THE INDIAN TRIALS
My friend Stanley Simpson lay seriously ill in Battleford of fever
brought on by exposure and privation in the Indian camp. I was daily at
his side, doing what I could to cheer and help him.
At length he was convalescent, and one evening when I came in as usual
to chat with him he told me how he had been misbehaving himself in the
afternoon. He had felt quite strong and having been bed-bound for more
than a month decided to practise a little deception against the powers
that were by stealing out and taking a look at himself in the glass
on the wall opposite him. He had been standing before this, imagining
that a little colour was creeping back into his wan pinched cheeks when
something struck the back of his head. He realized with amazement that
it had been the edge of the bedstead. He heard the lady of the house,
alarmed by the fall, rushing upstairs and the poor invalid, trembling
violently and looking like a ghost, feverishly pawed himself back into
bed. Stanley was always such a modest fellow and his landlady, poor
thing, might see him in his nightshirt!
No more experiments for a week; then we bundled him into a light
spring wagon with a mattress in the bottom and started across the two
hundred miles of prairie for Regina, summoned as witnesses against the
Indians of Big Bear’s band. Meantime Four-Sky Thunder, accompanied
by Miserable Man and a small party, had come into Battleford and
surrendered to Colonel Otter. This was extremely short-sighted of
Miserable Man, as he no doubt concluded when he was later hanged for
the murder of Charles Gouin at Frog Lake.
At Regina I appeared against nine Indians tried at one sitting on a
charge of treason-felony, among them my old acquaintance Oskatask, who
questioned me at some length. I had much satisfaction in answering him.
All were sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of years.
Big Bear had been captured near Fort Carlton, two hundred miles east
of Pitt, about July 1st, on an island in the Saskatchewan, by Sergeant
Graham of the North-West Mounted Police. The old chief had evaded three
columns of troops sent out to intercept him. A councillor and his
youngest son, Horse Child, were taken with him.
I was a witness also at the trial of Big Bear, though this time for
the defence. I told how, at the moment of the shooting he had rushed
toward the murderers shouting: “_Tesqua! Tesqua!_ (Stop! Stop!),” how
he had expressed to Mr. Simpson his sorrow for what had occurred, how
at our suggestion he had called a council to urge his followers to
let the police quit Pitt unmolested, and had afterward held his band
back when Captain Dickens abandoned the place, how he had spoken for
us when Wandering Spirit in council tried to incite a second massacre,
how Chaquapocase (as I learned) the night after Frenchman’s Butte had
started for the McLeans’ tent to shoot the chief trader in revenge for
the death of the murderer Kahweechetwaymot and how Big Bear had gone
after him and taken away his gun.
The old chief was in sore perplexity and distress and I spoke fervently
in his behalf. With a world of trouble in the kindly expressive old
eyes he sat and watched me while the interpreter beside him translated
my testimony in his ear, and as I warmed in his defence and the words
came fast and tumultuously to my lips he nodded his head emphatically
in confirmation and the cloud seemed to lift from his seamed and rugged
patriarchal face. Big Bear is dead, but it will always be a source of
gratification to me that I had the opportunity of doing something to
lighten the misfortunes that overtook his old age and that I made the
most of it.
The charge was treason-felony and the verdict guilty. Brought before
the court to learn his fate, Justice Richardson said:
“Big Bear, have you anything to say before sentence is passed upon you?”
The old man drew himself up with that imperious air that proclaimed
him leader and fitted him so well; the thick nostrils expanded, the
broad deep chest was thrown out, the strong jaw looked aggressively
prominent, the mouth was a straight line. He gave his head the little
characteristic toss that always preceded his speeches.
“I think I should have something to say,” he began slowly, “about the
occurrences which brought me here in chains!” He spoke in his native
Cree, knowing no English. He paused. Then with the earnestness, the
eloquence and the pathos that never failed to move an audience, red or
white, he went on to speak of the troubles of the spring.
“I knew little of the killing at Frog Lake beyond hearing shots fired.
When any wrong was brewing I did my best to stop it in the beginning.
The turbulent ones of the band got beyond my control and shed the blood
of those I would have protected. I was away from Frog Lake a part of
the winter, hunting and fishing, and the rebellion had commenced before
I got back. When white men were few in the country I gave them the
hand of brotherhood. I am sorry so few are here who can witness for my
friendly acts.
“Can anyone stand out and say that I ordered the death of a priest or
an agent? You think I encouraged my people to take part in the trouble.
