The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-08-07
Sk ctCh of RfcI,s Life

Louis Riel was born within five miles of the
Fort Garry settlement in 1874, when the old
Hudson Bay company regime was still in
power. He is a half breed, but has fair hair
and light blue eyes, and usually passed for II
full blood European. He was a brigh
boy IN his youth, and winning the favor OF
Archbishop Tache, he was sent bv the lat
ter to Montreal to be educated. His patron
had intended to make a priest of him. and
young Riel completed the usual course of
studies for admission to the priesthood, but
when he presented himself for holy orders
ordination was refused him. He went back
to Fort Garry, and there his suavity of man
ners and native shrewdness secured him n host
of friends among the French half breeds, and
gave him influence in the tribe.
when the nalf breeds resolved in 1869 to
resist the invasion of Canadians, Just after
the purchase of the territorial rights of the
Hudson Bay company, Riel put himself at
the head of the rebels. Riel, with his
forces, descended upon the company's fort,
seized 1t, set up a provisional government
of his own, and issued n bill of rights
demanding representation i'll the
Dominion government and a series of
public improvements. He had secured an
abundance of arms and ammunition, and he
%summarily crushed the efforts of the little
colony of English settlers who strove to resist
him. and took all the prominent Canadian
residents prisoners. To terrify the settlers
further, he had their leader, Thomas Scott,
of Ontario, shot.
General Wolseley, who was then a Cana
dian lieutenant-colone of no particular prom
incnce and with little hope of Advancement.
was chosen to lead the expedition against the
rebels. TIL moment Wolseley, backed by
1000 regulars and militia, set his foot in Fort
Garry settlement Riel disbanded his govern
ment and fled to the United States.
The Canadian parliament advanced Con
eTal Nolseley and banished Riel for five years.
The half breeds We're quoted for a time by a
grant of 2i0 acres of land to each one of them
living in Manitoba as a compensation for
disturbing the old river frontage system.
Riel was more popular than ever with the
half breeds when he got back to Mani
toba after his exile, but he now PLAYED
the part of a loyalist and offered TO aid
General Archibald to resist the Fenian in
vaders, who, under O'Donahue, proposed to
sweep down on the province of Manitoba.
Immediately afterward, in 1878, he was
elected representative in the Dominion parlia-
ment from the province, and went to Ottawa
and was sworn into Office by the clerk while
the building was deserted. News got abroad
among the people that Riel, the man who had
ordered Scott to he shot, was in town,
ana hearing of the threats of
Infatuated loyalists to shoot him in revenge
if he attempted to take his seat in parliament.
he lied from the city and never again en-
tered it.
His seat was declared vacant the next day,
and he Travelled in the United States until,
i'll 1854, mutterings of n fresh outbreak among
the half-breeds in the Northwest led him back
toms birthplace, and again he was chosen a
leader, this time by his dissatisfied fellows at
Prince Albert settlement.
The half breeds here, as well as at all other
settlements along the Saskatchewan, had been
excluded from the grants to the Manitoba
half breeds in 1863, and when early last
winter government surveyors entered
the Prime Albert settlement and be-
gan to lay out in blocks the land on the
river banks, depriving the half breeds
of their river frontage. Riel demanded
that the half breeds rights be respected just
rs ne had previously done in Manitoba.
de declared that the laws would have to be
nualized- The demand was not answered as
Rlel thought it ought to be, and he got to-
yether Loo half breeds, armed them with
Winchester and Remington rifles, and opened
warfare without ceremony. Many Indians
joined III the insurrection. Riel made a
speech to his followers, saying that he
would deliver them from their op-
pressOrs, and that he hal the means
this time that would make his fight
Tor their rights successful. Major
General Middleton was sent from Ottawa to
march with Dominion militia to put down the
uprising, but it was not until MAY II, after
weeks of skirmishing and fighting, that the
rebels were routed at Batouche, and four days
later three Dominion scouts captured Riel on
an untrequentel Indian trail three miles north
OF 3atouche. He was tried before Judge
richardson at Regina, his counsel pleading
insanity, but he himself declaring that he
was sane. lie was convicted and sentenced
TO be hanged at Regina September Is.
An Ottawa dispatch says that the English
residents are highly pleased and the French
population very indignant at Rier1 convic-
ton and sentence.