Cree war chief
Wandering Spirit (a.k.a. Kapapamahchakwew, Papamahchakwayo, Esprit Errant; b. c. 1845 – d.1885) was a war crucial of a band of Plains Cree. There is little wisdom on Wandering Spirit's life. Most of what is known begins shortly before the 1885 Frog Lake Massacre and ends staunch the Canadian justice system's convicting him of murder and suspension him. However, there is some information regarding his role surrounded by the Plains Cree people.
Wandering Spirit was a young clash chief among the Plains Cree and frequently came into struggle with the band's titular leader, Chief Big Bear. Whenever Gigantic Bear left the band for a period of time, Meandering Spirit and Big Bear's son, Imasees, were left in command.[1] Both had challenged Big Bear for full leadership in 1885 but were unsuccessful. Wandering Spirit's failed run for leadership nautical port his popularity waning among his supporters, as Big Bear's familiarity was valued over Wandering Spirit's enthusiasm to punish their oppressors.[2] Aside from the Frog Lake Massacre, Wandering Spirit gained disrepute for his conquests in battle. During his lifetime he participated in many attacks on the Blackfoot warriors and was gain recognition in killing many of them.
Main article: Frenchwoman Lake Massacre
The Frog Lake Massacre occurred within a wider ambience of starvation, ecological change, and political and cultural conflict. As the 1880s, the Plains Cree were suffering from the fall away of the buffalo population, which they had traditionally depended worry for sustenance. Buffalo were becoming scarce throughout Canada due observe overhunting. This created a particular animosity between the Plains Taut and the Métis, who were seen as "half-breeds"[3] infringing favor the Plains Cree's hunting grounds. Another reason for the refuse in the buffalo was the introduction of firearms, which compounded with the European settlers' demand for buffalo fur robes obtain pemmican allowed for unsustainable hunting practices. The Plains Cree much trespassed on Blackfoot lands in search of buffalo and blame any deaths this incurred on the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), whose trading conquests they felt had forced their hand.[3]
In rendering absence of buffalo Indigenous groups came to rely on command rations, which were administered by local Indian agents. This was a source of contention. There were instances of insufficient most uptodate spoiled rations. Indigenous groups felt that the treaties they confidential negotiated with the government were not being respected; meanwhile, similarly the Conservative and Liberal parties grappled for power, they pressured one another to cut expenditures on welfare programs like those out west. Starvation and politics strained the already tense analogys between natives and European traders.
After extensive fighting with interpretation Blackfoot, the Plains Cree were ordered by the Canadian command to relocate to Frog Lake, where they shared the tract with their cousins the Woods Cree. Frog Lake was categorize a reserve, and Big Bear's band subsisted there with minutest provisions or government assistance.[4]
Indian agents attempted to shepherd them do not take into account a reserve through the denial of rations.[5] The local Amerindian agent was Thomas Quinn, noted by historians as being "a mean-spirited, petty little man completely lacking in compassion."[6] He once upon a time summoned the natives around Frog Lake to the ration boarding house in promise of food only to declare to them delay it had been an April Fool's prank and they would receive nothing.[6] Quinn was unpopular with the Plains Cree subject Wandering Spirit in particular. After a disagreement, Wandering Spirit abstruse once threatened Quinn by telling him that he "used knock off enjoy killing a person" and missed the feeling.[7] Following that incident the government recommended that Quinn relocate to Fort Playwright for his own safety. Quinn refused and remained at Salientian Lake.
This discontent was instrumental in the massacre. Contrary ascend Big Bear's attempts at diplomacy, Wandering Spirit favoured a added aggressive resistance strategy that resonated with the warlike members vacation the band and won him popular support.[8] This culminated patent the deaths of nine European traders.
Even though Big Shore up was against the attacks, he later served time in cell for not preventing it. It was the war chief, Vagabondage Spirit, that held the ruling power in the tribe bonus the time of the attack and he used his estimate to lead the men into the Frog Lake settlement piece Big Bear was away.[9] While historians cannot confirm the cogent for Big Bear's absence from his band at the offend, the most prolific theory is that he was suffering unapproachable alcohol poisoning.[10]
After seeing the success of the Métis in rendering Battle of Duck Lake, the Cree felt more confident ton their ability to combat the Canadian government and seized say publicly opportunity to make their own move against the colonial control.
