1780 and 1800. Rubbing shoulders with European The Assiniboine (Nakota) traders, however, had a devastating effect on the Assiniboine. Along with trade goods the newcomers brought The Assiniboine were once a Na- the prairies that the Assiniboine discov- whiskey, evangelical religious practices tion that occupied a territory that ered the animal upon which they sub- and guns. It was this technology that spanned the prairie provinces sisted thereafter: the bison. The bison depleted the once seemingly endless (including southwest Manitoba) and was at this time the dominant animal population of bison on the plains. parts of the northern United States. of the plains, their numbers perhaps Europeans also passed along dis- Once numbering 10,000 strong, the exceeding 70 million. The Assiniboine ease to the Assiniboine. One-half to Assiniboine spent at least two centuries pursued them to satisfy their culinary two-thirds of the population was wiped hunting bison on the plains surround- and household needs: food, shelter, out in the smallpox epidemic of 1780- ing Turtle Mountain, and in later years clothing, tools and fuel. They hunted on 81, before being cut in half again in the actively participated in the fur trade on foot with bow and arrow, but also per- 1819-20 epidemic of measles and the Souris River. fected alternate methods such as the whooping cough. By the 1890s their The Assiniboine were members of bison pound. The Assiniboine wintered numbers were a mere 2,600, due to the Yanktonai arm of the Dakota Na- in places like Turtle Mountain where successive outbreaks of disease. It was- tion, who lived in the western forests shelter and wildlife were plentiful. n’t until the early 1900s that the Assini- of what is now Minnesota. The Assini- Sieur de la Verendrye is the Euro- boine got a chance to recover. boine broke off from the Yanktonai pean given credit for being the first to The 19th Century brought with it sometime before 1640. Accounts of the cross the plains in front of Turtle Moun- a much different world for the Assini- events which caused the bitter split tain. Passing through the region in 1738 boine – their numbers destroyed by between them and the he found a group of about disease and the animal upon which Dakota Nation were re- They call them- 100 Assiniboine lodges every aspect of their life depended corded in the journals of selves the camped beside Cherry Creek driven into virtual extinction. By the early explorers and fur (near present-day Bois- Nakota Oyadebi. 1880s the Assiniboine were few in traders. Legend has it sevain). This group of Assini- number and placed on reserves in Al- that jealousy and passion boine travelled with la Veren- berta, Saskatchewan and Montana over a women lay at the root of the drye to show him the way to the Man- (included in Treaties 4 and 6 which division. A young warrior seduced and dan villages on the Missouri River. La kidnapped the wife of an important Verendrye was the first European to were signed in 1874 and 1876 respec- man. This caused a conflict which esca- trade directly with the Assiniboine and tively). Manitoba has no Assiniboine lated until one group, numbering about set up two trading posts – Fort la Rouge reserves, only individual members liv- a thousand lodges, left for the north to at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine ing off-reserve. the Lake of the Woods region where Rivers, and Fort la Reine at present-day Sources: Dan Kennedy. Recollections of an Assiniboine Cheif. Toronto: they sought out the Dakota’s tradi- Portage La Prairie – in order to trade McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1972 Miller, David Reed. “Nakota (Assiniboine).” The Encyclopedia of tional enemies, the Cree. They pledged with them. Saskatchewan. Retrieved 11 Aug 2010.
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