University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 2009 The Methodists' Great 1869 Camp Meeting and Aboriginal Conservation Strategies in The North Saskatchewan River Valley George Colpitts Department of the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Colpitts, George, "The Methodists' Great 1869 Camp Meeting and Aboriginal Conservation Strategies in The North Saskatchewan River Valley" (2009). Great Plains Quarterly. 1170. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1170 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE METHODISTS' GREAT 1869 CAMP MEETING AND ABORIGINAL CONSERVATION STRATEGIES IN THE NORTH SASKATCHEWAN RIVER VALLEY GEORGE COLPITTS George McDougall, chairman of the Methodist gent of Wesleyan Methodists and their Native Missions to the Indians of the Northwest affiliates from Fort Edmonton, Pigeon Lake, Territories, kept a large, black book in which he Lac Ste. Anne, Lac La Biche, and Whitefish jotted sermon notes, references to classical and Lake-all located on the most northern and biblical literature and sometimes simply his itin­ westerly fringes of the northern Great Plains. eraries by horseback from Victoria, the primary Their expedition and other hunts joined by Methodist mission in the far British northwest. Protestant or Roman Catholic missions help Under the "s" tab and labeled "Saskatchewan," identify some of the strategies of competition he noted repeatedly in the 1860s the food crisis and cooperation emerging in the western boreal facing North Saskatchewan residents. In sum: and parkland regions in the midst of predicted ''A time of starvation. No buffalo."! but rapid environmental change. Missionaries In this article I analyze a buffalo hunt which of the North Saskatchewan river basin joined occurred in 1869. 2 That spring, many hundreds the multiethnic hunt of 1869 to serve both the of Cree, Assiniboine, Stoney, and Metis hunt­ spiritual and physical needs of their followers. ers going to the Plains were joined by a contin- The aboriginal hunting parties who had long employed cooperative hunts, however, used this occasion as a further means to open up new territories and better coo~dinate their Key Words: bison, Blackfoot, Cree, hunting, 3 missionaries, native people efforts. It also marked a larger shift in strate­ gies of political and social importance. Instead George Colpitts is an associate professor in the History of following nearby herds and waiting for their Department of the University of Calgary, in Alberta, seasonal migration to areas within reach of Canada. He specializes in environmental history, with home territories,4 this assembly and others of research interests in Western Canada, the North, the the decade fell into a larger pattern of coopera­ fur trade and changing human relationships with the environment. tion, successful or not. Milloy identified them as "heavily armed migrations" launched by the [GPQ 29 (Winter 2009): 3-27l Cree, who for want of food were traveling with 3 4 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 2009 larger assemblies into traditional Blackfoot ter­ event suggests a feature of Elliott West's view ritory, "not as a party of warriors, in search of of Great Plains history, where, since contact, plunder and glory" but as hunters.5 "white and Indian worlds" had "rippled into John McDougall, George's son, still a young each other" and where the "frontier never sepa­ clergyman that year, later remembered the rated things. It brought things together." In this gathering as a triumph of tent evangelism, case, missionary work was joining and helping and that "this famous gathering on the plains reveal Native hunting organizations emerging is often referred to by the Indians and half­ in specific areas of the northwestern plains and breeds all over the country."6 However, this was parklands.13 likely an exaggerated retelling, as was another From a logistical perspective, the 1869 hunt memoir account, written more than thirty years from Fort Edmonton to Nose Hill, 200 miles to later, that saw the 1869 congregation bring­ the southeast, was an impressive undertaking ing numerous otherwise warring groups into (Fig. 1).14 Hunters, women, and children joined a single Christian cooperative? These groups an ever-larger column, forming a cavalcade were already predisposed to cooperate, given that moved onto the plains. Some 200 horse­ the close association of a Cree and Assiniboine drawn carts, with squeaking wooden wheels (both Mountain Stoney and Nakota) coali­ and screaming greaseless axles, announced