page_title: North-West Rebellion
section_title: Outbreak of rebellion
hierarchical_section_title: North-West Rebellion / Course of war / Outbreak of rebellion
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of the en:Battle of Duck Lake.
context_page_description: The North-West Rebellion of 1885 was a rebellion by the Métis people under Louis Riel and an associated uprising by First Nations Cree and Assiniboine of the District of Saskatchewan against the government of Canada. Many Métis felt Canada was not protecting their rights, their land and their survival as a distinct people. Riel had been invited to lead the movement of protest. He turned it into a military action with a heavily religious tone. This alienated Catholic clergy, whites, most Indigenous tribes and some Métis. But he had the allegiance of a couple hundred armed Métis, a smaller number of other Indigenous warriors and at least one white man at Batoche in May 1885, confronting 900 Canadian militia plus some armed local residents. About 91 people would die in the fighting that occurred that spring, before the rebellion's collapse.
  Despite some notable early victories at Duck Lake, Fish Creek and Cut Knife, the rebellion was quashed when overwhelming government forces and a critical shortage of supplies brought about the Métis' defeat in the four-day Siege of Batoche. The remaining Aboriginal allies scattered. Several native chiefs were captured and some served prison time.
context_section_description: On March 26, 1885, the 150 to 200 Métis and Aboriginal warriors under the command of Gabriel Dumont defeated a combined group of 90 Prince Albert Volunteers and North-West Mounted Police led by their superintendent Leif Newry Fitzroy Crozier at Battle of Duck Lake, outside Batoche. The federal government had, shortly before the battle at Duck Lake, sent Major General Frederick Middleton to the West. Eventually, over a period of many weeks, Middleton brought 3,000 troops to the West, and incorporated another 2,000, mostly English-Canadian volunteers, and 500 North-West Mounted Police into his force.
  On March 30, 1885, a raiding party of Cree people, short of food due to declining bison populations, approached Battleford. The inhabitants fled to the nearby North-West Mounted Police post, Fort Battleford. The Cree then took food and supplies from the empty stores and houses. As well, Cree insurgents looted Hudson's Bay Company posts at Lac la Biche and Green Lake on April 26.
  On April 2, 1885, at Frog Lake, Saskatchewan (now in Alberta) a Cree raiding party led by Cree war chief, Wandering Spirit, attacked the small town. Angered by what seemed to be unfair treaties and the withholding of vital provisions by the Canadian government, and also by the dwindling buffalo population, their main source of food, Big Bear and his Cree decided to rebel after the successful Métis victory at Duck Lake. They gathered all the white settlers in the area into the local church. They killed Thomas Quinn, the town's Indian agent, after a disagreement broke out. The Cree then attacked the settlers, killing eight more and taking three captive.
  The massacre prompted the Canadian government to take notice of the growing unrest in the North-West Territories. When the rebellion was put down, the government hanged Wandering Spirit, the war chief responsible for the Frog Lake Massacre.
  On April 15, 1885, 200 Cree warriors descended on Fort Pitt. They intercepted a police scouting party, killing a constable, wounding another, and captured a third. Surrounded and outnumbered, garrison commander Francis Dickens capitulated and agreed to negotiate with the attackers. Big Bear released the remaining police officers but kept the townspeople as hostages and destroyed the fort. Six days later, Inspector Dickens and his men reached safety at Battleford.
caption: In March 1885, a skirmish broke out between the Canadian Militia, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), and Métis and aboriginal warriors.
exif: {}