riel in Montana in 1884 ......................................................................................................................... 93
The Leaders of the Exovedes ............................................................................................................................................................... 93
The First to die ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 93
16 Exovedate Councilors of the Provisional Government (1885) ....................................................................................................... 93
The Mtis Captains and their dizaines ................................................................................................................................................. 94
Other Resistance Fighters ............................................................................................................................................................. 97

Other Resistance Activists ............................................................................................................................................................ 97
Heroines ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 98
Other women ................................................................................................................................................................................. 98
Others.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 99
The Last Stand in the Graveyard Trenches ................................................................................................................................... 99
The Exovede & Native Martyrs ............................................................................................................................................................ 100

Li Exovede prisoners: August 1885 ...................................................................................................................................................... 101
Traitorous Treaty Indians and Half-Breeds .......................................................................................................................................... 102
The Mtis Captains, Resistance Fighters, Child-Soldiers, and Other Activists ............................................................................................ 103
List of Known Residents of the "Rebel" Townships prior to the Canadian Occupation of 1885 ................................................................. 110
Dominion Sympathizers and others ............................................................................................................................................................... 115
li Exovede & Mtis Names List ................................................................................................................................................................... 118
Lii Exovede & Other South Branch Women ................................................................................................................................................ 129
Li Exovedes - Biographies Supplement ........................................................................................................................................................ 135
The Children of li Exovedes

Known Children of the Resistance and of the Occupation ................................................................................................................... 199
Twins & Triplets ................................................................................................................................................................................... 260
Nine Men Known to have been killed in action during World War I & II ........................................................................ ........................... 264
Chart 1: A List of Known Exovede Participants of the Battles for the Stolen South Branch Lands in 1885 ....................... ........................ 265
A List of Exovede and South Branch Macutetis Children Known to Have Died in Infancy and Childhood; including
another similar list concerning Adult Children .................................................................................................................. ......................... 268
Chart 2: A List of Exovede and South Branch Macutetis Children who are Known to Have Died in Infancy and Childhood; including
a Continuation of the List Concerning Adult Children - age19 and older ......................................................................... ....................... 271
Chart 3: Native Mothers of li Exovede and South Branch Macutetis ................................................................................ .......................... 283
Ancestors of li Exovedes - Names List ................................................................................................................................ .......................... 290
Ancestors of li Exovedes - Biographies .................................................................................................................................. ....................... 297
Appendix 1: A Letter Written to Lawrence Barkwell of the Louis Riel Institute .......................................................................................... 369
Appendix 2: Concerning Barkwell's Errors in Veterans and Families of the 1885 North-West Resistance, 2009 ........................................ 370
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A SAGA OF THE BOIS-BRLE

Being a Concise Outline of Historical Events
Concerning li Natio Macutetis
Introduction On Hudsons Bays shores, walrus hauled out on the
sandspits and polar bears came into the shore on
Manitou, the Great Spirit, created the world. drifting floes, south of the height of land where
Many Spirits were made... each one to watch trees are tall and the waters of the Shield flow into
over something. Lakes Superior and Huron. The Ojibwa live in the
The Great Hare, Naniboujou, designed to trick adjacent sector to the east, whose waters flow out of
all the things, the Shield, across the St-Lawrence lowland country of
And the First People were made, who hunted Algonquin speakers.
Many Spirits. The Ojibwa developed a complex economy bands of up
to 400 people were led by hereditary chiefs, who
To purify the earth, Manitou flooded the decided on all matters of importance, including
entire universe. reprimanding wrongdoers (in public). They had a well-
Muskrat, though, swam down and gathered up the organized system of clans and phratries totemic
bottom mud, families, each with its own symbol: Crane, Catfish,
An island slowly rising up out of the lapping Koon, Bear, Marten, Wolf. The Crane family, called
waves echo-makers in Ojibwa, were foremost orators; the
Which Wisakedjak, from it, the earth began to Bear family were most numerous and divided into sub-
fashion.1 totems: Head, Rib, and Foot: they had an ill-tempered
reputation and were fond of fighting; acknowledged war
The eight tribes who spoke the Iroquoian language chiefs and the main warriors were the keepers of the
held both shores of the Lower St-Lawrence River and of war-pipe and the symbolic war-club. The Wolf family
the two lower Great Lakes Erie and Ontario except was much respected among the Ojibwa; they were
for the south shore of Lake Erie. These tribes alone descended from the Dakota Sioux. The Marten family
of all the Canadian Indian Tribes were agricultural. had long ago helped to take the country away from the
The strip of land they held was only 900 miles long Sioux...
and probably 200 miles wide. The environment of the
Iroquois was unique, combining fertile soil, mild The great Midewewin [infer] gathering of the
climate, ample natural food resources, and good water Ojibwa was held when the fruits and berries began to
for transportation. The Canadian portion of the ripen in mid-summer it was their most important
Great Central Plain of North America supported about national ceremony, and the purpose of the ritual was
seven tribes: 22,000 people, speaking three distinct to worship the Great Spirit, to make life in this (and
languages. The land of the Algonquin speakers, a the future world) secure, and to improve relations
vast, irregular half-moon around Hudsons Bay from with less important spirits.
Labrador to the Churchill River, was rocky and In the fall, the Ojibwa spear lake trout, sturgeon
harsh... the dominant feature of this land was water and whitefish by torchlight on the shallow spawning
a gentle, ameliorating and nurturing presence. grounds; during the season of Manohmin the wild
The Ojibwa2 of Lake Huron covered their wigwams with rice: canoes proceeded through the shallow water of
bark in the summer, and used rush matting in the their rice area, one man poling and another bending
winter. Easily rolled up and carried, the Crees to long stems over the canoe and beating seed-bearing
the north used flexible and light skins of caribou to heads with sticks or paddles. Once laden, they went
cover tipis; excellent in cold and dry climates, but to shore where the women built fires under parching
not so suitable in wet or rainy weather. Snow was racks, when dry rice kernels were pounded in wooden
common: The tipi of the high, dry, cold plains was pestles to release the rice from the husk after
covered with buffalo skin parchment the woodlands winnowing; put into bags or bark containers, it was
wigwam a simple, partly-hooded smoke-hole in the stored for winter.
apex, was faced away from the nearly constant wind. The northern Cree, woodland nomads, hunted Barren
The low spine of the Canadian Shield, a scimitar arc Grounds caribou communally, driving them into pounds
between the outside perimeter of the Great Lakes and mazes set with snares. The Amerind peoples had
system and inside the perimeter of Hudsons Bay, was a two principle ways of life: Plains buffalo-based and
watershed enclosed by a height of land the ancient woodland game-based hunting, with gathering of plant
home of the Cree. Its rivers flowed at speed off foods, berries and roots, being essential to both.
flanks of shield once on Hudsons Bay lowlands where (The ancient patterns of the woodlands peoples would
the waters went slack and meandered. A sterile land last longer than that of the Plains.)
with brown lees of muskeg and dirty waters with the Amerind populations on the plains were highest
silt of their own low banks; a country of ponds and during the summer. The buffalo herds were at their
small stunted groves, mossy glades where caribou fed, largest, and bison, having no definite migratory
lashed by winds chill in summer, and bitter in winter. pattern, congregated where feeding was most
attractive. The earliest known Stone-Age Plains
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dwellers relied mainly on spears to dispatch the large
Cf. Genesis 1:9, And God said, Let the waters under the animals they hunted. Three major technological
heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry innovations transformed Plains hunting prior to the
land appear: and it was so. advent of the European: the spear thrower, the bow and
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Iroquois of the Five Nations and the Ojibwa, and others, arrow, and the buffalo pound. Each brought new
practiced ritual forms of cannibalism abhorred by eastern efficiencies to the hunt and in turn affected the way
woodland peoples, as most Indian culture groups of life of the people.
particularly in times of war, stress and in conflicts which
consumed social energy during European struggles.
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The Plains Indians are part of an millennia-old with arrows. The Cree built similar deer-hedges
pattern of dynamic change, adaption, and development across pathways, with snares left in openings; small
of adjusting to major shifts in climate and game was taken in the same way; fishing was done with
environment, to altering frequencies of game hook-and-line, dip nets and weirs, or fences, were
population, including the extinction of major species, also stretched across the river.
(mammoth, mastodon, buffalo), and to new forms of
social co-operation. Men fashioned the weapons, women the snares and
Assiniboine (Stoney) people broke off from the traps for small animals; women also made most of the
Yankton (Dakota) Sioux and thereafter became largely household implements stone knives, bone and wooden
associated with the Cree. The Plains Cree came into scrapers for processing hides and pelts, stone burins
existence and moved onto the prairies through to etch bone and wood, bone needles, wood and bark
involvement in the fur trade. Saulteaux, calling them containers, and among the Algonquin, pottery. Most
Bungi, could as well be called Ojibwa. Sarsi and food was boiled by putting hot stones in water, which
Athabascan speakers from the north became buffalo was impossible to cook over open flame, or roasting
hunters associated with the Blackfoot: The Blackfoot food on sticks and spits.
peoples, like the Cree and Saulteaux, speak an Hearne claimed that the Chippewa chiefly preferred
Algonquin language. Thus, of five tribes inhabiting boiling, broiling, and roasting, but of all dishes,
the Canadian Plains in 1850, only one of them was not Beeatee was most delicious it was prepared from
a newcomer to the Great Interior Plains if one deer, using no other ingredients, a kind of haggis
considers the Macutetis a tribe. Conversely, three made with blood, a good quantity of fat, shredded
tribes lived in the region in late-prehistoric times: small, some of the tenderest flesh, the heart and
the Kutenai, Shoshone, and Atsina (Gros Ventre) lungs, cut or more commonly torn into small slivers,
displaced by 1850. all put in the stomach and roasted by being suspended
Horse and gun, each in turn, increased the over a fire by a string taking care not to let too
efficiency of the hunt. People could not only get much heat burn the bag and spill its contents out.
more food and hides, quicker, but they could carry Women fashioned clothing from pelt hides decorated
bigger tipis and more goods, men could keep more women with porcupine quills, moose hair, perhaps painting
productively working and were more likely to be and tailoring, with a minimal amount of cutting,
polygamous infant mortality rates dropped, and women relying instead on the natural shape of the hides.
were more likely to live longer. High status The name Chipewyan means pointed skins, referring
depended, now, on having more horses, creating a new to the animal tails left on the clothing. Most of the
impetus for raiding. There were still buffalo- year, outerwear consisted of a long shirt, or tunic,
hunting nomads who sought visions, counted coup, and worn by men and women alike, leggings, and moccasins;
ate pemmican. underneath men wore a breechcloth and women wore
culottes.3 Winter wear consisted of a warm, durable
The Arctic, where the northern forest met the tundra beaver coat (with the skins turned fur-side inwards)
was a barren land, yet game was not scarce north of which was usually worn for two-or-three winters before
the tree-line home to thick-coated musk ox, it was worn out. Towards the Mackenzie valley it was more
once abundant with caribou, arctic fox, arctic hare, common that coats were made of rabbit-skin strips;
wolf, wolverine, and most important fur-bearing deer and moose hide were used for bedding, though hare
creatures (which would retreat south into the was also used for bedding; lodge coverings were made
woodlands with winter); lake trout, whitefish, pike, of deer or moose hides, bark or brush, arranged over a
and arctic char, abounded in the coastal rivers; and, conical framework of poles accommodating up to
the northern coastal waters were home to ringed and fifteen people.
bearded seals, walrus (except in the western arctic),
narwhal, beluga whale, and polar bear. The bark canoe was light-weight, had a shallow
South of the tree-line was the heart of Canadian draft, was readily repaired and easily portaged across
Shield country, where thousands of years ago large rough terrain, could navigate unexpected rapids, and
rocky areas were scraped bare of soil by massive made exploration quick. Minor variations in design
continental ice sheets, stretching west from the existed between the tribes, but they usually only
Labrador coast to the Yukon... and was now a boreal, carried two people with up to 200-300 lbs cargo.
or northern evergreen forest, thick with pine, spruce, In winter, snowshoes, dogsleds, and toboggans were
and tamarack trees. used; wherever possible, people travelled over ice on
The people who lived northwest of the Churchill the leeward shoreline, to avoid rough terrain and
River spoke Athapaskan, and the people who lived to wind. Dogsleds were usually pulled by one-or-two
the south and east of the Churchill spoke Algonquin. dogs, as it was difficult to keep more fed. The
The two different peoples faced similar environmental northern Indians, particularly the women, carried many
challenges and, the solutions shared many aspects of possessions on their backs when moving from one
everyday life: tools, weapons, clothing, ceremonial hunting ground to another. It was impossible to
objects fashioned from and adapted to their accumulate too many possessions because of the mobile
environment. Life was organized around locally lifestyle, which discouraged acquisitive behaviour and
available materials, rather than long distance trade wanton exploitation of environment.
portable tool; weapons: bows with stone-tipped The northern Indians were small-scale societies,
arrows, stone-tipped lances; deadfall traps and their daily contact limited, ordinarily, to kith and
snares. kin: The smallest group was the winter band, which was
According to Hearne, when Indians designed to usually restricted to a few closely related families
impound deer, they looked for well-trod paths and, the size controlled by safety and efficiency. Moose
observing frequent use, built a strong fence of bushy and caribou were the primary winter game herd
trees the inside crowded with small counter-hedges animals most effectively taken by hunters working in
resembling a maze with a snare being set in every
small opening, made with thongs of deer-hide 3
parchment. - They were amazingly strong. The word culotte is of French language origin.
Historically, the word "culottes" has always referred to
Game was then lured and/or driven in, and, as in the the knee-breeches, normally closed and fastened about the
case of the Chippewa, who spent most of their winter leg, to the knee, by either buttons, a strap and buckle, or
at one-or-two locations, the caribou could be shot by a draw-string.
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pairs or small parties; hunting and living in their between groups if a moose or caribou hunt failed in
kinship groups increased chances of survival. (If a one bands territory, permission was often granted to
male head of a family sickened and died, starvation hunt on the range of a neighbouring bands territory.
was avoided if-and-when the family was supported by
the band).
Keeche Keeche Manitou and the Midewewin
Marriages held little fanfare, and were easily
dissolved when necessary. Thompson said of Cree life: Individually, through vision quests, and
Nothing is requisite but consent of both parties and collectively, through special feasts and rituals, such
their parents. The riches of a man consisted solely as drumming, peoples of the boreal forest sought good
in his ability as a hunter; the portion of the woman will and assistance of the Spirit World.
was good health and willingness to relieve the husband Thompson of the Cree: They believe in the self-
of domestic duties; when a contrariety of disposition existence of the Keeche Keeche Manitou (The Great,
prevailed so as two could not live peacefully Great Spirit): He is the master of life; he leaves the
together they separated with as little ceremony as human race to their own conduct, but has placed all
with which they came together without stain to other living things under the care of Manitous
character. (comparable to inferior angels) all of which are
Native people, clearly, did not have double responsible to Him: Each Manitou has a special care
standards about marital and pre-marital sexual as one has the bison, another the deer; on this
relations, as Europeans, nor as Europeans to Indians, account Indians neither say nor do anything to offend
concerning chastity which was not essentially a them; and the religious hunter, at the death of each
virtue, though sometimes found in high degree and no animal, says or does something in thanks for
accomplishment whatever in man... it was sufficient to permission to kill.
conciliate the affections, or preserve the chastity Religion was a highly personal affair, but
as of southern Indian women. individuals thought to have special powers to commune
Hearnes sexist remarks say nothing of the traders with the Spirit World were considered Shaman. Among
who actually encouraged debauchery, often not adverse the Ojibwa, Thompson notes, native spiritual leaders
to use of force to win sexual favours. HBC trader formed a fraternity, called the Midewewin [supra] or
Moses Norton [infer], son of a mixed marriage, kept Grand Medicine Society the most important
several wives and a box of poison, the latter employed religious institution in their society.
against Indian men who refused him their wives or
daughters. From the Nelson River, on the west, to the Rupert
Another custom seen as scandalous was spousal River, on the south-east, was a vast swampland
exchange. Hearne acknowledged it was a very common bordering the Bay, and extending inland for a distance
custom for men to exchange a nights lodging with each of several hundred miles: An insect-infested swamp,
others wives: Far from being criminal, it was dubbed land of fog and bog by HBC trader James
esteemed as one of the strongest ties of friendship Hargave. Aptly named so. Beyond the North
between two families; and, in the case of either man, Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan Rivers, the
the other considered him bound to support the orphans boreal forest extended to the Rocky Mountains and the
of the deceased; and, there was not one instance of Yukon.
this duty being neglected: Cf. the European The wooded region of Peace River valley was one of
institution of the godparents [sic]. (There is no way the richest in game.
of telling whether the men sought the consent of the
wives, or possibly, whether or not the women sometimes On either side of the river, though
initiated these bonds.) invisible from it, are extensive plains, which
abound in (wood) buffalos, elks, wolves,
Political organization was simple... people followed foxes, and bears.
the natural leader, usually a headman in the winter, a Alexander Mackenzie
superior hunter, married, a skilled orator; the
headman of summer was usually a most respected South of the Saskatchewan Rivers, forests gradually
individual from amongst the smaller winter bands. In yielded to open grassland islands of trees in seas
contrast to European political organization, they held of grass, also known as parkland, or fire country (as
no real power, simply by virtue were their office immense prairie fires were commonplace), teeming with
bestowed upon them, and major economic and other game, especially grassland buffalo the largest North
political decisions were made collectively. Nothing American terrestrial animal, up to 2000 lbs, massed on
was ever done until a consensus was reached headmen the summer grasslands during rutting season, and
orated by persuasion, not coercion. retreating into the northern woods with autumns
The one problem all faced was the periodic scarcity winter chill.
of game after fires, from diseases, normal The summer herds were enormous:
fluctuations of animal populations generally
localized and of short duration. Strategies within I saw more buffalo than I ever dreamed of
bands of close kinship involved helping each other in before. The woods and plain full, and in the
times of need, sharing surplus with relatives, whether afternoon, came to a large round plain perhaps
or not receiving immediate return. ten miles across, and sat my horse on a knoll
Thompson of the Cree: Those acts that pass overlooking the plain. It did not seem
between man and a man for generous charity and kind possible to pack another buffalo in. The
compassion in civilized society are no more than what whole prairie was one dense mass.
is everyday practiced by these savages as acts of
common duty. The effect of such a huge herd was to strip the
grassland bare, as locusts, as it passed... the
Sharing was considered a duty and hoarding personal bordering woodland was trampled flat.
wealth was considered antisocial. Leaders were In the woods other game abounded there were moose,
expected to exhibit great generosity, in contrast to elk, and wapiti, the pronghorn and antelope, and mule
the Europeans - Northern Indians received status by deer; beaver thrived on aspen trees, and large packs
giving rather than accumulating; sharing took place
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of wolves preyed on the buffalo herds, killing the

young and infirm. No matter what method was used, once the hunt
Its hard to tell if the gun and the horse changed concluded, the elders supervised apportions of the
the Plains Indians lifestyle, or simply intensified kill. women did the skinning, butchering, and meat
it: Long before the horse and firearm, the Indians, preparation (in the summer), considerable quantity put
remarkable hunters, devised various efficient means to away for latter use: meat was dried and pounded into
pursue the buffalo; this was relatively easy because powder, grease rendered and placed in buffalo-hide or
the buffalo herds gathered at the same winter and rawhide containers (parfleche) to cool; and, to make
summer ranges every year, moving between them on well- pemmican, powdered meat and heated grease was
established pathways; if the pattern changed, it was combined, frequently Saskatoon berries were combined
usually because of some identifiable cause, such as an to add flavour it was a highly concentrated and
autumn fire destroying forage for the ensuing winter, nutritious mixture [infer].
or, more usually, mild winter weather encouraging the Hunting by pounds was preferable in fall and winter,
herds to remain in open prairie. In most instances, and were continued to be used until the end of the
the Indians had forewarning, and could take counter herd. With the introduction of the horse, women were
measures to ward off food shortages. eliminated from direct participation in buffalo
drives, turning their attention exclusively to
preparation of the meat and hides: The buffalo robe
Hunting Bison trade placed a premium on their services and
encouraged polygamy.
In the summer, the most effective method of hunting Other game was pursued, too: red deer, which could
bison was the cliff drive a large party of be very large, up to 1100 lbs, lived in the wooded
Indians, including women and children, would stampede margins of the grasslands... these were hunted during
a herd over a drop-off; the height need not be great, the winter, whenever buffalo herds failed to appear.
just enough to cripple the animal in the plunge over Their skins were also used for clothing.
the edge. Drovers would fan out in a V-shape
formation around the kill site, often standing behind Plains Indians, including certain bands of
natural or man-made shelters of bush or stone for Assiniboine, Blood, Cree, and Ojibwa, all who were
protection; the most skillful hunters would come up recent immigrants from the woodlands, relished moose
behind the herd and set it in motion towards the flesh. Prairie wolf, or coyote, and beaver, were
cliff, those on the flank made enough noise to keep hunted for their skins and pelts, as winter clothing,
the herd moving forwards; prairie grass was often and for food. Water fowl were taken in season. Some
alighted, to drive the herds, which is one reason why Indians fished, in early spring and autumn:
prairie fires were commonplace it was an efficient, Assiniboine and Cree took large quantities of
but unable to control the number of animals killed and sturgeon, during the spring runs building weirs at
waste was the result. At prehistoric buffalo jumps key locations on major rivers like the Assiniboine or
across the prairies, buffalo bones are up to fifteen Red River. Older plains tribes, like the Blackfoot,
feet deep. did not relish the taste of fish.4
Henry Kelsey reported a surround technique (in The diet of plains Indians was high in protein and
1691): When the Indians see a great parcel of them fat; they did not eat vegetables or fruit, although,
[sic] together, they surround them with a great party the exception was the wild prairie turnip, and a
of men; they gather themselves into a smaller compass, variety of berries the Saskatoon berry being the
keeping the beasts still in the middle, and go on most important these were harvested in large
shooting them till they break out at some point and quantity and dried for later use. The Assiniboine and
get away. It is most used when bands are en route to- Cree of South Manitoba were able to obtain wild-rice
and-from summer camps; cliff drives are more generally through trade: (Farm lands east of Red River, marked
employed in the larger summer camps. the northwest limit of the growing region). Trade
In winter, hunters took advantage of the fact that also existed with the Mandan Indians of the upper
herds sought shelter, and in those places known to be Missouri River for dried corn surplus.
frequented, they built fenced enclosures, known as
pounds. In 1776, Alexander Henry was noted to have Henry remarks (of the Assiniboine Indians): The
observed a pound in use by the Assiniboine of wild ox alone supplies them with everything they are
Saskatchewan with much admiration; like surround accustomed to want; the hide of the animal, when
hunting, this strategy was dangerous and required dressed, furnishes soft clothing for women, dressed
skill and bravery; there was always a risk of being with hair on the clothes of the men; flesh feeds them;
trampled if the herd startled... sinews afford them bowstrings; even the paunch
provides an important utensil the kettle this
Arrived at an island (of trees), the women being hung in the smoke of a fire, filled with snow...
pitched a few tents, while the chief led the as mit melted, more was added, till the paunch was
hunters to the southern end, there a pound full of water, and then stopped up with a plug and
[enclosure] fence of about four feet high was string.
formed of strong birch-wood stakes, wattled The amazing number of animals prevented fear from
with smaller branches of the same the day want.
was spent making repairs, and by evening it
was ready for the hunt. At daylight, several Women of all plains tribes were skilled at dressing
experienced hunters were sent to decoy animals and painting buffalo hides; but, more sedentary
to the pound, dressed in ox skins with the neighbours to the south, the Mandan Indians, excelled,
hair and horns, faces covered, making gestures and were renowned for their feather-craft and hair-
which closely resembled those of the animals. work. Assiniboine and Plains Cree prized products of
The decoyers approached within hearing, then Mandan crafts-women; handicrafts obtained from tribe-
yelling, bellowing reiterated till herd to-tribe, west-to-southwest.
leaders followed decoyers into the jaws of the
pound though wide asunder towards the plain, 4
The Blackfoot told Matthew Cocking, once, that they would
it terminated like a funnel in a small not accompany him to York Factory because they had to
gateway. travel by canoe and eat fish along the way.
10
stylus
Long before the demise of the buffalo herds, in the Iroquois, council decisions being reached by consensus
early days of the fur trade, particularly in the achieved by skilful orators using gentle persuasion,
parklands, the Natives had already successfully taken although force was sometimes used.
up farming (on small-scale) - corn, beans, squash - During the summer, the situation was somewhat
dried corn, painted hides, buffalo robes, and different; camps were often as large as the biggest
feathered wear would flow from Mandan villages. Huron villages, and security was needed, particularly
Plains Assiniboine and Cree carried unpainted hides, since the massive buffalo hunts needed careful
robes, dried provisions, and furs, to the south along planning and were tightly regulated for success, as
well-established trade routes. well as defensive posture. Summer time was of
widespread inter-tribal conflict. So, tribal councils
The Assiniboine and Cree were newcomers to the consisting of elders of wintering bands would call
plains and parklands, using bark canoes; those bands upon one of the mens military or policing societies
which settled grasslands earlier, to hunt buffalo, did to enforce rulings, if necessary.
not build this type of craft, instead they used the For both men and women, such societies were
so-called bull-boat an oval craft with a covering important, helping to knot large groups together:
of buffalo hide stretched over a frame of small wooden Among status-conscious men, competition was strong for
poles; not intended for long-distance journeys, but social position; military and policing societies were
used to cross rivers by people traveling primarily on finely ranked in order of ascending status eligible
foot. Plains Indians relied heavily on dogs beasts men bought membership, and only those with the
of burden linked to travois a single dog could carry greatest wealth and highest personal status were able
up to 75 lbs of cargo, equivalent to one buffalo-hide top gain entrance to the top ranks of society. Before
lodge cover. the arrival of Europeans, tipi lodges were the most
Plains Indian society was based on family, but important display of wealth, being made from 10-12
polygamy was practiced and men of high status usually buffalo hides the best lodges being highly
had several wives, ordinarily sisters. (Winter decorated.
villages of woodlands Indians were usually the same In quest for wealth and status, men were highly
size as the summer camps about 100 400 persons, dependant on their wives, who did most of the
pitched in shelters of islands of trees.) craftwork; although supplies for most common raw
materials was readily available, making domestic
articles was another matter... the hunter needed a
Chief Great Road wife, and, preferably, more than one, and daughters
for this work. The improved hunting from the
Henry, en route to the winter village of Chief acquisition of horse and gun was one factor
Great Road, (situated in central Saskatchewan), and encouraging increase in polygamous marriages.
his Indian companions were hit by a winter blizzard;
the storm continued all night and part of the next The introduction of the horse in the 18th century5
day; clouds of snow raised by the wind fell on the brought a sharp increase to tribal raiding forays,
camp, almost burying it. They had no resource but organized to capture the prized animals of others; the
their buffalo robes... in the morning they were acquisition of the firearm, beginning in the 17th
alarmed by the approach of a herd of oxen, coming from century, significantly increased male mortality rates
the open ground to shelter in the woods, in numbers so and because there were fewer males; there, again, is
great they dreaded theyd be trampled; nor could it another reason for polygamous marriage!
happened otherwise, but for the dogs almost as
numerous a the beasts who kept the herd in check.
The Indians killed several when they got too close to The Sun Dance Ceremony
the tents, in the camp, but neither the fire of the
Indians nor the barking of the dogs drove them away; The most important event of plains religious life
whatever the terror of the woods, there was no other was the annual Sun Dance ceremony. The plains Indians
escape from the terrors of the storm. regarded the sun as a major manifestation of the Great
Once there, their host was generous and hospitable; Spirit, and the ceremony usually took place in July or
the trader was treated to a succession of feasts and August, following the buffalo hunt, which was
entertainments normal to the winter life. Soon after especially undertaken to obtain food for the elaborate
they arrived, the chief came to their tent, bringing feast. The ceremony lasted for three days; celebrants
twenty men and as many women, playing musical danced; shamans displayed conjuring skills; a great
instruments, principally a sort of tambourine and a quantity of meat, particularly, buffalo bosses (humps)
kind of gourd filled with stones; several persons and tongues were consumed. The great festival of
accompanied by shaking two bones together; others with renewal brought families and related winter bands
bunches of deer hooves fastened to the end of a stick; together at the height of the summer.
another had a piece of wood about three feet long with
notches cut into the edge, the performer drew a stick The Rocky Mountains towered over the prairies in the
forward and backwards along the notches, keeping in west a dramatically beautiful region of mountains,
time with the music; women sung with sweetness of plateaus, and forests; canoe travel became hazardous
voice, exceeding what was heard before, the and water travel dangerous...
entertainment lasting about an hour, and when finished
a dance began: men formed into a row on one side,
women on another, each moved sideways, first up and Henry Hudson
then down in the room, with the sound of bells and
other jingling materials attached to the womens
dresses, keeping time the songs and dances continued
alternatively till nearly midnight, when the visitors
retired.
Village affairs in the winter were the 5

As early as 1600, but definitely by 1630, the plains
responsibility of the chief and a council of elders Indians had gotten horses from trade, theft, and prizes
generally those best suited to lead, as with the of warfare with the southern Indians.
11
stylus
In 1610,6 Henry Hudson navigated his ship, the Had Indians been wintering nearby, they might have
Discovery, south-wards over a large body of water7 he provided life-saving foods or a preventative curative
mistook for the Pacific Ocean, sailing along the tea made from spruce needles; it was horrible to take
Labrador side. Ice forced the explorer to winter but fought scurvy, and many lives might have been
there, in what is now known as James Bay, and his crew saved. By the beginning of the new year, 1620, all
suffered miserably from the cold, hunger, and scurvy were sick and the death list was growing. On June
th
and disease. With the approach of spring, the last of 4 , only Munck and two others were still alive.
the food was divided equally among the men, as Hudson Munck thought he was next to die: He wrote a note:
prepared to continue his search for the North-West
Passage. Further exploration was out of the Anyone finding this [ ] bury my poor body
question... the men mutinied... they wanted to go and forward [my] journal to the King of
home. Denmark, in order that my poor wife and
Hudson (age 61), his son John, the ships carpenter children obtain some benefit from my great
and six loyal crewmen were put in a dingy; given distress and miserable death.
another chance to change his mind, Hudson was adamant,
the leader of the mutineers reached out and cut the Spring broke a short time later, and they took some
tow-line to the rowboat. The mutineers then turned fresh fish and a little vegetation; the nutritional
their thoughts to finding food and stopped at Digges benefits were sufficient to work a minor miracle and
Island, in the Bay, hoping to obtain meat from the they managed to raise the Lamprey, get her afloat, and
Eskimos, but were attacked by the natives, using bows sail home by themselves.
and arrows; men were wounded and some died, and the
crew was reduced to eating seagulls for the balance of
their return journey (to England). Luke Foxe and Thomas James
Abacuk Pricket and Robert Bylot, both, repented and
confessed their crime and volunteered to return and Two Englishmen, Luke Foxe and Thomas James,
search for Hudson who was never seen again. further explored Hudsons Bay and its west coast, in
1631: Browsing deer, woodland caribou, moose the
pride of the forest (Thompson) and other animals
Sir Thomas Button important for fur and food, including, bear, fox,
beaver, muskrat, marten, land otter, lynx, and rabbit
In April 1612, Sir Thomas Button, another English and hare; among many varieties of fish were lake
explorer, with two ships the Discovery and trout, whitefish, sturgeon, pike; ducks and geese
Resolution left Gravesend on Thames, following the aplenty in the spring and autumn. The large game was
original Hudson course, and continued the search for scarcer in the Hudsons Bay lowland than in the
the route to China, sailing down the west coast of interior Shield country. (Far inland, between the
Hudsons Bay to the bottom of the bay: There was no South Saskatchewan River and the Lake of the Woods was
sign of Hudson nor any of those with him... one of the greatest muskrat producing areas in the
They wintered at the mouth of the Nelson River and, world.)
the first Europeans to see it, claimed the almost The Great Lakes area, called pays den haut, was
treeless, wet plain of flatland for England. On their subject to French expansion, thought of by the
return to England, they reported the discovery of the Englishmen as a people not always well-behaved: la
Nelson the great drainage outlet of the prairies coureurs-des-brois... with the acquisition of furs
which proved to be more important than they realized. foremost in their minds, were looking not for the
Western Sea, but for a sea of Beaver.
John Munck of Denmark

