New America: How America Could Have Happened. An Alternate History

Part 3: Canada. Jacques Benoit

JASON: I will be meeting with Jacques Benoit in the student center of McGill University in Montreal. Jacques is a history student here at the University, and I expect he will probably become a history professor like both of his parents someday. Who better to know the history of his nation, Canada?

Jacques looks like a typical young man with a casual relaxed manner as he draws his long dark hair back and leans into the leather chair across from me. This carefree look is misleading however as he has been recommended to me because he is known to be a serious student of history, with a very mature sense of purpose.

JACQUES: ""Well I will try to keep it brief, something that my professors say I am completely incapable of - but we will see. To start I suppose the history of Canada, as an independent country, does not seem as glamorous as some of our neighbours. There were no armed revolutions, not a lot of bloodshed with our Indigenous population. We remained a British colony through all of that, and eventually in 1867 accepted the offer of independence from the motherland. It was a time when others in the British colonial empire were doing the same. That is not to say that there were not some significant, and even violent, events leading up to this date.

As you know, the first European settlements in Canada by the French with the arrival of Jacques Cartier in 1534. But his settlement in the Maritimes eventually failed due to the difficult winters. Then Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1608. The winter climate was harsh and his first attempts at settlement failed with disease and starvation. But Champlain persisted in his dream of a major settlement where Quebec City is today. With the help of the native tribes who he traded with, they were able to get through some difficult winters and he was eventually successful. I say persisted because he crossed the Atlantic more than 20 times in establishing and developing his dream.

The first settlements were French, but British were also interested in this land – and had their own ambition to control the abundant fisheries and fur trade for Britain. The Seven Years War ensued as each nation competed to reap the spoils of war. It all came to a winner take all climax in 1759 on the cliffs overlooking the port of Quebec City. What would be called the battle of the Plains of Abraham between the French General Montcalm commanding the fortress of Quebec, and the British General Wolfe approaching along the St Lawrence River below. The fortress was thought to be impenetrable due to its location on the high ground, actually the cliffs, overlooking the port where cannon and musket fire could rain down on any attackers. And General Wolfe did not disagree with this assessment.

So, instead of a frontal attack, he disembarked his troops in the dark a few miles downstream of the fort. And after scaling the difficult cliffs, he and his troops showed up promptly before breakfast, assembled behind the fort on the Plains of Abraham, ready for battle. The French were taken by surprise and the British prevailed.

However, both generals were mortally wounded and did not live to witness the glory, or the disgrace, of the French lands of Quebec and the eastern provinces being handed over to the victor. What then became British North America with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

With their victory in Quebec, the British then held what is now Eastern Canada as well as the New England states to the south. The French continued to hold the lands from Michigan in the north, south along the Mississippi, to Louisiana. So we move forward to some seventy years later when there was Revolution by the New England states as they gained independence from Britain. But north of the St Lawrence River, our territories remained as British North America.

I believe that Canada did not try to separate from Britain because we enjoyed and needed their protection. The population north of the St Lawrence River was small compared to the New England states and without this protection, we would have been quickly gobbled up by the states south of the border. In fact this concern was realized in 1812.