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96-718: The Assiniboine are believed to have originated on the southern edge of the Laurentian Shield in present-day Minnesota . They became a separate people from their closest linguistic cousins, the Yanktonai Dakota , sometime prior to 1640 when they are first mentioned by Europeans in the Jesuit Relation . They were not a member of the "Seven Fires Council" of the Great Sioux Nation by this time and were referred to by other Sioux speakers as

192-622: A Dene Indigenous Canadian people of the Athabaskan language family , whose ancestors are identified with the Taltheilei Shale archaeological tradition . They are part of the Northern Athabascan group of peoples, and hail from what is now Western Canada . The term Chipewyan ( ᒌᐯᐘᔮᐣ ) is a Cree exonym meaning 'pointed hides', referring to the design of their parkas. The French-speaking missionaries to

288-566: A pipe ceremony at Peace Point , which gave its name to the Peace River . The river became the boundary with the Beavers on the left bank (to the north and west) and the Cree on the right bank (the south and east). In the south little political or economic history is recorded for several decades. Recounting his story to David Thompson many years later, a Cree man named Saukamappee told of

384-530: A Cree band under Big Bear, the Blackfoot under Crowfoot, and a group of Metis hunters including Louis Riel . Governmental opinion in both Canada and the US quickly turned against the previous policy of allowing the free movement of native people across the frontier. Authorities in both countries wanted natives to "civilize", by ending their nomadic hunting traditions, and take up agriculture on reserves, thereby opening

480-754: A band of Cree aiding the Piegan (Blackfoot) in their conflict with the Snake near the Eagle Hills around 1723. The battle was fought on foot with bows-and-arrows tipped with obsidian , and neither guns nor horses were involved at this point. By 1732 the Snakes had horses, which they were using to great effect against the Piegan, and so the Piegan called upon the Cree and Assiniboine for assistance. This time, however, Sukamappee says that Cree and Assiniboine muskets turned

576-562: A few dozen or at most a few hundred people nominated its own leader to sign treaties on the group's behalf. Member bands of the Confederacy were signatories to Treaty 1 (1871, southern Manitoba), Treaty 4 (signings 1874–1877, now southern Saskatchewan), Treaty 5 (signings 1875–1879 plus later additions, now northern Manitoba), and Treaty 6 (signings 1876–1879, many later additions, now central Saskatchewan and Alberta). Notably, these were negotiated separately from Treaty 7 (1877) with

672-631: A few. Despite the superficial similarity of the names, the Chipewyan are not related to the Chippewa ( Ojibwa ) people. In 2015, Shene Catholique-Valpy, a Chipewyan woman in the Northwest Territories , challenged the territorial government over its refusal to permit her to use the letter ⟨ʔ⟩ in her daughter's name, Sahaiʔa. The territory argued that territorial and federal identity documents were unable to accommodate

768-711: A large and powerful people with a horse and warrior culture; they used the horse to hunt the vast numbers of bison that lived within and outside their territory. At the height of their power, the Assiniboine dominated territory ranging from the North Saskatchewan River in the north to the Missouri River in the south, and including portions of modern-day Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, Canada; and North Dakota and Montana, United States of America. The first person of European descent to describe

864-671: A major part of an alliance of northern Plains Indian nations known as the Iron Confederacy, or Nēhiyaw-Pwat , as it is known in Plains Cree , beginning prior to 1692 until the late nineteenth century. The Iron Confederacy were allies in the fur trade, particularly with the Hudson's Bay Company. The Assiniboine and the Cree ( šahíya ) being important intermediaries in the Great Plains trading networks . Members included

960-465: A patrilineal tribe hereditary leadership passes through the male line, and children are considered to belong to the father and his clan . The figure of Iktome from the Assiniboine creation myth is one of the most famous creator-trickster characters of Native American mythology . In the myth Ikotme sends some animals searching to find land beneath the depths of the primeval sea. This is an "earth-diver" style of creation myth resembling similar stories of

1056-775: A safe haven. In response the United States began to militarize its frontier in the region, constructing Fort Assinniboine near the Bears Paw Mountains [ sic ] in 1879 and Fort Maginnis in the Judith Basin in 1880. In that same year a Canadian report estimated seven to eight thousand "British Indians" were hunting in Montana, including three of the most famous Aboriginal leaders in Western Canadian history who were encamped together:

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1152-555: A separate group from 1754–1755 when Anthony Henday wrote of camping with "Stone" families near present-day Red Deer, Alberta . The Stoney were already trading with the Cree fur traders at this point and were military allies. American ethnographer and historian Edward S. Curtis wrote about the close but unstable relationship between the Assiniboine and the Plains Cree, and how, after the Plains and Woods Cree territories diverged,

