Major Walker goes on to say that the treaty with the Duck Lake Indians was made in 1876, but that these Indians always believed thed had made a different treaty to any other Indians in the territories, any clamored accordingly for better terms. They were headed by a Half-breed named Beardy, who is chief of one of the bands and on whose reserve the late fight with Major Crozier occurred. All the Indians and Half-breeds thereabouts are connected with each other by marriage, and Riel knew that in raising the revolt there he could count on these Indians to join him.
Beardy seems an especially bad Indian. He made Dumont's quarrel his own in 1875; he tried to oppose the passage of Lieutenant-Governor Lard through the district in 1876, and in the same year made a threatening demonstration against the Government's stores at Duck Lake, with two hundred armed and mounted Indians at his back. In 1879 about one hundred and eighty lodges of Sitting Bull's Sioux arrived in the neighbourhood, and Beardy persuaded them to remain. He became so emboldened by this that a special detachment of police was posted in the neighbourhood to watch him. In 1880 he was arrested with some of his men, for killing Government cattle, and imprisoned a few weeks.
If one remembers the advantages the district offers for carrying on an irregular warfare, and that the French Half-breeds are all related to these troublesome Indians, it will render it easy to perceive how Riel reasoned in beginning operations in the midst of the Duck Lake Country. He certainly calculated on an Indian assistance. Before the readers of THE WEEK receive this, there is little doubt that they will have heard that the Indians of Victoria and Fort Pitt, both north of Edmonton, have risen as the Indians of Battleford have.
What is it, then, that these Indians want? I quote again from the Herald on this point:
The Indians, by virtue of occupation, and the Half-breeds by virtue of descent, claim a title in the lands of these territories, which can only be extinguished by adequate compensation. Most people are aware that the Hudson's Bay Company have made a very similar claim. But the difference is that while the Company has received from Canada a very rich compensation for their claims, the Indians have received a very small one and the Half-breeds none at all. If the Hudson's Bay Company had received no compensation perhaps the Half-breeds would not have felt their own grievances so much. However, it is too late to speculate, and it is well to recognize that what the Half-breeds are after now is, a title to their lands and compensation, while the Indians of the north are mainly anxious to obtain better terms. In a nutshell, the Half-breeds want the same privileges as the Half-breeds of Manitoba, and the Indians of the North want the same treatment as the Indians of the South.
