The Last Spike: The Great Railway, 1881-1885 (62 page)

By the spring of 1884, protest meetings were becoming common at St. Laurent, the strongest and best established of the Métis communities. “…  the N.W. Ter. is like a volcanoe ready to erupt,” one Métis wrote to the exiled Louis Riel in May, 1884. “The excitement is almost general. All minds are everywhere excited. Since the month of March last public meetings are everywhere frequently held … French and English Half-breeds
are now united.… On all sides people complain of injustice; they invoke equity, they desire to obtain our rights.”

By that time, the united half-breed community in the forks of the Saskatchewan had decided that Riel was the only man who could lead them – peacefully, it was hoped – in an agitation to force the government’s hand. He had done it fifteen years before. He must be persuaded to do it again. No one else had his charisma, his sense of tactics, his eloquence and, above all, his reputation.

Riel was a long distance away and many years out of touch, living in poverty and teaching school at a Jesuit mission at Sun River, Montana. Distance held no terrors for the Métis. Four of them saddled up their horses that May and set out on a seven-hundred-mile ride to meet their Messiah.

The most interesting member of the delegation, and the one who occupies a special niche in the history of the Saskatchewan Rebellion of 1885, was Gabriel Dumont, the most popular and respected man along the Saskatchewan – a natural leader, though totally unlettered and almost apolitical. For years Dumont, “the Prince of the Prairies,” had been chief of the buffalo hunt, a severe disciplinarian who held to the code (“no buffalo run on Sabbath Day; no person or party to run buffalo before general order …”). He was a legendary rider, sharpshooter, drinker, gambler, and even swimmer – a rarity among Métis – and he had acquired the knack of “calling” buffalo into a trap, a skill lost by most Indian tribes.

There were many tales circulating about the plains regarding Dumont’s exploits as a youth. At the age of eighteen, he had led a posse of Cree to an armed camp of twenty-five Blackfoot to recapture the kidnapped wife of a friend. Dumont and one man entered the camp, jumped the guards, and carried off the woman safely. On another occasion he had flabbergasted a Blackfoot encampment by creeping in out of the shadows at the height of a pot dance and joining the male dancers who were spearing meat in the central pot and boasting of their exploits in killing Crees. “I am Gabriel Dumont,” he shouted, spearing a piece of meat on his own, “and I have killed eight Blackfoot! What do you think of that?” The chief was so astounded he invited Dumont to stay and even suggested a peace treaty.

In 1884, when he set off to see Riel, Dumont was forty-seven years old, a swarthy, stocky man with bull’s shoulders and a handsome, kindly face. He had been a chief of his people since the age of twenty-five, much beloved by all who knew him, including Sam Steele, the Mounted Policeman, who thought him one of the kindest and best of men, flawed only
by an obsession for gambling: he was quite capable of playing cards for three days and nights without stopping to eat. Dumont knew the prairies, Steele said, “as well as a housewife knows her kitchen,” and was universally respected: “One might travel the plains from one end to the other and talk to the Metis hunters and never hear an unkind word said of Dumont. He would kill bison by the score and give them to those who were either unable to kill or had no buffalo. Not until every poor member of the hunting-parties had his cart filled with meat would he begin to fill his own. When in trouble the cry of all was for Gabriel.”

In 1884 there was trouble, and the cry was for Gabriel again. He knew that he could not lead his people in a battle with the government of Canada. He spoke several Indian dialects as well as he spoke his native French, but he had no English and no gift for oratory. He was a man of action, a prairie general who would shortly become the tactician of the last stand of the Métis empire against the onrush of civilization.

The four Métis delegates arrived at Riel’s small home on June 4, 1884. Riel was plumper than he had been in the days of the Manitoba uprising. His features had filled out and he now wore a curly, red-brown beard. He was still handsome, with a high, intelligent forehead, a straight nose, and a pair of eyes that, when he recalled the stirring days of 1869 and 1870, “danced and glistened in a manner that riveted attention.”

