DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
True Left
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Colonial Era
*****************************************************
#Post#: 9681--------------------------------------------------
Louis Riel
By: guest55 Date: November 7, 2021, 10:12 am
---------------------------------------------------------
The Indigenous Rebel Who Took the Fight to White Settlers
[quote]As colonists spread across North America, Louis Riel took
up arms — and was demonized in Canada’s history books. After 150
years, it’s time to reevaluate his legacy.[/quote]
[quote]On March 5, 1885, a group of 11 Indigenous men gathered
in secrecy in the Saskatchewan Valley, a forested stretch of
central Canada. Their leader, Louis Riel — a white-passing
40-year-old Indigenous man with a prominent mustache — had the
militant men sign an oath pledging to “save our country by
taking up arms if necessary.”
The country he referenced was the wide swathe of Canada that
Indigenous people like him had called home for centuries, and
that, like most of North America at the time, was now under
threat from white settlers. In the 1880s, pamphlets were being
distributed across eastern Canada (and also in England)
encouraging people to settle in the Saskatchewan Valley, where
their pioneering spirit would be rewarded with free homesteads
of “wheat and grazing land.” The problem, however, was that
Indigenous people like Riel were already living on the land that
settlers were being told they could take for free.
The oath that Riel and his men took would help trigger the
North-West Rebellion, an act of Indigenous resistance that
attempted to establish sovereignty for the Métis people in the
prairies of Canada. The Métis people, who share mixed Indigenous
and European ancestry, have a culture and traditions that are
distinct from those of other Indigenous groups in Canada, as
well as those of European settlers. Their ancestral homeland
stretches across Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as
into parts of other provinces and the northern United States.
According to a 2016 count, there are approximately 587,500 Métis
in Canada, accounting for 1.7 percent of the country’s total
population.
The rebellion would lead to Riel’s downfall, but it would also
have a lasting impact on Canadian politics and Indigenous
rights. Riel remains one of the most controversial figures in
Canada’s history. In most accounts of the country’s history, he
has been presented as a villain — a violent Indigenous rebel who
challenged the Canadian government. But now, as Manitoba, the
province he helped found, reaches its 150th anniversary this
month, and as activists put a spotlight on Canada’s suppression
of Indigenous rights — like their recent attempt to shut down
and arrest Indigenous people protesting a pipeline on
Wet’suwet’en land — the time has come for a reexamining of Louis
Riel’s legacy.
Louis Riel was born on October 22, 1844, in the Red River
Colony, in what is now known as Winnipeg, the capital of
Manitoba, to a Métis father and a white mother. Louis Riel Sr.
was a miller and farmer, and as Thomas Flanagan wrote in his
book Louis Riel, “an outspoken advocate of Métis rights,” just
like his son would be. Riel’s mother, Julie Lagimodière, was the
daughter of the first white woman to live permanently in the
North-Western Territory, which stretched from what is now
Manitoba to British Columbia.[/quote]
[quote]Lagimodière was extremely passionate about religion, an
interest she passed down to her intelligent young son. At age
14, Riel was sent to Petit Séminaire of the Collège de Montréal
to study to become a priest. At age 20, his father died
prematurely, and Riel he stopped his training in order to
support his family by being a law clerk.
Much about Riel’s young adulthood is unknown, but he may have
moved to Minnesota, where his uncle lived. During this time, a
drought ravaged the prairies, where Riel’s mother still lived
with his eight siblings. In 1868, at the age of 23, Riel
returned to his native Red River Colony to help his family. His
return to Red River coincided with the development of what
Flanagan describes as Riel’s “vaulting ambition and radical
politics” and desire “to atone for” leaving his family during
periods of hardships. His actions a year later would cement his
place in Canadian history.
