Yankee Doodled

English: A graphical representation of a typical Butler's Rangers soldier. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New Englanders were not happy Pilgrims when Old Englanders

sent them the bill for the Seven years War.

As a matter of fact they were downright cranky about it.

They did unfriendly things like confiscating a man's property and

burning his house down if he did business with the British Army

or sat on the fence politically. 

Sometimes they hanged him and left his family destitute. 

To escape the dangerous mobs many Loyalists fled to New York City. 

It eventually became the last British stronghold in the 13 Colonies. 

In a scene that must have been reminiscent of the expulsion

of the Acadians, the British evacuated thousands of people out of

New York harbour before the Continental Army entered the city.

About 30,000 refugees were taken to the Maritime Provinces

and about 2,000 were settled in Quebec.

7,500 Loyalists escaped by travelling overland to the British

outpost at Fort Niagara.

Once there many of the men joined Col. John Butler's Rangers and

fought back against the Continental Army.

Unfortunately for the Loyalists wherever they ended up

there was no going home again when the war ended.

 

People who had lived comfortable lives in New England had to start

over in the Canadian wilderness with nothing.


The border between Canada and the US was decided by the

Treaty of Paris at the end of the war.

Canada, with a population of less than a million, was composed of angry

French people, angrier refugees from the US and a large number

of totally pissed off indigenous folks.

The 19th century could only get better. 

Right??

Louisiana Cajuns

The British didn't plunder, rape and pillage Acadia.

As a matter of fact they rarely even dropped in for tea.

Usually they just pounded on the front door and rattled

their sabres. 

 

They wanted one thing from the French in Acadia

- an oath of loyalty to the English monarch.

The Acadians said the best they could do was a promise

of neutrality.

The British gritted teeth under stiffened upper lips and

let it go.  Several times, in fact.

Then as luck would have it war broke out and the Brits found

200 armed Acadians in the first French fort they pulverized.

The men swore they were forced to fight and the British bought

that story the way Churchill bought "Peace in our Time" from

Neville Chamberlain in 1938.

They gave the Acadians one more chance to swear loyalty.

And once again the Acadians refused.

So

6,000 Acadians were forced onto ships in 1755.

By all accounts it was a dreadful scene along the beaches

as they were being moved out.

The men were often separated from their loved ones.

(Longfellow's epic poem Evangeline tells the story here.)

By the time the expulsion was over 15,000 had been

forced onto ships and away from their homes.

The original idea was to scatter them among the 13 colonies

where they would be assimilated but most ended up in Louisiana.

And before the new 'Cajuns' had shaken the dust of Acadia

off their shoes

New France was gone.

Sins of the Father

Canada Day 2006 in Greenfield Park, Quebec, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Issues with Quebec have loomed large over my life.

I was a teen-ager during the FLQ crisis and terribly frightened

by the bombings, the murder of Pierre LaPorte, the kidnapping

of James Cross, the martial law and the knowledge that troops and tanks

were in Canadian cities.

I was just as frightened during the first Referendum when Quebecers

voted by a skinny margin to stay within Canada.

The second referendum made me angry and the endless insults and

rumblings of discontent since that time made me realize by 2012 that

I no longer cared.

I blogged about it.

I said it would be so easy in this wireless age to keep the rest of the country

together without Quebec.

And maybe it would be.

But I've changed.

In November I went to Ottawa with my brother to honour the memory of my

father and all veterans at the national Remembrance Day Ceremony.

 

While I was there I went through the Museum of Canadian History,

(aka Museum of Civilization).

 

I went in disillusioned and came out with the most astonishing understanding

of the struggles that went into building the country. 

 

I came out feeling, not so much that we owe the people from the past who

forged such a peaceful democratic nation - although that was a big part of it.

Of greater importance, I came out feeling that we owe

the people of the future.

As a result of my 'epiphany' I decided to blog about Canadian history.

To find out how it happened that we are where we are today,

with another separatist government in Quebec and too many

English-speaking Canadians fed up or not caring.

 

The great thing about blogs is that they are short and I must

say I am having a lot of fun with this project

although the underlying intent is serious.

But I think I've reached the first critical point in our story.

You and I know what is about to happen

but there is no way we can reach back in time and warn them

to be careful. 

 

To think about us.

Jeesh! 

 

New France is about to fall.

