Louis Riel: Opinions

Frequently teaching grade seven history class means that I hear the name "Louis Riel" on a regular basis. It makes sense; he's an important part of our history, his blood makes him a rare double-whammy in the sense that he's both French and aboriginal (the textbooks really stress having high representation of both) and he's a symbol for Canada's stand-up-for-the-little-guy attitude. But...

He's a little more controversial than he may seem. This is a far more nuanced issue than most of what you'll see, typically showing Riel as a picturesque hero that can do no wrong against a massive, evil entity. While he's justly seen as a crusader for equal rights, there are plenty of issues that arise that take him down a couple notches. I believe it's right to look into those.

But why?

Take a look at Christopher Columbus. He's been hailed as a hero in the States for so long, until relatively recently when people started remembering some of the terrible stuff he's done. Previously, only the positives were remembered, a bit of revisionist history that had him only as a great explorer who found the New World and... that's all. Never mind the other stuff.  Riel is the same way but to the opposite extent. He's remembered as a champion of the minority, but any negatives are forgotten or pushed to the side to better fit the narrative we wish to put forth. History shouldn't take sides. All facts should be presented and opinions should come through once everything's on the table. We can't laugh at Fox News in the south for only showing one side and then do the same here because ours sends a positive message.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like Riel. But let's go through a little bit here.

The whole Thomas Scott execution... just, or not?
The book I read for this blog and the previous three, "Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont" in the Extraordinary Canadians series, while well written, was about as biased as a book could be. To soften the blow of the execution, Thomas Scott was called a dog, some wretched human being that had to be put down due to his behaviour.

Well...

He was undoubtedly a belligerent, racist jerk. There's no denying that. But lets keep in mind the circumstances: he's still locked up, by all means he shouldn't be able to escape under their watch a third time, he has no weapons in there (I mean, he's in jail after all), and he was put to death for defying the provisional government. Execution seems an overly harsh penalty. We can't just bump off people we don't like just because we really don't like them.

Just as a side note, I find this whole event very strange. Not only is this an incredibly poor decision as I made clear in the other blog posts, but it's wildly out of character for Riel. Louis was big into not spilling any blood through this rebellion, at least as little as possible. In fact, that belief is what caused Dumont to have so many difficulties mounting an army, supplying them, and using appropriate tactics once there were no other options. Why was it then that he broke and allowed the execution? That guy must have been really just spectacularly obnoxious. It's kind of funny in a morbid, sad way - the guy goes down in history as being so horribly annoying they had to kill him. And nowadays the reaction to it is "well... yeah. He had it coming."

Some of Riel's ideas were... well, crack-pot like. 

Riel certainly had his strange moments, that's for certain. He would sometimes go around naked (nothing to hide in front of God, sure, but please, hide a little in front of the general public), he wished to rename the days of the week (looks like someone's got a case of the "Christ Aurores") as well as believing that the resurrection of an American politician would somehow help his cause (the book didn't go into greater detail on this but I really wish it did). It's a little more difficult to support him when you start hearing about some of his plans, let alone the whole divine prophet thing. There's a reason he spent two years in an asylum, after all.

That being said, I can understand the reason for his popularity now. In many ways he was well ahead of his time, fighting for equality among Canadians regardless of race - surely a worthy cause. For that, he's commendable, and perhaps the Metis people just needed what he most certainly was; a charismatic, charming leader that without doubt believed wholeheartedly in his convictions.

Is the Canadian government the big, evil entity that it seems?

Well... kind of.

John A. and Co. don't exactly come out of this sparkling clean. Time and time again the Metis asked for fairly reasonable claims: a decent plot of land they actually own, a means to divide the land to make it fair for their people, and a reasonable set of basic human rights for them and theirs. A little acknowledgement at the very least would have stymied the necessity of a revolt. Surely, that looks bad on Johnny Mac. I won't argue that.

However...

MacDonald is put in a very difficult position here. The Americans are going to take the west if he doesn't move first. Not only does he need to get settlin' out there, but he has a very strict time limit in which to do so. Failure would mean the likely collapse of his whole country not too far down the line. Lets not forget that Riel himself actually hoped for American expansion as he believed that would help his cause. Cut the guy a little slack. He's between a rock and a hard place on this one.

As for attacking a small community of Metis with the full might of an early ages Canada? Think of the circumstance. The first group of Canadian foot-soldiers went west to respond to the execution of an English speaking man. I'd say that's fair, at that point. There's blood, you have to respond. The second followed the Frog Lake Massacre. It has massacre in the title, so I believe that's just ground for government intervention once more. They made plenty of mistakes, that's for certain, but their use of force, specifically, was justified.

OK, OK, so here's the big one. Is Louis Riel a hero?

Yes.

He fought for the rights of a disenfranchised group and stood up to a larger power he had no chance of defeating. Through and through, he worked selflessly for the Metis, right up until the very end where he quite possibly sacrificed his life in denying the insanity charge and pushing for a different defense because otherwise it would make his cause seem less worthy. Louis theoretically may have even avoided capture had he tried to escape but he turned himself in for leniency for his people. He was ages ahead of his time in what are now common Canadian ideas of equality and racial harmony. Hats off to Louis Riel. He deserves his place in history.

The purpose of this blog isn't to tarnish Riel's legacy, but rather to show that with all coins there are two sides. MacDonald was not some ruthless dictator, but a man having to deal with battling two vastly different forces; a great, imposing giant to the south and an aggravating colony to the west. Something had to give. As for Riel himself, yeah, he was probably more than a little crazy (or looney - like our coin! Pun! Yes!) but his ideals weren't. Except for the whole changing the names of the days of the week, and the New Rome in Saskatchewan thing.

So what should Riel's legacy be, o humble Idiot Historian?

Well, pretty much what it is. A great leader that fought a good fight. I just wish it wasn't always painted as a black and white narrative, where the Canadian government is an evil force that means to squash any resistance that dares say anything against them, always stepping on the weak and disenfranchised. They're still just people here, not monsters versus heroes. I guess it's just my way of saying I'm growing weary of how we learn our history only through how our government and people have done so many things wrong. Just look to Trudeau - he's probably apologizing for something historical as we speak.

Well, once he's done with the whole elbow thing.