He was under doctor’s orders to behave quietly and avoid excitement, a counsel he only occasionally remembered to follow. Exiled in 1875 for five years as a result of his role in the Red River troubles (specifically, his summary execution of the Orangeman, Thomas Scott), deprived of his parliamentary seat, forced to flit back and forth across the border, his already mercurial psyche had been subjected to such stresses that he had gone insane at times, bellowing aloud that he was a prophet, suffering hallucinations, and sometimes running naked down the corridors of the institutions in which he was confined. Twenty months in Quebec asylums (hidden from his pursuers) had calmed him down, but his sense of personal mission was never quenched. Moving west once more, he had plunged briefly into Montana politics, fighting the Democratic Party establishment on behalf of the Métis there before settling down with his dark little Métis wife, Marguerite, to the penniless life of a parish schoolmaster.

Riel was clearly aroused by the message the delegation brought to him. The sense of power, which he had enjoyed in his brief time as master of Fort Garry, was still within him; so was the mystic conviction that he had a divine mission to perform. Undoubtedly he felt keenly the plight of his people, as he had fifteen years before. Added to that was his own sense of
injury at the hands of the Canadian government. Canada, he believed, owed him both land and money while he himself had been living in penury. After some consideration he told the delegation that he would return to Canada temporarily (he was at this point a naturalized American) to fight not only for his personal rights and those of his people, but also for the white settlers and the Indians. Significantly, his first public meeting in the North West (in July) was held at an English-speaking settlement, Red Deer Hill. W. H. Jackson, secretary of the Settlers’ Union, shared the platform with him. Later that month Riel and Jackson met with Big Bear and incorporated in their subsequent petition to Ottawa the Indians’ grievances and demands.

The Canadian government had – or should have had – plenty of warning that matters in the North West were coming to a head. On August 23, Hayter Reed, the Assistant Indian Commissioner, wrote to Lieutenant-Governor Dewdney from Prince Albert that Riel had held a council of Indians, listened to their grievances, and told them the Indians and half-breeds must act in concert. Reed, however, did not feel there would be trouble until the following summer. At about the same time, William Pearce of the Dominion land department reported to Dewdney that he had “the feeling of nervousness about the state of the Indians.” Dewdney, however, officially reported that, in his opinion, Pearce’s fears were groundless. The Prime Minister was well aware of the rumours of discontent among the Métis at Battleford and Duck Lake but did not attach much importance to them, though he did suggest that the
NWMP
force in the Territories be strengthened.

Certainly on the surface Riel did not appear to sanction trouble and probably did not, at that time, contemplate it. His meetings were enthusiastic but outwardly peaceful. Sergeant Keenan of the Police, stationed at Batoche, reported on September 15 his belief that this apparent moderation was spurious: “…  they advocate very different measures in their councils.” Keenan learned through a spy of one such secret meeting where Charles Nolin, a Métis leader, had advocated that they “take up arms at once and commence killing every white man they can find and incite the Indians to do the same” if the Métis demands on the government were not met. These demands were codified and sent to Ottawa; they included requests for land scrip, better treatment for the Indians, responsible government with vote by ballot, parliamentary representation, reduction of the tariff, and the building of another railway to Hudson Bay. In spite of the clamour, the government in Ottawa remained curiously inattentive.

The resident priest at St. Laurent, Father André, wrote three letters to
Dewdney in January and February, 1885, stating clearly that unless the government took some action to redress grievances there would be an uprising under Riel in which the Indians would join. “…  this continued state of excitement is dangerous. The Government is, I believe, quite wrong in not leading itself to some arrangement which would prove satisfactory to all parties concerned.” By this time Riel was acting very strangely indeed. From the first of January, it was said, he had fed exclusively on blood instead of flesh, the blood being cooked in milk. It was done, Charles Nolin later swore in court, to excite a feeling of awe in the minds of his followers, “no doubt with a view to making them believe that he was acting under Divine instructions.” There is not much doubt that Riel himself believed that he was God’s envoy. He prayed daily, told of revelations he had experienced in the night, recounted the visitations of saints, and repeated conversations he said he had had with the Holy Ghost. The director of the Catholic mission at St. Laurent later stated that “in his strange and alarming folly, [he] fascinated our poor half breeds as the snake is said to fascinate its victim.”

