WEBVTT - Louis Riel 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.120 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:13.480 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:18.920 I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Tracy. Yeah, 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.400 Canada is spending celebrating his hundred and fiftieth birthday. I 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.600 am aware of this. We know because lots of people 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.520 have mentioned it to us and requested that we do 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.720 some sort of Canadian history. UM. And one particular topic 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.440 has come up over and over and over so many times. Uh. Specifically, 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:41.879 it was requested by Alexander, Jamie, Susan, Nicole, Drina, Stasha 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.960 and Tyler. If you requested it and I missed you, 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.720 I apologize. Uh. But today this topic is considered by 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.720 some but not all historians to be the father of Manitoba, 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:57.320 and that disparity in these some but not all is uh. 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.400 And how he's viewed is something that's really been a 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:01.720 part of his agacy pretty much from the beginning of 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.319 his life as a prominent figure in Manitoba and Canadian history. 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.160 And we were talking today about Louis Rielle. Before we 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.120 get into Louis Rielle's story, we need to back up 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.360 a little bit and set some context about the mate people. 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.440 The origin of the earliest Mayti is traced back to 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.440 the sixteen hundreds in eastern Canada. Matie is a French 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:28.080 word that translates roughly to mixed blood or hybrid. As 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:33.640 European fishermen took wives from the local indigenous population, their 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.600 children became the first generation of mate. Yeah. There are 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.520 a number of different translations that you will see of maytie, 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.400 from very sort of mild ones like oh it means 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:50.760 combined to some fairly disparaging type translations uh. Just if 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.320 you go looking know that that will happen. And as 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.240 the fur trade led French Canadian trappers and traders to 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.760 move west, they too often took wives from the Indian population, 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:06.080 marrying primarily Cree, Ogibwa or Salto women. And this was 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.080 the result to some degree of an eagerness on the 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.079 part of the people that lived there to foster positive 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.680 relationships with these Europeans that were moving in. So they 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.440 kind of offered them wives who would be able to 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.079 care for them uh and serve in in roles as wives, 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.920 but also that would translate and bridge any cultural confusion 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:29.320 between the Europeans and these indigenous peoples. The children of 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:34.080 these negotiated marriages became the foundation of the Western Meti Nation, 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.840 which was centered in the Red River region of what's 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.720 now Manitoba. This became a uniquely blended culture that incorporated 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:46.239 both French, Catholic and Native beliefs and traditions. Yeah, and 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.480 there was even like a language that developed that is unique, 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:51.600 which I don't get into in this episode, but it's 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.240 quite fascinating. And the mate also had a vast knowledge 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.840 of both European and Native to Canada cultures, and so 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.680 they could easily work with both Indigenous and European groups, 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.000 and many as a consequence, became employees of the Northwest 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.120 Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, both of which were 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.800 the large fur trade enterprises operating in the Canadian areas 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:18.280 at the time. There is some irony there because initially 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:22.920 the Hudson's Bay Company actually discouraged these types of mixed marriages, 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.400 but they soon realized there were some benefits to having 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.840 employees with wide ranging skill sets that really helped the 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.400 fur trade grow. Yeah. I mean, among other things, they 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.880 were able to survive in climates that people that came 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.200 here straight from Europe weren't always prepared to deal with 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:41.560 and then they could teach other people, and they ended 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.600 up being just such a knowledge base for these companies. 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.120 Hudson's Bay Company also owned this massive tract of Canada 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:51.920 known as Rupert's Land, and this land had been given 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.360 to the company by King Charles the Second. It was 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.320 named for Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who held governorship 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.960 over the land when it was first granted in six 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.760 teen seventy. By the early eighteen hundreds, there was an 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.800 influx of European immigrants into the Red River Valley area, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.600 and those immigrants were given land assignments from the Hudson's 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.200 Bay Company, but this was done completely ignoring the fact 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:19.160 that the Eight Nation people were already living there. Additionally, 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.320 the Northwest Company had trade routes through the land which 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.520 were disregarded in this process. As a result, the Northwest 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:28.480 Company was put in a position where they had no 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.760 real option but to merge with the Hudson's Bay Company, 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:33.800 and the combination of the two of them meant that 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.880 a lot of land in Canada was owned by one 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.800 fur trading company. Yeah, if you look at maps that 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.360 overlay like here's Canada, Here's what was owned by the 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:47.440 Hudson's Bay Company at this time. It's like most of Canada, 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.000 uh which is interesting that it would all be owned 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.320 by a corporate venture. So the Red River Colony was 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.000 founded over the years of eighteen eleven and eighteen twelve 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.479 by a Scottish immigrant, Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.839 was granted a one hundred and sixteen thousand square mile 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.320 that's about a three hundred thousand square kilometer land parcel 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.720 by the Hudson's Bay Company, and though its initial years 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.040 as a settlement were kind of shaky due to fighting 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.360 caused by the rivalry between the then separate Hudson's Bay 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.680 Company in the north West Company, once the two for 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.640 trew one, things really started to stabilize, and in eighteen 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.000 thirty six the Hudson's Bay Company purchased the colony back 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:30.799 from the Selkirk estate. Louis David Riale was born in St. 