The Last of the Horse Wars: Intertribal, Cross-Border Warfare in Southern Alberta and Northen Montana Territory, 1878-1893

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2012-09-06 The last of the horse wars: intertribal, cross-border warfare in southern alberta and northen montana territory, 1878-1893

Marsh, Christopher

Marsh, C. (2012). The last of the horse wars: intertribal, cross-border warfare in southern alberta and northen montana territory, 1878-1893 (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28228 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/182 master thesis

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The Last of the Horse Wars: Intertribal, Cross-Border Warfare in Southern Alberta

and Northern Montana Territory, 1878-1893

Christopher Marsh

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

CALGARY, ALBERTA

SEPTEMBER, 2012

Abstract

From 1883 until the autumn of 1889, Canadian Kainai (Blood Indians) waged cross- border warfare against American A’aninin (Gros Ventres) and Nakota (Assiniboine) of the

Fort Belknap Agency in northeastern Montana. Enmity between these indigenous plains peoples had carried over from hostilities at the end of buffalo days and was perpetuated due to a strong continuity of warrior and equestrian culture in the 1880s, which endured despite efforts of the Canadian Dominion Government to “civilize” their Blackfoot wards through

Christianity and agriculture. The few historians who have studied this little known conflict have emphasized the success of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) in ending it.

However, this thesis will demonstrate that NWMP efforts were often ineffective and the reasons behind the Kainai decision to end the hostilities were complex, encompassing environmental change and an independent modification of cultural ethos. This thesis illuminates this conflict, its causes, and its resolution.

Acknowledgments

This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and assistance of the knowledgeable and helpful faculty of the Department of History. In particular, my supervisor, Dr. George Colpitts, was always ready and willing to lend an ear, help focus my thoughts, and offer suggestions as to how to improve my writing. Dr. Colpitts and Dr.

Elizabeth Jameson also offered me their valuable time and advice in putting together a

Social Science and Humanities Research Council grant proposal for my second year of study. Dr. Jameson, whose classes drew me to the Canadian-United States borderlands, also opened my eyes to wider interpretations of North American history, which can be seen in the methodological and theoretical frameworks in this thesis. My first-year seminar professors also taught me to think critically about source documents, history, and historiography, which no doubt sharpened my research and writing skills far above what they would have been if not for their dedication to teaching. I am also indebted to the

Graduate Advisor, Brenda Oslawsky, for all her support in a variety of behind-the-scenes administration in regards to my program. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to my family, especially my father, Boniface Marsh, for the considerable financial and moral support given throughout this entire endeavour. I also thank my classmates for not only creating a stimulating academic environment but also offering recreational and social outlets when we all needed a break from reading, writing, and thinking. The Social Science and Humanities

Research Council, the Coutts Family Scholarship fund, the Government of Alberta, and the

University Of Calgary Department of History all provided financial support without which

I could have never finished this project. For this, I earnestly thank all these donors.

iii

Table of Contents

Abstract ii

Acknowledgements iii

Table of Contents iv

List of Tables v

List of Figures vi

List of Abbreviations vii

Introduction 1

Chapter One: The Aristocracy of Ability and the Spirit of Retaliation, Underlying 24

Causes of the Kainai Belknap War

Chapter Two: Friends to Foe, the Blackfoot, the Cree, and the Milk River Allies, 59

1878-1883

Chapter Three: Fort Belknap Besieged, Kainai-Belknap Intertribal Warfare, 83

1884-1889

Chapter Four: The Making of Peace and Denouement, 1888-1894 114

Conclusion 147

Bibliography 150

List of Tables

Table 1: Kainai Population and Beef Rations Issued, 1885-1891 141

List of Figures

Figure 1: Geographical Boundaries of Study, 1878-1894 7

Figure 2: Comparison of Blackfoot, Cree/Assiniboine, and Non-Natives in Cases 120

Involving Horse Stealing or Bringing Stolen Property into Canada, 1881-1889: Number of Individuals Arrested and Convicted

Figure 3: Comparison of Blackfoot, Cree/Assiniboine, and Non-Natives in Cases 121

Involving Horse Stealing or Bringing Stolen Property into Canada, 1881-1889: Total

Prison Sentences by Year

Figure 4: Comparison of Blackfoot, Cree/Assiniboine, and Non-Natives in Cases 121

Involving Horse Stealing or Bringing Stolen Property into Canada, 1881-1889: Average

Prison Sentence by Year

Figure 5: Earnings of Kainai Individuals, 1886-1892 144

List of Abbreviations

Church Missionary Society (CMS)

Glenbow Museum (Glenbow)

Library and Archives Canada (LAC)

Montana Historical Society (MHS)

National Archives and Record Administration at Denver (NARAD)

North West Mounted Police (NWMP)

vii

Introduction

In early September 1886, six Kainai (Blood) men and youths encountered twenty- three warriors of a mixed party of A’aninin (Gros Ventres), Nakota (American

Assiniboine), and Crow near the Milk River in Canadian territory. This latter group, exasperated with the Kainai’s continual horse stealing, had come north of the border to retaliate in the wake of a recent raid. They chased the smaller party up a small butte near

Dead Horse Coulee in present-day southern Alberta. Upon reaching the top, the Belknap party unloaded their weapons on the improvised fortifications hastily built by their enemies with a fantastic barrage. When the gunfire stopped, six Kainai lay dead. The victors scalped their enemies, took their weapons as trophies, and returned to the Fort Belknap Agency, located on the Milk River in Montana Territory. Spectacularly violent, this episode demonstrated the depths of animosity that the Belknap Indians had developed towards the

Kainai in the wake of numerous raids. However, this slaughter on the butte led the Kainai to redouble their raiding. Rumors mounted of an impending Kainai attack against the

American agency itself. This fear of an all-out Indian war persisted until early June 1887 when William Pocklington, the Kainai Indian Agent, a North West Mounted Police

(NWMP) Inspector, famous guide Jerry Potts, and a number of important Kainai Chiefs made a successful peace mission to the American reservation.

At the time, Canadian and American regional newspapers extensively covered the event. However, their reports largely obscured the nature and duration of what was recognized as a Kainai-Belknap war. At first glance, the conflict lasted less than a year.

However, Indian agency documents, especially on the American side of the International boundary, reveal a conflict lasting nearly eight years, stretching on with repeated instances

of horse raiding and punctuated with incidences of deadly violence. The Kainai-Belknap war, spanning from 1882 until 1889, had its immediate origins in enmities carried over at the end of the ‘buffalo days’, although it was maintained by the continuance of Kainai warrior culture and Native traditions of retributive justice in regards to both murder and theft of property.

This thesis will explore the Kainai-Belknap war which occurred over nearly a decade in the 1880s, finding explanations for it and its eventual cessation in 1890 in ecological, diplomatic, and cultural factors. It constituted a significant historical event as it occurred after the Numbered Treaties were negotiated and supposedly in a period of peaceful Canadian western colonization. Moreover, it inflamed tribal relations on both sides of the international border, on reserves and reservations purportedly being moved into sedentary, pastoral, and agricultural lifestyles and economies. The Kanai-Belknap war flies in the face of the “mild/wild” dichotomy usually seen in comparative United States-Canada historiography. By focusing on its causes, and the resolution of the conflict, this thesis will provide insight into the themes of continuity and cultural change in Kainai society. It also adds complexity to the history of settlement and law enforcement in Canada since it demonstrates that the NWMP, for the most part, were not able or willing to stop Kainai horse raiding activities against intertribal foes. More significantly, it suggests that although the Kainai had been significantly weakened and their independence severely curtailed by the disappearance of the bison and the realities of the reserve era, certain segments of

Kainai society advocated “the old ways” of life and defied efforts by the Dominion

Government to significantly alter cultural values and assimilate them into Canadian society.

Neither would they allow the Government to hinder freedom of movement or interfere with widely held notions of how diplomacy should be conducted with their indigenous

neighbours. While government policies were intended to be domineering and repressive in order to prepare the Canadian West for Euro-Canadian agricultural settlement, the realties revealed by the conflict suggest that systems of control were weak until at least 1893. The

Kainai-Belknap war becomes then, a valuable lens through which such issues can be examined afresh in the early Canadian West.

Divided into four chapters, the first examines the underlying cultural values which contributed to the conflict. Since Indian agents, the NWMP, and newspapers alike maintained that the perpetrators of cross-border raids and depredations in general were overwhelmingly young men, an examination of why warfare was important to this segment of Kainai society is pertinent. Participating in warfare provided a means to acquire wealth, in the form of horses, and gain status through what amounted to battlefield honours. Plains

Indian societies generally celebrated bravery, which was reinforced by the bestowal of social prestige. While the buffalo disappeared and Kainai material culture underwent dramatic change in the 1880s, certain cultural values concerning wealth, status, generosity, and honour did not. Therefore this chapter is devoted to demonstrating the continuity of these values throughout the 1880s until 1893. This chapter will also examine the notions of justice shared by the Kainai and the Belknap tribes in regard to theft and murder. The interaction of Kainai norms for justice and the importance which young men attached to warfare will form a solid basis for explaining why the Kainai fought the Belknap tribes for nearly a decade. It also throws into sharp relief existing historiography that suggests these values were lost in the post-buffalo and treaty era.

Chapter two examines the period 1878 until 1883 and explores the immediate causes of the Kainai-Belknap war. It exposes the complexity of Native diplomacy, subsistence strategies, and politics that continued to have great relevance in the

reserve/reservation era. Although the A’aninin had fought with various westward-moving

Sioux tribes well before the 1870s, by 1878, the defeat of Custer at Little Big Horn and the subsequent flight of Sitting Bull and other Sioux bands into Canada had become a matter of great concern to them. The Sioux had concentrated on the periphery and then within the heart of the Milk River country, which the A’aninin claimed as hunting grounds and homeland. These newcomers attacked hunting parties, raided horse herds and at times besieged the Belknap Agency directly. In an effort to protect themselves, the A’aninin first formed closer ties with the River Crows of the Yellowstone River region and the Nakota who hunted in their territory. The decision of the A’aninin to ally themselves with the

Nakota had significant impact, as the former had kin and alliance ties to Canadian

Assiniboine bands and the Cree. These tribes had quarrelled with the Kainai, Pikani

(Piegan), Siksika (Blackfoot proper) and their allies for generations over horses and access to hunting grounds. Although the A’aninin formed friendlier ties with them in 1879, after the Sioux were removed to reservations farther east the Cree and the Blackfoot went to war once again, embroiling Fort Belknap in the hostilities. This chapter examines these events.

The third chapter reveals the dynamics of a long, drawn-out conflict between the

Kainai and the Belknaps from 1884 until the end of1889. This warfare mainly constituted cross-border horse raiding, although newspapers and Indian agents tended to make sense of it as bloody, spectacular violence and feared it would spill over into a wholesale “Indian war.” This raiding displayed persistent and predictable patterns, within prescribed seasons, which coincided with the new social and economic patterns of Kainai yearly life. By 1885, a new modified life cycle had become discernible, based on seasons of the prairies, old patterns maintained from the buffalo days and the new realities of reservation life. The interaction of new and old patterns set raiding seasons in late spring and late autumn. This

chapter provides additional explanation of the conflict by examining how the long running raiding and counter-raiding was nurtured, which segments of Kainai society perpetuated it, and how the NWMP and the United States army at Fort Assiniboine attempted to deal with it.

When one examines the general patterns of the Kainai-Belknap war, there is an expectation that after the fall of 1889, the conflict should have continued. However, this was not the case. The conflict ended suddenly and agents on both sides of the border spoke of friendlier relations in 1891. There was no “official” explanation as to why peace came about, as no Canadian or American representatives were party to the treaty which ended the conflict. Hence, chapter four explores that question. Historical interpretation has mainly focused on the actions of the of the NWMP in arresting horse raiders and controlling aboriginal movement in bringing peace and order to the Canadian West, thus suppressing intertribal warfare. Little attention, however, has been focused on Kainai agency in the decision to halt such activities. The fourth chapter will therefore examine the actual impact of the NWMP in deterring raiding and impeding Kainai freedom of movement. In light of the evidence, however, it is difficult to conclude that the NWMP was primarily responsible for the cessation of warfare and it was generally the decision of specific segments of the

Kainai, in rational consideration of other factors, which ended decisively the continuation of raiding in the spring of 1890.

The geographic boundaries of this study are determined broadly by the territorial hunting and raiding range of the parties to the Kainai-Belknap conflict. As such, it implicates generally northern Montana Territory in the United States and the southern portions of the North West Territories in Canada. More specifically the west boundaries begin at the Belly River. Between the Belly River and the St. Mary’s River was, and still is,

the reserve of the Kainai tribe. Using the Oldman River as a northern boundary marker, this region of study is expanded eastward to include the Cypress Hills. Extending southeastwards from the Cypress Hills to the confluence of the Milk and Missouri River provides an eastern boundary. This encapsulates traditional Gros Ventres territory: the Milk

River buffalo country and other important hunting grounds near the Little Rockies and the

Bear Paw Mountains. Following the course of the Missouri River west and then the Marias

River to the southern border of the Blackfeet (or South Pikani) Reservation marks the southern boundary of this study (see also Figure 1).

At this point, it is necessary to define and clarify some ethnographic designations.

Before the Kainai settled on their reserve in 1881-82, they travelled throughout Montana, southern Alberta, and southern Saskatchewan in the company of other Blackfoot bands.

The Blackfoot Confederacy as a whole can be broken down into four or five individual tribes: the Kainai, more commonly known as the Bloods, the Pikani or the Piegan, the

Siksika or the Blackfoot proper, and the Tsuu T’ina or Sarcee, who often camped with the

Siksika in the northern portions of the Blackfoot hunting grounds.1 The Pikani can be separated into two branches, northern and southern, or Canadian and American respectively. To Canadian authorities, the southern branch was known as the South Piegans while to Americans, they were known as the Blackfeet (and called South Pikani in this thesis). The Kainai, the Pikani, and the Siksika possessed a common language and culture.

Along with the Tsuu T’ina, they hunted, camped, and went to war against common enemies.2 They intermarried extensively, as demonstrated in the amount of correspondence

1 The terms Kainai, Pikani, and Siksika are the terms, or derivatives of terms, for the three respective tribes in the Blackfoot language. 2 John C. Ewers, Ethnological Report on the Blackfeet and Gros Ventres Tribes of Indians, Commission Findings, (New York: Garland, 1974, 28.

by agents requesting transfers from one Canadian Blackfoot agency to another or the amount of visiting which occurred between the South Pikani and the Kainai in the 1880s and 90s. For the purposes of this thesis, “Blackfoot” refers to a political and military conglomeration of the Pikani, Kainai, and sometimes Siksika. As such, one assumes a degree of communication and unity in certain diplomatic affairs; it does not refer

Figure 1: Geographical Boundaries of Study, 1878-18943

3 Base map supplied by maps.google.ca. Modified using information contained in “Tracing Scouts of Lt. Fuller, 2nd Cav. And Sgt. Smith, 2nd Cav.” Map (Montana Historical Society: MC46-6-14), “Sketch of Location of Fort Belknap and its Trading Posts” (MHS: C63), and “Post Map of Fort Assiniboine, Montana” (MHS: A57).

to the language grouping. In addition, the Blackfoot designation is used extensively before

1882 as primary sources sometimes do not specifically denote tribal affiliation. American

Indian agents at the Blackfeet Agency in Montana generally considered them to be indistinguishably one people in the early 1880s, as all tribes were present at the South

Pikani or Blackfeet Agency in northwestern Montana.4

The A’aninin and Upper Valley Nakota constitute the two tribes which formed the majority of the indigenous peoples receiving annuities at Fort Belknap. They are traditionally known as the Gros Ventres (or Atsina) and Assiniboines. As in the case of using the Kainai’s reclaimed tribal name, I have decided to use the name these two peoples refer to themselves as in their own language as well. Additionally, since writing “A’aninin and Nakota” constantly is unwieldy, at times I have designated them as “the Belknaps.”

When references to “Assiniboine” are made they are to designate Canadian bands of those peoples known ethnographically and historically as the Assiniboine.

The sources of this study are the Blood Agency letter books, the Fort Belknap letter books and other correspondence, the records and correspondence of officers at the Fort

Assiniboine military installation in Montana Territory as well as the official annual reports, various other correspondence, and journals of the North West Mounted Police. Several southern Alberta and Montana newspapers, but mainly the Macleod Gazette, were also

4 In 1879, the Blackfeet agent John Young stated, “The tribes under the supervision of this agency the Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans, are really one people, having the same origin, language, and habits. They are every year merging more and more into one tribe known by the general mass of Piegan;” Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior, 1879, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1879), 89. Agents attested to the consolidated state of the Blackfoot tribes in 1880 and 1881 in those Annual Reports. However, in 1882, Young reported that the newfound willingness of the Canadian Government to ration the Kainai, northern Pikani, and Siksika, along with the scarcity of bison, reduced the agency rolls considerably and their presence at the American agency; see Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior, 1882, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1882).

used. These sources are taken from both the Canadian and American sides of the border, so to give a more complete examination of the interaction between the Kainai and the

Belknaps. Until 1881, they all ranged from one side of the International boundary line to the other in search of the bison, so often only American records can give insight into their movements and activities. At other times, fragmented reports on one side of the border are made more complete by sources from the other. Despite this, these written sources do have a number of problems, the first being ethnocentric bias as the authors were focused on the

“civilization programmes” of their respective governments and sometimes lacked the perspective of the peoples among whom they worked. Secondly, newspapers, always problematic sources, often based their reporting on rumour and were wildly speculative; therefore, they must be used with caution. In addition, newspapers were often blatantly racist and stereotypical in their images of First Nations peoples.

I have also attempted to give a Kainai and Belknap perspective into the events of the 1870s/80s and their mode of life in the early reserve era. In doing so, I have used as historical sources the ethnographic collections of R.N. Wilson, along with ethnographies composed by Clark Wissler and A.L. Kroeber, who lived with, interviewed, and interpreted the Blackfoot tribes and A’aninin respectively in the first decade of the 20th century. These works valuably captured the values and cultural outlook of warriors who had seen warfare during the buffalo days and impart indigenous perspectives on warfare. Additionally the

Annie McGowan collection at the Glenbow Museum contain the statements of three Kainai warriors, born in the 1850s and 1860s, which detail their martial exploits in the 1870s and

1880s. The writing of John T. Bell, a former sergeant at Fort Assiniboine in the 1880s, farm instructor at Fort Belknap Agency in the 1890s, and the husband of an A’aninin woman, also contained information of this kind in detailing the life of Necotta, or Bushy

Head, an A’aninin band chief, from 1840 until the early 1890s. Although insightful, occasionally they are problematic from a historian’s perspective as it is often difficult to achieve a precise chronology. Sometimes, events described by the informants can be compared to other written accounts and newspapers to identify an event and its date. Others can only be ascribed to a rough chronology, such as the early, mid, or late decade based on the informant’s age and general patterns of diplomacy and warfare already dated from written records.

This thesis has been influenced by ethnographic and ethnohistorical writings on the Kainai and Belknap Indians, studies of the patterns of trade, diplomacy and warfare on the northwest plains, and newer trends in the study of native-newcomer relations since the publication of Richard White’s The Middle Ground.5 Until the 1950s, there had been a general dearth in written material on the Kainai and the Blackfoot since the days of

“salvage anthropology” at the turn of the 20th Century. In these instances, ethnologists such as Wissler and Kroeber had rushed to preserve elements of what they considered vanishing cultures. Historical analysis, especially of colonization and settlement, has often neglected

Native perspectives. James W. Walker argued in the 1970s that indigenous peoples had been largely portrayed in a negative and inconsequential light from the turn of the 20th

Century until the end of the 1960s. Of the histories published since the 1930s, Walker concluded “it is evident that the Indian is considered totally peripheral to the study of

Canada.”6 W. Keith Regular echoed that sentiment in his 2009 study of the Kainai in the southern Alberta economy until 1939, stating “the view that Natives played no significant

5 See Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1680- 1815, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 6 James W. St. G. Walker, “The Indian in Canadian Historical Writing,” Canadian Historical Association, Historical Papers (1971), 38-39.

part in Canada’s modern history was set out by an earlier generation of scholars.”7 George

W.F. Stanley gave the most attention to the subject of the Blackfoot in the late 1930s in his study of the Northwest Rebellion of 1885 and is representative of this tendency. In this vein, in their contact with a “superior civilization,” it was inevitable that the native tribes, possessing an inferior culture, would be assimilated by Euro-Canadian society.8 Thus, little was written by serious historians on the Kainai and the Blackfoot for nearly forty years after the work of ethnologists at the turn of the 20th Century.

At this time, Stanley helped lay part of the foundation for the myth of Canada’s

“Peaceable Kingdom,” which has significant bearing on the historical interpretation of this thesis. Generally, Stanley argued that the settlement of the Canadian West was more peaceable and orderly than that of the United States. Canada was a land of law, order, and good government which contrasted with a rough and tumble, violent American West. He first articulated this idea in The Birth of Western Canada, outlining a seemingly easy process in the transformation of a disorderly West into a civilized one. The Dominion

Government first identified the sources of chaos in the West: restless native peoples,

“unscrupulous traders and resentful half breeds.”9 Next, the NWMP was formed, marched across the Dominion, and deftly sent American whiskey traders packing with little effort aside from “a few arrests.”10 Treaties were then made with various woodland and plains tribes, with Stanley stating that “strict honesty, justice, and good faith have marked the administration of Indian affairs in Canada.”11 With the issues of lawlessness and disorder dealt with, the Dominion Government concluded a land survey, built a railroad, and handed

7 W. Keith Regular, Neighbours and Networks: The Blood Tribe in the Southern Alberta Economy, 1884- 1939, (Calgary, University of Calgary, 2009), 2. 8 See Stanley, Birth of Western Canada, 194-196. 9 Ibid, 199-202. 10 Ibid, 202-203. 11 Ibid, 214.

out free land to populate the Canadian West. This contrasted prominently with the violent experience of the United States with expensive and bloody Indian wars, which the

Dominion Government desperately wished to avoid (as it would have bankrupted the young

Dominion). In Stanley’s estimation, the NWMP were ever watchful and effective in maintaining law and order, whether over indigenous tribes or Euro-Canadian settlers.12This image of the intrepid, stern red coat, who unflinchingly maintained the law, has been prominent in other works dealing with the police in the Canadian West. It is generally mainstream in Canadian society, summed up even in short historical vignettes on the

NWMP shown by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where Sam Steele always got his man.13

This historiographical understanding is of interpretive significance to this thesis.

This is especially true as many of Stanley’s conclusions have been disputed in more recent

Canadian historiography. Historians since the 1970s have questioned the degree to which treaties were planned and carried out well in advance of settlement. First Nations peoples, already aware of the changes around them, demanded to make treaties before they would

12 This is especially emblematic when Stanley writes: “The police were present at the conclusion of the Indian treaties; they shepherded Sitting Bull’s Sioux back to the United States; they assisted the Department in gathering the plains tribes upon the reservations and brought justice to red and white men alike. Doors might be left unlocked and cattle unguarded; the drunken riots ceased and there was an end to Indian bloodshed;” George F. G. Stanley, “Western Canada and the Frontier Thesis,” Canadian Historical Association, Historical Papers (1971), 111. 13 For a few examples, see A.L. Haydon’s The Riders of the Plains: Adventures and Romance with the North West Mounted Police 1873-1910, (Toronto: The Copp Clark Co. Ltd, reprint 1911, c1910) and Sir Cecil E. Denny’s The Law Marches West (Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1939). R.C. Macleod gives a more even- handed evaluation of the NWMP and the acknowledges the myth of the Peaceable Kingdom but also comes to the conclusion that the NWMP gave consistent, unwavering effectiveness in the quest to provide law and order in the Canadian West in R.C. Macleod’s “Canadianizing the West: The North West Mounted Police as Agents of the National Policy, 1873-1905” in The Prairie West: Historical Readings 2nd Edition, Ed. R. Douglas Francis and Howard Palmer, (Edmonton; Pica Pica Press, 1992, c1976), 225-238. Macleod concluded that The NWMP was “outstandingly successful” at mitigating conflicts between First Nations and white settlers. Inspector James Morrow Walsh is portrayed as a stern law and order man in a more recent account of the NWMP activities during Sitting Bull`s residence in Canada in Ian Anderson`s Sitting Bull`s Boss: Above the Medicine Line with James Morrow Walsh, (Surry, B.C., Heritage House, 2000).

allow settlement to occur.14 The Dominion Government’s dealings with First Nations have not always been conducted with “strict honesty, justice, and good faith.” John L. Tobias has argued that dealings with indigenous peoples have not always been honourable, outlining government actions from 1879 to 1885 to control Cree freedom of movement and political assembly through the manipulation of the ration system to discourage dissent, police oppression, and finally the application of military force during the1885 rebellion. 15

In Lost Harvests, Sarah Carter argued that the Dominion Government hindered Cree agricultural development with an insistence on peasant farming methods and a refusal to deliver tools and implements, which were guaranteed by treaty, to bands they believed would or could not effectively make use of them. Additionally, efforts to compete with

Euro-Canadians were discouraged so as to maintain settler’s primacy in agricultural markets. Finally, a pass system, aimed at curtailing the movements of native peoples, was implemented in the wake of the 1885 Northwest Rebellion, which directly contravened assurances given in the treaties signed by the federal government in the 1870s.16 In reading

Robert J. Talbot’s Negotiating the Numbered Treaties, one gets the overall impression that to the officials in the Ministry of the Interior during the 1880s, it was perfectly acceptable to try to reduce fiscal costs rather than fulfill the full written letter of the treaties or to deny bands’ chosen reserves in order to hold the best lands for settlers.17 Since Stanley was

14 This can be seen in two of Hugh Dempsey’s works concerning the Blackfoot, both of which feature chapters on the events leading up to the 1877 Treaty 7 negotiations: Crowfoot: Chief of the Blackfeet (1972) and Red Crow: Warrior Chief (1980). Other recent works suggest this as well including Sarah Carter, Walter Hildebrant, Dorothy First Rider and the Treaty 7 Elders and Council Member’s The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 (1996) and Robert J. Talbot’s Negotiating the Numbered Treaties (2009). 15 John L. Tobias, “Canada’s Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879-1885” in Out of the Background: Readings on Canadian Native History, 2nd Edition, ed. Ken S. Coates and Robin Fisher. (Scarborough, ON: Irwin Publishing, 1998), 151. 16 Sarah Carter, Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy, (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990), 149-156,231-236. 17 See Robert J. Talbot’s negotiating the Numbered Treaties, (Saskatoon: Purich Publishing, 2009).

challenged by historians on other facets of his interpretation, certainly the assertion that the

NWMP maintained peace and proved to be an unwavering guardian of law and order is worth another look. The examination of the Kainai-Belknap war provides such an opportunity.

The greatest explosion in the historiography of the Kainai began in the 1950s and was parcelled with that of the South Pikani. In 1955, John Ewers published The Horse in

Blackfoot Culture, his first large-scale analysis of Blackfoot cultural continuity and change.

Ewers studied the functions of the horse in Plains Indian culture and did so by interviewing both Kainai and South Pikani informants in the late 1940s and early 1950s, while also making use of the written records of Euro-American observers.18 This would later become known as ethnohistorical methodology, which would also come to encompass the study of artifacts and artwork of European and American artists. For the interests of this thesis, one of Ewer’s most important arguments was the impact of the horse on social relations within the tribe: that the acquisition of the horse was directly responsible for social stratification of

Blackfoot culture.19 The accumulation of horses created classes based on its ownership: the

18 John C. Ewers, The Horse in Blackfeet Culture: With Comparative Material from Other Western Tribes, (Washington: United States Government Printing Office. 1955), XI-XII. 19 This topic has been reassessed in more recent years. In his 1993 study, David Nugent argued that after 1830, the Blackfoot went from an egalitarian and reciprocal society to one that was unequal and redistributive. Heavily steeped in Marxist theory and terminology, Nugent focused on dried meat and horses as wealth, which subsequently led to an accumulation of political and social power. He further contended that this power was often concentrated in the hands of older men. Younger men could seldom rise above their station as leaders of horse raids seldom asked poor men to accompany them because of their material poverty. Furthermore, if they did participate in such an enterprise, they often had to repay elder patrons in horses they stole; see David Nugent, “Property Relations, Production Relations, and Inequality: Anthropology, Political Economy, and the Blackfeet,” American Ethnologist 20:2 (1993), 342, 349-352. In 1995, Gerald Conaty of the Glenbow Museum offered a response to Nugent’s article which disputed not whether there was inequality in Blackfoot society, but rather the sources and implications of that inequality. Conaty asserted that although horses were the main source of wealth, their value was fleeting because they could be stolen by enemies or died in cold winters. Therefore, a man could be reduced to poverty overnight and thus men often sought respect in obtaining sacred objects such as medicine bundles. A sizable portion his article centred on the fact that men were respected for their possession of medicine bundles rather than straight wealth in horse flesh. From the testimony of Blackfoot informants, Conaty concluded that poor men could and often did obtain wealth and that social mobility was not restrictive. Nugent had looked at a narrow slice of Blackfoot culture,

rich, “middle-class” (or In-betweens as his informants termed them), and the poor. Horses as a form of wealth had permeated throughout Blackfoot society in the late 18th century and the horse raid evolved as a method to attain social mobility.20

In 1958, Ewers published a historical narrative which again examined the South

Pikani and Kainai, this time focusing on cultural contact and change. His main argument was that the Blackfoot incorporated items of “alien” (European and American) culture which they found immediately useful and rejected pressures to accept those which were unsuited to their way of life.21 Hence, the Blackfoot accepted horses, firearms, iron weapons and tools, tobacco, and beads: those items which could be readily adapted to their way of life. By and large, however, they rejected Christianity and farming in the reservation era. The Blackfoot accepted certain elements of material culture but stubbornly resisted attempts that threatened traditional religion, language, crafts, basic subsistence patterns, and the gendered division of labor (men as hunters and warriors, women in maintenance of camp life and child rearing).22

For his own part, Hugh Dempsey followed suit and wrote extensively on the Kainai tribe and their allies, the Pikani and Siksika. He has written two major biographical works

property in the form of dried meat and horses, and assumed a similar valuation of these things in Native society as in Western society. Conaty advocated for wider scope of examination to include world view, sacred items, primeval stories, and pervading cultural values. See Gerald T. Conaty, “Economic Models and Blackfoot Ideology,” American Ethnologist 22:2 (1995), 406-407. 20 Ewers, The Horse in Blackfeet Culture, 240-244. 21 John C. Ewers, The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwest Plains, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), IX-X. 22 Gender roles may not have been as simple as Ewers suggested. Beatrice Medicine studied instances of sex role alternatives in Plains Indians culture, including the Blackfoot, such as the Berdache (a man who dresses, acts, and does the labour of a woman), “warrior women,” and “manly-hearted women.” Medicine makes the point that these were not necessarily seen as deviant or a cause for societal censure among the Blackfoot tribes. Among the Piegan, although they “put a premium on male dominance, they accorded certain women exceptional privileges and prestige typically associated with men. The manly-hearted women excelled in in every important aspect of tribal life-property ownership, ceremonialism, and domestic affairs;” Beatrice Medicine, “‘Warrior Women’- Sex Role Alternatives for Plains Indian Women” in The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women, ed. Patricia Albers and Beatrice Medicine, (New York: University Press of America, 1983), 269-270.

of Blackfoot personalities: Crowfoot of the Siksika tribe and Red Crow of the Kainai. Both were recognized as the head chiefs of their respective tribes by the Dominion Government and provided leadership in the early reservation era. In both works, the focus was on the lives of Red Crow and Crowfoot against a backdrop of events which occurred during the heyday of the buffalo era (regarded as days of plenty and freedom), the extermination of the bison, and the difficult adjustment to reserve life. Dempsey also wrote on the theme of cultural change and continuity from the buffalo era into the reserve era. Settlement on reserves was seen as a period of decline and held essentially negative consequences for

First Nations peoples; although he argued that the Kainai were better off than most others.23This thesis is partly a response to this bibliographical style and will attempt to take the focus off prominent leaders and redirect it onto Kainai society as a whole.

Dempsey’s works are also important to this study as some directly examined the

Kainai-Belknap war. Red Crow: Warrior Chief dedicates a lengthy chapter to what he identified as a Kainai-A’aninin feud. In his interpretation, it occurred mainly in 1886 and

1887, when it was concluded by peace treaty in June, 1887. According to Dempsey, Red

Crow made peace with the A’aninin as he did not want his young men to continue to raid as

“war had outlived its usefulness.” 24 He also stated that the peace treaty was generally successful in ending the horse raids between the Kainai and the A’aninin; although occasional raiding continued, instances were promptly punished by tribal leadership by turning raiders over to the NWMP.25 However, as subsequent chapters will demonstrate, young men arrested for raiding were seldom effectively punished at any point during the conflict.

23 Hugh A. Dempsey, Red Crow: Warrior Chief 2nd Edition, (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1995 c1980), 255, 259. 24 Ibid, 208. 25 Ibid, 210-211.

The A’aninin have also been primarily studied with an ethnohistorical methodology, with emphasis on themes of cultural change and continuity. In the 1950s, Regina Flannery wrote a very comprehensive ethnology on A’aninin society, social customs, and religion, which was praised by the tribe. She included a section on historical background but did not examine in great depth the period of 1870 to 1890, which is the focus of this thesis. The majority of her A’aninin history relates to the fur trade era with less than two pages dedicated to the period 1870 to1890. Her main arguments for that era were that the

A’aninin were able to live off buffalo longer than other tribes, that Roman Catholicism made significant inroads among the tribe around 1885, and that there was a severe drop in population.26 Little mention was given to the conflict with the Kainai, which was prominent in the agency’s records and was a matter of great concern to the A’aninin and Nakota at the time. While Flannery’s work seemed to be one of preservation, Loretta Fowler was concerned with cultural change. She argued that although certain cultural and religious practices had been lost by the A’aninin since settling on their reservation, they consistently held on to the ethos of generosity and “fierceness.”27 As with Flannery`s work, a historical background was provided but Fowler was more interested in the 20th Century onwards and the political competition between the A’aninin and Nakota over control of social and economic affairs on the reservation. Writings on the Fort Belknap Indians, then, have concentrated on the fur trade era and throughout the 20th Century. This thesis partly examines the A’aninin and Nakota with a focus on the 1880s and in the context of their relations with the Kainai.

26 Regina Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana, Volume I, (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1953), 23-24. 27 Loretta Fowler, Shared Symbols, Contested Meanings: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 1778-1984 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 20-22.

