Jerry Potts

Jerry Potts

Jerry Potts (1840-1896), (also known as Ky-yo-kosi, meaning Bear Child), was a Canadian plainsman, buffalo hunter, horse trader, interpreter, and scout.

Early life

Potts was born at Fort McKenzie, Montana on the Missouri River, the only child of his Kainai mother Namo-pisi (Crooked Back) and Andrew R. Potts, a Scottish fur trader. 1840; . After his father's death, his mother returned to her family. As a child, Jerry was known to not be very friendly and playful. He learned archary and scavenger hunting from the age as little as 9. Later, his father taught him every corner of Alberta, when he was at the age of 12. He was a fatty,too.

Adulthood

When he became an adult, Jerry's mother went back to Namo PIsi land because jerry told her to go back ot hwe she came from. Little is known of Jerry Potts' early life except that he was an extremely dangerous man, was a crack shot with rifle and pistol and that he knew the ins and outs of knife fighting. He killed his first man at age 22, a French-Canadian trapper named Antoine Primeau, who simply picked on the wrong person at the wrong time.

Potts married two members of the Piegan tribe named Panther Woman and Spotted Killer. Between the pair he sired several sons and several daughters. He considered himself a Piegan but he kept his Kainai name, Kyi-yo-Kosi.

By the time Potts was 25, he was a wealthy man because of his horse trading. His herd rarely averaged less than 100 horses which made him the second wealthiest Indian in the area as wealth was measured by the Plains Indians in the number of horses a man owned. That his horses carried a number of diverse brands meant nothing. He could always produce bills of sale (even though he could not read them himself) for most of them. Those without papers, if they were American horses, were sold in Canada while paperless Canadian horses were sold south of the Medicine Line. Those branded with the markings of the US Cavalry were sold as far north as possible unless he had papers proving they had been purchased legally.

The going rate for a good horse at the time ranged between $75.00 to $150.00 so his large inventory showed his wealth. When he journeyed to Montana Territory to buy horses he would carry cash - often as much as a thousand dollars - with which to make the transactions. People knew he carried such amounts but they also knew he was Jerry Potts so he was left alone.

He became a minor chief with the Kainai when he was perhaps 25 in recognition of his bravery in battle, his unquestioned leadership abilities and his knowledge of the prairies. It is said he knew every trail from Fort Edmonton to the lands of the Cheyenne and Apache and every hill between those trails. He could find game when all others had returned to camp empty-handed. He spent much of his time in what is now Montana, guiding, trading horses and of course drinking.

Although Potts never learned to read or write he could sign his name and was able to recognize it whenever someone pointed it out as he was often mentioned in news items printed in the Helena Herald and other territory newspapers. He would have someone read him the article. But, illiterate though he may have been he could speak several languages. He was fluent in English, Blackfoot and Crow, had a better than average ability in Cree (which he would speak only when necessary), and was passable in Sioux, Assiniboine and Algonquin.

For all his ability to get along with white men Potts was very much an Indian. He never fully understood the white man¡¦s reasoning. For instance, he could never understand the reason that white settlers equipped their houses with chamber pots. "Why," he once asked a Mountie, " would anyone piss in a perfectly good eating bowl when the entire prairie lay before him"?

During his teens Potts passed all the Indian rites of passage including the final agony of the Sun Dance wherein the fledgling brave is tied to a pole by thongs threaded through his chest muscles. Successful completion of this rite meant the youth had achieved glory by tearing himself loose either immediately or by staying tied to the pole in absolute silence for up to three days and then tearing loose. Potts chose to remain the full three days for such was his nature. He also belonged to several of the secret warrior societies which prevailed in large numbers throughout the Blackfoot nation.

Potts wore his "magic" talisman - a cat skin - next to his body at all times and hung his captured scalps on the lodge pole of his main teepee in Indian fashion. Still, he wore the clothing of the white man most of the time including a fashionable hat that sported a wide headband. His bushy, drooping mustache was as stylish as that of any white man.

From a distance the stocky, bow-legged Potts looked like a white trapper in his buckskin clothing, his Stetson at a jaunty angle upon his head. Two .44 pistols hung from his gun belt complimenting the Henry rifle which never left his side. Under his jacket he always kept two smaller-bore pistols. On his leg was strapped a long-bladed skinning knife. He always kept a small gun inside a hide-away pocket, a practice that saved his life on several occasions.

In 1871, Potts was about 31 when his mother was murdered. Her killer had been an Indian who was drunk on "firewater" so he declared his own personal war on the whiskey runners. By the time Potts was 36 he had killed at least 40 men, mostly whiskey runners.

In September, 1874, Potts was trading horses in Fort Benton, Montana. He was hired as a guide, interpreter and scout by the North West Mounted Police at the fort. His contract as a guide for the NWMP was to last 22 years. He was paid $90 per month, which was quite a bit higher than a regular guide, and three times a police constable's salary. Even City Marshals in large cities such as Abilene or Dodge City often earned less than that amount. He also picked the location for the first NWMP post, called Fort Macleod.

He only ceased working for the force at age 58 because the pain of throat cancer made it that he could no longer ride. He died a year later, on 14 July 1896 at Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada.

Jerry Potts was buried at Fort Macleod with full honors in 1896 having served with the NWMP for 22 years and being given the rank of special constable.

Potts always received more salary than any other guide/interpreter because as a guide he had no equal. It was as an interpreter that he fell short although he spoke all the Indian languages of the prairies. He could also speak passable Sioux - if he felt like it. His weakness in interpretation lay in his habit of relaying the speaker's message in the fewest words possible. He would never speak a complete sentence if two words would suffice. At meetings between NWMP officials and Indian chiefs he would listen intently then, following each speech, would condense what had been said into one or two short sentences.

Once, following a Blackfoot chief's extremely long, flowery, impassioned speech to a delegation of visiting officials who had arrived from Ottawa to sign an historic treaty with the Blackfoot people, Potts remained silent as if fully digesting the colorful language. Finally, asked what the chief had said, the laconic Potts shrugged and replied, "He says he's damned glad you're here." On another occasion, when asked by Inspector MacLeod what lay beyond a high rising hill ahead, Potts muttered, " 'Nuther hill."

Potts had two wives, who blessed him with several sons and a couple of daughters. He named one of his sons Blue Gun in commemoration of his favorite rifle. His many descendants still live mainly in Alberta and Saskatchewan with a few in Montana. Three of his descendants, one a young woman named Janet Potts, become RCMP officers during the middle years of this century.

The city of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, east of Fort MacLeod, has named a boulevard in Jerry Potts' honour.

External links

• Jerry Potts at Find a Grave (includes photograph)