Papaschase Cree Indian Reserve
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The Papaschase ( from
Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...
ᐹᐦᐹᐢᒉᐢ (''Woodpecker'')) are a group of
Cree people The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations. They live primarily to the north and west of Lake Superior in the province ...
descended from Chief Papaschase's Band of the 19th century, who were a party to
Treaty 6 Treaty 6 is the sixth of the numbered treaties that were signed by the Canadian Crown and various First Nations between 1871 and 1877. It is one of a total of 11 numbered treaties signed between the Canadian Crown and First Nations. Specifi ...
with Canada. A modern-day group of Papaschase descendants are working to advance their treaty rights and reclaim their reserve's land or get compensation for its loss. They claim the reserve was surrendered unlawfully in 1888, but they have not been recognized yet by the Canadian Government, however they are recognized as a nation by the
Assembly of First Nations The Assembly of First Nations (, AFN) is an assembly of Canadian First Nations ( Indian bands) represented by their chiefs. Established in 1982 and modelled on the United Nations General Assembly, it emerged from the National Indian Brotherhood ...
Alexander First Nation #134 #134a #134b #143


Historical Papaschase

Chief Papaschase (also known as Passpasschase, Papastew, Pahpastayo, and John Gladieu-Quinn) and his family and community lived around Fort Edmonton, Fort Assiniboia and Slave Lake in Alberta in the mid-1800s and often traded furs with the Hudson Bay Company. They settled permanently in the Edmonton area in the 1850s on the south side of the North Saskatchewan River. Chief Papaschase and his brother Tahkoots signed on to Treaty 6 on August 21, 1877. However, they were not allocated a reserve until three years later, in 1880:
reserve Reserve or reserves may refer to: Places * Reserve, Kansas, a US city * Reserve, Louisiana, a census-designated place in St. John the Baptist Parish * Reserve, Montana, a census-designated place in Sheridan County * Reserve, New Mexico, a US v ...
(I.R. 136), far from the land along the riverbanks in what later became southeast
Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...
,
Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...
including all of
Mill Woods Mill Woods is a residential area in the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Located in southeast Edmonton, Mill Woods is bounded by Whitemud Drive ( Highway 14) to the north, 91 Street to the west, 34 Street to the east, and Anthony Hend ...
. The boundaries in modern terms would be: 51 Avenue on the north, 119 Street on the west, 30 Avenue SW on the south, and 17 Street NW on the east. Many settlers did not want the reserve near the growing settlement of Edmonton. Frank Oliver, in particular, advocated in his local newspaper, the Edmonton Bulletin, for the removal of the Papaschase Cree from their reserve and for the land to become available to settlers. A meeting was held in 1881 to petition
John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald (10 or 11January 18156June 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 until his death in 1891. He was the dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, and had a political ...
to relocate the Papaschase Cree and I.R. 136 away from Edmonton. In 1886, around 80 Papaschase members remained on the reserve, as many had taken Métis
scrip A scrip (or ''wikt:chit#Etymology 3, chit'' in India) is any substitute for legal tender. It is often a form of credit (finance), credit. Scrips have been created and used for a variety of reasons, including exploitative payment of employees un ...
due to starvation, broken treaty promises, and lack of assistance from the government. The Papaschase people who took scrip lost their treaty status. The last remaining members left the reserve in 1887 after instruction from Assistant Indian Commissioner, Mr. Reed; many moved to closeby reserves such as the Enoch Cree and the Alexander First Nation. Chief Papaschase died at Elinor Lake in Northern Alberta in 1918. According to Olson (n.d.), "the Papaschase band lost its entire reserve in South Edmonton under highly questionable circumstances when three men signed a surrender document on November 19, 1888, at a meeting called with four days notice by the government agent. The federal government subdivided the reserve, and sold most of the land at auctions in 1891 and 1893, Land speculators bought most of it, and resold it to settlers. Railway companies also bought some of the lands they needed at auction or from speculators". The reserve land was partly used for the Canadian Pacific Railway's
Calgary and Edmonton Railway The Calgary and Edmonton Railway (C&E) was an early pioneer railway in what was then the Northwest Territories, now Alberta, Canada. It was laid out from the town of Calgary to a location near Edmonton, at the site of the future town and city of ...
, whose arrival in 1891 caused the birth of a southside hamlet that later became the City of Strathcona. The former reserve, located in
Strathcona County Strathcona County is a Specialized municipalities of Alberta, specialized municipality in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region within Alberta, Canada between Edmonton and Elk Island National Park. It forms part of Division No. 11, Alberta, Census Di ...
, was incrementally absorbed in its entirety by the City of Edmonton over a series of seven annexations between December 30, 1959, and January 1, 1982.


Modern Papaschase

In August 2006, at least 31 Papaschase ancestral remains were repatriated – some that were being held at the Medical Examiner’s Office and the University of Alberta’s Anthropology Department – and a reburial ceremony took place at the Epcor’s Rossdale site, which had been recognized as a historic cemetery and is protected by law. Furthermore, with construction projects such as the Walterdale bridge in 2012 and the Terwillegar footbridge, Papaschase people and other local Indigenous peoples demanded that the government gain consent before construction took place on their lands and burial sites. Now, construction projects on their lands should have archeologists on site, as well as monitors from Indigenous bands present. These are important examples of
self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...
. , around 1,000 people claim to be descendants of the Papaschase band, who they argue was illegally evicted from their reserve to make way for settlement and to give the railway access to their land. Their lawsuit against the Canadian government to recover their lands was dismissed in 2008 on the grounds that the Papaschase are not a recognized band and therefore could not make a claim against the government, and that too much time had passed. Since that time, the group has instead focused its efforts on becoming a recognized band through the Federal Claims Commission, and via political pressure. The current Papaschase website states that "the Chief and council’s mandate is to govern the Papaschase descendants affairs, to defend and advance their treaty rights and legitimate interests of the Papaschase Descendants, and to take all necessary steps to obtain a just settlement of the unlawful surrender of Papaschase IR 136 in 1888. Many descendants have come forward to join our cause but we continue to search for the lost members who have been scattered to the four winds and call them home". A group representing the Papaschase held a partial blockade and information picket on the
Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...
portion of
Alberta Highway 2 Highway 2 (also known as the Queen Elizabeth II Highway) is a major List of Alberta provincial highways, highway in Alberta that stretches from the Canada–United States border through Calgary and Edmonton to Grande Prairie. Running primaril ...
– Alberta's busiest highway – on January 16, 2013, as part of the wider
Idle No More Idle No More is an ongoing protest movement, founded in December 2012 by four women: three First Nations women and one non-Native ally. It is a grassroots movement among the Indigenous peoples in Canada comprising the First Nations, Métis a ...
movement. In 2018, the Papaschase Band was recognized as a member of the
Assembly of First Nations The Assembly of First Nations (, AFN) is an assembly of Canadian First Nations ( Indian bands) represented by their chiefs. Established in 1982 and modelled on the United Nations General Assembly, it emerged from the National Indian Brotherhood ...
.


References

{{authority control First Nations in Alberta Cree History of Edmonton