Thomas Scott and the Daughter of Time

Prairie Forum

Volumn 23, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 145-169

  Bumsted, J M ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DOCUMENTARY SOURCE; SOCIAL HISTORY; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

CANADA;

EID: 0032441889     PISSN: 03176282     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time (1951; London: Harmondsworth, 1974), 94. Tonypandy is a place in the South of Wales where - according to Tey - a riot which was stopped by unarmed London police was built up as a massacre by armed troops of Welsh miners striking for their rights.
2. Ibid., 95.
3. There are two reports of this trial: one in a publication entitled Preliminary Investigation and Trial of Ambroise D. Lépine for the Murder of Thomas Scott, Being a full report of the proceedings in this case before the Magistrates' Court and the several Courts of Queen's Bench in the Province of Manitoba (Montreal: Burland-Desbarats, 1874), which was based on the court reports of various reporters for eastern Canadian newspapers; and one in Winnipeg's Free Press, which was based on the work of local reporters. The two sets of reports have much in common, particularly because the various participants distributed their set speeches in advance to the press, but also probably because the reporters often pooled their resources. But there is some significant new material in the Free Press accounts which has not often been used by historians. In addition to the published accounts, the trial notes of Judge Edmund Burke Wood also survive, in the Provincial Archives of Manitoba. These provide over 160 pages of crabbed judge's notes, often illegible, on the testimony.
4. Easily the most blatant example of such malpractice occurs in Dr. Peter Charlebois, The Life of Louis Riel in Pictures (Toronto: NC Press, 1978). He quotes from Mrs. Black's account of her brother's death in William Healy's Women of Red River (Winnipeg: Women's Canadian Club, 1923) that his killer Parisien was "lying half-unconscious with the blood streaming from a wound in the side of his head which Thomas Scott had given him with a hatchet." In Healy's text, the original quotation read "which someone had given him with a hatchet."
5. Easily the most blatant example of such malpractice occurs in Dr. Peter Charlebois, The Life of Louis Riel in Pictures (Toronto: NC Press, 1978). He quotes from Mrs. Black's account of her brother's death in William Healy's Women of Red River (Winnipeg: Women's Canadian Club, 1923) that his killer Parisien was "lying half-unconscious with the blood streaming from a wound in the side of his head which Thomas Scott had given him with a hatchet." In Healy's text, the original quotation read "which someone had given him with a hatchet."
6. W.B. Osler in The Man Who Had to Hang: Louis Riel (Toronto: n.p., 1952), for example, described Thomas Scott as an "obscure young man" who "cursed himself into eternity." Osler continued: "First there was the time - it was months before Riel and his men turned back McDougall at the frontier -when they [Riel and Scott] met on the street in Winnipeg and Scott, cursing, furiously attacked Riel with his fists. Louis, no fighter, was rescued by onlookers. No one ever found out what caused this outburst. Even Riel apparently did not know. Later, when Scott was first captured and imprisoned at Fort Garry, he screamed curses at his guards and beat upon his cell door. Then he escaped, and in the raid on Coutu's home he informed the indignant householder and anyone else within hearing that when he caught Riel he would kill the bastard. Recaptured, he renewed his abuse of the guards. And one day when his cell door was opened as the President walked past he leaped into the corridor, flung himsef upon Riel and screamed: 'You son of a bitch! If I'm ever free I'll kill you with my bare hands!'" (182-83).
7. Quoted in Frances G. Halpenny, ed., Dictionary of Canadian Biography, IX, 1861-1870 (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 707.
8. Quoted in Rev. George Young, Manitoba Memories: Leaves from My Life in the Prairie Province, 1868-1884 (Toronto: William Briggs, 1897), 145.
9. Ibid. What survives of this material is in the United Church Archives (Toronto), George Young file.
10. George Young file. W.L. Morton in his introduction to W.L. Morton, ed., Alexander Begg's Red River Journal and Other Papers Relative to the Red River Resistance of 1869-70 [hereafter Begg's Journal] (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1956), argues from these savings that Scott was "obviously neither a wastrel nor a drinker" (p. 111). This money may have played an important role in Scott's behaviour during his second imprisonment. According to Alexander Murray in his 1874 Lépine trial testimony, he and Scott were taken prisoner together in February. The two were searched and Murray had his pocketbook containing £60 taken from him. According to Murray, Scott asked for his pocketbook in the course of the final contretemps with Riel.
11. G.F.G. Stanley, Toil & Trouble: Military Expeditions to Red River (Toronto and Oxford: Dunburn Press, 1989), 78.
12. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992).
