The Metis Rebellion

According to Conrad (2015), the built-up frustration and anger towards the British Government by the Aboriginal nation and Metis was an accumulation of events such as the exclusion of the natives in all negotiations for the Dominion expansion and the purchase of the north-west from the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in 1869. Moreover, the Hudson’s Bay Company asked to keep their “fur-trading operation” active even after the selling of the lands to the British Government, the same fur that was the main material for clothing used by the natives of the lands. The Hudson Bay Company as one can consider the undeclared grandparent of the Metis who according to Barret (2014), were descendants of the European Fur-traders [at the time working with the company]

Although seized by the Metis, Scott was later executed which turned the situation into a feud from hell. MacDonald knowing that the rebellion would give way to the United States which was present at the time in the Red River area and had expansion ambitions of its own, he decided to agree on negotiations that concluded in agreement to most Metis and Aboriginal demands. The agreement will later prove to be false when MacDonald sent his militias headed by another “Orangeman” who was expected to build fear and carry his mission viciously on the Metis because of the Scott event. He did indeed bring back the Red River under British Control and it resulted in Riel fleeing to the United States and many Metis moving to a different territory to settle and create new communities under their control. Little did the British government know that the Red River resistance was far from over and soon enough there will be another confrontation for the unfinished

According to Mclean (1986), in his research titled; 1885: Metis Rebellion or Government Conspiracy? That was published in a collective historical book edited by Barron and Waldrum, titled 1885 and After: Native Society in Transition, he argues that while many historians focused on the causes or the apparently illogical actions of the Metis and aboriginals during that period that depicted Louis Riel as the cause of the rebellion, ignoring the fact that the Canadian government at the time was determined to expand its range of control over the North-West but also was an instrument used by what he referred to as the “wealthy merchants and industrialists” who had control over the east’s economy and were eager to control the west. In Mclean’s opinion, the sole purpose of the Canadian government is to provide legislation that will ensure the steady growth of the nation in accordance with the “British imperialism” and the overtaking of the west and to create an agrarian west was a major part of the development of a capitalistic class that will support the survival of an all British Canadian nation. Furthermore, the government was a tool used by those elite to ensure the smooth completion, with no interruption, of the most important project on Canadian soil, the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mclean claims that the rebellion followed a serious of events that were planned carefully by the government. First, the