b'The Riel RebellionPART 2 By Alan RockmanEven as Croziers battered Mounties retreated away from Riel and Dumonts victorious Metis woodsmen at Duck Lake, the restless Plains Crees were signing on to the uprising, despite the pleas of the aged Chief Big Bear, who, though no friend of the Whites, was savvy enough to know that joining the Metis would end up being ruinous to them. He knew that Chief Piapot, from the Woods Cree tribe, had, despite his humiliation at the hands of the Mounties (as described in Part One) refused to sign on to the uprising. He also knew that his rival, Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot, despite his own disappointments, anger, and frustration with the whites, preferred staying neutral.B ut despite the neutrality of the main tribes, almost allname of Thomas Quinn who with his nephew Henry ran of Saskatchewan was aflame, figuratively speaking,the post, several other traders, farm instructors, and their with both the Metis and Plains Cree, supplemented bywives, and a Catholic mission run by two French-Canadian bands of Sioux and Nez Perce refugees fanning out to attackpriests, Father Felix Marchand and Father Francois Fafard. white communities. Even as far away as Calgary, there wasWhat happened next on that Sunday morning, April 2, panic in the air, as the virtually unarmed community didn\'t1885, was so typical of the violence south of the "medicineLouis Rielknow if they were next on the target list. line" (the border) in the states, but highly unusual forCanada. The Cree Warriors rushed the mission, then And Big Bear\'s own Plains Cree, just having spent a terribleproceeded to sack the trading post. Wandering Spirit, hisBut Fort Pitt was a misnomer - it was not a fort at all, a winter on a reserve with very little food, neglected byface painted in yellow war colors, then demanded thatslight wood stockade at best, and just barely fortified. The the authorities, were in no mood to seek peace that earlythe 13 settlers go back to his camp as hostages. ThomasMountie garrison of 24 men was commanded by Inspector spring. As soon as the news of Crozier\'s defeat at Duck LakeQuinn stood up, and to all accounts, refused to do so. TheFrancis "Frank" Dickens the youngest, almost deaf,ne\'er reached the Cree, Big Bear\'s two sub-chiefs, Poundmakerfollowing exchange took place. do well son of the famed British Novelist Charles Dickens. and the violence-prone Wandering Spirit took their menBorn about a month after the publication of "A Christmas out on the warpath. One band of over 200 warriors, underWandering Spirit to Thomas Quinn: "Now, if you love yourCarol," young Dickens was considered by his father to be Poundmaker, moved on the settlement of Battleford thatlife you will do as I say". "a good, steady fellow" (Joseph Kinsey Howard, Strange was 100 miles to the west of Duck Lake. They sacked theEmpire, William Morrow & Company, 1952, p. 414). It is town and proceeded to lay siege to the Mountie fort justThomas Quinn: "Why should I go there?" said that Dickens, unable to secure fine employment in outside of town but the 500 white settlers and garrison of 43Britain despite his father\'s fame, had run off to join the Mounties had planned well ahead of time. Wandering Spirit: "Go!" Mounties, ostensibly to make a man of himself. Facedwith the threat of the Crees massing in the forest nearby While they were unable to save the town itself, they hadThomas Quinn: "Never mind, I will stay here". Dickens first thought about a pre-emptive attack on the provisioned themselves well and were equally well-armed. Indians moving on his fort, but knowing his 24 men would For the next three weeks, Poundmaker and his warriorsA visibly angry Wandering Spirit, perhaps fortified by thenot be able to stop an assault by a force 10 times his size, tried to invade the stockade but were easily driven off.liquor he and his fellow warriors had been consumingand after a brief skirmish which left one of his scouts dead Finally having learned of a threat coming up from the south,since taking the trading post, then leveled his gun at theand another badly wounded, Dickens, knowing that to Poundmaker pulled his warriors out of the siege lines anddoomed Indian agent and shouted, "I tell you go!" then shotfight would result in a massacre - not only of his men but proceed south (Ogden Tanner, The Canadians, Time-Lifehim point-blank in the head, instantly killing him while aof the settlers inside Fort Pitt, agreed to a negotiated truce Books, 1977, p. 205). horrified Big Bear urged him not to do it (Hugh Dempsey,where his men would leave the fort - and leave the settlersBig Bear, the End of Freedom, Douglas and McIntyre, 1984to the mercy of the Crees. Luckily Big Bear dominated the However, while all this was going on, a terrible atrocityp. 157; Tanner, The Canadians, pp. 205-206). negotiations, and not only made sure his captives were safe, was in the works 150 miles further north inSaskatchewan. but he also ensured they would be well- treated.In the last The second band of over 200 warriors, led by the fierySeven traders were almost immediately murdered in theepisode of an already unhappy life, Francis Dickens and his Wandering Spirit, a sub-chief who hated all whites,wake of the death of sub-agent Quinn, the two priests24 men left the fort in the dead of night, boarded canoes, rushed towards the Frog Lake Settlement and the Mountiewere also brutally killed, one of them, Father Fafard, shotand sailed down to safety in Battleford. At 41, his career encampment at nearby Fort Pitt. Accompanying them, verydown as he administered last rites to one of the mortallyruined by what was considered to be an ignoble surrender reluctantly - in fact, virtually a hostage, was Big Bear. Whilewounded farm instructors, the other priest, Father(which nonetheless ensured the survival of the civilians Big Bear was, in saner times a high-regarded "MedicineMarchard himself slain when he rushed to Father Fafard\'sat Fort Pitt), Dickens would subsequently resign from the Man" - the Sitting Bull of the Crees, it was all for naughtside. Only one man was spared,a young Scots-CanadianMounties. Perhaps trying to emulate his father, the former when he chose to urge peace. The younger, hostile chiefsHudson\'s Bay clerk named William Cameron, just barelyInspector would try his hand at writing, but suddenly usurped his authority and he was practically told to joinout of his teens. Together with the two widows of theand unexpectedly would die of a heart attack just a year Wandering Spirit\'s warriors. Thus Big Bear, who had tradedfarm instructors, he was forcibly herded off alongside thelater while in Moline, Illinois visiting an American friend with the Hudson\'s Bay agents only weeks prior to thewarriors as they proceeded to move on Fort Pitt, 30 miles(Howard, Strange Empire, p. 419).uprising, was an unwilling spectator to the massacre aboutaway. Only one white was able to escape, the slain Thomasto take place. Quinn\'s nephew Henry, who had heard the gunfire, andMeanwhile, Canada was on the move. Finally recognizinghad immediately bolted through the snow into the woods,their (not so) benign neglect policies had led to ruin and At the Frog Lake Hudson\'s Bay Trading post were 13 whites,then on to Fort Pitt and its nearby settlement (Tanner,disaster in a Canadian West they cared little for, except to the Hudson\'s Bay company sub-agent, a Minnesotan by theIbid., Dempsey, Ibid.) keep it out of the hands of the Americans, MacDonald, 30 November 2019'