Note: Over the years that I've maintained the Famous Trials website, I have received a number of emails from Canadian visitors suggesting that I add the trial of Louis Riel. Like most Americans, I had never heard of the trial of Louis Riel. (We Americans tend to be remarkably ignorant about the history of our friendly neighbor to the north.) After doing some preliminary research, however, I came to the conclusion that the trial did merit coverage on the site--and not just because Louis Riel, at the time he is hanged in Regina, was an American citizen. The trial deserves coverage in part because of its large symbolic importance to Canadians, in part because of how the story of Louis Riel shaped the history of North America, and in part because of the lingering questions about Riel's mental state at the time of his participation in the North-West Rebellion of 1885. American readers of this trial might also note striking parallels between the Riel trial and the treason trial of Aaron Burr. |
By modern standards, the North-West Rebellion seems no big deal. Canadian forces easily quelled the uprising of a couple of hundred Metis settlers along the South Saskatchewan River. A majority of Metis in the region sat out the fighting, and only about one hundred persons died in the conflict. (Although that figure of one hundred deaths was significant in this sparsely populated region.) The importance of the North-West
Rebellion, apart from
establishing
the ability of Canadian government to successfully carry out a military
action far from its center of power, is symbolic. As has been
often
noted by historians, the debate over the North-West Rebellion and the
subsequent
trial of Louis
Riel reveals the tensions
that continue to distinguish
Canada:
east versus west, native versus non-native, French-speaking versus
English-speaking,
American versus Canadian. Over time, Louis Riel has been seen as
"a demagogic madman," as an innocent victim of Prime
Minister John
Macdonald's
fanaticism, or as a martyred national-liberation
leader. None
of
these characterizations is entirely accurate; each contains some
measure
of truth. The North-West Rebellion and the trial of Louis Riel is
best understood as the product of a particular place and time: the
Canadian
frontier, in a time when civilization and its institutions
confronted
the traditions of a more primitive people. The North-West Rebellion had its
roots
in an earlier
crisis. In March 1869, The Hudson's Bay Company owner of a large
swath of land called Rupert's
Land
(including present-day Manitoba and
Saskatchewan), agreed to sell most of its land to the Canadian
Government in return for 300,000 pounds in cash and land grants
totaling seven million acres. Before the transfer became
effective on December 1, decisions had to be made what to do with the
12,000 settlers living in the Red River area of Rupert's Land, near
present-day Winnipeg. About four-fifths of these settlers were
Metis, persons of mixed white (usually French) and Indian ancestry. 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 and
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. The next several years saw Riel
go in
and out of Canada, and in
and out of the Canadian Parliament. For periods of time, he lived
in Minnesota and in northern New York, but he continued to be drawn to
Metis politics. In October 1873, even with an outstanding warrant
for his arrest, Riel won election to the Canadian Parliament. He
traveled to Ottawa with plans to take his seat, but fearful of arrest
and with a $5000 reward posted for his capture, he decided to return
instead to the United States. In February 1874, Riel won the seat
again, even though he was hiding in Montreal, far from his Red River
home, at the time. Fellow legislators, calling him a "fugitive
from justice," voted to expel Riel two months later, but that didn't
stop Metis voters from giving him the unclaimed seat back for a third
time in September. Tired of dealing with the Riel issue and
anxious to put the 1869-70 problems behind them, legislators voted in
1875 to grant amnesty for participants in the Red River uprising--but
in Riel's case the amnesty was conditioned on his agreeing to a
five-year banishment from Canada. Shortly after meeting with
President
Grant in Washington to
discuss the plight of his people in Canada, Riel claimed to have a
vision in which God appointed him as his "prophet of the new
world." Growing signs of mental problems followed. To some
people, Riel proclaimed himself the Biblical King David. He also
had a propensity for ripping his clothes off, explaining that it was
beautiful, as Adam and Eve did before the first sin, to be nude.
These and other unusual claims and practices landed Riel in an asylum
near Montreal in March 1876. He would remain there until February
1878. Meanwhile, back in western
Canada,
several thousand Metis
migrated from Manitoba to lands near the Saskatchewan River.