Father André’s repeated warnings were supplemented by others from Joseph Howe, the Mounted Police inspector at Prince Albert, from Major L. N. F. Crozier, his superior at Battleford, and from D. H. Macdowall, the representative of the district on the Territorial Council. All urged that Ottawa take some action; but the government’s only response was a vague set of promises for the future and the establishment in January of that favourite Canadian device for procrastination – a commission, to examine the question of scrip for the Métis. This served only to infuriate Riel and his followers.

Crozier’s advice was that “if this man Riel was out of the country the normal quiet would be restored.” The fascinating truth of the matter seems to be that Riel could have been bought off quite easily for a few thousand dollars. The evidence, which has been glossed over or ignored by some of Riel’s later adherents, makes it clear that he was prepared to desert the Métis cause and return to Montana for hard cash and that he did his best to negotiate that return with the government’s representatives.

Riel had made his intentions clear to Father André, who had gone directly to Councillor Macdowall and urged that he meet immediately with the Métis leader. The meeting took place a few days before Christmas, 1884, and lasted four hours. Riel did most of the talking. Macdowall reported the interview in detail to Dewdney:

“He … proceeded to state that if the Government would consider his personal claims against them and pay him a certain amount in settlement
of these claims, he would arrange to make his illiterate and unreasoning followers well satisfied with almost any settlement of their claims for land grants that the Government might be willing to make, and also that he would leave the N W. never to return.”

Following the uprising of 1869–70, when Riel was an embarrassment to both the Conservative and the subsequent Liberal governments, he had, apparently, been quietly offered certain sums – he mentioned a figure of thirty-five thousand dollars – to leave the country. In addition, he felt that he was entitled to further compensation of the kind that some of his former followers had received in the form of land scrip.

“His claims,” Macdowall reported, “amount to the modest sum of $100,000
⁰⁰
but he will take $35,000
⁰⁰
as originally offered and I believe myself that $3000
⁰⁰
or $5000
⁰⁰
would cart the whole Riel family across the boundary. Riel made it most distinctly understood that ‘self’ was his real object and he was willing to make the claims of his followers totally subservient to his own interests. He appeared to me to be an enthusiast who had suffered personal losses and who had felt as one ‘hounded’ in ’70 to ’74, that this feeling of injury had grown into a monomania which had been brooded over and which was nourished by his enthusiastic nature, and that the only danger there is in him lies in his enthusiasm, which added to his past history, gives him an immense influence for good or for evil over his ignorant followers.…

“Riel’s last statement was that he would not believe in any promise that might be made to him, but that if money were sent for him he would carry out his part. He said ‘my name is Riel and I want materiel’ which I suppose was a pun.…

“…  he also said that he was poor and if not relieved he would die of hunger and he might as well die at once in a struggle.… Withal, he is crafty and, from the way he is willing to sacrifice his followers’ interests, double-dealing.…”

Macdowall’s report to Dewdney was followed by a series of earnest pleas that Riel be got out of the country. “Riel is anxious to leave, and we must provide him with the means of leaving,” Father André wrote. Inspector Howe reported to Crozier in similar vein. (“Riel stated that he was thinking shortly of returning to Montana if the Government would only give him the means to do so.…”)

To John A. Macdonald, this was simple blackmail, and he refused to countenance it although fourteen years before he had had no such qualms. At that time he had been happy to have Donald A. Smith bribe Riel to leave the Red River. In vain Father André continued to plead that Riel
be paid a few thousand dollars: “…  that sum ought not to be unobtainable to the peace and security of this part of the country.”

That peace and security was rapidly being threatened as Riel’s hold on the Métis, sparked by a growing religious fervour and mysticism, increased. He was once again calling himself a prophet and signing papers with the Biblical middle name of David. To his followers, he was close to being a saint.