North-West
Mounted Police
NWMP Origins
• Established on May 23, 1873
• Queen Victoria established the force at the request
of John A MacDonald
• Bring law and order to the West
• Assert sovereignty (control) over, the Northwest
Territories
• Need was particularly urgent because of the
American whiskey traders
Fort Hamilton
“Fort Whoop-Up”
• Officially Fort Hamilton,
near what is now
Lethbridge, Alberta
• HBC abandoned the fort
• Fort Whoop-Up was the
nickname given to a
whiskey trading post
• Late 1800s, the post
served as a centre for
various illegal activities
such as the sale of
whisky.
History of Fort Hamilton
• First built in 1869 by J.J. Healy and A.B.
Hamilton who were two traders from Montana—
to serve as a trading post
• Within the first year it was destroyed by a fire
but it was rebuilt
• One type of alcohol was known as Whoop-Up
Bug Juice, a highly-priced alcohol spiked with
ginger, molasses, and red pepper, then coloured
with black chewing tobacco
• Was famous for the Whisky trades
Fort Whoop-up
• Was the amongst the worst Whiskey Forts
• Represented everything that was wrong in
the West
• Lawless American desperadoes dealing
noxious "whiskey" to an Indian population
unaccustomed to alcohol
• Buffalo hides by the hundreds of thousands
being left as rotting carcasses
• General atmosphere of anarchy with no
accountability
NWMP Control
• The outlaws and the supposed
flying of an American flag on
Canadian Soil prompted the NWMP
to arrive
• Arrived in October, 1874
• Their task was to establish
Canadian sovereignty in the
territory and control the alcohol
trade
• Traders continued to smuggle their hooch
across the frontier and set up trading
posts throughout the area that is now
southern Alberta and Saskatchewan
• At any given time there was as many as
30 whiskey posts in the area
The Impact of these Posts
• Was just as damaging as the Small Pox
Epidemic
• Buffalo were disappearing due to the
voracious appetite of eastern industries
for their huge, tough hides
• Natives couldn't even take the carcasses
left behind because the hated "wolfers"
poisoned the meat to kill wolves and
coyotes for their fur
• Another reason for Natives to turn to
the alcohol
”As they keep the Indians
poor, and kill directly or
indirectly more Indians of
the most warlike tribe on the
continent every year, at no
cost to the United States'
Government, than the entire
regular army did in ten
years.”
American Trader commented that the whiskey traders were doing a great service
Cypress Hills Massacre
• Took place in 1874
• 100 - 300 ‘wolfers’
believed their horses
had been stolen by a
group of Assiniboine
camped nearby
• 22 Assiniboine
including women and
children were killed
• When the Dominion of
Canada found out they
were outraged
Force Creation
• Was the result of the Cypress Hills
Massacre
• Originally was to be called the North
West Mounted Rifles
• Name changed to NWMP because it
sounded less militaristic
• First NWMP commissioner, Colonel
George Arthur French
George Arthur French
March to the Alberta
Foothills
• Set out from Fort Dufferin, Manitoba, on July 8,
1874 to Fort Hamilton
• Group comprised 22 officers, 287 men – called
constables and sub-constables – 310 horses, 67
wagons, 114 ox-carts, 18 yoke of oxen, 50 cows
and 40 calves
• The ‘Wolfers’ fled, sold or buried their supplies
• If this march had failed, it would have set back
Canada’s plans for the West by many years
NWMP Early Activities
• Containing the whiskey trade
• Enforcing agreements with the First
Nations peoples
• Force's dedication to enforcing the law
on behalf of the First Nations peoples
impressed all
Evolution of the force
• NWP jurisdiction was extended northward to the
Yukon Territory in 1895
• Then again in 1903 to the Arctic coast
• Extended to the new provinces of Alberta and
Saskatchewan in 1905
• During WWI the NWMP was responsible for
"border patrols, surveillance of enemy aliens,
and enforcement of national security
regulations. "
Creation of the RCMP
• NWMP was called in to repress the
general strike in Manitoba's capital,
Winnipeg, where officers fired into a
crowd of strikers, killing two and
causing injury to thirty others.
• Damaged the image of the NWMP
• Viewed as an out-dated institution in
early 20th Century Industrial Canada
• Saved in 1920 when it merged with the
Dominion Police and was renamed as
the "Royal Canadian Mounted Police”