In a book called Possessed by the Past, American scholar David Lowenthal distinguishes between history and heritage. 

The former, he explains, is a study of the past, pursued by those who try to get things right, even if they almost never succeed. Heritage is our attempt to exploit the past for present tastes and, by definition, has nothing to do with what actually happened. 

When Joe Stalin painted Trotsky and other enemies out of the Russian Revolution, he changed Soviet heritage, not history. Old Fort York, high-school history texts and the movie Titanic are designed for now, not then. As cherished heritage, they are as close to truth as advertising. 

Lowenthal offers comfort to those who think that the friends of Louis Riel are messing with the truth. They can't. Riel is dead, hanged in Regina on Nov. 15, 1885, for "levying war upon Her Majesty," contrary to a medieval Statute of Treasons, which had the force of law in Canada at the time. 

Riel's lawyers, prominent Quebec Liberals plus Winnipegger John Skirving Ewart, had realized that the evidence was irrefutable. The only way to save their client was to plead insanity. Catholic missionaries agreed; Riel's "visions" were proof of his madness. 

Jury Foreman Wept 

Such a plea was doubly abhorrent to Riel. It made a mockery of his own profound religious beliefs, and he remembered his suffering at Quebec's appalling insane asylum at Beauport in the 1870s. His eloquent address to the jury, delivered over his lawyer's protests, demolished the insanity plea and made the jury foreman weep. 

Denounced by Quebec politicians as Protestant bigots, the jury did all it could by urging mercy. 

Why was Riel hanged? His judge had little alternative: grievances did not give anyone the right to organize and lead a rebellion in which more than a hundred died. 

Sir John A. Macdonald's government might have exercised clemency. Why not? Was it Ontario bigotry? Except for E.E. Sheppard, editor of the Toronto News and later founder of Saturday Night, examples are hard to find. Liberal papers like the Toronto Globe and the London Advertiser thought the prime minister should share the scaffold with Riel for mismanagement. 

Macdonald had a veteran politician's contempt for public agitation. His motive was close to Riel's when he ordered Tom Scott killed in 1870 - to show that his government was in control and to discourage other troublemakers. 

In the short term, the executions worked. Long-term, both deaths brought immense grief to almost all concerned. Exploiting Riel's memory began almost at once, on Nov. 22, 1885, with a huge rally in downtown Montreal, addressed by the next Quebec premier, Honore Mercier. 

Wilfrid Laurier, a future prime minister, proclaimed, "If I had been on the banks of the Saskatchewan, I, too, would have shouldered my musket." Perhaps he might have, though most Metis and the great majority of Indians wisely had stayed home, a fact their descendants do not celebrate. 

After his death, Riel became part of the heritage of the West, of the Metis and of Quebec. Every Prairie protest movement, from the Territorial Graingrowers to the Reform Party, would remember how Riel got the government's undivided attention. 

To the Metis, Riel was the symbolic martyr for people he had christened the New Nation. In Quebec, Riel symbolized the failure of Canada to become a homeland for both French and English. His execution was a cruel reminder that French Canadians were safe only in their own province. 

Historical Revisionism 

The rest of Canada largely forgot about Riel. In the 1930s, an Alberta Rhodes scholar with high-Anglican beliefs and a deep sympathy for French Canada, George Francis Gilman Stanley, studied the Riel Rebellions of 1870 and 1885, and published in 1936 The Birth of Western Canada. In 1963, he published a sympathetic biography of Riel. On these pillars, historical revisionism was founded. Heritage priorities also emerged. 

By the 1960s, Macdonald's concerns looked very old-fashioned. Indian and Metis voices were finally being heard. Heritage interpretations took over. John Coulter presented Riel in a myth-making opera. Manitoba recognized Riel with a large statue outside the legislature. Saskatchewan followed with an even bigger statue, unfortunately nude. 

Father of Confederation? 

An appalling two-part serial, filmed on the prairies north of Kleinburg, Ont., filled a couple of hours of CBC television. Young Metis debated whether they preferred Riel to Gabriel Dumont, the buffalo-hunter whose tactical skill would have caused the Canadian troops heavy losses if Riel had not frustrated him. 

The campaign for Riel's exoneration and promotion to the company of the fathers of confederation continues, currently under the dubious auspices of the Bloc Quebecois, but with plenty of allies. Lowenthal's book tells us why. 

Canadians in 1998 are free to use Riel as they please, much as children use dolls to learn how to socialize and to fantasize. Riel the symbol, after all, is heritage, to be exploited for collective self-esteem, victim status and the indoctrination of the young. 

If heritage makes happiness, let's do it. History, Lowenthal argues, is something else. In its pages, the real Riel, with his imperfections, brilliance, passion and tragedy, remains, with Macdonald, Scott, Dumont and all their contemporaries. History is strictly an adult entertainment.