Literature concerning the causes of intertribal warfare has also had an influence on this thesis. Anthony McGinnis examined this topic in the context of the northern plains from 1738 until 1889 by focusing mainly on the tribes of the present day Dakotas,

Nebraska, Montana, southern Alberta, and southern Saskatchewan, with special attention being paid to the Sioux. McGinnis attributed this warfare to “a widespread rivalry that was carried on by individuals in order to obtain wealth and glory.” Although the U.S. government used intertribal warfare to gain allies to help fight tribes hostile to its expansion, by the end of the 1870s the army was tasked with suppressing this warfare, which it was successful in doing. Thus McGinnis credits the army, as well as the extermination of the buffalo, which helped curtail the independence of nomadic bands, for ending intertribal warfare.28 Its cessation was essentially negative for men as change came slowly and the buffalo days were looked back at with sad reminiscence. They were disappointed within the limits of agency life: farming, running horses, and raising cattle could never be as exhilarating as warfare. Thus, the physical and mental health of men suffered as idleness and drunkenness increased. Finally, in a culture where bravery was still valued, but had no means for its attainment, saw quarrelling, theft, and rebellion against authority, whether against the tribal police or the bureaucracy, become commonplace among younger men.29

In contrast, other historians have emphasized the desire of native plains people to control economic resources, such as trade goods and hunting grounds, as the primary cause of intertribal warfare. John S. Milloy was primarily concerned with the Cree and their interaction with the Blackfoot tribes. Milloy argued that the Plains Cree acted in a cohesive

28 Anthony R. McGinnis, Counting Coup and Cutting Horses: Intertribal Warfare on the Northern Plains, 1738-1889, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), X. 29 Ibid, 192-193.

manner in matters of war and trade in order to secure access to guns, iron weapons, horses, and buffalo. Between 1790 and 1870, the Plains Cree became a nation among other nations of Plains Indians and were unified behind military, diplomatic, and economic goals.30 At first allies of the Blackfoot, from 1790 to 1850 the Cree and Blackfoot parted ways as fur traders established posts within the latter’s territory, which devalued the former’s role as middle-men. By this time, the Plains Cree had become fully immersed in the equestrian mode of life and needed a steady supply of horses to replace the ones constantly lost to northern Great Plains climatic conditions. A breakdown of trading relationships with both the Blackfoot and Mandan-Hidatsa resulted in “the Horse Wars”: a constant raiding for horses on the part of the Plains Cree.31 Between 1850 and 1870, they fully depended on the buffalo, which no longer ranged in their hunting grounds. Therefore, the 1850s and 60s saw an “armed migration” into Blackfoot territory which sparked a series of skirmishes which culminated in a major defeat in 1870, leaving them dependent on Blackfoot largesse for hunting territory.32 Milloy attributed the competition over trade goods, horses, and hunting grounds as primary motivators for indigenous warfare on the northwestern plains up until the 1870s, which was in stark contrast to McGinnis’ more personal motivations. McGinnis identified the seizure of hunting grounds as a consequence of intertribal warfare rather than its cause.

Theodore Binnema has also emphasized military, diplomatic, and trade relationships on the northwestern plains as a cause of warfare. Binnema argued in Common and Contested Ground that the primary story of native peoples of the northwestern plains

30 John S. Milloy, The Plains Cree: Trade, Diplomacy, and War 1790 to 1870, (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1988), XIV. 31 Ibid, 69-70. 32 Ibid, 108-118.

from 200 AD until 1806 was not one of cultural contact and conflict but of complex combinations of trade, warfare, and diplomacy in “a common and contested ground of diverse communities.”33 It was common ground owing to its immense resources centered on the buffalo, which attracted migrants from all directions. These migrants inevitably fell into conflict with one another over these resources, making it a contested ground. The majority of the narrative focuses on the trade, diplomacy, and war carried on by the

Northern Coalition: made up the Blackfoot, Gros Ventres, Cree, and Assiniboine-and the

Southern Coalition: the Shoshone, Crow, Flathead, and Kutenai, as they competed over access to the guns and horses. Binnema also tried to explain why certain Plains Tribes found themselves at odds with Euro-Canadian and Euro-American traders. Since they supplied their enemies with weapons, some bands interpreted this trade as a hostile act which was worthy of retribution.34

Recent works in the field of native-newcomer relations, especially those advocating a reorientation to a more indigenous viewpoint, has also been influential to this thesis. In

The Middle Ground, Richard White contended that many narratives involving native peoples were simple and linear, emphasizing both Euro-American conquest and cultural

33 Binnema, Common and Contested Ground, 3, 6. 34 Ibid, 154-156. See also Ted Binnema and William A. Dobak’s “‘Like the Greedy Wolf’: The Blackfeet, the St. Louis Fur Trade, and War Fever, 1807-1831,” Journal of the Early Republic, 29: 3 (2009), 411-440. Binnema and Dobak make the argument that while Americans often blamed the Hudson’s Bay Company for “inciting” the Pikani and Kainai tribes against them to undermine American commerce on the Missouri, in actuality, much of the Blackfoot’s hostility stemmed from the fact that the traders were supplying weapons and other trade goods to their enemies, most notably the Crow and Shoshone. American traders often did not understand diplomatic configurations and unintentionally offended the Blackfoot, which provoked violent reprisals. William Schilz has also examined the role of the Gros Ventres in this light in both the Canadian and American Fur Trade. During the 1980s, Schilz was primarily concerned with diplomatic relationships between European traders and native peoples. Access to European goods, especially guns and ammunition constituted a strategic value. The Gros Ventres started off as a valued middleman in the economic exchange between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the plains tribes further west but eventually became despised as thieves and murders by fur traders after a series of attacks in the late 18th and early 19th Century. The Gros Ventres saw the traders arming their more numerous enemies and retaliated against them accordingly. See Thomas Schilz, “The Gros Ventres and the Canadian Fur Trade, 1754-1831,” American Indian Quarterly 12:1 (1988), 41-54. He explored this theme once again in “Robes, Rum, and Rifles: Indian Middlemen in the Northern Plains Fur Trade,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 40:1 (1990), 2-13.

assimilation of native peoples, or stories of cultural persistence. Both possibilities assumed a battle where only one could, and did, survive.35 White encouraged historians to step away from these overly simple interpretations, as native culture and society did not simply crumble upon contact with European material culture, religion, and ideology. In a similar vein, Dan Richter’s Facing East from Indian Country also advocated stepping away from traditional conquest narratives and putting Native-American Indians at the center of historical interpretation. He also argued that the story of native retreat and marginalization should not be seen as inevitable but as a process that could be explained historically.

Furthermore, this process could be explained by the reorientation of perspective.

Traditional narratives of American history have looked westward, giving the impression of unrelenting movement of western civilization. Richter advocated looking east from “Indian

Country,” which perceived itself as the center with its own concerns, aspirations, and internal struggles in the mid-18th Century. In contrast, arriving Europeans appeared as weak and peripheral to this native world.36 Kathleen DuVal’s The Native Ground argued that the

Osage and Quapaw of the Arkansas River Valley inhabited a “Native Ground,” which specified a geographic and cultural locale in which native peoples dominated and directed the form and content of inter-cultural relations with Europeans.37 In some North American milieux, Europeans could not dictate conditions of economic, cultural, political, and military contact because they were too far away from the centers of imperial power. In these instances, the diplomatic and military interests of the original inhabitants carried far more weight than those of would-be colonizers. Therefore, they refused to work against

35 White, The Middle Ground, IX-X. 36 Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of North America, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 7-9. 37 Kathleen DuVal, The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 3-4.

their interests, despite the efforts of the French and Spanish to convince them to act otherwise. Lastly, Claudio Saunt demonstrated that the forces of cultural accommodation and cultural resistance could work simultaneously within communities of native peoples upon contact with Euro-American culture. In his study of the Creek Nation in the southeastern United States, Saunt argued that the choices faced by the Creeks in the late

18th century were not simply between assimilation and tradition. Furthermore, impetus for change or for continuity came from different segments of the Creek community, which produced tension within their society.38 The implication here is that there was no one unified tribal bloc deciding whether to accommodate or resist change, but different factions advocating for either one at the same time.

These perspectives can be applied to the Kainai in the 1880s and early 1890s. W.

Keith Regular argued they fall victim to the historical interpretation of being a conquered people that simply melted away upon coming into contact with Euro-Canadian civilization; the assumption is that they were not relevant in western Canadian history, specifically to regional economic development.39 There is no doubt that the Kainai experienced tremendous economic and social disruption after the disappearance of the bison and by the turn of the 20th Century were largely impoverished, diminished in population due to malnutrition and disease, and politically disempowered. However, their encounter with ecological and economic disaster should not be associated with immediate and unequivocal surrender to a colonizing Dominion Government. How could a supposedly conquered people possibly defy the will of a powerful and determined colonial power employing the tools of domination in the form of the NWMP and the bureaucracy of the Indian

38 Claudio Saunt, A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 2. 39 Regular, Neighbours and Networks, 7-8.

Department by indulging in a nearly decade-long, cross-border, intertribal conflict? As

Richter advocates, one must historicize the Kainai experience in the early reserve era, not merely assume that economic dependence automatically translated to cultural and political acquiescence. This simply did not happen and can be seen to be the case in the annual reports of the NWMP, the correspondence of William Pocklington, and the editorials of newspapers reporting on the region.

Non-violent, peaceful occupation of southern Alberta was not a foregone conclusion in the 1880s. As with Saunt’s Creeks, there was immense tension in Kainai society between those who wanted to turn to some aspects of Euro-Canadian culture, such as farming and wage labor, and others who wanted to perpetrate a mode of life largely unchanged from the buffalo days, with its emphasis on wealth in horses and the social currency of a warrior’s reputation. Like DuVal’s Osages and Quapaws, a cohort of young Kainai men sought to exercise the freedom to follow their own diplomatic course with the Belknaps, as they had done for decades with their intertribal neighbours. Despite calls and exhortations to do otherwise, they were determined to punish the A’aninin and Nakota by their own conception of traditional justice and restore their own honour for the others’ thefts and murders. They regularly defied agents, the police and even the elders in order to do so.

Indeed, there were times when NWMP annual reports worried that a clash with the

Blackfoot tribes, specifically with the Kainai, could not be avoided, as they found these young men were full of pride, “crafty”, well-armed, and in close contact with many friends and relatives just south of the line. There were times when NWMP correspondence expressed doubt that the Kainai could ever be brought under the hand of the law. This thesis will demonstrate that these doubts were well-founded during the Kainai-Belknap war, from 1882 to 1889.

Chapter One: The Aristocracy of Ability and the Spirit of Retaliation, Underlying

Causes of the Kainai-Belknap War

“The natives are a democratic people, without any faith in an aristocracy in wealth,” missionary John Maclean wrote of the Blackfoot in 1896, “They are however, deeply attached to an aristocracy of ability, valour, and character.” Furthermore, he opined that for the young men, “there was stirred in his bosom the ambitious desire to win a worthy place among his people.” Although Maclean acknowledged that young men from all cultures were susceptible to such cravings, he believed that it was especially prominent in the

*Blackfoot tribes, that boys “felt a hereditary pride in belonging to such a warlike tribe like the Blackfeet, whose name brought terror to the Crees, Ojibways, Saulteaux, and

Shoshone...”1 The path to social prestige and status for young men was the “war path” and in Maclean’s opinion it explained their “warlike nature.” In the 1880s, Wyman Lincoln and

Edwin C. Fields, both American Indian agents at Fort Belknap, occasionally wrote to the

Indian Commissioner’s office offering explanations for the horse stealing escapades of their wards against the Kainai (Bloods). This they attributed to a “spirit of retaliation” which existed as type of a character trait among the A’aninin (Gros Ventres) and Nakota

(American Assiniboine). In agents’ narrow, somewhat racist view, they were simply vengeful, uncivilized people. Maclean offered the quest for glory and valour as a motive for their military activities while the agents at Fort Belknap attributed them to an inherent vengeful nature. These oversimplified observations, both drawing on contemporary racist and socio-cultural determinism of the late 19th century, insufficiently explain the Kainai-

Belknap war which occurred between 1882 and 1889. This chapter places the era’s conflict,

1 John Maclean, Canadian Savage Folk: The Native Tribes of Canada, (Toronto: W.Briggs, 1971, c1896) 371-372.

especially around horses, into a more complex optic. It will highlight conceptions of what made a successful man, the importance of the horse in Kainai society and economy, the vitality of plains warrior culture, and widespread ideals of what constituted indigenous conceptions of justice in the 1880s and early 1890s. By doing so, this chapter not only provides the basis in which to explain the ongoing conflict but also exposes some of the enduring values, and therefore continuity in Plains Indian culture during this period, even well into the reserve era.

In 1881, portions of the Kainai tribe attempted to build a new life in the Bow River region (they would soon take a reserve between the Belly and the St. Mary’s River, however) by engaging in agricultural pursuits; others had remained in northern Montana chasing the buffalo. By summer, however, surviving upon the fruits of the chase was no longer a feasible alternative. The hunters straggled into the reserve in a destitute condition.

The task that they faced as a community was to find a new way to physically survive in an altered environment. Food, shelter and clothing, previously obtained from their now vanished “staff of life,” had to be garnered from new sources. When the impoverished

Kainai buffalo hunters came in throughout the summer, the material effects of the buffalo’s disappearance were profound: lodges were tattered and falling apart, clothes could not be repaired or replaced, and most of importantly, food ran short. This shortage of food would be the most persistent problem for the Kainai in the coming years as it led to chronic malnutrition, high incidence of disease, high rates of death for children and elders, and general discontent.2 The general trend in most native historiography is to denote a clear

2 Maureen K. Lux, Medicine That Walks: Disease, Medicine, and Canadian Plains Native People, 1880-1940, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 59-62, 69. The disappearance of the buffalo had a profound impact on the South Pikani; John Ewers argued that it turned them into a “weak, sedentary, dependant people” who were forced to trade land for annuities and rations to circumvent the subsistence problems it brought

transitional period from the bounty of the buffalo era to the impoverishment and general difficulty of the reserve era. John Ewers and Hugh Dempsey make clear distinctions between the two eras in their writings.3 In her study of reserve agriculture, Sarah Carter painted a bleak picture of the abject dependence of Cree bands in Treaty 4 and 6 on the

Dominion Government provision of both food and assistance in adjusting to an agricultural lifestyle after buffalo became scarce.4 In his recent study of the Kainai in the southern

Alberta economy, W. Keith Regular argued that many historians have focused on the extinction of the buffalo as it pertained to starvation and “reserve miseries,” assuming that that the impact would be felt for all time, that it was an absolute long-term economic defeat for the Kainai and other Blackfoot tribes.5 In these histories, and others, policies to change native peoples’ material lifestyle, and more importantly, to “civilize” them by changing their culture, were supervised and imposed by missionaries and Indian agents.

However, just because the buffalo were gone did not mean that long held values and the ethos of the older era were suddenly thrown away. What determined a man’s success, and brought social prestige, remained in some respects unchanged. The Kainai, for instance, still venerated horse ownership and wealth, and privileged martial ability within their culture. A young man’s status and esteem, in particular, was still defined within these terms. Although the Dominion Government wanted the Kainai to take on an agricultural

about, see John C. Ewers, The Blackfeet: Raiders of the Plains, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), 297, 299-308. Hugh Dempsey illustrated the subsistence problems after the disappearance of the buffalo for the Kainai and Siksika in Hugh A. Dempsey, Red Crow, Warrior Chief 2nd Edition. (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1995) and Hugh A. Dempsey, Crowfoot: Chief of the Blackfeet. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972) respectively. 3 See the Ewers and Dempsey works as stated above, plus Hugh Dempsey, Big Bear: The End of Freedom, (Vancouver: Graystone Books, 1984). 4 Sarah Carter, Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy, (Montreal: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 1990), 35-36, 52-54. 69-78 5 W. Keith Regular, Neighbours and Networks: The Blood Tribe in the Southern Alberta Economy, 1884- 1939, (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2009), 28-29.

ethos, this did not happen. In her comparative study of U.S. and Canadian government policies in administering the Blackfoot reserve/reservations on both sides of the international border, Hana Samek argued that agriculture was generally a failure. This was partly attributed to resistance on the part of the Kainai and South Pikani who had no tradition of agriculture, did not find it appealing, and who even felt it was contrary to their worldview as it hurt the earth.6 More concretely, agriculture looked a lot like women’s work. Just prior to the end of the buffalo era, men were expected to hunt game, trap for fur, protect the camp, fight enemies, and take care of pony herds. These functions were often attached to the work of specific societies invested with spiritual ritual and other honours.

Some older men also found acclaim in being able to craft pipes, decorative bowls, spoons, bows, and arrows. Women, though connected also to important cultural and spiritual duties, collected wood, drew water, took care of the lodge, cooked food, prepared buffalo (and later cow) hides, made clothing, and seasonally collected a variety of wild plants such as berries and prairie turnips for consumption.7 Farming looked very much like the latter, which were considered tasks for women and young children. Clark Wissler, an anthropologist who studied the Kainai in the first decade of the 20th century, learned through his informants that it was “an absolute disgrace” for a man and his wife that he indulge in women’s labour. Methodist missionary John McDougall noted that many

Blackfoot and Stoney men would not haul water or carry firewood because it opened them up to ridicule from the young women of the community.8 William Pocklington, the Kainai agent from 1884 until 1892, reported very sparsely about how agricultural labour was

6 Hana Samek, The Blackfoot Confederacy, 1880-1920: A Comparative Study of Canadian and U.S. Indian Policy, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 55-57, 69-70. 7 Ewers, The Blackfeet, 84-87, 109-123; Lux, Medicine That Walks, 10-11, 15. 8 Clark Wissler, The Social Life of the Blackfoot Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume VII, (New York: American Museum of Natural History Board of Trustees, 1912), 27.

actually divided on the reserve. However, an offhanded comment in his 1886 annual report suggested that women did a majority of the work. He wrote, “The crops were put in successfully; the squaws as usual (italics mine) doing the lion’s share of the work.”9 In his

1882 report on the Belknap Tribes, Lincoln was pleased to report that that spring the

A’aninin men did the agricultural labour once left to their wives and daughters.10 Hence, in the beginning, some plains groups seemed to hold farming to be the domain of women.

With the demise of the buffalo and the general scarcity of large game, young Kainai men hunted much less and thus focused on the care of horses and their role as warriors. It must be remembered that these men entering reserve life had spent their entire childhood engaging in rough and tumble play, training in the use of weapons, and listening to the stories of successful warriors.11 It was naïve of the government and missionaries to believe that the expectations of men would change almost overnight.

The survival of martial values is suggested in ethnology recorded in the 1890s and early 20th century. According to R.N. Wilson, a former Mountie, “Indian trader,” later resident Indian agent, and amateur ethnographer who left voluminous descriptions of the

Kainai in this transitional period, they believed in the immediacy of the physical world.

There was not a lot of concern for the afterlife as they believed it was a pale, uninteresting shadow of the material world. In any case, old age was “the greatest favor” a man could receive but “the pleasures arising from wealth, popularity, success in war, freedom from bodily ailments and family bereavements” were also great blessings. With these attained,

9 Annual Report of the Blood Reserve, July 1, 1886 (Library and Archives Canada RG10-1553:C14842). 10 Annual Report for Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1882 (National Archives and Records Administration at Denver RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). 11 Ewers, The Blackfeet, 103; “Rev. Jno. McDougall Interviewed,” Winnipeg Free Press, September 4, 1882.

there was little desire for anything else.12 However, attaining wealth, popular esteem, and success in war were things which an individual had the most immediate control. Emphasis on these three things can be seen in heroic stories told by the Kainai, which were still being passed down in the early 1890s. The story of Scarface, the legendary bringer of the Ookaan or Sun Dance, tells of a young man who wished to marry a beautiful maiden.

Unfortunately, Scarface had a hideous scar and she would not marry him unless he found some way to remove it. To this end, Scarface travelled to the lodge of the Sun, who not only helped rid him of his disfigurement but also bestowed upon him the fine clothes of a wealthy man, trophies which proved his bravery, and knowledge of rituals (the Ookaan) which marked him as wise. Being in possession of these things made him a man of great social prestige and esteem in the eyes of his community.13

The story of Poor Boy, told to Wilson by Kainai elder Eagle Ribs in 1890, reinforced these definitions of success but traced a more earthly path to its attainment. The forenamed protagonist had problems. He was a poor man who dressed in ragged old buffalo robes. He had no wife and the woman that he was in love with was married to a prominent chief. This weighed on Poor Boy’s mind and he sought a way to make his life better. After acquiring supernatural assistance, or medicine, from beavers, he joined a war party. Using his new beaver medicine, he succeeded in killing a Crow chief. From this brave act, he found prestige as he had taken his enemy’s weapon and scalp. Upon his return, the people of his tribe were impressed with his exploits and called him chief. Better yet, Poor Boy’s girl, seeing how successful he had been, ran up and kissed him upon his return. The girl’s husband called to Poor Boy and told him to take the girl as a wife; he also gave him a

12 Robert Nathaniel Wilson, “Ethnological Notes on the Blackfoot,” 1897, 1 (Glenbow: M4422) 13 Ibid, 3-10.

lodge, household goods, a travois, and many dogs “as a reward for his bravery.” In the beginning of the story, Poor Boy had had nothing; but by the end, as in the case of

Scarface, he had acquired wealth, prestige, and a pretty wife. These things had been the fruits of obtaining a spiritual helper and success on the war path. 14

On a very practical level, going on the warpath allowed young men to accumulate wealth in Blackfoot culture. Although “wealth” is difficult to define, traditionally, fully stocked lodges, finely crafted clothing, buffalo robes, the skins of fur-bearing animals, and eagle tail feathers were seen by the Kainai as those things which marked a wealthy individual, either someone who possessed much, or more likely, had the ability to give away generously to others in need.15 However, the introduction of the horse in the 18th

Century likely changed societal perceptions of what made a man wealthy, although in precisely what way is still not fully understood. Generally, wealth entailed the ownership of a large quantity of equine stock for moving camp as well as possessing high-quality animals for use in buffalo hunts and in war.16 The quest for wealth in horses occasionally prompted young men to action in the buffalo era, and as we shall see, in the reserve era, which was problematic given the efforts exerted by the Dominion Government to encourage the Kainai to settle down to a more sedentary and agricultural lifestyle.

This was because horses were necessary for a variety of economic and social transactions and circulated in an economy both before and after the beginning of the reserve era. As a type of currency, horses were required in the purchase of more mundane everyday items such as bowls, saddles, or dresses as well as weapons such as bows and

14 Robert Nathaniel Wilson, The Robert Nathaniel Wilson Papers, Edited and Annotated by Philip H. Godsell, (Calgary: Glenbow Foundation, 1958), 79-81 (Glenbow Museum: M4421). 15 Wilson, “Ethnological Notes,” 6-7; Ewers, The Blackfeet, 96. See also Gerald T. Conaty, “Economic Models and Blackfoot Ideology,” American Ethnologist 22(2): 403-412 16 Ewers, The Blackfeet, 40, 92 95-96, 307.

arrows; all produced by artisans and craftsmen (or craftswomen).17 Horses were also used to acquire items imbued with spiritual power that was linked with a specific game spirit, bringing success in war and the hunt. These included body adornments, war bridles, shields, beaded and frilled animal hide suits, and headdresses, which were usually passed on from men who had received instructions in dreams as to how to make and use them.

These items brought a degree of social prestige to its owner as well.18 Later in life, older men took an interest in the more important medicine bundles, one of the most sacred being the Beaver Medicine Bundle, closely linked to the underwater grandfather spirit, which was co-owned by a husband and his principal wife and used by buffalo callers. Ethnologist

Clark Wissler defined a medicine bundle as “any object or objects, kept in wrappings when not in use, guarded by the owner according to definite rules, and associated with a ritual containing one or more songs.”19 Although charms and other objects were generally considered to be medicine bundles, the relatively more important ones were connected to major ceremonial rituals from buffalo calling to specific warrior cults within the plains tribes. Some of the rituals revolved around a sacred pipe which involved the Kainai community in a great degree of participation such as the Ookaan, R.N. Wilson’s observed

“Moon Dance”20, the rituals of the various societies and dance associations, and certain specific rituals of thanksgiving such as the All Smoke Ceremony.21

17 Ibid, 121-123. 18 Clark Wissler, Ceremonial Bundles of the Blackfoot Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume VII, (New York: American Museum of Natural History Board of Trustees, 1912), 273. 19 Ibid, 167. 20 Wilson did not specify why it was performed but observed that during the fall, winter, and spring months, the Kainai conducted a religious ceremony the day after the appearance of the new moon. This was connected with a specific medicine bundle and a complex order of numerous songs. See Wilson, Wilson Papers, 161- 162 (Glenbow: M4421). 21 Hugh Dempsey illustrated the how ubiquitous and influential spiritual helpers could be in the mid-1890s by detailing the story of Charcoal, who murdered a fellow Kainai, a NWMP officer and attempted to murder the reserve farming instructor, all after discovering the infidelity of his wife; see Hugh A. Dempsey, Charcoal’s

Blackfoot men desired these objects partly because of the immense prestige the exclusive ownership of the bundle and associated ritual bestowed. Ownership was symbolic of man`s wealth and knowledge of spiritual matters. In the 19th Century, it had been common for married men to come together for a formal smoke, announcing the bundles that they had owned over the course of their lives and how much property they had given up to attain them. Those with long lists were esteemed as “informed and wise” but those had few or none were ridiculed. Even if man had descended into poverty, he was always considered a “wealthy and powerful” man if he had owned numerous bundles.22 These bundles were transferred by purchase. Although guns, blankets, or other goods were often included in the “price”, it was absolutely essential to include a number of horses. The cost of a war charm, shield, bridle, or bonnet often necessitated the payment of at least one horse. Major medicine pipe bundles cost at least two to three horses but often their price increased over time because it was understood that a new owner must at least match what the previous owner had given for the bundle, and was expected to give more.23 Thus, the cost of bundles tended to be inflationary, making it a vehicle for investment. For an ambitious man horses were essential for the appearance of wealth as well as acquiring objects and ritual knowledge which indicated wisdom, which led to even greater prestige.24

World, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978). For Blackfoot worldview and the importance of and power of medicine bundles see also Conaty, “Economic Models” and Russell L. Barsh and Chantelle Marlor, “Driving Bison and Blackfoot Science,” Human Ecology 31:4 (2003): 571-593 22 Wissler, Ceremonial Bundles, 276. 23 Ibid, 277. See also Wilson, Wilson Papers, 4-5, 322 (Glenbow: M4421). To pay less for a medicine bundle than the previous owner was interpreted as an insult to the medicine pipe itself, which the Kainai believed would result in bad luck or even death for the new owner or his relatives. It was general belief of the community in the 1890s that a Kainai named Sheep Old Man had died because he had paid fewer horses than the previous owner for a pipe which had been transferred to him. 24 Wissler stated that Blackfoot men also liked the convertibility of wealth which ownership of the bundles offered: Ibid, 277. See also Conaty, “Economic Models,” 406.

Aside from the purchase of medicine bundles, horses were necessary for certain services, for obtaining membership in certain societies, and to accord with societal norms with regards to marriage. If one fell sick or was seriously injured, the family often sent for a traditional healer, promising a horse. However, it occasionally did not end with one; the family paid more as time went on as the doctor attempted to heal his patient. A prolonged illness often drained a family of its wealth.25 Payment in horses was also sometimes necessary for ritual knowledge and services, such as the passing of the Ookaan`s rituals from a previous vow-maker to a new one. Blackfoot society was also organized into a series of progressive age-based societies which offered social interaction to men and women. For men, entry necessitated the purchase of membership and a transfer ceremony from one individual to another. For younger grades, goods such as blankets or clothing were adequate. However, as one got older, horses frequently became part of the purchase price. The initial cost of acquiring membership was often recouped when the current owner sought the next grade.26 Although mainly providing social interaction and “chumming” for men around the same age, higher (older) societies were invested with a certain amount of prestige and even awe. This was the case with the Horns, who were “regarded as very powerful men and women,” believed to have the power of life and death over outsiders and were only discussed in hushed tones, when discussed at all.27

Finally, horses were necessary in Blackfoot marriage customs. After an agreement was concluded on a marriage proposal, there was an exchange of gifts between the parents of the bride and the would-be groom. Occasionally, the parents of the girl, if “moderately

25 Clark Wissler, Social Life, 30. 26 Clark Wissler, Societies and Dance Associations of the Blackfoot Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume XI, (New York: American Museum of Natural History Board of Trustees, 1913), 425-429. 27 Ibid, 410-411.

well provided with worldly goods” would set her up with a complete lodge and its furnishings, horses, buffalo robes, and clothing.28 In return, the bridegroom would send the girl’s parents horses, generally trying to outdo the efforts of his new in-laws, going as far to borrow from family and friends in order to do so. Although Wilson noted that marriage customs sometimes catered to the individual circumstances of the couple involved, the gifting of horses was by far the most popular custom in the early 1890s, and purportedly had been for decades.29 Deviation from societal norms could occur but by and large the exchange of horses was fundamental to Kainai marriage rites.

Oral history confirms the resiliency of these practices, the value invested in horses, and the respect for the bundles in the 20th Century.30 In addition, in the 1880s and 90s R.N.

Wilson personally observed some of these exchanges which demonstrated the value of horses. On the subject of medicine pipes, Wilson observed a transfer ceremony between

High Bear and the adopted son of Chief Red Crow, Crop Eared Wolf. High Bear parted with sixteen of his twenty-one horses in order to “change his luck” after the deaths of all but one of his relatives. Wilson observed a similar ceremony between one Roach Mane and

Brave Bear, a South Pikani.31 He also witnessed an initiation ceremony for the Horns

Society in which retiring members sold their rights to chosen newcomers. Of this exchange,

Wilson observed that that relatives and friends of the initiate brought in “horses, guns, and

28 R.N. Wilson, “Blackfoot Marriage Customs,” 4-5 (Glenbow: M4422). 29 Ibid, 6-7. See also Wissler, Social Life, 9-11. Wissler saw the transaction as a purchase and stated that the bridegroom “paid” at least two-fold the amount of the horses that the bride’s parents had given. 30 In 1970, George First Rider, a Kainai, was interviewed and spoke of the 1920s and 30s. He reiterated that it was horses that made one wealthy. He also spoke of the sacredness of the Beaver Bundle and talked of how offering to hold a Group Smoking Ceremony (Wilson’s “All Smoke” it seems) saved the life of his son. He also spoke of the Ookaan and the importance of a virtuous woman vowing to erect the Holy Lodge (see below). He also spoke of the many headdresses and other bundles passed down to him (sixteen in all). Ceremonies still incorporated the recounting of men’s war stories (counting coups), as they had in the Wilson’s observances; see George First Rider Interview, April 20, 1970, http://ourspace.uregina.ca/bitstream/10294/692/1/IH-AA.119.pdf. 31 Wilson, Wilson papers, 4-5 (Glenbow: M4422).

great quantities of lodge goods as well as numerous blankets and articles of men’s clothing etc.” as the purchase price. He continued, “These were the payments which were made for membership which were laid down near the groups about the staffs, and were then taken possession of and carried away, by wives, daughters, or other relatives by the old members.”32 In 1892 and 1893, Wilson made a detailed observation of the Ookaan and recorded an exchange of horses for ritual knowledge. The woman (or women) who took the vow to make the Ookaan for a particular year performed the ceremonies with her husband.

First, however, they had to be instructed in the songs, prayers, and rituals by another couple who had already done so. Wilson stated that the price of this knowledge was not free and was paid for with six to ten horses, plus many other “smaller presents.”33 The exchange of horses figured prominently in a variety of social, religious and economic interactions in the period studied, and were highly desirable.

Along with their intrinsic value within Kainai society, horses also had exchange value with their Euro-Canadian and Euro-American neighbours. A vibrant black market for horses seems to have thrived in the 1880s. In 1885, Lincoln had difficulty recovering from his Fort Belknap A’aninin horses which had been stolen from ranchers and settlers in northern Montana. Some of them were sold to other whites even before they returned to the reservation.34 Later that year, Fort Assiniboine Sergeant John T. Bell pursued the trail of stolen Belknap ponies to the vicinity of the Blackfeet Reservation and discovered that more than forty-five head had been already been sold to ranchers in the area by the South Pikani

(and likely Kainai) thieves. Freighters had purchased others and at the time were hauling

32 Ibid, 254. 33 Wilson, “Ethnological Notes,” 13-15 (Glenbow: M4422). 34 W.L. Lincoln to William H. Hunt, February 21, 1885 (NARAD RG75 8NS-075-96-440-1).

goods to Fort Macleod.35 In 1886, former Kainai agent C.E. Denny revealed an alternative market economy where Kainai horse thieves were paid in “low figures” and whiskey for stolen horses. They in turn bought and traded the liquor to their South Pikani kin for horses they had stolen.36 Horse raiding provided an opportunity to accumulate a wealth of horses or acquire money for an emergent cash economy, which could be used to acquire trade goods: guns, ammunition, household items such as kettles, blankets, and other items.

Written records can confirm the Kainai desire to augment the size of their horse herds in this period. When given their annuity payments, they often invested in horse flesh.

In 1877, Colonel J.F. Macleod questioned the wisdom of continuing to give the Blackfoot tribes cash as when they were paid “three-fourths” of the money ended up in the hands of traders in exchange for “all sorts of useless articles.” This evidently included horses as he noted that the places of the treaty payments were “infested by horse-dealers.”37 Horse trading and buying continued throughout the 1880s. Pocklington reported that the Kainai were occasionally invited by the South Pikani to come to their reservation in northern

Montana. They were told to bring money as they had many horses for sale. The fear for

Pocklington was that the animals were stolen, as the South Pikani sold stock for $6.00 to

$15.00 per head, well below the market value for a horse.38 These visits continued into the

35 John T. Bell and Son, Beyond the Great Divide, 338-340 (Montana Historical Society: M321). 36 C.E. Denny’s Letter to the Editor, Macleod Gazette, January 19, 1886. When discussing instances of horse or livestock theft, regional newspapers tended to overstate the involvement of native peoples in these crimes. R.C. Macleod and Heather Rollason’s study of aboriginal crime rates reveal that although native peoples intensively participated in such crimes, they in no way dominated their Euro-Canadian and –American neighbours; R.C. Macleod and Heather Rollason “‘Restrain the Lawless Savages’: Native Defendants in the Criminal Courts of the North West Territories, 1878-1885,” Journal of Historical Sociology 10: 2 (1997), 173. In Warren Elofson’s Cowboys, Gentleman, and Cattle Rustlers, (Montreal and Kingston: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2000), 121-132, rustling is said to have been so pervasive in southern Alberta as to be identified by “several clearly recognizable types” and appear to be mostly the work of non-natives. 37 Report of J.F. Macleod, 1878, in Opening Up the West: Being the Official Report to Parliament of the Activities of the North West Mounted Police Force, 1874-1881, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1973), 22. 38 Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, November 29, 1885 (LAC RG10-1553:C14842).

late 1880s, as Siksika chief Crowfoot stopped at the Kainai reserve in 1888 to pick up friends so that they could all go to purchase horses at the South Pikani reservation.39 The purchase of horses from Euro-Canadians and Euro-Americans was also quite a frequent occurrence, as a Choteau County stock inspector commented on the trade being common in

December 1885 when advocating for a common brand registry in Montana Territory. Some concern was noted that many indigenous peoples would have their horses seized under such a system if a registered brand was not properly vented (voided) before the sale or barter of an animal.40 Even more frequently, as we shall see later, was the theft of horses from Euro-

Canadians, Euro-Americans, and indigenous peoples on both sides of the International boundary line.

Individuals who obtained and collected horses were in no hurry to give any of them up. Aside from the economic value of horses within Kainai society, they took great pride and enjoyment in the mere ownership of their fleet, little ponies. In 1887, Pocklington asserted that one of the few crafts that the Kainai indulged in were those which adorned their horses. He wrote to the Indian Commissioner’s office in 1887, “…the Indians of this country do not make anything in the way of baskets or mats. The only thing in which they seem to take any pride in is in making beadwork for adorning themselves and their horses, and for which they ask an exorbitant price.”41 Inspector McGibbons remarked year after year on the care that the Kainai lavished on their horses, taking excellent care of them, and stating that they were always “well mounted”, having good saddles and bridles.42

39 Magnus Begg to Indian Commissioner’s Office, February 11, 1888 (LAC RG10-1556:C14883). 40 “Mutual Protection,” Macleod Gazette, December 8, 1885. 41 Pocklington to Indian Commissioner‘s Office, December 6, 1887 (LAC RG10-1556:C14843). 42 Alexander McGibbons’ Report on the Blood Agency, September 26, 1886, (LAC RC10-3760-32025- 8:C10134); Alexander McGibbons’ Report of the Blood Agency, February 3, 1891, (LAC RC10-3843-72695- 12:C10148); Alexander McGibbons’ Report of the Blood Agency, February 6, 1892, (LAC RC10-3860- 82319-12:C10152).

