“Riel … vivra dans notre histoire”: The Response of French Canadians in the United States to Louis Riel’s Execution

Abstract

This essay examines the visits of the Métis leader Louis Riel to French-Canadian population centres in the northeastern United States in the mid-1870s. It explores the responses of French-Canadian immigrants to Riel’s execution following the 1885 rebellions he led in the North-West Territories against the authority of the nascent Canadian federal government. French Canadians in New England and New York called for clemency for Riel and organized protest meetings following his hanging. This essay thus sheds light on ethnic and religious transnationalism in the nineteenth century. It highlights what French-Canadian descendants in the US Northeast had to say about Riel and about the perceived place of francophone minorities in Canada and the United States. Their responses to Riel’s execution served to challenge social and political boundaries as well as the limits of citizenship in nineteenth-century North America.