During the late 19th century, Canada’s relationship with its Metis population was strained and full of hardships. The conflict began with the transfer of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Government of Canada, without the consultation or consent of the Metis who resided therein. The Canadian Government sent surveyors out to plot land occupied by Metis people before the transfer was completed, and the survey team was met with opposition by a Metis party led by Louis Riel. The Metis formed a provisional government, and a pro-Canadian party formed to resist the Metis, but resulted in the execution of Thomas Scott, a Protestant whose death caused turmoil among English speaking communities. Another major reason for conflict occurred years later, after the Canadian Government and the Metis revealed conflicting views over the process of dividing land that was entitled to the Metis in the Manitoba Act of 1870. Dissatisfaction over this and other land issues led the Metis to reform their provisional government, take up arms, and engage in a string of battles against the Canadian Government. It is safe to say that the conflict between the Metis and the Canadian Government in the years 1869 to 1885 began and escalated largely because the Metis people were denied rights to the land they occupied and were therefore entitled to.
The Metis people of Canada once occupied a large area known as the Red River Colony located within Rupert’s Land, which was then sold right out from under them by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Rupert’s Land covered much of North Western Canada, and was considered by the Canadian Government to be fertile land that was suitable for agriculture and settlement. This meant that in order to open up the West for...
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...he land according to their own system, while ignoring Metis petitions and grievances. These tactics on behalf of the Canadian Government led the Metis to resist and concluded with a number of tragic battles, Metis defeat, and the execution of a great, Metis leader. The conflict could have been avoided if the Canadian Government had fairly addressed the Metis land issues long before the transfer of Rupert’s Land by allowing them the rights to self-government and their choice of land plot systems on land that they already occupied and, therefore, owned.
Works Cited
1. Beal, Bob & Macleod, Rod, Prairie Fire: The 1885 North-West Rebellion, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1994
2. D.N. Sprague, Canada and the Metis, 1869 – 1885, Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1988
3. J.M. Bumsted, The Red River Rebellion, Winnipeg: Watson & Dwyer Publishing Ltd., 1996
Steckley, J., & Cummins, B. D. (2008). Full circle: Canada's First Nations (2nd ed.). Toronto:
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3 Wade. Mason. Search for a Nation. The Bryant press Limited, Toronto. 1967 [4] Canadians and Conflicts.
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Fleras, Augie. “Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: Repairing the Relationship.” Chapter 7 of Unequal Relations: An Introduction to Race, Ethnic and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada. 6th ed. Toronto: Pearson, 2010. 162-210. Print.
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The Red River Colony was changing, but it wasn’t the only one, all of Canada were changing, because in the late 1860s Canada entered a new era and the changes and events that occurred in the Red River was only the beginning of many more conflicts and circumstances to come that would help shape and define this age Canada has entered. Although the Red River Rebellion had ostensibly achieved most of its major objectives, the Metis would soon find themselves at a disadvantage. They would rise yet again for another rebellion called The North-West Rebellion of 1885 to assert their nationality once more.
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This paper supports Thomas Flanagan's argument against Native sovereignty in Canada; through an evaluation of the meanings of sovereignty it is clear that Native sovereignty can not coexist with Canadian sovereignty. Flanagan outlines two main interpretations of sovereignty. Through an analysis of these ideas it is clear that Native Sovereignty in Canada can not coexist with Canadian sovereignty.
Thompson, John Herd, and Mark Paul Richard. "Canadian History in North American Context." In Canadian studies in the new millennium. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 37-64.
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To them, the excitement and the adventure of the buffalo hunt held more appeal than farming. Hundreds of Metis were content to earn a living by hunting buffalo, making pemmican or finding employment as freight drivers. After a while Canada bought Rupertsland from Hudson Bay Company. When the Metis heard this they were alarmed. They feared their religion,their language, their lands and their old, free way of* life.
MacDougall, Brenda. One of the Family: Metis Culture in Nineteenth-Century Northwestern Saskatchewan. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010.