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Rebellion of 1885 - Why were the Metis willing to follow Riel and rebel against the government?

• With the passing of the Manitoba Act in 1870 it appeared that Riel and the Metis had secured their rights and won entry into Confederation. However, in the 1880's Macdonald and the Metis were once more facing conflict. Settlement and the building of a transcontinental railway promised to change the west and threaten the identity of the Metis. Why did they feel so threatened that they were willing to call upon Louis Riel and engage once more in rebellion? Help is greatly appreciated.

• Answer:

  The North-West Rebellion of 1885 was a brief and unsuccessful uprising by the Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan under Louis Riel against Canada. During a time of great social change in Western Canada, the Métis believed that Canada had failed to address the protection of their rights, their land and their survival as a distinct people. Despite some notable early victories at Duck Lake, Fish Creek and Cut Knife, the rebellion effectively ended for the Métis with their defeat at the siege of Batoche, Saskatchewan, the eventual scattering of their allied Aboriginal forces elsewhere, and the trial and hanging of Louis Riel. Tensions between French Canada and English Canada increased for some time. Due to the role that the Canadian Pacific Railway played in transporting troops, political support increased and the legislature authorized funds to complete the nation's first transcontinental railway. --------------- After the Red River Resistance of 1869-1870, many of the Métis moved from Manitoba to Saskatchewan, then part of the Northwest Territories, where they founded a settlement at Batoche on the South Saskatchewan River. However, in Manitoba settlers from Ontario began to arrive. They pushed for land to be allotted in the square concession system of English Canada, rather than the seigneurial system of strips reaching back from a river which the Métis were familiar with in their French-Canadian culture. In addition, the Métis and First Nations were alarmed that the buffalo were being hunted to extinction by the Hudson's Bay Company and other hunters, as for generations the Métis had depended on them as a chief source of food. In 1884 the Métis (including the Anglo-Métis) asked Louis Riel to return from the United States, where he had fled after the Red River Rebellion, to appeal to the government on their behalf. The government gave a vague response. In March 1885, Riel, Gabriel Dumont, Honoré Jackson (a.k.a. Will Jackson), and others set up the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan, believing that they could influence the federal government in the same way as they had in 1869. The role of aboriginal peoples prior to — and during — the outbreak of the rebellion is often misunderstood; a number of factors have created the misconception that the Cree and Métis were acting in unison. By the end of the 1870s the stage was set for discontent among the aboriginal people of the prairies: the bison population was in serious decline (creating enormous economic difficulties) and, in an attempt to assert control over aboriginal settlement, the federal government often violated the terms of the treaties it had signed during the latter part of the decade. Thus, widespread dissatisfaction with the treaties and rampant poverty spurred Big Bear, Chief of the Plains Cree First Nation, to embark on a diplomatic campaign to renegotiate the terms of the treaties (the timing of this campaign happened to coincide with an increased sense of frustration among the Métis). When Cree initiated violence broke out in the spring of 1885, it was almost certainly unrelated to the revolt of Riel and the Métis (which was already underway). In both the Frog Lake “Massacre” and the “Siege” of Fort Battleford, small dissident groups of Cree men revolted against the authority of Big Bear and Poundmaker. Although he quietly signaled to Ottawa that these two incidents were the result of desperate and starving people and were, as such, unrelated to the rebellion, Edgar Dewdney, the lieutenant-governor of the territory, publicly claimed that the Cree and the Métis had joined forces. For Riel and the Métis, several factors had changed since the Red River Resistance. The railway had been completed across the prairies in 1883, though sections were still under construction north of Lake Superior, making it easier for the government to get troops into the area. In addition, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) had been created, developing an armed local force. Riel lacked support from English settlers of the area as well as many of the non-Métis natives. Riel's belief that God had sent him back to Canada as a prophet caused the Catholic Church to withdraw its support for his actions. The Catholic priest, Albert Lacombe, worked to obtain assurances from Crowfoot that his Blackfoot warriors would not participate in a rebellion.