The Canadian Rebellions of 1837-1838
A historiographical essay on the persistent "solitudes" in interpretations
The following essay has been edited for brevity, and adapted with images, from a non-published paper previously submitted to SNHU.
Since this article might be truncated in the email format to be read in its entirety, I invite readers to access the online version on my Substack page.
Following decades of failed political reform attempts in Upper and Lower Canada in the early 19th century, violent armed confrontations erupted from November 1837 to the end of 1838 between exasperated radical reformists and the British colonial establishment.1 In Lower Canada alone - today's Canadian province of Québec - the conflict led to more than 300 casualties from several battles that took place in localities around Montréal and near the US border.2
These Patriotes, composed mostly (but not only) of French-Canadians in the Lower Canada region, had build-up acrimony with their British rulers that can be traced back to the Conquest of the territory by the British in 1760, and even more relevant to this conflict, to the Constitutional Act of 1791, which created the Two Canadas in the first place. One must also remember the 1774 Québec Act that provided certain rights on religion (Catholic), language (French) and civil rights for the local population,3 to prevent the temptation of a possible union with the Americans.
But in the end, insufficient effective political power stemming from the representative assembly led a group of reformists to request more autonomy from Britain. They essentially claimed that the Executive Council in the province, mostly dominated by urban British merchants, overruled the will of the people elected to the legislative body. Once the political avenue reached a dead end, the rebellions erupted from the most radical factions of the movement.4
But does this conventional story of the events, briefly described in The Canadian Encyclopedia for example, encompass everything relevant about 1837-38? What about the Patriot War on the American side that roughly happened during the same period5 Were these events intermingled, and what can a historiography on the subject reveal?
Doubting this dominant narrative was sufficient to explain the whole story, historian John Irwin Cooper, as early as 1940, wrote the following in regards to the mainstream historiography of 1837-38:
“The conventional answer is that there is no connection between these contemporary happenings; that any influence the United States may have had on the stirring events in Canada was merely indirect.”6
Cooper goes on to offer a different perspective on the era, or at least additional elements, in his 1940 article. A paper that will be addressed later in this essay.
Decades later, on Canadian historians, Stephen Kenny made the following remarks in a paper introduction on the Canadian Rebellions:
“Their worst blind spot was their refusal to consider the influence of America upon Canadian historical development.”7
Furthermore, considered a localized conflict for the longest time and analyzed by many historians as a self-contained political movement, the historiography of these incidents is filled with interpretations from French-Canadian perspectives, without much consideration, until recently, of its impact on the continent or the influence of American “players” from without. A bit surprising considering, had it succeeded, the Rebellions (or Revolution) could have reshaped the entire political landscape of North America, especially in a scenario where liberated British provinces could have joined the United States.
While most of the skirmishes took place in Lower Canada, the 1830’s witnessed turbulence well beyond the borders of present-day Québec. Thus, as the process went on to survey the historiography of these events, it provided some merit to the analysis of Cooper and Kenney, and the sources ended up self-sorting themselves into “silos” (or solitudes) of interpretation tendencies.
The first “silo”, so to speak, could be best described as a persistent and longstanding narrative highly influenced by the cultural, linguistic and nationalistic variables stemming especially from French-Canadian historians. One can also wonder if the language barrier of prominent historians in Québec might partially explain this lack of focus on historical material and sources that offers alternative or at least complementary interpretations of the events.
The second “silo” corresponds to historians who have studied the subject by taking other methodological approaches and lenses. For example, by digging deeper into continent-wide social causes, economic data, wider geopolitical conditions and multidisciplinary lenses.
The argument here is that the “unresolved” political status of Québec, a conceptual framework shared by a significant portion of its population to this day, and some influential scholars, has continued to stimulate a nation-building lens of the events to this day. As if destined to serve the continuous political motives of pro-sovereignty factions in the province.
In parallel to this tendency, other historians, with no apparent bias towards the political future of the province, have clearly been more influenced by evolutions in the field of history and demonstrated more sensitivities to new and alternative avenues.