Following Metis custom, the settlers claimed long, narrow lots, almost
all with river footage. Problems arose when, in the summer of
1878, Canadian government surveyors working in the area adopted the
English system of square lots, plotted without regard to river
access. When Gabriel
Dumont requested
the area be resurveyed to
conform to Metis notions of workable lots, the Government Lands Office
dismissed the idea, citing the great cost of conducting a second
survey. In addition to complaints about the shape of lots, Metis
expressed frustration over having to wait three or more years to
receive title to land and argued that they were entitled to land grants
similar to those provided in the Manitoba Act. Anger among the
Metis simmered until the summer of 1884 when a delegation, led by
Gabriel Dumont, traveled to St. Peter's Mission, Montana. The reason for the delegation's
visit
to the United States was to
recruit Louis Riel, who had settled into a teaching position at the
Mission following his release from a second Canadian asylum, to assist
them in their struggle with the Canadian government. Riel
responded to the call, and headed north to the small river town of
Batoche. By March 1885, after having found little success in
petitioning Ottawa for a redress of grievances, Riel took the radical
step of calling a meeting in a local church where he called for a vote
on setting up a provisional government, which Riel called "the
Exovedate" (from Latin, meaning "out of the flock"), and taking up arms
against the Canadian government. At the same time, Riel announced
his intention to establish a new church under a new pope, Bishop
Bourget of Montreal. He assured followers that God will help the
members of his flock as his new chosen people, and engaged in a ritual
in which he breathed the "Holy Spirit" into each person declaring
support for his cause. The first violence of the 1885
North-West Rebellion erupted on
March 26 when a party led by Gabriel Dumont, on a mission to a general
store by Duck Lake, encountered two mounties. The Metis rebels
chased the mounties as they raced to rejoin a larger group of
CMP. As Dumont and his band fired shots over their heads, the
mounties retreated to Fort Carlton. Meanwhile, the rebels
returned to Batoche where they gathered more men and then headed
back toward Duck Lake. When the rebels met the mounties, the
mounties drew their sleighs into a defensive circle. Two rebels
approached the mounties under a white flag, but fighting erupted and
the mounties shot both men. The killing of the two rebels led to
a fire fight that left twelve mounties and five rebels dead, with
others on both sides seriously wounded. When word of the Duck Lake
violence
reached Prime Minister
Macdonald, he ordered that 2,000 Canadian troops be sent west over the
still-uncompleted rail lines of the Canadian Pacific. By
mid-April, the troops, led by Major-General
Frederick Middleton,
arrived in Qu'Appelle, 175 miles southeast of Batoche. The
arrival of the troops came after a massacre of nine whites at Frog Lake
earlier in the month had dramatically increased tensions in the
area. The troops encountered their
first
fighting on April 24 near Fish
Creek, as Middleton was leading the men north toward Batoche.
Dumont and about 200 rebels had hid above a ravine looking down on Fish
Creek, hoping to ambush the Canadian soldiers. A scout foiled the
plan when he spotted the rebels in the woods. Before long, the
Canadian troops were commanding the higher ground firing down into the
woods where the rebels had sought refuge. By the end of the day,
six Canadian soldiers lay dead and another forty-nine wounded.