Coureurs-des-brois
Seven years later, in 1619, John Munck of Denmark,
sent two ships the Unicorn and Lamprey with a Coureurs-des-brois (runners of the woods) meant
combined crew of sixty-four, sailed away on the course illicit trader, a smuggler in the woods; established
tested by Hudson and Button, but, instead of staying merchants, Montral authorities, royal officials, did
close to the east side, sailed in a southwestern not want to see colonists abandoning settlement to
direction across the bay and came to the mouth of a trade in native territory; they preferred leave
big river the Churchill River. transportation work to natives and keep trade focused
Munck decided to winter in the west side of the on Montral. Despite repeated prohibitions, young
harbour in an inlet (called Sloops Cove) a couple Frenchmen were soon ranging through la pays den haut
of miles from the future Fort Prince-of-Wales. One - the upper country was controlled by Huron and
ship was raised to use as a living quarters for Iroquois, west and north of Montral - eventually
winter, and, although inadequate for defense against thousands of them, were journeying to Indian villages
Arctic cold, it was better than nothing. They had and exchanging French goods for beaver pelts,
brought inadequate clothing and suffered for it, and facilitating trading contracts in the role of brokers,
winter rations were no safeguard against the their behaviour intended to win the approbation of
deficiency disease scurvy. their Indian hosts. They joined them in their wars,
shared their material good fortune, married women of
leading trade families, strengthened social ties to
6
the band, raised children in native villages, and
Port Royal was founded by Poutrincourt, in 1605; and, in became native in all respects.
1608, Champlain founded Quebec. And, in 1609, Champlain The English and French were not the only ones
defeated the Iroquois and founded Lake Champlain. expanding: There were two major indigenous expansions
In England, King James VI & I, the son of Mary Stuart Queen
of the Scots (whom was executed for treason by Elizabeth I, in the north: Armed with guns obtained from HBC trade,
who died without issue), became monarch, on 24 June 1603, Ojibwa moved south from the north shore of Lake Huron,
uniting the Kingdoms of Scotland and England (and Ireland). into Iroquois and Huron lands. The skirmishes would
7
This great landlocked sea now bears his name Hudsons
last for decades.
Bay as does Hudson River, Hudson Strait, Hudson House, Furs were brought to entrepts (warehouse), like
and the Hudsons Bay Company, too. Montral. Canots-de-matre, each containing 600
12
stylus
1000 tons of trade goods, would travel from Montral families. So, with the assistance of a royal dowry,
through the Great Lakes the cargo was unloaded and usually 30 livres, two-thirds of engags annual cash
transferred to smaller canots-du-nord to go further earnings, 90% of them found husbands and most were
west. married within two-to-three weeks.
The origin of the Plains Mtis can be seen in the Engags who stayed after three years of labour
appearance of les gens libres (freemen) about the usually became habitants (tenant proprietors of
posts of the St-Lawrence and Great Lakes trading family farms). Engags went without their wives to
system, extending into the valleys of the Red, clear their lands of forest cutting down trees,
Assiniboine, and North Saskatchewan Rivers. Some pulling roots, digging out stones... it was hard work.
Canadinne engags contracted servants ended their {These men were the happiest men this country has ever
employment in the interior rather than back in known and it will never see the likes of these people
Montral. Together, in two-or-three family household again.}
bands, they supplied the forts with provisions and
furs; their survival and, in time, way of life,
depended upon the cooperation of the traders at the Mdard Chouart Des Groseilliers and
posts, and, at the very least, toleration of the Pierre-Esperit Radisson
Indian bands sharing the range.
In his youth, Des Groseilliers had been a Jesuit
Coastal factories warehoused goods and furs for engag at Huron missions, where he learned native
transportation after native traders arrived from the languages and established many ties to Huron allies.
interior to participate with their European Radisson came to the New World, in 1651: At age 15; he
counterparts in ritual fur trade. The identities of was a prisoner of the Mohawk Indians, with which the
the individuals performing the role of trader French were at war... he escaped, and when he returned
throughout the St-Lawrence and Great Lakes region to the St-Lawrence found his sister married to Des
irrevocably altered with the destruction of Huronia Groseilliers. Des Groseilliers made his first
after Iroquois attacks during the winter of 1648-9. independent western voyage in 1654 and became one of
In the aftermath, the French and successors to the the first coeur-des-brois. He was engaged in trade
Huron, the Ottawa, attempted to establish a coastal with the Huron Indians near Lake Superior by 1656 and
factory system. Social and political circumstances furthering French exploration of the Great Lakes.
wouldnt allow it. In 1659, his brother-in-law joined him; they decided
The Iroquois, allied to the Dutch, then to the an attempt should be made to establish a trade base on
English at New York, harassed hunters on the Shield, the northern frozen sea, and eliminate the
and Indian traders to-and-from Montral. The natives burdensome overland-transportation costs, and because
ceased to perform the tasks of trading... and the of this direct access they out-flanked other Indian
coastal factory system of trade gave way to the en traders.
derouine (internant paddling) fur trade. Euro- In 1661, the French governor refused them permission
Canadian traders replaced the Indian traders in the to trade on their own accord, they went anyways, and
tasks of the fur trade, from hunting bands and were gone for more than a year; they saw the
transport to mint... mostly Canadinne, though not headwaters of the Mississippi River and Lake Winnipeg,
exclusively so. and were the first to reach James Bay from the land
The principle post in the Great Lakes area was side. They planned to load their furs at the mouth of
Michilimackinac, under command of a military officer the Rupert River, in the Bay, for direct shipping to
appointed by the government in France. Individual France and the world market. They had acquired some
bourgeois (merchants) dispatched small parties of men of the finest furs ever seen... but instead of being
en derouine to trade with hunting bands on their home received as heroes, they were arrested and their furs
grounds. Trading parties were led by a commis were seized, and they were fined for being absent
(clerk), whose success as a broker was essential to without permission.
the success of en derouine trade. Similar to the They felt they had saved the colony from commercial
coeur-des-brois des brois of the previous era, the collapse at the height of the Iroquois onslaught but
commis found it useful to join his Indian suppliers were disciplined and fined.
on war junkets... The impetuous fellows were angry and appealed to the
king of France, expecting him to be enthusiastic about
their plan. He was not. Yet, they were convinced
La Habitant et la Fille du Roi the future of fur trade was in the water flowing into
the Bays and not the Great Lakes...
Those in the French colonies became Canadinne and Authorities in New France were already concerned to
had little or no room for the Macutetis community, see their young men disappear westwards in growing
which was to arise quickly in the coastal factory numbers and did not want to see New France bypassed
system. completely. It was the wrong time to approach French
Civilian labourers sent from France to the New World officials... in 1663, Jean-Baptiste Colbert was made
hired out under contract an engagement bound as a the new Secretary of State, and had taken over
hired man for three years of service to the employer, direction of colonial affairs; he was more interested
or to whomever the employer sold the engags contact; in promoting farming in the colony, in order to
in return, the engag received passage to New France, establish the colony on sounder footing, and did not
room and board, and a small annual wage; after three want the local population drawn away from settlements
years, he was entitled to passage back to France and on trading or other ventures.
under no obligation to remain and fewer than half Des Groseilliers and Radisson made another abortive
did usually young workers or soldiers, who rarely attempt in Boston on the partners return to New
brought their wives: Soon men were outnumbering women France they met George Cartwright, an envoy of sorts
2 to 1 in the colonies. for the English king. He arranged a meeting with the
The Crown recruited (young) females for immigration king and accompanied them to England, and met a small
as la fille du roi (the Kings daughters): Between close-knit group of courtiers, who were deeply
1663 and 1673 about 775 women accepted the Royal offer concerned about establishing a balanced Imperial
of transport to New France. The Crown wanted the economy: in the group was Anthony Cooper, later 1st
single men of the colonies to have wives and large Earl of Shaftesbury, Sir Peter Colleton, Sir George
13
stylus
Carteret, and George Monk, 1st Duke Albemarle a the HBC, and returned with reports of vast numbers of
highly-placed entrepreneurial group which had fur-bearing animals.
undertaken planting in Carolina, in 1666, and granted Between 1650 and 1670, the Assiniboine and Cree
the Bahamas, in 1670. They had the patronage of the Indians which had been trading with Ottawa and Ojibwa
Kings brother, James, Duke of York and dashing cousin traders, with furs exchanged for French goods, were
of Prince Rupert. now able to directly trade with England with no need
The King liked their idea so much that he sent them for middlemen and were now well-placed, strategically,
to his cousin, Prince Rupert, a robust entrepreneur. to assume the merchant role themselves.
A bungled attempt to dispatch an expedition was Fort Charles (in Quebec) was built by the crew of
undertaken, in 1667. Good summer weather would pass the Wivenhoe, in 1669; both, Forts Moose and Albany
before they were ready... the Prince called a meeting were built in the mouths of the Moose and Albany
of leading Londoners for opinions and decided to Rivers, in Ontario, in 1673 and 1675, respectively.
experiment with a single ship, and sent the Nonsuch to James Isham, a trader for the HBC during the early-
the Bay for furs. To show the Kings interest, a eighteenth century, describes the dangerous realities
second boat loaned from the Royal Navy, the Eaglet, of winter on the Bay:
was sent as well. Des Groseilliers aboard the
Nonsuch and Radisson aboard the Eaglet, they left on 3 About the last of august, the northwestern
(5) June 1668. and northern winds begin to set in, with
The small ships were ketches, both weighed less than insufferable Cold weather, with hard snow and
44 tons, and were approximately 16 at the beam and great Drifts for eight months together... it
under 40 in length. The Eaglet was forced to return oft happens we shall have fine moderate
for repairs (with Radisson still aboard her), but Des weather, in a winter morning wn before night
Groseilliers reached the southern end of James Bay on approaches, a sudden gale will spring up with
29 September. The Nonsuch wintered at the mouth of Drift and snow to that Degree, that if men
Ruperts River and conducted successful trade with the happen to be out, and drest for warm weather,
Cree; returning to England loaded to the gunwales with they Run a great Resque of their Lives.
prime mint beaver and other fine furs... which made Several have perished, by such sudden Storm...
them some recompense for cold confinement. I have known men to stand at the saw for only
In the meantime, flushed with success, steps had twenty minutes when their faces and hands has
been taken to establish trade on a permanent basis. been frozen so, they have been obliged to
The Eaglet was replaced with the Wivenhoe, which made Retire to the Surgeon to have Such Curd or
two-way trip in 1669. London staged record fur sales. Cutt off &c...
Prince Ruperts friends organized at once to prosecute
trade: King Charles granted them a charter and made By 1671, the new company had started erecting posts
them True and Absolute Lordes and Proprietors: Des at the outlets of major rivers; like Quebec
Groseilliers and Radisson expected more than what they Habitation in the early years of the European conquest
got and left England to rejoin France, saying England of the primitive New World, the HBC would not have
had no claim to the Bay. In the end, Radisson left been possible without its small all-male
France again, to rejoin the company, settled in establishments dependent upon Europe for supplies, and
England and died in 1710. on natives for furs... and women.
The Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, restored the Bay to It was no surprise that the many trade practices
England and the company. developed by the French were incorporated into the new
company. At the pre-trade ceremony gifts of equal
value were exchanged an Indian institution trade
1. The Hudsons Bay Company between two groups with no family ties did not
commence until a bond of friendship was established or
2 May 1670 is the Hudsons Bay Companys official reconfirmed by leaders of both parties. Peace pipes
date of birth to trade furs in Ruperts Land: the were smoked and formal speeches were delivered at the
huge expanse of land from which drainage waters flowed same time.
into Hudsons Bay. King Charles conveyed perpetual Trading blended the Indian and European traditions
trading and territorial rights to the Company of of exchange; the key aspects of the ceremonies, such
Adventurers of England trading into Hudsons Bay. as gift-giving, carried over into treaty negotiations
Given monopoly of trading privileges and right to and annuity payments. Trade, as a matter of barter,
colonize all lands drained by waters flowing into was relative to the values expressed in terms of the
Hudson Strait had begun with the two Frenchmen staple of the day: beaver furs and goods said to be
Sieur Mdard Chouart Des Groseilliers and Pierre- worth so many made beaver pelts, which were equal to
Esperit Radisson: both were born in France; immigrated a prime winter coat or parchment of beaver skin.
to the St.-Lawrence region; each was impulsive and Directors of the Company, known as the Governor and
aggressive testing the patience of both the French Committee, set the official price list or, standard
and the English Crowns... and, although Radisson was of trade. But the men in the wilderness deviated from
the better self-promoter, it was Des Groseilliers these lists according to local conditions; when
which was the mastermind. firmly in control, they charged the Natives more for
The area was named for Prince Rupert, first governor goods than specified standards. Conversely, if
of the newly formed Hudsons Bay Company of London, competing traders were present, HBC officials
founded upon the work of the two French traders, whom sometimes paid more for furs than specified.
received title to Ruperts Land from King Charles in
1670. English fur traders fought many battles with
their French rivals for possession of the fertile land The Pre-Trade Ceremony
and its many rivers draining into the Bays. These
invading Europeans pushed ever westwards into the In the early HBC days, the pre-trade gift-giving
region... the HBC sending Henry Kelsey on an ceremony was central to the Companys relationship
expedition to find new sources of fur. He left York with those groups who lived long distances from
Factory outpost, in 1690, and travelled along with bayside posts... and came to trade only once per year.
Indians for two years, persuading many to trade with Indian trade parties rallied behind leaders who were
skilled orators, who knew routes to posts and were
14
stylus
astute traders they were called captains by the of large trade parties, pre-trade formalities took
English, and headmen who followed were termed several days.
lieutenants. Such elaborate ceremonies were staged only for
Just prior to arrival at a post, the Indians would inland natives; local bands wee treated differently.
put ashore and dress in their finest clothing; as they These natives became known as the local guard in
approached the fort, the chief factor would fire a recognition of their close ties to the posts they
round of cannon or musket to salute the Indians, and visited frequently. In addition to trapping, the
they, too, would fire in similar fashion with musket, home guard provided the fort with meat provisions and
in reply. They made camp at a clearing set aside for worked as casual labour in the summer, assisting with
that purpose and, while camp was being set up, the maintenance, collecting firewood and doing other
Indian trade captain and lieutenants would proceed to chores.
the fort, where they were greeted by the chief factor
and his staff officers. Despite a Company ban to the contrary, liaisons
Late 18th century Chief Factor Andrew Graham of York developed with the home guard Indian women most were
Factory describes a typical visit, thus: not casual relationships, marriages according to the
custom of the country, or common-law marriage -
The governor being informed that the leaders if viewed from the European perspective drew home
have arrived sends the Trader to introduce guard Indians into the social orbit of the trading
them singularly, or two-or-three together with post. [These people became known to as the people
their lieutenants, usually eldest sons or of the House.]
nearest relatives. Chairs are placed in a In the late 18th century, the Company lifted the
room, pipes with smoking materials produced on band, but by then a sizable population of European-
a table, captains place themselves on each Indians existed already, referred to as mixed-bloods
side of the governor, [and] silence is then or citizens of the Hudsons Bay. Mixed marriages
broken in degrees by the most venerable were commonplace at French posts, as well, and those
Indian. He tells how many canoes he has off-springs living in the prairies and parklands later
brought, what kind of winter they have seen emerged as li Natio Macutetis.
[ ] how many are coming or stayed behind, and
asks how the Englishmen do, and says he is Out-fitting of Indians was another important feature
glad to see them; after which, the governor of the Companys earliest trade to carry over from the
bids him welcome, tells him he has goods and French [and], perhaps, involved extending credit to
plenty that he loves the Indians and will be Indian hunters in form of staple goods, amounts
kind to them. The pipe by this time is depending on local economic conditions; assuring the
renewed and conversation becomes free and local natives would be supplied of essential items
easy. even if the hunt was poor, in the short term: It
became an increasing concern in later years as the
Whilest these pleasantries are exchanged trade Indians grew dependent upon guns, ammunition,
captains and lieutenants are outfitted with new hatchets, knives, traps, food... yet, also invested in
clothes. A coarse narrow coat, either red or blue, future returns the Europeans staking claim on those
lined with baize, with regimental cuffs and collar; returns. It was a major consideration when there was
the waistcoat and breeches of baize; the suit competition through competing traders, encouraging the
ornamented with broad and narrow orris lace of Indians not to honour debts owing to the
different colour,8 a white or checked shirt, a pair of competition. Given the extent of the out-fitting
yarn stockings, tied below the knee with worsted practiced, the fur trade, at best, could be described
garters, a pair of English shoes; a hat laced and as credit-barter, or truck trade. It was not
ornamented with feathers of different colours, a until after Confederation that the cash for fur buying
worsted sash tied round the crown, an end hanging spread into the north and, as late as WWI, the
out each side down to the shoulders; a silk credit-barter system still accounted for most of the
handkerchief, tucked by a corner into the loops wild-fur trade.
behind... and with these decorations it is put on the Trade goods benefited women as much as men: The
captains head and completes his dress. (Lieutenants kettle, probably, had the greatest impact on their
are also presented with suits, though inferior.) daily lives. For the first time they had durable,
Dressed now in new outfits to resemble their transportable vessels which could be used over an open
European hosts, the Indian captains are paraded out of fire. They no longer had to toil to boil water with
the fort in the company of the chief factor and his heated stones an arduous procedure. And, stews and
officers, followed by servants carrying gifts for the soups became central to their diet. Cotton and wool
other natives mostly food, tobacco, brandy... and, goods were in demand, but not until later was European
another round of speech-making takes place in the clothing wanted in any large quantity. Woven
camp; additional gifts are presented to the chief, who clothing was not as warm as furs, but dried more
orders them distributed to his followers and, at this quickly, and wool provided warmth even when wet. And,
juncture, the Company men depart and the Indians for fashioning hides, pelts, and yard goods into
celebrate and consume most of what was given them: clothing, metal awls, knives, needles, and scissors
Once the feasting is complete, a trade party assembles each made tasks simpler. A small portion of their
behind the trade captain, who delivers a lengthy incomes was spent on beads, cheaply obtained... they
speech reconfirming friendship, also taking encourage ornamental beadwork on clothing: In times of
opportunity to mention any troubles the party had with trade, beads largely replaced trade for quill and
the last supply of trade goods; he details any shell work on Indian fashioned garments.
hardships which they might have had during the last Firearms made the most impact on the woodlands
winter, politely demanding his people receive fair natives. Before trade men stalked game and killed at
treatment; after a suitable reply, the Indians retire close range with bow and arrow; the animals, probably,
to their camp and trade was ready to begin. In case did not die instantly and move considerable distances
before bleeding to death... but, with firearms, death
8 was usually more instantaneous. Hunters found the
A kind of heavy ribbon or gimp trimming, sometimes woven
with gold and silver, and used in the 17 th and 18th smooth-bore flintlock musket most efficient, however
centuries... inferior to the repeating rifle of the 19th century.*
15
stylus
Hatchets and chisels became invaluable, quickly... withdraw to their original territory south of Lake
as tools used in the winter to open frozen beaver Ontario.
lodges an essential method of taking beaver in the
18th century, until baited steel-spring leg-hold traps In 1681, royal officials acknowledged traffic,
became crucial. Indian men and women soon adapted the offering amnesty to the coureurs-des-brois and
Europeans metal knives into a more interesting tool authorizing a series of permits, called conges,
the canoe-knife, or crooked knife - used in canoe legitimizing the creation of la voyageurs. Holding a
construction or any operation where paring of complex conge or allied to a Montral merchant, they made
wooden shapes is required. But, of all commodities western fur trading a profession. They made longer
obtained in trade, none was more disruptive than voyages and half of all voyages demanded longer
alcohol. commitments from the men who ventured them who would
The English in North America were an ever-expanding spend two winters dans la pays den haut.
presence... disturbed, the French at Quebec launched As western posts expanded, some of the men settled
two circling movements, the first in 1671, from the in the west, bringing wives from home or marrying
Great Lakes west, with the aim of cutting the Company native women. They started families at
off at the Bay from the interior. (The second came in Michilimackinac and Detroit or in the Upper
1699, during the French-Indian Wars in the Thirteen Mississippi region Illinois others kept home sin
Colonies.) Montral and returned for a year-or-two leaving their
households in charge of their wives.
The Cree continued moving west, as far as Peace To be a voyageur was to be a member of a cult of
River, even before the advent of the whites, raiding strength and endurance: homme du nord who wintered
in the Mackenzie basin by 1820. They were contained in the far west, lived on native food and ate
to the north by the Chippewa and to the south by their pemmican: mangeurs de lard were those who returned
Assiniboine allies living the life of buffalo to eat pork in Montral each fall. Almost one-fifth
hunters on the great inland plain. By the late 17 th / of French Canadinnes lived in the towns of Quebec,
early 18th century, the Assiniboine and Cree used arms Montral, and Trois-Rivires; perhaps two thousand or
obtained from the HBC, not only to hunt, but also to more lived beyond the narrow bounds of the colony in
cordon off Hudsons and James Bays from rival trade the fur trade country of the Great Lakes, where, with
groups, and expand their sphere of influence to the Indian wives and Macutetis children, formed a
west and northwest: In some areas considerable distinct society disparaged by British officials as
bloodshed occurred one primary cause of major vagabond.
upheaval in the heart of the continent! Just before As manpower needs grew, merchants recruited beyond
the Europeans began to arrive, the Chippewa Indians le de Montral one source of most voyageurs. After
were displaced to the north, the Beaver and Sekani to 1730, half who signed contracts described themselves
the west, and the Gros Ventre to the south. as habitants, or farmers. It was temporary work
Factors considered distance and time necessitated undertaken for money and soon abandoned for full-time
and other alterations to derouine fur trade, to make farming.
it functional dans la pays de las mer de louest -
(the interior plains over the height of the land Construction of York Factory proceeded with
beyond the Lakehead); by 1680, the French penetrated indecision because of the war between France and
to the Lakehead there was an hiatus of half-a- England. The HBC was anxious to expand along the Bay
century before any further exploration west. coast and planned to build at the mouth of the Nelson
River. They believed Indian canoe traffic would
I am informed, there is a nation of Indians maximize trade. In 1682, the HBC sent a boat with
called poyets (Dakota Sioux) who have had no supplies; the captain, confronted with two other
trade with Christian nations... it would be parties building schemes laying logs already
greatly to our advance if we could gain trade Radisson and Des Groseilliers, recently deserted from
with them... for they would faine have trade the HBC, claiming the Great Bay belonged to France,
with us but are afraid to break through our told the English to clear out. Another party,
neighbouring Indians for want of armies... our Benjamin Guillam sailed in from Boston with the ship,
Indians {Assiniboine and Cree] are affrayed Bachelors Delight. All three proceeded uneasily.
that they [Dakotas] will breake doune to trade The next year, in 1683, the French seized Guillam and
with us, for by their good will, they would be ship, seized HBC furs, and sailed off for Montral.
the only brokers between all strange Indians Des Groseilliers nephew was left to protect their
and us... investment.
John Nixon, Governor of the HBC Radisson, once back in New France, again disagreed
with the new rulers and went to France, then to
Trade people sprang up all around the Great Lakes England, yielding to the English proposal to take a
and Upper Mississippi, most important of these was ship back to the Bay with the HBC by this time, in
Michilimackinac on the strait between Lake Michigan 1684, building a new trading post on the west side of
and Lake Huron. By the 1680s, coureurs bringing a the Hayes River, close to the mouth York Factory.
flood of pelts to Montral created trading alliances
that bypassed the Iroquois. The Iroquois Nation In 1686, Pierre de Troyes with 100 soldiers and
returned to war: Its first targets were the native volunteers marched about 600 miles overland and seized
allies of the French around the Great Lakes. A major English holdings on the Bay. Nobody at these posts
reversal was produced for the Five Nations, when they was ready for warfare. The soldiers didnt need
lost control of the southern Ontario territories which their battering ram, and the marchers captured Moose
they had taken from the Huron. An Indian War was River post, then Rupert and Albany, only York Factory
fought entirely among the Indians largely unobserved remained in the hands of the HBC.
and unreported to the Europeans; but Native traditions After the Treaty of Utrecht, York Factory became the
tell of many battles from ambushes at portages and undisputed capital of the HBC trading empire. All
campsites to assaults on palisaded towns. Both sides cargos of ocean-going ships left from there, and all
now used European weapons as well as bows, fighting on incoming cargo was unloaded for reshipment by canoe or
rivers and lakeshores from Sault-Ste.-Marie to Lake York boat, there-at, to travel to Company posts across
Erie. The result was that the Iroquois had to the west. Half-way station for settlers, who began
16
stylus
arriving in 1811, was 750 miles to Red River by canoe, mice and other vermin had! Demand for beaver and
which could take one month, or two... or even three. other furs was high. Expansion required western
Whilest naval battles were fought on the Bay, a few posts, which became military bases, trade shops,
small French trade posts set up in Lake Superior embassies, missions to the natives, and springboards
country, at Lake Nipigon in 1684, and Rainy Lake in to exploration.
1688: A prelude to a major thrust overland by the To support New Frances native allies, Governor
French coureurs-des-brois. In 1688, Jacques de Noyon Vaudreuil authorized his commander in the west
pushed west almost to Manitoba. Constant Le Marchand de Lignery to initiate a long
In 1689, the French-Indian War entered a new phase, war against the Fox Nation, west of Lake Michigan.
when England and France declared war. The Iroquois Royal expenditures on forts in the west was subsidized
backed up the English colony of New York in an by Montrals fur trade increased domination of the
offensive against New France. At Lachine, the trade by military officers, like La Vrendrye9
voyageurs departure point, just west of Montral, a commanding la postes du nord, northwest of Lake
massacre occurred on 5 August 1689: 1500 Iroquois Superior convinced they could reach a river flowing
warriors struck at dawn and burned 50 of the 80 south or west and to the Pacific.
houses, there-at, killing 24 people and dragging 90
prisoners away. For several years the Iroquois The Fur Trade War waged intermittently between
warriors killed the habitants livestock, burned France and England for twenty-seven years, until it
buildings and crops, and more than 100 people were was ended by the Treaty of Utrecht (ending the War
killed in 1691. In 1691, England and France made of Spanish Succession) awarding the HBC complete
peace, followed soon after by the Iroquois. control of the northern maritime approach... and the
French were compelled to withdraw. Thus ended French
In 1684, Henry Kelsey, age fourteen, apprenticed to competition!
the HBC and sailed for York Factory, fearless as an But, nothing was resolved concerning the dispute
excited robin and ready for an assignment. It was a over the vast inland territory Ruperts Land
Company rule that its servants not socialize with the claimed by Royal Charter for the HBC. The English
Indian people of the House; but, Kelsey liked the were content to sit and wait for the furs to come to
company of the natives which drew him reprimands, at them; but, the French and Highland Scots on the St.-
times. He had a natural talent for negotiation with Lawrence were not ready to let the HBC have all the
Indians and was entrusted with missions to the native fur trade by default, especially on the Saskatchewan
peoples. On one such expedition, in 1690, westward of Rivers, where fur traders like Chevalier de La Corne,
the Churchill River, he was the first European to see Barthlemi Blondeau, Franois le Blanc, followed de La
musk-ox ill-shapen beasts with buffillo horns Vrendrye and prospered (until the defeat of the
joined together upon their forehead and so come down French at the Plains of Abraham).
on ye side of their head and turn up at ye tips with The validity of the Royal Charter of the HBC was
ye buts. Their hair is nearly a foot long. unquestionable, now, and with it went the chance to
The next two years he made a trip south: It was trade in unexplored country to the north...
important for the Company to persuade the natives to
bring their furs to the Bay. The governor needed a The descendants of the habitants began to filter
resourceful and courageous man Kelsey, then only westward beyond the St-Lawrence River and set up farms
nineteen years of age with several canoes and a in the marginal lands of Upper Canada, in northern
small group of Assiniboine Indians paddled upstream on Ontario, on the edge of the Canadian Shield. A
the Hayes River in June of 1690. The Indians knew the nucleus of one-and-a-half million Canadinnes, calling
watercourse well, and after weeks of paddling on the themselves Franco-Ontarians.
Saskatchewan River, stopped to consider a wintering The coureurs-des-brois, moving ever-westwards,
site, called Deering Point by Kelsey. Near present- penetrated to the wilderness beyond the Great Lakes
day La Pas, Manitoba or by Cedar Lake. after the defeat of the Huron. And, following the
example of tienne Brle, who had become half-Indian
In sixteen hundred & ninetyth year, I set during his residency with the Huron, were willing to
forth as plainly may appear Through Gods learn and adapt survival techniques of native peoples.
assistance for to understand The native Instead of moving through the forests, like soldiers
language & to see their land And for my in large groups, taking European equipment with them,
masters interest I did soon Set + from ye they went singly and in small groups, adapting their
house ye twealth of June. Then up ye River I dress and food requirements to what the forest
with heavy heart Did take my way & from all provided. They travelled in light, portable birch-
English part. bark canoes, later, in the winter months, adopting
Henry Kelsey snowshoes and sleighs. They learned Indian languages
and, if they stayed in the forests long enough, took
Kelsey joined the Indians on the plains instead of Indian wives a la faon du pays in the fashion of
wintering at Deering Point and, in the spring of 1691, the country, or common-law marriage. - The country
continued west on foot (over area now occupied by the wife was of critical importance and supplied vital
cities of Humboldt, Saskatoon and Kindersley). He met social linkages to some of the bands.
the Indians and was an excellent ambassador for the A new racial element came into existence, called the
HBC; by 1692, Kelsey was back at York Factory. Mtis by the French and half-breeds by the English.
The next few years saw York Factory twice captured
by the French during the English-French struggle for The first fur traders had encountered several Indian
the Bay. The French flag was flown over the fort each tribes: the Chipewyan hunting caribou across
time Admiral dIberville took possession. In 1701, in northern sections; Woods Cree wandering hunters of
the midst of a glut of furs, a clear challenge to beaver and moose, living in the central forests;
English interests in North America was established by Assiniboine buffalo hunters of the southwest plains,
the founding of Detroit, (from detroit the strait.) allies of the Cree; the Plains Cree fishing and
Fur resources of the east had been depleted at a
shameful rate; competition for the rich furs of the 9
Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Vrendrye,
west country was intense: The long disruption by war soldier, patriot, trader, explorer and hero of New France,
had not exhausted the stockpile of furs in Europe, but especially at his birthplace in Trois-Rivires.
17
stylus
trapping on the prairies and in the wooded lowlands, Esquawino,10 described as being a disgruntled
and the Chippewa also buffalo hunters, on the trapper at Moose Fort:
southeastern section of the plains. The HBC had
sought at first to keep contact between its servants Ye grands politician of all being a free
and the Indians to a minimum but this turned out to Agent travelling about, sometimes to ye
be impossible... for one reason alone women. French, at others to Albany & this Fort, never
Women played a vital role... and were occasionally drinks but has always his scenses about him &
used as guides to extend the sphere of the fur trade. makes ye best of his Market at all places.
- In 1715, a Cree named Swan journeyed up the [144 CFN]
Churchill River for the Company.
Thanadelthur (d. 1717) was a remarkable Chipewyan Furthermore, the English jailed the enterprising
woman, who had been captured by the Cree, escaped with Captain Snuff on charges of interfering with trade
another woman and survived a year in the bush looking and stirring rebellion among the home guard...
for York Factory, which she had heard about but only
had a vague idea of its location. Her companion died, In 1728, the chief factor at York Factory, Thomas
and shortly afterwards, Thanadelthur was found by a McCliesh, wrote the Governor and Committee,
party from York Factory. Taken to the post she soon complaining bitterly:
became invaluable as an interpreter and in persuading
her fellow tribesmen to come to the fort to trade, Never was any man so upbraided with our
despite the presence of their traditional enemies, the powder, kettles, and hatchets, than we have
Cree. seen this summer by all Indians, especially
The minimum contact policy had a side effect it those [on the] border near the French... [The]
restricted access to the interior; men accustomed to natives [have] grown so politic in ways of
that type of travel found it necessary to have Indian trade, [they are] not to be dealt with as
guides, whence the rule was relaxed, further formerly were... now is [the] time to oblige
exploration of the interior was feasible. [the] natives before [they are] drawn to the
The HBC abandoned its century-old sleep at the edge French... for here came at least 40 canoes of
of a frozen sea pattern, and a series of inland Indians clothed in French [fashion].
posts emerged, serving as trading and provision [ ] traded with the French last summer,
centers, connected by water routes followed by fur likewise, bought several strong French kettles
brigades returning each winter before freeze up. Some and some French powder in the horn...
posts were substantial enough to be dignified with the
name of Fort; they varied in number according to The Europeans were forced to adapt to the Indians
whether the situation was one of intense competition technology, climate, and environment. And, it was
or virtual monopoly. The majority were created to critical they did so. In 1717, French expansion began
drain trade away from competitors, or to exploit a new under Zachary Robutel, Sieur de La Noue, after he re-
region, and after these purposes had been established the old French post on Rainy Lake. Fort
accomplished... would be closed. Then, once more, Churchill was established to outflank the Cree
adventurous Anglo-Saxons the Frobisher brothers, blocking Athapaskan Indians from visiting York
Benjamin, Joseph, and Thomas took in furs that Factory.
under different circumstances would have gone to the The English and French continued to compete at a
HBC at York Factory. distance to the advantage of Cree and Assiniboine
traders. The French reached into the heart of their
The natives played off the English against the territory [ ] bringing enough goods to satisfy Indian
French, and were quite adept at recognizing a good demands: The French tended to trade lightweight,
deal, but goods that they accumulated were for highly-valued goods for prime furs. The more remote
redistribution to satisfy social obligations rather HBC posts, supplied by cheap ocean transport, were
than for personal use exclusively. able to offer a full range of goods and accepted
lower grade furs. Cree and Assiniboine middlemen
The English soon discovered that the French knew handled the important work of carrying trade and
neither sense or lacked the values of good gave them the advantage of a competitive market.
entrepreneurial skills. The Indians did not part with In 1718, Fort Churchill was the first trading post
their furs for cheap trinkets; most trapping incomes authorized by the HBC after the Treaty of Utrecht.
were spent on firearms, ammunition, metal goods, cloth At the mouth of the Churchill River, it was a simple
and blankets, tobacco and brandy only the last two log structure with the purpose of catching the
items were clearly luxuries. Indians replaced Chipewyan Indian trade. It was destroyed by fire.
trading technology with an exotic one, and quickly
learned to become discriminating consumers, demanding HBC officials had no tendency to teach native
quality merchandise with specific design children to read or write; but, the master at Albany
requirements suitable for hunting and trapping, with a Fort did, in 1724. London complained:
demand for light-weight and durable equipment. It was
a challenge for European manufactures when creating The Company are very much displeased to hear
arms and metal goods. Under extreme winter that any Indian child taught [to] Write & Read
conditions, design deficiencies, casting flaws, poorly or admitted into ye Trading Room to prye into
soldered joints, metal objects failed. In case of ye Secrets of their affairs in any nature
firearms, it could lead to disabling injury or even whatsoever without our order & charge you
death for the user of a faulty gun. strikly not to continue that nor suffer any
The Indians became harsh critics of European-made such Practices for ye future [145 CPN]
merchandise: The governor established a committee to
monitor native complaints... as the natives learned
the value of comparative shopping in the fur trade. 2. Emergence of a buffalo-based horse culture
Capitalizing on English and French rivalries, the
Indians persuaded hunters on the way to bayside posts
to part with their best furs and shop for deals
elsewhere. 10
Esquawino hanged himself because of losing face
18
stylus
The plains bison-hunting way of life crystallized As was customary, La Vrendrye was guided by
between 1600 and 1750, in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Indians:
Manitoba, and across the Medicine Line in Montana
and the Dakotas and developed, in the first half of The man I have chosen is one named Auchagah,
the 18th century into a culture dependent upon the or Ocliagach [a Cree], a savage of my post,
horse, which altered the hunt, foremost, besides greatly attached to the French nation, the man
transportation, warfare, and trade routes. most capable of guiding a party, and with whom
Technologies change faster than institutions faster there would be no fear of our being abandoned
than ideologies. on the way. When I proposed to him to guide
The Shoshone seasonal residents of the grasslands me to the Great River of the West, he replied
and plateau were the first to acquire the horse on that he was at my service and would start
the northwest plains, through trade with the Spanish whenever I wished. I gave him a collar
to the south: (The Spanish did not trade guns). The [necklace] by which, after their manner of
source was their relatives to the south and neighbours speaking, I took possession of his Will,
from the western plateau. They employed their horses telling him that he was to hold himself in
principally for the hunt; running buffalo was readiness for such a time as I might have need
usually favoured as a hunting technique, but of him.
surrounds also increased in use.
By 1730, the Shoshone began to employ their horses Auchagah had previously provided La Vrendrye with
in raiding and became feared mounted warriors of the maps of the territory west of Lake Superior, tracing
plains, in the following decades. Known to the Cree the routes between Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg.
as Misstutim (Big Dog), horses were as swift as The map and the information obtained by interview
deer: Thompson [is] said [to have had his] first inferred a number of other tribes unable to move and
encounter with a horse while he + fellow tribesmen unexplored areas: La Vrendrye reported that Auchagah
were hunting. Attack a lone Shoshoni, kill his mount, said that the Dakota Sioux and the Cree are hotly
and crowd around it in wonder, like a dog, a slave to contesting the Red River Valley. Future activities
man carry his burdens. The Blackfoot called it suggested, though, he may have been fabricating this
Ponokamita (Dog Elk), in recognition of its size and story to secure a more prominent position in the
usefulness. Indies Company. Others of the Bay Men suggest he is
About 1730, horses began to appear on the prairies instigating troubles. Gemerais is the first of the
through stealing and trade moving north tribe- La Vrendrye Party to advance from Grande Portage up
through-tribe; in the Bow River region, the Snake the Naladuagon [ ] Pigeon River to Rainy Lake and then
Indians mounted Spanish breeds, (which through a lack Lake of the Woods. Some believe this is the first
of selective breeding led to deterioration of time that Grande portage was used by the French; but
numbers). It was a small horse of low quality and, is highly unlikely as the Macutetis, coureurs de bois
later, settles looked at them with scorn, but better and natives have likely used this route for years.
than nothing. The first reported use was 1722 and was surely in use
prior to this.
Construction on Fort Prince of Wales,11 as it stands They paddled upstream the Ottawa River, crossing
today, was begun in 1731, near what was then called westward on Lake Huron and, after seventy-eight days
Eskimo Point, but work was never truly completed. paddling, were on the west side of Lake Superior;
Royal Engineers in England planned to change the revising plans amidst the body of men to winter
original log fort built in 1717 by James Knight of the there-at. A small group under Gemerais pressed on,
HBC - originally called the Churchill River Post thence, by way of paddling Rainy Lake and Lake of the
and, eager to hold the fur trade, had brought the best Woods. A fort was built there and called Fort Pierre
stonemasons to erect an indestructible bulwark guard in honour of the expeditions leader.
to protect their business investment. The work took In the spring of 1732, the united party moved on to
forty years: breaking, lifting, hauling and fitting build Fort St-Charles (Lake of the Woods). And,
the massive rocks was a test of muscle and stamina. during the winter of 1732-3, one of the sons of La
It had forty-two cannons mounted on the walls with a Vrendrye Jean-Baptiste and Gemerais went out over
battery across the river on Cape Merry meant to hold the snow to build Fort Maurepas, near the mouth of the
six more cannons. Red River; while La Vrendrye made an unscheduled trip
In the same year, undaunted by the HBC Royal back to Montral to appease impatient creditors and
Charter, La Vrendrye then forty-six years of age backers who thought theyd been forgotten.
and three of four of his sons, and a nephew
Christophe DuFrost (Dufros) de La Jemerais (Jemeraye) On 15 April 1734, Fort Prince of Wales employed six
or Gemerais and a crew of fifty voyageurs, departed additional workers, totaling a work force of thirty-
Montral in June; they were searching for an overland six men, two oxen, three wagons for use with the oxen
route to the Pacific Ocean... but were refused funds and two for men; some of these men were convicts from
for exploration when they asked for permission. To Old Country jails sent to discharge their sentences in
extend the fur trade they sought financial backing hard labour at Churchill.
from private sources, the profits of exploration were
expected to pay the expeditions costs out of fur Old World disease preceded the European expansion as
trade profits. (But, if they paused to develop trade the foreign invaders passed from tribe-to-tribe.
they were not promoting exploration and fur trade Following on La Vrendryes first tentative expedition
was just beginning.) into the plains, in 1736, small pox spread amongst
the Assiniboine and Sioux. At this time, the year-
round residents of the northwestern plains were
Algonquin or Siouan speakers, except the Sarcee, who
11
When completed, Fort Prince of Wales, furnished with heavy broke away from the northern Beaver peoples not long
guns, was the strongest in the western hemisphere, with before the arrival of the first whites: Eventually,
imposing bastion in four corners: It was slightly more than the Sarcee became a part of the Blackfoot Confederacy,
300 long and 300 wide, and less than 20 high; squat and
massive, its walls were wider at the base than on the top
with Siksika (Blackfoot proper), Kainaiwa (Blood),
with three of its outer walls 30 thick and the fourth, 40 with the Piikani (Peigan) most west and southern.
and carrying the greatest weight of cannon.
19
stylus
The Blackfoot obtained the first European trade With the establishment of Fort la Corne near the
items through trade with the Assiniboine and Cree, forks of the Saskatchewan River the French push
rather than through direct trade with the Europeans. northwest of Lake Superior came to an end. Their
The first whites they met were French calling the system was strained to the limit, without streamlining
whites Napikawan Real Old Man People. and reorganization, their transportation arrangements
were unlikely should they effectively extend further.
La Vrendryes quick return was met with sad news, The HBC did not respond to the expansion overland, and
firstly, Gemerais had suddenly become ill and had there was little incentive for the French to make
died; secondly, his son Jean-Baptiste was killed in an added investment other than to continue the search for
encounter with the Sioux. It was a stunning double- the Western Sea. Similarly, the HBC had little
blow, but the project could not be delayed, and the incentive to abandon its sleep by the frozen sea
party moved on - to the conflux of the Red and policy; although the French had apparently secured the
Assiniboine Rivers (at Fort Rouge). largest shipment of furs, the Indians were still
A secondary hope: He and his men built a series of bringing their furs to the HBC posts.
fortified trade posts, forging a chain of posts Louis Franois de la Corne later became commander of
between Lake Superior and the lower Saskatchewan the French trading posts. He was one of the first to
River, including, in 1738, Fort Rouge, near present- experiment with grain growing in the region crossed by
day Winnipeg. And, another fifty miles up the Anthony Henday in 1754 en route exploring to the
Assiniboine, Fort la Reine (Portage-la-Prairie). foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The Seven Years
Then, with minimum delay, La Vrendrye and two of War between France and England, in 1763, ended with
his sons, with twenty of the voyageurs, veered to the the English defeating the French in the French-Indian
southwest hoping to reach the Mandan Indians thought War. France gave up its lands to Great Britain and
to hold the secret of the Western Sea. The Mandans French exploration and trade stopped.
were friendly and the group spent a pleasant winter In the mid-17th century, the coureurs-des-brois, men
but obtained no information... so, in the spring, the from France who went native, established settlements
party set back for Fort la Reine. La Vrendrye was increasingly in the St-Lawrence River valley called
sick and believed he should return to Montral for themselves, Canadinne, to distinguish tem from the
medical and business reasons. He died in Montral. metropolitan-born official class. The coureurs were
The fur trade he had established cut heavy into HBC recruited from amongst these habitants; and, during
trade: (Early in 1740, they established forts the 17th and 18th centuries, an estimated 15,000 men
throughout what became Saskatchewan). from Quebec formed crews of traders, calling
themselves voyageurs, set out in great canoes for la
French posts reached across southern Manitoba into pays den haut down the St-Lawrence. - A custom which
central Saskatchewan, near the forks of the continued through 1759 to 1780, after the British
Saskatchewan River. The only European to have visited conquest of Quebec and well into the 19th century.
the area was Henry Kelsey (of the HBC) and the
precise route remains a mystery. La Vrendrye and his
followers arrived in the northern plains just before Alcohol
the horse and rapid access to the horse made it
easier for the Plains Cree and Assiniboine Indians to James Isham on Alcohol:
access English and French trade goods.
The horse was the single most important aspect of Of all commodities obtained in trade, none
European culture to reach the prairie Indians, before is more disruptive to the fabric of native
the Post-Confederation reservation era. It led them society than alcohol impressed fondly by
to abandon the traditional buffalo hunt in favour of a generosity and out of kindness Indians
headlong mounted pursuit, running buffalos. It was commonly showed to friends and kin pointing
less dangerous than on foot, but still risky a out they often behave in violent manner when
buffalo bull could jump six feet straight up into the drinking liquor. These natives are given much
air, twisting and snorting and blowing snot... to Quarell when in Liqour having known 2
Managing a smooth-bore flintlock gun on a galloping brothers when in Liqour to Quarell and after
horse in a blinding cloud of dust amidst thundering much a manner that they have Bitt off another
hooves... yet, most hunters continued to rely on their nose Ears and fingers. Biting being common
lances or bows until the repeating rifles of the 19 th with them in Liqour they are also very Sulky
century replaced the old muskets. Using traditional and Sullen, and if at any time one has a
weapons, Indian buffalo hunters were able to dispatch Resentment against another, they never show
animals at the same rate as the Macutetis using it, till the Spiritous Liqours work in their
flintlocks.12 European weapons did not have the same Brains
impact on Plains Indians as on the natives of the
woodlands. This kind of behaviour evolved in a society which
The horse became the primary symbol of wealth... and had no previous experience with drugs as powerful as
increased competition between Native males... brandy and rum. Also, living most of the year in
firearms, ammunition, tobacco, kettles, knives, and close-knit groups, survival depended upon conformity
hatchets obtained from the fur trade were also valued, and cooperative behaviour; thee were few outlets for
but had less impact on the plains as in the woods. personal resentments ant this inevitably arose when
alcohol reduced good judgment and facilitated
expression of resentments.
The manner in which the fur trade interacted with
aboriginal culture encouraged widespread use of
12
Refer to Alexander Ross description of the 1840 buffalo alcohol; competitive circumstances and rival traders
hunt [infer]: Letting their horses run at free rein, Mtis attempted to woo Indians with generous gifts... upward
buffalo hunters stuffed powder from out of their pockets spiraling in gift-giving expenses. To offset
and spat balls of lead shot carried in their mouths into expenses, one way was to give away larger quantities
the barrel, slamming in down on their thigh or the saddle
to pack it, throwing down articles of clothing to mark
their kills... and were able to dispatch up to three shots
a minute in the midst of the stampede
20
stylus
of relatively cheap, watered-down rum or brandy. 13 upstream to meet a band of Blood (or Blackfoot)
That the Indians had begun to produce only enough furs northeast of Red Deer. Henday was the first white
for their immediate short-term needs was another man they had ever seen: He saw two hundred tipis in
problem. There was a limit to how much barter they two straight rows and was the first to see Indians
could carry off, particularly when posts wee distant riding horses. [Supra] The chief had a fine bearing
or during highly competitive periods when furs fetched and was enthusiastic about going to the bay to trade;
high prices and natives, naturally, curtailed their but, getting all their guns and other needs from the
efforts. French, prairie Indians were not accustom to travel
Alcohol was cheap and easy to obtain; could be by canoe. They lived on buffalo meat and pemmican
consumed on the spot; was addictive; and gave European without which they might starve on the trip.
traders a strong economic incentive to trade or give Henday moved on to winter at Rocky Mountain House;
away large quantities of liquor. Before 1763, and, in the spring, he moved on to the North
widespread consumption was curtailed, but only because Saskatchewan River and back to home base... paddling
the natives only came to trade once per year; but, downstream faster and easier... but, he made the
between 1763 and 1821, competition had reached a fever mistake of stopping at Fort La Corne, where the French
pitch at posts established throughout the northern brandy was irresistible. Hendays stock of furs
forests. And, abusive use of alcohol in trade led to destined for York Factory were bartered away to his
epidemic demoralization of the Natives in central French hosts... he tried to replenish his stock as he
Canada. travelled, but he made the same mistake at Fort
Paskoyac.
On June 20th, almost one full year later, he was
Anthony Henday back at York Factory and forced to explain his lack of
furs... reporting seeing snow and Indians riding
Anthony Henday was raised on the Isle of Wight, just horses.
off Englands shore; he was caught smuggling and
punished with banishment from the island; went to
London and, in the employ of the HBC, went to York Terra Incognita
Factory. Governor James Isham was worried about
reports of French traders building on the Saskatchewan Piegan (and Blackfoot) expansion pushed the
River, getting furs from Indians on the way to the Shoshone out and the Sarcee moved into the northern
bay. He had decided to send someone to convince the Saskatchewan basin, allied with the Gros Ventre, they
natives to travel to the bay volunteers were called occupied the territories vacated by the Blackfoot
for, and Henday, working as a labourer, volunteered. around Eagle Hills.
A small group of Indians from deep in Blackfoot The Blackfoot never really took to trade with
country was at the fort, its leader, Conawapa, invited whites, as had the Cree and Assiniboine. Neither
Henday to share his canoe and the two became close Henday nor Cocking were able to persuade the Blackfoot
friends. They departed the bay on 26 June 1754, or Gros Ventre to journey to the bay through Cree and
travelled up the Hayes River and reached the French Assiniboine hunting territory against the arduous
post Fort Paskoyac on the Saskatchewan River, twenty- opposition of the Cree and the Assiniboine, who
six days later. vigorously protected their trade position. Besides,
Henday, led by Attikarish, in 1754-55, met the the fur trade conflicted with the buffalo hunting
Blackfoot and his first report that they had horses demands of late fall, as early winter was the best
was met with disbelief by the Company. season for fur trapping pelts were then in their
prime - it was also the best time for killing bison
On my arrival, two Frenchmen came out, when and preparing winter provisions.
followed a gret deal of Bowing and Scraping Trapping was a family affair and bison hunting
between us and then we entered their fort or involved the whole family. The Peigan had the most
more properly hogstye for it was no better. beaver in their territory and became the most active
They asked me where the Letter [of authority]. trappers; others became provisioners for the trade
I told them I had no letter, nor did I see the rather than trappers of fur. The aboriginal trappers
reason to have one, but that the country continued their separate ways [ ] yet the need for
belonged to us as much as them. He made cooperation in the fur trade brought prosperity to
answer it did not and he would detain me there both the trapper and the trader.
and send me to France. I said I knew France Daniel Harmon said the only basis for friendship, in
as well as he did and was afraid to go... the southwest, was the Indians desire for European
goods and the whites desire for furs:
The party returned to canoeing the Indians heard
their families were camping in the Carrot River valley A particular area of difficulty was
and they abandoned the boats to head off on foot. The reprocity and obligations entailed.
park country was rich in wild game feasting, Ignoring accepted standards of behaviour
drinking, dancing, and conjuring made the trip caused resentment, and led to trouble... as at
pleasant. As far as other luxuries go, Henday has Henley House in 1754, when the postmaster did
this to say: not honour expected obligations for
subsistence to relatives of women being kept
As I am looked on as a leader, I have ladies in the post. The Cree turned on the English,
of different ranks to attend to me. killed them, and looted the establishment.
They moved onto the prairies and passed near Late in the 1750s, the French abandoned its western
present-day Humboldt (SK) and crossed the South posts. Divided between the St-Lawrence and Hudsons
Saskatchewan River near Clarkboro, continued to a Bay, but heavily concentrated in Montral, the fur
point low on the Red Deer River, which they followed trade was seriously disrupted by the Seven Years War.
Hostilities actually began in the Ohio valley two
13
Cf. the firewater which was soon to be traded at
years before the French and English declared war in
wilderness posts like the American wolfer Fort Whoop-Up, 1756. Cut off from the St-Lawrence, most French posts
near where the Cyrus Hills Massacre occurred infer. in Saskatchewan country closed before the fall of
21
stylus
Quebec; and, by 1760, English traders on the bay had York Factory, he heard of the presence of the French
a monopoly on western furs; their pre-eminence through and other traders from Montral were on the
the short-lived era of the French-Canadinne Saskatchewan River...
voyageur. With impressive skills and experience,
brandy and high quality English goods to exchange, Wapinesiw, a Cree, had brought twenty-or-thirty
interpreters and traders soon became formidable canoes a year to York Factory, between 1755 and 1770 -
competitors. conveyed through an intermediary; he expressed his
In the mid-60s, after the conquest of New France, hopes to HBC Factor Andrew Graham:
political stability was re-established in the east:
Montral traders re-occupied old French trading You will Knot Be anger him as Drank so much
territory in the west and began to push outward beyond Brandy this winter he cnot Come.
the old frontier; initially organized in small
partnerships between city merchants, who supplied The willingness of Montral traders to mingle with
goods, and actual traders, who travelled inland and the Indians and their supplies of ammunition,
later became known as wintering partners. And, tobacco, and liquor meant, concluded Graham:
besides having to compete with the HBCs more
extensive financial reserves, they had to contend with Every inducement to visit the Companys
each other, too. Factories is forgot, and the prime furs are
At best, all that lay west of Hudsons Bay, the picked out and traded. The refuse is tied up
Nelson River, and the forks of the Saskatchewan River and brought down to us.
remained terra incognita to Europeans (in 1763). Five
distinct groups lived between the Great Lakes and the Early in the 18th century, the Plains Cree were in
Rocky Mountains: The forested edge of the Canadian the north-western regions: By the mid-18 th century,
Shield was occupied by the Ojibwa; the Assiniboine and the Cree on the Saskatchewan River had been armed for
western Cree occupied the area of southern Manitoba some time: By the late 18th century, the Plains Ojibwa
and Saskatchewan hunters and gathers, they lived off (Saulteaux, Bungi) had reached the Saskatchewan, too.
the natural resources of the territory, according to a The bow was their preferred weapon until the arrival
well-established seasonal rhythm: Broadly and of the Cree, Assiniboine, and the Saulteaux, whom had
traditionally, the Cree people were of the forest and the gun through earlier trade with the whites, and
parkland, and the Assiniboine were of the parkland and diminished the advantage of the Shoshoni with their
prairies. Their economic systems overlapped and there horses. The appearance of the gun heralded the advent
was commerce between them. South-and-west of the of settlement.
Assiniboine-Cree region was the Blackfoot Confederacy The psychological effect of warfare: The musket-ball
plains hunters who neither fished nor built canoes, was less accurate than the bow, and an arrow might be
dependent upon the buffalo for food, clothing, harder to dodge than a ball, yet, when it hit it
shelter, and tools... and, further north, spread rendered traditional armour obsolete. David Thompson
across the low Arctic were Athapaskan speakers, which described war on the plains as different than war in
followed the migration of the caribou. the woods; on the plains the group acts as a body with
For most Indians, the years after 1763 brought all its movements in concert, and in the woods it was
disease, starvation, and cultural dissemination. more-so man-to-man.
By 1770, the Blackfoot Confederacy and their allies

controlled the area along the eastern Rockies, north
The economic skills essential to successfully of Yellowstone to the boreal forests. The British
maintaining the broker role emerged as a bourgeois traders back in the Saskatchewan River area,
class system, characterized by large households penetrated further northwest and the Blackfoot
occupying pivotal positions in a network of extended confederates, now mounted, and already having access
families throughout the Great Lakes region. Many sons to British firearms, pushed the Shoshoni off.
functioned as trappers and hunters and daughters were In 1771, Chief Factor Moses Norton who kept poison
sometimes married off to these bourgeois to establish to induce Indians to surrender their wives and
alliances. The Macutetis community arose as the daughters sent Samuel Hearne on foot on a grueling
survivors of the conquest of New France by the expedition as far as the Coppermine River, about 1000
British, by extending their kinship ties to include miles northwest over rough terrain prompted by
British merchants, supplanting the French and reports of mineral wealth.
Canadinne bourgeois after 1763. Hearne had already attempted two such expeditions,
which taught him (and Norton) two crucial lessons
expeditions are doomed to failure without first-class
Indian guides those selected for the first two
Samuel Hearne expeditions were totally unsuitable. The second
lesson you did not lead Indians in their homeland,
July ye 1, 1767 - Samuel Hearnes name was etched you followed at a pace they set for themselves. For
onto a rock across the river from Churchill (MB). He this expedition, they chose Chief Matonabbee, whom was
made three exploratory trips in 1769, 1770, and 1771: greatly respected by England.
The first two trips were practical failures: On the Matonabbee informed Hearne that he had failed for a
first he and the Indians missed the caribou herds and third reason:
almost starved; on the second he broke his sextant and
had to return; the third trip was in the company of He attributed all our misfortunes to the
good Chief Matonabbee (c.1737 - 1782), a Chipewyan... misconduct of my guides, and the very plan we
it was a terrible spectacle when the Chipewyan might pursued, by desire of Governor Norton, in not
fall upon a small settlement of Eskimo, killing all; taking any women with [ ] the principle thing
but the sentiment was reciprocated when the Eskimos occasioned all of our wants, for, he said,
might massacre a Chipewyan family. when all the men are heavy laden, they can
Hearne was the first European to cross the bay to neither hunt nor travel any considerable
the Arctic Ocean at Coronation Gulf he reached the distance; and in the case they meet with
Coppermine River (to the ocean). When he got back to success in the hunt, who to carry the produce
22
stylus
of their labour? Women, he added, were made necessary to protect their forts, personnel, and
for labour; one of them can carry or haul as transportation arrangements.
much as two men, they also pitch our tents, The real structure of the fur trade was a unique
make and mend our clothing, keep us warm at mixture of nomadism and settlement, deriving more from
night; in fact, [there could be] no such thing the dynamic French system than the static English
as travelling any considerable distance for system optioned by the HBC, which did not move its
any length of time without their assistance. stores inland until the last third of the 18th
century, when, forced into the hinterland by Arctic
Economic roles were sharply defined by gender in infiltration of Montral companies, Cumberland House
Indian society. A guiding party needed both men and was built in 1774 on the Saskatchewan River, 300
women to function! miles inland from the bay.
Hearne heard French traders on the Saskatchewan
Most of the territory traversed was within the River were seriously damaging HBC trade; and, Hearne,
Chipewyan sphere of influence, which dominated the in a complete reversal of policy, was sent to the
northwest trade of Fort Churchill since the post was Indians instead of the HBC waiting for them. He
established: This land bordered on Inuit territory travelled south on the Saskatchewan River and erected
Caribou Inuit to the northeast and Copper Inuit to the a building at the site: He left in June of 1774, well-
northwest. It was a warzone of bloody conflicts supplied, with Indian guides, tobacco, gunpowder,
whenever Chipewyan and Inuit met no quarter was given. brandy, hatchets, sugars, oatmeal, and biscuits;
Hearne himself had witnessed an attack on a sleeping favouring an area on the Saskatchewan River near Fort
Inuit camp, in which all the men, women, and children Paskoyac with good essential access by canoe it was
were slaughtered. practically an island, formed in part by Cumberland
Hearne had only encountered failure in his attempts Lake and in part by the Saskatchewan River. The
at northern travel until he accepted the advice of his first permanent settlement in the interior of Ruperts
Chipewyan guide, Matonabbee, and travelled with him Land.
en famille allowing the Indians to pursue their own Through most of these years, vigorous expansion of
way, so long as the ultimate objective of the voyage Montral-based trade fragmented because of the highly-
remained in sight. Thus he became the first white man competitive business, and with the conquest, the
to reach the Arctic. monopoly of New France gave way to a competition
which was often fierce... Peter Pond was twice
implicated in the deaths of rival traders!
3. The Sea of Beaver Gradually, firmer groups emerged foremost among
them was the North-West Company, dominated by the
The Cree and Assiniboine had no difficulty adapting Scots, who first combined resources in 1776.
to the plains: By 1772, the Cree were impounding
buffalo preferring the gun to the bow for the hunt. The Cree suffered epidemics during that year and the
The buffalo hunt lessened dependence on the fur trade next.
and affected relationships with traders. Trading
Indians the Cree and Assiniboine would carry their
furs to HBC posts on the bay without middlemen...
when, in 1773, the HBC followed their rival the Peter Pond the Wild-Man of the West a proud and
North-West Company, into the interior. impetuous Yankee fur trader, demonstrated that
Previously, bands had hunted the buffalo for half Montral-based traders could reach inaccessible areas.
the year, not journeying to posts, and with the end of Small partnerships lacked the financial resources to
the yearly trade journey began the year round buffalo exploit the new frontier and unbridled competition led
hunt. Adaption was facilitated through adoption of to violence and murder. In 1776 traders began to join
the horse for hunting buffalo a half-century together among the early principles were Pond and
earlier. his second-in-command, Alexander Mackenzie.
The independence of the Blackfoot and Gros Ventre During this period of competition a wide variety of
spurred the HBC into building inland posts posts appeared. Smaller, more permanent posts, like
Cumberland House (La Pas) on the Saskatchewan River, Cumberland House, consisted of several dwellings and
in 1774, and Hudson House (west of Prince Albert), in stores with a compound and a canoe shed used for
1779. drying fish and, since forts had to provide their
own food, a garden. Forts increased in complexity as
La Vrendrye had been a fur trader masquerading as trade developed. Some military outposts with a small
an explorer and colonizer: Supplies of side pork and garrison were simple assemblages of a few houses and
corn to sustain a fur brigade from Montral, could not stores within a palisade, the forest cleared away to
supply brigades beyond Kaministiquia the wild rice musket range to offer protection against unexpected
(actually a grass) harvested by the Indians in the attack. Detroit, which had settlements of habitants
shallow areas of the lakes of the region west of Lake outside its palisades, was quite exceptional. Major
Winnipeg was traded at a series of provisioning posts posts like York House and Fort Albany on James Bay,
marking the route westward, and became a basis of and the new North-West Companys Fort William on Lake
expansion from the St-Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Superior, trans-shipment points and administrative
The Seven Years War had caused a momentary retreat centers where trading was a minor function, consisted
of the French from the western lands before British of warehouses, dwellings, and workshops, including a
peddlers returned with renewed vigour amidst a blacksmithy, tinsmiths cooperage, canoe building
violent and bloody competition among rival syndicates yard, barns to shelter company herds and flocks, and
of peddlers. even a hospital and jail.
The fur companies to the end remained trading
enterprises, opposed to settlement and uninterested in In 1778, the Forsythe-Richardson and Keith-James
administration not concerned with the efficient companies formed a new North-West Company, (also known
gathering of furs. They were interested in the as the XY Company). Afterwards, their identifying
Indians of the region only as providers of furs, and mark on bales of furs was soon joined by Mackenzie and
interfered with native affairs only insofar as other wintering partners of the original North-West
Company, who were unhappy with their standing in that
23
stylus
organization. Bitter and costly competition between Leaders of both companies lacked reliable maps,
the two groups ensued... which caused delays and losses in productivity. The
This was the year that Pond, the first to see HBC employed an experienced surveyor, Philip Turner,
Alberta, with a few Indians in a flotilla of canoes, in 1778. And, he was sent to Ruperts Land, where he
paddled up the Churchill River to le-la-Crosse and trained Peter Fidler who surveyed the river-lot
Buffalo Lake, over the twelve mile Methy Portage to a farms for Selkirk.
river flowing west, rather than east - the Clearwater In 1779, the Plains Cree had a confrontation with a
River... to the Athabasca River, (where Fort McMurray group of independent traders at Fort Montagne dAigle
later arose). Going north on the Athabasca and (Eagle Hills Fort) between Eagle Hills Creek and
thirty-or-forty miles south of Lake Athabasca, built Battle River; two traders were killed and the rest
Ponds House and wintered collecting an unbelievable were forced to flee - the post was abandoned and never
quantities of prime furs, so that he had not enough permanently re-occupied. This was not an isolated
canoes in the spring. incident: They also caused the abandonment of NWC Fort
Still... financing was difficult. The region was du Milieu and HBC Hudson House.
too far from Montral to be reached in a single canoe After about a year, several eastern independents in
season. The season was too short. And, game the area saw Cumberland House policy destroy their
supplies were too unpredictable to allow for hunting trade. Pond and Alexander Henry the elder, both New
and fishing en route. Furthermore, the small, light Englanders, and Charles Paterson, a representative of
woodland canoe couldnt carry sufficient quantities of James McGill of Montral, and Thomas and Joseph
furs or trade goods over long distances. Frobisher, and others, were all competing for furs.
They divided the transport system into two In 1779, there was discussion of cooperation and, as
components: one eastern and one nor western. one group, decided to team up and divide the trading
regions and accept the principle of pooling their
Adopting the canot du maitre, or Great Lakes canoe trade goods, called Common Concern. (It was
36 long and 6 in beam and able to carry three tons probably Frobishers idea as he had practiced
of cargo plus a crew - for the route beyond Lake cooperation, and found it a good idea, at Grand
Superior, which had much shoal and white-water; and Portage on the west side of Lake Superior.
they developed the canot du nord 25 long and 4 in imon McTavish, a Montral Scot, made a
beam - to carry half the cargo... proposal for proper organization... and the North-West
Thus, the NWC extended Indian technologies to suit Company was established (in sixteen shares)... with
their own needs. Some Indians, particularly Ojibwa, McTavish as its ruler.
who had moved into the Lakehead area, specialized in
building canoes for them. The NWC improved portage In 1780, smallpox devastated the Chipewyan Hearne
trails, and at Sault-Ste-Marie, constructed the first estimated that ninety percent of the population died.
canal on the Great Lakes, so its canoes could pass Smallpox also took a heavy toll on Ojibwa, Sioux, and
beside St.-Marys rapids. the Assiniboine.
To address the provisions problem, the NWC drew on Pond, wintering at Lac LaRonge, in 1781, was accused
local resources, as possible to supplement the pork but never convicted in the shooting death of Etienne
and flour the voyageurs were given in Montral. Waden, a fellow trapper. In the same year, the Cree
Indian corn imported from the southern Great Lakes participated in a melee at Fort des Trembles on the
region was stored at Sault-Ste-Marie for passing Assiniboine River three traders tied and up to
brigades; but, between the Lakehead and Lake Winnipeg, thirteen Indians. The Natives were sometimes treated
the NorWesters were depended on the local Ojibwa for badly by trappers and resulting tensions would erupt
their corn, wild rice, and fish. Beyond the Lower in violence. That same year, Indians also burned the
Winnipeg River were the plains Indians and the prairie around several posts which, the trappers
prairies the great pantry of western fur trade. believed, was done to scare away game.
Pemmican was the ideal voyageur food. The western In 1781-82, out-breaks of smallpox prevented large-
fur trade probably wouldnt have been possible without scale retaliation against fur traders: epidemics took
it. The daily calorie expenditures of the voyageurs a heavy toll on the Shoshoni... and, victorious over
was enormous; pemmican provided calories it was them, the Peigan called their once feared enemies
portable, light-weight, and highly-compact a 90 lb miserable old women whom they could defeat with
bag was equivalent to two adult dressed female sticks and stones and, with the removal of the
buffalo, approximately 900 lbs. Voyageurs also Shoshoni threat, developed a fragile relationship with
developed a taste for Indian delicacies, such as the Assiniboine and Cree. But, losing the principle
buffalo tongue. These provisions were forwarded to motivation, the two expanding power groups came into
depots at Bas de la Rivire and Cumberland Lake; yet, collision...
even with these caches in the northwest, 25 to 50 The British and the French were not at war, although
percent of the cargo capacity in the canoes leaving their fur traders were and French Admiral Leperouse
Fort William, in 1814, was taken up by provisions. was anxious to settle old accounts. At dusk, fort
Activities of the NorWesters aversely affected HBC workers drew Hearnes attention to three war ships on
operations these new opponents could not go the horizon. He had cannon-power on the walls of Fort
unchallenged by the Company, but, unlike its Prince of Wales, but neither he nor any of the men
competitors, the HBC was unable to use the enlarged were trained as soldiers, and never firing a shot,
canoes, except for Moose Factory and Rupert House, they raised a white flag of surrender. The French did
bayside posts which lay beyond the prime birch area; not have enough cannon-power to destroy it, but they
and, it was impractical to buy canoes from inland managed to damage the archway over the gate, and
Indians. Company men at Fort Albany began building dislodge a few big stones from the walls: (Leperouse
shallow, low-draft boats for work on the rivers and, took Hearne prisoner to France and being released soon
in the 19th century these became the backbone of the after, retired to England where he died ten years
HBC transportation system York Boats. later). They sailed to York Factory and destroyed it
York Boats played a vial role in the shipment of by fire.
cargo to-and-from York Factory the Companys most
important base for western Canada. Buffalo hunters flourished on the northern plains;
affluence was manifested by the size of tipis, some
holding as many as one hundred people. New commerce
24
stylus
placed a premium on Plains Indian women, usually

