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Louis Riel

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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The 10th of February 1875 he was outlawed, and the seat thereby again vacated. In 1877-78 he was for over a year a patient in the Beauport asylum for the insane, but from 1879 to 1884 he lived quietly in Montana, where in 1881 he married Marguerite Bellimeure. In 1884 in response to a deputation from the Metis, who had moved west to the forks of the Saskatchewan river, he returned to Canada to win redress for their wrongs. His own rashness and the ineptitude of Canadian politicians and officials brought on a rising, which was crushed after some hard fighting, and on the 15th of May 1885 Riel surrendered. He was imprisoned at Regina, was tried and on the 1st of August found guilty of treason, and on the 16th of November was hanged at Regina, meeting his fate with courage. His death was the signal for a fierce outburst of racialism in Quebec and Ontario, which nearly overthrew the Conservative government of the Dominion.

See J. S. Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, vol. i.; George Bryce, History of the Hudson's Bay Company (1900); and the Canadian daily press for 1885.