Louis Riel Sr.
Louis Riel Sr. (père) (1817–1864) was a farmer, miller, and Métis leader. He was born July 7, 1817, on Île-à-la-Crosse in Rupert's Land. He was the oldest son of Jean-Baptiste Riel and Marguerite Boucher. His family moved to Lower Canada when he was a child. He learned to card wool in Quebec and joined the Hudson's Bay Company in 1838, working at Rainy River, Ontario, where he had a daughter, Marguerite, in 1840. He left HBC in 1842 and briefly tried joining a religious order in Quebec but left after a year.
He moved to the Red River Settlement (now part of Winnipeg, Manitoba) and in January 1844 he married Julie Lagimodière. They had eleven children and were a devout, close family.
Riel Sr. started several businesses in Red River. In 1847 he opened a small mill on his farm, hoping to build a larger milling operation, but it did not succeed. He also tried running a carding and grain mill for the Grey Nuns of St. Boniface, earning the nickname "miller of the Seine," but that failed too. In 1857 he tried to start a textile industry, which also failed. Even so, he was an important leader in the Métis community.
He helped defend Guillaume Sayer in May 1849, a key event that weakened the Hudson's Bay Company's fur-trade monopoly in Red River. He worked to gain Métis rights, including representation on the Council of Assiniboia and using French in the courts there.
His son Louis Riel Jr. became a famous Métis leader and is often called the "Father of Manitoba." Louis Riel Sr. died on January 21, 1864, and the settlement mourned him.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:07 (CET).