The Military Reign of Terror
Sunday, 8th November 2009
Schultz from running through the village crying, ‘Death to the Pope! Death to Catholics! Death to the Half Breeds! Death to the priests! and from burning Donald Smith in effigy.”
Using the nom de plume Veritas, a Manitoba man wrote the St. Paul Press in Minnesota on November 6, 1870, that the English soldiers had come to the settlement on a mission of peace, but engaged in a war.
Immediately upon arriving in the Red River settlement in early September 1870, a group of militiamen were in the Red Saloon in Winnipeg when Elzéar Goulet, a member of the six-man court marshal jury organized in the manner of the annual buffalo hunt that found Scott guilty, was pointed out by Farquharson, who incited militiamen to chase him. Sanders and Madigan of the Ontario Battalion, Robert Mulligan and. a man named Campbell, a Red River Expedition voyageur, set out in pursuit of Goulet. Captain MacDonald called the men back, an order that they only temporarily obeyed. They resumed their chase of Scott to the banks of the Red River, forcing him into the water and then pelted the fleeing man swimming to the other side of the river with stones. Goulet was struck by the stones and drowned.
Archibald later said the persons against whom changes be laid included Farquharson, who is according to one witness called out “to kill him,” and Sauders, Madigan and Campbell, who pursued the man to the river.
But no one was saulted. Those participating in the rapes were identified to Colonel Jarvis, whose reply was that it was none of his business. The Manitoba police took statements from the victims, but no charges were laid.
On September 16, 1870, Edmund Turner, one of Scott’s guards was chased and threatened and sought protection in Archibald’s residence.
The Telegraph reported on October 4 that vigilante squads were formed to a political meeting at Popular Point, after being thrown from his wagon by unknown assailants. Following the same meeting, James Ross and other Métis had to run a gauntlet of clubs, stones and snowballs in order to escape their attackers.
François Guilemette, another Métis member of the court marshall jury as well as a member of the firing squad charged with executing Scott, was allegedly shot and killed by militiamen while on a trail near Pembina. It was Guillemette who with a pistol delivered the coup de grace to Scott. The Orangeman was reputed to be still alive after the firing squad finished firing.
Andre Nault, on whose land the Red River Resistance began when Riel stepped on a surveyor’s chain and said “you go no further,” was beaten nearly to death.
One Winnipeg resident said the community “during the fall and early winter of 1870 … could always rely upon several exciting fights between the soldiers and the half-breeds any after noon after three o’clock by which time the soldiers not on duty were at liberty to come down town.”
Le Canadien, a Quebec-based newspaper, reported on April 13, 1871, that English-Canadians were still “making a fuss about Scott…” but, “they didn’t get so excited when the Ontario volunteers (militiamen) massacred French Métis under the eyes of their officers.”
The reality was that the murders and many beatings went unpunished, and as a result the St. Paul Pioneer announced on October 6, 1870, a “Reign of Terror” existed in Manitoba.
Schultz from running through the village crying, ‘Death to the Pope! Death to Catholics! Death to the Half Breeds! Death to the priests! and from burning Donald Smith in effigy.”
Using the nom de plume Veritas, a Manitoba man wrote the St. Paul Press in Minnesota on November 6, 1870, that the English soldiers had come to the settlement on a mission of peace, but engaged in a war.
Immediately upon arriving in the Red River settlement in early September 1870, a group of militiamen were in the Red Saloon in Winnipeg when Elzéar Goulet, a member of the six-man court marshal jury organized in the manner of the annual buffalo hunt that found Scott guilty, was pointed out by Farquharson, who incited militiamen to chase him. Sanders and Madigan of the Ontario Battalion, Robert Mulligan and. a man named Campbell, a Red River Expedition voyageur, set out in pursuit of Goulet. Captain MacDonald called the men back, an order that they only temporarily obeyed. They resumed their chase of Scott to the banks of the Red River, forcing him into the water and then pelted the fleeing man swimming to the other side of the river with stones. Goulet was struck by the stones and drowned.
Archibald later said the persons against whom changes be laid included Farquharson, who is according to one witness called out “to kill him,” and Sauders, Madigan and Campbell, who pursued the man to the river.
But no one was saulted. Those participating in the rapes were identified to Colonel Jarvis, whose reply was that it was none of his business. The Manitoba police took statements from the victims, but no charges were laid.
On September 16, 1870, Edmund Turner, one of Scott’s guards was chased and threatened and sought protection in Archibald’s residence.
The Telegraph reported on October 4 that vigilante squads were formed to a political meeting at Popular Point, after being thrown from his wagon by unknown assailants. Following the same meeting, James Ross and other Métis had to run a gauntlet of clubs, stones and snowballs in order to escape their attackers.
François Guilemette, another Métis member of the court marshall jury as well as a member of the firing squad charged with executing Scott, was allegedly shot and killed by militiamen while on a trail near Pembina. It was Guillemette who with a pistol delivered the coup de grace to Scott. The Orangeman was reputed to be still alive after the firing squad finished firing.
Andre Nault, on whose land the Red River Resistance began when Riel stepped on a surveyor’s chain and said “you go no further,” was beaten nearly to death.
One Winnipeg resident said the community “during the fall and early winter of 1870 … could always rely upon several exciting fights between the soldiers and the half-breeds any after noon after three o’clock by which time the soldiers not on duty were at liberty to come down town.”
Le Canadien, a Quebec-based newspaper, reported on April 13, 1871, that English-Canadians were still “making a fuss about Scott…” but, “they didn’t get so excited when the Ontario volunteers (militiamen) massacred French Métis under the eyes of their officers.”
The reality was that the murders and many beatings went unpunished, and as a result the St. Paul Pioneer announced on October 6, 1870, a “Reign of Terror” existed in Manitoba.
www.famouspeopleofmanitoba.ca
Tags: Archibald, Assailants, Buffalo Hunt, Captain, Donald Smith, Early September, Effigy, English Soldiers, Farquharson, James Ross, Madigan, Military, Nom De Plume, Political, Popular Point, Rapes, Red River, Red River Settlement, Reign Of Terror, River Expedition, Robert Mulligan, Sauders, Schultz, Soldiers, Swimming To The Other Side, Telegraph
