B A T U S 2 0 1 0


Government in Ottawa by Deed of Surrender in 1869. During this period, due to the hostility of the Plains Indians, little was done to open up the hinterland and the Hudson’s Bay Company only succeeded in establishing a few trading posts on the main rivers, where Indians could barter their furs and skins for blankets, beads and weapons.


3. In 1857, Captain John Palliser was sent by the British Government to carry out a survey of the prairie region. In his report he defined a large part of Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan as being unfit for settlement due to its low rainfall and sparse vegetation. This became known as “The Palliser Triangle” and Suffield is well within its borders. The depressing tone of the Palliser Report, and rebellions by the local Indians did nothing to encourage settlement by Europeans. In 1869 Lieutenant Colonel Garnet-Wolseley, (later FM Lord Wolseley), led the Red River Expedition that dispersed the first major Indian uprising.


4. The conclusion of the American Civil War in the late 1860’s threw up a large number of ex-soldiers and other rough characters who headed West in search of work, a quick profit or just adventure. Financed by merchants in the East, and uninhibited by conscience or moral issues, they made the base for their operations in Fort Benton on the upper reaches of the Missouri River, near what is now Great Falls, Montana, the closest US town to Suffield. From there they pushed their trading posts northward into Canada. The most infamous of these became Fort Whoop-up, near Lethbridge, where they traded rotgut whiskey to the Indians in return for furs and buffalo robes. In a short time they had reduced the Indians to a state of drunkenness and poverty.


5. The dishonesty and brutality of the whiskey peddlers was one of the main reasons for the formation of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP), now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who were sent into the area to restore law and order and protect Canadian interests from these Montana adventurers. The NWMP reached Fort McLeod in 1874 and soon established a reputation for honesty and fairness among both the Indian tribes and early settlers.


6. The next milestone was the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway which reached the Medicine Hat area in 1883 and established the township as a water point and forward depot. This line was a major factor in the opening up of the region, enabling settlers, many from Eastern Europe, to be brought in and for their ranching and farming products to be exported.


7. 1885 saw the last abortive attempt to resist the settling of the area when the Metis, who were mainly French halfbreeds, rose under their extraordinary leader, Louis Riel, in an attempt to evict the Europeans. Had the all Indian tribes wholly joined Riel in his rebellion the outcome would have been more serious but Chief Crowfoot, head of the Blackfoot Confederacy (after whom the Battle Group camp is named), refused to join the rising as he foresaw that victory for the white man was inevitable in the long term. Louis Riel’s second rebellion was crushed and he was hanged in Regina.


8. With the virtual extinction of the buffalo, and the confinement of the Indians to reservations, ranching became the principle industry of the Medicine Hat area. Captain Palliser’s opinion was proved correct in that the area around Suffield was not suited to small holdings, though many settlers lingered on for some years making a meager living under arduous and often pathetic conditions.


9. When Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton, began his drive to increase immigration at the end of the 19th Century, settlers came from across Europe. However, despite a major farming enterprise, financed from England, the area


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