French Tit for English Tat

Cape Breton Island (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sacré bleu! 

The French were worried.

Acadia, the lands around Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland

were handed over to Britain in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht.

The fur trade was going strong and men like explorer

LaVerondrye, (the first European to reach the Winnipeg basin),
 
were finding it more and more difficult to avoid the British

or their Indian allies.

 

So the French built a big scary fortress called Louisburg on

what later became Cape Breton Island. 

This was happy-making for the disgruntled Acadians.

They tweeted Louisburg constantly.

They did not tweet London.

So the British unffriended them saying they were hostile and

refused to swear loyalty to the English Monarch.

The not swearing of loyalty thing REALLY irritated the Brits.

Big time.

They were so pissed off they built Halifax in 1744

just to get in the face of the French King at Louisburg.

(Not that he actually lived there.)

And that was it.

The dye was cast.

The building of Halifax it made it inevitable that the antagonists

would have a major confrontation sooner rather than later.

 

The cataclysmic last years of the 18th century

were upon them all.

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian Bacon

English: Map of the location of major tribes involved in the Beaver Wars laid against a period map showing colonial settlments (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Way back in December I left the English in New England,

the French in New France and the Iroquois in the land between

them, 7thdecadegirl.blogspot.com/2012/12/beaver-wars.html. 

It was the end of the 17th century and if they weren't exactly

singing "Happy Trails" to each other everybody was more

or less behaving themselves.

As a matter of fact in 1701 things were so jolly that the

three groups got all weepy and sorry and signed a

'cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-if-I'm-lying' peace treaty.

 

But England and France can only feel the love for so long so

a year later they declared war on each other.

 

Again.

 

You know, I really think Canada would have had a better chance

if our two founding nations had been North and South Korea.

 

Anyway.

 

It was the usual thing. 

In 1704 the French destroyed the English settlement of Bonavista

and in 1707 the English marched up from Massachusetts

and destroyed Port Royal.

 

Lots of other nasty stuff happened but the main thing for us

to note is that when the war ended in 1713 and

everything wad divvied up by the Treaty of Utrecht,

England was handed Acadia.

 

And if the mention of Acadia falling into the hands of the Brits doesn't

just fry your historical bacon then... well,

you just aren't Canadian, eh?

 

Beaver Wars

English: An Iroquois longhouse. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

The Iroquois lived in the area that had the St. Lawrence as its northern

border.

From there they spread south throughout what we would

identify today as New England.

 

Although not exactly happy with the arrival of smelly, hairy white people

they took advantage of the opportunity to obtain the interesting new

goods that the fur trade brought them.

Unfortunately the smelly, hairy people also brought guns which the

Iroquois quickly learned  to use and soon beavers were in short supply.

 

So the Iroquois started to look north at land along the

St. Lawrence River where their traditional enemy the

Huron tribe lived.

 

The Hurons were, if you remember, allied with the French.

They were also vulnerable because in 1639 a small pox epidemic

had killed at least half of them.

 

And pretty much the rest of them were gone after the Mohawk and other

Iroquois tribes got through with them.

 

Leery of the Iroquois, the French then started doing business with the

Algonquian speaking tribes - the Cree, the Mi'kmaq, etc. 

Fearful for their own survival and angry at the loss of this potential market

the Iroquois started to attack the French settlers.

This is the time of the horrific Indian raids which included scalping and killing

the men and carrying off the women and children.

Things got so bad that eventually the King of France sent in the troops

and the Iroquois decided to negotiate a peace.

 

And that is where we are as the 17th century ends.

 

The English* are in New England, the French are in New France

and the Iroquois are in the land between them.

 

Like this is going to last.

 

 

New England was settled mostly by Puritans and Pilgrims who left England after the English civil war in order to find a safe place to practise their faith.

 

French Kissed

French map of Acadia (now Nova Scotia) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 While the French were chasing our beavers, the English,

the Scots and even the Dutch were starting to cast lustful eyes at our fish.

And because it teemed with beavers and fish, everybody was

suddenly hot for the area we would now loosely identify as Nova Scotia.

Settled by the French in the early 1600s it was called Acadia. 

It actually became a Scottish settlement for awhile after 1621. 

And that excited the British no end and got them so puffed up

with testosterone that they sailed down the St. Lawrence in 1629

and captured Quebec City.

