Cree

Due to the many dialects of the Cree language, the people have no modern collective autonym.

Cree (also known as Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi) is a dialect continuum of Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Alberta to Labrador.

The Cree (Néhinaw, Néhiyaw, etc; Cri) are one of the largest groups of First Nations in North America.

In the northern woodlands were the Cree and Chipewyan.

Eeyou Istchee is a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) of Nord-du-Québec represented by the Grand Council of the Crees.

The Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) or the GCC(EI) (ᐄᔨᔨᐤ ᐊᔅᒌ in Cree), is the political body that represents the about 18,000 Crees or "Eeyou" ("Eenou", Inland dialect) of the territory called Eeyou Istchee ("The People's Land") in the James Bay and Nunavik regions of Northern Quebec, Canada.

Almost all of the 12,090 inhabitants (2011 census) of the region, of whom 90% are Inuit, live in fourteen northern villages on the coast of Nunavik and in the Cree reserved land (TC) of Whapmagoostui, near the northern village of Kuujjuarapik.

Tomson Highway, CM is a Canadian and Cree playwright, novelist, and children's author, who was born in a remote area north of Brochet, Manitoba.

Today, they live mostly in Montana, where they share the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation with Ojibwe (Chippewa) people. The name "Cree" is derived from the Algonkian-language exonym Kirištino˙, which the Ojibwa used for tribes around Hudson Bay.

In Canada, they are the second-largest First Nations population, surpassed only by the Cree.

The major proportion of Cree in Canada live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the region was inhabited by Algonquian (Ojibwe, Cree and Algonquin) in the northern/western portions, and Iroquois and Wyandot (Huron) people more in the south/east.

Those Cree who moved onto the Great Plains and adopted bison hunting, called the Plains Cree, were allied with the Assiniboine and the Saulteaux in what was known as the "Iron Confederacy", which was a major force in the North American fur trade from the 1730s to the 1870s.

The ethnic groups that made up the Confederacy were the branches of the Cree that moved onto the Great Plains around 1740 (the southern half of this movement eventually became the "Plains Cree" and the northern half the "Woods Cree"), the Saulteaux (Plains Ojibwa), the Nakoda or Stoney people also called Pwat or Assiniboine, and the Metis and Iroquois (who had come west with the fur trade).

The name "Cree" is derived from the Algonkian-language exonym Kirištino˙, which the Ojibwa used for tribes around Hudson Bay.

Lake Winnipeg is similarly named by the local Cree, as is the location for the city of Winnipeg.

About 27,000 live in Quebec.

Although the area is inhabited principally by the Cree, Naskapi, and Innu First Nations, thousands of temporary workers reside at Radisson to service the massive James Bay Hydroelectric Project on the La Grande and Eastmain rivers.

The major proportion of Cree in Canada live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Saskatchewan has been populated by various indigenous peoples of North America, including members of the Sarcee, Niitsitapi, Atsina, Cree, Saulteaux, Assiniboine (Nakoda), Lakota and Sioux.

Some of the families of the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach have close relatives in the Cree village of Whapmagoostui, on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay.

In the run-up to the 1885 North-West Rebellion, Big Bear was the leader of his band, but once the fighting started Wandering Spirit became war leader.

Big Bear, also known as Mistahi-maskwa (ᒥᐢᑕᐦᐃᒪᐢᑿ; c.1825 – 17 January 1888 ), was a powerful and popular Cree chief who played many pivotal roles in Canadian history.

Those Cree who moved onto the Great Plains and adopted bison hunting, called the Plains Cree, were allied with the Assiniboine and the Saulteaux in what was known as the "Iron Confederacy", which was a major force in the North American fur trade from the 1730s to the 1870s.

They were well known throughout much of the late 18th and early 19th century, and were members of the Iron Confederacy with the Cree.

The largest Cree band and the second largest First Nations Band in Canada after the Six Nations Iroquois is the Lac La Ronge Band in northern Saskatchewan.

The Lac La Ronge Indian Band is the largest Cree First Nation band government in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, and one of the 10 largest in Canada, with a 2016 population of 10,408.

Mushkegowuk Council, based in Moose Factory, Ontario, represents chiefs from six First Nations across Ontario.

The settlement is mainly inhabited by the Cree, but the hospital which provides healthcare services to the people of the island and surrounding area (collectively known as the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority) attracts a diverse group of people as an employer.

Some of the families of the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach have close relatives in the Cree village of Whapmagoostui, on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay.

The major proportion of Cree in Canada live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

The Ojibwe, Cree, Dene, Sioux, Mandan, and Assiniboine peoples founded settlements, and other tribes entered the area to trade.

The Métis (from the French, Métis - of mixed ancestry) are people of mixed ancestry, such as Nehiyaw (or Anishinaabe) and French, English, or Scottish heritage.

The women in the unions in eastern Canada were usually Wabanaki, Algonquin, and Menominee; and in western Canada they were Saulteaux, Cree, Ojibwe, Nakoda, and Dakota/Lakota, or of mixed descent from these peoples.

In the run-up to the 1885 North-West Rebellion, Big Bear was the leader of his band, but once the fighting started Wandering Spirit became war leader.

Wandering Spirit (a.k.a. Kapapamahchakwew, Papamahchakwayo, Esprit Errant; b.1845 – d.1885) was a Cree war chief of a band of Plains Cree.

Those Cree who moved onto the Great Plains and adopted bison hunting, called the Plains Cree, were allied with the Assiniboine and the Saulteaux in what was known as the "Iron Confederacy", which was a major force in the North American fur trade from the 1730s to the 1870s.

During the late 18th century and early 19th century, as partners with the Cree in the fur trade, the Saulteaux migrated northwest into the Swan River and Cumberland districts of west-central Manitoba, and into Saskatchewan along the Assiniboine River, as far its confluence with the Souris (Mouse) River.

Today American Cree are enrolled in the federally recognized Chippewa Cree tribe, located on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation, and in minority as "Landless Cree" on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and as "Landless Cree" and "Rocky Boy Cree" on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, all in Montana.

The Chippewa Cree Tribe is a federally recognized tribe on the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana who are descendants of Cree who migrated south from Canada and Chippewa (Ojibwe) who moved west from the Turtle Mountains in North Dakota in the late nineteenth century.

The Cree were first contacted by Europeans in 1682, at the mouth of the Nelson and Hayes rivers in what is now northern Manitoba, by a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) party traveling about 100 mi inland.

Two French traders, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers (Médard de Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers), Radisson's brother-in-law, learned from the Cree that the best fur country lay north and west of Lake Superior, and that there was a "frozen sea" still further north.

The population of Cumberland House consists of mostly First Nations people, including Cree and Métis.