• Black Powder (c.1800 - d. 1865) was an Ojibwa
ogima (leader). His date of birth is not known but may have occurred between 1800 and 1805. Ogima Black Powder was native to the Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan regions. Little has been recorded about his life. He died in 1865. Chippewa notation: Black Powder is not on the 1908 Census of the Rocky Boy Band of Chippewa Indians. •
Big Bear (1825-c. 1888). According to historians, Big Bear was
Saulteaux but raised as a
Plains Cree. He was born in 1825 as the son of Black Powder, an Ojibwa chief, and an Ojibwa mother in the Jackfish Lake region of Saskatchewan, a few miles north of present-day
North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and not far from
Alberta. He settled primarily in the region where the present-day Saulteaux
First Nation of Saskatchewan is located, near the
Onion Lake First Nation. He was a leader in the
North-West Rebellion of 1885. The whites arrested him as the principal leader of the short rebellion and sentenced him to prison. In early 1888, Big Bear was released. He settled on the
Poundmaker First Nation, where he died soon after. Chippewa notation: Big Bear was not a predecessor to Chief Rocky Boy, for whom the Rocky Boy Reservation is named. • Little Bear (c.1850-1921). The son of Big Bear, considered
Cree. Some said his mother was a Chippewa whose people had relocated from Wisconsin to Montana. Little Bear was born around 1850. After his father relocated to Montana from Idaho, the family settled in southwestern and north central Montana, depending on the season. The latter had vast herds of
buffalo and was extremely important to native people. The
Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) had reported seeing the largest buffalo herds in the region from present-day
Great Falls to north of the area where the Rocky Boy Reservation is located. Little Bear was one of the principal
Cree leaders who fought in the 1885
North-West Rebellion in Canada. He was accused of taking part in the
Frog Lake Massacre, along with
ogima Lucky Man. After the short conflict ended, Little Bear fled as a refugee from Canada back to Montana. Little Bear was said to be the instigator of the Frog Lake massacre in Frog Lake, Saskatchewan in 1885. Little Bear's involvement in the Frog Lake Massacre is the subject of the book,
Blood Red The Sun, by William B. Cameron, among a handful of captives taken by the Cree band, which continued to elude Canadian law authorities. Cameron was a clerk for the Hudson Bay Company. He later testified on behalf of Little Bear's father, Big Bear, who attempted to stop his son and supporters from instigating the massacre. Cameron identified Little Bear as the leader of the massacre, in which a total of nine were killed, including clergy. Some contemporary writings blamed Wandering Spirit. Cameron was held hostage by the Little Bear Band for two months. Little Bear's band fled to Montana, but they were subject to deportation to Canada in 1896 by the U.S. Congress. The newspapers reported that the Little Bear Cree forced the U.S. Cavalry back to
Havre, Montana and had returned to their homeland when the troops returned from Canada. There were two distinct rolls, the 1908 census of the Rocky Boy Band of Chippewa, was conducted near Helena, MT by Thralls B. Wheat, an allotting agent of the Department of the Interior. This was the only legal census of the Rocky Boy Band; it was supervised by Chief Rocky Boy. Neither Little Bear, nor members of his band appear on this roll. In 1914, Chief Rocky Boy was corresponding with Interior Secretary Franklin Lane, and expressed the Chippewa band's neutrality in the World War I conflict. He also wrote to President Woodrow Wilson, dated September 25, 1914, expressing the band's position. No Chippewa Cree tribe existed at the time; official correspondence refers only to Rocky Boy's Band of Chippewa Indians. Chief Big Rock enacted his own Chippewa council following Rocky Boy's death, consisting of Pat Raspberry, Standing Rock, Charles Mosney, and Crazy Boy. This council held a formal council and pipe ceremony in Great Falls with white supporters: writer
Frank B. Linderman,
Theodore Gibson,
William Boles, and painter