13. Hugh Scott to John A. Macdonald, 6 April 1870, quoted in Morton, ed., Begg's Journal, 111n. His brother also described Thomas as "a very quiet and inofensive [sir] young man," an assessment which has traditionally been ignored, presumably because of its source.
14. Young, Manitoba Memories, 144. If Scott got to Red River by coach, then he could not have been the "James Scott" who arrived on board the steamer International in late June in company with "Wm. A. Allen" and "F. J. Mogridge"; Nor'Wester, 26 June 1869. It is also possible that the newspaper got the surname wrong; James Robb is a likely alternate candidate.
15. Nolin insisted that the food itself was good, since he had supplied it. Charles Nolin Testimony, 21 October 1874, at Lépine Trial.
16. Provincial Archives of Manitoba (PAM), MG 2 B4-1, District of Assiniboia Minutes of Quarterly Court, Sheriff's Court Book.
17. Begg's Journal, 173.
18. Norman Shrive, Charles Mair, Literary Nationalist (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 94. According to the diary of P.G. Laurie in the Saskatchewan Archives Board, E.L. Storer Papers, Scott was living at "Garrett's" while awaiting trial. According to the News-Letter of 1 February 1871, he helped collect funds about this time for the welcome of Governor McDougall to the settlement.
19. Stanley, Louis Riel, 111 and note 52.
20. The Story of Louis Riel the Rebel Chief (Toronto/Whitby: J.S. Robertson and Brothers, 1885), 117.
21. "Diary of A. W. Graham," The Elgin Historical and Scientific Institure Proceedings (1912).
22. John H. O'Donnell, Manitoba as I Saw It. From 1869 to Date (Toronto: Clarke, 1909), esp. 30 ff.
23. Report of William Allan and Joseph Coombes, in Toronto Globe, 15 April 1870.
24. Young, Manitoba Memories, 131-32.
25. PAM, MG 11 A1, "Recollections of Peter McArthur, 193-1-5."
26. "Diary of A. W. Graham," p. 75.
27. Charles Arkoll Boulton, Reminiscences of the North-West Rebellions, with a Record of the Raising of Her Majesty's 100th Regiment in Canada, and a Chapter on Canadian Social & Political Life, by Major Boulton, Commanding Boulton's Scouts (Toronto: Grip Printing and Publishing Co., [1886]), 133.
28. Report of Allan and Coombes.
29. The Globe, 4 April 1870.
30. PAM, MG 3 B15, James Ashdown notes on Winship Manuscript (1914).
31. PAM, NG11 Al, "Recollections of Peter McArthur 1934-5."
32. "Diary of A. W. Graham," 82.
33. PAM, MG 3 B11, Journal of Henry Woodington, 22 September 1869-17 February 1870."
34. Boulton, Reminiscences, 101 ff.
35. Testimony of William Chambers, Free Press, 15 October 1874.
36. Ibid. In his unpublished thesis, Neil Allan Ronaghan argues that after Scott's death, the Canadian Party conspired "to leave the impression that Scott had played almost no part in their affairs." He offers no evidence for this assertion, nor does he explain why such action made Scott a better martyr. In any event, the result, argues Ronaghan, is that "the researcher must regard everything written about Scott after April of 1870 with caution, and everything written after 1885 with suspicion." Ronaghan, "The Archibald Administration in Manitoba - 1870-1872" (Ph.D. dissertion, University of Manitoba, 1986), 211-12.
37. Testimony of Alexander McPherson, Trial of Ambroise Lépine, 14 October 1874.
38. Testimony of Alexander Murray, Trial of Ambroise Lépine, 16 October 1874. Nor was Scott one of the fourteen members of the "general council for the force" chosen at Kildonan and listed in the St. Paul Daily Pioneer, 2 April 1870.
39. Testimony of Alexander Murray, Trial of Ambroise Lépine, 16 October 1874. Nor was Scott one of the fourteen members of the "general council for the force" chosen at Kildonan and listed in the St. Paul Daily Pioneer, 2 April 1870.
40. Boulton, Reminiscences, 105.
41. PAM, P733 f 10, Memoir of Donald McLeod.
42. Testimony of William Farmer, Free Press, 14 October 1874.
43. Irene Spry, ed., "The Memoirs of George William Sanderson," Canadian Ethnic Studies 17 (1985): 115-34.
44. Testimony of Alexander Murray, Trial of Ambroise Lépine, 16 October 1874.
45. Testimony of George Newcombe, Trial of Ambroise Lépine, 15 October 1874.
46. Testimony of Alexander Murray, Trial of Ambroise Lépine, 16 October 1874. Murray continued this testimony by dating this contretemps at nine p.m. on the evening of 3 March. We know from other evidence that Scott had already been tried and convicted by this time, so something must be wrong with Murray's chronology.
47. Boulton, Reminiscences, 126-27.
48. Testimony of John McLean, Free Press, 20 October 1874.
49. Testimony of John McLenn, The Trial of Ambroise Lépine.
50. Donald Smith to Joseph Howe, 28 April, 1870 (no source given).
51. Testimony of George Young, Free Press, 15 October 1874. The evidence about the previous Saturday does not appear in the Free Press report, however, but only in The Trial of Ambroise Lépine.
52. Young, Manitoba Memories, 132-33.
53. Donald Gunn and Charles Tuttle, in their History of Manitoba (Ottawa: Maclean, Roger, 1885), 396-97, were the only early historians who quoted Nolin's testimony at length, although their earlier discussion of the Scott "court-martial" made clear that they did not entirely understand what Nolin had said.
