1885: Louis Riel, Metis leader

ExecutedToday.com ^ | November 16, 2009 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1885, Louis Riel, “the puzzling Messianic figure of Canadian history,” was hanged in Regina for treason.

We have already met in these pages the magnetic, controversial figure of Louis Riel when his Red River Rebellion caused the 1870 execution of Thomas Scott, one of the soldiers sent to suppress it.

Now, after a decade and a half in the political and sometimes literal wilderness, the champion of the Métis had been recalled from the United States to press the rights of his mixed-race French-indigenous people against the Anglo Canadians’ westward march.

It was North America’s familiar clash of civilizations between expanding industrial economies and the traditional ways of life they displaced. (Here’s a good background documentary video, with a Part 2 that gets into the weeds on battlefield events.) Because the Metis were “half-breeds” whose European stock was French, the story’s familiar cocktail of racism had a twist of Canada’s Anglo-French rivalry, too.

Riel declared an independent Provisional Government of Saskatchewan, and the North-West Rebellion was on....

[Auntie Dem]

I served as a missionary with the Metis people in 1968 on their “Reserve” just south of Lac La Biche, Alberta. They were in a tough spot, not accepted as Indian by the other Indians, and not accepted as “French” by the whites. They were good humble, hard working people living in rough conditions.

Canadian winters can be brutal, often reaching 70 below zero. Imagine living through that in a log cabin chinked with mud and straw between the logs, and flattened cardboard boxes nailed to the inside for scant insulation, a single potbelly stove for heat, and one 60 watt light bulb hanging from the ceiling. No running water and only one outhouse for the whole family. And we think we have it tough today.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember living like that back in the 1940-1952. Nothing between us and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence. No wood to burn, so dad brought in coal from 50 miles away.

I don’t have a lot of feelings for “the good old days”.

[ExpatCanuck]

When I was 17 and living in Pickering Ontario (Canada) my girlfriend was a direct descendant of Louis Riel.