Charles M. Russell. By the start of the 20th century, Little Bear returned to Montana, his native country, and began to follow Rocky Boy. In 1905, Little Bear contacted Canadian leaders to request allowing the Cree from Montana to relocate to Canada. Officials agreed and the Cree settled primarily with the
Onion Lake First Nation and the
Samson First Nation (this reserve includes the Ermineskin, Louis Bull, and Montana First Nations). In 1908, Little Bear again contacted Canadian leaders requesting permission for more landless Chippewa and Cree to relocate from Montana to Canada. After the Rocky Boy Reservation was officially established in 1916, Little Bear followed Rocky Boy and his band there, bringing about 200 of his own people. He took over as leader of the new Reservation after Rocky Boy's death in 1916. Little Bear died in 1921. Ultimately Little Bear Cree and those descendants of the Riel Rebellion leaders made up 406 of the McLaughlin Roll. Only 45 of those who were on the 1908 Wheat roll managed to secure membership at the Rocky Boy's reservation, which had been authorized for Rocky Boy's Band of Chippewa Indians." : Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Act approved February eleventh, nineteen hundred and fifteen (Thirty-eighth Statutes at Large, page eight hundred and seven), entitled "An Act authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to survey the lands of the abandoned Fort Assinniboine Military Reservation and open the same to settlement," be, and the same is hereby, amended by the addition thereto of the following sections: "SEC. 10. That fractional townships twenty-eight north, ranges fifteen and sixteen east, and fractional townships twenty-nine north, ranges fourteen and fifteen east, Montana principal meridian, within the boundaries of said reservation, embracing a total area of approximately fifty-six thousand and thirty-five acres, are hereby set apart as a reservation for Rocky Boy's Band of Chippewas and such other homeless Indians in the State of Montana as the Secretary of the Interior may see fit to locate thereon, and the said Secretary is authorized, in his discretion, to allot the lands within the reservation hereby created under the provisions of the general allotment Act of February eighth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven (Twenty"fourth Statutes at Large, page three hundred and eighty-eight), as amended. Cree nativity to Montana is disputed by Chippewa who contend that during the negotiations of the treaties that encompass the area of Montana, the noted Smithsonian ethnologist, John C. Ewers found not a single member of Little Bear's band, who were now on the 1917 McLaughlin Roll of the US. Department of the Interior; were born in the treaty land cede area. Therefore, the U.S.
Indian Claims Commission dismissed Cree treaty claims . Still further, the Canadian Council Privy attempted to work with U.S. authorities to exert authority to return the Little Bear Band to Canada, prior to the 1896 Act of Deportation. •
Rocky Boy (c.1852-d. 1916)
Asiniweyin, more correctly called Stone Being. The true origin of Asiniweyin, he was born in
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. He was a member of the Red Robe Band, Red Robe, or Moose Dung, was a signor of the 1864 Pembina Treaty. Other sources say he was born in Wisconsin and migrated to the Montana region in the 1880s. Rocky Boy claimed to be native to southwest Montana and may have lived in southern Idaho. He became a popular leader in the early 1900s among both the Chippewa and the European Americans. He managed to gain Executive Orders by United States presidents to set aside land for two Chippewa-Cree reservations in northeastern Montana. Rocky Boy died in 1916, before Congress officially established the Rocky Boy's Reservation. Some sources have speculated he was assassinated, including noted Smithsonian historian and expert on Plains tribal culture, John C. Ewers. Frank Bird Linderman's correspondence with Chippewa Chief Big Rock also indicated Big Rock explained not only Rocky Boy's assassination, but Big Rock's own son's were also assassinated by rival Cree in the Ft. Assiniboine area in the days after Chief Rocky Boy's death. • Pennato: The brother of Rocky Boy, Pennato had suggested that the Fort Assinniboine