Liver Eating Johnston

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08 September 2011

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The Brutal Life of

John Liver Eating Johnston

When 20 or so Indians were killed in the Cypress

Hills Massacre in 1873 in Saskatchewan the

illegal whisky trade was partly to blame

In a dispute over a missing horse a group of American wolf hunters and fur traders opened fire on an Indian encampment in June 1873 and the result was a lot of bloodshed, almost all of it belonging to Assiniboine Indians.

Lodges were burned to the ground and women raped in the aftermath and there is one interesting name that crops up in the historical record as having been involved.

According to the Mysteries of Canada website a “colourful individual with the name of John Liver Eating Johnston was one of the many Americans who sold whisky to the Indians in Cypress Hill.”

Johnston Described as Mean Individual

Colourful is an adjective used to describe someone by a sympathetic biographer who more objectively might be called a rogue, scoundrel, or villain.

One such character was John Liver Eating Johnston (left); the name alone might cause a flutter of alarm.

A website dedicated to his life story describes him as “surly, extremely strong, and a loner.”

From his photograph he looks exactly like someone central casting would send over to fill the role of “wild man from the bush.”

He was born John Garrison in 1824 and changed his name to Johnston and, sometimes, Johnson.

The Lawless Western Frontier

The western regions of the American continent in the 19th century were made for hard men like Johnston.

The rule of law was only a concept in the minds of Eastern intellectuals; in places such as Montana and Wyoming being handy with a gun or knife was what often decided disputes.

Few were handier than John Johnston. Among his many occupations he counted trapper, hunter, guide, sailor, whisky peddler, and trader.

One biographer, Alan Bellows, writes that in 1846 “a Flathead Indian sub-chief had offered his daughter to Johnston in a trade. Johnston made the exchange, and he and his new wife set off to return to his cabin on the Little Snake River.”

Johnston Starts a Killing Spree

The following winter Johnston spent trapping and when he returned to his cabin he found the skeletal remains of his wife in the open doorway. She had apparently been killed by Crow Indians.

Johnston began a campaign to avenge his wife’s death, and Bellows writes that “Soon the scalped bodies of Crow warriors began to appear throughout the Northern Rockies and the plains of Wyoming and Montana. Each had had his liver cut out, and presumably eaten by the killer.”

His attacks went on for 25 years and earned him his nickname.

Legend and Myth Mixed with Truth

Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker published a biography of Johnston (Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson) and a foreword written by Richard M. Dorson warns that details of his life may have been embellished: “We shall never know the full and exact facts in the saga of John Johnson…For all the hundreds of scalps he acquired, Johnson claimed that he never killed a white man.”

He was never brought to account for his vendetta; this was a time when Indian-killer was seen as a positive entry on anyone’s resume. He lived by the code that was honoured by the rugged frontiersmen of his day.

A fitting end to Johnston’s life would have been a violent death, but he passed away in a Los Angeles nursing home in 1900.

Sources

“Cypress Hills Massacre.” Bruce Rickets, Mysteries of Canada, August 9, 2008.

“Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson.” Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker, Indiana University Press, August 1983.

“Liver-eating Johnston.” Allan Bellows, January 22, 2006.

The 1972 movie Jeremiah Johnson, in which Robert Redford played the title role, is loosely based on the life of John Liver Eating Johnson.