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Dismemberment at Windmill Point: Violence, Manliness, and the Irish in Upper Canada

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Dismemberment at Windmill Point: Violence, Manliness, and the Irish in Upper Canada Document generated on 09/25/2021 4:58 a.m. Ontario History Dismemberment at Windmill Point Violence, Manliness, and The Irish in Upper Canada Jane McGaughey Volume 110, Number 1, Spring 2018 Article abstract Drawing on personal letters, published memoirs, and court martial records, this URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1044325ar article investigates the gendered and ethnic implications of the Battle of the DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1044325ar Windmill in November 1838. While this invasion of Upper Canada by the Hunter Patriots has often been seen as the final chapter of the 1837 Canadian Rebellions, See table of contents it was also an episode imbued with Irish fraternal societies, Irish politics, notions of Irish manliness, and the attempts of Irish settlers to earn their place within “respectable” Upper Canadian society. The scandalous castration of an Irish Publisher(s) officer and the mistreatment of dead soldiers’ bodies stood in direct contrast to the value each force placed on heroic martial manliness. Despite the relatively The Ontario Historical Society small size of the battlefield, the legacy of the battle itself significantly impacted how Irish settlers were treated in Upper Canadian society at the end of the 1830s. ISSN 0030-2953 (print) 2371-4654 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article McGaughey, J. (2018). Dismemberment at Windmill Point: Violence, Manliness, and The Irish in Upper Canada. Ontario History, 110(1), 35–58. https://doi.org/10.7202/1044325ar Copyright © The Ontario Historical Society, 2018 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/ 35 Dismemberment at Windmill Point Violence, Manliness, and The Irish in Upper Canada by Jane McGaughey n mid-November 1838, Windmill brought together in one of the more Point in Upper Canada became the violent episodes of nineteenth-century focus of much attention in British Canada. Orangemen fought alongside INorth America and the United States. Irish Catholic settlers and descendants of An invading force of some 250 men Irish United Empire Loyalists who were, landed just outside the hamlet of New in turn, supported by the regulars of the Wexford, about two kilometres east of 83rd (Dublin) Regiment of Foot against the town of Prescott. e Hunter Patri- the American invaders.2 is very Ca- ots were a group of American, European, nadian aair was imbued with Irish fra- and Canadian republican invaders who ternal societies, Irish politics, notions of crossed the narrows of the St. Lawrence Irish manliness, and the attempts of Irish intent on liberating Upper Canada from settlers to earn their place at last in re- British rule. Meetings held in New York spectable society through that most Irish State immediately prior to the invasion of tactics: violent force of arms. described their actions as an attempt to e traditional interpretation of the relieve “the suering Canadian Patri- Battle of the Windmill can seem more ots.” 1 foolish than fraught. Led by Nils von In the space of less than a week, four Schoultz, a brave yet doomed Polish aris- distinct strains of the Irish Diaspora were tocrat, the Hunters crossed the river in 1 Archives of Ontario (AO), F 37, Mackenzie-Lindsey Family Fonds, “Public Meeting In Favor of the Suering Canadian Patriots,” 10 November 1838. 2 While there were men of Irish birth and extraction amongst the Hunter Patriots who attacked Windmill Point, only one secondary source directly cites the nascent cause of the Irish Repeal movement, which sought to overturn the 1801 Act of Union that had made Ireland part of the United Kingdom, as a factor inuencing the Hunters’ decision to attack Upper Canada. See, Oscar A. Kinchen, e Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters (New York: Bookman Associates, 1956), 112. While the exact nature of the Hunter Patriots’ alignment with the Irish Repeal movement is worthy of further scholarly attention, the following argument will focus only on the Upper Canadian Irish elements at the Battle of the Windmill. Ontario History / Volume CX, No. 1 / Spring 2018 inside pages spring 2018.indd 35 2018-02-19 9:26:34 PM 36 ONTARIO HISTORY fought, with British forces laying siege to the stone wind- Abstract mill where the Americans had Drawing on personal letters, published memoirs, and court taken shelter from both their martial records, this article inestigates the gendered and enemies and the cold Novem- ethnic implications of the Battle of the Windmill in No- ber temperatures. British naval vember 1838. While this inasion of Upper