married off in their teens, and as young as twelve, to I have called [it] the Stoney Region... it is
men, usually in their mid-thirties. Polygamy little else than rocks with innumerable lakes
developed as did hierarchy amongst wives, the senior and Rivers... The summer is from five to six
wife usually directing the others. Women were taken months, or more properly, the open season...
in raids were kept by their captors instead of being with frequent frosts, and heats, but always
sold. tormented with Musketoes and other flies...
Commercialism placed a non-commitant emphasis on even the timid Moose Deer on some days is so
wealth, which affected social institutions and special distressed with flies, as to be careless of
interest groups the best-known would be warfare, life, and the hunters have shot them in this
maintenance of the camp, and hunting life; war as a state, and the cloud of flies about them so
way of life was a recent development for the great, and dense, that they dared not go to
Blackfoot it was a means of accumulation of the animal for several minutes.
possessions, making elaborate ceremonies possible, and
as a route to prestige. In 1789, the fur trade company of Finlay, Gregory,
Although a major military power, it was possible to and Company of Montral was taken over by Simon
become a chief without the warpath; but, even if the McTavishs North-West Company. Alexander Mackenzie
path of war was chosen, counting coup touching an was sent to Lake Athabasca where he was a competitor
enemy and escaping - was esteemed braver. And, to Pond... but, both explorers got along well in
bravery and generosity were requisite among the Plains pioneering the area the HBC and NWC were fighting
Cree, too. over. - Roderick Mackenzie built Fort Chipewyan on the
In 1873, a worse epidemic of smallpox disease south shore.
reached western tribes, killing many Blackfoot who had Pond believed he was too old for further
never seen a European. Imported by the Spaniards and exploration; he encouraged the young man from
passed north from tribe-to-tribe. The Sioux and Stornoway, on the island of Lewis, to trace the big
Blackfoot had never heard of horses, eventually river flowing west of the Great Slave River, believing
reaching the Sarcee and Cree on the edge of the it to lead to the western sea according to Indians.
northern woodlands, and changing Indian ways of On 3 June 1879, a party of thirteen, including him
hunting and warfare more radically than any innovation and the Indians, in three-or-four canoes, left Fort
since the buffalo pound millennia before. Chipewyan and paddled across Lake Athabasca, down the
angry Slave River, crossing the south end of Great
Even the fur traders, once beyond the Red River Slave Lake into a big river flowing west. After a few
Colony, tended to avoid the territory of the fierce days, the stream turned north and came to salt water
and independent Blackfoot and Sioux peoples, veering in the mouth of the river it was the Arctic and not
northwest into Athabasca country. The acquisition of the Pacific. It was a River of Disappointment. The
firearms by trade or capture changed the balance of party returned to Fort Chipewyan on September 12th.
power without direct intervention of the Europeans, They had been gone 101 days when they returned to the
allowing the Ojibwa to push the Assiniboine and the west.
Sioux out of the westerly woods into the prairies.
The HBC had been forced into building more forts to The North-West Companys sixteen shares were divided
defend its trade when, in 1783, the NWC was among nine partnerships, in 1779, a year later the
established in Montral. Intense competition and group expanded. Competitors remained, but [were]
prodigious post building ensued and, of the seventeen added to a new coalition, in 1797, and allied to the
posts built in the northwest, seven belonged to the company by cooperative agreements in the early 1790s.
HBC and ten belonged to various traders from Montral By 1789, there were over one hundred posts, almost
who were not part of any company. Alexander Mackenzie two-thirds of which were built by St-Lawrence traders;
founded the XY Company in 1800, and, combined with the throughout the next sixteen years, another 323 posts
HBC, the NorWesters; hundreds of posts - totaling were erected some forty percent belonging to the
almost four hundred were built to capture even small HBC. The expense of the Montralers to maintain the
quantities of trade. Some were mere shacks, run up to interior posts to Fort William was enormous. HBC
shelter a single trapper over winter in locality of costs also climbed, although they had fewer than five
Indian encampments, representing the lingering hundred permanent employees in the interior, in 1805.
nomadism of the trade. The simplest, known as In 1792, Alexander Mackenzie and a party ascended
hogstyes, were double lean-tos, merely roofs without Peace River and built winter quarters at Fort Fork,
walls, which were only used for one season, then near the town Peace River. On 9 May 1793, the party
deserted and allowed to rot. of nine started again, struggling through Peace River
Once again, in 1787, Pond was suspected in the Canyon. On May 31st, they reached the junction of the
shooting death of his neighbour, John Ross, in the Finlay and Parsnip Rivers, and cleared the Continental
Athabasca region. In 1788, he travelled southwest and Divide two weeks later. They experienced difficult
was, perhaps, the first white man to see where the Bow times on the Fraser and Blackwater Rivers and, with
and the Elbow Rivers met (in Calgary); he suffered a the guidance of the Indians, found good paddling on
painful injury when a tree fell and crushed his leg, Bella Coola River reaching the Pacific.
and was forced to accept the merciful care of Peigan On a big rock:
Indians; making a slow recovery, he was moved to
Cumberland House, and the only doctor in the country. Mackenzie from Canada by land, 22 July 1793
It was there that he met Philip Turner, who gave him
basic instruction in surveying. - David Thompson, He was the first to see all three Canadian oceans
Turners prize student, was apprenticed to the HBC from the land side; the first to cross the Atlantic
and, at fourteen years of age, was in Fort Churchill. from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He returned to Fort
Pond loved the challenge of his new work and, as Chipewyan, and then went on to Montral. After a
soon as he was well, set out to discover a shorter disagreement with Simon McTavish he retired to
route between York Factory and Cumberland House; then, Scotland.
to explore the wild country between York Factory and
Athabasca - instinctively exploring regions where no In 1793, the Cree wiped out a band of Gros Ventre
Company servants had gone before. near South Branch House. The incident greatly
25
stylus
accelerated resentments shared by the Blackfoot and In 1803, the Canada Jurisdiction Act was passed. It
Gros Ventre against the trading success of the Cree permitted courts in Lower Canada (and from 1821, Upper
and Assiniboine, which made possible their arms Canada) to try cases originating in the fur districts.
superiority. In the eyes of the Gros Ventre, the HBC Also in 1803, over 21,000 gallons of alcohol reached
was allied to their enemies and an enemy. They the interior in that highly competitive season alone.
responded to Cree raids by attacking the Companys
Manchester House (on Pine Island in the Saskatchewan
River): They looted it in the same year and destroyed
it the next. Eventually, like the Shoshoni, they David Thompsons immense map of the territories hung
were pushed off. in the Great Hall at Fort William, and wintering
In contrast to the Gros Ventre, the Cree and partners coming down from the mainland would meet
Assiniboine were still expanding stopped in the their inland partners to conduct business by it. At
southwest by the Blackfoot erstwhile allies when the York Factory, which included many industries and a
Shoshoni were a common enemy, but now each others distillery, no herds could survive and only a limited
worst foe. range of vegetables could be grown because of the
climate, but dandelions, flourishing all over Canada,
In 1794, Jays Treaty was signed by the U.S. and are said to have been sown from seeds and grown to
Britain, forcing the British traders out of American provide salads. Similarly, the common song sparrow
territories and areas southwest of the Great Lakes. the flying rat of the prairies crossed over on
Some joined the NWC, in 1795; others remained boats from the Old Country to America, and it
independent and began to challenge the NWC in the occurred that fifty pairs from England were released
interior. in Brooklyn, New York, in 1852.
Former mountain men began trapping in Indian Thompson admired the skill of the Indians, in being
Territory an act the Blackfoot considered able to guide him through the darkest of pine forests
trespass. A great number of Iroquois, Nepissings, to exactly the place hed intended; their keen,
and Algonquins were brought in to act as trappers constant attention on everything; the removal of the
but, the Blackfoot did not allow them on their land. smallest stone, bent or broken twig, slight mark on
They had to go north and west. To the Blackfoot, they the ground, all spoke plain language to them.
were men who trapped fur with steel traps who had
destroyed the beaver in their own land.
Some encroached on Peigan lands, but were driven off
in bloody attacks in which hundreds were killed. Sorely testing the XY Company, with the death of
Simon McTavish, the imperious marquis of the original
The HBC announced a new policy, demanding all NWC, the competitors merged operations, in 1804.
servants to abandon side-lines, like mapping, and give Competition led to depletion of beaver, so smaller
all their time to trading. In May of 1797, David posts did not stay in operation too long. Once the XY
Thompson walked away from his post at Reindeer Lake Company was eliminated, amalgamated with the NWC in
and tramped seventy-five miles to the northeast, to a 1804; the number of establishments fell dramatically.
NWC post, and enquired about work making maps. His The fur companies competed until they combined in
skill was known; the NorWesters welcomed him and 1821. Their rugged traders had infiltrated to the
assured him of a job for the rest of his life. His Pacific coast and opened up the east to western
most productive and happiest days were yet still ahead invasion.
of him... paddling on Lac le-la-Crosse, in 1799, he Plans were being made for the regions fist farming
paused at the NWC post where Patrick Small lived with settlements. Indian life was changed by the
his native wife and children; and, of his pretty internecine rivalries of the fur traders. The NWC
daughters, their was an immediate attraction to encouraged the Macutetis emergence as a separate
fourteen year old Charlotte he proposed to her force of the prairies. The HBC allowed creation of
parents that she become his wife and they agreed. its first prairie settlement along the Red River, in
They paddled away and spent the next fifty-eight years 1812. Of the more than one hundred posts flourishing
together. Thompson had high ideals he believed before 1814, fifty-nine belonged to the NWC and forty-
in marriage for life, and had eleven children, making three to the HBC; after the two companies united, in
his home at Rocky Mountain House. 1823, the number of posts across the country had been
He was opposed to liquor in trade. reduced to fifty-two.
The NorWesters built Fort Augustus on the South The NorWesters who sought to cross the mountains
Saskatchewan River, and the HBC countered with Fort came in contact with other aboriginal peoples. The
Edmonton and Blackfoot territory was ringed with Peigan had become alarmed for they dreaded the
posts. In 1799, the NWC were the first to build at western Indians being furnished with Arms and
Rocky Mountain House, within territory under the Ammunition. In 1807, they were finally building in
Blackfoot sphere of control. Kutenai territory, which moved the Piegans, already
The early fur trade was cruel, bloody, and wasteful; disturbed by the killing of two of their tribesmen by
companies bitterly battled for profits; fur-bearing the Lewis and Clark expedition shortly before, to
animal populations, especially the beaver the gold raise a war party although, Thompson negotiated a
coin of the trade dwindled. - Participants just peaceful resolution. The unfortunate result was a
moved on to other areas. Trading posts along the delay which cost the NWC the right to claim the mouth
South Saskatchewan River were among the first to be of the Columbia River which was claimed for Britain.
established, and the first to be depleted. Pond was A band of Gros Ventre and Blood raided Fort
forced to share Athabasca with the Common Concern Augustus.
the, then, North-West Company determined to keep the
HBC out. There was a manpower shortage due to the Napoleonic
In 1802, Peter Fidler crossed Methy Portage and Wars. The Company opened schools at its principle
built the HBC Nottingham Post on an island, near Fort posts, but an early problem was keeping a school
Chipewyan. The NWC made his life miserable and he master because the fur trade was so lucrative.
left in three years...
26
stylus
The Red River Valley is extremely flat, one of the The Cree and Assiniboine Indians had become year-round
flattest plains in North America formerly the bed of buffalo hunters less dependent on European goods.
a prehistoric lake, prone to floods on an enormous Their appearances at provision posts on the South
scale during spring run-off - whenever ice blocks Saskatchewan became less frequent and more irregular:
lowered Red River: A disaster as much as happens The fur trade could not be adequately supplied by such
because the headwaters to the north of the flowing freemen with their dependence upon European goods,
river frequently thaw before the lower reaches do. they kept relatively close contact with provision
posts. The importance of this to the NWC meant they
Indian bands, such as the Cree around Hudsons Bay, received higher prices in goods and services rendered
were dependant economically, but not politically, upon to them... not to the Indians.
the whites. Plains tribes, especially the Blackfoot In time the HBC also provisioned the gens libre
Confederacy had turned into formidable irregular well; mutual dependence tied trader and freeman
cavalry with horse and firearms they were treated hunter; from their first appearance, their behaviour
with fearful respect by any whites entering their distinguished them from the Indians; they pursued
region. In the mid-19th century, their only rivals buffalo and beaver with an assiduity as the Indians
were the Macutetis hunters, which competed with them thought unnecessary. And, the Cree of the region were
for buffalo herds. tolerant of them because of many ties of kinship.
They continued to hold sway until the treaties of The freemen identified themselves as O-tee-paym-soo-
the 1870s were signed and buffalo herds destroyed. wuk their own boss. They became the Plains Mtis.
27
stylus
"I have become an alien sojourner in a strange foreign land."
Exodus 2:22b
Part Two: The Plains Mtis
Neither Indian nor white but a distinctive blend of The center of their social world was the society of
both, they incorporated farming, the buffalo hunt, and their workmates as with voyageurs or York boat crews
the fur trade themselves, a product of the fur and evaluated each other in terms of how they felt
trade. The Mtis way of life developed under the measured up to particular masculine virtues: Demi-
economic umbrella of the fur trade in isolation in the legendary Paulet Petit Paul was a giant in stature
northwest. They built log cabins wherever they and strength, with a voice like thunder and
fancied: boisterous, too; he had eyes like an eagle and a pair
of fists as heavy and once, at least as deadly as
We point out the situations where they may cannonballs. When the different brigades met at York
squat; we do not give them titles unless they Factory, and the question as to which could produce
make some arrangement of payment. The the best man came to be mooted over a regale of
majority has settled where they like and we Hudsons Bay rum, he was ever the first to strip to
could not stop them. the waist and stand forth to claim the honour for la
Sir George Simpson Blaireau (the Badgers a Saskatchewan York boat
brigade).
Unlike their French forefathers, who were content Such encounters, no doubt, at first had their
with the life of voyageuring, the Macutetis resembled inspiration in the rum keg, but it came to be
our Indian ancestors in passion for hunting. recognized as an institution of the trip. Michel
Circumstance encouraged them to follow inclinations, Lambert was the darling of la Taureaux (the Bulls a
since the fusion of the two fur companies; and, Red River York boat brigade). Paulet was well-liked
replacement of canoes by York boats diminished the because he was the man to beat, but Michel was adored
need for Voyageurs. because he could beat Paulet. And, there was James
Increasingly, the Macutetis began to serve the fur Short, otherwise known as Checkam, who could put up an
traders as freemen or independent hunters, who ugly fight. He, too, had stood for the honour of la
provided forts with meat and pemmican, and did a Taureaux against Paulet, but only to be knocked out.
certain amount of trading on their own; like Indians, Still, he had lived to tell the tale, and that alone
dependent upon the buffalo herds for subsistence. was not an honour to be despised.
Horses were the only domestic animal reared and, apart
from potatoes, grew very few crops of any kind. By 1800, few inhabitants lived much more than
Trading furs and buffalo products provided enough cash fifteen miles from a trade post; it relieved the
to purchase the bright clothes they liked, tobacco, burden of travel to distant markets and, because there
spirits and tea consumed in considerable quantities was less constraint by the capacity of canoes, alone,
and powder and ammunition to carry on their hunts. the Indians were able to trap more intensively.
They worked in the employ of others only as a Robbed of their strategic middleman position (and
temporary circumstance, and found labour tolerable the power it conveyed), the Cree and Assiniboine had
only until a means was found to establish ones self to find a new niche in the changing west, as
as a man of his own consequences. Those gens libre provisioners of European fur trades.
who established households were succeeded by a later The Cree moved west of the Lake of the Woods area
generation of buffalo hunters the Plains Mtis. and the Assiniboine migrated south to the parkland-
Their economy was little different than Natives, grassland margin, whence they pursued buffalo on the
retaining the nomadic inclination of their Cree plains; but these were the traditional resources of
mothers. the Blackfoot and the Mandan, who now had horses from
Marked by frequent change of personnel, active the south and guns directly from American, Hudsons
servants of the HBC who did not leave the employ of Bay, or St-Lawrence traders. Conflict escalated.
the Company, established households in the
neighbourhoods of Indian bands; and, Company servants
seldom continued on for more than three years at the Jean-Baptiste and Anne-Marie Lagemodire
same post often only one summer; the whole of the
time occupied travelling on rivers and carrying out Jean-Baptiste Lagemodire, a frontier fur trader,
the fur trade in winter camps, returning with a new was born in Maskinong, on the north side of the St-
outfit to trade in the spring. Lawrence River, in 1801. A voyageur in the North-West
When a young voyageur comes to winter quarters, he Company brigades from Montral, he ventured down the
finds many needs and wants for things: a leather coat, popular fur-trade route upstream on the St-Lawrence
trousers, mittens, duffle socks, shoes... all must be River, and then upstream on the Ottawa River, where
made and kept in repair. He had no time to do this paddling was made difficult by thirty portages. He
for himself... and, therefore, applied to an Indian learned from the old hands in the crews when to
with many daughters or wives... and thus, the portage and when to paddle, navigating Lake Huron,
unfortunate voyageur forms his connections with the Lake Superior, Grand Portage, Rainy Lake, Lake of the
natives and raises off-spring. He continues here Woods, the Winnipeg River, Lake Winnipeg, and the Red
two-or-three years, enjoying the benefit of a River. He made his base, for hunting, canoeing, and
helpmate, going off in the summer and returning in the perusing the free life hed always dreamed of, about a
autumn; perhaps finding his wife given to another. hundred miles from his Pembina destination.
This, though, is no distraction he simply forms Returning home for a visit, about four years later,
another connection and gets another wife, believing, he met Marie-Anne Gaboury, a pretty girl, at a party
now, that he cannot get on without a country wife. for him. - Hed once saved her from drowning, but they
The next time he leaves, travelling perhaps six had never spoken. It was instant infatuation. They
hundred to a thousand miles away from former wives, were quickly married, and he built a log house on a
the same course runs... until he is old and grey. small farm, intending to raise a large family and be
happy; but, in the first weeks of March, he announced
his urge to return to the west. She wanted to go!
Marie-Anne Lagemodire was the first white woman to neither Indians nor wild game on the long trip. The
go into the untamed west and to remain there. It was NWC had convinced the Indians to drive the game deep
a frightening experience, and terrible hardships into the forests and refuse to sell meat to Clarkes
awaited her. Reine, her first baby girl, was born on men.
6 January 1807: the first white child born in the Clarke and his men started to build Fort Wedderburn,
wilderness (in what became the Province of Manitoba). on Potato Island, but did not stop to search for food.
Marie-Anne accompanied her husband and traveled the Taking half the men, he went to Peace River, hoping to
water courses and trails, and during the following find plenty of game, but the Indians were always ahead
years bore two more children, (in what became the of them. Some of Clarkes men died of starvation.
provinces of Saskatchewan and, at Fort Edmonton, in They returned from the northwest with some food, but
Alberta). refused to continue working for the HBC. Clarke, and
his remaining men, returned to the lake, and were
Hearing about the Earl bringing settlers to arrested on instructions from Archibald Norman McLeod
establish the Selkirk Colony, the Lagemodires the embodiment of violence and were released only
paddled back to Pembina, and witnessed the first after they agreed not to participate in trade for one
arrivals: The newcomers needed help, famine was year. Colin Robertson was sent to resolve the
threatening, and Jean-Baptiste spent two long winters problem, but the NorWester men picked a quarrel and
back on the buffalo range as a hunter for the took him prisoner. McLeods henchmen murdered,
settlers. When the settlers returned to Point starved, and kidnapped their competitors men, and
Douglas, they went with them, and when the NorWesters burned their posts.
seemed determined to destroy the colony, because of Under George Simpson, called the little emperor
the Pemmican Proclamation, he stood by the settlers. because of his dictatorial methods, a great
rationalization of trade took place, and utility and
Alexander Henry the Younger reported, in 1809, that profit were counted. Fifty-two posts remained a few
Siksika of Painted Feathers band, owned as many as years after the union of the two companies.
fifty horses - and among the Peigan, the number of
horses a man owned could be as many as three hundred.
Among the Gros Ventres, a common pack horse could not The Indenture
be obtained for less than a gun, a fathom of HBC
stroud a kind of cloth and two hundred balls and Two centuries had elapsed since the Discoverys crew
powder; among Siksika, however, the same horse could had mutinied, it was the year 1811. Sir Thomas
be gotten for a carrot of tobacco about three Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, born on St.-Marys
pounds. Isle, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland (now Dumfries and
The Assiniboine and Plains Cree had fewer horses Galloway Region), a British philanthropist, had
than the Blackfoot, encouraging them to develop skills purchased from the Governor and Company of Adventurers
as horse raiders; theft of horses was considered an the Hudson Bay Company of London trading into
act of war, not theft. David Thompson described a Hudsons Bay in consideration of ten shillings and
spectacular raid by a band of Assiniboine disguised as certain understandings contained in the Indenture:
antelopes, making off with fifty horses from Rocky All that tract of land and territory of the said
Mountain House. Governor and Company, beginning on the western shore
of Lake Winnipic (Lake Winnipeg), at a point in fifty-
The Saulteaux, on their own initiative, had begun two degrees and thirty north latitude and thence
agriculture and similar reports came from around running due west to Lake Winnipegos (Little Winnipeg)
Prince Albert. more than 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square
miles) of Ruperts Land.
He was a man of warm sympathies, humanely interested
John Clarke in the welfare of the Scottish tenant farmers he was
planning to move there, as he had done once before,
Facing decline as aggressive Montral traders spread when in 1803, forcing the Scots out of their homes in
through the west, the Hudson Bay Company began to the Highlands, from the Hebrides, to make room for
emulate and challenge its competitors by carrying sheep runs, he sent eight hundred people to Prince
trade to the Indians. Rivers were characteristically Edward Island. The next year, he was in Upper Canada,
and methodically mapped, and posts were built, but the acquiring land near Lake St-Clair for a second
HBC was unable to exploit the riches of Athabasca venture, called Baldoon, but the marshy site proved
effectively until its European fur market shrank, in unhealthy.
1809, during the Napoleonic Wars. Difficulties
increased, and HBC dividends, eight percent in the
late eighteenth century, were nil between 1809 and Highland Scot Crofters
1814.
HBC profits began to dwindle, and there were no The HBC was adamant that no settlement take place.
dividends, during the first decade of the nineteenth And, in a committee recorded resolution, a complete
century. By 1810, HBC men were compelled to re- reversal of policy was reflected, concerning a Grant
organize. Andrew Wedderburn, a member of the ruling of Land within the Territories of the Hudson Bay
committee, made changes, and the Hudson Bay Company Company. On 6 February 1811, Lord Selkirk was
men became more aggressive in Ruperts Land. The received in person to have his proposal approved, but
North-West Company was determined to keep competitors it was the shareholders approval which was need - on
out. If rivals could claim monopoly rights in May 30th this was given. Despite opposition, it was
Ruperts Land, the Montral men, as discoverers, could passed that 116,000 square miles be granted.
do so in the country beyond, where drainage waters In 1835, the conflux of the Assiniboine and Red
flowed into the Arctic. The HBC agreed, but, as Rivers was chosen as the heart of the Red River
British subjects, they claimed the right to trade Settlement. The heterogeneous nature of the
anywhere. Instructed by Colin Robertson, a former settlements population coloured the Macutetis
NNWC man hired a hundred men to travel to Athabasca to experience. The settlement was divided at the
protect the HBC servants: John Clarke in command. junction. Fifty-five percent Mtis, and a few
Contrary to expectations, they carried some food,
expecting to buy from the Indians, but they saw
Canadinne households, occupying narrow river-lots14 Blackface breed of the highlands, Selkirk had imported
south and west of the fork; to the north, down Red the Spanish breed of Merinos, which produced fine
River to Lake Winnipeg, lay river-lots of the other wool. Due to predators, human error, and other forces
Macutetis people, the Hudson Bay English, making up of destruction, they didnt last long, though, and the
about thirty percent of the population. At Kildonan, flock was obliterated.
the original Scottish settlers accounted for about
eight percent of the population; and, at St-Peters, Ignoring the opposition, Selkirk and the first party
an Indian village, the Saulteaux and Cree made up of settlers set off from Scotland, in July of 1811.
about seven percent. They wintered at York Factory, and finally, after many
Religion and language marked the basic division privations, reached the junction of the Assiniboine
between the French Catholic and English Protestant, and Red Rivers.
although the two Macutetis communities understood The settlers, having difficulty feeding them selves,
Cree and Saulteaux. Churches, schools, and other were kept alive their first winter there by the local
instruments of local government, such as courts and an Indians and traders, who temporarily allowed
appointed Council of Assiniboia, underlined compassion for the plight of the displaced Highland
distinctions between the Red River Settlement and the crofters to stifle their misgivings. These early
circumstances of the Macutetis living along the colonials suffered much hardship and great loss;
Saskatchewan Rivers. frosts, floods, and grasshoppers ruined many of their
crops. Miles MacDonell, on his first trip to Red
The fur trade did all possible to frustrate River, had brought a bushel and a half of seed wheat,
arrangements. On July 26th, Miles MacDonell and which was dutifully planted, but it was a type of
twenty-three workmen departed from Stornoway, on the winter wheat which could not survive the Manitoba
island of Lewis, for the long journey to York Factory. winter, and all their precious seed was lost.
They arrived sixty-one monotonous days later, too near The Macutetis hunters around the junction welcomed
freeze up to continue. They were forced to wait for the appearance of the Highland Scot crofters, the
the ice, already formed on the Hayes River, to original settles who appeared in the spring of 1812.
breakup, but there was less than sufficient room at Although they were assisted by agents of Lord Selkirk,
the fort, and not enough food. MacDonell decided to and the Hudson Bay Company, the settlers were
take his men upstream on the Nelson River, hoping to appreciated as a welcome market for surplus buffalo
find a location offering enough driftwood to build meat, pemmican, dried fish and water fowl. Yet, the
shelters, and enough deer and ptarmigan to feed the settlers became involved in the competition between
men through the winter. About twenty-two miles the HBC and the NWC, polarizing their positions. - The
upstream, at a place called the Nelson Encampment... NWC tried to convince the Macutetis their land was
they built livable cabins with mud fireplaces, where being usurped.
they spent a difficult winter. There was enough deer In August 1812, a second party followed.
and game birds to feed the men, but scurvy was a
constant threat, and the men quarreled: the Scottish
and Irish disagreed constantly; the Protestant and the Baldoon
Catholic fought, and nobody stayed friends with
MacDonell. In the following year, Baldoon, a settlement
Canoes for the continued trip were made at York established in Upper Canada failed, partly because the
Factory during the winter, and by June 22, when the land was too marshy for sheep rearing, but more-so,
river ice began to break up, the men were eager to because it had been looted and burned by Americans in
start. MacDonell had promised a two day rest at 1812. Even before Baldoon was destroyed, Selkirk and
Oxford House, and once there, after long paddling his relatives had bought into the HBC, securing a
days, he was able to hire three more men to compensate controlling interest, which they used to obtain a land
for defections. One highlight of the trip was the grant of 116,000 square miles between North and
discovery of young cattle, a half-grown heifer and a South Dakota downriver to Lake Winnipeg, together with
young bull, thought to be completely unknown in the the valleys of the Assiniboine and Souris Rivers.
territory. Once captured, these had to be loaded and Even many with the HBC opposed the creation of a
unload every day; the men called them Adam and Eve. settlement, regarding it as harmful to the fur trade;
a concentration of farmers would lie across their
Offering relief from rapids, but not from danger, routes of access to the northwest.
the canoes passed onto Lake Winnipeg, then into the The monopolistic competition was intense, sometimes
Red River, halting finally, on August 30th, on the violent, particularly on behalf of the more energetic
east side of the Red, opposite from the mouth of the NorWesters, who grew more ferocious when the HBC
Assiniboine River. MacDonell acted promptly, fixing pushed into Athabasca country. Using voyageurs
the site for the main center of the settlement about a recruited in Montral, and tough, former NWC traders,
half mile north of the mouth of the Assiniboine, at like Colin Robinson, the HBC finally broke its
Point Douglas. He worried, though, that the settlers competitors: (During the peak of the struggle, between
would begin arriving; it was too soon; they were not 1815 and 1821, new and unprofitable posts had been
ready. It was the advice of the Hudson Bay Company built and competition had reached an unofficial state
officials that they make winter preparations sixty of warfare.)
miles to the south, at Pembina River, near the buffalo
herds... and winter meat. Peter Fidler came from Brandon House to survey the
As suspected, Selkirks first settlers began land and laid the out long river-lot farms for a
arriving. On 27 October 1812, a contingent of contingent of expected settlers, but they didnt
seventy-one men, women, and children, under a jovial arrive until 1814.
Irishman, Owen Keveny, joined the rush to erect log
cabins and make ready for winter. - Mrs. McLean had Miles MacDonell discovered cattle at Oxford House.
had a new baby girl on the way. He took them by canoe to Red River. The only other
The settlers brought twenty-one sheep with them from cattle in the region were a cow and her calf, the
Scotland, to export wool. Instead of the lowly property of the NWC at Souris House, were purchased by
Peter Fidler in 1813 for 100 and taken to Red River.
14 The NWC bull turned ugly and was slaughtered for beef.
Every river-lot farm was 220 yards to 1/8 mile wide and to Adam, exercising his natural prerogative to explore,
a depth of two miles.
wandered off and was not seen again until the Built at the Forks of the Red and Assiniboine
following spring... floating downriver on a slab of Rivers, the North-West Companys Fort Gibraltar, at
ice. They still had three cows... but no bull. the mouth of the latter, was the most important depot
in the country. With the coming of the Selkirk
They were fortunate in securing the services of a settlers, the need grew, and shortage threatened.
French-Canadinne, Jean-Baptiste Lagemodire, as a And, Miles MacDonell expected the new settlers to
full-time buffalo hunter, for the first two winters. induce famine conditions.
Kildonans The Pemmican Proclamation
On 28 June 1813, seven hundred crofters from Pemmican lasts indefinitely, and is easily
parishes of Kildonan and Clyne, in Sutherlandshire, on transported in small canoes. A nutritional panacea,
an old ship, the Prince of Wales, left Stromness in long-lasting, high in protein, rich in energy, made by
the Orkneys for Ruperts Land. Only a hundred were mixing equal portions of dried meat and melted animal
accommodated. A highly contagious fever, typhus, or fat, primarily buffalo, with berries, especially
jail fever, appeared. The first casualty was the rosehips (rich in vitamin C), and wild herbs. For
ships doctor. His presence was Selkirk thoughtful voyageurs serving both companies it was essential. If
provision. Most became sick, and seven died and were the supply failed, the canoes would grind to a halt.
buried at sea. The ships captain, Turner, was The main supply came from the Indians in the good
insensitive to the smell of the sick people, and to buffalo country of the QuAppelle Valley and
shorten their presence on his ship, instead of sailing Assiniboine River areas.
to York Factory as instructed, delivered the settlers By 1814, barely a hundred posts, forty-two of them
to the mouth of the Churchill River, unloaded and belonging to the HBC, were operating in the west.
tried to abandon the sick. Miles MacDonell traveled Competition still jeopardized trade: things changed,
to York Factory to meet the newcomers and escort them though, owing to the impetuous arrogance of Miles
back to Red River MacDonell, Selkirks governor. On January 8 th,
William Auld, a tough, old trader at York Factory, MacDonell posted an inflammatory proclamation in his
received the report of Captain Turners inhumane anxiety to ensure settlers adequate supplies. He
conduct, and set out for the Churchill River in an issued the proclamation on 14 January 1814, declaring
open boat. He arrived before Turners departure, his primary claim to all food resources in the Selkirk
ordered him to reload his passengers, and take them to territory, and forbade the export of pemmican from Red
York Factory. Dismal, if not, presumably, threatened, River to other parts of the north-west, also of all
the captain angrily reloaded his freight bit-by-bit in meat and vegetables: (But, in 1814, they had planted
small boats to his ship, anchored in the harbour. - to late, and crops were lost to fall frost; and,
Then the passengers. But, he callously allowed the during the next two years, crops were disrupted by
metal chest containing the passengers tea to slip and human enemies.)
fall into the water. When loaded and headed for deep Copies of his proclamation, as governor of
water, the ship was ostensibly allowed to run aground Assiniboia, were carried to all posts. It was fuel
on gravel. The condemnation became loud. It was for paddle power. Angry traders in no mood for
necessary again to unload. It was the captains acquiesce, would cripple transport, and prepared to
contention that if not allowed leave to go, hed never smuggle critical supplies from the Assiniboine River
clear the winter ice and be back in London before to the mouth of the Red River. MacDonell placed men
winter. He would not take the settlers to York on the Assiniboine River to enforce his proclamation.
Factory. Even William Auld agreed, and the settlers Receiving word that supplies were coming downriver, in
were left stranded at Fort Prince of Wales: although May, an act of defiance to his order, he prepared to
its dimensions were big on the outside, inside it was intercept.
incapable of accommodating the settlers for the Hearing of this, the owners placed their cargo in
winter. Under incredible duress, they trampled hiding near the river, but these were found and
upstream sixteen miles, to the mouth of Colony Creek, confiscated by MacDonells men ninety-six bags. The
where they found driftwood enough to construct rough biggest confiscation came a few days later. MacDonell
shelters and supply firewood. They had to depend on knew of a big NorWester cache of pemmican at Fort
fish, rabbits, and ptarmigan for food. Midway through Souris, on the Assiniboine River, and sent his
the winter, it was estimated that theyd eaten 8000 sheriff, John Spencer, with canoes of armed men...
wild birds. The winter was extremely dismal. There Spencer pounded the gate demanding entrance, and
were six more deaths from fever. ordered his men to axe the gate. His gunmen carried
Near the end of winter, the snow still deep, fifty- out 479 ninety pound bags of pemmican, ninety-three
one restless people resolved to walk to York Factory. kegs of grease, and 865 pounds of dried meat.
They left in single file, the strongest men in front The NWC was furious, but lacked the armed might to
to break trail through the still deep snow. The recover their property. They could only plead with
weaker men followed, next came the stronger women and MacDonell, to return enough food to meet the immediate
children, then the ailing, the effects of fever still needs of their crew brigades. After haggling and some
felt by some. In the middle of the line a kilted compromise, at summer meetings at Fort William, all
piper provided music. At the end of each day, they discussion was about the high-handed seizure, and the
bedded in the snow. need to destroy the settlement. One proposal was to
At York Factory, they waited for their friends, and inspire the Mtis to attack.
for the ice on the Hayes River to break. Then they They flattered the Macutetis, many whom were
began the long journey, paddling most of the way employed at their forts and in their brigades,
against the current. On June 21 st, one year less one persuading them that they were a nation with
week, they arrived at Fort Douglas. The Kildonans aboriginal rights to the prairie lands which the
displayed great courage and determination. Archibald settlers were violating.
MacDonald had become their leader on the journey, and
reported to Selkirk, that there are never happier and But first, it was decided to get Duncan Cameron of
contented in Kildonan than are here already. Fort Gibraltar, to attempt to win the settlers with
food, whiskey, and bagpipe music, and then to destroy
all loyalties to MacDonell and the settlement. He
succeeded, and at an opportune moment, told listeners No. Semple answered, We wont need it.
that they had no hope of survival or prospering. The At an interval, the Mtis changed direction and
NWC was so concerned that they would furnish free veered northeast, as if to bypass the Semple men.
transport to Upper Canada, with all food supplied. Semple, though, was undeterred, and marched away to
The canoes would leave the following day. intercept. Following their respective courses, it was
Almost 350 Scots had immigrated to Red River before inevitable that the two parties meet.
1815, but the little colony suffered many They counted sixty mounted men, more than Semple had
difficulties, including resistance from the anticipated, predominantly Macutetis, with a few
NorWesters, floods, and locust plagues. In June Indians in feather. Cuthbert Grant, a British-
1815, 134 men, women, and children, accepted the educated Mtis was leader of the Macutetis. Grant
offer. It was a sad day for the Selkirk colony. Only halted, and one of his men, Boucher, rode towards
about sixty remained. No sooner had the canoes Semple. What do you want? he asked.
departed, than a mounted troop of Macutetis galloped Semple replied with the same, What do you want?
in, shooting their guns into the air, killing a few We want our fort. Boucher answered, referring to
horses, and firing some buildings. They tried to Fort Gibraltar, which Semples men had dismantled for
force the farmers to leave, burning homes and logs to reinforce their own fort. Semple reached
destroying crops. The frightened settlers sent word forward and grabbed Bouchers gun.15
to the NorWesters, that they were ready to quit the A burst of gunfire: One of the first to fall wounded
colony, and paddled to Jack River, near the end of was Semple, his hip shattered with a charge from
Lake Winnipeg. - The NorWesters retaliated by Grants gun. After a few seconds, Semple raised his
arresting him under dubious authority, persuading many head and spoke to the Mtis leader. Are you Grant?
settlers to depart for Upper Canada. The rest, Grant nodded. Semple said, Im badly wounded, but if
discouraged, drew back towards Hudson Bay, but were you would have me conveyed to the fort I think Ill
brought back by Colin Robertson, a former North-West live. Grant turned his horse as if to comply, but
Company man, but now Selkirks useful and loyal Franois Deschamps pre,16 shot the governor dead as
worker, persuaded them to return. - Before long there well as several others - and stealing their
would be a new body of immigrants. possessions.
They re-established the colony and departed to In a matter of minutes the shooting had stopped.
combat the NorWesters in Athabasca country, leaving The battle was over. There were twenty-two dead on
Robert Semple as governor. the field. Only one was Mtis. Excluding the two men
who went for the cannon, and two or three others who
The HBC began recruiting voyageurs in 1815. fled, John Pritchard was the sole Semple party
survivor. When the fighting was over, he approached
Grant, surrendering as his prisoner. He added that if
Grant had any message for the sad people of the fort,
Rumours of a more savage attack spread. A message he would convey it, hoping Grant would offer assurance
was sent to Montral in the winter. - A task for a of no more attack. Grant agreed, and Pritchard was
hardy man in snowshoe. Robertson asked Jean-Baptiste allowed to convey the message that there would be no
Lagemodire, he answered, As soon as I get my more attacks, providing the settlers abandoned the
blankets and snowshoes and gun, and say goodbye to my settlement at once. Afterwards, Pritchard was to
wife and children. He set out across the snow on return to become a prisoner of war.
October 17th... and, on march 10th, he delivered the The distraught settlers, including the twenty-one
message to Selkirk. new widows and many fatherless children, agreed to
He was invited to stop and rest for a few weeks, but leave as soon as they could load their canoes. They
was in a hurry to return home, and started back the went, again, to Jack River, promising themselves never
way he came... on foot. But, he was arrested by NWC to return to such a heartbreaking land. But, less
agents, made prisoner, and jailed at Fort William. than a year later, when news that Selkirk,17 with a
In the spring of 1816, after a winter of starvation, 15

Cf. the battle of Duck Lake: Assiwyn, too, reached forward
in which people died, the Mtis NorWester captain to move McKays gun... and thus was the first patriot
Cuthbert Grant assembled sixty buffalo hunters and felled in defense of the native land... a half-blind old
attacked a HBC brigade bringing pemmican down river. man who gently tried to move a gun that the prejudiced
They captured and ransacked Brandon House, a HBC post. lAnglais was pointing at him.
The Macutetis took the pemmican to Red River and, 16
Because of the poor conduct of his children, he was forced
then, at Seven Oaks were challenged by Semple. to immigrate to the upper Missouri River, where father and
sons attracted the hostility of everyone around them by
robberies, violence, and even murder: In the vicinity of
The Battle of Seven Oaks Fort Union (Williston ND), where they had settled, on 19
October 1834, after returning home from a hunt, Deschamps
sons got drunk and smashed in the head of Jack Rems son
Memory of the Macutetis servants of the North-West
killing him. Charles Larpenteur, whom was tending bar and
Companys warlike tactics of the previous year serving drinks, was only able to quiet things down by
remained clear and frightening; settlers with good putting laudanum (opium) in the mens whiskey... but, the
reason were worried. Another assault was rumoured, settlers, including Rems family and Jean-Baptiste Gardepie
this time to demolish the settlement. The new decided to kill Deschamps and his son Franois fils.
governor, Robert Semple, a former army man, was On 23 July 1835, a trap was set for the two men in a room at
confident his people could repulse any native attack. the fort, where both went every day after breakfast. When
His courage was better than his judgment. Deschamps entered, Gardepie struck him a fatal blow to the
head with his rifle and gravely wounded his son who
Late afternoon, 19 June 1816, a boy in a Fort begged for mercy. Gardepie, not thinking Deschamps already
Douglas watchtower noticed mounted horsemen approach dead, stabbed him in the stomach he was buried that same
from the west by the river. The half-breeds are day.
coming. Charles Deschamps, emulating the poor conduct of his father
Semple climbed the tower, placed his telescope to and brother, shared the same fate.
his eye, and nodded. He called for twenty men to 17
When he heard of the battle, Selkirk was already en route
follow him, and twenty-six stepped forward. All with a party of Swiss mercenaries from the De Meuron
right, he said, get your guns and fall in. Regiment, whom he had persuaded to accompany him to the
Will we take cannon? settlement. He immediately seized Fort William, arresting
the company officers he found thereat.
hundred hired soldiers, was on his way, many had a stock was safely delivered to York Factory. As a
change of heart and returned. precaution against tragedy, half the flock was moved
In the history of the Hudson Bay Company the Battle to a small predator-free island. Five ewes in all and
of Seven Oaks is remembered as a massacre. In the five rams but, after heavy inland rains and a sudden
oral tradition of the Macutetis, it is a great flood, all were drowned. The surviving ewes were
victory. Grant remained the Mtis leader until the taken to the settlement, and an appeal was made to the
rise of Louis Ril, in the 1840s. The battle coloured HBC for a ram, which arrived in 1824. The ewes were
relations between the French and Catholic and the either dead or in decline.
English and Protestant.
The Battle of Seven Oaks was the fist manifestation On return to the east, Selkirk paused at Prairie du
of the political consciousness of the Macutetis and Chien, high on the Mississippi, and tried to find
it resulted in bloodshed serving notice to the frontiersmen to accept an order of fifty to a hundred
intruders that they were the people who owned the land cows. He would travel far enough to the south, into
and were prepared to back that claim by force, if former Spanish territory, if necessary, to find and
necessary. drive them back. - No success. But interest led to
correspondence with Michael Dousman of
Swiss Mercenaries Michilimackinac, and a contract was signed to deliver
sixty good milk cows, twenty oxen, and four bulls.
In retaliation, Lord Selkirk hired Swiss mercenaries The hundred head had to be driven north and turned
to capture Fort William, the NorWesters headquarters over to the Red River representatives at Big Stoney
in the pays den haut, taking prisoner many of the Lake, in South Dakota. The price was not to exceed
companys chief traders. Other skirmishes, ambushes, eighty dollars per head per cow, one hundred dollars
and murders, followed until the British government, each for the bull and oxen. Robert Dickson, as agent,
fearing the collapse of the North West fur trade, signed and paid.
pressured competitors to reach an agreement - the
result was that the Hudson Bay Company retained its As the bloody violence climaxed, peace was
chartered control of its monopoly trade with the restored, and the two rival fur companies
Indians. under one flag merged. The Hudson Bay Company
Selkirks soldiers proceeded to colony and re- now had a monopoly on the fur trade in
established it, in 1817; they brought five head of Ruperts Land.
cattle, one bull, one ox, and three cows which they
had seized at the NWC post at Lac la Pluie butt, it The Swiss mercenaries and Swiss settlers who
was repossessed by the company the next year and shot. followed departed for warmer regions of south U.S.
The crop of 1817 was lost to fall frost. Descendants of the original Scots mostly remained,
though. And, retired HBC officials began to stay
Selkirk recognized the testing and demonstration there instead of returning home. People of mixed
value of the experimental farms, and promised one in Indian and Scottish blood imitated the Scots and took
his plans. He had already hired a young Scottish to farms under the influence of the Catholic Oblate
farmer to direct it. The man to fill the new post was fathers. Many Macutetis took up semi-settled
to bring something useful with him, like pigs, which existences, establishing strip-farms near the Red and
were often carried on ships to consume waste, porcine Assiniboine Rivers, like those of their habitant
garbage disposals that would convert waste into fresh ancestors. Other Macutetis in the Saskatchewan
pork. They may have been taken ashore at points like region still pursued nomadic existences as free
York Factory, and used for breeding. It is doubtful hunters, mingling with Indians, and in many ways
if they were ever taken inland. living like them.
William Laidlaw brought a small herd on a 750 mile The amalgamation of the two companies made the
journey by toboggan and canoe. - Seven pigs, probably Macutetis the largest element in the Red River
100 pounds each, two months old on the ship. They ate settlement a series of ribbon villages merging into
lots and grew, and so did problems after. York each other. Fort Garry, doubling as the seat of
Factory was late in the season, Laidlaw warned of the government of Assiniboia, was the center of the
danger of being frozen on icy river. It was important regions fur trade. With the establishment of the
to be at Red River as quickly as possible; he decided international border between Canada and the United
to go, the pigs enclosed in boxlike compartments on States the Medicine Line - Blackfoot took
the backs of the canoes, traveled easily as long as advantage of the situation, to raid across the border
the rolled oats from Scotland lasted. and sell their proceeds in Canada.
The weather turned into winter, the water froze, and Further complicating the complex situation, despite
he was forced to abandon his canoe, trading it to unwillingness to meet fur trade on its terms, the
Indians for a team of dogs and an Indian-made Blackfoot and Gros Ventres felt the Cree were being
toboggan. He fed each pig in the morning, wrapped in treated better in trade, particularly in case of
a buffalo robe and tied to the floor of the sled. The firearms. Shortly after, another agent appeared in
dogs had to be muzzled. He would alternatively feed the form of the settlers... for Indians of the
the swine raw, uncooked fish due to the calamity of a interior, who outnumbered the Europeans ten to one,
depletion of grain. The pigs survived the winter trip until decimated by smallpox in 1818-21, the
from Hudson Bay, and were received at Point Douglas. consequences of frantic European commercial
The local Indians had never seen pigs before, and were penetration of territory after 1760 was immense.
ambitious to compare boiled pork to buffalo hump.
Lord Selkirk, when at Red River in 1817, vowed he
would not rest until a big and worthwhile herd is
delivered. He ordered twenty head of Merino sheep, Oblate fathers Joseph-Norbert Provencher and
fifteen ewes and five rams, from Saxony. The imported Dumoulin arrived in 1818 to establish a mission at
St.-Boniface. Two years later, in 1820, Anglican
Jean-Baptiste Lagemodire was held until Selkirk was able to priest John West arrived. Methodists and
get him released. He set out on foot, and arrived home the Presbyterians arrived twenty years later.
day before Christmas, 1816. Selkirk later presented him In the prairies, Catholic missionaries encouraged
with a land grant, on which the city of St-Boniface grew. migration from Qubec, France, and Belgium, to
He died in St.-Boniface, on 7 September 1855, at the age of strengthen the Catholic minority there. The community
78.
consisted mainly of the French-speaking Macutetis, felt, and his canoers would buttoned up on their
descendants of the original voyageurs from Qubec. brightest shirts for the final dash to landing. The
Only a few small groups found their way west, governor would stand erect as the paddlers bent every
discouraged by French-Canadinne nationalists muscle in a fine display of speed. The governors
disturbed by the manifestation of migration. Red private musician, a piper, filled the air with
River served as a springboard for ventures further glorious Highlander melodies.
westward. Red river expansion came not from a steady infusion
of Scottish settlers, as Selkirk had envisioned, but
The Anglican and Catholic emphasized education, from retired HBC men who brought their native wives to
creating a loose network of schools, offering the settlement and from the growing Catholic Mtis
academic, religious, and vocational training, affected population, linked by blood to the Montral fur trade
all but most of the nomadic. and by their role as buffalo hunters and provisioners.
The 1818 crop was lost to grasshopper destruction, The Highland Scots, merchant-adventurers based in
but the women had managed to gather enough seed heads, Montral, were more able successors to the Canadinne
missed by the voracious insects, to furnish a seed and French merchants extending the St-Lawrence-Great
crop for the next year. But, in 1819, the Lakes trading system to the Arctic and Pacific coasts.
grasshoppers hatched in doubled numbers and ate Their lan and esperit de corps all but defeated the
everything, leaving nothing for the settlers. The HBC - when their deficiency of system and regulation
pioneer farmers had to travel to the United States for made them vulnerable to modern managers who took
seed. The grasshoppers were still present in 1820, control of HBC in 1810. These new mens effective
though in decline, and growers got a partial crop in management emphasized efficiency of process, rather
return than the social interests of the participants:
Dousman sold his contract to Adam Stewart, of Deficiencies of pre-industrial ways and means of the
Michilimackinac, and traveled south to St-Louis, and NorWesters were defeated by the commercial
beyond, to obtain cattle. It was his intention to superiority of moderns in conduct of trade.
drive a herd to Prairie du Chien, winter there, and In 1820, Alexander Mackenzie joined the XY Trading
drive on to Big Stone Lake in early spring. He Company following the death of Simon McTavish. After
miscalculated the amount of hay available in Prairie it was absorbed by the North-West Company, he died in
du Chien, though, and the cattle starved to death Scotland in 1820. The two great fur companies had
during the winter. enough of the trade warfare. The end of the
Also, in 1819, the tough local governor, William competition in the fur trade witnessed the victory of
Williams, applied reciprocal violence to the the Hudson Bay Company over the North-West Company.
NorWesters taking furs down the Saskatchewan River to
Grand Portage. He set up a blockade at the rivers
mouth, supported by armed men, two cannon, and a The Buffalo Wool Company
gunboat on Lake Winnipeg.
Between 1818 and 1820, measles and whooping cough The spinning wheels of the Scottish and Irish
may have killed half the Brandon Assiniboine, and a settlers were sitting idle, for the lack of sheep,
third of the Western Cree and other groups. The John Pritchard, a former NWC partner retired at the
Ojibwa expanded into the territory vacated by the Selkirk Settlement at Seven Oaks, proposed the Buffalo
Cree. In the 1820s, the people of Rainy River Wool Company to bring prosperity to the settlement
depended on the buffalo hides brought to them by the Why wait for sheep when the buffalo here produce a
HBC, for moccasins and clothing. fine, very warm wool. - He demonstrated how to pull
the wool from the hide, and then separate the fine
undercoat from the coarse outer coat for processing. -
George Simpson the Little Emperor But, sheeps wool is unique, buffalo hair fibers are
straight, and difficult to twist into wool fibers,
In 1820, George Simpson, (born on the coast of Ross- because of crimps or serrations in sheeps wool, it
shire under a cloud of illegitimacy in 1787), worked twists fine and strong, the finest wool containing
as a clerk for the London office of Andrew Wedderburn; most crimps per inch
after ten years, he accepted a position in Athabasca, Pritchards letters to Andrew Wedderburn, and
aware of the cut-throat trade war, and arrived in the leaders of the British wool industry, aroused enough
north-west with fifteen canoes laden to the waterline interest to put the buffalo wool to test. In June
with trade goods. His first year was the first 1821, he reported in a letter, that his wool recovery
successful year in the Hudson Bay Companys history in at Pembina was 300 pounds of fine wool and 1000 pounds
Athabasca. He ruled with firmness and justice, of coarse. He expected to double the amounts before
winning respect. When the two companies merged, he the last brigades departed for the season back to York
was seen as only man to wield men with a deep, long- Factory.
standing hatred into a single, efficient organization. He sent wool samples to London: A good skin, he
wrote, will yield six-to-seven pounds of wool, two-or-
Hes na big, but hes built like a Kyloe three of the finest quality, the rest fit for coarse
bull and just as stubborn. cloth, blanket stuff, mattresses, and low quality hair
for rope. In negotiating the Buffalo Wool Company
He was the governor of Ruperts Land for more than business with Wedderburn, he sent an untamed buffalo
thirty-five years. Some called him a dictator, others bull and heifer to London.
Caesar of Ruperts Land, doubtless, he was a hard As Lord Selkirks brother-in-law and administrator
master. He often traveled between posts, expecting of the earls estate, Wedderburn granted Pritchard one
voyageurs to adopt his hours, paddling at least hundred acres for Red River land for the companys
fifteen miles every day; every canoe-man wanted the headquarters and warehouse. The British
honour of being a member of his crack canoe team. manufacturers, doubters from the beginning, put the
The fur empire extended from Hudsons Bay to the wool to test. The millers reported no future in it.
Pacific coast: With a periodical display of pomp, hed The mills couldnt handle the coarse fibers, the yarns
brief halt at the posts and, as the Indians once did made from the short, fine hair lacked strength and
in their pre-trade ceremony [supra]: hed don a quality.
swallow-tail coat and a top hat of the best beaver
Is not wool, and is not a proper substitute.
Pritchard and the widow Selkirk persuaded woolen A Highland Piper for the Little Emperor
manufacturers to try making shawls, stockings, and
sweaters popular in high society, and out of respect By 1825, the HBC monopoly operated a mere forty-
for John Selkirk they tried. Lady Selkirk wore the five posts.
hairy stockings and other items of apparel, but London
socialites were unimpressed. The only hope for the There was a shortage of buffalo in some areas.
projects success was in the making of coarse cloth for
sale and use in the settlement River-lots offered several advantages, most
especially serving as a common highway; farmers were
assured of water and close neighbor in case of an
An Act for Regulating the Fur Trade attack. One serious disadvantage discovered in the
year of 1826, when a flood made a total loss of crops.
A mixture of cultures and a confusion of laws: Law On May 2nd, the Red River rose nine feet and
was expressed as custom of the country by the Native overflowed its banks, flooding homes, and driving
population: In 1821, the white mans Canada occupants to higher ground to watch the wooden
Jurisdiction Act of 1803 was replaced by An Act for structures of their humble homes wash away. Forty-
Regulating the Fur Trade and a Criminal and Civil seven homes floated away on May 5 th. George Simpson
Jurisdiction was established within certain parts of believed it was a death blow to the settlement
British North America, British in those areas under another cruel test of perseverance. By the end of
the Hudson Bay Charter of 1670. May, the river showed signs of subsiding. By mid-
An Act for Regulating the Fur Trade came out of the June, the land was dry enough for cultivation, too
amalgamation of the Hudson Bay Company and the North- late for most crops, though.
West Company. By its terms, the Hudson Bay Company Every settler had a new house by the time of the
was granted a twenty-one year monopoly for trading snow
with Indians in all such parts of North America not
granted to said Governor and Company of Adventurers of Also, in 1826, at the end of Simpsons first six
England trading to Hudson Bay, and not being part of years in country, he requisitioned supplies sent from
His Majestys Provinces in North America. Lack of London: guns, buckshot, beads, knives, rum, and one
clarity gave rise to disputes. Highland piper, the best available in Scotland.
About the middle of 1827, a brigade from York
In the spring of 1821, Adam Stewart was on his way Factory brought all including Colin Fraser, hired at
south to purchase another herd, only to be cleaned out thirty pounds per year, who piped the little emperor
by angry, hungry Sioux. After two years of up-and-down every navigatable stream in Ruperts Land:
unsuccessfully trying to fulfill the contract, doubly Inspiring some and frightening others.
determined, Stewart tried again in the early spring of A tour of inspection began at York Factory and ended
1822. The drive from the south was more than a in Fort Langley, near the Pacific. They arrived on
thousand miles... 170 head of cattle and oxen arrived October 25th - having left York Factory July 12 th,
- meaning beef, milk, butter, cheese for Red River thereby completing a journey considered to be the
Settlement. longest ever attempted in North America in a single
In 1822, the HBC encouraged Macutetis migration season.
into the Red River settlement: [George Simpson married his cousin Francis Simpson,
in 1838; was knighted, in 1841; and, died in 1860, in
It is both dangerous and expensive to support Lachine, above Montral.]
a numerous population of this description
[Mtis] in an uneducated and savage condition,
and it would be impolitic and inexpedient to The Hannah Bay Massacre
encourage and allow them to collect together
in different parts of the country where they By 1830, the Blackfoot had assumed a new dominance
could not be under any proper superintendence. over the plains as suppliers of buffalo hides to the
[Governor and Committee, 1938] HBC and the American Fur Company, which profited a
trade yielding at least 80,000 hides a year. After a
The Chipewyan of the northern forest, in the 1820s decade (or two), cultural flowering led all too
and 1830s, brought beaver, moose, and caribou to these quickly to disillusionment with the rapid depletion of
posts. They were merciless hunters for trade and food the herds after 1860. And, when the HBC built Peigan
- which increasingly becoming scarcer... Post (Old Bow Fort) in 1832, in the territory under
Communal hunting over large areas in bands of twenty Kainah control, the post was forced to close and the
to thirty-five people gave way, among the Ojibwa, to latter was not allowed to trade.
dependence on small, private family hunting
territories, as Ojibwas mobility declined. They In 1832, a starving Cree family asked post personnel
hunted rabbits and other small animals more intensely. for help. What was offered was inadequate. The Cree
later claimed that they were ordered by the Spirit
Early traders bitterly opposed any settlement, as Above to kill the offenders, nine persons, all were
headmen in the fur trade; they had difficulties Native except the post master, who was a mixed blood.
accepting the Selkirk Settlement but, still, they The family was tracked down and all the adult males
aided the settlers of experimental farms established were executed, seven in total, including one who was
in 1831 and 1838. only fifteen.
In a later instance, an Indian family starved to
death because the whites refused to share shelter or
food as we [the natives] had shared with them.
1824 was a bumper crop - finally, after twelve years
of trying: forty-four bushels of wheat per acre from
ploughed land, and sixty-four bushels from land The Sheep Stock of Red River Settlement
cultivated by hand tools. But, in 1825, crop failure
was caused by an invasion of mice.
In 1832, a large number of the settlers of Red River The District of Assiniboia
subscribed for the purchase of sheep stock in the
settlement. Late in 1832, ten men were chosen for a The status of Red River under the British Hudson Bay
purchasing expedition: Hudson Bay Company clerk Companys jurisdiction, in 1834, was reorganized as
William Rae was named their leader, and Robert the District of Assiniboia with an appointed council.
Campbell, recently arrived from Scotland and familiar A committee of the Hudson Bay Company emphasizing
with sheep, was named deputy leader. The ten men, moderate business practices, controlled costs,
with two carts and several saddle horses, departed on maximizing long-term profits, envisioning settlement
November 2nd. at the junction of the Red and Assiniboia Rivers in
At Pembina they heard disturbing reports about harmony with the fur trade. The Selkirk settlement
Sioux aggressions and changed their travel hours to be had received the support of the HBC even before it
less conspicuous, but kept on until they reached the had passed into the Companys hands.
Mississippi, where they abandoned their carts and
horses for canoes. After ice formed on the river, By 1836, communal values of the hunt began to give
they walked, until they finally arrived in St-Louis on way to the individual as buffalo herds diminished.
3 January 1833 fifty-six travel days from home. The Macutetis became wage labourers, as relative
They searched far but found no sheep nearer than positions in the fur trade hierarchy declined. Most
Kentucky. When Campbell inquired where to find now tended to be classed as menial labourers, rather
Kentucky, he was answered with a swoop of the hand and than as officer class, as some had once been.
an indifferent Thet a-wey! Mounting frustrations led to bizarre reactions, such
Rae went ahead, and by the time his friends joined as joining General James Dicksons [fl. 18357]
him, in Versailles, Kentucky, he had purchased 1100 Indian Liberation Army. A figure of obscure origin,
sheep and lambs. Soon, 270 more were added, making Dickson was up from the States to raise an army to
the total 1370. The mature sheep were sheared at once assist Texas against Mexico, or perhaps to attack
for easier traveling. On May 2nd, the noisy flock was Santa Fe and set up a truly First Nations utopia where
started in a northwesterly direction... there was no only Natives would hold property. He was briefly in
mention of a sheep dog! the north and the fact that he attracted attention,
They were covering eleven miles a day at first, even a few recruits, illustrated the Mtis discontent,
until trouble started, when the native spear-grass especially some of the HBC officers.
began to loose its barbed spears, or seeds: these In 1838, the HBC lease was renewed; small pox again
sharp spears have always caused sheep trouble, carried off large numbers, possibly two-thirds or more
penetrating the sheeps skin and causing suffering, of the Assiniboine, Blackfoot, and North Saskatchewan
sometimes death. Three or four died every day. There Cree, although a new vaccine administered by HBC men
was nothing to do but halt the drive and wait until and reduced the death rate among the plains Cree and
the spears had dropped to the ground. woodland and parkland Indians of south-central
Next, the drive went into rattlesnake country. Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan and eastern Alberta.
Thereafter, there were encounters with the Sioux. By Ravaged, debauched, dislodged and increasingly
July 7th, they were down to 670 sheep and lambs. dispirited by their incorporation into the periphery
Settlers from Fort Douglas came to meet them with food of the European commercial world by 1840, the Indians
and wagons, for the ailing sheep and lambs. Finally, of the interior were firmly embarked on a path that
at noon on 16 September 1833, one of the longest would lead to the unrest and abject despair (of the
sheep drives in history had ended. reservations of the 1870s and 1880s). By the 1840s,
the food and fur bearing animals had been hunted to
depletion, and the ecological foundations of
Fireaway traditional Indian life became dependent, at least
intermittently, on European assistance as their
Alexander Christie was Governor of Red River and centuries old autonomy was compromised.
Assiniboia, from 1833 to 1839. In 1833, a Peigan
chief, Sackomaph, was reported to own 45000 horses. - Red River Mtis and half-breeds sang, danced, and
On his death, 150 were reportedly sacrificed. laughed, more interested in fun and contentment than
Nicholas Garry of the HBC reported to Simpson, We in wealth; some indifferently farmed, others worked
shall send a stallion of the proper breed by ship to as voyageurs.
York Factory. We think the experimental farm at Red
River the best place to commence raising horses.
Settlers were skeptical, They dont know the proper The 1840 Buffalo Hunt
breed, or how to carry horses by canoe from York
Factory. There were two extensive buffalo hunts every year
Nevertheless, the stallion was delivered to York in the spring and in the fall which might take a
Factory and, either by canoe or York boat, was taken total of three months. The buffalo hunt was a Mtis
to Point Douglas. institution: a carnival, a war exercise, and a holiday
Fireaway, of Norfolk Trotter breed, a tall horse, all rolled into one. By 1820, the Selkirk settlers
sixteen hands high, bright bay in colour and well- had sought permission, forgetting animosities, to join
muscled, and able to trot at fifteen miles an hour, the hunt under Macutetis leadership. In 1820, 540
was a sensible choice in light of the varied needs for Red River carts, both Mtis and settlers, participated
a plough horse and buffalo runner. Many natives in the hunt; in 1830, the number of carts increased to
traveled far just to see him. The best mares in the 820.
country were assembled for breeding, and after the Alexander Ross, the Red Rivers first historian, a
first foals were born, Fireaways popularity soared. resident of the Red River Settlement writing in 1856
Some believed that superior horses were for stealing, describes the 1840 buffalo hunt: In the late spring of
and after thefts were attempted, armed guards were 1840, most of the Mtis had left their river-lot
stationed on him day and night. homesteads, some having small plots planted with root
It is unknown what happened to him, the Indians vegetables and barley; they harnessed their oxen or
believed that the Great Spirit whisked the horse away horses to their two-wheeled Red River carts and set
to the spirit world for amusement. out to rendezvous at Pembina. Only the elderly,
crippled, or sick remained at home. Many households
had very skilled buffalo hunters, or more than one
hired engags from among their kinsmen, to drive within 450 yards of the herd. The bulls could be seen
additional carts and assist in processing. curling up their tails and pawing the ground. The
On June 15th, 620 hunters, 650 women, and 360 order was given to charge, and the hunters, astride
children, left on the hunt with 403 buffalo running their prized mounts, launched into top speed. Shots
horses, 655 cart horses, and 566 oxen, 542 dogs and were heard and all was dust and smoke and hurry.
one cat, in 1210 carts: the largest hunting Soon, a thousand carcasses strewed the plains.
expedition to leave the Red River Valley to date - The hunters plunged forward into the herd in a
begun in early June, and covering 250 miles in crescendo of gunfire, stampeding the buffalo,
nineteen days before the first buffalo were spotted. galloping their horses, exulting and cursing: Clouds
The general assembly of hunters met to select its of dust permeated with the smell of sweat and blood
officers and promulgate the basic rules governing the would part momentarily to reveal a possible downed
organization of the hunt. Delegation of the authority rider lying lifeless or seeking assistance from those
of the chief captain, supreme commander or president, nearby - amidst chaos and confusion others closed in
fell by vote to Jean-Baptiste Wilkie, then forty years on their prey.
of age, an English breed brought up among the French. Allowing his horse to chose and close on a target,
First, ten capitainnes were selected, each choosing the hunter, in a single fluid motion, lowered the
ten soldats18 - the foremost of these capitainnes was barrel of his gun and fired a ball into it, dropped a
hunt leader, War Chief and le President. In personal marker, usually an article of clothing,
addition, ten guides were selected from hunters past marking his kill; galloping forward, the horse
their prime. These social-political functions, instinctively side-stepped the tumbling carcass and
limited powers authorized by the community of extended sought out another target while the hunter reloaded,
families, were characterized by an individuals pouring an guestimated amount of powder from his
accomplishments and reputation. In a cycle of ten horn, or from out of his pocket, into the guns
days, all guides and capitainnes would have command. barrel, spitting one of the balls he carried in his
Next was the establishing of the rules: mouth, and ramming home the charge against the saddle
pommel or on his leg, holding the gun upright until
No buffalo were to be run on the Sabbath. his mount closed with another quarry.
No party was to fork off, or to go ahead In a matter of minutes the hunt was over.
without permission. Dust and noise receded to reveal hunters busy
No person or party was to run buffalo before butchering their kills. Two to five buffalo were
the general order. Every capitainne, with killed by each, depending on the hunters ability and
his chosen soldats, in turn, was to patrol particular circumstances. - Later, when repeating
the camp and keep guard. rifles were introduced, kills of over twenty-five were
not uncommon. Beginning with the last kill, the
For the first trespass against the laws, the hunters began butchering carcasses in preparation for
offenders saddle was cut up. the women to dry the meat and manufacture pemmican.
A second offence was punished by having his Carts driven by women and the old men arrived. They
coat cut up. skinned and dressed the carcasses, preparing the red
A third offence was punished by a flogging. meat for drying, cutting the meat into strips, and
hanging these on racks over fires. The dried meat was
Any person caught stealing, even to the value pounded, flaked into a coarse powder, and adding an
of a sinew, was to be brought into the middle equal amount of melted fat, together with berries and
of the camp, the crier calling out their name other in-season edibles, the pemmican was prepared.
three times, adding the word thief each Cooled, and sewn into ninety pound buffalo-hide bags,
time. the surplus would be delivered to Norway house to
provision York Post, and for shipment to northern
At dawn, the raising of the hunt flag above a posts to supplement a diet of dried and salted fish.19
guides cart signaled his command for that day. The There was a second run at another big herd and when
camp was struck, carts packed, livestock harnessed or it was concluded there was enough carcass meat to
herded, and the hunt set out in two lines abreast. moderately load each cart with dried meat, tallow, and
The course was determined by the guide-of-the-day. pemmican. The chief capitainne ordered preparation
The capitainne-of-the-day positioned his soldat ahead, for return; the kill was estimated at 2500 buffalo
abreast, and to the rear of the line de la marche. and 1,089,000 pounds of meat, tallow, and pemmican. -
Le soldat sought buffalo, but also guarded against the Enough to furnish every man, woman and child, with 200
Dakota (Sioux), who claimed the resources of the lands pounds.
the Macutetis hunted. Two soldat always rode They were back home two months and two days after
together; by riding away from each other at a gallop, leaving.
or towards each other, they could signal whether or
not buffalo or Dakota had been sighted. At any hint Henry Youle Hind estimated the total buffalo kill,
of danger the carts were circled, shafts inward, to during pristine years, at 652,000. Buffalo jumps
corral the stock animals. If buffalo had been began to fall into disuse between 1840 and 1850.
sighted, the hunters assembled in line, abreast to the
hunt leader.
After twenty days, having traveled some 250 miles, The Cree Syllabic System
they were within two miles of a herd. Preparing for a
morning attack, Capitainne Wilkie, eyeglass to his In 1840, Methodist missionary Robert Terrill Rundle
eye, studied the herd from his saddle. Giving the arrived in Red River. In 1841, James Evans, a
order, the line of hunters slowly advanced at a trot, Methodist missionary from Kingston-upon-Hull, England,
severe sanctions awaited any hunter brash enough to printed a book in Cree syllabics, a hymnal, at Norway
break the line and rush the herd. Then, at the House, using type made from the lead lining of tea
quarter mile mark, the command Allez! was given, and chests, after first molding them in clay. He used the
the hunters galloped in order, quite possibly to
19
Nearly a century later, when searching for the doomed
18
Images of militia in New France and Lower Canada are Franklin Expedition, a cache containing still edible
suggested, both in the selection and in the promulgation of pemmican was found.
the rifles.
inner birch bark for paper, and concocted ink from Losing out in parliament, the Macutetis could have
sturgeon oil and soot. A fur press served for the appealed to Privy Council at their own expense, but
printing, and elk hide for the volume covers. The use their lobbying had already strained their meager
of syllabry spread amongst the Swampy Cree, and some resources, so in 1850 the issue was dropt.
became highly literate. - Interestingly enough, when
it came time to sign treaties, ignorant crown
officials expected the Indians to sign with an X Chief Peguis Lamentation
even though some of the signees could write in
syllabics. As the custom of the country gave way to European
At Norway House on Lake Winnipeg the northern Cree morals, such chiefs as Peguis [Begouais, Pegouisse,
were adopting the syllabic writing devised by Evans Destroyer, Little Chip,] of the Saulteaux at Red
based on shorthand as well as symbols already in use River Settlement, became actively aware that the
among the Ojibwa. In 18423, the spread of the treaty signed with Selkirk in 1817 had been with the
syllabic system coincided with the religious movement white interests in mind, and not the Indians. Despite
amongst the Hudson Bay Crees between the Churchill and this, Peguis realized the necessity of adapting to the
Albany Rivers. - Christian and traditional Native whites ways. He was baptized by William King.
elements combined.
In the mid-century, Chief Peguis lamented:
Abishabis (Small Eyes) (d.1843) and associate
Wasitack (The Light) claimed they could provide their Before you white men came to trouble the
people with the knowledge to find the road to heaven, ground, our rivers were full of fish and woods
since having been there themselves. They even of deer. Our creeks abounded with beavers and
provided a sketch map. Abishabis was killed by his our plains were covered with buffalo. But now
own people as a windigo - a being with an overweening we are brought to poverty. Our beavers are
appetite to prey upon humans, because of his gone forever; our buffalo are fled to the
increasingly unacceptable behaviour, up to and lands of our enemies. The number of fish is
including murder. His movement was a reaction to the diminishing. Our cats and our rats are few in
presence and teaching of the whites. number. The geese are afraid to pass over the
smoke of our chimneys and we are left to
starve while you whites are growing rich on
the very dust of our fathers, troubling the
The Oblates and Grey Nuns, Catholic religious plains with the plough, covering them with
orders, arrived in Red River in 1847. Joseph-Norbert cows in the summer, and in the winter feeding
Provencher became Bishop at St-Boniface. your cattle with hay from the very swamps
whence our beaver have been driven.
Native Self-Government The Macutetis were also uneasy with land rights.
Alexander Christie was Governor of Assiniboia from

