Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont (5 page)

John A. Macdonald, who had been forced to resign due to a railroad scandal, has found himself back in power again, now pushing as hard as ever for a railway that links the east with the west. And his policy of ignoring that which he finds distasteful continues. His deputies have bungled or “misplaced” both Métis petitions and government responses to those petitions, which basically demand once more that the Métis be recognized in the North-West. The bad taste of 1860s Manitoba has returned to the mouths of the Métis, in large part because of a new influx of surveyors and European settlers pouring into the country around Batoche and Saint-Laurent. It seems that the farther west the Métis push in pursuit of their staple food supply—the buffalo—and a life of solitary freedom, it isn’t long before these others follow and begin to jostle them for dominance. And so it isn’t a surprise that a summer of rather polite demands promises to turn into a winter of outright agitation and defiance of those who don’t even have the politeness to respond to repeated letter-writing. All the Métis know that when the railway finally crosses this country, a flood of new settlers will follow. If the government won’t accept Métis land claims now, they certainly won’t when the new arrivals come to stake
their
claims.

And the land that Batoche and Saint-Laurent lie upon is well worth fighting for. The South Saskatchewan River winds through it, fertilizing already good soil and thick grasses that undulate as far as the eye can see. By the rivers the trees are thick, Manitoba maple and white birch, ash and poplar. In winter the travelling and the hunting are good near the river, and in summer, fishing and some relaxation are mandatory. The Métis have carved a happy existence here, one that spokes out from mass on Sunday and has developed to include farming the land in a serious way now that the buffalo are all but gone. Oh, the buffalo. If not for its slaughter at the hands of the Hudson’s Bay Company and railroad developers to feed employees and its absolute destruction down south by the American government in order to bring the Plains Indians to their knees, the Métis could still live the life they were born for, wintering in small settlements and dreaming of the hunt that leads them through the summer prairies.

Gabriel remains the captain of the buffalo hunt, and this role, even though it has been so diminished the last years, commands great respect for a reason. Gabriel is the one who calls the men together in the weeks before the hunt to plot and strategize and try to divine where the buffalo will travel. It’s Gabriel who decides the day that the dozens upon dozens of Red River carts creak out onto the plains in a long dusty line, a line that was miles long not so long ago, and it is Gabriel who appoints the scouts who will look for tracks. When the herds are located, it’s he who holds council the night before and appoints each man his duty. And what makes Gabriel a great hunt leader is that it is he who rides so skillfully into the stampeding herd and kills the buffalo that he will then give to the sick and the old, the Métis who can’t fend for themselves. Gabriel is, in essence, both the military and the political leader of his people. And no one doubts that he is the master of the prairies.

Now though, in 1884, the mixed-bloods find their lot that of small farmers in tight-knit communities, speaking the Michif language, a mixture of French and Cree. The buffalo are so recently departed that the people can still smell their musky hides, the heady scent of blood and entrails from the gutting, the smoky taste of tenderloin cooked over an open fire. But the Métis have accepted that farming the land has now become their mainstay. As much as this realization hurts, it will never stop them from dreaming of the return of the buffalo one day.

The Métis’ trials and small victories at Red River, followed by even more government deceit after Riel’s banishment, still sting. The Manitoba Act of 1870 that Riel helped create promised the Métis 1,400,000 acres of land, land they’d settled and lived upon for generations. The Métis assumed that they’d choose their lots, most of which nestled along the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Finally, the people could live in strong communities together with no fear of that land being taken away by outsiders. But John A. hemmed and hawed and eventually decided upon a lottery distribution system, so instead of the choice river lots, those Métis who were lucky enough to win the lottery found that their parcels weren’t linked to the rivers at all.

