Louis Riel - "The Righteous Rebel"
(1844 - 1885)
by Ann Blewett
Summary of His Life:
Riel was the first-born son in a close family of French-Métis elite; his great-grandmother on his father's side having been a full-blooded Chipewyan Indian. He was educated by the priests in St. Boniface and then sent to the College de Montreal due to his considerable intellectual ability. Withdrawing from college after his father's early death in 1864, and also because of a failed romance, he found employment as a law clerk in the office of Rodolphe Laflamme.
Riel
then returned to Red River in 1868 as a young man of twenty-four, and soon
became embroiled in the prospective Canadian annexation of the settlement
from the Hudson Bay Company, ultimately coming to lead Métis hostility
to the transfer. His direction of the Red River Rebellion (1869-70) as president
of the provisional government was for the most part very noteworthy, marred
only by the execution of the Orangeman Thomas Scott who opposed the provisional
government. This execution was Riel's major life mistake and would have far-reaching
repercussions. He was branded a murderer with a five thousand-dollar bounty
on his head and the Canadian government outlawed him. From 1870 onward he
was a man on the run, a man without a country.
During the period 1870-74 he was subsequently elected to Parliament from the district of Provencher on several occasions, but was expelled and never able to take his seat due to his outlaw status. He lived for some of the time in his beloved Manitoba while remaining out of sight and fearful for his life and the rest of his time just over the border in the United States. In early 1875 the Canadian government granted him amnesty for deeds committed during the Red River Rebellion in 1869-70, providing he remained in exile for five more years. In December 1875 Riel experienced a vision of God while visiting a friend in Washington, D.C. He believed it was a divine commission authorizing him to save the Métis race and reform the Catholic Church.
Unhappy, frustrated, and depressed in the United States but yet held in thrall by his visions, he spent two years in mental asylums in Quebec from 1876 to 1878. Upon his release Riel traveled to Keeseville, New York, where he lived with Father Fabien Barnabé. In time, he fell in love with the priest's sister, Evelina, and the two became secretly engaged. He decided to head back to the West in the hopes of finding work in order to support Evelina; but their correspondence with one another gradually lessened. The romance died through lack of communication concerning what each really desired from the relationship and the fact that the convent educated and gently reared Evelina felt she wouldn't have been able to cope living as his wife in the harsh terrain of the western prairies. However, Louis kept her letters for the remainder of his life and it is believed she was his greatest love.
Louis
eventually traveled to Montana where he met and married Marguerite Bellehumeur,
became an American citizen and fathered two children. He taught school at
St. Peter's Mission while continuing to grow even more convinced he was a
prophet of God and that his mandate was to create a new Métis nation.
He also considered how he would form a new and revised Catholic Church, reinterpreting
its doctrines and philosophies, with the idea of removing the Church's seat
of authority from Rome to Montreal and a second diocese to be established
at Red River (St. Vital). By expounding such theories, he effectively alienated
the Catholic clergy who declared him a radical and unstable heretic. His former
benefactor, Bishop Alexandre-Antonin Taché was quoted at the time as
saying that Riel was "brain-dead" and would have nothing further
to do with him.
In June of 1884 Riel was requested by a group of Métis settlers to come back to Canada. They wanted him to lead them in protest against the Canadian government as their land rights and cultural rights were again being jeopardized in the Saskatchewan River Valley in the area of Prince Albert. For Riel, this rebellion was just as much a personal religious movement as it was political. The protest turned to violence in May of 1885 and the Métis and Indians led by him were quickly and brutally suppressed after military defeat at the battle of Batoche. The dreams and aspirations of Riel and the Métis thus ended in humiliating tragedy and degradation. While his frightened wife and two young children took refuge in a cold, damp cave near the battlefield, Riel voluntarily surrendered to General Frederick Middleton and was taken to the headquarters of the Northwest Mounted Police in Regina.
Two months later, Riel was tried for high treason by order of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald. He rejected a plea of insanity proposed by his lawyers, as he believed admitting insanity would betray his people and all that he had worked for on their behalf. He had agreed to the trial believing it would be an ideal platform for him to further address the very real injustices against the Métis and set the record straight. Riel naively thought he would be exonerated, but tragically, the most ultimate of sentences would be declared against him. He was hanged on November 16th, 1885 and all the hopes he had fervently nurtured for "his little Métis nation" died with him.
The best biographies of Riel are by George Stanley and Maggie Siggins, while Jack Bumsted (a history professor at the University of Manitoba), has written his excellent book from an academic and sympathetic point of view, focussing on the political and legal arena of the time.
Thomas
Flanagan is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University
of Calgary. His book, "Louis 'David' Riel, Prophet of the New World",
delves into and analyzes Riel's theological beliefs which were in a constant
state of flux and steeped in mysticism. Flanagan also focuses on Riel's above
mentioned desire to form a new religious movement and how he was greatly influenced
throughout his entire life by his very pious Catholic upbringing laced with
the symbolism of aboriginal ideology as to portents and omens manifest in
nature and the universe.
In the century following Riel's death, reams of paper and gallons of printing ink have been expended in attempting to explain and rationalize his life and character. Perhaps we are not meant to really understand and interpret the real Riel. He will forever remain one of the unexplained mysteries of history like the life and assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the many other historical figures who have passed through the annals of the ages, each one leaving an indelible mark on the era in which they lived.
At the very end, Louis Riel himself said of his life:
"I have always believed that I acted
honestly and the time will come
when the people of Canada will see and acknowledge it."
Let the actions of Louis Riel speak for themselves when judging them within the context of the period of history in which he lived. One could argue that by his trial and hanging, his mission failed miserably and superficially speaking, that is true. But history is always indeterminate and ambiguous; and when assessing the manner in which Louis Riel conducted his life and met his death, one is able to sense more of a feeling of greatness in his tragic downfall. Truly, he was a very important and honorable Canadian.
"LIGHT ARISES IN THE DARKNESS FOR THE UPRIGHT." PSALM 112:4
Continue to .....
> Prologue - The Righteous Rebel
> Afterword (My Personal Thoughts)
>The Stone Circle