1844 to 49; he saw the prospect of government Sayer Trial
encouraging white settlement and spurred the
Macutetis, especially of the French speaking Militarily powerful Mtis were highly critical of
Catholics, to become more militant about expressing the injustices of major monopoly in the hands of
their concerns. In 1855, 977 Macutetis signed a private companies attracted to a new trade post built
petition asking Christie to define their status, on the Pembina side of the boundary by Canadian-born
claiming special rights by their mother-blood; but, Norman Kittson on behalf of the American Fur Company.
the governor held that they had no more rights than They had strong convictions concerning inherent rights
those enjoyed by all newly-arrived British subjects. and no compunctions about bootleg sales
The Macutetis saw the HBC monopoly as leading to Guillaume Sayer and three companions were caught
the utter impoverishment, if not the total ruination sneaking the seasons furs across the border and were
of the indigenous peoples, whose welfare little ordered to stand trial: If Recorder (Judge) Adam Thom
concerned the Company. They had not provided - an unpopular and prejudiced Scot ruled in Sayers
sufficient schools for Native children to be prepared favour would repudiate the Companys laws he was
for the changes they saw coming. They were also upset employed to enforce... if in favour of the Company,
about the appointment of Francophone Adam Thom as the native peoples would become enraged and they had
recorder, a judgeship, to the Assiniboine District, military strength and were angry enough to use it.
asking for a bilingual person to be appointed. The HBC was in direct opposition to free trade:
Two years later, in 1847, they took their petition Guillaume Sayer and the three other Mtis were accused
to England through the intercession of London lawyer, of trading furs in violation of the Companys charter.
Alexander Kennedy Isbister, born in Cumberland House, A committee of ten Mtis, probably headed by Louis
grandson of Chief Factor Alexander Kennedy and Ril pre, the Miller of the Seine had assembled an
Aggathas, a Cree. This time the Mtis asked that the armed mob of three-to-four hundred angry Macutetis on
HBC charter be declared invalid: even if the charter the St-Boniface side of the Red River early on the day
upheld its jurisdiction it did not extend beyond the of the trial; they came with their guns to hear the
territories around the bay. Also, they declared the words of Louis Ril pre.
Red River, reorganized into the district of Assiniboia The Macutetis crossed the river and were milling
in 1836, was beyond the range of authority and should about the court and surrounded the courthouse to give
be declared a colony. expression to their views; the magistrate appeared and
Spirited exchanges in the British parliament was offered Rils words of practical advice before
followed. Powerful forces opposed the monopoly and the trial proceeded... Sayer was found guilty, largely
held that the Hudson Bay Companies best means to on the basis of his sons testimony.
govern Ruperts Land. Colonial Secretary Merivale The Companys chief factor at Red River, John
could not conceive of Native self-government: Colonial Ballenden, a Scot, satisfied with a legal victory in
status should only be granted to those regions where the courts of Ruperts Land in support of the HBC
sufficient white settlers could ensure that they would charter, requested additional charges against Sayer be
have control. dropped and charges suspended. The court agreed
French-speaking members of the jury misconstrued council at Portage-la-Prairie, outside the district of
developments and ran to the door, shouting, le Assiniboia. It began well but had limited goals.
commerce est libre the trade is free. The trade is
free. His words were greeted with feu de joie - The HBC no longer effectively controlled the reign
self-congratulatory back-slapping and general of power. Voices began to rise in favour of a
merriment. Before their very eyes, the HBC saw its provincial government with an elective council; a
legal victory dissolve into commercial defeat; temporary government formed by the people themselves
henceforth, the Company had to meet challenge of free for the time being until British government shall see
traders through appropriate business techniques not fit to take the place in its own hands.
within its legal canons of charter. The HBC refused
to change policy, but trade was going as far south as The era of railroad building had begun, although,
St-Paul, widely known as Pigs Eye. none was foreseen for the northwest; an application,
The Macutetis felt successful and defended the in 1851, to charter Lake Superior for Pacific Railway
hinterland resources in the face of agents of London, was rejected by the Canadian Standing Committee on
who, in defining new opportunities, denied the law of Railways as both the Natives and the HBC land title
the land to those local residents who had peopled the were in the way; as HBC control eroded, a Canada West
wilderness... (Ontario) group, later called Canada First, campaigned
The HBC, in effect, lost the power to enforce its to begin the annexation of Red River to Canada.
monopoly.
The Mtis victory was expressed in 1850s with the The Battle of Grand Coteau
appearance of free traders, as Pascal Breland and
Louis Goulet, who strengthened the settlements As the Macutetis waged a war of words with the HBC
commercial ties with St-Paul in the Minnesota and London for recognition of their claims, they
Territory, and extended business links southwest continued actual hostilities in the field against
towards Missouri, west to the QuAppelle Valley, and their traditional enemies, the Sioux. In 1849, a hunt
north to the North Saskatchewan River. was organized in White Horse Plains, a Macutetis
With the shift in trade came the birth of big settlement a few miles west of Red River: The size of
business. Carting or freighting with ox-driven Red the expedition was immense: 700 Macutetis, 200
River carts from Fort Garry to Pigs Eye roughly 500 Indians, 603 Red River carts, 600 horses, 200 oxen,
miles one way - was first to be developed; and, the 400 dogs, 1 cat.
heavy cart traffic and freighting with cart trains, The hunt still remained a dangerous undertaking. In
organized like the buffalo hunt, suited the Macutetis addition to accidents associated with the hunt there
largely. was also the hostility of the Dakota to remain
cautious of. Instances of violent confrontation were
relatively short-lived and involving small numbers,
The Red River Cart but they happened, and there was always the chance of
conflict and bloodshed.
The first Red River carts were probably made and In July, 1851, the hunt from White Horse Plain came
used at Pembina. The carts were of all wood under sustained attack by a larger body of Sioux. The
construction with a basket, or rack, intended to carry onslaught was withstood: one dead, few wounded.
up to a thousand pounds of freight. Pulled by a Inflicted casualties forced the Dakotas to break the
single ox, the two disked wheels, of burr oak, were action off.
never greased nor otherwise lubricated because The Macutetis had corralled their stock behind
accumulation of sand and grease would hasten the their encircled carts, and the women and children took
wearing of the wood. Distinct in various ways, its position behind them. The men charged foreword to the
screeching could be heard miles away when a train of distance of gunshot, scraped gun pits in the prairie
hundreds or several hundreds was in motion. In sod, and from this vantage point kept the attacking
absence of metal for wheel hoops, green, wet rawhide Yankton Dakotas from destroying stock and leaving them
was cut in strips and wrapped tightly around the rim; stranded. The Canadinne priest accompanying them
after the wet rawhide dried, it shrank, became tight, stood astride a cart, crucifix in one hand, tomahawk
hard and tough; a supply of wet rawhide, called in the other, exhorting his flock to persevere. This
babiche, was always carried. Oxen were favoured Macutetis victory confirmed their paramountcy on the
over horses because they could live off the land; prairies west of Red River encouraging their sense
farmers drove teams but carting was always done in of identity.
singles.
Also, carting a thousand miles to Fort The return of the summer hunt to Red River saw
Edmonton, one round trip a summer, ended with the recognized hunters, heads of extended families with
advent of the steamboat: the Macutetis were deprived whom the HBC sought influence, rather than individual
firstly of the buffalo, then of carting. hunters negotiate sale of their pemmican and dried
meat, prices remained low and varied little over the
next years.
After the summer hunt, the hunters usually returned
A probe was prompted by facts of the HBCs history: to Red River settlement to harvest what was left of
After lawless trading conflicts between the HBC and their crops after insects, drought or flood, on their
the NWC, the British government in a gesture of small plots of cultivated land. To sustain stock over
approval, gave a reorganized HBC a twenty-one year the winter, farmers usually looked to the mile of land
lease with all trade privileges on the portion of the behind his river lot for hay. Each year, they joined
British northwest beyond Ruperts Land. In 1851, in waiting for the local Council of Assiniboia to
Governor Simpson withdrew Adam Thom from office, but declare the opening date for harvest of haying,
kept him on the payroll: He gave in to Macutetis privileged areas were spotted prior to the season, and
demands to have a wider representation on the families rushed to the area claiming all the hay that
Assiniboia Council, but managed to fudge its could be encircled. The introduction of the
execution. In the same year, John Black, mechanical reapers gave settles an advantage of the
Presbyterian, arrives in Red River Settlement, and Macutetis in the 1850s.
Reverend William Cochran organized a self-governing
A smaller autumn hunt left the settlement in late Some plains people, Cree and Saulteaux, had begun
October, early November, to provision the Macutetis to raise small crops and keep cattle to smooth
for the winter months, which were punctuated by seasonal scarcities. Increasingly, as buffalo
leisurely visits, celebrations and numerous weddings. receded, homesteaders were to learn, especially before
dry-land farming techniques and early-maturing
The American government was no longer inclined to varieties of grain, yields from cultivated plants were
listen to their arguments of Native blood, excluding highly unpredictable.
them from hunting buffalo across the border. A more flexible economy combined agriculture with
hunting and gathering. Agriculture was far more
ancient than the horse culture.
The Cree were acquainted with the cultivation of
Over the years the Macutetis were attracted to the plant food and techniques of agriculture through
illicit fur trade. As the nineteenth century several contacts, notably Mandan and Arikara and
advanced, eastern institutions, other than buffalo Hidatsa, who maintained flourishing agricultural
robe buyers, became aware of opportunities in the land economies on the Upper Missouri. The Blackfoot were
theyd thought fit only for nomadic hunters and fur discovered by the earliest traders growing tobacco.
trades. Agents soon put in an appearance. Roman
Catholic and Protestant missionaries had earlier been
in Red River and beyond, now Canadian settlers began The Select Committee
appearing in small numbers in Red River and
Assiniboia: Overlanders traversed the plains and In 1857, the HBC applied again, but members of
crossed the Rockies; members of British gentry sought Parliament wanted more information on Company affairs,
adventure in the wilds of the fur trade; government wondering if there were a better use for the region
sponsored expeditions, like John Palliser and H.Y. than raising furs, and if the HBC was doing its duty
Hind, gathered data on hinterland resources. furnishing a school for the children; they were also
Interests other than the fur trade prepared an assault concerned about charges liquor was used too freely in
on the resources of the north-west. getting furs from the Indians. Parliament debate
decided to establish a Select Committee20 to inquire
In the closing years (of the 19 th century), failures into the affairs of the HBC, and examine Britains
at farming and hunting necessitated import relief of policy in the North-West Territories and determine the
supplies from the east. potential of the territories for anything other than
fur.21
[And, with Confederation... became strident; another
The Buffalo Robe Trade challenge to the fundamentals of the old order of
custom of the country.]
In the decade after 1800, American fur traders on
the lover reaches of the Missouri River identified The Macutetis were divided on the issue: William
buffalo robes and cow pelts taken between mid-November Kennedy, mixed-blood cousin of Isbister, who had led
and mid-March as a marketable product in cities of one of the Franklin search party expeditions, was an
north-east North America: there was no market in active exponent for building transcontinental railway
Europe: North Americans valued robes as sleigh throws and annexation.
and bedcovers and, sometimes, as raw material for
manufacture of winter boots and coats. Before 1820, Twenty-four witnesses were called, all well-informed
the market expanded, growing from a few hundred robes people from both sides of the Atlantic. One seventy
to a hundred thousand robes per year within half a year old warrior from numerous fur trading
century. After 1850, several extended families of expeditions,22 George Simpson, always sure of himself,
Macutetis emerged as bourgeois traders. Networks of and sometimes hostile, gave short, crisp answers to
hunters and their families, Hivernauts, or Winterers, questions. Alexander Kennedy Isbister, a half-breed
chose to winter on the prairies at wooded oasis as born at Cumberland House and educated in Great
Moose Mountain, Wood Mountain, and in time, Cyprus Britain, contradicted much Simpson testimony.
Hills, rather than return to their river-lots at Red
River or St-Albert in the Saskatchewan country. By Chairman: Will you have the goodness to give
the 1870s, encampments such as at Trail Creek or this Committee your impressions of the
Buffalo Lake, south of Fort Edmonton, numbered several character of the territory in point of soil
hundred Hivernauts. and climate, particularly with reference to
European travelers to the prairies report Cree its adaption for purposes of cultivation and
concerns about the scarcity of the buffalo. Many of colonialization?
them were anxious to try agriculture and wanted
assistance in way of instruction and technology. They Simpson, (a fur trader with no sympathy for
were aware the buffalo would no longer sustain them agriculture): I dont think any part of the
with the demise of the fur trade, agriculture seemed HBC territory is well adopted for
the only option. settlements; crops would be very uncertain.
While requiring assistance, they had certain
advantages the new arrivals did not: knowledge of Chairman: Would you apply this to the Red
resources and climate; rainfall and frost patterns; River District, too?
availability of water and timber; soil varieties, and
experience with locusts, fires, droughts The
aboriginal farmers would have a better chance than the 20
Lord John Russell, Lord Stanley, William Ewart Gladstone,
settlers from the humid east, many whom departed soon
and Henry Labouchere
after arriving due to discomfort. For those who
21
remained, conditions took many years to acclimatize Canada West organized its own committee under Toronto
to. The Cree were remarkably flexible, they adapted professor Henry Youle Hind (1823 1906), and engineer S.
to new ecological and economical circumstances, though J. Dawson (1820 1902), far from having dispassionate
denied access to opportunity and resources that assessment of the regions potentiality, was to determine
the best route for transportation and communication in
wouldve allowed them a more independent existence. order to facilitate annexation.
22
Having traveled the country for 37 years
Simpson, muttering: Yes sir, on account of the the problem; they wanted trade, but as to an invasion
poverty of the soil except on riverbanks. by strangers both whites and Macutetis hunted
there, although, the Cree maintained theyd no right.
Chairman: Have you an equally unfavourable
opinion of the country on the Saskatchewan I have great fun when with some old Indians,
River? when I get them telling yarns, they firmly
believe that Queen Victoria selects for them
Simpson: Yes. The climate is more vigourous, and personally supervises the sending out of
crops even less certain, little or no wood all the Companys goods. Nor do they doubt
that all the shirts, trousers, capotes and
Isbisters father was a Company trader at Cumberland other articles of clothing are made by her own
House. He was born there, and his testimony produced hands. Many a rough blessing she gets from
contradictions enough to merit the Select Committee being a bad seamstress. Were she to know how
offering the HBC a one-year lease to allow them to bravely I fight her battles she would
send an independent party to Red River, for an certainly raise me to peerage.
unbiased report. Captain John Palliser, an Irishman Walter Trail, a HBC trader
by birth, redhead by luck, bachelor by choice, and stationed in Manitoba, late 1860s
zestful adventurer by nature, was recommended by the
Royal Geographical Society to the British Government.
In 1857, he was engagd to serve the Select Committee
of the House of Commons to lead an expedition in Irregular postal service was established in 1860,
exploring that portion of British North America which operated by steamship, canoe, dogsled and courier,
lies between the Saskatchewan River and the frontier depending on the season; competing with the HBC
of the U.S., and between the Red River and the Rocky service via York Factory. By either route
Mountains. communication was slow. It was faster and easier to
On the last day of March, news and details were communicate via U.S. rail.
conveyed to him: he was to keep a journal and send
duplicates of entries to England, as often as
possible, faithfully recording physical features such The Anson Northup and the International
as principle elevations, nature of the soil,
capabilities for agriculture, quantity and quality of A steam whistle blew and a strange structure came
timber, and any indication of coal or other minerals. floating down the Red River. It looked like a farm
Dr. James Hector, physician, geologist and naturalist, woodshed mounted on a raft. It was a stern-end
and Lieutenant Thomas Blakiston, physicist and paddlewheel riverboat, the Anson Northup - named after
astronomer, were chosen as assistants. its owner - competing for a thousand dollar cash prize
They sailed from Liverpool on May 16th. from the St-Paul Board of Trade, interested in recent
cart deliveries of fur, to the first owner to take a
After 17 days of travel they reached Fort Garry steamer all the way and generate more trade across the
where they hired extra men at 40 per year. They border.
bought two wagons, five Red River carts, and thirty
horses at an average of 20 each. The assembled party Forty-two year old Northup, a frontier cattleman and
traveled south to Pembina, west to Turtle Mountain, wagon boss, and a navigator on the Mississippi River,
and north-west to Fort Ellice, where Palliser noted entered his boat in the contest after requests raised
cultivation of potatoes, wheat, barley, vegetables, the prize to two thousand dollars. Hed bought the
and feed enough for a few cattle. They moved beyond old ship from a Mississippi proprietor and cut it into
to Moose Jaw Creek and noticed drought conditions so three pieces, which he hauled overland to Moorhead and
intense to be described as an extension of the Great reassembled it on the Red River. It was a beautiful
American Desert. Nichiwa, their Indian guide, advised boat, 90 feet long, four compartments, and staterooms
the party to carry wood from the QuAppelle Valley to with beds. All other passengers slept in the saloon
be mixed with buffalo chips for fire. Conscious of or on deck.
winter, they turned to the elbow at the South The Anson Northup made two trips to Fort Garry in
Saskatchewan and Fort Carlton Rivers, and established the first year, and every ten days during the next
a winter headquarters. year it made a roundtrip between Fort Garry and
Dr. Hector, using Fort Carlton as a base, explored Moorhead. Freight rate from Fort Garry to St-Paul was
through the winter as far as Fort Edmonton, while five dollars per one hundred pounds; passengers paid
Palliser took leave to travel to Montral to confer thirty-five dollars for a ticket from Fort Garry to
with Sir George Simpson. A tireless rider, too much Moorhead or Georgetown, and went via stagecoach from
even for the horse, he left Fort Carlton on October there to St-Paul. The trip took eight days.
11th, was at Fort Garry twenty-one days later. He
lost the horse and continued to St-Paul on foot, The next steamer on the Red River was the
arriving in Montral in the allotted time. Hed International.23 It was 137 feet long, and in late
worked, mainly, between Fort Edmonton and the Bow May, 1862, it carried two hundred passengers, mostly
River. It was Dr. Hector who pressed on to the miners from Britain and Canada East flocking to the
Rockies. Caribou gold fields: 125 persons in several small
Originally a two year expedition, it was extended by groups, the Overlanders, set out from Canada East by
the Select Committee to three. After the winter of way of Chicago and St-Paul, reaching Fort Garry on the
1858-9, at Fort Edmonton, he and Hector extended Internationals maiden voyage over the river: they
efforts further south to Cyprus Hills, then, by continued to Fort Edmonton in Red River carts.
different routes, west (to Fort Garry). This third
year was John Pallisers last in the country.
In 1859, the Cree held a series of councils in the Sioux Uprisings

QuAppelle region and voiced objections to the
Macutetis winter hunt, maintaining the pursuit of 23
bison should be restricted to Indians. They viewed The best known boat, though, was the Selkirk, built in
the Companys expansion onto the prairies as part of 1871. It hauled the first wheat out and brought the first
locomotive, the Countess of Dufferin, in.
As early as 1859, the Indians made it clear, the
Sioux uprisings in Minnesota, brought repercussions country is theirs, and they do not abandon any of
for Red River in 1862, as refugees (largely Dakota) their rights by permitting the government surveyors to
drifted in from fighting, most in deplorable straits. pass. In the 1860s the white population of Ruperts
In the spring of 1863, six hundred appeared, ragged Land, from the west end of Lake Superior west to the
and starving, bringing the medals they had received Rockies, apart from the inhabitants of Red River,
from the British for alliance in the War of 1812. about two thousand officers of the HBC and their
employees, plus a handful of missionaries, were
The Sioux had been fleeing in small numbers since scattered amongst the tens of thousands First Nations
the 1820s, but were now an acute problem, putting the persons (and the Macutetis) who still led the hunter
people of Red River in the anomalous position of life on the prairie.
providing for their former enemies. When the HBC as By 1871 the whites comprised a full quarter of the
representative of Great Britain, pledged amity with population, and by 1880 the majority was white.
the Sioux, Chief Peguis and his people felt betrayed -
that same year, 1864, a group of Ojibwa attacked a
Sioux refugee camp. The NorWester
The white settlers behaved no better: frightened at The west was isolated from the east by distance...
the prospect of vengeful Americans invading their and a lack of communication. It took months to learn
territory, took it on themselves to drug two Sioux of any news after July. But, the first steamboat to
chiefs, Shakpay, called Little Six, and Wakanozhan, the west brought the first printing press, which was
known as Medicine Bottle, and handed them over to delivered by ox-cart to Fort Garry. William Coldwell,
American agents. The two were among those tried at (briefly with the Toronto Herald), and William
Fort Snelling and executed for murder. Eventually, Buckingham, (briefly with George Browns Toronto
most refugees were persuaded to settle at White Horse Globe), two young men in their twenties, had traveled
Plain, west of Fort Garry; in 1869 it was estimated from Toronto to St-Paul with obdurate ease, having the
that five hundred were wintering there. intentions of founding a newspaper in the wilderness;
but had trouble obtaining printing equipment and
transportation over the five hundred mile trail. The
Free Trade only press available had just been through a fire,
falling through a burning floor into a basement...
Red River, with a predominantly mixed-blood After acquiring the necessary paper and
population, was not deemed ready for the status of miscellaneous other necessities, they purchased three
colony, as Mervile saw it. Natives could not be Red River carts and oxen; the oxen were not broken and
included in the arrangements of a regular community: dashed away when hitched, scattering everything;
besides people of the First Nations pre-dominated the eventually, though, their hooves worn through owing to
region and they were too self-sufficient and satisfied the long tramp and the frozen ground, they hauled it
to adopt any other way of life which Crown Colony in, into a place where half the population couldnt
status granted, only if a European lifestyle followed. read or write, and the rest couldnt afford the yearly
The best administration was for the HBC to continue subscription.
and select a committee that did not test the validity Tired from their long trip, they set out to find a
of the Charter. There was profound disappointment in log cabin large enough for a couple of beds and the
Red River; as for the Indians... they already wanted press. They knew no one, had no letters of
treaties. introduction, knew little or nothing about the people
Increasing immigration did nothing to relieve or the country, and began to lose feeling for their
tensions at Red River. A local Ojibwa chief who tried project: The first issue was planned for New Years
hard to come to terms with the whites - so long as Day, but mail left on December 28 th and if missed,
not too numerous - became worried as engulfment theyd have to wait months to manage to meet the
became a problem. He now claimed the Selkirk Treaty deadline.
had not properly extinguished Native title, as the There was only one person in the fort subscribing to
chiefs signing it had not the required powers. a paper, from London; only one delivery per year, all
back copies at once, each paper one year old at the
The HBC never emulated Selkirks action dealing with time of its reading. - Initially, an issue was to be
aboriginal rights. It tried to maintain a monopoly, four pages, 12 X 14, and intended to appear weekly;
but by the end of 1840, Mtis hunters near rebellion a single copy costing 6 pence, and a years
led to establishing free trade [supra]: By the subscription, 12 shillings.
1850s, the Independent march gained so much control
over commerce as to send caravans of as many as five
hundred Red River carts loaded with fur, buffalo robes
and other Red River products on the slow month long Buckingham withdrew back east after a year and
journey to railhead at St-Paul in American territory. became a Secretary to Prime Minister Alexander
Freighting of this kind was one of the principle Mackenzie, then a Deputy Minister in the Department of
occupations of the Red River Mtis, until 1859 when the Interior.
the Anson Northup steamed across the international Coldwell sold his interest in the paper to his
boundary downriver to Fort Garry, bringing the brother-in-law, Dr. John Schultz, and went back east
mechanical age into the prairies. to work on the Globe, returning the year of the
It was on steamboats that the first prairie wheat rebellion, handicapped by rheumatism, or arthritis,
was exported, although it was a scanty surplus of the and more-or-less crippled the last twenty-five years
harvest of the Red River farms. The first semblage of of his life.
a town, Winnipeg, was an unsightly and sorry scene;
there were about fifty log houses, and a few small In 1865 a fire destroyed the printing plant.
stores with poor goods and high prices. According to
the Wolsely expedition of 1870: The late 1860s were rough years, droughts and
grasshopper plagues brought crop failures, the buffalo
Grog shops are the principal feature of this place. hunt was declining and fisheries were at low ebb.
NorWester editors convinced the HBC had to stand While within its right to establish a
aside to make way for either a Crown colony or a council at the municipal level, no higher
province of Canada, and demanded an early end of HBC government exercising authority over British
rule and adoption of a democratic government. The HBC subjects without the express permission of the
took a dim view of the NorWesters editorial policy. Crown.
There were enough servants of the HBC in the area, and
with infiltration from St-Paul and other parts, to Some citizens did not like taxes and refused to pay.
support union with the U.S. When the idea of Outside authorities didnt know how to stop frontier
Confederation seemed imminent, the NorWester switched vagary.
from supporting the Crown colony idea to that of Spence overstepped the bounds of propriety, though,
provincial status. and picked a fight with MacPherson, a shoemaker at
High Bluff, charging him with treason against the
Equal support of the five actions possible: republic. Two constables drove out in snow to arrest
the accused, but MacPherson was tough, and only after
1) leave Ruperts Land to be administered as a a struggle was taken to Portage-la-Prairie. A passing
huge proprietorship by the HBC; friend of MacPherson, John MacLean, learning of the
2) persuade the Imperial government to declare happenings promised to be on hand for the trial, at
the area a Crown colony; seven oclock.
3) petition for annexation to Canada West When McLean, with a couple of tough pals, entered
(future Ontario), which favoured this plan; the new courtroom, he shouted to Spence: Come oot o
4) encourage annexation to Minnesota and the that ye whited sepulcher; ye canna be baith accuser
U.S., which favoured this plan; and and judge. Spence ordered his arrest, too. A riot
5) petition for annexation to the projected ensued with McLean and companions inflicting most of
Dominion of Canada with hope of being a fifth the damage, and broke the back of the republic with a
province. flurry of revolver shots.
In 1864, the Oblate Albert Lacombe, one-eighth

Indian but never considering himself a Mtis,
established a self-governing community at Big Lake Before the end of 1867, the House of Commons tabled
(St-Albert), as the Colonial Office refused a bill submitted by Representative Ramsey from
responsibility of ending the HBCs regime and setting Minnesota, asking for pursuit of a treaty with Canada.
up a Crown colony. The one clause, Canada with consent of Great Britain
shall cede to the United States districts of North
When Confederation became a reality, in 1867, America west of 90 (line running north-south across
western Cree and Saulteaux chiefs agreed about the the west end of Lake Superior), to wit the U.S. paid
extent and limits of land claims, in preparation for six million dollars to the HBC in full discharge of
future negotiations they foresaw in the not-too- all claim to territory or jurisdiction in North
distant-future; they worried about the Canadian America.
governments intentions in respect to their lands, In 1868, the Minnesota offer of ten million dollars
particularly when troops were sent to Red River. The for HBC lands was not accepted. The state protested
Saulteaux would allow settlers on their land only if a the impending transfer to Canada without a vote of
permanent agreement be negotiated within three years. settlers, (The vast majority of First Nations peoples
In Red River tensions of the political scene, were not even mentioned).
Victorian standards replacing those of the frontier, A resolution was passed favouring annexation to the
led to a series of sex scandals resulting in open U.S.
defiance of HBC established authoritys increasing The same year, Britain passed An Act for the
difficulty having its voice heard, as the whites tore Temporary Government of Ruperts Land, providing for
at each others throats. a lieutenant-governor and an appointed council, all
The balance of power fell to the Macutetis who, in currently in force and not in conflict with British
any event, were the settlements largest armed force. Law retained.
The Dominion of Canada The Dawson Road
Scottish businessman Thomas Spence, a Montral man In 1868, even before negotiations were finished,
and an ambitious organizer, after a year at Fort Garry Prime Minister MacDonald authorized S. J. Dawson to
moved to Portage-la-Prairie, ostensibly to operate a start clearing trail from Lake Superior to Red River.
store. Portage-la-Prairie was still a small center Ontario decided to build the road from the north-west
when Rev. William Cochran built a church there in angle of Lake of the Woods to Fort Garry, as Dawson,
1853, and by his efforts the settlement had a local engineer of the Hind expedition, recommended in 1858.
council; it had no laws but what local residents made The project proceeded with more haste than
for them selves, and which they chose to observe. It foresight: First Nations title was not always clear
was the place for a man with grander ideas, like and, in some cases, Indians sold Macutetis land;
Spence, who managed to get himself elected president trouble over wages developed, the Macutetis were
of a temporary government, a republican monarchy, if paid less than whites, and wages were paid in scrip
such could be; Findlay Ray, secretary. only redeemable at the store owned by Dr. John
The birth of the republic called for a new name, and Christian Schultz, leader of the Canada Firsters. The
the settlement and area became known as Calcedonia, road had no legal mandate as Red River was outside
later called Manitobah. A council was chosen. A Ontarios jurisdiction, and was temporarily halted.
courthouse and jail were constructed, and boundaries The Dawson Road eventually connected Red River to
were fixed. Customs tariffs developed to raise funds Fort William.
with a charge against all imports. Local residents
didnt protest the short-lived Republic of Manitobah:
complete with its own tax structure. The Colonial Prime Minister MacDonald
Office, said:
MacDonald had one distinct and unequivocal aim the surveyed. They originally wanted 1/10th of the
inherent tendency of federal systems to fly apart was fertile land to be surveyed, but settled for 1/20th.
the result of too much weakness at the center. The Canadians said one shilling per acre was too
MacDonald set out to centralize as much control in much to pay. There were counter offers and other
Ottawa as he could, save only the irreducible minimum offers, until Lord Granville of the Colonial Office,
which of necessity went to all the provinces. The whom was afraid negotiations would break down and,
result was a very strong central government with being a good mediator, worked out an advantageous
dominion over the provincial governments, and was compromise. After six months of negotiations the HBC,
clearly so intended. The central governments control though reluctant, at the British governments
over peace and order was the biggest grant of power insistence and an Imperial guarantee, signed over
known to the Colonial Office drafters. Ruperts Land to part of Canada - Dominion land, until
Ottawa appointed the official executive heads of all alienated, sold, or given to subsidize railroads, was
the provinces, the lieutenant-governors. Disallowance the biggest real estate deal in history.
- the unfettered power given to the federal Cabinet to Cartier and McDougall returned in the spring, 1869,
strike down any provincial law for whatever reason, and a party under Col. J. Dennis was sent out that
be the law constitutional or not - was emphasized; summer to survey Red River according to the system of
MacDonald told the provinces in a memorandum, June square-plot townships followed in Upper Canada. And,
1868, just a year after Confederation, they could the survey crew set out reshaping the traditional
expect to see more disallowance. He was the river-front lots along the Red River without
Dominion government as the master and the provincial permission to be there.
government as the subservient. (He hoped to shake the During the negotiation of the transfer of the
provincial governments down into quasi-municipal territory, Canadian government officials and
governments. Some of these perceptions helped shape individual Canadians took affairs into their own
his view of the role of the Dominion government in the hands, encouraged by propaganda of expansionist
new North-West, whose future was being negotiated with Toronto newspapers, like the Globe. Canadians began
the HBC. to settle along the Red River in the early 1860s.
Many aggressively presented themselves as forerunners
A worried Prime Minister ordered two of his of a takeover by immigrants from Ontario.
strongest cabinet ministers, both vigourous and Their attitude, given expression by Red Rivers
opinionated men and from radical backgrounds; George first paper, the NorWester, demanded annexation by
Cartier, French Canadian in style, manner and beliefs, Canada characterized by religious and racial
rebel-minded in the thirties, later accommodating prejudice, encouraged by members of the fierce
himself to a world of railways and investment Protestant Orange Order.
portfolios, and role of politician in the fifties; and William McDougall actively worked for the annexation
William McDougall, Reformer from Ontario, (to the left of Ruperts Land to Canada - he was appointed the
of G. Brown), a radical, anti-French and anti- first lieutenant-governor to the North-West in 1869.
catholic, MacDonalds Minister of Public Works. Both He was to report on the state of the Indian tribes in
agreed for different reasons, Canada must take over the territories, the numbers that wanted claims, and
the HBC title to Ruperts Land. how the HBC was to deal with them and how to protect
These two men were sent to London as essential them and improve their lives. Ottawa continued
representatives of the HBC and Imperial government to oblivious to the Red River situation, and when the new
negotiate: The HBC wanted the best price - and Canada North-West Council was appointed, it was English and
offered nowhere near what the HBC wanted. The U.S. Protestant in composition without representation of
had paid 7.2 million to the Russians for Alaska in the regions French Roman Catholic history. - Even
1867, hardly knowing what was there. Ruperts Land, English-language settlers protested.
with 700 miles of common border, was worth more.
There was talk of 40 million and whispers that the HBC
wanted to sell, but however tempted, the British The Transfer
government would never let that happen.
Ultimately a compromise was reached. In 1869, the
HBC sold its rights to almost all of Ruperts Land for
Canada - Dominion Land a cash payment of $1,500,000, or 300,000 to the
government of England; the blocks of land on which
Immediately after Confederation, three-sided their trading posts existed, a grant of 1/20 th of the
negotiations began between the Canadian government, land in the fertile belt; afterwards a land survey
the Colonial Office, and the HBC for the purchase of was made and this 1/20th translated to one and three-
Ruperts Land, including the Red River settlement. quarter sections in each township. To ensure that the
The HBC finally abandoned its domain to Canada for a land was of average quality the reserved parcels were
payment of 300,000. The most profitable part of the all section eight and three-quarters of section
deal as far as the HBC was concerned, was the twenty-six in every township. Much of this land
retention of the 20th part of fertile areas that would became quite valuable and easily sold.
be opened for settlement, as well as the lands on St-Laurent and the Macutetis on the northern plains
which its establishments were built. The HBC were generally prospering because of the buffalo robe
metamorphed into a major real estate development trade with the U.S. The manufacture of pemmican was
enterprise; its former posts transformed to meet the no longer the only or even the principle raison
needs of growing towns and cities, some becoming dtre of the buffalo hunt. The robe trade prized the
department stores to which fur trade posts survived to winter hide of cows and encouraged selective killing,
become subsidiary. which increased pressure on the herds.
The Imperial government in London anticipated and For example, the only asset possessed by the
encouraged the land transfer, and by the time the two Saulteaux Little Dog was his hunting ability. He
Canadian cabinet ministers, Cartier and McDougall, hired out as a hunter and two years later owned a
arrived for negotiation. The Colonial Office had train of six carts. The First Nations and Macutetis
already opened discussions with the HBC and the two shared in the quick prosperity during the late 1869s
were considering terms. The British ceded and the HBC and early 1870s, and the slaughter of the herds
was allowed to retain its land with posts and those reached its greatest intensity.
lands around, and a fraction of all other lands when
For many Macutetis, agriculture or wage-earning neighbors, among them was the 25-year old Louis Ril
options were already accepted into their lifestyle, fils, their spokesman, recently returned from college
but other problems arose that made the transition in Montral.
difficult. There was growing unrest among the natives Clever, ambitious, poetic and visionary, Ril, one
as the buffalo grew scarcer, and the unhappiness of eighth Indian and seven-eighths French, was brought up
the Mtis as the land situation worsened. The Indian in Red River and educated, at the suggestion of
Act was amended again. Alexandr-Antonin Tach, Archbishop of St-Boniface, at
the College de Montral for several years. Tach
The Superintendent-General was authorized to thought Ril had great potential for the priesthood:
prohibit the sale of fixed ammunition or ball He was a natural leader with a strong sense that the
cartridge to the Indians in Manitoba and the North- Mtis (and Red River) were a new nation. He
West Territories. represented the opposing force to the Canadian
Firsters.
In 1869, the English-language Mtis William Dease
Comit National des Mtis organized a meeting, demanding that payment for
Ruperts Land be made to the rightful owners of the
The Macutetis lived in the winter and spring in the land, the Indians and the Mtis, not the HBC. Ril,
Qubecois-style, deep, narrow, river-lot farms along as an observer, was in attendance. (Ril was already
the Red River and its tributaries. In the summer and a member of li Comit National des Mtis, which had
autumn they hunted buffalo, and were, in effect, a been organized to defend the Macutetis rights with
much disciplined light cavalry. the active support of Father Ritchot.)
Louis Ril led the Mtis in defending their
birthright after settlers began pouring in and Negotiations in London obscured in the minds of
stealing the land. In 1869, when they asserted Canadian Cabinet, and there were some equally
themselves in Red River and resisted foreign important problems at Red River. The Mtis were
occupation, the Mtis had assumed in the prairies a worried and angry. They hadnt always agreed with the
role almost as important as the Indian confederation; HBC, but had more confidence in it than in the
and, they challenged the Natives for control of the Dominion government, which was ignoring them. The
one great natural resource of the prairies being Macutetis hoped to hear theyd have claim to their
exploited, on which aboriginal life was dependant, the land. John A. MacDonald answered with contemptuous
bison herds. silence.
The National Committee of the Mtis was first

