A small but steady stream of white settlers now began to trickle in, coming from Ontario through the States. The French Métis soon found themselves in a minority. The wilder spirits sold their land and flitted to the banks of the Saskatchewan, four or five hundred miles away to the north-west; but even there the stream of white immigration followed, and the land surveyors again began to map out the country with ruthless regularity. The Métis, living along the river bank, from which their farms ran back in narrow strips, were afraid they might lose their land, especially as the issue of their patents had been delayed and petitions to the Government seemed to fall on deaf ears.
In the fall of 1884, it was plain that a storm was brewing. Louis Riel, after many years of exile, returned from the United States on his kinsmen’s invitation, and put himself at the head of their agitation for the redress of grievances. Chiefly, and naturally, they wanted the same title to their land as had been given to the Métis back on the Red River. Such grievances as actually existed might have been remedied, and the threatening storm prevented, if the Federal Government had given a little attention to the matter. Agitation was allowed to flame up in revolt, and Louis Riel had proclaimed himself “President of the Saskatchewan” before the government machine began to stir.
The Métis began, in the spring of 1885, by seizing the persons and property of their white neighbors at Batoche and Duck Lake. Mounted Police went to the rescue, accompanied by some volunteers from the neighboring town of Prince Albert, but were driven back with a loss of twelve killed, nine being left dead on the snow. The rebels had beaten the white men!
Imagine what that meant, in a country where the little white population of peaceful farmers lay thinly scattered among strong tribes of warlike Indians. The Métis were a mere handful compared to the pure-blooded red-skins; these numbered, even without the tribes of the distant north, some 25,000, including braves who had taken many a scalp in tribal wars, and in fights with white troops south of the frontier. If these tribes had gone on the war-path, the scattered white population of the territories might have been wiped out of existence, and the re-conquest of the country might have involved a long and hard campaign.