By Drew Cruikshank, Intern
Born out of opposition against the Canadian Government, The Red River Resistance was an initiative spearheaded by Louis Riel and the Red River Colony, most of the members being Métis. The Resistance disagreed with the Hudson’s Bay Company selling Rupert’s Land to the Canadian Government because it was not theirs (HBC’s) to sell. The Métis did not want the Government infringing upon their rights to their land. While we use the terms rebellion and resistance, the uprisings led by the Métis and First Nations were necessary “reactions against European colonization … because [they] are understood to have established self-governance on their own land long before Rupert’s Land was transferred to the Dominion of Canada.”[i]
Louis Riel and members of his Provisional Government, 1870. Source: Archives of Manitoba
In recent years, Canadians have come to appreciate the sacrifices that Louis Riel and the Red River Colony were forced to make to rectify the injustices against them; however, it has not always been this way and here at Dalnavert, while we recognize the horrific choices John A. Macdonald made during his time as Prime Minister, we tend to look past Sir Hugh John’s involvement in both the Wolseley Expedition of 1870 and the North-West Rebellion of 1885, which set out to dominate the Métis and their Indigenous and European heritage. While we celebrate Dalnavert for its rich Victorian history, we must recognize the Macdonald’s complacency—much of it a result of the times—and their role in Canada’s colonial narrative.
At the early age of sixteen, Sir Hugh John took an interest in military service, partially because his father wanted him to focus on his studies and what sixteen-year-old wants to listen to their parents? Despite his father’s wishes, Sir Hugh John enlisted with the First Ontario Rifles as a private and packed up to march in 1870 from Ontario to Manitoba to quell the Resistance.
Sir Hugh John Macdonald, c. 1872. Source: Library and Archives Canada
While the Resistance and Riel only wanted “to safeguard the traditions and land rights of Métis living in the region, not to initiate a war with Canada,”[ii] the growing Anti-Riel sentiment in Ontario meant that for many “Wolseley’s military expedition was seen … as a way of putting the ‘rebels’ in their place.”[iii] An article from The Winnipeg Tribune, dated October 18, 1911, details the thoughts of Donald Smith, who accompanied Wolseley on the Expedition. Taking on a white saviour attitude, Smith describes the members of the Resistance as “malcontents,” wanting to “stir up an agitation” and goes as far as to call Riel the “New Napoleon.”[iv] Unfortunately for Wolseley and his gang, the Resistance got word of the Expedition and swiftly left Upper Fort Garry before they arrived.
Donald Smith / Lord Strathcona. Source: Library and Archives Canada
After the Expedition, Riel managed to flee to the United States. In “Louis Riel and the United States,” J.M Bumsted indicates that, in the years following the Expedition, “the Métis leaders remained fugitives from justice, apparently moving silently back and forth across the border without molestation, although with considerable trepidation.”[v] Meanwhile, Sir Hugh John left the Expedition, an Expedition which John A. referred to in a letter as Sir Hugh John’s “Outing,” and went back to Ontario to appease his father and “go to work,” continuing his law studies. [vi] In the fifteen years prior to the second Resistance, Sir Hugh John graduated, passed the bar, became a partner in John A.’s firm, married Jean Murray King, became a father to Isabella, became a widower, moved to Winnipeg, found a new wife in Agnes Gertrude Vankoughnet, and became a father yet again to a son they called Jack—a lot can happen in fifteen years! In 1885, soon after Jack was born, Sir Hugh John went to Saskatchewan to defeat the second Resistance, known as the North-West Resistance of 1885.
