Chief Big Bear Mistahamaskwa

Today we remember a great warrior by the name of Mistahimaskwa or Chief Big Bear of Treay Six.

When Chief Big Bear was a great leader for the Plains Cree with a vision to unite all the Cree’s and create one huge reservation. His dream was never realized and would of changed history that we know of in Canada had that dream went through.

To get to know Chief Big Bear we need to travel back to the 1800’s.

Son to another Chief by the name of Black Powder, Big Bear had already had a great mentor in his life.

His dad use to take Big Bear to the hills of “Bulls Forehead Hill” and they would together practice spiritual things such as making offering to those who have gone before them and do a lot of praying.

From doing these spiritual practices he started to receive visions of a bear. He knew the importance of these visions and created a necklace that would adorn 5 ivory bear claws and wear it around his neck.

It was later said that the necklace would protect him in battle and like Crazy Horse he never got hurt in a battle.

As a young child disease was spreading through the America’s. He ended up contracting the disease, “small pox”. Luckily he would overcome this disease that was taking so many of the Indigenous people lives at the time.

His Dad Black Powder lead a small camp of an estimated 100 members.

During his dad’s leadership, Big Bear would take some of his dad’s warriors on missions described as “Haunting the Blackfoot”. At this time in the mid 1800s the Crees and Blackfoot still would battle each other.

In the winter of 1864, Black Powder would make his spirit journey and Big Bear would be left to lead the people and become Chief.

When Big Bear became Chief, Canada was looking to expand into Western Canada and needed to make room for settlers to come in and farm.

Major problems were starting to impact the Indigenous way of life such as disease of smallpox and tuberculosis, but the biggest effect was the disappearance of the bison which was creating nation wide famine.

The Native American people relied heavily on the Bison for a lot of things such as clothing, shelter, weapons, tools, and more.

It was said that the loss of bison could have been the cause of several factors. Overhunting with the introduction of the new weapons such as the rifle, the loss of habitat from farmings and settling of humans, and to kill off vast numbers in a way to cut off food supply to Native Americans for the introduction to Treaties.

The Battle of Belly River

With the low supply of food, the Cree people had a war party known as the Iron Confederacy and plan for one last raid of the Blackfoot people.

The loss of food from the disappearing bison and disease had weakened both the Iron Confederacy and the Blackfoot Confederacy.

Because of the weakening of the Blackfoot Confederacy due to smallpox, the Cree’s believed it would be a perfect time to stage an attack and expand their territory into the Cypress Hills.

The I.C gathered 800 warriors and followed the along the South Saskatchewan river towards what would be present day Lethbridge area.

Legend of The Dream of Defeat

There is a legend that Chief Piapot of the I.C had a dream of an upcoming defeat. He dreamed of this buffalo with Iron horns attacked the Cree warriors and they were unable to kill this bison.

The Bison with the Iron Horns ended up trampling and killing the Cree camp.

Chief Piapot took this as a warning and decided to not be apart of the Blackfoot attack and turned back home with a handful of his followers.

The other Chiefs just simply took it as another dream.

The Scouting Party

The Cree sent a scouting party ahead of their main body and the scouting party found a small group of Peigan’s in a camp. They decided to steal their horses when they went to sleep.

What the Cree did not know was that the small camps was a small part of a much larger winter camp of the Blackfoot, Blood, and Peigan People.

Soon word got out that the Cree’s were around. When the Cree finally ended up attacking they were met with an unstoppable group of Blackfoot, Blood, and Peigan warriors who ended up killing 200-300 Cree’s.

This would be the last battle between the Cree and Blackfoot people and would start to set the stage for peace between these two powerful nations.

Treaty Negotiations

In 1874 the Government was bringing gifts to Native Americans in the Western Plains of Canada to set the stage for Treaty Negotiations.

Big Bear did not want to accept the gifts as he was thought it as a bribe to get caught in a future trap.

we want none of the Queen’s presents: When we set a fox trap we scatter pieces of meat all around but when the fox gets into the trap we knock him on the head. We want no baits. Let your chiefs come like men and talk to us.

Big Bear

At this time Big Bear was at the height of his power with a camp of 65 Lodges and about 520 people in his tribe.

In August of 1876, Alexander Morris who was the Governor of Manitoba and Northwest Territories went to Fort Pitt to negotiate terms of Treaty Six with the Indigenous Peoples there. Alexander then went to Big Bears home to sign adhesions but he wasn’t there.

When Mistahimaskwa arrived back he was angered that the Chiefs signed the Treaty without consulting him. He knew that it was like wrapping a rope around your neck and it would drastically change their way of life and access to resources of the land.

1878-1879

Independent warriors started to hear about Big Bear’s defiance and joined in on his camp. Big Bear drove out settlers who were surveying the land for farming. They then called for help from the North West Mounted Police to continue their duty to continue to survey the lands.

Colonel Acheson Gosford Irvine started to threatened the Cree’s of arrest if they did not let the surveyors do their job.

Still refusing to sign treaties, he took his people down to Montana to try find buffalo. The buffalo were few and far between and they quickly found that they could not sustain the members.

1882

By 1882 Big Bear decided to move back into Canada and try find other food to sustain his people. They tried fishing in the Cypress Hills and also hunting gophers but it was noway nearly enough to feed the hungry tribe.

He finally figured that he would not be able to keep his tribe protected from starvation and signed into Treaty 6 on December 8th, 1882.

Unite the Cree in One Huge Reservation

After signing the Treaty it would still take some time for Chief Big Bear to pick land for his tribes reservation.

Big Bear wanted to talk with the Chiefs to talk about the unjust failing promises of Treaty 6 and saw how a lot of the other Cree tribes were already living in Poverty.

A gathering of over 2,000 Cree met up at Chief Poundmaker’s reservation for a Sun Dance.

