Fifty Years on the Saskatchewan : Being a History of the Cree Indian Domestic Life and the Difficulties Which Led to Serious Agitation and Conflict of 1885 in the Battleford Locality as Written by Robert Jefferson After Fifty Years’ Research and Service

Canadian North-West Historical Society Publications Vol. 1 No. 5. The Canadian North-West Historical Society was founded in 1924 (as the Battleford Historical Society) to preserve the Battleford area’s history, in part by publishing accounts of life in the region prior to 1890. This volume contains an account of Cree life and culture by Robert Jefferson, a British immigrant who served as a teacher on Red Pheasant’s reserve and a farm instructor on Poundmaker’s reserve in the 1870s and 1880s. Jefferson chronicles his journey to the North-West, offers anecdotal and ethnographic observations on Cree society, and describes Indigenous-settler relations in the wake of treaty signings. The latter third of the book provides a sympathetic eyewitness account of the 1884/5 Cree uprisings and 1885 North-West Resistance, including encounters with figures such as Poundmaker, Big Bear, and General Middleton. Errata. Peel(3) 1472.