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A little-known 19th century British expedition to the wilderness of Canada ended an early challenge
to the Canadian Confederation without firing a single shot. In fact the entire conflict only
had a single casualty and yet it had significant impacts on Canadian governance. It highlighted
differences that still affect Canadian politics today. It holds a unique place in the annals
of military history and it helped to advance the career of one of the Victorian era's most
capable officers. The 1870 Woolsey expedition is history that deserves to be remembered.
There are a few theories regarding the name Canada, but most accepted is that it was a native
Saint Lawrence Iroquois word meaning village or settlement. Explorer Jacques Cartier who claimed
the country we now call Canada for France in the 16th century, called the place Uplay De Kanada,
meaning the land of villages. While the term Canadian originally referred to the indigenous
people, over time was used to refer to French settlers in the New World in their colony
called New France, and eventually to settlers in the British colony of Upper Canada. In 1670
British monarch Charles the second granted a Royal Charter to the governor and company of adventurers
of England, trading into Hudson's Bay better known as a Hudson's Bay Company, for the sole
trade and commerce in the Hudson's Bay watershed. This massive tract included a third of modern-day
Canada, nearly four million square kilometers, five times the size of France. As the Charter
was given to the company under the governorship of Charles the second's cousin Prince Rupert of
the Rhine, the vast new land was called Rupert's Land. The original economic value of Rupert's
Land was in the fur trade, mostly beaver pelts, which were popular in Europe. Of course the land
that Charles the Second purported to give away was not uninhabited, but in fact included large
populations of indigenous peoples. The Hudson's Bay Company traded with these people for furs,
essentially transforming their economy from hunting and trapping for subsistence,
to a trade economy where furs were traded for European goods including guns and alcohol.
It was in the course of this trade that Europeans, both with the Hudson Bay Company and a new France,
formed unions with the indigenous populations and that resulted in the unique people and
culture called the Metis. These mixed-race descendants of colonial Europeans and Native
peoples fill the niche in the air of the fur trading, often acting as translators,
over time a distinct Metis’s culture formed. In 1811 the Hudson Bay Company granted the permission
for Thomas Douglas, the 5th Earl of Selkirk, to create an agricultural colony in a part
of Rupert's land called the Red River region, under the agreement that the settlement would
not involve itself in the fur trade. Selkirks interest was in creating a place for displaced
Scottish farmers, the area some 600,000 square kilometers, or five times the size of Scotland,
included fertile plains and buffalo grounds, thus the Red River Colony became a place where
indigenous peoples and Europeans mixed and had a large Metis population. In addition the colonists
saw an influx of Scottish and English Protestants as well as emigration from the United States.
In fact all of Canada was growing between 1815 and 1850 over 800,000 people emigrated from
Europe and what was called the great migration of Canada. And as it grew,
Canada was developing a national character and unifying. Lower Canada, formerly New France,
had gone to the British in 1763 following the Seven Years War. In 1840 they merged with the
old British colony of Upper Canada to form a single colony of Canada,
and then in 1867 the colony of Canada joined Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to unite into one
Dominion of Canada and the pressure was growing to bring Rupert's land into that Confederation.
The Hudson Bay Company realized that they didn't have the resources to manage a huge
territory with a growing population rather than just a wilderness that was a place to
acquire furs. Moreover the United States states of Wisconsin and Michigan clearly had designs on
expanding into the Red River Territory and one of the reasons that Canada was unifying was to
resist U.S. expansion. So in 1869 the Hudson Bay Company made an agreement with the Dominion of
Canada to sell both Prince Rupert's Land and the Northwest Territories for 600,000 pounds
while still retaining most of their trading posts in some 5% of the land which left the
Hudson Bay Company still the largest private landholder in the Dominion. John MacDonald,
the first Prime Minister of Canada, appointed his Minister of Public Works, a politician named
William MacDougall, Lieutenant Governor of the vast new territories of the Dominion of Canada,
but that is when trouble started. Louie Riel was Metis born in Red River settlement in 1844,
he studied for both the seminary and law but had completed neither education,
still he would excel at languages, science and philosophy. He was a natural leader for the
cause of the Metis who were concerned that their land rights and culture would not be respected
in the Canadian Dominion. The Metis didn't trust MacDougall, who was not bilingual, despite being
made Lieutenant Governor of the part of the new country that had the largest number of citizens
of French descent. When MacDougall brought a survey party to survey the Red River settlement
it offered a unique risk, since the Metis lands had been surveyed under a French system coming
to survey under an English system implied that MacDougall was going to take away Maties land.
