Sitting Bull and his 1,000 or so followers were not the only Sioux to have crossed into Canada. The previous December, Black Moon, a Hunkpapa chief and cousin of Sitting Bull, had arrived with 52 lodges and settled with many other Hunkpapas, Minneconjous, Ogalalas, Sans Arcs and Two Kettles. In March 1877, Sitting Bull’s uncle Chief Four Horns had led another large band across the medicine line. Now, in May, with the arrival of Sitting Bull’s band, the Sioux in Canada numbered about 4,000. The Sioux all promised to obey Canadian law, but no one knew whether they really meant it. Ottawa wasn’t taking any chances; the Canadian government wanted the Sioux out of its territory.

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At Ottawa’s request, in August 1877, some three months after Sitting Bull’s arrival up north, the U.S. government appointed a peace commission to meet with the Sioux. The commission’s mission supposedly was to persuade the Indians to return to the United States and surrender to the Army in exchange for a full pardon. Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry, commander of the military force that had marched on the Sioux at the Little Bighorn the previous year, headed the commission. At first Sitting Bull refused to meet with Terry, but Walsh convinced the chief to journey from the Sioux village near Pine Horse Butte to Fort Walsh and hear out the Americans. The meeting took place October 17, with predictable results. Sitting Bull did not trust Terry, the man who had sent Custer, and the Sioux refused to go back. Sitting Bull biographer Robert Utley has suggested that the United States did not really want Sitting Bull back, and that it put pressure on Canada to adopt Sitting Bull and his people as ‘Canadian Indians.’

Sitting Bull’s distrust was intensified by his awareness that Colonel Nelson A. ‘Bear Coat’ Miles was hovering just below the border, having defeated Chief Joseph and other Nez Perces at Montana’s Bear Paw Mountains two weeks earlier. One of the Nez Perce chiefs, White Bird, and 98 Nez Perce men, 50 women and about 50 children had escaped Miles’ forces at the Bear Paws and reached Sitting Bull’s camp on October 8.

Even before the U.S. peace commission meeting at Fort Walsh, newspapers on both sides of the border warned their readers of troubles to come from the Sioux, as detailed by Canadian historian Grant MacEwan in his 1973 book Sitting Bull: The Years in Canada. The Montreal Witness of August 16, 1877, reported that Sitting Bull had asked his hereditary enemies the Canadian Blackfeet ‘to join him in the conflict with the hated American Government, after which he would help them with any conflict they might have with the Canadian Government.’ The Fort Benton Record (Montana) ran a story headlined ‘Sitting Bull Preparing For Spring Campaign’ that said the Assiniboines, Gros Ventres, Crows and Piegans would join the Sioux chief. The Toronto Globe of September 25, 1877, warned its readers that Wood Mountain, a Métis settlement near Pinto Horse Butte, ‘could erupt at any time.’ The Globe said a report from Helena, Mont., alleged that Sitting Bull was on the verge of leading all the northern tribes against the U.S. forces, adding that ‘Sitting Bull is amply supplied with ammunition.’

The stories persisted, especially after the failure of the peace commission meeting in October. The Fort Benton Record of April 5, 1878, reported that Bloods, Northern Blackfeet, Crees, North Assiniboines, Piegans, Kootenais, Sarcees (all Canadian tribes) and Gros Ventres had been approached by Sitting Bull, who was’sparing no effort to form a league among these congregated tribes….He appeared with 30 of his best warriors dressed in the clothing of soldiers killed in the Custer Massacre, and called upon assembled Indians to witness how he had treated the soldiers and how easy [it would be] to clean out all the whites and have the country among ourselves….Mr. Thomas O’Halloran, in charge of Fort Belknap [on the Milk River in northern Montana, near the Bear Paw Mountains], considers the situation critical.’

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