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FEATURES

On py PAUL OGRESKO
Ne an Y 25-27 thousands of Na-
Yillcony, Non-native Canadians
Sy . rge on Cut Knife Hill in
2 apathat to commemorate
| Maker’, €nary of Chief Pound-
| Pathe death. They will be
\W hg to honor an individual
Pop) “S Come to personify a
: | a

70s was a period of
yf etdous change in the region
Under Saskatchewan rivers.
Dima t® leadership of Gabriel
Metis the remnants of the
Baton Un gathered around the
Of th "€ area, the military defeat
Tst provisional govern-
a fresh wound.

bi, A World Ends
‘ing the Cree a world was com-
berds i €nd. The great Buffalo
ture i had sustained a life and
hing lad been obliterated. The
Were Where they roamed free
NOw criss-crossed with
all Of the white settler.
taj geoX Syphillis and alcohol

“timated the tribes.
| Sskan In the area of the North
}Poingcrewan River in 1842
Maker was the son of a re-
is w Medicine man and a

; Achieg Oman whose brother was

Ment Still

) Nees

Moy a
pen

Moy maker, while in Stoney

N Penitentiary in 1885.

yh

Kron as a great hunter and a
his Ofreason he became chief
en Nibe while barely out of his

Montived any happiness was

iy, eaux of white settlers to
ay Ith the completion of the
ly,’ Made it a priority for Ot-
Mey. Set the “Indians” out of
Noo, -Y- For the Cree there was
1, “€ —the temporary refuge

Tesery 2 : ,
ble e or extinction as a

Treaty No. 6

Tea °76 Poundmaker signed
ne: 6. In the name of
My, "!Ctoria and the Canadian
nt, he was promised all
ula and support his people
OW te ver need. The Cree were
| Ware Stficted to an area of 30
[ Mop), tight Poundmaker’s
Wag expected to change
Np, -°Madic hunters to statio-
‘tmers. Yet according to
ivy Co tion in the report of the
ng, ~CUNcil, the land assigned
idly. eServe No. 114) was
% Th Suitable,
oq . Soil is light and sandy.
the ‘ Scarce. A greater portion
1 Yttom, eet growing on the river
S in the valley of Battle

|
|

id)

Remembering

River has been cut down and used
for building and fencing pur-
poses.”

In response to assurances of
the Queen’s good faith Pound-
maker responded. ‘‘I do not differ
from my people but I want more
explanations.”” They were not
forthcoming.

Starvation Rampant

By 1884 the nature of Ottawa’s
concern became apparent. Star-
vation and disease were rampant
on the reserve, children were
born simply to die of malnutrition.
Hayter Reed, the assistant Indian
commissioner of the time, echoed
a commonly shared sentiment of
the authorities. “‘Indians should
have short rations. In this way
they will be compelled to work
harder.”’

It was in this climate that the
news of the Metis victory over the
Anglo-Canadian forces at Duck
Lake swept over the prairies.
Poundmaker knew Dumont and
Riel well. .

Yet Poundmaker was also
aware of the odds facing an armed
resistance. He knew of the genoc-
idal war being protracted against
his brothers and sisters south of
the border. But it was time for
grievances to be heard.

By this time panic had hit the
white communities and the town
of Battleford was no exception.
The 500 settlers had abandoned
the town and sought refuge in the
nearby police fort. When the na-
tives arrived at the fort the Indian
agent refused to see them or hear
the petitions.

In frustration the younger tribe
members took what food they
could find in the abandoned town
and left. News spread that Battle-
ford had been sacked by hostile
Indians, that the white
“survivors’’ were valiantly hold-
ing out in the fort and that help
was needed urgently.

To the reserve came Colonel
William Otter with 350 men, two
cannons anda machine gun. Otter
was part of the command sent
from the east to quell the
‘‘half-breed”’ uprising. Of British
stock he was somewhat of a hero
in Orange Ontario where he had
taken part in repulsing the ‘*Fe-
nian hordes’; U.S.-based Irish
freedom fighters who tried to at-
tack Britain via Canada just prior
to Confederation.

Early in the morning of May ib

4885 Otter’s forces attacked

Poundmaker’s sleeping camp at
Cut Knife Hill. Despite more men
and superior arms Otter found
himself in a precarious situation.
The native peoples were guerrilla
fighters, the cannon and machine
gun proved ineffectual against an
enemy you couldn't see.

Within six hours Otter’s game
was up, he ordered a withdrawal
realizing he would be lucky now
to escape a massacre. The
younger Cree braves prepared to
pursue but Poundmaker stopped
them. There was no need for
futher bloodshed, the point had
been made.

On his way to Batoche to join
Dumont and Riel, Poundmaker

‘learned of the final Metis defeat.

There was no recourse now.

The Canadian government re-
fused to erect a monument to
Poundmaker, even though he had
prevented the massacre of its sol-
diers. Native peoples erected
their own.

