Keeseekoowenin
The Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation , formerly Riding Mountain Band , is one of the Canadian First Nations in western Manitoba Province .
While 1,082 members were counted in February 2010, the number of those recognized as tribal members rose to 1,293 by September 2018. They belong to the Anishinabe or Ojibway and live on three reservations . The largest is Keeseekoowenin 61 with an area of 2,121.8 ha , plus Clear Lake 61a with 428.5 ha and Bottle Lake 61b with 40.5 ha.
history
Since about 1800 the Indians in the area of the Riding Mountains belonged to the Saulteaux , a language group that extends in the west to Qu'Appelle in Saskatchewan , and from the Pembina to the valley of the Swan River.
The area around Riding Mountain offered bison , elk , deer, fish and fur animals, plus food for the horses, maple syrup and berries. The Okanese band called Riding Mountain Wowwaswajicus, 'Hill of the Buffalo Hunting', the river was called Keeseesatchewan, 'Fast flowing river'.
Okanese (until 1870)
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The Okanese Band lived on Wasagaming (Clear Lake) . Their guide was Michael Cardinal, known as the Okanese or Okanase ('little bone'). He came from a fur trader dynasty with French roots, which had played a role since the 17th century and whose men mostly married indigenous women. Numerous chiefs emerged from these marriages. Okanese was married to three women, one was a Dakota , one was descended from Indians and " Orkney ", the third from Indians and French. Each of the three women had their own tipi and a large family.
Okanase's sister Margaret married George Flett, senior, a Hudson's Bay Company trader who had come to America from the Orkney Islands in 1796. His mother, in turn, had Cree ancestors. He moved to Fort Garry ( Winnipeg ) in 1822 , a little later Okanase and his people followed him from the Bow River to the southwest slope of Riding Mountain. Isaac Cowie (1848-1917) named the family of the "Little Bones" (Okeneas) as the best hunters. They hunted the Little Saskatchewan River , about 25 km from its source in Lake Audy to what is now the reserve . There was a Hudson's Bay Company trading post nearby, where they sold their furs.
The chief had numerous children, including ten sons. The Dakota woman had three sons named Ouchop (Louis O'Soup), Mekis and St. Paul. Franco-Saulteaux had four sons: Antoine, William Mucatehpenese or Blackbird, John Jojo and George, who later became chief. The Orkney-Saulteaux had three sons: Yellowhead, Keeseekoowenin (Moses Burns) and Baptiste "Bateese" Bone of Clear Lake. Keeseekoowenin was chief in the Riding Mountain Reserve at Elphinstone, Bateese Bone chief of the small reserve at the west end of Wasagaming.
The Okanese Band lived in the summer on the Little Saskatchewan River, in the winter on Riding Mountain, more precisely on Lake Audy, in the west of Wasagaming and north of today's golf course on Clear Lake. Lake Audy was called Poneeakesakaekun (bird resting lake ). In the summer buffalo were hunted and pemeekkesegun , known as pemmican , was made. The hunt used horses that wintered in pastures on Lake Andy and Clear Creek.
The trading center for fur was Fort Ellice or Manitoba House on Lake Manitoba . Around 1850, the Hudson's Bay Company opened a winter outpost on the east bank of Lake Audy, where James Audy organized the trade. When the Okanese trappers came to the post with their booty in the spring of 1868, it was abandoned to their horror. They burned the house down.
Walter Traill set out on September 15, 1868 on behalf of the HBC and chose a spot on the Little Saskatchewan River near the camp of Chief Okanese to set up a trading post. After negotiations, Okanese let the men build a house and Traill stayed for three years. The supply path ran southwest past Glen Forsa and Menzie , then towards Ipswich on the south shore of Shoal Lake . Here he met the main path going west via Fort Ellice to Fort Carlton . The new post received supplies from Rapid City . Logging camps were set up 10 km to the north, the main carrier was a Jack Hales.