There was also considerable enjoyment taken in racing, and gambling on, ponies by

Kainai men, just as there had been in the days when they pursued the buffalo.43

Newspapers occasionally commented on impromptu horse races participated in by the

Kainai, Pikani, Nez Perce, and the residents of Lethbridge and Fort Macleod.44 In 1887,

NWMP Inspector Gilbert Sanders watched, and lost money, on several races between Fort

Macleod citizens and the Kainai, with the latter being “unmercifully licked” by the townspeople.45 In 1894, Kainai and Pikani gathered near Fort Macleod to hold a “derby day” to coincide with the annuity payments but were stopped by the NWMP after town residents complained they were breaking the Sabbath. Races and gambling were indulged in for the other three or four days while they were in town trading, however.46 The Kainai also participated in regularly scheduled races set up by various turf associations in

Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, and Pincher Creek. Often, these were in celebration of holidays such as the Queen’s Birthday and Dominion Day. Frequently, a “Cayuse,” “Kyuse,” or

“Indian Pony” race was set aside for their aboriginal neighbours with a purse being collected among the spectators for prize money. These races often drew many competitors and were hotly contested. From the mid-1880s until 1894, these races were planned by organizers and were immensely popular with the crowds, being tremendously exciting to watch and bet on.47 Whether horse racing was impromptu or set out in advance, it was an

43 Ewers, The Blackfeet, 158-161. 44 “Town Notes,” MacLeod Gazette, July 14, 1883; “Horse Race,” Lethbridge News, August 6, 1886; “Hoss Race,” Lethbridge News, August 25, 1886; “Horse Race,” Lethbridge News, September 28, 1887; Inspector Alexander McGibbons’ Report on the Blood Agency, September 26, 1886, (LAC RG 10-3760-32025- 8:C10134). 45 Journal of Gilbert E. Sanders, September 20, 1887 (Glenbow: M1093-40). 46 “Town Notes,” Macleod Gazette, November 9, 1894. 47 “The Queen’s Birthday in Macleod,” Macleod Gazette, June 4, 1885; “Pincher Creek Races,” Macleod Gazette, July 4, 1888; “The Macleod Races,” Lethbridge News, May 19, 1891; “Lethbridge Celebrates,” Lethbridge News, May 26, 1891; “Pincher Creek Races,” Lethbridge News, July 15, 1891. “Town Notes,” Macleod Gazette, September 10, 1891; “Queen’s Birthday Celebration,” Lethbridge News: May 25, 1892;

extremely popular pastime for the Kainai during the period studied, and, indeed, continued to be so well into the 20th century. This affinity would later become a cash outlet for

Blackfoot reserves whose young men took part in the rural rodeo circuit, the Banff Indian

Days and, after the Second World War, Indian rodeos across Western Canada.48

No wonder, then, that the Kainai were loathe to part with any of their horses. In

March 1891, Pocklington suggested that the Kainai sell off some of their abundant pony herds for seed oats and potatoes, rather than depend on the charity of the Indian

Department. Red Crow and others categorically refused. The agent later sent another letter, again asking for seed, for fear that no crop would have been planted at all.49 The per-person horse count by that time was impressive. In a reserve of 1665 individuals, Kainai horses in

1892 numbered between 1500 and1700 branded animals with almost the same amount of unbranded ones.50 Throughout the 1880s and early 1890s, when the amount and quality of rations were an ever present problem for Kainai leadership, selling off excess horse stock was never seriously entertained. Not until 1893 and 1894 were horse sales planned to alleviate the reserve’s dire economic condition, mostly to establish, and augment, Kainai cattle herds. However, men backing the sell-off were definitely in the minority.51

Throughout the 1880s and until 1894, the tendency of the Kainai was to accumulate and hoard stock, as they had for decades before the reservation era.

A key demographic in Kainai society especially valued horses for the wealth they represented: its young men. This was especially relevant if a youth was extremely status

“The Macleod Races,” Lethbridge News, June 8, 1893; “Dominion Day at Pincher Creek,” Lethbridge News, July 11, 1894. 48 This can be seen in Mary-Ellen Kelm`s study of the Canadian western rodeo, which she considered a “contact zone” for building friendships across racial and gender lines. See Mary-Ellen Kelm, A Wilder West: Rodeo in Western Canada, (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011). 49 Pocklington’s February Report, March 3, 1891 (LAC RG10-1558-C14844). 50 Annual Report of Inspector Alexander McGibbons, April 4, 1893 (LAC RG10-3903-102741:C10158). 51 Alexander McGibbons’ Report of the Blood Reserve, May 15, 1894 (LAC RC10-3903-102741:C10158).

conscious. However, men desiring social status also had to evince generosity, charity and kindness, often using horses and other material goods to assist less fortune members of the tribe. Thus, in addition to wealth, a man also had to be generous, which was not only regarded as necessity for leadership but was a widely valued trait for anyone. 52 Yet, a man who had wealth and was regarded as generous was still lacking. The example of Red Crow, the major chief of the Kainai throughout the 1880s and 90s, illustrates this point. Born around 1830, he was part of a family that had already accumulated tremendous wealth and had a good deal of social prestige with his father and uncle being recognized as leaders of their band, the Fish Eaters, which had a large following. Still, Red Crow spent most of his young adulthood in the 1850s risking his life by raiding enemies for horses and seizing war trophies.53 In fact, it can be inferred through Red Crow’s example that going to war and compiling a record which emphasized bravery was more important than the accumulation of wealth, especially for the politically ambitious man. Wissler stated that before the reservation system, a war reputation was “essential” and the “line of the least resistance” to positions of leadership. Wealthy young men did not always become great leaders but

Kainai and Pikani informers told Wissler that poor young men often took to the war path to

52 See Ewers, Ethnological Report, 39-41; Ewers, The Blackfeet, 96-98, 273-274, 285-286, 317; Wissler, Social Life, 22-23 for chieftainship and generosity. For generosity as a persistent societal value among the Kainai and Gros Ventres, including gifts of food and horses to “get one’s name up”, see Wissler, Social Life, 27; Ewers, The Horse in Blackfoot Culture, (Washington: United States Printing Office, 1955) 188; Fowler, Shared Symbols: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 1778-1984, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 20- 22; Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana, Vol. 1, (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1953), 32-33. 53 Dempsey, Red Crow: Warrior Chief, 2nd Edition, (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1995), 6-7 (on wealth of the Fish Eaters; Red Crow’s aunt Holy Snake had married trader Albert Culbertson of the American Fur Company in the 1830s. Dempsey argues this gave the Fish Eaters a huge boost in wealth as Culbertson was generous with gifts of trade goods). See 17-22, 38-43, 60 for participation in warfare.

earn wealth, distinction and did become great leaders.54 Among the A’aninin, a reputation for bravery was also a prerequisite for those who wanted to be perceived as a great man.55

Regina Flannery and Loretta Fowler have also noted a similar drive amongst the

A’aninin to strive for success and status in similar ways. Fowler has argued that for men, the desire to obtain high position and be seen as brave were ideals that were actively striven for throughout their history. She further argued that age-grade societies and the division of men into two moieties, the Star and Wolf, further stimulated this competition. The concept of the “enemy-friend”, where a man from one moiety selected a man from the other to act as partner in war, but also as a rival, encouraged one to try to outdo the other in brave deeds and the acquisition of property.56 Flannery’s work makes it clear that to be considered a

“nonentity,” a man who accomplished little, was something feared by men. These types of individuals were ignored and thus most young men sought the path of war, which brought recognition. Flannery stated that competition between warriors had always been keen and that the “ideal man” was one who had such an impressive record of martial accomplishments that “his wrist would be made slim from being pulled to recite them.”57

The Blackfoot tribes were culturally similar to the A’aninin and it can be generalized to them that they also desired high social status and success on such terms. Ewers stated in

1974 that men of both tribes aspired to be leaders and knew the path to such a position: “a fine war record and sufficient wealth to be able to dispense favors to the less fortune

54 Wissler, Social Life, 22-23 and Wissler, Ceremonial Bundles, 288-89. As stated before, one of Ewers’ arguments in The Blackfeet: Raiders of the Northwest Plains was that the horse raid had evolved in the Equestrian Era as a means of social mobility for young men. 55 Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana, Vol. I, 32-33. 56 Fowler, Shared Symbols, 27-29. Kroeber also recognized the heightened competition it brought between men in Kroeber, A.L, Ethnology of the Gros Ventres, (New York: Ams Press, 1978), 239. 57 Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana Vol. I, 101.

members of society.”58 Wilson further stated that the Kainai “valued the brave man” and

Wissler wrote that “while there are other social ideals…that of being a successful warrior can scarcely be overestimated.”59

The ideal to succeed, with emphasis on a strong war record, was reinforced in

Kainai society in a variety of public ways. The environment of the plains in which the

Kainai lived was frequently stormy and cold throughout the winter. This continued into the early reserve era with Pocklington reporting that during many winters, roughly from

November to January, which the Kainai could do little except fetch firewood and attempt to stay warm. This left a lot of hours in the day. John Maclean gave some idea of how these hours were filled. During the years he spent among them in the 1880s, Maclean had often

“sought the cheery warmth of the lodges and sat listening to the wondrous tales of the days of yore” during days of inclement weather. Often they would go on for hours and hours, until the urge came to indulge in some games of chance.60 These stories would often be

“brief biographies of haughty warriors, the eloquent descriptions of famous battles, or the plaintive and pathetic stories of holy men who dreamed dreams and saw visions…”61

Audiences found war stories the most memorable and were given considerable life by skilled orators. Wissler referred to these as “tales of adventure,” where “the chief actor was the delight of the fireside and entrances old and young alike.”62

58 John C. Ewers, Ethnological Report on the Blackfeet and Gros Ventres Tribes of Indians, Commission Findings, (New York: Garland, 1974), 40. 59 Wilson, Wilson Papers, 2 (Glenbow: M4421); Wissler, Social Life, 32-33. When Hugh Dempsey interviewed Kainai elders who had lived in the 1880s, Bobtail Chief and Shot Both Sides shared war stories, which evinced that bravery and the brave man were still being celebrated in the 1950s; Hugh A. Dempsey, The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories, (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1994), 4-9. 60 “Among the Lodges,” Lethbridge News, January 5, 1888. 61 John Maclean, Maclean, John. The Indians: Their Manners and Customs, 4th Edition, (Toronto: William Brigg, 1907, c1892), 129. 62 Wissler, Social Life, 32-33.

These stories came from the deeds of warriors involved in three broad categories of

Plains Indian warfare. The most popular and common being, after the acquisition of the horse, the horse raid. The objective was to enter enemy territory, and either by stealth or daring, make off with as many as possible without injury to the raiding party itself. This method provided the opportunity to perform brave deeds, which contributed to a courageous reputation, as well as gain the economic benefits which accrued from the horse.

A successful horse raid also provided opportunities for a man to show his generosity, as stolen horses were given to war companions, family and friends. The horse raid provided an ample chance to acquire all that a status-conscious man needed in one fell swoop; this no doubt attributed to its vast popularity.63

One clarification must be made on the topic of horse raiding. Going on the war path to raid for horses were not merry jaunts through the open prairie. Stealing horses may not conjure images of warfare, at least in the Western sense in which warfare has been largely imagined as large set battles between armies and military campaigns. It must be emphasized here that to the equestrian cultures of the plains, horse raids were deadly serious business.

The Kainai and Belknaps treasured their horse herds and fought fiercely when they were threatened. Encounters which stemmed from a botched horse raid were often sudden and violent incidents where men were killed and maimed in an instant, sometimes without

63 In June 1883, the Macleod Gazette reported that the Kainai had stolen a band of horses and “…presents of horses were made to friends and medicine-men, and each brave took his share of the remainder…;” “Blood Reserve News,” Macleod Gazette, June 4, 1883. When Assiniboine horse raiders visited the Fort Belknap reservation in August 1883, they indulged in similar behavior, distributing twenty stolen horses to Nakota friends and kin before travelling on to a different camp; W.L. Lincoln to Major of the 18th Infantry Fort Assiniboine, August 16, 1883, (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1).

warning. Defenders were determined to kill the raiders if they could and the raiders, far from home in enemy territory, fought back fiercely to avoid this fate. 64

Often, horse raids were planned excursions on the part of the participants. However,

First Nations peoples often travelled the northwestern plains for a variety of other reasons: hunting, in the quest for dreams or visions, visiting friends or relatives, and on trading expeditions to posts or towns. In the midst of these travels, enemies could unexpectedly meet and spontaneous explosions of violence occur. These encounters ranged from attempted assault to robbery to murder. Kainai warrior Calf Robe, whose deeds we will see more of in subsequent chapters, gives an example of this type of incident. In the early

1880s, Calf Robe and a companion, Bird Rattler, were on their way to raid the Sioux. As the two were in camp, the latter discovered the approach of a Cree, a tribe anathema to the

Kainai. Calf Robe told Annie McGowan, an artist from Fort Macleod who took a historical interest in the town’s past and local native peoples, the following in the late 1920s:

We were having a sweat lodge when Bird Rattler called out attention to the Cree. We immediately went after him. I was in the lead. I took the Cree’s horse and one of his rifles which was on a travois. We did not kill him. Bird Rattler took the other gun he had. After we captured these guns from the Cree, we met another Cree Indian. He shot twice at me. I leaped on my horse and chased him. He did not run very far before I shot and killed him. I took both his weapons, a heavy rifle and a six shooter.65

64 Archeologist Lawrence H. Keeley has argued that Western military experts and academics have generally derided how pre-state groups conduct warfare. Warfare conducted by such groups, including the Plains Indian tribes, has been characterized as “undangerous, unserious, stylized, gamelike, and ineffective” and undertaken with measures focused on minimizing “casualties and destruction;” see Lawrence H. Keeley, War Before Civilization, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 41-42. Keeley disagrees with this assessment, stating: “In fact, primitive warfare was much more deadly than that conducted between civilized states because of the greater frequency of combat and the more merciless way it was conducted…Primitive war was not a puerile or deficient form of warfare, but warfare reduced its essentials: killing enemies with a minimum of risk, denying them the means of life via vandalism and theft (even the means of reproduction by the kidnapping of their women and children), terrorizing them into either yielding territory or desisting from their encroachments and aggressions;” Ibid, 174-175. 65 Calf Robe`s Narrative to Annie McGowan (Glenbow: M8764)

These instances are difficult to quantify in how often they actually occurred but they do appear in warriors’ narratives and were clearly perceived as a type of warfare in the eyes of the participants.

The last type indulged in was the revenge raid. This was the closest approximation of what Euro-Canadians and Euro-Americans would have recognized as “true” warfare, where large numbers of participants gathered en masse to defeat the other in battle. Red

Arrow, another Kainai informant, stated to Wilson that revenge parties were formed when

“the hatred of the enemy was very popular.” These parties would number in the hundreds and their purpose “was to fight and kill the enemy and destroy their property.”

Comparatively much, much rarer than horse raids, Red Arrow could only remember one instance in the second half of the 19th Century when a large number of Kainai bands gathered together and went to war, in that case being against the Cree.66 The winter counts of Kainai chief The Father of Many Children and South Pikani (Piegan) Big Brave made note of a Kainai-Cree battle at Belly River in 1869-70. However, during the second part of the 19th Century, this is the only entry of such a large scale battle. Entries in the winter count instead detail instances of horse raiding or other small skirmishes.67 Since large scale battles were comparatively rare, horse raiding and armed conflicts between smaller groups of combatants were the predominate forms of warfare in the second half of the 19th

Century, and especially in the reserve era.

In recounting their martial exploits, the individual focused on his own accomplishments rather than the collective result and the spoils which he obtained. While killing a man was lauded, striking a foe (dead or alive) first with a whip, quirt or coup stick,

66 Wilson, Wilson Papers, 124 (Glenbow: M4421). 67 Ibid, 368-374 and Wissler, Social Life, 48-50.

taking a man’s “gun” (which in actuality could have been any weapon, shield, saddle, piece of clothing, or just about anything belonging to an enemy) or helping a comrade in distress were all acts more worthy of praise. The greater skill or higher risk won greater esteem for the individual. Among the Kainai, merely stealing a horse was not considered a huge accomplishment (while it was still economically valuable) but doing so under difficult circumstances was; taking a “gun” was more prestigious still. The man with the most spoils overall was considered the bravest.68 In his statement to McGowan, Calf Robe was far more interested in detailing the weapons that he seized than the murder of the Cree, which seemed merely an afterthought. These were stories that people wanted to hear about.

Flannery mentioned earlier that the ideal man was one whose wrist was pulled constantly to relate his tales of war by interested admirers. Wissler too noted the fondness his informants exhibited in recounting “tales of adventure.” They may have grown even more popular in the trying circumstances of the reserve era. Indeed, MacLean’s article and subsequent books certainly demonstrate that the Kainai had a huge penchant for them in the 1880s, as it seemed he could always enter a lodge and be treated to one.

Generally, the more war deeds an individual performed, the more he was the center of attention, and there were many occasions that a warrior could be singled out for recognition.69 The most public of these coincided with the gathering of all the bands in a summer camp and was known to the Kainai as the Ookaan but better known to Euro-

Canadian observers as the “Sun Dance.” Many plains cultures used annual ceremonies, often mislabelled as a “Sun Dance,” as a “world renewal event.” Karl Schlesier has argued

68 Wilson, Wilson Papers, 2-3 (Glenbow: M4421); Dempsey, Red Crow, 3-38.; Flannery wrote that in Gros Ventres society, recognition was granted for any accomplishment which one risked his life against an enemy: Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana, Vol. I, 88; Kroeber, Ethnology of the Gros Ventres, 182. 69 Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana, Vol. I, 101-102.

that these various ceremonies, often having many similarities across tribal lines, were a response to epidemical disaster and social disruption brought about by the arrival and westward migrations of Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries. Hence, they were practised by native peoples in order to “restore life and harmony.”70 Greatly misunderstood by Euro-American contemporaries, they placed inordinate attention on the self-torture ritual which in their eyes was for the purpose of “making braves” or conducting young men into the company of warriors (Wilson’s informants scoffed at the very notion that submitting “to a few minutes of harmless pain” was proof of bravery at all).71 In the Kainai custom, the

Ookaan was the prerogative of a virtuous Blackfoot woman in the making of a vow. This was usually done in the “protracted absence of a war party” or when there was a sickness in the family. A wife or mother would make the vow to take on the responsibility for performing certain ceremonies to prepare for the Ookaan so that the prayer would be answered.72 Aside from fulfillment of the vow, it was also a celebration of thanksgiving and a plea for a good year ahead.73 Maureen Lux also alluded to the many healing ceremonies that took place during the Ookaan and that it was generally a celebration of a return to health, after months of being cooped up in crowded and poorly ventilated shacks which fostered the development of various infectious diseases, such as influenza, measles, and tuberculosis, in the reserve era.74 Although the Dominion Government tried to ban

70 Karl Schlesier, “Rethinking the Midewiwin and the Plains Ceremonial Called the Sun Dance”, The Plains Anthropologist 35:127 (1990): 18-19. 71 Wilson, “Ethnological Notes,” 46 (Glenbow: M4422). 72 Ibid, 12. Ewers essentially came to the same conclusions on the meaning of the Ookaan as Wilson; see Ewers, The Blackfeet, 174-184. 73 During the 1893 Ookaan, R.N. Wilson observed and made notes of the entire ritual. During the consecration of the sacred tongues, Running Wolf prayed, “…that the whites would long continue to save them from starvation. That the peace and friendship between the Bloods and white people would remain unbroken. That long lives would be granted to all present. That the possession of many horses and general happiness would be the lot of himself and others;” Wilson, Wilson Papers, 310 (Glenbow: M4421). 74 Lux, Medicine That Walks, 75-91.

dances that emphasized give-aways and self-mutilation in 1884, and implemented a pass system in 1885 partly in an attempt to restrict First Nations peoples from travelling to attend “Sun Dances” so as to help “civilize” them. These measures were ineffective as the

Kainai, and other tribes, consistently defied these measures in the 1880s and 1890s.75

In part, the Ookaan was also a showcase for recognizing courageous deeds, perhaps the grandest one of all. This began even in the preparation of the main ceremony itself. The counting of coups or the retelling of war stories were interwoven throughout the preparation of the sacred central lodge in the 1880s and 90s. For this structure to be built, a large pole for the center was needed. A suitable cottonwood tree had to found but before it was cut, an older man counted four coups, “that is to say, he briefly mentions four different deeds of valor (sic) that have been performed by himself in war.”76 Also in its construction, green hide was used to lash the lodge’s frame together. For this, a man was selected to be the ceremonial cutter of the hide. However, this position was only offered to “a man of well-known personal courage.” After certain prayers were said, the man counted four coups and then cut the hide.77 Upon completion of the sacred lodge, a fire was built inside for the purpose of lighting pipes for society dances and songs. This fire was maintained over the next four days and four young men with a reputation for bravery were tasked with gathering fuel for it each day.78 Brave Kainai men were rewarded with recognition for their deeds and abilities in sight of the entire tribe and many visitors from the South Pikani reservation, as well as from other Canadian Blackfoot reserves, which brought immense status and social prestige to the individual.

75 J.R. Miller, “Owen Glendower, Hotspur, and Canadian Indian Policy,” Ethnohistory 37: 4 (1990), 394-396 76 Wilson, “Ethnological Notes,” 27 (Glenbow: M4422). 77 Ibid, 33-35. 78 Ibid, 38.

The Ookaan itself seemed to be heavily associated with warrior culture and accorded a vast opportunity for public recognition by providing a grand stage for the recitation of war deeds once the sacred lodge was complete. It was the premiere event in the Kainai yearly life cycle. People brought out their best for the event with Wilson observing in 1892 that they dressed in fine clothes and sacred paraphernalia, that is, war dress with headdresses, fine shirts, and fancy leggings. Young boys would often dress in their father’s war bonnets, carried shields, and essentially played the part of a warrior in making offerings to the sacred lodge.79 After its completion, the gathering seemed to become a general celebration of bravery and martial ability. Over the course of the next few days, the various societies, in order of youngest to oldest, performed their particular dances and songs, and then recounted “deeds of daring.” The youngest societies were “mere boys” and performed mainly songs and dances, as they had generally done little worth hearing about. On subsequent days, societies which were much more experienced in the ways of war performed with each individual recounting his exploits. This was often done with dramatic flair and theatrics. In 1892, Wilson observed the performances of the Braves and the All Crazy Dogs societies and noted:

The heroes of the two societies begin, one at a time, to relate their personal achievements. Each one begins his recital by jumping on a gaudily painted horse and riding about the Okan (sic), singing his song and shouting his war whoop. He then dismounts and handing the horse to someone outside enters upon the details of his boasts. In these explanations of the events a variety of dramatic means are resorted to. One builds little lodges on the ground and beside them seats some boys with ropes about their necks tied to pegs in the ground. These represent so many picketed horses. The performer stealthily approaches the boys and leads them off, or makes a bold dash and captures them that way. In other cases the actor enlists the services of some of his comrades whom he divides into parties, one of which represents the enemy. These get behind imaginary cover from whence they watch the other squad, led

79 Ibid, 32.

by the hero, approaching to the horses to be stolen. Suddenly they jump up, firing off their rifles, and the two parties engage in a mimic battle in which some of the participants fall and undergo the operation of scalping, to the amusement of the spectators. In other cases they show how hands were cut off at the wrist, that being a common mutilation of the enemy.80

This recounting often went on at length, with Wilson observing that warriors often spoke until night had fallen, and in some cases until well after midnight. On the third and fourth day, other societies would do the same. NWMP Superintendent S.B. Steele observed this behavior in 1889 as well and objected to the Ookaan’s continuance as he believed it was a bad influence on young men, who sought to emulate the heroes in stories they had heard.

Steele wrote, “Old warriors take this occasion of relating their experiences of former days, counting their scalps and giving the numbers of horses they were successful in stealing.”81

The recounting of coups during the Ookaan was still a vigorous tradition in 1892 but had been far more intense before the reserve era. Wilson was informed by Kainai elders that before settling upon the reserve, the counting of coups lasted upwards to a week.

Sometimes young men from a successful raiding party would agree among themselves not to speak of their accomplishments until the Ookaan came around, something of a grand unveiling of deeds. These stories were “extremely interesting to the tribe.”82 The major occasion of the year reinforced the importance of bravery to young Kainai men by providing a spectacle of singing, dancing, story-telling, and drama. The lesson offered was clear: gaining the community’s esteem meant being a brave and able warrior.

During the 1880s and early 90s, the gathering for the large summer camp and the

Ookaan was held every year, bringing about much consternation to their Indian agents as it

80 Ibid, 40-41. 81 Annual Report of Superintendent S.B. Steele, November 30, 1889 in The New West: Being the Official Report to Parliament of the Activities of the North West Mounted Police Force, 1888-1889 (Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1973), 64-65. 82 Wilson, “Ethnological Notes,” 41-42 (Glenbow: M4422).

interfered with the weeding and otherwise tending to potatoes and other crops. The refusal to tend the crops was likely interpreted by Pocklington as representing a challenge, in the words of Sarah Carter, “to the implementation and refinement of policies and laws designed to shape and reconstitute their societies to make them conform and assimilate to idealized white ways.”83 This was generally an “assault on the tribal system,” an attempt to

“civilize” the Kainai and other First Nations people through agriculture, the imposition of monogamous marriage, and the discouraging of traditional religious practices, especially after the Riel Rebellion in 1885.84 However, the Kainai resisted these pressures year after year, being far more interested in their traditional celebrations and visiting friends during the summer months than caring for their fields. Pocklington frequently commented that while they had worked well in the early spring, by the time they gathered for the summer camp all work had ceased. Pocklington would often have to beg the chiefs to try to convince the majority to work on their crops. These pleas were often unsuccessful. 85 In

1890 Pocklington stated, “They stuck to it so persistently that only by threatening to take in their ration tickets could I get them to weed their potatoes.” 86 When former NWMP

Commissioner A.G. Irvine took over administration of the Kainai’s reserve in 1892, he noted the same, stating that until the Ookaan had concluded “…not much work can be got out of them.”87 Pocklington expressed for years in reports that the “Sun Dance” was in decline and would eventually end but this was at best wishful thinking. The Kainai were

83 Sarah Carter, The Importance of Being Monogamous: Marriage and Nation Building in Western Canada to 1915, (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2008), 276. 84 Sarah Carter, Aboriginal People and Colonizers of Western Canada to 1900, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 161-163. 85 June Report of William Pocklington, July 4, 1885 (LAC RG10-1552:C14842); June Report of William Pocklington, July 10, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842); July Report of William Pocklington, August 7, 1887 (LAC RG10-1555:C14843); July Report of William Pocklington, August 3, 1888 (LAC RG10- 1556:C14843); July Report of William Pocklington, August 3, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843). 86 July Report of William Pocklington, July 31, 1890 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843). 87 June Report of A.G. Irvine, July 1, 1892 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844).

keenly interested in keeping this annual tradition alive, going so far as to adapting to the material demands of the ceremony by substituting beef tongues and hides for the sacred buffalo components for certain ritual elements by 1890 .88

The successful warrior was generally put upon a pedestal at other times of the year as well, such as during meetings of the warrior societies, various religious ceremonies, and the unveiling of spectacular painted tipis which documented the owners’ many brave deeds.89 Thus, military efficacy continued to be valued and publically rewarded in Kainai society in the 1880s and early 1890s. Men were expected to go to war and have reasonable skill at it. The desire to be recognized and the peripheral wealth which raiding produced

(which, ironically, may have helped Kainai men resist succumbing to the agricultural ethos being vaunted by their agents, as a black market for horses existed which provided cash) provided a constant source of motivation for men, especially young men, who were anxious to prove their prowess, to continue to strike at perceived enemies. This continued into the early reservation era because although the Kainai had made adjustments to ensure physical survival in a new environment without the bison, there had been no adjustment to cultural mores which defined success. Success was still linked to a horse economy, defined by wealth in horses, ownership of medicine bundles, and the recognition of a long and illustrious list of martial accomplishments. Boys born between 1865 and 1870 were thrust into a world of warrior stories around the lodge fire, the grandeur of the Ookaan, and multiple reminders that to be wealthy and to become a man of influence required going to war. This was taught at a young age and was reinforced at every turn. Although other models of success were offered up by missionaries, farm instructors, and Indian agents, the

88 Wilson, Ethnological Notes, 15 (Glenbow: M4422). 89 Wilson, Wilson Papers, 291-307 (Glenbow: M4421); Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana Vol. 1, 101; Wissler, Blackfoot Societies, 367; Wissler, Social Life, 36-40.

brave warrior motif, and the horse economy supporting it, remained key to the young men.

Red Crow and other prominent older men encouraged agriculture as a new way of life but young men were fully cognizant that these men had earned their wealth and status through war. Farming was generally unsuccessful in the 1880s, with crops being bombarded with heat, dry winds, and hail most years. Although some years did allow crops to be teased out from the soil, they were used for subsistence and generally not for the production of wealth.

Hence, no real viable model existed for young men to generate wealth for upward mobility, as there had been in the buffalo days. Therefore, young men continued to try accumulate wealth throughout the 1880s by methods which had been proven to work. Horse raiding and horse accumulation remained central to their concern.

While the quest for prestige explains a portion of why the Kainai-Belknap war was perpetuated, collective perspectives of justice concerning theft and murder also provided an important incentive. Indigenous peoples of the northwest plains understood that the murder usually resulted in retaliation from the victim’s family and friends. Furthermore, they fully expected this to occur. This also applied at a tribal level. Once a murder was committed, any person from the offending tribe was a suitable target for revenge.90 Red Crow related a story to Wilson regarding tensions which had once occurred between the Kainai and the

Pikani. A group of the latter had made “great sport” of a Kainai named The Gambler, who they believed looked like “a very uncouth person.” He heard “the mean references to his appearance” and in a fit of anger killed one of the “wags.” Shortly after, a band of Kainai horse raiders were returning from an expedition against the Crows when they were suddenly attacked by a group of Pikani. Several of the Kainai were slain, which in turn

90 Dempsey, Red Crow, 143; Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana, Vol. I, 45. Flannery states that family of a murderer shared “collective responsibility” for the crime.

spurred a retaliatory raid by the Kainai and more murders.91 The family and friends of the victim that The Gambler had killed did not specifically target him but the Kainai in general.

Although the story cannot be dated, Red Crow relating it to Wilson in the 1890s suggests how resilient ideas of blood revenge were, at least in story form. The A’aninin were also fully acquainted with notions of blood revenge. Necotta fully attributed their troubles with the Yanktonai Sioux in the 1850s and 60s to several murders of the latter which were inflicted during attempted horse raids. He related these stories to John T. Bell in the late

1890s.92

Generally, violence which stemmed the pursuit of blood vengeance could be halted by “covering the dead” with a payment of goods which were to act as restitution for a family’s loss, both economic and emotional. For the Kainai, it was also expected for a perpetrator to reimburse the victim in cases of injury as well.93 This covering of the dead was negotiated by third parties, such as head men, who were interested in keeping peaceful relations within or between tribes. This was often done with the copious application of persuasion as it was the family’s absolute right to seek blood revenge. 94 As the treaty era

91 Wilson, Wilson Papers, 100, (Glenbow: 4421). 92 John T. Bell, Ne-cot-ta: The Last of the Great Warrior Chiefs, 229-236,250-258, 265, 281-286 376-381 (MHS: M321). 93 This can be seen in the period studied in the letter-books of William Pocklington. In the late summer of 1885, a Kainai boy was shot in the town of Fort Macleod. Pocklington stated that on the night in question, the boy was “prowling” around the vicinity of the home of a man named Fraser. Fraser opened the door and fired his gun, hitting the boy in the foot. The next day, the father of the boy went to Fraser and demanded compensation for the boy’s injury. He was paid $25.00; Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 15, 1886, (LAC RG10-1554: C14842). In another instance in October 1891, a Kainai man named Steel was fired upon by a NWMP constable when the police came upon Steel and five other Kainai near the Kootenay River. After being challenged on suspicion of killing a cow, Steel fired in the constables. The police returned fire, hitting him in the right side of his chest and injuring him severely, though he would survive. Red Crow came forward several days after the incident and “asked the Police to pay the Indian something for being shot, that being their custom.” It is unknown whether Steel ever received money for being shot in what the police must have considered as occurring during the commission of a criminal offence but Steel and Red Crow were still asking about restitution nearly six weeks later; Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, October 26, 1891 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844) and Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, December 1, 1891 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844). 94 Flannery, The Gros Ventres of Montana, Vol. 1, 45. Wissler, Social Life, 24.

approached, many tribes continued to take recourse in these forms of justice. Around 1875-

76, the Blackfoot tribes, the A’aninin, and the Nez Perce came together in the summer to

“trade and visit” in order to conduct a peace treaty. However, this peace was nearly shattered as soon as it was made. Necotta, one of the A’aninin chieftains present, related the following story to John T. Bell:

There was one of the Gros Ventre warriors who had been named Bill Jones by some of the Agency employees. He had been wanting to trade horses with one of the Nez Perce Indians who had a fine horse. The Nez Perce refused to trade. The morning that they were leaving Bill Jones went to him again just as all the party were leaving and offered him a good horse. But the Nez Perce said that he would not trade and started to ride away to join the Blackfoot who were all riding away. Bill Jones then said to some of the warriors, I am going to have that horse. And he then lifted his rifle and shot the Nez Perce in the back of the head, killing him. Bill Jones then caught the horse and rode away leaving his people. And he remained away for several years until the killing had all been forgotten…95

This act left the A’aninin on the brink of war with the tribes that they had just made peace with. However, influential men intervened and the A’aninin came to terms with the relatives of the victim. The Nez Perce were given “a large number of horses and furs which they could use in trade.” The right of blood revenge was waived with the acceptance of these material goods. These were instances which usually occurred between peoples that were already allies or were nominally friendly. Between enemies violence and murder resulted in much more of the same until one side felt enough blood had been spilled and sued for peace.96

95 Bell, Ne-cot-ta, 386, (MHS: M321). 96 An example of this was the subsequent peace which resulted from a battle between a combined force of Kainai and South Pikani against one of Crees and Assiniboine near Lethbridge on the Belly River in 1870, where several hundred Cree were slain after the battle turned against them. The Blackfeet considered this “justifiable revenge” for the death of six hundred of the tribe by combined Crees and Assiniboine in 1866 at the Red Ochre Hills and the next year (1871) made peace with the Cree at the Red Deer River. Wilson, Wilson Papers, 370-371 (Glenbow: M4421).

It was also customary to make good on property damaged or stolen, especially in the matter of horses. This can be seen in Pocklington’s correspondence with the Indian

Commissioner’s office. In June 1886, a Euro-Canadian named David Lambert had been charged with “maliciously shooting” a mare belonging to a Kainai known as Wolf Old

Man. The NWMP arrested Lambert on a criminal charge but could not try him as the victim refused to give evidence against him. Familiar with Kainai custom, Pocklington concluded that Wolf Old Man had been paid for the horse and considered the matter settled, regardless of the NWMP’s view of the matter.97 In a September 1887 incident, a party of NWMP attempted to arrest Big Rib, a fugitive who had escaped custody while being taken to a penitentiary in Manitoba for horse stealing. A group of Kainai interfered with the police’s attempt and a scuffle broke out. Mobbed by several men, one of the constables fired his pistol and accidentally killed an animal belonging to Yellow Horse. Inspector Gilbert

Sanders, anticipating trouble over the matter, later passed a message onto Yellow Horse, telling him to come to Fort Macleod to discuss compensation. Two days later, he was paid forty dollars for the death of the horse.98 This trend can also be seen in incidents between

First Nations peoples. In the autumn of 1885, a Pikani named Yellow Plume had killed a horse during a “drunken row,” which was the property of Eagle Head. Yellow Plume gave the latter a “blue roan horse to settle the business.”99 These instances demonstrate that basic notions of Kainai justice emphasized restitution and compensation for damages to property into the 1880s and 90s.