At the time of Riel’s rebellion, the Canadian government was
extremely new, and its power was fragile. Like the United
States, Canada had separated from England, becoming its own
country on July 1, 1867. However, Canada remained part of the
Commonwealth of England, and it relied on the support of the
Crown even after independence. But the dominant power in
Rupert’s Land — a region that included what is now Manitoba —
was neither the Canadian government nor the Crown, but rather a
private business.
The leading player in the fur-trading industry, the
Scottish-owned Hudson’s Bay Company — which today owns and
operates stores across Canada — was so all-powerful in the
region that when Canada sought to expand westward, the
government needed to negotiate with Hudson’s Bay. According to
journalist Alexander Begg’s 1871 book The Creation of Manitoba:
Or, A History of the Red River Troubles, the lieutenant-governor
of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory traveled to
England to speak to Queen Victoria to get her assistance in
convincing Hudson’s Bay Company to “relinquish their claim to
the country.” [/quote]
[quote]Hudson’s Bay Company agreed to sell the land to Canada
under the Rupert’s Land Act, in exchange for 300,000 pounds
sterling, which is approximately 36 million pound sterling — or
$45 million — in 2020. Many Métis people worked in the
fur-trading industry and had a largely amicable relationship
with Hudson’s Bay Company. But according to Begg, in the
discussions between Hudson’s Bay and Canada over the future of
Rupert’s Land, “not a word was spoken regarding the inhabitants
of the country.”
With the land transfer date of December 1, 1869, looming, the
Métis began to organize a resistance to the Canadian government,
as they were afraid that they would lose title to their home.
Riel started to hold meetings with other Métis leaders in Fort
Garry, a trading post in what is now downtown Winnipeg. Begg
wrote that “some three or four hundred men assembled together at
the barrier [of the fort] with the avowed object of keeping Mr.
McDougall [the lieutenant-governor] out at all hazards.”
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, there were a series of
meetings between the Métis and those locals who remained loyal
to the Crown, during which “one of the Queen’s soldiers”
criticized the resistance movement and reported (perhaps
exaggeratedly at this point) that “the country was in a state of
armed rebellion.”
Seven days after the land transfer, the Métis defied the
Rupert’s Land Act by forming their own provisional government at
the Red River Colony. John Bruce was named its first president,
and Riel its secretary. Bruce soon fell ill and stepped down as
president on December 27, replaced by the 25-year-old Riel, who
the Inquirer described as “the most active spirit” of the Métis.
By the start of 1870, it was no longer a question of if the
Métis would fight against the Canadian government, but when.
Newspapers across Canada, the United States and England were
abuzz with speculation about what would happen to Rupert’s Land.
There was no shortage of attempts to discredit Riel and his
movement. In a letter published by The Examiner and London
Review on January 22, 1870, English journalist F.W. Chesson, who
was best known as an anti-slavery campaigner, attempted to
discredit Riel by claiming that “the insurgent
Commander-in-Chief is a pure French Canadian” and that the fight
for Métis sovereignty was then “a Colonial and not an aboriginal
one.” [/quote]
[quote]Despite attempts to mar Riel and the new provisional
government, the Métis continued with their mission of obtaining
sovereignty over their land. On February 17, a group of 48 armed
Canadians were taken prisoners by the Métis. A little less than
a month later, Riel ordered one of the prisoners, Thomas Scott,
to be executed by firing squad, infuriating Prime Minister John
A. Macdonald. Scott was allegedly singled out for taunting Métis
guards with racist comments while he was imprisoned.
In May, the Canadian government took two major and seemingly
contradictory actions. On May 12, the Canadian Parliament passed
the Manitoba Act, which created the province of Manitoba, while
meeting two main demands of the resistance: The Métis people
were given title to the land where they lived, and they would be
allowed to have publicly funded Roman-Catholic schools, in
accordance with their religious practices. Yet during this same
period, Prime Minister Macdonald authorized Field Marshal Garnet
Wolseley to seize control over Fort Garry, by any means
necessary, in retaliation for the killing of Scott.
