ipl-logo

Who Is Louis Riel A Hero

657 Words3 Pages

Louis Riel was a Canadian politician, leader of the Métis nation, and a founder of the province of Manitoba. Due to his willingness to stand up for his rights and what he believed in, Riel was pinned as a hero for the Métis. On the other hand, Riel’s many accounts of treason lead many to believe he was a traitor to the Canadian Government. Taking into account how wrongly the Métis were treated by European immigrants, the acts of rebellion Louis Riel performed against the Canadian Government were justified. Louis Riel is a Canadian hero because he made a change for his people, fought for what he believed in, and led Manitoba into confederation.

Louis Riel was a proud Métis, a person of both First Nation and French ethnicity. The Métis were treated poorly by the Europeans in their own land and Riel wanted to change that. In the 1800’s, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), bought out Rupert’s Land and renamed it the Northwest Territories. The Canadian Government gave this land to incoming European immigrants. This act displaced the First Nations and Métis people who had originally inhabited that land. In 1869, Riel established a committee as a temporary form of government for the Red

Logan 2
River …show more content…

Riel wanted equality with the Europeans. In the 1870’s, when the living conditions of the Métis were extremely poor, Riel came out of his hiatus in the United States to fight for his people. The Métis needed a leader to reinstate their Provisional Government and in 1884, Louis Riel took charge and returned to Canada to negotiate the Métis’ rights in Ottawa with the government. Even when the Métis were defeated by the Canadian Government, Louis Riel was still dedicated to his cause. Riel turned himself in and died for his beliefs. Through the selflessness of his death, Riel was a hero and is now forever a Canadian symbol of a martyr who fought for his

Open Document