Tribal disputes over property often revolved around stolen horses. As murder invited more violence and killings, so did horse stealing draw retaliatory raids. Often, there

97 Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 15, 1891 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844). 98 Journal of Gilbert E. Sanders, September 11-13, 1887 (Glenbow: M1093-40). 99 Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, July 11, 1887 (LAC RG10-1555:C14843).

was no opportunity to offer compensation of the owner’s property, so anger, especially over repeated raids, produced a general feeling of enmity towards the perpetrators. As will be seen, horse raids often instilled in the hearts of their victims an urge to retaliate against their oppressors. James F. Brooks has tried to explain the workings of exchange, especially violent exchange such as raids, of Plains Indian tribes but focused mainly on those in the

American Southwest. He generally made the case that notions of honour and shame arched across the Plains Indian world, which included the Comanche, Pawnee, Sioux, Shoshone and Cheyenne tribes but likely also included the Blackfoot. Men strove for honour and avoided shame. The act of raiding, either for food, property, or captives, brought honour to the perpetrators and shame to victims. Most importantly, men who were dishonoured sought to redeem themselves. Redemption was brought about through retaliation by counter-raiding.100 Brooks also suggests that these “exchanges” animated an economy, ultimately linking enemies and allowing for the circulation of goods, people, and cultural values. As regards the Kainai and Belknaps, a successful horse raid by enemies brought shame to the victims, a dishonour that had to be redeemed.

As in the case of blood revenge, there was no need to find the specific thief. The tribe or band to which the raider belonged was good enough. Like murder, horse raids implicated the whole band and tribe. Horse raids not only created anger over lost property but shamed men whose duty it was to protect it. Raiding and counter-raids increased the risk of violent and deadly encounters and created opportunities to gain wealth in animals and honour. Both the Kainai and Belknaps were determined to punish horse raiders, which resulted in serious attempts to kill the perpetrators. Instances of success in doing so fed into

100 James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands, (Williamsburg: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 8-9, 16-19.

an ever-increasing cycle of enmity and violence which produced more theft and further risk of violence.

Despite the significant changes of the post-buffalo reserve era, particular elements of Belknap and Kainai societies continued to respect the “aristocracy of ability” and the

“spirit of retaliation.” Both societies communicated and reinforced the notion that a man gained success through the arts of war. War brought economic wealth through the accumulation of horses, which could then be used in a variety of economic, social, and religious transactions. More importantly, war brought the opportunity to accumulate merit through brave deeds, which was one of the most important measures of a man. This provided a constant source of motivation for certain men to raid horses throughout the

1880s. Concurrently, the Kainai and the Belknap Indians had similar, if not identical, notions of justice. Societal norms emphasized compensation for losses of life and property.

Failure to do so produced enmity, heaped shame on the victims and their families, and prompted retaliatory acts of theft and murder. In essence, the desire to punish thieves and restore honour determined which enemies were to be targeted. In subsequent chapters, it is often easier to explain how cycles of raids and counter-raids were motivated by revenge and attempts to redeem lost honour. However, the desire to acquire wealth and status was always in the background, driving young men to perpetuate the conflict.

Chapter Two: Friends to Foe, the Blackfoot, the Cree, and the Milk River Allies,

1878-1883

“Our battles were mostly with our hereditary foes with whom the peace was seldom made and less seldom did peace last any length of time,” the Kainai (Blood Indian) Red

Arrow explained to R.N. Wilson in the 1890s, “These were the Sioux, Cree, Crow, and

Snakes. Other tribes were also fought but at times we lived at peace with them for years together.”1 Red Crow further told Wilson that the A’aninin (Gros Ventres) had “always” been “our friends and neighbours.”2 Yet, a variety of sources demonstrate that the

Blackfoot tribes and the A’aninin had periods of very strained relations in the second half of the 19th Century. In the 1850s and continuing throughout the 1860s, the two were avowed enemies of the other and engaged in open warfare, mainly over issues of intertribal murder and stolen property in the form of horses. However, evidence in the late 1870s suggests that the Pikani (Piegan) and Kainai enjoyed friendlier relations with the A’aninin as they vied with Sioux Tribes on the last, best bison hunting ground in the Milk River country. At the same time, the A’aninin, already accustomed to forging alliances against their long time Sioux enemies, found mutual support and assistance in the Upper Valley

Nakota (American Assiniboine), as well as from the northern or River Crow. Further, the

Nakota had extensive kin relations with the Canadian Assiniboine and through them with the Cree. In essence, the A’aninin and Nakota had allied with each other while maintaining parallel alliances with the Blackfoot and Assiniboine/Cree respectively. An extremely complex military-diplomatic situation emerged as Blackfoot tribes fought their sworn

Assiniboine and Cree enemies, and vice versa, while they all fought the Sioux. By late

1 Robert Nathaniel Wilson, The Robert Nathaniel Wilson Papers, Edited and Annotated by Philip H. Godsell, (Glenbow Foundation, 1958), 123 (Glenbow Museum: M4421). 2 Ibid, 100.

1880, most of the aggressive Sioux tribes had been pacified by a combination of U.S. military action and the scarcity of the bison. They were returned to reservations farther east and left whatever buffalo that remained to the Blackfoot, the Cree, and the Milk River allies. With the Sioux gone, the young warriors of the Blackfoot and Assiniboine/Cree redoubled their efforts to raid each other in the quest for horses and glory. This created animosities between the two factions which would survive into the reserve era. In addition, more and more, the Cree and Assiniboine had grown closer to the Nakota in the late 1870s and early 1880s. This chapter contends that the Kainai-Belknap war had its immediate origins in this association.

In 1878, the A’aninin were at war with Yanktonai and other bands of Sioux, which included Lakota under Sitting Bull, who sought asylum in Canada in the wake of the Battle of Little Big Horn (or Greasy Grass) in 1876 and its aftermath. It was only the latest in an enduring conflict that stemmed back to Sioux westward movement in the 1850s.3 At this time, the A’aninin were allied with the northern or River Crows from the Judith Basin in

Montana and the Nakota. They initially held closer ties with the River Crows as both had had trouble with the Pikani and the Sioux from the late 1850s and throughout the 1860s. 4

3 Miller, David, Dennis Smith, Joseph R. McGeshick, James Shanley, and Caleb Shields, The History of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, 1800-2000, (Poplar, MT: Fort Peck Community College, 2008), 35, 52, 54-59, 64-69,76-78; Loretta Fowlers, Shared Symbols, Contested Meanings: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 1778-1984,(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987) 49, 198 and John C. Ewers, Ethnological Report on the Blackfeet and Gros Ventres Tribes of Indians, Commission Findings, (New York: Garland, 1974),171. 4 Loretta Fowler and John Ewers both point out that beginning in 1853, a previous alliance of the Blackfoot tribes and the Gros Ventres began to break down and relations between the two tribes were generally hostile; See Fowler, Shared Symbols, 198-99 and Ewers, Ethnological Report, 48, 109-110, 164-167. In 1861, a Pend d’Orielle war party had stolen horses from a Gros Ventre camp on the Missouri River and to throw off their pursuers had left some of the horses near a Pikani camp. When the pursuing A’aninin passed by the camp, they recognized their horses, believed the Pikani were responsible and killed an old chief in retaliation for the raid, see Ewers, Ethnological Report, 166.

They together camped, waged war, and created kin bonds through marriage.5 Although the

A’aninin had met their second set of allies, the Upper Valley Nakota in the 1850s, they only began to strengthen their alliance after smallpox decimated their numbers in 1869-70.

They gave gifts of horses, took Nakota wives, and shared for the first time annuity gifts owed to them by the United States government in consideration for land cessations during the 1855 Lame Bull Treaty which created the massive Blackfeet Reservation in northern

Montana.6 By 1870, Sioux horse raiding and thievery had so intimidated the A’aninin that they refused to go to the Milk River agency further east to receive their annuities; a sub agency was set up at the trader’s post of Fort Belknap to serve this purpose.

In 1875-76, the A’aninin promised to split rations and annuities in perpetuity to keep the Nakota close in their battle against the Sioux. According to The Boy, a son of

A’aninin chief Lame Bull, a council was held on the subject of giving rations to the Nakota, with whom they camped at the time. The U.S. federal government had only allocated annuities for the A’aninin, as the Belknap sub-agency was originally concerned with administering to them and the River Crow. However, it had been lean hunting and hunger

5 For Instances of mixed Crow, Gros Ventres, and Assiniboine camps and raiding parties based on warrior’s testimonies, see A.L. Kroeber, Ethnology of the Gros Ventre, (New York: Ams Press, 1978) 201-203, 210- 216. Bull Lodge commented on mixed camps in the 1860s and 70s when he was among the Crows, healed illness and attended a Sun Dance, Fred P. Gone, The Seven Visions of Bull Lodge, As Told by His daughter, Garter Snake, ed. George Horse Capture. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), 79-84. Evidence of marriage and kin ties between the two tribes can be seen in Fort Belknap Agency correspondence: A.B Upshaw to Edwin C. Fields, October 13, 1887 (National Archives and Record Administration at Denver RG75 8NS-075-96-435-3); Edwin C. Fields to J.P Morgan, September 16, 1889 (NARAD RG75 8NS-075- 96-436-2); M.P. Wyman, Crow Indian Agent, to A.O. Simmons, May 10, 1890 (NARAD RG75 8NS-075-96- 439-2); M.P. Wyman, Crow Indian Agent, to A.O. Simmons, June 21, 1890 (NARAD RG75 8NS-075-96- 439-2); M.P. Wyman, Crow Indian Agent, to A.O. Simmons, August 11, 1890, (NARAD RG75 8NS-075-96- 439-2). 6 For impact of smallpox and sharing of annuities, see John T. Bell, The Life of Ne-cot-ta: The Last of the Great Warrior Chiefs, 449 (Montana Historical Society: M321). For Nakota and A’aninin intermarriage and alliance, see Ewers, Ethnological Report, 171. The 1855 Treaty was to encourage tribes on the northwest plains in Montana to live at peace with their neighbours and laid out Blackfoot territory, as well as a common hunting ground for mountain tribes such as the Shoshone and the Salish, see Michael P. Malone, Richard B. Roeder, and William L. Lang, Montana: A History of Two Centuries Revised Edition, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), 114-117.

stalked the Nakota. The council agreed to divide the “big pile” of flour, sugar, tea, and dried meat between them, as well as other annuity goods such as blankets and clothing. The

Boy stated to Bell, “Lame Bull said, ‘We are at war with the Sioux tribe and they ought to take the Assiniboines in to help fight the Sioux and be part of the Gros Ventre tribe and to keep them in the tribe.’ They decided to take them into the tribe and told the Agent so.

When they had decided to take the Assiniboines into the tribe, the Agent said that it was all right and they could do as they pleased.” 7 This alliance was especially important as Sioux attacks had been unrelenting; when Fort Belknap was closed as an economy measure in

1875-76, the A’aninin and Nakota refused to take rations and annuities at Fort Peck for fear of the Sioux.8

This division of annuity goods was performed by Indian agents in subsequent years, which solidified and maintained the alliance which existed between the Belknap tribes. By

August 1878, newly appointed Fort Belknap agent Wyman Lincoln reopened the agency and remarked in a letter to the U.S. Indian Commissioner E.A. Hayt that the two tribes were very close, that “that they were naturally one people and cannot be separated without detriment to themselves.”9 This alliance was especially significant in drawing the animosity of the Kainai in the 1880s. The Nakota had kinship ties to bands in Canadian territory and these connections drew visitors and migrants to the vicinity of Fort Belknap. The Boy was told by his father that several winters after splitting rations and annuities, strangers were seen coming from the north one or two families at a time. They were visiting Assiniboines from the north; some who remained permanently after the Milk River Agency was built in

1868. Thereafter, it seemed to the A’aninin that there were more and more Nakota lodges

7 Bell, Ne-cot-ta: The Last of the Great Warrior Chiefs, 453-456 (Montana Historical Society: M321). 8 Miller et al, History of Fort Peck, 87-88; Fowler, Shared Symbols, 199. 9 W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, August 13, 1878 (NARAD 8NS-075-96-437-1).

every year.10 These migrations continued in later years and can be seen in the correspondence of the Fort Belknap agents. In 1882, an Assiniboine band leader named

Long Lodge asked Lincoln if his followers could be placed on the ration and annuity rolls at the agency. They had been on them previously but had drifted north into British country and had taken treaty there after Fort Belknap had closed.11 Long Lodge had returned to be among kin, as seen in Lincoln’s letter to the Indian Commissioner’s office:

This band and the Assiniboine under my control are of one tribe and are so related by marriage that I find it hard work to keep them apart. My Indians entice them to come and live among them and they are in no way loath to do so; the consequence is they divide their rations with them, cutting down their own weekly supply and I am of the opinion that they might as well be considered as part of the Assiniboines under my charge.12

This was not an isolated incident. In 1878, Lincoln reported the presence of “large numbers” of British Assiniboine living in close proximity to the agency and his Indians.13

During the 1885 Northwest Rebellion, Lincoln worried that the reservation would become flooded with refugees and cause unrest among his wards because many of the northern

Assiniboine were related to them by marriage.14 The Boy confirmed that the coming of refugees came to pass after the conclusion of the rebellion, with more and more

10 Bell, Ne-cot-ta, 454, 457 (MHS: M321) 11 Michel Hogue has spoken to this cross-border activity after 1885 as the Cree and Métis sought sanctuary after the Riel Rebellion, challenged infringements on their freedom of movement, and sought out a better life economically; see Michel Hogue, “Crossing the Line: Race Nationality, and the Deportation of the ‘Canadian’ Crees in the Canada-U.S. Borderlands, 1890-1900” in The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests: Essays on the Regional History of the 49th Parallel, ed. Sterling Evans, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006): 155-171. Hogue identifies 1885 as a major turning point in this migration but it seems to have begun much earlier. 12 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-01). 13 W.L. Lincoln to the Indian Commissioner’s Office (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-01). 14 W.L. Lincoln to the Indian Commissioner’s Office, April 16, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1), W.L. Lincoln to the Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 4, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1)

Assiniboine being seen in and around the agency.15 In the late 1880s, the evidence of these kin ties can be further seen in the near constant back and forth visits over the boundary line observed by Canadian and American Indian agents.16

Most significant is the fact that the Assiniboine were closely associated with the

Plains Cree and had been since the 17th Century. They had migrated west, hunted together, made war on common enemies such as the Dakota Sioux, Blackfoot, and Crow, and intermarried with each other. The two could usually speak in each other’s language (or at least understand it), formed interethnic bands, and lived together on the same reserves after the making of the Numbered Treaties in Canada.17 Upon the alliance of the A’aninin and

Nakota, when the latter’s northern kin travelled to the vicinity of Fort Belknap, they were often with or followed by their Plains Cree allies. This can first be seen as early as the

1860s, when A’aninin warrior Bull Robe stated to ethnologist Alfred Kroeber that he joined a war party as a young man which was made up of A’aninin, Crows, Assiniboine, and

Cree.18 Reported instances of a Plains Cree presence around Fort Belknap become more

15 Bell, Ne-cot-ta, 457-458 (MHS: M321) 16 S.J. Campbell, Indian Agent at Moose Mountain (Moosimin), to Edwin C. Fields, January 4, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439); J.D.C. Atkins to Edwin C. Fields, (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-435-4); Hayter Reed to Edwin C. Fields, April 30, 1889 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-438). 17 Arthur Ray examined how the Cree and Assiniboine acted as middlemen in the Canadian fur trade and their frequent efforts to hold this position together, often travelling in trading parties to western tribes such as the Blackfoot in 18th Century and back to York Factory at the edge of Hudson Bay. They later migrated west as resources dwindled in traditional hunting areas. See Arthur J. Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Hunters, Trappers, and Middlemen, 1660-1870, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), especially 35- 46, 68-70, 131. Susan Sharrock stated that from standard ethnographies of the Assiniboine and Plains Cree that “the two peoples were allied in warfare, intermarried, bilingual, and that the Assiniboines were the cultural “grandfathers” of the Plains Cree; Susan R. Sharrock, “Crees, Cree-Assiniboines, and Assiniboines: Interethnic Social Organization on the Far Northern Plains,” Ethnohistory 21:2 (1974), 101-102. They intermarried extensively in the 18th and 19th Centuries to cement trade and a military alliance (107-111) and by 1810 some bands had begun to fuse into bands which were not based on Cree or Assiniboine membership, but a combination of the two (111-115). In his study of the Assiniboine in the first decade of the 20th Century, Robert Lowie stated that the Cree and Assiniboine were “intimately related,” could at least understand the other’s language if they could not speak it, and often shared reserves in present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan; see Robert H. Lowie, The Assiniboine, American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Papers 4 (1910), 7-9. 18 Kroeber, Ethnology of the Gros Ventres, 212-213.

frequent in the late 1870s. When Lincoln reported large amounts of northern Assiniboine around the agency in December 1878, he noted the many Cree there as well. In June 1879, two parties of Cree came into the agency, which the agent found annoying. They were

“apparently friendly” but constantly asked for flour and other kinds of food from his ever decreasing stores. The Cree likely expected these gifts of food as they were both allies and kin of the Nakota. In the world of the Plains Indians, gifts indicated friendship and their continuance communicated the desire to remain in this state. Also, kin and the allies of kin were expected to hospitable, generous, and to give assistance freely.19

The Cree also recognized a defensive component to their relationship with the

Belknap tribes. In 1879, Sitting Bull, then taking refuge in Canada, complained to Colonel

Irvine of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) that Belknap Indians had stolen 124 horses and if they were not returned, he intended to go looking for the horses himself. This led to a rumour that the Sioux were going to attack the agency itself. A Cree runner came down from the north to warn the Plains Cree, Assiniboine, and Métis camp twelve miles from the agency to pack up and move before the Sioux arrived. Lincoln and the Belknap

Indians were in turned warned as well.20 Although the Plains Cree bands were in the Milk

River country primarily to hunt throughout 1879, they expected gifts of food in difficult

19 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, July 2, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). Marshall Sahlins has argued that in “primitive economies” like that of the Plains Indians, “the connection between material flow and social relations is reciprocal” and “specific transactions… suggests a particular social relation.” This was the case in the giving of gifts where “if friends make gifts, gifts make friends.” Various types of material exchange demonstrate the type of social relations which exists between groups of people; See Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1972), 185-186. Sahlins also argued that reciprocity varied with kinship distance. More altruistic giving was expected from peoples where kinship relationships, such as marriage, existed than between peoples whose ties were not as strong or were nonexistent, such as between strangers. Kin were expected to exhibit generalized reciprocity which meant generosity, sharing, free gifts, and assistance in times of need, which included food; Ibid, 191- 204, 215-218. 20 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, February 1, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1).

times, as that was what good kin and allies did. At the same time, they helped to protect the

Belknap Indians from their Sioux enemies.

This close relationship between the Belknap Indians and the northern Assiniboine and Cree can be seen continuing as the period of the Kainai-Belknap war neared. In

October 1881, Lincoln reported that Piapot, the leader of a combined Cree-Assiniboine

Canadian band, had come into the Fort Belknap agency. Bringing forty followers that were mainly women, Piapot wanted to trade. This is significant as the indigenous peoples of the

Plains usually did not trade unless they were kin or they had some kind of peace or alliance contract.21 The peaceful relations between the Cree and the Belknaps were further bolstered by the fact that it was mostly women who had come in to do the trading and likely expected no trouble. A week later, Piapot’s band returned to trade once again. The Cree demonstrated no rush to depart, as Lincoln noted they had arrived on a Saturday but were not expected to leave until late Monday.22 This gave a good deal of time for visits with relatives and to share food. Throughout November, more Cree continued to come to the

Milk River country. Little Pine and thirty-five members of his band came into the main agency post to trade two weeks after Piapot’s visit.23 This provides evidence that the trade was not band specific, suggesting a more general trend of Cree kinship and friendship with the Belknap tribes. A political alliance may have been the aim of Cree leaders such as

21 W.L. Lincoln to Captain R.L. Morris, 18th Infantry Fort Assiniboine, October 31, 1881 (NARAD RG75- 8NS-075-96-440-1). See Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 219-221 for the meaning of trade, which usually amounted to burying collective hostilities between groups. However, James F. Brooks has challenged the interpretation of trade and exchange being an alternative to war and violence. He argues that violence was assimilated into “mutually productive exchange relations” in the American Southwest; James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands, (Williamsburg, University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 17. 22 W.L. Lincoln to Captain R.L. Morris, 18th Infantry, Fort Assiniboine, November 6, 1881 (NARAD RG75- 8NS-075-96-440-1). 23 W.L. Lincoln to Captain R.L. Morris, 18th Infantry, Fort Assiniboine, November 21, 1881 (NARAD RG75- 8NS-075-96-440-1); C.S. Otis to Acting Assistant Adjutant General, District of Dakota, January 9, 1886 (MHS: MC46-4); C.S. Otis to W.L. Lincoln, April 2, 1886 (MHS: MC46-4); W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, April 6, 1886 (NARAD 8NS-075-96-436. Box 1).

Piapot, Little Pine, and Big Bear. John L. Tobias has argued these leaders were following a strategy of consolidation of Cree and Assiniboine bands in the Cypress Hills region in the early 1880s in order to create an “Indian territory” to strengthen Cree autonomy, to ward off government control and to pressure the government to fulfil promises made in the treaties signed in the 1870s.24 They may have been trying to convince the Belknaps to move northward to expand this conglomeration of tribes so as to augment their political strength.

Good feelings towards the Cree were also shown in the aftermath of the Northwest

Rebellion of 1885 when refugees came to the reservation. A number of them had crossed the border and camped with the Nakota. Although Lincoln refused to give the Cree food, he believed “undoubtedly” that their hosts divided their rations with them. This would continue throughout the first half of 1886 as the Cree came back again and again to seek out the assistance of their kin and allies.25 The Boy also testified that after the uprising, there were a greater number of new Assiniboine and Cree faces on the reservation, as he saw them on ration day.26 From the late 1870s and into the 1880s, through patterns of intermarriage, exhibitions of generosity, and trading relations, the Belknap Indians had indisputably incorporated the northern Assiniboine and Plains Cree into an alliance system.

This was favourable on one level as the relationship provided mutual military support

24 John L. Tobias, “Canada’s Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879-1885” in Out of the Background: Readings on Canadian Native History, 2nd Edition, ed. Ken S. Coates and Robin Fisher, (Scarborough: Irwin Publishing, 1998), 152-156. 25 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, September 16, 1885, (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-435-1); C.S. Otis to Acting Assistant Adjutant General, District of Montana, December 10, 1885 (MHS: MC46-4); C.S. Otis to Acting Assistant Adjutant General, District of Dakota, January 9, 1886 (MHS: MC46-4); C.S. Otis to W.L. Lincoln, April 2, 1886 (MHS: MC46-4); W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, April 12, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1). 26 Bell, Ne-cot-ta, 457-458 (MHS: M321).

against the Sioux tribes, but on another level it was rather unfortunate, as the Cree and

Assiniboine were the loathed by the Kainai and Pikani.27

The A’aninin and Nakota, however, needed the help of their northern kin and allies because in 1878, they were fully at war with their old Sioux enemies. In January, a party of

Yanktonai arrived at one of their camps to propose a peace treaty. A Captain Williams of the Seventh U.S. Infantry advised them not to do so and the overture was consequently refused. The next night, the same party raided the camp and made off with eleven horses before fleeing back to the Fort Peck Agency in northeastern Montana. Attempts to recover the horses peacefully failed and in the spring, Nakota raiders returned the favor by cutting loose twenty-three ponies before retreating back to Belknap. Shortly after, White Bear relieved an Oglala band of thirty-three horses. White Bear seemed to have been a Canadian

Assiniboine as these latter horses were recovered by the NWMP and returned to Sioux when he returned to British Territory with the spoils.28

This proved to be poor course of action for the Belknaps. When Lincoln took charge of the agency on June 23, 1878 he found them in “destitute condition” and was forced to issue pemmican to prevent starvation. The Sioux, including refugees seeking sanctuary in

27 Binnema has identified 1794-1806 as a period of deteriorating relations within what he identified as the “Northern Coalition,” which consisted of the Blackfoot tribes, Cree, and Assiniboine. This fracture of their alliance occurred as the Cree/Assiniboine lost their relevance as middlemen traders as the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company engaged the Blackfoot tribes directly. At the same time, the horse poor Cree/Assiniboine raided them for horses which lead to animosity. This broke into open warfare in the summer of 1806; Theodore Binnema, Common and Contested Ground: A Human and Environmental History of the Northwestern Plains, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 161-193, 196. Milloy brought the conflict between the Blackfoot and Cree/Assiniboine into the 19th Century by arguing that that the period of 1790-1850 was a period of raiding and counter-raiding for horses (The Horse Wars) while 1850-1870 was period of conflict between them which he referred as “The Buffalo Wars”, in which the Cree/Assiniboine engaged in an armed migration into Blackfoot territory; see Milloy, The Plains Cree: Trade, Diplomacy, and War 1790 to 1870, (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1988), 69-70, 108-118. Anthony McGinnis has identified the plains area around the Rocky Mountains in both present day northern Montana and southern Alberta as a “Northwest sector of war” where the Crees and Assiniboine nursed a “mortal hatred” of the Blackfoot tribes and was an area of continual clashes and reprisals between the two factions; see Anthony R. McGinnis, Counting Coup and Cutting Horses: Intertribal Warfare on the Northern Plains, 1738-1889, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 52, 56-59. 28 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner's Office, January 21, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1).

Canada under Sitting Bull and others from the Fort Peck agency, were in “large force” between the agency and the hunting grounds farther down the Milk River. Although the latest trouble had begun over horses, the Sioux were blockading the agency and monopolizing a diminishing buffalo resource. Lincoln reported that Yankton and Hunkpapa

Sioux were camped twenty-five to thirty miles away from the agency and raided “his

Indians” nightly. On June 25, marauders succeeded in cutting loose a large number of horses, which were quickly recovered by the alert Belknaps. The next morning, “the hills and buttes for some ten or five miles from the post were covered with Sioux.” At first, the

Sioux told the Nakota that they did not want to fight them and only “desired a chance to slaughter the Gros Ventre and capture and burn the fort.” The Nakota refused to abandon their allies and for the better part of the day, the two factions exchanged taunts. Finally, at around five in the afternoon, the Sioux charged, were repulsed by thick volleys of gunfire, and were chased for more than twenty miles from the agency.29

The situation of the Belknaps was dire as they were unable to hunt and the Sioux were intent on killing them. In August, Lincoln feared another attack on the agency and asked for military protection in the form of two columns of troops. He also asked permission of Colonel John R. Brooke (whom Lincoln referred to as “General”), commanding the District of Montana, to allow traders to provide the Belknaps with fixed ammunition so his wards could better protect themselves. This request was granted.30 Horse raids continued throughout summer and autumn. A Captain Allen of the NWMP, stationed at Wood Mountain, reported to the Manitoba Free Press that Inspector James Morrow

Walsh of the NWMP had recovered many stolen horses and mules from Sioux camped

29 W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, June 26, 1878 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). 30 W. L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, Undated August, 1878 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1); W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, August 13, 1878 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1),

there. Further, he commented that “the young bucks” were “continuously stealing horses from the American side…” The older men tried to restrain these raiders, but the young

Sioux men continually crossed the line to raid the Belknaps and their River Crow allies, who had recently returned to the Milk River country in search of the buffalo and to obtain rations. The latter had also raided for horses and murdered several Sioux on Canadian territory, across the boundary line. 31 By November, Lincoln again asked Brooke for permission to allow his wards to purchase more cartridges, apparently as fighting the Sioux had been so frequent, or disbursed among allies for mutual defense, that the ammunition previously granted was “nearly exhausted.”32 Lincoln had tried to prevent his charges from going to war-that is, horse raiding-and instead encouraged them to mount a defense of the agency. However, by the end of December the constant raids did not sit well with them.

They told Lincoln that they felt the government was not assisting them enough and “they were not squaws but could gain by retaliation.” In this spirit a number of them “secretly went to war” and retuned with horses.33 The Belknaps had spent the entire year battling the

Sioux over access to hunting grounds and horses, mostly being on the losing end.

In the winter of 1878-79, the remainder of the northern plains bison congregated in the Milk River country, which attracted huge numbers of indigenous hunters; few of the buffalo ever returned to Canada. Many Teton, Hunkpapa, Yankton, Pikani, Kainai,

Siksika, Cree, and Assiniboine congregated on the Belknaps’ traditional hunting grounds to chase the bison; most of these tribes stayed until the northern herd was extinguished

31 “From Fort Walsh,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, November 8, 1878 ; “Two Hundred Miles Along the Frontier,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, February 16, 1878; Untitled Editorial, Manitoba Daily Free Press, February 18, 1878; W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, October 7, 1878 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1); W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, January 6, 1879, (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). 32 W.L. Lincoln to General Brooke, Commander-District of Montana, Helena, October 1, 1878 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). 33 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, January 21, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1).

(helped along by American hide hunters) in the early 1880s. The Sioux tribes camped north and west of the agency, close to the boundary line and kept their distance from the

Blackfoot tribes and the Cree, who camped near the Bear Paw Mountains. More than 4500 plains people crowded into a 180 mile radius around Fort Belknap.34 The Belknaps and

River Crows continued to the fight the Sioux but in February 1879 Lincoln reported that the latter were also fighting the Pikani. Raiders had tried to relieve them of fifty horses, and when the pursuit to recover the animals concluded, three Sioux and one Pikani were dead.35

The next month, a party of Yanktonai Sioux raided the Pikani and captured more than twenty-one ponies, as well as a number of horses which belonged to American ranchers.

Passing near an A’aninin hunting camp near the Bear Paw Mountains, the raiders were suddenly attacked and lost some of their spoils. Lincoln insisted that his A’aninin return the two horses belonging to the ranchers but it is unclear what action was taken with regard to the recovered Pikani ponies.36

This begs an important question as to what really happened to these stolen ponies.

Considering that stolen horses had produced a serious breach between the A’aninin and

Pikani in 1861, there is little doubt that if and when the latter discovered their stolen property among the Belknap Indians, retaliation would surely follow. Given that the

A’aninin had been astute enough to forge alliances with the River Crow and Nakota against the Sioux, it would have been an incredible lapse of diplomatic judgment to provoke a reprisal from the Pikani and ultimately the whole of the Blackfoot nation. Furthermore, the

34 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, January 7, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1); Lincoln estimated 450 lodges (common understanding of a “lodge” was 7-8 people) of South Pikani and Pen d’Orielle, along 200 lodges of Bloods, Siksika, and North Pikani. He did not give estimates for Cree, Assiniboine, Sioux, or the Belknap tribes. It’s entirely possible that there were more than 9,000 hunters in the Belknap region. 35 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, February 8, 1879 (NARAD RG75-96-437-1). 36 W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, April 6, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1).

A’aninin had already attempted to make peace with them, as well as the Nez Perce, in

1875-76. That summer all three had come together to “trade and visit” with the A’aninin offering horses, which they had plenty of, to the others. The two sides agreed that they would put down their knives and guns; they pledged “that they would never take them up again against each other.” They also promised that they “should also declare that they should never raid each other again.”37 However, John Ewers has argued that this peace was of no consequence as it was quickly broken because the “young men would not abide by it” and a Pikani war party killed an A’aninin man within sight of Fort Benton; hence, he believed that the Kainai and A’aninin did not reconcile until the later part of the 1880s.38

However, by late 1878 the situation had changed very drastically in Blackfoot relations with the Sioux. In the summer 1876, the latter openly threatened the former with war after an alliance proposal to jointly fight the Crow and American soldiers was rejected.

Crowfoot, a Siksika chief with considerable influence among all the Blackfoot tribes, was so anxious about the possibility of war with the Sioux that he asked C.E. Denny, then a

NWMP sub-inspector, if he could depend on NWMP assistance if his enemies did attack.

Denny gave his assurances that they would and in return Crowfoot pledged 2000 warriors in the case that the Sioux attacked the NWMP, which they reportedly threatened to do after they defeated their state-side enemies.39 In August, when an unknown party stole horses from the Kainai, they firmly believed that the refugee Sioux had done so.40 They continued to raise the hackles of the Blackfoot after thousands of them flooded into the Cypress Hills

37 Bell, Ne-cot-ta, 385 (MHS: M321). Bell places this event shortly after the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, while Ewers dates it to 1874 in Ewers, Ethnological Report, 175. 38 Ibid, 175. 39 Frederick White to R.W. Scott, December 30, 1876, Report of the Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police, 1876 in Opening Up the West: Being the Official Reports to Parliament of the Activities of the North West Mounted Police, 1874-1881, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Co., 1974), 21-22. 40 L.N. Crozier to Assistant Commissioner Irvine, August 18, 1877, Report of the Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police, 1877 in Opening Up the West, 26-27.

region to hunt in what the former considered their exclusive hunting grounds in 1877.

Sitting Bull sent peace overtures to Crowfoot later that year, with the latter responding that he was willing to accept them only if Sioux stayed away from them and their territory.41

This warning went unheeded as the buffalo migrated to the prairies west of Cypress Hills.

From July to September 1877, Hunkpapas, Santees, and Yanktonais joined Canadian tribes, more than 5000 hunters and their families in all, in a grand slaughter of the buffalo.42 By

February 1878, with the buffalo scarce, the nearly starving Blackfoot resented the Sioux for destroying so many buffalo.43 When Sitting Bull asked for peace again, Crowfoot thanked him for his friendly overtures but told him that he did not want the Sioux to mix with the

Blackfoot or even be near them, that it was “better to keep apart.”44 Crowfoot was likely concerned that he would not be able to control the young men, embittered by past threats, stolen horses, and their recently empty bellies, and it would have led to even greater hostilities. In fact, Sioux troubles with other Canadian and American native plains people can be traced back to competition over the sharing of food sources, which political allegiances seemed to be built upon during this period of scarcity. David McCrady demonstrated that Sitting Bull’s Lakota tried very hard to come to an accommodation with these groups in order to share a diminishing buffalo resource. When these efforts failed, matters came to a head, resulting in raids and aggression on the part of the Sioux in the

Milk River country.45

41 James F. Macleod to Alexander Mackenzie, May 30, 1877, Report of the Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police, 1877 in Opening Up the West, 34-35. 42 “Sitting Bull,” The Daily Independent, July 10, 1877; “The Northern Indians,” The Daily Independent September 26, 1877. 43 “Two Hundred Miles along the Frontier,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, May 23, 1878. 44 Extract from the Commissioners Reports, James, F. Macleod, 1878, Report of the Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police, 1878 in Opening Up the West, 20-21 45 David G. McCrady, Living With Strangers: The Nineteenth Century Sioux and the Canadian-American Borderlands, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, c2006), 87-95.

Kainai oral evidence of a peace treaty between the A’aninin and Blackfoot tribes does exist, as John Cotton told Hugh Dempsey, during the course of the latter’s interviewing of elders in the 1950s and 60s, that the Kainai made peace with the A’aninin and Crows in the summer of 1879.46 They likely turned to the Blackfoot for aid as their situation worsened. Earlier in the summer, the A’aninin, Nakota, and River Crows had left for a hunt together to ward off Sioux attacks. However, the latter had been very aggressive and the allies had little ammunition. When their enemies suddenly attacked, the allies “were badly frightened and stampeded to the fort as fast as they could, throwing away in their flight most of the meat they secured.”47 A short time later, another hunting party was also attacked and demoralized; Lincoln reported that his Indians were effectively debarred from hunting in their own territory. The River Crows even talked about abandoning the Milk

River country altogether and heading back south.48 Their weakened state and inability to claim even their own hunting grounds provided the A’aninin with a powerful incentive to seek the friendship of the Blackfoot tribes and by 1879, the latter were more inclined to accept such overtures.

Fort Belknap Agency records corroborate that relations were warmer in the spring of 1879. In early June, Lincoln reported that a large band of “Blackfeet” had struck camp at the agency. As with the Crees, they were evidently friendly but had expected gifts of flour and other foodstuffs, irking the agent. They further annoyed him by overstaying their welcome, as they stopped over longer than the agent thought necessary. They were in no hurry to leave and likely spent a good deal of time visiting friends. Later that month, on

46 Hugh Dempsey, The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories, (Saskatoon, Fifth House Ltd., 1994), 9. 47 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, July 2, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). 48 W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, June 16, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1); W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, July 16, 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1).

