Warriors of the King

While the history and culture of western Canadian Indians in the nineteenth century has been well documented, little has been published concerning their experiences in the more recent period. To understand the Indians of today one must know more about their history in the twentieth century. Dempsey's study of the participation of more than 400 western Canadian Indians in World War I offers a unique opportunity to view their society one generation after the signing of the treaties. They had been confined to reserves for thirty years, living in poverty under an oppressively paternalistic regime, yet they enlisted in numbers comparative to other Canadians, and acquitted themselves with honour. Surviving evidence indicates that the Indians of the prairie provinces enlisted for three principal reasons: the survival of a warrior's philosophy or ethic; the existence of a loyalty to the British Crown; and the opportunity to escape the stagnant life on the reserve.