Warfare

During the 1770s, the fur trade on the Plains had developed in an unregulated and chaotic way. Regular abuses of Indigenous producers by settler traders included physical violence and murder.

On February 18, 1884, long-standing and unresolved grievances with government policy forced Yellow Calf and approximately 25 of his band members to request a formal meeting with Hilton Keith, their farm instructor. The band had been facing starvation and were told that their rations were being further cut. Dewdney had been attempting to enforce a policy of “sheer compulsion,” which dictated that Indigenous people must work for their rations or starve. Not surprisingly, this policy caused hardship for Indigenous people and frequently triggered violence, and as a result, it was only pursued for a few months in 1884. Yellow Calf and his men expressed that their women and children were starving and demanded that they be supplied with flour and bacon, or they would take what they needed. The men also stated that they would rather fight to the death rather than allow themselves to be arrested. Keith responded with a refusal to be flexible on government policy. He threatened the party by informing them that they had broken the law, and that by resisting they were making consequences more serious for themselves, as well as their women and children, and that the Queen might stop giving food to any of them if they “misbehaved themselves.” Keith also said that all he could give them at present was a half a pound powder, a pound of shot and a box of caps to each man to hunt for their own food, but that “...before I had time to fulfill my promise they made a rush for the warehouse, I followed them and tried to defend our stores, whereupon I was knocked down kicked and bruised, and struck at with a knife, by many of them, the knife ran across my leather coat thus saving me. They then all swarmed in like bees into a hive and stole right before my eyes, about sixty sacks flour and twelve of bacon….The instructions I received from Mr. Assistant Indian Commissioner Reed, more especially the cutting down the rations to such a fine point, so suddenly then only to be given to a few, I fear accounts for the raid of yesterday...I fear if something is not done to punish the offenders they will try the game again, they are very determined.” Yellow Calf and his band members occupied the storehouse for several days, barricading themselves in the building before the matter was solved through negotiation with a contingent of North-West Mounted Police. A letter from superintendent commissioner W.M. Herchmer to the NWMP described the situation: “After a great deal of talking and promises being made to them that their care would be fully enquired into - that the Charge of resisting the Police would not be brought against them and that three or four of them giving themselves up for trial would be sufficient - matters were arranged and four voluntary handed themselves over to us, namely “Yellow Calf,” “Penny-nay-kee-sick,” “Moise”, “Canawas” and we proceeded with them to Regina where they are now awaiting trial…”

Already struggling with dwindling attendance and student truancy, the outbreak of the Northwest Resistance caused the school to be abandoned and brought a number of challenges for the principal, Rev. Thomas Clarke. After instruction was stopped at the school in 1885, the building was used as military barracks for Canadian troops fighting the resistance movement.Students of the school were scattered by the resistance, some of whom went missing. At the end of March the townspeople fortified themselves in the Mounted Police barracks. The school was initially plundered by the townspeople and the police before they fortified themselves in the barracks. Members of the rebellion also looted some of the abandoned homes in the area and the school's food supplies. Later in the summer the school started to be used to station Canadian troops. In autumn of 1885 the principal was notified that the school would be needed as winter barracks for a gunnery battery. The Northwest Resistance brought with it a host of problems for the school. Even after the facilities had been renovated and were back in use, the school struggled to increase enrolment to the revised expectations of thirty boys and thirty girls. Rev. Thomas Clarke was defended the school and his staff against accusations of mistreatment including poor diet and lack of medical treatment. He also was accused of keeping children longer than agreed upon and of not allowing parents to remove their children from the school whenever they desired.