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Louis Riel and the Dispersion of the American Metis

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Louis Riel and the Dispersion of the American Metis Louis Riel and the Dispersion of the American Metis Thomas Flanagan THE METIS leader Louis Riel is perhaps best knoxvn to country. Riel led the metis xvho lived at the forks of the readers of Minnesota History in connection with the Red and Assiniboine rivers in a movement of resist­ Red River insurrection of 1869-70. When Canada ance, insisting that Canada meet certain metis demands agreed to purchase Rupert's Land, the immense fur- before taking possession of Rupert's Land. The metis trading preserve of the Hudson's Bay Company, no one xvere clamoring for local self-government, recognition of bothered to consult the mixed-blood inhabitants of the their French language and Catholic religion, and pro­ tection of their traditional land holdings and other cus­ tomary rights, such as free trade xvith the Lhiited States.^ ^ Here and txvo paragraphs beloxv, see txvo works by George F. G. Stanley: Louis Riel (Toronto, 1963) and The In one sense the metis resistance was a success. It Birih of Western Canada: A History of the Riel Rebellions forced the Canadian government into negotiations in (London and Nexv York, 1936). The former is the authoritative xx'hich many of the metis demands were conceded and biography of Riel, legally entrenched in the Manitoba Act vx'hich gave birth to the province of that name. Hoxvever, the victory xvas Mr. Flanagan, head ofthe depariment of political science at the University ofi Calgary in Alberia, is the author of Louis tainted by the debacle of Thomas Scott's execution. "David" Riel: "Prophet of the Nexv World " and numerous Scott, an Ulster Orangeman xx'ho had also lix'ed in On­ other works on Riel and the metis. tario, belonged to the small Canadian faction in Red LOUIS RIEL (center) and some of his associates in 1869: top row, Charles Larocque, Pierre Delorme, Thomas Bunn, Xavier Pagee, Ambroise Lepine, Baptiste Tourond, Thomas Spence; center row, Pierre Poitras, John Bruce, Riel, W. B. O'Donoghue, Frangois Dauphinais; front row, H. F OLone, Paul Proulx. riage between the two locations. Typically the British metis, especially from White Horse Plains, would join forces xvith the Pembina metis for the great buffalo hunts on the Dakota prairies. Particularly after Norman Kittson opened a trading post at Pembina in 1844, the conimerce of the Red River settlement xvas like a barrel tapped at both ends: part flowing south to St. Paul through Pembina, part flowing north to England through Hudson Bay." The writing of history should transcend the political stereotypes of the nation-state. Riel and the metis are not merely Canadian topics; they are an integral part of the history ofthe north-central United States. Or, to put it more clearly, the 49th parallel as a political boundary was artificially imposed on the metis' social reality. Their history as a people cannot be grasped unless it is followed on both sides of the border. This article is a small step in that direction.'^ After Riel's flight to safety in St. Joseph, his subse­ quent participation in Canadian politics was contingent on receiving an amnesty for the ill-conceived execution of Thomas Scott. Riel was three times elected Member of Parliament for the constituency of Prox'encher in southern Manitoba, but he could never take his seat be­ cause the Canadian capital of Ottawa lay in the province of Ontario, xvhere there xvas a warrant for his arrest over the Scott affair. After much wrangling, Parliament x'Oted Riel an amnesty of sorts on February 12, 1875, but only on condition that he be banished from Canada for five years.'* LOUIS RIEL, about 1876 FOR SOME TIME Riel had found in religious mysti­ cism a major consolation for his political reverses. The River Settlement that tried to oxerthroxv Riel s goxern­ sentence of banishment opened the floodgates of pro­ ment. The metis imprisoned Scott for ""counter-revolu­ phetic inspiration. Riel began to see himself as the di­ tionary" activities and, xx'hen he proved difficult to con­ vinely inspired "Prophet of the New World, " xxith a trol in captix itx', executed him by firing squad on March special mission to perform. He xvas called to reform re­ 4, 1870. Riel wanted to make his provisional govern­ ligion in the New World and to announce that the metis ment respected, but this gratuitous act of brutality xx'as a were a new "Chosen People." He was staying in Wash­ terrible mistake. It so inflamed opinion in Canada ington, D.G., when the decisive breakthrough occurred against Riel that he was forced to flee Manitoba xxhen in the form of an experience of mystical illumination.'