You're right, Dalrymple; almost all Americans.  Don't think the Assiniboine victims cared who they were. Ottawa certainly did, though. What Cypress Hills--and Fort Whoop-Up--provided was a very convenient cover story for the creation of the NWMP: gotta save those Natives from the bad whiskey traders.  It was a valid sentiment, to a point..but the salient reason for the formation of the Scarlet Force was the possibility that, if enough Americans settled north of the 49th parallel, we'd be no different than Mexico, which lost California, Nevada, Arizona and part of Utah.