1871
The Pembina Raid
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 to an end to the occupation of Ireland. The raids on Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick by these well-armed bands (most of them veterans of the 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 under Louis Riel. The Fenian leadership gave the plan little chance of success but supplied arms for the effort.
The leaders in this scheme were W.B. O’Donoghue and John O’Neill. O’Neill was an Irish immigrant who had fought in the American Army on the western frontier and in the Civil War, reaching the rank of captain, and had taken part in two previous Fenian raids in 1866 and 1870. O’Donoghue had taken part in the Red River rebellion in 1870 as an associate of Louis Riel and had served as treasurer of the provisional government; he accompanied Riel in fleeing to the United States after the arrival of Canadian troops. He favoured involving the American government on the side of Métis inhabitants of what had become Manitoba but, when Riel demurred, 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).
With 35 men recruited from the unemployed of Minnesota and disgruntled Manitoba Métis, O’Donoghue and O’Neill launched an attack on Canadian soil — or what they thought was Canadian soil. They had, in fact, captured a Hudson’s Bay Company post on the American side of the border. Most were arrested by American authorities and O’Donoghue fell into the hands of Métis who returned him to the United States. 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 U.S.A.