FEATURES

Riel and the
unfinished journey

By PAUL OGRESKO

On November 16, 1885, Louis
Riel was charged with high
treason and executed by the
Canadian government. Now,
entering the second century since
Riel’s death, the things he stood
for, the human rights and dignity
of the Métis and their Indian
cousins, remain unachieved.
Poverty and racism still hang over
the valley of the Saskatchewan as
indeed it hangs over the rest of the
country.

The resistance of 1870 and of
1885 has long ago been defeated.
But the legacy of Riel, his military
leader Gabriel Dumont, and their

aspirations for justice have not
died.

I was brought up in the Prince
Albert-Duck Lake area of Sas-
katchewan. Of mixed parentage,
my mother is a full-blood Cree,
my father the descendent of Uk-
rainian settlers from the turn of
the century; it wasn’t long before I
found myself between two diffe-
rent worlds.

Due to the Indian Act, imposed
upon the Native people by the
Canadian government, my
mother was forced to live her life
off the reserve for the crime of
marrying a white. She was strip-
ped of her status as an Indian and
declared ‘‘white’’ by the govern-
ment as were her children. Of
course that included me.

My only contact with my ‘‘In-
dian side’’ were summers spent on
the Beardy reserve at Duck Lake
with my Cree grandparents.

} Those few summers of childhood

remain happy memories and left
an indelible mark that I would first
try to erase then come to cherish
in later years.

I found out that my great-
great-grandfather John See-
saquasis, had fought with Riel
and Dumont at Batoche and had

been wounded in the leg. Due to
its proximity to the Métis capital
of Batoche many Cree from the
Beardy reserve had joined with
the Métis resistance. I never met
John, he died in 1950 at the age of
94. As far as I know he spoke little
English and never wrote down his
story. All I know of him has come
from my mother’s recollections
and from other relatives. My
mother remembers him as a kind-
ly man who smoked a big-ball
pipe. Like so much else of Cana-
da’s true history the rest is prob-
ably lost forever.

When the Métis took up arms
and first clashed with the Anglo-
Canadian forces at Duck Lake it
was after decades of neglect and
government intolerance. Sir John
A. MacDonald’s Tory govern-
ment was intent on the rapid
development of the west. In their
ambitious scheme there was no
room for the Indians, the Métis or
the poor farmers of the Sask-
atchewan.

The Métis in the Saskatchewan
were the remnants of the Métis
nation of the Red River and the
provisional government set up by
Riel in 1869-1870. That manifesta-
tion of Métis nationalism, led by
Riel, would lead to the recogni-
tion of Manitoba as a province
and of Riel’s election to the Cana-
dian parliament. But the Métis
would find little place for them-
selves in the new Manitoba. The
Métis and Indian land claims were
“extinguished”’ by the govern-
ment and the Métis land was
bought up by the Canadian banks
and land speculators. Riel was
forced into exile and the Métis,
for the greater part, dispersed to
Saskatchewan and northern Al-
berta. Those who remained found
themselves on the outside of
society — displaced and dis-
possessed.

The resistance of 1885 was
brought to a head by the Mac-

Top photo: Gabriel Dumont, the brilliant military leader of the Métis and
Cree during the resistance. Bottom photo: A Métis and Cree of Sas-
katchewan pose for a photographer just months before the armed re-

sistance.

Donald government. The Métis,
under Dumont, had convinced
Riel to return to Canada to once
more defend the rights of the
Métis.

I remember being taught in
school about the ‘‘national
dream’’ and the ribbon of steel
that united Canada. The building
of the Canadian Pacific Railway
was the great link that brought the
country together and Riel was
described as ‘‘a crazed, religious,
self-proclaimed martyr’? who,
while having “‘some legitimate
concerns’, led his people into
disaster. Sadly, it would be many
years later before I began to ques-
tion whether there was another
side to the story.

The grievances of the Métis and
Indians fell on deaf ears in Otta-
wa. By 1885 the national dream
was. turning into a national night-
mare. The CPR was nearly bank-
rupt, its ties to the Tory govern-
ment rife with corruption and
patronage. The MacDonald
government was scandal-ridden
while the financiers and specula-
tors who were funding the project
were getting cold feet and threat-
ening to pull their support.

For MacDonald it became clear
only a ‘“‘national emergency”’
could save his railway and his
government and the growing
Métis resistance was exactly
what he needed. The legitimate
Métis concerns were deliberately
ignored by the Tory government.
By purposely aggravating the
situation, MacDonald got the
“rebellion’’ he wanted. Waving
the flag of anti-French, anti-
Catholic bigotry the influential
Orange Lodge whipped Ontario
into a fevered frenzy. In a few
weeks the army was heading west
and Canada was at war.

When I was young our family
visited Fish Creek in Saskatche-

wan. It was here on April 24, 1885
that the Métis and Cree first en-
gaged the eastern Anglo-
Canadian forces under the com-

‘mand of British General Middle-

ton. Dumont had less than 60 men
yet they managed to stop the ad-
vance of Middleton’s forward
column of 400 troops and:cannon.
After a day’s fighting the re-
sistance had lost only six men, the
Anglo-Canadian army over 50.
The Anglo-Canadian force was so
set-back it would not move to-
wards Batoche for two weeks.

Yet the government-erected
plaque at Fish Creek talks of the
victory achieved by Middleton
and how the ‘‘rebels’’ were dri-
ven from the field.

The defeat of the Métis and
Cree was inevitable. By sheer
force of arms and men the
Anglo-Canadian forces blundered
their way to victory. After de-
cades of fighting colonial wars the
British had learned little in mili-
tary tactics. At Fish Creek and
Batoche, over 100 years after the
American Revolution, the British
generals still sent their soldiers in
their bright red tunics marching in
straight lines into the fire of colo-
nial marksmen. Middleton would
later lament the ‘‘ungentlemanly
tactics’’ used by the Métis.

The Métis flag still flies at
Batoche. Every year people
gather there to pay tribute to the
resistance and the memory of Riel :
and Dumont. And I think of
people like John Seesaquasis and
what drove him to take up arms
and put his life on the line for a
cause everyone knew couldn’t be
won.

But maybe that’s where the les-
son lies. It’s a long and painful
journey of which the resistance of
1885 was only a step. It’s up to
future generations to finish the
task.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 18, 1987 ¢ 5