Canada's 'Wars of Religion

There is a widespread acceptance of the central role of rebellion in 1837-1838, 1866, 1869-1870 and 1885 in Canada’s national history. These populist uprisings, especially those of 1837 and 1838 provided justification for the development of responsible government or a critique of its application for particular ethnic groups. The issue was one of constitutional change and continuity across the 1837-1838 divide, and of progress towards Confederation in 1867. The rebellions were rarely seen outside this Whiggish view of constitutional progress and this was reflected in the different ways in which Canadians learned about the history of their country. For French-Canadians in Quebec, their history was traditionally taught to inspire loyalty to their homeland. They pointed to the survival of their national language and identity that had, elsewhere in North America, been submerged by the dominant English-speaking culture. It was their linguistic and cultural unity when faced with this cultural onslaught that allowed them to maintain their ‘French’ space and its continuance depends on maintaining this unity. This view is deeply rooted in the notion of a ‘solemn pact’ dating from the British Conquest of 1760 that established the terms on which the inhabitants of the former New France and their descendants were to live as a community even if they were obliged to share their homeland with the British. Its pervasive nature was especially evident in the aftermath of union in 1840 when French-Canadians were threatened by the assimilation project of Lord Durham. The historiographical consequence of this was that British and French-Canadians learned different and incompatible histories of Canada in which one group’s history portrayed the other as an adversary. This lack of accepted history made it more difficult for the two groups to gel as a community.

These essays seek to unpick the notion of the ‘peaceable kingdom’ in the light of the religious and cultural violence that permeated Canada between 1800 and 1885. Far from having little impact on the development of Canada from a colonial state to a continental dominion, violence played a seminal influence in stimulating political and constitutional development. The British government’s response to the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 and 1838 was to establish a union of the two provinces in 1841 and rule by a ‘responsible’ government from 1848 that proved sufficiently resilient in facing down the Tory reactions to the Rebellion Losses legislation. The Fenian invasions in 1866 impacted on the Confederation debates, though to what extent is unclear, but the fear of further Fenian incursion—that occurred in 1870 and 1871--reinforced the argument that domestic security could only be achieved through a closer constitutional federalism. The resistance in Manitoba in 1869 and 1870 reflected the hesitant nature of the new Confederation especially its failure to take account of minority interests while the North-West rebellion in 1885 demonstrated its unwillingness to negotiate for a second time and the growing confidence of its political and military position.