THE SASKATCHEWAN REBELLION
SynopsisIn the wake of the Red River Rebellion, Metis Leader Louis Riel is hunted as a traitor, refused his seat in Parliament, incarcerated for psychiatric care, and exiled. Meanwhile Prime Minister John A. Macdonald is toppled for taking campaign funds from a would-be Rail Baron, and restored to power with funds from another would-be Rail Baron, Donald Smith, Manitoba MP and head of the Hudson's Bay Company.
As the play begins, Prime Minister Macdonald's vision of turning Western Canada into a colony of Ontario is right on track -- a Canadian Pacific Railway track. Canada's corporate empire-builders are determined to capture rich Western resources, even at the cost of destroying priceless indigenous cultures.
Under the leadership of Louis Riel, Gabriel Dumont and Chief Big Bear, the Native and Metis people of Saskatchewan mount a fight against broken treaties and new incursions. The conflict is provoked and escalated by a government willing to win by any means from violent military action to starvation. With tragic irony the Rebellion provides the key political rationale for completing the greatest technological enterprise of the 19th century, the Railroad.
The railway and its military cargo are violently opposed by the Metis and Plains Cree in sub-plots including Wandering Spirit's fateful meeting with Indian Agent Thomas Quinn at Frog Lake; the legendary battles at Fish Creek, Duck Lake and Batoche against General Middleton and the Canadian Militia; and the relentless pursuit of Big Bear by Sam Steele and the NorthWest Mounted Police.
After the fall of Batoche Louis Riel surrenders, and John A. Macdonald’s decision to execute him condemns the Conservative Party to decades in the political wilderness.
Seven actors play 27 characters including Alexandre Lepine, Edward Blake, Isadore and Marie Dumont, Colonel Arthur Williams and Colonel Leif Crozier.
The play runs 75 minutes without an intermission.
Character Bios
John A. Macdonald is the "great am I" of Canadian politics, a generous, charming drunk who likes to play hardball. This Tory Leader is Canada's first Prime Minister, then disgraced Opposition Leader, and against the odds, Canada's third PM. In this play, he has already engineered the Confederation of Canada's eastern colonies, and is now railroading the west to become '"one big Ontario". A political genius, Macdonald is the ultimate power junkie of the Victorian Age.
Donald Smith controls the Hudson Bay Company, and the Bank of Montreal is his personal piggybank. When John A is defeated in disgrace over campaign donations by a would-be Railroad Baron, Smith brings Macdonald back to political life and wins a Baronetcy for himself. In the famous photo of the completion of the CPR, 'The Last Spike', Smith is the man with the Hammer.
Louis Riel is the founder of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Raised in Manitoba, educated in the law at Montreal, he becomes the natural leader of the Red River Rebellion. Hunted for bounty he is elected 3 times as an MP from Manitoba and never allowed to take his seat. He spends years in mental asylums and in exile before returning to lead the Saskatchewan Rebellion and become the unsung Father of Confederation.
Big Bear is the Wizard King of the Cree nation. He was 4.5 feet tall but had the spirit of a grizzly bear. He was the last of Western Plains natives to sign the Treaties ceding their land to the Canadian Government. He never would have signed his Treaty if the buffalo had not been exterminated, and the Cree people starved into submission.
Wandering Spirit is the Warrior Prince of the Cree nation. He lived in this world and the spirit world at the same time. He was an archetype for the “stone cold warrior”. As treaties are broken and new incursions threaten, he presses for war
Gabriel Dumont is the General of the Metis Army of Saskatchewan and Louis Riel's right hand man. After the fall of Batoche he joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show; he is the stuff of Western Canadian legends.
Isidore Dumont is the younger brother of Gabriel Dumont, and Marie Desjardins is his fiancee. The year that should have seen the flowering of their youth instead brings violence and war.
The Wolfer and The Whiskey Trader are desperadoes who might have walked out of a Sergio Leone Western. They are as bad as bad can be. The Wolfer poisons buffalo carcasses to capture wolves, also carelessly killing farm and hunting dogs. The Whiskey Trader is an American gunslinger selling rot-gut to the Cree. They are rapists and murderers with no redeeming human value.
William Delaney and Thomas Quinn are louts working as Farming Instructors and Indian Agents for the Canadian Government. They are working class settlers firmly committed to starving the Cree people on the Reserves into submission. They meet their fate at Frog Lake.
General Frederick Middleton is a British Army Officer who leads the troops west to snuff the Saskatchewan Rebellion. He is consumed with ambition and self-loathing, gone to seed, somewhat of a blimp. As a young man he was a ruthless killer serving the British Raj in India. Long frustrated by not having the family connections to be promoted beyond Colonel, he finally achieved the rank of General by agreeing to serve in Canada, the icebox of the British Empire. He arrives in Canada an old man, well past his fighting days, now full of doubt, indecision and dithering.
Colonel Arthur Williams is a dashing Canadian Militia Officer, member of the Upper Canada aristocracy, and as a scion of that class, joined the Militia for the social prestige. He was considered an outstanding military man, a notorious lady killer, and was consumed with pride and vanity, He disobeys General Middleton to lead the triumphant bayonet charge at Batoche, and seems destined to achieve his dream of a career in politics but fatefully dies of swamp fever days later.
Edward Blake is a former premier of Ontario, former Minister in the Liberal cabinet, and finally, at long last, Leader. A member of Ontario's Family Compact, educated at Oxford and Cambridge, he is a brilliant man who enjoys exploring the fine nuances of both sides of an argument and debating both sides eloquently. He is famous for creating the "Compact Theory of Confederation".
He cannot believe that the people of Canada prefer the scandalous John A. Macdonald to his own virtuous self.
The Saskatchewan Rebellion
Partial BibliographyLouis Riel by George F. Stanley
The Last War Drum by Desmond Morton
Big Bear by Hugh Dempsey
The Birth of Western Canada by George F. Stanley
Louis Riel by Robert Rumilly
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Ramsay Cook Editor
Reminiscences of the North West Rebellion by Charles Boulton
The Old Chieftain by Donald Creighton
Gunner Jingo’s Jubilee by Thomas Strange
Reminiscenses of a bungle by one of the bunglers by R. Cassels
The Queen VS Louis Riel published by Desmond Morton
Louis Riel by Hartwell Bowsfield
Lord Strathcona by Donna McDonald
Prairie Fire by Bob Beal & Rod Macleod
The Collected Writings of Louis Riel by Louis Riel
The Diaries of Louis Riel by Thomas Flanagan
1885 by Thomas Flanagan
Gabriel Dumont by George Woodcock
Fifty years on the Saskatchewan by Robert Jefferson
Blood Red the Sun by W.B.Cameron
Louis Riel by Peter Charlebois
