Two Siksika Soldiers and the Second World War

Of the around 3000 First Nations that fought for Canada in the Second World War, a number hailed from the Siksika (Blackfoot) First Nation, east of Calgary.  Their stories reflect the tragedy, loneliness and heartbreak of war.

A list of men enlisted from the district in the Gleichen Call during the war notes the names of Mark Wolfleg, C. Olds (Veterans Guard), Charlie Royal, Gordon Yellowfly, and Ed. Manybears as hailing from the Blackfoot Reserve.  To add to this list, the Aitsiniki Siksika newspaper lists Clarence McHugh, LF McHugh, Joseph Snake-Person, F. Turning-Robe, and A. White Pup as soldiering in the Second World War.

We know of the personal effect of war on one of these men, Mark (Ninnonista) Wolfleg, as he gave an 1983 interview to the University of Regina.  Wolfleg spoke of the happenstance behind his signing up in Calgary. 

At the time I was working at the mines, at the east end of the reserve, and I had gone up to Calgary for shopping and the next day I was still there, and I was walking up 8th Ave. heading west and I looked across the street and I saw a sign that, a recruitment sign.  So out of curiosity, I went across, went upstairs in a three story building on the top floor and I came in and there was sergeant there and he was really glad to see me and really friendly so he asked me if I wanted to sign up so just on impulse I said, "Yeah, I came to sign up." I came just by chance.  It wasn't a conscious decision.

The personal effects of war and army life on Wolfleg were  profoundly negative.  He spoke of how he was changed by the experience: 

When I first joined the army, when I first joined, enlisted, I did not really know what it was all about, the war and everything, but slowly I began to change.  I noticed a charge in my thinking, the life was very different from what I knew and back home in the Indian way of life, my outlook was a lot different then and it changed radically, especially when I went overseas.  My outlook on life became more harsh, a harder outlook.  There was anger in my life that wasn't there before and through all of the experiences I experience over there, when I came back, I had become a much angry person, a person that got angry a lot faster whereas before I never had the experience of experiencing anger...through the years I got over this.  Especially when I got into the spiritual life more and more.  I became more kindly to the elders and the youngsters because these were the ones that I saw suffer the most in the war, the older people and the children.

Mark Wolfleg Sr, visits the grave
 of Gordon Yellow Fly in 1983.
Photo: Handout/Mark Wolfleg Sr.

Reflecting on the experience of war, he claimed that, "Seeing war does not bring out any outstanding experiences.  It is all lonesome and that is what war is, it is lonesome, so I cannot really see what was very outstanding and none of the experiences stand out as being outstanding, it was all lonesome, loneliness."

When Wolfleg returned from the war, his Indian Agent told Ottawa that the First Nations veterans were being taken care of, and so he was denied benefits.  Wolfleg passed away in January 2009 at the age of 89, his obituary notes that the "old cowboy" fought with the Loyal Edmonton Regiment in Italy and that "his most treasured adventure" was a trip to Ortona, Italy, when he visited the grave of "his dear old friend" Gordon Yellow Fly.

Signature from Yellowfly's Will on his Service File

Gordon Yellowfly was known in the 1930s and 1940s as an excellent athlete.  He won third place in the Calgary Herald Road Race the year before he shipped overseas, and was active in hockey and boxing.  He had played hockey with Mark Wolfleg in the 1930s and 40s.

 His transition to army life, and army discipline was not smooth.  His service file, digitized with many others in the Killed in Action database at Library and Archives Canada, shows numerous crimes for drunkenness and being away without leave after he was taken on strength in June of 1942.  By the end of the year he was headed overseas.

Gordon wrote home on the 31st of July from Sicily claiming that it was great that he was "in the big show", but that he had to flee from German bombs.  On the 27th of December 1943, Yellowfly was killed by a sniper's bullet at the age of 27.  He was carrying two new testaments, a prayer book, his Seaforth Highlanders Glengarry, a whistle, and a few other effects.  His father was to write the Department of National Defence in July 1945: "Will you be kind enough to find out for me what became of the personal effects of my son.  Gordon. who was killed in action at Ortona Italy Dec 27 1943.  Heretofore I could not gather enough courage to enquire, but now for sentimental reasons I would certainly be glad to get his personal effects."

Adding to the sad tragedy of Yellowfly's story, he was undergoing divorce proceedings with his wife, which had not yet been finalized when he was killed.  His service file lists Winston, George and Donald Yellow Fly as his children.  Donald's name was scribbled in in March 1943, suggesting that this was a child that he never met.  The bitterness of Gordon's father Teddy is suggested in the following excerpt from a letter to the Canadian Legion in March 1944:

Like many Canadians that fell in the Moro River and Ortona conflicts, Yellowfly is buried in the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery.  His epitaph is particularly interesting, yet obscured in the photograph at wikisicily.com [link].  It reads in part, as the treaty promises of old started, "The Sun Shines, the Waters Flow, the Grass Grows.." There was clearly a feeling, both from Mark Wolfleg and TeddyYellowfly's testimony, that the promises of the Canadian state had not been honored in the Second World War, which echoes contemporary criticisms of treaty promises.

http://www.siksikanation.com/siksikafair2005.html

Gordon Yellowfly is memorialized by the Gordon Yellowfly Piiksa-pi Memorial Arbour on the Siksika reserve.  The dedication from Donald and Alphina Yellowfly reads, "We submit that my father gave the ultimate sacrifice not only for his king and country of his time, but more importantly for his people of Siksika, and since the time of his death this Nation has never given him the proper acknowledgement.[...]
My father's Blackfoot name was PIIKSA-PI; and using original Blackfoot translation his name was "Sacred Visionary""

These two Siksika men's service experience, are well worth considering for their personal insight into the lived experience of warfare.  War for these men was not that of heroism or glory.  It was the stuff of tragedy and loneliness.  Wolfleg took years to get over the anger that war brought him.  War shattered Yellowfly's life and left his children without a father.

