INTRODUCTION
1. This has changed quite dramatically. Several Métis artists have become well known in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, including Christi Belcourt, David Garneau and many others.
2. Taché, Sketch of the North-West of America, 206.
3. Clément Chartier, QC, Paul Chartrand, IPC, Jason Madden, Marc LeClair, Kathy Hodgson-Smith, Michelle LeClair-Harding and Lionel Chartrand.
4. Dobbin, The One and a Half Men, attributing the quote to James Dreaver.
5. Begg, History of the North-West, 1:161–62.
6. Giraud, The Métis in the Canadian West, 1:477.
7. Stanley, The Birth of Western Canada, 8.
8. Flanagan, Louis “David” Riel: Prophet of the New World, 30.
9. Trémaudan, Histoire de la nation métisse.
10. Gaudry, “Communing with the Dead,” 170; Gaudry and Leroux, “White Settler Revisionism,” 116–42.
11. In October 2018 the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs and the Métis National Council signed a Memorandum of Understanding, agreeing to work collaboratively on the issue of individuals claiming Métis ancestry in Nova Scotia. Both the Métis Nation and the Mi’kmaq are concerned that these claims undermine their respective nations’ right to determine their own citizens and protect their rights and title.
CHAPTER 1: THE OLD WOLVES
1. Lii vyeu is the name for elders in the Métis language, Michif. There is a photo in the Teillet Family Papers called “Les anciens de l’Union Nationale Metisse.” Bernard Bocquel entitled his book about these men and their descendants Les Fidèles à Riel.
2. At the same time in Batoche, Saskatchewan, a group of Métis was also organizing as l’Association Saint Joseph. Louis Riel had founded the first Métis association in Batoche in 1884. He named it l’Union Métisse Saint-Joseph.
3. Over the years the Métis had several flags. This one had a white background with a Union Jack in the top left-hand corner and three gold fleurs-de-lis in the other corners. The flag at the 1887 Batoche meeting had an image of Saint Joseph, a buffalo and a rifle crossed with an arrow.
4. Joseph Riel, Bulletin Winnipeg, 4 August 1913, and Le Devoir, 10 July 1913.
5. The Métis objected to the words “rebels” and “rebellion” again in 1925, when the word was used on a cairn commemorating the “North-West Rebellion.” The Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada erected the cairn.
6. Guillaume Charette (1884–1952) graduated from University of Manitoba Law School in 1910. He was a long-time president of Union Nationale Métisse Saint-Joseph du Manitoba, and he made it their mission to correct the historical record of the Métis Nation in the public consciousness.
7. McArthur to Goulet, 12 May 1930, SHMF.
8. Trémaudan, Hold High Your Heads, 59.
9. Winnipeg Free Press, 9 July 1935. The Old Wolves published a greatly reduced version. It was the Great Depression and they could not afford to publish the entire manuscript.
10. Samuel A. Nault, president, Société historiques et Union Nationale, as quoted in Bocquel, Les Fidèles à Riel, 366.
CHAPTER 2: THE VOYAGEURS
1. Nute, The Voyageur, 100.
2. Lord Selkirk personally invited Louis Nolin to settle in Red River in 1816 as a reward for his interpretation services. In 1820 his brothers Jean Baptiste and Augustin joined him. They received three grants of land in Assiniboia.
3. Irving, Astoria, 23–24.
4. Ballantyne, Hudson Bay, 236–37.
5. Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe, 119.
6. Moore, Thomas Moore’s Complete Poetical Works, 153.
7. Irving, Astoria, 23–24.
8. McKenney, “Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes,” 288–89.
9. Ross, interview with an old engagé in 1825, Fur Hunters of the Far West, Vol. 2, 236–37.
CHAPTER 3: THE MOTHERS OF THE MÉTIS NATION
1. There is an Andrew Kirkness (b. 1770 in the NWT) married to a Marguerite Mowat (Indian, b. 1772) listed in the “Genealogies of Red River Households, 1818–1870” in Sprague and Frye, The Genealogy of the First Métis Nation, Table 1.
CHAPTER 4: GOING FREE
1. Red River was not the only “retirement” settlement. Former employees also settled outside the Métis Nation in Mattawa, Sault Ste. Marie and other locations.
2. Henry, New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest; see entries for Fort Dauphin, Upper Red River and Lower Red River in table “Report of Northwest Population, 1805,” 282.
3. Leacock, “The Montagnais,” 57.
4. Kennicott, in Transactions of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1, 177.
5. Finlayson to Hargrave, 29 February 1836.
6. George Croghan to the Lords of Trade, 8 June 1764, quoted in White, The Middle Ground, 269.
7. Nute, Caesars of the Wilderness, 61.
CHAPTER 5: THE FIRST NATIONAL RESISTANCE
1. Lord Selkirk’s first colony in Prince Edward Island was a success. His second in Ontario failed.
2. The colonists were not all Scots or Highlanders. Some were from Ireland, the Orkney Islands and Glasgow.
3. McGillivray to Harvey, 24 June 1815.
4. Inverness Journal, 21 June 1811.
5. Notice sent by Governor Macdonell to Hudson’s Bay Company posts. Begg, History of the North-West, 1:174.
6. Macdonell later claimed that he was surprised that the “free Canadians and half-breeds” considered this order to be an infringement of their liberty. Coltman described Macdonell’s claim as the “pretensions of Miles McDonnell,” in W. B. Coltman Report Transcription, 158.
7. Grant was born in 1793 at Fort Tremblante, Saskatchewan. When his Nor’Wester father died in 1799, young Cuthbert and his sisters went to live with his mother’s Cree relations. In 1801 he was sent to Montreal for his education.
8. They also named William Shaw, Bonhomme Montour and Alexander Fraser as captains under the leadership of Grant.
9. The flag had already been raised in the fall of 1815, where it is described in the Narrative of James Sutherland, Selkirk Papers (SP), 1946–47, as “red with a figure of 8 placed horizontally in the middle”; “A Narrative Out—Outrages” SP, 1950; Peter Fidler’s Brandon House post journal entry for 1 June 1816, HBCA, B.22/a/19–20, 36, where he describes the flag as “blue about 4 feet square & a figure of 8 horizontally in the middle”; Narrative of Peter Fidler, SP, 2.515.
10. Edmonton House post journal, 30 May 1816, HBCA B.60/a/15, 41.
11. Bostonais Pangman, one of the appointed Brûlés captains, was hunting for the colonists at this time.
CHAPTER 6: VICTORY AT THE FROG PLAIN
1. Giraud, The Métis in the Canadian West, 1:460.
2. Grenouillière is a marshy area with many frogs. Michif translation is by Norman Fleury.
3. Peter Fidler wrote, “I believe & what I learn from Mr. Pambrun that the 1/2 breeds are nearly master of McDonell—or at least he is obliged to wink at their proceedings not to make them leave him till his intended plans are put into execution or done but the person who assembles them is surely accountable for their conduct.” Brandon House post journal, 3 June 1816, HBCA B.22/a/19.
4. McGillivray to Harvey, 24 June 1815.
5. W. B. Coltman Report Transcription, 188.
6. Martin, Lord Selkirk’s Work in Canada, 136.
7. Coltman to Sherbrooke, 16 May 1818.
8. The “middle ground” is a term used by Richard White, by which he means a space where parties can seek compromise and which is only possible if both parties cannot achieve their goals by means of force. White, The Middle Ground.
9. Coltman to Sherbrooke, 16 May 1818.
10. W. B. Coltman Report Transcription, 186 and 193. The depositions taken after the battle suggest that after being initially shot in the thigh, Governor Semple was shot fatally by an Indian.
11. Narratives of John Pritchard, Pierre Chrysologue Pambrun and Frederick Damien Heurter, 29.
12. The governor-general’s proclamation, 16 July 1816.
13. “No representations of farce or folly that was ever enacted on any stage, could come near to the real life that is exhibited here.” Gale to Lady Selkirk, 23 June 1817, as quoted in Martin, Lord Selkirk’s Work in Canada, 135.
14. Martin, Lord Selkirk’s Work in Canada, 153.
CHAPTER 7: AFTER THE MERGER
1. Grant to J. D. Cameron, 13 March 1816. “[I]n fact the Traders shall pack off with themselves also, for having disregarded our orders last spring.”
2. “L’Italia è fatta, ma chi farà ora gl’Italiani?” The quote is from the first meeting of the newly united Italian Parliament at Turin in 1860. Latham, Famous Sayings and Their Authors, 234.
3. I am indebted for these thoughts on Métis family and relationships to Brenda Macdougall’s insights in her book One of the Family, 7–10; and to Norman Fleury for his thoughts on Métis family relationships and Michif during an interview with him on 16 June 2016 in Winnipeg.
4. Brenda Macdougall and Nicole St. Onge, “Rooted in Mobility: Metis Buffalo Hunting Brigades.”
5. Slobodin, Metis of the Mackenzie District, 73, referring to Red River Métis, as distinct from the northern Métis living in the Mackenzie District.
