June 19th, 1816 is an unforgettable date in the history of Western Canada and more particularly in the history of the Métis Nation. Indeed, if any event can be considered the birth of Métis nationalism, the evidence points to the Battle of Seven Oaks, also known as the Battle of Frog Plain or la Grenouillère. The action itself only lasted fifteen minutes, but it caused the death of one Métis and 21 inhabitants of the Red River Colony, in addition to having significant repercussions on the social, political, and economic evolution of the North West.
The Battle of Seven Oaks was an armed confrontation between sixty horsemen, mostly Métis, led by Cuthbert Grant, an employee of the North West Company (NWC), and the governor of the colony, Robert Semple, and his contingent of Hudson’s Bay company (HBC) officers and colonists. The fight took place on a marshy plain a bit north of Fort Douglas, an HBC establishment near the Red River.
The event took place after a series of skirmishes between the rival companies, which were fighting for the control the Fur Trade, as well as of the principal food source, pemmican. A series of escalating conflicts between the employees of each company had sown fear and discontent among the colonists who, for the most part, agreed to leave the Red River for Lower Canada. However, in the summer of 1815, Colin Robertson, an HBC agent, persuaded the group that had taken refuge on the north shore of Lake Winnipeg to turn back and rebuild the colony.
The NWC remained hostile to the colony, in large part due to the HBC’s previous attempts to impose severe restrictions on the movements, liberties and commerce usually conducted by NWC agents and their allies. Fearing a new attack on the colony, Robertson and his men took measures to block their rivals’ supply routes. In March, 1816, they seized Fort Gibraltar, the NWC’s strategic headquarters at the Forks a few kilometers from Fort Douglas, and demolished it in order to reinforce their own fort. The HBC also seized Pembina trading post, and thus controlled the two principal waterways in the NWC network.
However, a counter-attack was being prepared in the Qu’Appelle River Valley. Cuthbert Grant, who had been named the captain general of the Métis of the North West, gathered a considerable number of horsemen to escort a shipment of pemmican to Lake Winnipeg to supply the flotilla of canoes from Montreal which had to pass by en route to Athabasca. In retaliation for the destruction of Fort Gibraltar, the group stopped a flotilla of HBC canoes coming down the Qu’Appelle River and seized their shipment of pemmican destined for the Red River Colony. Flying the Métis flag—a horizontal 8 on a blue field—Grant’s small army escorted their boats of supplies back up the Assiniboine River and boldly seized Brandon House trading post. The horsemen continued towards Lake Winnipeg divided in two groups, one on each side of the Assiniboine River. Determined to lift the HBC’s blockade, they stopped at Portage-la-Prairie to prepare their raid on the colony.
The NWC’s strategy was to first meet the canoers from Montreal, who were unaware the HBC controlled the Forks. In addition to resupplying the flotilla, the NWC wanted to avoid any contention between it and Semple’s group. At the same time, the NWC wanted to establish communication by land between Qu’Appelle and Lake Winnipeg. To that end, a vanguard of about sixty men was sent to escort the carts bearing the pemmican shipment over the plain, with orders to keep their distance and to try and pass unnoticed by Fort Douglas and the colony
On June 19th, the vanguard left the banks of the Assiniboine River to find their way across the prairie to Lake Winnipeg. As they headed to their camp in a location they called Frog Plain, or la Grenouillère, their first group of scouts surprised some colonists in their fields. In order to stop them from warning the governor of their passing, the scouts held the colonists. The scouts, forced to shorten their route due to the swampy terrain, were spotted by a Fort Douglas sentinel.
Governor Semple gathered thirty men, including HBC officers and colonists, and set out in pursuit. The scattered Métis regrouped, and the two groups confronted each other in a place called Seven Oaks (or Sept-Chênes in French), about halfway between Fort Douglas and the camp in Frog Plain. There, the Métis horsemen formed a half-circle facing Semple’s men, who had their backs to the river. Governor Semple came forward and Cuthbert Grant sent an emissary, François-Firmen Boucher. The two men spoke and when Semple grabbed Boucher’s horse’s bridle, the Métis broke away and gunshots rang out. In a few moments, it was all over. Governor Semple, wounded, was killed by an Indigenous man as Grant approached to help him. Twenty of the governor’s men and one of Grant’s Métis met the same fate.
According to oral tradition, the Métis gathered that night in their Frog Plain camp to celebrate their victory. It was on this occasion that Pierre Falcon, the Red River Bard and Cuthbert Grant’s brother-in-law, composed a song recounting the day’s events which would become a sort of “national anthem for the Bois-Brûlés”.
But which side was responsible for this bloody incident?
In 1817, well-known lawyer William B. Coltman was sent by the governor of Lower Canada, John C. Sherbrooke, to investigate the circumstances that led to this tragic incident. Coltman’s report, written following a meticulous collection of evidence and interviews with witnesses from both camps, is known for its accuracy and objectivity. He maintained that Semple’s men fired the first shot, thus starting the battle that ended their lives. Many agreed, though they said it was only “a chance meeting in a swamp” or simply “the final act in a long drama”.
References
COUTTS, Robert et Richard STUART, editors. The Forks and the Battle of Seven Oaks in Manitoba History, Part II: Reflections on the Battle of Seven Oaks, Winnipeg, Manitoba Historical Society, 1994.
DAUPHINAIS, Luc, for the Société historique de Saint-Boniface. Histoire de Saint-Boniface. Tome I À l’ombre des cathédrales Des origines de la colonie jusqu’en 1870, Saint-Boniface, Les Éditions du Blé, 1991.
DICK, Lyle. “Historical Writing on Seven Oaks; the Assertion of Anglo-Canadian Cultural Dominance in the West”, in Robert Coutts and Richard Stuart, editors, The Forks and the Battle of Seven Oaks in Manitoba History, Part II: Reflections on the Battle of Seven Oaks, Winnipeg, Manitoba Historical Society, 1994, pages 65-70.
GIRAUD, Marcel. Le Métis canadien, Paris, Université de Paris, Institut d’Ethnologie, “Travaux et Mémoires de l’Institut d’Éthnologie”, Issue XLIV, 1945, 2nd edition, Saint-Boniface, Les Éditions du Blé, 1984, 2 vol.
MacLEOD, Margaret Arnett et W.L. MORTON. Cuthbert Grant of Grantown Warden of the Plains of Red River, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1963.
PRUD’HOMME, L.-A., “L’engagement des sept-chênes”, Transaction of the Royal Society of Canada, XII (December, 1918 and March, 1919), 3rd series, section I, pages 165-188.
TRÉMAUDAN, Auguste-Henri de. Histoire de la nation métisse, Montréal, Éditions Albert Lévesque, 1935.