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.040 Boniface and the Red River Colony on October twenty three, 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:38.039 eighteen forty four. His father was a well respected member 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.799 of the Mate community and his mother was French Canadian. 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.000 Louis was their first child and they eventually had ten more. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.000 At the age of fourteen, Riale traveled to Montreal to 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.159 be trained and educated for the priesthood, and when he 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.440 was thirteen he had actually been hand picked by the 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.599 clergy and Red River as a potential priest and to 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.520 go have this education and as a con quence, his 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:05.120 education was financed entirely through a scholarship, but he never 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.400 completed his training and he was never ordained. If he 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.840 had been, he would have been Canada's first mate priest. 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.960 And while he was excelling in seminary, he had also 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.440 met a young woman, Marie Julie Gerna, and the two 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.400 of them fell in love and became engaged. Real however, 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.960 was not really welcomed by her family. They were French 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.440 Canadian and they did not really have an interest in 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.440 marrying their daughter off to a mate man. After that, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.200 he quit his religious studies. During that timult of his 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.240 failed romance, Reel's father died in eighteen sixty four, which 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.640 was also a huge blow and part of why he 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:44.840 was sort of willing to make this big sea change 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.920 and leave the seminary, and that also left his mother 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.640 and the rest of the family without a provider, and 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:52.960 Louis worked first for a time as a law clerk, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.120 sending money back to the family, but eventually he returned 0:06:56.120 --> 0:07:00.000 to St. Boniface in eighteen sixty eight. In eighteen say 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.800 ex nine, there was a deal in motion to annexed 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.240 parts of the Red River Settlement to the Dominion of Canada, 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.920 and a sale that would really benefit the Hudson's Bay Company, 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.360 but the Mayti people who lived in the area to 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.880 be annexed had no say in the matter, and there 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:19.080 were approximately nine thousand of those people. The whole deal 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:21.720 was being handled by the Fur Company, and the Canadian 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.440 government appointed a Lieutenant governor to oversee the survey work 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.720 that would re evaluate all this land for future use. Yeah, 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.679 they were plotting rent along, kind of ignoring the fact 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:34.440 that there were a whole lot of people that already 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.400 called that place home, and the mate were concerned additionally 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.320 that there would be a massive influx of Anglo Protestant 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.200 immigrants crowding out the community that had been building up 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.680 the Red River Settlement for decades. There had already been 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.040 a steadily growing tension among the different cultures and religions 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.960 in the region, and the potential arrival of additional immigrants 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.080 from Ontario was seen as a real danger to the 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.200 future of the Mate way of life. This conflict led 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.000 to the founding of the Mayti National Committee, which had 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.800 a mission to defend Mate culture and to have a 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:11.320 political voice. Louis Rielle, whose family was prominent among the Mate, 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:15.520 was elected secretary of the Mayti National Committee and eventually 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.840 became its president. In his role and working, he was 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.000 able to stop the survey. It was actually halted on 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.440 October eleventh of eighteen sixty nine, but that was far 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.360 from the end of Riel's involvement in working against the 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.640 Canadian government. On behalf of the Mate and November, the 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.240 Mayte launched a more aggressive plan. First, the committee set 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.320 up a roadblock that would keep William McDougal, the Canadian 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:44.520 government's appointed Lieutenant governor, from entering the Red River Settlement. 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.680 In addition to preventing McDougal's visit, the committee also made 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.679 a raid on one of the Hudson's Bay Company posts, 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.040 Upper Fort Gary, and took over that post. Then they 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.600 set up their own government over the Red Middle River Settlement, 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.680 and once they had established their authority, the Mainti National 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.600 Committee invited delegates both French and English speakers from the 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.320 Red River Settlement to come to Upper Fort Gary so 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.160 they could all discuss the situation and what they were 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.240 all willing to accept as terms to allow the Lieutenant 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.840 Governor into the Red River Settlement. This whole sequence of 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.840 events became known as the Red River Rebellion and in 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.240 the in early December, the Mainti National Committee formed a 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.360 provisional government. At this point, John Bruce was still president 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.000 of the group and thus of the provisional government, and 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:36.240 Louis Rielle was a secretary. Eventually, Bruce stepped down due 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.920 to illness and Rielle assumed the leadership role of president. 