Her Majesty's Troops go forth on an errand of peace, and will serve as an assurance to the inhabitants of the Red River Settlement . . . that they have a place in the regard and cousels of England, and may rely upon the Imperial protection of the British Sceptre.
Sir John Young, 12 May 18701
The imperial tone of Governor General Young's deliberately underscored the seriousness to which the government of that day viewed the Métis threat in North-West Canada. It also suggests that the Red River response had an entirely military objective, to relieve "the orderly inhabitants from the state of apprehension in which they lived", and "to secure Her Majesty's sovereign authority."2
Both historians and contemporaries agree that the summary execution of Orangeman Thomas Scott by a Métis firing squad on March 4th, 1870 was the motivating factor for governmental action. It represented the first, and only, act of Métis agression that resulted in death. The deliberate blockade of Governor MacDougall at Pembina, however, and the establishment of a Provisional Government in December, 1869 can not be overlooked as catalysts to response.
Certainly their was an element of hostility in there actions, and perhaps a small degree of presumptive arrogance, but did this necessarily preclude a military response? Several Members of Parliament, including the representative for Montcalm, indicated otherwise when stating that "the rights of the people of the Territory were acknowlged, what then, he asked, was the necessity for the proposed expedition".3 In his disposition to the Committee Investigating the Causes of the Difficulties in the North-West Territory, even MacDonald was to concede that "the armed resistance was a very aggravated breach of the peace, but we were anxious to hold, and did hold, that under the circumstance of the case it did not amount to treason."4
In retrospect, it is difficult to argue that Wolseley's expedition succeeded in securing the Province of Manitoba for the Crown. Yet, given that those in authority percieved little threat by the Métis, civil disobedience may not have been the basis for this objective at all. In fact, an ulterior motive seems more likely: that the decision to send a combined force of more than 1200 militia and regular troops to Red River in the spring of 1870 was motivated as much by political expediency as by military necessity.
Western expansionism had been a mainstay of Canadian politics since the middle of the nineteenth century. By that time, the Hudson's Bay Company, having held an unchallenged monopoly in the western fu trade since 1821, was faced with both a continued decline in demand for their products and the prospect of having to govern an ever increasing white population within their territory.
While the transfer or sale of Rupert's Land might have been considered a useful means for the Company to relinquish their authority, and ultimately it's responsibility to both Native and non-Native inhabitants, its acquisition by Canada served its own purpose. As MacDonald himself argued,
It is imperative to find a broad country for the expansion of our adventurous youth, who are not satisfied to look here and there for an isolated tract fit for settlement. It has consequently always been a political cry in Western Canada that this country must be obtained; no sentimental cry either, but one eminently practical -- a cry expressive both of principle and interest5
Such rhetoric strikes deep at the heart of governmental policy during the first decade after Confederation. As far as MacDonald was concerned, the successful acquisition of Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869 served two distinct purposes: to compliment the economic interests of Ontario and Quebec, and to counter the threat of American 'Manifest Destiny'.
For many, the west symbolized the last great Canadian economic frontier. Indeed, Western expansion represented one of the building blocks of MacDonald's National Policy, designed to link east and west in a tight political, social and economic union. While the west would supply the agricultural needs of the east, the would consume, in exchange, the diverse goods that would be manufactured in quantity by their neighbour's emerging industry.
As editor of the Toronto Globe and Reform Party leader, George Brown was another great promoter of Western expansion. Using the media as a platform for his journalistic policy-making, Brown envisioned vast legions on Ontarian farmers moving in unison to the empty plains, claiming that "that country is bound to be occupied, and at no distant day, by thousands and millions of industrious cultivators."6
By 1869, however, American encroachment into Red River politics and society had already begun. The threat of Fenian attack, and the expanding commercial relationship between St. Paul merchants to the south and Hudson Bay traders to the north only intensified fears that Rupert's Land, amongst the other regions that formed British North America prior to Confederation, would be annexed to the Minnesota Territory.
In hastening to counter the effects of American influence in the region, author Alvin C. Glueck suggests that the Conservative government in Ottawa was forced to adopt a Canadian 'Manifest Destiny'.7 Indeed, this premeditated drive for Western expansion is evident from the very first moments of Confederation:
. . . were we to grudge the paltry sum of five or six million dollars to extend the Dominion to British Columbia. The policy of the United States, which had been refered to, immediately adopted on their becoming a nationality, had been the acquisition of fresh territory -- Louisiana first and Texas more recently. If such a policy were necessary for them, it would also be necessary for us . . . Our country would be then as attractive as the United States, which derived its prestige mainly from its immense extent.8
As a leading advocate for Western expansion, however, MacDonald neither anticipated, nor clearly understood the Métis reaction. The mounting tension within the Red River colony was not so much a consequence of the acquisition process itself, but of MacDonald's failure to consult, or even advise the Métis people of his government's intentions. Thomas Bunn, for instance, Secretary to the Provisional Government from February, 1870 to its dissolution, stated that "There was also a feeling of dissatisfaction among the people generally, but more particularly among the French, at the people being ignored in the negotiations between the Imperial Government, the Canadian Government, and the Hudson's Bay Company."9
The Conservative approach was condescending, if not outright racist. Many, including MacDonald's Minister of Public Works, William MacDougall, looked upon the Métis as children, "incapable of the management of their own affairs". This attitude was little different from that of the Company itself, with one noticeable exception. While both sought to exploit the natural resources of the Native and Métis lands of the Northwest Territory, the company made no pretentions whatsoever regarding land ownership. The same could not be said of Canada.
