Riel, Louis (1844–1885)

• Main Author: Bourgeault, Ron
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Wiley 2009
• Subjects: Northwest Territories
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1258; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2F9781405198073.wbierp1258; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1258

Louis Riel played a central role in the Red River (1869–70) and Northwest (1885) Rebellions and founded the province of Manitoba in 1870. He was born on October 22, 1844 at st. Boniface, Red River colony, and was executed for high treason on November 16, 1885 at Regina, Northwest Territories. A much maligned figure in Canadian history, Riel has been often categorized as a religious mystic and political fanatic. A political leader, visionary, and poet, Riel was a nineteenth‐century radical liberal democrat, though also influenced by Roman Catholicism and Marxism. Educated first by the missionary Oblates at st. Boniface, in 1858 Riel was sent to Quebec to study for the priesthood at the Collège de Montréal (1858–64).