Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont Read Online Free PDF Page B

and English alike. Riel doesn’t feel much concern. After all, he has the weight of the people behind him. In an act of goodwill, he orders the rest of the jailed Canadian Party freed in mid-February, on the promise that they will no longer agitate.
    Just a couple of days later, Riel’s talented horseback scouts detect a large party of armed men apparently heading toward Fort Garry. They alert the rest of Riel’s forces, who capture forty-eight men, including the party’s leader, Charles Boulton, one of the original surveyors who’d caused so much anguish for the Métis just last year. That a surveyor is attempting to lead an insurrection against the will of the people angers Métis and settlers alike. It’s clear to many that the actions of Boulton and the Canadian Party are fuelled by greed for land, land the Red River settlers have rights to since they have lived upon it for so long. Along with Boulton, the belligerent Thomas Scott is once again captured and thrown back into Fort Garry’s brig, where his tirades are so bitter and filled with hate that his guards complain repeatedly to their superiors.
    The provisional government is now faced with a harsh reality. These agitators are bent on the movement’s destruction, and clearly they won’t stop. Riel orders the trial of Boulton, and the jury votes in favour of his execution. The message that the Métis must be taken seriously is serious business indeed. When word of this decision reaches Canadian negotiators, they plead with Riel to pardon Boulton. Riel acquiesces. He’s not a bloodthirsty man and so agrees to release the surveyor. Boulton, Dr. Schultz, Mair, and the other agitators retreat to Ontario. Riel has no way of knowing that fifteen years later, in 1885, he will face Boulton once again, this time across a battlefield, and that Boulton will be rewarded for his pursuit of Riel by being made a senator.
    The ignoramus Thomas Scott, on the other hand, continues to scream out his poison hatred for the Métis, the French, the Catholics, and the Indians from his jail cell. The man is a rabid dog. He hears word that Riel has pardoned Boulton and takes this as an act of extreme weakness, ratcheting up his invective. His guards demand that Scott now be tried, this time for insubordination. And so it goes. Scott is accused and convicted of fighting with his guards, insulting the president, and defying the authority of the provisional government. None of these are capital crimes, so Scott must be shocked to silence when he is sentenced to execution by firing squad. Maybe he hopes for a pardon, and once again the Canadian authorities plead for this. But Riel is adamant this time. The Métis and the provisional government must be taken seriously, and if this means putting to death this poor excuse for a man, then so be it. Scott’s jailers have supposedly told Riel that if the provisional government does not kill the prisoner, they will.
    On March 4, 1870, Thomas Scott is taken from his cell and into the yard, blindfolded, tied to a post, and executed by firing squad. This action will haunt Riel for the rest of his years.
    Despite this setback, just two months and a week later, on May 12, 1870, after direct talks between John A. Macdonald and Métis representatives, the Manitoba Act becomes a reality. Métis grievances are heard, their list of rights is deemed realistic and acceptable, and on July 15, Manitoba is admitted into the Canadian confederation.
    While all this plays out on the public and political stage, the original Red River Canadian Party leaders, Dr. Schultz and Charles Mair, are forced to live in exile in Toronto, where they focus their full attention and money on inflaming hatred against the Métis in the Ontario newspapers. They use the execution of Thomas Scott as their rallying cry, and a drawing of an evil-looking Louis Riel shooting a defenceless Scott in the back of the head as he lies prone on the ground with his hands tied behind his back