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Jerry Potts | |
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| Born | c. 1840 Fort McKenzie, Montana, US |
| Died | July 14, 1896 (~56 years old) Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada |
| Other names | Ky-yo-kosi |
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| Mother | Namo-pisi |
Jeremiah Potts (c. 1840 – July 14, 1896), (also known as Ky-yo-kosi, meaning "Bear Child"), [1] was an American-Canadian plainsman, buffalo hunter, horse trader, interpreter, and scout of Kainai (Blood) and Scots heritage. [2] [3]
Potts was born in or before 1840 [4] near Fort McKenzie, Montana. He was the only child of his Kainai-Cree [5] mother, Namo-pisi (Crooked Back), and Andrew R. Potts, a Scottish fur trader. Upon the death of his father in 1840, Jerry was given to American Fur Company trader Alexander Harvey by Namo-pisi prior to rejoining her tribe. A violent, vindictive man, Harvey neglected and mistreated Potts before deserting him in 1845. American Fur Company trader Andrew Dawson of Fort Benton, Montana, a gentle man who was called "the last king of the Missouri," adopted young Potts. [6] He taught the boy to read and write and allowed him to mix with the Native Americans who visited the trading post to learn their customs and languages.
In his late teens, Potts, who adopted the carefree mannerisms of the frontier, joined his mother’s people and, from then on, drifted between them and Dawson. During this time, Potts passed all the nai-Cree rites of passage including the final agony of the Sun Dance wherein the fledgling brave is tied to a pole by thongs threaded through his chest muscles. Successful completion of this rite meant the youth had achieved glory by tearing himself loose either immediately or by staying tied to the pole in absolute silence for up to three days and then tearing loose. Potts chose to remain the full three days for such was his nature. He also belonged to several of the secret warrior societies which prevailed in large numbers throughout the Blackfoot nation. Still, he wore Euro-American clothing most of the time including a fashionable hat that sported a wide headband.
Potts was employed for several years by the American Fur Company, and from 1869 to 1874 he worked as a hunter for various whiskey traders. He gained fame as a warrior. As a person of mixed blood, he had to prove to both Indigenous peoples and Euro-Americans that he could cope in their respective cultures, and was well served by his quick wits, reckless bravery, skills with the knife and lethal accuracy with both a revolver and a rifle. [7] Potts married two sisters of the Piegan Blackfeet (Aamsskáápipikani) named Panther Woman and Spotted Killer, [8] who blessed him with several sons and a couple of daughters. He named one of his sons "Blue Gun" in commemoration of his favourite rifle. His many descendants still live mainly in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Montana. Three of his descendants, including Janet Potts, became Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers during the middle years of the 20th century.
By the time Potts was 25, he was wealthy due to his horse trading. His herd rarely included less than 100 horses, which made him the second wealthiest First Nations person in the area. Though his horses carried a number of diverse brands, he could always produce bills of sale (even though he could not read them himself) for most of them. Those without papers, if they were American horses, were sold in Canada while paperless Canadian horses were sold south of the Medicine Line. Those branded with the markings of the US Cavalry were sold as far north as possible unless he had papers proving they had been purchased legally. The going rate for a good horse at the time ranged between $75.00 to $150.00 so his large inventory showed his wealth. [9] When he journeyed to Montana Territory to buy horses he would carry cash - often as much as a thousand dollars - with which to make the transactions. People knew he carried such amounts but they also knew he was a good fighter, so he was left alone.
Around this same time, he became a minor chief with the Kainai, in recognition of his bravery in battle, his unquestioned leadership abilities, and his knowledge of the prairies. It is said he knew every trail from Fort Edmonton to the lands of the Cheyenne and Apache and every hill between those trails. He could find game when all others had returned to camp empty-handed. He spent much of his time in what is now Montana, guiding, trading horses, and drinking.
