Living With Strangers The Nineteenth-Century Sioux and the Canadian-American Borderlands David G. McCrady B.A., University of Victoria, 1990 M.A., University of Victoria, 1992 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History - - BDavid Grant McCrady, 1998 University of Manitoba Al1 rights reserved. Thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services seMces bibliographiques 395 WeüiiStreet 395. nie Wellington OtoiwaON K1AW O~~W~ONKIAW canada canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Libraty of Canada to BMiothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distri%ute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofïche/6lm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. FACULT'Y OF GWUAïESTtDIES *+++* COP'LRIGHT PERMISSION PAGE A Thesis/Prncticum sabmlmd to the Facuiw of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in pareid fulfillment of the requirements of the degee of DOCTOB OF PHILOSOPBP David G. HcCrady Permission has beea granted to the Library of The lin ive ni^ of Manitoba to lend or seii copies of this thesWpracticum, to the National Libnry of Canada to mkrofilm this thesis and to lend or sel1 copies of the film, and to Dissertations Abstracts International to pubIish an abstract of this thesidpracticum. The author reserver other pubiication rights, and neither this thesis/ptacticurn aor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's written permission. ABSTRACT The nineteenth-century Sioux are best conceptualized as a borderlands people. They made tremendous tactical use of their proximity to different groups of Europeans. Sioux in the Upper Mississippi Valley supported French traders during the early eighteenth century, but quickly accepted British ones after the British conquest of New France in 1763. To protect this trade and to prevent the encroachment of American traders onto Sioux lands, their young men fought alongside the British during both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. At the conclusion of the latter war, some Sioux groups travelled to St Louis to sign treaties of peace with the United States government, while others, who wished to remain trading partners of the British, were regular, if often unwelcome, visitors to the British colony on the Red River of the North. Dakotas who travelled to the Red River Settlement often came into conflict over buffalo with the Métis. Yet peaces were sometimes made which laid the foundation for Sioux-Métis trade. Dakotas, Yanktonais and Lakotas al1 profited from their trade in buffalo products and contraband arms and ammunition with the Métis from the north. Dakotas from Minnesota used the boundary as a shield against the United States Amy after the Dakota Conflict of 1862. As members of the borderlands community, Dakota and Yanktonai leaders petitioned Indian agents and other government officiais in both Canada and the United States for goods and land. When Sitting Bull and other Lakota leaders took their followers north to Canada iii following the Great Sioux War of 1876/77, their pathway was already in place and well travelled. Throughout the history of their interaction with incoming national powers, the Sioux used their position in the borderlands as a tool to improve their lives. Historical problems, when defined by modern political boundaries in North America, limit the kinds of questions and approaches we bring to the study of aboriginal history, while a borderlands perspective offers new vistas and new conclusions. Borderlands people like the Sioux used the Canada-United States boundary for their own purposes. For that reason, studying these experiences offers fresh perspectives on the ways in which aboriginal peoples responded to aettler societies. Contents Abstract ii Maps iv Partitioning Sioux History: An Introduction I From Contested Ground to Borderlands, 1752-1862 14 The Dakota Conflict of 1862 and the Migration to the Plains Borderlands 32 The Migration of the Sioux to the Milk River Country 62 The Sioux, the Surveyors and the North-West Mounted Police, 1872-1874 102 The Great Sioux War, 1876-1877 125 The Lakotas and Métis at Wood Mountain, 1876-1881 154 The Failure of Peace in Canada, 1878-1881 174 The Northern Borderlands: An Overview 214 Bibliography 236 Maps Map 1 Aboriginal Territories on the Northern Plains, Ca. 1850 13 Map 2 The War of 1812: Upper Canada and the Northwest 31 Map 3 Theatre of the Dakota Conflict, 1862 60 Map 4 The Northern Plains in the 1860s 61 Map 5 The Canadian-American Northwest, ca. 1872 101 Map 6 The Great March of the Mounted Police, 1874 124 Map 7 The Great Sioux War, 1876/77 153 Map 8 Métis Settlements in the Borderlands, 1880s 173 Map 9 The Lakota Sojourn in Canada, 1876/81 213 Preface The story of Sitting Bull's sojourn in Canada unfolded before me as 1 sat on the floor of the Macpherson Library at the University of Victoria reading the annual reports of the Canadian Department of the Interior, the ministry charged in the 1870s with the administration of Indian affairs. I was surprised. 1 was reasonably well versed in Western Canadian history, yet 1 had no knowledge of these events. How could 1 be unaware that Sitting Bull, arguably one of the most famous American Indians to have ever lived, spent four years in what would later become southern Saskatchewan? 1 began to understand that, as an American Indian, Sitting Bull had no place in Canadian history. Moreover, 1 started to realize that the boundary separating Canada and the United States had had a profound impact on the way historians- still generally of European origin and male--had thought and written about aboriginal history. Stories like that of Sitting Bull and the Sioux had not been told very well. When this project began, several years later, at the University of Manitoba, 1 set myself the task of trying to write the history of those Sioux who ventured into the area on both sides of the 49th parallel during the nineteenth century. 1 would write about the Dakotas, or Eastern Sioux, who left Minnesota after the warfare of 1862 and went to to Rupert's Land, and the Lakotas, or Western Sioux, who entered the North-West Territories (as Rupert's Land came to be known after it came under Canadian control) in the 1870s, having defeated Custer at vii the Little Bighorn. But foremost 1 wanted to learn how the Sioux-not just in wartime, but in peacetime as well-had corne to understand the boundary and to use it for their own purposes. 1 discovered while 1 researched and wrote that the boundary, and how it had partitioned academics, had created several problems which 1 now faced. Would readers steeped in the history of one country know as much about the other? Someone interested in Western American history knows about Lewis and Clark, the Bozemen Trail and the Black Hills gold rush. But would that person know about Gabriel Dumont, the Honorable James McKay or the Northwest Rebellion? Someone interested in Western Canadian history could explain the significance of the Canadian Pacific Railway; could he or she do the same for the American Frontier? How would such a divided audience receive this work? My research touched on some well known episodes in the history of the American and Canadian Wests-the Dakota Conflict of 1862, the March West of the North-West Mounted Police in 1874, the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Sioux War of 1876/77--and certainly some well known personages are here-Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, Louis Riel, Sitting Bull and George Armstrong Custer. And yet, there are some remarkable lacunae in the background literature. There seemed to be so much that 1 needed to knaw to complete my work, yet where was it? Much has been written, for example, about the Métis and the Red River Resistance, but very little about the Métis who lived on the plains away from Red River, and almost nothing on Métis communities in the United States. It was viii difficult, also, to find good maps in the published literature which gave equal weight to places on both sides of the boundary. In the end, by putting together material from a number of sources on both sides of the border, I hope 1 have said something new and significant about about Sioux history. Who are the Sioux? Even Sioux nomenclature is problematic. The synonymy for the Sioux in the forthcoming Plains volume of the Handbook of North American Indians will be an extraordinary document. In brief, although the nineteenth-century Sioux considered themselves a single people, they did not live in a single political entity. People lived in bands which, in turn, were parts of larger entities, of which there were at least thirteen in the nineteenth century. The Mdewakantons, Wahpekutes, Sissetons and Wahpetons (using English forms) called themselves the Dakotas (Dakt6ta),and are also collectively known as the Santees, or Eastern Sioux.