Sitting Bull in "Canada"

Looking at archival records of the Sioux chief's time north of the Dakotas

This Heritage Minute is about the time that Sitting Bull spent in Canada. Walsh, who is referenced as one of the Canadian police officers who “never lied” to Sitting Bull, is quoted below.

I was recently at the website of Library and Archives Canada and found an image of a remarkable letter written by the nephew of Sitting Bull while his community was within Canada’s recent borders. The letter is written in 1879 and it’s part of a large cache of documents.

Sitting Bull’s nephew addresses the letter to the Minister of the Interior and he asks the following: “will the Canadian government help us in any way when the Buffalo die out, and our children are starving for food. Will your government grant us any land so that we could sow any seed if we wanted to and will it grand us [illegible] will it help us in any way or not. I ask you to please find out and send me a letter officially so that it’s answer will be final to the Indians on your answer will depend a great deal, as to whether we will stay.” The letter is then signed “Sitting Bull’s Nephew, Hayachangha Wakah Watagala.”

The Lakota people, before white settlement, followed the path of the buffalo and the buffalo didn’t respect fake international borders. The border between Canada and the United States and the division lines of the reserves were mostly fiction and had only been in place for decades at this point. As the buffalo were eliminated by Canada, Indigenous people across the plains dealt with horrible famine conditions and an apocalyptic end to life has they had known it. Sitting Bull’s life was dedicated to resisting white encroachment.

In response to Watagala’s letter, there is a letter to the Privy Council bringing the correspondence, which they say came from Qu’Appelle, North West Territories, written “by a person claiming to be a nephew of the Sioux Chief Sitting Bull.” It continues to say, “The undersigned has no reason to doubt the authenticity of the letter.” It continues, saying that they have entered Canada, “taken in connection with the fact that the buffalo have recently almost entirely died.” The letter writer calls the group, “foreign refugee Indians now in our Country.”

Now, the handwriting of the response is extremely difficult for me to read. I have a headache from staring at the text. But the letter author suggests that Sitting Bull isn’t Canada’s problem and that he should surrender (or, “make overtures”) to the US government. After the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and his community came north to avoid US authorities. The correspondence ends, “Mr. Dewdney should further be requested to make it clear to the Sioux that no the views of the Government above recited make it impossible that they could look forward to being permitted to become permanent residents of Canada, the disappearance of the buffalo renders it necessary that they should take the course here suggested as the only alternative to prevent the death by starvation of themselves, their wives, and their children.” It is then signed by Minister of the Interior, John A. MacDonald.

The cache of documents is 120 pages long. The rest all relate to Sitting Bull’s time in Canada and reactions to his death by US authorities when starvation forced them to move back.

The cache includes one telegraph that requests “the government to allow me to raise a troop of Blackfeet Indians one hundred strong to be attended to the police force will furnish their own horse and rifle government to ration and give them twenty five 25 cents a day” written by Col. Macleod. Given the circumstances, it sounds as if the troops would be raised to create divisions with Sitting Bull’s Sioux.

A telegraph sent on July 8, 1879 informs the minster of the Interior that “Sitting Bull back again at the line every thing quiet,” signed E. Dewdney. A series of telegraphs are then included that explain the location and movements of Sitting Bull’s group.

In May, 1881, a memo was written to say that Sitting Bull and his group had left Willow Bunch (“the Willow Brunsh”) and headed back to Qu’Appelle.

In the Saskatchewan Herald, Friday, December 1890, after a dispatch is received that Sitting Bull has died, this is how the newspaper reported the impact of his death: “The outlook is not pleasant. The tribes from the Red River to the Pacific coast are uneasy and all working together for an early outbreak, as well as with the tribes in the southern Indian country of the interior, all having as the end in view the extermination of the whites … They argue that they may better die fighting than be starved to death.

… The settlers in South Dakota, Montana and Nebraska are being armed by the Government; and troops hurried into the disturbed districts; numerous conflicts have occurred between ranchers and Indians; and everything points to a bloody war.

We hope it will be a short one, for while we have no fear that our Indians will rise against the settlers, many would doubtless become excited in the event of a protracted campaign and cross the line to join the fray. They will be kept at home, if possible. Preventing dances, dealing justly with the tribes, and the prompt arrest of runners or “tramp” Indians, will reduce to a minimum the changes of the trouble spreading to the north of the boundary. … but if they insist on disobeying orders, the shortest and sharpest treatment to which they can be subjected will prove the greatest kindness to them and the country at large.”

From the New York Times: “In comparison with the whites the Indians are more numerous there (in Canada) than here, and could make themselves more troublesome. They do not wish to do so simply because they have been treated with justice. The Canadians do not appoint discredited politicians to ‘operate’ in Indian supplies, and when they make a compact with the Indians they keep it. The contrast between the treatment of their Indian question and of ours is discreditable to us at every point. People who have not been lied to or stolen from, whether they be white or copper coloured, are not nearly so apt to rise against the Government as those who have experienced these injuries.” (A fascinating distortion of Canada!)

And then, at the end of the set of documents, is a newspaper clipping from New York World, dated January 1891, which posed the question” The Story of Sitting Bull, Was he a Winnipegger?” The article quotes a police officer who claimed that Sitting Bull was actually an Ojibway/Métis man named Charlie Jacobs who was from Fort Garry and who had attended St. John’s college. The article says, “He is an excellent conversationalist, and will talk on every subject but his plans for the future.” For the record, this story is totally different than the official story of his origins.

In an article that describes Sitting Bull’s death, you can read just how afraid of his leadership white officials were. Here is how the Agent celebrated Sitting Bull’s murder at the hand of US Police: “While this conflict, causing loss of some of our best, noble and brave men, it is to be very much regretted yet the great good accomplished by the ending of Sitting Bull’s career, whose influence had been of a such a retarding nature, and determination the police manifested in maintaining the will of the Government is most gratifying.”

And from Superintendent J.W. Walsh of the North West Mounted Police (written in 1880), “Sitting Bill is the shrewdest and most intelligent Indian living, has the ambition of Napoleon and is brave to a fault; he is respected as well as feared by every Indian on the plains. In war he has no equal, in council he is superior to all. Every word said by him carries weight, is quoted and passed from camp to camp.” The Heritage Minute above claims that Walsh resigned his post in protest when Sitting Bull was forced to leave Canada.

See all the documents for yourself here.

It’s impossible to read though these letters and not think of Gaza. How the settlers are always painting the oppressed as being violent, as having to be pacified, and so on. And how powerful and uniting leaders must be killed so as to stop any organizing that might happen. Settler colonialism, whether in 1890 or in 2024 looks remarkably similar.