thumbnail of The border in question; Time and the border, part 1
Transcript
Hide -
If this transcript has significant errors that should be corrected, let us know, so we can add it to FIX IT+
The border in question now called Ma your boy didn't they died how do you know that. Then hear gunfire enough to you that would make your code you hear gunfire in I am engaged that we hide it and with power and the courage of those young people you know they had their way bowed out on this program is produced and recorded at the University of British Columbia Canada under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. Q10 idea and in all you need and just stepped in when if you were my name is Adam Dunn now year old dead at age 25 you with sixteen awful young men. On nearly a week in the seventeenth
century are addicted and pawed volley after volley into savage attacks by 808 dominate in a club but it was too broad and an attack on my boy at last. We and a handful of loyal in the old outcome they ended by those that fought and they called our good back here. They stand out there Long as soon he does being compared with Liana does set them up for Asia's on the bridge at wrong. Yet as I say a few Canadians outside good that you know of this stand along useful. And certainly fewer Americans. Time and the border to brief glimpse at kind of his past and those historical forces which shaped and continue to shape Canada's relations with its giant neighbor. This is the
first of 10 programs touching various aspects of Canadian American relations designed to help explain the persistent Canadian rejection of geographic and population logic in order to maintain an independent sovereign and proud nation. Time and the border. When Adam Dillard and his nearly forgotten band made their stand nearly a section of the awful river called the Long SU there were no Americans or Canadians British French or Spanish but no Americans or Canadians. So we must go back to near the beginning. Thirty years after Columbus first touched this hemisphere the Explorer car shaped Sail Beyond the fishing fleets off Newfoundland into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Although unimpressed Cush a first put the indelible French temp on Canada. If there's only one as good as the hospice it would be a blessing. I did not see one
cock load of. And yet I landed in many places in fine I am trying to believe this is the land God gave to Canaan Canada was to be called worse. Shouted sometimes across her borders sometimes whispered in private by Canadians themselves Canadians can be uncommonly objective about their national history. Liking Disney to exult the historical commonplace or turned bandit into shining hero Canadians often appear either on emotional or unaware of the sweep of their early history. Do you think Canada has an interesting history. I've never been very interested in history. I'm more interested in European history. I think it's more colorful. I think that that all countries have an interesting history and I find our own country's history particularly interesting because it personally involves I and other Canadian citizens. Well it's been fairly good yes.
We had one small reprising no real end there in the western provinces one time but it didn't amount to very much and outside of that our development has been gradually. Just the course of events taking place while the French were establishing themselves in the present province of Nova Scotia and along the St. Lawrence Valley British colonists were settling in along the Atlantic seaboard. But when these ambitious British colonists crossed the Appalachian Mountains they ran into a French domain extending over the present Canadian provinces of Quebec Ontario and Manitoba and the states of Wisconsin Michigan Illinois Ohio Indiana and chunks of Pennsylvania and New York. A clash with the French was unavoidable. Geography decreed that the North American issue in the French British conflict should be settled on a table of land on top of a steep cliff near complexity an area known as the Plains of Abraham. On June 28 1759 a British Proclamation was issued to the inhabitants of
Quebec by His Excellency James well as Colonel of the regiment. Major general and commander in chief of a Britannic Majesty's forces in the US a lot of us abominable sea and land of events which the people of Canada now behold in the heart of a country is invented by the King my master to check the insolence of friends to revenge the insults of it to the British holidays and totally to deprive the French of the most value of those settlements in North America on September 13th. 1759 British regulars scaled the Quebec cliffs and met the French forces on the Plains of Abraham will died in the battle. One call on the French commander was fatally wounded. The British won the battle won possession of French holdings in the interior and won the job of governing 60000 French colonists along the St. Lawrence colonists who were former enemies who spoke a different language who were Roman Catholic and who were tough shrewd and
proud. For a while the idea was entertained that the French could be assimilated into an English speaking community. But this idea was scotched for ever by a combination of tolerance and foresight called the Quebec Act an act which guaranteed the vanquished French their language customs and religion and French civil law. The thirteen British colonies to the south however saw it differently. The Quebec Act was merely another of the sinister intolerable acts. It was yet another grievance which resulted in the American rebellion in 1776 and it wasn't long before the rebelling Americans discovered the British political wisdom in the Quebec Act. A manifesto from the First Continental Congress to the people of the province of Quebec. Friends and fellow subjects. We the delegates of the 13 colonies defeated by the inhabitants of the said colonies to represent them in a general Congress at Philadelphia in the province of Pennsylvania to consult together of the best methods