Potts always received more salary than any other guide/interpreter because as a guide he had no equal. He was useful as an interpreter because he spoke all the Indigenous languages of the Prairies. His interpretations would also be different, depending on who he was speaking to. His interpretations of the long, verbose speeches of the Native Americans were always short and concise. Long speeches would be reduced to only a few words. His interpretations of the indigenous languages, however, were always long and passionate. Potts did this because he understood that long speech in Indigenous cultures was meant to show respect, while for English-speakers, it was only a way to show off. [10] Once, following a Blackfoot chief's extremely long, flowery, impassioned speech to a delegation of visiting officials who had arrived from Ottawa to sign a historic treaty with the Blackfoot people, Potts remained silent as if fully digesting the colourful language. Finally, when asked what the chief had said, the laconic Potts shrugged and replied, "He says he's damned glad you're here." On another occasion, when asked by Inspector MacLeod what lay beyond a high rising hill ahead, Potts muttered, "Nuther hill."
He was fluent in American English, Blackfoot, and Crow (Apsáalooke aliláau), had a better than average ability in Plains Cree (nēhiyawēwin) (which he would speak only when necessary), and was passable in Lakota-Sioux (Lakȟótiyapi), Assiniboine (Nakona or A' M̆oqazh), and Algonquin. He also understood the differing cultures of the Indigenous peoples and the North-West Mounted Police. He was able to instruct the police in the proper procedures for receiving a Chief. For all his ability to get along with Euro-Americans, though, Potts was very much Indigenous. He never fully understood the Euro-American reasoning. For instance, he could never understand the reason that Euro-American settlers equipped their houses with chamber pots. "Why," he once asked a Mountie, "would anyone piss in a perfectly good eating bowl when the entire prairie lay before him"?
From a distance the stocky, bow-legged Potts looked like a Euro-American trapper in his buckskin clothing, his Stetson at a jaunty angle upon his head. Two .44 pistols hung from his gun belt complementing the Henry rifle which never left his side. On his leg was strapped a long-bladed skinning knife. He always kept a small gun inside a hide-away pocket, a practice that saved his life on several occasions.
In 1870, various Nehiyaw-Pwat bands of Plains Cree and Plains Assiniboine began a war. They hoped to defeat the Blackfoot weakened by smallpox. An advance party of Cree and Assiniboine, under the lead of Plains Cree Chief Big Bear (Mistahimaskwa) and Piapot (Hole in the Sioux), Chief of the Cree-Assiniboines (Young Dogs), had stumbled upon a Peigan camp near Fort Whoop-Up (called by the Blackfoot Akaisakoyi - "Many Dead") and decided to attack instead of informing the main Cree body of their find. Just in the nick of time, Jerry Potts with a group of Peigans and two Blood bands, who were armed with repeating rifles, came to their assistance. In the daylong so-called Battle of the Belly River, on October 25, 1870, near present-day Lethbridge (called by the Blackfoot Assini-etomochi – "where we slaughtered the Cree") the combined Cree-Assiniboine force, who lost over 300 warriors, was defeated. The slaughter was such that Jerry Potts said: "You could fire with your eyes shut and be sure to kill a Cree."
The next winter the hunger compelled the Nehiyaw-Pwat to negotiate with the Blackfoot and, in 1873, Crowfoot (Issapóómahksika - "Crow-big-foot"), Chief of the Siksika (Siksikáwa - ″Blackfoot People″), adopted Poundmaker a man of mixed Cree and Assiniboine parentage, creating a final peace between the Nehiyaw-Pwat (Cree-Assiniboine) and Blackfoot. The Battle of the Belly River was the last major conflict between the Cree and the Blackfoot Confederacy, and the last major battle between First Nations in Western Canada.
In 1871, Potts' mother was murdered by a man drunk on "firewater". So, Potts declared his own personal war on the whisky runners. By the time Potts was 36, he had killed at least 40 men, mostly whisky runners.
