Cypress Hills Cree Forced to Leave

Summary

Cree groups living in the Cypress Hills were told by Indian Affairs officials that they were not going to be issued rations until they left the region and moved onto reserves in the Qu'Appelle, Battleford, and Fort Pitt areas. This was part of the 'Sheer Compulsion' strategy. They were issued rations at Fort Walsh to fuel their journey to Prince Albert, and received more rations for the final portion of their journey. Big Bear and a group of followers remained at their camp about twenty miles from Fort Walsh into 1882, and were some of the last to accept the move out of the Cypress Hills.

Implications

This was a move towards the "ethnic cleansing" of the Southwest portion of province, with approximately 5,000 Indigenous people people displaced from the Cypress Hills during that year. The forced removal of the Cree from their territory in the Cypress Hills region is similar to the forced relocations of other Indigenous groups onto reserve land not chosen by the group themselves (as dictated in treaties). The Canadian Government's approach was meant to segregate/assimilate Indigenous peoples from their home territories in order for colonial settlement of the West, part of MacDonald's National Policy.

Sources

Saskatchewan Herald, 24 June 1882, 1. Debates of the House of Commons, March 24, 1882, p. 542-543. Report of John C. Nelson, Dominion Land Surveyor, December, 1882, PAC RG-10, Vol. 3621, f. 4754.

Resources

Creation of Indian Reserves on the Canadian Prairies, 1870-1885

Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life

Canada's Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879-1885

Date

1882-03-24

Theme(s)

Federal Governance

Community Breaking/Fracturing

Integration & Mobility