As I sit here listening the Doctor Who on BBC radio 4 extra where Klein has gone back in time to change the winner of WWII, I'm reminded of some recent conversations I've had about Canadian history with various people, and in particular the War of 1812.
The war of 1812 is of particular interest to a Hamiltonian as one of the main battles occurred in Stony Creek a neighbourhood of Hamilton (there are even several annual re-enactments of battles around southern Ontario). It is also one of the best examples of alternate tellings of history.
Ask a Brit what the War of 1812 was and they'll say it was part of the Napoleonic Wars between the UK and France.
Ask an American what the War of 1812 was and they'll say it was a war between the USA and the British.
Ask a Canadian what the War of 1812 was and they'll say it was the war when the USA invaded Canada.
Further more ask the above who won and you'll get the British, Americans, and Canadians respectively. Even historians have difficulty determining the winner.
What the Americans teach:
The War of 1812 was fought by the Americans against unfair British trade restrictions and for the freedom from impressment of American merchants into the British Navy. The Americans successfully repulsed British invasions of New Orleans and Maryland after the British burned Washington DC. After 2 years of fighting they won in getting the policies repealed without losing any territory.
What the Canadians teach:
The War of 1812 began with the Americans invading Canada. The Americans burned down the Canadian houses of Parliament. However, Canadians with their First Nation allies (unlike the Americans who were killing all of their First Nations) successfully fought-back taking some American territory and burned the Whitehouse down. Canada won by defending her territory from the aggresive Americans.
What really happend (maybe)
The British were busy fighting Napoleon and were restricting American trade and impressing her merchants to support the Royal Navy. "Canada" was a sparsely populated, poorly defended bunch of British colonies (an easy target). Americans attacked the British colonies in present day Canada for a combination of reasons, because the British were busy in Europe the Americans initially had success despite having relatively poor military leadership. Due to the poor leadership and very unpopular policies they had toward First Nation soldiers which turned the occupied colonist against them, the Americans made slower progress and the war dragged out. When the Napoleonic wars ended, the British repealed the policies disliked by the Americans, sent troops to defend her colonies and the Royal Navy to attack the atlantic coast of the USA. The USA burned down the government buildings in Toronto (York) and the British burned down government buildings in Washington. The British army reinforced the colony defenses (which were mostly made up of First Nation allies) and pushed the American troops back to the border. The British failed to take any territory with their atlantic attacks and the Americans failed to keep any of the territory they had taken. Neither side had anything to gain from further fighting so they signed a treaty which has lead to 200 years of peace between the two/three nations involved.
