nded the growing discontent amongst the Metis. He believes the protest continued because Riel interpreted the telegram himself and made it sound like the government was trying to provoke the Metis into fighting, instead of trying to reach an agreement with them. Flanagan argued that Riel was the soul interpreter of the telegram and falsely interpreted it. The cryptic telegram of which he made himself the interpreter, became the evidence for the Metis people, of the governments refusal to deal with the Metis, the exact opposite of its intended meaning. 20According to Flanagan, Riel had been plotting to rebel right from the beginning of his arrival to Saskatchewan. Riel saw that in the grievances of the Metis an opportunity to implement his theory that the Manitoba treaty had been broken; that the Metis were the real owners of the northwest: that they could renegotiate entry into Confederation: that they must receive a seventh value of the land of the North-West as compensation for letting others live there: and they could seek an independent political destiny if these terms were not met. Collaborating with white agitators like Jackson who were chiefly interested in provincial status and responsible government, he embarked upon a complex and deliberately deceptive strategy of making successively more radical demands. A Bill of Rights amounting to a Declaration of Independence was envisioned from the beginning. Finally, when Riel realized there was an unbridgeable gap between himself and Jackson, he determined to go it alone, as he had in 1869. The Metis would take the lead, rise in arms, and carry the English half-breeds and white settlers with them. 21The one place that Flanagan feels that the government may have overstepped its boundaries is in one incident and that incident was in the forgery of medical evidence that was used to hasten Riels hanging. This is the one episode in the North West Rebellion in which the government m...
