num_pages: 144
description: The Battle of Batoche is the best-known confrontation between Mtis and British soldiers in the Northwest Resistance of 1885. It remains one of Canadas most emotion-laden memories chronicling an historic event equivalent to the 1863 battle of Gettysburg. After Batoche everything changed for the Mtis people and for Canada as well especially in Quebec. The battle decided the future for the Mtis people  mixed Cree or Anishinaabe and Scottish or French ancestry who populated the Red River region known today as modern Manitoba North Dakota and Minnesota. The battle was the climax of the federal governments efforts to control the native and settler population of the West. It also changed attitudes in Quebec which saw widespread outrage over the hanging of rebel leader Louis Riel following the battle; distrusting the Conservative government French-speaking Quebecois began to feel safe only in Quebec and consequently limited theirexpansion into western Canada.Walter Hildebrandts chronicle of the battle first published at the centenary of the Northwest Resistance in 1985 eloquently revisited and analyzed the strategies of both sides. This redesigned new edition adds sidebars and extended captions as well as numerous maps and photographs that offer detailed description of the fateful battle. Sidebars focus in detail on topics related to the battle including Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont as leaders of the Mtis resistance; nurse Kate Miller Canadas Florence Nightingale; Batoche as the site of the first-ever battlefield photos taken on horseback during the battle; the Gatling gun as evidence of the newly industrial nature of warfare; and zareba warfare and riflepit trenches as foreshadowing of the trenches of World War One among other topics.Recent historiography in particular on Mtis and First Nations involvement including the role of women and children is incorporated into the text and notes and bibliography are updated.Foreword by Jean Teillet great-grandniece of Louis Riel.
language: English
title: The Battle of Batoche: British Small Warfare and the Entrenched Métis
publisher: Talonbooks