Despite assurances by MacDougall to the contrary, the threat of dispossession was quite real. No better example can be illustrated than Brown's incessant ridicule of Métis ambitions: "It is altogether to much of a joke" he wrote, "to hink of a handful of people barring the way to the progress of British institutions and British people, on the pretence that the whole wide continent is theirs, and that they mean to treat it as such."10
While at times appearing sympathetic to the Métis uprising, Brown was motivated less by a desire to see Métis justice -- for it is clear that he represented a strong English-Protestant bias in western expansion -- but to embarass MacDonald by blaming the Conservative government for the troubles at Red River. Of his political nemesis, Brown wrote that "The Government selected a bad Governor and a bad Council to carry out a bad system. A portion of the people of Red River have committed grave errors, but the Ottawa Government were the first to do wrong, and ought to be the first to acknowledge it, and make restitution."11
As for Brown's assertion that MacDonald was the istigator of the whole affair, correspondance shows this to be only partially true. Having already faced the expulsion of government surveyors from Red River in the summer of 1869, it is rather unlikely that the Prime Minister would have intended to escalate this situation by provokin another confrontation. This would have only delayed further the acquisition process.
The appointment of a Lieutenant-Governor, then, and the formation of a new government, had to be handled with great tact if MacDonald was to properly address Métis concerns. Unfortunatelt, this task fell upon MacDougall who, despite his capabilities as an administrator, was most belligerent towards the Métis population of Red River. His condescending attitude, and numerous attempts to usurp the de facto government formed after his initial retreat at Pembina in late October, served only to reinforce Métis distrust of Canada's acquisition.
Upon being informed of MacDougall's determination to re-enter the Red River district on Descember 1st, 1870, MacDonald wrote that
MacDougall has made a most inglorious fiasco at Red River. When he left here he fully understood that he was to go as a private individual to report on the state of affairs at Red River, but no assume no authority until officially notified from here that Rupert's Land was united to Canada12
Despite having given explicit instructions to appointee MacDougall to use the utmost tact in dealing with the Métis of Red River, in light of his subsequent failure, one might call into question MacDonald's logic in choosing MacDougall at all.13 Should not MacDonald have been a little suspicious of his subordinate's racist disposition towards the plight of the Métis? In so choosing him to establish Canadian authority in the west, did MacDonald inadvertantly encourage MacDougall's ignorant behaviour towards Riel and his followers, and so escalate the problem he so desparately wished to avoid?
The mounting insurrection seemed beyond the capability of the Canadian government to control. The acquisition process, having anticipated few real obstacles, slowed considerably in the wake of Métis resistance. Questions of legality, for instance, would continue to plaque MacDonald long after MacDougall had been recalled to Ottawa. The formation of a Provisional Government by the Métis in December, 1869, although not formally recognized by Canada until a delegation representing the same was accepted at Ottawa the following March, further complicatd the need for an amiable solution to MacDonald's western dilemna.
To further complicate the matter, the anticipated withdrawal of British troops from Canadian soil heightened Ottawa's fear that a military expedition to Northwest Canada would not be a viable alternative to peace if Canada alone was left to assert its authority. Britain's position was rooted firmly in the belief that Métis insurrection was a matter of Canadian, rather than Imperial soveriegnty. The onus, then, rested upon MacDonald to devise a distinctly Canadian solution.
If such political jousting alerted Ottawa to the the troubles that lay ahead for government, it was the Scott affair that finally galvanized it to action. Scott's death at the hands of a Métis firing squad indicated quite clearly the lengths to which Riel and his supporters were willing to advance their cause. Whether Scott, a noted Orangeman, was involved in acts of subversion against the Provisional Government of Red River or not was of little consequence to his Ontario peers; they viewed his execution as a direct attack upon their expanionist ideals, and demanded retaliatory measures against the Métis and their leader. As Viscount Wolsely commented, "The English-speaking people of Canada were so determined to have it [the rebellion] put down, that had the government refused to comply, the men of Ontario would have taken the matter into their own hands and have settled it themselves."14
In spite of Ottawa's capitulation to the Provisional Government's Fourth Bill of Rights, and the resultant process that led eventually to the Manitoba Act, the issue of military force to prove its authority had been long considered. As Brown confessed,
The true policy of our Government is to act promptly, to make every preparation to take possession of the Territory, whether the delegates come to Canada or remain at home. The purchase money should be paid at once, and a Bill introduced into Parliament granting a liberal constitution to the new Territory; granting representative institutions, and including such portions of the "Bill of Rights" as are just and reasonable. That constitution should be carried to Red River by a sufficient armed force to make resistance impossible.15
Although not officially approved by Baron Lisgar until 07 May 1870, the decision to launch an expedition to Red River had been considered well before Scott's execution. For, as MacDonald himself confessed that previous December:
We must not make any indications of even thinking of a military force until peaceable means have been exhausted. Should these misearable half-breeds not disband, they must be put down, and then, as far as I can influence matters, I shall be very glad to give Colonel Wolseley the chance of glory and the risk of the scalping knife!16
Perhaps, then, MacDonald had come to view Scott's death as the end of all 'peaceful means', and the beginning of the inevitable end of the Red River insurgency. Certainly Britain's position on military aid had eased somewhat from its previously rigid posture A commitment of 350 troops from the 60th Regiment of Foot was contingient upon Canada's payment of all extra expenses, and the promise that all troops would be returned before the beginning of the next winter.
