Louis Riel: Part 1 - The First Uprising

In 2004, CBC ran a country-wide poll through email, phone and mail (to target the young, middle aged and elderly, respectively) to create a top fifty list for a television show called "The Greatest Canadian". There was a wide range of honourees - most were legitimate candidates like prime ministers, inventors, and the predictable hockey player now and then. Then came the infuriating picks that comes with the territory with internet polling. Avril Lavigne probably doesn't deserve to be up there with John A. MacDonald, Lester Pearson and Brett "the Hitman" Heart, but I digress. The reason I brought it up is John A. is number eight on this list, while the topic of this blog post, Louis Riel, is number eleven.

You just know Riel shampoos and conditions
to get that kind of volume.

Number eight on the list of greatest Canadians had number eleven executed. It speaks to how controversial a character Riel can be. It's easy to paint Riel as a heroic figure, fighting against the large, imposing evil that is Canadian government in 1869 (well, it's large and imposing if you're a small community of Metis) but it isn't so cut and dry. MacDonald had his reasons for having to push west as hard as he did, and Riel made some significant missteps along the way that are very hard to defend.

But, before we get too ahead of ourselves, lets paint the background picture. Most of this happens in and around the community of Red River in nowadays southern Manitoba, starting just after Canada became a country. The Metis had been living there in and amongst native groups for over a century now, believing the land to be their own. Canada, at this time a mostly eastern coast land, hopes to move west and hold the land for themselves. Their claim is that the king of England gave it to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670, and the HBC is selling the land to the Canadian government.  The thing is, Canada really needs this deal to go through. America, shooting the west full of Manifest Destiny, will soon be setting their sights northward. A Canada surrounded on every side by an angry, power-hungry America would fall in short order. (If you want to know more, read my blog about John A. MacDonald's fight to build a railroad out west - it's been called "passable" by my father.)
Of course since both groups of people believe they have a case for the land they're inevitably going to clash over who has the stronger claim (or the stronger arm).

As for the town of Red River, in 1869 it was a thriving, vibrant community. Holding twelve-thousand people, half of them French-speaking Metis and the rest composed of mostly English-speaking Metis and European settlers. The Metis people themselves are an interesting stock; not quite French, not quite native, and not really accepted on either side, they had become their own hybrid culture of the two. Frequently bilingual, trilingual or more (don't forget that there were a number of native languages, not just one) they developed their own mixed language called Michif. Hunting the buffalo and enjoying living off the seigneurial system of farming from New France days (basically everyone gets a piece of the coast, rather than square plots that may or may not have access) the Metis had developed peaceful, happy lives for themselves. That is, until the Canadian government started sending surveyors to check out the lands west of theirs, planting themselves firmly in Red River.
It was pretty clear what they were doing. The surveyors would look at the land and begin to parcel it out in the English fashion (notably not the seigneurial system of old) and the Metis began to get wise that they're probably going to try to kick them out pretty soon.

Enter Louis Riel. Oldest of eleven children, Riel was well educated, having returned from schooling in Montreal. Able to speak with both the surveyors and his Metis people, he makes an impassioned speech to the latter and days later goes to confront the former. He sends them packing. MacDonald was actually warned that surveying within eyesight of the Metis would cause some troubles, but he went ahead with it anyway. That would prove to be an error in judgement.

Riel's Provisional Government. The beardless man at the top right must
have been the subject of endless ridicule amongst the otherwise hairy gentlemen.

Knowing that their land was being threatened by a takeover from the Canadian government Riel and his people set up the Metis National Committee. Welcoming anyone who would join them, they attacked Fort Garry, a symbol of Hudson's Bay Company authority and power, taking it over without any blood being spilt. This proves to be an issue for Canada; the HBC doesn't have a standing army to send after them and the government is too worried about the political ramifications of attacking to dislodge them. For a while, they sat and thought this one over.

Upon realizing that they might be staying for quite some time, the Metis set up a provisional government. Not everyone agrees to the new idea, however, and the dissent came from a predictable source; English settlers who didn't like the idea of a French/Native mix leading them, and especially not ones that are Catholic of all things. Their plan probably could have used some work, though. They only had around fifty people in what they called the Canada Party to hold against Riel's sizeable forces. They were quickly surrounded and gave up shortly after, becoming prisoners of the new Metis provisional government.

Meanwhile, John A. decides he'll try to fight this battle politically instead of with weapons. After a failed attempt at sending French Canadians who didn't have a lot of power, an HBC representative named Donald Alexander Smith tried to smooth things over. Riel responds with a list of rights for the Metis that have to be honoured. Things look like they're on the up-and-up. That is, until the Canada Party decided they'd stir up a little more trouble.

When someone says "he was killed by firing squad", I usually
don't picture it as one guy shooting another from a foot away
while he's lying down.

Twice in a month they had broken out (how, I don't know - perhaps the honour system for prisoners isn't an effective one?) and attempted to stage an uprising before getting captured again. All the while they're in there the prisoners are belligerent, spouting racial abuse and curses at their Metis captors, most of it coming from one man in particular - Thomas Scott. Scott wasn't the leader of the group, but certainly the most aggravating. Leadership belonged to Charles Boulton whom they decided by their courts as worthy of execution for staging an uprising, breaking out of prison, staging another, and then repeating steps two and three. Admittedly, he was kind of asking for it. Canadian negotiators stepped in and managed to get him off the hook and sent him back east, however. As for Thomas Scott, though, it's a different story. Continuing his tirades, the jailers finally got fed up. They put him on trial mostly for being a thorn in the side of the Metis, killing him on the grounds of "well, he's being mean". Scott, unlike Boulton, didn't get the same negotiations and was promptly executed.

It's hard to look at this as anything other than a massive mistake on behalf of Riel. It allowed MacDonald to rally behind Scott's death, calling it unjust and cruel, giving him enough political backing to send the Wolseley Expedition to quell the uprising and put an end to Riel's provisional government. Riel, likely fearful of the wrath that will surely be brought down upon him, flees to the United States and is banished from Canada. Garnet Wolseley, leading the expedition, recaptures Fort Garry and puts an end to the Metis threat - at least for now. It will be fourteen years before they hear from Riel again.