WOOD AND PLAIN INDIANS.
The Indians are in their habits very unclean and filthy. They will not
in the least impress anyone to such an extent that they would be willing
to forego the restrictions of civilized life, and enter upon the free
life of the red man.
The Indians living on the reserve in the neighbourhood of Frog Creek are
known as the Wood Crees, they were all peaceable and industrious, and
were becoming proficient in the art of husbandry. They lived in the log
cabins in the winter, but in the summer they took to their tents. They
numbered about 200 persons. They appeared satisfied with their position
which was much better than what falls to the lot of other Indians. They
did not take part in the massacre, nor where they responsible for it in
any way.
The Plain Crees are composed of the worst characters from all the tribes
of that name. They were dissatisfied, revengeful, and cruel, they could
not be persuaded to select their reserve until lately, and then they
would not settle upon it. Their tastes lay in a direction the opposite
to domestic; they were idle and worthless, and were the Indians who
killed our dear ones on that ever to be remembered 2nd of April. Those
same Indians were constantly fed by Mr. Delaney and my husband. The
following correspondence will show how he treated those ungrateful
characters:--Big Bear's Indians were sent up to Frog Lake, it is said,
by Governor Dewdney who told them, if they would go there, they would
never be hungry, but last winter their rations were stopped, and they
had to work to get provisions, or starve. They would go around to the
settlers houses and ask for something to eat, and Mr. Delaney would
give those Indians rations, paying for them out of his own salary. Gov.
Dewdney wrote a letter stating that he must stop it at once; but he did
not listen to him and kept on giving to them until the outbreak. And the
very men he befriended were the ones who hurled him into sudden death.
Big Bear was only nominally the chief of this tribe, the ruling power
being in the hands of Wandering Spirit, a bad and vicious man,
who exercised it with all the craft and cunning of an accomplished
freebooter.