Contract No. 2 (1871) and reservation, Keeseekoowenin (1874–1906)
In 1870 the entire land of the Hudson's Bay Company came to Canada, which was founded in 1867, formally to the British Crown. It became mostly Crown Land . Negotiations were initiated to force the Indians into reservations to make land for settlers from Europe. When Okanese died around 1870 - he predicted the arrival of religious leaders who would live with them - he was buried less than a mile south of the trading post. He was succeeded by his son Mekis, who signed Contract No. 2 of the so-called Numbered Treaties at Manitoba House on August 21, 1871. Their reservation was to be created on the Turtle and Valley River near Dauphin Lake, but upon request the tribe moved to a reservation near Elphinstone.
In the 1870s, the HBC post moved down the Little Saskatchewan River to Elphinstone. August Basler operated steam-powered mills there. Robert Campbell bought the abandoned post and ran the Merchiston Ranch there.
In 1873 George Flett (junior) came to them as a Presbyterian missionary, a son of the fur trader of the same name and brother-in-law of Okanase, and he was warmly received by his relatives. He proselytized with great success until 1895, the church saw in his work the transition from “barbarism and superstition to civilization and Christianity”.
Mekis died in 1874 and his younger half-brother Keeseekoowenin (baptized name Moses Burns) became chief until his death on April 10, 1906, when he died at the age of 87. Robert Campbell called him "one of Nature's gentlemen". His brothers were Yellowhead (Wabaso, Blonde) and Baptiste Bone (Baptiste Okanase).
After negotiations, an amendment was agreed in an appendix to Treaty 4 on September 9, 1875. Keeseekoowenin and Baptiste Bone signed for Mekis, who died the previous year. But not all agreed. So Louis O'Soup moved with his people to what is now Saskatchewan and Yellowhead also moved westward. On July 3, 1896, a fish reserve of 756 was Acre , the Clear Lake Reserve tied for Keeseekoowenin. The tribe acquired an additional 320 acres around 1904. The group there, however, regarded Baptiste Bone as their chief and remained Catholic. The Department of Indian Affairs, however, continued to lead Keeseekoowenin as chief and Baptiste Bone as advisor (councillor). The Presbyterian group was quickly seen as the ideal of assimilation because they were farmers and ranchers. In contrast, the Catholic group at Clear Lake preferred hunting and fishing. The two groups drifted apart, a process intensified by the Indian Ministry and the press.
When the sanctuary, the Riding Mountain Reserve , was established, Chief Keeseekoowenin's tribe was doing very well. He was later baptized as Moses Burns.
George Flett Burns, his eldest son, and his brother Solomon, helped him build a large house there. His daughters Maria, Eliza, Harriet, Victoria and Isabelle lived in a two-story part, another was provided for eating and working, and the chief lived with his wife in the third, also two-story part of the house. The women tilled the fields. The chief's wife died in April 1906, the chief, almost blind, in 1909. They were buried in the mission cemetery.
George Flett Burns became the largest grain farmer on his 150 acre farm, and Solomon Burns became the most successful farmer on the reservation on 185 acres . John "Jo Jo" Bone farmed 200 acres and raised horses and cattle.
Ed Thomas, after whom Thomas Lake is named, married the eldest daughter of the blacksmith David Murray, and his log cabin still stands today. Alex Sutherland, with whom Ed Thomas built numerous houses, married George Flett Burns' eldest daughter Annie. Rev. George Flett proselytized for the Presbyterians who, unlike the Anglicans, did not compete with the Catholics. So Joe Boyer, a former Catholic, became his translator. He spoke four languages: English, Ojibway, Cree and Michif.
When George Flett, Keeseekoowenin's relative, wanted to establish a Presbyterian mission and church school at Elphinstone, he stopped attending powwows and other ceremonies. Keeseekoowenin was baptized in 1889. Flett gave the Ojibway a lot of leeway in interpreting the Presbyterian faith and he preached to them in their language. What exactly he taught can no longer be determined, even if his superiors celebrated him euphorically. But Flett also practically supported the tribe by getting food around 1880 or feeding a group of 20 people in his apartment who were threatened with starvation. On the other hand, he argued with the teacher Cameron, who in his eyes was arrogant towards him and the Ojibway.
