Article Review – “the Indian View of the 1885 Uprising.” Essay Example

aggressions, were wrongfully prosecuted in turn suppressing the Aboriginal people for generations, changing the course of Canadian history.

This article gives us a subjective view of Canadian history. The official account of this uprising is quite different to the picture that Stonechild paints.Officially, Riel and his Metis followers were forced to take arms against the white Canadians after their political attempts to resolve issues in Ottawa were met by deaf ears. The Native people were implicated along with Riel and in the end 125 Natives were prosecuted with the 44 First Nation peoples receiving the harshest of the punishments that included 8 public hangings, the largest in Canadian history.

Stonechild explains that of the handful of Natives involved in the uprising, most were acting as individuals with no direction from their band leaders.The author described the leaders as being loyal to the Canadians and opposed to the violence and ensuing conflicts. He also explains that the white settler’s needless fear and anxiety caused the situation to escalate. Though he prefaces the article with an explanation of the biased official interpretation and that the truthful version is that of the Untold Story spread only orally by the Native elders, the reader is left wondering if there were parts of the Indian View that were forgotten over time.Stonechild attempts to right the wrongful depiction of the Aboriginal peoples from the 1885 Uprising.

Had his description of the 1885 Uprising been regarded during the aftermath of the conflict, there is no doubt that Canadian history would have followed somewhat of a different path and many of the Aboriginal misconceptions that are still evident today would not exist.