A reconsideration of the life and death of Almighty Voice, a young Willow Cree man whose brief but dramatic clash with colonial authority left a lasting imprint on the historical memory of Saskatchewan. The narrative recounts his 1895 arrest for the killing of a settler’s cow, his swift escape, and the fatal shooting of a pursuing North-West Mounted Police officer. For nearly nineteen months he avoided capture, until May 1897, when he was located near his home reserve and engaged in a tense standoff that ended only after police forces—reinforced by artillery—closed in, resulting in multiple deaths.
Waiser moves beyond the familiar outline of the episode to explore the deeper fractures underlying it. He contrasts the official, settler-institutional reading of Almighty Voice’s actions with the understanding held within Cree communities, revealing how divergent worldviews shaped competing interpretations of responsibility, resistance, justice, and colonial intrusion. What emerges is not a simple tale of a crime spiralling into violence, but a study of the profound cultural and political rifts between Indigenous peoples and the state.
Notes adapted from the Preface.
