The
valley of the Saskatchewan, far northwest of the Red River, was
the scene of the new difficulty. Here thousands of metis, or
French half-breeds, had settled. The passing of the buffalo,
which had been their chief subsistence, and the arrival of
settlers from the East caused them intense alarm. They pressed
the Government for certain grants of land and for the retention
of the old French custom of surveying the land along the river
front in deep narrow strips, rather than according to the
chessboard pattern taken over by Canada from the United States.
Red tape, indifference, procrastination, rather than any illwill,
delayed the redress of the grievances of the half-breeds. In
despair they called Louis Riel back from his exile in Montana.
With his arrival the agitation acquired a new and dangerous
force. Claiming to be the prophet of a new religion, he put
himself at the head of his people and, in the spring of 1885,
raised the flag of revolt. His military adviser, Gabriel Dumont,
an old buffalo hunter, was a natural-born general, and the
half-breeds were good shots and brave fighters. An expedition of
Canadian volunteers was rushed west, and the rebellion was put
down quickly, but not without some hard fighting and gallant
strokes and counterstrokes.
The racial passions roused by this conflict, however, did not
pass so quickly.
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