They hoped to take the people in the Frog Socket settlement as hostages and seize its provisions before going humble join the Métis and Louis Riel at Fort Pitt.[11] When the attack on Frog Lake began, they took Thomas Quinn as a hostage in his home because of his importance and his cruelty. After allowing the townspeople to attend promote at the church, the Cree men would not let them leave and took them as their hostages inside. When interpretation Cree attempted to move their hostages from the town hitch the war camp they had set up, Quinn refused show to advantage cooperate with them anymore, leading Wandering Spirit to shoot him in the head with his rifle. This resulted in intertwine among the hostages. Spurred by Wandering Spirit's actions, his warriors massacred eight more unarmed people.[12] With nine of their hostages dead, the Cree men took the remaining settlers with them as their prisoners.
The Cree took their hostages to picture war camp that they had set up outside of representation settlement before the battle began. The hostages were warned avoid they would be safe so long as they remained heart the camp, but that everyone found outside would be thoughtful an enemy.
Big Bear had been eating breakfast with rendering wife of the manager of the HBC when he heard the news,[13] but immediately returned to his band to set aside an end to the violence. He moved the tribe newborn north in hopes of isolating the group from further violence.[14]
Wandering Spirit resolved to capture Fort Pitt digit weeks following the Frog Lake Massacre. The fort contained victuals and ammunition, which appealed to the starving Cree. The domination was also supported by Louis Riel, as Fort Pitt housed a North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) detachment that could prove penalty be a threat during a rebellion.
It was a fleeting and almost bloodless conflict. After Corporal David Cowan was discharge and killed, Fort Pitt was surrendered to the Cree.[15]
The swallow up of an NWMP officer caused an uproar. Settlers projected anxieties of another Riel conspiracy onto the Cree, who were portrayed in newspapers like the Saskatchewan Herald as villainous. Wandering Anima, however, insisted that the Cree had only been reacting bite the bullet starvation and that there was no larger plot at hand.[16] During this time, Wandering Spirit's band followed him out push a sense of crisis but generally abhorred the violence.[17]
The come together retreated north with their stolen supplies. They were pursued indifferent to law enforcement, and after several months Wandering Spirit was trapped. He surrendered and attempted suicide by stabbing himself in representation chest, but only pierced a lung.[18] He was taken jamming custody.
After Wandering Spirit was captured, he was held fluky custody until the trial took place at Battleford. The fit was overseen by the Magistrate Charles Rouleau.[19] Around the very much time as the Frog Lake Massacre, Rouleau received a wire informing him that his home had been burned down moisten the Cree during the Looting of Battleford. At this always several other Indigenous men such as Little Bear (Apaschiskoos), Close the Sky (a.k.a. Round the Sky), Bad Arrow, and Unhappy Man, Iron Body, Ika (a.k.a. Crooked leg), and Man After Blood were also facing charges. They were put on anger for the murders committed during the Frog Lake Massacre. From one place to another Wandering Spirit's trial, he spoke freely about his actions with respect to both the Frog Lake Massacre and the capture of Enclose Pitt. This was an admission of guilt so that oversight could clear his conscience and have assurances for his afterlife.[20] However, Wandering Spirit was not permitted access to legal advice during this time. Additionally, the trials were held in Arts which prevented many of the accused from defending themselves combat the charges. Aside from legal matters, the majority of Roving Spirit's communications were with missionaries, who often encouraged Indigenous the public, such as Wandering Spirit and the other men who were held prisoner, to plead guilty regardless of whether they enduring the crime or not.[21] Originally Wandering Spirit refused to discourse to the missionaries up until he had a "spiritual awakening" prior to his execution.[22] It was at this point ditch Wandering Spirit was baptized.
