{"id":68,"date":"2015-06-03T20:07:02","date_gmt":"2015-06-04T00:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/postconfederation2e\/chapter\/2-7-rebellion-1885\/"},"modified":"2020-07-21T19:29:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T23:29:56","slug":"2-7-rebellion-1885","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/postconfederation2e\/chapter\/2-7-rebellion-1885\/","title":{"raw":"2.7 Rebellion 1885","rendered":"2.7 Rebellion 1885"},"content":{"raw":"[caption id=\"attachment_2427\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"634\"]\"Printing<\/a> Figure 2.9 Efforts by the Anglo-Ontarian population in Winnipeg to dominate the Francophone community included an election riot in 1872 that targeted newspapers that were critical of John Schultz, including these printing presses at The Manitoban.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAfter the Canadians arrived in Red River, much of the local M\u00e9tis population departed. Canadian failure to respect the [pb_glossary id=\"851\"]scrip[\/pb_glossary] they issued to the M\u00e9tis for land was one factor, as was the virulent hostility of Orangemen outraged at the \u201cmartyrdom\u201d of Thomas Scott. The M\u00e9tis had options and there were many other communities on the Prairies to which they might turn. The most promising of these were arranged along the Saskatchewan River, particularly the South Branch.\r\n

M\u00e9tis Discontent<\/h1>\r\nBy 1875, Canadians had pretty much over-run the old Red River colony and Winnipeg was, for all intents and purposes, a Canadian city. More M\u00e9tis, disenchanted with the ways in which the Canadian regime neglected to address the issue of land entitlement, drifted toward the Saskatchewan Valleys. There were just enough bison left on the plains in the mid-1870s to create hope among the M\u00e9tis that at least one aspect of their old livelihood might continue. They established new farms \u2013 made up of long and narrow strips that were a legacy of the seigneurial system in New France \u2013 and erected churches and other elements of established communities. The most important settlements were Qu\u2019Appelle, Duck Lake, and Batoche. It wasn\u2019t long before Canadian surveyors arrived in the region and began redrawing local maps along the square section plan that had, in 1869, caused unrest to erupt in and around Red River.\r\n\r\nIn 1884, the dissatisfied and worried M\u00e9tis of the South Saskatchewan sought out Louis Riel.\r\n

Riel after 1870<\/h1>\r\nThe life and times of Louis Riel are dominated by his two confrontations with the power of Ottawa and the ambitions of Canada. It is easy to lose sight of the fact that he was very young in 1869, and a persecuted and confused man entering middle age in 1885.[footnote]A very good survey of the many historical representations of Louis Riel is Douglas Owram, \u201cThe Myth of Louis Riel,\u201d Louis Riel: Selected Readings<\/em>, ed. Hartwell Bowsfield (Mississauga: Copp Clark Pitman, 1988): 11-29.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nSoon after\u00a0negotiations with Canada were concluded in 1870, Riel decided to flee to the United States. He was only a few steps ahead of the Ontarian Orangemen who had volunteered for regiments that staggered toward Manitoba with a vendetta \u2014<\/strong> for Riel\u2019s execution \u2014<\/strong> in mind. On three occasions he was elected by voters in the West to represent them in the House of Commons in Ottawa; fearing for his life, he never took his seat.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_5239\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"800\"]\"Comic<\/a> Figure 2.10 Depictions of Riel run the gamut from opera to nude statues. Chester Brown\u2019s Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is an example, and evidence, of the continuing purchase Riel has on the public imagination. [Long Description]<\/a>[\/caption]Macdonald, eager to avoid a rupture in Canada, sent Riel money to remain\u00a0in the United States. He was granted amnesty, provided he stayed out of Canada for five years. But Riel suffered a mental health collapse and travelled to Quebec where he was a patient in two asylums. In one, according to historian Dan Francis, Riel\u2019s treatment was brutal:\r\n
