Fenian Raids - Pembina Raid (1871)

Pembina Raid (1871)

Fenian John O'Neill, after the failed 1870 Fenian invasion of Canada, had resigned the Senate Wing then joined the Savage Wing. In return he was given a seat on the Savage Wing governing council. In 1871 O'Neill and an odd character named W. B. O’Donoghue asked the Savage Wing Council to undertake another invasion of Canada across the Dakota Territory border. The Council, weary of Canadian adventures in general and O’Neill in particular, would have none of it. O'Neill's idea was turned down, but the Council promised to loan him arms and agreed they would not publicly denounce him and his raid. O'Neill resigned from the Fenians to lead the invasion, which was planned in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to invade Manitoba near Winnipeg. Around 35 men, led by John O'Neill, William B. O'Donoghue, and John J. Donnelly had hopes of meeting up with Louis Riel's French-Indian Métis. The O'Neill-led force managed to capture a Hudson's Bay Company post and a Canadian customs house just north of the international border on 5 October. Or so they thought: actually a U.S. border survey team had determined the border to be two miles further north putting the Hudson's Bay post and the customs house inside U.S. territory. O'Neill, J. J. Donnelly and ten more men were taken prisoner by U.S. soldiers under Captain Lloyd Wheaton near Pembina, Dakota Territory. The raid was doomed from the start: it took place inside U.S. territory, and the Métis under Riel signed a pact with the British just as the invasion was beginning. Riel and his Métis subsequently captured O'Donoghue and turned him over to the U.S. government. In a rather muddled federal response, O'Neill was arrested twice, once in Dakota and once in Minnesota, but released and never charged. The 10 men captured with O'Neill were released by the court as "dupes" of O'Neill and Donnelly.