brought together, at St-Norbert, Manitoba, and made a Red River Resistance
committee on 16 October 1864: effectively a
Provisional Government for the People. John Bruce The Red River Valley was a sparsely populated
was elected as president and Louis Ril fils as territory, occupied mostly by Indians, a few traders,
secretary. The committee was formed with the support and about 12,000 Macutetis. They lead uncomplicated
of Abb Joseph-Nol Richot of St-Norbert, who hoped to lives, in harmony with nature subsisting. Land could
minimize the independent actions of federal not be owned, so no titles to their lands existed, for
authorities involved in the management of the when of a plot of ground they tired, the Macutetis
territory of the Red River Colony. - The committee moved freely to some other spot. Their river frontage
ordered that Lieutenant McDougall was not allowed farmlands were fairly arranged so all had equal access
entry. to water; based on the old French plan of long, thin
The technique of surveying the land was an important ribbons of land stretching back into woodlots from
concern for the Mtis. The Canadians would not rivers and lakes, the principle route of travel.
recognize existing river lot surveys and began to cut Then, to rearrange their farms into townships,
the land into square plots, the best plots going to sections and plots, government road builders,
wealthy settlers from the east. It was an issue surveyors, and officials of all kinds suddenly
disputed until 1888, when the government finally descended, armed with papers, legally stealing the
surrendered legal rights to Macutetis land, but by lands upon which their lives depended.
this time they had been pushed out the ancestral lands A land rush was developing. No effort was made to
shared by their Indian brethren in the Red River inform the natives, nor any attempt to consult them.
Valley. The Mtis migrated into the North-West Settlers were staking claims to land without regard to
Territory wilderness, and down into the United States Native rights. Charles Mair, Dawson Road paymaster,
(where they had no legal claim to land). Natives, informed the natives of Rat Creek, the influx of
whose rights had always been respected by the Mtis, settlers was like the march of the sun, it could not
now fared much worse and were herded unto reservations be stopped. The rush threatened the settlement
by the conquering invader. pattern of the fur trade families of Red River, whose
lives mirrored the old regime of Qubec.
The Macutetis were determined to keep the Dominion
from forming a new government. They did not like the On 2 November 1869, Ril and other Mtis horsemen
obtrusiveness of the Canadians from the east. The seized Upper Fort Garry, the main Hudson Bay Company
ones in Red River were noisy and aggressive, and the center at the forks of the Red and Assiniboia Rivers,
Canadian government in Ottawa had already sent and continued to hold it until the new Dominion of
surveyors to run surveys and although the Canadian Canada negotiated terms, resulting in the miniscule
government claimed that it intended,24 no assurances Province of Manitoba, (created in 1870 with special
were offered from anyone in authority. rights for the Mtis and French). Resident HBC
officers also viewed the transfer with apprehension
On 11 October 1869, farmer Andr Nault ordered a and distrust. They had not been consulted and no
trespassing survey crew off his land. - He was provision had been made for their claims, and they
ignored. He left and returned with gun-carrying resented Englands indifference to their fate. They
wondered about Canadas ability to maintain union,
24
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Cf. Saint especially in view of the U.S. purchase of Alaska in
Bernard de Clairvaux who wrote, "L'enfer est plein de 1867; but, while unhappy, they were not prepared to go
bonnes volonts et dsirs" (hell is full of good wishes and as far as the Mtis Comit.
desires).
On Nov. 11th, the young man educated in Qubec, to reassure the Mtis of his governments intentions.
Louis Ril fils, emerged as one of the leaders of the Still without the official consultation of the people,
militant Mtis, performing the symbolic act of the transfer of lands and authority of the HBC to
stepping on a surveyors chain and preventing the Canada was scheduled for 1 December 1869.
survey from continuing in an area where riverside Days later, after Ril stepped on the survey chain,
strip farms were situated. Out of this incident when it was known that William McDougall was sent by
emerged the Red River Rebellion but, it was not the Dominion on his way west to become the first
strictly a rebellion since the virtual abdication of Lieutenant-Governor of the new territory. Ril and
HBC left no constituted authority against which to his friends again reasserted themselves; they didnt
rebel. like McDougall and blamed him for their failure at
obtaining jobs on the Dawson Road to connect Lake of
The British government was eager to see Ruperts the Woods with Fort Garry. Moreover, they opposed any
Land returned to the Crown then turned over to Canada, appointment which they knew absolutely nothing about.
and they were ready to loan Canada the money. Their Word reached Red River that McDougall and an
plan was to unite the vast region within the Dominion entourage were coming before the scheduled date. Ril
and build a railway across it to the Pacific Ocean and and his Comit, acting to defend their interests, set
their colonies in Asia. Deed of surrender was signed up a blockade at the border on the Pembina Trail by
on 19 November 1869, the HBC would received payment which the official party would have to travel. -
twelve days later, on 1 December 1869, when the land McDougalls notorious and infamous reputation preceded
would revert to the Crown; there arose a complication him.
though, when the HBC, understandably assuming that in Although warned, McDougall didnt believe he would
signing away the land to the Crown their be opposed, and the new Dominion came face-to-face
responsibility of administering to its needs ended with a nation that it refused to acknowledge. Ril
but, between November 19th and December 1st resistance was ready when the Canadian governor approached.
in the Red River brought about an ugly turn of events, William McDougall was met at the border of Mtis
and on December 1st, when the cash was to be paid, the territory and reproached.
British government had second thoughts about
confirming the deal for a region in a state of
rebellion. The consummation was delayed but the A Mtis Bill of Rights
purchase was made.
The negotiations brought Ruperts Land back to the After two convincing demonstrations of their
Crown and then to Canada. The whole program of land abilities, Ril and 120 men went to Fort Garry to
transfer ignored the primary claims to land of the seize the big post and its stock of rifles and
Indian and the Macutetis majority without any supplies. A general meeting was called. English and
explanation offered as to what was taking place. French were invited as well as Mtis, and a Bill of
There had been no been consultation with them Rights was prepared to be sent to Ottawa. They
regarding their future, or the future of their native produced a list of entirely reasonable demands:
homeland. For the native people it was a dubious
exchange. a legislature for the territory;
For the Hon. George Brown and other easterners, election of magistrates, sheriffs, constables;
consistent supporters of the annexation of the fur that portions of public lands were
country, it was a day of jubilation. For Americans appropriated for schools, roads, bridges;
with its trust in Manifest Destiny, the belief that that lands set aside for partial payment of
all the Americas would be under one flag; it was a day railway construction;
of setback and defeat. For the likes of James Wickes that military force be recruited from among
Taylor, American frequenter to Fort Garry, a self- residents of the area;
appointed ambassador to Ruperts Land, it was a day of that French and English languages be used in
shock and confusion. the legislature; and,
On 25 November 1869, Prime Minister John A. that all acts passed by the legislature be
MacDonalds immediate reaction to the Mtis blockade published in both languages;
was to advise his representatives in London not to that treaties be concluded with locals and
complete the transaction with the HBC until the tribes;
Dominion was assured a peaceful possession of the that there be full representation from the
North-West. area in the House of Commons; and, finally,
MacDonald sent a message to McDougall warning him that these rights be guaranteed by McDougall
that he was, in effect, approaching a foreign country before being permitted in the territory.
under HBC control and that he couldnt force his way
in. Creating a political vacuum McDougal choose to The day after, roll call revealed 402 men, all
follow the Canadian Firsters line of action. The bearing arms, another 100 reported in later that day.
Prime Minister foresaw consequences: Disciple was strict. No alcohol...
The following day, November 2nd, Ril informed the
It is quite by the Law of Nations for the HBC officer at Fort Garry the fort was under the
inhabitants to form a government ex protection of his men. The Canada Firsters plans to
necessitate for the protection of life and take over were forestalled. Li Comit was ensured
property, and such a government has certain control over Red River, at least until spring, the
sovereign rights by jus gentium which might be earliest troops could arrive.
very convenient for the U.S. but very
inconvenient for you. The temptation to an So they prevented McDougalls entry at Pembina,
acknowledgment of such a government by the leaving him fuming on the south side of the border.
U.S. would be very great and ought not to be Cooling his heels in Pembina, McDougall compounded his
lightly risked. errors, until crossing over the border into Canada
during a snowstorm, on December 1st, to read the
Indeed, the Americans were observing events. proclamation putting the transfer into effect. Thus
was HBC authority ended without any effective
MacDonald sent the Vicar-General of St.-Boniface, authority to take its place.
Jean-Baptiste Thibault and Colonel Rene de Salaberry
McDougall sought to correct... commissioning John S. Runners camp, killing 173 persons, the majority of
Dennis, surveyor and militia officer, as lieutenant which were women and children. The attack drove a
and conservator of peace, authorizing him in the number of the Natives across the Medicine Line into
Queens name25 to put down the Mtis by force; the Canada where they were exposed to the unlimited sale
Canadian Firsters, enthusiastic English-language of whiskey26 by the American wolfers at Forts Whoop-
settlers, were skeptical and refused to co-operate, up, Standoff, and Slideout.
though a group of Saulteaux at Lower Fort Garry under The drunken wolfers were named for their practice
Chief Mis-kou-kee-new, called Red Eagle (and also of poisoning the carcasses of the buffalo left behind
known as Henry Prince), the son of Peguis, announced by robe traders, and then harvesting the furs from the
they were prepared to fight for the Queen. - Some dead wolves and coyotes which had eaten of the tainted
Sioux also joined the Firsters. meat. Sometimes people died because of this
In December 1869, Donald A. Smith named the first practice.
Baron Strathcona in 1897 - was sent as a special
commissioner to investigate and calm the situation.
One week later, on December 8th, Ril issued a The Second Mtis Provisional Government
Declaration of the people of Ruperts Land and the
North-West, stating: Ril formed a second Provisional Government on 8
February 1870, which was more broadly representative
A people, when it has no government, are of the Assiniboia community than the first.
free to adopt one form of government in Meanwhile, in late February, the rowdy behaviour of
preference to another, to give or refuse the English-speaking Firsters led to some arrests, and
allegiance to that which is proposed. when a group of loyalists counter-attacked the rebel-
held fort, they were driven off by the woodsmens
The first Provincial Government was established on superior skill and force.
27 December 1869 with Ril elected President. Ril Dr. John Schultz, later Lieutenant-Governor of
and the Mtis were in control without shedding one Manitoba, was one of the leaders in the attempt to
drop of blood; and, McDougall, never admitted into overthrow Rils forces. He was taken prisoner but
Assiniboia, returned to Ottawa. escaped. Another body of volunteers opposed to Ril
The HBC had ruled the region until 1869, and the gathered at Portage-la-Prairie and marched from there
Macutetis were allowed to live much as they pleased. to the Fort Garry district under Major Boulton, but
But, in 1870, their control ended when the Dominion didnt attack: Taken prisoner before an attack was
of Canada acquired the thinly populated North-West possible and imprisoned at the fort, Boulton was
Territory from Great Britain. The transfer, in 1870, obliged to face a Mtis court martial and was
of HBC territories to the control of the recently sentenced to die, but Donald Smith, who was there as
created country of the Dominion of Canada marked a the Prime Ministers representative, interceded and
loss of the North-Wests last vestige of independence. obtained his pardon.
The conquest would be consolidated over the next Ril imprisoned those captives taken as enemies to
half-century. the Mtis Provisional Government and a young English
Canadian Protestant Orangeman, recently arrived from
Ireland, named Thomas Scott, a chronic troublemaker
American wolfers and constant annoyance to the Mtis, whod insulted
their sensibilities, was chosen to set an example to
As the authority of the HBC slowly eroded across the the other traitors. On March 4th, he was condemned as
north-west... a number of fur trading posts were such and sentenced to be shot by court martial for
established along Battle Creek, which runs through assaulting a guard and refusing to keep the peace.
Cyrus Hills a haven for American desperadoes seeking Smith tried to persuade Ril to acquit the prisoner,
their fortune in illegal whisky trade, trafficking but Scott was brought before the firing squad in a
violence. protracted manner.
According to Catholic missionary Constantine The newspaper headlines claimed that it was in cold-
Scollen: blood which Scott was murdered. The people of eastern
Canada were shocked. Racial tensions between English-
The fiery water flowed as freely... as language Protestants and French-language Catholics in
streams running from the Rocky Mountains, and Ontario demanded that Ril be brought to justice.
hundreds of poor Indians fell victim to the Qubec had once considered the Macutetis sauvauge
white mans craving for money, some poisoned, but now came to their defense. Charges were never
some froze to death while in a state of laid.
intoxication, and many were shot down by
American bullets. Taking Fort Garry by coup de main had created
tension and uncertainty, not only with the mixed-blood
Many Indians were killed and, also, a number of Macutetis but with the English-speaking half-breeds,
white men. as well. The Macutetis were the best organized and
most cohesive and had moved first. As a result, they
Indians were still aggressive in defending their were resented by the others, and not less by the
territory, although their numbers were reduced by Canadians from Ontario, who regarded Red River as
epidemics: In January 1870, the U.S. Calvary under the their natural future possession with many utterances
command of Major Eugene Baker attacked a peaceful camp of threat.
of Piegans in Montana. The soldiers were looking for The insurrection ended, and in the interval the
Mountain Chiefs camp and expected to find a number of Manitoba Act was passed in Parliament, on May 12th.
men wanted for murder. They mistakenly attacked Heavy Manitoba became a province and was brought into
Confederation on 15 July 1870.
25
England is in fact a financial oligarchy run by the
Crown which refers to the City of London and not to the
26
Queen. The City of London is run by the Bank of England, a Fire-water recipe: 1 quart raw alcohol; 1 spoon dank,
private corporation. The square-mile-large City is a black chewing tobacco; 1 handful red jalapeo peppers; 1
sovereign state located in the heart of greater London. - bottle Jamaican ginger; 1 quart black molasses; water ad
As the "Vatican of the financial world," the City is not libitum; kerosene optional: Mix well and boil until all the
subject to British law. strength is drawn from the tobacco and peppers.
of Lake Superior. The newly appointed Lieutenant-
The Manitoba Act Treaty Governor for 187073, A. G. Archibald, was intended to
arrive ahead of the troops, and the Mtis counted on
In 1870, the Canadian government granted a Bill of this.
Rights to the Macutetis, calling it the Manitoba Act Despite the unfinished Dawson Road and
- and their way of life was stolen. They were no Transcontinental Railway and necessity of negotiating
longer free. The North-West Territories had been right of passage with Ojibwa, through whose territory
incorporated into Confederation and the invading the expedition had to pass, the military arrived
parliament could now declare itself a governing first. As they approached Fort Garry, their
nation. intention to assassinate Ril became known, and he was
urged into hiding by his compatriots. So ended the
Rils Mtis were determined; they believed their Mtis resistance to the foreign occupying government;
political and constitutional structure was necessary labeled an outlaw by the eastern oppressor, the
for the corporate survey of their community. In the Macutetis leader retired to safety across the
Canadian fashion of formal truisms, that is to say southern border in self-exile.
lies, the Canadians believed the government was It was not the official intent of the Ontarian
prepared to grant the rights, privileges and militia to let Ril escape. In time he would be
responsibilities of citizenship in terms of equity; convicted for the murder of Thomas Scott, and
circumstances demanded a period of wardship for the eventually be given amnesty, in 1885, by Governor-
First Nations through the treaty system before full General Lord Dufferin on the condition of five years
citizenship could be extended. banishment
The name of the new province was suggested by Ril
as Spirit Strait of Cree or Lake of the Prairies Wolseley arrived, to restore order, in Fort Garry on
of Assiniboian. The name stood for self-government 24 August 1870, and found the fort empty. The troops
and was already in use. MacDonald made the postage- behaviour in the settlement caused more damage than
sized province as small as possible, 28,490 square all the previous months of uncertainty. The
kilometers (11,000 square miles), 140 miles wide and Macutetis had served, amicably, when needed as
110 miles deep. Official equality of French and volunteers, even providing their own arms and
English was guaranteed and a separate school system ammunition. Their conduct had always been exemplary.
was provided for. Crown Lands were to be under Now they were subjected to verbal and physical abuse
Dominion control; 1.4 million acres (566,560 hectares) to the point of being killed.27
was reserved for the half-breeds unmarried children of Wolseleys expedition was the last official British
the Mtis; all existing occupancies and titles were to military action in the North-West. In that same year,
be respected, including those of the First Nations, a also, the last purely Indian battle was fought, when
principle more easily stated than honoured. the Blackfeet, inflicting heavy losses, defeated the
McDougall fought to get the bill rejected on the Cree at the Battle of Pelly (Oldman) River.
good legal ground that there was no provision in the
British North America (BNA) Act for the inclusion of
territories not previously organized as colonies. The
Manitoba Act was hastily amended to make the new Cree Chief Maskepetoon, called Broken Arm, an
province constitutional, apart from the Selkirk outstanding figure and best known convert to
Treaty; neither had Native title to land been Methodism, whose wide-ranging intellect made him one
extinguished. - The federal government began to of the first on the plains to learn the syllabic
negotiate the first treaties of the west in 1871-72. script, which he used proficiently to aid his
(The 1871 census of the Red River population activities as a roaming diplomat, in his efforts to
revealed that out of the total population of 11,400 calm increasing tensions, in 1869, entered into a
only 1600 were entirely European in ancestry, Blackfoot camp, the traditional enemies of the Cree,
descendants of original Scottish settlers and about with his son and a small party. All were killed.
300 Ontarians, the vanguard of the great immigration This signaled the eruption of warfare from Missouri to
flooding in. There were 9800 country-born Macutetis, Fort Edmonton, setting the last major battle in the
5720 French speaking and 4000 English-speaking Cree Blackfoot war of 1870, at Belly (later Oldman)
Scottish half-breeds, or Ojibwa, by now a dwindling River, near Lethbridge. As many as 300 Cree died and,
group. Indians were not counted. perhaps, 40 Blackfoot. Mute testimony of the uneven
distribution of firearms between the two sides.
During the 1870s Ril estimated the Mtis population
of the west to be about 25% the total native In 1871, after the Battle of Pelly River, the Cree
population, 35-40,000 Indians and 10-15,000 Blackfoot conflict was followed, in 1871, by treaties.
Macutetis, with fewer than 2000 whites. But, because The Blackfoot thence allowed the Cree access to bison
of epidemics, an especially hard one in the 1870s hit herds on their territory
the Cree, and swelling waves of immigration, by 1883
the whites outnumbered the natives.)
Winnipeg
Colonel Garnet J. Wolsely On 15 July 1870, Old Fort Garry was renamed Winnipeg
and made the new provincial capital, and to govern on
The Fenians, conducting sporadic raids from across behalf of the banks in the east, Alfred Boyd was named
the border, hoped for help from the Mtis. William B. its first premiere. Then the Dominion government
ODonoghue, one of Rils principle aides, refused: began to redevelop the land, reducing the possessions
(In 1871, Archibald had shook his hand - and, this of the Macutetis to a mere 240 acres per man. Over
action cost the Lieutenant-Governor his office.) the year the population more than doubled, and this
To forestall sporadic Fenian filibustering raid from land rush of immigrant settlers had the Mtis and
across the border into Ontario, MacDonald sent a
military expedition, with cannon, to the Red River, in 27
Cf. Boulton describing the carnage after the fall of
1870, under the command of Colonel Garnet J. Wolsely. Batoch: Every man had his shaganinnies referring to
On May 21st, the force of 1200 left Collingwood (ON) the young native women whom the invading troopers were
and made the long, difficult journey westward by way raping, whilest them pillaged the poor people... the
spoils of war.
First Nations troubled. Their way of life was at other times as mediators. There was pressure from
threatened, and so were the buffalo herds upon which them to ban rituals like the Ghost Dance: Music and
they depended. Dissatisfied Macutetis surrendered dance, to the aboriginal mind, was both religious and
the land grant and westward headed. supernatural, gifts to the gods. In general, they
MacDonald decided to follow the British Colonial viewed treaties as being in the best interests of the
India model of an armed and organized police force. natives and were insistent they sign, and were equally
His original plan was to use Mtis for at least half so for the government to live up to its terms.
the rank and file under British officers, but after Negotiations were far from simple or easy. Dawson:
the 1869-70 troubles, and violent opposition in
Ottawa, he dropped the idea. [ ] anyone who, in negotiating with these
Indians should suppose he had mere children to
In 1871-72, the Dominion parliament admitted self- deal with, would find himself mistaken. In
governing Manitoba as the fifth province of their manner of expressing themselves they
Confederation. About 1,400,000 acres (567,000 make use of a great deal of allegory, and
hectares) was reserved for the native Macutetis. their illustration may at times appear
childish enough, but in their actual dealings
they are shrewd and sufficiently awake to
The North-West Territories their own interests, and, if the matter should
be of importance, affecting the general
Beyond Manitoba, new lands called the North-West interest of the tribe, they neither reply to a
Territories, a great plains stretching westward; a proposition nor make one themselves, until it
grassland rising gradually {to 2500 feet} out of the is fully discussed and deliberated upon in
vast foothills of the Rocky Mountains; inhabited by Council by all the Chiefs.
proud tribes, the Assiniboine and Cree, and Blackfoot
(with most of the horses) and living from and by the Extreme caution must always be exercised in all said
buffalo - already these tribes, especially the as there are always those present that are charged
Blackfoot of southern Alberta, were being plied with with keeping every word in mind. One chief was able
rot-gut whiskey by illegal American wolfer traders to repeat verbatim all that was said two years
operating out of Fort Benton, Montana. - The free earlier.
movement of Montana wolfers across the During Treaty 1 negotiations the government was ill-
International border was seen as an infringement of prepared and the Indians forced major changes to the
Canadian sovereignty, and a blatant disregard of governments offerings. For subsequent treaties the
British law. government took a take it or leave it approach and
Bison had no definite migratory pattern and forced them to improve their negotiating techniques.
congregated wherever feeding was most attractive.
Their behaviour heightened the ceremonial aspect of
the life of the plains Indians, and the disappearance Stone Fort and Manitoba Post Treaties 1 & 2
of the herds involved not only the loss of subsistence
but dislocation of culture, a major feature in the Negotiations for the Stone Fort Treaty (1) took
rise of the Ghost Dance. place at Lower Fort Garry, and was signed on 2 August
The bison were not the first fauna to show the 1871, with the Saulteaux (Ojibwa), Swampy Cree, and
effects of the over-exploitation of parklands, on the others in south Manitoba around Portage-la-Prairie and
eastern borders of the plains caribou all but Winnipeg, including the area of the Selkirk Treaty of
disappeared, and moose were noticeably fewer. The 1817 to 16,7000 square miles (43,253 Kms.). Because
Saulteaux of the region grew more dependent on small difficulties had developed with the Selkirk Treaty,
game, or else they migrated to the plains. For those the Natives claiming that it had been signed by
who continued to trap, it became steadily more chiefs not properly selected to represent the people,
difficult to combine fur-gathering with the winter covered the area included in Treaty 1.
buffalo hunt. It reached the point where the HBC, in One chief complained hed scarce heard the Queens
some districts (as Riding Mountain), began to import words, because of an impediment to his hearing caused
pemmican for their hunters to keep trapping fur. By by HBC imprisonment (of four Indians for breach of
1860, some hunters began to take employment positions contract); they were released and were in attendance
as part-time canoe-men, cart-drivers, or labourers in at the meeting.
the fur trade.
Treaty 2, the Manitoba Post Treaty, signed on 21
August 1871, with the Saulteaux, Cree, and other bands
Treaties in General in Central Manitoba, prepared the way for white
settlement. It could not prepare the natives, its
The federal government thought little to the terms progress only self-interested in preserving the new
of treaties. They expected surrenders of officials, eastern order, for inevitable profits change was an
and regarded the exercise as little more than a acceptable reality. The Indians opened negotiations
formality, paying much attention to panoply and by claiming enormous reserves, about 2/3rds of
ceremony surrounding negotiations... they expected the Manitoba. Archibald and Wemyss Simpson, Indian
overawed natives to readily submit and reduce their Commissionaire for the 1871-73 term, found these
demands. demands preposterous. - They were prepared to offer
Treaties 1 & 2 were negotiated by Archibald and 160 acres (65 hectares) per family of five and an
revised by Alexander Morris, at the time Chief Justice annuity of twelve dollars. They threatened the
of the Manitoba Court of the Queens Bench (and, natives with being swamped by settlers without any
later, Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West compensation if they didnt agree.
Territories from 1873-76 before succeeding Archibald The chiefs were disturbed and could not understand
as Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba in 1876). Morris the whites governments offer as benefiting their
was responsible for the terms of Treaties 4 & 5, and children.
6; David Laird for Treaty 7, and also commissionaire One chief claimed, What if we have more children
for Treaty 8. after we settle down? Archibald answered, Theyll
Missionaries were prominent in number for be provided for from lands further west. Those lands
negotiations, sometimes as agents for the government, already had a complement of aboriginal inhabitants.
Is it fair to allow the same amount of land for It was not clear if Ottawa informed the Macutetis
natives and settlers? the poor Chiefs questioned. of their concerns in treating with them as individuals
Consider the circumstances for a new way of life? rather than communities. Groups scattered from Red
What about assistance in starting a new way of life? River, establishing settlements with the principle
The government promised schools and schoolmasters, difference - now as farm communities. The buffalo
ploughs and harrows, and a fully furnished house for hunt was not the main subsistence for food and
each settled indigenous family, besides cattle and clothing anymore.
equipment. They got the impressions negotiations were Each family had a ribbon-lot with a river frontage
agreed to. of about two hundred meters. There were other
missions nearby, too, at St-Louis and St-Antoine-de-
The terms of Treaties 1 & 2 were similar: Padoue settlements were connected with later and
became known as Batoch after its leading citizen, the
In return for the regions surrendered, which trader Xavier Letendre dit Batoch
included the Selkirk lands, the government gave each (Okimawaskawikinam), whose home was reputed to be the
Indian a present of three dollars, and fifteen dollars finest in the west. Batoch was the commercial center
annually per family of five, pro-rated for families of for the cluster of Macutetis settlements referred to
different sizes, payable in goods or cash. The collectively as the South Branch, straddling the
government stood firm on its offer of 160 acres, but Carlton Trail the main route to Edmonton as well
the natives were reluctant to accept as the South Saskatchewan River.
The government agreed to maintain schools on each The largest Macutetis settlement in the west, St-
reserve and prohibit the sale of liquor on each Albert, not far from Fort Edmonton, did not become
reserve. involved in the land rights question.
Hunting and fishing rights were promised by
Archibald in his opening speech, but omitted from the Ril fils was twice elected to Parliament for the
final draft of the treaty. Neither were any constituency of Provencher. First by acclamation in
provisions for agricultural implements, livestock or by-election in 1873, and in the following year he
clothing as verbally arranged. Even so, the terms defeated the Liberal opponent, although he was never
accepted exceeded Ottawas instructions and when the able to take his seat. He had to go by stealth, for
Indians complained Ottawa said that the treaties could armed men sought to harm him and keep him from signing
not be reopened. his name to the parliamentary oath book, a gesture
Archibald cautioned Ottawa on the Indians memory of that led to his formal expulsion from the house
what was said, and Ottawa finally agreed to provide The Manitoba delegates had to go incognito to Ottawa
livestock and agricultural implements, particularly as through Toronto. Their arrest - north of Ottawa - on
the natives expected to take up farming - but they warrants sworn out in Toronto and Ottawa was an
refused to do anything about medical or housing. embarrassment to MacDonald; so, he had them freed...
The Indians accused the government of obtaining privately footing the bill for their lawyers.
their agreement under false pretenses. The arrests were symptomatic of Ontario-Protestant
position.
In 1872, British officer Colonel Robertson Ross
toured the prairies and recommended a mobile force The trickle of Macutetis westward became a flood:
called the North-West Mounted Rifles be created to The Manitoba Treaty had not achieved what Ril had
keep order ands restrain undesirable intrusions. successfully negotiated with Canada: A number of
immigrants journeyed southwards into Dakota territory
and established the large, but temporary, settlement
Li South Branch Mtis of St-Joseph before continuing on into Montana. More
journeyed west into the environs of Forts Ellice and
In 1872, the best known group of Macutetis, led by Pelly, and the QuAppelle Valley; many went north into
Gabriel Dumont, headed north from Red River to the valley of the South Saskatchewan River, a couple
colonize the South Saskatchewan River and Batoch, an of days journey south of Prince Albert, establishing
area 45-50 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide: Its the parish of St-Laurent in the midst of the tiny
southern boundary was at Li rivire Petit Castor, village of Batoch.
later Li Coule des Touronds. A mission had already A few traders, as Louis Goulet, journeyed west to
been founded at St-Laurent, in 1871, by Oblate Alexis the indigenous Macutetis in search of opportunities
Andr... only, once again, to be disturbed by the in the buffalo robe trade, as well as opportunities
advance of the eastern settlements. which the Manitoba Treaty could be retrieved. Ottawa
The disregard of the incoming settlers for the had already decided on a square plot survey as a
Macutetis and Indian land claims quickly stirred up a settlement pattern in the west, however, anyone who
backlash. In 1872 the Mtis asked Archibald: settled the region prior to 1870 would be entitled to
a special survey to maintain original boundaries. -
What steps should we adopt to secure After 1870, settlers would have no legal right to
ourselves the rights to prohibit peoples of special considerations, although surveyors were
other nationalities from settling in lands instructed to accommodate special concerns as best as
occupied by us, and without the consent of our they could, which was usually done to the satisfaction
community? of both parties. But not so at the South Branch,
neither could the Macutetis get recognition of their
Archibald had already rejected a block of land land claims on the basis of aboriginal right, as that
reserved for their use, as done for the First Nations had already been denied, nor on the basis of prior
- to sign the treaty. The federal government also settlers rights, as they were considered squatters.
opposed, claiming the Macutetis should apply for The Macutetis refused to file claims for patent which
land on an individual basis as did the settlers. In they did not consider acceptable, and they were
Manitoba most land set aside for the children of the punished for their stubbornness to their innocent
half-breed head of families had been acquired by minds it could be no other way than it had always
speculators for a fraction of their value. It was been.
estimated that not more than a quarter of the land was
actually occupied and improved by the Macutetis, in
spite of additions to grants in 1874. The Cyprus Hills Massacre
In 1872-73, seventy Blood were known to have died in It was simply large-scale murder: One wolfer, Ed
drunken brawls among themselves. In pre-contact days Grace, was killed, but it is unknown 28 how many -
there was a low incidence of community violence. estimate 16-30 to 80 Natives, including women and
Disputes broke out between the Macutetis and the children a family - were slaughtered in an inhumane
Indians with criminal traders who were causing and cowardly massacre a truly senseless and wicked
trouble, smuggling illegal whiskey over the border. act and a blatant violation of Canadian sovereignty.
The Macutetis and the Indians had to be controlled,
so the troops were sent to pacify the people before Afterwards, the stolen horses were found roaming
they could revolt. In 1873, separate boards were set free...
up to deal with Indian Affairs in Manitoba, the North-
West Territories, and British Columbia. The aggressors were never brought to trial.
Confederation, though, called for centralization. Accounts of the one-sided slaughter reached Ottawa,
Ottawa was well aware of growing instability in the communicated to the east before mid-summer: The report
North-West, as the trans-continental rail inched its of the atrocity hastened the formation of the North-
way from sea-to-sea the bison receded, settlers were West Mounted Police and their arrival in the lawless
exerting pressure on the Indians and Macutetis, and North-West. And, strongly recommended to MacDonald by
there was the possibility that the U.S. frontier wars officials in the North-West, especially Alexander
could extend into Canada. Morris, Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba and the North-
On 28 April 1873, the Prime Minister issues a notice West Territories, in August an order-in-council passed
of intention to form a North-West Mounted Police to start recruiting the force
force... aggravated by American wolfers from Montana MacDonald thought openly that a military venture
and other frontier territories, who slaughtered wolf into the North-West might provoke the U.S., so he
and bison indiscriminately for skins, penetrating created the all-white NWMP and dressed his
north of the Canadian border, bringing the view that policemen in red serge coats like the British army.
the only good injun is a dead injun and pedaling So, in May 1873, the NWMP were created... to prevent
hooch, watered down and laced with cayenne pepper and, bloodshed and preserve order.
for a kick, kerosene or lamp oil... Fort Whoop-Up in The BNA Act stipulated law enforcement provincially,
the Cyprus Hills region was notorious for the half- a federal force would only be able to operate in those
poisonous brew and the arrogant aggressiveness of areas not organized provincially and having their own
traders worse than the lawless wolfers: The Cyprus police. The North-West Mounted Police had power and
Hills, located near the international boundary (where disciple unlike any in effect in the British system,
the Alberta and Saskatchewan borders would eventually except perhaps for the Irish constabulary.
be drawn), was an area sacred to the Natives, where NWMP soldiers and police were more centrally
hostile tribes could camp in peace; it was also a controlled than the French Gendarmes and the British
resort for wolfers, men whose stock-in-trade was police, yet unlike either - as they acted like
liquor. magistrates: The constables apprehended criminals and
In the spring of 1873, Montana traders and wolfers the officers tried them - formidable powers, dangerous
on the south-west plains were on their way home, their in combination and depending on the integrity and
wagons loaded high with buffalo hides, wolf skins, and fairness of both officers and men. MacDonald
empty barrels. The group of men halted and camped by justified the radical departure from English legal
the Teton River, still one days travel from Benton, tradition by the necessities of justice on the
Montana. They awakened in the morning to discover distant frontier. He lied when he said that the N-WMP
that their horses were missing, and whether theyd to be temporary... and as soon as provincial
strayed or were stolen, the men chose to believe that administrations were established, theyd no longer
theyd been stolen... and vowed revenge against the have any function. They stayed though, and spread to
thievin injuns. But before they could harvest all other provinces but two, Ontario and Quebec,
revenge, they had to deliver their goods so they although shorn of judicial powers.
walked on to Benton; and, borrowing horses, they
brought their wagons into town and prepared an The scarlet Norfolk jacket came from Adjutant-
organized hunt of the thieves. General of the Canadian Militia, Colonel Robertson-
Augmented by other traders and wolfers, well- Ross. The important thing is the instant, compelling
mounted and well-armed, they rode back to the camp led impressiveness of the man in the scarlet tunic; the
by Thomas Hardwick. Convincing themselves theyd dignity of the uniform was carefully cultivated,
found the tracks of the thieves, they proceeded north- symbolic assurance to the natives that they would not
easterly towards the Cyprus Hills; and, reaching the be dealing with the hated U.S.-type blue-coats of the
hills, they camped at Battle Creek and paid a American army, yet still military in all but name.
fraternal visit to the post, operated by Abel Farwell, The ceremonial quality of impartial law and order was
a Bentonite, and a better representative than most in dramatically exploited, symbolically representing the
the business. He had no knowledge of newly acquired international boundary, blue below and scarlet above;
horses by any Indians in the area, but mentioned hed blue for treachery and broken promises, red for
found the band of Chief Xavier Okemassis (Little protection and a straight tongue.
Chief), an inoffensive Nakoda (Assiniboine), a good
people - about forty lodges, mostly women and children
and old men, who were suffering much from food The North-West Mounted Police
shortages during the past winter and were much
weakened. The first members of the North-West Mounted Police
Farwell wanted to go alone to look at the Indians were named and during the winter months of 187374
horses, then report back, but, the Hardwick men, who they were trained; originally three hundred men and
had consumed their own liquor, insisted on making seven officers, all whom served either in the British
their own inspection, and so went, taking their regular army or Canadian militia units. Its first
drunken arrogance and guns with them. Shots were commissioner was Colonel George Arthur French,
fired and shots were returned. - Farwell later originally commissioned in the Royal Artillery.
testified that it was the wolfers whod shot first.
The Benton men fell back to sheltered positions, 28
firing... Nearly 100 Amerinds were killed in drunken brawls that
year alone.
Colonel James F. MacLeod acted as assistant From there they attacked the nefarious whiskey
commissioner. trade.
Strict soldierly discipline was established amongst
the men, whom lived in a barracks and were forbidden These frontier policemen were symbolic upholders of
to marry (during the early years in the force). These Canadian sovereignty north of the 49 th Parallel,
recruits were subjected to intensive drills and to virtually administering the territory as a police
training in light cavalry guerilla tactics. Before state until the 80s. The Department of the Interior
winter, the first contingent of men, under command of then began to organize both immigration and the
Major James Morrow Walsh, was on their way to Lower allocation of land.
Fort Garry. Multitudes of Europeans began to arrive. Apart from
The following summer, on 10 June 1874, the main body a few small, pioneer groups of settlers like those at
of the force, 275 new recruits, started on the Great Prince Albert and Portage-la-Prairie... when the
March west. They traveled in two trains by way of police finally arrived, the vacant plains were still
Chicago and St-Paul to Fargo, North Dakota, the the domain of the hunting Macutetis and the First
nearest railroad point to Fort Dufferin in southern Nations.
Manitoba... where a small group from Fort Gary would The main task of the police was to suppress the
meet them and prepare for the long trek into parts illegal liquor trade, a boon to the natives who were
unknown, intent on establishing forts across the suffering because of the whiskey traders, and to
prairies right up to the Rocky Mountains. establish good relations with the natives: They were
They thought them the most impressive group ever successful in both. Canada was on good terms with
seen in the west; the two commissioners rode at the the Cree, an inheritance from the HBC, but of the
head of the marching order, followed by 318 mounted Blackfoot Confederacy its attitude was uncertain.
officers and men; the parade consisted of 315 horses, Superintendent MacLeod set about cultivating one of
147 work oxen, 114 loaded Red River carts, 93 wagons, its best known chiefs, Issapmahksika (Crow Indians
two nine-pound cannon, and various farm machines, like Big Foot), called Crowfoot by the whites.
rakes and mowers, and included 21 Macutetis drivers. For the eastern oppressor, the NWMP collected
The pace was brisk at first, until animals and men customs duties and taxes, claiming that it was law
tired after months on the trail and many deaths of and order which they were there to establish. But the
animals: Fraught with difficulty and a heavy mortality Macutetis knew better.
of the livestock forming part of the equipment train. Government officials feared war developing. The
In the middle of the prairies the cavalcade divided; a natives were growing increasingly restless. Settlers
small force was sent to establish a fort at Edmonton. began arriving in legions. To calm the growing
Somewhere around present-day Medicine Hat the party unrest, the Dominion of Canada made the Indian nations
became quite lost. Relying greatly on their Mtis and many false promises, all the while their temperance
Indian guides and hunters, the larger body of 150 settlements, ever westward advancing, grew each
mounted police made its way through vital border season. The Macutetis, remembering what had happened
country in the direction of the Cyprus Hills to in the Red River region, tried warning their native
confront the American wolfers - whose fort bristled brethren, but promises of food and government
with cannon calling for the arrest and punishment of assistance swayed their interests.
the American wolfers involved in the Cyprus Hills
Massacre. In 1873, Mistahimaskwa, called Big Bear, the most
The North-West Mounted Police were given permission famous and influential Plains Cree chief, clashed with
to conduct an investigation in Montana, but public Gabriel Dumont when the Mtis leader sought to direct
opinion was on the side of the alleged murders. the buffalo hunt on the High Plains. Half-Ojibwa and
Evidence was so contradictory that the judge had to half-Cree, Mistahimaskwa led the largest band of Cree
discharge the men involved; one promptly obtained a on the plains at that time, about 2000 people. As a
warrant for the arrest of Assistant Commissioner young man hed gained notability for being able to
MacLeod on the grounds of false arrest. MacLeod sat shoot accurately under the neck of a horse riding at
in a Montana jail for a few days while he was cleared full tilt. He was a man of impressive presence, had a
of the charge and allowed to return home. full, rich voice, and did not like dealing with the
whites.
Leaving the main body of the force near Sweet Grass He saw that unless the people united in the face of
Hills, they made a side trip into Montana, returning white settlement they were lost.
with a small stock of supplies, fresh horses, and a
new hired man, the small, bow-legged half-breed Jerry
Potts, called Ky-yo-kosi, or Bear Child. - Because of North-West Angle Treaty 3
his knowledge and instincts the force was never lost
again. The North-West Angle Treaty #3 was signed on 3
Potts led them on a direct course to the infamous October 1873, with the Saulteaux of Lake of the Woods
Fort Whoop-up. Upon being discovered, the Americans district, mostly in Ontario with a small portion in
prudently retreated, leaving the American flag south-east Manitoba. It cleared title for the Dawson
floating defiantly over the stockade. - One wolfer Road and established a railroad right-of-way.
was left inside to continue trade, whom invited them
in to dinner. The rustling of the gold is under my feet
Those few traders who wandered back across the where I stand. The Great Spirit who gave us
border those first months after the police arrived this, where we stand upon, is the Indian
were arrested. Others learned quickly to stay away. property and belongs to them, (already robbed
They continued on, arresting a few American booze by the whites) and we dont wish to give them
peddlers met along the way, pouring a few kegs of up again without getting something in their
dubious whiskey into the ground. After four days place.
more, Potts brought the force to a favoured place on Mawedopenais of Fort Francis
the Old Man River, almost 1000 miles from Fort
Dufferin. From there they proceeded to the Rocky Twice refused by the natives, negotiations were
Mountain foothills and established Fort MacLeod - prolonged and difficult. The final terms agreed upon
further north another fort became Calgary. were more generous than Treaties 1 and 2. Reserves
were based on 640 acres (249 hectares) for a family of
five, a gratuity of twelve dollars and five dollars few oxen. Every farmer in the northwest, however
per capita; the chiefs were awarded a suit of clothing poor, had one yoke of oxen.
every three years, twenty-five dollars per annum, a We are new at this work, but even white men cannot
flag and a medal; subordinate officers received get on with so few oxen.
fifteen dollars each per year. - Provisions were made There was a great inadequacy for promised
for continuation of hunting and fishing rights to the assistance in the treaty and government officials were
point of providing $1500.00 for ammo and twine for reluctant and tentative about distributing what theyd
fishing nets and an array of supplies, including seeds promised. People prepared to farm expected promised
and stock. Schools were to be established, and the implements, seed and cattle, but agents strictly
sale of liquor on the reserves was prohibited. stuck to vague wording, such as any band [ ] now
Requests for First Nations to receive free passes to actually cultivating the soil, or who shall hereafter
travel on the rails were rejected out-of-hand. settle on these reserves and commence to break up the
land... but, the Natives could not settle until the
Done at the request of Mawedopenais, it was the surveys were complete and could not cultivate until
first numbered treaty to include provisions for the they had the implements! Yet these were not to be
Macutetis (which were influential in the distributed until the land was settled and cultivating
negotiations),29 although, there was hesitation by the begun. Racist government officials chose to believe
government. What the Ojibwa told Morris: that the distribution of promised items only
encouraged idleness and would not be used for the
You owe much to the half-breeds. intended purpose.
There were also problems with the quality and
This contrasts later false representations of the distribution of seed grain. In the earliest years the
mixed-bloods as inferior people, lazy, improvident, seed arrived in a damaged state and wasnt received
and untrustworthy. until mid-summer, a season too advanced to plant.
Acres lay idle because there was no seed sometimes.
Treaty 3 took Morris three years to negotiate before Having no seed there was no bother to breaking the
the Indians finally signed: It set precedents for land. (After a number of years, a few Indians learned
subsequent treaties, particularly where agricultural some cultivating, but had to be supplied with
equipment and stock were concerned, as well as hunting provisions in the spring during plowing and sowing. -
and fishing rights in unsettled areas; although there Treaty 6 people successfully bargained for this but no
were some improvements in subsequent treaties - the promises were made to the people in Treaty 4.)
major exception being the medicine chest clause in
Treaty 6. Aboriginal farmers were also hampered in early
efforts by the plough type (used by Manitoba farmers
in the 1870s until it was learned that the John Deere
Treaty 4 American-made chilled-steel mould-board plough was
superior for western conditions than the Ontario
Treaty 4 concerned the district of south-eastern model. Still, the Indian Department continued until
Saskatchewan, the reserves in Touchwood Hills, File 1882 to purchase only inferior and unsatisfactory
Hills, and along the QuAppelle River, and involved Canadian-made products, and had problems keeping in
most of the Plains Cree collectively known as good repair those implements and wagons that they had
Mamihkiyiniwak (the Downstream People), although distributed which frequently broke down crippling
Assiniboine, mixed Cree-Assiniboine called Young operations. Wooden parts were sometimes used to
Dogs, and Plains Saulteaux were also included. replace metal parts, but there was no blacksmith to
In the 1870s, the earliest years of reserve replace the metal, or point or sharpen ploughshares.
settlement in Saskatchewan, farming proved nearly Other equipment and livestock supplied by contractors
impossible because of the nature of the reserve was clearly inferior; it was the standard practice to
itself. Other bands had received high-quality supply the Indian Department with the most inferior
agricultural lands, later inciting the envy of the articles and wild Montana cattle.
settlers.
The earliest instruction to surveyors of reserve The transfer of HBC lands to Canada had increased
lands was that they should not interfere with the aboriginal militancy: Abraham Wikaskokiseyin, called
possible requirements for future settlements, or of Sweet Grass, chief of the Fort Pitt Cree, a leading
land for railway purposes. Indian spokesman during the Treaty 6 negotiations,
What was seen as the fertile belt and possible told officials:
CPR route north-west was along the Assiniboia and
North Saskatchewan Rivers; land further south was We hear our lands were sold and we do not
considered arid and unlikely ever to be wanted by like it; it is our property, and no one has
settlers, so many reserves were surveyed there. But the right to sell them.
when the CPR route was changed in 1881, rerouted
through the south, many of these reserves were on-or- Other chiefs were of the opinion that the land had
near what was hoped to become the settlement belt and been borrowed as it could not be bought. In any
heart of a prosperous economy. event, Wikaskokiseyin had signed the treaty; as a
Implements and livestock promised proved to be consequence, he was killed by his own people who felt
inadequate. - Ten families were to share one plough. the lands had been signed away without their being
The bands varied in size from 17 to 50 families, properly consulted.
regardless, each was offered only one yoke of oxen, Paskwaw, or Pasquah, a Cree heading a band of Plains
one bull and four cows. And, every family needed a Saulteaux, observed that if a sale had really happened
yoke of oxen to earn a living. then the plains people should receive the money.
One Plains Cree chief, in 1879, claimed that it was Paskwaw, one of those opposed to the entry of
perfectly ridiculous to expect them to get on with so surveyors onto the plains to plot the course for
telegraph lines. As he saw it, the survey indicated
subordination to the whites. He was a principle
29 negotiator for the QuAppelle Treaty 4 which took two
In Treaties 4 and 6 the Amerinds requested that their years to be hammered out and resulted in more
cousins, the Mtis, be included. Treaty 6 concerned the concessions than the federal government had wished to
district settled by the Plains Cree called Upstream People.
make, such as implements and seed to start farming. for the whole of the region. - Other events
Paskwaw eventually took a reserve five miles west of interfered.
Fort QuAppelle. A year later, Piapot, or Payipwat,
whod had a larger following than Paskwaw, also signed To argue their cause Louis Ril fils was called.
the treaty in the mistaken belief that it had been
revised.
Treaty 4 was the first to recognize trapping as a During the summer of 1874, a party of free hunters
feature of the Indian way of life. after buffalo arrived in the area St-Laurent
settlement and considered it theirs. Dumont and his
men, including some Cree, confronted the intruders and
told them they were trespassing and breaking the local
Canada was now faced with the problems of law. The hunters refused to accept the Macutetis
administering and policing effectively, so that the levied fines, and the Macutetis exacted payment by
North-West would no longer be a temptation to American confiscation of the hunting partys equipment and
expansionists. The first attempt had been made with supplies to the required amount. The hunting party
the passing of the Dominion Lands Act in 1872, which continued to the nearest HBC post, Fort Carlton, and
offered free homesteads of 160 acres to each settler complained to Chief Factor, Lawrence Clarke.
who would break, cultivate and live on the land; even Clarke dealt with the matter as an open revolt
though settlers began to percolate into the region against Canada and reported the incident to
during the 1870s... it was evident that the great Lieutenant-Governor Morris as unwarranted attack
expanse of prairies wouldnt be settled until after provoking a war in the west. The HBC had been uneasy
the construction of the transcontinental railway; the about St-Laurent in the first place, particularly
building of which was one condition British Columbia after the recent Red River incident in which Dumont
stipulated before entering Dominion, but the rail was had offered his services to Ril, in 1870. The press
delayed for political reasons. did not improve matters: Another Stand against
Canadian Government Authority headlines read - 10,000
Cree were reported to be on the warpath, Fort Carlton
St-Laurent was said to have fallen, and six members of the NWMP
were reported as having been killed. (Clarke seems
On 10 December 1873, Gabriel Dumont called the St- the origin of some, if not all, of this
Laurent Mtis together to discuss setting up a misinformation.
governing body. The settlement contained about 322 On 20 August 1874, a detachment of the NWMP under
people, the population late-swelling to 1500. Dumont Superintendent Lief Crozier was sent to thrash the
was unanimously elected president and eight matter out with the St-Laurent Council. Crozier
councilors were selected. They took an Oath of expressed the opinion that it was eminently sensible
Office before Father Andr and proceeded to enact 28 for prevailing conditions, observing the fact that the
basic laws modeled on those governing the buffalo Macutetis had, of necessity, had to establish a
hunt, with the added right to levy taxes. - Households properly constituted government on the prairies.
were to be taxed for public services, besides for Neither did Edward Blake, Federal Minister of Justice
providing labour for corves, as needed. see any objections in them.
The council was to meet once a month to settle But, the Council agreed to disband as a formal
matters as failure to meet obligations or to follow body...
regulations, such as in obeying a captain on the
buffalo hunt. Disputes were to be settled, as fair as
possible, on arbitration, contracts made on Sundays
were considered null and void, and penalties, (mostly In 1874, Ottawa recognized an inherent obligation
fines), for lighting fires after August 1st, failure towards the Sioux and set aside 12,000 acres (4856
to restrain wandering horses or dogs that killed hectares) of land for them at two sites in
foals, as well as for defaming members of the Saskatchewan, on the basis of 80 acres (32 hectares)
community or dishonouring girls and refusing to marry per family of five.
them. Regulations did not mention theft, apart from
horses, or violent crimes as assault, manslaughter, or
murder, all extremely rare among the Mtis at that The Buffalo Hunt
time. - On the positive side, regulations for the
conditions of labour and employment were enacted, and The Macutetis, however, kept a great deal of the
ferries were enjoined to transport people to-and-from French culture of their fathers, including their own
church on Sunday without charge. form of the French language, and they also retained a
superstitious form of Catholicism. Having a great
St-Laurent was off to a promising start. love for dancing the whole night through to the tune
of fiddles, and shared a love of gambling with
Dumont was encouraged; he visited other South natives. They exercised an almost anarchic form of
Branch communities and suggested they do likewise. He democracy, for which their leaders were recognized as
hoped they could get together and work out a self- chiefs only for limited purpose and at specific times,
government plan, at least for South Branch, perhaps usually during the great communal hunts.
for all the North-West Territories, until the time On these great hunts, the Macutetis challenged
the North-West Council was established by Canada and Indian groups like the powerful Blackfoot Confederacy,
actually ready to govern. When that happened, St- so they had to travel in almost military formation.
Laurent assured federal officials, it would resign in The police had no objections to the buffalo hunt
favour of Ottawas authority. However, the other insomuch as it was regulated by the natural laws
communities were not organized enough to rise to the inherent to the hunt: (It wasnt until 1877 before
challenge. hunting laws were enacted, too late to save the
The decrease of the buffalo caused the St- herds.)
Laurent Council to tighten its regulations and to One such great hunt left Red River to arrive on the
petition the North-West Council to adopt its measures bordering plains of Missouri, traveling over
international borders, which neither the Indians nor
Macutetis recognized any more than the buffalo. Some clashes with the Natives, since the Red River hunt
1600 people from Red River gathered at the rendez- encroached on Sioux hunting grounds and the
vous at Pembina, including almost 400 children. 1200 Saskatchewan hunt on the Blackfoot. - The Macutetis
Red River carts were in procession, some drawn by were often involved in pitched battles.
horses and others by oxen, the creaking of un-greased
wheels could be heard for miles. Between 1830 and 1880, bison herds declined even
In addition to the draught animals, 400 chosen more rapidly: The U.S. was subject to even greater
horses were used by the many buffalo hunters as perils since frontiers there were moving ahead more
buffalo runners. rapidly than here. The hunt was more commercialized.
Professional hunters began to appear, killing the
As soon as they assembled at Pembina, the hunters buffalo for pelts to be turned into coats in cities or
elected ten captains, who elected the head of the hunt for hides to make industrial drive belts.
in turn. On this occasion, and many subsequent ones,
the elected head was Jean-Baptiste Wilkie.30 Ten The last known use of a buffalo jump was by the
guides were also appointed, men with knowledge of the Blackfeet in 1873. And, 1874 was the last year a hunt
country where the hunt would take place, who took departed from Red River.
turns leading the cavalcade as it moved across the Saturday, 19 September 1874, the Pembina Railway was
plains, and who would send out a screen of scouts to commenced.
look out for buffalo... and for natives.
As soon as a halt was called for the night, the
captains took over to establish a camp, each with ten Treaty 5
soldiers under him, to act as police and to ensure
carts were arranged in a kind of laager, so the camp In 1875, an act was passed in Canadian parliament
could defend itself against any surprise attack. recognizing government in the river valleys of
Elaborate rules, similar to those of the Blackfoot, Saskatchewan and Assiniboia, a territorial lieutenant-
were drawn up to prevent the herds from being governor and council was appointed, and provisions
frightened prematurely and keep individuals from were made so that members could be gradually added.
gaining an advantage over the hunters in general. The On condition that he was to leave the country for five
method the hunters used was to ride simultaneously years, Louis Ril fils would receive a pardon.
into the herd, shooting the animals at point blank Instead, it was claimed hed suffered a breakdown and
range, a method which required the most exact for two years was committed into an asylum, (in 1876).
cooperation in starting off the hunt. David Laird, the first lieutenant-governor, meeting
with council in Livingston, took office and made
Ross: Battleford31 the capital the next year. Ril was
released even as the first railroad was being laid in
No less than 400 huntsmen, all mounted, and the North-West Territory, connecting Winnipeg with St-
anxiously awaiting for the word Start! took Paul, Minnesota (and, in 1881, with the Canadian
up their positions in a line at one end of the east).
camp, while Captain Wilkie, with his spy-glass The Territories were divided by the Canadian
at his eye, surveyed the buffalo, examined the government and the Districts of Saskatchewan and
ground, and issued his orders. At 6 oclock Assiniboia were created.
the whole cavalcade broke ground and made for In 1875, Treaties 1 and 2 were revised by the
the buffalo; first at a slow trot, then at a government; annuities were brought into line with
gallop, and lastly at full speed. those of Treaty 3 - five dollars per head, also
When the horsemen started, the cattle might buggies, livestock, implements, and distinctive suits
have been a mile and a half ahead, but they of clothes for headmen. The animals were to remain
had approached to within four or five hundred government property although the Indians could have
yards before the buffalos curved their tails use of them. Although the revision was in favour of
or pawed the ground. In a moment more the the First Nations, they were still not treated with as
herd took flight, and horse and rider are promised.
presently seen bursting in among them; shots Officials were more careful of what was said in the
are heard, and all is smoke, dust, and hurry. future.
White hunters had no thought of conservation, as Treaty 5 (1875) was speedily signed, though,
much useable meat as had been eaten or dried was left benefits were less at the conclusion. Mawedopenais
on the prairie, to be devoured by the wolves that borrowed from the white rhetoric:
followed the camp or to rot amongst the white bones
already strewn across the land. - To make matters I take off my glove and in giving you my
worse, those who hunted on horse were selective, hand I deliver my birthright and lands; and in
usually shooting heifers and young cows, potential or taking your hand, I hold fast all the promises
actual mothers, as both had flesh more delicate than you have made, and I hope they will last as
bulls. long as the sun goes round and the water
Demand for buffalo meat increased rapidly early flows.
during the 19th century; fur traders, Macutetis, and
white settlers on the Red River, all competed with the Separate boards were abolished and the super-
Indians for this basic food of the prairies. Buffalo intendancy system was developed. Centralized
numbers and the range they wandered were steadily legislation was called for and the First Nations
diminishing: In 1800, it was estimated that there were became the most regulated people in the Dominion,
5060 million bison, by 1830 there were only about 30
million and had deserted the Red River Valley region.
Hunters from there had to go south into Missouri, the 31
Battleford was a town on the south side of the North
Mtis of the far west had developed a separate hunt in Saskatchewan River at its junction with the Battle River,
the area of the two Saskatchewan rivers, which meant opposite the site of Fort War Road which was built by the
North-West Company as a fur-trading post in 1805. The
Hudsons Bay Company built a rival post on the south side
30
He became the father-in-law of the even more famous of the Battle River, and it became the center of trade
Gabriel Dumont. after the union of the two companies in 1821.
their lives were interfered with right down to the Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Opeteca-hanawaywin), called
personal level. Poundmaker,33 nephew of Mistawasis and adopted son of
Isap-muxica, chief of the Siksika First Nation, whom
Any Indian woman marrying any other than an was the leading Blackfoot chief. Pitikwahanapiwiyin
Indian or a non-treaty Indian shall cease to was chief of the Plains Cree in the northwest a
be an Indian in any respect within the skilled orator, he emerged as a political leader by
meanings of this Act, except that she shall be both Native and Non-native communities during the
entitled to share equally with the members of tumultuous years surrounding the extension of the
the band to which she formerly belonged, in treaty system and the influx of settlers into present-
the annual and semiannual distribution of day Saskatchewan.
their annuities, interest monies and rents, Pitikwahanapiwiyin was born near Battleford
&c. (in central Saskatchewan) into a prominent family from
Indian Act 1876 the House band, the son of Sikakwayan (Skunk Skin), a
Nakoda (Assiniboine or Stoney) shaman, and his
Macutetis wife - the sister of Chief Mistawasis, a
Treaty 6 leading chief in the Eagle Hill (AB) area. Although
his mother was a descendant of a French Canadian,
By 1876 five western treaties had been finalized and Pitikwahanapiwiyin was entirely Plains Cree in
signed, although they were considerably minor ones. culture and appearance. - He always rode a good white
Two big, potentially troublesome treaties remained, or spotted horse; liked bright colored clothes, and
one with the scattered plains Cree and another with always carried and used an umbrella as protection
the powerful Blackfoot Confederacy. against the elements; was a striking looking man with
The Cree, once resident in the low country around penetrating eyes, chiseled features and long
James Bay, first and best trading customers of the unbraided hair and had a dignified bearing.
HBC, hence the first to have guns, were now spread
across the Great Central Plain; with these new wonder Faced with government reluctance to commit beyond
weapons the advanced across the prairies and became the short term, he observed:
dedicated buffalo hunters. The territory was so vast
that there was no hope of assembling proper From what I can hear and see now, I cannot
representation of all the tribesmen at one place. So understand that I shall be able to clothe my
two treaty gatherings were decided upon, one at Fort children as long as the sun shines and the
Carlton and another at Fort Pitt. water runs.
Alexander Morris, Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba
and the North-West Territories, was appointed chief In the end Pitikwahanapiwiyin signed, in 1876, but
commissioner. Chief Factor William Christie of the continued to hunt and did not accept a reserve until
HBC and the exceptionally popular half-breed James 1879, about 40 miles west of Battleford. By then, all
MacKay - at 350 lbs, he was built like a Durham bull - in the Treaty 6 area, except Mistahimaskwa, had bowed
were also on the commission. Their official escort to the inevitable. - But all did not accept reserves.
and best possible guarantee against trouble was Signers of Treaty 6 did better than signers of
Superintendent James Walker of the mounted police. Treaty 4, winning concessions, such as the medicine
Fort Carlton was the scene of the first meeting with chest clause, which specifically mentions medical
the eastern Crees good and reliable Chief Mistawasis, care, and relief in case of famine or pestilence was
called Big Child, and the tribes unfailing also promised.
entertainer, Chief Kmiyistowesit, called Beardy. By 1876, the only place in the Territories where
Mistahimaskwas campaign to unite the Indians had enough bison remained to pursue the old ways of life
seriously alarmed Ottawa and officials redoubled their was in the Cyprus Hills. Larger herds in Montana were
efforts to find chiefs willing to negotiate, such as kept moving by the firing of grass along the border.
Mistawasis and Ahchacoosacoota-coopits, called The convergence of plains tribes the Cypress Hills
Starblanket. The only dissenters were those peaked between 1877 and 1879.
representatives close to Mistahimaskwa, like Chiefs
Sweetgrass and Minahikosis, called Little Pine. Chakastapaysin (Mirage du Soleil, Sunshine) was one
Minahikosis, the half Blackfoot and half Cree brother- of the Cree Chiefs who signed Treaty 6 in 1876.
in-law of Chief Piapot, held out for three years until Kahtapiskowat (Big Head) signed as Headman for the
finally being persuaded by his starving people to Chakastapaysin Band. The bands reserve was located on
sign, in 1879. the South Branch of the Saskatchewan River across from
Another holdout had been Kmiyistowesit (of the the Halcro Mtis Settlement and north east of the St-
Parklands People) who, in common with the other Louis Mtis Settlement. At the time of the Treaty
dissenting chiefs, maintained that since the Europeans their traditional territory went from Red Deer Hill in
were the cause of the buffalos disappearance it was the west to the Birch Hills and Carrot River valley in
now their responsibility to provide for the natives. the east. At the time of the Resistance very few of
Kmiyistowesit carried his objections to the point of the band members were actually living on the reserve.
threatening to seize the trading post at Duck Lake, - They would later split over support for the 1885
which was in his tribes hunting territory. Resistance.34
Authorities responded by sending a North-West Mounted
Police detachment to reinforce the trading post; they HBC earned him the reputation of Company Chief.
fed 7000 hungry people out of their own rations, an 33
According to Cree oral history, Pitikwahanapiwiyin got his
act Ottawa considered to be encouraging holdouts; name because he had a special ability to attract buffalo
Ottawas principle weapon for bringing people into into pounds. Sometimes a herd of buffalo were stampeded
line was to starve them, withholding promised food. into this trap, on other occasions the bison were drawn in
quietly by a person dressed in a buffalo pelt and using a
One plains Cree chief who got along reasonably well bell to capture the herds attention... Pitikwahanapiwiyin
with the whites,32 in contrast to Mistahimaskwa, was once lured five hundred buffalo into his pound, therefore
earning him the name Poundmaker.
32 34
Chiefs who got along well with the whites earned the Kahtapiskowat (Big Head) and his followers (18 extended
mistrust of their own people, such as Mimiy, called Pigeon, family members) did not support the Resistance. Chief
also known as Gabriel Cte, head of the Swan River Chakastapaysin and three other families (17 members in all)
Saulteaux, a signer of Treaty 4 whose relationship with the were reportedly involved in the 1885 Resistance.
as it will help them too. There are a lot of
half-breeds who want to take the treaty and
Kmiyistowesit join the reserves, and who would be of
assistance; but were told that they could not
Walker planned a meeting of the commission at the come in, as they had white blood in their
Batoch ferry before discussions. Kmiyistowesit veins. Some of the families of half-breeds
(Beardy), chief of the Willow Band Plains Cree, hoped were in the treaty, and the men would like to
to reach them first to present his demands for a come in. He hoped a favorable view would be
special deal - bigger treaty payments for himself and taken of their request
his friends. If not for Walkers appearance, the
commission might have had trouble protecting the
treaty cash they carried. Kmiyistowesit, seeing a
police uniform for the first time, withdrew... but not
for long.
Back well before the treaty money was paid, Isap-muxica
Kmiyistowesit was first in line to receive the
twenty-five dollars, which each chief was entitled. Isap-muxica (Issapmahksika, Crow Indians Big
He retired and reappeared looking like a different Foot), called Crowfoot, and occasionally known in
man, wearing different war-paint and headdress, and French as Pied de Corbeau, was born into the Blood
went through the line again to collect the fifteen tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which at the time
dollars each headman could claim. He once more also included the Blackfoot and Piegan tribes; as an
reappeared, wearing only a breechcloth, and was able infant he was given the child name Astohkomi (Shot
to collect the twelve dollars to which every man was Close), and [ ] won distinction for his scouting
entitled to claim. abilities and his bravery in battles with warring
tribes; he lived in the open prairies and woodlands.
It was government practice to supply all the natives His fathers name was Istowun-ehpata (Packs a Knife)
attending a treaty signing with beef, flour, tea and and his mother was called Axkahp-say-pi (Attacked
sugar, but the herd of 145 cattle had mysteriously towards Home).
vanished. The cattle had been brought along because In 1832, Astohkomis brother, Iron Shield was
there were no wild cattle in the region and no born: He later became Chief Bull.
buffalo. Searching revealed nothing and the cattle
were never found. Although Kmiyistowesit could never Istowun-ehpata died in a raid on the Crows when
be proven guilty of any involvement... his innocence Astohkomi was five and, in 1835, Astohkomis mother
was suspect. remarried to Akay-nehka-simi (Many Names), who was
from the Biter Band. She took Astohkomis brother
Iron Shield with her when her and her new husband
Mistahimaskwa left, but left Astohkomi behind because she didnt
want him to be separated from his grandfather, Scabby
Fort Pitt was a long drive from Fort Carlton by Bull.
democrat, a test of fitness for both horses and rider. Taken to the Blackfoot tribe the boy was given his
At Pitt, James MacKay was greeted by Chiefs James family name of Kyi-i-staah (Bear Ghost), and later
Seenum, called Pakan-nuk (hard nut to crack) a received his fathers name of Istowun-ehpata.
Christian convert - and Weekaskookwasayin (Sweet As was customary, Kyi-i-staah, when in his teens,
Grass), both of them peasant people. began to accompany older warriors on raids against
Weekaskookwasayin was more interested in conservation enemy tribes. During a raid for horses on a Crow camp
and saving the buffalo than treaty money. in Montana, he was wounded but performed bravely: a
Mistahimaskwa was also there but never agreed to the musket ball was shot through his arm, yet he continued
reservation nor the surrender of aboriginal rights. on and broke through the Crow defenses, charging into
Mistahimaskwa had refused the gifts offered him the camp ahead of the others before collapsing.
during Treaty 6 negotiations: He did not want to be No-okska-stumik (Three Bulls), Kyi-i-staahs step-
baited so that the government officials could put a brother, helped him back to camp. Everyone decided
rope around his neck, which was interpreted as a Kyi-i-staah was entitled to a heros name for which
fear of hanging instead of a loss of freedom. He did he was given his adult name Isap-muxica, a name that
not like the terms of Treaty 6, in particular those had been owned by a famous Blackfoot Chief... a
provisions for Canadian law to become the law of the relative killed several years earlier, who had placed
land. Perceiving that the treaty would forfeit his his foot in a large footprint in the mud by a fleeing
peoples autonomy, he refused to sign in 1876, but was Crow warrior. (Properly, the name Isap-muxica
forced to sign in 1882 at Fort Walsh, to get rations translates as Crow Indians Big Foot, but it was
for his people, who were reduced to 247 followers and shortened to Crowfoot by police scout and
in no position to argue when offered a remote reserve interpreter Jeremy Potts.)
near Fort Pitt far to the north.
Shortly after the negotiations for Treaty 6 at Fort Ta-tanka-I-yotanka (Sitting Buffalo)
Carlton in 1876, Alexander Cayen dit Boudreau, a red
haired Mtis also known as Chief Kee-too-way-how An unexpected problem for the North-West Mounted
(Sounding with Flying Wings), argued that Mtis needs Police was the influx of Sioux in the territory
be considered: following the Little Big Horn massacre in 1876.
Instead of having a regional problem to deal with, as
We hear that the government are sending earlier in Red River, the question of the Sioux
instructors. They are all from below, and if refugees was of national concern.
I were to have one, I would rather have one For four troubled years after the bloody and tragic
from the country, who understands the massacre, on 26 June 1876, Chief Ta-tanka-I-yotank,
language, and with whom I could speak face to born about 1834 in buffalo country, and the Sioux
face, without an interpreter. There are not people became Canadas unwanted, unwelcomed guests.
enough instructors sent up, and if more are The belligerent, 5000 member tribe looking for a
needed, I hope half-breeds will be selected, permanent settlement at Wood Mountain, in south
Saskatchewan, pleaded with the Canadian government for for the use of alcohol, endeavouring to drown
a reserve, contending that they were originally from grief with the poisonous beverage.
Red River. - Canada did not want them and practically
starved the Sioux back across the medicine line.
Having crossed the line in late 1876, early 1877, The Countess of Dufferin
the Sioux set up camp at Wood Mountain. There were
few mounted police at Fort MacLeod. The commissioner Lashed to a Red River barge, the Selkirk, a small,
sent an urgent message to Major James Morrow Walsh, on sturdy locomotive, the Countess of Dufferin, arrived
sick leave in the east, to return and assume liaison in St-Boniface on 9 October 1877. Accompanying her
duty with the Sioux. - Over the next four years the were six flatcars, a caboose, and a quantity of wood
Americans continually tried to persuade Ta-tanka-I- ties to carry the rails. Joseph Whitehead hoped to
yotank to return. have the engine in Winnipeg before the departure of
The presence of the Sioux in Canada was an the Governor-General and Lady Dufferin, to have the
invitation to trouble; 5000 extra Indians looking for later christen the locomotive. But the steamboat was
food would surely deplete wildlife and cause natives running late.
to go hungry. A worse danger was that Ta-tanka-I- As the vice-regal party was traveling upstream of
yotank would rekindle old hatreds and cause an inter- the Red, returning to Ottawa, members of the party
tribal war, or establish him as a supreme leader and requested a temporary stop at Fishers Landing. Lady
organize a broad assault on Canadian authority, Dufferin boarded the barge, remarking how radiant the
attacking Canadian settlements: (After vanquishing new locomotive looked and graciously consented to let
Canadian resistance, triumphant Indians could cross it carry her name.
the boundary and wreak vengeance there.) - Ta-tanka-I- Unloaded at St-Boniface, the engine continued under
yotank proposed this to the Blackfoot chief, Isap- its own steam and went to work on the new line the
muxica, but he was, instead, influenced to surrender next day, and every day until the line was completed.
without resistance: Isap-muxica was a noted warrior, It began hauling trains when the main line of the CPR
renowned for his bravery and abilities scouting; he was completed to Winnipeg, and then transferred to
realized the whites were all-powerful, and decided not broader service.
to participate in an uprising.
Kept in a state of hunger, an effective instrument
used against the Sioux, intended to persuade them to Treaty 7
return to the United States, where they had a reserve
- Sioux numbers gradually dwindled. The last to To clear the way of opposition to the construction
surrender to the cruel threat of starvation was Ta- of the railroad, Lieutenant-Governor David Laird and
tanka-I-yotank, whom returned to the Standing Rock North-West Mounted Police Commissioner James P.
Reservation, in North Dakota, on 5 December 1890. MacLeod were appointed to treat with the three
Blackfoot tribes, and two smaller tribes, the Stoney
For a time only the Macutetis challenged the and Sarcee. Fort MacLeod was chosen as the meeting
Indians for domination of the North-West. The place; a choice unwisely made without the consultation
Dominion government still faced the problem of of the First Nation Chief Isap-muxica , who ruled
securing lands without arousing the hostility of the that the negotiations would be at Blackfoot Crossing
Natives. They wanted to avoid the savage Indian wars on the Bow River, (south of present-day Cluney), and
going on south of the border. nowhere else: The date would be 17 September 1877.
The only way was to establish agreements both sides Laird, still in residency at Swan River, was in the
would honour; precedents found in treaties which the midst of preparing for the move to the new territorial
authorities of New France had concluded with people of capital at Battleford. He left Swan River on 11
the pays den haut, and in treaties like those the August 1877 in a horse-drawn democrat, and arrived at
Quakers made with the Indians in Pennsylvania. Battleford thirteen days later. Turning onto the
trail to Fort MacLeod, he began the 365 mile journey,
In 1877, the Minister of the Interiors Annual which took him ten days to travel, and he still had
Report claimed: the trip to Blackfoot Crossing. The commission was
ready on the appointed day, but large numbers of Blood
The Blackfoot Indians are a bold and warlike race. and Peigan, exhibiting a typical scorn for the white
mans obsession with time, had gone hunting buffalo
It should have also said that they were the first and would be late.
Indians in the North-West to acquire the horse, and The commission was annoyed but agreed to await the
that they were the best of horsemen. Powerful and hunters return. The meeting began with five thousand
much-feared, the Blackfoot Confederacy Blackfoot, men, women and children assembled on the grassland.
Blood, and Peigan were an intractable people Lieutenant-Governor Laird assured the big audience,
resembling the Sioux in the United States. For 100 through his interpreter, that the Queen was concerned
years traders and trappers were warned to stay away for the health and happiness of her Indian children.
from their territory, south Alberta, and most He explained the proposed reservations and promised
travelers accepted the warning. The territory was help in starting farms and ranches, schools, money
shunned by homesteaders and ranchers, until after the payments the same as to the Cree.
treaty. Sad experiences with the white man, disease Chief Isap-muxica, a man of wisdom, wasnt ready to
and whiskey, made them even more hostile. Both evils answer, and no one would speak before him. He needed
were at their worst before the arrival of the North- a few days to confer with the Great Spirit.
West Mounted Police.
Tribes suffered from small pox. Father Constantine What you will eat from this money will have
Scollen, a missionary among them, spoke with your people buried all over the hills. You
authority: will be tied down, you will not wander the
plains; the whites will take your land and
In 1870, came the disease so fatal to fill it.
Indians, the small pox, which tolled upon the A shaman to Isap-muxica
Blackfoot Confederacy with terrible effect,
destroying between six-to-eight thousand of Two days later he sent word that he would speak.
them. Surviving relatives went more-and-more Again, five thousand people came together. There was
no alternative. In spite of consequences, Isap- disturbed, as Breland had no prestige in the
muxica agreed to sign the treaty and changed the life Macutetis community - calling the appointment unjust,
of his people forever. - It was with a strange mixture he predicted trouble.
of resignation, diplomacy, and gratitude, that Isap- In 1878, Manitoba elected its only Macutetis
muxica, paramount chief of the Blackfoot Confederacy, premiere, English speaking John Norquay, by this time,
made his statement. - Isap-muxica stood with dignity though, the flood of immigrants had already turned
and made a short speech, the oration of the scholar Manitoba into an Ontarian community.
concluded, thus:
I am satisfied. I will sign the treaty. The Last Spike was Driven into Manitoba Soil
(He would be the first to sign and the last to break After many vexatious delays due to the failure of
it.) operating funds expected from Ottawa, on 5 December
Signing followed. The treaty payment made to 4392 1878, the last rail was laid and the last spike driven
men, women and children, was $52,954.00 in Manitoba - now connecting it by rail with the outer
Isapo-Muxica had not accepted any food rations until world.
after - no bribery was suggested. Then, he ate freely The first regular train on the Pembina Branch
while cannons saluted. arrived in St-Boniface shortly after 11 p.m., Saturday
7 December 1878, with twenty passengers. The train
Implicit, it was recognized that the Indians had an consisted of a locomotive, a passenger coach, two
original title to the land, and that the title was to cabooses and some flat cars. - Its first regular
be transferred, by the treaty, sealed by a suitable departure as the next morning at 4 a.m.
payment. Far-sighted chiefs were aware of the decline
of the buffalo was only one sign among many that the
old order of the west was coming to an end. Their The Home Farm Experiment
people would have to accommodate the new. - Some even
welcomed the arrival of the NWMP as a stabilizing Alarming reports of destitution and starvation were
force in the plains. arriving in the east from the north-west: An ambitious
Most bands had selected reserves, some starting a government plan to feed and instruct the aboriginal
new way of life with government assistance. There peoples in farming was hastily contrived, in Ottawa,
were delays in surveying sites and providing needed during the fall and winter of 1878-79 - to establish
supplies and equipment; and, the Indians wanted to home farms at 15 sites. At these farms, on or near
hunt buffalo. reserves, instructors were to raise large quantities
As early as 1877, First Nation complaints about of provisions to support, not only themselves and
mismanagement were frustrated by misguided their families and employees, but the neighboring
bureaucratic paternalism and compounded by ineptitude. aboriginal population. These farms were to serve as
Mistahimaskwa was blamed for the problems! model farms for reserve farmers and, from time to
time, to assist in the breaking of the land, seeding
and harvesting, and the building of houses, barns, and
root hoot houses.
The Canadian government had secured its immediate At two supply farms in the Treaty 7 district, large
objective... securing the western frontier. Land numbers of produce were expected to be raised, but
titles were still a problem. No agreement had been farmers were not given the additional responsibility
made in the Macutetis community as to how it should of instructing the aboriginals: Blood, Blackfoot and
be solved. Those in the Cyprus Hills and Fort Peigan, and their mortal enemies, the Sarcee and
QuAppelle regions were petitioning on the basis of Stoney.
aboriginal right. Others wanted land grants as had It was a poorly conceived plan without any knowledge
been awarded in the Manitoba Act; they wanted help of the aboriginal people or regions soil or climate,
changing over to farming as the Indians were being and the men chosen as instructors were unfamiliar with
helped. In 1877, the year of the Blackfoot Treaty, the conditions of life in the west, and knew nothing
such a petition had 275 signatures on it. of the natives. It only made sense that an instructor
St.-Laurents initial petitions did not mention any be a man of the country who understands the language,
relationship with the natives, but did specify a and, in 1879, an anonymous First Nations spokesman
desire for its river lot system to be recognized by was quoted as saying, with whom I could speak face to
surveyors. The officials claimed that it wasnt face, without an interpreter.
necessary. They could divide the square survey up The official rational for not choosing locals was
themselves into the desired river lots. Still, they that a stranger would be more likely to carry out
wanted official government recognition of their duties efficiently, not having favorites and treating
system, not an ad hoc adaption. Also, if they did as all fairly and alike. All those chosen for a position
Ottawa suggested, they could not have official pegs to of instructor, a patronage appointment, were selected
indicate boundaries. To add to the confusion, survey from a list supplied to Sir John A. MacDonald by
maps were slow in coming, and when they did the Laurence VanKoughnet.
Macutetis could not make legal claim to their land. The tasks assigned instructors were beyond the
David Mills, Minister of the Interior from 1876 to resources and capabilities of any individual however
1878, assured them procedures would be hastened, but well-acquainted with conditions in the north-west.
did not specify the basis that grants would be made Instructors had difficulty in establishing even the
on; however, in his view, the Macutetis would be most modest farms. The government was responsible for
treated the same as the settlers. the support of instructors and their families and
The Macutetis, deprived of their own council - and employees. The farms dismal returns contributed
thus their ability to act on their own - petitioned almost nothing to the expense of running them.
for schools, at least help in getting them Farmers could not attend, both, to their own farms and
established. Ottawa, as usual, was slow but assist on reserve farms. Instructors would seldom
eventually agreed to help. They also asked for two visit the reserve farms and lacked even a basic
representatives on the North-West Council; Pascal knowledge about the people. The program turned out to
Breland, a long-time member of the Assiniboine be a disaster, an administrative nightmare.
Council was appointed. Lieutenant-Governor Morris was Difficulties with personnel arose early, and the
program was characterized by resignations and dismals. to the reserve, east of Calgary. South Alberta Bloods
Instructors were angered that the government charged settled on the largest reserve in Canada, south of
them for board and rent, and for the food consumed Forth MacLeod, and the Peigans near Pincher Creek.
which they had raised. The program floundered. In They were obliged to turn to ranching and farming, log
the House of Commons, government critics claimed that houses replaced tipis, Catholic, Methodist and
instructors were incompetent carpetbaggers. Anglican missionaries built boarding schools and took
One Member of Parliament argued that the program was children away from their homes. *
an enormous waste of money, because any effort to The government expected the Indians to become self-
civilize Indians was inevitably doomed. Government supporting through farming; when this did not happen
defenders of the program argued that its essential they set up a welfare system to them fed and quiet.
problem lay with the aboriginals, who were idlers by The ration house became the center of life on the
nature, and uncivilized. reserve. But, there were few, if any, long-term
It was Prime Minister MacDonalds opinion that the programs... the government feeding them until they
Indians were not suited to agriculture: died off of common diseases, such as, tuberculosis,
venereal disease, or scrofula.35
They have not the ox-like quality of the The Indians were catastrophically affected. Their
Anglo-Saxon; they will not put their neck to memories and myths probed into the past. They lived
the yolk. off the bounty of the hunt which provided in abundance
for everything needed for their highly specialized way
North-West non-aboriginal residents viewed the of life, physically sustained them, and encompassed
program as unfair; too much was being done to equip their myths and ceremonials and sustaining their whole
the Indians - as more was available to them than to culture, not just their economy. With the death of
the true homesteader upon which the prosperity of the buffalo, thousands of years of tradition and
the region depended. This ingrained idea of the heritage died. Proud, fierce, self-sufficient
Native farmer being lavishly provided with farm warriors and hunters were reduced to hunger and
equipment and other assistance was conducive to the poverty.
destruction of self-reliance and calculated to give Except for the orphaned, sick and aged, Ottawas
them a false impression of what the government owed work for rations policy was enforced throughout the
them. 1880s. The Famine Clause of Treaty 6 was interpreted
The government, which supplied modest rations to to mean only general famine. The warranted ration
reserves, and some instruction, found much of their allowance for individuals per diem, consisting of 13
time issuing relief in the form of musty, rusty ounces (383 grams) of flour, 3 ounces (99 grams) of
salt-pork in exchange for assigned work. Non-natives bacon, and 6 ounces (170 grams) of beef, was ordered
were critical of the distribution of rations as a reduced by Laurence VanKoughnet.36
reward for idleness, which gave the Indians an In 1880, Mistahimaskwa and Minahikosis headed south
advantage over the struggling farmers. But, by 1884, to the remaining buffalo on the Milk and Missouri
already much modified, this policy was officially Rivers. They met with Ril and he was instrumental in
retired. Instructors remained and population persuading the American Indians, the south
increased. Assiniboine, Blackfoot, Crow and Gros Venture, to
allow the northerners to hunt.
The missionaries, especially, foresaw the imminent
end of the hunt. They had urged the Macutetis early
NWMP experienced its first casualty: one man killed in 1870, to stake out strip farms along the
by an unknown assailant. Saskatchewan River at places like St-Laurent and
Batoch, some resorted to places like Lac Ste-Anne and
[ ] Within the last eighteen months there Lac La Bich, where diminishing returns from hunting
were nearly 150 murders committed in the were complemented by a certain amount of fishing and
North-West Territories, and no person has been cultivation. The Macutetis proved more flexible than
brought to trial. No doubt those were mostly the Indians and returned to their old occupations as
slain in Indian fights with traders from carriers and freighters.
Missouri and Montana, of the most reckless 1880 was the last year that Gabriel Dumont led the
character who introduced the vilest passions Saskatchewan Mtis out on the hunt. They returned
of human nature in the territories and with very little meat. The Red River hunt had
slaughtered the poor people with their vanished years ago. After 1880, buffalo herds were
improved firearms and dealing death and virtually extinct on the Great Plains, though bison of
destruction by their vile intoxicating another breed survived in the northern woodlands. -
liquors. Far into the 1880s trains of Red River carts lumbered
Hon. Alexander Mackenzie and screeched over the Carlton Trail from Fort Garry
Parliamentary Debate - NWT Act (1875) to Fort Carlton on the North Saskatchewan River.

