Louis Riel believed that on 8 December 1875 he received a divine
commission authorizing him to save the M?tis and reform the
Catholic Church. He was a prophet, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and
the M?tis were the new chosen people. A new branch of the Catholic
Church would be founded in North America, with its first Holy See
in Montreal, and its second in Riel's birthplace of St. Vital.
When Riel expressed these views in 1876, he was committed to a
lunatic asylum. After his release, he suppressed his ideas for
several years, only to reveal them again to his M?tis followers
during the North-West Rebellion. The Rebellion thus became as much
a religious as a political movement; Riel believed himself a
prophet to the end of his life, and he went to his death thinking
that he, like Christ, would be resurrected on the third day.
Earlier writers about Louis Riel have noted his religious
beliefs but have not taken them seriously. They have usually
dismissed Riel's attempt to found a new religion as the symptom of
a deranged mind. Thomas Flanagan takes Riel's religion seriously
and analyses it using categories developed in the literature about
millenarian movements. He shows that Riel's religion, far from
being simply individual madness, is typical of the nativistic and
millenarian movements described by one author as the 'religions of
the oppressed.'
This is also a biography, tracing Riel's thinking on religious
subjects from his childhood to the end of his life and paying
particular attention to events in his life that influenced his
thinking. This developmental approach is necessary because Riel's
ideas changed frequently; he never arrived at a fixed 'system.'
The research is based on primary sources throughout. Much new
documentation has become available over the past thirty years and
in the sixteen years since this volume was initially published. In
particular, new information is presented about Riel's youth in
Montreal, his time in insane asylums, his years in Montana, and the
North-West Rebellion. Flanagan also re-interprets well-known
documents. While this revised edition does not alter the
fundamentals of his interpretation, it improves the historical
backdrop against which it is presented through use of a wealth of
new primary sources. Flanagan has updated his citings of Riel's
manuscripts to current sources.
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