Chapter 2. Confederation in Conflict
2.7 Rebellion 1885
After the Canadians arrived in Red River, much of the local Métis population departed. Canadian failure to respect the scrip they issued to the Métis for land was one factor, as was the virulent hostility of Orangemen outraged at the “martyrdom” of Thomas Scott. The Métis 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.
Métis Discontent
By 1875, Canadians had pretty much over-run the old Red River colony and Winnipeg was, for all intents and purposes, a Canadian city. More Métis, 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 Métis that at least one aspect of their old livelihood might continue. They established new farms – made up of long and narrow strips that were a legacy of the seigneurial system in New France – and erected churches and other elements of established communities. The most important settlements were Qu’Appelle, Duck Lake, and Batoche. It wasn’t 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.
In 1884, the dissatisfied and worried Métis of the South Saskatchewan sought out Louis Riel.
Riel after 1870
The 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.[1]
Soon after negotiations 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 — for Riel’s execution — 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.
Macdonald, eager to avoid a rupture in Canada, sent Riel money to remain in 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’s treatment was brutal:
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.’ [2]
He thereafter joined a Métis community in Montana — the American Northwest and Pacific Northwest was peppered with such enclaves, some of which da