Cree

Cree, Native Americans of the Algonquian language family and of the Subarctic and Great Plains culture areas. Before Europeans settled North America, Cree homelands and hunting lands extended across much of present-day Canada, from the Ottawa River in Québec to the Saskatchewan River in Alberta. The Cree are sometimes grouped by scholars, east to west, as the Eastern Wood Cree, the Swampy Cree, the Western Wood Cree, and the Plains Cree. These broad groupings are often further subdivided, with many of the bands, or First Nations, as they are called in Canada, having distinct political identities in historic and modern times. The name Cree is probably a shortened form of Kristineaux, a French derivation of Kenistenoag, the tribe’s native name.

The Cree were related to other eastern Algonquians and migrated westward before and after contact with non-Indians. At the time of European contact the various Cree bands of related families were spread over a larger territory than any other Native American group.

Those Cree making their homes in the Subarctic forests and wetlands hunted various mammals, including rabbits, beavers, caribou, moose, bears, and fowl. They also fished in the lakes and rivers and gathered edible wild plants. They lived in cone-shaped tents, typically covered with birchbark. The Plains Cree, some of whom were allied with the Assiniboine people of Manitoba, hunted deer, caribou, elk, moose, and, on the Northern Plains, buffalo (American bison). They acquired horses from tribes to the south and typically lived in larger hide tipis like other Plains Indians.

Soon after European contact, the Cree became involved in the fur trade, trading with the French and working for them as voyageurs (the French word for “travelers”) who traveled in search of furs. Many of them intermarried with the French. Others traded with and married Scots. The Métis, or mixed bloods, many of them of part-Cree ancestry, maintained traditions from both native and European cultures. In the 19th century the Métis under leader Louis Riel revolted against the Canadian government over land and political rights. In 1885 Cree bands, under chiefs Poundmaker and Big Bear, participated in the Northwest Rebellion, a revolt against federal authority.

In the 2000 U.S. census about 2,500 people identified themselves as Cree only; an additional 5,200 reported being part Cree. The 1996 Canadian census counted more than 76,000 people whose first language was Cree. Most Cree now live on or near their reserve lands in Canada, in the provinces of Québec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Some Cree also share the Rocky Boy Chippewa-Cree Reservation in Montana with the Ojibwa.