Canada Under Attack

by Jennifer Crump

  James Cook was the focus of the British claim. He had made an extensive exploration of the area of Nootka Sound in 1778, but had made no formal claim of sovereignty over it. He did spend a little over a month in Nootka Sound repairing his ships the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery. He may not have laid claim for the British but he did, perhaps inadvertently, encourage an imperialist interest in the region. When they were published in 1784, Cook’s extensive journals aroused an intense British interest in the area’s rich fur trade. Interestingly, one of the gifts provided to Cook by the Nootka was a set of two silver spoons that looked suspiciously Spanish in origin and may have been traded up the coast or come from the explorations of Balboa some years earlier.

  As early as the 1740s the Spanish began to hear rumours of Russian incursions into the Nootka Sound area. These rumours grew more threatening when it was suggested that the Russians intended to establish settlements in the area to cement their claim. Those rumours, whether true or not, were compounded by the Russian penchant for secrecy and their refusal to confirm or deny the rumours. Since it could take years for information to travel between Russia and its isolated Alaskan outposts, it is possible that even they did not know for sure. As a response to potential Russian settlement of the area, in 1774 the Spanish sent the explorer Juan Pérez, along with a Spanish frigate called the Santiago, to secure their claim. Pérez’s instructions were to travel to 60° north (which is near the site of present-day Cordova, Alaska) and to ascertain the extent of Russian settlements and British incursions in the area. He was also given instructions to land in order to cement Spanish rights to the area, and to treat any Natives he encountered with respect to secure their co-operation. Once on land, according to instructions preserved in the diary of Pérez’s companion, Friar Thomás de la Peña, he was to establish the Spanish presence by “using the standard form attached to his instructions, and erect a large wooden cross supported by a cairn of stones hiding a glass bottle, stoppered with pitch, containing a copy of the act of possession signed by the commander, chaplain, and two pilots, ‘so that in future times this document will be kept and will serve as an authentic testimony.’” 3 Pérez reached the southernmost tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands, but he turned back while still several hundred kilometres from his destination because of his own ill health and illness among his crew. He had seen several Haida but had not landed or made contact with them.

  In 1788, an entrepreneurial British lieutenant named John Meares purchased two ships and decided to pursue these possible riches. He sailed under the Portuguese flag since the only British ships legally allowed to sail the Pacific were those sailing with licenses provided by the South Sea Company or the East India Company. At Friendly Cove, Meares encountered the Nootka chief, Maquinna, who he later claimed had sold him an acre of land and agreed to give him a monopoly on the fur trade in the area. Maquinna would later deny both, but he did allow Meares to erect a small house on the island and to complete work on a new ship that Meares would christen the North West America.

  The Launch of the North West America at Nootka Sound, 1790.

  Between the voyages of Cook and Meares, hundreds of British, Spanish, American, and Russian vessels had ventured into Nootka Sound in search of furs and other valuables. Their relationship with the Nootka was friendly although businesslike, with one notable exception. In August 1785, a ship captained by James Hanna arrived in the Sound. While the Nootka chief Maquinna visited the ship, a practical joker ignited a bag of gunpowder placed beneath his seat. Maquinna’s injuries were more to his pride than to his physical well-being, but the Nootka were nonetheless furious and attacked the ship. Hanna and his crew barely escaped; their days of trading with the Nootka were over.

  The Armourer’s Escape

  By the turn of the 19th century, Chief Maquinna had helped establish a vibrant trade relationship between his people and the Europeans. But his relationship with the Europeans was not always cordial. In the spring of 1803 an American trading ship, the Boston, arrived in Nootka. The ship’s captain insulted Maquinna by suggesting that the gift of a musket the chief had complained was defective had, in fact, been broken by the chief himself. The captain did not realize that Maquinna spoke English, but a blacksmith employed on the ship, John Jewitt, knew immediately that the chief had understood the insult.

