NOVEMBER 9:

Louis-Joseph Gaultier de La Vérendrye 1717-1761 fur trader, explorer, soldier, was born on this day at Ile aux Vaches, Quebec, in 1717, the youngest of four sons of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye; died in a shipwreck off Cape Breton Nov. 15, 1761. La Vérendrye joined his father's trading company in the West in 1735; 1736 helped rebuild Fort Maurepas; 1738 helped build Fort La Reine, went with his father to Mandan country on the Missouri River near present day Bismarck, North Dakota; 1739 explored Lake Winnipeg, possibly as far as The Pas; 1742 led first European exploration across Missouri onto Great Plains with brother François and 2 other Frenchmen; 15 month journey took them to the Big Horn Mountains in present-day Wyoming, then back along the Cheyenne and Bad rivers; 1743 commanded fur trade posts at Chequamegon, Kaministiquia and Michipicotin; 1748 served in campaign against the Mohawks; 1759 served on Lake Champlain during Seven Years War.

1885 Ottawa Ontario - Medical commission, created to examine Riel's mental condition, submits its report to the Prime Minister. The Commission is divided on question of Riel's sanity. Cabinet decides to proceed with death penalty; carried out on the 16th.

November 9, 1867:  The peace commissioners who met on September 19, 1867 at Platte City, Nebraska, arrived at Fort Laramie in southeastern Wyoming on this day.  Commissioners Sherman, Taylor, Harney, Sanborn, Henderson, Tappan and Terry sought Red Cloud, but he had said he would not come to the fort until all of the soldiers had left the Powder River area.  The Commissioners were given a lecture by Crow Indian, Bear Tooth, on the ecological disaster they were spreading across Indian Lands.  Making no headway, the Commissioners eventually left without an agreement or substantial negotiations.
 

BACKGROUND:
 

From "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown, Section "Red Cloud's War", p.144.  Random House (Publishers), ISBN No 0 09 952640 9
 

On November 9, when the commissioners arrived at Fort Laramie, they found only a few Crow chiefs waiting to meet with them.  The Crows 
were friendly, but one of them - Bear Tooth - made a surprising 
speech in which he condemned all white men for their reckless 
destruction of wildlife and the natural environment:  "Fathers, 
fathers, fathers, hear me well.  Call back your young men from the 
mountains of the bighorn sheep.  They have run over our country; they have destroyed the growing wood and the green grass; they have set 
fire to our lands.  Fathers, your young men have devastated the 
country and killed my animals, the elk, the deer, the antelope, my 
buffalo.  They do not kill them to eat them; they leave them to rot 
where they fall.  Fathers, if I went into your country to kill your 
animals, what would you say?  Should I not be wrong, and would you 
not make war on me?"