essay
A Witness to murder: the Cypress Hills Massacre and the conflict of attitudes towards native people of the Canadian and American West during the 1870's
As long as the sun shines and water flows : a reader in Canadian native studies • (1) • Published In 1983 • Pages: 229-246
By: Allen, Robert S..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is an account of the Cypress Hills Massacre that occurred in southern Saskatchewan, near the Montana border 1 June 1873. A group of American and Canadian wolfers surprised and attacked a camp of Assiniboine, whom they thought had stolen one of their horses. They killed 22 men, women, and children and lost only one from their own group. Allen discusses the series of massacres in Montana prior to Cypress Hills. He also profiles each of the perpetrators, all but three who fled to the United States. The Canadian government failed in their attempt to extradite those who did flee, however, the North West Mounted Police found and arrested the three left in Canada. They stood trial in Winnipeg, Manitoba in June 1876. The government desperately wanted to avoid the violence and bloodshed occurring in the American West and establish a just rule of law, which was deemed crucial to peaceful treaty negotiations. Although the men were acquitted, the government's effort did impress the Indians enough to permit the peaceful negotiation and signing of Treaties Nos. 6 and 7.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- External trade
- Ethnic stratification
- External relations
- Warfare
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Assiniboine
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2002
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Plains and Plateau
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Government Official
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2001
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- not specified
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1873-1876
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Saskatchewan, Canada
- NotesAdditional notes
- Robert S. Allen
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 83220887
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Assiniboine Indians