The Rise Of Louis Riel and the Fall of Batoche

Podcast version of ‘The Rise Of Louis Riel and the Fall of Batoche’ is available here

On July 4th, 1836, newly unseated reform politician William Lyon MacKenzie published a newspaper called The Constitution. In the publication, MacKenzie accused the Upper Canada government and its supporters of corruption and encouraged citizens to prepare for, what he called, ‘more noble actions than our tyrants could ever dream of.’

MacKenzie had just lost his seat in the 1836 Upper Canada Parliamentary election, after being accused by new lieutenant governor Francis Bond Head, of being a disloyal subject of the British Empire.

About a year after the release of his publication, MacKenzie led a group of farmers, hunters, and out-of-work laborers, into the forges of Upper Canada, to hold a number of weekend reform meetings in the summer of 1837.

At these meetings, MacKenzie created the Committee of Vigilance, signed as a declaration urging every community in Upper Canada to send delegates to Congress in Toronto, to discuss immediate remedies to their grievances, and to address the ongoing calls for colony reforms.

What would follow immediately after these meetings, would be a series of escalating incidents that would eventually lead to Rebellions in both Upper and Lower Canada later that year.

In response to these violent putsches and seditious coups attempts, Governor-General and High Commissioner of British North America, Lord Durham, investigated the political situation that ultimately led to the violent rebellions.

Durham was ordered to make recommendations to the British crown for necessary reforms in order to prevent such acts from happening again. These recommendations were published in a report that is known today famously in Canadian history as the Durham Report.

Durham has been lauded for being one of the first British authorities in pre-Canadian history to recommend an introduction of ‘responsible government’ to the colonies of British North America. However, while history paints ‘Durham’ as a critical figure in the formation of Canada, the British crown did not exactly accept that recommendation kindly, nor did they allow the British provinces to follow through with it, in any type of expedience.

Instead, the Crown settled to allow the proposal of a union between Upper and Lower Canada, which resulted in the creation of the United Province of Canada, becoming official with a proclamation on the morning of February 10th, 1841.

Lord Durham didn’t live long enough to see his recommendations come to fruition and died in the summer of 1840 before the unitary entity of the Province of Canada could be formed. In fact, it wasn’t for another 27 years until Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent to the British North America Act of 1867, which laid the foundation for the confederation of provinces, and the Dominion of Canada began to form the nation that we know and recognize today.

Canada first began to take form as a nation, in a reaction to a series of coup attempts and violent uprisings, that pushed the pre-Canadian government and the British crown to enact reform policy; in order to appease a culturally divided public, that was increasingly agitated by being ruled over by an anti-democratic, oligarch collective of imperialists, that were uninterested in granting provisions for open democracy and self-rule.

In this podcast series, we will retrace the events that led to the creation of Canada as a nation, and how a number of rebellious uprisings and even outright hostile takeovers, led to the forming of the country of Canada we know today.

Canada has gone through a number of phases of inner struggle, that have seen numerous consolidations of power by means of the same calamities, and national crises. that shaped the building blocks of how this nation would operate on the global stage, from the times of confederation, into the 20th century, and up until the current present day.

Well, if you’re still reading, I’m happy you’ve joined me because this is a project I’ve been working on for quite some time. We started off with the SparkQast and the Convoy Cult of Canada episode but it has kind of spiraled into a whole life of its own, this research about Canada and the forming of this nation and how, after 155 years, we’re still dealing with the same cultural issues that Canada was dealing with back in the times of confederation.

Ultimately, Canada was a nation founded on a consolidation of power numerous times over, and the types of consolidation of power that were seen back in the times of Lord Durham and William Lyon MacKenzie, are still happening today, they’re just happening on a level we kind of fail to recognize.

So in this article, we’re gonna break down the historical significance of numerous events and figures in Canadian history, and the roles that they have played in establishing the cultural framework that makes up the ordinance of the society that we know as Canada. I think you get the point.

So, thanks for joining me on what should be a very interesting and thoughtful journey down a very complicated history of a very complicated nation, so let’s pick up right where we left off in the year of Canada’s confederacy, 1867.

Almost three decades after the Durham Report was published, Canada was given the right to self-governance, by way of the British North America Act of 1867. The act saw the Province of Canada split into Ontario and Quebec, with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick also being added into a united federation called the Dominion of Canada.

While the idea of this unification was presented by Durham in 1939, spawning the Act of Union in 1840, there were still serious tensions among different factions within the Province of Canada and its neighboring British colonies to both the east and west as well as their, at times hostile American neighbors to the south.

In 1859, Alexander Tiloch Galt, George-Etienne Cartier, and John Ross embarked on a journey to Great Britain to present to the British Parliament a proposal for the confederation of the British colonies of North America.

The three men, who history often recognize as being a part of the original fathers of confederation, put the proposal forth to the British Monarch who responded to the motion with polite indifference.

Over the next five years, it became clear that the continued ordinance of government within the Province of Canada, under the terms of the 1840 Act of Union, had rendered itself into a cycle of unsustainable tensions, caused by the continuous consolidation of top-down political power.

In 1864, a coalition of parties was formed between rival political factions within Canada West (former Upper Canada) and Canada East (the former Lower Canada), which culminated in the Charlottetown Conference, taking place on a late summer day in Prince Edward Island on September 1st, 1864.

The main unifying factors at play in the negotiations of Canada’s confederacy were ultimately a means to prevent further escalation of cultural tensions between the various colonies that made up the Province of Canada and its neighbors.

In fact, there was a period of several years of legislative paralysis in the Province of Canada, which was mostly caused by a need to maintain a double legislative majority in order to pass laws. This meant that a majority vote had to come from both the Canada East and Canada West delegates, in order to make any type of legislative progress, which within the electoral framework at that period of time, almost never happened.

During this lengthy period of political deadlock, tensions and upheaval within the political structure began to sway between different factions within the Province of Canada. There was strong demographic pressure that was rising, as division among differing cultures was coming to a head, causing a demand for the Canadian territories to be redivided with a defiances on the separate ethnic, cultural, religious differences in the population. With that, came a need for an incentive to repatriate some groups of the population, as well as a need to reorganize various settlements within the Province of Canada overall.

There was also a lot of economic nationalism within different cultural groups because of their claims to certain labor. French Catholics in the logging industry working in the Anglo-regions of Canada West felt alienated among their English Protestant neighbors, and saw no prospect for prosperity by moving into, and integrating with a mixed society; that they felt wouldn’t be obligated to preserve their language or their culture.

The same could be said about Anglo workers in the Canada East region, who also felt alienated in a nation that was mostly governed by Anglophones, though they found themselves living in a region that predominantly operated with every aspect of societal life being communicated in a language, completely different from their own.

External pressures also lended to the need for some kind of internal unity within the Province of Canada and its neighboring British colonies. There was the cancellation of the Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty in 1865, which was a large free trade agreement between both countries, which Canada benefited from for over a decade, but was canceled due to the British Crown’s unofficial support of the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War.

Now this, kind of gets understated because, the Charlottetown Conference of 1864 had already taken place by this time, but the need for an inter-colony trade route and a railroad to improve the economic independence of the Province of Canada and its neighbors, grew exponentially after the U.S. cut off Canada as a trading partner.

I think it’s fair to say in and around 1865, it became clear to the colonists of Canada, that a cross-continent railroad from Eastern Canada, all the way towards the Pacific ocean and the colony of British Columbia would not only be a possibility but would improve the ability of the British North American colonies to defend itself on a transcontinental front, should the threat from their southern neighbor’s emerg once again. This provision would be added into the terms of the province of British Columbia being added into Canada’s confederation in 1871.

The project for Canadian confederation was supported by those from both the new liberal and traditional conservative political philosophies alike. It was supported by many types of colonists who had both a sympathetic, opposed and indifferent approach to government and its role in the coming nation’s economic development.

It is argued by many historians of different perspectives, that the foundation of Canada was molded out of two different political philosophies, with both conservative Toryism and new liberalism playing a role in the ideological make-up of the original colonists of Canada’s confederation.

These unique, but compatible ideologies and philosophical political views, meshed together in what would create the prototypical building blocks of what, I contend, we understand today, as neoliberalism.

Canadian historian Ian McKay describes this in an article written in 2000 entitled ‘The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History.’ In this article, McKay argues that Canadian confederation was motivated by the ideology of liberals, and the belief in the supremacy of individual rights.

MacKay describes Canada’s confederation as a part of the classic liberal project of creating a ‘liberal order’ in British North America. Many Canadian historians have adopted this ‘Liberal Order Framework’ as a paradigm for understanding Canadian history.

Meanwhile, other historians have taken a different, but congruent philosophical interpretation of these formative historical events.

In 2008, historian Andrew Smith put forth a very different, but complimenting view of confederation, arguing that the politics of taxation was the central issue in the debate over unity among the British North American colonies. Smith contends that typical ‘classic liberal’ colonists, who believed in free trade and low taxation, would have likely been against confederation due to their fears of big government, and statism.

Smith’s argument is that the struggle for confederation pitted a battle between a staunch liberal economic philosophy of individualism, which spurred the rise of the American Revolution, in the previous century, against a philosophy of government corporatism, collective capitalism and state enterprise.

The argument for and against confederation, in Smith’s eyes, mostly centered around the role of the state and its overall capacity in the forming of the new nation of Canada’s economy.

Through my understanding of Smith’s interpretation, I see the framework of this new kind of liberalism, where both the usage of state enterprise, as a means of expanding colonization, which was already established with charter and crown corporations in British North America, blended into this liberal philosophy of; individual freedom and independence by way of civil liberties, provisional sovereignty, freedom of religion, the right to language, political freedoms, and the separation of church and state.

So with this, we have the nation of Canada that is founded on both those liberal philosophies, while also allowing for national policy that subsidizes the funding for major infrastructure projects such as the Intercolonial and Pacific Railways.

These massively expansive colonization projects would only be made possible in Canada with economic government intervention, and the allowance of state-owned enterprise, which was a key part in the negotiations in the London Conference of 1866.

The Confederation of Canada was accomplished on March 29th, 1867, when the Queen gave royal assent to the British North America Act of 1867, with the royal proclamation stating: ‘We do ordain, declare and command that on and after the Friday of July one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, shall form and be One Dominion, under the name of Canada.’

Now, it’s important to point out that while the British North America act of 1867 eventually led to Canada having more autonomy and power of self-rule than it previously had, it didn’t technically gain full independence from the United Kingdom for another half-century.

In a ruling published on November 7th, 1967, the Supreme Court of Canada stated that “Canadian sovereignty was acquired in the period between its separate signature of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and the Statute of Westminster in 1931.”

In fact, because federal and provincial governments were not able to agree on a common charter, Canada was unable to make amendments to its own constitution until Queen Elizabeth II patriated it with the Canada Act of 1982.

Now to make things even more complicated, in 1975, while the rest of the nation was dragging their feet on a common charter, Quebec created the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, which made matters much more confusing between the province and Quebec and the rest of Canada.

Quebec law is unique because Quebec is the only province in Canada to have a juridical system under which civil matters are regulated by French-heritage civil law, while public law, criminal law, and federal law operate according to Canadian common law.

So it’s kind of hard to understand, but basically, because Quebec’s legal system was established before Canada existed, way back during the times of New France, with Louis XIV in 1664 declaring that the New France territory would be ruled by the Custom of Paris, a variant of civil law in force in the Paris region at the time.

Now, the Treaty of Paris in 1763 changed that for a brief period of time, but then in 1774 the Quebec Act was passed that reinstated the old Quebec civil law system.

A key provision of the Quebec Act provided that all disputes relating to property and civil rights were to be decided by the former law of Quebec. This phrasing was carried forward in the legislation put forth in the British North America Act of 1867.

Basically, this section granted all provinces, including Quebec, the exclusive power to legislate with respect to private civil law matters. While the other provinces operate under common law, Quebec continues to apply civil law toward civil private law matters.

Now as complicated as that sounds, it’s not even as simple as that because Quebec is considered a bi-juridical legal system, meaning that while the Quebec Charter rules over provincial matters, it does not apply to federally regulated activities in Quebec, which are subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and or the Canadian Human Rights Act.

So yeah. It’s all a very complicated chronology of history, but it’s important to lay out because I think a lot of people tend to brush over these matters when looking at Quebec nationalism and how it related to the forming of Canada’s confederation.

In the particular instance of Quebec, I think we can once more trace over that idea of new liberalism kind of forming this particular idea of gaining cultural and provincial independence by being a part of Canada’s confederation.

Quebec didn’t really have a collective identity for itself after the Constitution Act of 1791, with the old province of Quebec being split into Upper and Lower Canada. What followed was three quarters of a century of Quebec being held without an identity separate from Canada.

However, through this new liberal idea of provisional independence, freedom of religion, freedom of language, and freedom of association, Quebec managed to gain more autonomy for itself, whereas the other original three provinces, mostly settled by Anglophones, found their national identity through the unification of Canada.

Now, even after the British North America Act of 1867, there was still a large contingent of people, particularly in the West, that felt left out of this new race for cultural autonomy.

With this, the country of Canada would continue to face an ongoing threat of resistance and uprising, forcing the nation to alter it’s confederacy and redraw it’s borders in concession to the demands of the Indigenous, First Nations and Metis people of what would later become the Western plain provinces.

In 1869, the Hudson’s Bay Company surrendered their charter to the British Crown, receiving 300,000 British pounds in compensation, equal to roughly sixty million Canadian dollars today.

It is often cited as a historic anecdote that the Hudson’s Bay Company ‘sold’ Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory to Canada, though the reality is that the company technically had no actual land to sell, as their charter was essentially just for a trading monopoly enforceable only on British subjects.

The biggest settlement at the time in Rupert’s Land was the Red River Colony, which was located in and around the area of Southern Manitoba, with a focus on the Forks of the Red River in present-day Winnipeg.

An 1870 census of the region showed that more than 48% of the population in the area of the Red River Colony were Metis, with another 34% labeled as ‘English-speaking Mixed Bloods.’

The Metis are a cultural group of mixed Indigenous and European people who are inhabitants of mid-West North America, including Western Canada, the Northern United States, and parts of Ontario.

The Metis makeup 35% of the Indigenous population of Canada, and roughly just under 2% of the total population, based on a census conducted in 2016.

The Metis share a history and culture as a mixed Indigenous and primarily French or another European ancestry, which formed their culture into a distinct group through ethnogenesis during the height of the fur-trade in North America.

As French settlers followed the fur trade westward, they made unions with different Indigenous women. The term ‘Metis’ was originally used as a word to refer specifically to French-speaking people with mixed Indigenous heritage, while the term ‘country-born’ would be used in reference to the descendants of Anglo people with mixed indigenous blood.