On the other hand, the threat of rebellion may have been the very excuse that MacDonald was looking for to maintain these forces in Canada and to launch a final offensive against the Métis people. Even as the Métis delegation was being recieved at Ottawa, the government veiled its arrangements to send a punitive force lest "it appear they are preparing for war whilst they are professing to treat with Riel".17
MacDonald's Red River Response, in retrospect, was hardly a response at all, but a fairly systematic plan to assert Canadian authority upon the inhabitants of Northwest Canada -- a fait accompli. From the moment Riel's Métis resisted MacDonald's acquisition of Rupert's Land, an expedition was expected, if not to secure the peace, then to protect the inhabitants from the onslaught of Canadian settlers that would surely follow. It would have been planned regardless of whether MacDougall succeeded in crossing at Pembina or not; it would have been approved even if a Provisional Government had never been established at Fort Garry; and it it would have been executed even if Scott had been spared his life. These events, in having unfolded in this particular way, merely lent an aire of legitimacy to a plan that had to happen.
In MacDonald's view, to 'secure the peace' did not necessarily imply the restoration of law and order, but to expedite the acquisition of the Northwest Territory with as minimal resistance as was tolerable. It is truly unfortunate that MacDonald assumed this course of action for it foreshadows, in many ways, an even greater confrontation yet to follow -- the 1885 Rebellion. Even as Lieutenant-Governor Archibald was preparing to assume authority in Manitoba in the summer of 1870, plans were being devised for further expansion westward: "We should take immediate steps to extinguish the Indian titles somewhere in the Furtile Belt in the Valley of the Saskatchewan, and open it for settlement."18
1 Speech from the Throne: Canada, House of Commons Debates, 1870, Vol. III, 12 May 1870, p. 1533.
2 Earl of Kimberly to Sir John Young, 14 Oct 1870: Correspondence Relative to the Recent Expedition to the Red River Settlement: with Journal of Operations (London: Harrison and Sons, 1871), p. 53; Col G. Wolseley, "Proclamation to the Inhabitants of Red River", 30 Jun 1870: Ibid. p. 74.
3 Debates, 1870, Vol. III, 10 May 1870, p. 1505.
4 "Deposition of Sir John MacDonald", 30 Apr 1874: Correspindance Relative, p. 102.
5 MacDonald, Dec 1867: Sir Joseph Pope, Memoirs of the Right Honourable Sir John Alexander MacDonald (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1930), p. 398.
6 Toronto Globe, 17 Nov 1869, p. 2.
7 Alvin C. Glueck, Minnesota and the Manifest Destiny of the Canadian Northwest: A story in Canadian-American Relations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), p. 228.
8 Georges-Etienne Cartier, 04 Dec 1867: Debates, 1868, Vol. I, p. 187
9 "Deposition of Thomas Bunn", 04 May 1874: Canada, Report of the Select Committee on the Causes of the Difficulties in the Northwest Territory in 1869-1870 (Ottawa: I.B. Taylor, 1874), p. 116.
10 Toronto Globe, 17 Nov 1869, p. 2.
11 Toronto Globe, 31 Dec 1869, p. 2.
12 MacDonald to John Rose, Ottawa, 31 Dec 1869: Pope, Memoirs, pp. 414-415.
13 MacDonald to MacDougall, 27 Nov 1869: Pope, Memoirs, pp. 409-410.
14 Field Marshall Viscount Wolsely, The Story of a Soldier's Life (London: 1903), Vol. 2, p. 173.
15 Toronto Globe, 29 Mar 1870, p. 2.
16 MacDonald to George Stephen, Ottawa, 13 Dec 1689: Pope, Correspondance, pp. 112-113.
17 Wolseley to Richard Wolseley, 06 Apr 1870: Joseph H. Lehman, A Life of Field-Marshall Lord Wolseley (London: Jonathan Cape, 1964), p. 137.
18 MacDonald to A.G. Archibald, 18 Nov 1870: Pope, Correspondance, p. 141.