Louis riel sr biography of michael

Farmer, miller and Métis leader in Canada (1817–1864)

Louis Riel Sr. (père) (July 7, 1817 – January 21, 1864) was a farmer, miller, Métis leader, and the father of Louis Riel.

Life

Born in Île-à-la-Crosse, Rupert's Land, Riel was the eldest son of Jean-Baptiste Riel, dit L’Irlande, a voyageur, and Marguerite Boucher, a Franco-Chipewyan Métis.

Louis riel sr biography of michael

The Riel family moved back to Lower Canada while Louis was a child. He was educated in Quebec, learning the trade of cardingwool. He joined the fur trade with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1838 and was stationed at Rainy River, Ontario, where he fathered a daughter named Marguerite in 1840.

He left the HBC in 1842 and returned to Quebec with the intention of joining the priesthood at the Oblates of Mary Immaculate at Saint-Hilaire, but withdrew a year later.^[1]

He returned to the Canadian West, settling in the Red River Colony on a river lot in Saint-Boniface (now a district of modern Winnipeg, Man