The 10 Most Important Events in North American History, part three.

Part one of this series can be found here.

Part two of this series can be found here.


Before we go on, I will come clean and state that the American Revolution is not on this list.  Instead, the next two events are presented as the forth and third most important events in our shared North American history, as they were far more influential in making sure the United States would even go after, much less maintain, independence.  Even if the list were just about the United States and not also Canada and Mexico, these two events would remain in place of the events that took place between 1775 and 1781.

4. The Treaty of Ghent.



Without engaging in another diatribe about how the War of 1812 gets very much ignored by most Americans, I would have to say that I maintain, and likely always will maintain, that the War of 1812 was the most important exercise in the declaration of nationhood for both the United States and Canada.  What's more, the fact that the United States got so thoroughly trounced and yet managed to tell Britain, or any nation for that matter, to mind its own business, was a message to the rest of the world that the fragile existence of a democratic state was perhaps a bit more strong that anyone had thought.  Yes, democracies had existed before, but they were not like this.  The only other large scale experiment in this kind of revolution happened in France, and, well, it really did not work out so well.  Here, not only the sovereignty of a nation  was held intact, but also its pride.  On the other side of the table, though not immediately apparent, Canada did the same thing.  As was the case in 1763, Britain did have an attractive choice in forgoing a Canadian retention, but chose not to take such an option.

Beyond these obvious considerations and players, however, lies a third party.  Two years before the war even began, Mexico had begun its war of independence under the leadership of Miguel Hidalgo.  Things got off to quite the rocky start, and by 1815 Hidalgo was executed and the Mexican forces had accomplished seemingly little in their fight to take the country.  Hope was needed if the enterprise was to succeed, and most historians will be quick to point out that things really got underway when Augustin de Iturbide switched sides from Spain and brought a good portion of the royalist army with him.  However, Iturbide also had himself crowned emperor and was more interested in destroying liberalism than in freeing Mexico.  In 1821, only a year into his reign, Iturbide was overthrown by Santa Anna, and Mexico became a republic.  Clearly there was some other inspiration out there that kept the fires burning down in Mexico.  Things were not looking good for anyone over in Europe, and the Congress of Vienna made sure that the concept of revolution would be put to rest until 1848, for the most part.  But Mexico was not part of Europe.  Call it conjecture, but maybe, just maybe, Mexicans looked north and saw that the United States was not only still standing at the end of their second war with a distant would-be ruler, but the United States made out pretty well in the deal.  For that matter, Canada survived intact.

So how did this happen, exactly?  Sure, Fort McHenry got blasted to smithereens but stood its ground for two whole days, protecting Baltimore.  Yes, Tecumseh had been killed at the Battle of the Thames, York (Toronto) had been burned to a crisp, and Britain was unwilling to devote more force to protecting Canada. However, Detroit was captured, the American forces were repulsed back across the Niagara, and Washington was taken, with the White House in need of a substantial re-construction and now famous paint job.  Most importantly, this was the first time that Canadians themselves actually fought to protect their homeland.  Yes, British regulars were responsible for many of the great victories of "Canada" during this war, but it was Canadians, English, French, and First Nations alike who shed their blood at River Raisin, Thames, Lundy's Lane, and most sacred in memory of all, Chateauguay.  Both sides were not fighting for some distant government or a handful of rich men who wanted to tell them what to do.  They were fighting for their homes, for their families, for their land.  The ideals of freedom might have been philosophized elsewhere in books and speeches and formalized into governments closer to home, but here, democracy did not mean the prosperity of "the people" so much as it meant something far more tangible when blood was spilled over beloved soil.  All of a sudden, "nation" became as important a concept as "liberty".  "Nation" existed before, but now it meant something more than just a crown.  "Nation" became "My Mexico, My America, My Canada".

In Ghent, Belgium, in August of 1814, after some very passionate fighting on the part of North Americans both north and south of the Great Lakes, Britain and the United States started talking.  The Americans did not have much to bring to the table outside of victories won at Plattsburgh and Baltimore.  Their capital had been destroyed, their army somewhat demoralized, and Canada had not been taken, to say nothing of how it had not been taken as easily as many believed it would be.  Napoleon had been defeated, and Britain was certainly capable to taking its full force over to the United States and dictating very brutal terms to the young nation if it wanted to.  Some historians claim that Britain was weary and just wanted to be done with the business of war for a while.  Rather, I think that Britain looked over at Canada and saw something different than an imperial territory, for once.  There in cold and snowy Canada were people who fought to defend their homes from invaders.  They might not have all locked arms and looked at one another lovingly while proclaiming how wonderfully Canadian they felt (and you know what, some things have not changed), but like those Yankees to the south of them, they did not have the luxury of parochial snobbery in the face of annihilation of what it meant to be what they were.  There were people there who put their lives on the line for their homes, just as Britain had done herself against Napoleon in the preceding decades.  Still, there were choices to be made.

Britain was undergoing a transformation into a world empire.  Old rival France had been soundly divested of that concept, and the concept of Spanish empire was in its death throes as well.  India, the Caribbean, Australia, Africa... new opportunities were everywhere.  Canada, seemingly good for only timber and beaver pelts, looked like a bizarre waste of resources to maintain.  The United States was clearly not part of the British world anymore, and they had far more to do with North America than Britain did, at least in terms of logical direction of commerce.  Maybe the Americans would be better off buying Canada and coming to an amicable relationship with Britain again thereafter.  Trans-Atlantic commerce could be renewed, while both sides could maintain their own business at their leisure, and not at competing interests.  Then again, those Canadians, well, they fought against that sort of thing, much to the shock of everyone.  While the Americans had been much more pro-active in telling others to get off the lawn, they were not the only ones interested in not being pushed around by a foreign power.  Instead of giving up or resuming aggression, then, Britain offered the United States a return to the ways things were before the war, a status quo antebellum.  Many Americans became convinced that they had won, and the funny thing is, they did.  They lost a war, achieving no objectives in it, but won a conference.  Granted, impressment of sailors stopped (because they were no longer needed), the British did not gain control of the northwest territories, and American independence was now very real and uncontested.

