The War of 1812 ｜ The Canadian Perspective

We were the meat in the sandwich as far as this war was concerned. The war was between Great Britain and the United States. But because the United States couldn't reach Great Britain, Canada was the stand-in. In Canada, it was an important war. It helped create a sense of Canadian identity. Indians, whites, British, French Canadians, American loyalists who had gone to Canada, people who you might have thought wouldn't have gelled very well, all came together to help repel the American invasion of Canada. And that created, to some extent anyway, a sense of a Canadian identity and a Canadian destiny that was separate from the United States. For Canada, the lands and the freedoms that the people had worked so hard to preserve were still theirs. There was a greater sense of belonging and allegiance. People knew that they had fought for this and they felt a sense of cohesiveness, so that there was a more of a, I think, an even greater sense of loyalty. If you look at this from the Canadian viewpoint, the United States waged war for two and a half years against a country that was absolutely no threat to it, launched a dozen or so invasions against lower and upper Canada, burned towns and villages and ruined the economy. It was a watershed because people who visited the certainly refer many instances of talking to those who said before the war or after the war. They measured most things by the War of 1812 as a kind of sort of marker, which indeed it was, in leading to the process which 50 years later in 1867 gave Canada its nationhood. When the Americans came to Canada, and they did call the people up here Canadians, they probably didn't understand there were certain cultural nuances that you had a huge block of French Canadian Catholics in Quebec, but you also had a strong element of loyalist settlers who had left the new United States at the end of the Revolutionary War. And they weren't sure what was going to happen if the Americans took over the Canada, whereas with the British, they sort of knew where they were going. And the British also did a pretty good job spinning the fact that if the US took over all of Canada, that it would be threat to their not only their culture and their language, but also to their religion. The language rights also were very important. And that was one factor. Another factor would have been questions with regards to the rights that they already enjoyed under the British regime, including parliamentary democracy. And, you know, in 1812, women could vote in Quebec province. The idea of an American invasion was seen as a threat to their language, their religion, their culture. And they put up a pretty good fight through the War of 1812. I think in over a long period of time, the Canadians gained something from this because it became part of our founding history. There was a unifying incident that people were able to coalesce around. You need to have a founding history that you can teach that will unify people. This goes on to this day. The Salaberry is still in the school books. Every town in Quebec has a Salaberry Street somewhere and a Shadowgate Street in another place. Laura Secord, Isaac Brock, Tecumseh. We've taken on these people as our national heroes. And all three of those people have something in common. None of them were born in Canada. And probably only one of them might have defined herself as a Canadian. But the other two certainly wouldn't have. Canada at the time was British North America. A Canadian at the time would consider a British regular soldier one of their soldiers. That attitude continued on in the Canadian psyche. So it becomes Canadians beat the Americans at Chrysler's Farm. Canadians beat the Americans at the Battle of Queenstown Heights. Canadians captured Detroit. Canadians burnt the White House. But the British lost the Battle of New Orleans.