Chief Piapot

2010 marks the 135th Anniversary of Chief Piapot signing Treaty 4. To commemorate this monumental event a celebration is being held on September 1, 2, and 3 honoring this distinguished figure of Saskatchewan’s history.

A man of many talents and a natural affinity to fight for what he believed in, Chief Piapot was one of the five major leaders of the Plains Cree after 1860. A distinguished upbringing saw Piapot grow among the Sioux after he and his grandmother were taken prisoner. This upbringing allowed Piapot the opportunity to learn the Sioux medicine, which was held in high regard by other bands and in the 1830s he was captured again by his own Cree and given the name Payipwat, which roughly translates to “one who knows the secrets of the Sioux”.

Chief Piapot became a highly respected spiritual leader among the Cree and Chief of the Young Dogs. The Young Dogs, a mixture of Cree and Assiniboine’s, were notorious as horse thieves and troublemakers and lived the buffalo-hunting life on the prairies. In the 1850s the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Métis moved into the upper Qu’Appelle River district to compete with the Cree for the diminishing herds of buffalo. Since the buffalo were quickly disappearing from Cree territory, Piapot believed that his people were about to face a severe crisis. He advocated that the Plains Cree expand west into Blackfoot territory, the last major buffalo range touching on Cree lands.

The majority of the Plains Cree took part in the invasion. Piapot refused to take part in the battle claiming that the night before the battle he had a dream that he interpreted as an approaching disaster. The Cree lost approximately one-third of their warriors in the battle and remained in the Cypress Hills where they hunted as far south as the Missouri River district of Montana.

While hunting in the southern regions, Piapot learned of Canada’s intent to send a commission to the Cree and Saulteaux people, but not until after Treaty 4 had been negotiated.

In 1875, Piapot and Cheekuk, the principal leader of the Saulteaux of the Qu’Appelle district met with William Joseph Christie, the Canadian Treaty Commissioner, at the Qu’Appelle Lakes. Piapot expressed his feelings that what had transpired while he was hunting in the south were to be only preliminary negotiations. His intentions were to gain a base in which his people would receive the necessary means and information to begin farming practices in the areas they occupied. William Joseph Christie acknowledged that those requests would be brought forward in Ottawa to determine whether they would be brought to treaty. On September 9, 1875, Chief Piapot signed Treaty 4.

While Piapot and his people thought that the government had agreed to the requests of Treaty 4, they had actually refused. Future treaties that Piapot negotiated covered the stipulations that were involved in treaty 4, but Chief Piapot maintained to his dying day that Ottawa had not fulfilled all of their promises.

For more information on the celebration visit www.chiefpiapot.org.