Chief Crowfoot's Military Youth

Title: Earliest known
 illustration of Crowfoot.
Date: 1875
Photographer/Illustrator:
Nevitt, Richard Barrington 
Glenbow Image No: NA-51-1

Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot, is generally not known as a generalissimo.  After his abstention from the 1885 North-west Rebellion, he rose to notoriety as an emblem of loyalty, or in the parlance of the late nineteenth-century, a "good Indian."  Yet like any resident of the West in the nineteenth-century, Crowfoot did not live a life devoid of violence.  Hugh Dempsey's biography, Crowfoot: Chief of the Blackfoot (1972, 1982) recorded the problems discerning the details of the future chief's youth as an occasional warrior.  Dempsey wrote in the early 1970s, "Blackfoot tales of war often were embellished with supernatural acts, while the date and place were not considered worthy of recall. For this reason, the telling of [Crowfoot's] first and subsequent war exploits can only attempt to follow a logical path through the maze of fact and legend." (Dempsey, p. 13)

Crowfoot's youth shows numerous examples of his skill at warfare.  In several raids on enemy camps during the 1840s, he was shot by the enemy.  In one instance, Crowfoot daringly ran into an enemy camp and touched a lodge of the enemy Crow tribe.  Subject to Crow gunfire, a ball hit Crowfoot in the arm, but passed through without shattering any bone.  In another raid on the Shoshoni tribe, Crowfoot was more seriously injured by gun fire, necessitating help to return to his own camp.  The lead ball had lodged in Crowfoot's back, and as it was never removed, caused him problems in later life.

Title: Combat between Blackfoot, Assiniboine and Cree people, Fort McKenzie, Montana.
Date: August 28, 1833
Photographer/Illustrator: Bodmer, KarlGlenbow Archives Image No: NA-2347-1

Crowfoot was by all accounts a brave warrior, and several episodes narrated by Dempsey enforce the claim.  On one occasion, Crowfoot was out with a party which hoped to steal horses from the Crees, but encountered an enemy band wandering the windswept prairie on their own horse-stealing foray. As Dempsey wrote,

Crowfoot was among the first to rush into the fight, where he singled out a Cree warrior who was running toward the trees.  To travel more quickly, Crowfoot hurled aside his rifle as he ran after his enemy.  The Cree reached the dense bushes, but Crowfoot followed him.  Risking ambush, he plunged along the trail until he came close enough to grab the Cree by the hair.  Wrenching him backward, Crowfoot plunged the knife into his chest and killed him on the spot.  He then hacked the scalp from the Cree's head and returned to his comrades, who had also been victorious.  (Dempsey, p.18)

Glenbow Image No: NA-1241-10
Title: Chief Crowfoot, Blackfoot.
Date: 1885
Photographer/Illustrator:
Gully, F., Calgary, Alberta

Another violent encounter with the Crees later developed into a shooting match between rifle pits. When stalemate seemed to threaten, Crowfoot left his defences and crawled forward towards the enemy.  Dempsey writes that "[a]rrows and balls whistled past him, but he kept moving forward until he found a shallow depression midway between the two lines.  Then reaching into his firebag, he withdrew his pipe and turned to his comrades, shouting, 'Oki, come and smoke with me!" (Dempsey, p. 18)  Crowfoot's calm in the face of danger inspired his followers to start crawling forward towards his position, and when the Cree saw this movement, they assumed the worst, turned and fled.  Leading by example had won the day.

A bloody confrontation in 1873, shows that revenge could be the causus bellus of First Nations warfare.  Crowfoot's eldest son had left the camp at Three Hills and headed to war.  The son was Crowfoot's only healthy son.  One son suffered from developmental issues and the other had poor vision.  The eldest would never return to his father's camp, having been shot by the Cree north of the Red Deer River.

As Crowfoot mourned, his anger grew.  Dempsey notes, that Crowfoot's one true flaw was his fiery temper, and in this case his wrath was directed towards the Cree tribe. (p. 67)  As Dempsey wrote, "Revenge did not have to be upon the actual killer of Crowfoot's son; it was knowledge enough that the Crees were responsible.  The blood of a Cree, any Cree, would avenge the loss."  (p. 71)  After searching the prairies, a small group of Cree were discovered.  One man was killed, his body "scalped and mutilated, satisfied Crowfoot's desire for revenge."  (p. 71)  Later on, when a peace treaty was in effect between the two tribes, Crowfoot adopted the future Cree chief, Poundmaker, as his son.  Given the previous revenge killing of a Cree man, the choice of Poundmaker as a "replacement" for his eldest son is particularly ironic.