 

Stiff upper lips must have twitched three years later at the end

of the 30 years war when Quebec and Acadia were returned to France.

Fish, meanwhile, had become the Prince William/Kate Middleton

of the late 17th century.

Nobody could get enough of them.

And nobody wanted to share. 

With noses severely out of joint over fishing rights taken by the Acadians,

a military contingent from New England, marched north and took Acadia once

 

more for the English king in 1690.

But the British couldn't seem to win.

Acadia was returned to France again seven years later at the end of another

one of Europe's endless wars.

 

But by then it was the beginning of the 18th century.

(insert rousing chorus of Rule Britannia)

And the tide was about to turn.

Big Trouble at the Fort

English: Historic HBC buildings and cemetery in Centennial Park, Moose Factory, Ontario, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okey dokey. It's the middle of the 17th century.

France is involved in the 30 years war which continues to rage in Europe and not-so-jolly-old England is in the midst of a bloody civil war.

 

Meanwhile back at the ranch in North America things are progressing as if they can't hear the screams.

 

The French have become quite comfortable in their little love nest on the St. Lawrence and are now expanding south.

They reach the Mississippi about 1682 and claim it for France.

The rescals also venture north into territory claimed by the English king, (before his own people cut his head off).

And even though the Brits had kept it hidden for so long Radison and Grossliers found Hudson's Bay in 1661.

So it shouldn't be a surprise,

(although I would have been surprised to see armed French troops marching across the tundra),

to learn that in 1686 they caught the British by surprise at the Moose Factory Hudson's Bay Trading Post.

And that day, my friends, when the English surrendered, was when the shit hit the Canadian fan, our troubles started.

 

***

This is the 6th blog in my series, 'Canadian history as I see it'.

 

No Tweets From the British

Henry IV, King of France in Armour, c. 1610 (Louvre) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've finished four small blogs on Canadian history and I'm embarrassed to tell you how much I don't know, or if I knew it once, how much I have forgotten.

The first thing I've been wondering about is the valiant British explorers that we learned about in elementary school. 

Where the heck are they? 

I remember thrilling to the exploits of Thompson, Mackenzie, Fraser, Vancouver, etc. - the giants who explored and mapped the North American continent.

But as I worked through the time period from 1497 to the mid 1600s I began to think they'd frozen their laptops in Hudson's Bay because I wasn't getting many tweets from them.

Then I began to suspect that the timeline I was using had a French bias so, although I had originally decided not to, I looked ahead.

And much to my embarrassment I learned that all of those explorers came much later, near the end of the 17th century and into the 18th century.

And once I had peeked ahead the second thought that has stayed with me was how much we, i.e., the English, the French, the Canadians, the Americans, are all interconnected.

Third, I have to warn you that the demise of the Indian nations is interwoven like a bloody thread all the way down our historical timeline.

 

Anyway things are about to heat up. 

The French King granted a North American fur trading monopoly to the French in 1600. 

The English have given up on finding a north-west passage, (for now), and their king has granted THEM a North American fur trading monopoly.

Uh oh ...

Somebody's got some 'splainin' to do.

David Niven and the Search for the North-west Passage

Cropped screenshot of David Niven from the trailer for the film The Toast of New Orleans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although they were supposedly still looking for a route to the Orient by travelling down the St. Lawrence and into the Great Lakes, the truth is that the French were so enamoured of their new land that by 1611 the Jesuits had set up shop.

They were quickly followed by the first settlers.

Many babies later New France was thriving.

 

If the British were having sex and making babies in those days it wasn't happening in the New World.

They were too busy channeling their inner David Niven.

Against all odds, (and all reason), they continued to search for a north-west passage to China.

 

Talk about British bull doggedness in the face of impossible odds ...  

 

Anyway, while all of this activity was happening on our side of the ocean, Europe was self-destructing.

 

The 30 Years War, (1618-1648), which pitted Catholics against Protestants, raged on, with a particularly nasty stretch fought at sea after 1629 between Britain and France.

In 1631, when it was safe to venture out on the water again there were two more voyages to search for the north-west passage. 

 

They were so terrible that no more attempts were made for 100 years.

 

Britain had other royal fish to fry, er, behead anyway.

 

 

 

This is the 4th in my series of blogs called, 'Canadian history as I see it.



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