June 26, a large group of Pikani came to the vicinity of the agency. They formed a camp with the A’aninin and when it finally broke they travelled off together.49 In early July,

Lincoln reported that he had had trouble with a band of Kainai, although they were friendly enough with the A’aninin. Twenty-two lodges had come in from the buffalo country, well supplied with meat, and camped near Fort Belknap. Annoyed after they stayed beyond two days, Lincoln requested that they “move along.” This brought about an “impudent” response and the next day, the head men came in a body and demanded a feast, stating that it was customary to do so. The Kainai were expecting Lincoln to act as a proper friend should, in his position of agent of the A’aninin, by providing a “free gift” of food. Lincoln refused, which must have shocked Kainai sensibilities. They, in turn, attempted to burn hay recently stacked by agency employees. They did not fight or steal horses from the A’aninin, however. In fact, after the incident they moved five to six miles away from the immediate vicinity and stated their intention to remain for some time. 50 Lincoln revealed no anxiety of violence, as he did with the Sioux, and reported no conflict of any kind between the two tribes. Their friendliness was demonstrated once again in late April or early May 1880 when The Man Who Gives Life to the People, a Kainai band leader, arrived at Fort Belknap to trade for provisions after buffalo hunting failed.51

Friendly relations between the Pikani, Kainai, and A’aninin continued into at least early spring 1881. In February, there were between 300 to 400 lodges of them combined camping around Fort Clagett, south of the Bear Paw Mountains near the Missouri River.

They intended to stay there the winter, with observers stating that the tribes were out of

49 W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, July 2, 1879, (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). 50 W.L. Lincoln to E.A. Hayt, July 1879 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). 51 “Starving Indians,” Manitoba Free Press, May 25, 1880; “Notes,” The Daily Independent, January 19, 1882, reveals tribal background of the chief.

provisions and had lost many of their ponies. They were evidently friendly with each other and the white populace.52 This relationship would not endure long after the Sioux were compelled to return to their reservations at Fort Peck and farther east in winter 1880-81.At this time, Lincoln told Necotta and other Belknap chiefs that the Sioux in Canada had surrendered and the U.S. Army had taken them “a long ways down” the Missouri.53

While the Sioux had found sanctuary in Canada, patterns of warfare were complex in the Milk River country. The River Crow, A’aninin, Assiniboine, Blackfoot, and Cree all raided the Sioux bands on Canadian territory, while the latter returned the favor. At the same time, the Blackfoot and Assiniboine/Cree raided each other. NWMP Superintendent

L.N.F. Crozier commented on the state of affairs when nearly 5000 indigenous buffalo hunters gathered at Fort Walsh in April, 1880. The Sioux and the Canadian tribes were all raiding each other, while American Indian war parties, likely A’aninin, Nakota, and Crow, raided the Sioux. Crozier feared an outbreak of violence and reported, “I very much feared a serious collision between the tribes would be the result of so much stealing. Angry alterations occurred more than once, and shots were fired by a party of Assiniboines into the Sarcee camp.” Crozier further reported the same state of affairs existed during the autumn as well.54 All the tribes in the vicinity of the Milk River country had a plethora of enemies to plunder in a horse raiding free-for-all prior to the Sioux surrender. In their absence, old rivalries once again began to take hold, or rather came into sharper focus.

The most prolific of these rivalries was between the Blackfoot tribes and the Cree.

At the end of June 1881, Crowfoot’s entire camp stopped at Fort Walsh en route to their

52 “Indians at Fort Clagett,” The Daily Independent, February 20, 1881. 53 Bell, Ne-cot-ta, 410-411 (MHS: M321). 54 Report of Superintendent L.N.F. Crozier, 1880, in Opening up the West, 30-31, 33. Calf Robe’s Statement to Annie McGowan (Glenbow: M8764) reveals this pattern of the Blackfoot fighting both the Sioux and the Cree in 1880 and 1881; “Fort Walsh,” Manitoba Free Press, June 28, 1880.

reserve to allow their horses to recover and to secure government provisions for their trip to the region east of Fort Calgary, where their reserve was located. The Cree and Assiniboine already gathered there accused the Blackfoot of stealing horses while in American territory; in turn the latter complained of Cree thefts. NWMP Commissioner A.G. Irvine stated that this had resulted in “many altercations and quarrels” between the two and although these were mitigated with “no little difficulty and much anxiety,” an outbreak of violence could have easily resulted.55 This was demonstrated in August, after the Cree and Assiniboine had gathered en masse to collect annuity money. A lodge of Blackfoot soon arrived from the south and the Crees began to grumble at the appearance of their old enemies. On

August 11, Irvine was called to a “scene of disturbance” in which “large numbers of excited

Cree Indians, mounted and armed,” were riding about trying to hunt down a Blackfoot they suspected of stealing horses across the line. Irvine and a party of NWMP convinced the

Cree to desist but even after they did so, some still rode around on their ponies “in an excited state,” shooting their rifles and shouting war cries.56 While the Assiniboine and

Cree quarreled with the Blackfoot, they cultivated closer relations with Belknaps. As already demonstrated, this manifested in trade and living in close quarters. Lincoln reported in April 1882 at least one instance of a combined war party, when two A’aninin joined with a party of “British Indians” to raid horses from the Yanktonai at the Poplar River Agency.57

In the winter of 1881-82, the Cree raided Kainai horse stock from the vicinity of their original reserve near the Bow River. By mid-spring, the Kainai had had enough of it.

Meaning business, on May 29, 1882 more than 200 warriors arrived at Fort Walsh, many

55 Report of A.G. Irvine, February 1, 1882 in Opening up the West, 24. 56 Report of A.G. Irvine, February 1, 1882 in Opening up the West, 23-24. 57 W.L. Lincoln to B. Parton, Poplar River, April 17, 1882 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1). Although it is uncertain who these British Indians actually were, Lincoln usually named Bloods, Piegans, and Cree specifically, which leads me to believe they were in fact Assiniboine, as in other letters he seems to use British Indians and Assiniboine interchangeably.

armed with Winchester repeating rifles and well supplied with ammunition. Reporting to

Colonel A.G. Irvine of the NWMP, they complained that the Crees had recently stolen forty head of horses from them and “had been stealing all winter.” They intended to go in full force to Piapot’s camp at “the Lake” east of Fort Walsh to retrieve their stock. Convinced that violence would surely erupt, Irvine refused to allow this and instead offered the services of the NWMP to help recover the horses peacefully. This was agreed upon and six

Kainai were accompanied by one Inspector Norman to the Cree camp.58 According to J.H.

McIllree, the Acting Indian Agent at Fort Walsh, the Cree “behaved very foolishly” during the council. The Kainai made an attempt to make peace with an offer of tobacco but it was contemptuously thrown into the fire, while the Kainai envoys were generally taunted and insulted.59 Norman was only able to wrest three horses from the Crees’ grasp before departing. According to Irvine, the Kainai chiefs were disappointed when they returned but spoke well of the NWMP’s efforts. However, according to a Manitoba Free Press article, an observer present stated that the Kainai were furious and accused both Irvine and a Métis interpreter of helping the Cree hide their horses. One the Kainai party reportedly threatened the life of the latter.60

The latter version seems to hold more credence in light of what happened next. The

Kainai were in no way satisfied with what had transpired. According to White-Man-

Running-Around, a young Kainai warrior present, a council met after they had finished their palaver with Irvine and decided to attack a small encampment of eight or nine Cree lodges camped near Fort Walsh. Around half past midnight on May 31, the Kainai began

58 Report of A.G. Irvine, January 1, 1883 in Settlers and Rebels: Being the Official Report to Parliament of the Activities of the North West Mounted Police Force, 1882-1885, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1973), 11. 59 J.H. McIllree to E.C. Galt, Assistant Indian Commissioner, June 21, 1882 (Library and Archives Canada RG10-3604-2589:C10104). 60 “Rampant Redskins,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, September 4, 1882.

singing war songs. Soon afterwards, they charged the encampment, shooting volley after volley of gun fire. Expecting some kind of trouble, the NWMP had barricaded the inhabitants within the fort upon the Kainai’s arrival, except for a feebleminded and nearly blind Cree who had remained in his lodge. The Kainai vented their rancor on this unfortunate soul by shooting him seven to eight times, stabbing him three times, and taking his scalp. There is little doubt that a massacre would have resulted had the NWMP not gotten the Cree to safety. To further sate their anger, the Kainai took every horse they could find and looted the abandoned lodges before tearing them asunder. Afterwards, they fled back towards Fort Macleod.61 No Kainai was ever arrested for the events at Fort Walsh, which would foreshadow the seeming impotence of the police in matters of intertribal conflict later in the decade.

In the wake of this incident, according to McIllree, the Kainai openly declared war on the Cree and Métis of the Fort Walsh region. In June, there were rumors that another large body of Blackfoot were preparing to attack and he reported that the hills around the fort were “infested” with Kainai warriors waiting to “make short work” of any enemy that could be ambushed. In the middle of the month, McIllree had convinced nearly 500 Cree and Assiniboine to abandon the Fort Walsh area to take reserves near Qu’Appelle and

Battleford. As this large body headed north, it became stretched out, and when it approached the Red Deer River, Kainai warriors made a bold dash and made off with thirty-one horses.62 Several days later, Irvine assigned a “strong escort” of NWMP to

61 White-Man-Running-Round’s Statement to Annie McGowan (Glenbow M8764); “Rampant Redskins,” Manitoba Daily Free Press, September 4, 1882; Report of A.G. Irvine, January 1, 1883 in Settlers and Rebels, 10-11. 62 J.H. McIllree to E.C. Galt, Assistant Indian Commissioner, June 21, 1882 (LAC RG10-3604- 2589:C10104).

accompany Piapot to his new northern reserve due to the fact that there were still Kainai war parties prowling about Fort Walsh.63

Coinciding with raids in the Cypress Hills, the Kainai also began to target the Milk

River country. In August, observers in northern Montana speculated that raiding parties of the Kainai’s allies, the South Pikani, were racing eastwards to raid the A’aninin near the

Bear Paw Mountains.64 In late autumn, the Macleod Gazette somewhat gleefully reported that Star Child, a notorious Kainai youth acquitted in the 1879 murder of NWMP Constable

Marmaduke Graburn, along with two other warriors, was killed in a skirmish with Belknap

Indians. Although rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated, he was, in fact, severely injured while attempting to steal horses and passed the winter recuperating with relatives he had among the Crow.65 In the beginning of 1883, Blackfeet agent John Young reported to

Lincoln that three Kainai had passed by a camp of South Pikani in the Sweet Grass Hills with thirty-eight horses they believed belonged to the A’aninin.66 Despite Young’s assurances to the contrary, Guido Ilges of the 18th Infantry reported the South Pikani were regularly raiding the Belknaps as well, while their victims launched counter-raids. Ilges helped recover stock from both the Blackfeet and Belknap agencies, providing owners with military protection so that they could do so.67 Assistance had also been rendered for envoys to the Kainai, as Ilges rationed the A’aninin Iron Pipe and his son so they could travel to

Fort Macleod in an effort to recover forty-four stolen horses.68

63 Report of A.G. Irvine, January 1, 1883 in Settlers and Rebels, 4. 64 “War Parties Out,” The Daily Independent, August 20, 1882. 65 “Town Notes,” Macleod Gazette, December 4, 1882; “Town Notes,” Macleod Gazette March 14, 1883. 66 John Young to W.L. Lincoln, January 2, 1883 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-1). 67 Lieutenant Colonel Guido Ilges to W.L. Lincoln, February 8, 1883 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-1); Lieutenant Colonel Guido Ilges to John Young, February 11, 1883 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-1). 68 Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 53, April 23, 1883, Lieutenant-Colonel Guido Ilges, (MHS: MC46- 4-4).

These raids on Fort Belknap likely resulted from the actions of the Belknap Nakota or their northern Assiniboine and Cree kin. In July 1882, Helena’s Daily Independent blamed the Cypress Hills incident on “Milk River Assiniboine” rather than the Cree.69

Irvine had also stated that he believed it had been the work of American Indians as well, which pointed to the Belknaps or the Crows. It is uncertain whether Irvine told the Kainai his suspicions or if rumours reported by newspapers reached them (likely with the constant traffic between the South Pikani reservation and the Kainai reserve throughout the 1880s).

It is, however, certain that after these reports surfaced, the Kainai and their allies targeted the Belknaps in earnest. The possibility further exists that the Kainai, from years of experience in the Milk River country, were well aware of the fact that the Cree and

Assiniboine were closely attached to the Nakota, camping together and hunting with them.

They may not have even seen differences between an American Belknap Nakota and a

Canadian Assiniboine, since they spoke the same language and followed the same way of life. To the Kainai, they both would have been enemies worthy of retaliation, no matter which side of the boundary line they were on. However, if the Kainai did suspect that the

Belknap Nakota were stealing their horses, the example of Eagle Child proved them right.

In August 1883, the Macleod Gazette reported that the Kainai had been “set afoot.”

Red Crow personally had lost thirty horses, while others had lost stock as well. The path of the stolen ponies led directly to the Cypress Hills, so Cree or Métis were suspected.

However, what is significant is that on August 16, Lincoln wrote the command at Fort

Assiniboine that five northern Assiniboine had recently returned to the reservation with sixty horses in their possession. The leader, Eagle Child, was a son-in-law of Long Lodge, who as we have seen earlier, was once under Canadian treaty but had recently returned to

69 “Festive Redskins,” The Daily Independent, July 19, 1882.

Fort Belknap to join that agency’s rolls.70 Eagle Child, a Canadian Assiniboine, had raided in the vicinity of the Bow River, retreated towards the Cypress Hills, and then turned south to Fort Belknap. There, he distributed horses in the Nakota camp of Medicine Bear before fleeing to the camp of his uncle, Long Lodge, in order to avoid arrest at the hands of the

Belknap tribal police. It was likely not the first time and a similar occurrence may have occurred prior to the Kainai-Cree confrontation in 1882. The example of Eagle Child reveals that it is highly likely that it was Kainai and Pikani animosity towards the Cree and northern Assiniboine which drew them to the Fort Belknap reservation. Given the statements of Red Arrow and Red Crow at the beginning of this chapter, that the A’aninin were not considered intractable and hereditary enemies, lends credence to the interpretation that it was the actions of the Nakota or their northern kin which marked them for raids.

Still, the decision of the Kainai and Pikani to raid Belknap impacted the A’aninin profoundly. Whoever the intended targets were, it was their horses stolen. Raiders on the war path were often caught up in the thrill and danger of the raid. Getting in and out of enemy territory quickly was of utmost importance. The theft of A’aninin ponies created anger and an urge to retaliate in kind to restore lost honour. An easily discernible pattern of raiding and counter-raiding had begun. Although northern tribes had been instrumental in beginning the conflict, they would quickly be overshadowed and forgotten in a distinct

Kainai-Belknap war.

70 “Town Notes,” Macleod Gazette, August 14; W.L. Lincoln to Major of the 18th Infantry, Fort Assiniboine, August 16, 1883 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1); List of Orders of Issued to Destitute Indians at Fort Macleod for the Month Ending September 30, 1883 (LAC RG10-1550:C14840).

Chapter Three: Fort Belknap Besieged, Kainai-Belknap Intertribal Warfare, 1884-

1889

“Ever since the six Blood Indians (Kainai) were killed, presumably by Gros Ventres

(A’aninin), the friends of the former have been thirsting for revenge,” the Macleod Gazette reported in October 1886. “The Bloods are peculiar. Unlike some of their missionaries, when they are smitten on one cheek… they will (italics in original) hold a grudge and try to get even.” The newspaper had observed preparations for a large revenge raid in the works, with guns and ammunition being purchased from local traders in huge quantities. Hence, the Gazette was happy to report that the Kainai had recently received news that it was not the A’aninin who had killed their kinfolk at all, but “bold, bad cowboys,” for their slaughter of a ranchman’s steer on the open plains. Upon their return, a council was held with the result that a decision was made not go south that autumn. The newspaper then concluded,

“We presume that this settles the semi-annual Indian scare for 1886. It is about time for the eastern newspapers to commence working on the scare for next spring.”1

Whatever the narrow, and racist, views of territorial papers of the period towards

First Nations cultures, especially in their attribution of Kainai motivations to a “savage” thirst for blood, they did identify some elements correctly. By the mid-1880s, newspapers in southern Alberta had identified patterns in the Kainai seasonal cycle. Sometime in July, they always engaged in their “Sun Dance” and either in September or October, after the payment of annual treaty money, thousands of Kainai, Pikani, and Siksika turned to Fort

Macleod and Lethbridge to trade, to “spend their dust.” Spring brought foreboding. The

“breakout” season now beginning, warriors started horse raiding, an activity directed towards both intertribal foes and seemingly, their white neighbours, naturally drawing ire

1 “Not Going South,” Macleod Gazette, October 12, 1886.

of the latter. In the buffalo days, spring and summer had been the favorite seasons for

Blackfoot warfare2 but by the 1880s this had changed, as seen by the Gazette’s reference to a “semi-annual” scare. Instead of one, long continuous war season, it had been split into two; one beginning in April and continuing into June with the other occurring as early as late August but often in September or even later. This can be clearly seen in the written records of Indian agents and the North West Mounted Police as well as in newspapers.

There was little raiding once heavy snows fell and the cold prairie winter set in, although it was not unheard of during periods of sharp enmity.

Traditionally, the dispersal of the summer camp prior to the reserve era had been in preparation for an autumn buffalo hunt.3 However, with the buffalo gone, young men seemed to have designated fall as a second horse raiding season. The possibility also exists that without the buffalo, raiding had become entrenched as an important economic outlet because of the black market value for horses. At any rate, although specific seasons were either longer or shorter and thus made “the breakout” occur earlier or later depending on the year, throughout the 1880s a definite seasonal pattern can be seen. Without considering this seasonal pattern, raids carried out by the Kainai appear random and intermittent.

However, warfare between the Kainai and the Belknaps was continuous, yet circumscribed by seasons and the Kainai life cycle.

Although regional newspapers focused on sensational events, such as the murders at Dead Horse Coulee and the possibility of a large scale collision with the Belknaps, the warfare conducted between the two was done primarily by horse raid. After engaging in an intense period of raiding against the Belknaps in 1883, the South Pikani and Kainai divided

2 John C. Ewers, The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwest Plains, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), 128. 3 Ibid, 90.

their activities between them and the Crow in 1884. This was done in retaliation for the latter’s bold raiding and the murder of three young men in the opening months of that year.4 However, after Otter Robe, son of renowned A’aninin warrior and healer, Bull (or

Buffalo) Lodge, attempted to recover horses belonging to the Crows in September 1884 , the South Pikani more frequently raided in the Belknap vicinity.5 By December Lincoln reported that horse raiders had benefitted from the “very mild” weather and the fact that little snow had fallen. His charges were grumbling, “…most of the dissatisfaction…arises from the loss of horses and not being allowed to make reprisals.”6 The Kainai were evidently participating in these raids; across the border William Pocklington was writing the Canadian Indian Commissioner’s office to report that in that same month many young men were leaving the reserve on war parties. He wrote:

I have had a great amount of talking with the chiefs about their young men going off in war parties and done my best to keep them at home but some of them get away in spite of it all, though I have not heard of any stolen horses returning. I may state that Captain Cotton has done everything in his power to help me in this matter. We have both pointed out to the Indians the folly of stealing horses and the severe punishment that is likely to follow. The Chiefs have promised to keep them on their Reserve and at the present time I do not know of any party being away.7

The December reports of the two agents show important trends: the A’aninin and Nakota were becoming increasingly frustrated with repeated raids and Lincoln’s attempts to supress retaliation. They also paint a picture of Kainai, or more generally Blackfoot, aggression and

4 Department of Dakota, Roster of Troops No. 2, Notes: April 3, 1884, (Montana Historical Society: MC46-4- 6); Department of Dakota, Roster of Troops No. 3, Notes: September 2, 1884, (MHS: MC46-4-6); Department of Dakota, Roster of Troops No. 3, Notes: September 2, 1884, (MHS: MC46-4-6) Anthony R. McGinnis, Counting Coup and Cutting Horses: Intertribal Warfare on the Northern Plains, 1738-1889, (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 176-178. 5 R.A. Allen to W.L. Lincoln, September 9, 1884 (National Archives and Record Administration at Denver: RG75-8NS-075-96-439-1). W.L. Lincoln to Major Allen, September 14, 1884 (NARAD-RG75 8NS-075-96- 440-1). 6 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, January 4, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1). 7 William Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, January 6, 1885 (Library and Archives Canada RG10-1550:C14841).

Belknap victimization. Although Lincoln may have been doing his best to put his wards in the best possible light, there were, in fact, by far more reports about Kainai and Pikani raiding Belknap than vice versa. Of course, the Blackfoot tribes may have been more inclined to act on their own accord without informing their agents. In contrast, the Belknaps seemed to be more willing to turn to the American government for support against their enemies. As the previous chapter demonstrates, they had often depended on government support and protection in their battles against the Sioux.

The 1885 “breakout” came very early, although it is difficult to ascertain how much raiding was directed at the Belknaps. By early February, Kainai war parties had left the reserve despite efforts to keep them at home. According to the agent, friends of several young men had tried to convince members belonging to one of these parties not to leave.

However, one night they snuck off anyway.8 It was unclear where these parties were actually going although it does demonstrate the Kainai were lively that season. It was not until early May that definitive evidence appeared which implicated the South Pikani, and likely Kainai, raiders. Lincoln wrote to Colonel J.J. Coppinger stating that there were hostiles in the neighbourhood of the agency. He reported raids were being made almost every night. Six to fifteen horses were taken in each case for a total of nearly fifty. In one instance, a pair of raiders had struck two separate A’aninin camps which were trapping beaver on Cow Creek, stealing seven to eight horses. When the horses were found missing in the morning, both camps responded with a vigorous pursuit to recover the animals. “Of course, a fight ensued”, reported Lincoln, with the A’aninin opening fire on the fleeing raiders. One of the thieves was killed in the firefight while the other escaped. At first,

Lincoln suspected the dead man may have been Cree but he later identified him as a South

8 Pocklington to Captain J.H. McIllree, February 8, 1885 (LAC RG10-1552:C14841).

Pikani, which did not bode well for Belknap horse stock.9 It is not farfetched to believe that there were Kainai among in these raiding parties.10

The murder outraged the South Pikani and triggered an onslaught of raiding that would continue for two years. Two weeks later, Fred Kaiser, a rancher on the south side of the Bear Paw Mountains, reported to Coppinger several war parties heading towards the vicinity of Fort Belknap. The Fort Assiniboine commanding officer passed this information on to Lincoln, writing, “It is their avowed determination to avenge the death of the Piegan that was killed by the Gros Ventres not long since. These Piegan were in full war paint, were well mounted, and had about two hundred (200) rounds of ammunition each.” He warned

Lincoln that he should inform the Belknaps of this fact and be on guard against an attack.11

Lincoln received another letter from Fort Benton warning that the South Pikani were preparing for war, that their women had been seen in the town purchasing large amounts of ammunition. Lincoln requested mounted troops be dispatched to “give my Indians more courage and to send the Piegans and their allies back to their homes.”12

9 W.L. Lincoln to Colonel J.J. Coppinger, May 7, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1); W.L. Lincoln to Colonel J.J. Coppinger, May 10, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-437-1). 10 Combined Kainai and Pikani parties would have been a common occurrence in the early and mid-1880s. According to Calf Robe, a seventeen year old warrior in 1880, a raid directed against the Sioux was led by South Pikani Little Dog and made up of eight South Pikani and five Kainai raiders; Calf Robe’s Statement to Annie McGowan (Glenbow Museum: M8764). In May 1884, NWMP stationed at the Maple Creek detachment in present-day southern Saskatchewan followed the trail of a raiding party suspected in murdering a white settler named Pollock. Commissioner A.G. Irvine stated: “It is my opinion, and also that of Sergeant Fauquier and Paul Leveille, the guide, from the style of the moccasins found, other signs on the trail, and the general direction taken, that these parties were either Blood Indians, from the Belly River, near Fort Macleod, wishing to mislead any pursing parties as to their destination, or South Piegans, from the American agency on Badger Creek, Montana.” The party was either mixed or the Kainai and Pikani were totally indistinguishable in this instance; see Report of A.G. Irvine, 1884, 8-9 in Settlers and Rebels: Being the Official Reports to Parliament of the Activities of the North West Mounted Police 1882-1885, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1873). In October the same year, a party implicated in the shooting death of a Métis man during a horse raid at the forks of the Red Deer River seemed to have been made up of Canadian and American Pikani, and Kainai men; see Ibid, 11-12. 11 J.J. Coppinger to W.L. Lincoln, May 23, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2). 12 W.L. Lincoln to J.J. Coppinger, May 27, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1).

These allies spoken of were the Kainai, as the South Pikani sent them an invitation stating that they could “take money and [they] could get all ammunition and horses they wanted.” The Kainai were anxious during the 1885 Northwest Rebellion that the Cree would attack them. However, they seem to have completely forgotten about their old enemies upon the receipt of the South Pikani offer. Forty men immediately left the reserve and headed south. The efforts of Red Crow, Pocklington, and other band chiefs were ineffectual in preventing the exodus. 13 By the end of the month, several other parties had departed. Red

Crow pursued these young men but he was unable to compel them to return, which hinted at the lack of coercive power the head chief actually had to force them to acquiesce to his or the agent’s wishes.14

In Lincoln’s May monthly report, he stated that they were “being badly harassed by the Piegans,” who made “nightly raids” to steal horses.15 The Belknap tribes fought back fiercely, driving off some raiding parties completely and managing to wound them in some instances. However, their foes fought equally fiercely and in the course of one raid a Nakota man was shot and killed defending his stock. On the night of June 5, a raiding party managed to drive off a large herd of A’aninin horses. Seizing the opportunity, they also made off with the four horses of contractors breaking agency farm land and all of the horses belonging to freighters hauling flour for the Indian Department. This was the beginning of a two week period of “turmoil” which was punctuated by more nightly raids that were “right under the eyes almost of the residents of the villages.” The South Pikani and their allies also harassed ranchers in the area, killing sheep and cattle. In one instance, a rancher shot and

13 Telegram, Edward Dewdney to Commanding Officer, Fort Assiniboine, May 28, 1885 (NARAD RG75- 8NS-075-96-439-2). 14 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 31, 1885 (LAC RG10-1552:C14842) 15 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 5, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1).

killed one of the raiders in desperation, and Lincoln fully expected the man to be murdered in retaliation.16

The Kainai fulfilled their duty as allies to their South Pikani cousins. The Macleod

Gazette reported that in the middle of June raiding parties had brought back at least twenty- eight horses stolen from the A’aninin and white settlers along the Missouri and Marias

Rivers. The NWMP were notified and they in turn searched the reserve. With the help of some of the minor chiefs, twenty-five horses were recovered but the newspaper noted that this action was met with “determined opposition” from the young men. No one was arrested or punished because the thieves could not be identified.17 Pocklington further reported that other raiding parties had retuned but were empty handed.18 The difficulty in controlling young men from going to war or in recovering stolen horses indicated a developing schism between established older leaders within the Kainai community and the young men, a divide which would only widen.

In Lincoln’s monthly report for July, the Belknap agent indicated that there had been

“no horse stealing, no outrages, and that peace and quiet” had “largely prevailed;” this coincided with the celebration of the Ookaan on the Kainai reserve.19 The calm lasted until

November due to the fact that troops at Fort Assiniboine were in a satellite camp in the

Sweet Grass Hills, sending patrols along the boundary line and monitoring traffic north of the Blackfeet Agency. 20 This action seemed to have tempered raiding activities in the vicinity. Also, the Crows reappeared as a force by the end of September when they raided

16 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, July 5, 1885 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1). 17 “Indian War Parties,” Macleod Gazette, June 23, 1885; W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, July 4, 1885 (LAC RG10-1552:C14842). 18 Blood Agency Annual Report, August 8, 1885 (LAC RG10-1553:C14842). 19 W.L. Lincoln to Indian Commissioner’s Office, August 3, 1885 (NARAD RG 75 8NS-075-96-436-1). 20 C.S. Otis to Captain Edward Hunter, 1st Cavalry, October 14, 1885 (MHS: MC46-4); Captain Lloyd Wheaton, 20th Infantry to C.S. Otis, October 16, 1885 (MHS: MC46-1-10); Captain Edward Hunter to Post Adjutant Fort Assiniboine, October 19, 1885 (MHS: MC46-1-10).

the South Pikani twice in less than a month, which caused great excitement in their camps.21

By November, however, with the army back in garrison, the South Pikani and Kainai began to raid the Belknap tribes anew. First, the A’aninin had over fifty horses stolen from them after Blackfoot raiders struck a camp thirty miles east of the agency before fleeing towards the Sweet Grass Hills. These animals were sold to ranchers and freighters in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains and near the Blackfeet Agency.22 After an already busy year of raiding, the Blackfoot allies finished off the year with more raids in December. On the 2nd,

Lincoln reported that raiders, believed to be Pikani “or their allies the Bloods across the line,” had made off with thirty horses from a Nakota camp. Other raids took a “smattering” of horses and pushed the total for the month towards fifty. The Belknaps were firmly convinced that the Blackfoot allies were responsible. Lincoln wrote Indian Commissioner’s

Office, “…my Indians feel very sore and their complaints are long and loud. First, because of the depredations and second because I will not permit them to retaliate in kind but if these things continue, it is quite obvious that I will be unable to restrain them much longer.”23

By the end of the year, the NWMP and other Euro-American observers noted the horse stealing propensities of the Kainai and their South Pikani cousins. These were not directed solely at the Belknaps but also towards the Cree, Métis, and white settlers. Little

Dog, a lieutenant in the South Pikani Tribal Police reported to one Chouteau County Stock

Inspector Smith that the spoils from horse raids on Maple Creek were distributed in both of the Blackfoot agencies on either side of the border. Smith stated that their raiding had

21 C.S. Otis to Acting Assistant Adjutant General, District of Montana, Fort Shaw, M.T., September 23, 1885 (MHS: MC46-4); Captain Lloyd Wheaton, 20th Infantry to C.S. Otis, October 21, 1885 (MHS: MC46-1-10); Captain Edward Neale, 3rd Infantry to Captain Edward Hunter, 1st Cavalry, October 23, 1885 (MHS: MC46- 1-10). 22 John T. Bell and Son, Beyond the Great Divide, 338-341 (MHS: MF321); Fort Assiniboine Consolidated Morning Reports, January 26, 1886, (MHS: MC46:44). 23 W.L. Lincoln to the Indian Commissioner’s Office, December 7, 1885 (NARAD RG10-8NS-075-96-436- 1).

reached “gigantic proportions”, with an estimated 200 horses being stolen in autumn of 1885 alone.24 C.E. Denny, former Kainai agent and a special employee for the Indian Office in

Macleod in 1885, confirmed that there was a lot of stolen stock on the Kainai reserve but claimed most of it belonged to the A’aninin and Nakota rather than to Canadian and

American settlers as newspapers asserted. 25 Superintendent John Cotton, commanding the

NWMP at Fort Macleod, expressed concern that many young Kainai men had become

“professional horse thieves.” He further stated that the horse stealing was doing

“incalculable harm” on the reserve as it encouraged others to emulate their deeds. Evading arrest or resisting the police had become a sign of personal bravery, one that met with

“universal approbation.”26 Hence, horse raiding not only allowed for the acquisition of wealth and the building of a war record but became a further source of prestige if a young man tried to “stand off” the police when they attempted to recover stolen stock.

Kainai and South Pikani raiding continued into 1886 with little regard to the frigid cold of the winter season. In early January, raiders secured twenty-eight A’aninin ponies and raced back to the Blackfeet Agency, where Allen promptly confiscated them.27 Further successful raids occurred in February, March, and May which implicated both Blackfoot tribes and forced officers at Fort Assiniboine to send out patrols to the Sweet Grass Hills and around Fort Belknap.28 C.S. Otis, colonel of the 18th Infantry and new commander at Fort

24 “Mutual Protection,” Macleod Gazette, December 8, 1885. 25 Untitled Editorial, Macleod Gazette, January 5, 1886; C.E. Denny’s Letter to the Gazette, Macleod Gazette, January 19, 1886. 26 Report of A.G. Irvine, December 31, 1885 in Settlers and Rebels, 5-6. Anthony McGinnis has also made this connection between acts of defiance and recognition of personal bravery, but ascribes it to arising after the end of intertribal warfare; see McGinnis, Counting Coup and Cutting Horses, 193. 27 Colonel 3rd Infantry, Fort Shaw, Montana to R.A. Allen, Blackfeet Agency, February 22, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2). 28 W.L. Lincoln to C.S. Otis, February 15, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1); C.S. Otis to Acting Assistant Adjutant General, District of Montana, February 15, 1886 (MHS: MC46-4); “Gone!” Macleod Gazette, February 23, 1886; C.S. Otis to Acting Assistant Adjutant General, District of Montana, March 9, 1886 (MHS: MC46-4); , R.A. Allen to W.L. Lincoln, March 24, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2);

Assiniboine noted Belknap frustration and reported to the Department of Dakota that there were indications that the A’aninin, Nakota, and Cree intended to “invade with hostile intent the North West Canadian Territory.” 29 Lincoln and Otis tried to mitigate this hostility by encouraging the Belknaps to sue for peace with the Kainai. Otis ordered rations be provided to Otter Robe and eight other A’aninin travelling to the Kainai reserve for that purpose, which he considered “necessary both in the interest of the service and the ultimate quiet of this section of the country.”30

This mission met with very limited success. Upon arriving on May 30, the A’aninin were given assurances by Pocklington that all would be done to recover their stock; older men such as Red Crow worked very hard to do so. However, it soon became clear that the younger men did not share the conciliatory intentions of their chiefs. Two Kainai men, upon recognizing their enemies, drew rifles and threatened to shoot them. Pocklington had great difficulty in getting them to stand down, threatening immense trouble with the law if the peace party met with violence. There was little cooperation from the men who had actually stolen the horses, or seemingly from the community at large for that matter, as three days passed without any animals being produced whatsoever. At long last fifteen horses were finally rounded up, which must have been disappointing to the A’aninin considering that

Otter Robe alone had lost sixty-six horses the previous winter.31 The seizure of the horses

C.S. Otis to W.L. Lincoln, May 1, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-438); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 85, May 2, 1886, C.S. Otis (MHS: MC46-4-3); Fort Assiniboine Consolidated Daily Report, May 4, 1886, (MHS: MC46-45); Fort Assiniboine Consolidated Daily Report, May 8, 1886, (MHS: MC46-45); William Pocklington to NWMP Officer Commanding Maple Creek, May 8, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842); William Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 9, 1886, (LAC RG10-1554:C14842). 29 Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 86, May 3, 1886, C.S. Otis, (MHS: MC46-4-2); C.S. Otis to Headquarters, Department of Dakota, May 6, 1886 (MHS: MC46-4). 30 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 4, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 97, May 20, 1886, C.S. Otis (MHS: MC-4-3) 31 C.S Otis to W. Pocklington, October 8, 1886 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 11, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842).

infuriated the young men and in an act of defiance embarrassing to both Pocklington and

Red Crow, they broke into the latter’s personal corral during the night and stole the horses back. Red Crow gave the A’aninin ten of his own horses, not wanting them to leave empty- handed, and grimly escorted them beyond the reserve as a precaution for their safety.32

After the customary summer lull, raiders returned to Fort Belknap. In mid-August, mixed Kainai/South Pikani parties were observed going east on the Marias River towards the Belknap Agency, while the Macleod Gazette reported that the Kainai had run in a band of horses from Montana. 33 One of these raids succeeded in relieving Otter Robe of his favorite, and valuable, cream-colored horse. This was heaped on previous losses and infuriated him, which served to be a breaking point.34 Later that month, eight Belknaps camped near Fort Assiniboine stated to observers that “they were going to war against the

Bloods.” The next morning, they set off in a westerly direction. Otis sent out a patrol to bring them back, which caught up to them and ordered them back to their agency. They sullenly obeyed.35

Continuing raids led to an incident which gave the A’aninin and Nakota a measure of revenge but ultimately led the Kainai to dramatically intensify their raiding. On

September 1, a party of seven Kainai stole horses and colts in the vicinity of Fort

Assiniboine and Fort Belknap. After ascertaining that the ponies had not merely strayed, more than twenty A’aninin and Nakota, seemingly led by Otter Robe, set off in pursuit by following a trail to the base of the Sweet Grass Hills. Here they lost the trail but the party

32 Hugh A. Dempsey, Red Crow: Warrior Chief, (Saskatoon: Fifth House Ltd., 1995 c1980), 188-189. 33 “The Old Tricks,” Macleod Gazette, August 17, 1886; C.S. Otis to W.L. Lincoln, August 15, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 171, August 21, 1886, C.S. Otis, (MHS: MC46-4-3); C.S. Otis to W.L. Lincoln, August 22, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2). 34 C.S Otis to W. Pocklington, October 8, 1886 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192). 35 C.S. Otis to W.L. Lincoln, September 6, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2); E.S Otis to W. Pocklington, October 8, 1886 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192).

pressed on in a direction they believed the raiders would take. Soon they came across a second Kainai party, in Canadian territory, which was searching for lost horses belonging to an older man named Elk Horn. The two men leading the search, Hog Shirt and Small Guts, were the only ones armed; the rest were unarmed teens. Although there was some debate among contemporaries about who actually shot first, the massacre had the most important consequence for future relations between the Kainai and the Belknaps. The former, it would always be remembered, had been outnumbered, vastly outgunned, and slaughtered. Taking a measure of satisfaction, the Belknaps took the older men’s weapons and all six Kainai scalps, which they exhibited at Fort Assiniboine and then at the Belknap Agency during a victory dance (although it was unceremoniously broken up by Lincoln). The Kainai were left for the wolves and coyotes.36

When interviewed by Otis about the incident, Otter Robe expressed frustration with the continuing raids of the Kainai. Otter Robe told Otis:

The Gros Ventres being the friends of the whites and considering them their good friends, we resolved to have revenge on the Bloods for stealing our horses and breaking into the houses of white people. The stealing had been going on for 3 or 4 years and we could not stand it any longer.37

Lincoln told the Indian Commissioner’s Office that he had no defense for what the Belknaps had done but the incident was “in line with Indian acts from way back and largely brought about by the acts by these same Blood Indians that have been engaged in stealing horses and killing cattle on this side of the line.” Furthermore, certain parties at Fort Assiniboine had taunted the A’aninin and Nakota with accusations of cowardice and had encouraged them to

36 C.S. Otis to W.L. Lincoln, September 8, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2); C.S Otis to W. Pocklington, October 8, 1886 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192); John T. Bell, The Life of Ne-cot-ta: The Last of the Great Warrior Chiefs, 419-421 (MHS: M321); Gilbert E. Sanders to L.W. Herchmer, June 25, 1887 (Glenbow: M1093-56). 37 C.S Otis to W. Pocklington, October 8, 1886 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192).

strike back for months. In a culture valuing bravery, only retaliation could restore the honor of its men. At the same time that Lincoln excused the acts of his charges, he did not believe that they should be punished and wanted the matter be allowed to rest. He fully expected more horse raiding and “occasionally the killing of an Indian” but did not believe the Kainai would go beyond this. That is, the agent did not believe the Kainai would engage in a revenge raid.38

Lincoln was quite wrong. The Kainai had suspected since early September that something had happened to the small party. Shortly after, rumours surfaced that the A’aninin had killed their young men and they spread like wildfire throughout the reserve.