  A furious Maquinna attacked the ship and slaughtered most of the crew, sticking their heads on pikes around the ship. Jewitt was spared because of his skills as a blacksmith and another survivor was spared when Jewitt claimed the man was his father and threatened to kill himself if he was harmed. Despite the fact that many in the tribe would have preferred him dead, Jewitt spent three years with Maquinna and his tribe, initially as a slave and later as an adopted member of the tribe, slowly accepting their customs and even marrying and fathering a child. But even while he reluctantly became a part of the tribe, Jewitt longed for home and during trading expeditions with other tribes he wrote and left letters in the hopes that they would be relayed to a potential rescuer.

  Finally, in 1806, another American ship arrived in the bay. Some of the chiefs thought that Jewitt, a witness to the massacre and a potential liability for the tribe, should be killed or at the very least taken kilometres from the shore and the rescue ship. Instead, Maquinna insisted that Jewitt write him a letter of introduction. Even while he assured the chief he was writing an introduction, Jewitt was writing a warning to the captain that immediately after reading the letter he should take Maquinna captive.

  Within hours, Maquinna was in chains and Jewitt was safe on the American ship. In recognition of Maquinna’s protection of him over the last few years, Jewitt argued that the chief be released unharmed. Jewitt himself returned to the United States where he published two books and a play about his adventures.

  During the winter of 1788–89, Meares wintered in China, where he and his partners established a company, the Associated Merchants Trading to the Northwest Coast of America. They gathered a fleet of ships under the command of James Colnett and instructed him to establish a permanent fur trading post at Nootka Sound. The ships in their fleet included the North West America, the Princess Royal, and the Argonaut. Also in 1789, still worried about the Russians, the Spanish laid plans to send Esteban José Martínez to establish some semblance of a permanent settlement at Nootka Sound. Martínez was given two ships to secure the coast: a warship, the Princessa, and a supply ship, the San Carlos. When Martínez arrived in Nootka Sound on May 5, 1789, he encountered two American ships. The captains quickly informed him of Meares’s activities and of the presence of another ship, the Iphigenia, flying a Portuguese flag but manned by an entirely English crew. Martínez tracked down the Iphigenia, captured her, and arrested her crew and captain, William Douglas. After a few days Martínez released the ships and its crew, instructing them never to return to the area. They complied but more British ships were already on the way.

  On June 8, the North West America sailed smoothly into Nootka Sound, completely oblivious to the events that had occurred just over a month before. Martínez seized that ship too, on the pretext that he was owed money by Meares’ company for the supplies he had given to the Iphigenia before he had sent it on its way. The North West American, renamed the Santa Gertrudis la Magna, was refitted and its command was given to one of Martínez’s subordinates, who promptly sailed his prize south to Mexico. A few weeks later, Martínez performed an elaborate ceremony staking Spain’s claim to the region and forced the British and Americans to participate. On July 2, two more of Meares’ company ships arrived. The first, the Princess Royal, was ordered to turn back to China and never return. The second, the Argonaut, was seized by Martínez after its captain shouted insults at the Spanish. Its crew and the Chinese workers on board were all arrested. Maquinna and another Nootka chief named Callicum arrived in his war canoe to protest Martínez’s treatment of the British, with whom Callicum and the Nootka had enjoyed lucrative trade. Martínez fired his pistol to warn off the c
hief. One of the Spaniards, who believed his leader had missed, fired and killed Callicum. Maquinna and the remainder of his tribe fled to the other side of the island.

  The Spanish Insult to the British Flag at Nootka Sound.

  When Martínez discovered thae Argonaut also carried the equipment and materials needed to establish a permanent British trading post on the island, he was furious. This was, in his estimation, a direct violation of Spanish sovereignty. Martínez decided to use the supplies and workers brought by the Argonaut. He had the Chinese workers construct Fort San Miguel on Hog Island to guard the mouth of Nootka Sound. On July 4, the American ships fired two salvos in recognition of their independence from Britain and the Spanish returned their salute from the fort.

