HARSH MEASURES
The First Nations who found themselves on the losing side of the 1885 conflict in the North-West Territories paid a huge price.
Lieutenant-Colonel William Otter and the Canadian militia launched a surprise attack on a Cree-Assiniboine camp at Cut Knife Hill in what is now Saskatchewan in the pre-dawn hours of May 2, 1885. Chief Poundmaker’s war chief, Fine Day, organized the defence, and my great-grandfather Misatimawas, who was the war chief for Chief Little Pine, organized the evacuation of the women and children from the camp.
Outnumbered by about three to one, Fine Day put up a strong defence, and after six hours, Otter and his troops retreated. Poundmaker persuaded his warriors to refrain from pursuing the Canadi- ans, which likely prevented a massacre. The militia suffered eight dead and fourteen wounded; among Poundmaker’s forces six were killed and three were wounded. One of the wounded was Misatimawas, who was mounted on a horse and was an easy target for the militia. He suffered injuries to the lower abdomen.
Less than a month later, Poundmaker and other leaders turned themselves in at Fort Battleford. They did it with dignity and didn’t consider that they had suffered defeat.
These events and those that followed would have a profound effect on my family and on the First Nations of Western Canada.
Six generations later, the scars of 1885 remain fresh in family history and folklore.
The Canadian government swiftly embarked on a brutal period of repression against the First Nations in the North-West Territories that were alleged to have taken part in the Métis uprising at Duck Lake, the killing of settlers at Frog Lake, or the looting of the town of Battleford and the subsequent battle at Cut Knife Hill. Assistant Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed created a list of bands in what is now Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, ranking their loyalty to the government.
He identified twenty-eight bands that he considered to be “rebellious.” This list was based more on his own attitude than on factual information, but it stood, and twenty-eight First Nations were denied their treaty annuities and political rights well into the twentieth century.
Reed’s draconian “Memorandum on the Future Management of Indians” listed fifteen points to be followed with respect to the “rebel” Indians. The measures included the confiscation of their firearms and horses, a pass system for any Indian leaving their reserve, and a permit system for selling agricultural goods off-reserve. He also called for the abolishment of tribal government, including the removal of the chiefs and headmen, and he envisioned a master-servant relationship between the government and the Indians.
Most of Reed’s recommendations were carried out, and serious damage was done as a result. It wasn’t until 1931 that Beardy’s Okemasis First Nation at Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, was able to elect its chief and council. Other reserves also lost their political rights, and it was well into the 1920s before they could elect their own leaders. In addition, the pass system was applied to all Indigenous people on the prairies, not just those identified as “rebels.”
Many First Nations people fled south in the summer of 1885. My great-grandmother died of disease somewhere on the trail. Her son (my grandfather) — whose name, Misatinawas, was very similar to his father’s — worked for a cook at Fort Assiniboine, in the district of Alberta, chopping wood. He later joined a large camp of Cree and Assiniboine refugees in Montana. While Canadians proudly repeat the story of Chief Sitting Bull and his people seeking sanctuary and peace in Canada in 1877, the story of the Canadian First Nations refugees who travelled the other way has been largely ignored.
Meanwhile, the “rebel leaders” were punished. By the end of the summer, fifty-four warriors had been tried. Of these, seven received prison terms and eight were sentenced to death. Among those who went to Stony Mountain Penitentiary in Manitoba was my greatgrandfather Misatimawas. He received six years for assault and larceny, but he was released after three years. Chief Big Bear, who had tried to stop the killings at Frog Lake, was nevertheless convicted of treason and sent to prison.
Eight warriors were hanged at Fort Battleford on November 27, 1885, in what was the largest public hanging in Canadian history. First Nations children from the industrial school and people from the nearby reserves of Moosomin and Thunderchild were brought in and forced to witness the execution. The message was clear — we are in charge and this is what we can do. As P.J. Laurie, the editor of the Saskatchewan Herald, wrote: “The Indians at large will be duly impressed with the certainty with which punishment has overtaken their deluded fellows.”
Elder Paul Chicken from Sweetgrass First Nation recalled how the Indians in the Battleford area lived in morbid fear that they would be picked up and tried before Judge C.B. Rouleau, the “hanging judge.” Incidentally, Rouleau was the namesake of the town in southern Saskatchewan that was the setting for Dog River in the CTV television series Corner Gas.