Canada by the Hunter Patriots has oen been seen as the nal chapter ships bombarded the windmill of the 1837 Canadian Rebellions, it was also an episode from the river. Once they real- imbued with Irish aternal societies, Irish politics, notions ized they had been sorely mis- of Irish manliness, and the attempts of Irish settlers to earn taken about Canadians’ desire their place within “respectable” Upper Canadian society. e scandalous castration of an Irish ocer and the mis- to be free of British control, treatment of dead soldiers’ bodies stood in direct contrast the Hunters surrendered. Von to the value each force placed on heroic martial manliness. Schoultz was hanged—aer Despite the relatively small size of the battleeld, the legacy having been defended by a of the battle itself signicantly impacted how Irish settlers were treated in Upper Canadian society at the end of the young John A. Macdonald— 1830s. as were nine others; the rest were either deported back to Résumé: En nous inspirant de lettres personnelles, de mémoires publiés et de dossiers de cour martiale, nous ex- America or transported to a aminerons les implications ethniques et sexospéciques de penal colony in Van Dieman’s la bataille du Moulin-à-Vent en noembre 1838. Cette Land (modern Tasmania).3 inasion du Haut-Canada par les Frères-Chasseurs est e tale bears startling souvent considérée comme le dernier chapitre des rébel- lions canadiennes de 1837, mais c’est aussi un épisode rem- similarities to various Irish es- pli de mouvements aternalistes irlandais, de politique capades throughout the nine- irlandaise, de notions de virilité et masculinité irlandaise, teenth century. Like Emmett’s et de tentatives des colonisateurs irlandais à être admis aux Rebellion in 1803, the Hunter rangs « respectables » de la société du Haut-Canada. La castration scandaleuse d’un ocier irlandais et la profana- Patriots were attempting to tion des corps de soldats défunts ont fait vivement contraste provoke a rising in the aer- avec l’importance placée par les deux côtés sur la virilité math of a previously failed in- martiale héroïque. Malgré la taille relativement petite du surrection. Like the Young Ire- champ de bataille, l’héritage de la bataille elle-même aura landers a decade later in 1848, un impact important sur la façon dont les colonisateurs ir- landais seront traités dans le Haut-Canada vers la n des the Hunters believed they were années 1830. deliverers of liberty to a people too oppressed by the British yoke to ght for themselves. the dead of night only to be quickly sur- Like the Fenians in the 1860s, they cre- rounded by imperial troops and the colo- ated a vast network of fraternal societies, nial militia. For ve days, the two groups clubs, and information on either side of 3 Library Archives Canada (LAC), Registry Files, RG 22 A 1, Volume 1394, File Part 1, “Battle of the Windmill, Prescott, Ont.,” 2. For a traditional military account of the battle, please see G.F. Stanley, “e Battle of the Windmill,” Historic Kingston 3 (1954), 41-56. inside pages spring 2018.indd 36 2018-02-19 9:26:34 PM Dismemberment at Windmill Point 37 the border that believed to be, but much more of the loss of Canada would a charlatan, while Ogle be a mighty blow against Gowan, the leader of the British Empire and, Upper Canadian Or- like all of the others, the angeism, was blooded in Hunter Patriots found his rst military engage- out too late that their ment, but perhaps not plan would never suc- quite in the glorious way ceed. Some have claimed he had imagined. that, had it not been for e Battle of the the tragic loss of life dur- Windmill encapsu- ing those ve bloody lated a host of vibrant, days in November 1838, yet problematic images the entire scene would about Irishmen in the have made for a delight- Canadas at the end of ful comic opera; the ex- the colonial rebellions. act same sentiment has is article explores how been applied to the Fe- masculine imagery in- nian invasions of 1866 formed the manner in and 1870.4 which these Irishmen But there are also Nils on Schoultz <http://pithandsub- were perceived by their things that do not get stance.blogspot.ca/2006/08/nnish-revolu- peers, by their enemies, mentioned in the brief tionary-and-father-of.html> and amongst themselves. summaries that the Battle of the Wind- It pays particular attention to the local mill oen receives. is was the bloodiest Orangemen who fought in the battle and episode of the rebellions in Upper Cana- how this hyper-masculinised and oen- da, and was surpassed in Lower Canada times violent Irish fraternity positioned only by what the townships surrounding itself within the frameworks of loyalism, Montreal endured in the winter of 1837 martial respectability, and imperial de- and again in 1838 at the hands of govern- fence.
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