The Early History of the Red River Settlement

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Earl of Selkirk, a Scottish nobleman, showed remarkably modern sympathetic feeling when he saw farmers being forced off their land: he decided to help. In 1803 he established a colony for impoverished Highlanders on Prince Edward Island, Canada. He asked the British government for a land grant in the Red River area of what is now the Canadian province of Manitoba; he was refused because Red River was in the vast territory known as Rupert's Land, which had already been granted to the Hudson Bay Company in 1670. Selkirk would not be discouraged and so bought enough shares in the Hudson Bay Company to gain control. This purchase gave Selkirk the power to get a land grant of 3000 square kilometers in the valley of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. This land became the Red River Settlement in 1812 and is today the city of Winnipeg, the capital of the Province of Manitoba.

Rupert's Land:

The vast 7,770,000 km² area known as Rupert's land lay to the west of the British Colony of Upper Canada. ¹
In 1840, there were between 30,000-40,000 people belonging to various First Nations living in Rupert's land. The Métis, a people descendant of marriages between French Catholic fur traders and First Nations women, had also become an important part of the population of Rupert's land. The Métis of the Red River Settlement were farmers, Hudson Bay Company employees, or self employed fur traders and trappers. Largely transient non-Metis Company employees were also a small presence scattered at forts along the rivers of Rupert's Land.

British Settlers

The first British settlers of the Red River valley arrived in late 1811 at the remote HBC trading post. They made the difficult journey to Red River and founded a settlement. Unfortunately, they arrived too late to plant crops, and endured a grueling first winter. They survived mainly because of the help they received from the local Métis.

In the spring of 1813, another group of settlers arrived.

Conflict

Assiniboia was formed from land grants given to the HBC. However, Assiniboia was in North West Company (NWC) territory and on an NWC trading route. The NWC thought that the HBC was trying to cut off their pemmican supplies. If this occurred, it would seriously disturb trading practices.

The Métis feared that the Red River settlers would interfere with their buffalo hunts. The NWC in turn, feared that food, especially pemmican, would become rare if the Métis no longer hunted buffalo.

Also, though the Métis had been farming the land in and around Assiniboia for generations, they had no legal title of deed for the land; they could legally be driven off the land by the settlers. As you can imagine, this worried them very much.

Conditions were harsh for the settlers, as food was always scarce. The governor of the Red River settlement, Miles Macdonell, passed a law that stated that no food could be taken from Assiniboia without a license; Macdonell would hand out the licenses. This angered the Métis, as selling pemmican ² to the NWC was a major source of income for them.

Thus, a very tense situation developed

The Métis began to destroy the settlers crops. Sometimes they made raids upon the settlement itself. By 1815, only 60 settlers remained.

In 1816, at a place called Seven Oaks, an armed conflict began between the Métis, led by Cuthbert Grant, and the settlers, led by Governor Semple. It was never established who fired the first shot, but when the encounter ended 1 Métis, 20 settlers and the governor lay dead on the ground.

The following year, Selkirk himself came to the colony with 90 German and Swiss soldiers; Selkirk effectively took control of the colony.

Soon many settlers began to return to the Red River settlement.

Effects:

After the merging of the NWC and the HBC, where there were formerly two forts, only one was needed and the other closed. This caused much unemployment. To make matters worse, with fewer men to feed, the pemmican trade declined. The HBC and NWC also had a monopoly on the fur trade in the area, and so furs were sold at very low prices (the trappers got low prices for their furs).

Métis Identity:

Before the events surrounding the Red River Settlement from 1812-1821, the Métis had been hunters, traders and employees of the NWC. When all of this changed, the Métis developed a fierce sense of unity, which was to greatly influence events in 1869 and 1870.

Later History:

Many of the Métis living in the Red River Settlement were of French decent. The Métis had developed a distinct identity and unique culture over the years.

