Louis David Riel Revisited: Metis Hero or Canadian Traitor

When Ottawa bought Rupert’s Land from Britain, it was the seed of serious problems in the West. Rupert’s Land took in a big chunk of Baffin Island, and stretched through Quebec province, northern Ontario, and swept down through Manitoba, North Dakota and Saskatchewan and Alberta. A huge chunk of real-estate which was mismanaged by John A. Macdonald and Ottawa.
It was the Metis, mixed blood indigenous and European, who were the coureur de bois and the voyageurs who tamed that vast wilderness. They made the Hudson Bay Company rich as they brought furs in for trade, for many years a hot fashion commodity in Europe. As the fur trade waned, the Metis adapted to a life of buffalo hunting and farming on their strips of land known as seignories. Then a combination of unfortunate circumstances faced these people who had opened up and tamed the west. The buffalo herds were disappearing; locusts and drought sabotaged their farming efforts; and worst of all, when Ottawa got its greedy hands on Rupert’s Land, surveyors were sent into the Red River Colony disrespecting the old Metis land claims.
Canada’s first Prime Minister sent the wrong people into the Red River Colony, like William McDougall, to manage Rupert’s Land. McDougall sent in his surveyors too early not respecting old land claims. Metis farmers had lived in the Colony for decades but did not have proper land registration papers. Louis David Riel was an educated Metis who asked for negotiations with Ottawa. When Ottawa ignored the request, Riel declared a provisional Government, independent of Ottawa and thus the Red River Rebellion of 1869 began.
Thomas Scott, a surveyor and bully, incited Canadians to break John Schultz and Charlie Mair free, not knowing that Riel had already released most of the prisoners. Thomas Scott was arrested for inciting more violence. He was tried by Riel’s government for insubordination and treason, found guilty and shot in front of a firing squad. John A. Macdonald and Ontario, upon hearing this, sent 1,200 troops known as the Wolseley Expedition out west to retake Fort Garry. Louis Riel fled into exile in the States for 15 years.
When the same thing happened in Saskatchewan with Metis farmers facing intruding surveyors, the Metis people asked Louis Riel to come back to Canada and again champion their list of rights. Again, Ottawa ignored them, and Louis Riel declared another provisional government, organized the North-West Rebellion of 1885 and insisted on negotiations. Ottawa’s response was might, not talk. The Canadian Pacific Railway had already been built most of the way into the west, so negotiations were ignored. John A. Macdonald sent hundreds of militia under Major General Frederick Middleton to quell the Rebellion. The Battle of Batoche took 4 days in which 950 Canadian militia faced off against 250 Metis. Middleton’s men had a Gatling gun and 4 cannons against the Metis guerilla fighters who had their rifles. The Metis put up a good fight but were overwhelmingly outnumbered. Gabriel Dumont, the Metis military commander, fled to the United States. Louis Riel gave himself up to Middleton. In an unfair trial in Regina, he was found guilty of high treason and hung. His legacy lives on as a Metis hero, the Father of Manitoba and is a constant reminder of Ottawa’s bigotry against Indians and people of mixed blood during the early days of the Confederation of Canada.
I introduced a fictionalized character, Isidore Dupre, otherwise known as “Nabot”, into this real-life story about Louis Riel. Nabot was the reasoning conscience for Riel’s decisions which often led to bad repercussions for the Metis people. Louis Riel should be remembered as the Father of Manitoba, as a man of mixed blood who stood up to the surveyors sent in to take away Metis lands and as a man who stood up to the bigotry that was prevalent among white people in the Dominion of Canada.