CHAPTER 8: THE BUFFALO HUNTERS
1. Ross, Red River Settlement, 273.
2. Simpson to Colville, 31 May 1824.
3. “Métis Laws of the Hunt (circa 1840): (1) No buffalo to be run on the Sabbath-day; (2) No party to fork off, lag behind or go before without permission; (3) No person or party to run buffalo before the general order; (4) Every Captain with his men, in turn, to patrol the camp, and keep guard; (5) For the first trespass against these laws, the offender to have his saddle and bridle cut up; (6) For the second offence, the coat to be taken off the offender’s back, and be cut up; (7) For the third offence, the offender to be flogged; and (8) Any person convicted of theft, even to the value of a sinew, to be brought to the middle of the camp, and the crier to call out his or her name three times, adding the word ‘thief’ at each time.” Ross, Red River Settlement, 249–50.
4. Howard, Strange Empire, 52.
5. Parkman, The Oregon Trail, 328.
6. Ross, Red River Settlement, 243.
7. Keating, Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter’s River, 39.
8. Milton and Cheadle, The North-West Passage by Land, 44–45.
9. Taché, Sketch of the North-West, 106.
10. Fleury, “Reminiscences,” Saskatchewan Archives Board.
11. Nicollet, Joseph N. Nicollet on the Plains and Prairies, 187.
CHAPTER 9: THE IRON ALLIANCE
1. Provencher to Halkett, 10 August 1822, in Nute, Documents, 358.
2. Provencher to Bishop Plessis, 11 August 1822, in Nute, Documents, 364.
3. Howard, Strange Empire, 49, quoting Major Lawrence Taliaffero, an American Indian agent.
CHAPTER 10: THE MÉTIS NATION ARMY
1. Morton, A History of the Canadian West, 808.
2. Joseph McGillivray, as recounted in Cox, Adventures on the Columbia River, 338–40.
3. Morton, A History of the Canadian West, 809. Simpson to Governor Pelly, October 1845.
4. Simpson to the Committee, 28 October 1835, and Simpson to Lord Metcalf, 6 November 1845.
CHAPTER 11: THE BATTLE OF THE GRAND COTEAU
1. Jean-Baptiste Falcon is the son of the Métis bard Pierre Falcon.
2. Account by François Falcon, son of Jean-Baptiste Falcon, Ste. Anne des Chênes, 23 May 1938, in Barkwell, “Dakota-Métis Battle on the Grand Coteau: 1851,” 7.
3. Nor’Wester, 9 October 1862, Assiniboine Chief Red Stone.
CHAPTER 12: THE SECOND NATIONAL RESISTANCE
1. Journal of Peter Garrioch, 237, AM.
2. Ross, Red River Settlement, 223–24.
3. Journal of Peter Garrioch, 236, AM.
4. Ray, “Diffusion of Diseases,” 150. There were influenza epidemics in 1834, 1837, 1843, 1845, 1847 and 1850.
5. Ross, Red River Settlement, 363. Ross identified cholera as “the bloody flux” and says its ravages were more deadly than the influenza and measles.
6. Ibid., 365.
7. Erasmus, Buffalo Days and Nights, 86.
8. Begg, History of the North-West, 236.
9. Gibson, Law, Life and Government at Red River, 1:16.
10. Ibid., 22 and n12.
11. Lambton, Report on the Affairs of British North America, 41.
12. Simpson to Shepherd, 8 August 1857.
13. 1856 Memorial of Bishop Anderson, in Oliver, The Canadian North-West, 1310–14.
14. Simpson to H. H. Berens, 18 July 1856.
15. Journal of Peter Garrioch, 241, AM.
16. Petition, 29 August 1845. J. Sinclair and others to A. Christie, Governor, Red River Settlement. Signatories are James Sinclair, Baptiste Laroque, Thomas Lagan, Pierre Liverduré, Joseph Monkman, Baptiste Wilkey, Baptist Fanian, Alexi Goulet, Antoine Morrin, William MacMillan, Louis Letendre, Robert Montour, Edward Harmon, John Dease, Henry Cook, William Bird, John Vincent, Peter Garrioch, Jack Spence, Jack Anderson, James Monkman, Antoine Dejarlais and Thomas McDermott.
17. Another petition in French was dated 17 February 1847.
18. Ross, Red River Settlement, 84.
CHAPTER 13: TAKING THE FIGHT TO THE COURT
1. The Public Interest vs. Peter Hayden, General Quarterly Court of Assiniboia [Case 10], 1846, in Gibson, Law, Life, and Government at Red River, 2:36–40.
2. Ibid., 37.
3. Andrew McDermot v. Bapt. Fanyant, Pierre Poitras, Louison Morin, & Pascal Berland [sic], General Quarterly Court of Assiniboia [Case 25], 1847, in Gibson, Law, Life, and Government at Red River, 2:52–54.
4. For a record of the trial and analysis, see Gibson, Law, Life, and Government at Red River, 2:114–18.
5. Anonymous letter, Morning Chronicle (London), published 3 October 1849. Likely written by Peter Garrioch.
6. Hudson’s Bay Company v. Sayer et al., in Gibson, Law, Life, and Government at Red River, 2:114. The final jury was Donald Gunn, William Thomas, James Tait, Narcisse Marion, Philip Kennedy, James Monkman, John Vincent, Robert Sandison, Prospère Ducharme, Françoise Bruneau, Martin Lavallé and Dominique Ducharme.
CHAPTER 14: THE THIRD NATIONAL RESISTANCE
1. The Canada First movement renamed itself the Canadian National Association and became an official political party in 1874.
2. Schultz’s first fraud was his identity. When Schultz arrived in Red River, he was twenty-one years old. After he arrived he began to claim he was a medical doctor. He claimed to have obtained his medical degree at a very prestigious college, Oberlin in Ohio. He also claimed to be a graduate of Queen’s College in Kingston and of Victoria University in Cobourg. Oberlin has no record of him. Queen’s College recorded his attendance for two terms, and Victoria University recorded his attendance for one term. None of these colleges granted Schultz a degree. Schultz was an imposter, a fake doctor.
3. Clark, “Schultz, Sir John Christian,” quoting Sheriff Colin Inkster.
4. Charette, Vanishing Spaces, 59.
5. The parish of Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes was also known as Oak Point in English or Pointe-des-Chênes in French. It was a wintering site for Métis families as early as 1820. It is on the Seine River southeast of St. Boniface. In 1852 Ojibwa Chief Nashakepenais asked the Métis (mostly the large Nolin family) to enter into a formal purchase agreement for land at Pointe-des-Chênes. The chief was interested in expanding the village. The Métis-Ojibwa joint venture thrived and within five years had a store, hotel and trading post. The Oblate missionaries established a chapel there in 1862, and in 1867 the parish was renamed Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes.
6. Morrison, “The Robinson Treaties of 1850: A Case Study,” 7.
7. The full text of Mair’s letter is in Morton, Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal, 395–99.
8. Mair was the author of Tecumseh and considered a “rising poet.” To be fair, the letter in which Mair disparaged Métis women in Red River was a private one to his brother, who subsequently had it published without Mair’s knowledge. Morton, A History of the Canadian West, 866. Begg, History of the North-West, 1:366.
9. Mary Sarah and Annie were the daughters of Andrew McDermot and Sarah McNab. Bannatyne was married to Annie. Governor McTavish was married to Annie’s older sister Mary Sarah.
10. The full text of this letter in the original French is in Huel and Stanley, The Collected Writings of Louis Riel, 1:13–16; full text in English is in Morton, Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal, 399–402.
11. e. e. cummings, “[anyone lived in a pretty how town].”
12. New Nation, 16 March 1870.
13. Macdonald to Tupper, in Morton, A History of the Canadian West, 874.
14. Deposition of Taché, in Report of the Select Committee on the Causes of Difficulties in the North-West Territory in 1869–70, 12.
15. McDougall to Macdonald, 31 October 1869.
CHAPTER 15: THE RESISTANCE BEGINS
1. Ritchot to Cartier, 30 May 1870. Ritchot described the land claimed as marked by a line that ran on the west from Turtle Mountain to St. Ann/Poplar Point on the Assiniboine River; on the east, from the American border to Lake Winnipeg and included Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes; on the south, by the American border; and on the north, following the Assiniboine River as far as Fort Garry and then along the Red River to just above the mouth of the Seine River.
2. Dugast to Taché, 24 July 1869.
3. McDougall to Gibbard, The Globe, 6 August 1863, reprint of a letter originally published in full in the Quebec Mercury. “It is essentially necessary that the rights of our lessees and the majesty of the law should be vindicated in the Algoma district.”
4. Macdonald, quoted in Morton, A History of the Canadian West, 872.
5. “Report—1874,” Dennis’s deposition, 186.