I did not. I advised them against it. I felt sorry when they killed
those men at Frog Lake, but the truth is when news of the fight at Duck
Lake reached us my band ignored my authority and despised me because I
did not side with the half-breeds. I did not so much as take a white
man’s horse. I always believed that by being the friend of the white
man, I and my people would be helped by those of them who had wealth. I
always thought it paid to do all the good I could. Now my heart is on
the ground.
“I look around me in this room and see it crowded with handsome
faces—faces far handsomer than my own” (Laughter). “I have ruled
my country for a long time. Now I am in chains and will be sent to
prison, but I have no doubt the handsome faces I admire about me will
be competent to govern the land” (Laughter). “At present I am as dead
to my people. Many of my band are hiding in the woods, paralyzed with
terror. Cannot this court send them a pardon? My own children!—perhaps
they are starving and outcast, too, afraid to appear in the big light
of day. If the government does not come to them with help before the
winter sets in, my band will surely perish.
“But I have too much confidence in the Great Grandmother to fear that
starvation will be allowed to overtake my people. The time will come
when the Indians of the North-West will be of much service to the Great
Grandmother. I plead again,” he cried, stretching forth his hands,
“to you, the chiefs of the white men’s laws, for pity and help to the
outcasts of my band!
“I have only a few words more to say. Sometimes in the past I have
spoken stiffly to the Indian agents, but when I did so it was only in
order to obtain my rights. The North-west belonged to me, but I perhaps
will not live to see it again. I ask the court to publish my speech and
to scatter it among the white people. It is my defence.
“I am old and ugly, but I have tried to do good. Pity the children of
my tribe! Pity the old and the helpless of my people! I speak with a
single tongue; and because Big Bear has always been the friend of the
white man, send out and pardon and give them help!
“_How! Aquisanee_—I have spoken!”
A tense silence held the crowded court-room as Big Bear concluded. The
man would have been calloused indeed who could listen to that stirring
appeal, the impassioned outburst of the aged, untutored orator,
unmoved. The fates had been unkind. Dejected he was, lonely, shorn of
his freedom, bewildered he must have been. But however broken he might
be, and probably was in the privacy of his solitary cell, here, before
the people of an alien race who had entered and possessed his land, he
was still able to hold up his head; he was still Big Bear, chief of the
Crees. The stout old heart still beat strongly in the warrior breast.
His spirit, though bowed, refused to be crushed. And his plea was—not
for himself; he was above that—but for his people, far less worthy than
himself—for his children, hiding in terror, “afraid to show themselves
in the big light of day.” My eyes—I am not ashamed to say it—were wet.
My heart went out to the kindly, pleasant old man I had known, who
found “so few to witness for his friendly acts.” I was glad not to be
among that absent number.
“Big Bear,” said Justice Richardson, and his tone was not unkind, “you
have been found guilty by an impartial jury. You cannot be excused from
all responsibility for the misdoings of your band. The sentence of the
court is that you be imprisoned in the penitentiary at Stony Mountain
for three years.”
Wandering Spirit had recovered from his self-inflicted wound. On
September 22nd he was brought before the criminal court at Battleford
charged with having on April 2nd, 1885, shot to death Thomas Trueman
Quinn, Indian agent at Frog Lake.
“Are you guilty or not guilty?” asked the court.
“The charge is true,” answered the war chief.
Judge Rouleau, in sentencing him, said:
“Wandering Spirit, you have confessed to having committed one of the
most heinous crimes a man can commit. I need not say much, for you
now recognize the gravity of your offence. You were doing murder while
others burned houses and committed other crimes. You could not expect
any good to follow your acts. You were too weak to oppose the whites
and could not have provided for yourselves even if you had killed them
all, and now you would starve unless the government took you in charge.
If the whites had done as you did they would have killed the Indians,
but they took the most guilty ones—those who took a most prominent part
in crime—and are now feeding the rest.
“Instead of listening to wise men you preferred to listen to the advice
of bad men as poor as yourselves, who could not help you if they wanted
to and who only got you into trouble. The government does not wish to
destroy the Indians. They wish to help them to live like white men;
but as far as murderers are concerned, the government has no pity. If
a white man murders an Indian he must hang and so must an Indian if he
kills a white man.
“The sentence of the court, is that you, Wandering Spirit, be taken
back to the guard-room at the mounted police barracks and there
confined until the 27th day of November next; thence to the place of
execution and hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God have
mercy on your soul.”
Dressy Man and Charlebois were tried for the murder of the old Indian
woman—the _weetigo_—and sentenced to hang. The sentence was afterward
commuted.
Miserable Man endeavoured to prove an alibi. I had returned from Regina
and was present at his trial in Battleford. He was brought into the
courthouse handcuffed to Manichoos, another Frog Lake murderer, both
being charged with the murder of Charles Gouin. Manichoos, by order of
Wandering Spirit, had first shot Gouin, who had run for the door of
Pritchard’s house, a few paces off, when Quinn fell beside him.