Robert Campbell had imported sheep from Pennsylvania , horses for work and cattle from Scotland . Keeseekoowenin's son-in-law, John Henry Cook, whom Elizabeth had married, negotiated with cattle dealers James R. Muir of Elphinstone and Smith Russell of Strathclair. Robert Campbell's ranch, built in 1882, burned down in 1944.
Glen Campbell and Walter Scott, who played a role in the Red River Rebellion in 1869 , married daughters of Keeseekoowenin. Métis who had fled, such as the Berciers, Thorns, Pauls and Flammond families, came to the area.
The Sioux received asylum in Canada after the Battle of Little Big Horn (in Montana ) in 1876. They were the first Sioux north of the Souris River .
Several other bands lived around Riding Mountain. These included the Hunting Hawk Band in the Rolling River Valley, the Waywayseecappo Band on the Birdtail River near Rossburn, the Coté Band in the west, as well as a band that today has its reservation near Shortdale.
The assimilation of the Keeseekoowenin group went so far that Keecheemaymay's sons, Pat Bone and Long John Bone, renounced their Indian status and took private land. Pat married Baptiste Bone's daughter, Shemaymah; they moved to Clear Lake. He was 104 years old.
In 1895 the Hudson's Bay Company post was closed. John Lauder bought the land and the building, and a post was set up in Lauder's shop, which he named "Elphinstone" after his friend Lord Elphinstone who owned a farm in the area.
Some of the women had dairy cows and sold milk to a cheese factory, made butter, and sold cream and eggs. Whites and Indians built a school together. The teachers were J. Cunningham and John Lauder, who later bought the Hudson's Bay store. He married the niece of the missionary Flett, Ann Ross.
Others stuck to the traditional way of life. David Burns, a son of Keeseekoowenin, did not take up farmland like his brothers George and Solomon - the latter rose from the Presbyterians. He preferred hunting and tour guide activity. He and his friend Geewish led white hunters and officials through Riding Mountain.
Decline and displacement
George Flett resigned in March 1895, followed by RC McPherson, who only preached in English. His teaching methods, unlike those of Flett, did not correspond to the ideal of the Elder, as prevailed among the Ojibwa.
The area's white farmers often met at the chief's house, known as "the Red House". When he died in 1909, his half-brother George Bone followed him as chief, under whom the band was initially able to continue their economically successful activity.
Until 1930 the Okanase Band suffered from poor medical care and many died of tuberculosis . Many of the most active parishioners, such as George Bone, Joe Boyer, John Bone, Solomon Burns, the Fletts, died in the next few years, or they were already too old to play a decisive role. The herds of cattle dwindled, the sale of grain was no longer profitable, and the community was in decline.
This already happened with the expectation that a national park would be established. When Riding Mountain was to become a national park and the Clear Lake Resort was to be built, the ocanase had to go. The 24 residents had to leave the Okanase Reserve in 1936, and their houses were burned down in 1939.
The situation has changed since the 1970s. Park and First Nations made a joint film in 2005 called “Sharing our Histories”.
See also
literature
- John Sandlos: Not Wanted in the Boundary: The Expulsion of the Keeseekoowenin Ojibway Band from Riding Mountain National Park. In: The Canadian Historical Review 89/2 (June 2008), pp. 189-221.
- Gary Adams: Riding Mountain National Park. Manitoba Archaeological Quarterly 9/3 (July 1985), pp. 70-74.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ According to the information from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development , First Nation Profiles: Keeseekoowenin .
- ↑ Keeseekoowenin . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
- ↑ On George Flett cf. George Flett, Presbyterian Missionary to the Ojibwa at Okanase