Saskatoon Star Phoenix
Februrary 24, 1973. p.13
By James McCook
A century ago the Metis of the St. Laurent district, 20 miles from Fort Carlton, elected Gabriel Dumont (1883-1906) to preside over their councils.
Thereafter they addressed him as "president" as was natural for French-speaking people. He was chosen to lead in difficult times because of his energy, experience, shrewdness and generosity. The admiration given him by his own people later was shared by the soldiers and police who fought him in the rebellion, and by two prime ministers. In 1875 his assurances that he was president of nothing but a group of buffalo hunters was readily accepted by authorities.
As Louis Riel's war leader, Dumont had his plans for harassing, and even destroying the loyalist columns brushed aside by his impetuous master. As an Indian fighter, who had been taught to expect no mercy from the Sioux, he was enraged when he learned that Riel had broken off the engagement with police and volunteers at Duck Lake, in the first battle of the rebellion.
Tom McKay of Prince Albert, knew where the danger lay on the rebel side and it is part of Western Canadian history that he waited until the battle raged to get one good shot at Dumont. He shot to kill and Dumont fell from his horse. Instead of being killed, he was "creased" -- the scar remained on his head for the rest of his days -- and when he came to his senses, the pursuit of a defeated foe had been called off.
At Duck Lake and in other engagements Dumont displayed a ruthlessness and skill in strategy which impressed even the professionals including Maj. Gen. Fred Middleton, the forces commander who was less of a Col. Blimp than his critics have made him appear.
Dumont was praised in the hour of battle at Fish Creek. Capt. Owen Hughes was a businessman at Duck Lake, who in 1879 had been gazetted a captain in the North-West Mounted Rifles, a unit in which Dumont had been made a lieutenant as most of the men would be Metis. The mounted rifles never rode the paper but when the loyalist forces were halted by the rebels at Fish Creek the irreverent Hughes asked Middleton what he thought of "my men."
Middleton asked what he meant.
Hughes said he meant the men of the mounted rifles who had been disbanded -- "Gabriel Dumont, my lieutenant, and my half-breeds who have just driven your army back. Great Scot, had I been there to lead them, we'd have driven you out of the country."
Brave, pedestrian Middleton found "colonial" humor tiresome.
Tough Sam Steele of the North-West Mounted Police, who ended his days as a major-general and a knight, said Dumont was regarded as one of the kindest and bravest of men, an outstanding hunter and horseman and the wise counselor to which others, even older men, turned in time of crisis.
Steele shared with other policemen and settlers the opinion that Dumont, with just treatment, might have become a loyal citizen contributing to the peaceful development of the West.
Sir John A. Macdonald himself regarded as a remorseless foe of Louis Riel and all his adherents, could not resist admiration for Dumont.
When Riel surrendered after the defeat of his forces at Batoche, Macdonald said in the Commons:
"Mr. Gabriel Dumont, I speak of him with respect because he was a brave man, although a rebel. Although he has committed crimes for which, if found guilty, he shall forfeit his life, still everyone must have respect him for that certainly they have not got for Louis Riel."
Another prime minister, 75 years later also praised Dumont. John G. Diefenbaker, as a boy, lived in a house beside the Carlton Trail. Granted an amnesty, Dumont returned to Canada in 1893 and applied for patent on his original land claim. But he did not settle down to farming and during his restless journeys enjoyed the hospitality of John Diefenbaker's father.
During his years of exile in the United States, Dumont had joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show. He was a star. Galloping about the ring on a well-trained horse, he would brake glass balls thrown into the air and his marksmanship with a rifle was superb. In return for Diefenbaker's kindness, he taught the boy, John, how to shoot at targets on the prairie. The future prime minister was 11 years old when Dumont died. Diefenbaker said in 1960 that he was without equal in his daring, generalship and skill in buffalo hunting.
Finally, the historian John Peter Turner, wrote in The North-West Mounted Police: "No finer example of patriotic fortitude embellishes the story of the West than that of Gabriel Dumont to his ideals.
Although he was illiterate and a poor speaker, Dumont could have had the leadership of the Metis' cause, which at first was the cause of other discontented settlers as well, when it was decided to call Riel back from his dingy school in Montana to lead the campaign to win assurances of secure land tenure from Ottawa.
Dumont said he was a man who preferred to act rather than to speak and he gave his obedience to Riel, sometimes, it is clear, against his better judgement. But in loyalty he was admirable, too, and few indeed are the rebels so much esteemed by the establishment ready to hang them.