  The Princess Royal defied Martínez’ instructions and returned to Nootka Sound on July 12. The ship’s captain, Thomas Hudson, had not intended to enter the Sound but his ship was becalmed and the Spaniards quickly boarded and took control of the ship.

  Despite the friendly relationship between the Spanish and early American arrivals in the Sound, two ships that arrived late in the summer were attacked. The Fair American was boarded and captured, the Eleanora barely escaped. Then, just as suddenly as he had been ordered to occupy the Nootka Sound, Martínez was ordered to leave and return to Mexico, abandoning all of his fortifications. Martínez found himself out of favour with the new Spanish military command in the Pacific, and when a new expedition, the largest ever mustered by the Spanish in the northwest, arrived in Nootka Sound in the spring of 1790, he was not among them.

  Also that spring, Meares returned to England where he quickly whipped up anti-Spanish sentiment over the seizures of his ships and nationalistic fervour over his claim to have settled the Sound first. Public outcry forced a government response and then British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger announced that British ships had the right to trade wherever they chose, regardless of what Spanish law might have to say about it. The comments were inflammatory and could very well have led to war. The British Navy began to prepare and Parliament took up the cause. Fleets of warships were sent from both Spain and Britain and war would likely have been inevitable had they encountered one another. Luckily they did not. The governments of both nations then called upon their network of alliances for support. The Dutch sided with the British and sent a fleet to their aid, as did the Germans. The Spanish were closely allied with the French and dependent on their response. But although the French did mobilize their navy, in August they announced that they would not go to war.

  While the posturing and sabre rattling was still going on, another Spanish expedition, this one on a scientific mission under the command of Alejandro Malaspina, arrived in Nootka Sound and mapped some of its inlets. Two of Malaspina’s lieutenants took the opportunity to travel into the interior to meet with Maquinna and repair Spanish relations with the chief and the Nootka. Fortunately for Spain, they were successful. Shortly after the Spanish left, two American traders also arrived and secured several deeds to land on Nootka Sound. Generations of their heirs would unsuccessfully press the U.S. Congress to pursue their claims.

  Without their French allies, the Spanish decided to press for terms and in 1790 the first Nootka Convention was signed. Under the terms of this first convention, the northwest coast would remain open to traders from all nations, captured British ships would be returned, British prisoners released, and reparations made by Spain for the cost of British losses in Nootka Sound. They were initially unable to come to terms over who had laid claim to Nootka Sound first. For several years the Spanish maintained their fort on Hog Island. The British still backed Meares’ claim but the Nootka, won over by Malaspina’s officers, denied selling him any land. The two sides decided to meet in Nootka Sound to continue their negotiations. For their representative the Spanish chose Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, a naval office. The British sent another naval office, George Vancouver. Although friendly, the two men could not agree to terms. Both wanted access to the Columbia River and the Spanish insisted on retaining control of Nootka Sound, something Vancouver could not accept. In the end, both countries agreed to abandon the territory they had tried so hard to acquire. The Spanish fort was handed over to the British but either country could visit the area and trade as they wished. The two also agreed to jointly prevent any other nation from laying claim to the area. Of course, that was not the end of the struggles to control Nootka Sound. Much later, once they had secured Spanish interests in the Pacific Northwest, the Americans tried, again unsuccessfully, to lay claim to the area. The Russians would never venture south of Alaska, but the British would come again, from the Pacific and over the mountains.

  CHAPTER SIX:

  THE WAR OF 1812

  Their claim to the Canadian Pacific thwarted, the Americans had once again decided to “rescue” the inhabitants of central Canada. In 1812, Thomas Jefferson declared to the American people that capturing Canada would be, “a mere matter of marching.” Between 1812 and 1814, the Americans launched several ill-fated attacks on Canadian soil: on Montreal, Niagara, Erie, and dozens of other towns, villages, and forts. The Canadians and British were vastly outnumbered — in most cases two to one — yet they still remained unbowed. Even after what the Americans believed would be a symbolic death blow — the razing of York — the Canadians still refused to give up. The “march” lasted for two years but Canada eluded capture and fought back — eventually taking the war to the steps of the White House before the American government finally sued for peace.

