“Tableau depicting Métis leader Louis Riel and others in opposition to the construction of a road through their lands without their consent or knowledge. Louis Riel stands on the surveyor’s chain marking the beginning of the resistance.” (translation) Two of these early acts of resistance took place. Once in Ste-Anne on the property of Olivier Ducharme (lot 8 Ste-Anne south side of Seine River) and once in St. Vital/St. Norbert on the property of André Nault. Painting by artist Bonna Eq. Rouse /85. Source: Combet, D. and Toussaint, I. (2007). Louis Riel, l’inoubliable chef des Métis. Encyclopédie du patrimoine culturel de l’Amérique française. Retrieved June 28, 2020 from http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/fr/article-732/Louis_Riel,_l%E2%80%99inoubliable_chef_des_M%C3%A9tis.html#.Xvj1IShKiUk

    “When a Canadian survey team showed up in the Red River region in the fall of 1869, local residents became concerned about what the impending transfer might mean for their independent lifestyle. Louis Riel, one of the few English-speaking Metis, persuaded the surveyors to abandon their mission and set about organizing his neighbors to oppose the appointment of William McDougall as the new lieutenant-governor to run the Red River settlement. Riel took the offensive, seizing Fort Garry, a fort on the Red River owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, and then forming a provisional government with himself as the president. In March 1870, a provisional court court-martialed for treason, sentenced to death, and executed Thomas Scott, the most unrepentantly racist and uncooperative member of a group that had attempted to re-take Fort Garry from Riel's government. News of Scott's execution infuriated English-speaking Canadians in Ontario, many of whom loudly called for his head. In June 1870, Canadian negotiators reached agreement with Riel's government to establish a new province to be called Manitoba. Settlers were promised the right to retain their land, and an additional 1.4 million acres within the province were pledged to be reserved for future Metis possession. When word, however, reached Riel that the amnesty he thought had been promised in the negotiations was not forthcoming, he fled to the Dakota Territory in the United States.”

Douglas Linder, website Joel Dufresne Case

Source: Linder, D. (n.d.). The Louis Riel Trial. Joel Dufresne Case [website]. Retrieved June 28, 2020 from http://www.joeldufresnecase.com/trials-famous/the-louis-riel-trial

   “Immigrants from Ontario were coming up the Red River from Minnesota. Louis Goulet said, "These émigrés from Ontario, all of them Orangemen, it looked like their one dream in life was to make war on Hudson's Bay Company, the Catholic church and everyone who spoke French...They were looking to be masters of everyone, everywhere."

Louis Goulet 1868

Source: Charette, G. (1976). Vanishing Spaces: Memoirs of Louis Goulet (p. 59). Editions Bois-Brûlés: Ottawa.

Lt. Col. John Stoughton Dennis, Surveyor General of Canada. Library and Archives Canada/MIKAN 3214798. “Stiff and formal, fussy and officious, pompous and punctilious, John Stoughton Dennis, fully bedecked with flowing whiskers and magnificent moustaches, careened through Red River in 1869, leaving chaos and wreckage in his wake. This is an overdrawn picture, perhaps, but one that has been widely accepted.” [1] Quote retrieved from MHS Manitoba History: The Red River Rebellion and J. S. Dennis, “Lieutenant and Conservator of the Peace”Manitoba History, Number 3, 1982

Land Survey Party. Unidentified photographer. Land Survey Party around the Red River Settlement. The image shows two theodolites on tripods and men holding stadial rods. Possible Dominion land surveyors. More casually dressed helpers sit crosslegged and on the far right. Source: University of Manitoba Archives. Retrieved June 24, 2020 from Libraries - Land Survey Party

Read, C.F. (1982). “DENNIS, JOHN STOUGHTON (1820-1885),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed June 11, 2020, Biography – DENNIS, JOHN STOUGHTON (1820-1885) – Volume XI (1881-1890).

Typical prairie river lot farm in Métis and French-speaking parishes of the Red River settlement. Source: Canada : Department of Agriculture. (1880). La province du Manitoba et le territoire du Nord-Oeust : Information pour les immigrants. Queens University Library. Retrieved June 29, 2020 from Wikimedia Commons, https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/tags/bookidlaprovincedumani00cana