Immediately, “Rattlesnake” Calf Shirt, a minor chief elected in 1885, a noted warrior, and a traditional healer, began to make preparations for one hundred warriors to mobilize in a group, far, far larger than any mere horse raiding party, to go south to seek revenge against the Belknaps. Aside from having the prestige and war record to actually lead such an expedition, he was personally motivated by the fact that Small Guts was his brother and two of the teens were his nephews. Pocklington appealed to Calf Shirt for calm, asking him not to leave the reserve until it was completely ascertained what had actually happened. Being a moderate man, as he had participated in the recovery of stolen animals for the NWMP in the past, Calf Shirt agreed.39

38 W.L. Lincoln to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, October 11, 1886 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436- 1). 39 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, September 24, 1886 (LAC RG10-1552:C14842); Adolf Hungry Wolf, The Blood People, A Division of the Blackfoot Confederacy: An Illustrated Interpretation of the Old Ways, (Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside Ltd., 1977), 269-272; Dempsey, Red Crow, 203. “Rattlesnake” Calf Shirt is not to be confused with “Mad” Calf Shirt, a violent Kainai chief who was prone to hard drinking and was killed outside a whiskey trading post in the 1870s. The former Calf Shirt, the latter’s nephew, was known for carrying his source of medicine, a rattle snake, with him wherever he went. “Rattlesnake” Calf Shirt assisted the NWMP in the recovery of 20 to 30 horses in June, 1885; see W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, July 4, 1886 (LAC RG10-1552:C14842).

Calf Shirt found keeping this promise difficult. He was left alone to manage the young men around him because Red Crow had recently departed on an eastern Canadian tour with various Siksika and northern Pikani chiefs.40 The young men showed defiance in having their own council on September 30, 1886 to determine what course they should take.

Many were “extremely anxious to go at once and avenge the deaths of their comrades.”41

Although Calf Shirt worked to calm the young warriors, he was not always successful. Some returned to the traditional autumn pursuit against their enemies’ herds, with Pocklington reporting that, “I am keeping a sharp lookout for any war parties coming or going. There are always (italics mine) several parties of youngsters slipping away and returning sometimes with a few horses but often empty handed.”42 On the return of one of these parties, the

Kainai had heard a much different story on the fate of their men. This one stated that cowboys had killed them, which gave them pause. The young men held another meeting and decided that in light of this new development, they would not go south.43 It must be noted that even though the young men could be generally described as hotheads, they were not simply blood-thirsty, hate-mongering warriors. They rationally calculated their response to the loss of their kinfolk and when presented with evidence to the contrary, they stepped down from moving against the Belknaps.

In mid-October, however, Pocklington reported that the Kainai were once again agitated as they had heard no definite news. Not helping matters was that a Siksika party

40 In 1887, several Blackfoot chiefs were engaged in a tour to the east which was described by Douglas Leighton as a reward for loyalty during the 1885 Rebellion; Douglas Leighton, “A Victorian Servant at Work: Lawrence Vankoughnet and the Canadian Indian Department, 1874-1893” in In As Long as the Sun Shines and Water Flows: A Reader in Canadian Native Studies, ed. Ian A.L. Getty and Antoine S. Lussier, (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983), 106-108. Dempsey dedicates part of a chapter to the tour in Dempsey, Red Crow, 191-202. 41 P.R. Neale (Superintendent Commanding Macleod) to NWMP Commissioner’s Office, Regina, September 30, 1886 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192). 42 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, October 10, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842). 43 P.R. Neale to NWMP Commissioner’s Office, Regina, October 8, 1886 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192).

arrived from Blackfoot Crossing and encouraged them to take vengeance as one of the victims had been the teenage son of a Siksika chief. Calf Shirt stated his intention not to move until Red Crow returned, which he did by early November.44 Shockingly, Red Crow refused to intervene, stating that since they had made plans to go south without consulting him, “they must get out of any trouble they got into in their own way.” In late November, feeling pressured by the young men, Calf Shirt once again told Pocklington that he intended to lead a party to avenge the murdered men. Pocklington explained to him the “evil results” to follow should he do so (which he did not specify) and the minor chief vacillated, promising not to do anything before consulting the agent.45By then, the season had turned too frigid to conduct any large scale attack. Anthony McGinnis has stated that no attack ever came about because “the day of the large revenge parties was past”46 but as can be seen, the pro-war faction was keenly interested in doing so. It was confusion over who had actually done the deed, deliberate concealment of the truth to contain excitement (Pocklington had been informed by at least late October by Otis that the Belknaps had indeed committed the act),47 and Calf Shirt’s tireless efforts to hold the young men in some kind of check that prevented it, not that the revenge raid had fallen into disuse by 1886.

Big Wolf, an older man and a renowned Kainai warrior, visited Pocklington on

January 20, 1887, telling the agent that he had come across the bodies of the six Kainai near the Sweet Grass Hills on the Canadian side of the line. He was positively convinced that it was the A’aninin responsible and not Americans. The news spread quickly through the reserve, causing great excitement among the young warriors. Despite temperatures which

44 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, November 5, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842). 45 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, November 30, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842). 46 McGinnis, Counting Coups, 186. 47 C.S. Otis to W. Pocklington, October 8, 1886 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192).

were lower than -20 Celsius, before the month of January was over a raiding party had returned from the south with stolen horses.48 By mid-February Pocklington reported that the young Kainai were nigh uncontrollable and unresponsive to the authority of their chiefs.

Pocklington wrote:

I have discovered that two or three parties of from twelve to thirty young Bloods have decided to go down to Belknap, the Gros Ventres’ Indian Reserve, with the view of stealing as many of their horses as possible. These young men are acting independently of their chiefs and do not listen much to them. I have succeeded in stopping a party of twelve. The younger Indians are much excited over the finding of the bodies and I have found out that the Bloods, North Piegans, Blackfeet, and South Piegans have decided among themselves to start for the Gros Ventres Reserve so soon as the snow goes off to revenge the deaths of their comrades. I am informed the party will muster about 400 strong. Calf Shirt and other leading Indians will not move until they hear what the Government has done in the matter. At the same time, I do not think they will be able to keep the younger Indians back.49

With this grim assessment, Pocklington suggested that the military at Fort Assiniboine be informed of the circumstances. This was done so by the Indian Commissioner’s office in early March.50 It also caused a ripple of activity in consular channels between Britain (still responsible for Canada’s foreign affairs) and the United States, but no concrete plans were put in place to deal with the situation that spring.

Shortly after this warning, Edgar Dewdney, then Lieutenant-Governor of the North

West Territories, sent a telegram to Fort Assiniboine stating that four war parties, which amounted to fifty or so Kainai warriors, had left the reserve to head south.51 In response,

Major G.G. Huntt of the 20th Infantry ordered the entire “L” Troop of the 1st Cavalry

(numbering between fifty and sixty men) and two Belknap scouts serving at the post to

48 Severity of weather forced the post quartermaster at Fort Assiniboine to issue extra stove fuel and feed for horses to due to very cold weather over 20 days, see Fort Assiniboine Post Orders, February 2, 1887, Major G.G. Huntt, (MHS: MC46-4-3). January Monthly Report, Early February, 1887 (LAC RG10-1555:C14842). 49 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, February 16, 1887 (LAC RG10-1555:C14842). 50 L. Vankoughnet to John A. Macdonald, March 7, 1887 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192). 51 Telegram, E. Dewdney to L. Vankoughnet, March 14, 1887 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192).

“make a thorough scout of the country in the vicinity of Fort Belknap for Indians reported having started for that point from the Fort Macleod reservation.”52 Hence, the army moved directly to protect Fort Belknap life and property. Throughout the latter part of March and

April, Fort Assiniboine sent out patrols to search for the Kainai and end depredations (horse stealing and cattle killing) in areas they were implicated in. On March 25, Lieutenant S.C.

Robertson, 1st Cavalry, led twenty men from “H” Troop into the Sweet Grass Hills for ten days “for the purpose of discovering whether or not any British Indians are south of the line in that vicinity.”53 The rest of “H” Troop was sent to scout the area south east of Fort

Belknap near the Little Rockies while the entire “F” Troop was sent to the vicinity of the

Marias River. These patrols were under orders to capture any Kainai they came across, if possible.54 On April 7, twenty men from “L” Troop, having recently returned from patrolling the vicinity of Belknap, were immediately sent back out to the Sweet Grass Hills in search of Kainai raiders.55 In the beginning of May, Lieutenant and Adjutant Fayette W.

Roe of the 3rd Infantry at Fort Shaw ordered “continuous and not intermittent” patrolling north and west of Fort Assiniboine and north of Fort Belknap to prevent “foreign excursions” of the Kainai, as well as to prevent retaliation by the A’aninin and Nakota.56

The patrols seemed to have good effect. No revenge party materialized and only one raiding party succeeded in making off with Belknap stock.57

52 Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 38, March 20, 1887, Major G.G. Huntt, 20th Infantry (MHS: MC46-4-3). 53 Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 42, March 25, 1887, Major G.G. Huntt (MHS: MC46-4-3). 54 Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 49, April 4, 1887, Major G.G. Huntt (MHS:MC46-4-3); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 51, April 6, 1887, Major G.G. Huntt (MHS:MC46-4-3). 55 Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 52, April 7, 1887, Major G.G. Huntt (MHS: MC46-4-3). 56 Acting Lieutenant and Adjutant Fayette W. Roe, 3rd Infantry Fort Shaw to Officer Commanding Fort Assiniboine, May 1, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-438); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 72, May 7, 1887, Major D.D. Van Valzah, 21st Infantry (MHS:MC46-4-3); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 75, May 7, 1887, Major D.D. Van Valzah, 21st Infantry (MHS: MC46-4-3); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders, May 14, 1887, Major D.D. Van Valzah, 21st Infantry (MHS:MC46-4-3). 57 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, April 14, 1887 (LAC RG10-1555:C14842).

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While the A’aninin and Nakota were relatively secure, the same cannot be said for the stock of Euro-American and Euro-Canadian communities. Army patrols in one area seemed to have the effect of displacing horse raiding and cattle killing into adjacent areas of the country, as the Kainai seemed inclined to avoid the U.S. military.58 For example, when the 1st Cavalry was first sent to protect the vicinity of the Fort Belknap, there were immediate reports of cattle raiding in other areas of Montana, such as in the Sweet Grass

Hills and on the Marias River. In turn, more patrols were sent to these areas. It was later confirmed by NWMP reports that the Kainai were indeed committing thefts in these areas, as American horses were eventually found grazing with the reserve’s common horse herd.59

Eventually, the Kainai seemed to have been pushed out of Montana altogether and raided north of the boundary line from the Rocky Mountains to Maple Creek, especially around

Medicine Hat. In these cases, horses were stolen from several settlers and the Medicine Hat

Ranch Company. At the end of April, reports came in from the Cypress Hills that a party of fifteen to twenty Kainai had fired on a NWMP patrol, freighters had also been shot at and more horses had been stolen. Newspapers in Fort Macleod, Lethbridge, and Medicine Hat loudly complained. The Macleod Gazette stated, “Indian deviltry along the frontier seems

58 This inclination, John Ewers argued, was a consequence of the “Baker Massacre” in January 1870 when Colonel E.M. Baker was sent from Fort Shaw to punish South Pikani Mountain Chief’s band for the murder of settlers and to put a stop to horse stealing. Baker attacked the wrong camp and killed 173 South Pikani, captured 143 women and children, seized over 300 horses and destroyed lodges, food stores, and other personal property. Many of those captured were turned out into bitterly cold conditions, causing further deaths. In the wake of this encounter, many South Pikani crossed the International Boundary and camped with the Kainai for the rest of the winter and that spring. Ewers stated that although some wanted to seek blood revenge, the majority were impressed with the “terrific striking power” of the U.S. Army and avoided armed encounters with them from then on; see John C. Ewers, The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwest Plains, (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), 249-252. Skittishness concerning and a desire to avoid the U.S. military during horse raids can be seen in Last Gun’s Narrative in Hungry Wolf, The Blood People, 292, 297. 59 Annual Report of S.B. Steele, December 31, 1887 in Law and Order: Being the Official Reports to Parliament of the Activities of the North West Mounted Police, 1886-1887, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1974), 59; “British Redskins Crossing From Alberta to Montana,” Lethbridge News, April 13, 1887.

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more prevalent this spring than it has in some years. The GAZETTE is in receipt of complaints from a great many different sources of depredations committed by Indians and it is pretty generally concluded that the Bloods are the guilty ones.”60

It is difficult to ascertain how much of these depredations and general lawlessness can actually be attributed to the Kainai, but they certainly did their share. In April, the

NWMP recovered fourteen horses from the Kainai reserve. Further, NWMP Superintendent

P.R. Neale stated that “there are a good many branded horses on the reserve” from the

American side which had not been recovered, mainly because the police were not empowered to do so without positive identification from the owners of the animals.61 A portion of these horses in fact belonged to the Medicine Hat Ranch Company and were running with Kainai ponies on the reserve, as they were recovered by the police in the middle of April.62 The Kainai widely recognized that a large group of their men were in the

Cypress Hills when NWMP Sergeant Spicer’s patrol was shot at (though they did not take responsibility for the act) and two of the ringleaders, The Dog and Eagle Rib, were charged with the offence. When that charge “fell through”, they were convicted of stealing horses from Robert Watson, a settler near Medicine Hat, as they had openly ridden into camp singing a victory song and driving the stock before them.63 There is no question that the young Kainai men had been busy that season. The U.S. Army had protected Belknap lives and property but in consequence of not wanting to return home empty handed, the Kainai had directed their efforts towards their Euro-American and Canadian neighbours. For a

60 “Indian Depredations,” Macleod Gazette, May 3, 1887. 61 April Report of Superintendent P.R. Neale, May 1, 1887 (LAC RG10-3778-39063:C10136). 62 Annual Report of S.B. Steele, December 31, 1887 in Law and Order, 59; “In the Blood Camp: The Medicine Hat Ranche Co.’s Horses on the Blood Reserve,” Medicine Hat Times, May 7, 1887. 63 “The Indian Scare,” Macleod Gazette, May 10, 1887; Annual Report of P.R. Neale, November 30, 1887, Report of the Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police, 1887 in Law and Order, 47; Hayter Reed to L. Vankoughnet, June 2, 1887 (LAC RG10-3778:39063:C10136)

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month, a small portion of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan had experienced the ravages of “Indian Warfare,” albeit without bloodshed. Ironically, turmoil in the vicinity of Fort

Belknap on the American side of the border spurred the makings of a Wild West north of it, in Canada.

If young Kainai men had actually forgotten that their fight was with the Belknaps, they were dramatically reminded of the fact on the morning of May 23, 1887. At around nine o’clock AM, Red Crow discovered that a sizable portion of his and his family’s horse herd was gone, an estimated eighty head. Suspicions immediately fell on the Belknaps. The chief sent his son-in-law to follow the trail, which attracted a “large number” of Kainai warriors. Later that night, their suspicions were confirmed with news returning that the trail led towards Fort Assiniboine. Upon confirmation, the Kainai prepared to go en masse to

Fort Belknap.64 This activity ceased when a telegram arrived proclaiming that Lieutenant-

Governor Dewdney and Assistant Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed were going to be at

Fort Macleod on May 28.65 When Reed arrived he found them “highly incensed” at the raid and “had fully made up their minds to go south and retaliate.” Seeing an opportunity to prove government support in recovering Kainai property-the lack of which the Kainai often complained of- and to see peace made, Reed suggested that Pocklington and Red Crow accompany Inspector Gilbert Saunders to Fort Assiniboine. Sanders had already been instructed to recover NWMP horses which had been stolen by NWMP deserters.66

Meanwhile, Edwin C. Fields had become the new Indian Agent at Fort Belknap and faced this, his first crisis, carried out not by the A’aninin but four Nakota. They had left the

64 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 23, 1887 (LAC RG10-1556:14843); Telegram, L.W. Herchmer, NWMP Commissioner to F. White, NWMP Comptroller, May 23, 1887 (LAC RG10-3797- 33328:C10192). 65 “Lieutenant Governor Visit,” Macleod Gazette, May 31, 1887; Journal of Gilbert E. Sanders, May 28&29 (Glenbow: M1093-40). 66 J.D.C. Atkins to Edwin C. Fields, June 6, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-435-3).

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reservation on the evening of May 5 but were not discovered missing until sometime later.

The agency’s tribal police was unable to overtake them. Instructed to watch for their return, the police promptly arrested the party on the morning of the 27th, their stock seized. They were immediately turned over to three officers from the 1st Cavalry dispatched from Fort

Assiniboine with forty men with orders to seize stolen horses and arrest raiders. In his letter to the Indian Commissioner’s office, Fields asked for permission to treat them as leniently as possible, citing a long history of Kainai harassment. Fields sympathized with the Belknaps frustration: their enemies had stolen 270 horses in the “past few years” and they had not gotten one back. Furthermore, Field’s felt that the NWMP were not doing their duty, concluding that the horse raiding could be stopped if they simply made arrests and recovered stock.67 Although he regretted the retaliatory action, it was perfectly understandable in the circumstances; in the perceived absence of Canadian justice, the Belknaps had taken matters into their own hands.

Pocklington, Sanders, Red Crow, One Spot, Many Mules, and Running Sun departed on May 31. The latter two were relatives of the Kainai chief who had also lost horses in the recent raid. On June 8, the Canadian party arrived at Fort Belknap late in the afternoon, which reportedly pleased the majority of A’aninin and Nakota chiefs. Many horses had been stolen, along with their accompanying marks of wealth and status. The owners wanted them returned. This was made abundantly clear during speeches given during the talks, it being agreed beforehand that there would be no mention whatsoever of the Kainai killed at Dead

Horse Coulee. One of their number, Black Crow, began by bluntly demanding twenty-one horses back and nothing else. Others were more diplomatic. Jerry Running Fisher, the

67 Edwin C. Fields to Indian Commissioner’s Office, Letter, May 28, 1887 (NARAD 8NS-075-96-436-1); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders, May 27, 1887, Major Henry Carroll (MHS: MC 46-4-3).

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captain of the tribal police, assured his guests that he would prevent further horse raiding and would arrest those that did. However, he wished the return of Belknap horses, exclaiming: “When the Bloods steal our horses we want them back. There are some of our horses on the Blood Reserve. We want them back.” Lame Bull echoed these sentiments by stating, “There are a lot of our horses on the Blood Reserve. I would like to get them back. I will be glad when they are brought.” For his part, Otter Robe ended by bluntly demanding the return of all Belknap horses on the Kainai reserve and laying down a veiled threat if they were not, despite being called “a dog” and being told to keep quiet by Running Fisher.

Although many of the head men were concerned about their stock, peace was welcomed for other reasons. The Belknaps had been terrorized on their own reservation, with Lame Bull stating that they had been forced to constantly carry weapons in their own country to protect themselves. It had also caused a disruption of A’aninin and Nakota farming, as a number of them had been too afraid to work that spring for fear of Kainai aggression. After the conclusion of the speeches, a dance was held in Red Crow’s honor and numerous gifts (although the types are not mentioned) were given by the head men of the

Belknap tribes to their guests. The next day, Red Crow was feasted by Lame Bull and by late afternoon the Canadian party was on its way back to Fort Assiniboine to pick up the horses which had been recovered. After their release by military authorities, the Canadians returned to the Kainai reserve.68 Red Crow had successfully recovered his horses but whether a true peace had been concluded is very debateable.

68 Edwin C. Fields to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, June 7, 18887 (NARAD 8NS-075-96-436-1); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 23, 1887 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192);Gilbert E. Sanders to L.W. Herchmer, June 23, 1887 (Glenbow: M1093-56); Journal of Gilbert E. Sanders, May 25 to June 21, 1887 (Glenbow: M1093-40); L.W. Herchmer to F. White, July 8, 1887 (LAC RG10-3797- 33238:C10192).

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Hugh Dempsey and Anthony McGinnis have both argued this peace treaty was generally successful in preventing further conflict between the Kainai and Belknaps

(McGinnis more so than Dempsey). The meeting between them appeared harmonious to the agents and Sanders but the treaty was made by older men whose days of warfare were long behind them. The setting in which it was conducted was totally removed from the atmosphere of the Kainai reserve, in that there was limited support for having peace at all. In

March, Red Crow, finally realizing the gravity of the situation, had called the men of the tribe together to discuss a peace treaty; roughly half were for it and half against it. The half against it said “they do not care about doing it until they have killed some Gros Ventres.”

War parties had openly defied the chiefs of the anti-war faction. Red Crow resorted to personally chasing down and forcing two war parties to return but as the chaos during April and May demonstrates, far more got away than were held back.69 Red Crow had left the

Kainai reserve in a state of high tension and excitement caused by the theft of the head chief’s horses and preparations to go south as a body of warriors to retrieve them. Although

Red Crow had been personally successful in retrieving property and Calf Shirt may have later been mollified by a “covering of the dead” (as large amounts of presents were given to the Kainai, possibly for this purpose), the conflict had taken on a life of its own for the young men. On the Belknap side, and especially the Nakota, they did not trust their guests.

Several chiefs voiced the opinion that the Kainai had broken previous peace treaties and expressed hope that they would keep their word in this instance.70 It was made clear that the

A’aninin and Nakota expected horses to be returned and perhaps that was the true test of the

Kainai’s peaceful intentions. Considering the state of the exited state of the reserve before

69 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, April 3, 1887 (LAC RG10-1555:C14842). 70 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 23, 1887 (LAC RG10-3797- 33238:C10192).

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Red Crow’s departure and Belknap distrust of the Kainai, the treaty was inherently fragile at its inception.

A’aninin and Nakota faith in the treaty was shaken fairly quickly after the Kainai delegation departed. The next day, June 11, Fields issued a pass to four Nakota to be absent from the reservation for thirty days to visit the Kainai and Pikani north of the boundary line, which no doubt was an attempt to recover stolen stock.71 It would have been interesting to see how they would have been greeted by the young Kainai men but the visit never took place. When the group caught up to Pocklington at Fort Assiniboine they naturally wanted to travel with the Canadian party. However, Pocklington refused because it would have been impossible to feed them, which they may have been interpreted as rude and rather unfriendly. The Nakota decided to defer their visit to later in the season.72 That this trip never happened may have had something to do with the fact that a mere six days after the treaty had been concluded, horses were stolen from an A’aninin known as Rattlesnake Man.

The Kainai or South Pikani were immediately suspected.73

It turned out that an old hand at horse raiding, Star Child, was the culprit. He had left to visit Crow relatives before the Canadian party went south (although he definitely knew that Red Crow was contemplating a peace envoy); when he bid his hosts adieu, he relieved them of nearly one hundred horses. They pursued him to the Bear Paw Mountains and stole the horses back. Apparently not wanting to return home empty handed, he stole four horses in the vicinity of Fort Belknap and four more near Fort Assiniboine before striking north for

Canadian territory. When an American soldier confronted him at Buffalo Coulee

(immediately south east of the Sweet Grass Hills on Sage Creek), Star Child produced an

71 Edwin C. Fields to “Whom It May Concern,” June 11, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1). 72 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 23, 1887 (LAC RG10-3797:C10192). 73 E.C. Fields to Commanding Officer, Fort Assiniboine, June 16, 1887 (NARAD RG75 8NS-075-96-440).

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old pass which had given him permission to visit Fort Belknap the year before. Although the soldier let him go about his business, when he passed the east end of the aforementioned hills going north, another army officer spotted and reported his suspicious movements.

Wires were then sent from Fort Assiniboine to NWMP posts, which eventually found their way to Pocklington. When Star Child arrived on the Kainai reserve with the horses on the evening of June 22 he was arrested and imprisoned in the Fort Macleod guard house.

Pocklington then wrote to Fields stating that he should send a party to recover the horses. 74

However, they never did try to recover their stock. Fields complained the following year after yet another raid that not one stolen animal had ever been recovered from the Kainai.75

The treaty did seem to blunt the ferocity of the young Kainai, however, at least in ending all talk of a revenge raid. Summer was peaceful, as expected, with the autumn raiding season passing by without incident as well. This may have been because the Kainai were in good spirits, having had an excellent crop of potatoes and oats that season, one of the few instances of agricultural success in the 1880s. The 1885 and 1886 crops had been destroyed by hailstorms in the first case and by an intensely hot and dry summer in the second. In the latter case potatoes were reduced to “mere marbles.” The 1887 bumper crop filled Kainai root cellars with potatoes; they sold the excess, along with oats. Although few

Kainai were paid in cash, over $600 worth of trade goods went to various families.76 Such a

74 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner`s Office, June 29, 1887 (LAC RG10-1555:C14843); J.H. McIllree to E.C. Fields, June 29, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-438); Major Henry Carroll to E.C. Fields, (NARAD RG75- 8NS-075-96-439-2); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner`s Office, July 7, 1887 (LAC RG10-1555:C14843). 75 Edwin C. Fields to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 9, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1). 76 W. Pocklington’s Annual Report, July 1, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, September 5, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, October 10, 1886 (LAC RG10-1554:C14842); W. Pocklington’s Annual Report, August 6, 1888 (LAC RG10-1556:C14843); Inspector Alexander McGibbons’ Report on the Blood Agency, 1885-1886, September 23, 1886 (LAC RG10-3760-32025-8:C10134); Inspector Alexander McGibbons’ Report on the Blood Agency, 1887, Undated (LAC RG10-3783-40468-10-C10137); "Indian Produce," Macleod Gazette, August 31, 1886.

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bounty likely led to celebratory feasts throughout the reserve, like in the buffalo days where a successful hunt would lead to days of feasting and good spirits by the community at large.77 This may have contributed to the disregard of the A’aninin and Nakota that autumn.

However, it was more likely that the treaty just followed the normal course of similar agreements in the Plains Indian world. John Ewers has argued that although older men and chiefs often grew tired of “incessant warfare with neighbouring tribes,” negotiated treaties only provided “short breathers” because young men needed to acquire horses and war honours; in addition, chiefs had little coercive control over these young warriors.78 The negotiated peace in 1887 was likely of the same vein. The spring outbreak season came like clockwork as it had for each of the last six seasons. In a now very familiar story, the Kainai began the spring by raiding a Nakota camp on April 26. A counter-raid was immediately launched “in a spirit of retaliation.” Upon their return, stolen horses were turned over voluntarily to Fields and the perpetrators stated that “the raid was to show the Blood Indians that they too could go to war (steal horses) if that was the game of the Blood Indians.”79

This of course, spurred the Kainai to further action, in a raid which implicated Red Crow’s own son in May.80 However, unlike previous years, the animals taken in these recent raids

77 This feast or famine approach to food can be seen in Ewers, The Blackfeet, 73-74, 87. This type of feasting was still being indulged in in February1890 because Pocklington points out in a letter concerning Kainai complaints over insufficient rations that if they gave up this practice, food stores would likely last longer and there would be less need to depend on the Indian Department to supply them with food; see W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, February 6, 1890 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844). 78 John C. Ewers, Ethnological Report on the Blackfeet and Gros Ventre Tribe of Indians, (New York: Garland, 1974), 40-42, 174-175 and Ewers, The Blackfeet, 142-143, 232-233. 79 E.C. Fields to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 9, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1); 80 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 8, 1888 (LAC RG-1556:C14843); W.O. Baldwin to Edwin C. Fields, May 21, 1888 (NARAD RG-75-8NS-075-96-439-2.); Edwin C. Fields to C.S. Otis, May 20, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1); Annual Report of P.R. Neale, December 1, 1888, Report of the Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police, 1888, in Law and Order, 60-61; “Blood Boodlers,” Macleod Gazette, May 30, 1888; “Indian Thieves,” Lethbridge News, May 31, 1888; W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 10, 1888 (LAC RG10-1556:C14843); “The Last Raid,” Macleod Gazette, June 20, 1888; “From the Sweet Grass,” Lethbridge News June 21, 1888; C.S. Otis to E.C. Fields, June 25, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2)

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were returned. Both the army and the NWMP had a busy spring gathering up stolen ponies and meeting at border points, such as Kennedy’s Ranch on the Milk River, to transfer them so that they could be returned to their proper owners.81

Of course, come summer the Belknaps felt relief as it was Ookaan season but in late

September they were hit with yet another raid. Otis or Fields had no conclusive evidence of who had actually took the horses and it may have been a legitimate case of the raiders simply getting away clean. However, the A’aninin and Nakota were certain it was the

Kainai.82 Red Crow`s treaty had been a failure in preventing horse raids or healing the enmity between the parties involved. This was demonstrated in October when Crowfoot went to make another peace treaty at Fort Belknap. This ended in failure when a “drunken

Indian” assaulted Crowfoot, at this point aged and suffering from tuberculosis, by knocking him down, while others generally insulted him.83 The Belknaps were certainly sore by continued Kainai raiding and some of them were in no mood to entertain what they likely considered would only be another sham peace.

Winter passed by peacefully but by April, Kainai war parties were out once again ready to acquire horses and undertake gallant deeds. The year 1889 is known by the Kainai as the year of “The Last Real War Party,” when Calf Robe, Young Pine, Prairie Chicken Old

81 C.S. Otis to E.C. Fields, June 16, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439); Telegram, Edwin C. Fields to Officer Commanding Fort Assiniboine, May 16, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2); L.W. Herchmer to Colonel Otis, May 16, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 94, May 18, 1888, C.S. Otis (MHS:MC46-101); Annual Report of P.R. Neale, December 1, 1888 in Law and Order, 60-61; Edwin C. Fields to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, May 31, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS- 075-96-436-1); Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 111, June 5, 1888, C.S. Otis (MHS:MC46-101); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 10, 1888 (LAC RG10-1556:C14843); C.S. Otis to E.C. Fields, June 13, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-438). 82 E.C. Fields to C.S. Otis, September 20, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1); Edwin C. Fields to Indian Commissioner’s Office, July 21, 1888 (NARAD RG10-8NS-075-96-436-2); C.S. Otis to Edwin C. Fields, September 24, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-447-1). 83 “Gone to Make Peace,” Macleod Gazette, October 18, 1888; R.N. Wilson, The Robert Nathaniel Wilson Papers, Edited and Annotated by Philip H. Godsell, (Calgary: Glenbow Foundation, 1958), 373 (Glenbow M4421); A.E. Forget to E.C. Fields, June 11, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-438).

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Man, Crazy Crow, and Last Gun (a South Pikani) went off on an almost one month journey to the Crow Agency, near the Little Big Horn River, and made off with approximately 100 head of horses. However, at around the same time, another party of Kainai had left the reserve and crossed over into the United States, which was reported to Fields by the new

South Pikani Agent, W.O. Baldwin. He warned Fields that they would likely be heading towards Belknap and encouraged him to “notify all those around you to give them a warm reception.”84 Young Pine`s party drove off Crow horses on May 3, then struck out for the north.85 Two days later, the second party stole seventeen ponies and three colts from the vicinity of Fort Belknap and headed northwest. Upon confirming that the horses were indeed stolen and had not merely strayed, a pursuit party headed out towards the Bear Paw

Mountains.86 It appears that these raiders escaped back to the Kainai reserve unscathed, although they were pursued by the NWMP as they crossed the line. Young Pine’s party collided spectacularly with the pursuing Belknaps on May 8, 1889.

Young Pine and his party had stopped at an old cabin near Bear Paw Mountains to rest. After killing an antelope and sitting down to eat, they were suddenly charged by the

Belknap party, which may have included a number of Cree as well. The Kainai attempted to flee with their spoils but were quickly overtaken by the Belknaps, shooting and “doing their best” to kill the suspected raiders. Calf Robe, who spoke the A’aninin language, attempted to call a truce by pleading that they had not been anywhere near their reservation and had raided the Crows instead. Angered by the recent raid and in no mood to entertain what were surely Kainai lies, the Belknaps fired on him as he spoke. It was at this point the Kainai fired

84 W.O. Baldwin to E.C. Fields, May 1, 1889 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2). 85 S.B. Steele to NWMP L.W. Herchmer, May 21, 1889 (LAC RG10-3818-57798:C10143). 86 E.C. Fields to W.O. Baldwin, May 8, 1889 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1); C.S. Otis to E.C. Fields, May 9, 1889 (RG75 8NS-075-96-438).