Eventually, the term ‘metis’ would be used to refer to all persons of mixed First Nations and European ancestry, especially those with descendants from the historical Red River Metis Settlement.

Metis leader and lead organizer of the Red River Resistance, and founder of the Province of Manitoba, Louis Riel, famously wrote these words in reference to his own identity as a Metis person.

‘The Métis have as paternal ancestors, the former employees of the Hudson’s Bay and North-West Companies, and as maternal ancestors, Indian women belonging to various tribes.

The French word Métis is derived from the Latin [word] mixtus, which means “mixed”; it expresses well the idea it represents.

Quite appropriate also, was the corresponding English term “Half-Breed” in the first generation of blood mixing, but now that European blood and Indian blood are mingled to varying degrees, it is no longer generally applicable.

The French word Métis expresses the idea of this mixture in as satisfactory a way as possible, and becomes by that fact, a proper name suitable for our race.’

Riel offers up an elaboration on the expression of the Metis identity, with this example.

A little observation in passing without offending anyone; very polite and amiable people, may sometimes say to a Métis, “You don’t look at all like a Métis. You surely can’t have much Indian blood. Why, you could pass anywhere for pure White.”

The Métis, a trifle disconcerted by the tone of these remarks, would like to lay claim to both sides of their origin. But the fear of upsetting or totally dispelling these kind assumptions holds them back.

While they are hesitating to choose among the different replies that come to mind, words like these succeed in silencing them completely. “Ah! bah! You have scarcely any Indian blood. You haven’t enough worth mentioning.”

Here is how the Métis think privately. “It is true that our Indian origin is humble, but it is indeed just that we honor our mothers as well as our fathers. Why should we be so preoccupied with what degree of mingling we have of European and Indian blood?

No matter how little we have of one or the other, do not both gratitude and familial love require us to make a point of saying, ‘We are Métis.’”

After the highly anticipated ‘sale’ of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Canadian government appointed an English-speaking governor, William McDougall, to preside over the newly purchased territory, which included the Red River Colony.

McDougall was highly opposed by the French-speaking and mostly Metis inhabitants of the settlement, and was met with a peaceful, but strong display of resistance, organized by the Red River and Metis leaders Louis Riel and John Bruce.

McDougall’s government was blocked from entering the Red River colony entirely in the winter of 1869. Meanwhile, Metis leaders created a local provisional government, and after inviting an equal number of Anglophone representatives to be a part of the action, they formed what was known as the Convention of Forty and the subsequent elected Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia in the spring of 1870.

The assembly would send three delegates to Ottawa to barter an agreement on behalf of the Red River Colony, in what would become the foundation of the Manitoba Act of 1870.

So just to take a quick step back, it’s important to point out that, despite achieving a large amount of political success with the Red River Resistance, there was still a trumped up form of opposition from non-Metis members of the colony, especially from workers fraternities that identified as Anglo-Protestant.

The Canadian Party was a group founded by a number of ultra-Orange agitators in 1869, mostly organized by founder, John Christian Schultz, and his coadjutors Charles Mair, William Gaddy and Thomas Scott.

The McDougall government appointed Canadian Party supporters Colonel John Dennis, and Major Charles Boulton to raise a militia force to oppose the Metis-led resistance, and though Schultz, and his band of agitators ended up being captured and imprisoned at Fort Garry, both Dennis and Boulton managed to evade arrest by Riel and the Metis.

The Canadian Party, however, wouldn’t stop being a problem for Riel and the Metis there, as the group political agitators ended up breaking out of prison, and managed to re-convene with Major Boulton in Portage La Prairie, where they continued to seek Canadian-nationalist recruits in a means of countering the Metis-led resistance.

On February 12th, 1870, Major Boulton and his newly formed militia force led a party from Portage La Prairie along the Red River, with Schultz and his band of Canadian Party agitator’s in tail.

Their goal was to overthrow the provisional government, but upon arrival at Kildonan, Boulton allegedly had misgivings about his orders, turned his party around, only to be captured once again by Metis security forces.

Meanwhile, John Schultz and fellow Canadian Party agitator Charles Mair, managed to escape capture and flee to Ontario. Schultz continued to propagate against the Metis-led resistance from Toronto for the remainder of the conflict, and played a significant role in swaying public opinion against the Red River’s provisional government.

Metis leader, Louis Riel demanded that Major Boulton be made an example of, and he was sentenced to death for his interference with the provisional government’s negotiations.

The pardon of Major Boulton was negotiated by special commissioner Donald Smith, who assured Riel he would persuade members of his English parish to elect provisional representatives in exchange for sparing Boulton’s life.

After Boulton’s pardon, imprisoned agitator and Canadian Party member Thomas Scott, became increasingly combative in the lead-up to his trial, with some historians suggesting Scott interpreted Boulton’s pardon as weakness on behalf of the Metis, and began to viciously taunt the Metis guards, who he openly disdained.

Scott was found guilty of insulting the president of the provisional government, defying the order of the provisional government, and resisting the arrest of the provisional government. He was sentenced to death for the charges, though none of those charges were considered capital crimes, at the time.

Both Special commissioner Smith and Major Boulton pleaded with Riel to commute the death sentence of Thomas Scott, but Smith infamously reported that Riel responded to his please by stating:

“I have done three good things since I have commenced [here]; I have spared Boulton’s life at your instance, I pardoned Gaddy, and now – I shall shoot Scott.”

Thomas Scott was executed by firing squad on March 4th, 1870, near the east side gate of Upper Fort Garry. While there were many eyewitnesses to the execution of Thomas Scott, there are varying retellings of his last words and the actions to which resulted in his death.

What we know is that Scott was blindfolded and shot by a firing squad, with the execution witnessed by about 100 bystanders. Beyond that fact, it’s not very clear, and it’s debated whether or not Scott actually died by the initial shots from the firing squad.

Red River Metis leader John Bruce, reported to have made the claim that only two of the bullets from the firing squad actually hit Scott, with two small wounds noted on his left shoulder and upper chest. Bruce claimed that a man then came forward and discharged his pistol close to Scott’s head, but despite the close range, the bullet only partially penetrated Scott’s face.

Still alive, Bruce claimed that Scott was then placed in a makeshift coffin, and was left there to die of his injuries. After being placed in the coffin, Bruce’s claim is that in his last words, Thomas Scott cried out ‘For god’s sake take me out of here or kill me.’

Historians have long debated the exact motivations behind the execution of Thomas Scott, as it’s widely considered to be one of the most polarizing incidents in Canadian history. Riel wrote in his memoirs that his own justification for the execution was to demonstrate that the Metis should be taken seriously.

About two months after the death of Thomas Scott, the Manitoba Act was introduced in the Canada House of Commons by Prime MInister John A. MacDonald, and was given Royal Assent on May 12th, 1870.

The Metis were to receive 200,000 hectares of land, which would make up the then Province of Manitoba. This land was to allow the Metis to hunt freely and to form self-governance with legislative powers to protect Metis rights.

Just days after the Manitoba Act had been signed, the Canadian government authorized the military expedition of Colonel Garnet Wolseley, in what Canadian authorities at the time called ‘an errand of peace,’ but was widely understood by the Metis as a force sent to quell the resistance.

Riel feared that he would be arrested and charged with criminal acts for the execution of Thomas Scott, and believed that the Canadian militiamen in the expedition would retaliate by lynching him.

On August 24th, 1870, Riel and a close group of followers fled Fort Garry, and in fear of being targeted by violent acts of reprisal, Riel fled to safety across the Canada–US border and arrived at the St. Joseph’s mission in the Dakota Territory in September of 1870.

While the success of the Red River Resistance ultimately culminated in the Manitoba Act of 1870 and the creation of Manitoba as a province, many terms of the acts are still not settled today.

The Canadian government used language that was unfamiliar with the Metis people, as the conception of law enforcement, deeds to land, and paper money, were not fully understood, which resulted in most of the Metis people being cheated out of their allotted land on the settlement of the Metis territory.

While the Manitoba Act included protections for the region’s Metis people, these protections were not ever fully realized, as the terms of the recommended treaties were never fully met.

In fact, the Canadian government blocked the Metis’ attempt to obtain land promised to them as part of the Manitoba Act, which resulted in many of the Metis people losing their territory completely.

Facing increasing acts of state supported racism, and a new swarm of white settlers from Ontario, the majority of the Metis people from the Red River Colony moved to what would become Saskatchewan and Alberta.

This conflict was a highlight of a period of severe tension in Canadian history between white settlers and the Métis people. The Metis people of both French and Anglo-descent created a newly formed coalition in the wake of the Red River Resistance, that wished to protect their traditional ways of life against an ever present and aggressive Anglo-Canadian faction that was aligned with the Canadian government’s colonizing agents.

Louis Riel was elected three times as a member of the Canadian House of Commons, but in fear of his possible imprisonment and execution, Riel could never take his seat as a member of Parliament.

In the years following the Red River Resistance, the Canadian government signed what became known as the ‘Numbered Treaties,’ with various First Nations. These treaties ceded unlawful property rights to almost the entire Western Plains of the unsettled Indigenous land that made up present day Western Canada.

First Nations signed these treaties in hopes of gracious returns from the Canadian government, who promised economic support for food, education, and medical care.

The numbered treaties have been widely criticized throughout the history of Canada, and play a significant role in the struggle for First Nations rights in Canada today. The Constitution Act of 1982 gives protections of First Nations treaty rights, as under Section 35 states “Aboriginal and treaty rights are hereby recognized and affirmed.’”

However, this phrase has never fully been defined, and as a result, First Nations must each attest their rights individually in the Canadian courts, as shown in the ruling of the notable Canadian Supreme Court Case of R. v. Sparrow in 1990.

Unlike previous treaties forged during the times before confederation, the Numbered Treaties were conducted entirely in a British diplomatic manner, while the previous treaties were negotiated using both FIrst Nations and European tradition.

First Nations leaders were given translators either of European or Metis descent, who were to interpret what was being said during the course of the negotiations. What can be noticed when comparing the written documents used by government officials and the oral traditions used by the First Nations, is that a significant difference can be demonstrated.

This reality can be laid out with proof when examining the diaries of those like Indian commissioner Duncan Campbell Scott, who wrote a detailed journal account of the negotiating of Treaty 9 to Treaty 11.

There are also evidential claims from First Nations people that Alexander Morris, second lieutenant governor of Manitoba, failed to mention key terms like the surrender clause in the treaty text at the negotiations for Treaty 6, which led to massive miscommunication between the two parties.

Evidence of these differences can also be found among the rare pieces of written material and documentation made by First Nations Chiefs. During the Treaty 3 negotiations, Chief Powasson took detailed notes of the meetings, which show differences in the understanding of what was being offered during the talks, due to the language barriers.

The use of language and specific wording during the negotiations within the treaties is also a high point of contention. The language and phrasing used by the commissioners during the numbered treaty negotiations addressed First Nations tradition by giving them entitlement of children, while the crown was identified as Queen Mother.

The commissioner would recognize First Nations people as children, and the crown as Queen Mother, it ensured the First Nations people were to be protected from danger by their parents, and would enjoy their freedoms.

As the negotiations of the treaties would come to a close, the language used was almost always significant to First Nations people. Phrases in the closing of and seal of the numbered treaties would reference time in relation to the natural world, for instance ‘You will always be cared for, all the time, as long as the sun walks’ was an alliteration used to appeal to the First Nations people.

The first seven numbered treaties would be signed between 1871 and 1877. In the openings for negotiations for Treaty 7, the representatives for Canada were lieutenant-governor of the North-West Territories, David Laird, and James Macleod, commissioner of the North West Mounted Police.

Laird opened Canada’s side of the negotiation by stating the facts about the high rates of decline in the buffalo population, and how they proposed to help by introducing new laws to protect the herds from an increasing threat of hunters and white settlers.

The importance of the Buffalo for the Indigenous in 1877 was of high priority, due to their dependence on the herds for food stability. After two weeks of negotiation, Blackfoot Chief Crowfoot, and Kainai Nation Chief Red Crow agreed upon the Treaty, and it was signed by all leaders on September 22nd, 1877.

There is very strong evidence to support the fact that Indigenous people did not understand that they were surrendering their land to the government by making this deal. Overall, the impact of the treaty was far worse than that the First Nations people could have likely ever imagined.

The Buffalo disappeared at a rapid rate, with different nations’ hunting territory being overlapped by others, as per the treaty agreements. The number of settlers that came to the area increased exponentially in response to the treaty, putting further strain on what was an already heavily depleted food supply.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government’s claim to lend aid for a transition to agricultural lifestyle never occurred, and the reserves that the Nations were relocated to had unsuitable land that would not support the requirements of a sustainable Nation.

The federal government would also often used treaty violations as a method of asserting control over both the indigenous and Metis people. This led to First Nations’ territory in present day Alberta, which was controlled by the Blackfoot First Nations, being handed over to the Canadian Pacific Railway through manipulative negotiations overseen by Catholic missionary Albert Lacombe in 1882.

Later that year, Cree Chief Big Bear, who had held out of negotiations of Treaty 6 for over five years, was forced to make concessions to the Canadian government, signing the treaty in exchange for food supplies, to prevent his people from facing starvation.

Unbeknownst to Big Bear and his people, the food rations that the First Nations were to receive were based solely on the condition that the historically nomadic Cree-Assiniboine people would agree to settle in one permanent location for their Nation’s reserve.

This was not only impractical for Big Bear’s people, but it was nearly impossible. The Indigenous people of the Western Plains at this time were already struggling for a food source, due to the dwindling Buffalo, which made deciding on a single permanent location, ultimately undoable.

In the winter immediately following the signing of Treaty 6, Big Bear and his people failed to receive any of the food rations outlined in their agreement, based on their supposed failure to choose a permanent settlement.

It was understood by Big Bear that he would be unable to garner a reasonable agreement with the Canadian government, and with that, the Cree Chief began to lose influence over his people.

The younger and more aggressive Cree leader Wandering Spirit started to gain more influence over the Plains Cree, who were beginning to face an escalating conflict, caused by ecological changes due to the expansion of westward colonization.

On March 24th, 1884, an emergency meeting in the electoral district of Lorne in the Metis village of Batoche was held. At this meeting, representatives voted whether or not they would ask exiled Metis-leader, Louis Riel, to return to the Metis colony of Saskatchewan Valley, in order to help lead their cause against the oppressive actions of the Canadian government.

After two months of organizing by both the French and English-speaking representatives of the Metis, it was resolved to send a delegation to the Montana Territory, to ask Riel to return to his people, and help lead them once again.