The Last Hunt
In the autumn of 1879, Pitikwahanapiwiyin had
In the mid-1870s Canada had taken over Ruperts accepted a reserve and settled with 182 followers on
Land, and a newly created Council of the North-West thirty square miles along the Battle River about forty
Territories had passed an ordinance forbidding miles west of Battleford. Frustrated by the
wasteful ways of killing buffalo. - But it was too governments failure to fulfill treaty promises,
late. The Macutetis and Indians - who would have Pitikwahanapiwiyin became active in Indian politics:
benefited - interpreted this as another intolerable representing the Cree at inter-band meetings and
infringement of their aboriginal rights. acting as a spokesperson with the government: (In
By 1880, buffalo herds had been virtually
exterminated in the Blackfoot territory as a result of 35
A constitutional disease characterized mainly by chronic
extensive slaughter by white hunters and increasing enlargement and degeneration of the lymphatic glands - a
incursions of Cree and half-breeds from the north. goiter: Also called the Kings Evil and Struma.
The buffalo had been the stuff of life, with their 36
destruction the Blackfeet had no recourse but to go Deputy Superintendant-General of Indian Affairs from 1874
to 1893
1881, the boundaries of Manitoba were extended to Samson (inheritor of the mantle of Maskepetoon), wrote
include areas ceded by Treaties 1, 2 and 3.) to Sir John A. MacDonald, the Prime Minister whom also
In July of 1881, Pitikwahanapiwiyin was chosen to held the interior portfolio of the Superintendent
accompany the Marques of Lorne (Campbell), Governor General. They wrote:
General of Canada, on a tour from Battleford to
Blackfoot Crossing.37 During this trip, acting as If no attention is paid our case now we
guide and interpreter, Pitikwahanapiwiyin impressed shall conclude that the treaty made with us
the vice-regal party with his knowledge of Cree six years ago was a meaningless matter of form
culture and his philosophy as a peacemaker. and that the white man has doomed us to
Pitikwahanapiwiyin, too, was impressed with the annihilation little by little. But the motto
information gained from the dignitaries and several of the Indian is, If we must die by violence,
months later, when providing a feast for his band, he let us do it quickly.
urged his followers to remain peaceful:
Even Pitikwahanapiwiyin, who was co-operative at
The whites will fill the country and they first, became disgruntled and consulted with
will dictate to us as they please. It is Mistahimaskwa, whom thought it was a good idea to go
useless to dream that we can frighten them; to Ottawa to see if someone really was in charge of
that time has passed. Our only resource is Indian Affairs.
our work, our industry, our farms. Despite his reputation as a troublemaker,
Mistahimaskwa was opposed to violence, and even
On 1 January 1882, Chief Pitikwahanapiwiyin prevented it. - Recognizing negotiations route to
(Poundmaker) spoke to his band at a feast he hosted: working out constructive measures, the First Nations
had to get together amongst themselves.
Let us be like one man...
Over the next few years, Pitikwahanapiwiyins band
While traveling with the Governor-General Marques of grew to include: Cree, Nakoda, and even a number of
Lorne [Campbell] and Mr. Dewdney a major cause of Macutetis. In 1883 as part of a government economy
dissent in the northwest - he heard many things which drive many Indian Department employees were dismissed
opened his eyes. Rations were to be stopped at Eagle and rations to the Indians reduced. Delays in
Hills very soon, at least greatly reduced, only this delivering supplies caused rumours to spread that
winter and next summer to receive any help. The rations would be curtailed completely, and the Indians
railway would be close by next summer, or fall, and left to starve. Moreover, as complaints by the agents
white settlers would fill the country and dictate as that the Indians were starving after the severe winter
they would please. We cannot be frightened by them, of 188384 went unheeded by officials in Ottawa,
he said, Our only resource is our work, the industry Pitikwahanapiwiyin was unable to maintain peace among
of our farms, and the necessity of earning our bread his followers, particularly the younger warriors.
by sweat does not discourage me. Let us be like one In June 1884, many Indians, including Mistahimaskwa
man and work... and his followers, Minahikosis, and other First
Nations leaders assembled at Pitikwahanapiwiyins
The Canadian Pacific Railway opened the region to reserve to discuss the worsening situation of the
agricultural settlement. Wheat was raised on large Indians. The chiefs planned a council at Battleford
scale, and ranching also became important. Many towns to discuss the idea of creating one large reserve for
with churches, newspapers and schools, were all Plains Cree. At the 1884 Thirst and Hunger
established by settlers from Ontario, and in 1883, Dances, however, a crisis developed that could have
their capital city, Regina, was declared. resulted in a massacre of North-West Mounted Police.
Louis Ril fils was living in Montana, and in this
year became a citizen of the United States. The Mistahimaskwa called for a Thirst Dance on
Macutetis people, meanwhile, were witnessing the Pitikwahanapiwiyins reserve. It was the largest
destruction of the once great buffalo herds, now ever unified effort by the Cree, more than two thousand
diminishing. And as new settlers laid claim to their participated. Authorities were unable to stop it
land, the Mtis leaders sought out Ril, asking him to despite frantic efforts.
return to the Saskatchewan River Valley and help to Mistahimaskwas aim was to get a single
uphold their native rights, for which they would once representative for four years. He also wanted the
again have to stand united and fight. Cree to join in obtaining a single, large reserve on
the North Saskatchewan River. He argued that Treaty 6
By the winter of 1883, some Native bands were had unilaterally changed in Ottawa from what it once
becoming desperate. On 7 January 1883, the Bears was during negotiations, saying:
Hill (now Hobbema, AB) chiefs Bobtail, Ermineskin,
Samson, and others, wrote directly to Macdonald in Half the sweet things are taken out and lots
Ottawa: of sour things put in.
If we must die by violence let us do it In spite of the efforts of the North-West Mounted
quickly. And, the treaty is a farce enacted Police to disperse them, more than 1000 Cree put on a
to kill us quietly [ ] let us die at once. Thirst Dance their major religious celebration in
which the participants reaffirmed their faith in the
There was frost and poor crops in 1883. sun spirit. By the middle of the month over 2000
people had gathered. The Thirst Dance celebration was
disrupted by the North-West Mounted Police pursuing an
The Thirst Dance Indian alleged to have assaulted John Craig, the farm
instructor on an adjacent reserve. Anticipating a
In 1883, three Cree chiefs, Sehkosowayanew possible outbreak of violence, the NWMP fortified the
(Ermineskin), his brother Keskayiwew (Bobtail), and Battleford agency and sent ninety men to arrest the
accused. Violence between the Indian bands and the
37 police force was averted by the peacekeeping efforts
Battlefords importance was diminished in 1883 with the of Pitikwahanapiwiyin and Mistahimaskwa.
decision to use a southern route for the Canadian Pacific
Railway and the capital was moved to Regina.
However, Pitikwahanapiwiyin and Mistahimaskwa other Blackfoot chiefs to visit Regina and Winnipeg.
refused to turn the accused man over to the police As the commissioner had hoped, the visit to the large
whilest the Thirst Dance was in progress; white settlements shattered the Indians belief that
Pitikwahanapiwiyin offered himself as a hostage. The they were more numerous than the whites. This
police threatened to arrest the wanted man forcibly - knowledge had a great impact upon Isap-muxicas
Pitikwahanapiwiyin denounced their actions, angrily behaviour during the Canadian Invasion of the North-
waving a four-bladed war club at them, but the West in 1885. Undoubtedly his sympathies were with
fugitive was taken into custody and escorted to the Cree, led by Mistahimaskwa, and Isap-muxica own
Battleford where he was sentenced to a week in jail. adopted son, Pitikwahanapiwiyin, but he believed they
Bloodshed was prevented, but the council was disbanded could not win. In addition, neither the Piegans nor
to avert further trouble. The discontent reflected in the Bloods would support their hereditary enemy, the
this altercation was rampant throughout much of the Cree, and the Blood tribe even offered to send
prairies, among Macutetis and Indians, and resulted warriors to fight for the government.
in Macutetis spokesmen being sent to invite Louis For the first several days of the rebellion, Isap-
Ril fils to return from Montana and seek a solution muxica was non-committal, both to rebel runners who
to Macutetis and Indian problems. visited his camp and to government officials. Only
after he had ascertained the continued hostility of
the Bloods and Piegans, as well as hearing promises of
Edgar Dewdney the government, did he finally pledge his loyalty to
the crown.
Whilest Mistahimaskwa was working to unify the
tribes, Edgar Dewdney, Lieutenant-General of the
North-West Territories from 1881 to 1888, worked to A Square Plot Survey
divide them (by differential distribution of rations,
using food as an instrument to quiet the people when Ottawa had already decided on a square plot survey
the situation threatened to get out of hand). He as a settlement pattern in the west, however, anyone
invited Isap-muxica to visit Regina and Winnipeg, and who settled the region prior to 1870 would be entitled
the Blackfoot chief was given a royal reception. On to a special survey to maintain original boundaries.
seeing the size of the settlements he was convinced of After 1870, settlers would have no legal right to
the futility of violence. special considerations, although surveyors were
In fear of an Amerind war, Dewdney, violating the instructed to accommodate special concerns as best as
law, and basic human rights, amended the Indian Act they could, which was usually done to the
providing for the arrest of any Native found on a satisfaction of both parties. But not so at the South
reserve not his own without official approval. He was Branch, neither could the Macutetis get recognition
determined that no chief ever again convey a large of their land claims on the basis of aboriginal right,
assembly. The police view simplified the situation: as that had already been denied, nor on the basis of
armed bodies of men, white or native, would not be prior settlers rights, as they were considered
permitted to roam the country at large. Although squatters on the very land which their bloodlines
confrontations were increasing there was little tamed prior to the advent of the whites; on the other
violence. side, the Macutetis were negligent about filing
claims for patent and why should they have to file
Ottawas view was the Native Rights were not their papers to claim what is inalienable theirs.
problem; and, it was the Indians view that Ottawa Government surveyors came with no solutions which
should pay the piper for provoking disaster. the Macutetis could accept. The Mtis of Manitoba
Indian rights over lands were transferred to the were no better off, despite the huge land grant of
Dominion: In return, tribes received reserve land on the Manitoba Act.39 Grants were plagued by delays,
the basis of 128 acres per head. They were expected speculation and theft. Even established river lots
to settle there and give up their nomadic way of life. were not secure; out of the 93 Mtis claims, 84 were
The First Nations were induced to sell their rejected because of insufficient cultivation. Five
birthrights for a few tawdry gifts and uncertain claimants whose houses were considered as adequate,
promises. Derisory annual payments of a few dollars and which had cultivated at least five acres, received
per person were thrown into the deal, along with 80 acres (16 hectares). - Four had cultivated 10 acres
medals and uniforms for the chiefs, rations of and received 80 acres (32 hectares)
ammunition, fishing twine, medicine chests, and
educational and agricultural assistance at turning the
proud hunters into farmers and settlers.
Although still allowed to hunt over unsettled land, In 1884, the Prime Minister and Lady MacDonald
it soon became a meaningless privilege as bison visited the west on the Countess of Dufferin. He was
numbers declined. anxious to travel to the end of CPR construction in
Many bands and chiefs, especially among the Cree, the mountains...
did not easily accept government attempts made after
treaties38 forced them to abandon their traditional Like the thunderbird of old I shall rise
ways. Their alliance was broken when they could not again out of the sea.
resist the temptation to steal horses of their Chief Dan George,
traditional enemies. Lament for Confederation
In 1884, after one of Rils followers had been

arrested in the Blackfoot camp, the Indian Louis David Ril fils martyr
commissioner, Edgar Dewdney, invited Isap-muxica and
While it can be said that the Macutetis culture was
38
Treaty 4, created in September 1884, concerned the west
syncretic in essence, there was no question that its
Cree and Ojibwa of the south plains from Lake Winnipegosis predominant element was native. About 35,000 Indians
to Alberta. Treaty 6, created at Fort Carlton, concerned
the plains and woodland Cree in the basin of the North
39
Saskatchewan River. Treaty 7, created in September 1887 at A vague amendment in 1878 to the Dominion Lands Act
Blackfoot Crossing, concerned the tribes of British appearing to recognize Mtis rights had not been followed
Columbia and the Stoneys and Assiniboine. up.
were living in the North-West Territories and Montana hands. Now, nearly two decades later, they were
in a destitute condition. meeting yet again.
By 1884, the Macutetis were far from a homogenous On 30 March 1884, thirty Macutetis met at the home
culture: There were those who lived in two-story of Abraham Montour in St-Laurent; they recalled that
houses, working as freighters and traders, those who Lord Lorne,40 during his 1881 tour of the west, had
lived in tipis and still others who had become treaty promised to bring the Mtis problem to the attention
Indians. Some worked for the government as of the government; but, nothing beneficial for the
agricultural instructors, (although few Macutetis Macutetis people happened. Their cry was similar to
were farmers), or as clerks and interpreters. that of the Indians:
The Ottawa government has been maliciously The government stole our lands and is now
ignoring the rights of the aboriginal during laughing at us!
the last fifteen years. [ ] The Dominion had
taken the high-handed way of answering A few weeks later, at another meeting, it was
peaceable complaints by dispatching and decided to bring back Ril. On 4 June 1884, Dumont
reinforcing their Mounted Police. The avowed and three others: James Isbister, Mose Ouellette, and
purpose being to confirm in SK their Michel Dumas: on good horses, were riding towards
government spoliation and usurpation of the Montana, hoping to find Louis Ril fils and persuade
rights and liberties of all classes of men, him to return. They found him teaching school in the
except the resident oppressors: the HBC and western part of the state and living fairly quietly
land speculators. with his wife, Marguerite Bellehumeur, a Cree-speaking
Stanley, Birth of Western Canada, 316 Macutetis woman, and children: Jean-Marie and
Anglique. He hesitated about returning, but yielded
to Dumonts pleading - and Ril and his family
The Return of Ril accompanied Dumont back to Batoch.
Their reception was boisterous.
Gabriel Dumont: We have been forced to pay Ril was widely welcomed back: He stressed
for wood that we cut in the Wilderness. We pacifistic intentions, maintaining that the north-west
cannot let that happen. This tax is too should be a self-governing province and that the
much. We have come to you to find a way to Natives should be better treated; he spoke for many
stop this, because you are our (district) white settlers, too.
representative. You must see that this is The Macutetis wanted Ril appointed to the North-
not right and if you dont do something West Council, replacing Pascal Breland who was not
about it there will be more [trouble] to effectively representing their interests. The
come. settlers were worried, unsure of Rils relations with
Lawrence Clarke: I can do nothing myself: the the Indians. - Although Mistahimaskwa did not join
law has been passed. All the representatives him, the Cree chief told Ril that he was confident
were there when it was, and they were all in the Macutetis would not forget the First Nations in
favour of it. their fight for Mtis rights. Laurence VanKoughnet,
Dumont: Well, if it has become a law it must suspicious of Mistahimaskwa, ordered a reduction of
be abolished. the bands rations.
The Canadian government was already guilty of In 1884, poor crops were produced by a wet harvest.
ignoring the Mtis when negotiating the takeover of The people were becoming hungrier and hungrier. Even
Ruperts Land, to which the native peoples had a co-operative chiefs, Mistawasis and Ahchacoosacoota-
primary and inherent claim. To quell the ensuing coopits were complaining. Rations were not the only
insurrection, the government sent Colonel Wolseley and issue, but the quality of agents and farm instructors
a field force of 1200 men over the ninety-five day sent by Ottawa; although there were exceptions, these
land and water route from Collingwood to Red River. men had little or no knowledge of the natives and even
It seemed unthinkable, the same government and the less sympathy. - They usually tried to enforce
same Prime Minister, just fifteen years later, regulations by the book, without any consideration to
ignoring the deep concerns of the same people, would particular situations. Ottawas goal to transform the
commit the same sin... costing much more dearly in Amerinds into small scale farmers mired in
lives and dollars. regulations.
The Macutetis were a proud and independent people, On 16 December 1884, Ril petition Ottawa: People of
wanting most of all to be left alone to their hunting the North-West had every right to be treated with the
and simple social pleasures on their untilled land. full dignity of British subjects... which was not
Gabriel Dumont wrote the Prime Minister, but received happening. The list of complaints included Mtis and
no reply. The Mtis needed a second leader who would settlers issues. Ottawa acknowledged receipt of the
be strong where Dumont was weak. In a fight he would petition. The Macutetis were jubilant and honoured
be best, but Dumont was not a diplomat and could not Ril at a New Years Day celebration banquet, and gave
make a speech, though he could speak six Indian him money and a house with an illuminated address
languages. thanking him. Their optimism was premature - the most
In exasperation at not gaining the semblance of a Ottawa was prepared to do was to establish a
hearing, Dumont and other Macutetis leaders in commission to list those Macutetis resident in the
Saskatchewan country called for Louis Ril fils back north-west in 1870 and their claims, but were not
from exile. initially empowered to do anything else: Dewdney,
Dumont and Charles Nolin, former Conservative realizing too little, too late, tried to modify the
cabinet minister in Manitoba, brought no results. message before relaying it to the Mtis; but, the ploy
Ottawa was deaf to their voice. A vague amendment in did not work. On 8 February 1885, Ril replied:
1878 to the Dominion Lands Act appearing to recognize
Macutetis rights was not followed up. When ignored In forty days they shall have my answer.
before, during the political vacuum created the
passing away of the Hudson Bay Companys government,
they got results by taking matters into their own
40
John Douglas Sutherland Cambell, Governor-General 1878-83.
Rils relations with Father Alexis Andr were Eastern trading operations in India and the Orient.41
strained. He was beginning to set himself up as a Competition of the CPR was a vital step in Englands
prophet; aware of an anomaly - his position as U.S. plans for pursuing world conquest. (Great Britains
citizen Father Andr offered to return him to the War Office was embroiled in other armed conflicts
United States and leave the Macutetis to their own around the world and involved in serious conflict in
problems; but, they refused to let him go, and at a Russia. By March of 1885, a small contingent of
secret meeting agreed to take up arms if necessary... British war vessels was stationed on Canadas west
coast, waiting for reinforcements for transportation
To save our country. to the worlds battlefronts.)
Having petitioned for years without satisfaction,

the Macutetis armed themselves and declared a
The Anglo-Mtis, just prior to the invasion, Provisional Government at Batoch. (The origin of the
received title to plots of land and the radical trouble in Saskatchewan can be traced back to
European settlers had formed a Farmers Union, co- complaints of white settlers and the Macutetis
opted by the Conservative political machine. The regarding federal policies and administrative activity
powerful Blackfoot was neutralized by the Church and or inactivity in the west: The December 1884
government pressure because of its control of the food Petition of Rights was endorsed by both whites and
supply. And, Dewdneys actions to stop the flow of mixed-bloods the majority being Macutetis.)
ammunition into the north-west had, at the last
minute, influenced many groups of political insurgents Justice commands us to take up arms.
out of the struggle. Louis David Ril, Exovede
The Crisis of Confederation

Provisional Government
Margaret Bear and James Isbister (of Fort la
Corne) established a farm on the Lower North On 8 March 1885, Louis Ril fils announced his
Saskatchewan River and, on 3 June 1862, were the intention to form a provisional government and
first settlers in the area - originally known as the presented a ten-point Bill of Rights - in it, he
Isbister Settlement, it later became known as Prince maintained that the Macutetis of the North-West
Albert (P.A.). Territories should have the same rights to land grants
as those in Manitoba; that they should be issued
James Isbister became a founding member and took a patents to land and that the Districts of
leading role in the Settlers Union, established 16 Saskatchewan and Alberta be created provinces with
October 1883, to press for redress of the communities legislatures elected on the basis of representation
grievances regarding land. This union represented according to population.
the white majority as well as both the English and
French Macutetis communities. So that the people may no longer be subject
By 1884, both Macutetis communities were in to the despotism of Mr. Dewdney.
agreement with Gabriel Dumont that they should send
for Louis Ril fils. Isbister was the English Mtis He also asked for better provision of the Natives
representative that accompanied Dumont to Montana to and for respect of the lawful custom and usages of
ask for Rils assistance. the Macutetis.
Two days later the Exovedes begin a novena Ril

having broken with Father Andre by this time. Both
The sub-rosa activities of Lawrence Clarke and his novena and Rils forty days ended on March 18th.
clique of speculators required military conflict to Gabriel Dumont spoke - quietly and sadly to his
end a depression in the Prince Albert region. The CPR companions after the novena:
was facing imminent economic collapse due to the
political disaster of the Conservative government and We will have to walk in blood before the
the National Policy. Without the agricultural colony government will give us our rights.
to exploit, there would be insufficient capital and no
market for the creation and maintenance of a modern Knowing rebellion was being engineered by Lawrence
industrial state in the east of Canada. Clarke, the Conservative government in Ottawa let it
Graft and corruption surrounded the government and be known that the treatment of the Indians in the
the CPR syndicate weakening the moral and political future depended on the stand they now took.
fibre of the nation: The CPR was in control over the
future of the west. Speculators stood to lose
everything because of a shift of the CPR to the
south... and they blamed the Macdonald government. In the east, militias were already mobilized before
Former supporters were switching to the Liberal the outbreak of hostilities: three thousand troops had
party; Charles Mair, now involved in land speculation been recruited from the Maritimes, Qubec, Ontario,
in P.A., was one example of the disgusting businessmen and Manitoba. As early as March 25 th, before the
who blamed Macdonald for their losses in the incident at Duck Lake, the Winnipeg militia with
colonization scheme. Sir John A.s son in their ranks had begun the trek
The impending political crisis and economic into the north-west. The innocent recruits festered
collapse of the CPR had implications that Canada was with patriotic fervour.
little more than a colony of Great Britain, despite
the considerable power of the Montral merchants and
Toronto industrialists, represented in Ottawa by the 41
Cf., the Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising of
Macdonald government. British merchants needed a 1899-1900 was a turning point in China's history. Economic
Canadian transcontinental rail line to aid Far hardship, anti-foreign feeling resulting from the corrupt
and hopeless Manchu rule, and the Boxer humiliation brought
about by the Manchus, convinced many Chinese in an attempt
to rid China of all foreign influence.
William Cornelius Van Horne informed subordinates orders to get his supplies. Vermette and
that the CPR depended on its ability to get the Carrire replied that Gabriel Dumont and
Canadian troops transported to the battlefronts of the Maxime Lpine had given them definite orders
north-west; and, the troops were shipped from the east to seize his stores. Welsh says that White
to Winnipeg by the CPR, despite many unfinished Cap and Charles Trottier then forced him to
sections along the line troops were hauled over travel north with them toward Saskatoon.
these sections by horses pulling sleighs or simply There were about forty men in White Caps
walking. Some two of the troops, forced to ride in brigade and about twenty in Trottiers group.
open boxcars through the bitter winter, died of Welsh got away from the group at Saskatoon.
pneumonia en route; many others suffered from When White Cap and Trottier got to their camp
frostbite; most arrived in poor health because of the two miles past Saskatoon they sent Welshs
unnecessary hardships imposed upon them as the brother-in-law Frank Boyer to return and get
troops could have used the American line from Canada him, but Welsh declined. White Cap and his
East to St-Paul, Minnesota, where a line connected warriors traveled with Charles Trottier from
directly to Winnipeg. their reserve at Moose Woods, near Round
Prairie south of Saskatoon to join the
Louis David Ril fils spent that first winter fighting at Duck Lake, Touronds Coule and
improving public misunderstandings about his people, Batoch.
but on March 19th - St-Josephs Day42 - in the church
at St-Laurent, with Ril as political head and Dumont [ ]
as military leader the Exovede people formed a
temporary Provisional Government... as Ril had done I called to my guards and we returned to camp
at Red River. Gabriel Dumont spake: [from Saskatoon]. I told them what Trounce
[the Mayor of Saskatoon] had said-that orders
[I said] Let those who are willing to take had come from the Government to stop White Cap
up arms raise their hands. But, instead of and his Indians, who were claiming that the
raising only their hands, the whole crowd Half-Breeds were forcing them to join Ril.
stands up as one man. They let out cries of White Cap declared that the rumor was not
joy and shout: If we must die for our true, and that he and his band would go
country, we will die together. through, that nobody would stop him. [At
Saskatoon] everything went off as we had
Ril was moderate and willing to compromise, but the arranged. Trounce and Trottier took one side
Canadians were not. Enthusiasm brought about a sense of the road, and White Cap and I the other.
of belligerence and there was looting at a Duck Lake Each man was challenged as he went through,
store. - The Exovedes armed themselves. and asked if he were going to join Ril of his
The Exovedes had seized the Indian agent and other own will. When the last rig had gone through,
officials, and then occupied the church of St- I wheeled my horse around, and said, Im the
Antoine-de-Padoue at Batoch; they cut the telegraph only man thats forced to go through, and I
lines from Regina to Prince Albert, but left those to wont go through.
Battleford intact. Good-bye, I called to the warriors.43
Then, Ril emulated his actions of 68-70, going to
Fort Carlton on March 21st - calling on it to
surrender...
In 1885, Isbister was imprisoned for five weeks - at
News of this outbreak aroused people in the Prince Albert as a suspected rebel - until the
Dominions east, and a force of 4400 men was sent into Resistance was crushed. Upon his release he protested
the Saskatchewan District to punish those Mtis the suppression of civil rights by the government and
beasts and Indian savages. for his efforts he was attacked in the Prince Albert
Times.
Wah-pah-ha-ska
The Battle of Duck Lake
At the beginning of the 1885 resistance, Dumont sent
Franois Vermette and Napoleon Carrire as emissaries Five days later, on March 25 th, HBC factor Lawrence
to Prairie Ronde to bring the Macutetis and Wah-pah- Clarke44 successfully manipulated Superintendent Major
ha-skas Dakota group north to Batoch. They Leif Crozier to attempt a sortie against the Exovedes
proceeded to Prairie Ronde on snowshoes and presented whilest causing a group of Macutetis and First
tobacco to Wah-pah-ha-ska ((White Cap, Warbonnet) and Nations warriors under Louis Ril and Gabriel Dumont
Charles Trottier (leader of the Prairie Ronde Mtis to rise up and seize the contents of Hillyard
community and a friend and relative of Dumont). Mitchells store at Duck Lake. Clarke sent Thomas
Mackay to P.A. to delay Irvines support column from
Norbert Welsh tells the following story: Fort Carlton he could have prevented the battle...
Fifty-six North-West Mounted Policemen and forty-
I heard a big noise around my house... there three citizen volunteers from Prince Albert and one
were about forty men on horseback surrounding seven pound cannon left for Duck Lake, at 10 a.m., 26
my house. I opened the door and two men, March 1885. They were encountered at a place chosen
Carrire and Franois Vermette, tried to by the Exovedes, a few miles west of Duck Lake, by a
enter, but I closed and locked the door. The
Half-Breeds spoke through the door. They told 43
Norbert Welsh (as told to Mary Weeks), The Last Buffalo
me that I would hand things out when [my Hunter; Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers [reprint], 1994:
friend] White Cap came along... White Cap had 160.
some of his band with him, but most of the 44
Lawrence Clarke, agent provocateur, made it politically
crowd was Half-Breeds. The next morning White possible to further fund the bankrupt CPR, in 1885, saving
Cap returned and Welsh asked if they had the CPR from financial ruin and the Conservative
governments National Policy from disaster... but, he did
not live long enough to benefit from the war which he did
42
St-Joseph is the patron saint of the Mtis. so much to create, and died soon after in Prince Albert.
force of mounted Macutetis led by Dumont and natives Louis David Ril fils
painted with the garish colours of war.
Assiyiwin (Ah-si-we-in), baptized Joseph Trottier The rebel heroes who died were: Assiyiwin, a half-
after his Godfather, also called Machiwi, a Headman blind old Indian man on his way home and encountered
for Beardys Band, had been returning from the Duck as if by chance; Isidore Dumont, whom came to help him
Lake store, on foot and leading his horse, when when a rifle barrel was rudely poked into his side;
Crozier advanced upon him, along with Gentleman Joe Jean-Baptiste and Joseph Montour, and Auguste
Mackay, his chief scout, who leveled his rifle barrel Laframboise all descendant of the most ancient and
into Assiwyns stomach - mortally wounding the revered mountain men and fur-trapping families: No
partially blind old man, whom was taken back to the families are more esteemed in the history of the
village where he later died. Isidore Dumont had come North-West wilderness.
to the old mans aid and, as the four men exchanged
unfriendly words; the Exovedes and Indians silently Ril, exposed to bullets, had ridden up-and-down the
surrounded the police on three sides. Isidore was line of fire with a heavy crucifix, and stopped the
mounted he covered Mackay with his rifle. Crozier pursuit of the routed police, thus preventing an even
saw the natives advancing through the leafless worse massacre of the invader - these defeated men
shrubbery on both sides of his column all but returned to their post and waited until reinforcements
surrounded now. On Croziers order Mackay shot arrived - 100 men and with this protection the fort
Assiwyn and, drawing his revolver, shot Isidore, who evacuated to Prince Albert.
fell from his horse. The air was soon heavy with the Ril restrained his men and no further action was
acrid scent of gunpowder and bullets and the cries of taken by the Exovede rebels at this point. Three men
the wounded. The North-West War had commenced. were finally sent out from P.A. to recover the bodies
of the dead volunteers: The Exovedes had placed them
The world rained blood. in an old house, to preserve them from desecration by
Louis Ril fils animals, and gave what assistance they could to
Croziers emissaries. They also restored to them
After the shots rang out, they were followed by more their wounded prisoners.
shots from both sides and, the Battle of Duck Lake
was aflame, short, but disastrous for Crozier - within No. We will not fight like the savages they
15 minutes, twelve Crozier men were dead and eleven believe us to be. If we were fighting a war
wounded: a casualty rate of nearly 25%. The P.A. of extermination, we could put every farm from
volunteers fought with great courage and audacity and, here to Regina to the torch and bring the
caught in a cross-fire, suffered extremely heavy sword upon women and children. But, no, we
casualties. are Gods soldiers and we will only strike
During the entire twenty minute battle, Joseph when we are set upon. This is my word. This
Delorme45 was at Gabriel Dumonts side, fighting like is the Will of God.
a lion. Whence Uncle was felled by a bullet to his Louis David Ril fils
head - taking a strip of scalp off and knocking him
senseless - it was Delorme who cried out that hed Hillyard Mitchel, who owned the store at Duck Lake,
been killed... but, Dumont assured him the wound was was accused by both sides as being a go-between spy.
not fatal: Superintendant Crozier campaigned for the support of
the Anglo-Mtis unsuccessfully but managed to sway
Courage - a man who still has his head is their position to one of uncertain neutrality.
not dead yet.
Victorious, the Exovedes sent messengers to their
Patrice Tourond was another chosen assistant to native brethren to join the fight for freedom.
Dumont. In a test of marksmanship, it was Dumonts Kpeyakwskonam, chief of the Willow Crees, on the
men which were the best shots even with their reserve closest to the South Branch, butchered all the
inferior antiquated muskets... and some braves had cattle on the reserve and joined the Rebels.46
only bows and arrows. After forty minutes, the police
were getting the worst of it, and so fled from the
scene, leaving their dead to lie in the deep, blood- Chief Xavier Okemassis
stained snow. Government casualties, which consisted
of twelve dead and eleven wounded, would have been Xavier Okemassis, who succeeded the late Chief Sas-
much greater if Ril hadnt intervened. may-pew in 1881, was one of the first to join the
Angered over the cold-blooded killing of his rebels; his group lived close to Beardys Band at Duck
brother, Uncle wanted to chase the police as they Lake: He said that when staying at his own house word
retreated, but Ril intervened and held him back to of the trouble came, and he hitched his horse and went
prevent Dumont from having his men follow and kill the toward Duck Lake, but his horse became played out.
fleeing troopers. Some seventeen of Croziers men His brother was with him. He saw the priest and the
died as a result of the fight: three of the Mounted farm instructor (Tompkins), who asked him if he was
Police and nine volunteers died their bodies left going to go. He replied that he was, but that his
behind in their rout; twenty-three others were horse was played out and he was unable to go. The
wounded, nine seriously, three dying later. Rils instructor said it was better for him to go, and lent
group lost 5 men. him a horse, asking him to find out if his (Tompkins
son) had been taken prisoner or not. He consented to
It is blood, blood, we want blood; it is a go with the horse, and on arriving saw that the Half-
war of extermination, every body that is breeds had taken the Duck Lake stores. He saw three
against us is to be driven out of the country. Half-breeds and they told him he couldnt go home
There are two curses in our country the without seeing their leaders.
government and the Hudsons Bay Company. He said, Never mind; but let his brother go home
with the horse, and he would see the rebel leaders.
45 They consented, and he went down where the head men
Joseph Delorme participated in the Thomas Scott court
martial, in March 1870, and had voted to carry out the were, and saw that Tompkins was a prisoner. The
sentence of death Scott having taken up arms against the
Provisional Government and, also, striking one of the
46
captains of the guard. Later, claiming to be forced under threat by Dumont.
rebels told him that no one was allowed to go back, Assiniboine leaving reserves and making their way to
and that they would shoot anyone leaving without their Battleford, and fearing for their safety, abandoned
knowledge. the town and fled to seek shelter in the North-West
I was a coward, he said: Mounted Police Fort Battleford, on the north bank of
the river.
The whole crowd left and went to Duck Lake. Finding the town deserted, Pitikwahanapiwiyin then
I was with them, and we had on a fire and were sent a band of warriors to the Battleford barracks,
cooking, when I heard the police were coming. located about a quarter of a mile from the village to
While I was eating I heard shots fired, but see the Indian agent and to obtain overdue rations:
ate on. The shots went on, and I ran to see His people had nothing to eat and were suffering from
what was going on. When I got up the ridge the shortage of food - damned to starvation by the
the bullets were coming pretty close, so I Canadian government - so they joined the Macutetis
withdrew and went around by another way. The and rose up against their bureaucratic task-masters.
trail crossed the ridge, and I went back and Pitikwahanapiwiyin was unable to prevent the young
heard a shout: They are running back! At warriors accompanying him from ransacking the
the place on the ridge I went to I saw the abandoned village: Hungry and frustrated, some of Cree
body of a man; it was my own brother lying and Stoneys began looting the empty homes in the
dead. I was afraid. From there I saw people Battleford area, despite Pitikwahanapiwiyins attempts
lying dead all around. The Half-breeds told to stop them: In particular, a number of Stoneys who
me to fetch my family in. I then took horses had been involved with the killing of the farm
and went. I brought some families in, and was instructor actively supported a policy of open warfare
told to live in the farm instructors house, against the whites. Efforts to open negotiations with
which we did. While living at Duck Lake a Indian Agent Rae failed. - Two were killed by the
party went to Carlton. I was not with the Stoneys (Assiniboine) and the Cree plundered the empty
first party, but was sent out with the second. stores and houses for two days.49
We got word from Ril to come back to Duck
Lake. Then all broke camp, and went to The next day the combined Battleford bands moved
Batochs, camping on the river about two west to the Pitikwahanapiwiyins reservation and
miles up on the west side. Word was sent to established a large camp east of Cut Knife Creek.
come and camp closer. We came a mile nearer. Pitikwahanapiwiyin had lost control of his angry,
They (the rebels) were not then satisfied, and starving warriors and, although he was the political
ordered us to come right at Crossing leader and chief spokesperson for the combined bands,
(Batochs). with considerable influence, a warriors lodge erected
While living here, I heard that a party had in the camp became the real centre of authority at the
gone up country (Touronds Coulee), and all at Cut Knife camp. According to Plains Cree tradition,
once I heard big guns, after which the party once erected the soldiers lodge, not the chief, was
came back. The next we heard was that there in control of the camp.
were soldiers coming. When fighting commenced
(at Batochs) I went to the top of the hill. Telegrams sent by those barricaded in the fort
My sons were with me, watching everything indicated they believed it was an attack, but Peter
while they were fighting. Every day I did Ballantyne exited the fort and, acting as a spy,
that while the shooting was going on. I had a checked Pitikwahanapiwiyins plans and found his
gun too, but did not kill anyone, because I am intentions peaceful. The settlers, who had already
too big a coward to kill anyone.47 found refuge in the Mounted Police barracks, were
penned up for nearly a month, until Battleford was
later relieved by Lt.-Col. William Otter on April
The Raid on Battleford 30th.
The government had lied. Confederation was not

