History is full of loaded words and victor’s language. For instance, one version of events says the warriors “proceeded to plunder the contents of the store … and looted another one.” It’s true they tore apart the premises, says University of Alberta historian James Dempsey, but they were starving and looking for food. Their actions were hardly senseless vandalism.

Cree women hid a Hudson’s Bay clerk to save him and when Big Bear returned, he took other settlers as hostages — or rather he took them under his protection, as other accounts will tell.

As the situation grew more desperate, Big Bear started to lose control over his band and a breakaway group of warriors led by Wandering Spirit marched to Frog Lake to demand food.

The tensions boiled over into violence and an attack on the settlement that left nine people dead. Six Plains Cree individuals were eventually tried and hanged as a result at the North West Mounted Police post at Battleford, Saskatchewan in November 1885.

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LOSES

 

The rapid and confusing series of events resulted in 9 fatalities, 3 seized hostages, and structures in the small community - comprised of a Roman Catholic mission, a Hudson’s Bay trading post, and federal government agencies - torched to the ground.

Nine months later, six Cree men, including Wandering Spirit, were convicted of murder and hanged at Fort Battleford in Canada’s largest public hanging. The massacre prompted the Canadian government to take notice of the growing unrest in Western Canada. The rebellion was put down. Wandering Spirit and five other warriors responsible for the Frog Lake Massacre, were convicted and hanged. The warriors hanged were: Wandering Spirit, Round the Sky, Bad Arrow, Miserable Man, Iron Body, Little Bear, Crooked Leg and Man Without Blood. Although Big Bear had opposed the attack[2] he was charged with treason because of his efforts to organize resistance among the Cree. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in Stony Mountain prison.[3]