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

Abstract

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 ThemHard!" 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 paperis a reflexive critique of how the telling of this story through theatre serves to validatewhy the arts matter to Indigenous education. It is also a testament to the healingpower of Indigenous theatre.