Title: "Crowfoot", Chief of the

 Blackfeet Indians. 

Credit: O.B. Buell/Library
 and Archives Canada/C-001871
Date 1886

Crowfoot's power in the 1870s and beyond were not due to his military prowess.  When chiefs such as Big Swan and Old Sun rode out against their enemies, Crowfoot remained in his lodge.  This being said, Crowfoot's reputation of bravery in his earlier years could not have hurt him in later life.  The 1870s were the last gasp of Crowfoot's power amongst his tribe.  During this period he had a large herd of around 400 horses, and still enjoyed the esteem of his people.  Even at the signing of Treaty No. 7, however, Crowfoot was not considered the greater leader of the Blackfoot confederacy.  Both Red Crow and Rainy Chief of the Bloods had larger followers, and Red Crow was closer to what one might call the leader of the combined Blackfoot, Blood and Piegan tribes. By 1881, whisky had crushed the organization of Crowfoot's people.  Dempsey notes that it was only "with the old order changing [that] he emerged as Crowfoot the peacemaker."  (p. 81)

Swamp Insurgency: Fighting Seminole Guerrillas in Nineteenth Century

The Seminole Wars show the problems that a conventional army can encounter when their enemies adopt guerilla tactics. Ian Beckett, in his survey work Modern Insurgencies and Counter-insurgencies(Routledge, 2001) describes the Seminoles as “particularly skillfulopponents” of the United States Army. (p.29)  Throughout the first half of the eighteenth-century, skirmishes, ambushes, and raids typified a conflict, where American's had as much trouble finding their enemies as defeating them on the battlefield.

The Seminoles were largely Lower Creek people which had been driveninto Spanish Florida, with other members from the Oconee, Yuchi, Alabama, Choctaw and Shawnee tribes. By the mid eighteenth century, familial links had also been made to runaway slaves which had found refuge in Floridian villages.  Their name has been variously suggested to derive from the Creek word simano-li, meaning "separatist" or "runaway", or the Spanish terms cimarron, for "wild" or cimarrones for "rebel" or "outlaw".  When Spain re-acquired Florida from Britain after the American Revolution, Spanish colonists, and American settlers alike aimed to settle in the area, coaxed in part by Spanish land grants.  Seminoles were allowed to take up land grants as well, as Spain hoped they would form a divide between the Spaniards and Americans.

Marines battle Seminole Indians in the Florida War--1835-1842. Defense Dept. Photo (Marine Corps) 306073-A

Causes for American-Seminole violence may relate to older British tactics of using Seminoles against American settlers.  In the war of 1812 the Seminoles had supported Britain.  Harbouring runaway slaves was one offence that later caused the Americans to seek punitive justice against the tribe.  Beckett suggests the First Seminole War (1816-18) was largely motivated by the need to fight back against Seminole raiding parties.  Elsewhere, the murder of several Georgia families by chief Neamathla has been suggested as the event that sparked the conflict. General Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida with around 3,000 soldiers and pushed the Seminoles further south.  Jackson dispersed villagers, burnt towns and seized Pensacola and St. Marks.  The Seminoles, in turn, conducted hit and run attacks on towns and plantations.  American ambitions for control of the peninsula were another casus belli, and in 1819, Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States

In 1823 a large reservation was established for the Seminoles, but this four million acre tract was not to remain a sanctioned home for long. In 1830, with Jackson as president, the Indian Removal Act become law. The United States governments attempts to remove all Indians west of the Mississippi into "Indian Territory" was accepted by some leaders who signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing in 1832.  Others refused to leave and moved deeper into the Everglades.

Oseola (As-se-he-ho-lor, Black Drink),

 a Seminole; bust-length, 1837. 

National Archives Identifier: 530983

 

The treaty of 1832 allowed for three years for the Seminoles to move west, and in 1835 the stage was set for conflict with the hold-outs.  In December 1835, a 108 man detachment of Major Francis Dade’s forces was ambushed in the Wahoo swamp of the Withlacoochie River. A contemporary heritage website notes that, "As Major Francis Dade marched from Fort Brooke toward Fort King, 180 Seminole warriors led by Micanopy, Alligator and Jumper attacked. Only one man of that army detachment survived the ambush."  That the Seminole War was "the fiercest war waged by the U.S. government against American Indians", would presumably be contested by some historians.  Florida Heritage claims that more than  1500 American soldiers died in the conflict.

The action would begin the Second Seminole War (1835-42), which would see a series of frustrating actions for American generals.  The Seminoles crossed the Georgia border constantly and established safe havens in the Okefenokee Swamp.  Megan Kate Nelson quotes Ware County militia commander Thomas Hilliard who complained in 1836 that the Seminoles, "go concealed as much as possible, and are committing depredations continually, robbing our corn fields and killing our stock."  Seminoles destroyed numerous sugar plantations in Florida, crippling the industry and freeimg numerous slaves.  In February 1836, Major General Edmund Gaines' force of over 1,000 men was besieged and forced to retreat.  Subsequent generals fielding even more troops could not even find the enemy.  Campaigning in the summer months was difficult due to torrential rainfall and disease.

