Star Blanket (Ahtahkakoop)
"For my part, I think that the Queen mother has offered us a new way and I have faith in the
things my brother Mistawasis has told you... Surely we Indians can learn the ways of living that
made the White man strong..."
- Star Blanket, Plains Cree Chief
Star Blanket (Ahtahkakoop) was born around 1815-16 and was a very successful Plains Cree chief in the
Fort Carlton area. In his early years, Star Blanket
provided bison meat to the Hudson’s Bay Company
traders at Fort Carlton. He also worked on York boats, taking supplies and furs to York Factory. Star
Blanket and his people eventually settled at Sandy Lake, where they began to farm in 1875.
At the Treaty 6 negotiations at Fort Carlton, Star Blanket was one of the strongest supporters of
the Treaty, believing that it offered a new way for his people. The bison were disappearing and he
knew that without them, the First Nations would die unless they found another way to survive.
Star Blanket hoped that the tools and skills offered by the government would allow his community to
make the transition from bison hunting to a settled, agricultural life. Star Blanket signed
Treaty 6 on 23 August 1876. At the time, his band had 185 members.
Although Star Blanket believed in Treaty 6, he participated in a Cree council held at Duck Lake
in 1884 to draw up a petition of grievances in relation to Treaty 6. Like many other Cree and
Saulteaux (Plains Ojibwa) leaders, he wanted better treatment from the government. During his
lifetime, Star Blanket lived through the creation of the Indian Act, the banning of the Sun Dance,
and the forced removal of Aboriginal children to residential schools. His community suffered terrible
hardship, disease and starvation; and the Department of Indian Affairs did not sufficiently fulfill
its promise to help the community to support itself through agriculture.
Star Blanket possessed great foresight in his efforts to ensure that his people learned to farm,
and that they gained a European-Canadian education from Reverend John Hines.
Members of his reserve became the earliest and most successful First Nations farmers in the region, and the young people
were consistently top scholars. At times, though, Star Blanket’s commitment to Christianity was to
the detriment of some traditional Aboriginal spiritual practices. On one occasion, Star Blanket
even asked the inspector of reserves for help in putting an end to traditional dances on his reserve.
During the Northwest Resistance,
Star Blanket shared many of the grievances of those who joined the uprising, but he and his
people refused to participate in the violence. This meant that he and his band were what the
government considered “loyal.” In 1886, Star Blanket, along with Big Child,
was invited to Ottawa to meet Prime Minister John A. Macdonald at the unveiling of a monument to
the great Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant.
Star Blanket was a strong and strategic leader, highly respected by all. He died on 4 December 1896
at the age of 81.
Sources:
www.otc.ca
Christensen, Deanna.
Ahtahkakoop: The Epic Account of a Plains Cree Head Chief, His People,
and Their Struggle for Survival, 1816-1896. Shell Lake: Ahtahkakoop Publishing, 2000.