1248-539: A source of horses, for their own use and to trade to the isolated European fur trade posts. They were allies of the Blackfoot and Mandan against the Sioux in the great horse wars of this period. The Cree made significant profits from the trade with the Blackfoot; one HBC journal entry notes that a Cree trader bought a musket from the HBC for 14 prime beaver pelts and sold it to a Blackfoot warrior for 50 prime beaver pelts . From

1344-462: Is too brave to die! I take him as my brother." While living with the Lakota they gave him the name Little Assiniboine and later changed it to Stays Back, because of his unwillingness to return to the Assiniboine. Sitting Bull later changed it to Jumping Bull after his father, who had been dealing with a toothache throughout the day when a war party of Crows attacked them, jumped on his horse chasing after

1440-659: The Manitoba Act . The Métis were not able to rally the Cree or Assiniboine to their cause, and the Wolseley expedition instead put down the Red River Resistance with military force during the annual buffalo hunt rather than overseeing the implementation of the Manitoba Act as had been negotiated. The decline of the buffalo had become a subsistence crisis for the member bands of the Confederacy by

1536-484: The Anishinabe and Ojibwe peoples. The only animal who succeeds is the muskrat who floats to the surface dead. Ikotme uses the earth the muskrat was clutching in his dead hands to create land. Unlike other creators, Ikotme is amoral. Ikotme kills a frog who challenges his plans to create an endless winter but eventually yields and shortens the length to seven months. He creates horses and humans out of dirt and teaches

1632-537: The Athabaskan linguistic group. Denesuline is spoken by Aboriginal people in Canada whose name for themselves is a cognate of the word dene ("people"): Denésoliné (or Dënesųłiné ). Speakers of the language speak different dialects but understand each other. There is a 'k', t dialect that most people speak. For example, people in Fond du lac, Gąnı kuę́ speak the 'k' and say yaki ku while others who use

1728-557: The Blackfoot Confederacy ( sihásaba = Blackfeet or tógabi = "enemies"). The kindred Sioux peoples ( įhą́ktuwą ) and their allies, the Arapaho ( maȟpíyato ) and Cheyenne ( šahíyena ), were also enemies. The Iron Confederacy also attacked European-American settlements on the Plains. The eventual decline of the fur trade and overhunting of the bison herds by Canadian and American hunters, which destroyed

1824-700: The Cypress Hills massacre . An estimated 25 to 30 Assiniboine were killed by American Wolfers to take revenge for horse-stealing Cree in Montana. This massacre led to the development of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), later known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Today, a substantial number of Assiniboine people live jointly with other tribes, such as the Plains Cree , Saulteaux , Sioux and Gros Ventre , in several reservations in Canada and

1920-940: The Elbow of the South Branch and a few miles west of Fort Ellice on the Assiniboine. They then strike for the Grand Coteau de Missouri , and their eastern flank often approaches the Red River herds coming north from the Grand Coteau . They then proceed across the Missouri up the Yellow Stone , and return to the Saskatchewan and Athabaska as winter approaches, by the flanks of the Rocky Mountains . This meant that many Plains peoples would often rely on

2016-680: The Gros Ventres . In 1790, the Gros Ventres joined the Blackfoot Confederacy, making the Iron Confederacy and the Blackfoot enemies for the first time. In response, the Plains Cree allied with the "Flathead" (Salish) Indians as a new source of horses. In the 1810s, Peter Fidler described the Cree and Sacree peacefully sharing the Beaver Hills , but he also records that a new geographical place name had been added to

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2112-557: The Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota (or Nakoda or Nakona ), are a First Nations /Native American people originally from the Northern Great Plains of North America. Today, they are centred in present-day Saskatchewan . They have also populated parts of Alberta and southwestern Manitoba in Canada, and northern Montana and western North Dakota in the United States. They were well known throughout much of

2208-470: The Hohe or "rebels". By 1806, the historical evidence definitively locates them in the Assiniboine River valley in present-day Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Cree had been in contact with Europeans since around 1611 when Henry Hudson reached their ancestral homeland around Hudson and James Bays . The traditional view of historians, based on the accounts of European traders, is that once

2304-538: The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) began to establish itself in the Hudson Bay region, two branches of the Cree began moving west and south to act as middlemen traders. They denied other plains peoples access to the HBC, except for the Assiniboine, in exchange for peaceful relations. A more recent view, based on oral history and linguistic evidence, suggests that the Cree were already established west of Lake Winnipeg when

2400-462: The Peace River and Lake Athabasca . Historically, the Denesuline were allied to some degree with the southerly Cree , and warred against Inuit and other Dene peoples to the north of Chipewyan lands. An important historic Denesuline is Thanadelthur ("Marten Jumping"), a young woman who early in the 18th century helped her people to establish peace with the Cree, and to get involved with

