Seventeen years after it was found at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg, and 134 years after an Indian agent took it from Chief Red Pheasant’s body, an historic Treaty 6 medal has been returned to Red Pheasant Cree Nation.
“For a member of the First Nation I think of my grandparents and the people who came before them and the struggles they had as First Nations people at a time when it was very difficult to be a First Nations person,” Red Pheasant member Falynn Baptiste said. “To have the medal come back home to the people is very momentous. It’s very meaningful.”
The medal was given to Chief Red Pheasant in 1876 at Fort Carlton. He died in 1885 and the medal was taken from his neck by an Indian agent at his funeral.
On Thursday it was officially returned to the First Nation and will be displayed at the Saskatchewan Indigenous Cultural Centre in Saskatoon.
Winnipeg Centre MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette, who is from Red Pheasant, said the medal is symbolic of the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples.
“For me, when I look at the treaty medal I see a sun which is rising and a new dawn. And hopefully with the treaty medal coming home this will signal a new era of reconciliation – a dawn which is going to shine a light into the souls and hearts of Canadians but also of Indigenous peoples about how we need to work together.”
