This publication is the inaugural volume of the History of the Prairie West series. Each volume in the series focuses on a particular topic and is composed of articles previously published in160;"Prairie Forum"160;and written by experts in the field. The original articles are supplemented by additional photographs and other illustrative material.
Born in Toronto to a Methodist family and raised in Wingham, Ontario, William Henry Jackson attended the University of Toronto before moving to Prince Albert, where he began to sympathize with the Métis and their struggle against the Canadian government. Jackson became personal secretary to Louis Riel, was captured by the Canadian militia during the 1885 Resistance, and was convicted of treason and sentenced to an insane asylum near Winnipeg. When he escaped to the United States, joining the labour union movement, he told everyone that he was Métis and modified his name to the Métis-sounding Honoré Jaxon. After a lively career as a politically radical public figure in Chicago - where he befriended, among others, the revolutionary architect Frank Lloyd Wright - Jaxon eventually moved to New York City to attempt life as a real estate developer. His ongoing project was to collect as many books, newspapers and pamphlets relating to the Métis people as possible, in an attempt to establish a library for their use. However, he was evicted from his basement apartment at the age of ninety. His entire collection was dispersed, most of it to the New York City garbage dump, the remainder sold. He died a month later, in early 1952. Honoré Jaxon: Prairie Visionary completes Donald Smith's "Prairie Imposters" popular history trilogy concerning three prominent figures who all pretended a native ancestry they did not, in fact, possess - Honoré Jaxon, Grey Owl, and Long Lance.
Through the last half of the nineteenth century, numbers of Canadians began to regard the West as a land of ideal opportuniy for large-scale agricultural settlement. This belief, in turn, led Canada to insist on ownership of the region and on immediate development. Underlying the expansionist movement was the assumption that the West was to be a hinterland to central Canada, both in its economic relationship and in its cultural development. But settlers who accepted the extravagant promises of expanionism found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the assumption of easstern dominance with their own perception of the needs of the West and of Canada. Doug Owram analyses the various phases of this development, examining in particular the writings - historical, scientific, journalistic, and promotional - that illuminate one of the most significant movements in the history of nineteenth-century Canada.
The author presents a biography of the nineteenth century prominent Plains Cree leader, Ahtahkakoop (Starblanket). Using documentary sources as well as oral tradition, the author details Cree culture, society and economics before and during an era of rapid change. The author portrays the leadership of Ahtahkakoop as he attempted to establish his people, who were working to adapt to the disappearance of the buffalo, illness and death, missionaries, treaties schools, the uprising of 1885, and reserve life. The book is noted for its use of Cree language, Cree genealogy, Cree names for northern plains landmarks, and the stories associated with these geographic features.
In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics--the politics of ethnocide--played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald's "National Dream." It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between First Nations and non-Native populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. " Clearing the Plains is a tour de force that dismantles and destroys the view that Canada has a special claim to humanity in its treatment of indigenous peoples. Daschuk shows how infectious disease and state-supported starvation combined to create a creeping, relentless catastrophe that persists to the present day. The prose is gripping, the analysis is incisive, and the narrative is so chilling that it leaves its reader stunned and disturbed. For days after reading it, I was unable to shake a profound sense of sorrow. This is fearless, evidence-driven history at its finest." -Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Pox Americana "Required reading for all Canadians." -Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood "Clearly written, deeply researched, and properly contextualized history...Essential reading for everyone interested in the history of indigenous North America." -J.R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires
When Native and Métis unrest escalated into the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, white settlers in southern Alberta`s cattle country were terrified. Three major First Nations bordered their range, and war seemed certain. In anticipation, 114 men mustered to form the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer militia charged with ensuring the safety of the open range between the Rocky Mountains and the Cypress Hills. The Rangers were a motley crew, from ex-Mounties and ex-cons to retired, high-ranking military officials and working ranch hands. Membership qualifications were scant: ability to ride a horse, knowledge of the prairies, and preparedness to die. The Rangers were resolutely prepared to fight, as mounted cavalry, should the rebellion spread. This is their story, inextricably linked to the dissensions of the day, rife with skirmishes, corruption, jealousies, rumour, innuendo and gross media sensationalizing . . . all bound together with what author Gordon Tolton terms "a generous helping of gunpowder."
The papers in this collection deal with the traditions and past history of the Plains Cree, and the effects, fifty years ago, of a changing way of life. Topics covered are the following: a winter of hardship; Indian laws; revenge against the Blackfoot; Thunderchild takes his first horses from the Blackfoot; it is Pu-chi-to now who tells his story; Thunderchild takes part in a dangerous game; encounter with the Blackfoot in the Eagle hills; a fight with the Scarcee; a story of friendship; truce making and truce breaking; Buffalo pounds; the Buffalo chase; the Grizzly bear; walking wind tell his story of the Grizzly; Thunderchild's adventure with the bears; the foot-race; a faithless woman; the first man; the sun dance; the thirst dance; and, Thunderchild's conclusion.