He was routinely trussed up in a straitjacket because of his violent behaviour. He was allowed to exercise only under guard in the yard behind the main building and, he complained in a letter, 'I spend the night with chains around my feet and hands.' [footnote]Daniel Francis, \u201cSane or Insane? The Case of Rose Lynam\u201d<\/a>, Reading the National Narrative<\/em>, http:\/\/www.danielfrancis.ca\/content\/sane-or-insane-case-rose-lynam<\/a>, accessed 15 May 2015.[\/footnote]<\/blockquote>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_66\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"600\"]\"Political<\/a> Figure 2.11 The Science of Cheek; or, Riel's Next Move. Riel (loq.) -- \"Five Toussand Dollares! By gar, I shall arrest ze scoundrel myself!\" J.W. Bengough is widely regarded as the pioneer of political cartooning in Canada. This one from April 1874 finds Riel in Ottawa, where it was alleged he stole into the Commons, signed the register, and snuck off again. [Long Description]<\/a>[\/caption]He thereafter joined a M\u00e9tis community in Montana \u2014<\/strong> the American Northwest and Pacific Northwest was peppered with such enclaves, some of which dated to the 18th century. He married a M\u00e9tis woman (Marguerite Monet, n\u00e9e Bellehumeur) and they had three offspring, none of whom survived childhood. Riel\u2019s mental health issues may not have been fully resolved, as he announced that he was receiving visions of a sovereign M\u00e9tis state in the Prairie West. He wrote prolifically, taught at a Montana school, joined the Republican Party and took out American citizenship. In June 1884, Gabriel Dumont (1837-1906) arrived with a delegation of M\u00e9tis,\u00a0anglophone country borns, and Canadian settlers. They\u00a0persuaded Riel to return to Canada (that is, to the Northwest), and initiate a new round of negotiations with Ottawa. Riel\u00a0agreed, with conditions.\u00a0It would dawn on Dumont and the rest of the delegation\u00a0only later that Riel\u00a0was not the man he had been\u00a0in 1870.\r\n

From Protest to Rising<\/h1>\r\nAt the start, Riel demonstrated good organizational skills and made use of key personnel. He set about building a coalition of disaffected peoples on the Prairies. Under Riel\u2019s leadership and by the hand of Canadian settler William Henry Jackson, the communities of the area around Prince Albert produced a petition calling for: relief to the Indigenous peoples, land disbursements to the M\u00e9tis, easier access to additional lands for homesteaders, free elections, and the establishment of new provinces with rights at least as great as those of Manitoba. Riel and his allies would dress this up in the language of \u201cloyal British subjects\u201d so as to douse the idea that this was a document produced by people who rejected Ottawa\u2019s rule.[footnote]Jennifer Reid, Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada: Mythic Discourse and the Postcolonial State<\/em> (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008), 18.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nIn March 1885, after three months and with no reply from Ottawa, the coalition took its next step. As was the case 15 years earlier at Red River, they established a Provisional Government. Within a week Dumont\u2019s troops engaged a body of 53 NWMP, along with more than 40 volunteers in the Prince Albert militia, on a snowy road between Fort Walsh and Duck Lake. The skirmish lasted barely 30 minutes and the NWMP\/Volunteer casualties were severe: a dozen dead and another eleven injured. The M\u00e9tis lost five, including Dumont\u2019s brother, Isadore, and the Cree leader Assiwiyin. The small battle set off a panic among the NWMP, who withdrew from the Saskatchewan River Valley in haste. Even if their strategy was badly underdeveloped, at this stage the M\u00e9tis had established a considerable advantage over Canada. Duck Lake was enough to instigate a Canadian military response but it was soon eclipsed by events at Battleford and Frog Lake.\r\n\r\nIndigenous unrest finally spilled over. A farming instructor was murdered on the Mosquito Reserve and the northern Cree leader, Pitikwahanapiwiyin (aka: Poundmaker, 1842-1885), marched his followers and some Nakoda (aka: Stoney) Sioux into Battleford on 30 March. The town was abandoned by alarmed settlers and the [pb_glossary id=\"861\"]Indian Agent[\/pb_glossary] was unwilling or unable to offer the Cree-Nakoda protest group any food or resources. Looting of empty homes followed. At Frog Lake on 2 April, Mistahimaskwa\u2019s Cree broke with their moderate leader and attacked and killed nine settlers, including the Indian Agent. Two weeks later Fort Pitt was captured, although this time without bloodshed.