The rebels lost four men--and forty-five horses. The climactic battle between the
badly-outnumbered rebels and
Middleton's troops began on May 9 near Batoche. As a gunboat
carrying troops steamed up the Saskatchewan River, other troops marched
over land to the rebel-held town. Knowing the rebels were pinned
down and low on ammunition, Middleton was content to led the fighting
drag on for several days. By May 12, when it became apparent that
the rebels ammunition was all but gone, the troops charged. Many
rebels, including Riel, fled into the woods north of town in the face
of the advancing troops. Three days later, understanding his
cause to be hopeless and believing that a public trial might
draw attention to the struggle of the Metis people for justice,
Riel surrendered to Canadian troops. Meeting his enemy captive
for the first time, Middleton described Riel as "a mild-spoken and
mild-looking man, with a short brown beard and an uneasy frightened
look about his eyes which gradually disappeared as I talked to him." THE TRIAL An escort of
sixteen
soldiers
transported Riel to the police barracks at Regina. Inspector
Richard Deane, concerned about a flood of journalists and Metis
sympathizers showing up at his barracks, ordered that no one could
visit Riel without a letter from the Prime Minister. He also
ordered that Riel carry a ball and chain whenever he entered the
barrack yard for fresh air or exercise. In the eight weeks before
his trial, Riel occupied himself writing religious poetry, letters to
relatives and friends, and notes about his religious and political
movement. On July 20, Riel
plead "not guilty" to "wickedly, maliciously, and traitorously"
making "war against our lady the Queen" and "maliciously and
traitorously" attempting to "by force and arms subvert and destroy the
constitution and government of this realm." Treason charges
rested on the three battles with government forces: Duck Lake, Fish
Creek, and Batoche. Impressive
teams of
lawyers were
assembled for both sides. A sixty-year-old Toronto barrister
named Christopher Robinson led the prosecution for the Crown. The
defense was headed by a thirty-five-year-old Quebec criminal attorney,
Francois-Xavier Lemieux, who later would become the Chief Justice of
Quebec. Ably assisting Lemieux was Charles Fitzpatrick, who later
in his career would serve as Chief Justice of Canada. With the
government
rounding up dozens
of witnesses who could testify as to the instigating and central role
Riel played in the uprising, Lemieux and Fitzpatrick began focusing on
an insanity defense. They began to identify religious leaders in
Saskatchewan and medical experts elsewhere in Canada that might be able
to offer compelling testimony in support of an insanity plea. The
defense also prepared a long brief arguing that Canadian law did not
allow a capital case to be decided by a mere six jurors, as plans
called for. On July 28,
1885,
the trial began in a
makeshift courtroom created in the rented offices of a Regina land
company. After Judge Hugh Richardson rejected each of the
contentions in the defense brief, including the argument based on the
six-person jury, the prosecution opened its case. A series of
government witnesses described Riel's responsibility for events in the
ill-fated rebellion. John
Willoughby
testified concerning Riel's
vision of a new government of god-fearing citizens. Thomas
McKay
told jurors that Riel described the Hudson's Bay Company and the
Canadian government as "curses" and urged that arms
be taken up. George
Ness testified that
Riel claimed a power to
predict the future and announced that "Rome had tumbled." Thomas
Jackson told of Riel giving fighting orders. The defense
generally limited its cross-examination to questions designed to elicit
an admission that Riel was behaving strangely. The
prosecution's
star witness was Charles
Nolin, cousin of Riel and formerly one
of his closest
associates. Nolin testified that Riel hoped to sow the seeds that
would eventually break Canada into a number of separate countries, each
governed by a distinct ethnic group. Riel, who had been sitting
passively through testimony by the previous prosecution witnesses,
became agitated during Nolin's examination and leaped to his feet,
asking that he be given the opportunity to put questions directly to
Nolin. Riel's attorney, Charles Fitzpatrick, asked the court not
to allow questioning by his client, fearing perhaps that it would
undermine his insanity defense. Riel's response made it clear
that the insanity defense was not one of his choosing: "If you
will allow me, Your Honor, this case comes to be extraordinary, and
while the Crown, with the great talents they have at its service, are
trying to show that I am guilty--of course it is their duty--my
counselors are trying--my good friends and lawyers who have been sent
here by friends I respect, are trying to show that I am insane."
An argument between Riel and Fitzpatrick ensued, ending only when Judge
Richardson explained to Riel that the consequence of his asserting his
right to cross-examine Nolin would, in this case, be the loss of
services of his lawyers for all
aspects of the case. The defense
began
its case on the third
day of the trial. Father
Alexis Andre
and Father
Fourmond
testified about Riel's peculiar visions and religious beliefs.
They indicated that they both thought him mad. Questions to the
priests concerning the reasons for Metis dissatisfaction with Ottawa
met with objections from the government, who argued successfully that
such complaints did not excuse armed action and were therefore not
relevant to the issue of guilt in a treason trial. The defense
closed its case by calling two expert medical witnesses, Dr.
Francois
Roy and Dr.
Daniel Clarke. Roy,
superintendent of the notorious
Beauport asylum near Montreal, where Riel spent nearly two years as an
inmate, testified that Riel suffered from "megalomania" and was clearly
of an unsound mind. Dr. Clark, superintendent of the
more-respected Toronto asylum and future president of the American
Psychiatric Association, told the jury that he considered that Riel had
been insane ever since 1865, when he wrote a letter suggesting that he
was not really Louis Riel, but a Jew. Testimony ended with the calling
of rebuttal witnesses by the prosecution, each of whom recounted
conversations with Riel that convinced them that he was not
insane. Closing
arguments in
the case of Queen v Louis Riel
stand among the
most eloquent ever delivered in a Canadian courtroom. Charles
Fitzpatrick, for the defense, began his presentation with a short
history of the conflict, offering both praise to the young volunteers
who headed west to put down the rebellion and sympathy for the Metis
and the grievances they felt with the Canadian government.
Mostly, however, Fitzpatrick laid out the evidence of Riel's lunacy
which, he argued, removed from him moral responsibility for his
actions.
Riel followed
Fitzpatrick, offering--over the
disclaimers of responsibility for his statements by his own
attorneys--a political statement of the grievances of his people.
In Riel's version of events, armed rebellion became an act of
self-defense and treason, if there was any, was on the part of the
government. Riel, working hard to find the right English words
for his story, spoke for over an hour until Judge Richardson
interrupted to ask, "Are you done?" A few minutes later, he
was. Christopher
Robinson closed
for the Crown. Robinson
argued the evidence of Riel's guilt was overwhelming. He
emphasized Nolin's testimony that Riel would have abandoned his cause
and returned to Montana had the government only been willing to pay him
a $35,000 bribe to do so--not the sort of decision a visionary madman
would make. The jury of
six men
deliberated Riel's
fate for an hour. They filed back into the courtroom. The
foreman, Francis Cosgrove, "crying like a baby" announced the
verdict. "Guilty," he said, and then added, "Your Honor, I have
been asked by my brother jurors to recommend the prisoner to the mercy
of the Crown." Later, one of the jurors would write a letter to a
member of Parliament expressing his mixed feelings about the verdict he
helped render: "Had the Government done their duty and redressed the
grievances of the half-breeds of Saskatchewan...there would never have
been a second Riel Rebellion, and consequently no prisoner to try and
condemn." Judge
Richardson,
however, was not in a
merciful mood. He declared that Riel had "let loose the
floodgates of rapine and bloodshed." He found "no excuse
whatever" for his treason and sentenced Riel to "be hanged by the neck
'til you are dead." TRIAL
AFTERMATH Riel's lawyers
took
an appeal to the Manitoba
Court of Queen's Bench.
The court unanimously rejected
every ground for his appeal. Chief Justice Wallbridge found the
evidence concerning Riel's willingness to abandon the cause for $35,000
especially telling on the issue of his sanity: "In my opinion, this
shows he was willing and quite capable of parting with this illusion if
he got the $35,000." A final appeal to the Judicial
Committee in
London was even less successfully: the Committee found the grounds for
appeal too weak to justify full argument. Prime Minister
Macdonald determined to
proceed with the execution despite widespread opposition in
Quebec. Riel must hang "though every dog in Quebec bark in his
favor," the Prime Minister was quoted as saying. He believed, as
did many in English-speaking Canadians, that Riel exploited the Metis
to serve his own grandiose visions, complicating a difficult transition
period in Canadian history. Despite his strong feelings about
Riel's guilt, MacDonald nonetheless felt compelled to make an
independent inquiry into Riel's mental condition. On October 31,
he appointed a commission of two doctors to evaluate Riel and prepare a
report on his mental state. The medical report was equivocal:
Riel had "well marked symptoms of a kind of insanity" but at the same
time was "quite sensible" and capable of "distinguishing right from
wrong." For Macdonald, that latter concession was quite enough
and a date for the execution was set, November 16, 1885. On the night
before
his execution, Riel
prayed, wrote letters, thanked jailers, and forgave enemies.
Asked for a final request, he asked only for an extra ration of three
eggs. Shortly after 8:00 AM on November 16, Riel was escorted
from his cell. He prayed with Father Andre, renounced his
heresies, and received absolution. When Father Andre began
weeping, Riel said calmly, "Courage
mon pere." With the rope finally around his neck, Riel and
Father Andre began reciting together the Lord's Prayer. When they
reached "deliver us from evil," the trap fell. The execution
of
Louis Riel elevated
him to the status of martyr in much of Quebec. Mass rallies were
held in Montreal, and people throughout the province hung black drapes
and displayed other signs of mourning. Many historians cite the
Riel execution as a turning point in Canadian politics that would break
the Conservative hold on French Canada.
|