Gouin was hit in the shoulder. He fell forward on his face and turned
over on his elbow, groaning with pain. Miserable Man, having left me
in the store just a moment before, rushed up, placed his gun against
Gouin’s chest, pulled the trigger and finished him.
He sat with Manichoos on the day of the trial on a bench at the side
of the court-room. I stood with the crowd at the back. Miserable Man
looked over and saw me. He smiled his most intriguing smile. I think
he was the ugliest Indian I ever knew and I cannot imagine the smile
improved his appearance. He pointed at me with the first finger on
his right hand, placed the back of the hand before his lips, still
with the finger extended; pushed it out directly before him. He opened
the hand and moved it palm downward next his heart and thrust it
quickly straight out before him. Finally he tapped his chest with his
forefinger.
All of which, being translated, read: “My brother; speak good for me,
Miserable Man.”
I had secured ample evidence against him among the Indians of the
band and the trial was short. Judge Rouleau asked him the usual
question—whether he had anything to say before sentence was passed.
Miserable Man was no speaker, but he did his best.
“When the man was shot I was in the Company’s shop with”—he faced
about and ran his little weazel eyes over the crowd at the back of the
room—“with him!” he concluded, pointing me out with his finger.
The judge then pronounced sentence. Miserable Man beamed benignly on
the judge as he stopped speaking. Then in a voice plainly audible in
the court-room, he exclaimed:
“_Aquisee, mahga!_”
Literally, the remark might be translated: “That’s it, but!” This,
however, does not convey its exact meaning. It is an expression, common
among the Crees, of sarcastic acceptance of a proposition. Its English
equivalent would approach an ironical “Hear, hear!”
Manichoos was likewise sentenced to hang.
Four-Sky Thunder was given fourteen years’ imprisonment for burning the
church. I secured him as a witness against Miserable Man and Manichoos
and his sentence, in consideration of this service, was commuted as I
told him it would be, at the end of six years.
Nokipawchass was sentenced to hang with the others for the murder of
Cowan. In view of the favourable reports of the prisoners concerning
him and doubt as to the reliability of the testimony on which he was
convicted, his sentence was commuted. Subsequently he was liberated.
Napaise, or Iron Body, was convicted of the murder of George Dill, my
former partner. He called in his defence Little Bear, who testified as
follows:
“I was present when Dill was killed. Saw him turn around and the
prisoner fired at him and knocked him down.”
Then Little Bear, or Apischiskoos, was put on trial for the same crime
and also convicted. In his own defence he said:
“I will tell the truth about what I did and what I know. When I was at
the roothouse Wandering Spirit came for me to take the white people to
the camp. He went away and I heard three shots. While still there I saw
the whites walking and heard more shots. I jumped on my horse and rode
toward the shooting. I saw the priests already dead. I saw three whites
running and I heard Wandering Spirit calling. I then went after the
whites. I heard more shots. I saw one man. Other Indians were firing at
him and I also fired two shots. After I had fired the white man turned
and faced us and Napaise fired and knocked him down.”
Napaise said: “I understood it was only a murderer that the law would
deal severely with, so I went to Prince Albert and gave myself up and
now I find I am accused of murder. Kahweechetwaymot shot Williscraft
and then Gilchrist. Then Apischiskoos and I both fired at Dill but
missed and Maymayquaysoo knocked him down. Wandering Spirit was
the cause of it all. He was jealous of those who wished to take a
reservation. After killing Quinn he was afraid and wished to drag
others into it.”
Paypamakeesik, or Walking the Sky, was sentenced for the murder of
Father Fafard, with whom he lived as a boy for several years. Wandering
Spirit, after killing Quinn, first shot the priest. He ran up to him as
the missionary walked in the direction of the Indian camp.
“Why did you not give us news of the Duck Lake fight when you learned
it?” he cried. “You wish to side with the whites and against us—follow
them!”
He raised his rifle and shot the priest through the neck. Father Fafard
fell on his face. He still breathed and Walking the Sky stepped out of
a group behind him, put the muzzle of his gun close to the back of the
priest’s head and sent a bullet through his brain.
Kahweechetwaymot was dead by a shell at Frenchman’s Butte;
Maymayquaysoo and Paskooquiyoo (the murderer of John Delaney and Father
Marchand) were fugitives with Little Poplar, Imasees and others across
the Montana line; the remaining murderers had been tried and sentenced
to hang on November 27th. They were: Wandering Spirit, Miserable Man,
Paypamakeesik, Manichoos, Napaise and Apischiskoos.