2496-1005: The Rocky Boy Indian Reservation , where their descendants live to this day. Big Bear's son eventually returned to Canada and helped found a reservation at Hobbema. The decline of the buffalo, the treaties it signed with the Queen, and its fighters' defeat in the First Nations portion of the North-West Rebellion heralded, and contributed, to the Iron Confederacy's growing impotence as an economic, social and sovereign unit. Assiniboine The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people ( / ə ˈ s ɪ n ɪ b ɔɪ n / when singular, Assiniboines / Assiniboins / ə ˈ s ɪ n ɪ b ɔɪ n z / when plural; Ojibwe : Asiniibwaan , "stone Sioux"; also in plural Assiniboine or Assiniboin ), also known as

2592-522: The Stoney before the mid-eighteenth century are obscure. They speak a Siouan language they call nakoda , which is little different from Assiniboine . The present-day Stoney Nation of Alberta believes that Kelsey's mention of the "Mountain Poets" may refer to their ancestors. However, the consensus view is that they were not yet a separate people from the Assiniboine. There is clear evidence of them as

2688-856: The Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) . In 1885, some Assiniboine scouts aided the Canadian North West Field Force track down Cree renegades who were participating in the Second Riel Rebellion of Métis . In 1857, a group of Sioux warriors, including Sitting Bull , attacked an Assiniboine camp, they had killed all except an 11-year-old boy who was still fighting against the raiders with his child-sized bow . Some Sioux warriors threatened to kill him, but before they could, he turned to Sitting Bull and wrapped his arms around his waist and said "please brother don't kill me!" Sitting Bull stopped his warriors and said, "This boy

2784-442: The whooping cough outbreak of 1819–1820 and the smallpox outbreak of 1780–1781 decimated many bands, forcing them to merge with neighbours. In 1846, travelling artist Paul Kane identified a man he met at Fort Pitt, Kee-a-kee-ka-sa-coo-way , as "head chief" of the Cree, though it is doubtful that any such title existed. Kane mentions a man named Mukeetoo as his associate, but historians believe this person to be Black Powder, who

2880-543: The "Naduessi" (Sioux) in his Jesuit Relations of that year. The Assiniboine and Sioux were both gradually pushed westward onto the plains from the woodlands of Minnesota by the Ojibwe , who had acquired firearms from their French allies. Later, the Assiniboine acquired horses via raiding and trading with neighboring tribes of Plains Indians such as the Crow and the Sioux on their south. The Assiniboine eventually developed into

2976-594: The 't' say yati tu . The name Chipewyan is, like many people of the Canadian prairies, of Algonquian origin. It is derived from the Plains Cree name for them, Cīpwayān ( ᒌᐘᔮᐣ ), "pointed skin", from cīpwāw ( ᒌᐚᐤ ), "to be pointed"; and wayān ( ᐘᔮᐣ ), "skin" or "hide" - a reference to the cut and style of Chipewyan parkas . Most Chipewyan people now use Dene and Denesuline to describe themselves and their language. The Saskatchewan communities of Fond-du-Lac, Black Lake and Wollaston Lake are

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3072-440: The 1870s which led them to seek help from the Canadian government. The Canadian government was only willing to give this in exchange for treaties which they believed would extinguish their aboriginal title . The Confederacy was always a loose grouping, and when the Canadian government negotiated treaties in the region in the 1870s, the agreements were made with groups of bands, not with any central leadership. Each band, consisting of

3168-565: The 1970s, the "Duck Lake Dene" opted for self-reliance, a return to caribou hunting, and relocated to Tadoule Lake, Manitoba , legally becoming "Sayisi Dene First Nation (Tadoule Lake, Manitoba)" in the 1990s. https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/night-spirits The Chipewyan used to be largely nomadic, organized into small bands and temporarily lived in tepees. They wore one-piece pants and moccasin outfits. However, their nomadic lifestyle began to erode since 1717 when they encountered English entrepreneurs. The Chipewyan subsequently became important in

3264-1007: The 2011 census identified as speaking Dene (Denesuline) as their native language. About 1,800 of the residents were Métis and about 600 were members of the Clearwater River Dene Nation. The relocation of the Sayisi Dene is commemorated by the Dene Memorial in Churchill Manitoba. The Dënesųłı̨ne people are part of many band governments spanning Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. The Chipewyan moved in small groups or bands, consisting of several extended families, alternating between winter and summer camps. The groups participated in hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering in Canada's boreal forest and around

3360-556: The Assiniboine by adopting terms from French spelled using English phonetics. The word Assiniboine has its origin as follows: They split from the Sioux in the 1300's. Their ancient rivals the Ojibwe, knew of these as a new people and they start calling them Asini Pwat meaning "Stone Dakota" Other tribes associated "stone" with the Assiniboine because they primarily cooked with heated stones. They dropped hot stones into water to heat it to boiling for cooking meat. Some writers believed that

