1885 hangings at Battleford

Prior to the rebellion the Canadian government's actions in the District of Saskatchewan resulted in starvation, disease, and death among the Indigenous peoples of the area.

Quinn was a notoriously harsh Indian agent, who kept Indigenous people near Frog Lake on the brink of starvation ("no work, no rations").

HBC employee William Bleasdell Cameron, later the author of Blood Red the Sun, first published in 1926 as The War Trail of Big Bear, was there at the time.

Blood Red the Sun describes the events leading up to the Frog Lake Massacre and the executions in significant detail.

Following the end of the rebellion, marked by the capture of Batoche, the participants of the events at Frog Lake were arrested and taken to Battleford.

on September 22, Wandering Spirit pleaded guilty, and Stipendiary Magistrate Charles Rouleau sentenced him to hang.

The December issue of the Saskatchewan Herald described Rouleau as a "heavy loser pecuniarily" after the Looting of Battleford  – his house had been burned to the ground, and he reportedly promised that "every Indian and Half-breed and rebel brought before him after the insurrection was suppressed, would be sent to the gallows if possible.

"[3] A "memorial" was sent to the Department of Justice alleging Rouleau was too personally involved to perform his job as presiding judge in an unbiased manner[4] but his rulings in almost all cases were not struck down.

[7] Although a different eyewitness noted that, unlike the other seven, Wandering Spirit hummed a love song to his wife as his final moment approached.

In his 1970s-era histographical account of Indian policy in Canada, Prisons of Grass, Howard Adams gives his opinion on the hangings: Every member of the Indian nation heard the death-rattle of the eight heroes who died at the end of the colonizers rope and they went quietly back to their compounds, obediently submitting themselves to the oppressors.