While Riel hesitated to come back to Canada, considering the risks, he agreed to lead “an armed uprising of Métis, Indians, and settlers.”[vii] In a letter to John A., Sir Hugh John mentions their “hot engagement with the rebels” at Fish Creek and goes on to describe the scene:
We drove [the ‘rebels’] back and out of the field on both flanks but failed to dislodge them from a very strongly fortified position in the centre which was situated in a deep and thickly wooded gulch or ravine from which they fired with great effect. The only way to get them out was by bayonet charge and this the General would not allow, though Col. Houghton, Capt. Wise and I offered to lead the men. [viii]
Unfortunately, Riel had no other choice but to surrender. Once captured, the Canadian Government put Riel on trial, and then executed him for treason. Henry J. Guest notes that Sir Hugh John commented bitterly on the capture of Riel, stating that “‘had [his] fellows taken him he would have been brought in a coffin, and all trouble about his trial would have been avoided.’”[ix] Sir Hugh John went back to Winnipeg and within the next ten years became the Premier of Manitoba and moved into Dalnavert.
While we cannot discern Sir Hugh John’s true feelings towards the Resistance from these few excerpts, socially, among those he was associated with, the general attitude towards the Resistance was a negative one. In the past, many have celebrated Sir Hugh John as a great private, lieutenant, and captain and while he may have been, we must think critically and keep in mind who he was fighting and for what reason.
Bibliography
“The Red River Expedition of 1870.” Parks Canada. Last Edited December 13, 2019. https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/doc/information-backgrounder/Expedition_Riviere-Rouge-Red_River_Expedition.
Beal, Bob, and Rod Macleod. "North-West Rebellion.” In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada, Published February 07, 2006; Last Edited July 30, 2019. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/north-west-rebellion.
Bumsted, J. M. "Louis Riel and the United States." The American Review of Canadian Studies 29, no. 1 (Spring, 1999): 5, http://dx.doi.org.uml.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/02722019909481620.
Guest, Henry J. “Reluctant Politician: A Biography of Sir Hugh John Macdonald” Master’s thesis, University of Manitoba, 1973.
Johnson, J.K. Affectionally Yours: The Letters of Sir John A Macdonald and His Family. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1969.
McLeod, Susanna. “Sir John A’s son carved his own path.” The Kingston Whig-Standard. Published January 8, 2014. https://www.thewhig.com/2014/01/08/sir-john-as-son-carved-his-own-path/wcm/072c1027-2bb7-a5a3-33a8-56768a5f3e8f.
Stead, W.T. “‘Canada’s Grand Old Man’: Appreciative Sketch of Lord Strathcona.” In The Winnipeg Tribune (October 18, 1911): 4, Accessed from UM Digital Collections, http://hdl.handle.net/10719/1566061.
[i] Bob Beal, and Rod Macleod, “North-West Rebellion,” In The Canadian Encyclopedia, Historica Canada, Published February 07, 2006; Last Edited July 30, 2019, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/north-west-rebellion.
[ii] Susanna McLeod, “Sir John A’s son carved his own path,” In The Kingston Whig-Standard, Published January 8, 2014, https://www.thewhig.com/2014/01/08/sir-john-as-son-carved-his-own-path/wcm/072c1027-2bb7-a5a3-33a8-56768a5f3e8f.
[iii] “The Red River Expedition of 1870,” Parks Canada, Last Edited December 13, 2019, https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/doc/information-backgrounder/Expedition_Riviere-Rouge-Red_River_Expedition.
[iv] W. T. Stead, “‘Canada’s Grand Old Man’: Appreciative Sketch of Lord Strathcona,” In The Winnipeg Tribune (October 18, 1911): 4, Accessed from UM Digital Collections, http://hdl.handle.net/10719/1566061.
[v] J. M. Bumsted, "Louis Riel and the United States," The American Review of Canadian Studies 29, no. 1 (Spring, 1999): 5, http://dx.doi.org.uml.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/02722019909481620.
[vi] J.K. Johnson, Affectionally Yours: The Letters of Sir John A Macdonald and His Family (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1969), 111.
[vii] Bumsted, J. M. "Louis Riel and the United States." The American Review of Canadian Studies 29, no. 1 (Spring, 1999): 5, http://dx.doi.org.uml.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/02722019909481620.
[viii] J.K. Johnson, Affectionally Yours: The Letters of Sir John A Macdonald and His Family (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1969), 156.
[ix] Henry J. Guest, “Reluctant Politician: A Biography of Sir Hugh John Macdonald,” (Master’s thesis, University of Manitoba, 1973), 36.