No other Father of Confederation fits the model of tragic hero so well as Louis Riel. Drawing on youthful audacity and precocious political skills, Riel by his mid-20’s had achieved the remarkable feat of bringing the Red River settlements of the Hudson’s Bay Company into Confederation as a province. But his youthful insecurity and insistence on being respected provoked him into a blunder which undermined this legacy and put him on a path which led to exile, mental illness and finally execution as a traitor to the nation he helped to create.
An aspect of Louis Riel’s controversial career which is too often overlooked is his youth at the time he came forward to found the Province of Manitoba. In the summer of 1869 Riel was only 25 when he began to organize the francophone and anglophone Metis residents of the Red River communities within the vast Northwest Territory of the Hudson Bay Company to negotiate the terms under which they would join the Canadian confederation.
By March of 1870 he had established a representative provisional government for the region which was recognized by the Canadian authorities. He also achieved consensus on the new government’s negotiating strategy and nominated the emissaries who would persuade the Canadian government to bring the Red River settlements into confederation as the Province of Manitoba later that year. Under the Manitoba Act, the Metis community had its land claims recognized and achieved guarantees for Roman Catholic schools and acceptance of French as an official language in government institutions.
However, this remarkable achievement was undermined by a blunder which occurred just as the provisional government’s negotiators were on their way to Canada in March 1870.
The formation and authority of the provisional government had been actively resisted by the so-called Canadian Party, consisting of a small number of recent English Protestant settlers in the territory under the leadership of John Schultz. Several members of the Canadian Party including Schultz, Charles Mair and an Orangeman, Thomas Scott, had been arrested and imprisoned by the Metis in late 1869. Schultz, Mair and Scott escaped from their guards in January 1870. They immediately organized an armed force under militia Captain, Charles Boulton, with the avowed purpose of freeing the other Canadian prisoners at Fort Garry.
Riel had adopted a policy of clemency, and by February 15, 1870 all the prisoners had been released. This did not deter Boulton’s party who now determined to overthrow the Metis-dominated provisional government by force. They were intercepted and arrested by a Metis armed group on February 17. By this time Schultz had already fled to Ontario, but Boulton and Scott were imprisoned. Boulton, as the military leader of the Canadians was condemned to death, by a jury, but Riel, as a gesture to promote peace within the community, pardoned and released him.
Scott, who had nothing but contempt for the Metis took Boulton’s pardon as a sign of weakness. He insulted and mocked his guards relentlessly. They insisted on his trial by court martial for insubordination, at which he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Provoked by Scott’s conduct and determined, in his own words, “to demonstrate to the Canadians that the Metis must be taken seriously,” Riel ordered Scott’s execution by firing squad on March 4, 1870.
This was a fatal blunder. Ontario Protestants were aroused and the Ontario government offered a $5000 reward for Riel’s arrest for the “murder of Thomas Scott”. A promised amnesty for all acts of the provisional government was withheld, and Riel was forced into exile in the United States. The toll on him of these events led to bouts of mental illness.
In 1884, Riel, now an American citizen, was invited by a group of Metis, local Indians and white settlers in what is now Saskatchewan to negotiate with the Canadian government concerning a series of land and other grievances they had against the federal and territorial authorities. After initially counselling a moderate, peaceful approach, Riel became increasingly irrational. He became convinced he was the prophet of a new nation on the banks of the Saskatchewan River, inspired by a successor religion to the Church of Rome. Influenced by these delusions, he endorsed armed resistance to the Canadian government. With the help of troops transported by the new Canadian Pacific Railway, the Canadian government swiftly crushed the rebellion. Riel was tried and convicted of high treason. Despite pleas for clemency from Quebec and lenient sentences for other participants in the rebellion, he was hanged in Regina at age 41 in November, 1885.
Riel’s story is a true Canadian tragedy, illustrating the potential of youth both for constructive political leadership and for immature and ultimately fatal political blunders.