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back and succeeded in killing one of them. Noticing that enemies were moving to encircle them, they began to flee again and came across a mounted Nakota on the trail ahead. After he too was shot, Young Pine, Prairie Chicken Old Man, and Last Gun ran forward to count coup. Prairie Chicken Old Man took the fallen man’s gun while Young Pine scalped him, giving a piece to Last Gun. In the end, fearing that cavalry from Fort Assiniboine was coming to join the fight, they finally abandoned their spoils altogether and rode hard for home. Arriving on the reserve mid-May, they were the guests of honour for a scalp dance in celebration of their war deeds.87

Of course, Young Pine’s war party was met with an uproar from Pocklington, who immediately investigated the matter, and the NWMP demanded that the culprits surrender.

This confused and annoyed the Kainai, who believed that they were in trouble for killing two American Indians across the line. The NWMP had shown little concern in arresting the perpetrators in the murders at Dead Horse Coulee, even though it taken place on Canadian

Territory. Certainly, the Belknap party was never punished by any law-enforcing body,

Canadian or American. Hence, Young Pine could not comprehend why Canadian authorities were so concerned with American Indians killed in American territory. Young Pine told

Pocklington:

The Gros Ventres killed six Bloods who had a pass, nothing was done to them. I thought you would be glad that we had killed them. They stole reserve horses and [we] gave you lots of chances to get them back. You know it is in our custom to take revenge. The Indians are all glad at our killing the Indians for the six killed by them…We killed them across the Line. The Americans paid no attention to our Indians who were killed. We depend on you to get us out of

87 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 17, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843); reference to Cree involvement: Telegram, C.S. Otis to E.C. Fields, May 10, 1889 (NARAD RG 5-8NS-075-96-439-2) and S.B. Steele to NWMP Commissioner, May 21, 1889 (LAC RG10-3818-57798:C10143); Hungry Wolf, The Blood People, 295-300. At first, the second raid seemed a rumour, but later Belknap ponies were indeed found on the Kainai reserve and returned; Telegram, C.S. Otis to Edwin C. Fields, June 23, 1889 (NARAD RG75 8NS-075-96-439, Box 2), Edwin C. Fields to C.S. Otis ,June 25, 1889 (NARAD RG75 8NS-075-96- 440, Box 1).

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this trouble. If we get clean of this the Bloods will be glad and the trouble ended.88

Regardless of the actions the NWMP took (which was to hold the Kainai who gave themselves up to be held in the Macleod guard house on charges of bringing stolen horses into Canada rather than murder), after hundreds of stolen horses and two murders the general consensus was that things were square with the Belknaps. Pocklington noted that his charges were calmer and the “general opinion around the Reserve is that the Bloods have now got even with the Gros Ventres.”89

While this may have been the belief of the Kainai, the Nakota did not feel the same way. Some of their young men moved to retaliate as early as June 12, when two Nakota left their reservation and made for the Belly River, where they stole thirty-five horses before returning state-side. These animals were immediately seized and Fields made arrangements to have the animals returned to Canadian authorities.90 For the “disposition on the part of a number of Indians to retaliate by raiding the Bloods,” the agent wanted the two raiders severely punished, perhaps by turning them over to civilian authorities.91 The practice of having them interred in the Fort Assiniboine guard house had not discouraged young men from horse raids. In the end, Otis, more sympathetic, convinced Fields to imprison them at the military base for work detail, as he felt it sufficient punishment in light of years of

Kainai provocation.92

However, by this time the Nakota were redoubling efforts to raid the Kainai. On July

30 Fields reported to Otis that he had discovered another raiding party of four had departed.

88 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 17, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843). 89 Ibid. 90 L.W. Herchmer to E.C. Fields, June 17, 1889 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2). 91 E.C. Fields to C.S. Otis, July 3, 1889 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1). 92 C.S. Otis to E.C. Fields, July 7, 1889 (NARAD RG75 8NS-075-96-438).

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Their capture of at least two animals did not earn the Kainai a lot of sympathy from NWMP

Superintendent R.B. Deane, who hoped that it would be “a salutary lesson for the Bloods, calculated to lessen their conceit and teach them not to invoke reprisals.”93 There would be no such luck in that happening. Despite being warned during a visit in early July by Hayter

Reed that raiding must be stopped on pain of being extradited to the United States for trial

(in which case hanging was implied as the likely result) in late October five Kainai returned with ponies stolen from the vicinity of the Little Rockies; only the Belknaps could have been the intended target.94 Red Crow immediately convinced them to give themselves up to the

NWMP, yet they were not convicted of the crime. Although Young Pine’s killing of what was believed to Belknap Indians had tremendously blunted enmity towards them in late spring, by the end of the summer the two consecutive raids launched by the Nakota had reinforced the Belknaps’ status as enemies.

While winter passed quietly as usual, there was no reason to believe that spring would be different than any other before it. Intertribal conflict between the Kainai and the

Belknaps seemed poised to continue on and on without end. Both sides had confirmed the other as enemies before winter had settled in. Surprisingly, however, renewed horse raiding never happened. There were no reports of aggressive cross-border activity whatsoever that spring and in fact, raiding of any kind was very sporadic thereafter. In southern Alberta, newspaper accounts of Kainai indiscretions turned to cattle killing, with no hint of the usual spring “breakout.” The Kainai-Belknap war was over; the final chapter explores how and why this unexpected state of affairs came about.

93 C.S. Otis to Edwin C. Fields, July 30, 1889 (RG75 8NS-075-96-438); Annual Report of R.B. Deane, December 1, 1889 in The New West, Being the Official Reports to Parliament of the Activities of the North West Mounted Police, 1888-1889, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1975), 42. 94 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, November 6, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843).

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Chapter Four: The Making of Peace and Denouement, 1887-1894

“Since spring work was completed, several Indians have applied for passes to visit friends in different parts of the district,” William Pocklington reported in May 1891. “Some for the Blackfoot Agency to assist at what they call the Seed Festival, a few have gone to the South Piegan Agency. Thunder Chief and Stolen Person with Yellow Bull and squaws and a boy have gone to visit the Gros Ventres, ostensibly for Stolen Person to see Otter

Robe whom he calls his son. They were granted fifteen days leave.”1

With this mentioning in agency records, the Kainai (Bloods) and Belknap tribes had evidently reconciled. Thunder Chief (also known as Day Chief) had been made head chief of the Lower Camp in early 1889. He was a temperate older man who had often helped with the recovery of stolen horses on the reserve. That May, he had taken fifteen other Kainai with him, including seven women and a boy. They were well received by the

A’aninin (Gros Ventres) and the new agent Archer O. Simmons (who took charge shortly after the second retaliatory raid of the Nakota (American Assiniboine) in late summer

1889), with the former inviting the Kainai chief to a “ghost dance,” which Simmons quashed as an event very quickly (as the revivalist dance had caused much anxiety for the

U.S. Government on Sioux reservations farther east, and had culminated in the Wounded

Knee massacre in January 1891).2 The presence of so many women and a child suggests that this was not the first friendly encounter. Subsequently, a pattern of conciliatory encounters and exchange between the Kainai and Belknaps emerge in the historical record.

Reciprocal visits by the Belknaps began at least as early as September 1891 when a “Gros

1 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 30, 1891 (Library and Archives Canada RG10- 1558:C14844). 2 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 17, 1889 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 25, 1889 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844); “The Sun Dance,” Macleod Gazette, July 23, 1891.

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Ventre boy” was noted as placing third in an “Indian Pony” race in Lethbridge during a three-day athletic event.3 Periodic visits continued, often in the summer, in which they exchanged gifts in the form of horses. J.W. Wilson, who became agent by November 1892 and had been a reserve farming instructor, reported that guests would often receive gifts from the hosts. In turn, this motivated the former to want the visits returned so they could reciprocate. Ironically, the friendly visits became so regular and persistent between the two agencies that Wilson tried to discourage the Belknap agents from granting passes to their charges. Wilson believed that such visits distracted the Kainai from their field work and encouraged them to perpetuate the Ookaan, or Sun Dance, which Wilson was trying hard to repress under his tenure as agent.4

Why did peace come about after 1889? Generally, little consideration has been given to the agency of the Kainai, in that justice had been served according to their expectations and standards. Hugh Dempsey suggested in Red Crow: Warrior Chief that after Young Pine’s party returned in 1889, peace “inevitably” followed; thus, with blood revenge sated and honour restored, peaceful relations could return. However, Dempsey is exceptional in this regard in that he acknowledges that on some level, the Kainai community of warriors made a conscious decision to stop raiding the Belknaps. However,

Dempsey also gives much credit to Red Crow for turning young raiders over to the North

West Mounted Police for punishment, therefore helping to end the cross-border, intertribal warfare.5 The efficacy of the NWMP is generally given a great deal of credit in bringing an end to undesirable behaviors, such as intertribal warfare, and curtailing the mobility of First

3 “Turf and Athletic Association,” Lethbridge News, September 16, 1891. 4 J.W. Wilson to W. McAunney, July 5, 1893 (National Archives and Records Administration at Denver RG75- 8NS-075-96-439-2). 5 Hugh A. Dempsey, Red Crow: Warrior Chief, 2nd Edition (Saskatoon, Fifth House Publishing, 1995, c1980), 212-213.

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Nation peoples by other historians. Anthony McGinnis has argued that the eradication of intertribal warfare in the United States can be attributed to the actions carried out by the

U.S. Army and the Indian Department. As for restraining the Kainai, McGinnis credits the

NWMP with making such raids unprofitable by seizing stolen stock and by arresting the individuals involved.6 In a similar vein, George F.G. Stanley made the case that the NWMP were generally successful in bringing law and order, and ultimately peace, to the Canadian

West by strenuously and unwaveringly applying the law to both native peoples and Euro-

Canadians alike.7 R.C. Macleod painted a picture of a west made peaceful by the

“benevolent despotism” of the NWMP. After 1885, Macleod argued that the plains tribes were no longer seen as a major threat to settlement and NWMP policy shifted from respect, persuasion, and cooperation to one of coercion. 8 This argument suggests great asymmetric power between the police and native peoples, including the Kainai, with the implication being that if the NWMP did not want them partaking of cross-border raids then they certainly had the power to prevent it. Indeed, Macleod believed that on the whole, incidents of horse stealing had been drastically reduced between 1885 and 1887 due to the implementation of the NWMP patrol system.9 In her study of the Blackfoot Confederacy in both Canada and the United States, Hana Samek argued that the NWMP “proved to be an

6 Anthony R. McGinnis, Counting Coup and Cutting Horses: Intertribal Warfare on the Northern Plains, 1738-1889, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 186-191. 7 Stanley generally believed that the police were responsible for gathering the plains tribes on their reservations, stopping Indian bloodshed, and “bringing justice to red and white men alike;” George F. G. Stanley, “Western Canada and the Frontier Thesis,” Canadian Historical Association, Historical Papers (1971), 111. 8 R.C. Macleod, The North West Mounted Police and Law Enforcement, 1873-1905, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 144-146. 9 Ibid, 43.

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effective organization” in supressing disorder, often at the expense of aboriginal notions of justice.10

It is the assertion of this chapter, that in the case of the cessation of hostilities between the Kainai and the Belknaps, that the efficacy of the NWMP has been greatly overstated. Generally, the NWMP failed to convince young men that they faced severe repercussions if they were caught participating in raiding activities. Furthermore, between the summer of 1889 and the spring of 1890, little had been done to curtail the movement of the Kainai. At the beginning of the 1890s, both the police and the Indian Department complained that the Kainai were as well armed and free roaming as ever. Had they wanted, the Kainai certainly could have continued their long running conflict with the Belknaps.

Indeed, the Nakota had given them reason to do so by their indulgence in summer raids in

1889. Hence, one must consider other factors as to why the Kainai decided to leave the

Belknaps in peace that spring, such as a radically altered physical environment in the vicinity of Fort Belknap, a crisis of basic subsistence on the reserve which motivated young men to stay close to home, and the fact that by 1890 certain Kainai men had provided alternative examples to follow to success, that a man could become wealthy from other activities aside from horse raiding.

The notion that Kainai offenders were dissuaded from raiding through NWMP arrest and punishment by the courts must be questioned in light of the evidence. McGinnis and Samek seemed to assume that the arrest of raiders automatically translated into a meaningful punishment or an effective deterrent. Examining the punishment meted out by the courts for horse stealing or bringing stolen property into Canada (the way in which the

10 Hana Samek, The Blackfoot Confederacy, 1880-1920: A Comparative Study of Canadian and U.S. Policy, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 165.

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NWMP was empowered to arrest and punish indigenous horse raiders for stealing horses in the United States beginning in 1880-81) demonstrates that this was simply not the case. It is safe to say that the NWMP did not succeed in instilling into young Kainai men the idea that cross-border horse raiding against other native peoples would be severely punished under the law. This is especially true at its peak in 1886 and afterwards (See Figures 2-4).

Compared to Cree, Assiniboine, Métis, or white suspects, the Kainai were handled with kid gloves. They were arrested far less often in the early and middle parts of the 1880s. When the NWMP did focus on arresting horse raiders in 1888, and especially 1889, they were convicted less often and in instances where they were arrested, they received far less severe punishment. The comparison to sentences handed out to Cree and Assiniboine raiders earlier in the decade is especially stark. To declare that they were simply raiding less often is a highly dubious assertion. In 1896, Prairie Chicken Old Man told J.W. Wilson that in the early 1880s young men returning with stolen ponies had become so much “an everyday occurrence” that “little attention was paid to these cases.”11 We have seen that in 1882 and

1883 that the Kainai were very active in taking both Cree and Belknap ponies. At the end of 1885, in the opinion of the NWMP Superintendent Cotton, many young men had become “professional horse thieves.” From early 1885 onwards, Lincoln and then Fields provided a litany of complaints of Kainai depredations in their correspondence.

Pocklington affirms through his own that there was a good amount of raiding being conducted into Montana. As seen in the previous chapter, Fields stated that the Kainai stole an estimated 270 horses from the A’aninin and Nakota from about 1883 to spring 1887.

Instances of Kainai horse raiding in Pocklington`s correspondence, Fort Belknap Agency records, Fort Assiniboine records, and written reports of the NWMP in great measure

11 J.W. Wilson to A.E. Forget, August 3, 1896 (LAC RG10-3958-141, 049).

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exceed in proportion the instances when individuals were brought to account by the judicial system. Statistically, a young Kainai man before 1888 was far less likely to be arrested.

After that, an arrested Kainai did not stand a great chance of seeing see the inside of a guard house for a significant period of time, much less a penitentiary.

A closer examination of individual cases further supports this contention. By the mid-1880s, the attitudes of young Kainai men had hardened against the NWMP. This stemmed back to an incident during the Ookaan in 1885 where a NWMP party from Stand

Off drove off twenty-five Kainai ponies, thought to be stolen property, while the community was engaged in the ceremonies. It turned out that the horses were the bona fide property of the Kainai and though they were later returned, it “naturally upset” the young men a great deal. A Kainai informant told Pocklington that the younger men had discussed amongst themselves that the next time the NWMP came to arrest any of them, they planned to resist.12 The tumultuous year of 1887 suggested that they followed through accordingly.

In April, Superintendent S.B. Steele sent NWMP parties to the Kainai reserve to retrieve stock belonging to American and Canadian settlers on three separate occasions. Each time stolen horses were cut loose from a free-range common reserve herd. No suspects were identified or arrested because the Kainai questioned on the matter “knew nothing” about the animals. Later that month, when a NWMP party attempted to recover horses, a Kainai in possession of stolen stock upped the ante by pulling out a knife and standing off the constables. A large number of others backed him and the police were forced to retreat to

Stand Off for reinforcements. An augmented force allowed for the recovery of the animals but incredulously the lone man who started the fuss was not arrested! Steele sent them back out again that evening to arrest the parties responsible but lookouts warned certain camps

12 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, November 29, 1885 (LAC RG10-1553:C14842).

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Figure 2: Comparison of Blackfoot, Cree/Assiniboine, and Non-Indians in Cases Involving Horse Stealing or Bringing Stolen Property into Canada, 1881-1889: Number of Individuals Arrested and Convicted 13

0 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 Blackfoot Arrested 12 2 3 2 5 3 4 9 16 Blackfoot Convicted 12 0 2 2 2 0 2 8 3 Cree/Assiniboine Arrested 6 12 15 15 19 1 0 1 1 Cree/Assiniboine Convicted 2 12 15 14 16 1 0 0 0 Non-Native Arrested 5 7 7 18 14 7 7 9 7 Non-Native Convicted 5 6 5 8 7 3 4 7 3

13 Out of 56 Blackfoot Individuals, 1 was Tsuu T'ina, 2 were Siksika, 2 were South Pikani, and 52 were Kainai. Non-Native refers to Euro-Canadian, Euro-American, or Métis individuals. All figures compiled from Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1881, in Opening Up the West: Being the Official Reports to Parliament of the Activities of the NWMP Force, 1874-1881, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Co., 1973) 15-17, 35-39; J.W. Wilson to A.E. Forget, August 3, 1896 (LAC RG10-3958-141,049); Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1882 in Settlers and Rebels: Being the Official Reports to Parliament of the Activities of the NWMP Force, 1882-1885,(Toronto: Coles Publishing Co., 1973), 35-45; Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1883, in Settlers and Rebels, 36-51; Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1884, in Settlers and Rebels,11-12, 42-65; Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1885 in Settlers and Rebels, 93-125; Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1886 in Law and Order: Being the Official Reports to Parliament of the Activities of the NWMP Force, 1886-1887, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Co., 1973), 115-145; Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1887 in Law and Order, 131-151; Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1888 in The New West: Being the Official Reports to Parliament of the Activities of the NWMP Force, 1888-1889, (Toronto: Coles Publishing Co., 1973), 60,184-206; Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1889 in The New West 43,66, 163-188; W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner's Office, November 6, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843); Pocklington to Indian Commissioner's Office, November 20, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843). There were in some years, cases where the fate of the accused could not be ascertained and were therefore left out. In 1881 8 Kainai offenders were given warnings in lieu of prison sentences as this was the year the NWMP began enforcing the new law of bringing stolen property into Canada. In 1888, 3 individuals were given warnings as well.

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Figure 3: Comparison of Blackfoot, Cree/Assiniboine, and Non-Indians in Cases Involving Horse Stealing or Bringing Stolen Property into Canada, 1881-1889: Total Prison Sentences by Year

45 40 35 30

25 Blackfoot 20 Cree/Assiniboine (years) 15 Non-Native 10 Total CombinedTotal Sentences 5 0 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889

Figure 4: Comparison of Blackfoot, Cree/Assiniboine, and Non-Indians in Cases Involving Horse Stealing or Bringing Stolen Property into Canada, 1881-1889: Average Prison Sentence by Year

4 Blackfoot 3 Cree/Assiniboine 2 Non-Native 1 Avergae Avergae Sentence (years) 0 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889

of the advancing police and the guilty were able to light out for the South Pikani reservation.14 In May, Inspector Gilbert Saunders spent the better part of the month attempting to make arrests in several camps where he believed horse thieves were domiciled but was unable to do so because of this early warning system.15

14 Annual Report of S.B. Steele, December 31, 1887 in Law and Order, 59. 15 Journal of Gilbert E. Sanders 1887, May 6-19, 1887 (Glenbow Museum: M1093-40).

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The case of Star Child and his June 1887 raid shortly after the conclusion of the

Kainai-Belknap peace treaty is instructive. Although he was arrested, he was not convicted because of insufficient evidence; his own confession being the only evidence which proved his guilt.16 Although laudable in wanting to maintain due process and legal standards of evidence in a frontier setting, the police’s inaction must have been confusing to the Kainai, who were not well versed in the intricacies of the British legal system. 17 It might have even served to discredit any pretense of police authority. Star Child had confessed and in a predominately oral culture, his words established to the Kainai community that he had committed the act.18 His subsequent release likely confirmed the understanding that horse raiding would not be punished, especially against the A’aninin and Nakota.

There was also grumbling from some segments of the Euro-Canadian population that believed the NWMP were unsuccessful in capturing and punishing Kainai who were committing depredations. In April, the Medicine Hat Times called for the election of a sheriff or the creation of a vigilante committee to “capture horse thieves and mete out justice in such doses that as will set a good example.” The Macleod Gazette echoed the

16 Annual Report of P.R. Neale, November 30, 1887 in Law and Order, 48. 17 Don McCaskill argued that this was a problem with First Nation peoples accused of crimes even into the 1970s. In 1974, Judge Ian Dubienski wrote on the subject of adjudicating cases in the North where native peoples had little exposure to the court system. He wrote, “The futility of some cases is striking. How do you judge an accused who truly doesn't know he has done wrong, who knows nothing of the rules of evidence, who is completely mystified by the court procedure.” This would have been even more confounding in 1887, where few Kainai spoke English and had little personal experience with NWMP courts; see Don McCaskill, “Native People and the Justice System” in In As Long as the Sun Shines and Water Flows: A Reader in Canadian Native Studies, ed. Ian A.L. Getty and Antoine S. Lussier, (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983), 291. 18 Winona Wheeler stated that in Cree culture, “Words had great power. They can heal, protect, and counsel. One is advised early in life to speak with care because they are manitokiwin–the act of speech is tantamount to doing something in a holy manner, making something sacred, making ceremony;” Winona Wheeler, “Cree Intellectual Traditions in History” in The West and Beyond: New Perspectives on an Imagined Region, ed. Alvin Finkel, Sarah Carter, and Peter Fortna, (Edmonton: Athabasca Press, 2010), 55.

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opinion that the NWMP did not deal with “Indian deviltry” severely enough.19 In fact, the only Kainai punished for the spate of raiding and lawlessness in 1887 were The Dog and

Big Rib, who as mentioned previously, were convicted of horse stealing when a charge of firing at a NWMP patrol proved unwinnable. A cursory glance at Figure 3 and 4 seems to set 1887 as a year in which the NWMP were finally getting tough on the Kainai, that is, when they could actually apprehend raiders. However, the case turned into a humiliating debacle and ultimately a setback to laying down the law. Although they were each given a five-year penitentiary term, on the way to Manitoba the pair made a daring escape at

Dunmore, Alberta and managed to thwart NWMP efforts to recapture them (often with community aid) until The Dog surrendered on his own accord in March 1890.20 This turn of events nullified the NWMP’s one triumph and they knew it. Superintendent P.R. Neale hoped that the arrest and conviction of Calf Shirt for possession of whiskey would be enough to balance the duo’s escape and quash the notion that young men could defy the police.21This was at best wishful thinking as at the end 1889, Superintendent R.B. Deane still lamented that the two fugitives were free. According to him, the Kainai needed to be taught that the law had “a very long arm which never grows weary” so that they would behave. However, The Dog and Big Rib’s continued evasion of the police flew in the face

19 “What is Needed,” Medicine Hat Times, April 16, 1887; “Indian Depredations,” Macleod Gazette, May 3, 1887. 20 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, March 14, 1890 (LAC RG10-1557:C14844). The story grows even more astounding when it is revealed that after all the effort and handwringing on the part of the NWMP to capture The Dog he was released from Stony Mountain a little more than a year later. After escaping from lawful custody and taunting the police to capture him for the better part of three years, his release seems counter-intuitive. Yet, in May 1891 he returned to the Kainai reserve in brand new clothes and mused to others that the penitentiary was not all that bad, in that he got enough to eat and was not worked too hard. This is was what was related in “Town Notes,” Macleod Gazette, May 21, 1891. 21 Annual Report of P.R. Neale, November 30, 1887 in Law and Order, 49.

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of this assertion.22 The year 1887 was not good for setting an example to the Kainai not to raid, cross-border or otherwise.

Similarly, 1888 and 1889 were years replete with examples of lenient and often baffling sentences, especially in light of the fact that both Neale and Steele stated that the

Kainai needed to be handled with a much “firmer hand” to control their “more restless” and

“less law abiding nature.”23 While the first horse raid on the Belknaps in the spring of 1888 went entirely unpunished, the second raid saw three of the suspects sentenced to three months in the Macleod guard house while their three compatriots were discharged with merely a warning, including Red Crow’s own son.24 In 1881 it may have been appropriate to issue warnings for such cross-border escapades (which they did because the charge of bringing stolen property in Canada had just been implemented that year) but by 1888 such a practice was without reason if NWMP truly believed that the Kainai needed to be dealt with more firmly. Annual reports of the NWMP Commissioners often expressed some trepidation when referring to the Blackfoot tribes due to the fact that they were numerous, well-armed and aggressive in the early 1880s. Thus the NWMP may have felt that they had to tread lightly in their dealings with the Kainai. At the beginning of 1888 there was still concern about riling them as NWMP Commissioner L.W. Herchmer acknowledged that settlers complained that the police did not show their “old firmness and dash” when dealing with “criminal Indians.” However, Herchmer cautioned that “rash action” on their part could prove catastrophic, possibly resulting in bloody conflict akin to what had taken place in parts of the American West. Unlike earlier in the decade, when the anger of indigenous peoples could only be directed at the police and traders, the Canadian West had become

22 Annual Report of R.B. Deane, December 1, 1889 in The New West, 42. 23 Annual Report of S.B. Steele, December 31, 1887 in Law and Order, 62. 24 Annual Report of P.R. Neale, December 1, 1888 in The New West, 60-61.

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more populated (and spread out) and a real possibility existed that the “murder and insult of settlers and their families” could result.25 Population had certainly increased in the southern

Alberta region since 1881. That year, a census was taken which revealed that a total of 580 people with European, American, Canadian, or Métis background lived in the entire Bow

River subdivision, which included Fort Calgary, Fort Macleod, and other settlements in the southern reaches of the territory. Only fifty-nine men were engaged in farming and ranching activities, slightly less than the total number of men employed by the NWMP.

However, in 1891, there were 4557 people in the Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, and Pincher

Creek districts alone. 26 There were extensive ranching activities surrounding the reserve as well some farming operations. West of the reserve at Pincher Creek alone, 465 men, women, and children cultivated some 1710 acres of land, while east at Kipp, close to 60 families worked 1842 acres.27 At the time of Herchmer`s writing, perhaps he had good reason to worry about not being adequately prepared to defend an expanding frontier. At

Fort Macleod and Lethbridge, the strength of the NWMP in three troops was slightly over

210 men, and these men had to spread their efforts between crime prevention in the expanding region, dealing with “Indian problems,” and carrying out the day-to-day logistical functioning of the force (farming operations, taking care of horses, gathering wood, administrative duties, cooking, etc.).28 Light sentences may have been a way to appease the Kainai community as to promote calm in a region where the police already had

25 Annual Report of the Commissioner, NWMP, 1887, December 31, 1887 in Law and Order, 9. 26 Census of Canada, 1881 and 1891; information garnered from the databases at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1881/001049-100.01-e.php and http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1891/001081-100.01-e.php. 27 S.B. Steele`s Census of the Macleod District, Sessional Paper 19 in Sessional Papers, First Session of the Seventh Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, Session 1891, Volume XXIV (Ottawa: Brown Chamberlin, Printer to the Queen's Most Royal Majesty, 1891), 74. 28 Appendix N: Distribution State of the Force, Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP, 1888 in The New West, 138-139; R.C. Macleod denoted the activities of the NWMP in Macleod, The Northwest Mounted Police, 22.

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enough work to do even without worrying about the spectre of widespread native dissatisfaction or revolt. A general policy of appeasing the Blackfoot tribes can also be seen in the Indian Department's actions of providing greater quantities of rations between 1884 and 1888. This was done to protect an emergent ranching industry from Kainai, Pikani, and

Siksika cattle rustling and to generally avoid “serious trouble” with the still well-armed and well-mounted Blackfoot tribes, particularly in the context of the Northwest Rebellion of

1885.29

In 1889, while Young Pine and some of the other raiders did spend over thirty days awaiting trial at the Macleod guard house, in the end they were released with a “good caution” because the victims did not lodge a formal complaint.30 Again, the NWMP commitment to the legal due process entitled to the Kainai was commendable but it is difficult to see how it in any way contributed to an understanding that cross-border horse raids would be punished, seeing that Young Pine had fully confessed to raiding Crow herds. Moreover, when Hayter Reed visited the Kainai in the wake of the late raid, thinking that Young Pine was a “capital man” and “a fine manly Indian”, he endeavored to convince him to take a position as a “special constable” (NWMP scout) for the Fort Macleod garrison, fully in the knowledge that he was the leader of the war party. Reminiscent of a fur trade bourgeois elevating a selected man to the position of chief, this could have only been interpreted by the man as the bestowal of immense social prestige, as Reed was a high-level government official, closer to the Queen than a mere Indian agent.31 Not only

29 Maureen K. Lux, Medicine That Walks: Disease, Medicine, and Canadian Plains Native People, 1880- 1940, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 38, 59, 65-67. 30 Annual Report of Superintendent S.B. Steele, November 30, 1889 in The New West, 66; Untitled Editorial, Macleod Gazette, May 30, 1889; “Town Notes,” Macleod Gazette, June 20, 1889. 31 Hayter Reed to Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, July 3, 1889. (LAC RG10-3818 -57798:C10143); This selection was referred to as “rigging”: the practice of selecting a chief by European traders with high

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was Young Pine not punished, but he was offered social recognition for his act of leading the “Last Real War Party.”

Finally, when the final raiding party came back to the Kainai reserve in November

1889, they were arrested almost immediately. However, no charges seem to have come out of it in the NWMP statistics of crime at all. Although Low Man, one of the raiders, was arrested, less than two weeks later he was on his way with his family to Montana to participate in the South Pikani annuities.32 Examining these instances of lenient punishment in 1887, 1888, and 1889, it is difficult to conclude that young Kainai men were ever of the understanding that cross- border horse raids would be punished. Thus, it cannot be seriously entertained as a factor in the total cessation of such warfare in 1890. Too few individuals were caught in 1886 and1887 while those caught in 1888 and 1889 were not convicted or too leniently punished. Harsher sentences involving penitentiary time were reserved for Kainai who stole from their Euro-Canadian neighbors or committed serious offenses, such as murder, stemming from horse raiding activities on Canadian soil.33

Complicating matters was the fact that a police stand-off in such circumstances seemed to have elevated a young man’s reputation for bravery, a possibility suggested in the case of Calf Robe in what the Kainai refer to as “The Time We Had a War with the Red

Coats.” As will be recalled, Calf Robe was a member of the “Last Real War Party”. When status gifts, usually uniforms and medals; Loretta Fowler, Shared Symbols, Contested Meanings: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 1778-1984, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 35. 32 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner's Office, November 6, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843);W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner's Office, November 20, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843) 33 For example, a Kainai named Rider was given a two year sentence for stealing a horse from a one T. Aspdin, described as a white man by the Gazette; “Criminal Court,” Macleod Gazette, December 12, 1885. Wolf Pawing and Man Eating were given two years for horse stealing but their true crime was that they were part of raiding party which killed an unnamed Métis near the Red Deer River. The motivation for the harsher sentence was to punish the two for murder since it could not be proven conclusively which member of the raiding party (not all of them were caught) had murdered the victim; see Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP Force, 1884 in Settlers and Rebels, 11-12. In 1889, the harshest penalty for horse raiding was six months with hard labor, given to The Flyer for stealing a white man’s horse; W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, August 8, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843).

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the Belknaps attacked, Calf Robe had stayed back to guard the horses and was not party to the subsequent killing and scalping of the enemy. According to the Last Gun, the young man regretted missing out on the glorious encounter and vowed that if enemies showed themselves once again, he intended to fight. This opportunity did not materialize, however.

In the aftermath of the incident, some of the suspects had given themselves up and were held in the Macleod guard house. Others, however, had maintained their liberty. Prairie

Chicken Old Man in particular stated that he would not surrender and boasted that the police could not catch him. At the same time, although Calf Robe had given himself up,

Steele freed him upon the understanding that he would return if a complainant appeared.

This course of action was prior to being informed that Calf Robe had stood off an arresting officer with a rifle days earlier. Hence, when he discovered the truth, Steele wanted the man arrested immediately. Weeks passed without success and when Sergeant Christopher

Hilliard discovered that the two were present on the reserve for the Ookaan, he decided that it was unlikely that he was going to get another opportunity to arrest the pair and moved to do so.34

The decision to do so sparked a “war” with the Mounties. The attempt degenerated very quickly into a brawl after Hilliard tried to seize Calf Robe in the sacred lodge, which in doing so upset pots and pans set out for the Ookaan offering. Infuriated by the sacrilege, the sergeant was shoved about and pushed down. A general melée ensued in which the police were “beat up pretty badly,” while Hilliard was slashed across the larynx. When Calf

Shirt, then a NWMP scout, tried to intervene to restore some semblance of order, a gun was shoved in his face and he was forced to retreat. The fracas seemed patterned on conflict

34 S.B Steele to L.W. Herchmer, July 9, 1889 (LAC RG10-3818-57798:C10143); Hungry Wolf, The Blood People, 300-301.

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with intertribal foes. Hilliard’s pistol was taken from him twice; once it was returned to him but the second time it could not be recovered.35 Pieces of the policemen`s clothing were torn off and taken as trophies during the confusion. The sudden onslaught of Kainai men described in police witness statement may have in fact been a rush to count coup. Although

Calf Robe later escaped on horseback, Last Gun remembered beforehand he participated fully in the brawl. Calf Robe’s motivation for doing so was that he “decided to make up for not fighting in the battle with us, so he fought the Mounties in the Medicine Lodge.”36

Other instances indicate that resisting arrest may have been a way of showing bravery. Big Rib, on the lam for nearly four months in 1887, strode into Stand-Off (where a police detachment was located) and nonchalantly chatted with ten or so friends while drinking beer (itself a provocation given it was illegal for him to do so) in full sight of everybody at the local trading post. Star Child, wanted on several different charges, and

The Dog both made an appearance at Fort Macleod for the “annual trading day” after treaty payments in October 1888.37 This perceived taunting of the police was quite akin to the former bravado of the buffalo days when some men would ride their horses close to their enemies before retreating as they dodged a hail of gunfire. Of course, the NWMP moved to arrest all three. Star Child was captured but The Dog and Big Rib were assisted in the same fashion as Calf Robe at the Ookaan, when agitated and fighting crowds allowed the fugitives to escape. As with raiding, these actions were at best feebly punished. According to Steele, upon examining cases in which the Kainai obstructed the police by force, no one had ever been tried for the offense. After the “War with the Red Coats,” Steele warned, “If

35 F. T. Wood to S.B Steele, July 7, 1889 (LAC RG10-3818-57798:C10143). 36 Hungry Wolf, The Blood People, 300-301. 37 Journal of Gilbert E. Sanders, September 11, 1887 (Glenbow: M1093-40); “Before Justice Macleod,” Macleod Gazette, October 11, 1887; “A Clever Arrest” and “Almost Caught The Dog,” Macleod Gazette, September 20, 1888.

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these Indians are not punished this time, it will be almost as well to give up trying to enforce the law in regard to them.”38 In the end, Calf Robe and others involved in assaulting Hilliard were found not guilty of obstructing the police. Judge J.F Macleod declared that the arrest itself was illegal as there was no proper warrant. Calf Robe was further acquitted of the charge of standing off an officer for the same reason.39 It is unlikely that the Kainai understood why they had been released. From the vantage point of the young men, the NWMP may have appeared weak and compromising, not only in instances of cross-border raiding but also those involving violent resistance. It is difficult to see how the NWMP contributed to the cessation of the Kainai-Belknap war when the segment of

Kainai society responsible for it did not respect the pretense of police authority and at times, violently defied it.

It would also be an error to assume that greater control over Kainai movement had a profound influence in affecting the end of the Kainai-Belknap war. Following the crack- down after the Riel Rebellion, and now in the wake of the 1887 depredations, Herchmer stated generally that all native peoples should be kept on their reserves. In an oblique reference to the pass system inaugurated supposedly as a strict policy after the Riel

Rebellion, the NWMP Commissioner voiced the opinion that in cases where a band or tribe could be implicated in horse stealing or cattle killing, all should be confined to reserve and only allowed off if in possession of a pass signed by the agent. Those caught without them or veering off in any direction other than that specified should be arrested as vagrants.

