By Stephen Griffith

                           Crowfoot Counter-Memorial

The text on the current Crowfoot statue in Edmonton, Alberta reads as follows:

Chief Crowfoot

A celebrated warrior, but a lover of peace, Crowfoot emerged as leader of the Blackfoot confederacy at perhaps the most crucial point in the history of the Plains Indians. Agonizing over the declining position of his people, Crowfoot represented his people’s interest in the negotiations that eventually became the signing of treaty number 7 at Blackfoot Crossing on Sept 22 1877. Tradition has it that when Crowfoot came to sign the treaty he said “I will be the first to sign and I will be the last to break this treaty.” His Nobility of Character, his gift of oratory and his wisdom in council gained for him the title “father of his people”

The counter-memorial would read as follows:

This statue is in the memory of Chief Isapo-Muxika (Crowfoot) of the Blackfoot tribe and was erected to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the province of Alberta.  Crowfoot is known to us now mostly as a great peacemaker between the Plains Indians and Canadian settlers-- someone who worked to stop bloodshed during the great social and political upheavals that accompanied the destruction of the buffalo by fur traders and the expansion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.  Paradoxically, Isapo-Muxika is also remembered for being a brave warrior in his youth. Crowfoot is often attributed with leading the Blackfoot confederacy, but he was rather the chief of the Blackfoot tribe and, like other chiefs, merely had an equal say in the affairs of the confederacy. From the records we have of the singing of treaty 7, it would appear that Crowfoot was instrumental in facilitating the negotiations that handed over traditional Blackfoot territory in exchange for autonomous, self-sustaining agricultural communities--an agreement that never came to fruition.

We in the present are very presumptuous about our understanding of Crowfoot.  He is cast as the embodiment of peace, yet his memory is used to justify the continued subjugation of First Nations and Métis people to this day. What if Isapo-Muxika’s ultimate desire was not peace for its own sake but rather a very deep and powerful belief that the agreement with the settlers would be honoured? The hope was that, one day, even if Crowfoot did not live to see it, the Blackfoot would once again become proud and autonomous tribes.

The statue of Crowfoot stands in the Provincial Legislature, a vessel of royal power. The memorial lauds the “peaceful” manner in which Southern Alberta was settled, and quietly condemns those who fought against the empire. To treat the image and story of Isapo-Muxika in this way (and in this context) is rather ironic. The roles should be reversed. This monument to Crowfoot should condemn the royal authority for its flagrant abuse of a treaty made in good faith.  For those opposing the crown, Isapo-Muxika should be evidence of the unprovoked aggression and severity of the crown's attacks upon aboriginal ways of life. May this monument to Crowfoot serve as a reminder to the crown, and settler society more generally, of unfulfilled obligations toward First Nations across Canada.