Toronto Star: Almighty Voice, fought the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) more than 125 years ago in an attempt to keep his people from starving. Here’s why that matters today.
When out covering a story, it’s not uncommon for me to be asked, “Where’s your proof? How do I know you’re an actual reporter?” People are shocked to find out that I, a dark-skinned Cree with long hair, a gentle voice and a round face, am a journalist with the Toronto Star.
They’re the kind of questions that sometimes make me wonder what I’m here to prove as one of the relatively few Indigenous people to have worked in a newsroom that’s been operating since 1892. It’s the kind of thing that makes me think of my own ancestor, Almighty Voice, who fought the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) more than 125 years ago in an attempt to keep his people from starving.
That story perhaps begins with Almighty Voice’s grandfather, Chief One Arrow, who was accused of participating in the North West Resistance and incarcerated at the Stony Mountain Penitentiary. As further punishment, the government restricted food rations to the Willow Cree people, One Arrow’s already starving band.
The people of One Arrow were still starving in October 1895, when Almighty Voice killed a cow he would later say he believed belonged to his father, Sounding Sky. On Oct. 22, 1895, NWMP Sgt. Colebrook arrested Almighty Voice for killing the cow.
According to oral history, when Almighty Voice was charged and shackled, he sang a song that echoed through generations, variations of which can be heard in communities across the Prairies today. While jailed, a guard joked to Almighty Voice he would be hanged for his crime. Days later, after he escaped during the night, Colebrook and a Métis scout caught up with Almighty Voice, who warned that he would shoot if he was approached. Despite the warning, Colebrook attempted an arrest, and Almighty Voice fatally shot the NWMP officer, then fled once more.
It would be a lot easier for us to forget about the resistance of Indigenous Peoples and just assume we were all conquered or successfully assimilated in some way. But perhaps, in June 2023, as we mark Indigenous History Month, the soul of this country has a little more empathy than that. Perhaps there is wisdom in understanding the sacrifices of Indigenous heroes, to acknowledge and bring honour to their descendants still alive today.
I often think about whether I could do what he did — if I could go to prison, just so my relatives could eat.
These are the stories we inherit through oral history, and these are the standards that we must live up to. When I remember such leaders, I cannot forget that their descendants are still with us. They are survivors, they are everyday Canadians. Some are even reporters for Canada’s largest newspaper.
In 1892, the year the Star was founded, the Willow Cree — my family and a close-knit community of fewer than 4,000 people today — were restricted to reserves, starved and placed in residential schools under remissive Canadian Law codified in the Indian Act.
Five years later, on May 30 (exactly 100 years before the day I was born) in 1897, a force of approximately 100 NWMP officers and Canadian citizens gathered under the living skies of central Saskatchewan and killed Almighty Voice just outside of Batoche in a bluff where he was hiding. Almighty Voice was spotted by two young ranchers who were out looking for missing cattle. The brothers claimed the “Indians” were chasing said cattle, but according to the ranchers when they confronted them, the “Indians” said they were doing it just for fun.
I don’t see the logic of Almighty Voice chasing cows for fun when he was wanted.
Officers overwhelmed the little bluff of trees with cannons. It was shortly after they recovered the bodies of Almighty Voice, his younger cousin Little Saulteaux and his brother-in-law Topean. If you don’t know where Batoche is, do you really know Canadian history?
No matter the angle from which you look at his story, it all started when Almighty Voice was jailed in Duck Lake, Sask., for slaughtering a cow to feed his starving people — a people who couldn’t leave the reserve without the permission of the Indian agent. Guess whose cow the government claimed Almighty Voice killed? (The Indian agent’s.)
I began to bond with the history of my homelands, be it through books or oral tradition, when I was still in high school. I’ve heard many different accounts on the story of Almighty Voice and I thought, “What’s the point of trying to understand this?” When I was a student of Cree ceremonies, still in high school, who enjoyed sipping tea with local elders, I realized there were no other youth in my community who were willing to learn Cree oral tradition.
The jailhouse where Almighty Voice was incarcerated still stands today in the town I grew up in — in front of a pink museum that has an unmistakable 24-metre-high tower overlooking seas of golden grain and yellow canola.
You may not see the curve of the earth from up there, but you can almost see Fort Carlton, where Treaty 6 was signed in 1876, and, on the other side, Batoche, where the famous Métis resistance leader, Louis Riel, led his troops into the North-West Resistance in 1885. Did my great-great-grandfather Almighty Voice deserve to be threatened with death for not being allowed to leave the rez and shooting a cow to feed his people?
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Addressing him as Almighty Voice is an understatement lost in translation. His real name was “Kise Manitowew” or “Voice of the Creator.” And for the Willow Cree, we traditionally receive our names from the spiritual world through ceremonies, and they reflect our purposes in life.
For the Cree, our names are believed to come from the Creator itself and viewed as destiny, which suggests Almighty Voice’s tragedy may have been part of some divine plan. Perhaps “Voice of the Creator” is fitting, given how his actions shook the land and infant nation of Canada to its core like an earthquake — so much that even the Star covered the tragedy, despite being over 2,000 kilometres away in Toronto.
On June 3, 1897, The Evening Star published a short piece underneath a poem entitled “The Man in the Moon,” saying there “ought to be an epopee in the death of Almighty Voice,” and how “the story of his end reads like a passage from the Iliad or an exploit of The Cid.” It goes on to say, “granted that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, the fact remains that Almighty Voice was a brave Indian while he lived and like Samson, dying, he overwhelmed many with him.”
On the cover of that same issue, with “Star Special” printed just above the lede, the Evening Star had a story mourning the NWMP who were killed by Almighty Voice, while quoting the reverend who delivered their sermon. “He said (the Reverend) that it was to be hoped that the Government would now abandon the cheese-paring policy of reducing the Mounted Police force, and rather devise means of increasing it,” the paper states.
I’m reminded of stories from Willow Cree elder John-George Scott on how NWMP would camp on every end of our reserve simply to enforce what we know as the “pass system,” ensuring First Nations stay on their reserves.
Were we the enemies?
Today, 126 years later, as a descendant of an Indigenous legend, I find that I speak for my ancestors whether I am covering Indigenous-focused stories or not. Regardless of the labels, speculations, or debates yet to be had, I am living proof that my ancestors fought for a future.
Jamin Mike is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star. Reach him via email: jmike@thestar.ca