When lawyer Joseph Dubuc stepped outside the courthouse on Main Street near Upper Fort Garry, he didn’t expect to be a victim of violence arising from animosity that had contributed to a riot during the previous year’s federal election. Yet, emboldened by alcohol and waiting outside the courthouse was the man who would eventually become Winnipeg’s first police chief. Seeking vengeance for perceived injustices, John Ingram beat Dubuc so severely that the young lawyer, originally from Québec, was left unconscious in the street and his face was battered to such an extent that he lost sight in one eye.

Dubuc’s sin had been the gall to bring before the court a list containing names of the men he believed responsible for the election riot at a St. Boniface polling booth in September 1872.

Le Métis on September 18, 1872, reported in an “extra” the presence of a large mob allegedly organized by the Liberal, the voice of Dr. John Christian Schultz, in support of Midrew E. Wilson, a candidate running in St. Boniface riding against Donald Smith, the chief commissioner of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Wilson was a local merchant and a stockholder in the Liberal.

The Winnipeg mob had crossed the Red River into St. Boniface to insist a number of English-speakers have their name included on the voters’ list. The French-language newspaper said the men, described as the “loyal” supporters of Wilson, demanded the poll book, and when it wasn’t presented started a riot at the polling station at the home of Roger Goulet. Armed with  wooden wheel spokes, the rioters attacked the unarmed Métis, ransacked the polling station, found the poll book and then burned it.

Among the men from Winnipeg was James Farquharson, the father-in-law of Schultz. Farquharson pulled out a pistol and fired off a number of rounds, but fortunately he was quite inaccurate with a gun and no one was killed, although several were wounded.

LeMétis, reporting on the Bataille a St. Borniface, said the mob was only interested in securing rights for themselves and no one else, hoping to subvert the will of the majority, especially Métis voters in St. Boniface.

Some of the Ontarians were involved in the riot because they resented Manitoba laws adopted for the federal election.

The Manitoba Free Press on December 7, 1872, said the riot, while not justified, was the natural outcome of the “infamous law which excludes newcomers from the franchise from to two to three years …“

The name of a newcomer could not be entered onto the voter s list until the settler had been in Manitoba for at least one year. A further delay to including a name was the law which said the voters’ list was only compiled every second year on or before the first day of April. The newspaper said, since immigration started in May, the law effectively prevented a new comer from voting for a minimum of two years. It proposed an annual compilation of the voters’ list.

Also contributing to the riot was the absence of a secret ballot, which was not introduced until 1874 for federal elections. Until its introduction, violence and using liquor to bribe voters frequently occurred at polling stations as rival factions attempted to influence the outcome. Since voters indicated their preferred candidate by a show of hands, it was relatively easy for anyone present to know who voted for whom.

Not having been satisfied to only abrupt, the vote in St. Boniface, the rioters recrossed the river, “crazed with excitement and liquor,” intent upon more violent mischief at the Winnipeg polling station, according to an “extra” edition published by the Manitoban on September 21.

With armed police prepared to quell the disturbance on Main Street, Francis Cornish, who would be elected the first mayor of Winnipeg, incited the mob to greater fury by verbally attacking Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor Adams Archibald, Smith and Manitoba Sheriff Edward Armstrong, and referred to Frasse de Plainval (a.k.a. Louis Nathal), the chief of the Manitoba Constabulary (provincial police), as a “toad-eating Communist.”

Schultz was quite ecstatic about the turn of events, writing to his friend John Gunn in a September 20 letter: In a twinkling of an eye, the Carbines were wrested from the police and they were rapped over the head with them. The police were then reinforced and proceeded to attack the crowd, but they were at once disarmed of their batons and they themselves thrust in the police station downstairs and locked up. In this scrimmage, Plainval got badly beaten about the head and ran like a lamplighter. Word was sent then to the (Lieutenant) Governor (Archibald) and … he ordered the troops down to quell the mob and preserve the peace til the result of the poll was declared.”

When a guard was posted around the polling station, the mob sought other victims of their, turning their attention to newspaper offices opposed to Schultz. They wrecked the offices of Le Métis, the Manitoban and the Gazette, which left the Liberal as the only newspaper in operation.

Schultz wrote to John Gunn: “The police did not dare to interfere and the Manitoban office was broken into, the Press knocked down and the type scattered (a picture of the Manitoban office following the election riot shows shattered printing presses, as well as newsprint and lead type strewn about) and the Métis office served the same way.”

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