3456-419: The Assiniboine was an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company named Henry Kelsey in the 1690s. Later explorers and traders Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye and his sons (1730s), Anthony Henday (1754–55), and Alexander Henry the younger (1800s) confirmed that the Assiniboine held a vast territory across the northern plains, including into the United States (which achieved independence in 1776 but did not acquire

3552-606: The Assiniboine, Stoney ( téhą nakóda or į́yąȟe wįcášta ), the Plains and Woodland Cree , Saulteaux (called iʾášijabina ), as well as Métis ( sakná ), and individual Iroquois people who traveled west as employees for the fur traders. Loosely associated for military shelter against the Blackfoot and to ensure safe access to the prairies for the bison hunt were Plateau tribes such as Bitterroot Salish (Flathead) ( pámnaska ), Kutenai , Sekani , Secwepemc , and Nez Perce ( pasú oȟnóga ). Other Indian peoples on

3648-558: The Assinibone how to steal horses. Some of the elements in modern versions of the myth include elements that are later additions such as the presence of horses which were introduced to North America by the Spanish. The bands of chief Manitupotis (also known as Wankanto – Little Soldier ) and Hunkajuka ( Hum-ja-jin-sin, Inihan Kinyen – Little Chief ), together about 300 people with about 50 warriors, on June 1, 1873, were victims of

3744-463: The Bay directly, as it was too far and, as a plains people, they were not experienced canoeists). A gun was worth roughly fifty beavers, and a horse was worth one gun according to Henday. In 1772, Mathew Cocking reported that the Cree and Assiniboine with whom he travelled were always alarmed when they saw an unknown horse, fearing that they might belong to the Snakes. Cocking also suggests that at this time

3840-456: The Beavers settled their hostilities at Peace point. — The North American Indian, Volume 18 (1907) During this early period the north front of expansion is better documented. By the early 1700s the Cree had come into conflict with the Chipewyan to their northwest. With the help of a Chipewyan interpreter, Thanadelthur (a woman who had learned the Cree language as a captive), the HBC

3936-443: The Blackfoot Confederacy, showing that the Canadian government recognized the differences between the two groups. Under the terms of these treaties, the member bands of the Iron Confederacy accepted the presence of Canadian settlers on their lands in exchange for emergency and ongoing aid to deal with the starvation being experienced by the plains people due to the disappearance of the bison herds. Not all bands were equally reconciled to

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4032-623: The Blackfoot, helping them to drive the Kootenay and Snakes across the Rocky Mountains. At the same time, many Assiniboine people moved farther west, eventually spawning the Nakoda (Stoney) people, who were a separate group by about 1744. The Confederacy fought a series of wars over the control of the trade in major commodities on the plains. Before 1790, the Cree relied on the Mandan as

4128-586: The Blackfoot, the Battle of the Belly River on October 25, 1870, near present-day Lethbridge , Alberta, but lost at least 200 warriors. Following this, in 1873, Blackfoot leader Crowfoot ceremonially adopted Poundmaker of mixed Cree and Assiniboine parentage, creating a final peace between the Cree and Blackfoot. In 1869 the Canadian government bought the HBC's claim to what is now western Canada. The Métis objected to not having been consulted and negotiated

4224-483: The Confederacy nations' most important food source, led to the defeat and breaking up of the confederacy. It engaged in military action with Canada during the North-West Rebellion . Traditionally the Assiniboine were semi- nomadic people. During the warmer months, they followed and hunted the herds of plains bison . Women, as life-givers, have had primary responsibility for the survival and welfare of

4320-627: The Cree leader "Broken Arm" (Maskepetoon) as one of the representatives of tribes living near Fort Union to meet President Andrew Jackson in Washington D.C. Histories of this later period do not clearly state which bands are being referred to when it is said that "the Cree" were in a particular place. Neal McLeod makes clear that these bands were loose, temporary groupings that were often multiethnic and multilingual, so that most mentions of "the Cree" by historians of previous decades actually refers to mixed Cree-Assiniboine-Saulteax groups. Further,

4416-585: The Cree were able to expand rapidly West. The earliest written record of the military and political relations of the nations west of Hudson's Bay comes from Henry Kelsey 's journal c.  1690–1692 . In it, he states that the Cree and the Assiniboine had good relations with the Blackfoot and were already allies against the "Eagle Birch Indians, Mountain Poets, and Nayanwattame Poets" (the identities of these groups are uncertain but they may have been other Siouan-speakers, or Gros Ventres ). The history of

4512-408: The Cree-Assiniboine held an annual gathering with the Blackfoot in March near Saskatchewan River Forks where they would trade and the Blackfoot would ask for volunteers for their wars with the Snakes. As the HBC and NWC moved inland to the West, the Confederacy also moved inland and west so that they would not lose their control of the trade. As the HBC and NWC moved northwards and inland after 1760,

