Lawyer.
Born in Indiana with no legs, he used crutches throughout his life. Despite the handicap he went to the Dakota Territory in 1858 and served as a member of the territorial legislature. He was hired in 1868 as an attorney to defend Alex McLean from a charge of manslaughter. In 1869 he was promoting the American annexation of Red River from Pembina, and he was often consulted by Louis Riel and the Métis leadership. He arrived in Winnipeg on 22 November 1869 and met with the Métis about a Bill of Rights, the first four clauses of which echoed his own earlier submission of a Dakota bill to a St. Paul newspaper. With the growing disfavour shown by Riel to the Americans, Stutsman disappeared from the Red River scene.
See also:
Attorney for the Frontier by Dale Gibson, Lee Gibson and Cameron Harvey (1983).
Review: Attorney for the Frontier by Sidney Green
Manitoba History, Number 9, Spring 1985Enos Stutsman, Dictionary of Canadian Biography X, 669.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 5 February 2022
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