The Canadian government was interested in Rupert's land for two major reasons. Those were:
1. There was little good farming land left in Ontario.
2. The Canadian governments goal was for Canada to stretch from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

In 1869, the Canadian government bought Rupert's land from the HBC. The government re-named it the North West Territories.³

The North-West Resistance:

The Canadian government decided to start sending surveyors into the North West Territories to begin mapping out roads before the official transfer in December 1869.

The people from the Red River Settlement, especially the Métis, were surprised by this. They had not been informed by the Canadian government that this was going to occur.

The Métis decided to stop the surveyors by taking away the chains the surveyors used for measurement. The surveyors gave up and left. The government of Canada also decided to appoint William MacDougal governor of the region. This greatly angered the Métis as MacDougal had been the one responsible for sending the road and land surveyors.

Louis Riel was a well educated Roman Catholic who emerged as leader of the Métis; Riel became the secretary of the Métis National Committee. The purpose of the committee was to negotiate with the Canadian government the future of the Métis people.

One of the first acts of the Métis National Committee took place on November 2nd, 1869. When Governor MacDougall tried to enter the Red River Settlement, his way was blocked by fourteen (14) armed Métis. He was told not to enter the colony until he had the permission of the inhabitants. This act however, was justified as MacDougall did not yet officially take over the North West Territories.

On the same day, the Métis National Committee seized Upper Fort Garry, the headquarters of the HBC without firing a shot. Inside, was enough food to last a large group the winter and a large amount of war making materials. The capturing of Upper Fort Garry allowed the Métis to negotiate with the Canadian government from a position of strong military strength.

It was important for the Métis to establish a united front in the face of the Canadian government. On November 16th, Riel met a 12 English and French speaking people representing the white community of the Red River Settlement. They discussed setting up a provisional government. At that time, Riel had the support of the majority of people in the Red River Settlement.

Macdonald did not want the Red River Settlement to become a part of Canada until order had been restored. However, the HBC did not want to step in to restore order, because it no longer had any control there. A few months later in 1869, MacDougall officially became governor of the region; he crossed the border and read aloud the proclamation claiming Rupert's Land for Canada, and left again.

On December 7th, Riel surrounded a store filled with a huge stock of government pork. He took the pork, and imprisoned the 50 men guarding the pork in the cells of Fort Garry.

Riel then drew up a Métis Bill of Rights and set up a provisional government.

Thomas Scott was a 28 year old laborer when he arrived in the Red River Settlement. He joined "the Canadians", a group of people who believed that English Protestants should control the North West Territories. He was imprisoned by Riel. He showed contempt for the Métis and attacked and abused his guards while imprisoned. Soon after being imprisoned, he escaped. He was once again captured by the Métis and sentenced to death. He was executed by firing squad on March 7, 1870.
This proved to be a major political mistake. The execution of Thomas Scott provoked unbridled outrage in all quarters. Many former supporters turned against Riel. Some demanded that MacDonald send an army to the Red River Settlement to bring Riel to justice.

The Manitoba Act:

After several months of consideration, the Canadian government agreed that the area surrounding the Red River Settlement should become a province. The government had originally planned to leave it as a territory. A province had much greater control over its own affairs than did a territory. That is why the Métis were negotiating to be a province.

On July 15th, 1870, the Manitoba act went into effect. Through this act, Canada's fifth province, Manitoba, came into being.

Colonel Wolsely:

Prime Minister Macdonald wanted to satisfy the demands of the citizens of Ontario and punish Riel. Finally, MacDonald sent a message to the Americans saying he had lost control over the area.

An expedition under Colonel Wolseley was dispatched to the Red River Settlement. Upon arriving, Wolseley couldn't find Riel. In anger he brutally beat one of Riel's second in command, and another drowned trying to escape. Riel, fearing for his life, escaped to the United States. However, his role in history was not over.