And as Manitoba settled into the fold of Canada, more and more new immigrants came, people from Ontario mixed with Europeans whose own countries no longer wanted them and who spoke so many different and complicated languages. The buffalo continued to head farther west and many Métis decided to follow them, abandoning the fruitless plots doled out by John A. The land speculators swarmed like locusts, buying up these waterless plots from the Métis in deals that were sometimes fair but quite often crooked. Anti-French and Métis sentiment became so strong next door in Ontario that, for the half-breeds, moving away from it began to feel like a good idea. Red River was swallowed by the booming city of Winnipeg, and many Métis craved the old life of wide-open country and just a neighbour or two. For some, their Indian blood whispered to them to follow the dwindling herds, and for others, the idea of freedom came with isolation. And so thousands of Métis, like the buffalo, went west toward the Rockies, drawn to the homeland of their cousins, finding new homes in the towns of Batoche and Saint-Laurent beside lifelong residents of the area like Gabriel Dumont. This was a chance for so many to start anew.

While Gabriel’s leadership strength is obvious to all, he recedes this first summer of Riel’s arrival. Gabriel isn’t a speechmaker, and maybe he understands implicitly that it’s best to leave the talking to the ones who are born for it. He is a man of action, and so he withdraws and watches and waits to be called.

With the summer waning, the excitement of Riel’s arrival threatens to wane as well. Despite the concerns of the local police and worried bureaucrats like Lawrence Clarke, Ottawa continues to ignore Métis grumblings. A high-ranking federal minister, due to arrive in the North-West in August, ends up a no-show and dashes the Métis’ plans of presenting their list of grievances in person to a real-life representative.

Worst of all, Gabriel sees that the priests refuse to take a stand with the people the way they did in 1870. Men like the local priest, Father André, seem afraid to recognize and to speak about what the Métis all seem to know: that once more they face the loss of their homes and of their way of life, a life that they’ve worked so hard to create. And Gabriel knows that without the support of the priests, the people will be too afraid to make a proper stand. The growing movement is threatened by inaction. Louis’s speeches are a welcome thing, but they aren’t enough to keep the people focused as they prepare to harvest the poor crops of summer. Gabriel understands that the fire of the pulpit, the fire that propelled the movement of 1869 and 1870, needs to be kindled again.

He finally sees a chance to act in September, when he learns of the visit of Bishop Grandin to the nearby community of Saint-Laurent. Even better, travelling with Grandin are government representatives. Gabriel sees the billiard balls lined up in a potentially exciting way. Take the shot so that Bishop Grandin is forced to choose action over silence. At the same time, Gabriel and Louis together will present Métis grievances to a federal representative. This will prove to all Métis that the government is indeed in possession of their written concerns. The government will then no longer be able to claim that they are ignorant of the troubles that are beginning to spill over in the North-West, as they’ve done to date with their silence.

In early September of 1884, Gabriel, although he’s uncomfortable with it, gives a short speech in Saint-Laurent to a gathering that includes Bishop Grandin, Father André, and the secretary of Lieutenant Governor Dewdney. Gabriel makes it clear that he’s unhappy with the way the men of God have chosen not to involve themselves with the troubles of the Métis. In the Manitoba resistance of 1870, men like Father André were key to the Métis’ being not just heard but respected and included in government plans for their country. Gabriel ends his speech, as his biographer Woodcock notes, in a conciliatory manner, asking the priests for guidance. He leaves the political talk to Louis, who immediately follows, and it’s Louis who lays out for the priests the demands of the Métis: proper laws regarding the land, better treatment of their brothers, the Indians, and financial dues for the people of the North-West.

As good as Gabriel must feel now that he’s active again, it won’t be long before his hope for the priests to side with him turns into anger and then resolve. As Woodcock again notes, Bishop Grandin, after a later conversation with Dumont, remarks, “I fear our poor Métis are making mistakes, and that we shall be blamed for it.” It soon becomes apparent that the priests don’t have the backbone they once did and obvious to Gabriel that the Métis will have to act without them. Louis Riel will now have to fill the role of spiritual adviser. The summer of discontent is officially over. And it’s about to give way to an autumn and winter of outright agitation.