4608-473: The Crees were no longer required as intermediaries to ferry furs from place to another, but they gained new opportunities in the supply of pemmican (dried bison meat) and other provisions that European fur traders needed when travelling to the companies' new posts in the subarctic . Some Cree, historically a woodland people, adopted the ways of the plains people, including nomadic bison hunting and horsemanship. These emerging Plains Cree were initially allies of

4704-516: The Dakota territories, the Assiniboine traded with the American Fur Company and the competing Rocky Mountain Fur Company . The Assiniboine obtained guns, ammunition, metal tomahawks, metal pots, wool blankets, wool coats, wool leggings, and glass beads, as well as other goods from the fur traders in exchange for furs. Beaver furs and bison hides were the most commonly traded furs. Increased contact with Europeans resulted in Native Americans contracting Eurasian infectious diseases that were endemic among

4800-420: The Europeans. They suffered epidemics with high mortality, most notably smallpox among the Assiniboine. The Assiniboine population crashed from around 10,000 people in the late 18th century to around 2600 by 1890. The Lewis and Clark Expedition was mounted by the United States in 1804–1806 to explore the Louisiana Territory , newly acquired from France. The expedition's journals mention the Assiniboine, whom

4896-484: The HBC arrived, and were likely present as far west as the Peace River Region of present-day Alberta. When the Hudson's Bay Company opened its first bayside posts in 1668 and 1688, the Cree became their main customers and resellers. Prior to this the Cree had been at the northwestern edge of a trade system linked to the French, from which they received only the secondhand goods others were ready to discard. Once in possession of direct access to European tools and weapons,

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4992-409: The Hudson Bay via Lake Winnipeg and the Nelson River . Assiniboia refers to two historical districts of Canada's North-West Territories. The name is taken from the Assiniboine First Nation. Chipewyan The Chipewyan ( / ˌ tʃ ɪ p ə ˈ w aɪ ə n / CHIP -ə- WY -ən , also called Denésoliné or Dënesųłı̨né or Dënë Sųłınë́ , meaning "the original/real people") are

5088-431: The Iron Confederacy was at its apogee, controlling the trade with HBC posts such as Fort Pitt and Fort Edmonton . Their southern expansion peaked in the 1860s when the Plains Cree controlled most of present-day southern Saskatchewan and east-central Alberta with the Assiniboine also moving south. From around 1850, the decline of the bison herds began to weaken the Iron Confederacy. The bison migrated seasonally, creating

5184-463: The Iron Confederacy was never able to regain (permanent) access to the bison herds. A legendary (perhaps fictional) story tells of a peace between the Cree and the Blackfoot made at the future site of Wetaskiwin , Alberta, in 1867; even if true, this peace did not hold. Around 1870 the Gros Ventre, formerly part of the Blackfoot Confederacy for some 90 years, defected and became allies of the Assiniboine. The Plains Cree engaged in one last battle against

5280-402: The Mandan they also received beans, maize, and tobacco, in exchange for European goods. By the mid-19th century, the Confederacy had lost control of the trade with the Mandan. From 1790 to 1810, intermittent wars were fought between the Confederacy and its former horse suppliers to the south. As the Confederacy reached out to the Arapaho as a potential new source of horses, they were blocked by

5376-412: The Métis were soliciting aid in the lead-up to the 1885 North-West Rebellion . Many Cree and Assiniboine were dissatisfied with their situation, believing that the Canadian government was not living up to its treaty obligations, but it was not a straightforward decision to take up arms. Different leaders of First Nations people held different positions on the usefulness of rebellion. Notable war leaders of

5472-404: The Northwest Territories. All had Denesuline populations; however, several had a combination of Cree and Denesuline members (see the Barren Lands First Nation in Manitoba and the Fort McMurray First Nation in Alberta). There are also many Dene (Dënesųlı̨ne)-speaking Métis communities located throughout the region. The Saskatchewan village of La Loche , for example, had 2,300 residents who in

5568-414: The United States. Assiniboine are closely linked by language to the Stoney First Nations people of Alberta . The latter two tribes speak varieties of Nakota , a distant, but not mutually intelligible, variant of the Sioux language . The Assiniboine, along with the Stoney of Alberta, share a common ancestry with the Sioux nation. While it was formerly believed that the Assiniboine originated among

5664-502: The United States. In Manitoba, the Assiniboine survive as individuals, holding no separate communal reserves. In March 2012, these two reservations has received 63 American bison from Yellowstone National Park , to be released to a 2,100-acre game preserve 25 miles north of Poplar . There are many other bison herds outside Yellowstone; this is one of the few genetically pure ones in which the animals were not cross-bred with cattle. Native Americans celebrated this action for restoration of