38 S.B Steele to L.W. Herchmer, July 9, 1889 (LAC RG10-3818-57798:C10143). Steele’s assessment that no Kainai had ever been tried for obstructing the police was not entirely correct, although he was correct that such incidents had not been severely punished. In the wake of the incident at Stand Off which allowed Big Rib to escape, police witnesses testified to having up to ten or eleven Kainai involved but only Eagle Rib was arrested. He was convicted and sentenced to three months in the guard house after Red Crow spoke well of him to Judge Macleod. The rest went free. See “Before Justice Macleod,” Macleod Gazette, October 11, 1887 and Report of the Commissioner of the NWMP, 1887 in Law and Order, 150. 39 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, August 8, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843).

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Herchmer recognized that up until that point, the Kainai had been given differential treatment when compared to that of the Cree, who he insisted were made to stay on their reserves and escorted back when they were caught roaming the countryside without passes.

He concluded by writing “…I fail to see why the Bloods should not be made to do so, particularly as they are perfectly aware of our action re: the weaker bands.”40

Herchmer’s assertions and assumptions were totally out of touch with the realities of the geography of the Kainai reserve and their perception of the treaty made with the

Dominion Government in 1877. Their reserve was possibly the largest one in Western

Canada and the camps were spread out in such a way that it necessitated the creation of a sub-agency to serve southern Kainai bands in the mid-1880s. It was an immense area of land for two to three thousand people and nearly contiguous with the reservation of their South

Pikani kin in Montana. Thus, it was extremely easy to slip away without drawing the notice of anybody. Pocklington admitted as much in 1889 when he wrote, “It is particularly impossible to keep posted to all the movements of the Indians no matter how diligent we are.” The Kainai were rationed twice a week and it was only when families did not appear at the ration house that it was noticed that they were missing; by then, where they had gone and when they were returning was a mystery.41 By end of the year, Pocklington was pressured by the Indian Commissioner’s office to keep the Kainai at home and was periodically hounded for his lack of success. In October 1891, he tersely concluded a letter by writing, “I get around as much as possible but I am not ubiquitous and man and beast cannot do

40 L.W. Herchmer to F. White, June 8, 1887 (LAC RG10-3797-33238:C10192). In Lost Harvests, Sarah Carter argued that a pass system was implemented in 1886 in the wake of the North West Rebellion in order to restrict the movement of native peoples. Although it was motivated by Cree activities during the uprising, it became general policy to apply to all tribes and bands in the Canadian West; Sarah Carter, Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990), 149-156. 41 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 22, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14743).

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impossibilities. These Indians are now scattered all over the Reserve, some at Whoop Up, some below there, some at Houk’s Crossing, some at the coal road, some in Lethbridge, Lars

Creek, MacLeod, Pincher Creek, Timber Limit, Blackfoot Crossing, S. Piegan Agency.”42

By Pocklington’s own admission, he was no closer to controlling Kainai movement in 1891 than he was in 1889; and this was nearly two years after the last horse raid upon the

Belknaps.

Even more pertinent than geography was that many Kainai were accustomed to moving about where and when they pleased into the early 1890s. They continued their trips to the South Pikani agency, traded and did odd jobs in surrounding towns and ranches, and participated in a variety of turf association events in the spring, summer, and fall. A recent study on Kainai participation within the southern Albertan economy by W. Keith Regular reveals that that they shopped frequently in Fort Macleod and Lethbridge, especially after annuity payments; sold farm produce, hay, and coal; and conducted freighting services during the period studied.43 The Kainai were well aware of the fact, or the NWMP suspected they were, that in strict terms of the law they were allowed to go where ever they pleased. In his annual report in 1888, Deane, then superintendent at Lethbridge, reported the following:

The Indians that have come this way from the Blood Reserve have, on the whole, behaved themselves well. Some few come to work, and work well…Others come to visit with all sorts of plausible pretexts to account for being off their reserve without a pass. Some do not think a pass is necessary at all…Some of them seem to be aware that in point of law they have as much

42 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 10, 1891 (LAC RG10-1558:C14744). Anglican missionary Samuel Trivett also complained about how spread out the Kainai were on the large reserve, as it cost him much time, energy, and horse feed just to visit the largest camps, traveling between 120-180 miles per week. See S. Trivett to the Bishop of Cyprian Saskatchewan and Calgary, September 25, 1889 (Glenbow: Church Missionary Society Microfilm Collection A115); S. Trivett to C.C. Fenn, March 22, 1890 (Glenbow: CMS Microfilm A116). 43 W. Keith Regular, Neighbours and Networks: The Blood Tribe in the Southern Alberta Economy, 1884- 1939, (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2009), 71-102, 132-138.

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right to roam about the country as white men, and that confinement to a reserve was not one of the provisions of their treaty. It thus behoves the police to be very careful in handling them, to avoid being compelled to take back water, in case of an Indian’s (sic) asserting his right to freedom of action, and maintaining it.44

Deane seemed to know that the system was largely irrelevant to the Blackfoot tribes and

NWMP crime statistics certainly do not show that any Kainai were ever arrested for vagrancy in the late 80s or early 90s, as Herchmer counseled.

In agency correspondence, Pocklington continually reminded the Indian Department that the Kainai were not compelled to stay upon their reserve. When he received a mild reprimand in 1889 that he was not watching the Kainai closely enough and allowing too many of them to wander about in the wake of the Young Pine incident, he replied back,

“The only comment necessary in this regard is that the Indians are not confined to their

Reserve by any law or regulation….That the Indians know that they have the right to come and go as they please…With over 3000 Indians on a Reserve of the area of the Blood

Reserve, having the right to go here and there as they please I was expected to be able to know where each individual Indian is at all times?”45 The next September, when the next big crime was cattle killing, not cross-bordering raiding, he was ordered to confine the Kainai to the reserve and not allow them to leave in order to hunt. Again, he doubted the legitimacy and wisdom of doing so, writing, “…in reply, I would inform you that to confine them to their Reserve would be taking away from them one of their rights under Treaty and am afraid it would lead to serious trouble.” Furthermore, Pocklington believed that to do so

“would require the full strength of the Police force” to enforce compliance.46

44 Annual Report of R.B. Deane, 1888, November 30, 1888 in The New West, 68. 45 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, December 10, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843). 46 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, September 4, 1890 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844).

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Although designed to be repressive, the pass system was essentially a paper tiger when applied to the Kainai. The NWMP and Pocklington hesitated in enforcing it while the

Kainai were ready to openly defy as it suited them. That is not to say that it was completely disregarded, as the Kainai did ask for passes. However, if refused, they would not allow that fact to restrict their activities. In 1891, when Pocklington tried harder to be in compliance with Department instructions he reported that although passes were refused to hunters wanting to go to the Milk River country, some of them had left anyway.47 In November,

1892, a “large number” of Kainai visited the South Pikani in order to receive gifts of blankets and clothing as part of the American annuity payments. J.W. Wilson reported that none of them had passes and therefore their ration tickets had been taken in, which was often the only, and mostly ineffective, recourse to induce the Kainai to return to the reserve.48

Wilson resorted to harsher methods to stop Kainai wanderings in 1893 and 1894, such as making agreements with American Indian agents not to ration visitors without a pass. When this did not achieve the desired result, he made arrangements with other agents to imprison those without passes for a short period of time, and then expel them.49 In late 1894, the

Canadian Indian Department was still having problems keeping Kainai movements under control. At the beginning of 1890, it can be seen that the Kainai were determined to come and go as they pleased, for whatever reason they deemed fit, and therefore the enforcement of the pass system cannot be considered a factor in the cessation of hostilities between them and the Belknap tribes.

47 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, October 30, 1891 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844). 48 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, November 14, 1892 (LAC RG10-1559:C14844). Pocklington asserted that taking in ration tickets was ineffective because most Kainai were able to find adequate food supplies when away from the reserve; see Pocklington’s Annual Report, 1884-1885, August 8, 1885 (LAC RG10-1553:C14842). 49 J.W. Wilson to Indian Commissioner’s Office, January 11, 1893 (LAC RG10-1559:C14844); J.W. Wilson to Captain Robe, Fort Belknap, November 16, 1894 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2); A.E. Forget to Indian Agent, Fort Belknap, April 21, 1894 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2).

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However, in 1888 and 1889, the NWMP did embark upon a course which may have had a profound effect in discouraging horse raiding, in that they actually took away the economic spoils upon the raiders’ triumphant return. Taking horses away was not a new tactic, however; the NWMP had returned horses taken from the Kainai to their white owners since 1881. What changed in 1888 is that for the first time, they returned horses which belonged to other American Indians such as the A’aninin and Nakota. The NWMP followed a rather stringent process in the recovery of stolen stock, which frustrated settlers and ranchers. Superintendent P.R. Neale explained in May 1887:

There are a good many branded horses on the Blood Reserve which have been brought in from the South and the cattle men on this side are complaining because I do not take their horses from the Indians and hold them at the post until claimed. I have told them there is no law empowering me to do so and tell them that I am at all times ready to obtain horses from the Indians when the owner or his accredited agent can identify his stock. A few days ago three of the minor chiefs of the Bloods drove up a band of branded ponies to the detachment at Stand Off and asked the corporal in charge if he could tell who they belonged to as they did not wish to keep them on the reserve. The Corporal took a description of the brands and told the Indians if he could find the owners he would let them know, instructing them in the meantime to herd the ponies with their own.50

Horses could not be confiscated out of hand on sight; there had to be definitive proof of ownership. Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney was of the opinion that in the case of branded horses on the reserve, the NWMP had no right to touch them unless the owners were known and were subsequently identified (commonly with a registered brand). High- level NWMP officials disagreed with Dewdney and believed it just encouraged further thefts.51 Yet that was the law of the land, which caused difficulties for the A’aninin and

50 April Monthly Report of P.R. Neale, May 1, 1887 (LAC RG10-3778-39063-10136). 51 L.W. Herchmer to Frederick White, June 8, 1887 (LAC RG10:3797:33238:C10192). Warren Elofson argued that one of the difficulties the NWMP had in combatting the crime of stolen livestock was that animals not belonging to a stock association were not clearly marked with a brand. The police argued for a more

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Nakota as they rarely tried to recover horses in person and through an agent it would have been impossible as they had no tribal brand until at least the summer of 1887. 52 However, once the ponies were branded, soldiers at Fort Assiniboine were able to retrieve horses from the NWMP on a number of occasions via telegram and border exchanges in 1888 and 1889.

Still, the NWMP had taken horses on the behalf of white men since 1881 and it had not discouraged the Kainai from raiding activities. Applying such a tactic to A’aninin and

Nakota property did not necessarily present an overwhelming obstacle for the raiders. They had proven remarkably adaptable in order to continue such activities in spite of NWMP efforts. In the 1890s, Red Arrow told R.N. Wilson that there had been a time when war parties left during day and it was only in early reservation era that they took to night departures as to avoid the notice of the agent and the police.53 Last Gun stated that young men tried to limit the size of war parties in the late 1880s for the same reason.54 The development of the “early warning system” described earlier seemed to be the direct consequence of The Dog and Big Rib being captured in post-midnight arrest raid. The

Kainai learned quickly from the actions of the NWMP and adjusted to keep raiding viable; confiscating the spoils should not have been a deal breaker. However, it may have

universal brand registry from the 1880s as they were convinced that few men could actually positively identify property without such a brand. This was not done until 1898; Warren M. Elofson, Cowboys, Gentleman, and Cattle Thieves: Ranching on the Western Frontier, (Montreal: McGill and Queen’s University Press, 2000), 129-131). Until a universal registry was introduced in 1898, brands were usually advertised in newspapers for a small fee. 52 When Star Child stole horses in June 1887, only one ten-year horse had a brand while a 5-6 year old horse merely had a description with no band, suggesting that the older animal was branded by its previous owner; see E.C. Fields to L.W. Herchmer, June 16, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440). The following May, Fields sent descriptions and brands to both C.S. Otis at Fort Assiniboine (E.C. Fields to C.S. Otis, May 20, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-440-1) and Lewiston Sheriff John Beck (John W. Beck to E.C. Fields, June 18, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-439-2), which indicates that a tribal brand was implemented sometime between the summer of 1887 and the spring of 1888. 53 R.N. Wilson, The Robert Nathaniel Wilson Papers, edited and annotated by Philip H. Godsell, (Calgary: Glenbow Foundation, 1958), 124 (Glenbow: M4421) 54 Hungry Wolf, The Blood People, 289.

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compounded other factors which had begun to make horse raiding in northern Montana less attractive in 1890.

One of these events was that the geography surrounding Fort Belknap changed very dramatically towards the end of the 1880s within the course of one or two years. In the middle of the decade, the officers at Fort Assiniboine called the land west of the military outpost the “Lonesome Prairie.”55 Part of the explanation was that the land was largely empty as it was considered part of the immense Blackfeet Reservation and part of the duty of the garrison was to keep Euro-Americans out, although encroachments did occur.

However, in the early part of the decade Kainai warriors had an unimpeded path to raid their enemies. By the end of 1889, this was no longer the case. Seeming to coincide with the

Dawes Act of 1887, meant to break tribal bonds and open up more land for settlement by allotting land individually to tribal members upon reservations, but having more to do with continuing pressure of land-hungry settlers and ranchers on territorial representatives to free up more land under indigenous control, the region around Fort Assiniboine and the old

Belknap Agency soon filled with settlers, miners, and ranchers56.

In 1887, Fields expressed hope that a recent agreement reducing the size of the

Blackfeet Reservation would be quickly ratified so that “acres of valuable land that is now laying idle” would be thrown open for settlement to “agriculturalists, stockmen, and other citizens.”57 While Fields waited for ratification, in early 1887 the U.S. Congress granted

James J. Hill, builder and owner of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway, an

55 On a large canvas map of the surrounding environs made by 2nd Lieutenant R.G. Hill, 20th Infantry, in the late 1880s, a large swath of prairie between bordered by the Blackfeet Reservation to the west and the Sweet Grass Hills to the north on the approach to Fort Assiniboine is labelled the “Lonesome Prairie”; Post Map: Fort Assiniboine, Montana (Montana Historical Society: A57). 56 Michael P. Malone, Richard B. Roeder, and William L. Lang, Montana: A History of Two Centuries, Revised Edition, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), 143-144; Samek, The Blackfoot Confederacy, 106-109. 57 Annual Report of the Fort Belknap Agency, 1887, August 16, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1).

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easement through reservation land (which the Belknaps had no say in) in order to allow him to continue to build the more westerly part of his Great Northern Railroad. A Canadian by birth, Hill wanted to take advantage of the mining boom in central Montana in the early

1880s through his railroad empire, which also included the Montana Central coming northward from Butte. By April 1887, Hill`s large construction gangs (more than 8,000 men) began building through the reservation; by August crews were north of Fort Belknap and by October the Montana Central and the Manitoba Railroad had linked up.58 Already bordering lands on the north and the west with railroads, in May 1888 Congress ratified the treaty which drastically reduced the size the Blackfeet Reservation and shifted the Fort

Belknap Agency east, between the middle channel of the Milk River and the southern extremity of the Little Rocky Mountains.

When Fields took over the Agency in 1887, the A’aninin and Nakota were residing in cabins and tipis approximately fourteen miles east and west of the agency on the Milk

River.59 After the completion of the railroad, squatters started laying claim to lands surrounding Fort Assiniboine along Sandy and Beaver Creek, which were west of the agency, as well as along the Milk River west of the Belknap tribes’ camps and agricultural plots.60 In June 1888, Fields complained that the Indian Department had not moved fast enough to rebuild a new agency and he was at a loss of what to do. Incoming immigrants had squeezed his employees and the Belknaps out of their traditional hay grounds.61 By

March of 1889, “hundreds of settlers” had “taken homesteads on the ceded lands and towns” had “sprung up along the line of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railroad.”

58 Malone et all, Montana, 178-181; E.C. Fields to Indian Commissioner`s Office, Undated September, 1887 (NARAD RG-75-8NS-075-96-436). 59 Annual Report of the Fort Belknap Agency, 1887, August 16, 1887 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1). 60 Fort Assiniboine Post Orders No. 80, May 2, 1888, C.S. Otis, (Montana Historical Society: MC46-101) 61 E.C. Fields to Indian Commissioner’s Office, June 22, 1888 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-1).

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Entrepreneurs had set up five establishments which were selling goods to settlers and to the

Belknaps.62 By late May, settlers were on Clear Creek, just west of the Old Agency, demanding that the Belknaps be moved to their proper reservation (as they were working their old fields while a new agency was being built farther east on the Milk River), as the original inhabitants “were a great annoyance to them.”63 In short, Euro-American settlers and ranchers quickly flooded into the newly opened lands, which the coming of the railroad had allowed. The land was now dotted with homesteads and fences, very much unlike the

Lonesome Prairie of the early 1880s.

If the immigrants had little patience for the more agricultural and friendly A’aninin and Nakota, they had even less for the Kainai with their reputation for horse stealing, cattle- killing, house breaking, and sometimes murder. At the same time, the Kainai were increasingly wary of making trouble with American settlers with their clearly stated dislike for and often violent reprisals towards indigenous plains peoples. In addition, train tracks and fences cut up the land, impeding the coming and goings of raiding parties.64 By 1890, the A’aninin and Nakota had moved further east to new villages and farm fields while being screened by an ever-increasing circle of American homesteaders to the west and north. It is entirely possible that one of the factors ending Kainai raids on the Belknaps was the fact that

62 E.C. Fields to Indian Commissioner’s Office, March 19, 1889 (NARAD RG75-8NS-075-96-436-2). 63 E.C. Fields to Indian Commissioner’s Office, April 4, 1889 (NARAD RG-75-8NS-075-96-436-2); E.C. Fields to Indian Commissioner’s Office, May 20, 1889 (NARAD RG-75-8NS-075-96-436-2). 64 During the journey of Young Pine’s party, Last Gun knew the danger of violence which came from wandering through semi-settled country. Last Gun stole a horse belonging to a former whiskey trader in revenge for the murder of his stepmother several years before. His compatriots grew angry with him for taking the horse and stated that it would bring the army down on them. When they began to get close to Crow territory, Calf Robe told Last Gun he was crazy for wanting to steal horses so close to white settlers, likely because violence would have occurred. When Last Gun robbed a shanty of its canned goods, he stated that he was worried that he would run into the owner while on his property, likely because it would have led to violence. After their encounter with the Belknaps, the party travelled only at night so they would not be seen by “scouts or ranchers”. Images of potential violence with American settlers abound in Last Gun’s account; see Hungry Wolf, The Blood People, 291-293, 299. Trains and fences could slow a war party. Young Pine’s party had to wait for a train to pass and had to cut down a fence at one point as well, both instances potentially disastrous if a party was in flight with stolen horses; see Ibid, 293-294.

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by the spring of 1890 raiding was far less simple than it had been at the beginning of the reserve era. There was an increased likelihood of capture on American soil, violent clashes with increasing numbers of immigrants, and possibly death. Profound changes in the environment made raiding unacceptably dangerous in light of the fact that the NWMP were showing a newfound willingness to seize and return all stolen animals.

What may have also had an impact on traditions of horse raiding in 1890 was the fact that at the time many Kainai were extremely dissatisfied with the quantities of rations provided by the Indian Department. Indeed, many families believed that they would starve.

In February 1890, Red Crow came to Pocklington and told him that families had complained that rations were much smaller than previous years. It was especially problematic for young men drawing rations for just themselves, as they claimed that what they were provided with barely lasted a day or so. Pocklington explained that the new quantities were based on recently audited rolls of the agency. In the winter 1890, the agent visited each household and had the Kainai prove the actual size of their families. Close to 290 names were cut from the rolls, the individual being dead or being found to have never existed. Rations were immediately adjusted to reflect this new reality. The problem, according to the agent, was not that the rations were inadequate but that the Kainai had become used to subsisting on more rations than they were actually entitled to.65 However, Kainai rations had steadily declined since 1885 (see Table 1) and had reached a nadir early in 1890. The agent seemed

65 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, January 9, 1890 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, October 17, 1890 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843). Hugh Dempsey argued that this type of “subterfuge” (padding one’s family on the rations list) on the part of the Kainai was “not unique” and had occurred since the treaty was concluded in 1877. For example, in 1878 Charcoal claimed a family of six when it was in fact made up of him, his wife, and a son. Kainai families believed that this deception was necessary as they were primarily meat eaters and felt government rations did not reflect this, hence, not enough beef was rationed out. When the agent discovered the true size of Charcoal’s family, rations were immediately adjusted to reflect this number. Charcoal, believing that he could not feed his family

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Table 1: Kainai Population and Beef Rations Issued, 1885-1891.66

Year Population Beef Issued (in Beef/year/person lbs.) (in lbs.) 1885-1886 2329 91210 39.16 1886-1887 2254 74743 33.16 1887-1888 2202 73617 33.43 1888-1889 2135 66457 31.13 1889-1890 2041 60924 29.85 1890-1891 1703 53476 31.40

oblivious to the fact that they were padding the size of their families because they felt rations were insufficient in the first place. Pocklington’s reduction of the agency rolls came when dissatisfaction was already high and exacerbated by a failure of potato crops the previous fall.67 Some of the Kainai, including Red Crow and Day Chief, took an unusual step and took a party to the Milk River country to hunt antelope in December and stayed out for nearly a month. It had been quite a few years since a winter hunt had been undertaken. Other parties joined them, apparently believing that their fortunes were better subsisting on black- tailed deer (no meat was brought back to the reserve) than remaining at the agency.68

was driven to desperation and plotted to kill a steer to make up the loss: see Hugh Dempsey, Charcoal’s World, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973), 7-10. 66 Population numbers are based on annuity payments for that year, see Recapitulation of the Annuities Paid at the Blood Reserve, 1886-1890 (Glenbow: Department of Indian Affairs Treaty Pay Lists Microfilm Collection). For Amounts of Beef Issued see Alexander McGibbon's Report of the Blood Agency 1890-91, February 3, 1891 (LAC RG10-3843-72695-12:C10148); Alexander McGibbon's Report of the Blood Agency, 1891-92, February 6, 1892 (LAC RG10-3860-82319-12:C10152). For 1891, McGibbons tallied the total beef issued to January 31, 1891, which means an extra month was added to the year 1890-1891. Therefore, for the table’s purposes 1890-1891, the original total (57933) was divided by 13 for an average of 4456.38 lbs. /month. This was multiplied by 12 to get an approximate total for 1890-91. Total poundage included bone and offal, not just usable meat, which means that not all poundage was edible. Beef per year per person is taken by dividing beef issued by population. Although the 1890-91 amount seems to increase, the amount of beef given per person was the close to the approximate amount being given in 1888 and if the rolls were not cut, they would have received even more beef, which may have satisfied them. Further, Pocklington may have cut the numbers far too much, as the CMS census of the Kainai in January 1890 was 2178, about 130 people more than the last annuity payments recorded, see J. Tims to C.C. Fen, January 6, 1890 (Glenbow: CMS 116). 67 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, September 5, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843). 68 W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, December 3, 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843); W. Pocklington to Indian Commissioner’s Office, January 8, 1890 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843).

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It is possible that the food situation on the Kainai reserve was dire enough that it distracted the young men, whom Red Crow stated were most impacted by the reduced rations, from the war path. Perhaps not surprisingly, cattle rustling for meat became the greatest Kainai outrage in the eyes of their Euro-Canadian neighbors that spring. It grew as a vexing problem in Pocklington’s reports and in newspapers beginning in January 1890.

Complaints lasted throughout the year and continued until the end of 1894. The incidence of cattle killing was likely far greater than is reflected in written records as it was highly likely that other instances occurred where perpetrators were not apprehended. The fact was that the

Kainai, at least the younger men, had a cavalier attitude towards the cattle which surrounded their reservation (and often trespassed upon it) and treated it as if it was wild game, there for the taking. For example, when Young Pine and his party made their way to raid the Crows in 1889 they killed one cow east of Magrath, Alberta and six more when they crossed into the United States, shooting and butchering the animals whenever needed.69 Kainai oral traditions state that young boys were often trained to scout for stray cattle and report them to older men. These men would then lead a team that night to kill the animal, carry it back to the camp, and butcher it.70 These activities may have become more frequent in 1890 as complaints from ranchers and charges against the Kainai for killing cattle seemed to have increased. There is no mention whatsoever of horse stealing, which was so prominent in previous years. In fact, both Herchmer and Steele reported that all tribes had “behaved

69 Hungry Wolf, The Blood People, 290-299. 70 Hugh A. Dempsey, The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories, (Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishing, 1994), 115-116.

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remarkably well” and the biggest concerns of the police were cattle killing and drunkenness.71

Lastly, by 1890, several individuals had demonstrated to the Kainai community that for men seeking high status, there were new ways to generate wealth other than stealing horses. Red Crow, his family, Calf Shirt, One Spot and several other older men had tried farming and haying, with Chief Moon, Red Crow’s son, being awarded a NWMP hay contract in 1890. They all had large houses with shingled roughs and wooden floors, plenty of food, wagons, farming implements, bedsteads, and other household goods which seemed to partly redefine the meaning of wealth and plenty.72 In Inspector McGibbons’ report made in 1891 (for the year 1890), he noted that Red Crow had “a fine iron bedstead with brass mountings and the sheets, pillow slips, and quilts as white as snow.” This may have been material comfort expected for the chief, often a recipient of Indian Department gifts, but the inspector also noted that Dead Sarcee, who earned fifty cents a day butchering, and also worked for wages at a local store owned by trader Fred Pace and farmed a field, seemed quite affluent in comparison to his fellows. He owned not only a “black walnut stained bedstead” but also a bureau, lamp, looking glass, pictures, tables, and wooden floor (in contrast to most Kainai homes still having none).73 He had acquired these consumer items by performing labour outside of traditional activities. This seemed to provide an impetus for others to work in a cash economy, because according to the Figure 5, Kainai agents recorded increasing amounts of earnings per year for Kainai individuals. They sold farm produce,

71 Sessional Paper No. 19, Report of the Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police, 1890 in Sessional Papers, XXIV , 3-4, 60-61. 72 Annual Report, 1887-1888, August 6, 1888 (LAC RG10-1556:C14843) ; Annual Report, 1888-1889, July 1889 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843) ; Annual Report, 1889-1890, July 20, 1890 (LAC RG10-1557:C14843); Annual Report 1890-91, July 22, 1891 (LAC RG10-1558:C14844) 73 Alexander McGibbons’ Report of the Blood Agency, February 3, 1891 (LAC RG10-3843-72695- 12:C10148).

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Figure 5: Earnings of Kainai Individuals, 1886-1892.74

2500

2000 1500 1000

Earnings ($) Earnings 500 0 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892

Earnings of Kainai Individuals

engaged in haying, mined and sold coal, freighted, performed labour for the agency, and worked as NWMP scouts. Increasingly larger amounts of money came unto the reserve after

1889 until McGibbons’ reported the earnings of individual Kainai totaled $7510.61 for

1894, far in excess of any income brought unto the reserve in the early reserve era and now likely surpassing any cash outlet to found in a narrowed black market for horses.75 They also indulged in an increasing amount of consumerism as well; McGibbons’ subsequent reports reveal more bedsteads and manufactured household goods among the Kainai. By early 1895,

Red Crow had two houses, a large range grill, bedsteads for many of the people in his large family and generally showed “signs of plenty.” Many people in his village also had factory bedsteads as well. Assistant Indian Commissioner A.E. Forget commented that Joe Healey

(Flying Chief) showed signs of “extravagance” as he owned a $70 sewing machine, a “fancy clock”, and an unidentified musical instrument. Forget considered this material wealth problematic considering that Healey was still on the rolls for rations. In 1894, fourteen men

74 Compiled from Pocklington’s Earnings of Individual Indians from January 1886 until December 1892 as they appear in the Agency Letterbooks; see LAC RG10-1553 to LAC RG10-1559, C14842-C14844. August 1886 was totally illegible and the figure used was an average of the other 11 months of that year. Earnings of Individual Indians were not comprehensive in recording all the income of each Kainai individual, just what the agent had knowledge of. 75 Alexander McGibbons’ Report of the Blood Agency, May 15, 1895 (LAC RG10-3903-102741:C10158).

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each purchased a $35 manufactured harness, which also drew charges of extravagance.76

Modified ideas of what constituted wealth and how it could be obtained seemed to have taken root around 1889. Of course, these new methods could also be applied to acquiring horses, which still had immense value in a traditional Kainai economy. Indeed, the men buying manufactured household goods often had their own personal horse corral as well.

However, new proven methods of obtaining wealth for status conscious men led to a Kainai cultural shift which helped to undermine warrior culture at the beginning of the 1890s.

In the end, the cessation of Kainai-Belknap hostilities was a complex interaction of

Kainai cultural change, NWMP and government initiatives, and environmental alteration. It is far too simplistic to say that raiding ceased simply because the Kainai felt that they had gotten back at adversaries for the murders at Dead Horse Coulee in 1886. The acts of Young

Pine’s party may have restored honour to Kainai men and punished the Belknaps according to their cultural standards of justice, but raiding served another purpose as well: the acquisition of wealth. Horses were still a paramount part of the Kainai economy for a wide assortment of monetary and social transactions. However, by 1889, the Kainai were finding other ways in which to acquire wealth. They had more incentive because of the rising unprofitability of stealing horses in a more dangerous Montana environment.

The NWMP were not able to effectively punish raiders or control their movements by 1890. In 1889, L.W. Herchmer stated, “All the Indians in the Territories behaved remarkably well this year, except the Bloods who give a good deal of annoyance. These

Indians are still well armed and are frequently off their reserves, which, as the vicinity is

76 Alexander McGibbons’ Report of the Blood Agency, April 24, 1894 (LAC RG10-3903-102741:C10158); Alexander McGibbons’ Report of the Blood Agency, May 15, 1895 (LAC RG10-3903-102741:C10158).

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being rapidly occupied, is not calculated to improve the condition of things.”77 Yet the next year, Herchmer reported more of the same: “I still think that too many armed Indians are allowed off reserves on pass, as there is little or nothing to shoot, and without game and cattle handy, they are not likely to go hungry.”78 The Kainai were still able to go about the country as they wished and if they had wanted to raid the Belknaps, they certainly could have done so. The decision to stop came from within Kainai society, not because of police law enforcement. The actions of the police may have compounded other factors which made raiding less attractive to young men seeking status but the claim that they were primarily responsible only reinforces an unfounded supposition that the Canadian State could deal a decisive blow against traditional ways in the early reserve era. It is probably closer to reality to say that wealth, by 1890, was simply not centered on horse flesh any more, but rather on acquiring hard currency through goods, services, and labour.79 Still, R.N. Wilson’s observations in 1892 and 1893 demonstrated the Kainai were not ready to totally abandon warrior culture and the reverence shown to those of martial skill and bravery. The Kainai remained, after all, attached to horse culture. However, the practice of using the horse raid for generating wealth had been considerably diminished. When that happened, not only was the cross-border conflict with the Belknaps over, a long history and tradition of Kainai horse raiding was over too.

77 Report of L.W. Herchmer, Commissioner of the NWMP, 1889, in The New West, 3. 78 Report of L.W. Herchmer, Commissioner of the NWMP, 1900 in Sessional Papers, XXIV, 3-4. 79 See also “Conclusion” in Regular, Neighbours and Networks, 163-176, for an emphasis on changes in Kainai economic activities.

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Conclusion

From 1882 until 1889, Kainai (Blood) warriors conducted cross-border, intertribal warfare against their enemies at the Fort Belknap Agency in northern Montana. Spring after spring, and autumn after autumn, young men seeking wealth and glory crossed the border and descended on the horse herds of the A’aninin (Gros Ventres) and Nakota (American

Assiniboine). This was the Kainai-Belknap war. It was simultaneously motivated by the quest for wealth and prestige (through brave acts) to attain social mobility, the desire to uphold notions of justice concerning theft and murder, and the yearning of men to restore honour lost by the perpetration of enemy raids against them. These values were observed to have strong continuity throughout the 1880s. This conflict grew out of the traditional enmity the Blackfoot tribes held for the Cree and Assiniboine, who had cultivated close ties with the

Belknaps in the late 1870s and early 1880s. For seven years, first in concert with their South

Pikani (Piegan) cousins, the Kainai raided and menaced northern Montana, drawing the ire of the Belknaps and their Euro-American neighbours alike. These raids were not random or intermittent but continuous, yet circumscribed within seasonal patterns of warfare. By 1886, the Belknaps had become exasperated with the unrelenting raids of their southern Alberta neighbours. This exasperation led to murder, which in turn brought new ferocity to Kainai raiding. For months it also generated anxiety that Kainai warriors would assemble en masse to slaughter the A’aninin and Nakota. Such an incident would have likely shattered the image of a peaceful Canadian West, which the Dominion Government was trying to promote to encourage settlement.

The efforts of the Fort Assiniboine garrison to protect Fort Belknap and the conclusion of a treaty made at the behest of the Canadian Indian Department and Kainai tribal leadership prevented such an incident but young men continued to raid until the

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autumn of 1889. The murders of two American Indians believed to be Belknaps brought about a sense of calm on the Kainai reserve but other factors worked against the continuation of horse raiding as well, especially as a means of generating wealth. Railroads and incoming settlers cutting up the open prairie on the approach to Fort Belknap made raiding more dangerous than earlier in the decade. The North West Mounted Police began to seize and return horses belonging to native peoples the Kainai raided. Austerity measures by the Indian Department cut rations to levels not before experienced and raised the spectre of starvation to displace the efforts of young men. Lastly, certain Kainai men offered the example that there were other roads to wealth aside from the war path. Although the high status of the warrior would retain its place in Kainai society, the horse raid as an economic activity lost its significance.

Aside from the subject of change and continuity of Kainai culture in the 1880s and early 1890s, the Kainai-Belknap war raises some interesting questions about the relationship between the NWMP and First Nations people in the Canadian West. Generally, the assumption has been that the NWMP brought law and order, that they were effective in its implementation, and that native peoples accepted their authority. Incidents from 1882 until

1889 suggest that this was not always the case, which flies directly against a powerful, if not iconic, national perception of Western Canadian history. Raiders could often depend on community silence to avoid being apprehended. When they were arrested, the NWMP could not always depend on magistrates to find for a conviction and in instances that raiders were convicted of victimizing other native peoples, sentences were lenient. More importantly, the

Mounties did not always “get their man.” The police were often openly, sometimes violently, defied and humiliated on several occasions, such as in the cases of The Dog, Big

Rib, and Calf Robe. In the case of the Kainai, the NWMP either did not have the power to

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compel adherence to the law or they were not willing to bring the full brunt of that power against them. In this respect, the NWMP likely feared widespread Blackfoot dissatisfaction, more violent confrontations, and possible revolt which would have surely exploded the veneer of an orderly and peaceful Canadian West. That is not to argue that the police, on the whole, did not succeed in making the West peaceful for settlement. The fear of open conflict between Euro-Canadians and First Nations peoples surely did not materialize as it had in the

United States. However, the efforts of the NWMP to stop cross-border, intertribal warfare were often ineffective. The mere act of arresting raiders did not discourage the practice, as some historians have assumed. At best, the actions of the NWMP compounded other factors already working against the continuation of horse raiding.

A general trajectory of Canadian Native historiography is to present First Nations during the early reservation era as impoverished, politically weak, and culturally besieged peoples under a civilization programme which sought to assimilate them into mainstream

Canadian society. This is particularly the case in respect to the end of the buffalo era. There is no doubt that government policies had tremendously negative social and economic consequences for these peoples. However, focusing on this weak and impoverished position can sometimes superimpose a perception on earlier periods and obscure events as they actually transpired. The Kainai-Belknap war is one of those events. By casting more light on it, this study more than suggests that the Kainai successfully challenged the apparatus of a modern state in the form of the NWMP and the Indian department bureaucracy in the early reserve era. They were able to do so, carrying on a near decade long conflict with their northern Montana neighbours in traditional warrior spirit and ethos, without regard and sometimes in open defiance to the powers around them.

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