tion.8 With the pemmican and buffalo robe the hunters' coming miles ahead. Joshua's ,hunt commercialization between the 1820s and trumpets would have been drowned out by 1840s, Plains Cree, Nakota (Assiniboine), and the estimated 500 dogs, many of them fighting Metis traders shared similar interests and more each other, beaten to keep line, many dragging frequently coordinated buffalo hunting and the travois loaded with provisions or bundled with trade in buffalo products from semipermanent wailing babies. The dangers of prairie travel­ camps, wintering places, "and fishing locations ing, fear of Blackfoot raids, and uneasiness along the North Saskatchewan river valley.9 mounting as guides led these travelers onto Indeed, behind Methodist mission officials like waterless expanses occasioned the missionaries George McDougall were Native leaders such as to draw similarities between these people and Cree chief Maskepetoon, who likely used the Abraham's wandering and besieged tribe, and 1869 hunt to best contain a hunting organiza­ between the North Saskatchewan River and tion that had been developing at least since that of the River Jordan.15 the 1840s. This drew on a strengthening and The elder missionary, George McDougall, cohesive multiethnic association forming in John's father and tutor, estimated the total the upper sections of the North Saskatchewan, number of participants on this buffalo tent where Methodist missions had situated them­ revival at 1,000.16 Of this number, however, selves. In this case, parties used the hunt to were a few Hudson's Bay Company traders and organize a cooperative large and powerful hunters, and a separate section of "Catholic enough to penetrate into Blackfoot territory Cree." Two Oblate priests, who briefly accom­ beyond the Battle River.lO Great Plains history panied the "Protestant Indians" with their own can benefit from a better understanding of such Catholic adherents, left descriptions of the an expedition, given that more attention is pres­ eventual assembly that suggested it numbered ently falling on how Native groups were coping over one hundred cabanes: ''Almost all of the with dwindling resources, converging into new natives of this camp were Protestants," one territories, or competing in an ever-smaller of the priests reported. The other estimated "buffalo commons" in the mid-nineteenth cen­ seventy of the tents were "Protestants and tury.l1 Increasing historical interest is directed Infidels." Their journey, meanwhile, extended toward the surviving cultural traditions at the at least over fifty-one days and took participants end of the bison era in the period of treaty well beyond the Battle River into Blackfoot ter­ making and reservationsP Most certainly, this ritory. There, under cover of their large, armed THE METHODISTS' GREAT 1869 CAMP MEETING AND ABORIGINAL CONSERVATION STRATEGIES 5 FIG. 1. The 1869 Nose Hill Hunt. Cartography; Shawn Mueller escort, the hunters slaughtered about 5,000 the second part of this essay.19 As suggested in buffalo. The camp eventually took away some a description of the hunt itself, which follows, 120,000 pounds of dried meat, which probably "Lower River" Cree formed separate parties represented only a fraction of the total provi­ identifiable by Roman Catholic Oblates. They sions eaten in camp and on the way homeY were delineating their differing interests from In this article, I will first discuss the what Protestant Wesleyan Methodists under­ Methodists' hopes in a camp meeting on the stood as separate Cree and Stoney parties in Plains, one that had both practical and spiritual such venues. Similar in size to those previously ends. However, it also had a context that helps organized by Red River Metis, these hunts now explain how human cooperative capacity was dre~ upon emerging and quite tightly knit developing in the face of rapid environmental associations that aligned the similar needs in change.l8 Now that buffalo were frequently western boreal and parkland Cree-speaking remaining year-round in Blackfoot territory communities.20 In 1869 one developed that and hunters were turning to an earlier spring Methodists hoped would constitute a great hunt, their traditional means of diplomacy and movable religious feast on the Plains.2I organization were under stress. The gather­ ing tempo of summer sorties in the late 1860s To THE GREAT PLAINS IN A FRONTIER meant that more hunters were entering a "war CAMP MEETING zone" where bands could only hunt by the sheer force of numbers and their large assemblies The Wesleyan Methodists