Soldier.
Born in Quebec, the son of the victor of the battle of Chateauguay (1813), he grew up in a family of private means and public service. In 1857 he served in the Hind Expedition to Red River, in the 1860s he held militia appointments, and in 1869 he was appointed a Canadian government emissary to Red River. He was chosen because he was one of the few French Canadians known to Ottawa who had any acquaintance with the settlement. He arrived in Pembina (North Dakota) on Christmas Eve 1869 and in Red River in early January. But because Louis Riel insisted that his instructions did not empower him (or his colleague Father Thibeault) to negotiate a deal on behalf of Canada, the provisional government ignored him. His assurances that the Canadian government would pay the expenses of delegates to Ottawa to arrange a settlement were a useful if limited contribution. So too was his training of a boys’ band in St. Boniface. He returned to Ottawa with Father Joseph-Noel Ritchot, whom he introduced to George-Étienne Cartier and Joseph Howe. In later years he superintended woods and forests in the Montreal region. He is commemorated by the Rural Municipality of DeSalaberry.
See also:
Manitoba Municipalities: DeSalaberry
Charles d’Irumberry De Salaberry, Dictionary of Canadian Biography XI, 441-42.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 26 December 2014
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