Wandering Spirit (Cree leader)

Most of what is known begins shortly before the 1885 Frog Lake Massacre and ends with the Canadian justice system's convicting him of murder and hanging him.

The Frog Lake Massacre occurred within a wider context of starvation, ecological change, and political and cultural conflict.

The Plains Cree often trespassed on Blackfoot lands in search of buffalo and blamed any deaths this incurred on the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), whose trading conquests they felt had forced their hand.

Indigenous groups felt that the treaties they had negotiated with the government were not being respected; meanwhile, as the Conservative and Liberal parties grappled for power, they pressured one another to cut expenditures on welfare programs like those out west.

[5] The local Indian agent was Thomas Quinn, noted by historians as being "a mean-spirited, petty little man completely lacking in compassion.

"[6] He once summoned the natives around Frog Lake to the ration house in promise of food only to declare to them that it had been an April Fool's prank and they would receive nothing.

Contrary to Big Bear's attempts at diplomacy, Wandering Spirit favoured a more aggressive resistance strategy that resonated with the warlike members of the band and won him popular support.

It was the war chief, Wandering Spirit, that held the ruling power in the tribe at the time of the attack and he used his position to lead the men into the Frog Lake settlement while Big Bear was away.

[9] While historians cannot confirm the reason for Big Bear's absence from his band at the time, the most prolific theory is that he was suffering from alcohol poisoning.

They hoped to take the people in the Frog Lake settlement as hostages and seize its provisions before going to join the Métis and Louis Riel at Fort Pitt.

When the Cree attempted to move their hostages from the town to the war camp they had set up, Quinn refused to cooperate with them anymore, leading Wandering Spirit to shoot him in the head with his rifle.

Big Bear had been eating breakfast with the wife of the manager of the HBC when he heard the news,[13] but immediately returned to his band to put an end to the violence.

The conquest was also supported by Louis Riel, as Fort Pitt housed a North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) detachment that could prove to be a threat during a rebellion.

[19] Around the same time as the Frog Lake Massacre, Rouleau received a telegram informing him that his home had been burned down by the Cree during the Looting of Battleford.

Throughout Wandering Spirit's trial, he spoke freely about his actions regarding both the Frog Lake Massacre and the capture of Fort Pitt.

[25] The Canadian government hoped to make an example of Wandering Spirit and his men to discourage future uprisings by Indigenous peoples.

Sir John A. Macdonald said on the hanging that "we must vindicate the position of the white man; we must teach the Indians what law is.

Originally unmarked, a tombstone with the names of the eight men buried there was erected in December 1985 to mark the 100th anniversary by the North West Centennial Advisory Committee and Battleford City Council, with both groups splitting the costs along with a grant from the Provincial Department of Culture and Recreation.

The school began meeting in the Harper-Shirt household's living room in the 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.

[28] Chairman of the NWCAC Irwin McInstosh was quoted as saying "This mass grave commemoration is the last historical date of any significance in the North West Rebellion.

Ray Fox, the groundskeeper, said in regards to the damage "I'm just saying we need to talk about these kinds of things because this is not pretty, as you can see, when you're looking at this gravestone and it's been deliberately pushed over and our teepee structure here that we erected as a memorial to these warriors is strung all over this place in this piece of property.