One noteworthy exception to American defeat is found in the campaign of future president Zachary Taylor, who benefited from the Seminoles abandonment of guerrilla tactics. At Lake Okeechobee in December of 1837, the Seminoles defended a fixed position in the everglades, and the Americans triumphed. The tribe did not make the mistake again, and Taylor’s counter-insurgency techniques divided the area and patrolled from outposts. It may have been racial conceptions of superiority which led American forces under General T.S. Jesup to ignore military custom and capture leader Osceola while under a flag of truce.  Osceola died in confinement several months later.  Meanwhile, Taylor destroyed crops and removed livestock, to little effect, and Taylor’s war continued until April 1840 when he asked to be removed from his command.  Jesup had some successes establishing forts and using mobile columns to sweep the country.

Thomas Sidney Jesup (1788–1860), 

As Beckett notes the war ended in 1842, not through any military success, but “largely by the army announcing it was over.” (p. 29) While 3800 Seminoles had been removed, there remained 500 guerrillas left in the swamps. The Third Seminole War (1855-58) reduced this number to mere 100 who continued to hide out in ever more remote areas of the everglades. Beckett suggests that the Americans little learned very little about counterinsurgency these early actions.

General James Dickon's Indian Liberating Army

"General" James Dickson, the so-called "Liberator of the Indian Nations", is a curious character, who goes down in Western Canadian history as a fleeting sojourner with more passion than sense.  Dickson's lineage is vague, but he has been claimed to be the "mixed-blood son of a British trader and Toto-win, sister of Sisseton Sioux Chief Red Thunder."
 [1](Thomas Ingersoll, To Intermix with Our White Brothers , p. 104) 
The governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, George Simpson described him as "covered with huge whiskers and mustachios and seamed with sabre wounds."  Elsewhere it has been noted that,

a bizarre character appeared in fashionable circles in New York and Washington in the winter of 1835-36, endeavoring, as he then said, to secure recruits to aid the Texans in their struggle for independence.  He called himself General James Dickson and told fascinating stories of his life in Mexico and of his service in the Texan army. His striking military dress and a very nice attention to the amenities of social life secured recognition for him but seem to have brought him few recruits.

(Nute, p.352)

Dickson's claim to fame was an attempt at gathering support for the establishment of a indigenous state stretching from Rupert's Land to Texas. 

Banner from Martin McLeod's "Attestation Papers", Nute

In 1836, Dickson recruited around thirty men from Montreal to join him in his quest.  All were apparently made officers in his army, and granted dress uniforms complete with "showy uniforms and glittering epaulettes."
(Lyman C Draper)
George Simpson would call these men, "wild thoughtless young men of good education and daring character, half-breed sons of gentlemen lately and now engaged in the fur trade."
  (Jennifer Brown, Strangers in Blood, p.190) 
Elizabeth Arthur, writing for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, noted that he may not have told these recruits the full story of his plans to travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico, attack the fort and continue on to California, where he would establish a "utopian state in which Indians would hold all the property and where only a few white officials would be permitted."

McLeod County Minnesota.  Wikipedia.

One of Dickson's party was Martin McLeod, whose diary has survived the years.  McLeod was born near Montreal, but would later become a member of several councils in the Minnesota territorial legislature.   His presidency of the fourth council may be the reason why McLeod County, Minnesota was named for him.  Once in Minnesota, he would long function as a booster for the area, writing Canadian newspapers in praise of Minnesota.
 (Grace Lee Nute ed., The Diary of Martin McLeod, Aug 1922)

As McLeod made his way from Montreal to meet Dickson, he traveled Lake Ontario to Toronto, where he spent the day.  From his diary entry of 20 July 1836, it may be said that he did not enjoy his stay:

Remained one day at Toronto, do not like the place.  Saw Al[exander] Robertson of Inverness (an acquaintance at Montreal).  People kind enough apparently, but I think some what pompous.  Why?  God only knows.  What have they to bost of.  Their town or city (as I believe it is call'd) is a muddy hole - but then it is the Capital of [Upper Canada] and they are up to their ears in politics (damn politics) and they have Sir [Francis Bond Head] (whom by the by I saw a cheval) who is very popular &c &c and all that, so you see they are a people of some consequence, and not to be sneezed at, - that is if the d-------d stench of their town would allow a person to take his finger from his nasal organ long enough for that pleasant exercise.

(McLeod, p.355)

It was in Black Rock several days later that McLeod would meet General Dickson.  McLeod seemed slightly skeptical of the "General's" abilities noting that Dickson,

privately, informed me of his plans &c relative to the intended expedition to the north via  the great lakes and onwards God only knows where; and where and when it may end.  D[ickson] appears quite sanguine of success. As yet I know little of the man, but if I may judge from so short an acquaintance, he is some what visionary in his views - n'importe I wish to go north & westward and will embrace teh opportunity, but must "look before I leap."

(McLeod, p.359)

As Dickson had learned of Cuthbert Grant and the militant abilities of the Métis, he intended to gain recruits for his army in Red River.  He set out from Buffalo with only sixty of the 200 men that were initially proposed for the force.  As they had no money or supplies to speak of, they resorted to stealing and slaughtering some cattle near Detroit.  Unfortunately a sheriff's posse caught up with them, and they were made to pay a fine after some tricky negotiating.

