Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 21

Whisky, Horses and Death:
The Cypress Hills Massacre and its Sequel

by Philip Goldring

Bibliography

Note on Sources

There is considerable published material on the Cypress Hills massacre, but it all has great limitations. The common defect has been a lack of sources: the Assiniboine affidavits collected by Inspector Irvine in 1875, for instance, have never been used in a published account of the massacre. Peter Turner is the only writer to have made conspicuous use of Eashappie's recollections (which have only very recently been published, in a work by Dan Kennedy). Writers have therefore been handicapped by the lack of firsthand information on the precarious state of mind in the Indian camp immediately before the fight. This defect has, in turn, often prevented a clear interpretation of some material which has always been readily available. It may also be fair to comment on the authors themselves. Most have been men with intimate local knowledge and familiarity with Western folklore, but not all have had the patience to weigh and sift the enormous amount of contradictory evidence.

The first serious efforts to collate the evidence on the massacre were made by George Shepherd in the 1930s, (His findings were amalgamated into one chapter of his book, Brave Heritage, some 30 years later.) Shepherd's work was constricted by the narrowness of his sources, but his articles contained the three major elements of the massacre: moody Indians, impetuous, arrogant whites, and the historian's difficult task of putting together a story which would satisfy the demands of the different pieces of evidence available. Shepherd's work was followed in the 1940s by the efforts of Peter Turner, late official historian of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Turner's accounts are highly coloured by his evident revulsion from the whisky trade and the massacre which it spawned. His writings are also marred by small errors, such as placing the date of the massacre a month before it actually occurred. But the inadequacy of his sources is the root of his failure to create a convincing account of the massacre. In the 1950s another effort to unravel the story was made by Paul F. Sharp, as part of his book Whoop-Up Country. Sharp has spun a colourful, readable tale with a broad range of footnote references and considerable scholarly objectivity: but his chapter on the massacre is not to be relied on for either broad themes or specific details. This is doubly unfortunate since subsequent accounts of the massacre tend to lean more or less heavily on the version presented by Sharp.

As for primary material — there are too many sources and almost all of them are of the wrong kind. Under the circumstances, an unbiased first hand account was more than one could hope for, though Alexis Lebombard's testimony comes close to providing one. The remainder of the firsthand evidence is badly contradictory and it is only by a careful collation of the Indian testimony with that of the Métis (including Lebombard) that an intelligible version emerges. I have completely discarded two accounts, published in 1886 and 1924 by John Duval and Donald Graham respectively. Both deviate widely from the general outline of the story constructed by witnesses between 1873 and 1876. Duval was involved in the fight, but Graham's account may be completely spurious.

There remain two other classes of firsthand information: testimony given before various legal tribunals and depositions made voluntarily by witnesses or participants in 1873 and 1875. This testimony is of varied value, depending upon the individual witness, but it has been possible to construct a story more or less consistent with the different viewpoints offered by the original witnesses.

Unpublished sources provide roughly half the useful material for a study of the massacre and of its outcome. Important documents on the fight itself are in the Provincial Archives of Manitoba collection of papers of Lieutenant Governor Morris, while most of the administrative correspondence about the attempt to punish the perpetrators of the massacre is in the dispatches of Sir Edward Thornton in Washington to Lord Dufferin and (in 1875) Lieutenant General Haly in Ottawa.

Bozeman Times
1875.

Butler, William Francis
The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North West of America, Sampson, Low, Marston, Low and Searle, London, 1872.

Canada. Laws, Statutes, etc.
An Act Respecting the Administration of Justice, and for the Establishment of a Police Force in the North-West Territories, 36 Victoria, cap. 35. [Ottawa], 1873.

Canada. National Library.
Scrapbook Debates, 1872-73

Canada. Public Archives.
MG9, G1, Minute Books of the Council of the North-West Territories, 1875
MG26, Al, Papers of Sir John A. Macdonald, Vol. 246 (Gilbert McMicken), Vols. 252-252A (Alexander Morris). Vol. 523 (Letterbook, 1873)
MG27, I, C8, Papers of Alexander Morris. Microfilm copies of originals in the Provincial Archives of Manitoba and the library of Queen's University, Kingston.
MG27, I, H2, Papers of James Wickes Taylor. Microfilm copies of originals held by the Minnesota Historical Society.
RG7, G6, Governor General's Office, Dispatches from the British Minister at Washington
RG9, II, Militia and Defence Papers, 81, Adjutant-General's Correspondence
RG13, Department of Justice, Unsorted Deputy Minister's Records, 1873

Daily Herald (Helena)
1873.

Daily Independent (Helena)
1875.

Dempsey, Hugh A.
"Cypress Hills Massacre," Montana Magazine of Western History, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Autumn 1953), pp. 1-9. Helena.

"Extracts from Department of Justice Files; Data Re. the Cypress Hills Massacre and Rounding Up of the Hardwick Gang"
Manuscript on file, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada. Ottawa, n.d.

Fort Benton Record
1875.

Goldring, Philip
"The Cypress Hills Massacre — A Century's Retrospect." Saskatchewan History, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn 1973), pp. 81-102. Saskatoon.
"The First Contingent: The North-West Mounted Police, 1873-74." Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History, No. 21 (1979). Ottawa.

Horrall, S.W.
"Sir John A. Macdonald and the Police Force for the Northwest Territories." Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 53, No. 2 (June 1972), pp. 179-200. Toronto.

Kennedy, Dan (Ochankugehe)
Recollections of an Assiniboine Chief. Ed. J.R. Stevens. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto, 1972.

Manitoba. Provincial Archives.
Papers of Alexander Morris

Ottawa Daily Citizen
1873.

Sharp, Paul F.
Whoop-Up Country. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1955.

Shepherd, George
Brave Heritage. Prairie Books Service, Saskatoon, 1967.

Standard (Winnipeg)
1876.

Stegner, Wallace
Wolf Willow. Viking Press, New York, 1963.

Turner, John Peter
"Massacre in the Hills.'" Royal Canadian Mounted Police Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Jan. 1941). pp. 302-9. Ottawa.
The North-West Mounted Police, 1873-1893 . . . . King's Printer, Ottawa, 1950. 2 vols. Vol. 1.

United States. National Archives. Diplomatic Branch.
Dispatches from the American Consul in Winnipeg to the Secretary of State, 1875.

Weekly Herald (Helena)
1875.