Blackstone II

Editor’s note: This story is based on written historical records, but it is also based on oral accounts passed down through the generations.

As you may know, “Makade Asin,” Blackstone was the son of a British officer and chief ’s daughter. He had a tiny bit of hair on the side of his cheeks that showed he had some white blood in him. However, he lived year-round in the deep forest, and he was as dark as his fellow tribesmen.

Makade Asin teamed up with Sitting Bull and Louie Riel, the half-breed French Cree leader, to rob trains, using the gold they plundered to buy arms to stop the white man from breaking treaties, cutting down the rich pine forests, and moving westward.

Sitting Bull was killed at a meeting in 1876, and Louie Riel was hung to death in 1885. Blackstone, who had one of the richest gold mines near Atikokan, Canada, traveled to England and gave the queen the most significant gold nugget she had ever been given. Mysteriously Chief Blackstone made it back to his Sturgeon Lake Reservation near “Ka ni pi” and died in 1885.

Following Chief Blackstone’s death, his son, Chief Blackstone ll, led the small band of Ojibwe. The Canadian government established two Indian reservations, Sturgeon Lake, some fifty miles north of Saganaga Lake, and Lac La Croix, located much further north. In 1909 the Canadian government created a forest reserve and, four years later, the Quetico Provincial Wilderness Park. Then, in 1915 the Canadian government took away the treaty rights and lands from the Ojibwe families. Like his father, Bahk oh ney geeshik (the Hole in the Sky where the Great Spirit watches us) Blackstone ll argued at meetings to try and stop the government from taking the reserve that had been given to the Sturgeon Lake Band at Kaway Bay.

Chief Blackstone ll and his people refused to go. But there was a bigger problem. In 1918 the Spanish Flu was sweeping across North America, sparing no one. Northern Light, Saganaga, and other villages lost an incredible amount of people at that time because of the Spanish flu epidemic.

To survive winters was the hardest thing to do. Food was scarce, and the season of ice and snow could be long and cold. Add that to the ravaging illnesses that white men brought with them as they cleared away vast swathes of pine forests and opened the land for mines and the results were often decimating to indigenous populations.

When the 1918-20 Spanish flu struck, it ravaged Blackstone’s ll reservation, and close to three-fourths of the people died. Now I will tell you how Chief Blackstone ll died.

Like his father, Chief Blackstone had more than one wife. During the height of the influenza Chief Blackstone and one of his wives were healthy enough to snowshoe to Saganagons, Jack Powell’s cabin hoping to find a phone to call for help. There being no phone or radio, they walked to Basswood Lake and then to Winton, Minnesota, a small white man’s logging town. With interpreters, they called Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and asked for help to be sent to their village. But Canada was suffering from the flu pandemic, and the government couldn’t spare any support for a small, out-of-the-way Indian village located deep in the wilderness at Ka Wa Bay.

At the same time, Cook County was struck by the same disease. Elders showed me where small native areas had been wiped out. At Grand Portage, some houses hung a skunk skin and used powerful medicines to drive away smallpox. Although this disease killed many of the “Ka ni pi,” Blackstone ll and his wife headed home. They had walked about fifty miles one way through deep snow, and coming back, after crossing an eight-mile Long Lake and then entering the forest, Chief Blackstone ll dropped dead. His wife covered him with a blanket and buried him in the snow, placing rocks and sticks over the temporary grave to keep animals away. Shortly after his death, the few remaining families moved to Lac LaCroix. In Blackstone’s village, some of the ceremonial drums were taken to other reservations. I, for many years, have belonged to these drum societies. The diseases and fierce harshness of winter were terrible. We are all lucky today to have what we have.

The natives from Basswood Lake came and made a new burial place. A wooden gate was made surrounding a small house over the grave. A small hole was put into the front of the wooden grave, where native visitors placed tiny amounts of natural food for part of his soul, which remains on earth until his bones go back to nature. Long before the white man’s arrival, “The Great Spirit” had given his native people a heaven in the sky called the “Happy Hunting Ground.” Later, after white people heard of where Chief Blackstone ll was buried, they placed Christian rosaries and crosses on his grave to save the poor chief. The Indian agents and forestry officials, by way of guns, chased the remaining Indians away. Finally, in 1991 after letters in newspapers and people crying out to the Canadian government, the Ottawa legislature made a public apology for taking away the land and removing the Sturgeon Lake Band of Ojibwe. The government passed a monetary amount to the native families forced out, but it is unknown whether the money was paid to those families.

The native descendants still today remember much of the history and stories of Blackstone’s people. The Caribous, Geezhiks, Parents, Powells, Meshabes and Morrisons are his relatives and are still in Cook County today.

Unfortunately, governments’ past and present still keep much of their doings hidden. Many people have asked me to bring out and tell of the history and culture. There is much more that can be told.

Migwitch. Thank you