living up to its promises - having done little, or
nothing, to help them feed their hunger and solve Reports to Ottawa brought quick government action: A
their other problems. Pitikwahanapiwiyin had been force of almost 4000 was rushed westwards on the new
induced to settle on the Battle River in 1879, but the CPR not yet completed loading and unloading
crops were poor and he began to lead an Indian sixteen times before reaching Regina, under Gen. F.D.
agitation for increased consideration. The shortage Middleton, a former Imperial officer and new to the
of buffalo left Pitikwahanapiwiyins people Canadian west.
desperately hungry, and in March 1885, during the
Canadian Invasion of the Great Interior Prairie, when Middleton divided his army into three columns:
news of the Macutetis success at Duck Lake in March The main body would leave the train at Troy,
and of the killing of a farm instructor on the nearby later called QuAppelle - with field guns and
Mosquito Reserve by Nakoda (Stoney) warriors reached two Gatling guns.
his reservation, he left with the Minahikosis and the The second column detrained at Swift Current
Stoney people and headed for Battleford48 - and followed Col. W.D. Otter to the relief of
headquarters for supply distribution - to utilize the Battleford, where Chief Poundmakers Crees
unrest and fears of government agents and negotiate were looting and burning.
necessary supplies. The third body continued to Calgary to become
part of the Alberta Field Force to march
On the night of 30 March 1885, the townspeople of behind Gen. Strange to Fort Edmonton and east
Battleford and most of the settlers in the surrounding from there.
area, heard reports of large numbers of Cree and
47
Cited in Charles Pelham Mulvaney, M.D.: The History of the
North-West Rebellion of 1885: Toronto: A. H. Hovey & Co., 49
The identity of the looters is disputed. Some reports
1885: 314-315
claimed Pitikwahanapiwiyins Nakoda people were
48
Battleford was incorporated as a village in 1899, and was responsible, but one observer alleged that most of the
a town in 1911 looting had already been done by whites.
The Frog Lake Incident to another race, just as the buffalo of the
past had given place to domestic cattle.
Seven days later following the Duck Lake incident,
on 2 April 1885, joining the Mtis rebels, The article concluded:
Mistahimaskwas war chiefs took matters into their own
hands and pillaged the HBCs stores at Frog Lake This gives rise to the old [Custer] adage
settlement - lying just north of the North that the only good Indians are the dead ones.
Saskatchewan River, a few miles east of the boundary
with Alberta - killing nine white men, including the Terror spread and sympathy for the European settlers
Indian agent, two priests and settlers; carrying off was washed away by fear of a general Indian uprising.
women and children. Farmer and settler evacuated for P.A. and Battleford.
Bernard Fremont, the first victim of the murderers, Fort Carlton had been burned to the ground and
was a Belgian by birth. He arrived in the United Macutetis homes, too, were looted (of food supplies)
States when quite a young man, and enlisting in the and destroyed by Canadian troops and there was
Union army served during the war, and spent a good bloodshed tactics developed by the British in India,
many years on the frontier, travelling from Texas to and elsewhere, to put down further resistance in the
British Columbia, before coming to Battleford (with north-west. The entire area was punished and
the original telegraph construction party). dissention and dissatisfaction was cultivated against
James Payne, farming instructor on the Stoney the guerilla fighters and resistance leaders. Yet, no
reserves, a native of England, was also killed. - civilians were ever murdered by the Exovedes, who did
Payne had married a daughter of chief Bears Head, and not condone the pillage and rapine of the Canadians,
on the day after his death she gave birth to a boy. and who cared for their wounded prisoners.
Thomas Trueman Quinn, a native of Minnesota, who had
come up to this country in the fall of 1878, a Sioux
of mixed blood, whose father was interpreter and guide Blackbird and Mahvadehrie (Yellow Bird)
for the United States troops on service in Minnesota
during the massacre of 1863, was killed in ambush by Middletons scouts captured Blackbird and
Indians while leading troops to the relief of a Mahvadehrie (Yellow Bird), two of Wah-pah-ha-skas
beleaguered garrison. sons along with his brother-in-law Takuwakan south of
John Williscraft, of Irish descent, whom was a long Touronds Coulee. They had a Winchester rifle, two
time a resident of the county of Grey, Ont., and came shotguns and a revolver, all loaded, and three
to this country in 1878; John C. Gowanlock (28 years looking-glasses. They were dressed in white blankets.
old), from Parkdale, near Toronto; John Delaney, from (Blackbird was charged with stealing a buckboard and
Ottawa, farming instructor of Frog Lake; Charles Gouin later discharged.)
was a native of California, of mixed Indian and white When the Indians saw the Canadians they dropped a
blood; Wm. C. Gilchrist, of Woodville, county of bag they carried and started to run, staying along the
Simcoe, Ont.; Rev. Father Fafard, who had been riverbank. They ran about eight miles before they
laboring amongst the Indians in the Fort Pitt district were forced to take shelter in another coulee by
for the past ten years; Rev. Father Marchand, a Boultons men overtaking them. - These surrounded the
native of France, who had only been a few years in the coulee. The Natives, meanwhile, stood back-to-back at
country: He was 26 years of age and a man of more than the bottom with their guns in their hands and if more
ordinary promise; and, George Dill, of Bracebridge, than one man attempted to go near them they would
Ont. were all killed, as well. cover them with their guns.
After about a half an hours parley, and trying to
Despite efforts by Mistahimaskwa to stop the get them to surrender, Lord Melgund told Major Boulton
carnage, saving the HBCs representative, as well as to send ten men and take them. Capt. French said he
women and children, the band began to ignore his would try talking to them again, and going down, got
authority and massacred some of the white people at them to come up.
the hamlet of Frog Lake settlement: Most settlers were The General interviewed them. They stated that they
able to flee to Fort Pitt, but after taking council belonged to Wah-pah-ha-skas band and said Ril had
among them, decided to surrender to Mistahimaskwa. sent them word to come up, as there was plenty there,
And, Mistahimaskwa allowed the forts garrison, under and then forced them to remain. They left camp five
Inspector Francis Jeffrey Dickens (the son of Charles days ago - being sent to gather horses from the
Dickens) to leave the fort without a problem. reserve, eighteen miles to the south, and were on
Fort Pitt was then burnt. their way back again when captured. They had no
horses, as they were all taken up before.
John Pritchard, a Half-breed in the employ of the They stated that Ril was at his home in Batoch,
Indian Department, and Henry Quinn (the storekeeper), and had two hundred and fifty breeds and seven
a nephew of the murdered agent had fled for their prisoners...
lives as did his clerk William Bleasdell Cameron. The General told them he would keep two prisoners
Quinn reached Fort Pitt in safety... and the other was to tell Wah-pah-ha-ska what he saw.
Theresa Delaney and Theresa Gowanlock were held And also return to his reserve, and if he would bring
captive until the Indians scattered (following the down the seven prisoners, that he would give him five
engagement at Frenchmans Butte on May 28th). hundred dollars; if not, that he would kill him with
the big guns along with Ril next week when he would
be captured.
On 13 April 1885, Col. William Dillon Otter headed

for Battleford from Swift Current. - The fort was The Battle of Li Coule des Touronds
taken on 15 April 1885.
On April 23rd, the Sask. Herald reported: We set out [from Batoch] on the night of
April 23rd. Our band consisted of two hundred
Untamed, untamable, the Indians turned on men: Macutetis, Saulteaux, Crees and Sioux,
the hand that fed them with a blind fatuity and Canadians. Ril accompanied at our
that seems to say providence has decreed their halts he recited the rosary.
disappearance and that they should give place
On 24 April 1885, General Middleton attacked the Courage; when we were born, they told us we
Tourond Family at la rivire Petit Castor - (called were men. Courage if we are going to die, we
Li Coule des Touronds) - near Batoch, on the will die today. He advises his brother to
southern boundary the South Branch. The terrain was sing with him. The lame man stands up, and
cut with creeks, ravines, and coulees all running makes a few little jumps the sun is going
into the South Saskatchewan River. At the Touronds down.
homestead, east of the mouth of the coulees mouth,
the rebels had constructed rifle pits extending up Yellow Blanket was one of the men who rode with
banks in rows of three-or-five, with escape trenches Edouard Dumont to support Gabriel Dumont during the
upwards along the face of the bluff. The Exovedes fight at Touronds Coulee. Before doing this Dumont
were armed with Winchesters, Peabodys, and twelve- was urging caution because they were so few. In
gauge shotguns. response, Yellow Blanket said: Uncle when one wants
Running into an ambush arranged by Dumont, Middleton to go and rescue his friends, he does not wait for the
was saved by the premature firing of the Exovedes on next day.
his scouts - and was driven back with heavy losses.
Middleton deployed his men in a half-mile semi-circle Cha-Pi-To-Wa-Ke-Pe and Wha-Pi-Ti-Wa-Ki-Pe, Michel
skirmishing line across the mouth of the coulee: B Boyer, Michel Desjarlais, St-Pierre Parenteau and
and F Companies of the 90 th Rifles were deployed on Joseph Vermette all died defending Li Coule des
the left, with the remainder at the center; A Touronds.
Battery and the Infantry School were deployed on the
right. Gunners blew apart the barns behind the rebels
and slaughtered fifty-two horses which had been
carefully hidden well-out of way: [money carried Originally from the Red River Parish of St.-
little-or-no weight to li gens libre et li sauvauge, Franois-Xavier, Madame Tourond, a widow with a family
yet the horse was a symbol of wealth and prosperity.] of five boys and two girls:
Of these Seven Stars shining with extraordinary
Rebel sharpshooters protected a bluff on the right, brilliancy around Rils head, three fell dead on the
within 450 of the artillery battery, and inflicted on battlefield on the banks of the Saskatchewan, and lie
it much suffering; and, as the invader took on in eternal sleep within hastily dug graves; the fourth
casualties, it could not fight back for fear of died with sorrow on learning of the miserable fate of
hitting the 90th Rifles beside the bluff. his brothers; the fifth was maimed for life, and two
The battle lasted for about seven hours, beginning others were made prisoners, brought to Regina, and
around 9 a.m. and lasting until 4:15 p.m. Although only escaped imprisonment.
unable to turn Middleton, the defenders stood up to
cannon fire... it was raining and the Mtis lit Tis hard seeing that we have been deceived.
grassfires, the smoke of which made it hard for the Madame Tourond
Canadians to see.
The Canadians were using the exploding bullets During the fighting their home had been attacked by
which were, according to Dumont, illegal in an cannon and sacked by Middletons troops. Fearing for
artillery shrapnel barrage. The Canadian casualties their lives, the two Tourond girls Marie-Thrse and
were two dead and thirty-six wounded. lise escaped into the woods with a Miss Gervais
probably a sister-in-law (and, undubitedly, either
The Sioux Wah-pah-ha-ska was briefly a member of Catherine or Marie): They were never seen again.51
Rils war council in 1885. And, the Dakota from Without a doubt they were the spoils of war and/or
Moose Hills had kinship ties with the Mtis of Prairie perished of cold and hunger...: The two daughters died
Ronde. Two Dakota died in the defense of li petit [of tuberculosis].
rivire Castor/Li Coule des Touronds (and one-or-two
more in defense of Batoch.)
The Massacre at Kees-kih-koonan Hill
When fighting began at Touronds Coulee, Isidore
Dumas began singing to allay their fear and Lt-Col. Wm Otter had arrived at Fort Battleford on
Acanmachini (The Rock Used to File Bones), 24 April 1885, with a force of 500 men and orders from
Kahokootayements brother, one of the Willow Cree Major-General Middleton to defend the garrison from
warriors from Kpeyakwskonams (One Arrow) Band,50 attack by Cree and Stoney (Assiniboine) Indians.
began to dance. At the same time some of the Mtis Otter, contrary to his orders, instead decided to
shouted out to him, Your horse has been killed. punish Pitikwahanapiwiyin for pillaging the village;
Whats a horse! Acanmachini replied; as long as I adopting an aggressive approach, he left the fort on
am not wounded, there is no harm in that. the afternoon of May 1st to prevent a junction
between the bands of Pitikwahanapiwiyin and
Franois Tourond reported that Acanmachini, Bras Misahimaskwa and leaving a garrison in Battleford,
Coup (Trial Man), and One Arrow, were active in a led a flying column of 392 men to attack the Cree and
group fighting near him at the Coule. Franois also Assiniboine at Cut Knife Hill: He rode at the head of
noted that there was a fourteen-year old Sioux boy the column with the Mounted Police, followed by the
with a new rifle, who was afraid to fire it and Gatling gun and two seven-pound cannon; following were
followed him around all day during the battle. Battery B and C Company of the Queens Own Rifles
and a procession of ammunition and provisions. The
Chapitolata was a Lakota Sioux killed at the battle terrain of crossing coulees and ravines was more
of Touronds Coulee. In an interview with Father suitable for ambush than defense: Cut Knife Hill
Cloutier Elie Dumont recalls: overlooked the reserve on the right, a fast moving
creek about six yards wide ran along a gully at
The limping Indian, the one who was walking the base of the hill; on the left, the terrain rose
with a crutch when leaving Batoch, sings his
death song. After his chant, he says:
51
50 Capturing women: the manipulation of cultural imagery in
His brother Kahokootayemet also participated in the Canada's prairie west by Sarah Carter: McGill-Queens
Resistance. Press - MQUP, 1997: ISBN 0773516565, 9780773516564
into brush-covered hills. If reports were true There was no steeple on the church at this time: St-
the Indians were bent on war! Antoine de Padoue church and rectory were constructed
in 1883-4, and the two buildings were the spiritual
The sleeping camp was alerted by an old man who had and social center of the community used as a post
been sleeping alone on the edge of the creek. The office, hospital, school and hostel for internant
cannon fired three shells among the tipis, tearing priests.
them apart, and the Natives began to scatter. The Commerce at Batoch was carried out in the village,
cannon again shelled the tipis and continued to do so one half hours walk north of the church and rectory.
for the next three-and-a-half hours, when the carriage Gabriel Dumont had his men construct a series of rifle
of one gun gave way and broke and they fell pits around the village he sent messengers to ask
silent. all the Indians of the north-west to join... but most
This was the first battle for the Gatling gun it chose to stay at home. Dumont mustered about 275 men
had been deployed to protect the flank and to face 850 invading soldiers mercenaries
concentrated its fire-power down into the panicked recruited from Ottawa and Qubec and hungry for
encampment, where-in women and children, and the aged violent adventure in a foreign land.
and infirm were all running away in confusion from the
carnage raining down on them. The Gatling gun mowed Middleton approached Batoch with caution, reaching
down the scattering squaws as they ran two hundred Gabriels Crossing on May 7th, and advancing within
yards to cover of brush. Once the camp had dispersed, eight miles (13 km) of the town on the following day.
the Gatling gun ceased firing. The Indians were Middletons plan was an encirclement strategy, to
trying to pick off the gunners, and three were wounded attack the town of Batoche from two sides at the same
from B Battery. time, with him leading the main contingent advancing
The Indians were fearless. The men ascended the directly against the Exovede rebels from the east;
hill, exposing themselves to bullets and calling on Canadian troops transported by the Northcote would
the enemy to shoot at them and not at the defenseless stream west, past Batoch, and unload fifty men near
women and children: They were mostly armed with the town closing his pincer. It was difficult
primitive weapons spears, bows and arrows, sticks terrain and Middletons force lagged behind schedule.
and stones.
Scouts and the Mounted Police had taken cover on the Macutetis and Indians lined rifle pits and other
hillcrest, while B Battery was sent into skirmishing hiding places in the brush; women and children fled in
order to the left and the right of the artillery; the terror of the field guns to their places of hiding
Queens Own Rifles and the Ottawa Foot Guard were sent along the riverbank.
to the left and C Company to the right to cover
Indian fire coming from across the ravine.
Using a limited number of men, War Chief Fine Day
virtually surrounded and pinned down Otter's force on Many of the Mtis prayed earnestly or
an exposed plain. After six hours of fighting, Otter quietly recited the rosary to keep up their
retreated. At this point Pitikwahanapiwiyin stepped spirits; others sang old Napoleonic battle
in and stopped the Indians from attacking the songs.
retreating troops. Otters army was in sufficient Pierre Falcon, bard
disarray by this time that any Indian counterattack
would have resulted in heavy losses for Otters From May 9th-to-12th Middleton, with 850 men,
soldiers. confronted the entrenched Exovedes - the Indians
(Eight of Otters force died there, where five-or- swelling their numbers to 350 strong at Batoch... and
six native braves perished, using Stone Age weapons dealt a blow of defeat to the insurgent community,
against the Gatling gun and cannon: Hole in the Nose, which its descendants suffer from unto this very day.
Medicine, Nahparay, an unidentified Stoney and an
unidentified Cree were numbered among the many Native Middleton approached the church at Mission Ridge on
dead.) the morning of May 9th it was occupied by priests
and civilians. He brought out his artillery onto the
After the attack, a number of Macutetis present for ridge and began shelling the town. The Gatling gun
the battle persuaded Pitikwahanapiwiyins camp to join provided covering fire for the withdrawal of cannons
Rils forces at Batoch. Following the battle, that had come under sniper fire dispersing an
Pitikwahanapiwiyin himself made several attempts to attempt by Dumont to capture the guns.
move the camp to the hilly country around Devils
Lake. But the Stoney warriors leading the camp, To provide protection for the sternwheeler,
however, prevented this retreat and began leading the Northcote, Middleton used boards from Dumonts house
combined tribes east to join Ril at Batoch. and barn, part of his pool table and some feed sacks.
Pitikwahanapiwiyin chose to remain with them to ensure He then allowed the house to be pillaged... and it was
that the white prisoners were protected and well burned.
treated. Northcote, with thirty-five armed men aboard, had
proceeded up the Saskatchewan River with the intention
of acting as support for ground troops, but ran into a
The Battle of Batoch cable strung across the river by the Macutetis and
lost its smokestacks, spars, and steam whistle. The
Batoch, located on the Carlton Trail an overland gunboat drifted out of control. The Exovedes and
trade route between Fort Edmonton and Fort Garry - was Indians left their rifle pits and ran to the river
settled in the early 1870s by Macutetis who had been bank, exchanging gunfire with the boat. The crew did
forced to abandon their homes in the Red River not like being targets for the Exovede sharpshooters
Settlement by government policies ignoring their and its career as a warship ended.
rights to accommodate white settlers. By 1884, the
Macutetis on the South Saskatchewan River were facing Although carefully constructed, the Canadian
the same problem. advances were less successful than expected. A Mtis
Dumont would have preferred to fight Middleton away attempt to surround Canadian lines failed when the
from Batoch, but Ril believed God sided with the brushfires meant to screen a sortie would not spread.
Exovedate and chose to make a stand at Batoch.
At the end of the day, both sides held their
positions. Middleton, with the nine pound gun, Gatling gun, and
The Canadians retired to sleep behind their zareba 130 men, reconnoitered to the north of the church and
a network of improvised barricades. Middletons rectory, and advanced on the rifle pits. The feinting
soldiers attacked from higher ground and were easy action was intended to draw the rebels out of their
targets. At the end of the first day, Middleton pits around the church to the north, where the Gatling
believed he was losing. was positioned. [The Macutetis referred to the
The next morning, Middleton delayed a major attack - Gatling gun with contempt, calling it le rababou
his men needed rest. (He hoped the Mtis defense (the noisemaker)... claiming it made a lot of noise
would weaken with time.) but did little damage. Uncle, as one of the best
marksmen, assigned him the task of injuning forward on
On the 10th, Middleton established heavily defended his belly through the brush, with the express purpose
gun pits and conducted a day long shelling of the of killing the Gatling gunner.52
town: Any attempted advances, though, were turned back
by Exovede fire and the Canadians gained no ground. Due to a strong wind Straubenzie was unable to hear
Kpeyakwskonam and Tchikastepechin (Chakastapaysin, Middletons guns open fire and failed to coordinate
also known as Shadow in the Water) were on the west his attack with him: Middleton withdrew to his camp.
side of the river amongst a dozen of men during the He was furious that the coordinated attack had not
fighting on May 10th. come off as planned.
During the next two days, Middleton made use of the The Mtis had been drawn to the north in
field guns and the Gatling gun, but avoided a major anticipation of a major offensive there. As Middleton
attack. The valiant defenders continued to use up sat down to his lunch, minutes later, the Midlanders
their ammunition... under Lt-Col. Williams broke through Exovede lines
On May 11th, Middleton gauged the strength of the near the church: Middleton and some of the soldiers
defenders by dispatching a contingent of men north with him heard gunfire. He rushed to the battle
along the enemys flank, while simultaneously scene. The attack had been poorly organized, the
conducting a general advance in the front. The Mtis bayonet charge* of a blood-thirsty mob: It had become
redirected a portion of their strength to hold the common knowledge amongst Canadian troops that the
northward flank, but lacked the manpower to oppose a Exovedes had exhausted their ammunition and were
Canadian thrust, and ceded ground with little defenseless.
resistance. The Canadians ventured as far as the Many of the rebels were unable to escape into the
Batoch cemetery before turning back: Satisfied with safety of the brush.
his enemys weakness, Middleton retired to sleep and
contended to take the town in the morning. Oka-doka (The Hole or White Dog), a member of Wah-
On May 12th, the Exovede defenders were in poor pah-ha-skas Dakota Band, had participated in the
shape, three-quarters had either been wounded by fighting at Duck Lake and at Batoch: Oka-doka and the
artillery fire or scattered and divided in the many rest of Wah-pah-ha-skas Sioux group were fighting on
clashes with the Canadians on the outskirts of town. the north side of Dumonts defensive line about half-
Those that held their positions were desperately short way between the head of Batoch settlement and
of ammunition a fact which traitors who surrendered Middletons lines among some sand hills. On 12 May
had revealed to Middleton. 1885 the group was fighting from a rifle pit lower
Middletons plan was for a flanking feint one down the river behind Champagnes house where their
column drawing the rebels away to the north, and a encampment was located.
second one under Colonel van Straubenzie assaulting
the town directly, clearing Batoch in the face of Elie Dumont mentions a group of six men fighting
heavy fire and driving the Exovedes out... along with him as a unit on the fourth day of battle
at Batoch: Patrice Tourond, Baptiste Deschamps,
After three days of volleys and sniping, the rebels Edward Fitcall, Modeste Laviolette, Patrice Dumont,
ran out of ammunition. This was clearly the only and Salomon Boucher.
decisive defeat of the Exovedes during the defense of
their homes and families in the end they were Cpt. Philippe Elzar Garipy, mentioned in Dumonts
betrayed by kith and kin traitors in their midst. account of the fighting at Touronds Coulee, was part
On the morning of the fourth day, some Macutetis of the last stand in the graveyard trenches at Batoch
realized that further resistance was useless the with Edouard Dumont, Elzar Parisien, the two Lavalle
battle was lost and they left. Many of the Exovedes brothers and one Cree. Isidore Dumas says that at the
who remained were old men running out of bullets and battle for Batoch, on one occasion, Philippe Garipy
firing stones from their shotguns. On that morning and Pierre Laverdure were both seen kneeling down on
there was light fighting; Middleton was upset with his the hillside and coming out in the open to shoot.
soldiers for not advancing and stomped away in anger, When one led, the other would follow; and between them
and rode back to his camp for lunch. a sort of rivalry existed... as far as courage was
concerned.
As the armies fought in the distance, a group of You are going to get killed! shouted the Mtis.
Exovedes in town asked Ril for a miracle. Ril sank But they would not listen.
to his knees and lifted his arms in the form of a
cross:
All together, let us say three times, very The battle was over in minutes as the Field Force
loudly, May God have Pity on us! swept down the slopes to Batoch, past rifle pits,
where by this time the defenders were firing nails and
The others fell to their knees and recited the stones from their rifles... storming the first homes,
words; and Ril continued: driving the defenders out and taking possession of the
houses.
May God stop those people crush them.
52
He called for two men to hold up his arms, as hed Capt. A.L. Howard (of the Connecticut National Guard on
done during previous battles. loan to the Canadians as an agent of the Gatling Gun
Company of Hartford, Connecticut.
With characteristic gallantry Captain French entered
one of the house with some others, rushing up its As in past battles "To the victor go the spoils":
stairs and going at once to the windows to open fire Batoch was no exception... with the disappearance or
on the rebels below, whom concentrated their fire on imprisonment of the Mtis; their cabins, farmlands,
the windows. Captain French was shot dead as he and and possessions were ripe for the taking. Neither
W. F. Stewart stood firing out of the same window. An Middleton nor the clergy were above reproach as they
old French half-breed, named Donald Ross, was standing too participated in the looting.
at the corner of a house nearly opposite Batoches Despite the clergys, including Father Andres,
house, and fired the fatal shot, then made a run for indignant protests, Canadian forces and the volunteers
cover, but paid the penalty for shooting French just looted and burned, pillaged, and plundered, after the
before reaching it. His wife, Catherine (Delorme) was battle, and every man had his shaganinnie which
a heroine of the people she braved the battlefield infers a captive native woman to disgrace in an orgy
to be by her dying husbands side, to comfort him in of violence. Horses, too, were stolen and, thus
his passing out of our lifetime. His remains were begun the era of systematic marginalization of
despoiled by thieving Canadian souvenir hunters. Macutetis and First Nation people in Saskatchewan.
The impact and influence of the clergy in the
Remember, boys, who led you here! community quickly vanished. During the battle the
Last Words of Captain French priests had attempted to talk the Macutetis out of
fighting for what they believed in were their rights.
When the Macutetis would not do what the clergy
The Death of Marcile Gratton wanted, the clergy acted as informants and passed on
vital information gathered by the English Mtis (in
Marcile Gratton, a little French half-breed girl particular Charles Nolin) to the invading military
aged ten, had ran across the line of Canadian fire and force. The priests also tried to blackmail the people
was shot dead on the doorstep of one of the stores. by refusing to administer the sacraments (Holy
She wanted to be with her mother. The Canadians Communion) to those taking up arms and following Riel.
gathered round the poor little dead creature as she Accidently, they denounced Riel as a heretic and when
lay in her frantic mothers arms, which was kneeling it came time to give up, they too collected Mtis
on the step and rocking her, trying to get her to weapons as if they themselves were the military. With
speak. She couldnt believe that her child was dead. little faith left in the community for the church,
Suddenly a figure was seen to break away from among members of the clergy such as Fathers Fourmond and
the group of prisoners, then under guard, farther up Vegreville were finished. - The parish at St-Louis
the street. Bareheaded and in shirtsleeves he bounded was abandoned, and Fourmond moved to Prince Albert.
like a panther through the crowd, pushing the Canadien
men right-and-left until he came to the mother and the

little dead girl. He stood for a moment looking down
at them, his long black hair half covering his face.
In the final moments of the battle at Batoch, Louis
Then dropping to his knees he stroked his little
Ril fils retreated into the surrounding forest to
daughter's hair gently, reverently:
pray. He had secured the safety of his own family,
and after choosing not to flee, accepted calls for his
Our poor little Marcile - est mort.
surrender. As he gave himself up to Canadian troops,
Ril maintained his actions were in fulfillment to his
He passed his other arm about his wifes shoulder
duty to God, his council, and his people.
and the tears welling in his eyes dropped on the
little girls dead hand. The group of soldiers
looking on was deeply touched by the scene that was
Gabriel Dumont
being enacted at their feet.
The human misery and suffering created by the

conflict was staggering: Families lost track of their
children; many women, left behind when their men went
Isidore Ledoux, 11 years old at the time, was
to support Riel and Dumont, were without food, shelter
present at Batoch serving as a young messenger and
or adequate clothing - they dared not return to their
gives the following account of the battle for Batoch:
homes as those were being ransacked by soldiers; who,
they thought, might rape and murder them and their
At Batoch all the fighting took place across
children as well as their men folk. Many had fled to
the river. I heard a lot of shooting but saw
the security of the woods and the caves
nothing. There was a steamboat, which kept
Uncle went back to find his wife, Madeleine Dumont
blowing its whistle adding to the noise of the
(ne Wilkie), and then began to look about for
battle going on across the river. Shells were
scattered families whose tracks hed found and
exploding over our heads but as far as I know,
followed. He had not far to go before finding a group
no one was hurt. - Just a lot of noise but
of women and children, as well as a few of the men.
nothing else. This went on for three days or
His brother Edouard had cut some hay and covered them.
more, and then stopped. We moved from there
It much distressed Gabriel to see these poor
to a place called the Laboucane Settlement [a
creatures lying in the hay like animals. Seeing the
Mtis settlement on the Battle River in what
bare feet of the children, he made a kind of a shoe
is now Alberta]. There were several houses
out of rawhide. The women were very brave.
crowded with women and children. We were
He led his wife to another patch of woods and set
there for about a week when the men began
out to capture some horses. On the way, his attention
straggling in. They said the rebellion was
was attracted by a white object which he twice called
over. My father, whom I had not seen for at
upon to answer; but, it was only when threatening to
least two weeks, also turned up. He said
shoot that he heard a voice say: It is us.
Gabriel Dumont and many other Mtis had fled
He approached and recognized Madame Vandal whose
to the States and that Ril was captured and
husband had been killed... and whose daughter she
taken away by the police
carried upon her back, because she was paralyzed. The
poor child was exhausted and Uncle stopped and

rested with them.
Going a little further, he saw a Sioux horse and a The Reverend John Hines reports that after the NWMP
Canadian stallion. [ ] He put his wife upon the mare left Fort Carlton Petequakeys family left the mission
and led it to a clump of trees, where they camped. at Sandy Lake and traveled with the Mistawasis and
The next day, he went back up the river... and saw Star Blanket Bands to the safety of Round Plain just
the houses at Batoch, with white flags flying from north of Prince Albert. He notes that they sent a
their roofs. He saw that everyone was surrendering. number of young men back to retrieve the domestic
There were a couple of hundred horsemen looking for animals from the reserve at Sandy Lake. They arrived
him... but he was behind them. He hid himself in the to find the Muskeg Lake and other Indians robbing
woods during the night and watched them on the hills their hen roosts and taking items such as cooking
during the day. utensils, clothing and bedding. He further states
that after they returned to the mission, some of the
One of the families that Dumont assisted was Roman Catholic women of the Muskeg Lake reserve,
Riels... though, nobody knew where Riel was. For unrequested, brought back the items taken from his
three days Dumont looked high and low for Riel. house in his absence.
Finally, thinking that Riel may have already turned
himself in, Dumont took Riels wife, Marguerite, and
her two children to his fathers home.
On the third day, he acquainted his father with his Regaining control of the combined bands,
plan to spend the summer hunting the police. His Pitikwahanapiwiyin sent Father Louis Cochin to Gen.
father said, If you follow your idea of staying to Middleton, saying he was prepared to negotiate a peace
kill people, you will be looked upon as a silly fool. settlement. The general rebuffed the appeal and
And, he advised his son to go across the border. demanded that Pitikwahanapiwiyin surrender
Gabriel told him that hed always taken his advice, unconditionally at Battleford. On 26 May 1885 the
and that he very much wanted to follow it again, and Northwest Resistance ended.
that he would leave if he could not find Ril. Pitikwahanapiwiyin and his followers loaded their
Mose Ouellette led him to believe, though, that wagons and headed to Fort Battleford to meet with
Ril had already surrendered. And, when he saw that Middleton. A large crowd of settlers, townspeople,
he was the only one left, he made up his mind to take North-West Mounted Police, and soldiers had gathered
refuge in the United States. to watch as they entered the fort.
When Mose Ouellette suggested to Gabriel Dumont When Middleton emerged, Pitikwahanapiwiyin offered
that he, too, should surrender, Uncle answered: to shake hands, but Middleton turned away, saying,
Tell him I dont shake hands with rebels.
Tell Middleton that I am still in the woods. Pitikwahanapiwiyin had come to Battleford expecting
Tell him I still have 90 cartridges to use on peace talks, but was taken aback by this unwarranted
his men.53 hostility and immediately imprisoned. And, throughout
interrogation, Middleton continually insulted the
Then, with just one half dozen galettes (bannock) great chief in front of his people, calling him a
between Michel Dumas and him, they fled to Montana... pilfering rat, a murderer, a liar, and a coward.
Alexandre Cayen dit Boudreau Fugitives and Prisoners
Ril had sent Alexandre Cayen dit Boudreau,54 a The Exovedes which had died in the defense of
stout and vigorous individual, along with some others, Batoch, from May 9th-to-12th: Isadore Boyer, Damase
to Pitikwahanapiwiyin to ask his assistance at Carrire who, after his leg was broken, had a rope
Batoch, should the government forces meet him there. tied around his neck and was dragged to death by a
The day after his arrival, news of the disaster to horse: he looked like Ril, Charles Ducharme, Ambroise
Rils men reached them through a friendly Half-breed, Dumont, Andr Letendre dit Batoch, Jos(ph) Ouellette
with the advice that he should lay down his arms if he - a very old man of ninety-three who died being
wished to avoid having his people killed. speared by the bayonets of the young Canadinne
Pitikwahanapiwiyin did not believe the messenger, and mercenaries Donald Ross, John Swain, Calixte and
Cayen and the others started for Batoch to ascertain Elzar Tourond, Joseph and Michel Trottier, and
the truth; but after their departure the news was Jos(ph) Vandal dit la Pioche, who had both arms
confirmed by couriers sent by Beardy. broken before being shot and bayoneted he was also
Pitikwahanapiwiyins nephew had in the meantime been quite old.55
dispatched with a letter to Prince Albert, where it Ja-Pa-To-Pa, or Cha-pi-to-la-ta, a Dakota Sioux
was thought General Middleton was camped, but finding from Wah-pah-ha-skas group, possibly his son or an
that he had gone to Carlton followed and overtook him. adopted son, died heroically, as well, having come out
Cayen was captured near Duck Lake, and brought to of his hole to meet the initial charge and was
Carlton also. bayoneted by two of the cowardly Canadian mercenary
Isidore Cayen dit Boudreau called Petequakey (Comes killers rampaging down upon the defenseless natives in
to Us with the Sound of Wings) was the brother of a crazed frenzy of bloodlust...
Alexandre Cayen and was a Councilor when his brother
was Chief. After Alexandre left the reserve to live The Rebellions death toll: 53 whites killed, 118
near Batoch, Petequakey became Chief: He was active wounded; and, about 35 Macutetis and Natives were
with Gabriel Dumont during the fighting at Duck Lake killed discounting women and children and other
and was of the opinion that they were not fighting the non-combatants. It was the end of a traditional way
government, since their opponents were the police. of life for the Macutetis in the north-west.
Petequakey and his group then moved down to St-Laurent
to participate in the defense of Batoch. We are defeated. We shall perish. But you
must have known when we took up arms that we
53 would be beaten. So they will destroy us.
Uncle had forty revolver cartridges, as well.
54
One of Alexander Cayen dit Boudreaus first assignments
55
from the Mtis Provisional Government was to provide a Ambroise Jobin fils died on May 23, 1885 in a Saskatoon
scouting report of activities at Battle River: (26 April hospital as a result of wounds received during the Battle
1885). of Batoche.
Gabriel Dumont, where he met Macdonald and gave him the Indian name
Last words to Louis Ril fils for Brother-in-Law.
Ril refused a chance to escape with Dumont, and on

May 15th surrendered and was taken to Regina: He THE TRIALS
calmly turned over his only weapon, a small 22-caliber
revolver to the two scouts. I suppose the half-breeds in Manitoba, in
1870, did not fight for 240 acres of land, but
One by one Native leaders surrendered...56 it is to be understood that there were two
societies who treated together. One was
It is now time for the government to take small, but in its smallness it had rights.
decisive action, and that their first act The other was great, but in its greatness it
shall be that orders be issued to hang Louis had no greater rights than the rights of the
Ril to the first tree when he is caught; but, small, because the right is the same for
if there must be delay, that it shall only be everyone. And when they began treating the
long enough to capture Dewdney and hang the leaders of that small community as bandits, as
two together.57 outlaws, leaving them without protection, they
disorganized that community.
Pitikwahanapiwiyin surrendered on May 26th. Louis David Ril fils
On May 27th, Strange interrupted a Thirst Dance The government charged, or considered charging, 202
held by Mistahimaskwas band; the warriors quickly individuals, and most for treason-felony against an
entrenched themselves for a two-day non-violent empire that had conscripted the Indians and Macutetis
protest - the engagement was inconclusive. A hunt for into its orbit without consulting them; and, in the
Mistahimaskwa ensued, the military fanned out in all case of the Indians, without granting them
directions in pursuit... citizenship.
Startling the sentry, on June 2 nd,
Mistahimaskwa and his son, Horse Child, walked to the 129 were jailed: of the 46 Macutetis, most were
remains of Fort Carlton to surrender. charged with lesser charges than treason-felony, and
19 were convicted; 1 was hanged and 7 conditionally
Mistahimaskwas band then fell out among themselves discharged.
over plans to join Pitikwahanapiwiyin and Ril. At
this point they learned that the Alberta Field Force 11 were sentenced to 7 years
under Col. T. B. Strange was approaching, and they 3 to 3 years
entrenched themselves so well at Frenchmans Butte 4 to 1 years each
that the ensuing engagement was inconclusive. By the 18 men were sentenced to 90 years
time that Mistahimaskwas people reached Loon Lake,
some camped there while others, including their The remainder were either unconditionally discharged
prisoners went on. Shortly after this Colonel or set free. And, of the 81 Natives charged with
Stranges soldiers caught up with them and attacked treason-felony,58 all were Cree except for two Stoney
the camp. - Five Cree warriors were killed. This was Indians... 44 were convicted and 11 were sentenced to
the last of the fighting in the Northwest Resistance hang. On 17 November 1885, another 8 were hanged
to foreign occupation. The Indians retreated and together at Battleford the largest mass hanging in
scattered, but were pursued by Maj. S. B. Steele and Canadas history.
his scouts. There was no plea bargaining at the time, a person
With his forces dying of hunger and no more charged with a criminal offense could not testify on
ammunition left, Mistahimaskwa finally gave himself up their own behalf although, a dock statement was
on July 2nd. allowed, it did not have the weight of testimony.
Prison sentences were of 20 years for manslaughter
and arson.
Considerable alarm was expressed during the Of the two whites charged with treason felony, both
rebellion regarding the loyalty of the Blackfoot were acquitted, one Honor Jackson - on the ground
nation. At one point, Calgary inhabitants feared of insanity.
they would be attacked, and Father Lacombe was sent to
Isap-muxica to investigate. He was told by Isap-
muxica that in spite of frequent messages from the You cannot cage a wild bird
Cree and the fact that Pitikwahanapiwiyin was in the
centre of the conflict, the Blackfeet did not intend Of the three leading chiefs Big Bear, Poundmaker,
to rise. When this news was transmitted to Ottawa, and One Arrow all were sentenced to 3 years; and,
the Governor General, Lord Lansdowne (Petty- all had to be released earlier and died within a year.
Fitzmaurice), expressed his thanks to Isap-muxica on
behalf of the queen - the cabinet of Sir John Big Bear pleaded for amnesty for his band, which
A. Macdonald gave the Blackfoot chief a round of were hiding in the woods: If the government did not
applause. In the following year Isap-muxica and his step in, many would die from want before winter set
foster brother No-okska-stumik (Three Bulls) were in. He served one-and-a-half years of his sentence
taken on a tour of Montreal and Quebec by Father before his health broke. He died months after his
Lacombe in recognition of their loyalty. On his release, abandoned even by his own family
return from Quebec, Isap-muxica stopped in Ottawa
Poundmaker, who had surrendered on learning that
56 Ril had been captured, was sentenced to three years
Some Sioux went to help the Frenchmen; many Indians of
in prison, protested in court:
different tribes were on their way to join the Frenchmen
but the war ended before they could join it. - The Nez
Perce was one tribe that came to help.
57
A motion passed by the residents of Wolseley, Manitoba
58
(while troubles were going on). Some were charged for murder as well.
The bad things they have said against me cost of the freedom and independence of the people who
here are not true. I have worked only at pioneered the North-West). The immigrants lot was
trying to keep the peace. This spring, when often one of poverty and hard, unremitting work, of
my Indians, the half-breeds, and the white men isolation in a land where harsh climate made simple
fought, I prevented further killing. As soon survival a serious challenge. And, the CPR and
as I heard what had happened at Batoch, I led business barons of the east harvested profits of
my people and went to the white men and gave their wheat-fields like an oversea plantation.
myself up. If I had not done so, there would
have been plenty more bloodshed. For this And, of the South Branch Mtis, Uncle wrote
reason I am here... I will not excuse myself during a retreat to his cabin:
for having saved the lives of so many people
even if I must suffer for it now. No hope, no inspiration poor beaten
creatures that drift with the tide. Living
He was spared one final indignity as a prisoner epitaphs of dead souls: I have thought of and
through the intercession of his adopted parent, seen destitute working mothers and famished
Crowfoot... his hair was not cut as Big Bears had children and thought too of the bloodstained
been. He died shortly thereafter his release gold of Canadas rulers and where could one
find more eloquent witness that criminals are
One Arrow, who was originally opposed to signing enthroned in positions of power in Canada.
Treaty 6, but signed five days after the general
meeting, joined Ril on the day hostilities broke out
he was seventy years old at the time, it was highly On The Trial of Louis Ril fils
unlikely that he took part in the fighting.
As with the other two chiefs, his trial was a The trial was a mockery. The outcome had largely
travesty. He spoke no English and very little was been arranged in advance by the Federal Conservative
interpreted for him. His claim that he had shot no government. According to the Tach Papers, as early
one and had no intention too went unheeded. He was as 15 April 1885, Joseph Royal, the French Canadienne
sentenced to three years and released after seven M.P. for Provencher, had learned that it was the
months, unable to walk. governments intention to hang Ril, but beyond
writing about his concerns to Bishop Tach, he did
The trials began in Regina on July 28th. The nothing to expose this government interference in the
Crowns principle interest was Ril, a U.S. citizen, case. (Royal was later rewarded for his silence in
charged under a British doctrine that a person born a this scandal: He became the Lt-Gov. of the North-West
British subject did not lose status through Territories on 4 July 1888.)
naturalization in another country. The question as to Rils fate fast became a heated
The jury decided he was guilty of treason, but issue a major crisis threatening political
recommended mercy. instability developed between French Roman Catholic
The judge pronounced sentence of death by hanging. Qubec and Anglo-Saxon Protestant Ontario. Qubec
An Appeal Court didnt change anything. politicians who had done nothing for the Macutetis
Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald could have during their prolonged economic (and, briefly,
invoked a prerogative of clemency... whatever he did military) troubles in their struggle with the Federal
would be popular in one province and not in the government, geared towards harnessing the political
other;59 but Ontario had more voters! So, Ril was energy of Qubecers along the St-Lawrence, rather than
executed for High Treason under an obsolete medieval pushing for redress of Mtis grievances in the north-
English statute60 and hanged in Regina on 16 November west.
1885. Prime Minister Macdonald did not wish to compound
his problems by trying the popular and still
Dumont escaped into the United States, only politically volatile Gabriel Dumont, although his
returning to his native homeland, several years later, political future was tied to the Orangemen of
after being granted amnesty. Ontario.62 So long as Ril was alive, he posed a
serious threat to Conservative National Policy as
the Prophet Ril vibrated a mystic ability to inspire
the discontented elements in the North-West to resist
The fate of the Macutetis was dispersal 61 to the the Federal governments planned exploitation of the
fringes of the dominant society; some, within the region including the people it was populating the
Winnipeg area, emphasized their French Roman Catholic Stolen Land with.
faith as a means of retaining their identity and
define their corporate role among the invading He shall hang, though every dog in Qubec
settlers. Others strengthened familiar blood- barks in his favour.
relations with the aboriginal natives on reserves. P.M. Macdonald, shouting
The CPR was successfully completed just nine days Hugh Richardson, the magistrate chosen to try Ril,
before the execution of Louis David Ril fils, was a Conservative insider, who served Macdonald on
Exovede Martyr, in Regina. It marked a new beginning previous occasions: Hed crushed a revolt which had
a dynamic period of growth for the north-west. But occurred in Prince Albert, in 1882, when the irate
for the old residents of the Territorial Wilderness community took to the streets in protest of patronage
Macutetis and Amerindian it marked tragedy, and a given Lawrence Clarke during the telegraph scandal.
long night of oppression through racism and neglect. The six Anglo-Protestant jurors were more
A new economy based on wheat production was to employ compassionate than Judge Richardson and recommended
a different type of labour force, made up of the
hundreds of thousands of landless and often destitute 62
Several Canadian soldiers from Millbrook, Ontario, took
Europeans (seeking freedom and independence at the Marie-Antoinette the silver Bell of Batoch back to
Ontario as a trophy. Not too long ago it disappeared from
59
Qubec and Ontario their possession... it was rumoured that good Mtis men had
60 liberated the stolen heirloom and that it was in safe
Edward III - Statute of Treason (1352).
keeping for a day whence we would rise up and reclaim our
61
Cf. the Acadian Dispersal... stolen heritage.
clemency for Ril but their plea for mercy was government, and so irresponsible is the
ignored. Richardsons charge, whilest perhaps legally government to the North-West that in the
sound was definitely prejudicial, and the wording of course of several years besides doing nothing
the sentence would seem to have been unnecessarily to satisfy the people of this great land, it
cruel. has even hardly been able to answer once or
Philippe Garnot, secretary to Rils 1885 provincial give a single response. The fact would
government, turned against him at trial and called him indicate an absolute lack of responsibility
crazy insisting that Ril had used armed men to and [ ] insanity complicated with paralysis. [
force him into joining the rebels in insurrection. ] The government, my accuser, being
Pre Andr painted Ril as a manipulative demon irresponsible, and consequently insane, cannot
concerned only with obtaining money for him... which but have acted wrong, and if high treason
became the focus for most of the trial. Dr. Francis there is, it must be on its side and not on my
Roy, who treated Ril at Beauport years earlier, part... [ ] When we sent petitions to the
testified Ril was the victim of megalomania. government, they used to answer by sending the
Charles Nolin a traitor to the Exovedate cause - police. [ ] I suppose that after having been
was so vindictive in his testimony that it provided condemned, I will cease to be called a fool,
much basis for the eventual passing of the death and for me, it is a great advantage. I
sentence having pretended to support the rebels consider it as a great advantage. If I have a
during the early part of the resistance, and being mission I say if, for the sake of those
rewarded with fat government contracts before the who doubt, but for my part it means since,
trial. since I have a mission, I cannot fulfill my
mission as long as I am looked upon as an
Rils defense, despite speaking in English instead insane being... and the moment I begin to
of his native tongue, was both brilliant and ascend that scale I begin to succeed.
persuasive, bestowing legitimacy and credibility unto Transcript: Trial of Louis Ril
the Macutetis people in their historic struggle for
their rights... versus his insanity: He refused to compromise the validity of the
Macutetis struggle for a democracy in Western Canada
Transcript: Trial of Louis Ril: that would have had a dignified place for its
natives. No less than three hundred armed troops were
When I came into the North-West, the First formed into a concentric circle around his person
of July, 1884, I found the Indians suffering. where the execution was taking place. Ril, with
I found the half-breeds [French and English] great courage and quiet dignity left a lasting
eating the rotten pork of the Hudsons Bay impression.
Company and getting sick and weak every day.
Although a half-breed, and having no Never have I seen a more radiant face than
pretension to help the whites, I also paid his as he prayed marching the scaffold.
attention to them. I saw they were deprived Beauty of Soul reflected in his face; Divine
of responsible government. I saw that they Light seemed to shine on him. His eyes looked
were deprived of their public liberties. I into the future.
remembered that half-breed meant white and Pre Andr
Indian, and while I paid attention to the Archives, Archdiocese of St-Boniface
suffering Indians and the half-breeds I
remembered that the greatest part of my heart Enduring and severe consequences were immediately
and blood was white and I have directed my felt by the Macutetis and First Nation communities.
attention to help the Indians, to help the In the wake of losing their struggle for rights, the
half-breeds and to help the whites to the best Exovedes had to continue living amidst the expanding
of my ability. We have made petitions; I have Canadian state and increasing hostility towards their
made petitions with others to the Canadian people.
government asking to relieve the condition of
this country. We have taken time; we have
tried to unite all classes, even if I may Final Statement of Louis David Ril fils
speak, all parties...
I have devoted my life to my country.
Ril claimed the social system imposed upon the If it is necessary for the happiness of my
North-West was insane and deprived people of the right country that I should now soon cease to live,
to elect their own government. He claimed that the I leave it to the Providence of my God.
House of Commons, Senate and Ministers of the
Dominion, which made the laws for their land and
governed it from afar, were no representation
whatsoever to the people of the North-West. And
that the North-West Council generated by the Federal
government had the great defect of its parent. As
well as, the numbers of its members, which were
elected for the Council by the people was making
only a sham representative legislature and no
representative government at all.
British civilization which rules to-day the

world, and the British constitution has
defined such government as this is which rules
the North-West Territories as irresponsible
government, which plainly means that there is
no responsibility [ ] and if there is no
responsibility it is insane. [ ] Petition
after petition had been sent to the Federal
Louis David Riel died reciting Our Lords Prayer (in English):
Ntre Pre
Ntre Pre, qui es aux cieux,

Que ton nom soit sanctifi,
Que ton rgne vienne,
Que ta volont soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.
Donne-nous aujourd'hui ntre pain de ce jour.
Pardonne-nous nos offences
Comme nous pardonnons aussi ceux qui nous ont offenss.
Et ne nous soumets pas la tentation,
mais dlivre-nous du mal,
car c'est toi qu'appartiennent le rgne,
la puissance et la gloire, aux sicles des sicles.
Amen.
Wovoka told us we were to have a new earth; that the old earth
would be covered up, and while it was being covered up we were to
keep dancing [the Ghost Shirt Dance] so that we could stay on top
of the dirt.
He hit the ground and made fire. He spoke to all of us at once,
and all the different tribes understood him. He said that all the
white people would be destroyed. He taught us a song to sing
during this dance. He showed us where the sun dropped into the
ocean, and it boiled up and became hot.
Short Bull
Before the Battle of Batoch the Resistance Activists who fought Middleton's troops are drilled by Dumont.
Gabriel Dumont on reconnaissance before the Battle of Batoch

Middleton's Canadienne mercenaries Mtis house shelled
Battle of Batoch Battle of Batoch
Middleton ordered the construction of a zareba, which protected his men from gunfire. Mtis defenders of Batoch in their rifle pits
Battle of Batoch
Batoch
Chief Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker) surrenders to Middleton
Engagement between General Strange's column and Mistahimaskwa's (Big Bear) band at Little Deer River (28 May 1885)
Louis Riel shortly after his capture.
Louis Riel speaking to the jury at his trial in Regina, July 1885
The Bayonet Charge at Batoch
Riel Surrenders
Prisoners of Riel
Gabriel Dumont Louis Riel

