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On 22 March Ritchot, Black, and A. This added a provision for separate schools according to the system existing in the province of Quebec, and outlined the structure for a provincial government.

On 23 and 24 March the delegates set out for Ottawa. The Denison—Schultz activists secured the editorial support of most of the Toronto newspapers. They also planned meetings to be addressed by Schultz and Mair throughout the province. It was also arranged in Toronto that Ritchot and A.

Scott would be arrested on a charge of abetting murder. They were indeed arrested soon after their arrival in Ottawa on 11 April, but were released because the judge decided that the Toronto warrant was not legal. They were then immediately re-arrested on a new warrant sworn in Ottawa.

When the case was heard nine days later the crown prosecutor declined to proceed, and the delegates were finally free to pursue their mission. On 22 April the delegates wrote to Howe requesting the opening of negotiations. Four days later Howe replied with a formal invitation to begin talks with Macdonald and Cartier. Cartier and Macdonald rapidly discovered that the priest was a formidable negotiator, and that he was determined to extract concessions that would guarantee protection for the original inhabitants of Red River against the anticipated influx of Ontario land seekers and speculators.

The results of the bargaining, embodied in the Manitoba Act of , were a substantial achievement for Ritchot. Provincial status was granted to Manitoba the name favoured by Riel , although Macdonald and Cartier succeeded in limiting the size of the province to about 1, square miles and not the entire northwest. Bilingualism was recognized in the proceedings of the courts, the legislature, and in government publications.

A critical examination of the four lists of rights, which were the basis of the negotiations and the act, supports the former view. On one important point, however, Ritchot failed dismally — an updating of the amnesty of 6 December. Her Majesty was going to proclaim a general amnesty immediately, that we [the delegates] could set out for Manitoba, that the amnesty would arrive before us.

Somewhat isolated from the events in Ottawa, Riel had given his attention to the affairs of the settlement. As president of the provisional government, he had remained in Upper Fort Garry, though he returned control of the fort to the HBC to allow the resumption of trade. Perhaps more important, he worked assiduously to maintain the sometimes uneasy peace of the settlement. He is a large man. A week later, when the assembly met in Upper Fort Garry, Ritchot outlined the reception given to the delegation in Ottawa, which he described as generally friendly.

On the question of amnesty he forecast that since the Canadian government was unable or unwilling to issue it before union, it would be forthcoming from the queen. The assembly thereupon, on 24 June, unanimously approved the terms of the Manitoba Act. To Riel the prospects seemed bright. Throughout the negotiations, and in the early summer, Riel had grown uneasy about a deterioration of his support.

But perhaps most important, he was worried by reports of the attitude of the Ontario volunteers in the approaching Wolseley expedition. On 24 August Riel learned that the soldiers were planning to lynch him; he vacated Upper Fort Garry a few hours ahead of them.

He arrived in the settlement on 2 September and was at once confronted with the problem of maintaining order. Winnipeg was a place of riotous turbulence. Faced with this difficult situation Archibald went about the business of establishing a civil administration. Fluent in French, he formed a first provincial cabinet which was strictly bi-racial in character and had no members from the Canadian party.

Riel was pleased with the results of the first provincial election, held in December , in which a majority of the elected members seemed well disposed towards him. In February , however, Riel became seriously ill, mentally overburdened with concern about his personal safety and with finding financial support for his family. It was not until May that he was strong enough to return home to St Vital. By October he had become the leader of a band of Fenians based across the international boundary.

On 5 October he and some 35 followers crossed the border and captured the small HBC trading post of Pembina. The invasion had lasted one day. Archibald went to St Boniface to review the volunteers, was given a cordial reception, and shook hands with their leaders, including Riel.

There were few in the province who thought of hanging Riel. Mair was outraged and Denison led a campaign for his recall. Tension would subside, he believed, if Riel could be induced to stay out of Canada for a time. Although he was bitter over his treatment, Riel accepted voluntary exile.

Believing he would be safer among his friends, Riel returned to Red River in late June. Dubuc and others now urged Riel to be a candidate for the riding of Provencher in the September federal general election. He agreed, despite warnings that he would be murdered if he set foot in Ottawa. But there was a new turn of events: Cartier was defeated in Montreal East early in September and Macdonald turned to Manitoba to find a seat for his Quebec lieutenant.

