Drawing on youthful audacity and precocious political skills, Riel by his mid-20s, had achieved the remarkable feat of bringing the Red River settlements of the Hudson’s Bay Company into Confederation as a province. But his youthful insecurity and insistence on being respected provoked him into a blunder which undermined this legacy and put him on a path which led to exile, mental illness, and finally, execution, as a traitor to the nation he helped to create.