In a letter published in Begg’s book, Wolseley addressed “the
loyal inhabitants of Manitoba” and told them that his “mission
is one of peace, and the sole object of the expedition is to
secure Her Majesty’s sovereign authority.” Wolseley’s expedition
with the Royal American Regiment began in August.
George Lightfoot Huyshe, a soldier who wrote an account of the
expedition in the 1871 book The Red River Expedition, claimed
that he had heard that Riel called a meeting with 600 men to
“organize an armed resistance to the entry of the troops,” but
that the Métis and other residents of Fort Garry rebuked Riel’s
idea. They simply did not have the resources to wage a serious
fight against Wolseley’s troops.
Without much bloodshed, the Red River Rebellion was finished.
Mere months after the Manitoba Act had theoretically granted
them title to their own land, the Métis had been pushed out by
force. Riel fled to Montana.
The next 14 years of Riel’s life would be extremely tumultuous,
marked by frequent moves and worsening mental health problems.
According to Jill Mahoney’s article in The Globe and Mail, Riel
returned to Manitoba in May of 1871, but the following year left
for the United States again, at the request of Prime Minister
Macdonald, who sought to reduce tensions between Riel’s
supporters and the government.
Between October 1873 and September 1874, Riel was elected three
times to the Canadian Parliament in by-elections, but he never
took his seat, in part because there was a bounty placed on his
head by the premier of Ontario, which prevented him from
returning to Canada. [/quote]
[quote]In 1875, Riel started to refer to himself as a prophet of
the Métis people, which would coincide with concerning conduct,
such as incidents in which he reportedly tore off his clothes
and started roaring like a bull. For a period of time, he was
confined (under a false name) to the St. Jean-de-Dieu asylum in
Montréal, where he was diagnosed with “delusions of grandeur.”
Critics of Riel have long pointed to his mental health problems
as an issue that should sink his credibility. Canadian
journalist Maggie Siggins, author of the biography Riel: A Life
in Revolution, counters that his mental collapse was
understandable, stating in a 1994 CBC radio interview that “he
had been hounded for five years with a $5,000 price tag on his
head, being almost assassinated several times, and he was
watching the politics of Manitoba and Canada unfold, and he was
no longer part of it. It was a horrible disappointment.”[/quote]
...
[quote]In the 1990s, Riel’s legacy began to shift. In 1992,
after years of advocacy from Métis groups, the Canadian
Parliament recognized Riel as a founder of Manitoba. In a radio
interview with CBC, Yvon Dumont, who would later become the
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, described this action as a step
in the right direction, saying that Métis groups sought to
persuade the Canadian government “to promote the role of Louis
Riel and the role of the Métis in the development of Canada.”
In the 28 years since then, several members of the Canadian
Parliament have introduced bills attempting to exonerate Riel,
but they have all failed. Manitoba now celebrates Louis Riel
Day, on the third Monday of February, but he is not celebrated
on a federal level.
May 12, 2020, marks the 150th anniversary of the Manitoba Act,
when the Canadian government made a false promise to the Métis
people. While Canada has transformed in many ways since then,
the national government’s views toward the self-determination of
Indigenous peoples continue to differ in action from what they
claim at face value. Over the past year, members of the
Wet’suwet’en First Nation faced police brutality at the hands of
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as they defend their land from
a pipeline that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau originally
authorized without significant consultations with Indigenous
communities.
As Riel awaited trial, his fate already all but certain, he
expressed hope that one day the Métis would be able to reclaim
what belonged to them. He wrote of the power of art in the
Indigenous community, likely referring to the oral tradition of
storytelling that has survived throughout so many centuries of
trauma. “My people will sleep for one hundred years,” Riel
wrote, “but when they awake, it will be the artists who give
them their spirit back.”[/quote]
Entire article:
HTML https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-indigenous-rebel-who-took-the-fight-to-white-settlers?utm_source=pocket-newtab
*****************************************************