In September 1874, Potts was trading horses in Fort Benton, Montana. He was hired as a guide, interpreter and scout by the North-West Mounted Police. His contract as a guide for the North-West Mounted Police was to last twenty-two years. He was paid $90 per month, which was quite a bit higher than a regular guide, and three times a police constable's salary. He ceased working for the force at age 58, because the pain of throat cancer made it so that he could no longer ride, and died a year later, on 14 July 1896, at Fort Macleod. The Macleod Gazette and Alberta Livestock Record paid tribute to the man who “made it possible for a small and utterly insufficient force to occupy and gradually dominate what might so easily, under other circumstances, have been a hostile and difficult country. . . . Had he been other than he was . . . it is not too much to say that the history of the North West would have been vastly different to what it is.” [11]
Jerry Potts is buried at Fort Macleod with the rank of Special Constable in the North-West Mounted Police.
The city of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, and the town of Fort Macleod, have boulevards named in Potts' honour.
On 8 September 1992 Canada Post issued a "Jerry Potts, Legendary Plainsman" stamp as part of the Folklore, Legendary Heroes series. [12] The stamps were designed by Ralph Tibbles, based on illustrations by Deborah Drew-Brook and Allan Cormack. The 42¢ stamps are perforated and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited. [13]
In Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western film, Major Dundee, the character of the scout Samuel Potts, played by James Coburn, was inspired in part by the persona of Jerry Potts himself
A fictional account of his life is featured in the book, The Last Crossing, [14] by Guy Vanderhaeghe.
Jerry Potts Firearms:
The last rusty remains of Jerry Potts Firearms came from the Fort Whoop Up rifle collection.
Many people believe Jerry Potts had a Henry Rifle but the pictures of Jerry with the rifle show it had a side loading port. The Henry Rifle did not have the side loading port. Jerry Pott's rifle was a 1866 Winchester Lever Action YellowBoy. The last remaining 1866 Winchester rifle part (with Jerry Potts name on it) was chambered in .44 Henry (Rimfire).
Jerry Potts also had a Top Break Auto Eject Revolver. It was a Smith & Wesson Double Action Frontier Model chambered in .44-40 Win.
Interestingly, the rifle in the photograph with its prominently raised side plates on the receiver, appears to be an 1873 Winchester. This rifle would also fire the .44-40 cartridge, same as his revolver.
The Piegan are an Algonquian-speaking people from the North American Great Plains. They are the largest of three Blackfoot-speaking groups that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy; the Siksika and Kainai are the others. The Piegan dominated much of the northern Great Plains during the nineteenth century.
The Blackfoot Confederacy, Niitsitapi, or Siksikaitsitapi, is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Blackfeet people: the Siksika ("Blackfoot"), the Kainai or Blood, and two sections of the Peigan or Piikani – the Northern Piikani (Aapátohsipikáni) and the Southern Piikani. Broader definitions include groups such as the Tsúùtínà (Sarcee) and A'aninin who spoke quite different languages but allied with or joined the Blackfoot Confederacy.
The Kainai Nation is a First Nations band government in southern Alberta, Canada, with a population of 12,965 members in 2024, up from 11,791 in December 2013.
Big Bear, also known as Mistahi-maskwa, was a powerful and popular Cree chief who played many pivotal roles in Canadian history. He was appointed to chief of his band at the age of 40 upon the death of his father, Black Powder, under his father's harmonious and inclusive rule which directly impacted his own leadership. Big Bear is most notable for his involvement in Treaty 6 and the 1885 North-West Rebellion; he was one of the few chief leaders who objected to the signing of the treaty with the Canadian government. He felt that signing the treaty would ultimately have devastating effects on his nation as well as other Indigenous nations. This included losing the free nomadic lifestyle that his nation and others were accustomed to. Big Bear also took part in one of the last major battles between the Cree and the Blackfoot nations. He was one of the leaders to lead his people in the last, largest battle on the Canadian Plains.