5760-503: The Woods Cree were no longer a part of this military alliance: The neighbors of the western Cree were Athapascans on the north and northwest, Blackfeet on the west, and Assiniboine on the south. With the Assiniboine they were closely associated from the time of the separation of that tribe from the parent Sioux prior to the opening of the country by exploration in the early years of the seventeenth century; nevertheless, there were rather frequent drunken brawls, with consequent murders, between

5856-407: The Yanktonai division of the Dakota Sioux, linguistic analysis indicates that the Assiniboine and Stoney together form a group coordinate with that of the Santee, Lakota, and Yankon-Yanktonai, and that they are no more related to one of these subdivisions than another. The separation of the Assiniboine from the Sioux must have occurred at some time prior to 1640, as Paul Le Jeune names them along with

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5952-490: The animal was used by the people. The men hunted, traded and made war on horseback using bow and arrows. The tribe is known for its excellent horsemanship. They first obtained horses by trading with the Blackfeet and the Gros Ventre tribes. Assiniboine, Stoney (as well as Lakota and Dakota) girls were encouraged to learn to ride, hunt and fight. Though fighting in war has mostly been left to the boys and men, occasionally women have fought as well – both in battles and in defense of

6048-512: The band council were announced by the Hogíyesʼa (camp crier), the Agícida (soldier; camp watcher) acted as "police" and were responsible for maintaining order in the camp, on the hunt and at wartime. The individual bands were again divided into several Tiʼóšpaye (local groups), which consisted of one or more extended families . The smallest social unit was the Tiwáhe ( nuclear family ), which usually lived in one Wiʼį́kceya tíbi / įkcéwąga ( tipi ) or two neighboring tipis. As

6144-430: The battle in their favour. By 1750, Legardeur de Saint Pierre noted that the Cree and Assiniboine were successfully raiding the "Hyactljlini" "Brochets" and "Gros Ventres", and despite his peacemaking efforts the Assiniboine massacred a group of the "Hyactljlini" (whose identity is unknown). In 1754 Henday reported that he was able to buy a horse from the Assiniboine camped near present-day Battleford, Saskatchewan , and

6240-420: The bison. It came more than a century after the bison were nearly destroyed by overhunting by European Americans and government action to destroy the food source of the powerful Plains Indians. The Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes at the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation will also receive a portion of this herd. Canada Steamship Lines named one of their new ships the CSL Assiniboine . HMCS  Assiniboine

6336-404: The era, such as Big Bear and Poundmaker , led their people to battle, albeit reluctantly; Wandering Spirit was very militant; others kept their people out of the conflict. This was one of few instances of armed conflict between the Canadian government (post-1867) and First Nations peoples. Following the involvement of the Cree-Assiniboine alliance in the 1885 Battle of Cut Knife , Canada used

6432-413: The families (and future of the tribe). Women usually gathered and cultivated plants, used plants and herbs to treat illnesses, cared for the young and the elderly, made all the clothing and instruments, and processed and cured meat and skins from the game. The women processed and preserved the meat for winter, and used hides, tendons, and horns for clothing, bedding, tools, cord and other items. Every part of

6528-461: The fur trade (Steckley 1999). The Sayisi Dene of northern Manitoba are a Chipewyan band notable for hunting migratory caribou. They were historically located at Little Duck Lake and known as the "Duck Lake Dene". In 1956, the government forcibly relocated them to the port of Churchill on the shore of Hudson Bay and a small village north of Churchill called North Knife River, joining other Dene and becoming members of "Fort Churchill Chipewyan Band". In

6624-428: The home – especially if the tribe was severely threatened. They worked with the Mandan , Hidatsa , and Arikara tribes. The Sun god and Thunder god were considered the most important manifestations of the Great Spirit. The Assiniboine people participated in the sun dance like other Plains Native peoples. They also took guidance from personal visions in vision quests. The Nakoda Oyadebi ("Assiniboine Nation"),

6720-498: The ideas of the treaties. Piapot 's band signed into a treaty but refused to choose a site for a reserve, preferring to remain nomadic. The " Battle River Crees" under the leadership of Big Bear and Little Pine refused to sign altogether. By 1878 the buffalo crisis was now critical and despite the treaties, little material support was given by the Canadian government, forcing increasing numbers of both treaty and non-treaty bands from Canadian territory to hunt in Montana. In 1879 or 1880

6816-412: The land up for white ranchers and farmers. Both countries wanted to symbolically enforce their control of the land and its native inhabitants. Cree and Metis parties continued to hunt in Montana until late 1881 when the US Army began to arrest and deport them, effectively cutting them off from one of the last remaining bison populations and ensuring their dependence on government-supplied rations. In 1885,

6912-528: The last remaining buffalo disappeared from Canadian territory, after this time many Cree and Assiniboine bands moved south, making frequent hunting trips into American-claimed territory, or even camping there year-round. This was seen as a threat by white settlers in Montana in light of Sitting Bull leading his Sioux into Canada in 1876 to escape the American military: it was feared that Indian groups from either side could attack Americans and then use Canada as

