Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont

by Joseph Boyden

Feeling the fire of God speak to him once again, a gorgeous deep burn in the pit of his belly that Louis hasn’t felt in years, he gives a speech in late August to French and English half-breeds alike from the steps of the deeply symbolic Saint-Boniface Cathedral, denouncing the unfairness of the surveys and the machinations of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the government. That many people not only gather but listen and are moved by Louis’s powerful words doesn’t surprise his family. Louis’s departed father, after all, had been instrumental years before in breaking up a Hudson’s Bay Company monopoly and remains highly respected for it, even in death. Maybe Louis feels his father’s smile that late August day. The crowd is impressed, delighted that they have such an eloquent spokesman who seems a natural to lead them in their struggles. This Louis Riel has spent years out east learning the ways of the Canadians, he is deeply spiritual, and he comes from excellent stock. Louis’s position as a leader is quickly cemented, and he finally feels as if he is coming into his own. He understands at last that God doesn’t wish him to be a priest. God tells Louis that his role is to stand up for his people, to be their spokesman.

  This is a job he takes to quickly. But on that late August day, no one in the crowd guesses that within months Louis will lead them in what the Canadians call a full-scale rebellion—despite the fact that the area isn’t even a part of Canada yet—and the Métis call a resistance, a defence of their homeland.

  On October 11, 1869, a group of Métis that includes Riel take their first physical action in a course of events that plays out quickly. The English surveyors who’d first appeared near Red River in late August, just nine days after Louis’s first speech, continue to busily mark out square parcels of land right on the half-breeds’ doorstep. Louis and company confront the survey team on this crisp autumn day, stepping on their chain as a symbolic act of defiance, at the same time putting the fear of God into them.

  Louis knows he has no other choice. The Canadians and the Hudson’s Bay Company have agreed that December 1, just fifty short days away, is the day this questionable transaction will close. The Métis have tried all other courses. The Roman Catholic Bishop Taché of Red River, the Anglican bishop of Rupert’s Land Robert Machray, and even the Hudson’s Bay Company governor of Rupert’s Land and Assiniboia William Mactavish have all warned the young government of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald that surveying this land in front of the Métis without recognizing Métis title will cause serious unrest. But John A. ignores these important men and the Métis in general, a troubling habit that becomes ingrained over the next many years.

  To be fair, John A. is under tremendous pressure to try to carve a western part of this brand new country out of the wilderness before the growing American talk of annexation becomes reality. He feels as if he’s in a race with a huge and powerful competitor who disdains, even ridicules him. But John A. Macdonald’s often-rash decisions and his callous refusal to recognize the Métis petitions can be viewed as his own racist disdain for these people. It must be God’s great joke to create a race that is composed of three such deeply troubled identities: French, Indian, and Catholic, all rolled into one! This people called the Métis, what a nightmare. Thankfully, they are mostly ignorant buffalo hunters and their population is small enough that they don’t deserve too much attention. That John A. dares to rub salt into the wounds of this people by appointing the notoriously anti-French William McDougall as lieutenant governor of the North-West Territories in September of 1869 and isn’t able to see the quick fallout of this provocation, which culminates just a few weeks later in Riel and company halting the surveyors, spells brewing trouble. It boils over before the Canadian government knows what’s happening.

  In part, John A. doesn’t want to recognize that this Louis Riel is adept at inclusion and has convinced many English half-breeds, European settlers, and a number of Indian tribes that they must stand up in unity if they are to hold any sway on their own land. Louis understands that this newly minted country of Canada is just two years old, and it acts like a bully who’s going to have trouble backing up its aggressive tactics. And Louis knows that this resistance doesn’t just end with stepping on a chain.