6. J. S. Dennis, “Memorandum of Facts and Circumstances connected with the active Opposition by the French Half-breeds in this Settlement to the prosecution of the government Surveys,” 11 October 1869, Correspondence Relevant to the Recent Disturbances in the Red River Settlement, 5: “No arms were seen with the party.” The names of the Métis were given as “Louis Riel, leader, De Saugré and Son, Baptiste Nona [Nault], Baptiste Treuau [Tourond] and three Sons, François Charest, Bideau Non [Nault], Edward Morin [Edouard Marion], Mannin Non [Nault], Janvive Richot, Benjamin Non [Nault]; three others names not known.”
7. Major Webb, the surveyor, was “ordered by the leader of the party at once to desist from further running the line, and in fact notified that he must leave the country on the south side of the Assiniboine, which country the party claimed as the property of the French Half-breeds, and which they would not allow to be surveyed by the Canadian Government.” Ibid.
8. McDougall’s memorandum requesting the rifles was signed 15 September 1869. Cabinet approved it on 22 September 1869. The rifles and ammunition left Kingston on 1 October 1869, two weeks before the Métis stepped on the surveyors’ chain.
9. Benjamin Nault and twenty men were sent as lookouts to Pointe à Saline (Aubigny). Baptiste Nault led more lookouts to Marion’s Lake, just above St. Jean Baptiste. Declaration of André Neault [sic], Teillet Family Papers.
10. Ibid.
11. “Monsieur, Le Comité national des Métis de la Rivière Rouge, intime à Monsieur W. McDougall l’ordre de ne pas entrer sur le Territoire du Nord-Ouest sans un permission special de ce comité,” in Oliver, The Canadian North-West, Vol. 1, 880.
12. Attributed to U.S. senator S. I. Hayakawa.
13. Begg, History of the North-West, 1:376–77.
14. Minutes of the Council of Assiniboia, 25 October 1869.
15. The Métis did not name their codified laws the Red River Code. Ritchot’s notes call the Métis laws codified in Red River in 1869 “Code Fondamentale,” (Fundamental Code). See Ritchot, Cahier Historique 2, 5–6.
16. McDougall to Secretary of State for the Provinces, 4 November 1869.
17. St. Paul Press, 4 November 1869, “Spectator.”
18. Morton, Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal, 162.
CHAPTER 16: BRINGING IN THE ENGLISH MÉTIS
1. Macdonald to Rose, 23 February 1870.
2. The delegates at the November convention were André Beauchemin, John Bruce (president), François Dauphinais, Louis LaSerte, Pierre Lavieller, Charles Nolin, W. B. O’Donoghue, Pierre Paranteau Sr., Jean Baptiste Perrault, Pierre Poitras, Louis Riel (secretary), Baptiste Touron, Dr. Bird, Thomas Bunn, John Garrioch, Donald Gunn, Geo. Gunn, Maurice Lowman, Henry McKenney, H. F. O’Lone, Chief Henry Prince, James Ross, Robert Tait, William Tait.
3. Louis Riel’s Notes of the Convention of Twenty-Four, November 16–December 1, 1869.
4. Proclamation of Governor McTavish, 16 November 1869; full text of the proclamation can be found in Begg, History of the North-West, 1: 394–96, 395.
5. Louis Riel’s Notes of the Convention of Twenty-Four, November 16–December 1, 1869, 426.
6. Three women were also included in the group, although the Métis made it clear that they were not under arrest and could leave any time.
CHAPTER 17: CANADA SNEAKS INTO RED RIVER
1. Morton, History of the Canadian West, 895; “Report—1874,” Smith’s deposition, 94.
2. Macdonald to Geo. Stephen, 13 December 1869.
3. Gay was rumoured to be a spy, but no one knew which country he might be spying for. He claimed to be a correspondent for a Paris newspaper. If so, there is no record of any reporting and there is also no record of how he became a “captain.” His small red journal containing provisioning notes is in the Teillet Family Papers.
4. Morton, A History of the Canadian North-West, 898.
5. Letter of Pierre Léveillé, New Nation, 27 May 1870.
6. Louis Schmidt, “Memoires de Louis Schmidt,” 22 February 1912.
7. Morton, Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal, 270.
8. Ibid., 272.
9. Remarks of Louis Riel, as reported in New Nation, 21 January 1870.
10. The committee was composed of Louis Riel, Louis Schmidt and Charles Nolin for the French party, and James Ross, Dr. Bird and Thomas Bunn for the English party.
11. List of Rights (2ND), 29 January 1870; full text is in Begg, History of the North-West, Vol. 1, 452–54, 454.
CHAPTER 18: FATEFUL DECISIONS
1. 5 July 1869–24 August 1870. On 5 July 1870 the French Métis marked out their territory and began to send out mounted patrols, evict claim-stakers and fill in wells. On 24 August 1870 Wolseley’s troops arrived.
2. New Nation, 8 April 1870.
3. New Nation, 4 March 1870.
4. The firing squad was Pierre Champagne, Marcel Roi, Cap Deschamp, François Thibault, Augustin or Alexander Parisien and François Guillemette.
5. The delegates had discretion with respect to Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 15, 17, 19 and 20.
6. Wolseley to his brother Dick, 6 April 1870.
7. Macdonald to Rose, 23 February 1870.
8. Cartier to Young, 30 June 1870.
9. Dumont, Gabriel Dumont Speaks, 31. “Before leaving Winnipeg I told Riel, if it comes to war send for me and I will come with the Indians.”
10. Simpson to Howe, 19 August 1870. “The Half Breeds & Indians of Red River had been tampering with them telling them that the Troops were going to the settlement to take their lands from them by force & advising the Rainy Lake Indians not to assist the soldiers make any treaty or receive any presents this year.”
11. Trémaudan, Histoire de la Nation Métisse, 242–43.
12. Toronto Telegraph, 8 September 1870.
13. Montreal Gazette, 16 September 1870.
14. La Minerve, 11 August 1870 (Fort Garry, 19 July). Dubuc, the author of the article in La Minerve, identified Chatelain as an Indian. Newly arrived in Red River, Dubuc did not know that the people Chatelain represented identified as half-breeds. According to Dubuc, Riel told Chatelain that “if advantageous treaties were proposed, they should accept them.” They took Riel’s advice and in 1875 signed the Half-breed Adhesion to Treaty #3.
15. Wolseley’s proclamation, in Morton, Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal, 392.
CHAPTER 19: THE REIGN OF TERROR
In April 2018 the author appeared on a CBC Ideas radio show called “The Trial of Sir John A. Macdonald: Would he be guilty of war crimes today?” Some of the material on the reign of terror that was originally written for this chapter can also be heard on that show. The show is available as a podcast at https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-trial-of-sir-john-a-macdonald-would-he-be-guilty-of-war-crimes-today-1.4614303.
1. New Nation, 13 May 1870; Denison, The Struggle for Imperial Unity, 26.
2. Houston and Smyth, The Sash Canada Wore.
3. Waite, Canada 1874–1896, 111–12.
4. Resolution from a Toronto Orange Lodge, The Globe, 13 April 1870.
5. Stanley, The Birth of Western Canada, 155.
6. “The Storm in Upper Canada,” New Nation, 6 May 1870.
7. “Memorandum connected with Fenian Invasion of Manitoba in October, 1871,” Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, November 1871, in Report of the Select Committee on the Causes of Difficulties in the North-West Territory in 1869–70, 140.
8. Macdonald, quoted in Morton, A History of the Canadian West, 872.
9. Macdonald to Rose, 23 February 1870.
10. Macdonald to George Stephen, 13 December 1869.
11. Testimony of Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, in Report of the Select Committee on the Causes of Difficulties in the North-West Territory in 1869–70, 137. See also at 137 an extract of a letter from Cartier to Archibald, 3 September 1870, confirming that warrants had been issued and were in the hands of constables.
12. Archibald to Macdonald, 13 December 1871.
13. Morton, Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal, 549.
14. The Telegraph (Fort Garry, 6 September), 22 September 1870. “They [the French Métis] are said to be moving off, and some have it that they are concentrating in various localities. Fear, I think, is the chief cause of their moving . . .” Three days later the paper reported that “they are going off by the hundred . . .”
15. St. Paul Daily Pioneer, 14 March 1871.
16. The Telegraph (Fort Garry, 3 September) 16 September 1870.
17. Cunningham, The Telegraph, 7 October 1870. The article reported a conversation between Cunningham and Elzéar Goulet in St. Boniface the day before he was murdered. According to Cunningham, Goulet was anxious about the lack of amnesty and, though he had business in Winnipeg, was afraid to “cross the river” for fear that the volunteers would insult and assault him.
18. Le Métis, 4 September 1872, reported that Moise Normand and Joseph St. Germain were beaten and threatened by soldiers with knives while trying to cross the bridge over the Assiniboine River.