In the summer of 1884, fourteen years after fleeing the country, Louis Riel returned to Canada with the intention of using his political influence to lead a new resistance in the Northwest Territories.

Upon Riel’s arrival, both Plains Cree leaders Big Bear and Poundmaker were formulating their own independent grievances which were laid out in meetings with Riel in early June of 1884.

The grievances of the Plains Cree leaders were quite different from the Metis settlers, and while the purpose of the meetings was to create a united front between the Metis and Plains Cree people, nothing was ultimately resolved, nor was a plan laid out until the following year.

In 1885, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald enlisted Catholic priest Albert Lacombe once again to assist in assuring the neutrality of the Blackfoot people. Upon his arrival, Lacombe convinced chief Crowfoot that the Metis rebellion would be a lost cause, and he agreed to keep his Blackfoot warriors out of the conflict entirely.

Meanwhile, Louis Riel was beginning to alienate many of his Metis followers, due to his newly found beliefs that God had chosen him to be the divine leader of the Métis. Nevertheless, Riel managed to convince both Plains Cree Chief Poundmaker and Cree Chief Big Bear’s people, to join along with his coalition of French and Anglo-Metis, in what would historically be known as the North-West Rebellion later that spring.

On March 19th, 1885, Louis Riel declared the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan, which included parts of both present day Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. With exception to Louis Riel’s English-speaking secretary Henore Jaxon and Dakota Chief White Cap, the Saskatchewan Provisional Government that Riel formed was made up entirely of French-speaking, Metis leadership.

The leadership committee of the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan was given the name Exovedate by Riel, a Latin word for ‘of the flock.’ The committee was based in the provisional government’s capital in present day Batoche, Saskatchewan.

The Exovedate committee would meet regularly to debate military policy, local bylaws, as well as religious and societal issues in what they hoped would be the forming of a new autonomous state, similar to Riel’s provisional government in Manitoba, 15 years prior.

Now, It was a much different scenario for Riel and the Metis in 1885. The railway was expanding westward, making it much easier for the Canadian government to send troops to the conflict.

The North-West Mounted Police had also recently been created, developing as a brutal and oftentimes violent arm of the oppressive colonial settler state, which was wielded by the command of Canadian Prime Minister John A. MacDonald.

Despite his religious ramblings scaring off much of his original base of supporters, Riel still managed to put together a coalition force made up of about 280 Metis and 250 Plains Cree, to fight alongside him in Saskatchewan, in the Spring of 1885.

After a number of famous and notable victories in the Spring of 1885, Including the Battles of Duck Lake, Fish Creek, and Cut Knife, the Riel-led rebellion force of Metis and Cree–Assiniboine fighters, began to face a growing number of reinforcements, with Canadian police beginning to arrive to the conflict by rail.

Gabriel Dumont, a respected hunter and leader of the Saint-Laurent Metis, led a number of these successful offenses, along with Cree Plains Chief Poundmaker, by implementing unorthodox tactics against the North West Mounted Police and other Canadian forces.

Dumont avoided direct confrontation with the Canadians, and instead opted to embark on what he hoped and planned would be a long drawn-out campaign of guerrilla warfare, by way of ambush, surprise raids and flanking attacks, corresponding with a tactical game of cat and mouse.

Both Dumont and Poundmaker’s tactics of unconventional warfare were proving to be successful, but Dumont’s plan was ultimately abandoned when Riel insisted on the concentration of Metis forces at Batoche, which he referred to as the Metis people’s ‘City of God.’

Canadian forces laid siege on the Metis capital, starting on May 9th, with the rebels holding off the raid for nearly three days. However, on May 12th, Metis forces became heavily outnumbered and ran out of ammunition, and critical supplies.

With no available ammunition, the Metis resorted to firing spent shell casings, sharp objects and even small rocks, with a number of the remaining rebels being dispersed or killed when Canadian soldiers finally overtook their position after three days of fighting.

Gabriel Dumont and a small Metis battalion managed to escape to the Montana Territory of the United States, while Metis leader Louis Riel was ultimately captured when he surrendered to Canadian forces a few days later on May 15th.

Upon news of Riel’s surrender, Cree Chief Poundmaker, who was known to have spared the lives of Canadian forces during the Battle of Cut Knife just two weeks prior, took his band of starving fighters to Battleford, to make peace with Major General Frederick Middleton and the Canadian government.

Poundmaker was arrested for his role in the Rebellion and charged with felony treason. Upon his arrest, Poundmaker is noted to have told Canadian authorities, “You did not catch me, I gave myself up. I wanted peace.”

With the fall of Batoche, the retreat of Dumont and the Metis rebels, along with the surrender of resistance leader Louis Riel; the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan had seemingly collapsed.

However, the fall of Batoche did not end the conflict, as a small force of Cree-Assiniboine fighters continued to engage with Canadian forces, carrying the day at the Battle of Frenchman’s Butte on May 28th, two weeks after the fall of Batoche.

On June 3rd, 1885 a small detachment of the North West Mounted Police managed to intercept Big Bear’s Cree fighters, who were forced to flee after running out of ammunition. In the weeks following the Battle of Loon Lake, a number of Big Bear’s fighters would surrender to Canadian police after becoming demoralized and rendering themselves defenseless.

On July 2nd, Cree Chief Big Bear surrendered to the Canadian police on an island in the Saskatchewan River near Fort Carlton, in exchange for food and critical supplies for the Cree and Assiniboine people.

Along with Chief Big Bear and Chief Poundmaker, dozens of other Indigenous men, including the young Cree war chief Wandering Spirit, were arrested and charged with murder outside of military conflict, in incidents related to the Lootings of Battleford and the Frog Lake Massacre.

Chief Wandering Spirit is known to have murdered Canadian federal government Indian agent, Thomas Quinn, who is reported to have denied the Cree people food rations on several occasions. At the time, Indian agents were attempting to shepherd the Cree Plains people onto a plotted land reserve, by means of manipulation and starvation.

When the Cree-Plains people besieged Frog Lake during the Rebellion earlier that spring, Quinn was taken from his home as a hostage due to his status. Upon arriving at the town church, Cree warriors would not let the townspeople of Frog Lake leave, and took many of them as hostages.

After attempting to move hostages out of the church to a nearby encampment, Quinn refused cooperation, which led to Wandering Spirit immediately shooting Quinn in the head with his rifle.

At this point, the historical record states that the unexpected act of violence caused mass panic among hostages, and amidst the chaos, Cree warriors were alleged to have killed eight more unarmed people.

This incident became known as the Frog Lake Massacre, and once news of the murders became public, the Canadian government decided to hold Big Bear responsible as an active participant in the rebellion, even though at this point he had no control over his band.

On November 7th, 1885, the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven by CP director Sir Donald A. Smith. The rise of the North West rebellion created a large increase of political support for the struggling railway project, which was facing near financial ruin prior to the spring blockade.

With the resistance posing a significant threat, the government managed to authorize additional funds to finish the line, completing the expansive colonial project in just four years. With this, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald’s National Dream of linking a transcontinental railway across the nation of Canada became true. However, the rapid westward expansion of the Canadian colonial project came at a much greater human cost, than that of which any currency could ever compare.

A little over a week after the completion of the railway, Metis leader Louis Riel was hanged for treason on November 16th, 1885, at the North-West Mounted Police barracks in Regina.

He was charged with six counts of high treason for his role in the North West Rebellion, with a guilty verdict under the Treason Act coming with a mandatory sentence of the death penalty.

Riel was the only party involved in the Rebellion to be charged with high treason. Seventy-one other individuals were charged with the lesser offense of treason felony, while twelve others, including the Battleford Eight, were charged with murder.

According to Professor Lauren Basson, in her 2008 article entitled, ‘White Enough to be American,’ several government officials requested that Louis Riel’s trial be held in Winnipeg. However, historians contend that the trial was moved to Regina in order to avoid the possibility of an ethnically mixed and sympathetic jury.

In fact, history shows that Prime Minister MacDonald is likely to have ordered Justice Minister Alexander Campbell for the trial to be held in Regina, where Riel was tried before a jury of six English-speaking Protestants.

Riel’s trial began on July 20th, 1885, and lasted just five days. The Metis leader entered a plea of not guilty and refused his lawyer’s advice of making a plea based on insanity. 
Riel defended his choice of using religious themes in his activism, insisting that his political actions were only for the purpose of real-world results.

In his closing arguments, Riel stated that he hoped to one day be recognized ‘for his force of good’ in Canadian history.

Riel stated, ‘I am glad that the Crown have proved that I am the leader of the Métis in the North-West. I will perhaps be, one day, acknowledged as more than a leader of the Metis, and if I am, I will have the opportunity of being acknowledged as a leader of good in this great country.’

On August 1st, 1885, after just an hour and twenty minutes of deliberation, the jury found Louis Riel guilty of treason, but with a recommendation of mercy. The foreman is said to read the verdict in tears. Nonetheless, Judge Hugh Richardson sentenced Riel to death, the only punishment available under the Treason Act at that time.

According to numerous Canadian historians, the outcome of Louis Riel’s trial is likely to be due to the underhanded conduct of the MacDonald government.

Canadian historian George Goulet has asserted numerous lingering issues about the trial. These issues include the mistreatment of Riel at the hands of his own legal counsel, and blatant attempts of manipulation and interference on behalf of Prime Minister John A. MacDonald; which includes political meddling uncovered involving correspondence between the Prime Minister and Justice Minister Alexander Campbell in the summer of 1885.

MacDonald also faced harsh criticism at the time, for denying the jury’s recommendation for the mercy of Riel. However, despite a public outcry, MacDonald openly fought against public opinion in order to uphold the death sentence of the Metis leader.

Following the sentencing, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald is famously quoted as saying ‘He shall hang though every dog in Quebec barks in his favour.’

Despite many pleas for mercy from across Canada, Louis Riel was executed by hanging on November 16th, with his last public words of record being “I give all my life as a sacrifice to God. Remerciez Madame Forget, et Monsieur Forget. Oh my God.”

The trial, conviction, and execution of Louis Riel have been the subject of historical examination and critical review for over a hundred years; with acknowledgment of Riel’s role in this nation’s history receiving more organization and academic scrutiny than any other Canadian figure.

Riel’s biographer Lewis Thomas, wrote in his 1977 book ‘A Judicial Murder – The Trial of Louis Riel,’ that “the government’s conduct of the case was to be a travesty of justice”.
In a 1979 book published by prominent Canadian historian George Stanley, entitled ‘Louis Riel: Patriot or Rebel,’ a member of the jury is quoted on the verdict fifty years after the trial as saying “We tried Riel for treason, and he was hanged for the murder of [Thomas] Scott.”

The death of Louis Riel marked the beginning of a bitter cultural struggle in Canada which echoed in the political landscape of the country for over a century. The Orange Irish Protestants of Ontario strongly supported Riel’s execution and demanded punishment for Riel’s role in the killing of Canadian nationalist Thomas Scott, during the Red River Rebellion back in 1870.

The province of Quebec was vehemently opposed to Riel’s hanging, with the overall opinion being that the execution of Riel was a symbol of Anglo-dominance and favoritism towards the English-speaking population of Canada.

Now, this sentiment among French Canadians was not exclusive to Quebec. For many Francophones, Riel’s execution had an everlasting negative impact on Franco-Anglo relations, with a polarizing new nation emerging in its wake, founded on re-drawn ethnocultural lines between increasingly hostile neighboring colonies.

Eventually, the bitter alienation towards Francophones in Western Canada contributed to the present-day reality of the once diverse Prairie Provinces being overtaken by a majority of Anglophone settlers, who historically allowed very little francophone presence in the North-West Territories.

Overall, the 1885 suppression of the Franco-Metis-led rebellion by means of Riel’s execution, has been the cause for an ever present rise of ethnic tensions and division in Canada; with the repercussions of these events continuing to be felt through the turn of the century and up until the present day.

The execution of Riel, along with John A. MacDonald’s refusal to commute his sentence caused a rift in Quebec-Canadian relations that has been used for political exploitation for over a century. Immediately following the death of Riel, Quebec politician Honore Mercier rose to power by mobilizing the outrage of the dejected French-speaking Quebec population

Mercier used this discontent to his advantage and reconstituted the Parti National, which ran a campaign on Franco-autonomy and Quebec nationalism in the year following Riel’s execution and won a majority government in the Quebec provincial elections of 1886.

The following year in the 1887 Canadian federal elections, John A. MacDonald retained a majority government, but Quebec Liberals made massive gains in the province by opposing MacDonald for his role in Riel’s execution. 

These gains made in Quebec in the 1887 federal election would lead to the victory of the Liberal party under new Prime Minister Wilfrid Lairier in 1896, and would set the stage for a continued Liberal dominance in Quebec’s federal politics which carried on for over a half-century.

In the wake of the ethnic tensions caused by the execution of Louis Riel, Quebec’s population became a major cornerstone of influence in Canada, based on a new coalition of Franco-Liberals and dissenting French-speaking conservatives, who sought regional autonomy and further independence from the perceived Anglophone favoring Canadian federal government.

In the aftermath of Riel’s death and the quelling of the North West Rebellion, the Metis people of Western Canada became increasingly marginalized in the Prairie provinces. English-speaking settlers began moving westward upon the completion of the Canadian Pacific railway and settled on lands that were a part of traditional Metis territory.

After years of state-sanctioned racism, cultural erasure, and outright land theft, the majority of Riel’s people were forced to assimilate into Anglo-Canadian culture. Time and misunderstood history, quickly phased out the Metis people’s identity and cultural influence in the Prairie Provinces, as well as in the country of Canada as a whole.

Because of this, Metis heritage is far more common than is generally realized among the population of Canada, with some geneticists estimating a possibility that about 50% of today’s population in Western Canada has some form of Indigenous ancestry.

This fact was all but lost in the consciousness of the collective Canadian identity, until the rise of the information age in the mid-20th century. 

After World War II, with the expansion of mass media for consumption, access to documents of historical significance became more widespread, which sparked a new emergence of interpretation pertaining to the reality of the Metis and First Nations people in the early days of Canadian history.

The original historic retelling of Riel and the Metis people’s actions often depicted them in mythopoetic form, framing the Canadian government as a heroic patriotic force, standing up against a barbaric regime of uncivilized savages.

However, academics and historical pundits gradually formed a critical understanding of Riel and the Metis people’s true role in early Canadian history. 

It began to be understood among most historical scholars that the Metis and First Nations people of Canada had major unresolved grievances, and that the government’s lack of response to these issues often led to fatal material conditions, which prompted Riel to choose a path of violent rebellion, only as a last resort.

