Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont (18 page)

1837

Dumont is born in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba.

1840

Dumont is taken along on his first buffalo hunt.

1847

Dumont breaks his first horse.

1851

Between July 13 and 15, at the age of fourteen, Dumont is involved in his first military action at Grand Coteau. A Métis buffalo hunting party is attacked by a much larger force of Yankton Sioux, and Dumont helps in the defence, reportedly killing his first men.

1858

Dumont marries Madeleine Wilkie.

1863

Dumont is elected leader of the Saskatchewan Métis buffalo hunt. He is twenty-five.

1868

Batoche becomes a permanent Métis settlement.

1872

Dumont opens a ferry service called “Gabriel’s Crossing” near Batoche on the South Saskatchewan River, on the Carlton Trail trade route.

1873

Dumont builds his home there.

Dumont is elected leader of the Saint-Laurent Council, a self-governing institution that sets laws and regulations for the Métis living in Saskatchewan.

1874

Hudson’s Bay Company factor Lawrence Clarke claims that the Métis, under Dumont’s guidance, are in open revolt. The NWMP investigates and find the accusation false, but forces the Saint-Laurent Council to disband regardless.

1877–78

Dumont petitions the federal government for Métis representation on the North-West Territories Council. The Saint-Laurent Métis also petition the government for farming assistance, schools, and new land grants. Their petitions are ignored.

1880

Dumont leads a successful protest against paying a fee on wood cut on Crown land.

1884

On March 22, frustrated by years of silence from the federal government, Dumont and a group of concerned Métis, along with local white settlers, decide to invite Louis Riel to Batoche.

On May 19 Dumont and a small group head to Saint Peter’s Mission in Montana to find Riel and ask him to come to Saskatchewan.

On July 5 the party returns to Batoche, along with Riel and his family.

1885

On March 5 Dumont, Riel, and others hold their secret meeting to take up arms if necessary.

On March 19 Dumont becomes the adjutant-general of the Métis provisional government.

On March 26 Dumont and his forces defeat a much larger NWMP force at Duck Lake. Dumont is wounded in the head and loses a brother and a cousin in the battle.

On April 24 Dumont and his small force rout General Middleton’s much larger army at Fish Creek.

From May 9 to May 12 Dumont leads his men in the Battle of Batoche.

On May 16 Dumont escapes from Batoche and begins his ride to Montana.

On May 27 Dumont crosses into the U.S. and begins his exile.

On November 16 Louis Riel is hanged for treason in Regina.

On November 27 Wandering Spirit and ten of his warriors are hanged near Battleford, Saskatchewan, for their involvement in the Frog Lake Massacre.

1886

In May Dumont’s wife, Madeleine, dies.

In June Dumont joins Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West” show.

In July the Canadian government offers amnesty to Dumont and the rest of the Métis involved in the Saskatchewan uprising.

In September Dumont finishes his contract with Buffalo Bill.

1887

Dumont gives a number of well-attended lectures in the American northeast.

1888

Dumont returns to Canada, to Montreal, at the request of French Canadian nationalists. He gives speeches, but these go over poorly because of his criticism of the Catholic clergy and their lack of support during the North-West Rebellion.

1891 

A lone attacker attempts to murder Dumont while he sleeps in his tent in a hunting camp in the Dakotas.

1893

Dumont returns to Batoche for good.

1902

The federal government finally gives Dumont title to his homestead at Gabriel’s Crossing, thirty years after his initial request.

1906

On May 19 Dumont dies of heart failure at a friend’s home near Batoche.

1923

Batoche, site of the Métis’ last battle and Dumont’s grave marker, is declared a National Historic Site.

1980

The Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied Research opens in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan; it later opens further campuses in Regina and Saskatoon.