Northwest Rebellion

Northwest Rebellion (1885), armed resistance in present-day Saskatchewan province by Métis (people of mixed indigenous and European, mostly French, ancestry) against Canadian federal authority. It occurred after a large number of English-speaking settlers moved to Saskatchewan from the east. The Métis were afraid that the settlers would threaten their ability to hunt bison and would ignore their land rights.

The Métis had moved to Saskatchewan from Manitoba after Manitoba became a province in 1870. Before leaving Manitoba, the Métis had resisted the settlement of that area in what was called the Red River Rebellion (1869-1870). That resistance movement had been led by Louis Riel, a college-educated Métis who secured an agreement from Canadian authorities that French language rights would be respected in Manitoba and that the Métis would be issued land allotments. However, as Manitoba subsequently filled with English-speaking settlers, many Métis moved further west in an effort to preserve their way of life, settling on the South Saskatchewan River. When the Canadian government extended its control into that area in 1884 and opened it to settlement, the Métis again felt threatened by newcomers. They recalled Riel from the United States, where he had gone into exile after the Red River Rebellion, and he proclaimed his own government in Saskatchewan. In March 1885 the Métis defeated a detachment of North-West Mounted Police (now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) that Canadian authorities had sent into the area to restrain them, and some bands of indigenous peoples joined the uprising. Greatly alarmed, the Canadian government rushed a large force to the area. The Canadian force crushed the rebellion in May. Louis Riel was subsequently found guilty of treason and hanged, an act that gravely affected relations between French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians.