After the Métis resistance was crushed by the invading European forces, following the defeat at Batoche in May 1885, the colonizers of Canada tried Métis leader Louis Riel for treason - an impossibility because he was an American citizen and had relinquished any Canadian allegiance when he became an American.
Depite protests and letters from many in the United States, Canada illegally found Riel guilty of high treason and hanged him in Regina, Saskatchewan, on November 16, 1885.
Today, Louis Riel is widely regarded as the Father of Manitoba. His murder for the crime of treason, by a colonizer government that was not his own, remains a crime that is ignored to this very day.
Rest in peace.