The traveling was hard, and made particularly difficult by Dickson's questionable command decisions.
 (Anne Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families, p.132)
Dickson could not help the damage done by a storm to their schooner on the Great Lakes which almost swamped them, but his decision to press ahead of his party in northern Minnesota without adequate supplies was highly questionable.

On the 27th November 1836, McLeod noted the difficulties crossing Cass Lake after the winds had polished the ice.  The party travelled 30 miles that day.  The next day McLeod noted, "Obliged to rest as a number of the party are unable to proceed from the fatigue of yesterday's march and the bruises which they received from frequent falls upon the ice. Indeed all our men were so "done up " that they did not arrise yesterday till near dark."
(McLeod, p. 388)

It was when the party's Sioux guides left them on the 9th of December, that Dickson's leadership began to crumble.  They had left Thief River that day and were still around a week's walk to the Red River settlement, yet were not at all familiar with the open prairie.  As McLeod wrote in his diary:

Saturday 10th Decr At day break we were summoned together,and informed by Gen1 D[ickson] that as our guides had desserted and as we had but five days provisions, and had yet to travel near three hundred miles in a strange country of which we had not an accurate map, he left us all to act, each man for himself, to either follow him, as it was his determination to trust to fortune and push forward, or return to Red lake and there wait untill they could procure a guide. I had previously made up my mind to continue my route at every risk, and all the rest with the exception of two preferring to follow Gen1 D., we made immediate preparations to start.

It was several days later that Dickson left the main group without blanket, food, nor means to light a fire. Dickson arrived in Red River, starving and frost-bitten.  As Lyman Draper noted, "the cold weather set in before their arrival at Red river [sic], and Dickson had his toes frozen off, which crippled him as well as the whole enterprise."
  (Draper) 

Sir George Simpson, Governor of the
 Hudson's Bay Company, 1857.
Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No.
1978-14-3 Source: Manuscript Division,
 W.W. Campbell Collection (MG30 D 8)

Governor Simpson was none too amused with the party, refused his bank drafts and quickly employed the men who had been recruited.  Several of Dickson's recruits were in fact the mixed-blood sons of HBC officials.  Their sense of adventure was probably supplanted by their common sense, after the hard travelling in the company of Dickson.  In the spring of 1837, the Indian Liberator left Red River, incredibly, worse off for resources than when he arrived.
 (Pannekoek, Snug Little Flock, 90).
  As Grace Lee Nute put it in 1922, "America has been the land of roseate dreams; but, among all its visions of wealth and power, where is the equal for novelty and adventure of this mad product of Dickson's disordered mind?"
 (Nute, 352)

Mistranslation of Big Bear at Fort Pitt Treaty Negotiations

The mistranslation of treaty negotiations is central to recent First Nations historical scholarship which questions the ability of Dominion negotiators to convey the nature of land surrenders.  In the case of Big Bear's negotiations with Alexander Morris at Fort Pitt, historian Hugh Dempsey suggests that if proper translation of the Cree chief's words had been available, "Big Bear might have received an assurance from Morris that could have changed the course of history." (Dempsey, Big Bear, 1984, p.74)

A none too flattering sketch of Big Bear
Glenbow File number: NA-1353-16
Title: Big Bear, Cree chief, and General T. Bland Strange, with Fort Pitt, Saskatchewan in back
Date: 1885

In 1876, Big Bear came to Fort Pitt after the treaty had been signed, hoping to negotiate better terms for his band, and receive assurances on the conservation of the buffalo herds.  When Cree chief Pakan urged him to accept treaty, and talk to Lieutenant Governor Morris, Big Bear insisted,

Stop, stop, my friends.  I have never seen the Governor before; I have seen Mr. Christie many times.  I heard the Governor was to come and I shall see him.  When I see him I will make a request that he will save me from what I most dread, that is: the rope to be about my neck... (Dempsey, 74)

The likely translator for Big Bear was the Reverend John McKay, who spoke Swampy Cree, and had previous difficulties translating at Fort Carlton.  Peter Erasmus, who had left Fort Pitt immediately after the main negotiations were finished noted, "I knew that McKay was not sufficiently versed in the Prairie Cree to confine his interpretations to their own language."

File number: NA-4774-16
Title: Chief Joe Samson and horse during
 filming of 'The Last Frontier',
 Wainwright, Alberta. Date: 1923

As Dempsey notes, Morris remained fixated on Big Bear's comment about a rope around his neck, which he thought to mean fear of being hung.  Instead it is more likely that he was using an expression of haltering a horse, which was a metaphor for losing his freedom.  The term ay-saka-pay-kinit for "lead by the neck" was being confused with ay-hah-kotit, "hung by the neck".  Morris thought the chief was insisting that his band should be exempt from capital punishment, and told him that no "good Indians" would be executed.