  For most of the 10 years that Major-General Sir Isaac Brock had been stationed in Canada, he had wanted nothing more than to leave. The career soldier yearned to be where the real action was — on the battlefields of Europe, fighting Napoleon. But instead he was stuck in Fort George, an old wooden fort outside the town of Newark, Upper Canada (present-day Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario), waiting for a war that might never happen. He had sent several letters to the Prince Regent — the head of the British armed forces — requesting permission to return to England, but to no avail. His boredom and frustration with life on the Niagara frontier is reflected in a letter he wrote to his brother in 1811: “You who have passed all of your days in the bustle of London, can scarcely conceive the uninteresting and insipid life I am doomed to lead in this retirement.”1

  Blonde, blue eyed, and well over six feet tall, Brock was a dashing figure in his scarlet uniform. At 42, he was the commander in chief of all the troops in Upper Canada. He had proved himself in battle and was respected and admired by his men. In the early 19th century, Canada, then known as “the Canadas,” was a loose confederacy of villages scattered along the eastern half of the continent in two provinces, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Most of the colonials were farmers, and many were recent immigrants from the United States — Loyalists who had fled following the American War of Independence. The fluid border that had been drawn after that war was still defended by a series of isolated wooden forts, most of which were in a state of frightening disrepair. The British soldiers who manned them buffered their isolation with rum and dreams of past victories. The Canadian militia was a largely ad hoc force. They met once a year for training, were seldom available during harvest or other critical times for their farms, and received no pay. Few of the British officers expressed confidence in the abilities of the militia and many were concerned that the Canadians — many of whom were recently arrived immigrants from the United States — could not be counted on in the event of a war with their former country. In fact, Brock’s commander, Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Prevost, referred to them as, “a mere posse, ill-arm’d and without discipline.”

  When a letter arrived from the Prince Regent in early 1812, finally granting Brock permission to return to England, he should have been ecstatic. His opportunity had arrived. Fame and glory in the fight against Napoleon could be his. But, by that time, things had become a whole lot more exciting in Canada. Every sign pointed to war with the Americans, and Broc
k, as the acting political administrator of Upper Canada, felt duty bound to stay. His next letter to England requested leave to remain in Canada. The colonials had whispered of war with the Americans for most of the decade, but recent rumours seemed to hold more substance. Some members of the American Congress were openly calling for war. Indeed, many of them believed that a war with Canada would barely be a war at all. The odds did seem to be in the Americans’ favour; America’s population was seven million, it had a trained army of more than 35,000, and an ample supply of arms. By contrast, Canada’s population was barely half a million, it had only 5,000 British soldiers, a possible 4,000 militia, and very few arms.2

  All able-bodied Canadian men could have been called up to serve on the militia, but Brock thought it prudent to arm a mere 1,500 of them. He knew that few had any deep attachment to Britain, and fewer still could be counted on to commit to a war they saw as a fight between the British and Americans. Brock had little respect for the Canadian militia. He believed that they were ill-trained and ill-equipped, and that they would desert at the first opportunity. However, the general’s opinion about Canadian fighting men would change over the next few months.

  On June 19, 1812, while at a formal dinner with his American counterparts at Fort George, Brock was informed that President Madison had declared war on Canada. The officers, who had frequently socialized until then, politely finished their meal before returning to their respective headquarters to plot strategy. The whispers of war became a deafening shout as word spread. No one doubted the outcome. Canadian politicians, civilians, and the Native peoples believed an American victory was inevitable. Brock desperately needed the Natives as allies, but they were reluctant to back the losing side.

  No one, it seemed, had counted on Isaac Brock.