19. Telegraph, 4 October 1870.
20. Volunteer Review, 27 March 1871.
21. Telegraph, 6 September 1870.
22. Telegraph, 22 September 1870; The Globe, 22 September 1870.
23. La Minerve, 10 September (Fort Garry, 27 August), 1870.
24. It is difficult to get an exact number of prisoners captured by the Métis during the Red River Resistance. Fifty-three men were captured on 10 December 1869 after the standoff at Schultz’s residence. After that, another twelve men from Snow’s party were captured. Forty-eight men of the Portage party were captured on 17 February 1870. The difficulty in getting a total arises from the fact that many men escaped and were recaptured. On 15 February 1870 twenty-four men were discharged and some of them were also recaptured. Woodington, “Diary of a Prisoner in Red River Rebellion”; MacArthur, “The Red River Rebellion”; Begg, The Creation of Manitoba, 289; and Barkwell, “Riel’s Prisoners (1869–70).”
25. I am indebted to Lawrence Barkwell, coordinator of Métis Heritage and History Research, Louis Riel Institute, for his compiled list of the reported violent incidents that took place during the reign of terror, The Reign of Terror against the Métis of Red River. Barkwell compiled his list from newspaper accounts, diaries and reports of the day.
26. The Globe, 6 September 1870. Telegraph, 27 September 1870. Manitoban, 14 January 1871.
27. His family was married into the Rolettes, the Lagimodières and the McDermots. His brother Roger was a member of the Council of Assiniboia.
28. 27 January 1871, British Colonial Office minute paper/42/702722, p. 160.
29. Lord Kimberly, 9 March 1871.
30. St. Paul Daily Pioneer, 16 September 1870.
31. La Minerve, 18 July 1871.
32. St. Paul Daily Pioneer, 6 October 1870.
33. Report of the Select Committee on the Causes of Difficulties in the North-West Territory in 1869–70, 162 and 205. The petitioners were Pierre Parenteau (père), Jos. St. Germain, Louis Desrivières, Matthia Norman, Charles Neault, Paul Proulx, Benj. Neault, François Marion, Pierre St. Germain, Pierre Parenteau (fils), François Frébucher, Bapt. Boudreau, Bapt. Laderoute, Louis Dumas, Matthias Sansregret, Jos. Neault, Amable Gaudry (fils), Godefroy Neault, Maxime Lépine, André Nault, J. B. Ritchot, Pierre Sauvé, Joseph Sauvé, Louis Carrière, Damase Carrière and François Poitras.
34. Waite, Canada 1874–1896, 111–12.
35. Le Métis, 12 October 1872.
36. St. Paul Daily Pioneer, 14 March 1871.
37. St. Paul Daily Pioneer, 4 January 1871.
38. St. Paul Press, 15 March 1871
39. Le Métis, 14 August 1872.
40. St. Paul Daily Pioneer, 9 June 1871
41. La Minerve, 18 July 1871.
42. Le Métis, 1 May 1872.
43. Le Métis, 2 March 1872, 14 August 1872, and 12 October 1872.
44. The New York Times, 12 June 1871.
45. Barkwell, Reign of Terror against the Métis of Red River, 8–9.
46. Riel and Lépine to Lieutenant-Governor Morris, 3 January 1873.
47. Catherine McKenna, quoted in Parks Canada News Release, 12 January 2018.
48. Bolt, “The Crown Prerogative as Applied to Military Operations,” 13. The men in attendance were Ambroise Lépine, Pierre Léveillé, Elzéar de la Gimodière, J. R. Ritchot, Pierre Parenteau, Joseph St. Germain, André Nault, Baptiste Touron, Baptiste Lépine, Baptiste Beauchemin, Maxime Lépine and Louis Riel. As was their custom they elected a president and two secretaries for each meeting. That day Pierre Parenteau was president and Baptiste Touron and Louis Riel were secretaries.
49. Teillet Family Papers, and see English translation of the meeting minutes in Trémaudan, “Louis Riel and the Fenian Raid of 1871.”
50. Ibid., 138.
51. The Fenians took the fort at Pembina at 7:30 on the morning of Thursday, October 5, 1871.
52. Trémaudan, “Louis Riel and the Fenian Raid of 1871,” 140.
53. Ibid., 141.
54. Report of the Select Committee on the Causes of Difficulties in the North-West Territory in 1869–70, 153.
55. Archibald to Macdonald, 9 October 1871.
56. Archibald to Macdonald, 8 March 1871.
57. Taché to Howe, 9 June 1870. “[T]hat all irregularities of the past will be totally overlooked or forgiven; that nobody will be annoyed for having been either leader or member of the Provisional Government, or for having acted under its guidance. In a word, that a complete and entire amnesty (if not already bestowed), will surely be granted before the arrival of the troops, so that every one may remain quiet, and induce others to do the same.”
58. Ritchot and Scott, Petition to the Queen, 8 February 1872. Ritchot’s Journal, 156, states that the document was prepared at the insistence of Sir George Cartier.
59. Ritchot’s Journal, 154. “Her Majesty was going to proclaim a general amnesty immediately, that we could set out for Manitoba, that the amnesty would arrive before us . . . in any event it would arrive before the lieutenant governor. That meantime he [Governor-General Young] was going to give me assurance in writing the assurance that no one would be molested while awaiting the proclamation of the amnesty . . .”
60. The Globe, 20 May 1870.
61. The Globe, 17 November 1869.
62. Ontario premier Blake’s $5,000 bounty was split between ten men: $2,000 went to William Farmer (he swore the information on which Lépine was arrested, served the warrant on Lépine, sat on the grand jury and was a witness at Lépine’s trial); $400 went to Francis Cornish (the Crown prosecutor, and later Winnipeg’s first mayor); $400 went to C. B. Thibaudeau (Cornish’s partner); $330 went to Edward Armstrong (sherriff); $330 went to Léon Dupont; $330 went to John S. Ingram (convicted of severely beating Joseph Dubuc, he arrested Lépine and became the first chief of Winnipeg Police in 1874); $330 went to John A. Kerr; $300 went to Rev. George M. Young (author of the memo in the judge’s trial book and witness at Lépine’s trial); $290 went to Thomas Hughes, and $290 went to H. W. Smith.
63. Chief Justice Wood and Schultz ended up suing each other in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, but they began as a cozy friendship. In short order after his arrival, Wood cleared Schultz on a perjury charge and a charge that he had falsely sworn.
CHAPTER 20: CANADA TAKES THE LAND
1. The system of long rectangular river lots was originally developed in Normandy, later adopted in Quebec and then used by the Métis in the North-West.
2. Archibald to Howe, 27 December 1870.
3. Cartier to Ritchot, 23 May 1870.
4. Chartrand, Manitoba’s Métis Settlement Scheme of 1870, 3.
5. Manitoba Metis Federation v. Attorney General of Canada and Attorney General of Manitoba, Amended Statement of Claim, Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, filed 12 November 2004, para. 57.
6. Ibid., para. 58(d).
7. Manitoba Metis Federation v. Attorney General of Canada and Attorney General of Manitoba, 2013 SCC 14, [2013] 1 SCR 623, paras. 92 and 99.
8. Manitoba Act, 1870, s. 32. “For the quieting of titles, and assuring to the settlers in the Province the peaceable possession of the lands now held by them, it is enacted as follows:
1. All grants of land in freehold made by the Hudson’s Bay Company up to the eighth day of March, in the year 1869, shall, if required by the owner, be confirmed by grant from the Crown.
2. All grants of estates less than freehold in land made by the Hudson’s Bay Company up to the eighth day of March aforesaid, shall, if required by the owner, be converted into an estate in freehold by grant from the Crown.
3. All titles by occupancy with the sanction and under the licence and authority of the Hudson’s Bay Company up to the eighth day of March aforesaid, of land in that part of the Province in which the Indian Title has been extinguished, shall if required by the owner, be converted into an estate in freehold by grant from the Crown.
4. All persons in peaceable possession of tracts of land at the time of the transfer to Canada, in those parts of the Province in which the Indian title has not been extinguished, shall have the right of pre-emption of the same, on such terms and conditions as may be determined by the Governor in Council.
5. The Lieutenant Governor is hereby authorized, under regulations to be made from time to time by the Governor General in Council, to make all such provisions for ascertaining and adjusting on fair and equitable terms, the rights of Common, and rights of cutting Hay held and enjoyed by the settlers in the Province, and for the commutation of the same by grants of land from the Crown.”
9. Dr. Frank Tough and Doug Sprague are two of the scholars who have investigated the chain of scrip documents.
10. Commission of Inquiry into Infant Lands, AM; and the Lang Conspiracy cited in Sprague, Canada and the Métis, 137–38.
11. Sprague, Canada and the Métis, 125.
12. Howe to McDougall, 7 December 1869.
13. Macdonald to Smith, 3 January 1870.
14. McMicken to Macdonald, 12 November 1871.
15. Trémaudan, Histoire de la Nation Métisse, 447; translation in Hold High Your Heads, 209.
16. Heber Archibald quoted in Ens, “Métis Lands in Manitoba,” 9. And see MMF v. Canada, Trial Transcripts, vol. 13, 108, cross-examination of T. Flanagan. Quoting Archibald, “Public opinion here at the time, was, I suppose, the opinion of 9 out of 10 members of the profession—vis: that it was an improvident grant to the Halfbreeds . . .”