Big Bear did not understand this response, but after re-emphasizing that he did not want to lose his freedom, he still could not get his point across.  His words were mistranslated again: "I have told you what I wish, that there be no hanging."  Morris responded, "What you ask will not be granted.  Why are you so anxious about bad men?" (Dempsey, p.75)

Hon. Alexander Morris, Dec. 1869

Credit: Topley Studio / LAC/ PA-025468

Dempsey suggests that had it been explained to Big Bear that his band would have been allowed to hunt across the plains, that his long struggle for better terms which led to much hardship could have been solved.  It seems clear that Big Bear wished to consult with his people further and did not go to Fort Pitt in 1876 prepared to sign treaty, but the misunderstanding about his rights and freedoms under the reservation system aggravated the distrust between the two parties.

The legacy of the mistranslation led the Dominion's representatives to continue to see Big Bear as wanting special legal circumstances  for his band.  In 1878 Lieutenant Governor David Laird noted of Big Bear,

He still, I am informed, entertains the idea that Indians should be exempted from hanging.  It is said also that he thinks Indians should not be imprisoned for any crime and though he asked Liet. Gov. Morris in 1876 that the buffalo should be protected he did not intend that any law of the kind should apply to Indians.  (Dempsey, p. 80).

Translation issues continued to plague Big Bear as he continued to press for better terms.  After the North-west Rebellion of 1885, at his trial for treason-felony, the charges ended with the statement that the offences were "against the peace of our Lady the Queen, her Crown and dignity."  The translator could not find the right meaning of Crown in the British legal sense, and Big Bear's reply shows his confusion over the term:

These people all lie.  They are saying that I tried to steal the Great Mother's Hat, how could I do that?  She lives very far across the Great Water, and how could I go there to steal her hat? I don't want her hat and did not know she had one. (Dempsey, p. 185)

It is clear that translation problems plagued Big Bear during the hard times of the treaties.  He would not survive long after his trial.  While deemed guilty of participation, he was at least given some mercy and a three-year sentence in Stony Mountain Penitentiary.  In an unfortunate twist, Big Bear became gravely ill while incarcerated, and in 1888 was let out only to die shortly afterwards in his sixty-third year.

Remarks: L-R back row: Father Albert Lacombe; Big Bear, Cree; Sam Bedson, Warden; Father Clouthier. L-R front row: unknown priest; Poundmaker, Cree Glenbow Archives Image No: NA-20-2
Title: Riel Rebellion prisoners at Stony Mountain Penitentiary, Manitoba.
Date: 1886

Big Bear: not just another pretty face

Glenbow File number: NA-1010-24
Title: Big Bear, Cree.
Date: 1885

Big Bear was not known as a handsome fellow.  His biographer Hugh Dempsey notes that, "even when he was young, Big Bear was not a good-looking person, and the smallpox scars made him even homelier." (Dempsey, Big Bear, 1984, p. 18)  Our best known images of Big Bear are those surrounding the 1885 North-West Rebellion in a stage when the Cree chief, while still able to keep up with the best of them, was sixty years old.  Having seen his fair share of violence, starvation, and just plain hardy living, he admittedly looks like someone who has spent his days on the windswept and sunbeaten prairie.

The Cree chief was apparently no narcissist, and would often make fun of his appearance. An incident in the early 1880s shows that Big Bear had a good sense of humour about it all.  Walpole Roland, a photographer that wanted to take the chief's picture, was taken aback by the exorbitant demands for provisions from his prospective model.

Roland noted, "After giving him some presents, I said I could not afford so much; that he was reversing the order of things seriously, and further that I would try and find, if possible, a more repulsive-looking Indian between here and the Rockies and call him Big Bear.  At this he laughed very heartily and, wishing me good day, gave me a parting shot by adding that I would probably go beyond the Rockies to find his rival in ugliness." (Dempsey, p. 117)  Roland concluded that he had met the most stubborn chief on the prairies.  The judgement is in keeping with a leader who refused to take treaty, demanded better terms, and stalled on the selection of his reserve for many years. 

"Crow" D.F. Barry

Pictures or portraits of Big Bear in his youth are rare, if not non-existent.  One picture that is identified as the chief, appears to be a case of shoddy journalism, mistaken identity, and a pinch of colonial racism.  The original of the offending picture has been recently sold by auction, and identified as photographer D. F. Barry's "Crow". On the back of the photograph was pencilled, "Crow" - also called Pispisa Ho Waste (Good Voice Prairie Dog)". Barry travelled the American West in the 1870s and 1880s and is famous for capturing iconic pictures of the American frontier. A host of his photographs have been digitized in the Denver Public Library.  In a 1921 interview,a Lakota elder Elk was shown the photograph and described it thus:  

the man, Crow, whose picture you show me, wears those things in his hair. They are stripped feathers. He was shot by two arrows once. He pulled them both through. He did not break them off. So he can wear the quill of the eagle's feathers for each one.

Users of the internet forum American-Tribes have identified an earlier misconstruction of the Barry photo as Big Bear in The Graphic illustrated magazine.  This may be the original case of swapped identity, but could be that the Canadian Illustrated News ran these graphics first, as the McCord-Museum has them listed as the work of John Henry Walker (1831-1899), who sold his etchings to that journal.

One gets the feeling the north-west rebellion was good news in 1885, and editors were fine with running the picture of any aboriginal man who looked suitably exotic enough to impress their readers.  The portrait of "Poundmaker" on the far left has been suggested to be "Bad Soup", perhaps of the Blackfoot tribe.