By the mid-20th century, the trial and execution of Louis Riel began to be understood as a major cause of ethnocultural polarization, which continued to draw lines of tension across the country of Canada.

In 1982, historian Doug Owram wrote in the Canadian Historical Review, that Riel had become a ‘Canadian folk hero’ with even ‘mythical’ status, in English-speaking Canada.

In 2010, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverly McLachlin, spoke on Louis Riel and his role as a leader of the Metis people.

It is extremely important to understand that while Louis Riel’s execution caused colossal repercussions for the Metis people, their culture, and their way of life; it respectfully pales in comparison to the suffering endured by other non-European Indigenous and First Nations people, in the wake of the North West rebellion.

The North West Rebellion marked the climax of the Canadian government’s efforts to clamp down and control First Nations communities in Western Canada. This spurred ecological disaster, massive food shortages, and the normalization of justified violence towards Indigenous people living in Western Canada.

The Cree Plains people of the Western Prairies had already felt that they were oppressed in the lead-up to the rebellion, with the numbered treaties leaving First Nations communities openly subjugated by the Canadian government.

In the wake of the rebellion, numerous Metis leaders with political influence and interests that overlapped First Nations communities, either fled to Montana to escape treason charges, were jailed, or in Riel’s case, executed.

Along with the efforts of the Indigenous and Metis resistance falling short, the First Nations people were reared politically and emotionally damaged for generations in the wake of the conflict. A number of prominent Indigenous leaders were imprisoned or executed for their roles in various incidents surrounding the North West Rebellion.

After the arrest of Louis Riel in the summer of 1885, Cree leaders Big Bear, Poundmaker, and Wandering Spirit, along with 13 other Cree band members, were transported to Regina to stand trial on charges ranging from treason-felony to murder.

The trials of the Indigenous men facing murder charges after the Rebellion would historically become known as the trials of the Battleford eight. The trials of these men were mostly overseen by Magistrate Charles Rouleau, who he alleged had his home burned down by Cree warriors during the Looting of Battleford earlier that year.

Rouleau was admittedly bitter about the ordeal, and according to a December 1885 issue of the Saskatchewan Herald, openingly threatened that “every Indian and Half-breed rebel brought before him after the insurrection was suppressed, would be sent to the gallows if possible.”

Wandering Spirit was not permitted legal counsel during the time of his trial and instead chose to clear his concious and speak freely about his actions regarding both the Frog Lake Massacre and the murder of Thomas Quinn.

While Cree war Chief Wandering Spirit is alleged to have openly admitted to the murder of Thomas Quinn, he insisted that he played only a minor role in the uprising and that he felt immense guilt for the role he played in both the Frog Lake Massacre and the death of Quinn.

Based on the historical record, Wandering Spirit is reported to have told the court that he opposed his people’s role in the Rebellion, but that other Cree leaders, including Chief Big Bear’s son Ayimisîs, wouldn’t let him leave the band.

On September 22nd, 1885, Wandering Spirit was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Upon sentencing, Magistrate Rouleau is reported to have described Wandering Spirit as, ‘the greatest killer ever to walk on two legs in America.’

After his sentencing, Wandering Spirit said he wished that his death alone could atone for his acts, stating that he was saddened that others had to die with him.

Seven other indigenous men faced murder charges for their roles at Frog Lake, and the Looting of Battleford. The trials of these men were held only in English, preventing all of the accused from being able to defend themselves against any of the charges.

In fact, the only method of communication for many of the accused was through Catholic missionaries, who were reported to have encouraged the defendants to plead guilty, regardless of whether or not they actually committed the crimes they were charged with.

These judicial irregularities raise the question of authenticity in regards to some of the charges brought up against the Battleford eight, and whether or not authoriteis ever managed to properly verify the identity of the culprits of the murders.

William Cameron, a store clerk who worked in Frog Lake at the time of the massacre, testified at the trials against some of the accused men, though his testimony has come under increased scrutiny for being of second-hand nature, and oftentimes seemingly coerced.

This can be demonstrated in the historical record of the October 3rd, 1885 trials of both Miserable Man and Bad Arrow, who were both charged with the murder of civilian Charles Gouin. During the trial, Miserable Man requested that the witness testimony of William Cameron be used to back his alibi, placing him in the Frog Lake store during the time of the massacre.

However, Cameron was uninterested in cooperating with Miserable Man’s testimony and refused to back his alibi. Instead, the crown used Cameron to secure testimony from other Indigenous witnesses who claimed that Wandering Spirit ordered both Bad Arrow and Miserable Man to shoot Gouin simultaneously.

Meanwhile, in the murder trial of George Dill, the evidence against Iron Body, and more specifically Little Bear, has become increasingly unconvincing through the lens of historical hindsight.

In a similar instance to the murders of William Gouin, both Little Bear and Iron Body were alleged to have fired the fatal shot that killed George Dill in either rapid succession or simultaneously.

However, based on his own testimony, Iron Body refuted that Little Bear was the culprit of the murder, maintaining that a Cree Plains warrior who managed to flee Canadian authorities was the one responsible for the killing of George Dill.

Now this, might be the biggest fuck up involved in all because, Apischaskoos, aka Little Bear, was a Cree Plains warrior who shared the same name as the son of Cree Chief Big Bear, who was known by the name of Ayimisîs, as well as Little Bear.

Based on historical records, Chief Wandering Spirit, and Ayimisîs, led a group of Cree warriors to attack the settlement of Frog Lake, where Thomas Quinn and eight other white civilians were killed.

The problem here is that, just as Iron Body described in the murder trial of George Dill, Ayimisîs managed to escape Canadian authorities. In fact, we know this, Ayimisîs fled to the United States, and became a prominent leaders of the Ojibwa people in southwest Montana, in the years following the Rebellions.

In many ways, the use of the death penalty against the Battleford Eight was seen as a way for the Canadian government to once again assert its dominance over the Cree First Nations and other Indigenous people living on the Prairies. The Canadian government likely hoped to make an example out of the Battleford Eight, in order to discourage any future Indigenous uprisings.

This can be demonstrated by referring to the words of Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald, who was famously quoted to have said this of the hangings, “we must vindicate the position of the white man; [and] we must teach the Indians what law is.”

On the morning of November 27th, 1885, at Fort Battleford, Wandering Spirit, Round the Sky, Bad Arrow, Miserable Man, Iron Body, Little Bear, Crooked Leg, and Man Without Blood, were all executed by way of hanging, in what remains today as the largest mass execution in Canadian history.

Wandering Spirit was the only man who refused to give any last words before his death, and while it’s said that the other men shouted war cries in defiance of their accusers, Wandering Spirit is reported to have remained stoic and still before being hung in front of a small crowd of onlookers.

According to the University of Regina, on the day that the hangings of the Battleford Eight took place, all attendees at the Battleford Industrial School, the first Indian Residential School in Canadian history, were taken out to witness the executions.

It is suggested by some historians that this action may have been done in order to intentionally inflict both fear and generational trauma on the younger generation of First Nations people, especially those who had relatives that took part in the Rebellion.

After the executions, the bodies of the eight men were placed in a mass grave near the campground of Fort Battleford, with the grave being left unmarked and forgotten for almost a hundred years.

In 1972, the site was rediscovered by students at the University of Regina, who followed old plans of the fort in order to find the location of the burial plot. The location was then marked with a concrete pad and chain fence, and in 1985, a hundred years after the executions, the North West Centennial Advisory Committee and Battleford City Council erected a modern headstone at the gravesite, bearing the names of the eight executed Indigenous men.

In addition to the executions of the Battleford eight. The trials of both Cree Chief Big Bear and Cree Plains Chief Poundmaker took place in the fall of 1885.

Big Bear was in decent standing with numerous government officials at the time of his trial and had a good reputation with authorities for negotiating problems between his people and the Canadian government peacefully in the lead-up to the Rebellion.

Despite his people’s involvement in the Rebellion, Big Bear was, for the most part, still respected among settlers and government authorities in the North West. Many believed that his attempts at preventing an escalation of violence during the events at Frog Lake would be enough for the Cree Chief to avoid being convicted.

According to Canadian historian Hugh Dempsey, a civilian who was taken as a prisoner at Fort Pitt, Stanley Simpson, was the only person to testify as a witness for the prosecution in Big Bear’s trial.

Meanwhile, numerous witnesses of the events at Frog Lake testified in defense of Big Bear, refuting his involvement in any of the violent acts that took place. Indian Affairs agent Henry R. Halpin, who was held captive by Big Bear’s people for over two months, testified that he saw Big Bear as just as much of a prisoner as he was himself.

Store clerk William Cameron, who was also held captive by Big Bear’s Cree people, testified that he heard Big Bear try to stop the Massacre at Frog Lake, by opposing the use of violence against the town’s people.

The evidence was overwhelmingly in the favor of Big Bear’s innocence, with clear indications that he was not involved in any of the killings at Frog Lake, the looting at Battleford, or the taking of prisoners at Fort Pitt.

However, at the time of the trial, Big Bear was sixty-years-old, and with the trial being held only in English, he was oftentimes seen as confused and visibly frustrated with the proceedings.
Despite the lack of evidence, Big Bear was found guilty of treason felony and was sentenced to three years in prison at Stony Mountain Penitentiary in Manitoba. While in prison, Big Bear fell gravely ill, and after converting to Catholicism, he was released from prison after serving half of his term.

About a year after his release, Big Bear died at the age of 62 years old and was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery on the Little Pine First Nations reserve in Saskatchewan.

Plains Cree chief Poundmaker was also facing charges of treason-felony for his role in the North West Rebellion. Poundmaker was respected by Canadian authorities for calling off his band of fighters during the Battle of Cut Knife Hill.

In the months following the Rebellion, it became well known among Canadian forces that Poundmaker’s actions likely prevented immense loss of life on both sides of the conflict.

During his trial, Poundmaker is reported to have said in his defense: “Everything that is bad has been laid against me this summer, there is nothing of it true… Had I wanted war, I would not be here now. I should be on the prairie. You did not catch me. I gave myself up. You have got me because I wanted justice.”

Despite very little evidence tying Poundmaker to any violence during the Rebellion, the Plains Cree chief was still found guilty of felony treason and was also sentenced to three years in prison at the Stony Mountain Penitentiary.

Because of his band status and as the adopted son of First Nation’s chief Crowfoot, Poundmaker was not forced to cut his hair in prison and was said to have been highly respected by other inmates during the time of his imprisonment.

After serving just seven months of his three-year sentence, Poundmaker was released from prison, however, the conditions at the Penitentiary had devastating effects on his health.

Shortly after his release, at the age of just 44 years old Poundmaker died due to a lung hemorrhage caused by complications of tuberculosis, which he contracted while in prison.

Poundmaker was buried at Blackfoot Crossing in Gleichen, Alberta in 1886, but was exhumed in 1967, with his remains being reburied on the Poundmaker Reserve in Cut Knife, Saskatchewan.

On May 23rd, 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke in front of members of the Poundmaker Cree Nation to exonerate Poundmaker of his felony-treason conviction.

The signing of this brutally oppressive amendment was done by the 5th Prime Minister of Canada, Mackenzie Bowell. However, the framework for forced assimilation of Indigenous people and the residential school system was laid out by John A. MacDonald, during his second term as Prime Minister, starting in 1878.

In January of 1879, MacDonald commissioned conservative politician Nicholas Flood Davin, to write a report regarding the industrial boarding-school system in the United States. MacDonald had previously shown an interest in implementing a similar framework in Canada, geared towards the assimilation of Indigenous people into what he referred to as “Canadian culture.”

This document is widely considered to be the cornerstone of the architectural framework for the Canadian Indian residential school system. In the report, Davin advised the federal government to institute Residential Schools for all Indigenous children in Canada.

Now, MacDonald took great pride in his plans for cultural assimilation, mostly because he was an outright white supremacist, and really had no shame in stating it overtly.

In 1883, during an address to the Canada House of Commons, MacDonald shared his views on the need for Residential schools and the assimilation of Indigenous people in Canada.
“When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.

Under Prime Minister John A. MacDonald, the Canadian government would implement the residential school system, with the first school opening in 1883 in Battleford. The purpose of the school system was to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and to assimilate them into Canadian culture.

In 2015, the Canadian government’s Truth and Conconcilliation Commission concluded that the forced assimilation of Indigenous people, amounted to, in the committee’s words, cultural genocide. While the number of school-related deaths remains unknown due to incomplete records. The estimations of reported deaths range from 3200 to as high as 30,000.

In 2017, Indigenous protestors in Ottawa erected a tepee at the foot of Parliament hill, to counter a large four-day celebration that marked 150 years of Canada as a nation. On the second day of the protest, a press conference was held with family members of missing and murdered indigenous women and children, who took questions from the Canadian media.

Following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and in the wake of a new critical understanding of Canada’s historical atrocities towards Indigenous people; Prime Minister John A. MacDonald’s legacy has rightfully come under harsh scrutiny, with many communities opting to remove historical references to MacDonald in acts of reconciliation.

In 2018, a statue of John A. Macdonald was removed from outside Victoria City Hall, as part of the city’s program for reconciliation with local First Nations.

In June of 2021, a statue of MacDonald in Charlottetown, PEI, a historical city that hosted the 1864 Charlottetown Conference, removed a statue of the former Prime Minister after the city council voted unanimously to remove it.

On June 18, 2021, following the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the statue of John A. Macdonald was removed from Kingston’s City Park after the city council voted 12–1 in favor of its removal.

Weeks later, on July 5, 2021, Canada’s national library, deleted its web page on Canada’s prime ministers, “First Among Equals”, calling the manuscript “outdated and redundant”

These small, but significant acts of reconciliation are the beginning of what should be a spark for a cultural paradigm shift in the collective understanding of how this de facto nation came to be.

Canada was formed in the wake of a series of uprisings, rebellions, and even insurrection attempts. The borders along the provinces and territories of this country, mark the historical lines of bargaining and conceded sovereignty, handed over to the people who oftentimes fought and died for a land to call their own.

While this nation’s shame can be raised when historical atrocities such as the Caroline Affair, the execution of Louis Riel, and the imprisonment of Indigenous land defenders such as Poundmaker or Big Bear come to light; an even darker and more heinous indignity of our nation can be uncovered by piercing the veil of myth and legend, and by exploring the true intentions of the very first European settlers that came here, and the way that colonial powers laid claim to the lands belonging to sovereign nations of American Indigenous people.

In the next episode of this podcast, we will explore how a papal proclamation known as the Doctrine of Discovery, laid the framework for the mass displacement and cultural genocide of the Indigenous people of North America. How colonizers used disease, slavery, rape and war to lay to waste an entire civilization of people only to be replaced by a new breed of European settlers, and the prospect of a dawning of what they believed, was a new world.

