Annie (McDermot) Bannatyne was a Metis matriarch who
is well remembered for her generous contributions to the
community of Red River and the town of Winnipeg. Born
on November 12th in 1830 her mother was Saulteaux and
her father was Irish. She married Andrew Bannatyne, an
employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company and moved to
Red River where her husband ran a store.
Annie Bannatyne is most remembered for her great act of
resistance defending the honour of Metis women at a time when Metis
settlements were under threat from expansionists, such as Charles Mair and
toxic racism was rampant against Indigenous people including the Metis.
Two years before the Riel Rebellion began, Charles Mair – born in Lanark –
wrote an unapologetic racist diatribe against the Metis women in Red River.
What follows is an account written by L’Abbe Dugas who witnessed the
events:
“Mair, having committed the indelicacy of writing in Ontario newspapers
some cutting words about the [Metis] women of [Red River], suffers the
humiliation of being horsewhipped in the post office, by Mrs. Bannatyne,
the wife of one of the town’s most notable citizens. She had read Mair’s
writing and she promised herself to make him pay for it.
She ordered the clerk of [her husband’s store, where the post office was
located, to come and warn her when Mair arrived to collect his letters
and newspapers, as he did every Saturday. Therefore, one Saturday in
February 1869 at four in the afternoon, while the store was full of
people, the clerk Daniel Mulligan having seen Mair’s arrival, ran to tell
Mrs. Bannatyne.
She quickly throws a shawl on her head and bursts into the post office
holding a large whip in her hand. Without hesitating, she advances on
Mair, seizes his nose between her fingers and gives him five or six
strokes of the whip on different parts of his body. “Look,” she says, “this
is how the women of Red River treat those who insult them.” The scene
lasted only half a minute. By evening, the incident was known all across
the country.” (L’Abbé G. Dugas, Histoire Véidique des faites qui ont
Préparé le mouvement des Metis a la Rivière-rouge en 1869, Montréal,
1905, 27-28).
The Metis Museum commented :
“Louis Riel had arrived in 1868 to a Red River rife with rumours of
political change… the horsewhipping of Mair had made an indelible
impression on Riel. An act, which he interpreted as one of resistance to
the current political agitation.”
(https://www.metismuseum.ca/media/db/07426)
The first Red River Resistance was organized in the fall of 1869 protesting the
sale of the territory by the Hudson’s Bay Company to the government of
Canada.
The Perth Museum houses the Charles Mair collection of cultural heritage
from the Metis and Indigenous communities he visited. The complete
collection was donated to the Perth Museum by his heirs.
