| Summary: | Gabriel Dumont taken in Olga by his brother- in-law, Gregoire Monette, where he was living. considered their rights. Anyway, a number of mixed bloods in this section strongly endorsed Riel's stand and many of them went over to help him. In 1885 disquietude among the mixed bloods and Indians of Saskatchewan and Alberta, due to objections to governmental restrictions, suddenly flared into open warfare. The leader, Riel, had headed a previous uprising in 1869-70. The mixed bloods and their Indian allies had lived a more or less untrammeled existence before the Canadian government sought to "civilize" them and they resented the government's aggressive interest. Riel, himself a Manitoba mixed blood, was hailed as a sort of messiah by his followers but the uprising was short-lived. The early account says: "Riel was captured and placed on trial for his life. He made a strong plea but refused to plead insanity and, instead sought to convince the court of the justice of his stand. He was sentenced to death and was executed at Regina a short time later. His chief aide this time, Gabriel Dumont, escaped. While the world in general has branded Riel as a rebel against orderly society, lacking heroic qualities and undeserving of credit for his views, there are some who cherish his memory. At St. Boniface, a city that ranks as a suburb of Winnipeg and where the residents are mostly of French blood, there are mixed bloods who believe Riel was a martyr. While the Indians were numerous in Manitoba and the areas to the west at the time of the Riel rebellions, they did not figure in them extensively as a group. In the first rebellion the mixed bloods or Metis had objected strenuously to the restrictions imposed by the Canadian government which had acquired all of the western part of Canada from the Hudson's Bay company. The Metis had not fared especially well under the Hudson's Bay company reign, but apparently found it preferable to the more rigid regulations of the government. So Riel, a brooding, ambitious agitator, rallied his fellow Metis in a move against the new order. The conflict centered about the Fort Garry settlement, where Winnipeg is now located. At first the rebels were successful and for a time were in control at Winnipeg. But arrival of troops abruptly ended his short period of triumph. Riel and many of his followers fled to the state and the leader was teaching school in Canada when summoned to lead the second revolt. He is sometimes rated as a man with a Napoleonic complex, a sort of mystic, but no one has arisen so far to champion the cause of his people in a historical study, novel or play. Dumont returned to the Olga community after the second revolt was suppressed." Mr. Dumont was born in 1838 at Assiniboia, what is now southern Manitoba. THOMAS AND MARY DUNNIGAN Thomas Dunnigan married Mary Riley at St. Thomas de Alfred in Ontario, Canada. They lived there until 1893. Their entire family was born in St. Thomas de Alfred. They moved to the United States in 1893, and homesteaded in the Olga area, one-half mile east of the Leo Chaput farm. Thomas and Mary Dunnigan Family: George, Charlie, James, Sissie; Minnie, Thomas, Willie, Sarah, Mary. 132 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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