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On July 4th, 1836, newly unseated reform politician William Lyon MacKenzie published a newspaper called The Constitution. In the publication, MacKenzie accused the Upper Canada government and its supporters of corruption and encouraged citizens to prepare for, what he called, ‘more noble actions than our tyrants could ever dream of.’

MacKenzie had just lost his seat in the 1836 Upper Canada Parliamentary election, after being accused by new lieutenant governor Francis Bond Head, of being a disloyal subject of the British Empire.

About a year after the release of his publication, MacKenzie led a group of farmers, hunters, and out-of-work laborers, into the forges of Upper Canada, to hold a number of weekend reform meetings in the summer of 1837.

At these meetings, MacKenzie created the Committee of Vigilance, signed as a declaration urging every community in Upper Canada to send delegates to Congress in Toronto, to discuss immediate remedies to their grievances, and to address the ongoing calls for colony reforms.

What would follow immediately after these meetings, would be a series of escalating incidents that would eventually lead to Rebellions in both Upper and Lower Canada later that year.

In response to these violent putsches and seditious coups attempts, Governor-General and High Commissioner of British North America, Lord Durham, investigated the political situation that ultimately led to the violent rebellions.

Durham was ordered to make recommendations to the British crown for necessary reforms in order to prevent such acts from happening again. These recommendations were published in a report that is known today famously in Canadian history as the Durham Report.

Durham has been lauded for being one of the first British authorities in pre-Canadian history to recommend an introduction of ‘responsible government’ to the colonies of British North America. However, while history paints ‘Durham’ as a critical figure in the formation of Canada, the British crown did not exactly accept that recommendation kindly, nor did they allow the British provinces to follow through with it, in any type of expedience.

Instead, the Crown settled to allow the proposal of a union between Upper and Lower Canada, which resulted in the creation of the United Province of Canada, becoming official with a proclamation on the morning of February 10th, 1841.

Lord Durham didn’t live long enough to see his recommendations come to fruition and died in the summer of 1840 before the unitary entity of the Province of Canada could be formed. In fact, it wasn’t for another 27 years until Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent to the British North America Act of 1867, which laid the foundation for the confederation of provinces, and the Dominion of Canada began to form the nation that we know and recognize today.

Canada first began to take form as a nation, in a reaction to a series of coup attempts and violent uprisings, that pushed the pre-Canadian government and the British crown to enact reform policy; in order to appease a culturally divided public, that was increasingly agitated by being ruled over by an anti-democratic, oligarch collective of imperialists, that were uninterested in granting provisions for open democracy and self-rule.

In this podcast series, we will retrace the events that led to the creation of Canada as a nation, and how a number of rebellious uprisings and even outright hostile takeovers, led to the forming of the country of Canada we know today.

Canada has gone through a number of phases of inner struggle, that have seen numerous consolidations of power by means of the same calamities, and national crises. that shaped the building blocks of how this nation would operate on the global stage, from the times of confederation, into the 20th century, and up until the current present day.

Well, if you’re still reading, I’m happy you’ve joined me because this is a project I’ve been working on for quite some time. We started off with the SparkQast and the Convoy Cult of Canada episode but it has kind of spiraled into a whole life of its own, this research about Canada and the forming of this nation and how, after 155 years, we’re still dealing with the same cultural issues that Canada was dealing with back in the times of confederation.

Ultimately, Canada was a nation founded on a consolidation of power numerous times over, and the types of consolidation of power that were seen back in the times of Lord Durham and William Lyon MacKenzie, are still happening today, they’re just happening on a level we kind of fail to recognize.

So in this article, we’re gonna break down the historical significance of numerous events and figures in Canadian history, and the roles that they have played in establishing the cultural framework that makes up the ordinance of the society that we know as Canada. I think you get the point.

So, thanks for joining me on what should be a very interesting and thoughtful journey down a very complicated history of a very complicated nation, so let’s pick up right where we left off in the year of Canada’s confederacy, 1867.

Almost three decades after the Durham Report was published, Canada was given the right to self-governance, by way of the British North America Act of 1867. The act saw the Province of Canada split into Ontario and Quebec, with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick also being added into a united federation called the Dominion of Canada.

While the idea of this unification was presented by Durham in 1939, spawning the Act of Union in 1840, there were still serious tensions among different factions within the Province of Canada and its neighboring British colonies to both the east and west as well as their, at times hostile American neighbors to the south.

In 1859, Alexander Tiloch Galt, George-Etienne Cartier, and John Ross embarked on a journey to Great Britain to present to the British Parliament a proposal for the confederation of the British colonies of North America.

The three men, who history often recognize as being a part of the original fathers of confederation, put the proposal forth to the British Monarch who responded to the motion with polite indifference.

Over the next five years, it became clear that the continued ordinance of government within the Province of Canada, under the terms of the 1840 Act of Union, had rendered itself into a cycle of unsustainable tensions, caused by the continuous consolidation of top-down political power.

In 1864, a coalition of parties was formed between rival political factions within Canada West (former Upper Canada) and Canada East (the former Lower Canada), which culminated in the Charlottetown Conference, taking place on a late summer day in Prince Edward Island on September 1st, 1864.

The main unifying factors at play in the negotiations of Canada’s confederacy were ultimately a means to prevent further escalation of cultural tensions between the various colonies that made up the Province of Canada and its neighbors.

In fact, there was a period of several years of legislative paralysis in the Province of Canada, which was mostly caused by a need to maintain a double legislative majority in order to pass laws. This meant that a majority vote had to come from both the Canada East and Canada West delegates, in order to make any type of legislative progress, which within the electoral framework at that period of time, almost never happened.

During this lengthy period of political deadlock, tensions and upheaval within the political structure began to sway between different factions within the Province of Canada. There was strong demographic pressure that was rising, as division among differing cultures was coming to a head, causing a demand for the Canadian territories to be redivided with a defiances on the separate ethnic, cultural, religious differences in the population. With that, came a need for an incentive to repatriate some groups of the population, as well as a need to reorganize various settlements within the Province of Canada overall.

There was also a lot of economic nationalism within different cultural groups because of their claims to certain labor. French Catholics in the logging industry working in the Anglo-regions of Canada West felt alienated among their English Protestant neighbors, and saw no prospect for prosperity by moving into, and integrating with a mixed society; that they felt wouldn’t be obligated to preserve their language or their culture.

The same could be said about Anglo workers in the Canada East region, who also felt alienated in a nation that was mostly governed by Anglophones, though they found themselves living in a region that predominantly operated with every aspect of societal life being communicated in a language, completely different from their own.

External pressures also lended to the need for some kind of internal unity within the Province of Canada and its neighboring British colonies. There was the cancellation of the Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty in 1865, which was a large free trade agreement between both countries, which Canada benefited from for over a decade, but was canceled due to the British Crown’s unofficial support of the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War.

Now this, kind of gets understated because, the Charlottetown Conference of 1864 had already taken place by this time, but the need for an inter-colony trade route and a railroad to improve the economic independence of the Province of Canada and its neighbors, grew exponentially after the U.S. cut off Canada as a trading partner.

I think it’s fair to say in and around 1865, it became clear to the colonists of Canada, that a cross-continent railroad from Eastern Canada, all the way towards the Pacific ocean and the colony of British Columbia would not only be a possibility but would improve the ability of the British North American colonies to defend itself on a transcontinental front, should the threat from their southern neighbor’s emerg once again. This provision would be added into the terms of the province of British Columbia being added into Canada’s confederation in 1871.

The project for Canadian confederation was supported by those from both the new liberal and traditional conservative political philosophies alike. It was supported by many types of colonists who had both a sympathetic, opposed and indifferent approach to government and its role in the coming nation’s economic development.

It is argued by many historians of different perspectives, that the foundation of Canada was molded out of two different political philosophies, with both conservative Toryism and new liberalism playing a role in the ideological make-up of the original colonists of Canada’s confederation.

These unique, but compatible ideologies and philosophical political views, meshed together in what would create the prototypical building blocks of what, I contend, we understand today, as neoliberalism.

Canadian historian Ian McKay describes this in an article written in 2000 entitled ‘The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History.’ In this article, McKay argues that Canadian confederation was motivated by the ideology of liberals, and the belief in the supremacy of individual rights.

MacKay describes Canada’s confederation as a part of the classic liberal project of creating a ‘liberal order’ in British North America. Many Canadian historians have adopted this ‘Liberal Order Framework’ as a paradigm for understanding Canadian history.

Meanwhile, other historians have taken a different, but congruent philosophical interpretation of these formative historical events.

In 2008, historian Andrew Smith put forth a very different, but complimenting view of confederation, arguing that the politics of taxation was the central issue in the debate over unity among the British North American colonies. Smith contends that typical ‘classic liberal’ colonists, who believed in free trade and low taxation, would have likely been against confederation due to their fears of big government, and statism.

Smith’s argument is that the struggle for confederation pitted a battle between a staunch liberal economic philosophy of individualism, which spurred the rise of the American Revolution, in the previous century, against a philosophy of government corporatism, collective capitalism and state enterprise.

The argument for and against confederation, in Smith’s eyes, mostly centered around the role of the state and its overall capacity in the forming of the new nation of Canada’s economy.

Through my understanding of Smith’s interpretation, I see the framework of this new kind of liberalism, where both the usage of state enterprise, as a means of expanding colonization, which was already established with charter and crown corporations in British North America, blended into this liberal philosophy of; individual freedom and independence by way of civil liberties, provisional sovereignty, freedom of religion, the right to language, political freedoms, and the separation of church and state.

So with this, we have the nation of Canada that is founded on both those liberal philosophies, while also allowing for national policy that subsidizes the funding for major infrastructure projects such as the Intercolonial and Pacific Railways.

These massively expansive colonization projects would only be made possible in Canada with economic government intervention, and the allowance of state-owned enterprise, which was a key part in the negotiations in the London Conference of 1866.

The Confederation of Canada was accomplished on March 29th, 1867, when the Queen gave royal assent to the British North America Act of 1867, with the royal proclamation stating: ‘We do ordain, declare and command that on and after the Friday of July one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, shall form and be One Dominion, under the name of Canada.’

Now, it’s important to point out that while the British North America act of 1867 eventually led to Canada having more autonomy and power of self-rule than it previously had, it didn’t technically gain full independence from the United Kingdom for another half-century.

In a ruling published on November 7th, 1967, the Supreme Court of Canada stated that “Canadian sovereignty was acquired in the period between its separate signature of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and the Statute of Westminster in 1931.”

In fact, because federal and provincial governments were not able to agree on a common charter, Canada was unable to make amendments to its own constitution until Queen Elizabeth II patriated it with the Canada Act of 1982.

Now to make things even more complicated, in 1975, while the rest of the nation was dragging their feet on a common charter, Quebec created the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, which made matters much more confusing between the province and Quebec and the rest of Canada.

Quebec law is unique because Quebec is the only province in Canada to have a juridical system under which civil matters are regulated by French-heritage civil law, while public law, criminal law, and federal law operate according to Canadian common law.

So it’s kind of hard to understand, but basically, because Quebec’s legal system was established before Canada existed, way back during the times of New France, with Louis XIV in 1664 declaring that the New France territory would be ruled by the Custom of Paris, a variant of civil law in force in the Paris region at the time.

Now, the Treaty of Paris in 1763 changed that for a brief period of time, but then in 1774 the Quebec Act was passed that reinstated the old Quebec civil law system.

A key provision of the Quebec Act provided that all disputes relating to property and civil rights were to be decided by the former law of Quebec. This phrasing was carried forward in the legislation put forth in the British North America Act of 1867.

Basically, this section granted all provinces, including Quebec, the exclusive power to legislate with respect to private civil law matters. While the other provinces operate under common law, Quebec continues to apply civil law toward civil private law matters.

Now as complicated as that sounds, it’s not even as simple as that because Quebec is considered a bi-juridical legal system, meaning that while the Quebec Charter rules over provincial matters, it does not apply to federally regulated activities in Quebec, which are subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and or the Canadian Human Rights Act.

So yeah. It’s all a very complicated chronology of history, but it’s important to lay out because I think a lot of people tend to brush over these matters when looking at Quebec nationalism and how it related to the forming of Canada’s confederation.

In the particular instance of Quebec, I think we can once more trace over that idea of new liberalism kind of forming this particular idea of gaining cultural and provincial independence by being a part of Canada’s confederation.

Quebec didn’t really have a collective identity for itself after the Constitution Act of 1791, with the old province of Quebec being split into Upper and Lower Canada. What followed was three quarters of a century of Quebec being held without an identity separate from Canada.

However, through this new liberal idea of provisional independence, freedom of religion, freedom of language, and freedom of association, Quebec managed to gain more autonomy for itself, whereas the other original three provinces, mostly settled by Anglophones, found their national identity through the unification of Canada.

Now, even after the British North America Act of 1867, there was still a large contingent of people, particularly in the West, that felt left out of this new race for cultural autonomy.

With this, the country of Canada would continue to face an ongoing threat of resistance and uprising, forcing the nation to alter it’s confederacy and redraw it’s borders in concession to the demands of the Indigenous, First Nations and Metis people of what would later become the Western plain provinces.

In 1869, the Hudson’s Bay Company surrendered their charter to the British Crown, receiving 300,000 British pounds in compensation, equal to roughly sixty million Canadian dollars today.

It is often cited as a historic anecdote that the Hudson’s Bay Company ‘sold’ Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory to Canada, though the reality is that the company technically had no actual land to sell, as their charter was essentially just for a trading monopoly enforceable only on British subjects.

The biggest settlement at the time in Rupert’s Land was the Red River Colony, which was located in and around the area of Southern Manitoba, with a focus on the Forks of the Red River in present-day Winnipeg.

An 1870 census of the region showed that more than 48% of the population in the area of the Red River Colony were Metis, with another 34% labeled as ‘English-speaking Mixed Bloods.’

The Metis are a cultural group of mixed Indigenous and European people who are inhabitants of mid-West North America, including Western Canada, the Northern United States, and parts of Ontario.

The Metis makeup 35% of the Indigenous population of Canada, and roughly just under 2% of the total population, based on a census conducted in 2016.

The Metis share a history and culture as a mixed Indigenous and primarily French or another European ancestry, which formed their culture into a distinct group through ethnogenesis during the height of the fur-trade in North America.

As French settlers followed the fur trade westward, they made unions with different Indigenous women. The term ‘Metis’ was originally used as a word to refer specifically to French-speaking people with mixed Indigenous heritage, while the term ‘country-born’ would be used in reference to the descendants of Anglo people with mixed indigenous blood.