The fight at Duck Lake
Cree Chief Fine Day and his son Toostoos Awasis, "Gat" Howard with his Gatling gun Wounded Prince Albert Volunteer's Life
a studio photograph taken at Battleford in 1896 Saved by a Half-Breed 1885
Phtokahnapiwiin, better known as Poundmaker General Middleton Mistahi-maskwa, better known as Big Bear
Mtis river lots from Batoch
NOTE: THIS DOCUMENT MAY BE SUBJECT TO REVISION
li Exovedes
Li Geurre Nationale
Territoire Du Nord Ouest (Indtermine)
Darcy John Bouchard. Li Exule 12/2012
Based on Veterans and Families of the 1885 Resistance, 2009, and The People of the Mtis Nation and/or Dictionary of
Mtis Biography by Lawrence Barkwell
The Four Delegates sent for Riel in Montana in 1884; the Leaders of the as well. And Charles Eugene "Old Boss" Boucher, assistant secretary to the
Exovedes; the First to die; Riel's 16 Exovedate Councilors of the Provisional Council of the Provisional Government, was another future MLA.
Government (1885); the Mtis Captains and their dizaines; Other Resistance Now then, Mtis Chief Charles "Wahpass" Trottier and Dakota/Sioux Chief
Activists; Heroines; Other women; Others; the Last Stand in the Graveyard
Trenches; the Exovede Martyrs; Li Exovede prisoners: August 1885
Wah-pah-ha-ska (White Cap) from Prairie Ronde - near Saskatoon - were made
honourary Councilors: They brought sixty men and their families with them.
Wah-pah-ha-ska63 spoke no French or English, although Alexis Labombarde, a
The Four Delegates sent for Riel in Montana in 1884 venerable half-breed, was able to translate for him. Conversely, William Henry
Jackson aka Honor Jackson or Jaxon was a White man who sympathized with
Dumas, Michel the Mtis and their struggle against the Dominion government in Ottawa.
Dumont, Gabriel Jackson became personal secretary to Louis Ril when Ril returned to Canada
Isbister, (John) James - leader of the Anglo-Mtis in 1884, and was instrumental in organizing the Mtis militia and provisional
Ouellette, Mose Napolon government: He was later thought insane by Ril and, after the Fall of Batoch,
tried for treason-felony but declared insane by the Canadian government of
Occupation and sentenced to a lunatic asylum in Lower Fort Garry. Too bad for
The Leaders of the Exovedes him because he truly was a prairie visionary.
Capt. lie Dumont had traveled from Fort la Corne to participate in the
Riel, Louis "David", MLA, MP (41) - spiritual and political leader of the Resistance, but it is not known which fighters were in his dizaine; perhaps he
Mtis people inherited Capt. Isidore Dumont's or Capt. Augustin Laframboise's dizaine after
Dumont, Gabriel (48) - chef Mtis they died? Isidore Dumas, too was in charge of a dizaine, but he was never
called Captain.
The First to die Other notable members of the Exovedate were its chairman Pierre "Pierriche"
Parenteau, a trusted friend and political ally of Ril - also in the prisoner's
Trottier, Joseph Jr. "Assiyiwin" - old, half-blind Headman of Beardy's Band - photo. Councilor Jean-Baptists Boyer, though, fled to Qu'Appelle after the
killed by "Gentleman" Joe McKay Battle of Duck Lake. Two councilors who had been elected Captains: Jean-
Dumont, Isidore fils (52) - killed by "Gentleman" Joe McKay Baptiste Boucher pre and Jean-Baptiste Vandal, both fathered sizable families -
Boucher parenting several Exovede Patriots who also resisted the Dominion
Invasion. As did Emmanuel Beaugrand dit Champagne, a founder of the
16 Exovedate Councilors of the Provisional Government (1885) community; he, too, is pictured in the prisoner's photo. His son Bazile Cleophas
Beaugrand dit Champagne had to be forced to participate, though! Now,
Synopsis Damase Carrire and Donald Daniel Ross were both heroes cruelly treated by
the Canadians - their deaths at the hands of the Canadians should be considered
Louis "David" Ril MLA, MP, was spiritual and political leader of the war crimes64 and them as martyrs: both men were dragged by their necks behind
Franco-Mtis people, although many Anglo-Mtis believed in him as well. horses; Damase had his leg broken by the bastards - them believing he was Ril;
Gabriel Dumont was chef Mtis - War Chief of the Mtis Provisional Army. and Ross was shot and bayoneted after shooting Canadian Capt. John French, a
But, he was known to many simply as Uncle (oncle, tonton). Michel Dumas, popular man with his troops. Joseph Delorme, too, should be considered a
secretary of Ril's governing council, was another important personality martyr and his treatment at the hands of the Canadians a war crime: Joseph was
amongst the Exovedate; he had accompanied Dumont and the others into the captured by the English at Batoch and severely wounded, being shot through
United States in pursuit of Louis Ril, then living in exile in Montana; and he the thigh so that he lost both testicles - he was crippled for the rest of his life.
escaped with Dumont after the Fall of Batoch. Yes! Michel Dumas was a Ambroise Jobin fils was also mortally wounded at the Battle of Batoch, having
major player, as well. As was Charles Nolin MLA, one time friend of Ril but his leg amputated in Saskatoon, and being buried next to the mass grave at
now in opposition to him and Dumont on the issue of the use of arms. Batoch.
Understandably. That Nolin was arrested by the Exovedate is equally Pierre Garipy and Pierre Henry were both pictured in the prisoner's photo,
reasonable, considering his opposition: Nolin betrayed the Exovedate and later as well. And two of Riel's "Sept toiles" ("Seven Stars," referring to the
testified against Ril - and is considered a traitor as they had once been good Tourond brothers), served on the Council: principally, David Tourond, who
friends. Capt. William Boyer was also suspected of disloyalty and arrested by escaped into Montana, and Patrice Tourond, one of Dumont's lieutenants
the Exovedate along with Charles Nolin. Napolon Boyer was arrested at the assigned as Riel's bodyguard, especially after the Fall of Batoch.
same time. Albert Monkman was also suspected of disloyalty and arrested by
the Exovedate: Monkman was later arrested and imprisoned for seven years by
63
the Canadian government - he is pictured in the prisoner's photo. It must have Wah-pah-ha-ska 's son - name and age unknown - was the only other fatality besides
been difficult for him in prison, being a prisoner of the Crown and ostracized Marcile Gratton which died because of "Gat" Howard and the Gatling gun during the Fall
from the other Patriots who were now suspicious of him. It is no wonder that he of Batoch. Howard boasted that of the 72 Macutetis and First Nations killed and 110
wounded, about thirty were marked with his Gatling balls, ranging from 3 to 20 each
abandoned his homeland after his release. Although his family had served
man. There is no accounting for the women and children or other casualties of "Gat"
honourably with Ril in Manitoba in 1869/70, Maxime Lpine pre MLA, who Howard and "li rababou."
fought with a crucifix in one hand and a rifle in the other, was opposed to Ril, 64
Dumont contended that another war crime would be the Canadian's use of exploding
shells, which caused cruel and unnecessary injuries on mass casualties.
Parenteau, Pierre "Pierriche" (72) - Chairman 16 man Exovedate Council Crozier's troops in the Battle of Duck Lake: It is not said who took over their
dizaines, if anyone. Jean-Baptiste, Pascal fils, and Joseph Montour, three
Capt. Boucher, Jean-Baptiste pre (47) brothers, sons of Patriots Pascal and Madeleine (ne Richard) Montour, were
Boyer, Jean-Baptiste (40) - member of Philippe Garipy's dizaine all killed there-at Duck Lake. Patrice Henry - age 14 yrs. - cared for the horses.
Carrire, Damase (34) - mistaken for Riel, the Canadian's broke his leg and tied Another outstanding Mtis Resistance fighter named Guillaume McKay killed
a rope around his neck to a saddle, and he was dragged/hanged to death - Lt. John Morton of the NWMP No. 1 Co. Volunteers.
war-crime - martyr Capt. Edouard Dumont, Capt. Patrice Joseph Fleury, Capt. Philipe Elzar
Beaugrand dit Champagne, Emmanuel (62) - conditional discharge for Garipy, Capt. James "Timeous" Short, Joseph Delorme - one of Gabriel
Rebellion Activities Dumont's lieutenants, Napolon Nault - one of Gabriel Dumont's close friends,
Henry, Pierre (47) - prisoner's photo - seven years for treason-felony Mose Napoleon Ouellette, Chief Isidore "Petequakey" Cayen dit Boudreau,
Jobin, Ambroise Jr. (34) - Turtleford Mtis - Battleford - died of wounds on May Isidore Dumas, Jean-Baptiste Arcand, and Charles Trottier Jr. were all among
23rd, in Saskatoon the men fighting at Duck Lake, on 26 March 1885.
Lpine, Maxime pre MLA (39) - his brother Ambroise-Didyme Lpine served Jean-Baptiste Boyer fled to Qu'Appelle after the Battle of Duck Lake.
Riel as military commander in 1869/70 - sentenced to seven years for
treason-felony, however he was released on 16 March 1886 - he was opposed Gilbert Breland, a scout, warned the Mtis at li Coule des Tourond's that
to Riel Middleton's troops were coming. Solomon Boucher, Damase Carrire, (Jean)-
Garipy, Pierre (59) - prisoner's photo - 3 year prison sentence for treason- Baptiste Deschamps, Isidore Dumas, Capt. Edouard Dumont, Capt. Antoine
felony Lafontaine dit Faillant, Pierre "Beau-bl" Laverdure, scouts Louis Malaterre and
Monkman, Albert (31) - imprisoned by Riel for disloyalty - prisoner photo - 7 Elzar Parisien, Ignace Zenon Poitras fils, Capt. James "Timeous" Short, Charles
years imprisonment for Rebellion Activities "Challius" Thomas, Charles Trottier Jr., brothers Isidore and Remi Trottier, and
Nolin, Charles, MLA (62) - he opposed Dumont and Riel when it came to the Jean "Johny" "War-bish-tee-gwan" Trottier, all Fought at li Coule des Tourond's
use of arms - he was made a prisoner on 24 April 1885. Jerome Hector Henry, one of three brothers active in the
Ouellette, Mose Napolon (45) - three years imprisonment Resistance, was one of Gabriel Dumont's "fair-complexioned" spies, working for
Parenteau, Jean-Baptiste pre (53) - wounded during the Battle of Batoch - fled Middleton as a teamster; he was wounded at li Coule des Tourond's.
to Montana Whereas William Bruce defected and fled from li Coule des Tourond's after
Ross, Donald Daniel (63) - after he killed Col. French, he was fatally wounded first shots, young Franois Ladouceur honoured himself carrying a flag of the
and bayoneted - on 12 May 1885 at Batoch Virgin Mary during the battle. Exovedate Councilor Maxime Lpine pre also
Ross, John (53) - in charge of the cattle supplies fought with two of his sons - Maxime fils and Patrice Tobie - a crucifix in one
Tourond, David (34) - escaped treason-felony charges fleeing into Montana hand and a rifle in the other: Patrice Tobie Lpine was a child-soldier - age
Capt. Vandal, (Jean)-Baptiste pre (55) - appointed one of the guards over the 16/17 yrs. Napolon Nault and Ignace Zenon Poitras fils both fought in the
prisoners battle, and Franois Tourond reported Bras Coup (aka Trial Man) and Chief
Kpeyakwskonam (One Arrow; Une Flche) of the Willow Cree active in a
Chief Trottier, Charles "Wahpass" (46) - there were about 20 men in Trottier's group of Patriots fighting near him.
brigade - he escaped to the US after the final battle Michel Boyer, St-Pierre Parenteau, and Joseph "Jos" Vermette III, along
Chief Wapahska (White Cap) Dakota/Sioux - with 21 men under duress joined with three Dakota Sioux warriors: Captola or Blue Beaver aka Chapitolata
Riel - conversely, it is said that there were about 40 men in Wapahska's (buried at Batoch), Wahpitiwakipe aka Joli Corbeau or Fine Crow, and Watsas,
brigade were all killed at li Coule des Tourond's. Michel Desjarlais was mortally
wounded there-at li Coule des Tourond's, and he, too, died three days later:
Boucher, ("Old Boss") Charles Eugene, MLA (21) - assistant secretary to the (Nurses Madeleine Dumont and Marie Hallett found a piece of his skull in the
Council of the Provisional Government - left in charge of Franois-Xavier's straw that he was laying on). Franois Ct Boyer was also wounded at li
store in Batoch when he fled to Carrot River to avoid the fighting Coule des Tourond's - he too died three days later on April 27th.
Dumas, Michel (36) - One Arrow Reserve farm instructor - secretary of Riel's
governing council Gabriel Dumont, chef Mtis, led 19 dizaines at Batoch, including a dizaine
of Mtis Scouts led by Capt. Patrice Fleury on the west side of the
Jackson, William Henry aka Jaxon, Honor Joseph (24) - Riel's secretary - later, Saskatchewan River, and the Turtleford (Horse Butte) Mtis, which had come to
considered insane and imprisoned by Riel - convicted of treason-felony and Batoch from Battleford after the Massacre of Cut Knife Hill. Mtis War Chief
sentenced to an asylum by the Canadians - escaped to the USA... Norbert "Mankachee" Hnault dit Delorme had led the Mtis fighters during the
Fisher, Alexandr Jr. (44) - Gabriel Dumont's secretary - disabled the Northcote Battle at Cut Knife Hill; after the attack, a number of the Macutetis present for
with Pascal Montour fils the battle had come to join Rils forces at Batoch, including the Jobins and
Falcons and other Turtle River Mtis. "Tchehasaso" Lafond and the other
Chamberland, Charles Adrien (58) - Council headquarters quartermaster Muskeg Lake Mtis who had participated in the fighting at Duck Lake were also
on the west side of the river at Batoch.
Delorme, Joseph (36) -lieutenant - principal bodyguard to Louis Riel on the last Frederick Fiddler also deserted with Elzar Swain; they surrendered at PA and
day were charged with treason-felony.
Tourond, Patrice (28) - lieutenant - principal bodyguard to Louis Riel on the last
day Solomon Boucher, Gilbert Breland, Emmanuel Beaugrand dit Champagne - a
founder of Batoch, Exovede quartermaster Philippe Charles Chamberland,
Parenteau, Matthias (18) - Riel's guide and cart driver Isidore Dumas, Capt. Edouard Dumont, Capt. Philipe Elzar Garipy, Councilor
Pierre Honor dit Henry, Capt. Antoine Lafontaine dit Faillant, Alexandr
Letendr, Alexandr Montour, Jean-Baptiste Montour, Napolon Nault, Joseph
The Mtis Captains and their dizaines Ouellette III, Mose Napoleon Ouellette, Ignace Zenon Poitras fils, Jean-Baptiste
(Gabriel Dumont led 19 dizaines at Batoch) Poitras,65 Capt. James "Timeous" Short, Charles Trottier Jr., Cuthbert (Corbett)
Trottier,66 Isidore Trottier, Jean "Johny" "War-bish-tee-gwan" Trottier, and Remi
Synopsis Trottier, were all present for the Siege of Batoch.
Exovedate Councilor Maxime Lpine pre also fought there with his two
Capt. William Boyer was suspected of disloyalty and arrested by the sons - Maxime fils and child-soldier Patrice Tobie. Vital Dumont dit Cayole also
Exovedate along with Councilor Charles Nolin, who abandoned the Mtis cause fought along with and two of his sons, Louis Dumont dit Cayole and Franois
and defected at Prince Albert, where he was jailed. (John) James Isbister, leader Dumont dit Cayole. As did Maxime Poitras and Michel Poitras, sons of Patriots
of the Anglo-Mtis in Prince Albert and one of the delegates chosen to go into Ignace Zenon and Hlne (ne McGillis) Poitras pre. Councilor David
Montana after Ril in 1884, was also in prison in Prince Albert; he was later Tourond and his brothers Charles Menard, Elzar, Calixte Tourond, all fought at
wrongly branded a coward and a liar by the Prince Albert Times.
65
Gabriel's elder brother Capt. Isidore Dumont was murdered by "Gentleman" Jean-Baptiste Poitras, died 14 August 1885 at Batoch
Joe McKay at Duck Lake along with Assiyiwin with the opening shots of the 66
Jean-Baptiste Poitras and Cuthbert (Corbett) Trottier are nowhere else mentioned in this
Invasion of the South Branch. Capt. Augustin Laframboise was also killed by study.
Batoch - Elzar and Calixte died on the last day of battle, Charles Menard died Poitras pre (56); Pierre "Pierriche" Parenteau (72) - seven months
shortly thereafter. imprisonment; Baptiste Parenteau;69 Pierre Garipy (59) - charged with treason-
Not all the men who fought there were Ril supporters, such as Capt. Calixte felony and sentenced to three years; Ignace Poitras Zenon fils (35) - sentence of
Lafontaine or Mose Parenteau, for example, some, like Cyprian Ouellette or one year hard labour; Albert Monkman (31) - sentenced to seven years
Joseph Ouellette III or Franois Primeau, were conscripts which must have been imprisonment; Pierre Vandal (37) - sentenced to seven years imprisonment;
compelled to engage the enemy; them in direct contrast to the child-soldiers (Jean)-Baptiste Vandal fils (39); Joseph Arcand (52) - sentenced to a jail term of
hereafter mentioned. Charles and Ursula (ne Carrire) Genthon, lie and one year; Maxime Dubois (32) - sentenced to seven years imprisonment but
Genevive (ne Laurance Carrire) Genthon, and Joseph and Josette (ne released before 1887; James "Timous" Short (51) - sentenced to seven years;
Marion) Genthon did not side with Ril. Neither did Pierre Vandal take up arms Pierre Henry (47) - sentenced to seven years; Patrice Tourond (28);70 Emmanuel
but was sent to Battleford to guard Poundmaker's prisoners; Alexandr "Petit- Beaugrand dit Champagne (62) - received a conditional discharge; and
Loup" Cardinal had a broken shoulder-blade and was only used occasionally a Alexandr "Kee-too-way-how" Cayen dit Boudreau, (51) ex-chief Muskeg Lake
guard; Jean-Baptiste Laplante was also used to escort and guard of prisoners; Band) - a seven-year prison term
and Ignace Zenon "Betillet" Poitras pre was a guard of prisoners. Jean-Baptiste Alternatively, Jean-Baptiste "Johnny" Sansregret dit Pontbriand (61) is also
Rocheleau, too, was a contentious objector. Jean-Baptiste Hamelin was suggested as being in this picture. Others prisoners not listed.
sentenced to death by the Exovedate for renunciation of Roman Catholic faith -
in opposition to Riel's fanaticism and the cult mentality of his followers which Among those who fled south into Montana were: John Sutherland aka
surrounded him - the sentence not carried out, though. Larocque Moonias - Headman One Arrow Band, Isidore Trottier, Jean "Johny"
Napoleon Nault led the fighting against the Northcote on the west side of the "War-bish-tee-gwan" Trottier, Jean-Baptiste Trottier, and Remi Trottier, and
river during the fighting at Batoch on May 9th. He was joined by Alexandr Alexandr Venne.
Fisher fils who lowered the ferry cable at Batoch's Crossing, shearing the
Northcote's smokestacks, spars, and steam whistle, starting a fire on board the Capt. Abraham Blanger pre (67)
boat. Norbert Sauv fils was also on the west side of the river during the fight at
Batoch - he later surrendered. Blanger , Norbert (25)
Cayen, Vitaline (19)
Virginie Villeneuve, 18 mos. old daughter of Isidore and Mathilda (ne Allery Dumont dit Cayole, Vital (55)
dit Henry) Villeneuve died at Batoch on May 11th. Daniel "David" Dumas saw Garipy, Daniel Jr.
a bullet passed three inches above his wife's head. Edouard Pelletier was Lafournaise dit Laboucane, Alexandr (16)
wounded in the leg and Charles "Challius" Thomas was wounded in the arm. Lafournaise dit Laboucane, Joseph (48)
Honor Smith, Gabriel Dumont's nephew, distinguished himself at Batoch by
retrieving a barrel of gunpowder by running barefoot within seven arpents Capt. (Jean)-Baptiste Boucher pre (47)
(about 40 yards) of the enemy. At the Battle of Batoch, Pierre "Beau-bl"
Laverdure and Capt. Philipe Elzar Garipy were seen bravely coming into the Bremner, Mose (23)
open, together, and kneeling to take their shots - challenging each other to Bremner, William pre (63)
greater feats of bravado and marksmanship. Lamirande, Alexandr (21)
Cuthbert (Corbette) Fagnant, Mose Ouellette, and Charles "Challius" McDougall, Alexandr Sr. (44)
Thomas fought alongside Edouard and Gabriel Dumont and made a last stand McDougall, Alexandr Jr. (16)
desperate stand with Gabriel and Edouard Dumont at Champagne's house. 67 Parenteau, Jean-Baptiste pre (53) - wounded in the Battle of Batoch
Two other men, Capt. Edouard Dumont and Capt. Philipe Elzar Garipy, are Parenteau, Leon Esdras (39)
renown for leading a last desperate stand in the graveyard trenches. They were Racette, Jerome (27)
joined by scout Elzar Parisien and the Lavalle brothers - Pierre "Mac" and Swain, John "Natumeo" (56) - killed on May 12th - the last day of fighting
Louis Philippe - and an unknown Cree warrior. Thereafter, Batoch fell to the Swain, William Jr. (24)
Dominion... the Invasion was over and the Occupation begun. Jean-Baptiste Tremblay, Esdras
Parenteau pre and Joseph Delorme were among the wounded. Isidore Boyer,
Charles Ducharme,68 Andr "Petchis" Letendr, John "Natumeo" Swain, and Capt. William Boyer (45)
brothers Calixte and Elzar Tourond were among those killed in the Fall of suspected of disloyalty & arrested by Mtis along with Charles Nolin
Batoch. Joseph Trottier Sr. and Capt. Michel Trottier died in the Fall of
Batoch, too. As did Ambroise Jobin Jr., who had his leg amputated in Carrire, Mose "Trois-Ponce" (34)
Saskatoon, died there on May 23rd from wounds received during the Fall of Fiddler, Cuthbert (27)
Batoch. Ambroise Dumont pre was also wounded at Batoch - and died later. Fiddler, John William (25)
Gregoire Boyer also died after the fighting at Batoch, on May 25th. Fiddler, William
Joseph "La Pioche" Vandal was shot, and had both arms broken, before being Pilon, Joseph (45)
bayoneted on this last day of battle: He was an inspiration to the other fighters - Ross, John Jr. (28)
a great hero. Damase Carrire and Donald Daniel Ross were both martyred for Ross, Louis (21)
their Resistance to Ottawa; they were both dragged behind horses by their necks Sauv, Guillaume "Leon" (15)
- which should be considered a war crime. That Marcile Gratton and Wah-pah- Sauv, James "Jeremie" (23)
ha-ska's son were the only fatalities of the infamous Gatling gun, should also be Sauv, Joseph (18)
considered a war crime: (There is no mention of the Indian savages or their Sauv, Joseph (36)
women and children which were massacred at Cut Knife Hill). Thomas, Charles "Challius" (23) - wounded in the arm at Coule des Tourond's
Old Jos (Joseph) Ouellette - age 93 - was the only heroic martyr buried
separate in a coffin, the others being wrapped in cloth and buried together in a Capt. Ambroise Beaugrand dit Champagne (41)
mass grave. Captain of the Scouts
Nothing is mentioned of the burning buildings, the intermittent shots and Breland, Josu (30)
celebratory yippie-yahooing of the conquering army; nothing is said of the Delorme, William John (27)
screams of the Native women - colloquially known as "shaganinnies" to the Gosselin, Alexander (21)
British troops - as their families were harassed and them ravaged. Nothing is Lafontaine, Louison (35)
said of the smoke which blackened the sky. Nothing said of the rough treatment Laviolette, Charles (26)
of the First Nation and Macutetis men. Among the men arrested were the Laviolette, Modeste (30)
following, which appeared in a photograph together outside the Regina Court
House - Mounted Police behind them - in August 1885: Ignace Zenon "Betillet" 69
Note: Jean-Baptiste Parenteau pre (53) was wounded during battle and escaped to
Montana...
67
Emmanuel Beaugrand dit Champagne's house and store were pillaged by the Canadian 70
I find no record of Jean-Baptiste nor Baptiste Tourond participating in the 1885
troops after the Fall of Batoch. Resistance; Jean-Baptiste was part of Riel's Red River Council in 1870, and, David
68
Not listed by Barkwell in "Veterans and Families of the 1885 Northwest Resistance, Tourond was not tried having escaped to Montana. Note: Patrice Tourond was a
2009." bodyguard of Riel in the last days after the Fall of Batoch...
Letendr, Jean-Baptiste (23) Villeneuve, Isidore (40) - 18 mos. old daughter Virginie died at Batoch on May
Vandal, (Jean)-Baptiste fils (39) 11th
Vandal, Joseph "La Pioche" (75) - shot, had both arms broken, and bayoneted
on May 12th - last day of battle, Batoch Capt. Patrice Joseph Fleury (37)
Vandal, William (24) Captain of the Scouts - on the west side of the Saskatchewan River at Batoch
Isidore Dumas (34)71 Capt. Daniel Garipy (31)
Boyer, Lagloire Bousquet, Louis (36)

Breland, Gilbert (47) Cardinal, Alexandr "Petit-Loup" (45) - broken shoulder-blade; only
Ferguson, Leon(24) occasionally a guard
Henry, Jerome Hector (29) Delorme, Joseph (36) - wounded and captured at Batoch - shot in thigh, lost
Honor dit Henry, Pierre (47) both his testicles
Laverdure, Pierre "Beau-bl" (47) Desmarais, Jean (44)
Short, Jim Flammand, Joseph (28)
Villeneuve, Isidore (40) Ouellette, Bernard (21)
Ouellette, John Edward (22)
Capt. Edouard Dumont (40) Poitras, Ignace Zenon fils (35) - prisoners photo - one year hard labour
The last stand in the graveyard trenches Trottier, Joseph pre (57) - died at Batoch
Belgarde, Pierre (26) Capt. Philipe Elzar Garipy (46)

Caron, Jean pre (52) The last stand in the graveyard trenches
Caron, Theophile (19)
Davis, Louis (29) Bousquet, Baptiste (19)
Desjarlais, Paul (32) Boyer, Jean-Baptists (40) - Councilor - he fled to Qu'Appelle after Duck Lake
Fiddler, Maxime (21) Boyer, Napolon (27) - arrested by Mtis along with Charles Nolin
Lefort, Boniface (28) Boyer, William (45)
Parenteau, Louis (23) Bruce, William (24) - defected - fled Coule des Tourond's after first shots
Parenteau, Mose (39) - a Riel supporter - served one year hard labour for Caron, Jean fils (22)
resistance activities Fagnant, John (20)
Tourond, Elzar (27) - killed on the last day of battle, May 12th Fiddler, Frederick (29) - deserted with Elzar Swain and surrendered at PA -
charged with treason-felony
Capt. Isidore Dumont (52) Fiddler, George Andrew (34)
killed by Joe McKay Garipy, Auriel
Trottier, Albert (25)
Deschamps, (Jean)-Baptiste (36) Trottier, Charles Jr. (20)
Dubois, Ambroise (29)
Dubois, Maxime (32) - prisoner's photo - 7 years imprisonment Capt. Antoine Lafontaine dit Faillant (36)
Ferguson, Leon (24)
Lpine, Athanase (35) Bremner, Joseph (24)
Montour, Jean-Baptiste (28) - killed at Duck Lake Beaugrand dit Champagne, Bazile Cleophas (32) - forced to participate
Nault, Napolon (27) - fought at Duck Lake and Coule des Tourond's - and led Charette, Daniel Sr. (45)
the fighters on the west side of the river against the Northcote Charette, Daniel Jr. (20)
Parenteau, Gabriel (48) Kapeepikwanew dit Dumont, Edouard (30)
Parenteau, "Petit" Louis (50) Fagnant, Charles (24)
Parenteau, Samuel Gervais, Napolon (26)
Gervais, St-Pierre (21)
Capt. William Fiddler Sr. (58) Hamelin, Daniel William (23)
Montour, Alexandr
Fiddler, William Jr. (29) Ouellette, (Jean)-Baptiste Sr. (48)
Petit dit Thomas, Thomas (34) Parenteau, Pierre fils (44) - killed at Coule des Tourond's
Rocheleau dit Rivard, Jean-Baptiste fils (34) - arrested, but paroled Parenteau, Raphael (37)
Rocheleau, Jean-Baptiste (61) - contentious objector Parenteau, St-Pierre (24) - killed at Coule des Tourond's on April 24th
Roy, Jean-Baptiste (19) Swain, Elzar (30) - deserted with Frederick Fiddler and surrendered at PA
Schley (Chelet), Paul Gustave - Fr-Can Turcotte, Noel (Napolon) (34)
Vandal, Pierre (37) - did not take up arms - sent to Battleford to guard
Poundmaker's prisoners Capt. Calixte Lafontaine (38)
Vermette, Franois (35) - see below Riel supporter
Vermette, Joseph Jos III (53) - killed April 23rd at Coule des Tourond's
Ward, James Jr. (34) Fiddler, Francois "Lagaua" Sr. (47)
Fiddler, Francois-Xavier (23)
Capt. Corbert Flammand Laplante, Guillaume (20)
Letendr, William (26)
Boucher, Solomon (23) Parenteau, Jean-Baptiste (27)
Boyer, Magloire (23) Parenteau, Patrice (18)
Bremner, Alexandr (28) Pilon, (Raymond) Barthlmy (24) - Fr-Can - arrived in Batoch in 1882
Dumas, Joseph Patrice (22) Poitras, Ignace Zenon "Betillet" pre (56)
Parisien, Elzar (38) - scout at Clarke's Crossing (south of Coule des Vandal, Pierre Modeste (19)
Tourond's) - last stand graveyard trenches Wells, Joseph (34)
Rocheleau dit Vizier,, Modeste (31)
Sansregret dit Pontbriand, Pierre (18) Capt. Augustin Laframboise (41)
Turcotte, Norbert (30) killed by Crozier's troops at Duck Lake: March 26th
71
Petitions from St-Louis de Langevin on 19 November 1883, Biographies of the Mtis Allard, Antoine (36)
who signed, by Barkwell. Bremner, William fils (26)
Carrire, Charles Toussaint (52) Marion, Louis (45) - deserter
Garipy, Charles Saluste "Sheesheep" (35) Ouellette, Jean-Baptiste fils (26)
Laframboise, Edouard (21) Sauv, Norbert fils (36) - on the west side of the river during the fight at
Letendr, Andr fils (23) Batoch
Parenteau, Napolon (27) Thorn, William (26)
Pieton, Jerome Tourond, Pierre (30)
Poitras, Michel (18) Vandal, Franois (35)
Ross, Cuthbert (22)
Turtleford (Horse Butte) Mtis
Capt. Jonas Moreau (44) Joined Poundmaker at Battleford
Fagnant dit Faillant, Patrice (25)

Goulet, Roger Sr. (28) - abandoned farm and fled Capt. Joseph Falcon Jobin (36)
Hamelin, Jean-Baptiste (45) - sentenced to death by Mtis Prov. Govt. for Leader of the Turtle River Mtis
renunciation of Roman Catholic faith - sentence not carried out
Henry-Honor, Maurice (38) Jobin, Ambroise Jr. (34) - died 23 May 1885 in Saskatoon from wounds received
Laplante, Toussaint (29) at the Battle of Batoch
Larocque, Jean-Batiste (45) Jobin, Louis Napolon (25)
Montour, Joseph Jobin, Patrice (17)
Ouellette, Joseph (53) Jobin, Pierre (29)
Ouellette, Julien (36)
Pich, William (21) Capt. Athanase Falcon (36)
Capt. Bernard Paul (37) Falcon, Gregorie (28)
Dumont, Alexis (21)

Laplante, Cuthbert (27) Other Resistance Fighters
Sakaban dit Lejour, Gregoire (42)
Martin, Charles (21) Amyotte, Arthur (27)
Martin, John Anderson, Caleb (25)
Martin, Pierre (26) Anderson, Charles (23)
Montour, Bernard Bien (30) Arcand, Alexandr "La Bich" (47)
Ouellette, Thomas (35) Arcand, Franois Regis (42)
Sansregret dit Beaubrilliant, Hillaire (22) Arcand, Jean-Baptiste (45) - active at Duck Lake
Shen, John Arcand, (Jean)-Baptiste (15)
Capt. Blanger , Abraham (36)
Capt. (Jean)-Baptiste Primeau pre (44) Blanger , Bernard (20)
Bousquet, Cyrille (31)
Arcand, Jean Napolon (~18) Boyer, Alexandr (19)
Bourassa, Alexandr (22) Boyer, Franois Ct (33) - wounded at Coule des Tourond's on April 24th -
Bourassa, Louis (39) died 3 days later
Bourassa, Modeste (~23) Boyer, Gregoire (19) - died at Batoch, after the fighting, on May 25th
McKay, Guillaume (30) - killed NWMP Lt. John Morton, No. 1 Co. Volunteers Breland, Gilbert (47) - scout who warned Mtis at Coule des Tourond's that
at Duck Lake Middleton's troops were coming - active also at Batoch
Meckmoire, William Caron, Patrice (17)
Plante, Basil (31) Carrire, Napolon (27) - sent with Franois Vermette on snowshoes to Prairie
Primeau, Franois (21) - conscript forced to engage the enemy Ronde to get Trottier and White Cap
Primeau, Jean-Baptiste fils (~19) Cayen dit Boudreau, Alexandr fils (18) - died of tuberculosis in 1886
Racette, William (28) Cayen dit Boudreau, Isidore Petequakey (40) - Chief Muskeg Lake Band
Swain, William Sr. (47) Charette, Joseph pre (44)
Charette, Joseph fils (18)
Delorme dit Bidou, Jean-Baptiste (53)
Delorme, Norbert "Mankachee" Hnault (48) - War Chief of the Mtis at Cut
Capt. James "Timeous" Short (51) Knife Hill
(Prisoner's photo) Desjarlais, Andr (63)
Desjarlais, Michel (32) - mortally wounded at Coule des Tourond's: 24 April
Boyer, Isidore (56) - died last day of fighting at Batoch on May 12th 1885 - died 3 days later
Cayen dit Boudreau, Alexandr "Kee-too-way-how" (51) - Former chief Ducharme, Charles (42) - died during the Siege of Batoch
Muskeg Lake Band - prisoner's photo Dumas, Daniel "David" (42) - saw a bullet passed 3 inches above his wife's
Dumont, Jean "Petit" (52) head
Dumont, Louis dit Cayole (32) Dumas, Isidore (34)
Landry, lie Pierre (50) Dumont, Ambroise Sr. (29) - wounded at Batoch - died later
Montour, Joseph (20) - killed at Duck Lake Capt. Dumont, lie (38) - traveled from Fort la Corne to participate in the
Montour, Pascal fils (33) Resistance
Ouellette, Joseph III (51) - conscript forced to engage the enemy Dumont dit Cayole, Franois (30)
Tourond, Pierre Dumont dit Cayole, Louis (32)
Vandal, Antoine fils (36) Favel, Basil (48) - Mtis member of Poundmaker's Band - No. 73 on Treaty pay
Vandal, Joseph (28) list
Favel, Louison (43) - Mtis member of Poundmaker's Band - No. 82 on Treaty
Capt. (Jean)-Baptiste Vandal pre (55) pay list
Fiddler, James (20)
Fiddler, Alexander (50) Edward Fitcol or Fitcall
Gervais, Patrice (31) Flammand, Alexander (7) - from Boggy Creek
Letendr, Andr "Petchis" (48) - killed on May 12th in the Battle of Batoch Flammand, Maxime (23) - from Boggy Creek
Letendr, Louis Eugene (53) Gervais, Bazile (64)
Henry, Jerome Hector (29) - Mtis spy working for Middleton as a teamster - Moonias, John Sutherland aka Larocque (59) - Headman One Arrow Band
wounded at Coule des Tourond's (band member #6) - fled to Montana after the Resistance
Labombarde, Alexis (82) - Siouan interpreter - conditionally discharged Capt. Trottier, Michel (53) Prairie Ronde Mtis - Captain of Beardy's Band -
Larivire, Francois (31) killed on 12 May 1885, Battle of Batoch
Ladouceur, Franois (21) - carried a flag of the Virgin Mary at the Battle of Tourond, Calixte (32) - killed on May 12th - last day of fighting at Batoch
Coule des Tourond's Tourond, Charles Menard (21) - died on 19 July 1885 at Batoch
Capt. Lafond, Jean-Baptiste "Tchehasaso" (32) (Chief of the Muskeg Lake Band Tourond, Franois (24)
1900-1914) - active at Duck Lake and on the west side of the river at Batoch Trottier, Isidore (22) - after the defeat fled south into Montana
Laplante, Jean-Baptiste (50) - escort & guard of prisoners Trottier, Jean "Johny" "War-bish-tee-gwan" (32) - after the defeat fled south into
Laplante, Mose (24) - name not on the dizaines list but on Philippe Garnot's Montana
List of Resistance Activists Trottier, Jean-Baptiste (21) - after the defeat fled south into Montana
Lavalle, Charles Martin (53) Trottier, Remi (24) - after the defeat fled south into Montana
Lavalle, Charles fils Venne, Alexandr (36) - after the defeat fled south into Montana
Lavalle, John (33) Vermette, Franois (35) (see above) - sent with Napolon Carrire on
Lavalle, Louis Philippe (22) - the last stand in the graveyard trenches snowshoes to Prairie Ronde to get Trottier and White Cap
Lavalle, Pierre "Mac" (25) - the last stand in the graveyard trenches
Laverdure, Pierre "Beau-bl" (47) - fought at Coule des Tourond's on 24 April Other Resistance Activists
1885
Ledoux, Alexis (46) Arcand, Joseph (52) - took no part in any fight - sent to guard prisoner's in
Ledoux, Isidore (12) Poundmaker's camp
Ledoux, Joseph (40) Boyer, Jean-Baptiste (40) - his store at St-Laurent was used as a prison for
Ledoux, Pierre (24) Riel's hostages
Lpine, Maxime fils (19) Cardinal, Joseph - murdered in Alberta while trying to get people to come to
Lpine, Patrice Tobie (16/17) Batoch and fight
Lucier, Toussaint (57) - reputed to have been the strongest man in the North- Favel, Thomas (78) - renowned medicine man - serving 6 mos. jail term and
West - captured and held in Regina jail unable to participate in the Resistance
Malaterre, Louis (39) - scout and fighter - reported on Middleton's northward Garneau, Lawrence (45) - accused with Benjamin Vandal of being a spy -
progress sentenced to death (in Edmonton)
McGillis, Modeste (39) - claims for losses turned down Vandal, Benjamin - accused with Lawrence Garneau of being a spy - sentenced
Montour, Abraham pre (53) - Resistance meetings held in his home on 23 to death - in Edmonton
March 1884 - charged with Andre "Nin-Nin" Nault fils for treason-felony at
Frog Lake and Frenchman's Butte Heroines
Ouellette, Antoine Abraham (18) - youngest of Baptiste Ouellette's three sons in
the Resistance Ernestine (ne Breland) Tourond (22) - wife of Elzar Tourond (27)
Ouellette, Jos (Joseph) (93) - killed at Batoch on the last day of battle, May Marie-Anne (ne Caron) Parenteau (55) - third wife of Pierre "Pierriche"
12th - the only heroic martyr buried separate in a coffin, the others being Parenteau pre (68)
wrapped in cloth and buried together in a mass grave Catherine (ne Delorme) Ross (60) - wife of Daniel Donald Ross (martyr): (he
Parenteau, Alexandr (40) - scout Battle River area - near Battleford (before was killed on May 12th on the last day of fighting at Batoch): She attended to
fighting broke out at Batoch) her dying husband on the field of battle.
Parenteau, Daniel (46) - charge of treason-felony dismissed on Aug. 4th Christine (ne Dumas) Pilon (23) - wife of Barthlmy Pilon - she was with
Parenteau, Isidore "Wabash" (33) - sent with Louis Letendr to Battle River Mde. Riel after the Fall of Batoch on May 12th
district to enlist reinforcements Pelagie (ne Dumont) Parenteau (50) - Gabriel Dumont's sister - wife of Jean-
Parenteau, Patrice (21) Baptiste Parenteau (53)
Pelletier, Edouard (49) - wounded in the leg at Batoch Garipy, Caroline (41) - Caroline fed and housed Father Touze when the battle
Pich, Franois (50) and other events took place at Duck Lake
Pich, Franois "Coyote" (38) - the son of Chief Bobtail (Alexis Pich) Josphte (ne Gervais) Tourond (34) - widow of Calixte Tourond: (he was killed
Pilon, Alexandr (21) on May 12th on the last day of fighting at Batoch)
Plouf dit Villebrune, Daniel (40) Veronique (ne Gervais) Fiddler (19) wife of Jean-Baptiste Fiddler (24)
Plouf dit Villebrune, Franois Marie (ne Hallett) Letendr (80) - widowed by 1885
Poitras, Jean-Baptiste (20) - died on 14 August 1885 at Batoch Angelique (ne Landry) Dumont (58) - second wife of Isidore Dumont
Poitras, Maxime (22) Josphte (ne Lavalle) Lpine (46) - wife of Maxime Lpine MLA
Racette, Charles II (52) Marie (ne Letendr dit Batoch) Champagne (62) - wife of Emmanuel
Regnier, Octave Antoine Nicolas (Fr. Can.) - school teacher - conditional Beaugrand dit Champagne
discharge for "rebellion activities" Marguerite (ne Monet dit Belhumeur) Riel (24) - wife of Louis Riel - she was
Richard, Antoine (34) coughing blood and died of tuberculosis in 1886
Ross, John Jr. (53) Judith (ne Parenteau) Dumont (38) - wife of Isidore Dumont pre
Sansregret dit Pontbriand, Andr (~39) Rosalie (ne Parenteau) Garipy (48) - melted lead into bullets
Sansregret, Jean-Baptiste "Johnny" Pontbriand (61) Josphte (ne Paul) Tourond - widow of Joseph Tourond and mother of "Li Sept
Sansregret dit Pontbriand, John (36) toiles"
Sauv, Franois (21) Amelie (ne Poitras) Fisher - wife of George Fisher
Sayer, Cleophas (Cleophile) (35) - arrested at Battleford on 4 June 1885 for Henriette (ne Riel) Poitras (24) - Riel's sister - married to Jean-Marie Poitras...
Resistance Activities - charges dismissed 23 July 1885 Blandine "Blanche" (ne Ross) Henry (28) - soldiers stole wedding band from
Sayer, Henry "Fleury" (44) - arrested at Battleford on 26 May 1885, having her finger
come in with Poundmaker Josphte (ne St-Arnaud) Venne (51)
Sayer, Jean-Baptiste (32) - captured wagon train - arrested June 1885 & tried Madeleine (ne Wilkie) Dumont (45) - wife of Gabriel Dumont
for treason-felony
Smith, Gabriel (27) Other women
Smith, Henry Sr. (61)
Smith, Henry Jr. (29) Elise (ne Ferguson) Dumas (46) - wife of Daniel "David" Dumas (42) - he saw
Smith, Honor - distinguished him at Batoch by retrieving a barrel of a bullet passed 3 inches above her head
gunpowder running barefoot within seven arpents (about 40 yards) of the Justine (ne Laviolette) Schmidt (32) - married to Riel's schoolmate and
enemy colleague Louis Schmidt dit Lafert
St-Denis, "Louis" Joseph Sr. (~30) Marianne (ne Ledoux) Morrisette (25) - daughter of Joseph "Toomeetoon"
St-Germain, Frederic (33) Ledoux and Isabelle "Mistaw" Blanger - a cook for the Mtis troops
Sophie (ne Letendr) Dumont (39) - wife of Edouard Dumont
Marie (ne Ross) Lefort - daughter of Daniel Donald Ross - wife of Boniface Schmidt dit Lafert, Louis, MLA (41) - Riel's schoolmate and colleague -
Lefort arrested by the Govt. in 1885
Bethsy (ne Ross) Sansregret (27) - married John Sansregret - niece of Donald Swain, James Jr. (63); Arcand, Marie (51) - Riel family shared their home in
Daniel Ross Montana
Julie (ne Ross) Thorn (23) - daughter of Daniel Donald Ross - wife of William Welsh, Norbert dit Lallemand (50) - declined to get involved - his stores were
Thorn looted at Prairie Ronde
Others The Last Stand in the Graveyard Trenches
Bremner, Charles (45) - Anglo storeowner/trader falsely accused of rebellion Capt. Dumont, Edouard (40)
activities and robbed by Gen. Middleton Capt. Garipy, Philippe Elzar (46)
Birston (Burston), Magnus Bernard (57) - the only other person to be tried Lavalle, Louis Philippe (22)
besides Riel Lavalle, Pierre "Mac" (25)
Champagne, "Noel" Nazaire (19) - did not join the Rebels Parisien, Elzar (36)
Genthon, Charles (44); Carrire, Ursula (36) - did not side with Riel
Genthon, lie (51); Carrire, Genevive Laurance (43) - did not side with Riel Unknown Cree warrior
Genthon, Joseph (55); Marion, Josette - did not side with Riel
Goulet, Roger Norbert Alexis (51) - did not join the Resistance of 1869-70 - he
was made Commissioner for the Regulation of Grievances of the
Saskatchewan Mtis in 1885
Lafond, Basil (39) - arrested on 29 March 1885, at Battleford, on suspicion of
being a rebel
Letendr, Alexandr (20) - compelled to Resistance after the Coule des
Tourond's fight, but did not participate in fighting
Letendr, Franois-Xavier (44) - his home was used by Riel, but he was not
active in the Resistance - his stores were looted by the Canadians
McKay, Joseph (41) - farming instructor at Strike-Him-On-The-Back Reserve,
near Battleford
McKay, William II (67) - Mtis scout, combatant, interpreter - headed off Chiefs
Poundmaker and Rattler (Fine Day) at Battleford
McKay, Thomas, MLA (36) - sent with Sgt. Stewart and eight sleighs to Duck
Lake after the ammunition - this event led to the first battle of the Invasion
Nolin, Charles, MLA (47) - arrested by Mtis along with Capt. William Boyer -
deserted at Duck Lake, fled to PA and was imprisoned
Nolin, Joseph Sr. (43) - arrested for resistance activities (at "the Point")
Nolin, Joseph Jr. Octave, MLA (17) - arrested for resistance activities (at "the
Point")
Ouellette, Cyprien (18) - conscripted to fight against his will at Batoch
Poitras, David (51) - arrested for alleged Resistance activities - charges
dismissed on 26 July 1885 at Battleford Jean Caron Sr., seated, wife Marguerite (nee Dumas), with son
Primeau, Franois (45) - fled to avoid being conscripted to fight in the Albert and granddaughters Emma and Marie on their farm at Batoche,
Resistance circa 1895.
The bodies of the Mtis soldiers killed at Batoch on the final day of fighting were dumped unceremoniously into a mass grave by Canadian forces.
The Exovede & Native Martyrs
Ah-si-we-in (Ahseweyin or "Assiyiwin" aka Joseph Trottier) - old, half-

bind headman of Okemasis Band - (buried at St. Laurent)
Duck Lake: 26 March 1885 Dumont, Isidore Jr. (52) - (buried at St-Laurent)
Laframboise, Augustin (41) - member of Petequakey Band - (buried at St- Boyer, Isidore (56) - (buried in a mass grave at Batoch)
Laurent) Carrire, Damase (34) - the Canadians mistook him for Riel, broke his leg,
Montour, Jean-Baptiste (25) - (buried at St-Laurent) and tied a cord about his neck and dragged him behind a horse until he
Montour, Pascal pre (52) was dead - some women found him the next day - a war crime - martyr
Montour, Joseph (20) - (buried at St-Laurent) Dumont Sr., Ambroise (29) - wounded at Batoch - died later (buried at
Batoch)
Jobin, Ambroise (34) - wounded at Batoch - died later at Saskatoon (buried
Coule des Tourond's/Fish Creek: 23 April 1885 at Batoch)
Letendr, Andre Petchis (48) - (buried in a mass grave at Batoch)
Boyer, Franois Cote (33) - wounded in battle - died three days later (buried Ouellette, Jos (Joseph) (93) - (buried at Batoch - separate from mass
at Batoch) grave in a wooden coffin)
Desjarlais, Michel (32) - wounded in battle at Coule des Tourond's - died Ross, Donald Daniel (63) - French's Scouts lassoed his body and dragged it
three days later (buried at Batoch) behind a horse, mutilating his corpse - he was buried in the mass grave
Parenteau, St. Pierre (24) - (buried at Batoch) - a war crime - martyr
Vermette, Joseph III "Jos" (53) - (buried at Batoch) Swain, John "Natumeo" (56) - (buried in a mass grave at Batoch)
Tourond, Calixte (32) - (buried in a mass grave at Batoch)
Captola or Blue Beaver aka Chapitolata - a Dakota Sioux warrior (buried Tourond, Elzar (27) - (buried in a mass grave at Batoch)
at Batoch) Trottier, Michel (53) - (buried in a mass grave at Batoch)
Wah pitiwakipe aka Joli Corbeau or Fine Crow - a Dakota Sioux warrior Vandal, Joseph "La Pioche" (75) - (buried in a mass grave at Batoch)
Watsas - a Sioux warrior
Batoch: 9-12 May 1885 Gratton, Marcile (10) killed in the last charge... father: French half-breed,
mother: Native girl - from the Saskatoon Dakota group
Boyer, Gregoire (19) - wounded at Batoch - died days later (buried at
Batoch)
Li Exovede prisoners: August 1885
Mtis prisoners outside the Regina Court House - Mounted Police behind them
Poitras, Ignace Zenon "Betillet" pre (56)

Pierre "Pierriche" Parenteau (72) - seven months imprisonment
Baptiste Parenteau72
Pierre Garipy (59) - charged with treason-felony and sentenced to three years
Ignace Poitras Zenon fils (35) - sentence of one year hard labour
Albert Monkman (31) - sentenced to seven years imprisonment
Pierre Vandal (37) - sentenced to seven years imprisonment
(Jean)-Baptiste Vandal fils (39)
Joseph Arcand (52) - sentenced to a jail term of one year
Maxime Dubois (32) - sentenced to seven years imprisonment but released before 1887
James "Timous" Short (51) - sentenced to seven years
Pierre Henry (47) - sentenced to seven years
Patrice Tourond (28)73
Emmanuel Beaugrand dit Champagne (62) - received a conditional discharge...
Alexandr Cayen dit Boudreau, ex-chief Muskeg Lake Band) - a seven-year prison term
Alternatively, Jean-Baptiste "Johnny" Sansregret dit Pontbriand (61) is also suggested as being in this picture
Others prisoners not listed
72
Note: Jean-Baptiste Parenteau pre (53) was wounded during battle and escaped to Montana...
73
I find no record of Jean-Baptiste nor Baptiste Tourond participating in the 1885 Resistance; Jean-Baptiste was part of Riel's Red River Council in 1870, and, David Tourond was not tried
having escaped to Montana. Note: Patrice Tourond was a bodyguard of Riel in the last days after the Fall of Batoch...
Traitorous Treaty Indians and Half-Breeds
McKay, James (23) - attached to French's Scouts as dispatch-bearer

Battleford Home Guards No. 1 Co.
Lt-Col. Otter
Pte. Ballenden (Ballendine), Adam (21) - treaty Indian NWMP Scouts, Dispatch Riders & Interpreters
Pte. Longmore, John Sr. (35) - NWMP scout
Alexander, Josie
Battleford Home Guards No. 2 Co. Ballendine, Adam
Daniel(s), "Jackfish" Johnny (38)
Pte. Ballenden (Ballendine), Peter (49) - scout for Col. Otter Lafontaine, Jean-Baptiste - scout & dispatch rider - captured and believed killed
Pte. Ballenden (Ballendine), Samuel (51) - Crozier's messenger to Big Bear & McKay, "Gentleman" Joe (29) - first shots killing Assiyiwin and Isidore Dumont
Lucky Man at Duck Lake
Flammand, Louis (45) McKay, Thomas, MLA (36) - bro-in-law of Lawrence Clarke - 1st of 40 men
Cpl McKay, William (32) - scout from PA to volunteer
Pte. Pambrum, Pierre C. Jr. - wounded by friendly fire in the guardroom - his Pambrum, John
arm had to be amputated Sayer, Louison Jr. (34) - arrested for possession of property stolen during the
Pte. Sayer, Mose Joseph (22) - a charge of petty larceny was dismissed on 29 invasion
June 1885 Spence, Edwin (19)
Todd, John
Battleford Rifles
St-Albert Volunteer Co.
Brunelle, Eugene
Cunningham, Charles (20) - Cut Knife Hill Capt. Cunningham, Samuel
Pte. Sayer, Guillaume (~35)
Other Scouts
Maj.-Gen. Strange's Scouts
Atkinson, Philip - dispatch rider at Battleford
Rowland, Alexander (30) Bird, James (37) - dispatch rider between Battleford and Fort Pitt
Rowland, Frederick (32) Diehl, William - dispatch rider Prince Albert
Rowland, James (49) Hardisty, Richard George (14) - scout & dispatch rider
Hourie, Peter (55) - Chief Scout & Interpreter for Middleton
Nineteenth (19th) Rifles Hourie, "Big Tom" Thomas Taylor (26) - Riel surrendered to Hourie, Rbt.
Armstrong, & Wm. Diehl
Pte. Bourke, William (22) - 90th Battalion and the 13th Field Battery Laronde, Louis Jr. (31) - interpreter; captured Kahweechetawaymot (Big Bear's
brother) at Battleford
Ninetieth (90th) Winnipeg Rifles McKay, Angus (27) - active in the pursuit of Big Bear
Quesnal, Jules (30) - Sioux Special Constables Moose Jaw area
Pte. Hardisty, Richard Robert (23) - killed 10 May 1885 at Batoch Poitras, Joseph B. (41) - scout
NWMP N o. 1 Co. Volunteers Others
Lt. Morton, John - killed at Duck Lake by Guillaume McKay Pte. Bourke, William (22) - 90th Battalion and the 13th Field Battery
Burke, Patrick "Paddy" - trumpeter - killed at Cut Knife Hill
Winnipeg Rifles, C Co. McKay, Joseph: (41) - farming instructor at Strike-Him-On-The-Back Reserve,
near Battleford

Saga of The Bois-Brûlé

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Saga of the Bois-Brl & Li Exovedes by Darcy John Bouchard, li Exule

Revised on Monday, 23 October 2017

You may contact me on Facebook if you wish:

Darcy John Bouchard, li Exule

(Table of) CONTENTS

A Saga of the Bois-Brle ................................................................................................................................................................................ 7

li Exovedes - li Geurre Nationale du Territoire Du Nord Ouest (Indtermine) ......................................................................................... 93

Other Resistance Fighters ............................................................................................................................................................. 97

The Exovede & Native Martyrs ............................................................................................................................................................ 100

Dominion Sympathizers and others ............................................................................................................................................................... 115

li Exovede & Mtis Names List ................................................................................................................................................................... 118

Lii Exovede & Other South Branch Women ................................................................................................................................................ 129

Li Exovedes - Biographies Supplement ........................................................................................................................................................ 135

The Children of li Exovedes

Ancestors of li Exovedes - Names List ................................................................................................................................ .......................... 290

Ancestors of li Exovedes - Biographies .................................................................................................................................. ....................... 297

A SAGA OF THE BOIS-BRLE

of wolves preyed on the buffalo herds, killing the

Village affairs in the winter were the 5

John Munck of Denmark

By 1770, the Blackfoot Confederacy and their allies

placed a premium on Plains Indian women, usually

Part Two: The Plains Mtis

Kildonans The Pemmican Proclamation

In the spring of 1816, after a winter of starvation, 15

Alexander Christie was Governor of Assiniboia from

In 1859, the Cree held a series of councils in the Sioux Uprisings

In 1864, the Oblate Albert Lacombe, one-eighth

The Dominion of Canada The Dawson Road

The National Committee of the Mtis was first

In 1884, after one of Rils followers had been

Having petitioned for years without satisfaction,

The Crisis of Confederation

Two days later the Exovedes begin a novena Ril

The government had lied. Confederation was not

On 13 April 1885, Col. William Dillon Otter headed

Alexandre Cayen dit Boudreau Fugitives and Prisoners

Ril refused a chance to escape with Dumont, and on

British civilization which rules to-day the

Ntre Pre, qui es aux cieux,

Gabriel Dumont on reconnaissance before the Battle of Batoch

Gabriel Dumont Louis Riel

Isidore Dumas (34)71 Capt. Daniel Garipy (31)

Boyer, Lagloire Bousquet, Louis (36)

Belgarde, Pierre (26) Capt. Philipe Elzar Garipy (46)

Fagnant dit Faillant, Patrice (25)

Capt. Bernard Paul (37) Falcon, Gregorie (28)

Dumont, Alexis (21)

Others The Last Stand in the Graveyard Trenches

The Exovede & Native Martyrs

Ah-si-we-in (Ahseweyin or "Assiyiwin" aka Joseph Trottier) - old, half-

Poitras, Ignace Zenon "Betillet" pre (56)

Others prisoners not listed

McKay, James (23) - attached to French's Scouts as dispatch-bearer

NWMP N o. 1 Co. Volunteers Others