| Subject: |
1885, Resistance, First Nations, Big Bear, Military, Otter, General, NWMP, Irvine, Colonel |
| Description: |
Lieutenant Colonel A.C.D. Pigott wrote this document entitled “Resumé of the Riel Rebellion” during various engagements of the 1885 Resistance. This is one of only a few first-hand accounts by any member of the Canadian army during the 1885 Resistance. Pigott chronicled the 1885 Resistance from the March 26, 1885 skirmish at Duck Lake to the campaign against First Nations warriors from Big Bear’s and Poundmaker’s camps. These pages focus largely on battling the First Nations and list troop movements and the advance of columns by Generals Otter and Strange. This document also contains a number of appendices, not numbered in sequential order, including a map of the Battle of Fish Creek and a second-hand transcription of a correspondence between Big Bear, General Middleton and Louis Riel. Page 11 of this document indicates that after the North West Mounted Police under Colonel Irvine were called in the search for Big Bear, the chief and his band surrendered after being surrounded on all sides. With that, Pigott wrote, “the rebellion was over”. He also mentioned the names of the commanders of each troop in Colonel Otter’s column, which marched across the prairie from Swift Current to North Battleford. This document, part of A.C.D. Pigott’s post 1885 personal correspondence, is part of the A.C.D. Pigott Collection, which was acquired by the Gabriel Dumont Institute in October 1991 by the Ted Pappas family of Vancouver, British Columbia. The collection includes: Louis Riel’s English-French dictionary, Lieutenant Colonel Pigott’s 1885 Resistance battlefield manuscript, and a number of artifacts taken off the battlefield including: an inscribed watch, a pipe, a bullet maker and a buffalo powder horn (both from the Métis trenches), a carved wooden container taken from Big Bear’s camp, a First Nations decorative bracelet and horsehair braiding, which may have been traded for food by somebody captured by the Boulton’s Scouts. |
Resistance