Louis Riel: Hero or Traitor?
Louis Riel was born in Saint-Boniface in the Red River Settlement on October 22nd in 1844. He was the leader of the Aboriginal tribe the Métis and led two popular governments of theirs. Louis was also the founder of what is known as Manitoba today. In his early life he was proving himself to be quite smart, by the age of thirteen he was already sent off to college. Unfortunately just a couple mere months before his last exams of his college career his father had passed away. This caused Louis to not finish his degree as he left it in the year 1865. Many years later, he had become known as the father of Manitoba because he led them into Confederation. Louis also created the Manitoba Act, which is the act that
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This rebellion was one of the important moments of Louis becoming the “Father” of Manitoba. If this rebellion never happened, a government would have never been formed and the terms would have not been negotiated for Manitoba being able to go back into Confederation. This rebellion was simply a way for Louis to communicate with the government and make terms to agree with. He led a couple hundred Métis people all the way to a place called Fort Garry, where they then took it and the military over. As they were taking over the fort, they also grabbed hostages along the way and had a meeting with them. This rebellion was not long lasting as John A. McDonald sent troops to the Red River area and therefore the rebellion ended just as quickly as it started. After this Louis Riel went back to the United States. The Conservative Prime Minister at the time, Sir John A. McDonald was trying to convince Riel, who already left back to the States, to stay there and never come back. He even went as far as offering money in order to convince him to stay. Alongside this though, Riel was motivated by many bystanders and he entered into federal politics and in the year 1873, he won a seat in a byelection. In 1874 he got reelected into the general election, then for the third time he was elected again in 1874. Months later in October, Riel and another man were both convicted of being involved in the murder of Thomas Scotland were originally sentenced to death, but then was changed to just two years in