Battle of Fort Pitt

For the 1763 Pennsylvania action in Pontiac's Rebellion, see Siege of Fort Pitt.

Battle of Fort Pitt
Part of the North-West Rebellion
This contemporary illustration from The Illustrated London News depicts the Cree attack of April 15
Date April 15, 1885 Location Frenchman Butte No. 501, near Frenchman Butte, Saskatchewan Result Cree victory
Belligerents
Cree	Canada
Commanders and leaders
Big Bear	Francis Dickens
Strength
200-250	22 militia
Casualties and losses
0-4 dead	1 dead 1 wounded

Duck Lake

Battleford

Frog Lake

Fort Pitt

Fish Creek

Cut Knife

Batoche

Butte

Loon Lake

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The District of Saskatchewan in 1885 (within the black diamonds) included the central section of Saskatchewan and extended into Alberta and Manitoba.

The Battle of Fort Pitt (in Saskatchewan) was part of a Cree uprising coinciding with the Métis North-West Rebellion in 1885. Cree fighters began a series of attacks on Canadian settlements on April 2. On April 15, they captured Fort Pitt from a detachment of North-West Mounted Police.

Background

In the Canadian North-West, a period of escalating unrest immediately preceded the rebellion as Ottawa refused to negotiate with its disaffected citizens. While the Métis under Louis Riel declared a provisional government and mobilized their forces, Cree chief Big Bear was not planning any militarization or violence toward the Canadian settlers or government. Rather, he had tried to unify the Cree into a political confederacy powerful enough to oppose the marginalization of native people in Canadian society and renegotiate unjust land treaties imposed on Saskatchewan natives in the 1860s.

This nominally peaceful disposition was shattered in late March by news of the Métis victory over government forces at Duck Lake. Support for Riel was strong among First Nations people. On April 2, Big Bear's warriors attacked the small settlement of Frog Lake, killing nine officials and civilians. Big Bear, against his wishes, was drawn into the rebellion.

Other attacks then took place, with Cree fighters pillaging the towns of Lac La Biche, Saddle Lake, Beaverhill Lake, Bear Hills, Lac St. Anne and Green Lake. These events prompted the mobilization of the Alberta field force under Thomas Bland Strange and two other columns of government milita units. Cree fighters defeated units of the Alberta Field Force at the Battle of Frenchman's Butte.

Battle

On April 15, 1885 Cree fighters descended on Fort Pitt. They intercepted a small police scouting party, killing a constable, wounding another, and captured a third. Surrounded and outnumbered, garrison commander Francis Dickens (son of famed novelist Charles Dickens) capitulated and agreed to negotiate with the attackers. Big Bear released the police officers under Dickens's control but kept the townspeople as hostages and destroyed the fort.

Inspector Dickens and his men eventually reached safety at Battleford, having walked six days. Dickens's decision not to fight to defend the townspeople was later criticized.

Legacy

In the spring of 2008, Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Christine Tell proclaimed in Duck lake, that "the 125th commemoration, in 2010, of the 1885 Northwest Resistance is an excellent opportunity to tell the story of the prairie Métis and First Nations peoples' struggle with Government forces and how it has shaped Canada today." Fort Pitt, the scene of the Battle of Fort Pitt, is a Provincial Park and National Historic site where a National Historic Sites and Monuments plaque designates where Treaty six was signed.

See also

• List of battles won by Indigenous peoples of the Americas