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:42.720 And coming up next, we're going to talk about how 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.160 the issues with the Red River Settlement and the Canadian 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.760 government played out. But first we're gonna pause and have 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:56.000 a word from one of our sponsors. Bruce and Rielle 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:59.400 together issued the Declaration of the People of Rupert's Land 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.840 and the North West on December eight. This document stated 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.600 plainly that the Canadian government did not have any authority 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.400 in the region and offered the opportunity for Canada to 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.120 negotiate with the mate provisional government to reach some sort 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.079 of settlement. In response to this declaration, the Canadian government 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.640 sent three men Hudson's Bay Company wrapped Donald Smith, Colonel 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:25.040 Charles de Salibarry, and Reverend Jean Baptiste Tebou to negotiate. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.560 Initial efforts on the part of Canada's trio were focused 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.960 on setting up a structure for the discussions where all 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.200 of the stakeholders could be involved. It was decided that 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.520 forty representatives of the settlement, half English speakers half French speakers, 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:42.240 would meet in a convention with the Canadian government's negotiators 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:44.400 to see if an agreement could be struck so the 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.680 lands under the leadership of the Mati National Committee could 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:52.319 join with Canada. In January seventy the forty men assembled 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.920 as delegates made a list of conditions that had to 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.080 be met for them to join the Confederation of Canada. 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.560 Over the course of the next two months, the convention 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.320 formed into a more structured entity with the legislative branch, 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.560 an executive branch, and a judicial branch, and it took 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.600 the name Provisional Government of a Sinebwa. Three delegates were 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.480 selected from this new provisional government to be sent to Ottawa, 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.320 and there they negotiated with co Premier George Etienne Cartier 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.480 to integrate the territory including and surrounding Red River, into 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.520 the confederation. There was not universal support for the efforts 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:31.360 of the MATE National Committee and the provisional government they established, though. 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.520 A group of armed Canadians gathered in force and made 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.040 their way to Red River, and the MATE quickly took 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.760 them into custody and confined them at Upper Fort Gary. 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.600 One of the men who was captured by the MATE 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.200 was Thomas Scott. Scott was a member of the Orange Order, 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.920 which was a pro Protestant group in Canada that viewed 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:55.720 French Canadians and Catholics as inferior. For his involvement in 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.040 the attempted attack on Red River, Scott was court martialed 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.079 by the MATE leader ship and sentenced to death. He 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:06.079 was executed by firing squad on March fourth, eighteen seventy 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.920 and as a consequence, Louis Rielle was despised by many 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.520 Protestants after that. But this incident did not halt the 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.440 negotiations that were taking place in Ottawa. Yeah, and it 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.760 was actually an associate of Louis Rielle that that made 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.680 that decision to have Scott executed. But because Rielle was 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:25.959 kind of the leader of this rebellion. At this point 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.840 he was blamed and two months after Scott was executed, 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.120 the Manitoba Act, which made the Province of Manitoba a 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.520 part of the confederation, was sanctioned on May twelfth, eighteen 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.840 seventy and according to the terms of the Manitoba Act, 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:43.120 the province would be bilingual and one point four million 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:47.600 acres that's about five hundred and sixty six thousand hectares 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.680 of land was to be reserved for the children of 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.240 the province's mate residence. One of the first things that 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.480 happened after the Manitoba Act was that the Canadian government 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.840 sent military troops and to a red river. This was, 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.480 according to then Lieutenant Governor A. G. Archibald, intended as 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.480 a show of support for him from the federal government 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.320 and was peaceful. But no such move had been in 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.840 any way discussed when the Manitoba Act was being hashed out, 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.839 and so no one had told the provisional government that 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.640 it was going to happen, let alone ask them if 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.480 they would be okay with it. Yes, it's like you're 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.640 going to be part of Canada. We are sending in 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.600 the military uh, and it became really clear as well 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.520 that Louis Rielle should be very concerned about this military force. 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.240 There was still a great deal of anger over Thomas 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:40.040 Scott's execution, and it was discovered that Rielle was very 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:42.760 much in danger of being lynched by federal troops there 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.240 was a plan to do so, so he fled to 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.040 the United States. Rial didn't stay away for long, though, 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.440 he returned to Red River a year later in May 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.600 seventy one, but he kept a very low profile and 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.760 with good reason. He was still very controversial and on 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:04.040 Harryo to the east of Manitoba, which was still predominantly Protestant, 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.760 he was labeled as a murderer responsible for Thomas Scott's death, 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.400 and there was a reward offered for his arrest, but Quebec, 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.320 which is on the eastern side of Ontario, viewed him 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.720 as a in a more heroic light because of his 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.920 efforts to make sure French language and the Catholic faith 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:24.680 were part of Manitoba's culture. This clash of opinions about 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.760 real concerned Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. McDonald and 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.160 fearing that Riale's presence in Canada would lead to civil unrest. 