Beginning of North-West Rebellion

Date: March 26, 1885 • Location: London, United Kingdom

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1885.

Perceiving that the Canadian government was failing to protect their rights, the Métis people led by Louis Riel began the North-West Rebellion.

The Métis are a mixed-ancestry Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They have a shared history and culture, deriving from specific mixed European and Indigenous ancestry, which became distinct through ethnogenesis by the mid-18th century, during the early years of the North American fur trade.