The North-West Rebellion, was an armed rebellion of Métis under Louis Riel and an associated uprising of Cree and Assiniboine mostly in the District of Saskatchewan, North-West Territories, against the Canadian government. Many Métis felt that Canada was not protecting their rights, their land, and their survival as a distinct people. A provisional government led by Louis was declared, and rebel territory carved out, starting on March 18. As government forces responded, fighting broke out, with the last shooting over by the end of June. Important events included the Frog Lake incident, the capture of Batoche in May 1885 and Big Bear's surrender in early July. About 91 people were killed in the fighting that occurred that spring before the conflict ended. Although the Metis were militarily defeated, the Canada government subsequently did modulate some of its policies. Louis Riel was hanged but has since been pardoned for his actions.
Major-general Sir Samuel Benfield Steele was a Canadian soldier and policeman. He was an officer of the North-West Mounted Police, head of the Yukon detachment during the Klondike Gold Rush, and commanding officer of Strathcona's Horse during the Boer War.
The Battle of Cut Knife, fought on May 2, 1885, occurred when a flying column of North-West Mounted Police, Canadian militia, and Canadian regulars attacked a Cree and Assiniboine teepee settlement near Battleford in the North-West Territories' District of Saskatchewan. at the time of the 1885 North-West Rebellion. First Nations fighters forced the Canadian forces to retreat, with losses on both sides.
Poundmaker, also known as Pîhtokahanapiwiyin, was a Plains Cree chief known as a peacemaker and defender of his people, the Poundmaker Cree Nation. His name denotes his special craft at leading buffalo into buffalo pounds (enclosures) for harvest.
The Battle of Duck Lake was an infantry skirmish 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) outside Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, between North-West Mounted Police forces of the Government of Canada, and the Métis militia of Louis Riel's newly established Provisional Government of Saskatchewan. The skirmish lasted approximately 30 minutes, after which Superintendent Leif Newry Fitzroy Crozier of the NWMP, his forces having endured fierce fire with twelve killed and eleven wounded, called for a general retreat. The battle is considered the initial engagement of the North-West Rebellion. Although Louis Riel proved to be victorious at Duck Lake, the general agreement among historians is that the battle was strategically a disappointment to his cause.
The Battle of Fish Creek, fought April 24, 1885 at Fish Creek, Saskatchewan, was a major Métis victory over the Canadian forces attempting to quell Louis Riel's North-West Rebellion. Although the reversal was not decisive enough to alter the ultimate outcome of the conflict, it was convincing enough to persuade Major General Frederick Middleton to temporarily halt his advance on Batoche, where the Métis would later make their final stand.
The Battle of Batoche was the decisive battle of the North-West Rebellion, which pitted the Canadian authorities against a force of First Nations and Métis people. Fought from May 9 to 12, 1885, at the ad hoc Provisional Government of Saskatchewan capital of Batoche, the greater numbers and superior firepower of General Frederick Middleton's force eventually overwhelmed the Métis fighters.
Sir Frederick Dobson Middleton was a British general noted for his service throughout the Empire and particularly in the North-West Rebellion in Canada.
The Battle of Fort Pitt was part of a Cree uprising coinciding with the Métis North-West Rebellion in 1885. Cree fighters began a series of attacks on Canadian settlements on April 2. On April 15, they captured Fort Pitt from a detachment of North-West Mounted Police.
The Battle of Loon Lake, also known as the Battle of Steele Narrows, concluded the North-West Rebellion on June 3, 1885, and was the last battle fought on Canadian soil. It was fought in what was then the District of Saskatchewan of the North-West Territories, at what is now known as Steele Narrows at Makwa Lake, in Saskatchewan's Steele Narrows Provincial Park. Steele Narrows is a channel that separates Sanderson Bay from Makwa Lake.
The Frog Lake Massacre was part of the Cree uprising during the North-West Rebellion in western Canada. Led by Wandering Spirit, Cree men attacked and killed nine officials, clergy and settlers in the small settlement of Frog Lake, at the time in the District of Saskatchewan in the North-West Territories on April 2, 1885.
Fort Pitt Provincial Park is a provincial park in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It includes the site of Fort Pitt, a trading post built in 1829 by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) on the North Saskatchewan River in Rupert's Land. It was built at the direction of Chief Factor John Rowand, previously of Fort Edmonton, to trade goods for bison hides, meat and pemmican. Pemmican, dried buffalo meat, was required as provisions for HBC's northern trading posts.
The Provisional Government of Saskatchewan was an independent state declared during the North-West Rebellion of 1885 in the District of Saskatchewan of the North-West Territories. The name was given by Louis Riel. Although Riel initially hoped to rally the Countryborn, Cree, and European settlers of the Saskatchewan Valley to his banner, this did not occur. The government, with the exception of Honoré Jaxon and Chief White Cap, had an entirely French-speaking and Métis leadership. Gabriel Dumont was proclaimed adjutant general in which capacity he became supreme military commander, although Riel could, and did, override his tactical decisions. The Provisional Government was declared by Riel on March 19, 1885. It ceased to exist following the defeat of the Métis militarily during the Battle of Batoche, which concluded on May 20, 1885. During its existence the government only exercised authority over the Southbranch Settlements along the South Saskatchewan River. Other major centres in the area such as Prince Albert, Saskatoon, and most First Nations reserves remained outside of its control.
Francis Jeffrey Dickens was the third son and fifth child of Victorian English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine Dickens née Hogarth.
The Looting of Battleford began at the end of March, 1885, during the North-West Rebellion, in the town of Battleford, Saskatchewan, then a part of the Northwest Territories.
The North West Canada Medal is a British campaign medal issued to the soldiers, volunteers, and North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) personnel who participated in putting down the North-West Rebellion in 1885.
The Iron Confederacy or Iron Confederation was a political and military alliance of Plains Indians of what is now Western Canada and the northern United States. This confederacy included various individual bands that formed political, hunting and military alliances in defense against common enemies. The ethnic groups that made up the Confederacy were the branches of the Cree that moved onto the Great Plains around 1740, the Saulteaux, the Nakoda or Stoney people also called Pwat or Assiniboine, and the Métis and Haudenosaunee. The Confederacy rose to predominance on the northern Plains during the height of the North American fur trade when they operated as middlemen controlling the flow of European goods, particularly guns and ammunition, to other Indigenous nations, and the flow of furs to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and North West Company (NWC) trading posts. Its peoples later also played a major part in the bison (buffalo) hunt, and the pemmican trade. The decline of the fur trade and the collapse of the bison herds sapped the power of the Confederacy after the 1860s, and it could no longer act as a barrier to U.S. and Canadian expansion.
The Bell of Frog Lake is a church bell that once hung on a timber frame next to the church dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel in the settlement of Frog Lake. The settlement was the site of the Frog Lake Massacre, part of the Cree uprising of the North-West Rebellion in western Canada. Led by Wandering Spirit, young Cree warriors attacked the village of Frog Lake in the District of Saskatchewan of the North-West Territories on 2 April 1885, where they killed nine residents.
The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) played a significant role during the North-West Rebellion in Canada in 1885. The NWMP suffered early reverses and, although they supported the relief force sent to the region under the command of Major-General Frederick Middleton, their performance was heavily criticized. Commissioner Acheson Irvine resigned from his command of the police as a result.
The siege of Battleford was a siege during the North-West Rebellion that lasted from 28 March to 26 May, 1885.
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