Nevertheless, settlers broke the terms of the treaty and kept encroaching on Metis lands. Little by little, the Metis lost much of what they had been fighting for. Many decided to move westward to the Saskatchewan River to start a new life hunting the buffalo on the Great Plains. But the fight for a homeland and autonomy was not over. The central government was sponsoring the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway linking the east and west coasts. In the 1880s, white Protestant settlers sought lands along the Saskatchewan River. Metis rights were again ignored.
Louis Riel was now at a mission school in Montana, teaching Indian children. The Metis thought him the man to lead another fight for Metis land rights and freedom of religion. They sent the renowned buffalo hunter, horseman, and sharpshooter Gabriel Dumont to fetch him. Riel agreed to return to Canada to lead the resistance, but only on condition that the Metis try to avoid violence. Dumont, Riel’s close friend and general, organized the Metis into an efficient force. Riel gave his approval for a campaign of sabotage—occupying government property, taking hostages, and cutting telegraph lines. The Metis also sent an ultimatum to the NorthWest Mounted Police (the Mounties) at Fort Carlton, demanding the surrender of the post. The year was 1885; the Second Riel Rebellion had begun.
In spite of Riel’s wish for a nonviolent campaign, the situation escalated. The Canadian government used the new railway to send troops, called the North-West Field Force, from the East. Several battles resulted—at Duck Lake, Fish Creek, and Batoche. The Batoche battle in May 1885 was the turning point. Earlier that day, Dumont and his men had knocked out of commission the Northcote, a riverboat converted by the North-West Field Force into a gunboat. Dumont’s men had damaged the boat by stringing a cable across the South Saskatchewan River to trap it, then fired on it. But at Batoche the Metis rebels were no match for the much more numerous government troops. After a three-day siege by their enemy, the Metis surrendered. Meanwhile, the Cree had been fighting their own battles. After several more encounters and a period of hiding out in the wilderness, they too surrendered.
Following the Second Riel Rebellion, the government dealt harshly with the rebels. Louis Riel was sentenced to death. French Catholics wanted to spare him, but the
Metis knife with iron blade and black bone handle, inlaid with brass and white bone
British controlled the government. He probably could have saved his life by pleading insanity, but he refused to denounce his actions. The execution of Louis Riel was carried out on November 16, 1885, just nine days after the railroad was finished. Gabriel Dumont managed to escape to the United States and in later years found work in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. Metis power and culture were broken. Saskatchewan became an English-dominated province, as Manitoba had earlier.
World History
