"Aboriginal oral histories have largely been absent from colonial and academic narratives about the File Hills farm colony. I argue that Aboriginal oral histories enrich the historical and geographical record, and that these stories—especially about everyday geographies and lives—draw intricate links between stories and place.
"This article examines the role of the North West Mounted Police in creating communities in the Canadian Prairies during the first decades of Confederation. Despite being created as an institution of law enforcement, the Mounted Police acted more often as a social bonding agent, creating the necessary conditions and organizations required to establish permanent communities otherwise isolated from one another.
"By the end of 1885, Dewdney had succeeded in subjugating the Cree. Big Bear was in prison, Little Pine was dead, and Piapot was intimidated by having troops stationed on his reserve. Dewdney had deprived the Cree of their principal leaders and of their autonomy.
"Bolstering the argument that Indian reserves were far too large, and constituted "vacant" land was the fact that government policies since the late 1880s had served to inhibit agricultural expansion. A "peasant" farming policy had been implemented on many western reserves where farming just at the time when agriculture began to show some promise.[5] Reserve farmers were told to limit their land under cultivation to one or two acres, and to use the most rudimentary implements such as the hoe, sickle and cradle.
