Canada's Subjugation of the Plains Cree 1879-1885

Dana L.

This factsheet unpacks the history of the subjugation of the Plains Cree by the Canadian government from 1879-1885. The factsheet also explores how the Plains Cree under the leadership of Big Bear, Little Pine, Piapot, and Poundmaker resisted the encroachment of settlers into their territory by refusing treaty. It discusses how Edgar Dewdney, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs used starvation to get the Cree to come to treaty.

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References

Giese, Paula. Map of Plains Cree territories addressed in Treaties 4 and 6 (Image). Kstrom, 1997, http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/cantreaty/treaty6map.html.
Tobias, John L. “Canada's Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879–1885.” Canadian Historical Review 64, no.4 (1983): 1-30.

Source Authors

John L. Tobias, Paula Giese

Keywords

assimilation, Buffalo, Canada's Colonial History, Canadian settler colonialism, History of Resistance, Indians of the West, indigenous communities, Indigenous governance, Indigenous peoples, Indigenous Resistance, indigenous territory, Legal History, non-Indian buffalo hunting, Plains Cree, racism, regulation, segregation, Settler Colonialism, settler government, Treaties, Treaty History, treaty making process

Key Figures

Big Bear, Edgar Dewdney, John A. MacDonald, Little Pine, Louis Riel, Piapot, Poundmaker

Locations

Manitoba, The West, Western Canada