article
The Cypress Hills massacre: a century's retrospect
Saskatchewan history • 26 (3) • Published In 1973 • Pages: 81-102
By: Goldring, P..
Abstract
In the spring of 1873, a number of Assinboine were camped at a location called Cypress Hillls in southwestern Saskatechewan '…where two traders named Abel Farwell and Moses Solomon had erected trading posts the year before. Tension and mistrust between traders and Indians came to a head while a dozen or more frontier characters from Fort Benton happened to be camped a stone's throw from Fort Farwell. A strayed horse was mistakenly believed to have been stolen, and in the resulting confusion firing broke out which culminated in the complete destruction of the Indian camp and the deaths of twenty or more persons. American and Canadian attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice were thwarted by the climate of opinion in Montana, which was quite ready to condone the massacre whatever it origins, and by the failure of the government witnesses to tell a convincing story in the face of conflicting testimony' (p. 81). Goldring examines some of the major publications on the massacre including reconstruction of the events from various historical documents as well as surviving accounts of the massacre given by alleged participants from ten to fifty years later, and the judicial records of the legal proceedings of the American and Canadian governments which lasted virtually from the time of the massacre until three participants were tried for murder in Winnipeg in the last week of June 1876. From the analysis of these records the author attempts to present to the reader a clearer picture of what actually happened at Cypress Hills in 1873.
- HRAF PubDate
- 2002
- Region
- North America
- Sub Region
- Plains and Plateau
- Document Type
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Unknown
- Document Rating
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- Analyst
- John Beierle ; 2001
- Field Date
- no date
- Coverage Date
- 1873
- Coverage Place
- Cypress Hills, southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada
- Notes
- P. Goldring
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCN
- 54026145
- LCSH
- Assiniboine Indians