John Bruce was president of the provisional government set up by Louis Riel at Winnipeg during the first Riel rebellion (AKA North-West Resistance).
After the rebellion was suppressed, he tried to remain at Winnipeg but decided he had to move due to the brutal way the occupying force, Ontario WASP soldiers, were treating Metis whether loyal or not.
The violence against the Metis was signpost of racism and the soldiers were out of control. This led to a mutiny among them, further lawlessness and even risk that the desperate Metis would rise up in support of a U.S.-based Fenian invasion and get Manitoba joined to the U.S. Unlike Riel, Bruce (at least at one point) thought union with the U.S. was preferable to take-over by Canada.
From Dictionary of Canadian Biography "John Bruce (Brousse)":
In August 1871 Bruce decided to sell his land [in preparation for leaving Winnipeg], but feared that if he sold it to Bannatyne, it might be resold to an Orangeman.
In a letter to Taché he mentioned debts as a reason for selling, but there was another more compelling. All through the fall and winter of 1870–71, the 1st (Ontario) Battalion of Rifles, a volunteer regiment stationed at Upper Fort Garry, had sought out and attacked Métis who ventured into the fort, making nearly impossible [Manitoba lieutenant-governor] Archibald’s sincere attempts to establish peace and order. The volunteers did not ask whether a Métis had supported Riel. Any Métis was fair game.
The violence culminated in a mutiny on 18 Feb. 1871, when the jail was broken open, prisoners were released, and the mutineers were out of control for hours. Fresh violence erupted again in the spring.
In a letter to Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, Archibald explained why Riel’s former associate William Bernard O'Donoghue would with good reason expect a general rising of the Métis if he appeared at the border with an armed force of Fenians, as it was rumoured he planned to do. “Many of [the Métis],” Archibald wrote, “actually have been so beaten and outraged that they feel as if they were living in a state of slavery.”
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Archibald's attempts to impose "public order and good government," a linchpin of our constitution, eventually paid off, with better treatment of Metis eventually coming to pass. The Fenian invasion was met and repelled. And in the meantime those who could do so got the heck out of there.
This is part of what is known as the Red River disapora. (One book, France and the Americas by Bill Marshall, says the diaspora was caused by the federal government giving "compensatory lands" elsewhere such as at Batoche. This overlooks the racist para-military violence of the time.)
Bruce sold out and left Winnipeg.
Also Laurent Garneau, formerly one of Riel's soldiers, also left - he came to the Edmonton area, settling land that is now the Garneau neighbourhood.
Joe MacDonald, who had led a company of Manitoba militia against the rebellion, also came to live nearby on the southside about the same time. Apparently Joe and Laurent got over their past differences, as Laurent backed Joe's claim for Riverlot 11. [land patent application, PAA 76.131 GS, #664]
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