Tombstones of the Rebellion of 1885

Tombs of Great Canadian Chiefs

Cree Chief Poundmaker has been saddled, by white historians, with being one of the disloyal rebel Indians in 1885, when all he really wanted was a fair deal for western Canadian Aboriginal people.

When he died, after a stint in a cold and dank Stony Mountain Penitentiary, north of Winnipeg, his body was brought back to the Blackfoot Reserve south of Cluny, Alberta. His body was interred above left, on a hill overlooking Blackfoot Crossing.

In 1967 his body was removed and brought back to the Cut Knife Reserve, where, in 1885, he successfully fought off an attack on his village by the Canadians under Colonel Otter.

Today Poundmaker's grave lies across the line of march of Otter's forces, who approached over the distant plain, and charged up the hill across where his grave is today, at the spot where the Red Cross flag is in the wagon park left. (The photo of his grave is a reverse angle, looking down the hill.)

For several hours this height of land was the centre of the Battle of Cut Knife, until surrounded on all sides by Poundmaker's warriors, the Canadians had to withdraw down the hill and back from whence they had come.

Blackfoot Chief Crowfoot's heart was with the other Aboriginal people, in their struggle for justice and food to stave off starvation, which the treaties had promised, but rarely delivered. In fact he had adopted Poundmaker, a Cree, the traditional enemies of the Blackfoot, as his son. Still he convinced his own Blackfoot people to trust the Government once more, instead of joining other Indian and Métis people in resorting to armed resistance.

He did not long survive the other chiefs; he lies buried below, only a few hundred yards from Poundmaker's original grave, top, on a ridge overlooking Blackfoot Crossing, south of Cluny, AB, just a few minutes south of the Trans Canada Highway.

Nez Perce Chief Joseph (1840-1904) is one of a number of American Indian chiefs who tried to escape the genocidal attacks of the American Army by seeking a safe haven for his people in Canada. After a 1500 mile trek across the north western US, Chief Joseph and those of his people - mostly sick and elderly - who were not killed along the way by pursuing troops, were surrounded just 40 miles from the Canadian border and taken back to a reservation in Idaho. Several score of his younger people actually made it across the border and found sanctuary in Canada.

Chief Joseph's grave is on the Colville Reservation, north of Nespelem, Washington, USA.

Tombstones: The Frog Lake Incident - 1885

After the treaties were signed, giving the vast majority of the Indian lands to the Government of Canada, the bargains were badly kept. The Government, which had been feverish to get the Indian signatures, was not equally feverish to honour their side of the treaty terms. Food and supplies were slow in coming to people who were literally starving, because the buffalo, the traditional mainstay of their food supply, was gone.

Year after year things got worse. The young men got angrier and angrier. Young war chiefs urged action.

At the remote settlement of Frog Lake, in north eastern Alberta, several white men were killed by angry young Cree warriors, and the Rebellion of 1885, was on.

Some chiefs joined the revolt of the Métis and the protesting Indians. The uprising was quickly put down, the accused killers at Frog Lake were put on trial, and eight were executed together inside Fort Battleford, in Saskatchewan.

The were buried in a mass grave below the walls of the fort, above the Saskatchewan River. A set of tipi poles stands over them.

Few Canadians have ever heard of the largest mass hanging in Canadian history; fewer yet have ever visited this lonely place.

The cross marks the spot where the shooting started with the killing of the unpopular Indian agent Thomas Quinn. In 1885 log cabins stood on both sides of the trail. Today all has returned to wilderness in this remote and desolate location.

Some of the victims of the "Massacre" at Frog Lake, lie here, only meters from where they died. They had originally been herded into the church which stood on the other side of the road behind the monument.