Blood Upon Our Land Page 12
It was all in fun, for Moushoom is as happy and proud as any of us.
I could not help but think of poor Madame Riel’s baby. Her little boy lived only a few hours after his birth last month in St. Boniface. Monsieur Riel went to his death without ever seeing his newborn son.
We are so blessed. In time my baby brother will be baptized Alexandre for Louise’s father, and Thompson for Moushoom. Alexandre Thompson Louis Bouvier. I need not write the reason for the third name.
Tell the truth, Moushoom said to me, but I no longer seem to be able to recognize it. Once I thought that Batoche was the most quiet place in the world, and that nothing could change the way of life that had always gone on here. I was wrong. I thought that friendship could never survive what turned out to be a terrible war. I believe that at least some of it has.
As for Monsieur Riel, I do not know what to write about him any more. I read Emma’s letter aloud to my family. Louise and Papa agreed that Monsieur MacLeod’s words were true.
Moushoom agreed as well, but he added that there was more that could be said about the matter. “Time will judge Louis Riel, Josephine, as it will judge all of us.”
I believe that is so, but I cannot help but wonder what will be said about Monsieur Riel, and Batoche, and we Métis, in distant years to come. For now, though, my family is here around me and that is enough. As for promises, I vow that I will always hold my head high when I hear the name Métis. And I will always write the truth, no matter how hard it is to do that.
Epilogue
Josephine honoured those promises, although keeping the second one was not always easy. Recording the truth meant that the pages of her diary became a story of suffering.
Because Louis Riel had petitioned for their rights as well as those of the Métis, he had the support of many Native people. After the Resistance, a number of them were arrested, charged with murder, and tried. On November 27, 1885, eight of these men were publicly hanged at Fort Battleford. They were Kah-pay-pamah-chukwew (Wandering Spirit), Pah-pah-me-kee-sick (Walking the Sky), Manchoose (Bad Arrow), Kit-awah-ki-ni (Miserable Man), Nahpase (Iron Body), A-pis-chas-koos (Little Bear), Itka (Crooked Leg) and Way-wah-nitch (Man Without Blood). Singing death chants — Wandering Spirit sang a love song for his wife — they died bravely and with great dignity. It was the largest mass hanging in Canadian history, and would always remain so.
The small amount of money that Moushoom had in his tin box helped to hold off hunger for the Bouviers, but only just. As the weeks passed, many of their friends, relatives and neighbours left Batoche. Others died of starvation, illness — even despair. Finally, in December, Michel took his family to Louise’s sister in Prince Albert. It was hard to leave Adrian behind, but for the sake of their cabin and few remaining possessions, Michel’s oldest son insisted on staying. Josephine found Christmas lonely without Adrian, but the visit cheered Louise and raised everyone’s spirits.
A few months later, back in Batoche, Josephine’s father and stepmother were granted land scrip for their farms, and just like that, a piece of paper declared that the land was theirs. Josephine sometimes wondered what life would have been like had the government done this when it should have, instead of delaying until the Métis felt they had no choice but to take action. The scrip was a good thing, but other matters had to be addressed. Although so much of what they had lost would be impossible to replace, Michel Bouvier and his wife applied to the government for compensation, as did their neighbours. Josephine’s father calculated the value of the houses, buildings and livestock they had lost at $1800. But their application was denied, like that of so many others. After all, Michel and his wife had supported the rebels and he had fought against the government. They were on their own.
Now and again, they heard bits of news about their old friends. Some of it was bitterly sad. After the Battle of Batoche, Louis Riel’s brother had arrived and taken Marguerite and the children back to St. Boniface. She passed away the spring after her husband’s hanging, finally losing her battle with consumption. Marie-Angelique and Jean-Louis would remain with their paternal grandmother. His health fragile, One Arrow was released from prison, having served only a small part of his sentence. He died shortly after. Moushoom was deeply saddened, but he took comfort in what he was told were One Arrow’s last words to the government: “Do not mistreat my people.” One Arrow had died as he had lived, a great chief of the Willow Cree.
