Since 1866, Irish nationalists in the United States had been launching cross-border attacks into Canada hoping that military success in that British territory would lead, somehow, to an end to the occupation of Ireland.
The raids on Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick by these well-armed bands (comprised mostly of veterans of the American Civil War) had been bloody but unsuccessful. A last desperate plan was launched in 1871 to invade Manitoba from the Dakota Territory and link up with dissident Métis believed to be still smarting from the defeat of Louis Riel’s recent rebellion. The Fenian leadership gave the plan little chance of success but supplied arms—muskets, ammunition, and swords—for the effort.
The leaders in this scheme were two fascinating characters, John O‘Neill and W.B. O’Donoghue.
O'Neill was an Irish immigrant who had fought in the American army on the western frontier and in the Civil War, where he reached the rank of captain. After that war ended, he joined the Fenian Brotherhood and distinguished himself in leading an 1866 raid into Ontario where he defeated Canadian forces at the Battle of Ridgway. He was named Inspector General of the Irish Republican Army but Fenian disunity and an abortive raid into Quebec soured him, for a time, on further interest in Canadian incursions.
O'Donoghue had also emigrated from Ireland and, like O’Neill, he harboured strong anti-British sentiments. He had met the Bishop of Saint Boniface, Vital-Justin Grandin, and agreed to move to Manitoba where he taught mathematics at the local college and began to train for the priesthood. He soon took part in the political turmoil that followed the Hudson’s Bay Company’s cession of its vast lands to Canada. As an associate of Louis Riel, he served as treasurer of the 1870 provisional government that seized power in the Red River country, but when Canadian troops arrived to quash the Métis resistance, he and Riel fled to the United States.
In exile, O’Donoghue and Riel fell out. Riel anticipated an amnesty which would allow him to return peacefully to Manitoba, but his Irish colleague urged stronger action. O’Donoghue travelled to Washington to urge President Grant to take up the Métis cause and intervene. When Grant refused, O’Donoghue approached the Fenians. He had drawn up a constitution for the Republic of Rupert’s Land, the new state he intended to establish (with himself as president), and persuaded O’Neill to join his schemes.
With 35 men recruited from unemployed Minnesota timber workers and disgruntled Métis, O‘Donoghue and O’Neill launched an attack on Canadian soil—or what they thought was Canadian soil. Claiming to be acting in the name of the “provisional government of Rupert’s Land,” they had, in fact, captured a stockaded Hudson’s Bay Company post that lay on the American side of the border. The insurgents took a number of prisoners and planned to head north deeper into Canada, hoping to gather more Métis support as they moved on St. Boniface.
The Métis of Manitoba had become aware of the impending attack and debated what their reaction should be. Most chose to follow the advice of Louis Riel, now back in the country, and decline to support the raiders. Riel told Canadian authorities, “Be assured that there is not the least danger that I or any of my friends will join with the Fenians. We detest the Fenians, for they are condemned by the [Catholic] Church, and we shall have nothing to do with them.” In fact, a group of Métis volunteers assembled to repel the invasion but they had not gone very far before they learned of the failure of the insurgents.
While the raiders were busy looting the captured post, they were apprehended by an American cavalry detachment from nearby Fort Pembina. O’Donoghue tried to escape, but he fell into the hands of Métis who returned him to the United States. A quick trial in North Dakota soon freed the would-be invaders on the grounds that their actions had not taken them across the Canadian border. Three captured Métis raiders were tried in Canada; two were released and one was sentenced to death (though the penalty was changed to exile to the USA).
This was the last of the Fenian raids. Though it looks farcical at this distance, the Canadian government had been deeply worried lest the Red River Métis joined the venture and turn Manitobans’ thoughts toward union with the USA. Thanks to the ineptitude of O’Neill and O’Donoghue, and the statesmanship of Louis Riel, that danger was averted.
