1877. Louis Riel and the Metis Some Métis from the British territory to the north settled in Montana in the latter half of the 19th century. For a time, Louis Riel, the Métis leader from Manitoba in exile, taught school at St. Peter's Mission in Montana and was active in the local Republican Party. Democrats alleged he helped Métis men, who were not American citizens, to vote for the Republicans. In the summer of 1884, a delegation of Métis leaders including Gabriel Dumont and James Isbister, convinced Riel to return north, where in the following year he led the Métis revolt against Canadian rule, known as the North-West Rebellion. Following the defeat of the Métis rebels and the imprisonment and later hanging to Riel, Gabriel Dumont fled to exile in Montana. Railroads The railroads were the engine of settlement in the state. Major development occurred in the 1880s. The Northern Pacific Railroad was given land grants by the federal government so that it could borrow money to build its system, reaching Billings in 1882. The federal government kept every other section of land, and gave it away to homesteaders. At first the railroad sold much of its holdings at low prices to land speculators in order to realize quick cash profits, and also to eliminate sizable annual tax bills. The speculators in turn parceled out the land on credit to farmers and ranchers eager to develop operations near a railroad. By 1905 the company changed its land policies as it realized it had been a costly mistake to have sold so much land at wholesale prices. With better railroad service and improved methods of farming the Northern Pacific easily sold what had been heretofore "worthless" land directly to farmers at good prices. By 1910 the railroad's holdings in North Dakota had been greatly reduced. Meanwhile, the Great Northern Railroad energetically promoted settlement along its lines in the northern part of the state. The Great Northern bought its lands from the federal government—it received no land grants—and resold them to farmers one by one. It operated agencies in Germany and Scandinavia that promoted its lands, and brought families over at low cost. The village of Taft, located in western Montana near the Idaho border, was representative of numerous short lived railroad construction camps. In 1907-09 Taft served as a boisterous construction town for the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railroad. The