Edgar Dewdney, was a Canadian surveyor, road builder, Indian commissioner and politician born in Devonshire, England. He emigrated to British Columbia in 1859 in order to act as surveyor for the Dewdney Trail that runs through the province. In 1870, Dewdney decided to take up a role in Canadian government. In this year, he was elected to the Legislative Council of British Columbia as a representative from the Kootenay region. In 1872, he was elected as a Member of the Parliament of Canada for the Yale region representing the Conservative party. He was reelected to this position in 1874 and again in 1878. Dewdney served as Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories from 1879 to 1888, and the fifth Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia from 1892 to 1897. Additionally, he served as the Indian commissioner in the North-West Territories from 1879 until 1888. In 1897, Dewdney retired from politics and began working as a financial agent until his death in 1916.
Piapot, Payipwât, or Payipwat, born as Kisikawasan, known by his Assiniboine allies as Maȟpíya owáde hókši was a Native Canadian chief of the Cree-Assiniboine / Young Dogs Band, a mighty band and division of the Downstream People (Māmihkiyiniwak) of the Plains Cree. He was one of the five major leaders of the Plains Cree after 1860.
The Cypress Hills Massacre occurred on June 1, 1873, near Battle Creek in the Cypress Hills region of Canada's North-West Territories. It involved a group of American bison hunters, American wolf hunters or "wolfers", American and Canadian whisky traders, Métis cargo haulers or "freighters", and a camp of Assiniboine people. Thirteen or more Assiniboine warriors and one wolfer died in the conflict. The Cypress Hills Massacre prompted the Canadian government to accelerate the recruitment and deployment of the newly formed North-West Mounted Police.
Crowfoot or Isapo-Muxika was a chief of the Siksika. His father, Istowun-ehʼpata, and mother, Axkahp-say-pi, were Kainai. He was five years old when Istowun-ehʼpata was killed during a raid on the Crow tribe, and, a year later, his mother remarried to Akay-nehka-simi of the Siksika people among whom he was brought up. Crowfoot was a warrior who fought in as many as nineteen battles and sustained many injuries, but he tried to obtain peace instead of warfare. Crowfoot is well known for his involvement in Treaty Number 7 and did much negotiating for his people. While many believe Chief Crowfoot had no part in the North-West Rebellion, he did in fact participate to an extent due to his son's connection to the conflict. Crowfoot died of tuberculosis at Blackfoot Crossing on April 25, 1890. Eight hundred of his tribe attended his funeral, along with government dignitaries. In 2008, Chief Crowfoot was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame where he was recognized for his contributions to the railway industry. Crowfoot is well known for his contributions to the Blackfoot nation, and has many memorials to signify his accomplishments.
The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people, also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota, are a First Nations/Native American people originally from the Northern Great Plains of North America.
Treaty 7 is an agreement between the Crown and several, mainly Blackfoot, First Nation band governments in what is today the southern portion of Alberta. The idea of developing treaties for Blackfoot lands was brought to Blackfoot chief Crowfoot by John McDougall in 1875. It was concluded on September 22 and December 4, 1877. The agreement was signed at the Blackfoot Crossing of the Bow River, at the present-day Siksika Nation reserve, approximately 75 km (47 mi) east of Calgary. Chief Crowfoot was one of the signatories to Treaty 7. Another signing on this treaty occurred on December 4, 1877, to accommodate some Blackfoot leaders who were not present at the primary September 1877 signing.
First Nations in Alberta are a group of people who live in the Canadian province of Alberta. The First Nations are peoples recognized as Indigenous peoples or Plains Indians in Canada excluding the Inuit and the Métis. According to the 2011 Census, a population of 116,670 Albertans self-identified as First Nations. Specifically there were 96,730 First Nations people with registered Indian Status and 19,945 First Nations people without registered Indian Status. Alberta has the third largest First Nations population among the provinces and territories. From this total population, 47.3% of the population lives on an Indian reserve and the other 52.7% live in urban centres. According to the 2011 Census, the First Nations population in Edmonton totalled at 31,780, which is the second highest for any city in Canada. The First Nations population in Calgary, in reference to the 2011 Census, totalled at 17,040. There are 45 First Nations or "bands" in Alberta, belonging to nine different ethnic groups or "tribes" based on their ancestral languages.
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The Little Pine First Nation is a Plains Cree First Nations band government in Saskatchewan, Canada. Their reserves include:
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