^ Canadian troops arrived in the new province in August, 1870. " Rlioda R. Gilman, Carolyn Gilman, Deborah M. Stultz, Riel took refuge in St. Joseph, Dakota Territorx. In The Red River Trads: Oxcart Routes Between St. Paul and fact, he spent about half his adult life in the United the Selkirk Settlement 1820-1870, t-27 (St. Paul, 1979); Nancy States. He was south of the Canadian border episodi­ L. Woolxvorth, "Gingras, St. Joseph, and the Metis in the cally in 1866-68 and 1870-75 and lixed continuously in Northern Red River X'allev: 1843-1875," in North Dakota History, 42:16-27 (Fall, 1975). the United States from January, 1878, to June, 1884, ' Alvin C. Gluek, Jr., Minnesota and the Manifest Destiny becoming an American citizen on March 16, 1883. ofthe Canadian Northwest: A Study in Canadian- American Like Riel, the Red River metis are as much an Relations, especiallx' 262-294 (Toronto, 1965). .\nierican as a Canadian phenomenon. Their settle­ * Stanley, Louis Riel, especiallx 196-213. ments at Pembina and St. Joseph (now Walhalla), Da­ Here and beloxv, see Thomas Flanagan, Louis "David"' kota Territory, were economicalh' and socially a south­ Riel: "Prophet ofthe New World," chapters 2 and 3 (Toronto, 1979); Thomas Flanagan, "Louis Riel; A Case Study in InvoL ern prolongation ofthe larger iiu'tis colonx to the north. untarx' Psxchiatric Confinement," in Canadian Psychiatric There was a great degree of movement and intermar­ Association Journal, 23:463-468 (November, 1978). 180 Minnesota History His friends thought he had lost his mind. Thex' took tors from Winnipeg. Bx- March 9, 1879, at the latest, he him secretly back to Canada to stax' xvith his aunt and xx-as staying on the farm of Xornian Gingras near St. Jo­ uncle in Montreal. When they could not repress his seph. ' mystical exaltation, they conimitted Riel to the insane Norman, son of the pioneer trader Antoine Blanc asylum near .Montreal on .March 6, 1876. .\fter txx'o Gingras, had long been a merchant in Pembina and St. months he was transferred to the asylum at Beauport, a Joseph. Now he and other members of the metis bour­ suburb of Quebec City, xxhere he remained until his re­ geoisie xxere rapidly being supplanted b\' businessmen lease on January 23, 1878. He seemed ""cured" of his of a new type. Throughout the 1870s, the nujtis popula­ delusions only in the sense that he had become more tion of Pembina/St. Joseph, xvhich had numbered per­ circumspect about revealing them. haps as much as 2,000 at its peak, liad been drifting Upon his release, he went to stay with a friendly axx'ay. The metis hunters had to folloxv the buffalo ever priest. Father Fabien Barnabe of Keeseville, Nexx' York. farther into .Montana, the last .•\merican frontier. The He lived there until almost the end of 1878 and fell in able-bodied hunters left with their families, leaving be­ love xx'ith Father Barnabe's sister Exelina. .-Although hind the old and the relatixelx fexv metis xvho xvere they xx'ished to marry, Riel could not seem to find suit­ strongly attached to commerce or farming.''' able employment in the East and thus could not support her. In December, 1878, he xxent to St. Paul, .Minne­ THIS EXODUS, xvhich xxas paralleled north of the sota, hoping to interest Bishop John Ireland in a scheme border, is a sad story that has nexer been fully told. For to locate French-Canadian colonists in the .\iiierican three-quarters of a centurx', mentis ofthe Red River \'al- West. Riel succeeded in seeing Ireland, but nothing ley, from St. Joseph to St. Boniface, had constituted a came of it. The astute bishop xxas probably mistrustful of unique society. Dominating the buft'alo hunt and the Riel's reputation as a political firebrand.^' cart train business, they had carved out for themselxes a After spending a few days with his uncle Frank Riel special niche in the economx- ofthe fur trade. Defeating in Minneapolis, Riel xvent north to Pembina. He could the Sioux in pitched battles, thex- had controlled the now travel by train as the railxvay line had been com­ Dakota prairies xvhen neither the British nor American pleted during 1878 to St. Vincent, just across from governments could haxe projected anx poxx-er into the Pembina on the Vlinnesota side of the Red River. Riel region. Thex' had schools, churches, and celebrations. remained in Pembina for a time and receixed some xisi- They exen had their oxvn language, xxhich has recendx' come to light again at the Turtle Mountain Reserxe in "_ Flanagan, Louis "David" Riel. 100. North Dakota. Assuming the metis of the last centurx' Louis Riel to Joseph Riel, March 9, 1879, in MG 3 D2, spoke as their descendants do todax', they had dexeh Provincial Archives of Manitoba, Winnipeg. oped a singular Creole dialect in xvhich the nouns xx'ere * Woolxvorth, in Norih Dakota Hi.story.
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