CHAMPION: Did Canadians really burn the White House?

Chris Champion is editor of 'The Dorchester Review,' a scholarly magazine devoted to Canadian history.“A mere matter of marching.” That’s all that Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President from 1801 to 1809, said would be required for “the acquisition of Canada” in 1812.The United States was then a boisterous young Republic animated by a strategic pipe dream: to avenge what they called Royal Navy interference with U.S. shipping and drive the British out of North America. What stood in their way was a little place called Canada.Jefferson’s boast, and the war that followed, are an important part of Canada’s history. It’s not surprising that most Canadians don’t know much about it. It’s complicated, with layer upon layer of detail needing many years of consistent pedagogy that no post-modern educationist has the chops to sort out. It’s so much easier to brainwash kids that it’s all just evil colonialism, and that indigenous knowings got a man on the moon.Hence comments such as this from former Liberal Quebec premier and one-time aspirant to the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, Jean Charest: “If I were President Trump,” he tweeted yesterday, “I’d think twice before invading Canada. The last time the U.S. tried something like that — back in the War of 1812 — it didn’t exactly end well.”So far so good. The U.S. did invade Canada and it did not end well for the US.But then Charest added, “Canada even burned down the White House.”No. This is an old misunderstanding. Yes, the White House did burn, but Charest errs in saying that “Canada” or even Canadians per se burned it down. But let there be no misunderstanding. It was British Royal Marines who brought the matches, not 'Canadians.'All that said, I think Charest would have been right if he had written instead that “we” burned down the White House, as long as we keep our facts straight. Because 'we' Canadians, identified as British.Allow me to explain.First of all, there were two Canadas in 1812, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. The people who lived there were self-consciously Canadian.That was especially true in Lower Canada, where the proud and deeply-rooted Canadiens (today’s French Quebecois) had built up a thriving rural and town culture. (After a century of mutual bloodshed they made peace with enemy Indian tribes in 1701 and lived harmoniously afterwards.) Maps from the early 1700s show Vrai Canada or “True Canada” to differentiate the heartland between Montreal and Quebec from the rest of New France.After the British conquered it all in 1760 they called it “The Province of Quebec.”The future Ontario was called Upper Canada. By contrast, it was a junior upstart arbitrarily chopped out of the western half of the Province of Quebec in 1791.As I explain in a forthcoming edition of The Dorchester Review, the history magazine that I edit, the origins of Upper Canada help explain why Ontario is such a difficult and irritating province for the rest of Canada, Quebec included.The leaders of Upper Canada in 1812 were a touchy and crusty mix of Canadian-born, British-born, and American-born Loyalists, many from families that had fled from the American “Patriots” who persecuted them and, with great hypocrisy, confiscated their property.French Canadians back then were also proud British subjects, because the Crown had protected their rights and kept out the assimilating Americans.Want proof? Charles d’Irumberry de Salaberry, a third-generation Canadien born in Beauport, led the defence of Montreal in 1813 at the head of the Voltigeurs Canadiens regiment, today the Voltigeurs de Québec in Canada’s Army Reserve. Again, Frédéric Rolette, born in Quebec City, was a naval hero of the War of 1812 (on the Great Lakes) in the best Nelson tradition. Sir Etienne-Paschal Taché, was a third-generation Canadien — and a Father of Confederation. In 1812 Taché quit school at age 14 to fight the Americans. In 1814 he served in the elite Chasseurs Canadiens.Later, in Canada’s Parliament in the 1850s (before Confederation), Taché said, “The last cannon which is shot on this continent in defence of Great Britain will be fired by the hand of a French Canadian.”Taché Loyalism remained a powerful force among many Quebec leaders for a generation after that. Only when upstart Ontario began to treat its older sister, Quebec, more like a junior colony than Britain had, and treated French as a second-class language — the opposite of historical reality — did the alienation of Quebec gain momentum on the long journey to the troublous place it is today.When the Americans invaded in 1812 and laid waste to homes and farms in Niagara and sacked and burned Toronto (then called York) in 1813, it was not their first go. The American colonists tried to capture Quebec in 1690 and 1775, and failed. (English privateers briefly succeeded in 1629.)In 1814, a British expedition set out to take the war home to American soil. It was a two-pronged attack, partly led by the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, John Sherbrooke, which invaded and occupied Maine. The other part were forces assembled on Bermuda, which invaded Maryland and burned Washington, D.C. including Congress and the Presidential mansion that, restored and painted white to disguise the damage, became known as the White House.The sack of Washington was sweet revenge for the burning of Toronto. It was not the last battle but America’s invasion was over. Major General Robert Ross, who led the British attack, was killed in a subsequent battle and to this day lies buried in Halifax.Because British North Americans were proud of their local identity and their British identity at the same time, I think we are on safe ground saying “we” burned the White House. We were all in the Empire together and it prevented us from becoming Americans.Where Jean Charest’s position really falls apart is where he seems to say that if the U.S. invaded today that there would be a repeat performance.No one could possibly believe that in 2024. Not even Jean Charest. That’s why, eccentric as President Trump may be, Justin Trudeau looked so pathetic at Mar-a-Lago.Chris Champion is editor of 'The Dorchester Review,' a scholarly magazine devoted to Canadian history.

CHAMPION: Did Canadians really burn the White House?

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