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  • Riel’s Defence: Perspectives on His Speeches ed. by Hans V. Hansen
  • M. Max Hamon
Hans V. Hansen, ed. Riel’s Defence: Perspectives on His Speeches. McGill-Queen’s University Press. viii, 336. $32.95

On 28 July 1885, in Regina’s small courtroom, Louis Riel stood accused of high treason. The reporter for the Regina Leader, Nicholas Flood Davin, wrote, “Regina is about to be the theatre of one of the most interesting events which have ever taken place in Canada—a state trial, the trial of a leader in a rebellion … in which his life is at stake.”4 Riel’s two defence speeches, one before and one after his conviction, defied the authority of the Canadian state and remain the most famous expression of indigenous sovereignty in the history of this country.

Riel’s Defence: Perspectives on His Speeches, edited by Hans V. Hansen, reproduces Riel’s speeches and provides eleven critical perspectives. The intention is to generate greater understanding of this climactic moment, and the collection aims at a wide audience: “high school and university students, amateur historians, politicians, speech writers and members of the general public.” The essays are written by authors from a diversity of academic backgrounds—philosophy, law, ethics, history, political science, critical theory, religion, and communication—and the variety of approaches, perspectives, and writing styles is refreshing. The collection, rich in philosophical and critical theory, is a welcome addition to a large body of literature on Riel, which has largely been written by historians interested in narrating or contextualizing rather than examining cultural or philosophical content.

New paragraph divisions and subheadings have been added to improve the text’s logical structure. As Hansen argues, “charity” is necessary to reconstruct Riel’s defence speeches. Readers may quibble with some of the choices but, particularly given the stakes of the trial, namely, Riel’s sanity, should welcome such reflection. Indeed, the composition of the text was more problematic than might appear to the casual eye. Besides the obvious political and colonial circumstances, practical issues complicate the fidelity of the official record, such as the stenographer’s ability to hear in a crowded room and the arbitrary division of an oral speech into written paragraphs. The new divisions make the content more accessible even while alerting readers to the malleability of these divisions.

Attention to logical structure has produced dissenting opinions on the issue of coherence in Riel’s speech. Most authors agree there is a “discernible logical order” and that Riel’s rhetoric was a calculated intervention on his part. Only Thomas Flanagan argues that the speeches were ineffective: “long rambling, disorganized, sometimes almost unintelligible.” Christopher Tindale disagrees, arguing that, like Socrates, [End Page 381] Riel would have preferred spontaneity. The collection makes clear that the efficacy of Riel’s speech is complicated by his particular predicament: he had to rebut the Crown’s charge of high treason and deny his own defence lawyers’ claim that he was insane. Consequently, opinions regarding his intentions diverge. Desmond Morton argues that fear of the “animal existence” of an inmate in an insane asylum drove him to martyrdom. Examining his constitutional thought, Nicole O’Byrne argues that sensationalism of the trial obscured Riel’s intentions, namely, to secure “meaningful self-government.” Paul Groarke maintains that his defence lawyers, by arguing insanity, obscured their client’s proper intentions, which would be grounds for a mistrial. Such discussions expand our understanding of what Riel might have hoped to accomplish in his speeches.

Two essays offer particularly helpful analysis of the theoretical structures that mediated Riel’s rhetorical strategies. Kerry Sloan’s excellent chapter is the only essay to take Riel’s indigenous heritage seriously and explore how, in addition to his classical European education, he had access to indigenous epistemologies of confederacy theory and prophetic traditions. Maurice Charland employs Jean-François Lyotard’s theory of differend to highlight how Riel was tragically divested of the means to “commune.” He concludes, “Like Socrates [Riel] valued his cause and his truth over his life. Refusing pagan strategies, he surrendered and ran the risk of martyrdom.”

In assessing the collection two critiques seem appropriate. First, the focus on rhetoric...

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