  To organize themselves better, the Métis create what they call the “Métis National Committee,” and it is in place just five days after the disruption of the surveyors. Louis agrees to become secretary and continues his policy of inclusion, inviting two representatives from each parish to help the Métis and other Red River settlers create an organized stand. The Hudson’s Bay Company, fearing its very fruitful deal with Canada might be in jeopardy, becomes involved, asking to meet with the committee to explain itself. It mustn’t come as a surprise to the council that the Métis oppose the placement of the anti-French McDougall to the powerful position of lieutenant governor of the whole area, and they warn the council that he will not be welcome to take up his position on their land. McDougall represents all the dangers the Métis face, and all their fears. He represents an encroaching government, the Métis believe, that frowns upon their hunting and subsistence-farming lifestyle, their religious beliefs, and their language. None of the Métis ways will be protected if the Canadians take control of Red River as planned. Simply put, McDougall will be turned back if he attempts to come here without the Canadians first negotiating a fair deal that includes protection of the Métis lifestyle and of the population in general.

  The Hudson’s Bay Company can’t directly control John A.’s political choices, they claim, and William McDougall and entourage arrive in the area in early November. Louis recognizes that the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Canadian government work in such unison that it will take a strike against both of them for the two powerhouse entities to listen. As promised, the Métis show up in force on November 2, 1869, and physically prevent McDougall from coming any farther, actually scaring him enough that he retreats to North Dakota. It is about this time that the Métis, their sense of humour intact, give McDougall the nickname Wandering Willie.

  Louis’s call for the Métis to stand up for themselves has worked in the last brief months, and the number of resisters has swelled. This day that Riel turns away McDougall becomes truly monumental when Riel makes the boldest move of his life. With four hundred followers behind him, he strikes at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s physical symbol of authority in this country, Fort Garry, and takes it over in a bloodless coup. There’s no turning back now.

  Both John A. and the Hudson’s Bay Company are forced to recognize that the Red River Métis are suddenly a force to be reckoned with. Maybe it’s just luck, but the Métis’ timing is impeccable. The Canadian government isn’t to take over control of this area for close to another month, and the Hudson’s Bay Company doesn’t have a standing army that can dislodge the Métis. Besides, for either the government or the Company to attempt to react with physical force is far too politically dangerous, time-consuming, and expensive a proposal.

  Now that Riel and the Métis find themselves in a rare position of power, they know that in order to succeed they need to centre it on a governing body that’s not just representative of the Métis but of all settlers. By late November they propose a provisional government consisting equally of English settlers and Métis that will negotiate directly with the Canadian government. But not all of the English are happy. Some are upset with how Riel has treated McDougall by turning him away, others don’t believe that Métis and English views dovetail, and others are simply so racist that the idea of existing on an equal basis with people who are not only French and Indian but Catholic is a ludicrous notion.

  A number of this minority, all of them English, led by Dr. John Christian Schultz and Charles Mair, call themselves the Canadian Party and try to rally others living in and around Red River, but most ignore their call. Dr. Schultz manages to raise about four dozen recruits, whom he uses to guard his house and store. He’s a well-to-do merchant in town, after all, and he’s been one of the most vocal opponents of Riel and the Métis.

  Riel underst
ands that he cannot allow such a threat to continue and orders Schultz’s house surrounded. Schultz and company surrender on December 7 and are imprisoned in Fort Garry. Included in the group is a particularly belligerent and angry Orangeman named Thomas Scott who takes great pleasure, it seems, in tormenting his captors.

  On December 8, riding the groundswell of success and support, Riel achieves his goal of forming a provisional government. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s Assiniboia Council demands that it should represent Métis and settler grievances, but Riel has no reason to believe that this council is best for the Métis, and it is agreed that his new government will enter direct negotiations with Canada.

  Just over a week before, on December 1, McDougall had foolishly declared himself the lieutenant governor of the North-West in absentia, not knowing that the Canadians had postponed the idea of taking over Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company when news of Métis unrest had reached Ottawa. McDougall, looking the fool, retreats to Ontario, and the vacuum of power is quickly filled by Riel and the provisional government. The Hudson’s Bay Company, John A. Macdonald, and the English Protestants who oppose the Métis are all left reeling, asking themselves how this could have happened. John A. must realize that he will now be forced to enter into discussion with the Métis, and hopefully cut any early losses.

