The Northwest Rebellion of 1885

1. The Northwest Rebellion of 1885 • The Métis wanted to gain title to the land they occupied, and they wanted some financial aid to help them become successful farmers. They did not want to rebel against the Canadian government. • However, the Canadian had a different agenda, one that was driven by the high cost of the CPR. • Macdonald had calculated that the revenue (profits) from selling the agriculturally viable land in the prairies would be about $71 million—more than all the money the government had poured into the CPR. • There was no way that the government would jeopardize this money by hearing the Métis petitions about “their” land.

2. As the costs for the CPR increased, the government began to slash funds to its Indian department. • They promised aid to start new lives as farmers, never materialized, and the Native peoples had to rely on food handouts from the government just to survive. • The government used these handouts, as a form of social control, and “difficult Indians” would receive no food.

3. Louis Riel Returns • In the summer of 1884, the Métis sent a delegation to Montana, where Louis Riel had lived since the mid-1870 as a schoolteacher. Riel returned with peaceful intentions, but his presence signified that another rebellion could take place. • The NWMP investigated and determined that between 500-1100 Métis and aboriginal people were ready to take up arms against the government. • In late 1884, a sympathetic European farmer and Riel collaborated on a Métis Bill of Rights. This bill was much more detailed than the 1869 List of Rights, and bore a closer resemblance to the Declaration of Independence which the American colonists sent to the British government in 1776.

4. Below are some grievances (complaints) listed in the Bill of Rights: • That the Indians are so reduced that the settlers in many localities are compelled to furnish them with food, partly to prevent them from dying at their door, and partly to preserve the peace in the Territory • That the Métis of the Territory have not received 240 acres of land, each, as did the Manitoba [Métis] • That the Métis who are in possession of tracts of land have not received patents [title] • That settlers are charged dues on timber, nails, and firewood required for home use

5. That customs duties are levied on the necessaries of life • That no effective measures have yet been taken to put the people of the Northwest in direct communication with the European markets, via Hudson Bay • That settlers are exposed to coercion at elections, owing to the fact that votes are not taken by ballot • Section 17 outlined that the government never lived up to the promises made for the North-West Territories, and detailed in the Manitoba Act.

6. As we learned the government saw a great opportunity of financing the railway by putting down a rebellion in the Northwest. • By the spring of 1885, the Canadian government was ready to call out the eastern militia. • At the same time, the Manitoba militia started moving into the Northwest, and the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West territories banned the sale of ammunition in his jurisdiction. • This meant that the Métis could not get any weapons to aid them in a possible rebellion. Ottawa’s only force near St. Laurent, in the heart of Métis territory, was Superintendent Lief Crozier’s small group of NWMP officers at Fort Carlton (see fig. 5-21). • On March 19, Louis Riel addressed the Métis at St. Laurent, telling them that the government was determined to make war on the Métis. He concluded that “Justice commands us to take up arms”.

7. The first clash was at Duck Lake, near Batoche (see fig. 5-22), as the two sides exchanged angry words while trying to negotiate. Two Métis delegates were shot, while twelve NWMP lay dead, and another twenty-five lay wounded. Crozier retreated to Fort Carlton—the Northwest Rebellion had begun. • Five-thousand Canadian troops were deployed to Batoche and St. Laurent from Regina. In April, 1600 militia clashed with Gabriel Dumont and fewer than sixty Métis at Fish Creek, just south of Batoche. They held off the troops for a day. • Reinforcements arrived at Batoche on May 9th. Some 725 militia attacked 175 Métis, and the Métis held their ground for three days. As the battle was drawing to a close, Riel and Dumont met for a last time near Batoche. • They were both distraught over the probable defeat and the loss of life. Riel was captured on May 15th; Dumont escaped to the US, where he spent the next decade in exile.

8. Following the Métis defeat at Batoche, Canadian troops arrested the leaders of the Northwest Rebellion, but either pardoned or sentenced them to a short prison term. • The government’s view of Native peoples was paternalistic (fatherly)—it viewed them as wayward children who had been misled by Riel, rather than people in desperate conditions driven to take desperate actions. • Riel was charged with treason against the government, an act which was punishable by death. His trial began in July 1885, and Riel’s three lawyers decided that he should plea not guilty by reason of insanity. • Riel refured and he decided to plead his case and that of his people infront of Judge Reichardson, a staunch Conservative supporter, and a six-man jury of English Protestants.

9. By this time Riel knew his fate, but he was also determined to show how the Métis had been mistreated and goaded into rebellion so that they would no longer be a force in the Northwest. • In his summation (outline) to the jury, Riel not only described the deprivation of his people (“I found the Indians suffering … I found the [Métis] eating the rotten pork of the HBC …”), he also placed the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the Canadian government.