The government took a carrot-and-stick approach. While it repressed the rebel bands, those chiefs that had stayed out of the conflict were rewarded. The Blackfoot confederacy of Treaty Seven in southern Alberta didn’t join the uprising, in spite of Cree emissaries who urged their involvement. They cited their loyalty to the treaty.
Reed’s list of loyal bands included bands north of the North Saskatchewan River, such as Ahtahkakoop and Mistawasis. He recommended that they receive special recognition for their loyalty during the resistance. Chiefs Ahtahkakoop and Mistawasis each received fifty dollars, one gun, twenty sheep, and two oxen. In addition, in 1886, Ahtahkakoop, Mistawasis, and other loyal chiefs were brought east by the government, where they were shown cities and some of the more prosperous Indian bands such as the Six Nations of the Grand River.
It’s interesting to note that the bands that were rewarded were largely either Anglican or Methodist. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald was a member of the Orange Order, and the Orangemen had supported Macdonald’s decision to send the militia to put down the “Métis rebellion.” They did not want to see Western Canada become a Catholic enclave. Back then Catholic-Protestant rivalry was serious business, and religion mattered in politics.
The missionaries had preceded the government and the North West Mounted Police on the plains. There was fierce competition between the Anglicans and Catholic Oblate missionaries. The Methodists and Presbyterians were also present in the West but in smaller numbers.
Back then the missionaries would claim a whole band and work to convert everyone. In larger bands, Anglican and Catholic missionaries competed, causing dissention and turning people against each other. This can still be felt on some reserves.
In Saskatchewan, the Mistawasis First Nation in Leask was Presbyterian, while the Key band in Norquay and the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in Shell Lake were Anglican. The Treaty Seven bands in Alberta had larger populations with mixed Anglican and Catholic followers. The Stoney-Nakoda band west of Calgary was converted to Christianity by the Methodist missionary John McDougall.
The favoured bands received special treatment, and they were able to affect change in spite of the repression. Mistawasis had one of the few nursing stations on a southern reserve. It served residents from nearby reserves. Ahtahkakoop had a day school. Edward Ahenakew, who was born in 1885, received his early education at the school and then went on to study religion, becoming an influential Anglican priest. Ahenakew championed the development of day schools over the boarding school system and was able to establish day schools in the Saskatchewan First Nation communities of Thunderchild, Little Pine, Montreal Lake, James Smith, and Muskoday.
As for the large group of refugees in Montana, by the turn of the century most had been sent back to Canada, while some gained status on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation. My grandfather was deported in 1898. According to our family’s oral history and the RCMP files, the American cavalry accompanied the refugees to the border, where they were met by two Mounties from the Fort Macleod detachment. The younger of the two officers, Constable Peach Davis, escorted my grandfather, Misatinawas, and a group of chiefs and warriors to their home reserves. Once he got to Battleford, Misatinawas travelled to the Little Pine reserve, where he found his father, Misatimawas. There he married and raised a family, which included my dad.
Many First Nations people went on to serve Canada in both world wars, although some were opposed to doing so. On Little Pine, my grandfather questioned my uncle when he joined the army during the Second World War. “Why do you want to fight for Canada when your grandfather fought against them?” he asked.
Joe Dreaver, a grandson of Chief Mistawasis who helped to found the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians, fought overseas in the First World War. When the Second World War broke out, he served with the Veterans Guard in Canada and encouraged other young men from his reserve to enlist. His son Harvey Dreaver was killed in Belgium in 1944.
The long-term effects of 1885 are still with us. In December 2016, the Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation announced that it had negotiated a $4.5-million settlement as compensation for annuity money withheld after the resistance. The other “rebel” bands that had annuities withheld are also filing claims.
In general, the events of 1885 gave the Macdonald government licence to force the surrender of reserves, to deny political and treaty rights, and to provide an empty land for settlement. Hayter Reed’s fifteen-point memorandum led to the Department of Indian Affairs becoming an adversarial and colonial institution, an attitude that persists in the corporate culture of the modern-day department.