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.480 He actually offered re Real some money. He paid him 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.920 to go back to the United States and live in exile. 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.720 And Riale took that deal in part because he was 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.400 still taking care of his mother and siblings and he 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.240 needed the money. But even gone from Canada, Rielle was 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:52.080 a significant figure in Manitoba's culture and politics. After supporters 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.680 urged him to enter federal politics, he won a parliamentary 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.600 seat in eighteen seventy three and then again in eighteen 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.280 seventy four. After his re election in eighteen seventy four, 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.280 he traveled to Ottawa on March thirtieth of that year, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.400 went into the Parliament building to swear his allegiance and 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.400 signed the House of Commons member register, and then he 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.360 had to leave. Emotion had been introduced by an Orange 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:18.400 Order member from the House of Ontario that expelled him. 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.920 The following year, a conditional amnesty was offered to Real 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.320 by the Canadian government on the stipulation that he must 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:29.440 accept five years of banishment, and Rial agreed to these terms. 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:31.640 And this was also tied into some deals that were 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:33.520 going on with other people that had been involved in 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.160 the Red River rebellion, and this would seem like a 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:40.440 really positive moment in his life. Uh. But unfortunately, the 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.000 stresses of his leadership role in Manitoba and the ongoing 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.600 blame leveled at him for Scott's death really took a 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.880 toll and he ended up suffering a nervous breakdown. This 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.800 was after a series of episodes that make it apparent 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.800 that Rielle was struggling with mental exhaustion. He had been 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.120 staying with an uncle, John Lee, near Montreal. When his 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:04.040 public outbursts and and manic episodes became too much for 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.320 the Lee household to manage. He was taken first to 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.200 an asylum in Montreal, where he was admitted under the 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:14.560 name uh Louis R. David on March sixth of eighteen 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.960 seventy six. There was concern, however, that real would be 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.920 discovered in the hospital, first clearly against the terms of 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.640 his amnesty, but more importantly at a time when he 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.080 was vulnerable and could be victimized by political enemies if 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.120 they realized that he was there. And the staff at 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.800 the hospital who knew who he was, consulted with the 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.480 friends and family who had admitted him, and it was 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.360 decided after two months in the Montreal asylum that he 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.160 should be moved to another facility, the Beauport Asylum outside 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.120 Quebec City, and the period leading up to his hospitalization 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.440 and while he was convalescing, Real, who had always been religious, 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.720 became obsessed with matters of spirituality. He wrote extensive notes 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.720 on religion. He also became convinced that he had been 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:03.280 chosen by God to serve as a leader or a prophet. Yeah, 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.760 that's that's worded in various different ways when you read 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.359 about him. Uh, some people think that he kind of 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.240 saw himself as a messiah of the Mayti people. He 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:15.880 definitely didn't think God had chosen him to enact huge change. So, 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.119 after a year and a half of rest and treatment, 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.560 Real was discharged from the Beauport Asylum and his doctor 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:23.960 advised Real to find a way to live a quiet, 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:28.920 peaceful life, and initially Real traveled to Keysville, New York, 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.120 in search of work, and then eventually made his way 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.879 to the American Midwest. He joined some of the mate 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.520 who had moved to the United States in the Montana territory, 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.800 and he applied to be an American citizen. Married a 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.880 mate woman named Marguerite Monet de Belle Humur, and settled 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.800 down in Montana, where the couple had three children. He 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.359 started a new career as a school teacher at St. 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.680 Peter's Mission, which sat on a tributary of the Missouri 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.080 River known as the Sun River. So at this point 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.639 it seems like real had found that a life that 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.440 he was prescribed by his doctor. But it wasn't long 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:06.760 before he became embroiled in another conflict. And we're going 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:08.720 to talk about that after we first have a quick 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:17.280 word from one of our fantastic sponsors. So during that 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.320 time that Rielle was in Montana, there were still ongoing 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.960 issues between the Mayti and the Canadian government. For one, 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.080 the Mate were suffering economically because the fur trade in 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.919 buffalo hunting industries that had employed many Mayti people were declining, 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.119 and some, like the Mate that Rielle had connected with 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.159 in Montana, had decided to move on to other places, 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:42.280 and that also included Saskatchewan. One of the major Mayti 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:47.359 settlements in Saskatchewan was Batouche. There was no political representation 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.480 for the Mayti in the territorial government, even though they 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.840 made up a majority of the population there. There had 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.240 been efforts in the eighteen seventies to establish Mayti members 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.480 of the Territorial Council, but they had wrapped resented the 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:05.840 Mate of Manitoba, not those in Saskatchewan. When the Mate 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.359 of Saskatchewan did finally get a representative in government, the 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.760 requests that were made by that position never got any attention. 