Big Bear from Gowanlock's "Two Months..."

Curiously, the publication of Frog Lake "Massacre" survivor Theresa Gowanlock's memoir of her, "Two Months in the Camp of Big Bear", has a portrait of Big Bear, which appears to have been altered from the D.F. Barry cabinet portrait.  All of this misrepresentation boggles the mind. While further investigation is needed to confirm these identities, the phenomenon points to a shared American-Canadian construction of the "Indian" which hinges on the sensationalism of military reportage and a demand for images in a time when photography was in its infancy.  Historians should have picked up on the mistaken identity long ago.  "The Crow" is clearly a handsome chap!

Of Meteors, McDougalls and Manitou

A 2012 controversy over the question of repatriation of a meteorite considered sacred to Alberta First Nations is making headlines. Members of the Blue Quills First Nation are considering creating a ceremonial space which houses the meteorite should they be able to gain access to the 386 pound chunk of iron.  The meteorite is held today at the Royal Alberta Museum, where it was repatriated from collections in Ontario.  The Methodist roots of what was once Victoria College are the key to how it arrived there.

Glenbow Image No: NA-789-148
Title: Reverend Thomas Woolsey.

The earliest written report of the meteorite was made in 1810 by Alexander Henry the Younger, who noted the placename "Iron Stone".  It wasn't until 1860 when the Methodist Reverend Thomas Woolsey wrote a descriptor of the stone itself:

When with the Crees last August, I visited the locality renowned for having a large piece of iron there.  In fact, an adjoining lake and a rivulet bear the respective designations of Iron Lake and Iron Rivulet.  Well, there the iron is, as pure as possible and as sonorous as an anvil, and weighs, I should judge 200 lbs.  It is on the summit of a mound but whether it is a metoritic phenomenon or indicative of iron in that section, I cannot say.  (Southesk, 1875 as cited in Spratt, "Canada's iron creek meteorite", Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 1989. )

One supernatural aspect of the stone was its professed ability to grow in size.  Writing in 1865, explorer Walter Butler Cheadle was told that the stone was the size of a fist when it was first put atop the hill, but could no longer be lifted.

"Manitou Stone"  Aaron Paquette. Print: Society6

The stone itself was considered to have been placed on a hill by the Ojibwa spirit Nanebozo close to the Battle River near present day Hardisty.  Some say one can see the face of Manitou (or the Great Spirit) on its surface.  The stone was said to have protective powers, especially over the buffalo and local aboriginals.  Hugh Dempsey notes in Big Bear: End of Freedom (1984) that offerings were left by the stone when the Cree left for the hunt. (Dempsey, p.37)

Unfortunately for the Cree, in 1866, the Methodist Reverends George and John McDougall decided to take this object of worship from its resting place by the Battle.  George McDougall noted that "for ages the tribes of Blackfeet and Crees have gathered their clans to pay homage to this wonderful manitoo." (Dempsey, p.38)  The McDougall's took the stone to Victoria Settlement.  One account notes that they used it as a part of the church's foundation, but others recall it lying in the church yard. Until this time the missionaries were largely tolerated, but Dempsey notes that the taking of the stone was the beginning of grave doubts about the intentions of the newcomers.

Medicine men predicted sickness, war and starvation, as a result of the removal of the guardian of the buffalo.  By 1873, all had come to pass. (Dempsey, 52).  It has also been suggested that George McDougall would suffer for moving the rock, and that his loss of three children to smallpox the next year was his penance.  Just which McDougall actually removed the stone, seems to be in question.  Sir William Francis Butler wrote in 1872 that David McDougall, a trader son of George's removed the stone.

Glenbow File number: PC-242-1
Title: Reverend George McDougall,
 Methodist missionary.
Date: [ca. 1860s]

After around 15 years at Victoria Settlement (now Pakan, Alberta), the Stone was sent east to the Methodist Victoria College, in Cobourg, Ontario where it adorned a hall.  It found its way to the Royal Ontario Museum, and in the 1970s was repatriated to the Royal Alberta Museum.


The meteorite is the third-largest to be found in Canada, and theories suggest that it is merely a piece of a much larger rock.  One rumour has it that the First Nations buried the rest of the rock so it would not be looted by Euro-Canadians.  The legend of this still remaining meteorite was continued by the Alberta Museum geologist Don Taylor in the 1960s.  Taylor had met with Hardisty local Bill McDonald, who told stories about the stone weighing around 1,500 pounds.  Others presume this to be false and that this larger rock was probably one of the aboriginal rock carvings, called rib-stones, seen in the area.

Various samples have been taken from the rock over the years and were once held in places such as the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History, and the British Museum of Natural History.  Christopher Spratt noted in 1989, that 668.4 grams of the meterorite had been removed, and housed at six museums across Europe and North America.  No mention has been made yet in the media regarding the return of these pieces should the meteor ever leave its home at the museum.

