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Ontario History

The Patriot War along the Michigan-Canada Border: Raiders and Rebels by Shaun J. McLaughlin Chris Raible

Volume 106, Number 1, Spring 2014

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1050728ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1050728ar

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Publisher(s) The Ontario Historical Society

ISSN 0030-2953 (print) 2371-4654 (digital)

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Cite this review Raible, C. (2014). Review of [The Patriot War along the Michigan-Canada Border: Raiders and Rebels by Shaun J. McLaughlin]. Ontario History, 106(1), 136–137. https://doi.org/10.7202/1050728ar

Copyright © The Ontario Historical Society, 2014 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/

This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 136 ONTARIO HISTORY

er’s, need to subdue nature both temporal ity of traditional land use and ownership, and other worldly, and his failure to do so. reducing and homogenizing sophisticated Conceptually, Hele’s previous collection, systems into one generic way of life, more Lines Drawn…, offered a stronger platform suitable for folklore than arbitration. And for academic discussion. Integrating the they are potentially dangerous because concept of an Empire of Nature within the governments love them. They love them larger realm of contemporary aboriginal because they take the very visceral struggle studies has the potential to reduce its hu- of First Nations to protect their land base man subjects to caricatures. What’s more, a and treaty rights and reduce it to tales told workshop predicated in part on Mackenzie’s around a campfire. This is probably the rea- observance, “Throughout the world, Euro- son why the stronger chapters in the collec- peans have tended to see land and nature in tion barely touch on this theme and stand terms of ownership while indigenous people out as singularly thought-provoking. see them in terms of use and relationship” [p.9] risks a mawkish simplicity. Statements Laurie Leclair like this belie an ignorance of the complex- Leclair Historical Research, The Patriot War along the Michigan-Can- ada Border: Raiders and Rebels By Shaun J. McLaughlin

Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2013. $19.19 (U.S.) softcover. 189 pages. ISBN 978-1-62619-055-9 (www.historypress.net)

he “Patriot War,” as a whole series of residents—the raiders were not patriots T1838 invasions of Canada from Amer- but pirates, not liberators but invaders, not ican border states came to be called (at least rescuers but rebel terrorists. in the ), was a disaster from McLaughlin has read much and trav- start to finish. Here, in a companion to elled far—digging in archives, collecting his earlier volume on raids along the New facts, culling quotations, copying images York border (reviewed by John Carter in and taking photos. Here he has assembled Ontario History, CIV, 2, Autumn 2012), all his finds into a single narrative. After a Shaun J. McLaughlin continues the sad tale brief setting of the scene and a summarizing of eagerness, ignorance and incompetence of the Mackenzie and Duncombe uprisings that followed the debacles of the 1837 Up- of 1837, the author describes the first failed per Canada Rebellion. As the title suggests, invasion: Mackenzie’s occupying of Navy many sympathetic Americans saw these Island (although from , this raid raiders—some Canadian exiles, mostly was not part of McLaughlin’s first book). American volunteers—as “Patriots,” cross- He then moves west to tell the tales of the ing the border to help re-ignite the fires various ill-fated and inept incursions across of Canadian rebellion and thus to expel the River, followed by the battle at the British lion from the North American Pelee Island. The next chapters deal with continent. However, to the colony’s Brit- arrests, trials, and escapes. The author also ish governors—and apparently most of its repeats and augments his earlier volume’s

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descriptions of the origins is McLaughlin aware of and activities of Hunter John Carter’s many arti- lodges. An account of the cles (save one) about the December 1838 Wind- 1838 invasions or the Van sor invasion, the last of Diemen’s Land prison- thirteen (by his count) ers—though McLaugh- failures, is followed by lin does acknowledge more stories of arrests and Carter’s “help in identi- trials, resulting in execu- fying key sources and for tions, and transportations. reviewing the manuscript There also is an added for accuracy.” chapter on prisoner expe- Too many trivial er- riences in Van Diemen’s rors remain. But worse, Land. An appendix lists can an author who, in all known men who were his opening chapter’s de- hanged and men who scription of the Upper were transported. In the Canadian government course of the narrative, merges the Executive the book provides brief Council and the Legis- biographical vignettes (often accompanied lative Council into a single entity, be ac- by images) of many of the numerous indi- cepted as a competent interpreter of the vidual players in this whole sad drama. But Rebellion as whole? His obvious bias in being provided with so many notes about favour of the “Patriots” is also troubling, the players, the reader may well have diffi- as are his sweeping statements about the culty following the plot. depth of Canadian support for the Rebel- This work—and its companion—at- lions and the fervour of American desire to tempt to present a coherent narrative of free Canada from British rule. These many noble war. Instead it offers a tangled series failed raids and their cumulative disastrous of facts. Laudable as is its intent, it gives results surely suggest that most Americans, specifics but inadequate contexts. It man- even in the border states, were barely inter- ages to provide too much detail and too lit- ested, much less actively sympathetic. And, tle explanation. As a brief introduction, this difficult as conditions often were, pitifully book has its value, but despite its research, few Canadians, even in the centres of deep- it is a once-over-too-lightly. It gives no cita- est discontent, were suffering enough to tions for its many quotations, sources for risk their lives in revolution. its doubtful stories, or justifications for its If, as some would argue, the events questionable opinions. It does offer an ex- along the Canadian-American border in tensive, albeit notably incomplete, bibliog- the year 1838 should be seen as significant raphy. For example, the two most substan- second chapter of the 1837 Rebellion, tial and reliable works on North American rather than simply a subsequent scattering prisoners in Van Diemen’s land—Stuart of foolhardy filibusters and broken dreams, Scott, To the Outskirts of Habitable Crea- the proof is yet to be published. tion, and Cassandra Pybus & Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, American Citizens, Brit- Chris Raible, ish Slaves—are not listed. Nor, apparently, Creemore, Ontario

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