Other news was happier. It seemed that Gabriel Dumont was still down in the United States, working for a man named Buffalo Bill Cody. Dumont was riding and shooting in Cody’s Wild West Show. This made Moushoom laugh heartily. “What a thing! Gabriel working for a man named Buffalo,” he said. “That Buffalo fellow had better watch out that Gabriel does not forget himself and think he is on a real hunt!”
Michel Bouvier began to make another fiddle, working slowly on the instrument in the evenings. Moushoom decided it was time to weave another saencheur flechee, and so he began, his arthritic fingers moving laboriously. Sometimes Josephine wondered if the two men were in silent competition to see who could make his project last longer. It was her father who completed his first, though. The house rang with music that night.
Josephine and Louise continued to work together keeping house in Moushoom’s cabin. Moon died on a warm summer evening, and Moushoom buried him next to the other dogs. When Moushoom had a small stroke, Josephine took on his workload. She took great satisfaction in helping to rebuild the big house and outbuildings. Often she worked by Edmond’s side, and as time passed their friendship deepened.
The Bouvier men never did forget the role the priests played during the battle for Batoche. Michel, though, softened enough to permit Armand to return to school when he was not needed to work at home. When he was old enough, Alexandre joined him.
It took four years of hard labour before the Bouviers felt they could breathe easily. As well as working the farm, Adrian, Armand and their father delivered firewood. Louise and Josephine collected and sold seneca root. One year, Adrian went out with some other men and gathered the buffalo bones that still lay out on the prairie. American factories bought the bones and made them into fertilizer and other items such as buttons and knife handles — a cart filled with close to half a ton of bones would bring in three dollars. The earnings let the family buy a few cows, a young bull and some chickens. Life was hard but good.
Moushoom finished his sash just after the sixth anniversary of the war. He died in his sleep a week later. As he had asked, he was buried near the river on Bouvier land, instead of in the cemetery, the sash wrapped around his waist. Michel Bouvier stood next to his father’s grave and very slowly played “Whiskey Before Breakfast,” which Moushoom had loved above all other Métis fiddle tunes.
The next day Edmond left, despite assurances that he was part of their family. Josephine did not try to change his decision. She understood enough of Edmond Swift Fox’s nature to realize that with Moushoom’s passing, it would be far too painful for him to remain at Batoche. He needed time alone to heal.
By 1891, Josephine had decided to attend the normal school in Regina and study to be a teacher. It had always been a dream of hers. But then her father was thrown from a horse and both of his legs were badly broken. It was not easy for Josephine to tame her restless spirit, but she abandoned her own plans. The family must come first, after all. She, Adrian and Armand worked the farm while Louise cared for their father. He recovered, but was never able to walk again without difficulty.
Although he never spoke of it, Michel Bouvier knew what his daughter had given up for his sake. Each year on January 1, he found the money to give her a new diary in Moushoom’s memory. And on that day each year, with Louise’s approval, Josephine read some of Anne Bouvier’s diary aloud to her father and the rest of the family. Like her own diary, it was filled with wonderful stories.
Now and again Josephine and Emma exchanged letters. In time, though, the two friends drifted apart, as friends sometimes do. T
he letters grew less frequent and then stopped. The last news Josephine had of Emma MacLeod was a brief note and the newspaper clipping from the Toronto Globe of her wedding announcement. By this time, Adrian was courting a young Batoche woman. All he said was that he wished Emma happiness. Sometimes Josephine wondered if she herself would ever marry, but she did not wonder often. There was no time for romantic notions.
Not until July 24, 1900, did Josephine again see Edmond Swift Fox. It was during the St. Joseph’s Day celebration, one that her father, Moïse Ouellette and others had been instrumental in beginning. What better way to honour the dead veterans than to celebrate in their names? Each year an ox was donated and slaughtered — Moïse had donated the first one — the ox representing the buffalo the Métis had once hunted. This year the ox had been donated by Michel Bouvier.
Josephine was serving oxtail rababoo to hungry people. She looked up, and there Edmond was, right in front of her. He was older, but he was still Edmond.