Military Reservation become a new closed Chippewa-Cree Reservation. In December 1911, Pennato and 150 Chippewa fled the Babb Chippewa Reservation. (Source needed). With respect to enrollment in Rocky Boy, because the reservation was established by an Act of Congress for "Rocky Boy's Band of Chippewa Indians and such other homeless Indians," the language of the law was intended in 1908 by Chief Rocky Boy and Thralls B. Wheat, to leave the door to enrollment open to his brethren who were away on a hunt at the time of the Wheat Census. . The Chief Big Rock family were away as was often done, Chippewa bands separate during hunting excursions, hunting in western Montana. Because they were not directly enumerated in the Wheat census, Chief Rocky Boy inserted the language of the Act to include Big Rock's extended family. The language of the Act was not intended to include anyone other than the whole Rocky Boy band, and was limited to Big Rock's family. Ironically, Big Rock is listed on the 1917 McLaughlin census. Chief Big Rock's place of birth is listed as Red Lake, Minnesota. This is the true and legitimate successor to Chief Rocky Boy. Some oral history has indicated Big Rock was Chief Rocky Boy's brother, moreover, Chippewa have held Big Rock to be the main "ogemaw" and Rocky Boy was more of a spokesman to him, or a sub-chief. Only the present day Bearwalker family line are the living descendants of Chief Big Rock. After Little Bear took over the affairs of the soon to be established reservation, and the flight to Chief Mountain—Big Rock's family perished on Chief Mountain, from the combined effects of tuberculosis and starvation. Chief Rocky Boy had been under increased pressure to add the Cree and Metis to his rolls by government officials. Even after the reservation was to be created, in the spring of 1916, Frank Bird Linderman met with Chief Big Rock in northside, Great Falls, and other Chippewa tribesmen including Standing Rock, Pat Raspberry, Crazy Boy (Chief Rocky Boy's brother), and Charles Mosney. On his death bed, and his last letter to Frank B. Linderman, Rocky Boy stated "I don't know if I will ever see you again, Little Bear (referring to their inclusion, along with Metis led by Kennawash)... is trying to get them all in. It is up to my band of Chippewa Indians to let them in." Rocky Boy's understanding of the working of tribal sovereignty is correct. . There is a legal theoretical split, those that attempt to document and claim a Chippewa Cree identity, and the original descendants of Rocky boy's Chippewa band who reject these claims. Ethnologist John C. Ewers writes in Ethnological report on the Chippewa Cree tribe of the Rocky Boy Reservation and the Little Shell band of Indians / [by] John C. Ewers. History of the Cree Indian territorial expansion from the Hudson Bay area to the interior Saskatchewan and Missouri plains [by] Floyd W. Sharrock [and] Susan R. Sharrock. Ewers, John Canfield. Ethnological report on the Chippewa Cree tribe of the Rocky Boy Reservation and the Little Shell band of Indians / [by] John C. Ewers. History of the Cree Indian territorial expansion from the Hudson Bay area to the interior Saskatchewan and Missouri plains [by] Floyd W. Sharrock [and] Susan R. Sharrock Published New York : Garland Pub. Inc., 1974. The Chippewa view the Department of the Interior's mishandling of the 1908 roll, the raising of an illegal 1917 McLaughlin Roll, and the mismanaged Pembina judgments as overreaching paternalism roundly rejected by the majority of U.S. tribes into one tribe's affairs. Ewers wrote "it will be for courts to decide if a Chippewa Cree tribe existed prior to 1935," foretelling the contemporary conflict. To the trained ethnologist's eye, the writing was on the wall 40 years ago. Ewers also correctly predicted this matter would ultimately be decided on contentious terms, most likely the courts. The constitution provides for enrollment for a member of the "Chippewa Cree Tribe." Namely, the Constitution allows any Indian not otherwise enrolled in MT, to enroll," unofficially, it allows any Indian who has simultaneous enrollment in Canada to enroll It unofficially provides for Cree blood quantum, even though the Cree tribe does not have a U.S. treaty. ==Band of Chippewa Council==