17. Wood to Mackenzie, 25 May 1875.
18. Le Métis, “Resignation de l’Honorable M. Archibald,” 8 May 1872; The Globe, 13 April 1870.
19. Mailhot, “Ritchot’s Resistance,” 225–27, n1 and n2. Mailhot cites two sources. The first is a manuscript history of St. Jean Baptiste prepared by Father Sylvio Caron. The second source is L. A. Prud’homme, “Monsieur l’abbé Joseph David Fillion,” Mémoires de la Société du Canada, Section I, 1927. According to Mailhot, Father Ritchot led a group of Métis men to the Rivière-aux-Rats southeast of St. Norbert. This area was the woodlot for the Métis of St. Norbert, Ste. Agathe and St. Vital and it was where they had been wintering their livestock. Under Ritchot’s supervision nearly sixty Métis staked their standard twelve-chain (eight-hundred-foot) frontages and planted gardens along the Rivière-aux-Rats. Thirty-eight of these claims were staked by St. Norbert families on lands that later became the communities of St. Pierre-Jolys and St. Malo. More Métis families relocated from St. Norbert to an area near what would become St. Jean Baptiste. Some of these families sold their old claims for the price of the improvements and then moved to the new claimed land believing they would be secured.
20. Le Métis, 8 June 1871; Bourke to McMicken, “In accordance with this consent and advice we reckoned up the number of persons in our parish entitled to receive the said grant estimated the quantity of Land required and then (proceeded to) mark off the Blocks.”
21. Le Métis, 8 June 1871.
22. “Reserves des Métis Français Situés sur la Rivière-Rouge et Autres,” Le Métis, 8 June 1871.
23. Le Métis, 27 March 1872, “Reserve des Métis.” One such meeting was held on 24 March 1872 in St. Norbert. It included Métis from St. Norbert, St. Vital, St. Boniface and Ste. Agathe.
24. Le Métis, 20 March 1871.
25. Le Métis, 15 June 1871, “. . . ce que le Métis ont choisi comme leurs reserves sera confirmé, M. Archibald voulant bien regarder leur choix comme le sien proper.”
26. The actual process of granting the 1.4 million acres of Section 31 land required Métis individuals to make an application, in the form of an affidavit, before government appointed commissioners. The drawings and allotment of the lands began on 30 October 1876. All but seven of the parish allotments were completed in 1877, and 1,115 patents were issued in that year. Allotments were made during 1879 and the early months of 1880 in the five remaining parishes. Patent issue was practically completed in 1880.
27. New Nation, 16 March 1870, “Our Situation.”
28. Le Métis, 22 June 1871, “C’est ni à tel hôtel, ni à tel restaurant, ni à tel bureau de sédition qu’ils doivent se renseigner.”
29. The term “armed emigration” comes from Denison. Denison, Soldiering, 179; Denison, The Struggle for Imperial Unity, 43.
30. Commission of Inquiry into Infant Lands, AM, 6.
31. Ibid., 9. In the commission’s examination of the Parenteau case, the parents received $600 for the land, and the next day the land sold to the solicitor whose firm made the application for $1,200. The same land sold a short time later for $1,900.
32. Ibid., 2 and 6.
33. Ibid., 10.
34. Le Métis, “Reserve des Métis,” 27 March 2017, 2. They protested that the government in Ottawa was not respecting their rights and was not honouring the land agreement it made with them in 1870. They resolved to energetically oppose these measures and to take every fair and effective means of enforcing their resolutions. They formed a surveillance committee to do it.
35. Ritchot to Macdonald, 15 January 1881. Ritchot reminded Macdonald of his promise that “all lands thus taken were and would be the property of those who were in possession thereof.”
36. In 1881 Ritchot called on Macdonald to remember and to keep his promise. Ritchot took Macdonald to task for the deception being practised solely to dispossess the Métis. The sequence of events is as follows: During the Manitoba Act negotiations, Macdonald and Cartier proposed that “The lands will be chosen throughout the province by each lot and in several lots and in various places, if it is judged to be proper by the local legislature which ought itself to distribute these parcels of land to heads of families in proportion to the number of children existing the time of the distribution.” The delegates wanted local control. Cartier and Macdonald argued that their language had to stay in the legislation but they would issue an order in council guaranteeing local control. Ritchot wrote to Cartier, “Nous étions convenus . . . de laisser le choix et la division des terrains devant être divisés entre enfants des Métis à la Législature Locale.” Instead of an order in council, Cartier promised local control. Ritchot’s Journal entries for 2, 5 and 18 May 1870; letter, Cartier to Ritchot, 23 May 1870.
37. “Addendum to Treaty Three by the Half Breeds of Rainy Lake and Rainy River,” Indian Treaties and Surrenders, Vol. 1 (Saskatoon: Fifth House), 1992: 308–9.
38. Ibid.
39. Graham to Pither, 2 July 1878.
40. Reserves 16A, 16D and 18B.
41. Morris, Treaties of Canada with the Indians, 69.
42. McColl Report to the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, 1883.
43. Le Métis, “Resignation de l’Honorable M. Archibald,” 8 May 1872.
44. Codd to Dennis, 19 November 1873.
45. An Act to amend “An Act respecting the appropriation of certain Lands in Manitoba,” RSC, Ch. 52, 1875.
46. Order in Council, 26 April 1875.
47. Order in Council, 20 April 1876.
48. Dennis to Codd, 24 October 1877.
49. Two years later a policy amendment permitted scrip to be applied to staked claims, but by then most of these lands had already been lost. Partial “Memorandum on the subject of the so-called Staked Claims in Manitoba.”
50. Petition of eighteen claimants, that the survey ill reflects their previous agreed-upon boundaries, 4 November 1873; Whitcher to Deputy Minister of the Interior, 13 November 1873. A map of the lands claimed by the petitioners is in Library and Archives Canada, National Map Collection, 54106.
51. The Globe, 4 August 1870.
CHAPTER 21: THE DIASPORA
1. McMicken to Macdonald, 13 January 1873.
2. Le Métis, 20 March 1872, 2. Thirty-two families left with Father Moulin to relocate to St. Pierre Mission at Reindeer Lake in northern Manitoba.
3. There is a plaque in Fort Frances that commemorates a Métis family, the Calders, who moved there “after the Louis Riel uprising.”
4. Macfarlane, “Unfortunate Women of My Class,” 40–44.
5. The Saskatchewan wintering camp at Prairie Ronde was near the town of Dundurn; Grosse-Butte was near Humboldt; Petite-Ville was near Fish Creek.
6. Payment, The Free People, 302, provides a list of the Métis wintering at St. Laurent on 31 December 1871 at Appendix 1, Table 1.1. According to Payment, there were 321 people: 63 men, 58 women, 198 children and 567 horses. All except three (two priests and Marguerite Ouellette, who was a farmer and domestic servant) were identified as hunters.
7. “Condensed Report of a Meeting of the Métis Winterers at the Mission of St. Lawrence on the South Saskatchewan near Carlton, 31 December 1871,” Glenbow Archives, Richard C. Hardisty fonds, series 9, M-477-144.
8. Fisher et al., “Address to the Lieutenant Governor, Alexander Morris,” 5 May 1873, Sessional Papers, No. 116, 48 Victoria, 1885: 1–2.
9. Clarke to Smith, 15 January 1872.
10. Smith to the governor and committee, 1 August 1870.
11. The North-West Council was established in Winnipeg on 8 March 1873.
12. Father Belcourt and Alexander Ross both wrote about the Laws of the Hunt. “They had a code of laws and were governed by a council of twelve, under their chosen chief Gabriel Husier [Lussier?],” “Samuel O’Connell reminiscence, 1875,” 1–7 Montana Historical Society.
13. Ritchot’s notes call the Métis laws codified in 1869 the “Fundamental Code.” Father Ritchot made a point of noting that the Métis were making the effort to codify their laws and pass them in assembly. Similar processes seem to have been adopted in Qu’Appelle and St. Laurent. See Fisher et al., “Address to the Lieutenant Governor, Alexander Morris,” 1. The Laws of St. Laurent were first adopted on 10 February 1873. Additional laws were added on 10 December 1873. The Laws of St. Laurent were updated at assemblies between 1873 and 1875.
14. Fisher et al., “Address to the Lieutenant Governor, Alexander Morris.”
15. Woodcock, Gabriel Dumont, 95–97.
16. Copy of the Laws and Regulations Established for the Colony of St. Laurent on the Saskatchewan.
17. Chambers, Royal North-West Mounted Police, 35.
18. “Petition of the Half-breeds of St. Laurent to the Lieutenant Governor,” 1 February 1878. Signed by Gabriel, his X mark, Dumont, chairman, and Alex Fisher, secretary.
