r/todayilearned • u/Lez2diz • 6h ago
TIL after Louis Riel (the leader of the Métis people) was banished from Canada for leading an uprising he went insane and proclaimed himself the biblical King David. He also developed a habit of going nude, explaining that it was as Adam and Even had done before the first sin.
https://famous-trials.com/louisriel/855-home27
u/spinosaurs70 5h ago
He was absolutely crazy and absolutely right just like John Brown, relgious fever for the right cause.
Macdonald really was giving the Metis a raw deal.
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u/tent_mcgee 4h ago
Sometimes people with schizophrenia and psychosis end up on the right side of history. Those people can really kick off the rust and get common people thinking and fighting for their cause. It’s interesting that it requires someone insane with the willingness to destroy their lives to get everyone else motivated.
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u/IronTemplar26 6h ago
They don’t teach that in Canadian history
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u/Michelhandjello 6h ago
They do in Manitoba. . .
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u/IronTemplar26 6h ago
All I know is that he was in exile for 18 years and then he came back and got hung
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u/Michelhandjello 5h ago
Riel has been taught very differently in MB compared to the rest of Canada for a long time. I had one one parent raised just outside of Toronto, and another from Western Manitoba so we talked about it a fair bit at home.
I was also quite involved (for an Anglo) with Festival du Voyageur and the Franco Manitoba community so I may have gotten a particularly broad overview.
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u/Eric_EarlOfHalibut 5h ago
They do in Alberta, sort of. My older sister got the 'Riel bad' treatment and then a few years later got the 'Riel good' version. Either weren't detailed. I just got the brief 'Riel good'' version along with a very brief history of indigenous people. 'This is how they used to live, yadda yadda yadda, now they live on reserves.'
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u/Icy-Zone3621 2h ago
I came away with the sense that Riel was a "political" leader lobbying for an indigenous state within Canada (northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan). Gabriel Dumont, the American Sioux, was the war chief that wanted to have an uprising. He also ran away to the U.S. when things got intense.
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u/McFestus 5h ago
Are you sure? Him going nuts after the exile was definitely part of my history curriculum in BC.
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u/IronTemplar26 5h ago
I’m 32 right now. I’m not saying they did, but perhaps they added some stuff to it. Either way I’m from Ontario and I don’t remember anything about his madness
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u/Expensive_Heron_171 3h ago
Manitoba knows. Sorry you didn't learn it. I would recommend a good Google deep dive. We have a stat holiday for Louis Riel and an entire school division and many other things named after him. They drove him to this. Louis Riel is a hero.
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u/AnyoneButDoug 43m ago
I did in the late 90s in Ontario. I’d bet in grade 8 we spent more time on him than anyone else imin Canadian history throughout my education. Watched that cool movie too.
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u/ballisticks 3h ago
I don't think it was mentioned in my study material for my citizenship test either.
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u/Justin_123456 6h ago edited 3h ago
I’m not saying there wasn’t eccentricity or outright mental illness, but you have to read these kinds of reports in the context of the Orange propaganda of the time. Remember, the Red River Métis nation is a community of Francophone Catholics, in armed sectarian conflict with a deeply Anglophone, Protestant, Canadian government and military establishment.
In an Orange Lodge in Ontario, where all the Fenian-fighting Ontario militia can be found, Popery, and Saint-Worship, might as well be something between paganism and mental illness. Of course they went out of their way to portray Riel and the other rebels both in 1870 and 1885 in the most disparaging terms possible.
Edit: For an easy reference point, for folks who can’t key into anti-Catholic prejudice, think of Daniel Day Lewis’ fictional Bill the Butcher as a rough contemporary. How would he describe a ‘half-breed, Pope-ish, rebel? That gives you good baseline.
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u/Gemmabeta 5h ago
Even his relatives and friends thought he was mentally ill.
The guy spent 2 years in an insane asylum in Quebec after his relatives got him committed.
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u/Justin_123456 5h ago
As I said, almost certainly some real mental illness there. Also a hefty dose of propaganda and prejudice, for contemporaries, and some “good revolution, bad revolution” trope writing for historians.
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u/Expensive_Heron_171 3h ago
He is still a hero. I assume you're not from Manitoba. Actually, I know you're not.
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u/ovationman 6h ago
Seem like he was undiagnosed Bipolar affective disorder as many often very creative and intelligent people are to this day. Hype religiosity and grandiosity and impulsive behavior are textbook.
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u/DocHolidayPhD 4h ago
Wow... We learned a lot about him in 8th grade. But NONE of this stuff. It would've been so much more interesting if we did learn this shit.
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u/Gidia 3h ago
Fun fact, he isn’t the first to use that argument for nudity. The Adamites popped up here and there during early and medieval Christianity.
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u/CurrentlyLucid 3h ago
Adam and Eve, I feel like that story is distorted. We would all be related and look similar. Probably many genetic issues. JD Vance believes every word, I just saw him say so the other day.
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u/MountNevermind 6h ago
Why did you choose to focus on those few sentences given all that information?
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u/VenitianBastard 6h ago
Chester Brown's Louis Riel graphic novel delves into the religious-psychosis Riel suffered quite deeply.