Eventually, the term ‘metis’ would be used to refer to all persons of mixed First Nations and European ancestry, especially those with descendants from the historical Red River Metis Settlement.

Metis leader and lead organizer of the Red River Resistance, and founder of the Province of Manitoba, Louis Riel, famously wrote these words in reference to his own identity as a Metis person.

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‘The Métis have as paternal ancestors, the former employees of the Hudson’s Bay and North-West Companies, and as maternal ancestors, Indian women belonging to various tribes.

The French word Métis is derived from the Latin [word] mixtus, which means “mixed”; it expresses well the idea it represents.

Quite appropriate also, was the corresponding English term “Half-Breed” in the first generation of blood mixing, but now that European blood and Indian blood are mingled to varying degrees, it is no longer generally applicable.

The French word Métis expresses the idea of this mixture in as satisfactory a way as possible, and becomes by that fact, a proper name suitable for our race.’

Riel offers up an elaboration on the expression of the Metis identity, with this example.

A little observation in passing without offending anyone; very polite and amiable people, may sometimes say to a Métis, “You don’t look at all like a Métis. You surely can’t have much Indian blood. Why, you could pass anywhere for pure White.”

The Métis, a trifle disconcerted by the tone of these remarks, would like to lay claim to both sides of their origin. But the fear of upsetting or totally dispelling these kind assumptions holds them back.

While they are hesitating to choose among the different replies that come to mind, words like these succeed in silencing them completely. “Ah! bah! You have scarcely any Indian blood. You haven’t enough worth mentioning.”

Here is how the Métis think privately. “It is true that our Indian origin is humble, but it is indeed just that we honor our mothers as well as our fathers. Why should we be so preoccupied with what degree of mingling we have of European and Indian blood?

No matter how little we have of one or the other, do not both gratitude and familial love require us to make a point of saying, ‘We are Métis.’”

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After the highly anticipated ‘sale’ of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Canadian government appointed an English-speaking governor, William McDougall, to preside over the newly purchased territory, which included the Red River Colony.

McDougall was highly opposed by the French-speaking and mostly Metis inhabitants of the settlement, and was met with a peaceful, but strong display of resistance, organized by the Red River and Metis leaders Louis Riel and John Bruce.

McDougall’s government was blocked from entering the Red River colony entirely in the winter of 1869. Meanwhile, Metis leaders created a local provisional government, and after inviting an equal number of Anglophone representatives to be a part of the action, they formed what was known as the Convention of Forty and the subsequent elected Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia in the spring of 1870.

The assembly would send three delegates to Ottawa to barter an agreement on behalf of the Red River Colony, in what would become the foundation of the Manitoba Act of 1870.

So just to take a quick step back, it’s important to point out that, despite achieving a large amount of political success with the Red River Resistance, there was still a trumped up form of opposition from non-Metis members of the colony, especially from workers fraternities that identified as Anglo-Protestant.

The Canadian Party was a group founded by a number of ultra-Orange agitators in 1869, mostly organized by founder, John Christian Schultz, and his coadjutors Charles Mair, William Gaddy and Thomas Scott.

The McDougall government appointed Canadian Party supporters Colonel John Dennis, and Major Charles Boulton to raise a militia force to oppose the Metis-led resistance, and though Schultz, and his band of agitators ended up being captured and imprisoned at Fort Garry, both Dennis and Boulton managed to evade arrest by Riel and the Metis.

The Canadian Party, however, wouldn’t stop being a problem for Riel and the Metis there, as the group political agitators ended up breaking out of prison, and managed to re-convene with Major Boulton in Portage La Prairie, where they continued to seek Canadian-nationalist recruits in a means of countering the Metis-led resistance.

On February 12th, 1870, Major Boulton and his newly formed militia force led a party from Portage La Prairie along the Red River, with Schultz and his band of Canadian Party agitator’s in tail.

Their goal was to overthrow the provisional government, but upon arrival at Kildonan, Boulton allegedly had misgivings about his orders, turned his party around, only to be captured once again by Metis security forces.

Meanwhile, John Schultz and fellow Canadian Party agitator Charles Mair, managed to escape capture and flee to Ontario. Schultz continued to propagate against the Metis-led resistance from Toronto for the remainder of the conflict, and played a significant role in swaying public opinion against the Red River’s provisional government.

Metis leader, Louis Riel demanded that Major Boulton be made an example of, and he was sentenced to death for his interference with the provisional government’s negotiations.

The pardon of Major Boulton was negotiated by special commissioner Donald Smith, who assured Riel he would persuade members of his English parish to elect provisional representatives in exchange for sparing Boulton’s life.

After Boulton’s pardon, imprisoned agitator and Canadian Party member Thomas Scott, became increasingly combative in the lead-up to his trial, with some historians suggesting Scott interpreted Boulton’s pardon as weakness on behalf of the Metis, and began to viciously taunt the Metis guards, who he openly disdained.

Scott was found guilty of insulting the president of the provisional government, defying the order of the provisional government, and resisting the arrest of the provisional government. He was sentenced to death for the charges, though none of those charges were considered capital crimes, at the time.

Both Special commissioner Smith and Major Boulton pleaded with Riel to commute the death sentence of Thomas Scott, but Smith infamously reported that Riel responded to his please by stating:

“I have done three good things since I have commenced [here]; I have spared Boulton’s life at your instance, I pardoned Gaddy, and now – I shall shoot Scott.”

Thomas Scott was executed by firing squad on March 4th, 1870, near the east side gate of Upper Fort Garry. While there were many eyewitnesses to the execution of Thomas Scott, there are varying retellings of his last words and the actions to which resulted in his death.

What we know is that Scott was blindfolded and shot by a firing squad, with the execution witnessed by about 100 bystanders. Beyond that fact, it’s not very clear, and it’s debated whether or not Scott actually died by the initial shots from the firing squad.

Red River Metis leader John Bruce, reported to have made the claim that only two of the bullets from the firing squad actually hit Scott, with two small wounds noted on his left shoulder and upper chest. Bruce claimed that a man then came forward and discharged his pistol close to Scott’s head, but despite the close range, the bullet only partially penetrated Scott’s face.

Still alive, Bruce claimed that Scott was then placed in a makeshift coffin, and was left there to die of his injuries. After being placed in the coffin, Bruce’s claim is that in his last words, Thomas Scott cried out ‘For god’s sake take me out of here or kill me.’

Historians have long debated the exact motivations behind the execution of Thomas Scott, as it’s widely considered to be one of the most polarizing incidents in Canadian history. Riel wrote in his memoirs that his own justification for the execution was to demonstrate that the Metis should be taken seriously.

About two months after the death of Thomas Scott, the Manitoba Act was introduced in the Canada House of Commons by Prime MInister John A. MacDonald, and was given Royal Assent on May 12th, 1870.

The Metis were to receive 200,000 hectares of land, which would make up the then Province of Manitoba. This land was to allow the Metis to hunt freely and to form self-governance with legislative powers to protect Metis rights.

Just days after the Manitoba Act had been signed, the Canadian government authorized the military expedition of Colonel Garnet Wolseley, in what Canadian authorities at the time called ‘an errand of peace,’ but was widely understood by the Metis as a force sent to quell the resistance.

Riel feared that he would be arrested and charged with criminal acts for the execution of Thomas Scott, and believed that the Canadian militiamen in the expedition would retaliate by lynching him.

On August 24th, 1870, Riel and a close group of followers fled Fort Garry, and in fear of being targeted by violent acts of reprisal, Riel fled to safety across the Canada–US border and arrived at the St. Joseph’s mission in the Dakota Territory in September of 1870.

While the success of the Red River Resistance ultimately culminated in the Manitoba Act of 1870 and the creation of Manitoba as a province, many terms of the acts are still not settled today.

The Canadian government used language that was unfamiliar with the Metis people, as the conception of law enforcement, deeds to land, and paper money, were not fully understood, which resulted in most of the Metis people being cheated out of their allotted land on the settlement of the Metis territory.

While the Manitoba Act included protections for the region’s Metis people, these protections were not ever fully realized, as the terms of the recommended treaties were never fully met.

In fact, the Canadian government blocked the Metis’ attempt to obtain land promised to them as part of the Manitoba Act, which resulted in many of the Metis people losing their territory completely.

Facing increasing acts of state supported racism, and a new swarm of white settlers from Ontario, the majority of the Metis people from the Red River Colony moved to what would become Saskatchewan and Alberta.

This conflict was a highlight of a period of severe tension in Canadian history between white settlers and the Métis people. The Metis people of both French and Anglo-descent created a newly formed coalition in the wake of the Red River Resistance, that wished to protect their traditional ways of life against an ever present and aggressive Anglo-Canadian faction that was aligned with the Canadian government’s colonizing agents.

Louis Riel was elected three times as a member of the Canadian House of Commons, but in fear of his possible imprisonment and execution, Riel could never take his seat as a member of Parliament.

In the years following the Red River Resistance, the Canadian government signed what became known as the ‘Numbered Treaties,’ with various First Nations. These treaties ceded unlawful property rights to almost the entire Western Plains of the unsettled Indigenous land that made up present day Western Canada.

First Nations signed these treaties in hopes of gracious returns from the Canadian government, who promised economic support for food, education, and medical care.

The numbered treaties have been widely criticized throughout the history of Canada, and play a significant role in the struggle for First Nations rights in Canada today. The Constitution Act of 1982 gives protections of First Nations treaty rights, as under Section 35 states “Aboriginal and treaty rights are hereby recognized and affirmed.’”

However, this phrase has never fully been defined, and as a result, First Nations must each attest their rights individually in the Canadian courts, as shown in the ruling of the notable Canadian Supreme Court Case of R. v. Sparrow in 1990.

Unlike previous treaties forged during the times before confederation, the Numbered Treaties were conducted entirely in a British diplomatic manner, while the previous treaties were negotiated using both FIrst Nations and European tradition.

First Nations leaders were given translators either of European or Metis descent, who were to interpret what was being said during the course of the negotiations. What can be noticed when comparing the written documents used by government officials and the oral traditions used by the First Nations, is that a significant difference can be demonstrated.

This reality can be laid out with proof when examining the diaries of those like Indian commissioner Duncan Campbell Scott, who wrote a detailed journal account of the negotiating of Treaty 9 to Treaty 11.

There are also evidential claims from First Nations people that Alexander Morris, second lieutenant governor of Manitoba, failed to mention key terms like the surrender clause in the treaty text at the negotiations for Treaty 6, which led to massive miscommunication between the two parties.

Evidence of these differences can also be found among the rare pieces of written material and documentation made by First Nations Chiefs. During the Treaty 3 negotiations, Chief Powasson took detailed notes of the meetings, which show differences in the understanding of what was being offered during the talks, due to the language barriers.

The use of language and specific wording during the negotiations within the treaties is also a high point of contention. The language and phrasing used by the commissioners during the numbered treaty negotiations addressed First Nations tradition by giving them entitlement of children, while the crown was identified as Queen Mother.

The commissioner would recognize First Nations people as children, and the crown as Queen Mother, it ensured the First Nations people were to be protected from danger by their parents, and would enjoy their freedoms.

As the negotiations of the treaties would come to a close, the language used was almost always significant to First Nations people. Phrases in the closing of and seal of the numbered treaties would reference time in relation to the natural world, for instance ‘You will always be cared for, all the time, as long as the sun walks’ was an alliteration used to appeal to the First Nations people.

The first seven numbered treaties would be signed between 1871 and 1877. In the openings for negotiations for Treaty 7, the representatives for Canada were lieutenant-governor of the North-West Territories, David Laird, and James Macleod, commissioner of the North West Mounted Police.

Laird opened Canada’s side of the negotiation by stating the facts about the high rates of decline in the buffalo population, and how they proposed to help by introducing new laws to protect the herds from an increasing threat of hunters and white settlers.

The importance of the Buffalo for the Indigenous in 1877 was of high priority, due to their dependence on the herds for food stability. After two weeks of negotiation, Blackfoot Chief Crowfoot, and Kainai Nation Chief Red Crow agreed upon the Treaty, and it was signed by all leaders on September 22nd, 1877.

There is very strong evidence to support the fact that Indigenous people did not understand that they were surrendering their land to the government by making this deal. Overall, the impact of the treaty was far worse than that the First Nations people could have likely ever imagined.

The Buffalo disappeared at a rapid rate, with different nations’ hunting territory being overlapped by others, as per the treaty agreements. The number of settlers that came to the area increased exponentially in response to the treaty, putting further strain on what was an already heavily depleted food supply.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government’s claim to lend aid for a transition to agricultural lifestyle never occurred, and the reserves that the Nations were relocated to had unsuitable land that would not support the requirements of a sustainable Nation.

The federal government would also often used treaty violations as a method of asserting control over both the indigenous and Metis people. This led to First Nations’ territory in present day Alberta, which was controlled by the Blackfoot First Nations, being handed over to the Canadian Pacific Railway through manipulative negotiations overseen by Catholic missionary Albert Lacombe in 1882.

Later that year, Cree Chief Big Bear, who had held out of negotiations of Treaty 6 for over five years, was forced to make concessions to the Canadian government, signing the treaty in exchange for food supplies, to prevent his people from facing starvation.

Unbeknownst to Big Bear and his people, the food rations that the First Nations were to receive were based solely on the condition that the historically nomadic Cree-Assiniboine people would agree to settle in one permanent location for their Nation’s reserve.

This was not only impractical for Big Bear’s people, but it was nearly impossible. The Indigenous people of the Western Plains at this time were already struggling for a food source, due to the dwindling Buffalo, which made deciding on a single permanent location, ultimately undoable.

In the winter immediately following the signing of Treaty 6, Big Bear and his people failed to receive any of the food rations outlined in their agreement, based on their supposed failure to choose a permanent settlement.

It was understood by Big Bear that he would be unable to garner a reasonable agreement with the Canadian government, and with that, the Cree Chief began to lose influence over his people.

The younger and more aggressive Cree leader Wandering Spirit started to gain more influence over the Plains Cree, who were beginning to face an escalating conflict, caused by ecological changes due to the expansion of westward colonization.

On March 24th, 1884, an emergency meeting in the electoral district of Lorne in the Metis village of Batoche was held. At this meeting, representatives voted whether or not they would ask exiled Metis-leader, Louis Riel, to return to the Metis colony of Saskatchewan Valley, in order to help lead their cause against the oppressive actions of the Canadian government.

After two months of organizing by both the French and English-speaking representatives of the Metis, it was resolved to send a delegation to the Montana Territory, to ask Riel to return to his people, and help lead them once again.

In the summer of 1884, fourteen years after fleeing the country, Louis Riel returned to Canada with the intention of using his political influence to lead a new resistance in the Northwest Territories.