To that affect, as it will be described later, younger historians have highlighted in recent years novel elements and forgotten angles to this event, giving it a richer texture. While it remains difficult to modify longstanding perspectives in the scholarship or alter the prevalent narratives in the general public, it is probably historian Julien Mauduit that perfectly expresses the current situation of the historiography of the Rebellions, when he asserts:
“Consequence of the fragmentation of historiography, but also of its marginalization by historians of the United States, we do not yet suspect the scale of the event.”8
The persistent nation-building lens
To French-Canadian historians, Gérard Filteau’s book9 has been widely considered the most influential work for this historical event. Filteau’s work largely participated over time to the nationalist narrative of pro-secessionist groups in the province because it posited the conflict mainly in ethno-cultural terms between the Canadiens (name given to the Catholic and French speaking majority in Canada at the time) and the English colonial rule. Filteau even stated in his introduction the following:
“ Puissions-nous, un jour ou l’autre, reprendre ce que proposait l’idéal des Patriotes et reconstituer sur ces bases l’évangile national!”10
[May we, one day or another, take up what the Patriots' ideal proposed and reconstitute the national gospel on these bases!]
While Filteau’s research is impressive and provides a scope in primary sources rarely matched since then by other historians, the political bias is obvious. In a sense, this tendency was to be expected from a historian that was raised in an era when nationalistic ideals were still much part of the field of history.11 In short, Filteau’s work represents an important source but with a Québec-centric angle, without much exploration of outside influences.
A century later, another historian from French Canada, Gilles Laporte studied this era extensively and offers a good synthesis of the history of the Patriots12, with a similar interpretation as Filteau. However, this author’s clear bias in favor of Québec’s independence has tainted his interpretations of the Lower Canada rebellions of 1837-38. Laporte’s assumption is that Québec’s independence is the equivalent of a historical destiny and to French-Canadian historians operating solely in the Québec academic ecosystem, this tendency for a nationalistic approach remains prevalent even today.
Such interpretation is not surprising coming from a scholar who never shied away from the contemporary nationalist movement in Québec. Laporte was recognized as Patriot of the year by the provincial government in 2010 and even served some years, from 2013 onward, as the president of the Mouvement National des Québécois. The publication of his book in 2015 follows a trend of political activism.
These facts do not necessarily invalidate the entirety of his work, but since Laporte enjoys a certain reputation in the province, it contributes to the ossification of the traditional, self-contained, French versus English conflict narrative.
A recognition of political ideals over nationalism
As mentioned earlier, back in the 1940’s, historian John Irvin Cooper13 argued in his article “The Revolt of the Common Man” that the conflict had far-reaching implications in North America. To paraphrase Cooper from this same article, he insists on the kinship that characterized populations on each side of the U.S.-Canada border and the similar economic conditions that contributed to these uprisings. Kinship that in fact extended across ethnic communities of French, Irish or Scottish descent on the territory. Two aspects rarely acknowledged by French Canadian historians, particularly in the 20th century.
The prevailing historical narratives was so strong in the province that it became difficult to shift the tendency. The two “silos”, as seen above, between English and French scholars were still tight in this era. For the most part, they studied in different universities and the collaborations remained limited. It exemplifies what has been commonly regarded as the “Two Solitudes” in Canada.
Decades later, an emeritus historian from McGill University in Montréal, Yvan Lamonde studied, researched and wrote extensively on 19th century Canada. Working in an era with more collaboration between the French and English academic worlds, Lamonde is one of the few that introduced into his work the notion of Américanité when writing about the French-Canadians, which contributed to deconstruct, to some extent, the ethnic and cultural angle as the main variable behind the Patriots rebellion.14
The importance of his book Aux Quatres Chemins lies in its analysis of four key political leaders in Lower Canada that greatly shaped public opinion in the years leading to the conflict. He simply wanted to highlight key political figures, their writings and their leadership in guiding the population towards common goals.
Lamonde’s work also demonstrates the internal tensions and strategical conflict that permeated French-Canadian positions. Between the moderate “Québec city family” of an Étienne Parent and the radical tendencies of Patriots from Montréal exemplified by Cyrille-Hector-Octave Côté, Lamonde exposes the duality and ambivalence within civil society at the time.
On the other hand, while the author talks about the exile of political leaders like Louis-Joseph Papineau in the United States and their affinity for republican ideals, Lamonde focuses his attention on the evolution of ideas internally, in Lower Canada, without specifically addressing the building relationship with American Patriots south of the border. Through this work, the reader can infer that Lamonde wanted to emphasize and provide some historical depth behind the political dichotomy that still exist in modern Québec society.
