What factors lead to riels emergence as leader of the metis?

Answer 1

The main factor was the violent response by Canada. Riel was a local leader and did not identify as Indian or Mixed Blood until after Canada sent troops to force people in Western Canada to consent to colonisation by Canada.

Canada played up Riels Indian connection. His family was French, French Farmers who had settled in the Red River area. Riel spent time on the farm and in French cities in Quebec, he was not a trapper or hunter any more than any farmer in the area of is birth.

But Canada did not want Canadians to know that, particularly the French with whom they had just entered into a fragile Confederation with. It would look very bad to have Canadian troops from Ontario attacking French Farmers in the West. So Canada called Riel Metis, which was a racial slur among the French and prevented the French from being upset at the treatment of people living in Ruperts Land.

In the end the Indians and mixed bloods looked to Riel for support and leadership against an increasingly aggressive Canada who was flooding the area with immigrants and had put in place a paramilitary force to crush any resistance to Canadian colonisation.

If Canada had given the people of Ruperts Land and the territories the right to vote on colonisation and had not used force and fraud to get compliance Riel would not be a Metis leader.