Upon Riel’s arrival, both Plains Cree leaders Big Bear and Poundmaker were formulating their own independent grievances which were laid out in meetings with Riel in early June of 1884.

The grievances of the Plains Cree leaders were quite different from the Metis settlers, and while the purpose of the meetings was to create a united front between the Metis and Plains Cree people, nothing was ultimately resolved, nor was a plan laid out until the following year.

In 1885, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald enlisted Catholic priest Albert Lacombe once again to assist in assuring the neutrality of the Blackfoot people. Upon his arrival, Lacombe convinced chief Crowfoot that the Metis rebellion would be a lost cause, and he agreed to keep his Blackfoot warriors out of the conflict entirely.

Meanwhile, Louis Riel was beginning to alienate many of his Metis followers, due to his newly found beliefs that God had chosen him to be the divine leader of the Métis. Nevertheless, Riel managed to convince both Plains Cree Chief Poundmaker and Cree Chief Big Bear’s people, to join along with his coalition of French and Anglo-Metis, in what would historically be known as the North-West Rebellion later that spring.

On March 19th, 1885, Louis Riel declared the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan, which included parts of both present day Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. With exception to Louis Riel’s English-speaking secretary Henore Jaxon and Dakota Chief White Cap, the Saskatchewan Provisional Government that Riel formed was made up entirely of French-speaking, Metis leadership.

The leadership committee of the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan was given the name Exovedate by Riel, a Latin word for ‘of the flock.’ The committee was based in the provisional government’s capital in present day Batoche, Saskatchewan.

The Exovedate committee would meet regularly to debate military policy, local bylaws, as well as religious and societal issues in what they hoped would be the forming of a new autonomous state, similar to Riel’s provisional government in Manitoba, 15 years prior.

Now, It was a much different scenario for Riel and the Metis in 1885. The railway was expanding westward, making it much easier for the Canadian government to send troops to the conflict.

The North-West Mounted Police had also recently been created, developing as a brutal and oftentimes violent arm of the oppressive colonial settler state, which was wielded by the command of Canadian Prime Minister John A. MacDonald.

Despite his religious ramblings scaring off much of his original base of supporters, Riel still managed to put together a coalition force made up of about 280 Metis and 250 Plains Cree, to fight alongside him in Saskatchewan, in the Spring of 1885.

After a number of famous and notable victories in the Spring of 1885, Including the Battles of Duck Lake, Fish Creek, and Cut Knife, the Riel-led rebellion force of Metis and Cree–Assiniboine fighters, began to face a growing number of reinforcements, with Canadian police beginning to arrive to the conflict by rail.

Gabriel Dumont, a respected hunter and leader of the Saint-Laurent Metis, led a number of these successful offenses, along with Cree Plains Chief Poundmaker, by implementing unorthodox tactics against the North West Mounted Police and other Canadian forces.

Dumont avoided direct confrontation with the Canadians, and instead opted to embark on what he hoped and planned would be a long drawn-out campaign of guerrilla warfare, by way of ambush, surprise raids and flanking attacks, corresponding with a tactical game of cat and mouse.

Both Dumont and Poundmaker’s tactics of unconventional warfare were proving to be successful, but Dumont’s plan was ultimately abandoned when Riel insisted on the concentration of Metis forces at Batoche, which he referred to as the Metis people’s ‘City of God.’

Canadian forces laid siege on the Metis capital, starting on May 9th, with the rebels holding off the raid for nearly three days. However, on May 12th, Metis forces became heavily outnumbered and ran out of ammunition, and critical supplies.

With no available ammunition, the Metis resorted to firing spent shell casings, sharp objects and even small rocks, with a number of the remaining rebels being dispersed or killed when Canadian soldiers finally overtook their position after three days of fighting.

Gabriel Dumont and a small Metis battalion managed to escape to the Montana Territory of the United States, while Metis leader Louis Riel was ultimately captured when he surrendered to Canadian forces a few days later on May 15th.

Upon news of Riel’s surrender, Cree Chief Poundmaker, who was known to have spared the lives of Canadian forces during the Battle of Cut Knife just two weeks prior, took his band of starving fighters to Battleford, to make peace with Major General Frederick Middleton and the Canadian government.

Poundmaker was arrested for his role in the Rebellion and charged with felony treason. Upon his arrest, Poundmaker is noted to have told Canadian authorities, “You did not catch me, I gave myself up. I wanted peace.”

With the fall of Batoche, the retreat of Dumont and the Metis rebels, along with the surrender of resistance leader Louis Riel; the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan had seemingly collapsed.

However, the fall of Batoche did not end the conflict, as a small force of Cree-Assiniboine fighters continued to engage with Canadian forces, carrying the day at the Battle of Frenchman’s Butte on May 28th, two weeks after the fall of Batoche.

On June 3rd, 1885 a small detachment of the North West Mounted Police managed to intercept Big Bear’s Cree fighters, who were forced to flee after running out of ammunition. In the weeks following the Battle of Loon Lake, a number of Big Bear’s fighters would surrender to Canadian police after becoming demoralized and rendering themselves defenseless.

On July 2nd, Cree Chief Big Bear surrendered to the Canadian police on an island in the Saskatchewan River near Fort Carlton, in exchange for food and critical supplies for the Cree and Assiniboine people.

Along with Chief Big Bear and Chief Poundmaker, dozens of other Indigenous men, including the young Cree war chief Wandering Spirit, were arrested and charged with murder outside of military conflict, in incidents related to the Lootings of Battleford and the Frog Lake Massacre.

Chief Wandering Spirit is known to have murdered Canadian federal government Indian agent, Thomas Quinn, who is reported to have denied the Cree people food rations on several occasions. At the time, Indian agents were attempting to shepherd the Cree Plains people onto a plotted land reserve, by means of manipulation and starvation.

When the Cree-Plains people besieged Frog Lake during the Rebellion earlier that spring, Quinn was taken from his home as a hostage due to his status. Upon arriving at the town church, Cree warriors would not let the townspeople of Frog Lake leave, and took many of them as hostages.

After attempting to move hostages out of the church to a nearby encampment, Quinn refused cooperation, which led to Wandering Spirit immediately shooting Quinn in the head with his rifle.

At this point, the historical record states that the unexpected act of violence caused mass panic among hostages, and amidst the chaos, Cree warriors were alleged to have killed eight more unarmed people.

This incident became known as the Frog Lake Massacre, and once news of the murders became public, the Canadian government decided to hold Big Bear responsible as an active participant in the rebellion, even though at this point he had no control over his band.

On November 7th, 1885, the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven by CP director Sir Donald A. Smith. The rise of the North West rebellion created a large increase of political support for the struggling railway project, which was facing near financial ruin prior to the spring blockade.

With the resistance posing a significant threat, the government managed to authorize additional funds to finish the line, completing the expansive colonial project in just four years. With this, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald’s National Dream of linking a transcontinental railway across the nation of Canada became true. However, the rapid westward expansion of the Canadian colonial project came at a much greater human cost, than that of which any currency could ever compare.

A little over a week after the completion of the railway, Metis leader Louis Riel was hanged for treason on November 16th, 1885, at the North-West Mounted Police barracks in Regina.

He was charged with six counts of high treason for his role in the North West Rebellion, with a guilty verdict under the Treason Act coming with a mandatory sentence of the death penalty.

Riel was the only party involved in the Rebellion to be charged with high treason. Seventy-one other individuals were charged with the lesser offense of treason felony, while twelve others, including the Battleford Eight, were charged with murder.

According to Professor Lauren Basson, in her 2008 article entitled, ‘White Enough to be American,’ several government officials requested that Louis Riel’s trial be held in Winnipeg. However, historians contend that the trial was moved to Regina in order to avoid the possibility of an ethnically mixed and sympathetic jury.

In fact, history shows that Prime Minister MacDonald is likely to have ordered Justice Minister Alexander Campbell for the trial to be held in Regina, where Riel was tried before a jury of six English-speaking Protestants.

Riel’s trial began on July 20th, 1885, and lasted just five days. The Metis leader entered a plea of not guilty and refused his lawyer’s advice of making a plea based on insanity. 
Riel defended his choice of using religious themes in his activism, insisting that his political actions were only for the purpose of real-world results.

In his closing arguments, Riel stated that he hoped to one day be recognized ‘for his force of good’ in Canadian history.

Riel stated, ‘I am glad that the Crown have proved that I am the leader of the Métis in the North-West. I will perhaps be, one day, acknowledged as more than a leader of the Metis, and if I am, I will have the opportunity of being acknowledged as a leader of good in this great country.’

On August 1st, 1885, after just an hour and twenty minutes of deliberation, the jury found Louis Riel guilty of treason, but with a recommendation of mercy. The foreman is said to read the verdict in tears. Nonetheless, Judge Hugh Richardson sentenced Riel to death, the only punishment available under the Treason Act at that time.

According to numerous Canadian historians, the outcome of Louis Riel’s trial is likely to be due to the underhanded conduct of the MacDonald government.

Canadian historian George Goulet has asserted numerous lingering issues about the trial. These issues include the mistreatment of Riel at the hands of his own legal counsel, and blatant attempts of manipulation and interference on behalf of Prime Minister John A. MacDonald; which includes political meddling uncovered involving correspondence between the Prime Minister and Justice Minister Alexander Campbell in the summer of 1885.

MacDonald also faced harsh criticism at the time, for denying the jury’s recommendation for the mercy of Riel. However, despite a public outcry, MacDonald openly fought against public opinion in order to uphold the death sentence of the Metis leader.

Following the sentencing, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald is famously quoted as saying ‘He shall hang though every dog in Quebec barks in his favour.’

Despite many pleas for mercy from across Canada, Louis Riel was executed by hanging on November 16th, with his last public words of record being “I give all my life as a sacrifice to God. Remerciez Madame Forget, et Monsieur Forget. Oh my God.”

The trial, conviction, and execution of Louis Riel have been the subject of historical examination and critical review for over a hundred years; with acknowledgment of Riel’s role in this nation’s history receiving more organization and academic scrutiny than any other Canadian figure.

Riel’s biographer Lewis Thomas, wrote in his 1977 book ‘A Judicial Murder – The Trial of Louis Riel,’ that “the government’s conduct of the case was to be a travesty of justice”.
In a 1979 book published by prominent Canadian historian George Stanley, entitled ‘Louis Riel: Patriot or Rebel,’ a member of the jury is quoted on the verdict fifty years after the trial as saying “We tried Riel for treason, and he was hanged for the murder of [Thomas] Scott.”

The death of Louis Riel marked the beginning of a bitter cultural struggle in Canada which echoed in the political landscape of the country for over a century. The Orange Irish Protestants of Ontario strongly supported Riel’s execution and demanded punishment for Riel’s role in the killing of Canadian nationalist Thomas Scott, during the Red River Rebellion back in 1870.

The province of Quebec was vehemently opposed to Riel’s hanging, with the overall opinion being that the execution of Riel was a symbol of Anglo-dominance and favoritism towards the English-speaking population of Canada.

Now, this sentiment among French Canadians was not exclusive to Quebec. For many Francophones, Riel’s execution had an everlasting negative impact on Franco-Anglo relations, with a polarizing new nation emerging in its wake, founded on re-drawn ethnocultural lines between increasingly hostile neighboring colonies.

Eventually, the bitter alienation towards Francophones in Western Canada contributed to the present-day reality of the once diverse Prairie Provinces being overtaken by a majority of Anglophone settlers, who historically allowed very little francophone presence in the North-West Territories.

Overall, the 1885 suppression of the Franco-Metis-led rebellion by means of Riel’s execution, has been the cause for an ever present rise of ethnic tensions and division in Canada; with the repercussions of these events continuing to be felt through the turn of the century and up until the present day.

The execution of Riel, along with John A. MacDonald’s refusal to commute his sentence caused a rift in Quebec-Canadian relations that has been used for political exploitation for over a century. Immediately following the death of Riel, Quebec politician Honore Mercier rose to power by mobilizing the outrage of the dejected French-speaking Quebec population

Mercier used this discontent to his advantage and reconstituted the Parti National, which ran a campaign on Franco-autonomy and Quebec nationalism in the year following Riel’s execution and won a majority government in the Quebec provincial elections of 1886.

The following year in the 1887 Canadian federal elections, John A. MacDonald retained a majority government, but Quebec Liberals made massive gains in the province by opposing MacDonald for his role in Riel’s execution. 

These gains made in Quebec in the 1887 federal election would lead to the victory of the Liberal party under new Prime Minister Wilfrid Lairier in 1896, and would set the stage for a continued Liberal dominance in Quebec’s federal politics which carried on for over a half-century.

In the wake of the ethnic tensions caused by the execution of Louis Riel, Quebec’s population became a major cornerstone of influence in Canada, based on a new coalition of Franco-Liberals and dissenting French-speaking conservatives, who sought regional autonomy and further independence from the perceived Anglophone favoring Canadian federal government.

In the aftermath of Riel’s death and the quelling of the North West Rebellion, the Metis people of Western Canada became increasingly marginalized in the Prairie provinces. English-speaking settlers began moving westward upon the completion of the Canadian Pacific railway and settled on lands that were a part of traditional Metis territory.

After years of state-sanctioned racism, cultural erasure, and outright land theft, the majority of Riel’s people were forced to assimilate into Anglo-Canadian culture. Time and misunderstood history, quickly phased out the Metis people’s identity and cultural influence in the Prairie Provinces, as well as in the country of Canada as a whole.

Because of this, Metis heritage is far more common than is generally realized among the population of Canada, with some geneticists estimating a possibility that about 50% of today’s population in Western Canada has some form of Indigenous ancestry.

This fact was all but lost in the consciousness of the collective Canadian identity, until the rise of the information age in the mid-20th century. 

After World War II, with the expansion of mass media for consumption, access to documents of historical significance became more widespread, which sparked a new emergence of interpretation pertaining to the reality of the Metis and First Nations people in the early days of Canadian history.

The original historic retelling of Riel and the Metis people’s actions often depicted them in mythopoetic form, framing the Canadian government as a heroic patriotic force, standing up against a barbaric regime of uncivilized savages.

However, academics and historical pundits gradually formed a critical understanding of Riel and the Metis people’s true role in early Canadian history. 

It began to be understood among most historical scholars that the Metis and First Nations people of Canada had major unresolved grievances, and that the government’s lack of response to these issues often led to fatal material conditions, which prompted Riel to choose a path of violent rebellion, only as a last resort.

By the mid-20th century, the trial and execution of Louis Riel began to be understood as a major cause of ethnocultural polarization, which continued to draw lines of tension across the country of Canada.

