Red River and Northwest Rebellions

Two-Eyed Seeing (Etuaptmumk in Mi'kmaw) is an approach developed by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall.  According to the Institute for Integrative Science and Health, Two-Eyed Seeing is “learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledges and ways of knowing ... and learning to use both these eyes together, for the benefit of all.”  

For far too long, Canadian history has been presented mainly from the settler perspective.  The documents and assignments available in this section encourage students to examine the events that took place at Red River and North West Rebellion periods, and to consider the words we use to describe these events from multiple perspectives.

Red River as an extension of Canada!

The Americans just paid 7.2 million dollars for Alaska, and they were looking to expand their republic.  Canada too eyed the lands to the west as a natural extension of their new nation, with George Brown claiming that vast and fertile territory “our birthright”.  The English government too insisted that the territory not be sold to the United States, and so for 1.5 million dollars a quarter of the continent became Canadian-owned, with even Macdonald noting the problematic nature of the transaction, saying "No explanation it appears has been made of the arrangement by which the country is to be handed over," and then continuing, in a note to George-Etienne Cartier, how "All these poor people know is that Canada has bought the country from the Hudson's Bay Company and that they are handed over like a flock of sheep to us." 

An immediate consequence was more settlers.  Even during the lengthy negotiations, “Protestant settlers from the East moved into the colony, and their obtrusive, aggressive ways led the Roman Catholic Métis to fear for the preservation of their religion, land rights and culture. Neither the British nor the Canadian government — with no appreciation of the Métis people — made any serious efforts to assuage these fears, negotiating the transfer of Rupert's Land as if no population existed there.”  (Sources)

Red River and Métis - Community traits

The Red River colony area was isolated, with the next village, also distinctively Métis, being 60 miles to the south and in American territory.  The community had a cultural character all its own, with various community traits that were common to Cree and Anishnaabeg/Ojibway traditions, including kinship (family connections mattered!), respect for diversity and harmony (they didn’t have or need a police department!), orality where people talked out their problems, leaders who spoke for their people, and territoriality which was assumed (they had a sense of the land they protected!) (Sources)

“The Métis have often been characterized by their high mobility, and the earliest Métis settlements were occupied seasonally. These settlements were also closely associated with their connections to the fur trade, their control of the transportation system in the historic Northwest, and their bison-hunting activities on the plains. Many communities were established around the earliest fur trade forts, at important transportation stopping points, and at the wintering sites of the Métis plains hunters. Other settlements were near important fishing locations. [...] In the post-1885 period, an influx of European settlers drove the Métis further and further west. The Michif, Cree, Ojibway, Dene and French names the Métis used to identify their settlements soon disappeared, as settlers renamed the locations.”  (Source)

Surveyors or Trespassers?  Louis Riel leads a group to stop them!

“In 1869, the Ontarians living in the Red River District had their wish:  the federal government purchased Rupert’s Land, without consulting with its Indigenous residents, for £300,000 and 1/25th of all its fertile land.   The purchase greatly alarmed the colony’s Aboriginal inhabitants.   Nevertheless, even before the formal land transfer was to be confirmed on December 1, 1869, government surveyors, in the autumn of 1868 and summer of 1869, surveyed the land in order to create townships.   

To the Métis, this amounted to trespassing since the surveyors did not inform them about the survey and did not recognize their existing river lot systems.   Moreover, many Métis feared that the new land holding system would lead to a large influx of outsiders and their eventual assimilation. [...]

In October 1869, Louis Riel led a group of 18 unarmed Métis to stop the surveyors on Métis lands.  The Red River Resistance was born."

 (Source:  The Métis and the Spirit of Resistance)

Fort Garry occupation and a Provinsional Government under Riel

"On November 2,1869, an armed patrol of Métis ordered [Lieutenant-Governor] McDougall to leave the North-West. McDougall had little choice but to obey and he retreated to Pembina in North Dakota. Riel now saw that he must delay occupation of the Red River by Canada until the guarantees the Métis sought were assured. Fort Garry’s location gave control of the region to those who held it; furthermore, the Métis needed its supplies. Riel and 120 armed men occupied it without opposition."   (Source:  First Métis Uprising 1869-70)

"In the vacuum that was civil government in Red River, Riel seized Upper Fort Garry in early November of 1869, consolidating his authority and military dominance in the settlement. In December of 1869 he declared a provisional government, drafted a list of rights, and on a frigid January day in 1870 met at Upper Fort Garry with Donald Smith, HBC official and special commissioner from the Canadian government, in front of a crowd of 1000 local settlers. From this meeting came a second convention and list of rights, an agreement to send representatives to Ottawa to bargain with the federal government, as well as HBC approval of the legitimacy of the Provisional Government."  (Source:  Upper Fort Garry and the Red River Resistance)