ivilized obstacles, because they were resisting progress. The natives had to fail in their stance against the government, because they were a primitive people, standing against the march of civilization,1 they had to be pushed aside so the new country could progress. Stanley believes that up until the execution of Thomas Scott, the Red River Rebellion was relatively non-violent and the government probably would have forgiven the Metis indiscretions, because they even continued to follow the process of conciliation through to the passage of the Manitoba Act. Although Scott deserved some sort of punishment for his actions against the Metis people, his actions hardly deserved the death penalty. 2The execution of Scott was a huge faux pas on the part of the Metis officials and it invited terrible reprisals from the government. John A. MacDonald certainly could not ignore the execution because half the people of his newly formed country were calling for the head of Riel. The rebellions from here on in would take an ugly turn and seem more about race and religion and less about negotiations between the Metis Provisional government and the Canadian Government. The execution of Scott caused huge problems for the government and they couldnt turn a blind eye to them. On one side they had the protestant people clamoring for Riels head, and the other side people defending him for standing up to the government. MacDonald realized they couldnt excuse the execution nor could he grant amnesty to those involved in the execution. Since the key people of the provisional government couldnt be given amnesty, there wouldnt be a Metis person to lead the government of the new province. The government would have to place their own people into key government positions.3 This political move made the Metis people very suspicious of their new white neighbors and suspicious of the actions of the Canadian government. Stanley believes that it was this susp...