In 1982, historian Doug Owram wrote in the Canadian Historical Review, that Riel had become a ‘Canadian folk hero’ with even ‘mythical’ status, in English-speaking Canada.

In 2010, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverly McLachlin, spoke on Louis Riel and his role as a leader of the Metis people.

It is extremely important to understand that while Louis Riel’s execution caused colossal repercussions for the Metis people, their culture, and their way of life; it respectfully pales in comparison to the suffering endured by other non-European Indigenous and First Nations people, in the wake of the North West rebellion.

The North West Rebellion marked the climax of the Canadian government’s efforts to clamp down and control First Nations communities in Western Canada. This spurred ecological disaster, massive food shortages, and the normalization of justified violence towards Indigenous people living in Western Canada.

The Cree Plains people of the Western Prairies had already felt that they were oppressed in the lead-up to the rebellion, with the numbered treaties leaving First Nations communities openly subjugated by the Canadian government.

In the wake of the rebellion, numerous Metis leaders with political influence and interests that overlapped First Nations communities, either fled to Montana to escape treason charges, were jailed, or in Riel’s case, executed.

Along with the efforts of the Indigenous and Metis resistance falling short, the First Nations people were reared politically and emotionally damaged for generations in the wake of the conflict. A number of prominent Indigenous leaders were imprisoned or executed for their roles in various incidents surrounding the North West Rebellion.

After the arrest of Louis Riel in the summer of 1885, Cree leaders Big Bear, Poundmaker, and Wandering Spirit, along with 13 other Cree band members, were transported to Regina to stand trial on charges ranging from treason-felony to murder.

The trials of the Indigenous men facing murder charges after the Rebellion would historically become known as the trials of the Battleford eight. The trials of these men were mostly overseen by Magistrate Charles Rouleau, who he alleged had his home burned down by Cree warriors during the Looting of Battleford earlier that year.

Rouleau was admittedly bitter about the ordeal, and according to a December 1885 issue of the Saskatchewan Herald, openingly threatened that “every Indian and Half-breed rebel brought before him after the insurrection was suppressed, would be sent to the gallows if possible.”

Wandering Spirit was not permitted legal counsel during the time of his trial and instead chose to clear his concious and speak freely about his actions regarding both the Frog Lake Massacre and the murder of Thomas Quinn.

While Cree war Chief Wandering Spirit is alleged to have openly admitted to the murder of Thomas Quinn, he insisted that he played only a minor role in the uprising and that he felt immense guilt for the role he played in both the Frog Lake Massacre and the death of Quinn.

Based on the historical record, Wandering Spirit is reported to have told the court that he opposed his people’s role in the Rebellion, but that other Cree leaders, including Chief Big Bear’s son Ayimisîs, wouldn’t let him leave the band.

On September 22nd, 1885, Wandering Spirit was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Upon sentencing, Magistrate Rouleau is reported to have described Wandering Spirit as, ‘the greatest killer ever to walk on two legs in America.’

After his sentencing, Wandering Spirit said he wished that his death alone could atone for his acts, stating that he was saddened that others had to die with him.

Seven other indigenous men faced murder charges for their roles at Frog Lake, and the Looting of Battleford. The trials of these men were held only in English, preventing all of the accused from being able to defend themselves against any of the charges.

In fact, the only method of communication for many of the accused was through Catholic missionaries, who were reported to have encouraged the defendants to plead guilty, regardless of whether or not they actually committed the crimes they were charged with.

These judicial irregularities raise the question of authenticity in regards to some of the charges brought up against the Battleford eight, and whether or not authoriteis ever managed to properly verify the identity of the culprits of the murders.

William Cameron, a store clerk who worked in Frog Lake at the time of the massacre, testified at the trials against some of the accused men, though his testimony has come under increased scrutiny for being of second-hand nature, and oftentimes seemingly coerced.

This can be demonstrated in the historical record of the October 3rd, 1885 trials of both Miserable Man and Bad Arrow, who were both charged with the murder of civilian Charles Gouin. During the trial, Miserable Man requested that the witness testimony of William Cameron be used to back his alibi, placing him in the Frog Lake store during the time of the massacre.

However, Cameron was uninterested in cooperating with Miserable Man’s testimony and refused to back his alibi. Instead, the crown used Cameron to secure testimony from other Indigenous witnesses who claimed that Wandering Spirit ordered both Bad Arrow and Miserable Man to shoot Gouin simultaneously.

Meanwhile, in the murder trial of George Dill, the evidence against Iron Body, and more specifically Little Bear, has become increasingly unconvincing through the lens of historical hindsight.

In a similar instance to the murders of William Gouin, both Little Bear and Iron Body were alleged to have fired the fatal shot that killed George Dill in either rapid succession or simultaneously.

However, based on his own testimony, Iron Body refuted that Little Bear was the culprit of the murder, maintaining that a Cree Plains warrior who managed to flee Canadian authorities was the one responsible for the killing of George Dill.

Now this, might be the biggest fuck up involved in all because, Apischaskoos, aka Little Bear, was a Cree Plains warrior who shared the same name as the son of Cree Chief Big Bear, who was known by the name of Ayimisîs, as well as Little Bear.

Based on historical records, Chief Wandering Spirit, and Ayimisîs, led a group of Cree warriors to attack the settlement of Frog Lake, where Thomas Quinn and eight other white civilians were killed.

The problem here is that, just as Iron Body described in the murder trial of George Dill, Ayimisîs managed to escape Canadian authorities. In fact, we know this, Ayimisîs fled to the United States, and became a prominent leaders of the Ojibwa people in southwest Montana, in the years following the Rebellions.

In many ways, the use of the death penalty against the Battleford Eight was seen as a way for the Canadian government to once again assert its dominance over the Cree First Nations and other Indigenous people living on the Prairies. The Canadian government likely hoped to make an example out of the Battleford Eight, in order to discourage any future Indigenous uprisings.

This can be demonstrated by referring to the words of Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald, who was famously quoted to have said this of the hangings, “we must vindicate the position of the white man; [and] we must teach the Indians what law is.”

On the morning of November 27th, 1885, at Fort Battleford, Wandering Spirit, Round the Sky, Bad Arrow, Miserable Man, Iron Body, Little Bear, Crooked Leg, and Man Without Blood, were all executed by way of hanging, in what remains today as the largest mass execution in Canadian history.

Wandering Spirit was the only man who refused to give any last words before his death, and while it’s said that the other men shouted war cries in defiance of their accusers, Wandering Spirit is reported to have remained stoic and still before being hung in front of a small crowd of onlookers.

According to the University of Regina, on the day that the hangings of the Battleford Eight took place, all attendees at the Battleford Industrial School, the first Indian Residential School in Canadian history, were taken out to witness the executions.

It is suggested by some historians that this action may have been done in order to intentionally inflict both fear and generational trauma on the younger generation of First Nations people, especially those who had relatives that took part in the Rebellion.

After the executions, the bodies of the eight men were placed in a mass grave near the campground of Fort Battleford, with the grave being left unmarked and forgotten for almost a hundred years.

In 1972, the site was rediscovered by students at the University of Regina, who followed old plans of the fort in order to find the location of the burial plot. The location was then marked with a concrete pad and chain fence, and in 1985, a hundred years after the executions, the North West Centennial Advisory Committee and Battleford City Council erected a modern headstone at the gravesite, bearing the names of the eight executed Indigenous men.

In addition to the executions of the Battleford eight. The trials of both Cree Chief Big Bear and Cree Plains Chief Poundmaker took place in the fall of 1885.

Big Bear was in decent standing with numerous government officials at the time of his trial and had a good reputation with authorities for negotiating problems between his people and the Canadian government peacefully in the lead-up to the Rebellion.

Despite his people’s involvement in the Rebellion, Big Bear was, for the most part, still respected among settlers and government authorities in the North West. Many believed that his attempts at preventing an escalation of violence during the events at Frog Lake would be enough for the Cree Chief to avoid being convicted.

According to Canadian historian Hugh Dempsey, a civilian who was taken as a prisoner at Fort Pitt, Stanley Simpson, was the only person to testify as a witness for the prosecution in Big Bear’s trial.

Meanwhile, numerous witnesses of the events at Frog Lake testified in defense of Big Bear, refuting his involvement in any of the violent acts that took place. Indian Affairs agent Henry R. Halpin, who was held captive by Big Bear’s people for over two months, testified that he saw Big Bear as just as much of a prisoner as he was himself.

Store clerk William Cameron, who was also held captive by Big Bear’s Cree people, testified that he heard Big Bear try to stop the Massacre at Frog Lake, by opposing the use of violence against the town’s people.

The evidence was overwhelmingly in the favor of Big Bear’s innocence, with clear indications that he was not involved in any of the killings at Frog Lake, the looting at Battleford, or the taking of prisoners at Fort Pitt.

However, at the time of the trial, Big Bear was sixty-years-old, and with the trial being held only in English, he was oftentimes seen as confused and visibly frustrated with the proceedings.
Despite the lack of evidence, Big Bear was found guilty of treason felony and was sentenced to three years in prison at Stony Mountain Penitentiary in Manitoba. While in prison, Big Bear fell gravely ill, and after converting to Catholicism, he was released from prison after serving half of his term.

About a year after his release, Big Bear died at the age of 62 years old and was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery on the Little Pine First Nations reserve in Saskatchewan.

Plains Cree chief Poundmaker was also facing charges of treason-felony for his role in the North West Rebellion. Poundmaker was respected by Canadian authorities for calling off his band of fighters during the Battle of Cut Knife Hill.

In the months following the Rebellion, it became well known among Canadian forces that Poundmaker’s actions likely prevented immense loss of life on both sides of the conflict.

During his trial, Poundmaker is reported to have said in his defense: “Everything that is bad has been laid against me this summer, there is nothing of it true… Had I wanted war, I would not be here now. I should be on the prairie. You did not catch me. I gave myself up. You have got me because I wanted justice.”

Despite very little evidence tying Poundmaker to any violence during the Rebellion, the Plains Cree chief was still found guilty of felony treason and was also sentenced to three years in prison at the Stony Mountain Penitentiary.

Because of his band status and as the adopted son of First Nation’s chief Crowfoot, Poundmaker was not forced to cut his hair in prison and was said to have been highly respected by other inmates during the time of his imprisonment.

After serving just seven months of his three-year sentence, Poundmaker was released from prison, however, the conditions at the Penitentiary had devastating effects on his health.

Shortly after his release, at the age of just 44 years old Poundmaker died due to a lung hemorrhage caused by complications of tuberculosis, which he contracted while in prison.

Poundmaker was buried at Blackfoot Crossing in Gleichen, Alberta in 1886, but was exhumed in 1967, with his remains being reburied on the Poundmaker Reserve in Cut Knife, Saskatchewan.

On May 23rd, 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke in front of members of the Poundmaker Cree Nation to exonerate Poundmaker of his felony-treason conviction.

The signing of this brutally oppressive amendment was done by the 5th Prime Minister of Canada, Mackenzie Bowell. However, the framework for forced assimilation of Indigenous people and the residential school system was laid out by John A. MacDonald, during his second term as Prime Minister, starting in 1878.

In January of 1879, MacDonald commissioned conservative politician Nicholas Flood Davin, to write a report regarding the industrial boarding-school system in the United States. MacDonald had previously shown an interest in implementing a similar framework in Canada, geared towards the assimilation of Indigenous people into what he referred to as “Canadian culture.”

This document is widely considered to be the cornerstone of the architectural framework for the Canadian Indian residential school system. In the report, Davin advised the federal government to institute Residential Schools for all Indigenous children in Canada.

Now, MacDonald took great pride in his plans for cultural assimilation, mostly because he was an outright white supremacist, and really had no shame in stating it overtly.

In 1883, during an address to the Canada House of Commons, MacDonald shared his views on the need for Residential schools and the assimilation of Indigenous people in Canada.
“When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.

Under Prime Minister John A. MacDonald, the Canadian government would implement the residential school system, with the first school opening in 1883 in Battleford. The purpose of the school system was to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and to assimilate them into Canadian culture.

In 2015, the Canadian government’s Truth and Conconcilliation Commission concluded that the forced assimilation of Indigenous people, amounted to, in the committee’s words, cultural genocide. While the number of school-related deaths remains unknown due to incomplete records. The estimations of reported deaths range from 3200 to as high as 30,000.

In 2017, Indigenous protestors in Ottawa erected a tepee at the foot of Parliament hill, to counter a large four-day celebration that marked 150 years of Canada as a nation. On the second day of the protest, a press conference was held with family members of missing and murdered indigenous women and children, who took questions from the Canadian media.

Following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and in the wake of a new critical understanding of Canada’s historical atrocities towards Indigenous people; Prime Minister John A. MacDonald’s legacy has rightfully come under harsh scrutiny, with many communities opting to remove historical references to MacDonald in acts of reconciliation.

In 2018, a statue of John A. Macdonald was removed from outside Victoria City Hall, as part of the city’s program for reconciliation with local First Nations.

In June of 2021, a statue of MacDonald in Charlottetown, PEI, a historical city that hosted the 1864 Charlottetown Conference, removed a statue of the former Prime Minister after the city council voted unanimously to remove it.

On June 18, 2021, following the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the statue of John A. Macdonald was removed from Kingston’s City Park after the city council voted 12–1 in favor of its removal.

Weeks later, on July 5, 2021, Canada’s national library, deleted its web page on Canada’s prime ministers, “First Among Equals“, calling the manuscript “outdated and redundant”

These small, but significant acts of reconciliation are the beginning of what should be a spark for a cultural paradigm shift in the collective understanding of how this de facto nation came to be.

Canada was formed in the wake of a series of uprisings, rebellions, and even insurrection attempts. The borders along the provinces and territories of this country, mark the historical lines of bargaining and conceded sovereignty, handed over to the people who oftentimes fought and died for a land to call their own.

While this nation’s shame can be raised when historical atrocities such as the Caroline Affair, the execution of Louis Riel, and the imprisonment of Indigenous land defenders such as Poundmaker or Big Bear come to light; an even darker and more heinous indignity of our nation can be uncovered by piercing the veil of myth and legend, and by exploring the true intentions of the very first European settlers that came here, and the way that colonial powers laid claim to the lands belonging to sovereign nations of American Indigenous people.

In the next episode of this podcast, we will explore how a papal proclamation known as the Doctrine of Discovery, laid the framework for the mass displacement and cultural genocide of the Indigenous people of North America. How colonizers used disease, slavery, rape and war to lay to waste an entire civilization of people only to be replaced by a new breed of European settlers, and the prospect of a dawning of what they believed, was a new world.

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