CHAPTER FOUR

Secret

Despite Louis’s declared intention to return to his quiet life of teaching in Montana in September, he finds himself so popular during this autumn of agitation, so busy meeting with Métis and white settlers and Indian bands, that there’s no more talk of his departure. If Louis keeps any lesson close to his heart regarding the resistance of 1869 and 1870, it is that to succeed means to include all. But this is proving even more difficult than it did fifteen years ago. Louis meets with Cree chiefs like Big Bear and Poundmaker whose people are starving on their reserves. The government had promised the Indians who came to the reserves that they’d be taught the transition from a life following the buffalo to a life of farming. Instead, the Indians sit and wait and starve. The spread of disease adds to the troubles, and they are beginning to die in great numbers.

But Louis’s conversations with the Indians scare and upset the English Canadian settlers, especially in the heavily white communities of Prince Albert and Fort Carlton just north of Batoche. After all, the Indian troubles to the south in the U.S. that culminated in the slaughter of General Custer and his Yankee troops are still a living memory. One of the warrior chiefs responsible, Sitting Bull, wasn’t he allowed to flee to Canada and live under the noses of the North West Mounted Police? And didn’t Riel have powwows with Sitting Bull, that criminal himself, not too long ago? What did they talk about? In fact, what are Riel and that other troublemaker, Big Bear, talking about now? They are upset with the whites, with the English speakers. They believe that the whites are taking Indian and Métis land, and the full-bloods and half-bloods are certainly acting agitated about their lot. So maybe it isn’t the best idea to feed that fire anymore. After all, in the grand scheme of things, we English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon Canadians will always be better off.

But Riel’s own people continue to support him. And many of them have no qualms in saying that he does far more than the priests to fight for Métis rights and welfare. Riel asks and receives the blessing of visiting Bishop Grandin to create a new religious society for the Métis with Saint Joseph as the patron saint. On the day in late September that the Métis celebrate this at the church in Batoche, Riel speaks, but not before a number of local priests do. By all accounts the celebration doesn’t look like it will be memorable, to say the least, clergy droning on and singing poorly, but Louis saves the day, speaking as eloquently as he ever has, declaring that finally, the Métis are a nation. No one present will ever forget it.

As eloquent as Louis is, he’s apparently somewhat tortured internally about a number of things. He still believes that the government owes him a good deal of money for the time and energy he spent in ensuring that Manitoba became a part of Canada fourteen years ago. But he also understands that too much talk of John A. owing him money can come off sounding more than improper, even if it was the prime minister himself who offered Riel $35,000 in the autumn of 1873 as a bribe to leave the country. Now, though, this large sum of cash could come in handy; it could buy the Métis a printing press. The importance of a newspaper for the people doesn’t escape Louis. The settlers of Saskatchewan could unite under the paper’s banner in reading and writing its columns. What a powerful tool. And of course, some money would also give Louis a little freedom to look after his wife and children properly.

He agrees to a meeting arranged by Father André and David Macdowall, a local bureaucrat, just before Christmas to discuss government remuneration. At this meeting, Father André claims he can arrange for the money to be paid to Louis. But what appears goodwill on the surface seems to hide deeper and darker machinations on Father André’s part. He’s become increasingly angered by and jealous of Louis. Riel has eclipsed not only André but all the local priests in popularity and especially in leadership. In the resistance of 1869 and 1870, the priests took such an important role, defending the rights of the Métis and standing front and centre when it came to petition writing and negotiations with the government. But now it’s as if they’ve lost their spines and their drive. None of them offer any real solutions to this repeat of 1869, even though the Métis stare at the precipice of the loss of their land, which will equal the loss of their culture. The priests are French but not Métis, and so maybe they don’t understand how deep this concern really runs.

Father André is a tough old man who used to live with and minister to the buffalo hunters, and he makes no bones about not liking Louis. He wants Louis gone from Batoche. In this way, Father André can take control of the Métis again and bring them back to the fold. Louis wants his money. It’s owed to him. Father André realizes that if Louis were to accept a large sum of cash, it could be easily spun as his accepting a bribe, and Louis would lose his shine with the people. But all this talk of remuneration and bribes comes to nothing when John A. suddenly reverses past course and claims to be disgusted and surprised at this request for money for Louis Riel. It’s political grandstanding at its most shameful. The prime minister, after all, had no qualms in the past about trying to take care of political problems, including Riel, by using hard, cold cash.