Anarchist Direct Action in Edmonton's early history

Kropotkin's visit to Edmonton in 1897 is described in other Montopedia blog.

He spent time being guided around the Edmtnon settlement by local community leader Matt McCauley.

McCauley himself had a record of participating in grassroots "direct action" programs.

Matt McCauley was a prominent Edmonton pioneer and community leader. He was serving as member of the North-West Territorial Council at the time of Kropotkin's visit. He had been the first mayor of the Town of Edmonton. The neighbourhood of McCauley is named after him.

In the early years of Edmonton, McCauley participated in "vigilante" activities of the early settlers protecting their perceived rights of land ownership against later arrivals.

later historians have called the McCauley group the "settlers rights protective society" but at the time they called themselves a "vigilance committee." The similarity to vigilante-ism is furthered by the fact that a member of the group, local schoolteacher Harris, had been a Ku Klux Klan member in the States before coming to Edmonton. He wanted membership in the group to be secret (whether he wanted masks and white sheets worn is not recorded), but others, including local NWMP officers, looked askance at the operation of a secret society in their midst.

Membes of the group destroyed a new shack built on land claimed by an old-timer and were charged with both criminal and civil suits. They reimbursed the shack's owner for the cost of the lumber, a small cost as housing was simple back then.

see Edmonton Bulletin, Feb. 18, 1882 and May 13, 1882

McCauley led the "Rat Creek Rebellion" of 1892 when Edmontonians engaged in direct action to defend Edmonton's retention of the local land titles office, even facing off in an armed confrontation against an incoming force of NWMP intent on restoring law and order.

The famous Arthur Griesbach, father of Edmonton's equally famous Billy Griesbach (think Griesbach barracks), led the NWMP force back to the HQ at Fort Saskatchewan to request instruction.

The government merely set up a second land tiles office at Strathcona. It is not coincidental that shortly thereafter Edmonton hired a constable to maintain law - the NWMP in a huff said it would not be responsible for Edmonton law and order if the mayor himself so flagrantly ignored the forces of law and order.

It would be interesting to know Kropotkin's reaction when he learned of these past anarchistic events in Edmonton.

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