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Political Theory of the Red River Resistance: The Declaration of December 8, 1869*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Thomas Flanagan
Thomas Flanagan
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
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Extract

Although there exists a respectable literature on political thought in Canada, relatively little of this work has been done by political theorists or philosophers. Much of the research has been carried out by historians, sociologists, or more recently by political scientists working with sociological conceptions such as “political culture.” But there is still a place in the study of Canadian political thought for one of the traditional tasks of political theory, the critical analysis of significant texts. This paper examines one such document, which deserves to be better known than it is, the “Declaration of the People of Rupert's Land and the North West,” of December 8, 1869. The text is presented in both English and French versions, the background of the document is briefly discussed, and its argument is analyzed at some length.

Type
Notes
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 153 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1978

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References

1 The English text is that given in Alexander Begg's journal. Morton, W. L. (ed.), Alexander Begg's Red River Journal (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1956), 218–20Google Scholar. Begg noted: “[I]t was incorrectly printed and issued in an unfinished state at first but afterwards corrected and sent out as follows” (218). I am greatly indebted to Morton' s admirable compilation.

2 This sentence has been somewhat garbled in translation. The corresponding French sentence is coherent.

3 The French text is transcribed from the original manuscript in the Archives of the Archdiocese of St. Boniface. Correct accents have been supplied where necessary. French words crossed out and placed in square brackets here had been written and then crossed out in the original manuscript. The text was printed with a few inconsequential errors in Morton, Red River Journal, 579–81.

4 Dugas may have meant to cross out tous. I have followed Morton in retaining the word.

5 Ibid., 675.

6 Morice, A. G., A Critical History of the Red River Insurrection (Winnipeg: Canadian publishers, the author, 1935), 162Google Scholar.

7 Dugas, Georges, Hisloire véridique des faits qui ont préparé le mouvement des Métis à Rivière Rouge en 1869 (Montréal: Librairie Beauchemin, 1905), 125Google Scholar.

8 See the letter from “deux habitants métis-canadiens de la Rivière-Rouge” to the Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe, October 28, 1869Google Scholar, printed in Morton, Red River Journal, 570–71.

9 Cited in Stanley, G. F. G., The Birth of Western Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960), 84–85Google Scholar.

10 Voisin, J.-B. Du, Défense de l'ordre social (Leipzig, 1801), 140Google Scholar.

11 William Barclay, De regno et regali potestate (Paris, 1600), Book III, Ch. 16, 212.

12 Ibid., 214.

13 John Locke cited these cases from Barclay for his own purposes. See the Second Treatise of Government, section 237.

14 Du Voisin, Défense de l'ordre social, 108.

15 Ibid., 140.

16 Cf. this author's “Louis ‘David’ Riel: Prophet, Priest-King, Infallible Pontiff,” Journal of Canadian Studies 9 (1974), 15–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.