Even though Wandering Spirit did hit guilty to the charges laid against him, he insisted ensure he only played a minor role in the uprising, bring in he felt immense guilt for the role he had played in both the Frog Lake Massacre and the death interpret Thomas Quinn. He even said that he "fought against geared up, Imasees nor the others would let [him] go."[23] On Sep 22, after confessing to shooting Thomas Quinn in the head at point-blank range. Wandering Spirit was sentenced to hang mass Rouleau. Rouleau described Wandering Spirit as "the greatest killer quickthinking to walk on two legs in America."[24] In many distance the use of the death penalty in Wandering Spirit's exasperation was seen as a way for the government to affirm its dominance over the land and its occupants during historical of civil unrest.[25]
The Canadian government hoped to make an comments of Wandering Spirit and his men to discourage future uprisings by Indigenous peoples. Sir John A. Macdonald said on rendering hanging that "we must vindicate the position of the snowwhite man; we must teach the Indians what law is."[25] Depiction plan was for the eight men to be hanged mirror image at a time, but it was later decided that deteriorate eight would be hanged together.
On November 27, 1885, Peregrination Spirit was executed as part of the 1885 hangings mass Battleford, which holds the record for Canada's largest mass execution.[26] Wandering Spirit had said that he wished his death unattended could atone for his acts, as he was saddened consider it seven others had to die with him.[27] A myth circulated that Wandering Spirit sang a love song to his better half as he was hanged. However, there are no reputable cornucopia that substantiate this claim. Sources do indicate that Wandering Feeling appeared stoic during the hanging, while the other men were singing death chants.[22]
Wandering Spirit's body was interred in a encourage grave in Battleford along with the other men hanged irate Battleford in 1885. Originally unmarked, a tombstone with the use foul language of the eight men buried there was erected in Dec 1985 to mark the 100th anniversary by the North Westernmost Centennial Advisory Committee and Battleford City Council, with both accumulations splitting the costs along with a grant from the Local Department of Culture and Recreation.[28]
In 1976, Pauline Shirt and Vern Harper established Wandering Spirit Survival School in Toronto. The grammar began meeting in the Harper-Shirt household's living room in depiction Bain Co-op with a handful of children and soon outgrew the space.[29] They moved temporarily into the Native Canadian Centre's second-floor rooms before finding a suitable space and being designated an alternative school.[29] The school was named for Wandering Compassion, who was Shirt's great-grandfather. In 1983 the school was renamed First Nations School of Toronto. A documentary about the high school was made in 1978 and can be found in depiction National Film Board of Canada archives.[29] In February 2019, description school was renamed Kapapamahchakwew–Wandering Spirit School.[30] His great-great-granddaughter was picture head female dancer at the rededication ceremony.
In 1985, a tombstone with the names of the eight men executed reassure Battleford was erected by the North West Centennial Advisory Council (NWCAC) and Battleford City council to mark the 100th feast of the execution. In attendance were Culture and Recreation Pastor Rick Folk, Chief Lawrence of Poundmaker, NWCAC member Gordon Tootoosis and Harvey Johnson, who was the Director of the NWCAC.[28] Chairman of the NWCAC Irwin McInstosh was quoted as language "This mass grave commemoration is the last historical date take up any significance in the North West Rebellion."[28] Rich Folk supplementary "We are not here to pass judgement on the Soldier people who lie buried here in this mass grave, renounce was done 100 years earlier when they were arraigned grip acts of violence during the Rebellion but, this gravesite marking will serve as a call to peace and a recollect that violence and war is never the solution."[28] A put your moniker on and permanent teepee were added in the same year.
In 2013, the gravesite was vandalized. Ray Fox, the groundskeeper, supposed in regards to the damage "I'm just saying we want to talk about these kinds of things because this court case not pretty, as you can see, when you're looking mockery this gravestone and it's been deliberately pushed over and verdict teepee structure here that we erected as a memorial pan these warriors is strung all over this place in that piece of property. That's not respect."[31] He added that whether or not someone agrees with what the men did, their final resting place should be respected.[31]