The question of amnesty he was prepared to leave to Cartier, whose sympathy on this point was a matter of record. Even Smith was attacked by the Winnipeg rowdies. For the next few months Riel was inactive. In Ottawa a renewed effort was made to secure the promised amnesty, but Macdonald was adamant; his political position was too weak after the election. The kaleidoscope of politics changed once again when Cartier died on 20 May in London.

The champion of French rights in Manitoba, and the chief proponent in cabinet of an amnesty for Riel, was gone. Riel was determined to plead his own case in parliament, where he knew he would have strong support among the French Canadian members.

In the October by-election he was unopposed. At the last moment, however, Riel lost his courage and did not enter Ottawa, probably because he feared assassination or arrest on the murder charge. He returned to Montreal and in due course made his way to Plattsburg, N. However, he did not take his seat. Here he learned that he had been expelled from the house for a second time.

As a prime minister of Canada, however, he was forced to equivocate and compromise until Dufferin had provided a way out of the impasse. Riel, exiled and with little apparent future, became more preoccupied with religious than political matters. For He has given you a mission which you must fulfil in all respects. Riel stayed with the Lees for several months, until his continued religious mania finally resulted in the interruption of a church service.

The sisters in charge of the asylum feared that his political enemies would discover his presence and in May Lachapelle certified that Riel required constant attention and treatment which could only be provided in the Beauport asylum Centre hospitalier Robert-Giffard outside Quebec City. At Beauport Riel brooded on his mission and also occasionally became violent and excited.

But in time, although he could still be irrational on religious and political subjects, rest and calm had their effect. For the balance of and much of Riel was at Keeseville and other centres where he hoped to find work. Late in he went to St Paul. He confided to a few friends that he had pretended to be mad. At this time Riel, bearded and handsome, was in the prime of life. Riel soon involved himself in the turbulent politics of Montana, in spite of the warning that he should live a quiet life.

The Act established Manitoba as a province and provided some protection for French language rights. Riel's leadership in the agitation, especially his decision to execute a Canadian named Thomas Scott, enraged anti-Catholic and anti-French sentiment in Ontario. Although chosen for a seat in the House of Commons on three occasions, he was unable to take his seat in the house.

In , Riel's role in the death of Scott resulted in his exile from Canada. Riel was the undisputed spiritual and political head of the short-lived Rebellion. Initially intending to return to Montana, Riel instead was seized by a return of his religious furor, and he rallied his rabid followers into what became the North-West Rebellion of However, a series of skirmishes drew a strong response from the Canadian government, which sent a large militia to crush the rebellion at the Saskatchewan capital of Batoche, and Riel surrendered on May The English-speaking jury found him guilty and recommended clemency, only to see the judge hand down a death sentence per a year-old English statute.

In the face of political pressure, the convicted was granted the opportunity for another mental evaluation. However, the analysis of one doctor who found Riel unable to distinguish between right and wrong was dismissed, and he was hanged in Regina on November 16, Riel's execution sparked outrage in French-speaking areas of Canada, directly fueling the rise of the liberal Parti National.

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Riel's vision raised obvious questions about his mental health. So did many of his other actions.

In , concerned friends secretly took Riel to Quebec. Within a few months, Riel's uncle decided to place him in a mental institution near Montreal, under the name of Louis R. Riel's mental condition continued to deteriorate. He frequently removed all his clothes, citing the example of Adam and Eve.

On one occasion, he smashed ornaments and candles in the asylum's chapel. Several times orderlies were forced to place Riel in a strait-jacket. By , Riel's health improved sufficiently that he was discharged from the Beauport asylum. Riel traveled to New York, St. Paul, and Pembina, North Dakota in search of employment. Unable to find a satisfying job, he moved on to the Metis community of St. Manitoba, meanwhile, was undergoing a rapid evolution.

The province became more English and less French, more dependent on rail and steamboats than the old Red River carts, and its hunting and fur-trading economy gave way to farming. Metis intent upon preserving their traditional lifestyle looked west to Saskatchewan and began to move there in substantial numbers. Riel left St. Joseph in late and for the next two-plus years worked as a trader, selling goods to Indians and Metis at Fort Benton in the Missouri River country of Montana.

The experience made Riel worry for the future of his race. His letters expressed bitter disappointment with the "halfbreed" who "spends most of his earnings on whiskey" and, as a result, finds "poverty drives him away from his little farm. In March , Riel married Marguerite Monet.