54. Testimony of Joseph Nolin, Free Press, 17 October 1874; The Trial of Ambroise Lépine.
55. Ibid.
56. A.G. Morice ignored this point when he cited Nolin's sworn evidence as part of an impassioned demolition of the subsequent "English" criticism of the trial in A Critical History of the Red River Rebellion (Winnipeg: Canadian Publishers, 1935).
57. Trémaudan asserted in The Canadian Historical Review 6 (1925), "I have it from some of the men who sat on that trial that Riel had nothing whatever to do with the proceedings taken, the decision arrived at, and the execution performed, beyond, of course, the appointment of the tribunal itself, and except, before and after the verdict was rendered, to plead with his people for mercy." (p. 233n).
58. Young, Manitoba Memories, 133.
59. Testimony of George Young (no source given).
60. Smith to Joseph Howe, 28 April 1870, reprinted in Morton, ed., Begg's Journal,
61. A.G. Morice, in his Critical History, wrote in a footnote, "As we have seen, even D.A. Smith called him [Scott] in his Report 'a rash, thoughtless man, whom none cared to have to do anything with'." A number of other writers repeat Smith's remark without noting that it was not Smith's assessment.
62. Smith argued that this was a trifling business, but Riel insisted, "Do not attempt to prejudice us against Americans, for although we have not been with them they are with us, and have been better friends to us than Canadians."
63. Quoted in Shrive, Charles Mair, 103.
64. The New Nation, 4 March 1870.
65. According to Boulton, this visit occurred only after Scott had been sentenced to death. See Boulton's Reminiscences, 127.
66. Letter from Fort Garry in the Globe, 7 April 1870.
67. G.F.G. Stanley et al., eds., The Collected Writings of Louis Riel/Les Ecrits Complets de Louis Riel (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1985), I, 198-200. This document was originally reprinted as "The Execution of Thomas Scott" with a translation and extensive notes by A. H. de Trémaudan in The Canadian Historical Review 6 (1925): 222-36. In these notes, the editor introduced a good deal of information based on recent interviews with Métis involved with Riel in 1869-70.
68. G.F.G. Stanley et al., eds., The Collected Writings of Louis Riel/Les Ecrits Complets de Louis Riel (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1985), I, 198-200. This document was originally reprinted as "The Execution of Thomas Scott" with a translation and extensive notes by A. H. de Trémaudan in The Canadian Historical Review 6 (1925): 222-36. In these notes, the editor introduced a good deal of information based on recent interviews with Métis involved with Riel in 1869-70.
69. Ibid., 243-57, especially 247.
70. Ibid. 298-319, especially 308-11.
71. See the Montreal Gazette, 18 February 1874, and the Montreal Herald, 19 February 1874.
72. See the Montreal Gazette, 18 February 1874, and the Montreal Herald, 19 February 1874.
73. It has been reprinted in Stanley et al., ed., The Collected Writings of Louis Riel, I, 323-49.
74. The original document was written in French. This translation is mine. It is entirely possible that the Scott involved in the drinking bout was James Scott, who according to the Nor'Wester of 26 June 1869 arrived in Red River in late June with Francis Mogridge and William A. Allen aboard the steamer International. If it was James Scott who helped terrorize the community, then Thomas Scott was once again being blamed for alcoholic activities not really his fault.
75. Ibid., 421.
76. Reprinted in Stanley et al., eds., The Collected Writings of Louis Riel, II, 413-23.
77. Ibid., 424-6.
78. Ibid., III, 583-4.
79. Trémaudan, "The Execution of Thomas Scott," 228-29n.
80. Ibid., p. 231n.
81. The Anglophone witnesses concur that Scott could not believe that he would actually be executed. These witnesses suggest that Scott's disbelief was a product of his sense that he did not deserve death for his behaviour, rather than because of his contempt for his captors.
82. Morice, Critical History, 283n.
83. R.G. MacBeth, The Romance of Western Canada (2nd ed., Toronto: William Briggs, 1920), 156-57.
84. Ibid.
85. PAM, MG3 B23, W.M. Joyce Papers.
86. "Issued from a low social stratum," wrote A.G. Morice, "he was of a naturally rough disposition which, in captivity, bordered on actual ferocity," in Critical History, 283.
87. R.G. MacBeth, The Making of the Canadian West: Reminiscences of an Eyewitness (Toronto: William Briggs, 1898), 82.
88. Captain George Huyshe in his The Red River Expedition (n.p., 1871), 20, insisted that Scott's "only crime had been loyalty to his Queen and country."
89. Scheduled for noon, the execution occurred nearly an hour later, partly because of the time taken by Donald Smith pleading for Scott's life.
90. Young, Manitoba Memories, 131-37.
91. Witnesses at Lépine's trial could not agree on who had fired the revolver shot.
92. See, for example, Tremauden, "The Execution of Thomas Scott" for an account of the interviewing process.
93. A.G. Morice in 1935 wrote that he had learned from André Nault, who claimed to be one of those who had helped Riel remove the body from the Fort, that it had been buried in an unmarked spot in St. John's Protestant cemetery. Morice, Critical History, 293-95.