Dumont, Gabriel (1837-1906), served as the military leader of the North West Rebellion, a revolt against the Canadian government in 1885. He helped Louis Riel lead the Métis in a fight for land rights. Métis are people with both First Nations and European ancestry. First Nations are original peoples of the land that is now Canada. Riel served as the political head of the Métis in the rebellion.
Dumont, a Métis man, was born in Assiniboia, in what is now Manitoba. He moved to what is now Saskatchewan in the early 1870’s. In 1873, Dumont became the leader of a Métis settlement in Saint Laurent, near Duck Lake. The Métis settlers laid out their plots of land in strips so that most bordered a river or lake. The Canadian government, which surveyed land in square lots, sometimes failed to respect the Métis system of land division. This dispute became the chief cause of the 1885 revolt.
In March 1885, Riel and Dumont formed a temporary government for the Métis in Saskatchewan. Dumont’s forces defeated mounted police at Duck Lake. Fighting between the Métis and Canadian forces ended in May 1885, after Dumont’s defeat at nearby Batoche. Dumont escaped. The following year, the Canadian government granted him amnesty. Dumont died on May 19, 1906.
