57 Facts About Louis Riel

Louis Riel led two resistance movements against the Government of Canada and its first prime minister John A Macdonald.

The provisional government established by Louis Riel ultimately negotiated the terms under which the new province of Manitoba entered the Canadian Confederation.

However, while carrying out the resistance, Louis Riel had a Canadian nationalist, Thomas Scott, executed.

Louis Riel soon fled to the United States to escape prosecution.

Louis Riel was elected three times as member of the House of Commons, but, fearing for his life, never took his seat.

Louis Riel married in 1881 while in exile in the Montana Territory.

In 1884 Louis Riel was called upon by the Metis leaders in Saskatchewan to help resolve longstanding grievances with the Canadian government.

Louis Riel returned to Canada and led an armed conflict with government forces: the North-West Rebellion of 1885.

Louis Riel was seen as a heroic victim by French Canadians; his execution had a lasting negative impact on Canada, polarizing the new nation along ethno-religious lines.

Louis Riel has received among the most formal organizational and academic scrutiny of any figure in Canadian history.

Louis Riel was born in 1844 in his grandparents' small one-room home in St-Boniface near the fork of the Red and Seine rivers.

Louis Riel was the eldest of eleven children in a locally well-respected family.

Louis Riel's mother was the daughter of Jean-Baptiste Lagimodiere and Marie-Anne Gaboury, one of the earliest White families to settle in Red River in 1812.

In 1858 Tache arranged for Louis Riel to attend the Petit Seminaire de Montreal.

Louis Riel remained in Montreal for over a year, living at the home of his aunt, Lucie Riel.

Impoverished by the death of his father, Louis Riel took employment as a law clerk in the Montreal office of Rodolphe Laflamme.

Compounding this disappointment, Louis Riel found legal work unpleasant and, by early 1866, he had resolved to leave Canada East.

In late August, Louis Riel denounced the survey in a speech, and on 11 October 1869, the survey's work was disrupted by a group of Metis that included Louis Riel.

When summoned by the HBC-controlled Council of Assiniboia to explain his actions, Louis Riel declared that any attempt by Canada to assume authority would be contested unless Ottawa had first negotiated terms with the Metis.

Louis Riel ordered Schultz's home surrounded, and the outnumbered Canadians soon surrendered and were imprisoned in Upper Fort Garry.

The provisional government established by Louis Riel published its own newspaper titled New Nation and established the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia to pass laws.

Louis Riel was pardoned, but Scott interpreted this as weakness by the Metis, who he regarded with open contempt.

Louis Riel's motivations have been the cause of much speculation, but his justification was that he felt it necessary to demonstrate to the Canadians that the Metis must be taken seriously.

Louis Riel organized several companies of Metis troops for the defense of Manitoba.

Louis Riel was the only Member of Parliament who was not present for the great Pacific Scandal debate of 1873 that led to the resignation of the Macdonald government in November.

Louis Riel was nevertheless stricken from the rolls following a motion supported by Schultz, who had become the member for the electoral district of Lisgar.

Louis Riel prevailed again in the resulting by-election and was again expelled.

Louis Riel consequently began calling himself "Louis David Riel, Prophet, Infallible Pontiff and Priest King".

Louis Riel returned for a time to Keeseville, where he became involved in a passionate romance with Evelina Martin dite Barnabe, sister of Father Fabien.

Louis Riel asked her to marry him before moving west "with the avowed intention of establishing himself" before sending for her; however, their correspondence ended abruptly.

Marguerite and Louis were to have three children: Jean-Louis ; Marie-Angelique ; and a boy who was born and died on 21 October 1885, less than one month before Riel was hanged.

Louis Riel soon became involved in the politics of Montana, and in 1882, actively campaigned on behalf of the Republican Party.

Louis Riel brought a suit against a Democrat for rigging a vote, but was then himself accused of fraudulently inducing British subjects to take part in the election.

The head of the delegation to Louis Riel was Gabriel Dumont, a respected buffalo hunter and leader of the Saint-Laurent Metis who had known Louis Riel in Manitoba.

Louis Riel intended to use the new position of influence to pursue his own land claims in Manitoba.

Louis Riel publicly espoused an increasingly heretical doctrine, causing a deterioration in his relationship with the Catholic clergy.

Louis Riel became the leader of this faction, but he lost the support of almost all Anglophones and Anglo-Metis, and the Catholic Church.

Louis Riel lost the support of the Metis faction supporting local leader Charles Nolin.

Louis Riel was the political and spiritual leader and Dumont assumed responsibility for military affairs.

Louis Riel formed a council called the Exovedate.

Louis Riel insisted on concentrating forces at Batoche to defend his "city of God".

Prime Minister Macdonald ordered the trial to be convened in Regina, where Louis Riel was tried before a jury of six Anglophone Protestants.

Louis Riel delivered two long speeches during his trial, defending his own actions and affirming the rights of the Metis people.

Louis Riel rejected his lawyers' attempt to argue that he was not guilty by reason of insanity.

Louis Riel was given writing materials and allowed to correspond with friends and relatives.

Louis Riel was hanged for treason on 16 November 1885 at the North-West Mounted Police barracks in Regina.

Louis Riel's pulse ceased four minutes after the trap-door fell and during that time the rope around his neck slowly strangled and choked him to death.

The trial and execution of Louis Riel caused a bitter and prolonged reaction which convulsed Canadian politics for decades.

Francophones were upset Louis Riel was hanged because they thought his execution was a symbol of Anglophone dominance of Canada.

Louis Riel was portrayed as an insane traitor and an obstacle to the expansion of Canada to the West.

Morton concluded that some of Louis Riel's positions were defensible, but that "they did not present a program of practical substance which the government might have granted without betrayal of its responsibilities".

Louis Riel was made a folk hero by Metis, French Canadian and other Canadian minorities.

Across Canada there emerged a new interpretation of reality in his rebellion, holding that the Metis had major unresolved grievances; that the government was indeed unresponsive; that Louis Riel had chosen violence only as a last resort; and he was given a questionable trial, then executed by a vengeful government.

An article by Doug Owram appearing in the Canadian Historical Review in 1982 found that Louis Riel had become "a Canadian folk hero", even "mythical", in English Canada, corresponding with the designation of Batoche as a national historic site and the compilation of his writings.

Since the 1980s, numerous federal politicians have introduced private member's bills seeking to pardon Louis Riel or recognize him as a Father of Confederation.

In numerous communities across Canada, Louis Riel is commemorated in the names of streets, schools, neighbourhoods, and other buildings.

An opera about Riel entitled Louis Riel was commissioned for Canada's centennial celebrations in 1967; it was written by Harry Somers, with an English and French libretto by Mavor Moore and Jacques Languirand.