7008-572: The late 18th and early 19th century, and were members of the Iron Confederacy with the Cree . Images of Assiniboine people were painted by 19th-century artists such as Karl Bodmer and George Catlin . The Europeans and Americans adopted names that other tribes used for the Assiniboine; they did not until later learn the tribe's autonym , their name for themselves. In Siouan, they traditionally called themselves Nakóda (A person at peace). With

7104-516: The many lakes of their territory. Later, with the emerging North American fur trade , they organized into several major regional groups in the vicinity of the European trading posts to control, as middleman, the carrying trade in furs and the hunting of fur-bearing animals. The new social groupings also enabled the Chipewyan to dominate their Dene neighbours and to better defend themselves against their rifle-armed Cree enemies, who were advancing to

7200-640: The name was derived from the Ojibway term assin , stone, and the French bouillir , to boil, but such an etymology is very unlikely. Assiniboine is a Mississippi Valley Siouan language, in the Western Siouan language family . As of the early 21st century, about 150 people speak the language and most are more than 40 years old. The majority of the Assiniboine today speak only American English . The 2000 census showed 3,946 tribal members who lived in

7296-556: The new railway and telegraph connections to deploy Ontario and Quebec militias to the West, where they applied superior numbers, mobility, and firepower against the loose alliance of Cree, Assiniboine, and Métis. The Métis were defeated at Batoche , leaving the Cree-Assiniboine without allies. Poundmaker's mixed Cree-Assiniboine war party surrendered. Three weeks later, Big Bear's band won a victory at Frenchman's Butte , but this

7392-557: The northern plains, such as the Gros Ventre ( ȟaȟátųwą ), were occasionally part of the confederacy. The confederacy became the dominant force on the northern plains. It posed a major threat to Indian nations not associated with it, such as the Shoshone ( snohéna wįcášta ) and Crow ( kąǧí tóga or tógabi = "enemies") further south. Their most mighty and most dangerous enemy, however, were their former trading partner

7488-536: The northwest of the Red River Colony referred to the Chipewyan people as Montagnais in their documents written in French. Montagnais simply means 'mountain people' or 'highlanders' in French and has been applied to many unrelated nations across North America over time. For example, the Neenolino Innu of northern Quebec are also called Montagnais . Chipewyan peoples live in the region spanning

7584-474: The party heard about while returning from Fort Clatsop down the Missouri River . These explorers did not encounter or come in direct contact with the tribe. Noted European and American painters traveled with traders, explorers, and expeditions for the opportunity to paint the West and its Native American peoples. Among those who encountered and painted the Assiniboine from life were painters Karl Bodmer , Paul Kane , and George Catlin . The Assiniboine signed

7680-557: The plains until 1803 in the Louisiana Purchase from France.) The Assiniboine became reliable and important trading partners and middlemen for fur traders and other Indians, particularly the British Hudson's Bay Company and North West Company , operating in western Canada in a vast area known then as Rupert's Land . During the later 18th century and early 19th century, south of the border in what became Montana and

7776-696: The potential for conflict over the right to harvest them. The great western herds winter between the south and the north branches of the Saskatchewan, south of the Touchwood Hills , and beyond the north Saskatchewan in the valley of the Athabasca; They cross the South Branch in June or July, visit the prairies on the south side of the Touchwood Hill range, and cross the Qu'appelle valley anywhere between

7872-481: The raiders and was killed by a Crow Chief. Sitting Bull was not in camp and upon his return learned of his fathers fate. In his anger he went after the Crows and killed their Chief, when he returned he pointed at Stays Back and said "from now on your name is Jumping Bull!" Jumping Bull stayed loyal to Sitting Bull and later died alongside him at Standing Rock in 1890 while attempting to defend him. The Assiniboine were

7968-523: The region, the Battle River , which had not been mentioned by this name before, was so-called to commemorate a battle between the Cree and Blackfoot, who would go on to be long-term rivals. By the 1830s, the mixed buffalo-hunting parties of Crees, Assiniboine, and Métis reached what is now northern Montana, and the United States government gave the Crees some limited recognition when U.S. officials invited

8064-526: The renegade Assiniboine, for whom the Sioux entertained bitter hatred mixed with professed contempt. The Woods Cree had little, if any, part in this warfare with the Blackfeet and the Sioux; their operations were limited to dispossessing the Athapascans of their territory between the Saskatchewan and Athabasca lake. Peace river, according to Henry, received its name from the circumstance that the Cree and