  Over the course of the rest of December and well into January, the situation between Red River and Ottawa remains tense. John A. allows Governor General Lord Lisgar to declare an amnesty for any Red River Métis who will lay down their arms, but this goes basically ignored. John A. then sends the French Canadians Abbé Jean-Baptiste Thibault and Charles-René d’Irumberry de Salaberry to speak with the Métis, but the two men have little power to negotiate anything of importance. Eventually Hudson’s Bay representative Donald Alexander Smith is appointed by Ottawa with more authority to negotiate.

  Riel is elected president of the provisional government shortly after Christmas, and on January 19 and 20 he makes headway in negotiations when Smith promises Red River inhabitants, who are all now firmly behind Riel, that they will be fairly represented, that concessions to land claims will be extended, and that the Canadian government acts in good faith. Understanding the importance of this, Riel continues to make strides in his efforts to represent both French and English fairly, forming a convention of forty representatives, twenty from each language group, to discuss Smith’s promises and agree on a response. The representatives create a new list of rights, and a delegation is chosen that will head to Ottawa and enter into direct negotiations with Canada. Riel is pleased. His careful planning is working out, and the deaf ears of John A. appear to be opening.

  While the Métis prove themselves quite adept at political negotiations, their jailing skills leave something to be desired. Twice in the month of January, big breakouts occur, freeing basically all the leaders of the Canadian Party who so bitterly oppose Riel, including Dr. Schultz, Charles Mair, and the belligerent Thomas Scott. These men ride out in different directions and once again attempt to raise a militia that can violently oppose the actions of the vast majority of Red River, French and English alike. Riel doesn’t feel much concern. After all, he has the weight of the people behind him. In an act of goodwill, he orders the rest of the jailed Canadian Party freed in mid-February, on the promise that they will no longer agitate.

  Just a couple of days later, Riel’s talented horseback scouts detect a large party of armed men apparently heading toward Fort Garry. They alert the rest of Riel’s forces, who capture forty-eight men, including the party’s leader, Charles Boulton, one of the original surveyors who’d caused so much anguish for the Métis just last year. That a surveyor is attempting to lead an insurrection against the will of the people angers Métis and settlers alike. It’s clear to many that the actions of Boulton and the Canadian Party are fuelled by greed for land, land the Red River settlers have rights to since they have lived upon it for so long. Along with Boulton, the belligerent Thomas Scott is once again captured and thrown back into Fort Garry’s brig, where his tirades are so bitter and filled with hate that his guards complain repeatedly to their superiors.

  The provisional government is now faced with a harsh reality. These agitators are bent on the movement’s destruction, and clearly they won’t stop. Riel orders the trial of Boulton, and the jury votes in favour of his execution. The message that the Métis must be taken seriously is serious business indeed. When word of this decision reaches Canadian negotiators, they plead with Riel to pardon Boulton. Riel acquiesces. He’s not a bloodthirsty man and so agrees to release the surveyor. Boulton, Dr. Schultz, Mair, and the other agitators retreat to Ontario. Riel has no way of knowing that fifteen years later, in 1885, he will face Boulton once again, this time across a battlefield, and that Boulton will be rewarded for his pursuit of Riel by being made a senator.

  The ignoramus Thomas Scott, on the other hand, continues to scream out his poison hatred for the Métis, the French, the Catholics, and the Indians from his jail cell. The man is a rabid dog. He hears word that Riel has pardoned Boulton and takes this as an act of extreme weakness, ratcheting up his invective. His guards demand that Scott now be tried, this time for insubordination. And so it goes. Scott is accused and convicted of fighting with his guards, insulting the president, and defying the authority of the provisional government. None of these are capital crimes, so Scott must be shocked to silence when he is sentenced to execution by firing squad. Maybe he hopes for a pardon, and once again the Canadian authorities plead for this. But Riel is adamant this time. The Métis and the provisional government must be taken seriously, and if this means putting to death this poor excuse for a man, then so be it. Scott’s jailers have supposedly told Riel that if the provisional government does not kill the prisoner, they will.

  On March 4, 1870, Thomas Scott is taken from his cell and into the yard, blindfolded, tied to a post, and executed by firing squad. This action will haunt Riel for the rest of his years.

  Despite this setback, just two months and a week later, on May 12, 1870, after direct talks between John A. Macdonald and Métis representatives, the Manitoba Act becomes a reality. Métis grievances are heard, their list of rights is deemed realistic and acceptable, and on July 15, Manitoba is admitted into the Canadian confederation.