What had begun in 1776 was truly realized, and a surge of patriotism washed over the states, which were now 18 in number, and no longer the disparate colonies they started out as.  Western expansion could go on without too much worry.  Native peoples would be forced out of their lands by expansionists and pioneers.  What remained of North American French culture outside of Quebec and Louisiana went into remission.  Canada survived.  The American Revolution now truly succeeded in changing the face of the continent, but not as some people had envisioned, and "freedom" became synonymous with more than just "America", if the two neighbors were given a chance to say anything about it.


3. The Fall of Quebec.


Montcalm and Wolfe probably did not know what was happening as they were both dying that powerful day of September 13, 1759.  They knew that the war in which they were fighting was going to take a corner from here on out, and they knew that the British would take the city.  As Wolfe bled out onto the field, he initially had no idea that the French were even in retreat, and even as he was about to breathe his last, he simply gave out orders to consolidate the British position by ordering a march on the bridge over the St. Charles river to cut off retreat.  He was a solider though and through, only concerned with the actions of the battlefield, and unable or unwilling, even in his final moments, to focus any attention on the impact on the history of North America his bold strategy to take Quebec would have.  No doubt that there were many there that saw the world change that day, and knew it all too well.  The French-Canadians knew it, and they feared what would happen to their world; they had seen what had become of the Acadians.  When the Americans far to the south would learn of it, they would certainly know it; finally they would not have to worry about the French, and they could have access to the riches of the interior.  No one, however, knew that the blood spilled this day would be the seed of a revolution fought a mere 16 years later, and the birth of not only that nation, but that of Canada as well.  Likewise, no one could have imagined that the fall of Quebec would not result in the destruction of French Canada.  French rule was disputed here to the point of extinction, while French-Canadian rule silently began.

 English rule was strengthened, only to grow so strong and looming that the Americans would unite together to challenge what had become the ironic block to their growth and unrivaled prosperity.  Forget taxation, forget a lack of representation in Parliament, what the American Revolution really came down to was a monopolistic opposition, a being surrounded on all sides by one power, one very real, yet very imagined, enemy.  Don't get me wrong, the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, and yes, taxes are very annoying.  But those things, the wet ink on a declaration signed rather flamboyantly by a certain Mr. Hancock, and the courage shown by patriots risking life and land, that was all very potent fuel added to a fire that was lit the moment French control over the Ohio valley was relinquished.  The conditions to allow the spark to even ignite, of course, had been forming ever since the first colonists stepped off their ship and planned to make a new life for themselves.  Now, self-determination seemed like it could be more of a reality.  It took a war and a battle involving every party on the northern part of the continent to make it happen.

Meanwhile, Canada sat on the edge of the American world, cold, vast, Indian, and French.  Now it was all of those things, but worse still, part of the supposed tyranny of King George.  The truth was, Canada was simply too far away from the colonies, geographically, spiritually, culturally, and mentally.  Both Canadians and Americans settled their new land for a self-determined life away from the conditions and economics of distant mother countries.  Both Canadians and Americans would explore their continent and seek out its resources as their own.  For all they held, and hold, in common, they also were worlds apart in many ways.  Canadians were stewards of inherited traditions and pioneers of a far slower pace of converting their land into "civilization".  Americans were breakers of tradition, innovators, desperate to expand as a way of maintaining their individualist mindset.  This is not to say that everyone followed these character patterns precisely, but such patterns were, and in many ways still are illustrative of what differences lie between the peoples who otherwise seem so outwardly similar.

Then there were the choices made as a result of the Fall of Quebec.  Britain had a choice to leave Canada to the French, and instead take Guadeloupe, a very profitable sugar island in the Caribbean.  Guadeloupe was worth more than the entirety of Canada, and furthermore, there were some on parliament who wanted the French to stick around on the colonists' backdoor so that loyalty in both heart and arms would remain focused back with the crown.  Instead, the choice was made to control Canada, and later, the Quebec act would allow it to remain French in soul if not in duty.  Loyalty, needless to say, ran away from London regardless.  In that same year of 1774, the Fall of Quebec turned from a happy memory into a sign of betrayal by the British.  To this day, the Fall of Quebec is remembered by many French-Canadian separatists as the second worst event in human history after the Fall from Grace.  To Anglo-centric Canadians, it is remembered as a triumph.  Historical memory, obviously, often gets whitewashed or darkened beyond recognition.  Instead, I prefer to think the Fall as the point of conception for our nations, and the birth of a true French-Canadian independence.

And what of the peoples who had been in Canada and America long before such words even existed?  They were used as scouts, as shock troops, and as bargaining chips.  For the original people of North America, the Fall of Quebec was largely another turning point in which they would find themselves facing new political difficulties, if they would face any attention at all.  With the French gone, and the British an obstacle, but not immediately a dangerous one, the Indians were now a primary threat to the spread of American civilization and security.  History tells us plainly what has happened since this attitude gained popularity.  Savage retaliation was produced by savage assault, with little to show for it in reward, and only cultural annihilation and a loss of moral superiority the penalty inflicted on the respective sides of the ongoing war between peoples.

In the meantime, far to the south, Mexico slowly awakened from a slumber under Spanish monopoly as Jesuits improved educational access within the country, and some people began to find out about what was happening up north.  Their concept of nation, of course, had already been forming for centuries prior, and was the impetus for settlement in those lands to begin with.  Come by next Saturday to see what I mean as I conclude this series.