But Robert Gopher (Blackfeet), an oral historian of the Chippewa, says that Rocky Boy was assassinated by rival Cree who used poison roots. They were anxious to settle at the reservation. According to the oral traditions of the Saskatchewan Cree, Little Bear was known to use a specific poisonous root to kill political rivals. If the assassination account is true, it threatened the Cree settlement at Rocky Boy Reservation. Linderman supposedly said that rocky Boy in his last words said he did not want to accept the Cree on the newly established reservation. But they had already been occupying land in the area and at Fort Assiniboine.