Causes of the North West Resistance:

Several major causes are attributed to playing a part in beginning the resistance. Those are:
1. Land Ownership. When the Métis settled in the NWT, the area had not been surveyed. But they new that eventually, the same thing that happened to them at the Red River Settlement would happen in the NWT too; that is they would be overwhelmed by the whites and subsumed. They wanted reserve rights but were not granted them.
2. Ability to earn a living. The Métis were traditionally buffalo hunters. But the buffalo had moved away from the area in which they were living. This took away an important source of income. Transporting goods was another major occupation for the Métis. With the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) being built, it looked as though the railway would perform this task. So the Métis turned to farming and agriculture. Just then however, a drop in grain prices made farming an untenable occupation. The Métis had no work.
3. Louis Riel. Riel came back to Canada from his exile in the United States, and convinced the Métis that the only way to resist the government was to use force.

The Resistance Begins in Earnest:

In 1884, Riel returned to Canada and met with various groups of Métis in Saskatchewan. He drew up a petition that demanded more rights and compensation for the Métis. MacDonald responded by offering all the Métis large land grants and money. They wanted more however, and asked Riel to stay to help them. Riel accepted.

When Riel asked for help from the Indians and settlers in the region, he was rebuffed. The Saskatchewan Herald remarked in an editorial on September 6, 1884 that Big Bear 'does not seem to be favourably impressed by the prospects held out to him by Riel.' In 1885, Riel and his men seized large amounts of ammunition and powder. Riel then set up a provisional military government; Gabriel Dumont was made head of that government. The rebellion officially began in 1885 when the first shot was fired at the Battle of Duck Lake. The Métis ambushed a group of RCMP and killed 12; 5 Métis died in the battle.

At the end of March, 1885, through snow covered land, Chief Poundmaker traveled with about 120 of his people to the town of Battleford to affirm their loyalty to the Crown. They found the town deserted and the five hundred townspeople sheltering in the Fort on the other side of the Battle River. After waiting through a day and a night for the government Indian Agent to meet with them, some of Poundmaker's men, despite orders to cease from the chiefs, looted the empty town of some amount of food and in the confusion caused widespread destruction. If the Indian Agent had answered one of the repeated requests for a meeting, Battleford likely would not have been looted.

⁴

At the beginning of April, just after what came to be called "Big Lie Day" among the Cree, at Frog Lake, Big Bear's war chiefs, concerned for their people who were hungry after the winter, and against the direct orders of Big Bear, took a number of government agents hostage. In the ensuing confusion, nine whites were killed. The Frog Lake Massacre is a part of the orthodox history of the Northwest Rebellion, although recent analysis of both archival evidence and Cree oral history shows that in fact, the First Nations, except for a few incidents only indirectly related to the Rebellion, tried desperately to remain loyal to their Treaty obligations.

When Prime Minister Macdonald got wind of these events, he sent 8000 troops to quell the rebellion. These troops were commanded by Col William Dillian Otter. These troops were headed for Fort Batoche, a Métis controlled area. Riel believed that it was his fate to defend Fort Batoche. The Battle of Fort Batoche lasted three days. Eventually, the Métis lost and were taken prisoner. Riel escaped but gave himself up after a few days. Dumont escaped, but Poundmaker surrendered in the hope of a fair trial. Big Bear escaped but soon gave himself up.

Riel's trial was relatively fast. He was sentenced to death for treason. Many of the French demanded that Riel be imprisoned, not hanged. MacDonald had the power to stop the hanging but did not. Louis Riel was hanged on November 16th, 1885.

On November 27, 1885, eight men were executed at Battleford in the largest mass execution in Canadian history. Miserable Man, Bad Arrow, Round the Sky, Wandering Spirit, Iron Body, Little Bear, Itka, and Man Without Blood were hanged simultaneously for their parts in the Frog Lake Massacre. They were watched by a crowd of their people who had been forced to attend. The eight were buried in a mass grave on the river bank. In time, their bones began to be eroded from the soil. In 1954, the Canadian Government placed a concrete cap on the grave to preserve the remains. Immediately after the executions, the Indians of the the area around Battleford lived in fear of being arrested and executed as a result of the rebellion of which they wanted no part. A great many fled to the United States and sought assylum in Montana, despite a general amnesty offered by the Canadian government a year after the executions.

The Results of the North West Rebellion: