Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Canada Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
He led the Métis against Ottawa twice and was hanged for it in 1885. Canada has spent the century since deciding he was right.
Louis Riel was born in the Red River Settlement, in what is now Manitoba, to a Métis family — the people descended from French and Scottish traders and Cree, Ojibwe and Saulteaux women, who had their own language, their own economy on the buffalo hunt, and no legal standing in the country being assembled around them.
In 1869 Canada bought Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company and sent surveyors to divide it into square lots, across river-lot farms the Métis had worked for generations, without consulting anybody living there. Riel stopped the survey, formed a provisional government, and negotiated terms with Ottawa. The result was the Manitoba Act of 1870, which created the province with guarantees for French language and Catholic schools — Manitoba exists as a province, rather than as a territory administered from elsewhere, because of him.
He also allowed the execution of Thomas Scott, an Orangeman who had taken up arms against the provisional government, which turned Ontario opinion against him permanently and drove him into fifteen years of exile despite being elected to Parliament three times in absentia.
He returned in 1884 at the request of the Métis of Saskatchewan, whose land claims were being ignored the same way. The North-West Resistance ended at Batoche, he surrendered, and he was tried for treason before a jury of six English-speaking Protestants. They convicted him and recommended mercy; the judge sentenced him to hang, and John A. Macdonald let it proceed. He was executed on 16 November 1885.
He is now recognised as the founder of Manitoba, and the Métis are a constitutionally recognised Aboriginal people of Canada.
In 1869 Canada bought Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company and sent surveyors to divide it into square lots, across river-lot farms the Métis had worked for generations, without consulting anybody living there. Riel stopped the survey, formed a provisional government, and negotiated terms with Ottawa. The result was the Manitoba Act of 1870, which created the province with guarantees for French language and Catholic schools — Manitoba exists as a province, rather than as a territory administered from elsewhere, because of him.
He also allowed the execution of Thomas Scott, an Orangeman who had taken up arms against the provisional government, which turned Ontario opinion against him permanently and drove him into fifteen years of exile despite being elected to Parliament three times in absentia.
He returned in 1884 at the request of the Métis of Saskatchewan, whose land claims were being ignored the same way. The North-West Resistance ended at Batoche, he surrendered, and he was tried for treason before a jury of six English-speaking Protestants. They convicted him and recommended mercy; the judge sentenced him to hang, and John A. Macdonald let it proceed. He was executed on 16 November 1885.
He is now recognised as the founder of Manitoba, and the Métis are a constitutionally recognised Aboriginal people of Canada.
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