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Tom Monto

Little Bear/Imasees - survivor of Frog Lake Incident, great leader for his people

Updated: Mar 22

imasees (Little Bear)

son of Cree chief Big Bear


participant at the Frog Lake massacre, where

He was lucky not to be hanged when the perpetrators of the incidnet were prosecuted.


it seems that there were two Little Bears at Frog Lake that day in 1885 when things went so terribly wrong.

Little Bear/Imasees might have been a terror that day but it seems the other Little Bear took the punishment for him.


A few months later, Aposhkaseees (sp?) was hanged that gruesome day of Nov. 27, 1885 alongside seven others. This is said to be the largest mass hanging in Canadian history.


Sometimes it is said that the hanged men were Cree chiefs and they were hanged as an example to other Natives.


The make-an-example part may be true but it seems it was not as clear as that - most of the eight were not chiefs and even though Aposhkasoos is said to be a chief, that statement might arise from confusion with Imasees, a son of chief Big Bear, who was there at Frog Lake that day and in the n orma course of events would likely have ascended to the post of chief of the band same as his father.


Intended to be an example or not, the punishment was not unusually harsh for the time (although hanging eight at once was indeed unusual) - hanging was common punishment for murderers and the eight had been found guilty of murdering outside the rebellion - they had killed civilians.


So perhaps the wrong Little Bear was hanged.


But it seems the surviving Little Bear - Imasees - went on to accomplish much for his people.


Little Bear went on to be a leader of his people, founding a reserve in Montana and then, upon returning to Canada, founding the Montana Reserve at Muskwacis in late 1890s.

(see "Little Bear", Edmonton Bulletin, March 15, 1897, p. 2)


The Edmonton Bulletin (April 27, 1907) reported:

"Big Bear went to Stony Mountain, Manitoba [prison] for two years. Shortly after his release in 1887, he died at Battleford.

His youngest son, long grown up, now lives on one of the reserves in that vicinity.

Another son, Imasees, the real instigator of the Frog Lake massacre, now popularly known as Little Bear, is roaming about in Montana with a remnant of the old following of his father.

Nayokeealkopeniss, Four-Sky Thunder, is the only red man prominent in the tragic affair who still makes the Saskatchewan [Sask. River district] his home. He served several years in the Manitoba penitentiary and now lives on a reserve near Battleford. He was a proment councillor of Big Bear.

Wandering Spirit ... was one of the number who died on the scaffold...."



Other newspaper reports on the Rebellion include:

W.J. Carter recalls the battles -- Edmonton Bulletin, March 26, 1914, p. 2

Reminiscences of participants - Edmonton Capital, January 27, 1910, p. 6



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