Biography: his life story
Louis Riel was born on October 22, 1844, in St. Boniface, Red River Settlement (modern day Winnipeg, Manitoba). He was born into a well-respected French Canadian-Métis family with a strong belief in catholicism. Riel’s father, Louis Sr., was a businessman and political leader in the Métis community. He gained prominence in 1849 when he organized a large group of Métis to support a Métis imprisoned for challenging the Hudson Bay Company's historical trade monopoly that ultimately ended their monopoly.
At a young age Louis was identified as a strong candidate for the priesthood, and was given a scholarship and commenced study in a Montreal seminary in 1858. Following news of his father's premature death in 1864, Riel lost interest in the priesthood and he withdrew from the college. In March 1865 he began working at the Montréal law firm of Rudolphe Laflamme as a law clerk. During this time he was involved in a failed romance with a young woman named Marie-Julie Guernon. This progressed to the point of Riel having signed a contract of marriage, but his fiancee's family opposed her involvement with a Métis, and the engagement was soon broken. In 1868, ten years after arriving in Quebec, the 24 year-old Riel decided to return home to the Red River Settlement.
Upon his return home in 1869, the Red River Métis population was very concerned with the sale of their territorial rights by the Hudson Bay Company to the Dominion of Canada. The Métis were concerned that such a transfer would bring an influx of English-speaking settlers and challenge their culture and way of life. Riel became the leader of the Métis resistance. The resistance managed to halt the Canadian surveyors and prevent the governor-designate, from entering the Red River Settlement. The resistance then seized Fort Garry (now Winnipeg), the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and established a provisional Métis government with Riel as president. During this time, Riel’s government court-martialed and executed Thomas Scott, an English-speaking Canadian, because he had been strongly opposed to the insurgency which later became known as the Red River Rebellion. The provisional Métis government led by Riel ultimately negotiated the terms under which the modern province of Manitoba entered the Canadian Confederation.
As a result of the execution of Thomas Scott, Riel was forced into exile in the United States. While a fugitive, he was elected three times to the Canadian House of Commons, although he never assumed his seat. During these years, he was frustrated by having to remain in exile, despite his growing belief that he was a divinely chosen leader and prophet of the Metis. This claim and Riel’s other behaviour concerned some of his followers, who committed him to a mental hospital in Quebec in 1876. He was released the following year. He married in 1881 while in exile in Montana, and fathered three children.
In 1884, a group of Métis in Batoche, Saskatchewan (which was not a province yet), asked Riel to represent them and their grievances with the Canadian government. At first, Riel protested peacefully, but after two months, his resistance escalated into a military confrontation known as the North-West Rebellion of 1885. It ended in Riel’s arrest on a charge of high treason. He was found guilty and on November 16, 1885 by order of the Government of Canada he was hanged to death.
Riel’s execution had a lasting influence on
relations between the province of Quebec
and English-speaking Canada. To the
Métis, Louis Riel was and remains an iconic
champion of their political and language rights.
To his opponents, Riel was no better than a
murderer, whose greed and ambition led him to the treasonous act of waging war against the government of Canada.