“I had to come home,” he told her. As Moushoom would say, Once a Sauvé from Batoche, always a Sauvé from Batoche. A few weeks later, Josephine wrote this in her diary:
Le 28 juillet 1900
How strange the year still looks. 1900. I wonder what Moushoom would think of it? I definitely know what he would think of the fact that I have said yes to Edmond Swift Fox, though. Josephine Bouvier Sauvé. I do like the look and sound of that.
Edmond and Josephine spent many happy years together as they raised a family of ten children: nine boys and a single girl. Edmond taught his wife to play billiards, and she taught him how to read. He always teased that he’d got the best part of that bargain, except when Josephine outplayed him at billiards, and it must be said that she did that often.
Her husband was a great consolation to her after Michel Bouvier and then Louise passed away. When Armand and Adrian enlisted at the beginning of WWI to serve as snipers, it was Edmond who told her again and again that nothing would happen to either of them. Two Métis who had survived the Battle of Batoche were not destined to die in France. He was correct. Both men returned home to live out their lives with their wives and children.
In the summer of 1960, a story appeared in a national Canadian newspaper. Josephine and Edmond had been interviewed by their granddaughter, Michelle Bouvier Cameron, who worked for that paper.
The piece told the story of the Bouvier/Sauvé family and its role in what Michelle said had been “a resistance, not a rebellion, and perhaps even an invasion.” She went on to describe her family, particularly her paternal grandparents, as veterans and heroes. Josephine and Edmond were very proud of their granddaughter, and often said that Moushoom must be as well.
A few weeks later, Josephine received a package from Newfoundland. Edmond commented that it was a strange thing, because they did not know anyone out there.
When Josephine opened the package, it contained a letter as well as a small object wrapped in tissue paper. This is what she read aloud to Edmond.
Dear Mrs. Sauvé,
It was with real interest that I read a newspaper article about you and your husband some time ago. History has always been a passion of mine, and so the piece caught my attention. It described you as veterans, which is a coincidence, since my great-grandfather was also a veteran. He was Corporal James Coates, who served in The Royal Canadian Regiment. He fought at Batoche in 1885. Like many soldiers, he brought back souvenirs, and although most are gone, one has been passed down through the years. It eventually came to me. I have always treasured it.
My great-grandfather was proud of his military service. I am proud of him as well. They tell me he used to say that we cannot rewrite history or change the past. All we can do is make new things happen. Good things.
This is yours, Mrs. Sauvé.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Margaret Coates
In the tissue paper was Anne Bouvier’s pocket watch, which was once again running. The watch was buried with Josephine when she died several months later. She and Edmond rest at Batoche in the St. Antoine Cemetery.
Historical Note
Traditional Métis Life
When you see or hear the name Métis, a number of things probably come to mind. One might be the Red River cart, which the Métis developed for use in the buffalo hunts. Constructed of wood and fastened together with leather, its enormous wheels made it possible to travel over marshy or muddy conditions while carrying heavy loads. The carts floated, and were easily repaired. A single cart made a good deal of noise, as the wooden parts ground against each other. A train of dozens of carts could be heard for kilometres.
There is the Métis sash, the three-metre-long wool ceinture fléchée (in the Michif language, saencheur flechee). At one time these sashes were finger woven, a technique that did not require a loom. It was often possible to tell where someone was from by the colours and design of his or her sash. Later on, sashes were purchased or acquired as a trade item. A ceinture fléchée was worn as a ceremonial piece of clothing, but it could also be used as a rope or a scarf.
Then there is Métis fiddle music. It is quite different from Canadian or Scottish fiddling. The style is bouncier, and sounds as though the fiddler is accompanying herself or himself. This was necessary in the days when a single fiddle might be the only instrument available. Fiddle tunes varied from community to community, as bars were added or changed.
The Métis way of life was distinctive. Strip farms were a necessity to Métis people, just as they had been for the first French settlers in Quebec. These long narrow river-lot farms gave people access to water as well as a means of transportation. To have no direct access to the Saskatchewan River would have been unthinkable.
