Second Riel Rebellion

North-West Rebellion Rébellion du Nord-Ouest (French)
Contemporary lithograph of the
Date March 26 – June 3, 1885 Location Present-day Saskatchewan, and Alberta Result Canadian victory; Collapse of the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan Completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway Capture and Trial of Louis Riel
Belligerents
Canada	Provisional Government of Saskatchewan (Métis) Cree-Assiniboine
Commanders and leaders
John A. Macdonald Leif Crozier Frederick Middleton John Wimburn Laurie William Dillon Otter Thomas Bland Strange Sam Steele Francis Dickens	Louis Riel   Gabriel Dumont Honoré Jackson Big Bear Fine Day Wandering Spirit Poundmaker White Cap
Strength
5,000 volunteers and militia 500 NWMP	280 Métis 250 Cree–Assiniboine
Casualties and losses
38 dead 141 wounded 11 civilians killed	33 Métis dead 48 Métis wounded 10–17 Cree dead 78–103 Cree wounded Total (Military): 43–50 dead 126–151 wounded

Canadian victory;

The North-West Rebellion (or the North-West Resistance, Saskatchewan Rebellion, Northwest Uprising, or Second Riel Rebellion) of 1885 was a brief and unsuccessful uprising by the Métis people under Louis Riel and an associated uprising by First Nations Cree and Assiniboine of the District of Saskatchewan against the government of Canada. The Métis believed that Canada had failed to protect their rights, their land and their survival as a distinct people. Riel had been invited to lead the movement but he turned it into a military action with a heavily religious tone, thereby alienating the Catholic clergy, the whites, most of the Indians and some of the Métis. He had a force of a couple hundred Métis and a smaller number of Aboriginal at Batoche in May 1885, confronting 900 government troops.

Despite some notable early victories at Duck Lake, Fish Creek and Cut Knife, the rebellion ended when the Métis were defeated at the . The remaining Aboriginal allies scattered. Riel was captured and put on trial. He was convicted of treason and despite many pleas across Canada for amnesty, he was hanged. Riel became the heroic martyr to Francophone Canada and ethnic tensions escalated into a major national division that was never resolved. Thanks to the key role that the Canadian Pacific Railway played in transporting troops, Conservative political support for it increased and Parliament authorized funds to complete the country's first transcontinental railway. Although only a few hundred people were directly affected in Saskatchewan, the long-term result was that the Prairie Provinces would be controlled by English speakers, not the French Canadians. A much more important long-term impact was the bitter alienation French speakers across Canada showed, and anger against the repression of their countrymen.

After the Red River Rebellion of 1869–1870, many of the Métis moved from Manitoba to the Fort Carlton region of the Northwest Territories, where they founded the Southbranch settlements of Fish Creek, , St. Laurent, St. Louis, and Duck Lake on or near the South Saskatchewan River. In 1882, surveyors began dividing the land of the newly formed District of Saskatchewan in the square concession system. The Métis lands were laid out in the seigneurial system of strips reaching back from a river which the Métis were familiar with in their French-Canadian culture. A year after the survey the 36 families of the parish of St. Louis found that their land and village site that included a church and a school (in Tsp 45 Rge 7 W2 of the Dominion Land Survey) had been sold by the Government of Canada to the Prince Albert Colonization Company. Not having clear title the Métis feared losing their land which, now that the buffalo herds were gone, was their primary source of sustenance.

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