Histories of the Metis
Lavoy Lawrence Garneau
In 1904 an unknown Strathcona Clarion Newspaper writer who was obviously European recorded his encounter with Lawrence Garneau (1840-1921). Lawrence Garneau was caught up in the Dakota Sioux Resistance Movement (1861-1863) and the Louis Riel Resistance Movement (1869-1870). According to research by R. D. Garneau, Lawrence was also involved in a Vigilance Committee to stop illegal squatters, namely Joe Bannerman M.P., the then Minister of the Interior (1882-1883). Lawrence was almost hung in Fort Edmonton during the second Riel Resistance Movement (1885) and was also involved in the defense of St. Paul de Metis from the Roman Catholic Church's infamous claim jumping of 1908. The words that follow are those of the newspaper writer who eloquently describes his encounter with "a tragic Half-breed."
Few of us ever really understood the complex character of the Half-Breed. The lights and shades of his variable nature were not clearly enough defined to admit of clear comprehension and certainly not of definition to anyone accustomed only to the clear-cut racial distinctions of world-old peoples, for the point of view of the Half-Breed is to be sometimes felt but never described. Once only it was given to me and then by the master hand of one of the race through the magic music of his violin, for few men I have been told, could play the violin as could Lavoy (Larry) Garneau, the finest of the French Half-Breed it has ever been my fortune to meet.
The long summer day of the Saskatchewan (River) and close had we sat in the coolness of the evening looking out over the river, where, high above the feeble flickering lights of the little settlement on the northern bank, shone the bright, glimmering stars of the universe, and the words of the intellectual man at my side were in harmony with the scene. He talked ethically of the rights of man, the duties of government, personal freedom, etc., and the desultory conversation gradually drifted from wondering at the purpose of creation, the law of the powerful, the injuries of the weak, and the abstract theories as to man's relations with the Infinite, until as the shadows deepened the soft, deep voice of Larry (Lawrence) Garneau spoke directly of the rights and wrongs of his people.
Unconsciously I must have assumed the mental attitude that a legal training and teaching of my race would once beget. With keen intuition my companion understood. Lawrence Garneau responded "Sympathy and feeling, human qualities as necessary in the judgment of worldly things as they are in religion, should be brought to bear on the question of Half-Breed rights and wrongs." said he quietly, reaching for his violin. "Let me tell you the story of the Half-breed."
And with the stars glimmering down upon us, with no sound to break the quietness of the night but the soft swishing flow of the mighty Saskatchewan, the notes of the violin, now vibrating with the swirl of the buffalo hunt and the mad merriment of the dance, then softening to some old French love song brought over seas and prairies from Brittany now murmuring the quaint, sweet lullabies of childhood, then breaking into the fierce chants of war and revenge at last died away in the wailing sadness of a requiem that told of a dying race. Only the other day I heard a great military band of world-wide repute tell the awful story of Bonaparte's most disastrous campaign, with blare of trumpet, the shriek of shells and the groans of the wounded, and some at least learned something of the horrors of war.
From the throbbing notes of the singing, sobbing violin, pressed under the strong chin of Larry Garneau, from his deep chested words of rapid explanations uttered now and then during the recital, from his softened or flashing eyes and the mobile features of his expressive face in the clear northern starlight, I learned the tragic Story of the Half-Breed."