It was 200 glorious years ago this year that Canada took its first steps to becoming nation when it took up arms against the Americans in the War of 1812 for certain reasons that I imagine are very well explained on Wikipedia.
It was that battle where we defined our Canadianness, except that we were actually British at the time, but it planted the seeds of our emancipation from the Americans. Or the British, rather. Like 60 years later.
Still, I'm told by reliable sources in government that the War of 1812 was "a seminal event in the making of our country." Heritage Minister James Moore has even renamed October the "Month of Commemoration of the Heroes and Key Battles of the War of 1812," so elongate your calendars accordingly.
I've recently been reading Halifax: Warden of the North, the brisk and lively history of Nova Scotia's capital by Thomas Raddall. I couldn't wait to get to 1812 and read about our historic butt-thwomping of the Americans. Instead, I had a revelation. I now think 1812 is nothing compared to a more pivotal moment in Canada's history: The American Revolution.
First, about the 1812:
Historians debate who "started" the War of 1812 but one thing is clear - in the lead-up to the war we were a bunch of assholes.
By 1805 Admiral Mitchell of the Royal navy had come up with a novel recruiting strategy - seizing Americans on the high seas and bringing them into Halifax as seamen on the lower decks.
Raddall:
The captains of His Majesty's fleet, not content with robbing provincial merchantmen of their crews, had begun overhauling American ships and treating them in the same way. The excuse was that many seamen in American vessels were deserters from the Royal Navy. This was true, for impressed men escaped at any chance and the Americans... were able to offer high wages as well as the supposed protection of their flag. [p133]
Tensions simmered until 1807, when the HMS Leopard fired on the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake, a 38-gun, three-masted heavy frigate and one of the "original six" frigates of the United States navy, is still today famous for all the wrong reasons. Several crew were captured, a couple were convicted of mutiny and gruesomely executed.
Back in Washington, the Americans were wicked pissed. Many pushed the government to declare war on Britain while the blokes had their hands full with Napoleon. The Americans first placed an embargo on trade with Europe - a blow aimed straight at the British army's stomach [p135].
This was actually great for Halifax (population circa 10,000), which had the lucrative role of laundering shipments ostensibly for Nova Scotia but actually destined for Europe. Then in 1811 the Americans got their revenge for the Chesapeake when the US frigate President fired on the British sloop Little Belt without warning, killing 16 men and wounding 21.
Shit was pretty much destined to be on. Sure there were grievances, but more than anything it was about American opportunity. Raddall:
But a real cause for alarm was the ancient truth that weakness invites attack. Canada looked an easy prize while Britain was heavily engaged in Europe, and all the gossip from the United States was of preparations for attack by land and sea. [p138]
...
President Madison chose his moment in June. American armies promptly marched over the border of Upper Canada and a host of Yankee privateers put out into the Atlantic. The first news of war for many a British merchant skipper was the capture of his ship and cargo on the high seas.
It was great timing. Britain had more ships than she could maintain, leaving many under-maintained, under-manned, and under-gunned. The Americans swiftly imposed their presence when the US frigate Constitution ravaged the British frigate Guerriere.
Now it was Britain's turn for revenge, and they went after the ship that had been the spark of the conflict, the Chesapeake. Raddall reports Boston pleasure boats sailing out to watch the battle as the HMS Shannon sailed into Massachusetts to face its rival. The two ships unloaded on each other and the Chesapeake was badly damaged. As the Shannon's crew drew in close to board, Chesapeake captain James Lawrence was cut down by a bullet. Dying, he uttered the famous words "Don't give up the ship!" which would long remain a motto of the American navy.
The entire battle lasted 15 minutes. The Chesapeake was brought back to Halifax as a treasure. A young Tom Haliburton, who would grow up to create the character Sam Slick, was on the waterfront and described the scene:
"The coils and folds of rope were steeped in gore as if in a slaughterhouse... Pieces of skin and pendant hair were adhering to the sides of the ship, and in one place I noticed fingers protruding as if thrust through the outer wall of the frigate; while several sailors, to whom liquor had evidently been handed through the ports by visitors in boats, were lying asleep on the bloody floor as if they had fallen in action and expired where they lay." [p142]
So there's our fix. We got our bloody battle with the Americans, our heroic victory, some token warfare in our otherwise peaceful and almost bureaucratic history.
To pause here for a moment, Raddall's book does not touch the land battles of 1812 except to say that Britain knew they were outmatched and tried to avoid them. But suffice to say the mainland theatre really did play out like a CBC-produced Can-Con feature written and directed by Paul Gross starring Gordon Pinsent and the cop guy from Corner Gas. French, English and First Nations fought side by side, defending our land against American invaders.
(You have to buy the director's cut to see where the British promise Shawnee chief Tecumseh an independent Indian state in the midwest, then later British forces run away in the Battle of the Thames leaving a badly outnumbered group of native soldiers, including Tecumseh, to be slaughtered by American troops. The Treaty of Ghent, the peace treaty that ended the war and restored lands to their original owners, neglected to ratify Tecumseh's vision. Weird.)
But Raddall does give due credit to the man who oddly enough really decided the war of 1812 - Napoleon.
As the British finally overwhelmed Napoleon's forces in Europe they could finally focus most imposing navy the world had ever seen back on North America. The rest was just follow through - a sacking of the White House here, some bombs bursting in air there, and both sides were ready to shake hands and call it a day. All that was left was to swap back conquered lands and Bob's your uncle (again, unless you were a native warrior, in which case best get used to crushing disappointment).
I know, I know. All that buildup and we only "won" because some short French guy lost? Welcome to Canada.
But if you really want close calls, there was an even more precarious moment for Canada a half-century earlier. I'll tackle this in my next blog post, which I will write hopefully sometime.
In the meantime, here's the government's official War of 1812 trailer:
And here's a more honest version:
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