19. Smith, “The Adventures of the Wild West of 1870,” 1–6 Glenbow Archives.
20. Personal communication with George Fleury, 11 March 2017, Winnipeg.
CHAPTER 22: THE FOURTH NATIONAL RESISTANCE
1. The alliances listed are the ones that operated in the Canadian North-West, largely around the Canadian-American border. The Blackfoot Confederacy was composed of the T’suu T’ina (Sarcee), Pikani, Siksika, Kainai and Aaniih (Gros Ventre). The Dakota Confederacy was composed of the Mdewakanton, Wahpetons, Wahpekutes, Sissetons, Yanktons, Yanktonais and Tetons. The Nehiyaw Pwat, also known as the Iron Alliance, was composed of the Cree, Assiniboine, Ojibwa and Métis Nation.
2. The Globe, 15 September 1885.
3. Riel, “Les Métis: Dernier Mémoire de Louis Riel,” in Trémaudan, Histoire de la Nation Métisse, 445.
4. Lalonde, “Colonization Companies and the North-West Rebellion,” 54–65. A list of directors and their connections to the Conservatives is set out in McLean, 1885: Métis Rebellion or Government Conspiracy?, 47.
5. Dewdney to Macdonald, 23 July 1884.
6. Combet, Gabriel Dumont: Memoirs, 49–50.
7. “Petition of Edmonton Half-breeds to Sir John A. Macdonald, May 1880,” for example, asked that the Métis be put “on an equal footing with our relatives and friends in Manitoba.” They wanted scrip (a government-issued coupon that could be redeemed for money or land) to satisfy their claims, and they wanted confirmation of title to lands already occupied. They also wanted to be able to select railway lands with their scrip allocations.
8. Petition to the Right Honourable Sir John A. Macdonald from St. Antoine de Padoue, South Saskatchewan River [Batoche] signed by Gabriel Dumont, Jean Caron, Emmanuel Champagne, Louis Batoche and forty-two others, 4 September 1882.
9. Barkwell, Cypress Hills Métis Hunting Brigade Petition of 1878 for a Métis Reserve. The men who signed both the 1878 Cypress Hills petition and an 1880 Montana petition are: Jean Charette, Joseph Charette, Michel Davis, William Davis, François Xavier Fagnant, Theophile Fagnant, William “Kee-tar-kiss” Fagnant, Baptiste Gariépy, Elie Gariépy, Leonide Gariépy, Sever Hamelin, Antoine Lafontaine dit Faillant, William Laframboise, Pierre “Ah-show-e-ge-shig” Laverdure, Pierre Léveillé, Norman Marion, Antoine “Ratte” Ouellette, Joseph Ouellette and Edouard Wells.
CHAPTER 23: LA GUERRE NATIONALE
1. Barkwell, Cypress Hills Métis Hunting Brigade Petition of 1878 for a Métis Reserve, 5–6. The Métis signatories to the Cypress Hills petition who were also at the Battle of the Grand Coteau included Pascal Breland, Patrice Breland, Thomas Breland, Isidore Dumont Sr. dit Ecapow [Aicawpow], Jean Baptiste “Che-ma-ma” Falcon, Louis “Mar-yarm-mons” Laframboise and August Laframboise, Gabriel Léveillé, Pierre Léveillé, Louis Malaterre, Alex Malaterre, André Trottier, Antoine Trottier, Charles DeMontigny, Toby David Poitras, Theodore Poitras, Edward Donald Wells, Eduard “Neddy” Wells and James François Whitford.
2. “Petition of the Half-breeds during the ‘Black Winter’ to Privy Council of the North-West Territories, 1878.” Signed by 276 men. They asked for land “[c]ommencing at a point upon the international line, where crossed by the Pembina River; thence running west along said line, 150 miles; thence at right angles, north 50 miles; thence due east, 150 miles; thence due south, 50 miles, to point of beginning.”
3. Barkwell, Cypress Hills Métis Hunting Brigade Petition of 1878 for a Métis Reserve, 6. The men who signed both are: Jean Charette, Alex Gardy (Gaddy), Bonaventure Gariepy, François Lafontaine, Daniel Ledoux, Joseph Lemire, Joseph Léveillé, Peter (Pierre) Léveillé, Louis Militaire (Malaterre), Joseph Parisien, Baptiste Pelletier, Alex Pelletier and John Wells.
4. W. L. Orde to Minister of Interior, 3 April 1880.
5. Richardson to Dennis, 13 January 1880.
6. Gabriel Dumont, as quoted by Amédée Forget in his report to Lieutenant-Governor Dewdney, 18 September 1884, in Reid, Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada, 144.
7. “Report from Dr. Kittson,” LAC, Kittson to Macleod, 1 July 1880, 2.
8. Ibid.
9. Macdonald to Dewdney, 17 September 1883; House of Commons Debates, 9 May 1883, 1107.
10. Macdonald to Dewdney, 2 September 1884. The Mounties had arrived in the North-West Territories in 1873. By 1876 there were about one hundred police just at Fort Carlton and Battleford. Officially called the North-West Mounted Police, the force was sent into the North-West after the “Cypress Hills Massacre” to bring the wild West and particularly the whisky trade under control. Morris, Treaties of Canada with the Indians, 202. The police buildup was not solely attributable to the Indians and Métis. A near riot at Prince Albert over the location of the telegraph line brought another rush of police in November 1883.
11. Chambers, The Royal North West Mounted Police, 16, quoting Colonel P. Robertson-Ross, Commanding Officer of the Militia of Canada and Adjutant General, who wrote a report in 1872 entitled A Reconnaissance of the North-West Provinces and Indian Territories of the Dominion of Canada.
12. “Fleury, Patrice,” Saskatchewan Archives Board, 27413, A-515, 5–6.
13. Clarke to Dewdney, 11 May 1884.
14. Moïse Ouellette was Gabriel Dumont’s brother-in-law. Two additional companions, Calixte Lafontaine and Philippe Gariépy, who were travelling to Montana to see relatives, later joined them.
15. Trémaudan, Histoire de la Nation Métisse, 291.
16. Langevin to Macdonald, 6 November 1884.
17. Order in Council, P.C. 135, 28 January 1885.
18. In September 1884 Riel was called to a meeting at the rectory in St. Laurent, where he found five priests, a representative of Lieutenant-Governor Dewdney and Joseph Forget, who was on the board of directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This is the group that offered Riel a seat on the North-West Council and, when he declined that, a seat in the Senate.
19. On 18 August 1884, the size of the Mountie detachment at Prince Albert was increased. At Fort Carlton a police post oversaw two hundred men distributed between Battleford, Carlton, Prince Albert and Fort Pitt.
20. Dewdney to Macdonald, 11 March 1885.
21. “Riel’s Proposal,” Regina Leader (Evening Edition), 21 April 1885.
22. Fleury, “Reminiscences,” 6, Saskatchewan Archives Board. “It was in the early part of March that parties passing through told us that our petition would be answered by powder and bullet, and it was this that started the rebellious action.”
23. Reports as to the number of police vary. Dumont said eighty. Other reports say five hundred.
24. Riel, The Diaries of Louis Riel, 54–55. Joseph Ouellette, Gabriel Dumont, Pierre Gariépy, Isidore Dumont, John Ross, Philippe Gariépy, August Laframboise, Moïse Ouelette, Calixte Lafontaine and Napoléon Nault were the signatories.
25. Fleury, “Reminiscences,” Saskatchewan Archives Board, 6.
26. Moïse Ouellette’s Account, 62, SHMF, Boîte 1346, Chemise 066. [English transcripts. French handwritten accounts in Chemise 065.]
27. Dumont, Gabriel Dumont Speaks, 47.
28. Ibid., 48.
29. Bishop Bourget, Lettres pastorals, 31 May 1858.
30. M. Lussier, curé of Boucherville, Quebec, as cited in Lindsey, “The Ultramontane Movement in Canada,” 570.
31. Ibid., 561.
32. The Globe, 23 March 1885.
33. The Globe, 28 March 1885.
34. Radforth, “Celebrating the Suppression of the North-West Resistance of 1885,” 602.
35. World, 29 March 1885.
36. Radforth, “Celebrating the Suppression of the North-West Resistance of 1885,” 619.
37. Governor-General Lansdowne to Macdonald, 31 August 1885.
38. Ibid.; Macdonald to Governor-General Lansdowne, 3 September 1885.
39. Macdonald to Governor-General Lansdowne, 3 September 1885.
40. The Mounties reported ten deaths and had thirteen wounded. Two of their wounded later died.
41. Caron’s Account, 5, SHMF, Boîte 1346, Chemise 066.
42. Moïse Ouellette’s Account, SHMF, Boîte 1346, Chemise 066, 11.
43. The site was designated a national historic site in 1923. At that time it was named the Fish Creek National Historic Site. On 17 November 2007 the site was renamed the Battle of Tourond’s Coulee/Fish Creek National Historic Site.
44. Isidore Dumas’s Account, SHMF, Boîte 1346, Chemise 066, 30.
45. Middleton reported ten deaths and had forty-six wounded.
46. In 1892 Garneau was elected to the North West Territories Parliament in Regina, but he was refused entry due to his previous involvement with Louis Riel.
