Frog Lake Massacre
1885 North-West Rebellion
Native Land Disputes
The Frog Lake Massacre was a Cree uprising that had been encouraged by the Metis victory at Duck Lake that had occurred one week prior. The aboriginals felt the treaties were unfair and were angry the buffalo, their main source of food, were dwindling in numbers. They felt that they were not properly fed. The problem lay in the translation of the treaties from English into the Native languages. The aboriginals thought they were going to share the land with the Europeans. They had not understood that the treaties meant the land had been taken over. Despite repeated requests sent to the Department of the Interior in Ottawa, nothing had been done. The aboriginals had asked Louis Riel to speak on their behalf and when Riel had received no response from Ottawa, the North-West Rebellion began.
Chief Big Bear
In 1879, Big Bear had refused to sign the treaty at Fort Walsh in the Cypress Hills. Near the end of 1882, Big Bear agreed to go on a reserve near Fort Pitt. Despite the conditions of the treaties, the aboriginals did not fare well over the winters.
The reserves around Fort Pitt and Frog Lake contained less than two hundred aboriginals. When Big Bear, Lucky Man, Little Poplar and Wandering Spirit arrived in the area they brought with them six or seven hundred followers.
Thomas Quinn, the Indian Agent for Frog Lake convinced the North West Mounted Police to leave as he did not feel the settlement was in any danger from the aboriginals in the area.
On April 1, 1885, Big Bear’s warriors entered the settlement of Frog Lake where they plundered the Hudson’s Bay Company store and stole government horses. Then they gathered the white and Métis settlers into the local church, taking them prisoner. When looting another store, they discovered some alcohol and began drinking.
Chief Wandering Spirit
Wandering Spirit and his tribe had massacred nine men at Frog Lake on April 2, 1885 before Big Bear intervened and told them to stop. In the absence of facts, idle rumour exaggerated the facts. Eventually the truth came out that Big Bear and his tribe had killed “two Oblat Fathers of the Catholic Mission; one Lay Brother; one Chief Indian Agent; two Farm Instructors; two Mounted Police; two Hudson Bay employees and the capture and detention of thirty others, men, women and children.”[1] Thomas Quinn had an argument with Wandering Spirit which resulted in Quinn being shot in the head.
Fort Pitt
On the day of the massacre, Harry Quinn escaped and managed to reach Fort Pitt in an exhausted condition a day later. There he reported the tragic incident and Sub-Inspector Dickens immediately prepared for an attack.
Fort Pitt was a garrisoned NWMP station with Sub-Inspector Francis J. Dickens son of the novelist, Charles Dickens. Thirty miles north-west of Fort Pitt was the Indian Station and Mission Frog Lake.
After the ordeal of being a prisoner, Mrs. Theresa Delaney had critical comments about Lieutenant-Governor and Indian Commissioner Edgar Dewdney, that he had a share in the causes of the massacre, as on his visits to Frog Lake he had made many promises and raised expectations that had been unfulfilled to the aboriginals.[2]
Sources:
The Illustrated History of Canada, Edited by Craig Brown (2007), p.354
The Canadian North-West: its history and its troubles by Graeme Mercer Adam (1885) [1]-p302
The Dominion Annual Register and review by Henry James Morgan (1886), p.138-139, 141.
Challenging Frontiers: the Canadian West by Larry W. Falske, Beverly Jean Rasporich (2004)[2]-p.85
Cree Camp 1871
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Chief Big Bear
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