When MacDougall and the survey team arrived to enter the Red River Colony Riel and a group of
armed Metis prevented him entering, demanding the new Canadian government first guarantee
Metis rights. The Metis seized Fort Garry, the ol Hudson Bay headquarters for the region, and
created their own provisional government. At this point events could hardly be called a rebellion,
no shots had been fired, both sides were ready to negotiate, but trouble was brewing within
the Red River settlement itself. A small party formed called the Canadian Party,
made of mostly Protestant agitators, who supported annexation with Canada. Supporters of the Canadian
Party tried to arrest Riel but 47 members of the Canadian Party were instead caught
and imprisoned. One agitator, a particularly cantankerous Irish Protestant named Thomas Scott,
was so disruptive and troublesome to his guards that he was taken to trial and convicted to define
the authority of the provisional government. Despite knowing that it would inflame events
Reil had Scott executed in March of 1870, making him the first casualty of the Red River Rebellion.
It was a miscalculation on Reils part, Scott's execution allowed members of the Canadian Party
to whip up anti Metis sentiment in the Canadian capital. Prime Minister MacDonald still wanted to
negotiate with the Metis but public sentiment was shifting and further, the Canadian Party asserted
that Reil was really in cahoots with American Expansionists who wanted to leverage the unrest
in order to annex the Red River settlement to the United States. It was decided that a military
expedition was needed in order to assert Canadian central authority over the Red River settlement.
Garnet Joseph Wolsley was born in Dublin Ireland into a military family in 1833, his father an
Army Major, died when Garnet was young and the family was not wealthy. Unable to afford
to buy a Commission, he was given a commission as an ensign in the 12th foot, at the age of 18,
in recognition of his father's service. He'd seen a lot of combat serving in the second Burmese War,
the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the Second Opium War and had proven himself to be a competent
officer. In 1861 he was sent to Canada and had taken a leave of absence to be an observer in the
U.S. Civil War where he showed distinct sympathies for the Confederate cause. He returned to Canada
in 1865 where he was made Colonel and Assistant Quartermaster General. In 1870 when it was decided
that a military expedition was necessary to assert Canadian Authority in the Red River Colony,
he was given command. It was his first independent command of his career. Understand this was no mean
feat, the most common way to get to the Red River Colony was through the United States,
but the U.S. refused to allow an armed force to traverse their territory. Through Canada
there was no road and dense forest and wetland blocked the way. The alternative
was a network of rivers and lakes that were nearly impassable and rarely crossed by non
aboriginals. There was no place to get supply along the route. Moving a thousand men and four
cannons through hundreds of miles of wilderness was a stunning logistical feat. The expedition
is considered by military historians to be among the most arduous in history. Although
the government insisted the expedition was intended to be peaceful Riel rightly
feared arrest. When Woolsey and his troops finally arrived they found Fort Garry empty,
Reil had fled to the United States and so the Red River rebellion had ended without a shot.
The province of Manitoba, which includes the former Red River Colony, was created in the 1870
Manitoba act. Not only did it guarantee Metis land rights it also guaranteed parliamentary
representation, the right to denominational schools, and the official use of both the French
and English language. While the act was imperfect and has led to some controversy, in practice it
addressed all Riels main points, and to that extent the Red River Rebellion can be said to
have been a success. To many, Louis Riel was seen as the father of the province of Manitoba which is
today Canada's fifth most populous province, and the former Fort Garry is now the city of Winnipeg,
with a metropolitan population of over 800,000. But tensions and land issues continued as the
government in Ottawa struggled with competing interests across the vast territory. In 1885
Riel became involved in the more violent Northwest rebellion, Riel was captured, tried for treason,
and hung. To this day many insist that the death sentence was really punishment for the
execution of Thomas Scott in 1870. You can still see the scars of the rebellion today,
where both Louis Riel and Thomas Scott are perceived either as innocent victims who are
wrongfully executed or as dirty traitors who deserve to die, depending upon your point of
view. The Woolsey expedition led to an influx of white Europeans into the Red River area and that
further inflamed ethnic tensions, and despite the promises of the Manitoba Act, many of the
Metis actually relocated to the Saskatchewan area, and the land guarantees end up being
largely stolen by land speculators who readily exploited the Metis. The Woolsey expedition did
though put an end to any designs that the United States might have had the expanding into the Red
River Territory but that was never very likely as even the Red River Rebels opposed the Americans.
What the 1870 Wolseley expedition also did was greatly produce the reputation of Garnet Wolseley,
who would become one of the most celebrated and successful officers of the British Victorian army.
He was knighted for managing the extraordinary logistical challenge and his reputation for
organization was so impressive that the phrase, “All sir Garnet” came to mean that everything
was in order. That reputation would lead to his being promoted to Major General and appointed to
command the 1874 a shanty expedition on the Gold Coast of Africa, and drove a meteoric rise that
would make him a household name in Britain, officially being promoted to Field Marshal
and make Commander-in-Chief of the forces, the highest rank in the British Army. Through much
of the 19th century the British press referred to Sir Garnet Wolseley as our only general
and his first independent command which never fired a single shot deserves to be remembered.
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