The Métis had their own language. It was called Michif, and like the word Métis it means “mixed.” It was a combination of French and Native language, depending on the community. Josephine’s diary would have been written in the French her mother taught her, but she and the other Métis characters would have spoken Michif. In their community of Batoche, the mixture used French nouns and Cree verbs. “Li fournoo kishitayw,” Michif for “The oven is hot,” uses the French for “furnace” or “oven,” and the Cree for “is hot.” A girl such as Josephine would have made up her own spelling for her diary entries, based on the way the words were pronounced.
When a Métis told a story, it was very important to acknowledge the story’s source. That is why Moushoom takes such pains to explain where some of his stories originate, even when it means going back through generations of storytellers. The Michif language nearly disappeared after the grim years following the Battle of Batoche. It was a time of great prejudice against the Métis, as well as a time of enormous suffering.
Today much has changed. Many Métis associations exist to support the rights of the people. There are Michif language programs, books and CDs. In the Rossignol Community Schools at Île-à-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan, Michif is part of the curriculum. In spite of this, the possibility that Michif will be extinct by 2050 is a real one.
The Métis considered themselves to be a new nation, and it was into this proud and independent nation that Louis Riel was born on October 22, 1844. He came into the world at his maternal grandparents’ farm, which stood at the forks of the Red and Seine Rivers, near St. Boniface. His father, Louis Riel senior, and his mother, Julie Lagimodière, eventually built their own house on the east side of the Red River.
Riel’s childhood was probably much like that of the fictional Bouvier children. Like them, he spent a great deal of time with his grandparents. His grandmother, Marie-Anne Gaboury, had been one of the first white women to come out to the Northwest. Her husband, Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière, had been a trader and a voyageur. If they told him stories, young Louis would have heard about their many adventures, of how they had once been captured by Sarcee warriors, of how they had escaped and raced for their lives across the prairie. One year, his grandmother had even borne a child right out on the open prairie, although unlike Moushoom�
�s wife, she had only her husband to help her.
The character Josephine was raised to be intensely proud of her Métis heritage. So was Riel, who had one-eighth Native blood, his paternal grandmother having been a French–Chipewyan Métis. Riel’s Catholic family was very religious, and education was highly valued. At first he attended a school run by the Grey Nuns, and then moved on to a school operated by the Christian Brothers. It was here, at the age of fourteen, that Louis was noticed by Bishop Taché. The bishop saw that young Riel had the qualities of a scholar, and more importantly, the makings of a Métis priest. With his parents’ blessings, the bishop arranged for Riel to study in Canada at the Petit Séminaire de Montréal.
Studying for the priesthood did not suit Riel. When in 1864 he learned that his father had died, he left the school the next year. He tried working as a law clerk to help support his family. Finally, after spending time in the United States, Riel decided to return to Red River in 1868.
The Red River Resistance
This novel refers to two important events in Métis history. The first is the Red River Resistance of 1869. The second is the Northwest Resistance of 1885. They used to be more commonly referred to as the Red River and the Northwest Rebellions. Louis Riel took the role of leader in both of them, as the Métis people struggled for their rights.
The Red River settlement, which was part of a large area called Rupert’s Land, had long been administered by the Hudson’s Bay Company. By 1869 there were approximately 5,700 Métis, 4,100 English-speaking people of mixed blood, 1,500 Canadians and 550 First Nations people at Red River. Tensions and conflicts over trading privileges had always existed, but when the HBC sold Rupert’s Land to Canada that year, an uneasy situation arose. The government began to survey land already occupied by Métis families. Instead of keeping the original strip farms stretching up from the river, the surveyors sectioned the land in squares, the very squares that so disturbed Moushoom in this novel. In October of 1869, Louis Riel and sixteen Métis stopped a crew of surveyors on Métis land. The Red River Resistance had begun. Riel and his followers formed the National Committee of Métis to protect their land interests. They captured Fort Garry and set up a provisional government. When the new Lieutenant-Governor, William McDougall, arrived from Canada, he was sent away. The Métis intended to govern themselves.