The transnational approach
As already stated above, the causes, motivations and consequences of this conflict reach far beyond the sole borders of contemporary Québec. The addition of new research in recent decades, but more significantly the fusion and cross analysis of traditional nationally centered narratives (US only and Canada only), has painted a much more complex portrait of these events.
For example, two authors joined forces to publish a collection of essays offering new perspectives of the Canadian Rebellions through a North American prism.15 This work adds new layers of interpretation to the historiography of the subject. In the collection, a variety of authors explore the bank wars, the growing Anglo-American commercial partnership and the competing political options for the “Patriot” camp on the U.S. side, including the annexation of Canada.
Combining a wide and extensive list of sources, the book posits that multiple factors have contributed to triggering the Rebellions. For example, the associations of people living through simultaneous economic hardships on both sides of the border, far from the concentration of power in big cities, helped in challenging the status quo. In short, it provides a much broader perspective on the era and on the causes of the conflict itself, thus demonstrating more have yet to be explored.
This collection offers no “absolute truths” in its interpretation, but rather open doors for further investigation. Open questions are left unanswered, such as, the influence of the American politics of the Jacksonian era (i.e. pro-slavery vs abolitionist states in the expanding union) influencing the strategic positioning of prominent members within the US government, and the support that exiled patriots garnered on the U.S. side of the border with Hunters Lodge associations.
With academic experience on both sides of the border, historian Julien Mauduit published another work by himself in 2022 titled La Guerre d’Indépendance des Canadas. The author has a clear goal of merging and consolidating the multiple pieces of the historical puzzle to provide a continental view of the events. While Mauduit does not disregard the validity and importance of previous research published on the matter, he strove to demonstrate the overvalued angle of the ethnic and cultural narrative, of the more nationalistic historians.
To Mauduit, “Patriots” on both side of the border shared common values, of republicanism and “laissez-faire” economy for the working man and small capitalists, that lead to more collaboration between regions than previously thought. In addition, the porous nature of the Canadian – U.S. border in the early part of the 19th century opened multiple political possibilities for them at the time, including a possible two state republican Canada without a British presence.
In a similar fashion, a 2016 article from Patrick Lacroix titled “Choosing Peace and Order”16 argues that both governments perceived this new “Patriots” threat as an opportunity to restore peace between them and to solidify the sovereignty of their respective territories. While not being an expert of the Canadian Rebellions, Lacroix emulates the recent trends of Mauduit and Dagenais by focusing on international relations and the balance of power struggles that characterized the era.
In this article, the author chooses not to focus on the social conditions of the masses or the cultural composition of the population of the era, but rather the interests of leaders in power that wished to secure the rapport de force between the nascent American state and the British position in North America. Interesting take here on the Rebellions but from the vantage point of the federal (US) and colonial (Canada) authorities, taking a more geopolitical view of the 1837-38 conflict.
Lacroix’s interpretation falls in line here with the angle covered in Revolutions Across Borders where it argued that
“the national leader and regional interests who emerged victorious in the United States changed their minds about the traditional British foe. They did so quietly but definitively from the mid-1820s to the mid-1830s. Among the victims of this subtle rapprochement were the Canadian and American “Patriots” of 1837–38, who assumed that the United States would support their anti-British revolution. Instead, they found that the American republic was allied in all but name with Queen Victoria’s vast and vigorous empire.”17
Some gaps clearly remain in the scholarship of the events and in some instances, it might remain the same in the future, as many important primary sources may have been destroyed forever, like in the case of the Hunters Lodge18 in the northern states near the U.S.-Canadian border, or have yet to be discovered. Written accounts from these associations would certainly clarify even further the motivations, ideology and strategic planning (if any) stemming from these citizens that shared a common antipathy towards the British and felt the current republican structure of the young United States did not suit their needs, as initially intended.
In any case, the road taken by historians like Mauduit, Dagenais and Lacroix should be widened in future decades to continue the analyses of this period with a helicopter view of continental forces. What has been traditionally described as the Patriot War in the U.S., and the Canadian Rebellion north of the border, has gradually been analyzed through the lens of one single overarching and consolidated movement with the work of contemporary historians. The “Nation-State” oriented interpretations from each country are slowly breaking down and leaving room for a more global or multi-state approach.
