Discussions

On July 6th, 1885, Louis Riel was in gaol in Regina and charged with Treason. This led to his Trial that not only had dramatic consequences for Riel, but for the whole of Canada. At his Trial, the Jury was made up of Anglo-Saxons who were Protestant. He was French and trained at least as a Catholic. This did not go well for Mr. Riel, along with the fact that the Orange brethren of Thomas Scott continuously reminded members of the Court Room that Mr. Riel murdered him.  
In Orange Ontario the call for Vengeance grew louder, but in Catholic Quebec the cry for Clemency was its equal. Louis Riel was called a Madman, a Heretic, a Metis, but to the citizens of Quebec he was a French Canadian, and a victim of Anglo-Saxon persecution. As the Canadian soldiers were still mopping up the stray Renegades on the Prairies, Quebeckers were expressing their admiration for Mr. Riel's heroic battle for the rights of his people, and so when he surrendered to two Scouts, Quebec jumped to his defence and provided him with the very best of counsel.  
His Lawyers adopted the argument that Mr. Riel was insane. They stated that he was twice admitted to an asylum, he had committed the folly of attacking the Church, he had planned to replace the Pope with a Canadian one, not unlike King Henry the Eighth. During the “Uprising” he wasted time renaming the days of the week. This defence was not acceptable to Louis Riel, “I cannot abandon my dignity!” he cried, “Here I have to defend myself against the accusations of “High Treason” or I have to consent to the animal life of an Asylum. I don’t care much about animal life if I am not allowed to carry with it the moral existence of an intelligent being …” Twice he addressed the Court in long rambling speeches, but the Jury was only bored, and after only one hour and twenty minutes deliberation, they declared him Guilty. Henry Jackson, Riel’s Secretary, despite similar denials of insanity and a desire to share the fate of his Leader, was Acquitted in minutes. It is presumed that to an English speaking Jury the English speaking Mr. Jackson must obviously have been insane to have taken part in the Rebellion. Fifty years later one of the Jurors stated, “We tied Mr. Riel for Treason, and we hanged him for the murder of Thomas Scott”.  
Louis Riel was not a great man, but in death he became one of the most decisive figures in Canadian history. It was by historical accident rather than by any planning that he became the symbol of divisions as old as the Franco-British struggle for the control of northern North America. The Riel Rebellions were not what the politicians argued and what the people believed, a continuation on the Red river and Saskatchewan  
Banks of the traditional hostilities of Old Canada. They were infact the inevitable results of the advance of the Frontier, this was the last organized attempts on the part of Canada’s primitive peoples to with stand progress, and preserve their culture and their identity against the encroachment of the Pioneers. Today’s Canadian citizens no longer see Mr. Riel as the wilful “Rebel” or “Murderer” of Mr. Thomas Scott, but as a sad pathetic, unstable man, who led his followers in a suicidal crusade and whose brief glory rests upon a distortion of history. To the Matis, the people whom he loved, he will always be mad or sane, the voice of an inarticulate race and the Prophet of a doomed cause.  
Note #1, this Group is about Brandon history, and I will relate this story to Brandon in a later submission.  
Note #2, I should have posted this on July 6th, my Birthday, but I was celebrating it at Clancy’s eatery and drinkery.