Further resistance would only
mean annihilation. Though unde-
feated he surrendered to the
Canadian forces under General

Middleton.
Along with Big Bear, the other

Cree chief to join the resistance,
Poundmaker was sentenced to
three years in Stoney Mountain
Penitentiary. His health broken
he was released within a year,
dying on a Blackfoot reservation

in the early spring of 1886.

In 1967 the Cree returned his
remains to Cut Knife for a proper
burial. The federal government
refused to erect a memorial. The
Cree erected their own.

Genocide: past and present

By JOHN McVEY

In 1974 the U.S. Congress passed Public Law
93-531, dividing Hopi-Dine (Navajo) joint use
land. The Dine and Hopi people have shared the
land in northeastern Arizona for at least four
hundred years. PL 93-531 orders a construction
of a barbed wire fence to separate Dine and
Hopi, a 90 per cent reduction of the livestock
herds, the basis of the Dine economy and the
forced relocation of 10,000 Dine by July 7-8, of
this year.

Behind Congress are the corporations that
want to strip-mine the coal, extract the oil,
natural gas, uranium, gold and minerals from the
area: AMAX mines, Peabody Coal Company,
Union Carbide Corporation, EXXON Corpora-
tion, Kerr-McGee, Gulf Oil, Phillips Uranium
and more.

The Dine people are not going to relocate
voluntarily. They have argued that the destruc-
tion of their culture and religion through the
theft of their land at Big Mountain for energy
development is in violation of their sovereign
rights. They reject the law citing the Civil Rights
Act, Religious Freedom Act, Guadalupe
Hidalgo Treaty of 1848, the Declaration of
Human Rights of the United Nations, and the
Declaration of the Elimination of all Forms of
Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Re-
ligion or Belief adopted by the UN General As-
sembly November 25, 1981 (resolution 36/55).

Support for this struggle is essential, said Jay
Mason, a Mohawk and Chippewa Native ac-
tivist who has recently returned from Big Moun-
tain. ‘‘If they’re allowed to come in and force-
fully remove 10,000 Navajos, if they’re allowed
to come in and remove any Indians for the pur-
pose of resource development, this has very
serious implications for Indian peoples all across
America; since we know that two thirds to three
quarters of the energy resources in North
America lie under Indian land’’.

It is the same struggle that is being waged by
the Haida in Vancouver, the Cree at the James
Bay water diversion project and against El De-
rado Nuclear in Saskatchewan.

The Canadian people are becoming more
aware of the link between aparatheid racism and

Common on Native lands, radioactive waste is
dumped from a uranium mine on Navajo land
near Grants, New Mexico. Birth defects and
cancer in the area are far above average.

the treatment of Canadian Indians he added.
‘*Where did South Africa learn about apartheid
in the first place? It wasn’t that long ago, in the
late 1920’s and early 1930’s that the South
African Government came to Canada to study
the Indian Act and the reservation system, went
back and instituted Bantustans and the Dept. of
Colored Peoples Affairs, and numbers for them
and all the rest of it. It’s the same thing.”’

A Border Stand is being organized by the
Canadian Alliance in Solidarity with Native
Peoples (416) 964-0169. To date the organ-
izers say that there will be protesters from the
Maritimes, Ontario, Manitoba, Sask-
atchewan and Vancouver. A benefit concert
and dance for Big Mountain, Dine (Navajo)
Nation, will also take place at the Music Gal-
lery, 1087 Queen St. W. in Toronto, Thurs.
June 26, 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. also organized by
the CASNP.

Ever since the first English-speaking Euro-
peans arrived at Virginia in 1607, Native North
Americans have been battling for their land.

The massacre of more than 7,000 Powhatans
— the original inhabitants of Virginia — shortly
after, marked the beginning of a policy of geno-
cide that continues to this day.

The past four centuries has been a history of
land theft, broken treaties, forced migration and ~
massacres of the original peoples of North
America. It is a history that has been passed on
in spoken form by some, written about by many,
but hidden from most of the people that now
occupy the continent.

Yet the same policies continue. If the original
genocide of the Native peoples was over pos-
session of their land; today, as Mason says it
has turned into the theft of what lies under it.

The organizations of Native peoples are the
foremost exponents of environmental pro-
tection. Not environmental crisis management,
that is typical of modern capitalism, but a far-
sighted approach to ending the source of the
crises themselves. The difference lies in the
opposing relationships between people and
land: ownership (both private and public) and
stewardship, which requires social and indi-
vidual responsibility towards the land and its

resources. ;
Capitalist development, that will soon make

the earth uninhabitable for human beings, or a
balanced economic system and way of life that
puts people and their ecology before cal-
culations of economic gain — that remains the
issue that will not end at Big Mountain, James
Bay or anywhere else that people are struggling
for a humane way of life. :

As the Iroquois are known to say: “‘ The two
boats are going side by side, separate. You can
keep one foot in each boat only for so long.
Sooner or later you must decide’.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 25, 1986 e 5

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