It was the largest gathering of the Cree’s during that time. During the Sundance there was an incident where a farmer named John Craig did not give food to one of the Cree’s named, Kāwīcitwemot and he ended up assaulting the farmer.

The farmer ran to the tell on Kāwīcitwemot to the North West Mounted Police. The Police showed up with 90 men to come arrest Kāwīcitwemot.

Surprisingly it ended up being rather peaceful and to appease the warriors, the NWMP provided the camp with large supplies of food in which could of been a violent encounter and war between the police and Indigenous peoples.

Loss of Power and New Leadership

Big Bear was always against the ideas of Treaties and the idea of living on reservations. He really wanted to gather all the people and live on one reservation so that the Cree people could have leverage with the Government, but with the North West Rebellion happening a lot of those talks with the other Chiefs could not happen.

With this fight to maintain the lifestyle of being an Indigenous Person kept Big Bear from picking land for his people.

The Government started to hold back resources and supplies to Big Bear and his people and they started to resent him for this reason.

Big Bear’s son Āyimisīs (Little Bad Man) and another warrior Kapapamahchakwew (Wandering Spirit) started to take the lead of the people and created a group called the Warrior Society.

North West Rebellion

On March 26th, 1885 the Mētis lead by Louis Reil and Gabriel Dumont went to war with Government of Canada and had early victories at Cut Knife, Fish Creek, and Duck Lake.

The Warrior Society helped out the Mētis during this time to start fighting back against the government.

Frog Lake Massacre

Trying to find a good spot for their people, Chief Big Bear and the tribe settled in the Frog Lake area just 34-50 miles northwest of Fort Pitt but still hadn’t picked a reservation site.

There was an Indian Agent by the name of Thomas Quinn who was in Frog Lake who was holding back a lot of rations that was keeping a lot of the Cree’s in starvation.

They raided Thomas’s home in the early hours of 2am on April of 1882 and took him along with other settlers of the community hostage. Part of the hostages were priests, europeans and members of the Catholic church.

They wanted to move these hostages out of the town and when Quinn refused, Wandering Spirit shot him in the head. Wandering Spirit band killed another 8 unarmed settlers.

When Big Bear witnessed the shooting, he came in running yelling, “Stop, Stop”.

The Warrior Society had about 70+ settlers and some Mētis in captivity.

During this whole conflict Chief Big Bear was trying to stop the the Warrior Society from waging war and harming the people.

it is not my doings, and the young men won’t listen, and I am very sorry for what has been done

Chief Big Bear

When news started to spread of the Frog Lake incident, all the blame was starting to be pointed at Chief Big Bear. He was labeled as a “Blood Thirsty Killer.”

Fort Pitt Battle

After the Frog Lake incident, 250 warriors decided to go after Ford Pitt on April 13th, 1885.

The warriors outnumbered the people at Fort Pitt and surrounded the 25 NWMP that was stationed at the Pitt. They gave the police an ultimatum to leave the Pitt and surrender and warned that more warriors are on there way.

The police ended up leaving the Pitt with 44 civilians still present there. The Warrior Society ended up burning down the pitt and ransacking the place without killing any of the civilians.

Frenchman Butte

On May 28th, 1885 the Canadian Militia attacked Āyimisīs, Kapapamahchakwew and 250 of their warriors.

The battle that ended up in a draw between the Warrior Society happened near Frenchman Butte where Canadian Troops.

Mistahimaskwa did not participate in this battle as he stayed behind with the women, children, and captives.

Loon Lake Steele Narrows Battle

On June 3rd, 1885 would mark the date where the Canadian Police officers would eventually defeat the Warrior Society at the Battle of Loon Lake.

It would be the same battle that would fully end the Northwest Rebellion. During this battle, Big Bear was able to escape unharmed with a number of his people.

Later Chief Poundmaker would say that the reason why Mistahimaskwa was able to be unharmed during the whole situation along with his people, was because he word the bear claw necklace during that time.

The Leaders of The Warrior Society

After the defeat at Loon Lake caused the people to scatter.

Kāwīcitwemot who was one of the leaders was killed during the battle at Loon Lake. Āyimisīs, the son of Big Bear, fled to Montana. Kapapamahchakwew, another leader would surrender

Later 6 warriors from the Warrior Society along with Kapapamahchakwew would be hanged for their part in the Frog Lake murders.

During the hangings of Kapapamahchakwew (Wandering Spirit), the Battleford’s Industrial School and surround reserves were forced to watch the hangings to show them what happens when they try to rebel against the government of canada.

Surrender of Chief Big Bear Mistahimaskwa

On July 2nd, 1885 – Big Bear would surrender to the Canadian Government at Fort Carlton.

He was then transported to Regina to stand trial for treason-felony. He was found guilty on the charges even though he was trying to maintain peace the entire time.

He was sentenced to three years at the Stoney Mountain Penitentiary and during his time in imprisonment he was converted to Christianity.

Big Bear would end up getting sick in Prison, one and half years into his sentence and because of this would be released.

On 1887 in February, Mistahimaskwa would spend some time in Regina before heading back to Little Pine Reserve. There he would spend time with his daughter until he made the spirit journey on January 17th, 1888.

He was laid to rest in the Roman Catholic cemetery on the Poundmaker Reservation.

What is Happening Today?

Today Native American’s are living a lot of what Big Bear Feared. A lot of poverty on First Nation’s reserve, the trauma of Residential Schools and the Cultural genocide of language and many of the ways of the Native American People.

We are all trying to find ways to get back to speaking our languages, learning about our past, and telling the truth of how Canada and United States became Countries.

We cannot move forward without the Allies of other races.

Any Other Chiefs You Want us to Cover? Let Us Know in the Comments