Early 19th century North American borders were far from being stable, permanent or set in stone as we are accustomed in the 21st century. Since central and federal governments were geographically far from every region they technically controlled, there was still fluidity in the border which could be conceptualized as a buffer zone rather than a definitive line as it is today.19 In such a context, there is certainly more research possible by exploring federal and state archives about this era. New primary sources could emerge and provide a voice for the people, the common man and woman.
In summary
Since the Canadian confederation has been rather unstable since its creation in 1867, the secondary literature on the events of the Canadian Rebellions have exhausted many of the political and constitutional underlying causes in a purely territorial lens. From the antagonisms between the French and British in the 18th century, to the French-Canadian attempts at secession at the end of the 20th century, notably the referenda of 1980 and 1995, the political realities of the day provided a framework that tended to be extrapolated in the past to understand the root causes of contemporary constitutional battles. Historians, journalists, commentators and the like have dried up this well in the last 50-60 years.
Now that the political and cultural context in Canada has evolved since the secessionist attempts of Québec in the late 20th century, it opened the door for revisiting the events of the Canadian Rebellions with a wider lens. Historians on both sides of the border, and even between French and English Canada, have not taken the whole measure of the conflict or its continental ramifications seriously enough.
Thus, the present historiographical study, or any other for that matter, can be illuminating in many ways by highlighting the fact that past historians never research or write about a particular subject in a vacuum. Cooper was influenced by the social and economic angle that became prevalent amongst peer historians in his era. Mauduit, writing in a more cosmopolitan culture, with enhanced geographical mobility for scholars, has been drawn into a continental and multidisciplinary approach.
In sum, the choices historians make, the sources they select or the argument they wish to defend are always tainted by the cultural and political context of the time of their writing.
Maxime Dagenais and Julien Mauduit, Revolution across borders: Jacksonian America and the Canadian Rebellion (Montréal et Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019), 3.
Phillip A. Buckner, "Rebellions of 1837–38”, The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published July 15, 2013; Last Edited October 04, 2019.
Julien Mauduit, La guerre d’indépendance des Canadas: Démocratie, républicanismes et libéralismes enAmérique du Nord (Montréal et Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022), 25.
Buckner, 2019.
Oscar A. Kinchen, The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters (New York: Bookman Associates, 1956), 11.
John Irwin Cooper, “The Revolt of the Common Man in Canada,” Social Forces 19, (1940): 101.
Stephen Kenny, “The Canadian Rebellions and the Limits of Historical Perspective,” Vermont History Vol. 58 No. 3 (1990): 180.
Julien Mauduit, La guerre d’indépendance des Canadas: Démocratie, républicanismes et libéralismes enAmérique du Nord (Montréal et Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022), 8.
Gérard Filteau, Histoire des Patriotes (Québec: Septentrion, 2003 (1938)).
Filteau, 8.
Ernst Breisach, Historiography: ancient, medieval, & modern, 3rd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 224.
Gilles Laporte, Brève Histoire des Patriotes (Québec: Septentrion, 2015).
John Irwin Cooper, “The Revolt of the Common Man in Canada,” Social Forces 19, (1940): 101-110.
Yvan Lamonde, Aux Quatres Chemins: Papineau, Parent, La Fontaine et le révolutionnaire Côté en 1837 et 1828 (Montréal: Lux éditeur, 2018).
Maxime Dagenais and Julien Mauduit, Revolution across borders: Jacksonian America and the Canadian Rebellion (Montréal et Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019).
Patrick Lacroix, “Choosing Peace and Order: National Security and Sovereignty in a North American Borderland, 1837-42,” The International History Review 38:5 (2016): 943-960.
Maxime Dagenais and Julien Mauduit, Revolution across borders: Jacksonian America and the Canadian Rebellion (Montréal et Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019), 28.
Oscar A. Kinchen, The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters (New York: Bookman Associates, 1956), 6.
Stephen Kenny, “The Canadian Rebellions and the Limits of Historical Perspective,” Vermont History Vol. 58 No. 3 (1990): 179.
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