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.520 For one, there had been a request to survey the 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.360 land along the South Saskatchewan River so that it could 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.159 be best used to suit the needs of the community. 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.760 They had also petitioned to have formal titles to their 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.720 lands established, fearing that without that, if Batusche experienced an 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.200 influx of new settlers, as Manitoba had, they could easily 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.560 lose the land that they had been on for years. 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.000 Even with support from the Roman Catholic Church working on 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.200 their behalf in this matter, the Canadian government gave only 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.399 the vagus of responses with no plans for action on 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.280 any of the matters that had been raised. So by 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.320 the eighteen eighties, the Mate and the European settlers in 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.560 the area all had problems with the federal government, and 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.800 in additions to lack of clear titles, there had been 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.840 a land devaluation because the Canadian Pacific Railway had been 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.600 relocated to the Southern Prairie region, meaning Batouche was not 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:08.240 on the line anymore. In June of eighty four, the 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.600 plight of the maytee was once again brought to Louis Rielle. 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.639 Because he had managed to negotiate with the Canadian government 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.159 during the problems in Red River, it was believed that 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.800 he could probably help with Saskatchewan's problems too. Gabrielle du Mont, 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.720 president of the Maytee Council of Saint Laurent, which had 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.560 formed in Saskatchewan, visited Rielle in Montana and asked him 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.439 to help his people's cause, and Rielle agreed and he 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.240 traveled to Batouche with his family. Once they arrived there, 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:39.280 Rielle and William Henry Jackson, who was Reale's secretary as 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:42.160 well as the secretary of the local farmers union, put 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.119 together a petition that listed all of the grievances of 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.000 the people in Batouche and send it to Ottawa and 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.520 on December sixteenth. This was after more than three dozen 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.160 petitions had been sent already, but the federal government replied 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.200 to the one drafted by Rielle and Jackson, promising that 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:03.680 it investigated of commission would be appointed in this response 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.440 really did not sit well with the Mayti in Batuche, 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.760 who had heard similar assurances before and who had frankly 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.800 grow tired of waiting. So on March five five they 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.600 held a meeting to discuss an armed effort to force 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.320 the government's hand. Rielle suggested a few days later that 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:22.760 what they should do is set up of provisional governments 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:27.800 for Saskatchewan. Rielle's motion was not enacted. Instead, the group 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.320 drafted a revolutionary Bill of Rights. So the document that 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.440 consisted of ten demands, and included in the demands is 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.560 a stipulation that a government office to be established that 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:39.600 was closer to them so they didn't have to take 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.439 up land disputes with far with far away Ottawa, and 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.840 that they had the right to own their farms. In 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.440 response to the Revolutionary Bill of Rights, the federal government 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.360 sent in a military force consisting of five hundred men. 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.240 The mate, hearing about this before those men had arrived, 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.639 took possession of the Batouche Church and there established a 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.840 provisional government, as Rielle had suggested, and they did that 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.840 on March eighteenth. Louis Rielle was the leader. The new 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.760 government also sees the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Carlton Post, 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:15.879 and leading up to the taking of Fort Carlton, Rielle 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.280 and five dozen men had also looted several stores for supplies, 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:23.639 and Rielle was heard proclaiming that Rome has fallen. He 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.959 also proclaimed that Bishop in nas Bourges was the new pope, 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.720 and these odd proclamations were red flags that there was 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.480 something amiss in Rielle's mental state. But he was so 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.600 charismatic and so invested in the Mayti cause that the 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.560 men with him remained loyal and continued to follow his 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.720 lead for the next several months, which came to be 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:47.399 known as the Northwest Resistance or the Northwest Rebellion. The 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.719 Mate and their aboriginal allies fought the Canadian government. In 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:54.320 the early weeks, the Mate were able to score some 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.520 victories at the first battle of the rebellion, the Battle 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:01.600 of Duck Lake three d Maytie defeat did one Canadian men, 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:06.080 but as Canada sent in more troops, the Canadian militia 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:10.800 wound up dominating the fight. On May fifteenth of eight five, 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:15.119