Editing Louis Riel (section)

==Early life==
[[Image:YoungLouisRiel.gif|thumb|upright|Louis Riel, age 14]]
The [[Red River Colony|Red River Settlement]] was a [[Rupert's Land]] territory administered by the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] (HBC). At the mid-19th-century the settlement was largely inhabited by [[Métis]] people of mixed [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]]-European descent. Their ancestors were for the most part Scottish and English men married to [[Cree]] women, and [[French-Canadian]] men married to [[Saulteaux]] (plains [[Ojibwa|Ojibwe]]) women.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia = The Canadian Encyclopedia | first1=J. M. |last1=Bumsted |first2=Julie |last2=Smyth | title = Red River Colony |date=25 March 2015|url =https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/red-river-colony }}</ref>

Louis Riel was born in 1844 in his grandparents' small one-room home in [[Saint Boniface, Manitoba|St-Boniface]] near the fork of the Red and Seine rivers.<ref>{{harvnb|Hamon|2019|page=32}}</ref><ref>{{cite report|title=Riel Family: Home and Lifestyle at St-Vital, 1860–1910|id=  Report No. 379 |first=Diane |last=Payment |url=http://parkscanadahistory.com/series/mrs/379.pdf |year=1980 |publisher=Parks Canada |page= 32}}</ref>  Riel was the eldest of eleven children in a locally well-respected family. His father, who was of Franco-[[Chipewyan]] Métis descent, had gained prominence in this community by organizing a group that supported [[Guillaume Sayer]], a Métis arrested and tried for challenging the HBC's historical trade monopoly.<ref name=Thomas-1982>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Thomas|first=Lewis H. |orig-year=1982 |year=2016|url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/riel_louis_1844_85_11E.html |title=Riel, Louis (1844–85) |encyclopedia =Dictionary of Canadian Biography |volume=11  }}</ref><ref name=senior>{{cite encyclopedia|last =Morton |first=W. L. |year=1976 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/riel_louis_1817_64_9E.html |title=Riel, Louis (1817–64) |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Canadian Biography |volume=9 }}</ref> Sayer's eventual release due to agitations by Louis Sr.'s group effectively ended the monopoly, and the name Riel was therefore well known in the Red River area. His mother was the daughter of [[Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière]] and [[Marie-Anne Gaboury]], one of the earliest White families to settle in Red River in 1812. The Riels were noted for their devout Catholicism and strong family ties.<ref>{{harvnb|Stanley|1963|pages= 13–20}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Hamon|2019|page=30}}</ref>

Riel began his schooling at age seven,<ref name=mitchell>{{cite web|first=W.O.|last=Mitchell|date=1 February 1952|title=The Riddle of Louis Riel Part 1|work=Maclean's|url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1952/2/1/the-riddle-of-louis-riel|archive-date=30 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030114602/https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1952/2/1/the-riddle-of-louis-riel|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Goldsborough>{{cite web|first=Gordon |last= Goldsborough|date= 16 February 2020|title=Louis 'David' Riel (1844–1885)|work=Memorable Manitobans |url=http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/riel_l.shtml|publisher=Manitoba Historical Society}}</ref> and by age ten he attended St.&nbsp;Boniface Catholic schools, including eventually a school run by the [[De La Salle Brothers|French Christian Brothers]].<ref name=shsba>{{cite web |date=2020 |publisher=Société historique de Saint-Boniface / Centre du patrimoine | title =Louis Riel – One Life, One Vision |url= https://shsb.mb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Louis_Riel_Biography.pdf | accessdate =8 December 2020}}</ref> At age thirteen he came to the attention of Bishop [[Alexandre-Antonin Taché|Alexandre Taché]], who was eagerly promoting the priesthood for talented young Métis.<ref name=Thomas-1982/> In 1858 Taché arranged for Riel to attend the [[Petit Séminaire de Montréal]].<ref name=Thomas-1982/> Descriptions of him at the time indicate that he was a fine scholar of languages, science, and philosophy.<ref>{{harvnb|Stanley|1963|pages=26–28}}</ref> While a good student, he was also hot-tempered, extreme in his views, intolerant of criticism and opposition, and not opposed to arguing with his teachers.<ref name=markson>{{cite journal |last1=Markson |first1=ER  |date=1965 |title=The Life and Death of Louis Riel a Study in Forensic Psychiatry Part 1 – A Psychoanalytic Commentary |url= |journal=Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=246–252 |doi=10.1177/070674376501000404|pmid=14341671 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Following news of his father's premature death in 1864, Riel lost interest in the priesthood and withdrew from the college in March 1865. For a time, he continued his studies as a day student in the convent of the [[Grey Nuns]], but was soon asked to leave, following breaches of discipline.<ref name=shsba/> During Riel's period of mourning of his father, he believed that Louis Riel was dead and he himself was David Mordecai, a Jew from Marseilles, and as David, he was not eligible to the immense inheritance of his father (which, in fact, was of little value). Seized with religious fervour, he announced that he was going to form a new religious movement.<ref name=markson/> He remained in Montreal for over a year, living at the home of his aunt, Lucie Riel. Impoverished by the death of his father, Riel took employment as a law clerk in the Montreal office of [[Rodolphe Laflamme]].<ref name=Thomas-1982/><ref name=Stanley-2013>{{cite encyclopedia |first1=George F. G. |last1=Stanley |last2=Gaudry |first2=Adam|url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/louis-riel/ |title=Louis Riel |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |date=9 May 2016}}</ref> During this time he was involved in a failed romance with a young woman named Marie–Julie Guernon. This progressed to the point of Riel having signed a contract of marriage, but his fiancée's family opposed her involvement with a Métis, and the engagement was soon broken. Compounding this disappointment, Riel found legal work unpleasant and, by early 1866, he had resolved to leave [[Canada East]].<ref name=shsba/><ref>{{harvnb|Stanley|1963|page= 33}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title = Louis Riel| year =2006 | publisher =Métis Nation of Ontario | url = http://www.metisnation.org/culture/Riel/home.html| archiveurl =https://web.archive.org/web/20070707200538/http://www.metisnation.org/culture/Riel/home.html | archivedate =7 July 2007 }}</ref> Some of his friends said later that he worked odd jobs in [[Chicago]], while staying with poet [[Louis-Honoré Fréchette]],<ref>{{harvnb|Stanley|Huel|Martel|Flanagan|Campbell|1985|loc= pp. xxv & xxvi, Stanley's Foreword: "The Fréchette experience [in Chicago] is, however, open to question."}}</ref> and wrote poems himself in the manner of [[Lamartine]], and that he was briefly employed as a clerk in [[Saint Paul, Minnesota]], before returning to the Red River settlement on 26 July 1868.<ref>{{harvnb|Stanley|1963|pages=13–34}}</ref>