   “Unfortunately for Canada, the formal cession of the country was not speedily consummated. It did not appear to be convenient for the Canadian Minister of Finance to pay ₤300,000 immediately; the English Government, as the trustee of both parties, could not proclaim the territory a part of Canada in advance of such payment, and it was doubtful whether any measures by the Dominion Government for the occupation and administration of the Selkirk district, were legitimate during the summer of 1869. Still Canadian surveyors proceeded to Fort Garry and were actively engaged under instructions from the Land Department at Ottawa. It is difficult to estimate or overstate the popular prejudice against Canada, which this step excited. Another party proposed to construct a Government waggon road from Fort Garry to Lake of the Woods. The demeanor of these Canadian officials, and their employees, was extremely injudicious. Perhaps all other causes of dissatisfaction would have failed to organize a movement for the forcible expulsion of Mr. McDougall, if the follies of these Canadian subordinates from July to October had not exasperated the inhabitants. Probably the zealous partisans of the Canadian Connection [meaning the Canada First party also sometimes referred to as the Canada West movement] did not exceed one hundred [people in the Red River Colony], and several of the Canadian settlers, who had resided several years at Selkirk, had become personally more obnoxious than the officials.

    "As before stated, the political feeling among the people was in favor of an Independent English Colony, on the termination, which all desired, of the jurisdiction of the Hudson’s Bay Company; but if the proposed incorporation with Canada had been accompanied by a reasonable regard for the wishes, and a guarantee of the rights, of the people, there would have been a general, if not a hearty, acquiescence. It is a mistake to suppose that the insurrection was the result of accident. There had been much discussion previously among the people. Louis Riel, the youth French [Métis] leader of the revolt, when summoned before the Councillors and Magistrates of Assiniboia, and urged to desist, not only justified resistance, but almost obtained the concurrence of the Council to his measures. He openly addressed the people in front of the Cathedral of Saint Boniface, after Sunday morning mass, appealing for support in the design to exclude the McDougall party from the country. It is the custom of the French population to proceed to the adjacent buffalo plains, under strict military discipline, for an October hunt and it was easy in returning from that expedition, to organize the armed bands, which took possession of Forts Pembina and Garry.”

James Wickes Taylor, U.S. Consul in Winnipeg in correspondencemeant to present
the situation at Selkirk which preceded the events of November 2, 1869
[the Red River Convention and the declaration of a provisional government]

Source: Bowfield, H. (1968). The James Wickes Taylor Correspondence 1859-1870 (P.119-120). Volume III: Manitoba Record Society Publications. General Editor: W.D. Smith. Printed by D.W. Friesen & Sons Ltd.: Altona, MB. Retrieved June 22, 2020 from Manitoba Historical Society, http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/books/mrs03.pdf

The reader will please remark that “Oak Point” and a portion of the “vicinity of Red River,” were settled and claimed by French Canadian half-breeds. Colonel Dennis, on his arrival at Red River, could not fail to notice, at once, sign of dissatisfaction, which he pointed out to the Canadian Government, in a letter dated 21st August, 1869, of which I quote what follows:

    "Sir – I have the honor to report to you that, in company with Dr. Schultz, I arrived at this settlement yesterday, about 2 o’clock p.m….I find that a considerable degree of irritation exists among the native population in view of surveys and settlements being made without the Indian title having been first extinguished…I am satisfied that the Government will, in the first place, have to undertake and effect the extinction of the Indian title. This question must be regarded as of the greatest importance. (…) I would reiterate to you my conviction, that no time should be lost."

Lt. Col. Stoughton Dennis

Bishop Taché in his paper “The Amnesty Again, or Charges Refuted,” 1875

[Taché is making the point that the rights and title to land of the Métis and early French-Canadians in Red River to Ste-Anne were never properly dealt with by the Canadian Government despite Lt. Col. Dennis having raised this issue with William McDougall, minister responsible for public works, as early as August 21st, 1869 upon his arrival in Red River to begin surveying. Despite repeated warnings to Ottawa about the trouble at Red River by different individuals no positive steps were taken. Instead the military was sent in to stop the Resistance. These notes are from Taché’s 1875 Observations on “despatches concerning the commutation of Lépine’s sentence” and on Lord Dufferin’s Despatch of 10th Dec.,1874, and on Lord Carnarvon’s Answer, dated 7th January 1875]

Source: Taché, A.A. (1875). “The Amnesty Again, or Charges Refuted” by Monseigneur Taché, Archbishop of St. Boniface (P.28). History of the Canadian Northwest, Western Americana, frontier history of the trans-Mississippi West, 1550-1900. Printed at “The Standard Office, 1871”: Harvard University. Retrieved June 22, 2020 from https://books.google.ca/books?id=BocvAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA28&lpg=RA2-PA28&dq=Sir+%E2%80%93+I+have+the+honor+to+report+to+you+that,+in+company
+with+Dr.+Schultz,+I+arrived+at+this+settlement+yesterday,+about

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