1885 North-West Resistance - the Second Riel Rebellion

The NWT, a HBC-dominated area, was granted to Canada in 1870, when the HBC gave up its royal charter. That was when the present-day provinces of Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan and the present NWT became part of Canada.

As a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, Canada showed its mettle in 1885 when it suppressed the 1885 Rebellion just with its own resources, using its permanent army forces and militia forces. The brains though could be said to be contributed by Britain - General Middleton, who led the main section of the government fores, was a British general who had had previous experience in colonial wars in New Zealand and India.

(And of course the young government of John A. Macdonald bears heavy responsibility for its mis-dealings in the Territories, arousing such discontent that the Metis took to arms to try to defend their rights as long-standing occupants of the land. Their rights were eventually recognized by the government after the shooting stopped anyway.)

The suppression of the 1885 Rebellion went something like all such British wars - the British lost every fight but the last.

Defeats at Duck Lake and Fish Creek did not stop the push. The Metis did not hold their ground even if they had won each fight. And even if they had tried to do so, the soldiers would have just gone around them - the Metis could not hope to hold a solid line across the whole Prairies against the slow but steady advance by the Red Coats.

The fights each in turn grew closer to Batoche, which was really just a symbolic capital of the Resistance. The taking of Batoche saw the killing of fewer than 20 Metis fighters, a small portion of the fighters, and secured the capture of neither Riel nor his military commander, Dumont. But it signalled the end of organized resistance. If the Metis fighters could not even hold Batoche, it showed they had no strength.

There was no bitter-end guerrilla fighting as seen in the Boer War a decade later.

Louis Riel stayed around Batoche and within days was captured. Later put on trial for treason, found guilty and was hanged in Regina on 16 November.

Gabriel Dumont fled to the U.S., returning to Batoche in 1893. Where he was eventually buried.

Other groups were pursued and eventually gave up the struggle as well.

Poundmaker surrendered on May 26.

Cree fighters and families under Big Bear held out the longest. They fought off Canadian troops pursuing them in the Battle of Frenchman;s Butte and the Battle of Loon Lake. They gradually dwindled in number, disappearing into the bush along the way. Eluding his pursuers, Big Bear turned himself in at the NWMP post at Fort Carlton in early July. (The story goes that he was friends with a NWMP officer and knew he was at Fort Carlton so turned himself in there to be sure of having at least one friend there.)

Poundmaker and Big Bear both were sentenced to prison terms.

Amnesty was granted for rank-and-file fighters.

Several murders that had taken place outside the fighting were punished. The largest mass hanging in Canadian history took the lives of eight men in November 1885. The presiding judge, Rouleau, later was prominent in early Calgary. The Mission neighbourhood (once known as Rouleauville) was formed around his mansion.

But also the government did not rely on military might, hangings or imprisonment to effect a peace. A commission of investigation held public hearings, and land scrip was issued to assuage the discontent.

And complaints of lack of representation was at least partially addressed. The NWT was given four federal seats. Alberta's seat at first was filled by former whiskey peddler D.W. Davis, running for the Conservative party, elected mostly by Calgarians. Former Metis rebels and other unsettled old-timers in the Saskatchewan valley probably found little satisfaction with Davis's brand of representation - the fate of many groups under our geographical-district election scheme.

With elections up to five years apart, it would not be until 1896 that Edmonton and north-central Alberta finally exerted an upper hand. That was the year it sent its first local representative to the House of Commons - and a Liberal at that - Frank Oliver.

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Detailed take on the 1885 North-West Rebellion

using information in Colonel E.E. Callwell's book Small Wars, we see that the 1885 Resistance was similar to other Native insurgencies that the British Empire faced in the 1800s.

In this case, only Canadian troops were used in its supression.

But the top military commanders on the government side were veterans of past small wars elsewhere in the British Empire - in locales as exotic as India and Africa - north and south.

Wolseley and Otter,

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the rebellion started in a real way on March 18, 1885...

from Wiki North-West Rebellion

Riel and other prominent Métis gathered at Batoche (90 kms NE of Saskatoon, about same distance from Prince Albert to the NE).

On March 8, 1885, they passed a 10-point “Revolutionary Bill of Rights” that asserted Métis rights of possession to their farms and made other demands, including the government establishing in the North-West an office dealing with land issues.[11]

On March 18, 1885, Riel, Gabriel Dumont, Honoré Jackson (a.k.a. Will Jackson), and others took the seminal step of setting up the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan, believing they could influence the federal government in the same way as they had in 1869.

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Duck Lake was when the shooting started.

a sort of similar situation to when in 1776 the British regulars marched to Lexington and Concorde, to seize guns.

Then ensued "A shot heard 'round the world", according to U.S. mythology.

shooting broke out and government troops retreated, exposed on roads while rebels shot at them from shelter.

actually the Regulars could easily have run of the roads and attacked their attackers - you don't build up an empire by sticking to the roads -- but had been ordered not to go off the road and not to seek out and destroy the rebels.

This was meant to prevent the trip to Lexington and Concerode from escalating inot open war. But the U.S. rebels drew the wrong lesson from the soldiers' reticence to respond effectively to their sniping from bushes.

Actually as it worked out, they drew the right lesson - that the insurgency was winnable.

In the case of Duck Lake, the rebellious Metis won that battle but only realized the strength of the government forces tht they were up against.

distance was big thing.

