Gabriel Dumont: War Leader of the Métis

A.A. den Otter is a professor of history at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland in St. John’s. He is the author of The Philosophy of
Railways.

One of the best-known events in Canadian history—the Northwest
Rebellion of 1885—is often called the Riel Rebellion after the most
visible of its leaders. Often lost in the shadows is Gabriel Dumont, who
in some ways may have played a more important role than Riel in that
event.

Born in the Red River area in 1837, Gabriel Dumont became a skilled
horseman and hunter. Able to converse in six of the languages spoken on
the plains, he was a natural leader, first on the massive annual buffalo
hunts and later of a group of Metis living in the Carlton area. In the
early 1870s, Dumont was elected president of a short-lived
Metis-dominated council that passed a number of regulations governing
life in the Saskatchewan River region. Later in the decade, he chaired a
number of meetings that petitioned the federal government for political,
land, and schooling rights. He also led a delegation to Montana to ask
Riel’s assistance in obtaining these rights from a recalcitrant
government.

If Riel and the Metis had followed Dumont’s thinking, the Northwest
Rebellion would likely have been more violent and perhaps more
successful in obtaining concessions from the government. In any case,
Dumont’s military genius permitted the small band of Metis to hold out
longer than anyone had assumed. In the end, however, Canada’s military
power proved too much and the rebellion ended. Dumont fled to the United
States and for a few years performed with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild
West Show. In 1890, he returned to his homestead near Batoche, where he
died in 1906.

Gabriel Dumont is an entertaining and sympathetic biography of the
Metis leader. Written in a popular style with occasional departures into
imaginary dialogue and incidents, the book should appeal to a large
audience.