When residential schools were the law of the land for First Nations people, there were resisters.

Jean-Baptiste Gambler had many children, 22 or 24 throughout his long life.

He and his family lived on land he’d claimed for their own near Calling Lake, Alta. but the Gambler family was ripped apart when the children were forced to leave their home to attend the Wabasca Residential School, 113 kilometres away.

That was not the end of it, though. Not for Gambler.

According to a letter from the local Indian Agent to a store owner date July 24, 1935, found in a shed a couple of years ago, Gambler refused to send his children back.

“When the Magistrate acting as Truant Officer went to him to regain possession of the children he used abusive language and threatened to shoot him,” says the letter signed W.P. L’Heureux.

The letter is a stark evidence of the price paid by Aboriginal parents who did not comply.

“As the above mentioned J.B. Gambler is in receipt of a monthly ration, I have to order that the same be cut off entirely until such time as I am able to reverse my decision,” L’Heureux wrote to the store owner.

“This cannot be expected until the children are back at school at Wabasca and Gambler’s amends presented to the Principal and Magistrate there.”

After buffalo were hunted to extinction on the Prairies, the fur trade waning, rations were offered to entice First Nations to reserves and make way for white settlement.

Under a pass system established in 1885 by the government of Sir John A. MacDonald, Indian people were not allowed to leave those reserves without the permission of the local Indian Agent.

Unable to leave the reserve, rations were a heavy hammer to wield.

Found in a shed two years ago, the letter and a headdress that once belonged to Gambler, was turned over to his great-great-great grandson, Curtis Cardinal, who posted it on his Facebook page.

Cardinal says it wasn’t something his family talked about.

“I didn’t know until I read the letter,” he tells Yahoo Canada News.

It must have been a difficult decision for his ancestor, he says.

“It was 1935 and the Depression was going on. Things were very hard, economically, I can imagine.”

Cardinal and his family members don’t believe the Baptiste children ever returned to residential school.

“Back then, you could have been thrown in prison for threatening a government official. Threatening to shoot one? It was a very serious offence,” he says.

“He never did go to jail over it. Maybe they were scared of him, I don’t know.”

If they were, they may have had good reason.

Gambler, also known as Matchemuttaw or Muchamaton, was no stranger to defying the Dominion’s relentless drive west.

Family lore says he and his father took part in the 1885 Riel Rebellion.

“There are stories about them escaping and being hunted by the Redcoats and hiding in beaver dams,” Cardinal says. “For punishment for that, their horses and their guns and everything was taken away.”

A signatory to the 1876 treaty the Peeyaysis people signed with the Crown – a treaty that promised but did not deliver reserve land - Baptiste’s father and he were the only known members of the band to refuse scrip in 1886, according to historic documents of the Indian Claims Commission.

Scrip was offered to Metis and Indian individuals for signing away Aboriginal title and treaty rights. In exchange, they received vouchers with a value or $160 and $240 entitling the bearer to the equivalent number of acres in land.

The Peeyaysis being no more, Louison Matchemuttaw and Jean Baptiste Gambler went to Calling Lake. In 1911 they became members No. 104 and 105 of the Bigstone Cree Nation.

Under the treaty covering Bigstone, an Indian person was entitled to land if they wanted to live apart from the established reserve. Gambler applied in 1915 for land at Calling Lake, according to documents of the Bigstone Nation.

Though entitled to more than two square miles of land, based on the size of his family, the local Indian Agent instructed the land patents branch that “only one square mile is required instead of two square miles as mentioned in the previous correspondence.”

Gambler and his family were eventually joined by several Metis and Cree families on the reserve Jean Baptiste Gambler 183.

Gambler lived there until his death in 1957.

Today, the artifacts that testify to his courage – and the price he paid for it – are on display at the Calling Lake Visitor’s Centre, where Cardinal is a supervisor.

His great-great-great grandson is proud of this family history he knew nothing about until now.

“He did resist colonization. He fought for his rights at a time when Indians didn’t have rights,” he says.