to obtain redress of our afflicting grievances. I have thought proper to address your province as a member there in deeply interested. But the invitation from the Americans was allowed to lapse. Having secured a guarantee of their culture and and identity the French Canadians displayed little desire to lose themselves in the English speaking American stew and in Nova Scotia English speaking sentiment also never coalesced to a point where it could make common cause with the independent seeking Americans. The reluctance of Quebec and Nova Scotia to join the revolt suddenly appeared as a threat to its very success. General Montgomery captured St. John and even Montreal fell to the invading Americans. He and Benedict Arnold attacked but failed to take him back. In a report from American headquarters in Canada Benjamin Franklin wrote that the Canadians proffered no weight to their quote liberators unquote and that without outside help the American
forces would need to quote starve plunder or surrender unquote. So the Americans retreated from Montreal. But if Franklin was disappointed the British felt hardly better about the Canadians in a dispatch to London Sir Guy Carleton wrote. As to my opinion of the Canadians I think there's nothing to fear from them while we are in this state. Asperity and nothing to hope for when in distress. I speak of the people it lives and some among them high guided by sentiments of honor. But the multitude is interest only by hopes of gain and fear of punishment. The success of the War of Independence raise the pressing problem in the British North American colonies of continued survival alongside the new ambitious United States. Perhaps at this juncture those forces which have given Canadian American relations their unique identifiable characteristics first became apparent. One
of these forces felt to this day was the migration from the United States of some 50000 American colonists who remained loyal to Britain or neutral in the rebellion. Deprived of their property subjected to mob violence the lawless brought to Canada a legacy of bitterness and suspicion toward the new nation of states. While Americans may trace their families back to the Mayflower Canadians often trace their ancestors back to Loyalist stock and call themselves United Empire Loyalists. The bitterness is gone but the desire persists for separation from the United States. I'm informed that on my father's side I'm descended from a United Empire Loyalists. Douglas Haskins is a Canadian actor and television personality. My basic feeling about being a U.S. United Empire Loyalists is. One of dem gratitude to that obscure ancestor who decided that at the time of the American War of
Independence he would prefer not to fight against the British Crown. He of course was motivated by a pro British sentiment as a 20th century Canadian I am not particularly pro British any more than I'm pro anything else or anti anything else. Nevertheless I'm glad that he did emigrate from the United States at that time because of the way things have turned out at the turn of the 19th century. The presence of the United Empire Loyalists reinforced the fear of attack from the United States. And as things turned out these fears seem amply justified by the War of 1812. Canadian historian Professor John Norris. The armed forces engaged were not large but it was a ferocious struggle certainly the battles for the Niagara Peninsula 1000 12 to 14 culminating in the battle of Lundy's
Lane where neither chocolate soldiers are easy nor small. True enough of the decisive campaigns are on the high seas in these the British won by 1814 by their blockade. The fact that the most notable American victory was won after the piece was completed. As a bad communications has tended to make Americans durians rather deprecate the War of 1812. It was not a great success. The United States with considerable local superiority in Armand's failed to conquer Canada and ultimately found herself on the defensive when. Great Britain was able to mobilize her forces to this end. Still American textbooks do seem to ignore the War of 1812. D n f h Soward head of University of British Columbia's Department of International Studies. I think it's a natural tendency to forget a war which you didn't win. The best contrast and point of view is the title of the volumes on the same subject in two parallel series The Chronicles of
America the chronicles of Canada. The Chronicles of America volume is called the fight for a free seat and discuss a variety of the American extant naval victories for the early fight of the war. The Canadian volume was written by a military historian this call the war with United States and it deals almost explicitly with military campaigns on the borders of Canada and inside particularly up account itself to the American the fact that the war ended after the war in Europe. Reading method is looked upon as a postscript to an unfortunate enough for a successful episode to the clarity in the fact that with the help of British regulators and British leaders we've been able to win some pretty substantial victories against the bank was a source of pride. So the about have a different interpretation for that reason. So whatever the merits of the War of 1812 it had the effect of impinging itself on the emerging Canadian national consciousness for the first time Canadians had made a significant contribution to their own defense.