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_67\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\"]\"Two<\/a> Figure 2.12 The Halifax Provisional Battalion fords a stream near Swift Current, part of the \"Canadian\" expedition into the North West in 1885.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe tide was about to turn violently against the M\u00e9tis and First Nations forces. Only one day after the battle of Duck Lake, news of the incident reached Ottawa via the new telegraph technology that paralleled the Canadian Pacific Railway line. This was one feature of a technological revolution that had taken place on the Plains since the Red River resistance. Macdonald had barely to request volunteers for militia duty: local newspapers across Canada, from Fort William to Sydney, were calling for and sponsoring local regiments. The troops who showed up to head west were proof of how a \"Canadian\" sentiment was growing across the former separate (and sometimes rival) colonies; they were also proof of a badly underdeveloped Canadian military. Each regiment wore colours associated in some way with their home communities rather than with a national regiment, let alone an army. Two weeks after call-up, about 8,000 soldiers (almost all of them inexperienced) were boarding trains and speeding west. The ability to do so had not been there in 1870; Riel\u2019s failure to cut the rail line or telegraph line suggests that he did not appreciate the extent to which the world had changed since Red River.\r\n\r\nMajor-General Frederick Middleton and Lieutenant-Colonel William Otter led a two-pronged attack on the Cree-Nakoda forces and the M\u00e9tis Provisional Government headquarters at Batoche. Over three days, from the 9th through the 12th of May, Middleton\u2019s Winnipeg Militia pounded away at the M\u00e9tis position. Vastly outgunned, the M\u00e9tis nevertheless held out until their ammunition was exhausted. In a battle that was reminiscent of the M\u00e9tis-Sioux clash at Grand Couteau in 1851 and foreshadows the Belgian theatre of war in 1916-17, the M\u00e9tis sharpshooters picked off their enemies from a series of trenches dug in preparation for the assault. As the M\u00e9tis resistance failed, many of their troops and leaders fled. Three days after the battle, Riel surrendered to Middleton. He would be tried, convicted, and hanged in Regina.\r\n

The Cree vs. Canada<\/h1>\r\nThe resistance to Canadian ambitions in the West was not over. Otter\u2019s troops performed less well against the Cree:\u00a0at Cut Knife Hill and Eagle Hills, and at Frenchman\u2019s Butte and Loon Lake, the Cree scored significant victories. However, the Canadians were wearing them down.\u00a0The\u00a0leadership status of Pitikwahanapiwiyin and Mistahimaskwa was compromised when they\u00a0surrendered on 26 May and 2 July respectively.\r\n\r\nIn the 1885 trials that followed in Battleford, the outcomes for the Indigenous leadership were particularly bad. Eight men \u2014<\/strong> among them Kapapamahchakwew (aka: Wandering Spirit), and the two Nakoda leaders, Itka and Man Without Blood \u2013 were tried in October and condemned to hang. Some traditional Plains cultures believe that the soul is located in the neck and so the idea of hanging was especially horrific. One of the condemned men unsuccessfully requested death by firing squad instead. A gallows large enough to hang eight men at once was built and the mass execution took place on 27 November. The fate of Pitikwahanapiwiyin and Mistahimaskwa\u00a0(considered in Section 2.8<\/a>) was only slightly better.\r\n\r\nIn the aftermath of the executions, many Cree and Nakoda fled to the United States. While the story of Sitting Bull and the Dakota Sioux\u2019s flight into Canada is relatively well known, the fact that a couple of hundred Indigenous people from the Canadian Plains thought themselves safer south of the Medicine Line is not.[footnote]Blair Stonechild and Bill Waiser, Loyal till Death: Indians and the North-West Rebellion<\/em> (Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 1997), 222-5.[\/footnote]\r\n
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Key Points<\/h2>\r\n