Qu'Appelle, the major railway centre nearest to Batoche, was 1842 miles (3000 kms) from Toronto, but this distance was compressed due to the construction (only partially completed) of the CPR. Efficient of use of train relays and horse-drawn sleighs allowed the soldiers to have easy (albeit cold and uncomfortable) riding over parts of that length.

(distances are given in the map "Winnipeg to District of Riel's Rebellion" reprinted in Journal of the West, Oct. 1993 "Armed Forces in the Canadian West" issue, p. 40)

(details on the railway transit of the troops can be found in:

https://www.bayviewmagazine.com/article/2020/06/troop-trek-1885)

Middleton accumulated a force at Qu'Appelle within nine days, and on April 6, barely two weeks after the Battle of Duck Lake, began a march from there to Batoche more than 260 kms away.

That force, travelling no faster than a foot soldier, then took 20 days to arrive at Fish Creek, 26 kms from Batoche.

(from Qu'Appelle to Prince Albert was 430 kms.

From Qu'Appelle to Batoche was 260 kms as birds flies but 380 kms by winding prairie trails and even today's highways.

These were long distances in the scale of the time.

In the Zulu War, which happened just a few years before 1885, the Zulu capital of Ulundi was only 130 kms from the border.)

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Frenchman's Butte

Strange actually noted that he was surprised at the height of trees there as he had seen Frenchman's Butte only 20 years (or a few years) earlier and it had had no trees at that time.

The thing is the battle did not take place at Frenchman's Butte, which was located a few kms away.

Strange actually said he thought a more appropriate name for the battle would be Standoff Coulee as the government troops were held off by a swampy morass in the dip below the height. so for them the coulee was more of an obstacle than the height on the far side, where the sniping Metis rebels were emplaced.

(Mulvaney, Story of the Northwest Rebellion)

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A Cree insurgent, Louison Mongrain, killed NWMP Constable Cowan near Fort Pitt. after the rebellion's collapse, he was found guilty of the murder, and Judge Rouleau sentenced him to death. The sentence was commuted, perhaps due to Elizabeth McLean giving evidence that Louison had helped ensure her safety in the bitter days after the Battle of Loon Lake. (Wiebe and Beal, War in the West Voices of the 1885 Rebellion, p. 148)

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Battle of Duck Lake was followed by:

Cree sacking of Fort Pitt, Fort Carleton, part of Battleford (the capital of the NWT), Green Lake

Frog Lake incident April 2

Battle of Fish Creek Middleton's column bloodied

Battle of Cut Knife Hill Otter's column marching from Swift Current bloodied

Albert Field Force came north from Calgary on foot, secured Edmonton from attack, then went down the North Saskatchewan River to secure Victoria Settlement, recapture Fort Pitt, then moved overland in pursuit of Big Bear's band.

(This was a journey of approx. 2000 kms.)

May 9-13 Battle of Batoche

AFF met Big Bear's men at Frenchmen's Butte, and then at Loon Lake 60 kms NE of Frenchman's Butte

Big Bear later voluntarily surrendered to NWMP detachment at destroyed Fort Carlton.

eight hanged at Battleford

(see Montopedia blog on this)

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relations between whites and Mettis and First Nations were unsettled and the Calgary Herald reported on a report from "Hall" [identity unknown] on the situation in 1886.

Red Crow, leader of the Bloods, was complaining of many things but principally of short rations. Their grievances were enumerated by John McDougall, said to be son-in-law of the Blood leader. (This John McDougall is son of George McDougall, who founded the McDougall Church in downtown Edmonton in the 1870s.)

according to "Hall"'s report, McDougall "comes down hard on Crowfoot, the Blackfoot Chief." He wrote that during the 1885 rebellion, Crowfoot professed peaceful intentions but was actually "trying to bring about a general uprising of the Blackfoot nation.. if Red Crow had consented to join Crowfoot, there would have been a general uprising...

The Bloods were not friendly with the Cree. They would rather assist the whites than the Cree....

The punishment of the Crees at Battleford [the hangings] had a greater effect upon the Crees than people believed, and they know now there is no use of going to War. ...

[Hall reported that "To pacify the Indians, the Government should put an official in charge of them who influence with them, a man who understands their nature and whom they would like.

The restlessness six weeks ago was caused by the horses siakd ot have been stolen being wrongfully taken from the Blood camp and by reports of the police intending to disarm them.

The general opinion is that there is no more anger now of an outbreak than there ever was." (Calgary Herald, Jan. 30, 1886, p. 1)

During the rebellion, it was reported that some Blackfoot appealed to the government to let them fight the Cree, but the government thought it best not to have a "tribal" conflict overlap into the government's suppression of the Cree uprising.

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In Jan 1886, the Toronto Mail (later the Globe and Mail) endorsed a petition calling for a general amnesty for Metis and Indians, saying the government showed it was strong when it hanged "Riel and the Cree Indians who rising at his request committed wholesale murder, and now should show that it can also be merciful, much might be said in extenuation of treason of the half-breeds and Indians now in prison at Stony Mountain.

Riel grossly deceived them, first in withholding their petitions to Ottawa and again in making at least some of them believe that he had been commissioned by heaven to restore them to the ownership of the country. ...it would be unfair to permit violence or politics to prejudice the case of these brave and honest though mistaken men who met us fairly and fought us fairly until the fortune of war delivered them into our hands." (Calgary Herald, Jan. 30, 1886, p. 1)

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See other Montopedia blogs:

"Umla ..."

"1885 North-West Resistance - Dumont proposed a guerrilla war ..."

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