"Strike Them Hard!" the Baker Massacre Play: Staging Historical Trauma with Blackfoot Children

In 1870, the United States army massacred the Blackfoot camp of Chief Heavy Runner. The author's great-great grandmother survived the Baker Massacre. In 2006, the author suffered the loss of her 22-year old daughter to suicide. Strike Them Hard! The Baker Massacre Play was submitted as a final project towards the fulfillment of the author's requirements for a Master of Education degree. This paper is a reflexive critique of how the telling of this story through theatre serves to validate why the arts matter to Indigenous education. It is also a testament to the healing power of Indigenous theatre.IntroductionOn January 15, 1870, United States Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan issued the following orders, via telegraph, to his soldiers stationed in the Montana territory:If the lives and property of the citizens of Montana can best be protected by striking Mountain Chief's band, I want them struck. Tell Baker to strike them hard. (Ege, 1970, pp. 118-119)Eight days later, in the early morning hours of January 23, Major Eugene M. Baker and his troops marched into Chief Heavy Runner's camp. Although he was clearly informed that this was the wrong camp, he struck anyway. Baker and his troops massacred approximately 217 Blackfeet1 lives that day (Phillips, 1996, p. 82). My great-great grandmother Natohkyiaakii (Holy Bear Woman) was one of the children who survived.136 years later, I, too, survived my own traumatic experience. On October 28, 2006, 1 lost my oldest daughter Apaisapiaakii (Galina Natalie Brave Rock) to suicide. She was a beautiful, young 22-year old woman and a mother of two small children. She was also six months pregnant. Galina was planning on majoring in Women's Studies at the University of Lethbridge. Galina was a talented dancer, singer, and a creative writer. She possessed many gifts and was loved by many, and she loved to tell stories.Suicide is a major issue among Aboriginal people in Canada. In fact, the suicide rates, according to Health Canada, are five to seven times higher for First Nations youth than for non-Aboriginal youth. I always knew that suicide was highly prevalent in my community, but until it happened in my own family, I had no clue just how devastating it is.In October 2008, at the Performing the World Conference in New York city, a total of 23 Blackfoot children staged the debut performance of Strike Them Hard! The Baker Massacre Play that I wrote and directed. The play was submitted in fulfillment of my Master of Education project at the University of Lethbridge (Big Head, 2009). In addition to the play, this project includes a personal narrative of my own encounter with the story of the 1870 Baker Massacre. Strike Them Hard! The Baker Massacre Play was the culmination of a long and painful journey that led me to one of the darkest moments in the history of the Blackfoot people. Given that it was only a year after my own devastating loss when I began to seriously research and write the play, I suffered a tremendous amount of emotional turmoil. The pain from one event would trigger the pain and anger from the other.In this paper, I will tell the story of the 1870 Baker Massacre and describe how the telling of this historical event through theatre serves to validate and enhance existing research on Indigenous theatre and education. Furthermore, as a mother who lost a child to suicide, and as a drama teacher, I desperately needed a reason to keep theatre alive in my heart, and the motivation to stage another play for my students. Since 1996, 1 have directed approximately 24 drama productions involving over 200 Blackfoot children, so I knew that my students were looking forward to another play that year. It has since become clear that:The arts matter to children. We know this as parents. We know this as teachers. And we know this from our memories of our own childhood. And now we have writings by knowledgeable authorities, reports by government committees, curricula from ministries of education, and research from expert academics, that document and articulate the role and power of the arts in the lives of our children. …

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