The Battle of Batoche: British Small Warfare and the Entrenched Métis

by Walter Hildebrandt, Jean Teillet (Foreword by)

Overview

The Battle of Batoche is the best-known confrontation between Métis and British soldiers in the Northwest Resistance of 1885. It remains one of Canada’s most emotion-laden memories, eloquently revisited in this revised and expanded edition.The strategies of both sides are thoroughly examined, and numerous maps and photographs offer detailed description of the fateful battle. Introduction by Jean Teillet, great-grandniece of Louis Riel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780889226937
Publisher:	Talonbooks, Limited
Publication date:	07/03/2012
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Walter Hildebrandt is known as both a poet and historian. A consultant on Aboriginal treaties, he is author of Views From Battleford: Constructed Visions of an Anglo-Canadian West and co-author of The Cypress Hills: The Land and Its People and The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7, which won the Gustavus Myers Award for outstanding work on intolerance in North America in 1997. Winnipeg from the Fringes, his eighth book of poetry, was published in 2011. An earlier volume, Where the Land Gets Broken, received the 2005 Stephen G. Stephensson Award for Poetry.

Jean Teillet, who wrote the introduction to The Battle of Batoche (Talonbooks, 2012), is called to the Bars in Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and Manitoba. She is a partner in the firm of Pape Salter Teillet with offices in Vancouver and Toronto. Ms. Teillet specializes in Aboriginal rights litigation and negotiations, with a particular emphasis on Métis rights.

Since 1993, she has been a tutor and mentor to Aboriginal students at the University of Toronto, the University of Alberta and Osgoode Hall Law School. As a founding member of the Métis Nation of Ontario, founding president of the Métis Nation Lawyers Association and former treasurer and vice-president of the Indigenous Bar Association of Canada, she has freely devoted her time and efforts to the Aboriginal Community.
In 2002 Ms. Teillet became the first recipient of the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Lincoln Alexander Award for her work “as a mentor and teacher and her commitment to advancing Aboriginal issues”.

The 2005 Aboriginal Justice Award was presented to Jean Teillet by the Aboriginal Law Students’ Association, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta “In Recognition of Service to the Aboriginal Community” and for her “Outstanding Contributions to the Development of Aboriginal Justice”.

Ms. Teillet is the great-grandniece of Louis Riel.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Maps
Illustrations
List of Sidebars

Foreword by Jean Teillet
Preface to the Revised Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Introduction

Part I
The Battle of Batoche, May 9–12, 1885

Prelude to Battle
May 9: Incapacitating the Northcote
May 9: Firefight for Mission Ridge
May 9: The Métis Offensive
May 9: Building the Zareba
May 10 and 11: A Plan Develops
May 12: The Final Day
After the Battle

Part II
Strategy and Tactics

Riel and Dumont: The Strategy to Defend Batoche
Tactics of the Metis
Middleton and the North-West Field Force
Middleton’s Tactics in Retrospect

Epilogue

Notes
Select Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Each year since the battle at Batoche in 1885, Métis people gather there to commemorate the sacrifices of our ancestors and celebrate our culture. Despite the defeat on the battlefield and the subsequent execution of our leader Louis Riel, Batoche personifies the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of displacement, marginalization and indifference.
I welcome this book for accurately capturing the military history of the North-West Resistance. Instilling in Canadians an appreciation of the powerful forces at work during that period can foster a better understanding of the challenges faced today by the Métis Nation in its ongoing struggle for self-determination within Canada.”
– Clem Chartier, President, Métis National Council

“Walter Hildebrandt takes a meticulous look at the Battle of Batoche and provides unique insight into an event pivotal to the history of the Canadian prairies. The study is balanced in its provision of various perspectives and personal accounts and generously includes many historical images and maps sure to please history lovers.”
– Blair Stonechild, Professor of Indigenous Studies, First Nations University of Canada

“The Battle of Batoche: British Small Warfare and the Entrenched Métis is worth acquiring just for the quality of its introductory and concluding sections. Precise writing and perceptive analysis make this study a pleasure to read … Hildebrandt is one of the few authors that carefully places the events of 1885 in a national and international context.”
—Manitoba History

From the Publisher