47. Cassels, Diary, 14.
48. All numbers of Middleton’s men are from Hildebrand, The Battle of Batoche, 30–31.
49. Middleton reported eight deaths and had forty-six wounded.
CHAPTER 24: AFTER BATOCHE
1. Port Hope Evening Guide, 13 July 1888.
2. Langford, “One of the Biggest Mysteries in Métis History Gets Even More Puzzling,” Maclean’s, 21 June 2017, https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-enduring-mystery-of-the-bell-of-batoche.
3. The full story of the bell can be found at https://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episodes/the-mystery-of-the-bell.
4. Stobie, The Other Side of Rebellion, 3. Bremner was proud of his mixed-race heritage but rejected the term “Métis,” which he understood to apply only to the French Métis.
5. The Queen vs. Charles Bremner et al, in Canada, Epitome of Parliamentary Documents, 347.
6. Patrice Tourond’s Account, SHMF, Boîte 1346, Chemise 066, 74.
7. V. Grandier et al., to the Hon. Sir A. Campbell, 10 July 1885, PAA OMI, St. Albert 8, Codex Historicus, 25 juillet 1885.
8. Dumont, Gabriel Dumont Speaks, 23.
CHAPTER 25: THE TRIAL OF LOUIS RIEL
1. The twenty-four men charged with treason felony were Joseph Arcand, Pierre Parenteau, Moïse Parenteau, Emmanuel Champagne, Maxime Lépine, Pierre Gariépie, Albert Monkman, Philip Gariépie, Alexis Lombarde, Philip Garnot, Alexander P. Fisher, Pierre Henri, Moïse Ouellette, Ignace Poitras, Baptiste Vandal, Baptiste Rocheleau, Joseph Delorme, Maxime Dubois, Pierre Vandal, Alexander Cadieux (Kitwayo), Francis Tourond, Patrice Tourond, Joseph Pilon and James Short.
2. Joseph wrote, “I hear that you are writing of your life. Do not give this book to anyone. Keep it for me. I feel very much attached to it. Regarding your wife, I will be seeing her soon. Answer immediately. Return cost paid.” Translation by the author of the telegram reproduced on p. 365.
3. Personal conversation with Lucienne Vouriot (grandniece of Louis Riel), 28 May 2017, St. Boniface, Manitoba.
4. Knox, “The Question of Louis Riel’s Insanity.”
5. The three doctors are F. X. Perrault, Dr. Brunelle and Dr. A. Jukes. The quote is from Dr. Juke’s report, CSP, “Epitome of Parliamentary Documents in Connection with the North-West Rebellion, 1885,” A. Jukes to Lieutenant Governor Dewdney, 6 November 1885. See coded telegram, p. 372.
6. Louis Riel to Edmond Mallet, 2 July 1875, as quoted in Knox, “The Question of Louis Riel’s Insanity.”
7. McLachlin, “Louis Riel: Patriot Rebel.”
8. In 1838 Upper Canada passed An Act to protect the Inhabitants of this Province against Lawless Aggressions from Subjects of Foreign Countries, at peace with Her Majesty, 1 Vic. Chap. 3. This was subsequently amended by 3 Vic. Chap. 12 (1840). The statute was so heavily relied on in the 1860s to prosecute the Fenians that it became known as the “Fenian Act.” Under the Fenian Act, it was treason for a citizen of another country, an alien, to levy war against Canada. This would have been an appropriate statute under which charges could have been laid against Louis Riel because he had become an American citizen on 16 March 1883. The Canadian Treason-Felony Statute, 1868, 31 Victoria c. 69, was formerly titled An Act for the Better Security of the Crown and of the Government. Under s. 5 it was treason-felony to levy war against the Crown or the government.
9. This same statute was used to hang eight men for high treason during the War of 1812.
10. The Queen vs. Louis Riel, [1885] NWT, 1 (Magistrates Court), 3–7; [1885] Man. Q.B. appeal, 302 (aff’d); 10 HL 675 (Privy Council) (aff’d), reprinted in The Queen v. Louis Riel (New York: Gryphon Editions), 1992.
11. All petitions can be found at Canada, Sessional Papers, No. 43(e), 49 Victoria, Petitions.
12. Petition of Charles O’Hara, labourer.
13. Petition signed by the Mayor of St. Sauveur and 1,851 others.
14. Canada, Sessional Papers, No. 43(e), 49 Victoria, Petitions, 256–64.
15. Petition of G. Powell, U.S. Under Secretary of State, 265.
16. Petitions, 259–60.
17. Ibid., Telegram to Marquis of Lansdowne from Juliette Adam.
18. “The Death of Riel,” Bloomington Daily Leader, 17 November 1885.
19. Quoted in Parkin, Sir John A. Macdonald, 244.
CHAPTER 26: SCRIP
1. Tough and McGregor, “The Rights to the Land May Be Transferred,” 53, quoting William Parker Fillmore, a scrip buyer during the Treaty Ten Commission in 1906.
2. Battleford, Saskatoon, Humboldt, Regina, Estevan, Moose Jaw, Medicine Hat and Calgary. Ibid., 52.
3. Memorandum for Mr. Newcombe, 14 October 1921.
4. Senator Sir James Lougheed read a letter from the Parliamentary counsel Francis R. Gisborne, 21 June 1922 in the Senate, as cited in Tough and McGregor, “The Rights to the Land May Be Transferred,” 54.
5. Criminal Code, 1910, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, c. 146, 5.408 and see also 5.469.
6. The first Half-breed Scrip Commission occurred in 1885 and dealt with the claims of Métis people who, on or before 15 July 1870, were living in territory that had since been ceded to the government by treaties with First Nations. Ten other scrip commissions followed: 1886 (continuation of 1885 work); 1887 (completion of 1885 work); 1889 (claims within the territory of the Treaty 6 adhesion); 1899 (claims within the territory of Treaty 8); 1900 (claims of Métis born in the North-West Territories between 15 July 1870 and 31 December 1885); 1901 (claims of Métis resident in the portion of Manitoba outside its original boundaries, and the remaining claims in the North-West); 1906–07 (claims within the territory of Treaty 10); 1908–10 (claims within the territory of the Treaty 5 adhesion); and 1921 (claims within the territory of Treaty 11).
7. Scrip Application of Baptiste Gariepy.
8. Witness Declaration of Antoine Ouellette.
9. Witness Declaration of Samson Breland.
10. Witness Declaration of Timothy Dumont.
11. Ibid.
12. Scrip Application of Eliza Cyr.
13. Scrip Application of George St. Germain.
14. Scrip Application of Réné Pagé.
15. Ibid.
16. Scrip Application of Nancy Bird; Scrip Application of Marie Desjarlais.
17. Scrip Application of Baptiste Cardinal.
18. Scrip Application of Elizabeth Boucher.
19. R. v. Blais, [2003] 2 SCR 236, para. 34.
20. It appears that very few people from the Rainy Lake area applied for Manitoba Act land grants. Four were Chatelain’s family members (Narcisse, Marie, Nicolas and Louis). The others include Nancy Loutit and John Linklater.
21. Treaty with the Chippewa–Red Lake and Pembina Bands, 1863, known as “The Old Crossing Treaty,” 38 Congress, 1 session, Confidential Executive Documents, P. Collections (Minnesota Historical Society, http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/15/v15i03p282-300.pdf). Over half of those in attendance at the treaty negotiations were Métis. One year later the treaty was amended. Instead of a land grant, the Métis received a one-time buyout of scrip for 160 acres. Acceptance of scrip meant that person was no longer eligible for future annuities.
CHAPTER 27: ST. PAUL DES MÉTIS
1. Lacombe Memorial, 27 March 1895, Annex “B” to P.C. 3723, 28 December 1895, Glenbow Archives, James Brady Fonds, Series 3, M-125-31.
2. Ibid., 7.
3. Dion, “An Account by J. F. Dion of His Activities in the Métis Association of Alberta,” 10 September 1940, in Hatt, “The Response to Directed Social Change on an Alberta Métis Colony,” 244–47.
4. Maber to Oliver, 22 January 1909, 2.
5. Sawchuk, Sawchuk and Ferguson, Métis Land Rights in Alberta, 172 n53.
CHAPTER 28: THE MÉTIS SETTLEMENTS IN ALBERTA
1. “Constitution of (Provisional) Organization—Métis Association of Alberta,” 18 December 1932, on motion moved by F. Callihoo, seconded by J. McLean, carried. Glenbow Archives, James Brady Fonds, Series 3, M-125-32, 21–26.
2. The first elected executive council was Joe Dion, president; Malcolm Norris, vice-president; Felix Callihoo, second vice-president; Henry Cunningham, third vice-president; and James Brady, secretary-treasurer. The name was changed in 1934 to the English version: the Métis Association of Alberta. The name change also reflected the fact that the organization did not represent the Métis of the Northwest Territories.
