Frog Lake Massacre The Frog Lake Massacre was a Cree uprising during the North - West Rebellion in western Canada . Led by Wandering Spirit , young Cree warriors attacked the village of Frog Lake in the District of Saskatchewan of the Northwest Territories on 2 April 1885 , where they killed nine settlers . Frog Lake became part of the province of Alberta in 1905 . Causes . Angered by what seemed to be unfair treaties by the Canadian government and the dwindling buffalo population , the main source of food for the indigenous people , chief Big Bear had been organizing the Cree for resistance . They were encouraged by the Métis victory at the Battle of Duck Lake . Anger among the Cree in the area was directed largely to the Indian Agent , Thomas Quinn , who treated the Cree with harshness and arrogance . The Massacre . Against Big Bear ' s opposition , a band of Cree led by war chief Wandering Spirit took Thomas Quinn hostage in his home in the early morning of 2 April . The Cree then took more white settlers hostage and took control of the village . They gathered the Europeans , including two priests , into the local Catholic church , where mass was in progress . After the mass concluded , around 11 : 00 a . m . , the Cree ordered their prisoners to move to a Cree encampment a couple of kilometres away . Quinn steadfastly refused to leave the town ; in response , Wandering Spirit shot him in the head . In the resulting panic , Wandering Spirit ' s band killed eight other settlers : the two Catholic priests , Leon Fafard and Felix Marchand , Fafard ' s lay assistant John Williscroft , as well as John Gowanlock , John Delaney , William Gilchrist , George Dill , and Charles Gouin . One of the Hudson ' s Bay Company clerks , William Bleasdell Cameron , one of the men rounded up into the church , went to the Hudson ' s Bay shop to fill an order made by Quinn for Miserable Man after the mass . When the first shots were fired , he escaped with the help of sympathetic Cree , and made his way to a nearby Wood Cree camp , where the chief pledged to protect him . Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney , wives of two of the slain men , their families and approximately seventy others from the town were taken captive . Aftermath . The Cree moved on to Fort Pitt . The massacre prompted the Canadian government to take notice of the growing unrest in Western Canada . The rebellion was put down . Wandering Spirit and five other warriors : Round the Sky , Bad Arrow , Miserable Man , Iron Body , Little Bear , Crooked Leg and Man Without Blood , were convicted of treason for their actions in the Frog Lake Massacre . They were hanged with two other Cree convicted of murder in the largest mass execution in Canadian history . Although Big Bear had opposed the attack , he was charged with treason because of his efforts to organize resistance among the Cree . He was convicted and sentenced to three years in the Manitoba Penitentiary . Legacy . The site of the massacre was designated the " Frog Lake National Historic Site " in 1923 , at the location of the Cree uprising which occurred in the District of Saskatchewan , North - West Territories . Parks Canada says the site designated by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada is extensive , but the national park service owns only a small portion , mainly a graveyard , where a stone cairn and federal plaque were erected in 1924 . The geographic coordinates on this page are for that cairn . In 2008 , Christine Tell ( provincial minister for tourism , parks , culture and sport ) said " the 125th commemoration , in 2010 , of the 1885 Northwest Resistance is an excellent opportunity to tell the story of the prairie Métis and First Nations peoples ' struggle with Government forces and how it has shaped Canada today . "