What I Am Reading: "Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography" by Chester Brown

I know, I know: a comic book? Despite what I tell people, I don't actually hate graphic novels; with my favorite being Alan Moore's From Hell (superheroes are a different story). The stars aligned perfectly for me to read Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography now: I stumbled across a reference the topic while Wiki-browsing about Victorian conflicts (Gordon in Khartoum, specifically); my memory of the reference in the excellent and Canadian Hark! A Vagrant was triggered; and I needed something light to read after the arduous journey through Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. As a bonus: the author had once been written up in Ferretbrain. So, one trip to The Strand later, here we are.

This comic heavily economizes it's storytelling. There is not a single panel that is not dedicated to advancing the story forward, and almost all of the dialogue is a straightforward explanation of what a character is doing and why, or an injection of context. Within one panel, a character might say, "It looks like we may be able to get the English people here to join us in forming our own provisional government." The other then replies, "But a few of the English think it's outrageous that we're not automatically capitulating to the Canadians." (p. 16) Thus is provided a tidy summary of the political situation at that moment. While taking action (tying a prisoner), two men might converse: "Do we have any food? I'm hungry." "No. I'm hungry too." (p. 47). That faction is thus established as being low on food.

Louis Riel was the leader of two separate rebellions against the Canadian government in the second half of the 19th century. He was a Métis, a peoples descendant from First Nations tribes and French settlers who lived in central Canada. For his first rebellion, Riel becomes the secretary (as the only bilingual person) and then leader of the Métis people in the Red River settlement. The settlement is in Rupert's Land, owned by the Hudson Bay Company; the sale of Rupert's Land to the newly-amalgamated Canadian government is shown on the book's first pages. The Métis were not to be given full legislative representation, and their land claims were to be disregarded in favor of Anglo settlers.

Their armed stand in 1870 is portrayed as peaceful, with a provisional government attempting only to get a fair deal from the Canadian government. One of the pivotal events for Riel, a competent leader at this point, was an English prisoner who constantly screams abuse at his Métis captors. Eventually, by the will of the guards, the man was executed, which brings the wrath of the Canadians down upon Riel. He and his people fled in the face of an approaching Canadian army, and the Métis indeed did not receive favorable land grants as the territory of Manitoba.

Due to Canadian acrimony, Riel went on to live in exile in the United States. Riel spent several years with a price on his head, dodging bounty hunters. In 1873, however, Métis leaders in Red River asked him to stand for Parliament in one of their ridings. He won the election, and a by-election after he was expelled from the House, but never took his seat due to the fear of arrest. He was eventually granted amnesty conditional on a return to the United States in 1875, where he was unsuccessful in interesting President Grant in his cause. At this point, Riel had a bit of a break with reality, and on a mountaintop thought that he was called upon by God to fulfill his destiny as a leader of his people. In 1876, he was institutionalized in Montreal (under a false name to ensure his safety).

By 1884, Riel was out of the asylum and working as a schoolteacher in Montana. The Métis had largely migrated further West, to Saskatchewan, where the Canadian government again presented them with unfavorable land grants and cheated them on surveying. Petitions to the central government had gone unanswered for over half a decade. At the invitation of the Métis community, Riel embarked for their settlement to lead them in their negotiations; he proceeded to make common cause with the Cree inhabitants. Brown portrays Prime Minister John A. MacDonald - also the Canadian PM during the earlier Red River standoff - as killing two birds with one stone when he needed support and a rationale for pushing the Canadian Pacific Railway construction to completion. According to this conspiracy theory, apparently unsupported by any hard evidence, MacDonald could massage the Métis into a revolt, then use the railway to "efficiently" transport troops.

As the situation spirals out of control, with double-dealing and broken promises from the Canadian government, Riel is shown as growing more fervent in his religion, rejecting the leadership of priests and setting himself up as a prophet. When mounted police advanced on the Métis and were scared off by force of arms, MacDonald got all the rationale he needs to send his expeditionary force. Riel's trusted second-in-command, Gabriel Dumont, knew that the Métis were outnumbered. He plead with Riel to start blowing up bridges and conducting hit-and-run raids, but Riel rejects the option of guerrilla warfare, choosing to place his faith in God.

To make a long story short, after a couple of skirmishes and betrayal by the local clergy, the Métis dispersed and Riel surrendered. The last section shows Riel's trial for treason, where his defense team tried to prove his insanity. MacDonald's government was unable to enact harsh reprisals against the Métis, due to the importance of public opinion in Quebec. Nevertheless, Riel's defense was unsuccessful, and he was hanged in 1885.

Chester Brown provides end-notes, providing comments and historical citations for each page. He apparently became interested in property rights during the course of writing this book, and went from being an anarchist to a libertarian. He openly states that, though he made MacDonald the scheming villain of the book, he would rather live in a state he ran than a state Louis Riel ran. He writes about his oversimplifications for the sake of the story, and why he made some dramatic choices that he did. He is somewhat vague on his historical/political views (pro-MacDonald but anti-government?) and views on psychiatry (mental illnesses are not illnesses?) in his notes here, but I am given to understand that he has a much larger body of work.

Riel is obviously an interesting figure; on one hand, he was a martyr of an oppressed people, but on the other, he clearly could have done a much better job. For a notoriously staid country, Canada can have a rambunctious history. Riel has an amount of counterculture panache, and this depiction, despite flattening and simplifying things a bit, manages to show his strengths and flaws.