3. Fishing Lake, Green Jackfish Lake, Wolf Lake, Muskeg Prairie, Grouard, Fort Vermilion, Big Horn, North West of White Court, Primrose, Conklin and White Fish Lake. Undated Report by Joseph Dion to R. G. Reid, Minister of Lands and Mines, 3–5.
4. “Constitution of (Provisional) Organization—Métis Association of Alberta,” s. II(b), 18 December 1932, on motion moved by F. Callihoo, seconded by J. McLean, carried. Glenbow Archives, James Brady Fonds, Series 3, M-125-32, 21–26.
5. Daniels v. Canada (Indian Affairs and Northern Development), [2016] 1 SCR 99, 2016 SCC 12.
6. Evidence and Proceedings Half-Breed Commission, Edmonton, Alberta, 25 February 1935, 20.
7. Norris to Dion, 16 December 1933 Glenbow Archives, Joseph Dion Fonds, M-331-2, 3–4.
8. Ibid., 3–4.
9. “Alberta Métis Association Brief—1935 (preamble),” Glenbow Archives, James Brady Fonds.
CHAPTER 29: ROCK BOTTOM
1. These included defence of Hong Kong (7–25 December 1941), the Dieppe Raid (19 August 1942), the Battle of Ortona (23–31 May 1944), D-Day (6 June 1944), the Falaise Campaign (7–16 August 1944), the Battle of the Scheldt (31 October–8 November 1944), the Rhineland Campaign (February 1945) and the Liberation of the Netherlands (March 1945). Prefontaine, “War and the Métis,” 3.
2. Unanimous resolution of the Saskatchewan Ninth Legislature, 28 March 1939.
3. Yorkton Enterprise, 21 January 1943.
4. Notes from a meeting of government officials “for the purposes of discussion the Métis problem in the Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta,” 13 July 1949.
5. Sworn testimony of Rita Cullen (née Vivier), trial transcripts, R. v. Goodon, Vol. 4, 106.
6. Campbell, Halfbreed, 8.
7. Zeilig and Zeilig, St. Madeleine, interview with Lazare Fouillard, 191–92.
8. According to Statistics Canada’s 2001 census, 23 per cent of the population that identified themselves as Métis changed residences in the year prior to the census, compared with only 14 per cent of the non-Aboriginal population. According to the 2006 census, Métis mobility rates within large urban centres were 35 to 40 per cent higher than the non-Aboriginal population. In the Alberta five-year migration data, Métis were 11 per cent more mobile than the non-Aboriginal population and 16 per cent more than registered Indians. Also, in Alberta the one-year migration rate for Métis was 24 per cent higher than for the non-Aboriginal population.
9. Minutes of meeting of l’Union Métisse du Local #1 de Batoche, 30 June 1929.
10. Minutes of meeting of l’Union Métisse du Local #1 de Batoche, 24 July 1929. Samuel Nault was nominated president general; Eugene Caron was nominated vice president general; Edmond Boyer was assistant secretary.
11. Norris became a member of the Green Lake local in 1947.
12. The subsequent report was not limited to Métis. It dealt with Métis and non-status Indians—in other words, all Aboriginal people who were not considered a federal responsibility at that time.
13. Lagassé, The People of Indian Ancestry, 77–78.
14. “Pallister Comes under Fire after Province Cancels 2nd Agreement with Manitoba Metis Federation,” 31 October 2018, cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/metis-mmf-government-agreement-hydro-manitoba-1.4885479.
CHAPTER 30: THE FIFTH NATIONAL RESISTANCE
1. Calder et al. v. Attorney General of British Columbia, [1973] SCR 313.
2. Daniels, 21 August 1978.
3. “The Métis and Multiculturalism,” brief presented to the Third Canadian Conference on Multiculturalism, 27–29 October 1978, Ottawa, in Daniels, We Are the New Nation, 51.
4. There was also concern about the lack of an entrenchment clause. By “entrenchment,” they meant a clause similar to s. 1 of the draft Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which stated that “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms, subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” The Aboriginal rights clause was not in the Charter and contained no such guarantee. Legal advice provided to the Native Council of Canada raised the possibility that Aboriginal rights might be unenforceable without such entrenchment. In the opinion of the author, this advice was unfortunate and wrong. No Canadian constitutional provision can be legally unenforceable.
5. Barkwell, “Métis and Non-Status Indian Constitutional Review Commission, 1981,” 2.
6. There was a provision to bring in BC and northwestern Ontario Métis in the future.
7. Weinstein, Quiet Revolution West, 114–16.
8. Resolution to Recognize the Historic Role of Louis Riel, House of Commons and Senate of Canada, 10 March 1992, by Joe Clark, then Minister of Constitutional Affairs. The Manitoba Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a Resolution to Recognize the Historic role of Louis Riel as Founder of Manitoba in May 1992.
9. Hansard, House of Commons, 21 October 1996, Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc Québécois member for Québec East, speaking to Bill C-297, second reading of An Act to Revoke the Conviction of Louis David Riel.
10. From 1983 to 2001, twelve bills were proposed in Parliament to exonerate Louis Riel. None has passed. There has never been a government-sponsored bill to exonerate Louis Riel.
11. Paul Chartrand, remarks at a Métis conference, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, June 2003.
CHAPTER 31: THE HUNT FOR JUSTICE
1. A complete record of Métis litigation can be found in Teillet, Métis Law in Canada.
2. Clément Chartier, QC, Jean Teillet, IPC, Jason Madden, Michelle LeClair-Harding, Lionel Chartrand and Kathy Hodgson-Smith were the Métis lawyers who represented Métis hunters and fishers in court.
3. “Ottawa Signs Self-Government Deal with Métis in Manitoba,” The Globe and Mail, 22 September 2018.
4. The author was the lawyer for the Women of the Métis Nation in their intervention at the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Barton. The case was argued on 11 October 2018. Much of the discussion in this section also appears in the written submissions of the Women of the Métis Nation in that case. The oral argument before the court can be viewed online at https://scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/info/webcastview-webdiffusionvue-eng.aspx?cas=37769&id=2018/2018-10-11--37769&date=2018-10-11. The Women of the Métis Nation oral submissions start at three hours and twenty-three minutes into the webcast.
5. Boyce, “Victimization of Aboriginal People in Canada, 2014,” 3, 9, 18.
6. R. v. Barton, 2015 ABQB 159, para. 1. The reasons for judgment in the voir dire determined the admissibility of the “preserved pelvic region of the deceased in this case, Ms. Cindy Gladue.”
7. Johnston v. Alberta (Director of Vital Statistics), 2007 ABQB 597 (CanLII).
8. Flanagan, Louis “David” Riel: Prophet of the New World, 30.
9. “It Needs to Be Said” is reproduced in Doxtater, “The Métis Women’s Association of Manitoba,” 177–78.
10. As of February 2019, the president of the Métis Nation of Ontario is Margaret Froh, the president of the Métis Nation of Alberta is Audrey Poitras, and the president of the Métis Nation British Columbia is Clara Morin Dal Col.
CHAPTER 32: MÉTIS IDENTITY
1. Bakker, A Language of Our Own, 65.
2. Ibid., 64, where he notes that “Bois-Brûlé” may be a translation of an Ojibwa term, wi:ssakkote:w’inini, meaning “half-burnt woodmen.”
3. Jones, “The Métis of Southern Manitoba in the Nineteenth Century,” 24; Falcon, “The Battle of Seven Oaks,” 5–9.
4. Bakker, A Language of Our Own, 65.
5. Dumont, “Leather and Naughahyde,” 58.
6. Anderson, Métis.
7. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, vol. 4, ch. 5, 500.
8. Riel, “The Métis, Louis Riel’s Last Memoir,” in Trémaudan, Hold High Your Heads, 200.
9. R. v. Powley, [2003] 2 SCR 207.
10. Gaudry and Leroux, “White Settler Revisionism and Making Métis Everywhere.”
11. Gaudry, “Communing with the Dead.”
12. Ibid., 171.
13. Leroux, “Self Made Métis,” 37.
14. R. v. Jean-Denis Castonguay, 2002 CanLII 49690.
15. Leroux, “Self Made Métis,” 36.
16. Quebec (Procureure generale) c. Sequin, 2017 QCCS 1881 at para. 158.
17. The information on these eastern groups comes from a series of court cases that can be found in Teillet, Métis Law in Canada.
CHAPTER 33: FREEDOM AND INFINITY
1. The Métis Nation has adopted at least five flags over its two-hundred-year history, including the infinity flag in 1815 and the Papineau flag in the 1840s. A flag was raised in the Red River Resistance in 1869, another in the North-West Resistance in 1885, and still another by the Old Wolves and in Batoche in the first part of the twentieth century. Toward the end of the twentieth century, the Métis Nation went back to its first flag, the infinity flag with a red or blue background, which continues to be used as its national flag. The infinity symbol is also used as a stand-alone symbol to represent the Métis Nation. It has become standard Canadian practice to use an eagle feather as the symbol to represent First Nations, an inukshuk to represent the Inuit, and the infinity symbol to represent the Métis Nation.