Modern-day historical revisionists like Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair, editors of the just-released “Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism,” mock the “Boy Scout/peacekeeper” historical record of Canada and call us a genocidal nation. They are intent on decolonizing Canada.Perhaps people should judge the historical record for themselves.I had been planning to write an article about the June 25-26, 2026, indigenous reenactment of the 1876 massacre of Lt. Col. Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. I was reading the astounding events surrounding Sitting Bull and the thousands of American Indians pouring into Southern Alberta to escape the rage of the US Cavalry from JP Turner’s official history of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP).Recall that the US Cavalry had 10 regiments at that time, with between 8,000 and 9,000 officers and men. The Seventh Cavalry alone had some 43 officers and 793 men. In the Battle of Little Bighorn, or the Battle of Greasy Grass as it is also known, some 268 US Cavalry men, including scouts and a few civilians, were slaughtered by Sitting Bull and his assorted tribal chiefs and warriors, in short order, some say less than the time it took to eat a meal.The Americans saw the Sioux as hostile insurgent outlaws — terrorists, in today’s parlance. As the Sioux headed north for Canada, a geopolitical quagmire loomed for Sir John A. Macdonald and the NWMP, with images of the bloody Irish-American Fenian cross-border raids, heightening the tension. The US demanded the return of the Sioux; Canada had no military means to force them back; Macdonald identified them as “American Indians.”I was originally referring to JP Turner’s official history of the NWMP, but since I’d recently received J.R. Miller’s “Residential Schools and Reconciliation,” I thought I would have a peek and see if this event was referenced.Indeed, it was, but in a very surprising way, to me..Miller’s book (pp. 259) references a Canadian Heritage Minute about the return of Sitting Bull and his people to the US, who, following the massacre of Custer and most of his regiment of the Seventh Cavalry, had sought and been granted temporary asylum in Canada by the NWMP. Like Carleton and Sinclair’s worldview, rather than pride at the peaceful, humanitarian way that the NWMP handled this dynamite situation, Miller’s book cites authors who denounce the “peacekeeper myth” and “nationalist self-congratulation.” Part of the Heritage Minute highlighted the fact that the Mounties were few; the Cavalry and Sitting Bull’s people were so many. The Americans could not believe that a handful of Mounted Police negotiated fearlessly and travelled freely among Indian warriors that had wiped out Custer and his men in minutes.Recall that in 1873, the NWMP had been put together to come West and stop the incursion of American whiskey traders from the US, who were decimating the Blackfoot nation with gut-rot whisky and rapacious trade. Likewise, the Benton Gang had crossed into the Canadian West (today’s Southern Alberta) from Montana and had massacred the Assiniboine tribe in the Cypress Hills.The NWMP came to enforce the law and stop the decimation of the Blackfoot people. The force consisted of just 300 men. Their success at stopping the whisky trade gained them the trust of Chief Crowfoot and his people.At the end of 1876, Fort Walsh, the closest NWMP detachment to the incoming groups of refugee Indians escaping the vengeance of the US Cavalry, had 95 men and 90 horses.In fits and starts, some 5,000 Lakota Sioux ultimately crossed the US-Canada border, seeking asylum. As each group arrived, a handful of Mounties and scouts met them in peace, explained the law of the land, and made them promise not to break the laws, nor fight with the Blackfoot Confederacy tribes (mortal enemies), nor cross back over the border to continue the fight with the US Cavalry’s blue-coated “Long Knives.”Ultimately, Sitting Bull arrived in Canada. Superintendent Walsh and his men calmly rode into his camp, to the astonishment of Sitting Bull and his people. As the Mounties had done with the other tribal leaders, Black Moon, Four Horns, and Medicine Bear, Walsh explained the law of the land. Sitting Bull told Walsh that he had “buried his weapons” before coming to the country of the White Mother; he had only been fighting because he had to, in order to survive, up until then. Walsh, as he had done for other tribes, allowed for the distribution of ammunition for hunting, so there would be sustenance for the clearly exhausted, hungry, and frightened people. Imagine handing out ammunition to warriors still wearing the scalps of Custer’s men on their belts.With that, Walsh and his men asked for access to a tipi lodge and slept the night in the Sioux camp..The Turner history of the NWMP summarized Sitting Bull’s shock — that yesterday he was fleeing the white man; today he puts up a lodge beside mine. “The White Forehead Chief (Walsh) walks to my lodge alone and unarmed. He gives me the hand of peace. Have I fallen? Am I at the end?”Miraculously, the handful of NWMP were able to keep the peace between these American tribes who were enemies of the Blackfoot, and who were encroaching on the dwindling supply of buffalo, while also ensuring the Blackfoot that they would protect their rights.Sitting Bull and his many thousands of warriors sought refuge in the land of the colonial White Mother.Ultimately, as tempers cooled, lack of food was used as a weapon to nudge Sitting Bull and his people into agreement to return home to the US, having been here for four years (1877-1881). Their presence in what is today Southern Alberta undoubtedly was a factor in the rapid diminishment of the regional herds of buffalo that all Plains Indians relied on for food.It should be remembered that by 1879, the Blackfoot, Stoney, and Metis near Fort Calgary were also starving and petitioned the NWMP for aid. Inspector Cecil Denny, against Ottawa’s official orders to restrict rations, had the Mounties slaughter their own cattle and distribute 2,000 pounds of beef per day to the destitute.In the midst of these conflicting demands and potential warfare, our handful of courageous peacekeeper Mounties kept them all alive, kept the peace between the Lakota and the Blackfoot Confederacy, kept Sitting Bull and his people here long enough for things to calm down in the US, and to my mind, thus kept them from certain death … shall we say … genocide … at the hands of the enraged US Cavalry.In fact, Leah Gazan’s own ancestors were part of a small group of Lakota who remained in Canada. Her great-grandfather, John LeCaine, went to Indian Residential School, learned to read, write, and do carpentry, and he became a successful settler — with a homestead. He was also a devout Catholic who helped build the local chapel.Is this peacekeeper history something to be proud of? You tell me.
