Historical documents from the late 1800s -- a time of uprising on the Canadian frontier -- include a letter by a young North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) recruit named Mathewson, dated July 21, 1883, detailing the capture of Louis Riel. He writes: "We have 68 prisoners in the cells including Riel, Poundmaker, Big Bear. The Rebel leaders' trial has been postponed for a week. He seems to be getting more nervous uneasy as the time draws near when his fate is to be decided. Poundmaker is a splendid type of Indian, the finest looking of his tribe that I have yet seen. Big Bear is a miserable, wizened up old man as unlike a chief and daring rebel as you could possibly imagine."
Historical Documents Tell Canadian History
Dozens of similar documents tell a story of murder on the Saskachewan plains involving one of the Racette brothers who, as mentioned in Inspector G.E. Sanders' court report, "did not actually fire the shot that killed Hector McLeish"(3/5/1888).
Sanders reports that some men stole horses at Qu'Appelle and then went to Wolseley. There officers McLeish and Mathewson attempted an arrest. McLeish was shot and killed and Mathewson was confined until the three suspects, James Gaddy, Moise Racette and Joseph Racette Sr., saddled up and headed south across the border into the United States. Two months later the three were caught crossing the border back into Manitoba. They were taken to Wolseley, sentenced in the courthouse and then escorted to Regina to be executed.
While the Wolseley Courthouse Museum website says the prisoners were "whisked" off to Regina, in fact, documents such as a telegraph from G.E. Sanders to NWMP headquarters December 11, 1887 asking for money, provide ample evidence that the affair was a very difficult, time-consuming and an especially expensive ordeal.
In the end, both Racette brothers paid the ultimate price for a capital crime (Gaddy was already dead by then). Chiefs Poundmaker and Big Bear were tried and sentenced to 3 years in jail and Riel was, of course, eventually hanged--as he feared he would be--at Regina on November 16, 1885.
But the story does not end there. It lives on in the shape of old scanned documents and new versions of old stories. Go clean off those precious old gems and scan and publish them now before they turn to dust.
