The Canadian Revolution; Explained (Short Animated Documentary)

Canada has always had a reputation as being the well-behaved British colony. Whilst its southern neighbour rebelled and broke free, the British Northern Territory stayed loyal and wanted nothing to do with it. Yet Canada, like so many other territories of the British Empire, did have its own armed revolution, which will be a surprise to many. So, Canada didn't really exist at this point and was actually a series of British colonies. The two important ones were Upper Canada, capital Toronto, and to its north, Lower Canada, focused on Montreal and being host to a majority French-speaking population. Throughout the early 19th century, the people of these two Canadas had wished for wide-sweeping reforms to the colonies, and the answer, in case you were wondering, was no. This was because both of the Canadas were run by closed-off, anti-democratic oligarchic collectives. In Lower Canada, it was the Chateau Clique, made up of mostly Englishmen who wanted the French speakers there to integrate to an English way of life, which, in case you're wondering, did not endear them to the population. In Upper Canada, it was the Family Compact in charge and it was also hostile to democracy. These groups obviously had their critics. In Upper Canada, the primary critic was William Leon Mackenzie, who led the reform movement. And in Lower Canada, it was Louis-Joseph Papineau, the leader of a group called the Patriots. In 1832, after some protesters in Montreal were shot by Crown soldiers, Papineau sent a list of demands to the British government in order to reform the colony. Britain and the Lower Canadian leaders decided that they weren't going to launch any reforms and that actually everything was perfect already. And over the next five years, tensions continued to rise and the deadlock continued. In November 1837, things started to turn a bit radical and the Lower Canadian government attempted to arrest Papineau. He fled south to the United States and his supporters began to violently resist government attempts to round people up. The government wasn't able to suppress this quickly and it soon turned into a full-scale revolt against British rule. In Upper Canada, seeing their neighbour's revolt there in full swing, Mackenzie and his followers followed suit and began their own uprising. They did well at first because the troops there had been moved out of the province, but the revolutionaries had one major issue. They weren't professional soldiers. This didn't stop Mackenzie from declaring the creation of the Republic of Canada, which then promptly collapsed as the revolutionaries were defeated by local militiamen. You would assume that that was it then for the Canadian Revolution, but fun fact, no. The rebellion had garnered a great deal of interest in the United States and many there were sympathetic to the Canadians' plight. Some Americans formed groups which welcomed Mackenzie and Papineau and sought to help them in making Canada a republic. This eventually led to a group of American volunteers called the Hunter Brothers crossing the border and invading Canada, and it wasn't long before British troops killed Americans which inflamed tensions. Now, obviously, armed American citizens invading Canada was a cause for concern in both London and Washington who didn't want war. In the end, both sides came to an agreement to suppress Americans crossing the border, and in Canada itself, the Lower Canadian Rebellion had been completely crushed by the end of 1838. So what did this mean for Canada and the rebels? Well, Britain wanted to prevent a rebellion from happening again and so it tasked Lord Durham to make a list of recommendations for reform. The first and the only one that was initially followed was the unification of the Canadas into just one Canada, and as for the leaders of the rebellion, they remained in exile in the USA. Eventually, though, they were pardoned and returned to Canada. And so, the Canadian Revolution was over, and whilst it didn't create an independent Canadian Republic, it did, to a certain extent, create Canada. I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching, with a special thanks to my Patreon supporters who you can see on screen here, and with an extra special thanks to...