  While all this plays out on the public and political stage, the original Red River Canadian Party leaders, Dr. Schultz and Charles Mair, are forced to live in exile in Toronto, where they focus their full attention and money on inflaming hatred against the Métis in the Ontario newspapers. They use the execution of Thomas Scott as their rallying cry, and a drawing of an evil-looking Louis Riel shooting a defenceless Scott in the back of the head as he lies prone on the ground with his hands tied behind his back becomes a popular image of the brutality and cowardice of these Métis, despite the fact that the illustration’s depiction is so far from the reality.

  The influence and political power of Orangemen across Canada, and especially in the halls of Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, becomes evident when, despite successful negotiations between the Métis and the federal government, no guarantee for the amnesty of the leaders of the Red River resistance is attained. Riel is forced to view himself as a wanted man, despite his massive popularity in the newly formed province.

  In what the Canadian government terms an “errand of peace,” a Canadian military expedition led by Colonel Garnet Wolseley is dispatched to Red River in the summer of 1870 for the declared purpose of quelling talk of American expansionism. Ontarians cheer Wolseley’s expedition as the suppression of a Métis rebellion. When word reaches Riel that Wolseley approaches in waning August, Riel understands the reality. He faces arrest, imprisonment, and worse. For the second time in his young life, he is made to wander the wilderness, once again returning to Minnesota. Five years later, in 1875, Riel is formally exiled from Canada for five more years. And in the fourteen years between the day he is first forced to flee his homeland and the day Dumont appea
rs in Montana to ask him to return, Riel goes through a transformation that is nothing short of startling.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Promise

  Gabriel has long dreamed of an alliance between Métis and Indians of all nations. What could be more perfect? Now that the buffalo are all but gone, the people are hungry and discontent growls in their bellies. The Cree, Blackfoot, and others have been forced onto the reserves, and many are close to starvation. The Métis’ crops this summer of 1874 are poor, and unhappiness settles across the land like a drought.

  But Riel’s arrival has sparked something, and the news travels fast as a prairie fire that the Father of Manitoba has come here to try to help, to try to make things right. Riel’s welcomed as a hero, and large crowds flock to meet him. Gabriel watches as Louis speaks magnanimously at the home of his new host, his cousin Charles Nolin, easily winning over the trust of the Métis, and Gabriel witnesses Louis again a few days later, speaking wisely at a schoolhouse to a group made up largely of English settlers. Gabriel must feel that much more secure in the decision to bring Riel here to help when even the stiff and cautious English, many of whom were Riel’s dissenters back in Manitoba, are won over by Louis’s words. And if Louis loses some of that English support when he begins to win over the malcontent Indians, then so be it. But in these months of July and August, thanks to Louis’s speeches, speeches filled with words of harmony and a future and leadership and abundance and ownership, it seems that some of the ache of hunger, some of the anger at a federal government that won’t answer Métis petitions once again, are dulled by this great man’s words. Even the Catholic priests nod their heads when they hear Riel speak.

  John A. Macdonald, who had been forced to resign due to a railroad scandal, has found himself back in power again, now pushing as hard as ever for a railway that links the east with the west. And his policy of ignoring that which he finds distasteful continues. His deputies have bungled or “misplaced” both Métis petitions and government responses to those petitions, which basically demand once more that the Métis be recognized in the North-West. The bad taste of 1860s Manitoba has returned to the mouths of the Métis, in large part because of a new influx of surveyors and European settlers pouring into the country around Batoche and Saint-Laurent. It seems that the farther west the Métis push in pursuit of their staple food supply—the buffalo—and a life of solitary freedom, it isn’t long before these others follow and begin to jostle them for dominance. And so it isn’t a surprise that a summer of rather polite demands promises to turn into a winter of outright agitation and defiance of those who don’t even have the politeness to respond to repeated letter-writing. All the Métis know that when the railway finally crosses this country, a flood of new settlers will follow. If the government won’t accept Métis land claims now, they certainly won’t when the new arrivals come to stake their claims.