8160-646: The same herd; overhunting by one party (or European settlers) affected them all in a tragedy of the commons . The bison would frequently move across tribal boundaries, and desperate hunters would be tempted to follow, leading to frequent disputes. The bison declined sooner in the parkland belt where the Cree lived then on the shortgrass prairies to the south. The Cree blamed the HBC and Métis for this, but still needed them for trade. Bison could still be found on Blackfoot territories, forcing Cree hunting bands to stray into Blackfoot territory, leading to conflict. During these buffalo wars, alliances shifted once again, however

8256-447: The same way, Assnipwan comes from the word asinîpwâta in the western Cree dialects, from asiniy ᐊᓯᓂᐩ noun animate 'rock, stone' and pwâta ᐹᐧᑕ noun animate 'enemy, Sioux'. Early French-speaking traders in the west were often familiar with Algonquian languages . They transliterated many Cree or Ojibwe exonyms for other western Canadian indigenous peoples during the early colonial era. English speakers referred to

8352-473: The subarctic trade by exchanging furs and hides for metal tools, guns and cloth. Modern Chipewyan are either fluidly sedentary or semi-nomadic in lifestyle. Many still practice their traditional lifestyle for subsistence like fishing or hunting caribou although this process is modernized with the use of modern nets, tools, transportation and more. Denesuline (Chipewyan) speak the Denesuline language , of

8448-470: The two tribes in the boisterous era of the fur-trade. They joined forces in pushing the Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegan southwestward out of the plains bordering Saskatchewan river, and up to the termination of inter-tribal warfare remained constant enemies of these other Algonquians. The Cree inheritance of the historic Sioux hostility toward the Chippewa was not lessened by the friendly reception they accorded

8544-722: The western Canadian Shield to the Northwest Territories , including northern parts of the provinces of Manitoba , Alberta and Saskatchewan . There are also many burial and archaeological sites in Nunavut which are part of the Dënesųłı̨ne group. The following list of First Nations band governments had in August 2016 a total registered membership of 25,519, with 11,315 in Saskatchewan, 6,952 in Alberta, 3,038 in Manitoba and 4,214 in

8640-618: The widespread adoption of English , however, many now use the name that became common in English. The English adopted Assiniboine, used by the Canadian French colonists. It was a transliteration into French phonetics of what they heard the Ojibwe use as a term for these western people. The Ojibwe name is asinii-bwaan (stone Sioux). In Cree they are called asinîpwâta ( asinîpwâta ᐊᓯᓃᐹᐧᑕ noun animate singular , asinîpwâtak ᐊᓯᓃᐹᐧᑕᐠ noun animate plural ). In

8736-452: Was Plains Ojibwa rather than Cree. This may indicate how intertwined the two peoples were at this time. By the 1850s, two bands, the "Cree-Assiniboine" or (also called the "Cree-speaking Assiniboine" or the "Young Dogs"), and the Qu'Appelle were established in the region between Wood Mountain and the Cypress Hills and traded on both sides of the international border. From around 1800 to 1850,

8832-520: Was able to help broker a peace between the Cree and Chipewyan in 1715. By 1760, the western front of Cree expansion reached the Lesser Slave Lake region of what is now northern Alberta where the Cree eventually pushed out the Beaver (Danezaa) people . The Cree-Beaver conflicts lasted until the smallpox epidemic in 1781 decimated the Cree in the region, leading to a peace treaty ratified by

8928-521: Was historically divided into up to 40 separate Dagugichiyabi ( bands ), each of which was led by its own Hųgá / Hunga ( tribal chief ) and an advisory band council - the so-called Hungabi ("little chiefs"). Other important personalities were the įtą́cą (war chief), who led the warriors in war, and the Wócegiye įtącą ( medicine man ), who acted both as a religious leader and traditional healer. War deeds, important news, and decisions by

9024-408: Was in vain. The last band holding out (Big Bear and Wandering Spirit's) was dispersed at Loon Lake on 3 June 1885. After the rebellion Big Bear and Poundmaker were briefly imprisoned; Wandering Spirit and six other natives were hanged. A few members of Big Bear's band and other Cree sought refuge in the United States. They were extradited back to Canada, but most soon returned to the US and settled on

9120-478: Was the first European witness to Cree-Assiniboine trade with the "Archithinue" ( Blackfoot Confederacy ). From this and later accounts, the content of the trade is well known: the Cree and Assiniboine gave European goods including guns, knives, kettles, hatchets, and gunpowder to the Blackfoot people in exchange for horses, buffalo-skin robes, and wolf, beaver, and fox furs, which they would take to York Factory (the Blackfoot people refused HBC proposals that they go to

9216-729: Was the name given to two ships of the Royal Canadian Navy. The first was a destroyer that saw service during the Second World War, and the second was a destroyer during the Cold War era. "Fort Assiniboine" was a name given to trading posts opened in 1793 in Manitoba and in 1824 in Alberta . The Assiniboine River drains much of Saskatchewan and Manitoba into the Red River of the North , which, in turn, flows into

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