The future of the rock has yet to be decided.  Problems returning the meteorite to one specific First Nation may arise.  Repatriating artifacts sacred to First Nations would not be unprecedented.  The Glenbow Museum has repatriated sacred bundles to the Blackfoot, for example, and loaned parts of its collection out for ceremonial use.  Only time will tell where the Manitou Stone will be headed next, but it is clear that the meteorite, as scientific or sacred object, has aroused interest for over two hundred years.

Big Bear's vision against Horse Ownership

Big Bear in custody at Regina, 1885.
Credit: O.B. Buell
/ Library Archives Canada / C-001873

Big Bear (1825-1888) was a legendary Cree Chief, whose heritage was both Cree and Ojibwa.  While the Cree, of course, had their own medicine men, the Ojibwa were particularly known for their spiritual abilities.  Big Bear's visions were central to his interpretation of the world around him, and it is said he foresaw the end of the plains peoples' way of life, foretelling times even more troubling that those of frequent epidemic in the early nineteenth-century.

One dream, recounted in Hugh Dempsey's Big Bear: End of Freedom, has been attributed to Big Bear's peculiar stance against acquiring horses.  For the Cree and Blackfoot, horse theft was an art and means to status.  Capturing a herd of thundering horses from one's enemy proved a man's prowess.  Theft was a part of prairie life.  Big Bear, however, while participating in horse raiding, distributed the chargers he acquired to his family and those in need.  Dempsey notes that this was more than just the generosity of a prospective chief, but also "the fulfilment of another vision." (Dempsey, 19)

In a dream a spirit came to Big Bear and led him to a cave filled with horses.  The spirit told him to,

Go to the centre of the herd and take the horse that you find there.  Don't take any other horse, just that one.  The horses will rear up and kick at you, but if you show no fear, they will move aside and let you pass.  But if you show any fear, you won't get to the horse in the middle.  (Dempsey, 19)

Unfortunately when Big Bear neared the middle of the cave, a large black stallion reared up, making at him with its hooves and Big Bear shrunk back in defence.  The herd vanished.  Suddenly alone with the spirit man, he was told, "It's too bad you crouched.  You had your chance but now you'll never be rich in horses as long as you live."

Glenbow Museum and Archives File number: NA-1709-43
Title: Cree people at Poplar Grove [Innisfail]
Date: [ca. 1891]

Big Bear interpreted this to mean that he should never try to accumulate horses, and thereafter only kept as many as he needed for himself.  Dempsey, whose biography of the Cree chief adapted First Nations' stories from numerous reservations in the Canadian West, noted that spirituality was central to Big Bear's life, and that, "he was remembered as much for the supernatural power he possessed as for his political acumen."   His source for Big Bear's horse theft vision come from a 1982 conversation with the Reverend Stan Cuthand.

Proposals for stopping the Canadian Buffalo Extinction, 1876.

By 1876, the destruction of the buffalo in the Dominion of Canada's Northwest Territories had become an acute problem.  Lieutenant Governor David Laird, wrote a memorandum in that year which summarized the advice from those with experience on the Canadian plains.  Their responses reveal not only early ideas surrounding conservation and game management, but also the government's hopes to balance these actions with policies providing subsistence for indigenous peoples.[RG10, Volume 2641]

The problem, as laid out by Laird was stated thus:

The threatened early extinction of the Buffalo is a question of grave importance to the North West Territories of the Dominion.  The flesh of that animal forms the principal means of subsistence of several of the Indian tribes, as well as a large number of the Half-breeds.  The traffic in Buffalo peltries likewise enters largely into the trade of the country, and enables the natives to procure many of the necessaries of life. (RG10, Volume 3641, File 7530)

Buffalo carcass with three figures. 

William George Richardson Hind collection [graphic material] (R13878-0-X-E)

Date(s)July 19, 1862 Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1963-97-1.37R

Laird notes that the "whites" and metis, "at times indulge[d] in a wanton slaughter of whole herds killing cows and calves indiscriminately...", and using very little of the animal.  The first suggestion to end these killings was forwarded by Colonel French, commissioner of the North West Mounted Police.  He suggested: a double export duty on cow and calf robes; a duty on pemmican; a closed hunting season during calving times; and severe punishments for those that used less than half the meat of the animal.

Father Alexis André, O.M.I.  Online (1)

Date(s)1885PlaceDuck Lake, Sask.

Credit: Library and Archives Canada / C-028538

Father Andre, at the metis settlement of St Laurent, near Fort Carleton, went further with his suggestions of restriction of hunting season for "whites and Metis", suggesting an open season from June to October.  He went so far as to hope to restrict them from staying on the prairies during the winter, while allowing the "Indians" to remain hunting on the plains.  He also sought a heavy tax on the skins of cows killed during the winter.

The committee of the North West Council suggested a closed season from January to the end of May, as well as the outlaw of "pound[s], or similar contrivance [in] the capture of Buffalo."  They also wished to restrict the hunt to animals over two years old.


Ultimately, the Dominion government, then under the Liberal guidance of Alexander Mackenzie, refused to create any export duties, as these were inherently "objectionable", and would not stop "wanton destruction" anyway.  The government subcommittee simply pointed to the authority of the North West Council over, "game and wild animals and the care and protection thereof", and delegated the duties to that territorial body.  These efforts of consultation were too little, too late, and the buffalo herds in the following years were effectively decimated.