No Grandma you bowed out how you're going to hear from her and I know my dear that would made your courage to convert you now and then but we had a language tone. The courage of those young boys they'd come. On another I was a brave general by name and ship it out and I had to go to the guard he said as my gallant heroes if you don't come along with me. Those proud when they had had a game having once rejected American blandishments Canadians had now rejected in battle the vaunted benefits of American citizenship. And this brought in its train a desire for greater independence while affection for the motherland was both pragmatic and sentimental. Reform movement spread through Ontario and Quebec and the Maritimes in 1820 to come back Governor Sir Gordon Drummond denounced one Louis
Joseph Papineau for what he called a seditious movement for responsible government. The governor was to hear more of Papineau discontent was also swelling in Ontario center of the reform movement was William Lyon Mackenzie and sister of the Canadian prime minister who was destined to play a vital role in modern Canadian American relations. Mackenzie came. There were two rebellions in November 1837 one near Montreal led by Papineau the other in Toronto led by William Lyon Mackenzie by American standards they were small. Never more than a few hundred rebels participating in the end the two leaders fled the country with indecent haste Mackenzie's presence in the United States quicken the hearts of those Americans dedicated to the idea of liberating Canada and throughout eight hundred thirty eight raids were made on Canadian territory. Once again Canadians had reason to fear attack from their neighbors. It was while these border incidents were occurring that an aristocratic English intellectual arrived
in Canada a large dark room known as radical Jack. His report to London is a major landmark in Canadian history. It's needs no change in the principle of government invention. You constitutional to supply the remedy which would in my opinion completely remove the existing political disorder it needs but to follow up consistent principles of British constitution. They don't now to consider the policy of establishing representative government in the North American colonies that has been done but the crown must On the other hand submit to the necessary consequences of representative institutions. Thus began one of the major differences in historical development between Canada and the United States namely that in Canada more emphasis and Reliance was placed on the reports of statesman than on the reports of muskets. Some commentators have said this fact has worked against a healthy Canadian national pride that has robbed us of
moments of pain and trial which lead to moments of greatness and glory. Do you think that Canada's history suffers from a lack of revolutions say like the Americans with their civil war for example. I don't think we've had enough. I don't say we have to have a. Revolution is good it can be an ideological revolution. No I don't think so. The American Revolution of course was fought on a different basis of what our whole society here when we fought our revolution here to keep the Americans out an eighteen hundred twelve. On the Coxey army was going to come across in the United States and upset our economy here. It didn't amount to very much and since that time of course everything is for this the rest of their development here has this been steady without very much highlight about it. Sensational. Well we've had a real rebellion but you don't hear too much about it do we don't play them up like. No I don't. Knowit definitely not. That I don't think we had the. But
I'm proud that we had any trouble ever the. Both the French and English population of a different languages it's basically male to get along. Of course there were cases of violence besides the old faded 1837 rebellions cases of individuals taking matters into their own hands. For example when Lord Durham arrived in Canada one Bill Johnson a self-styled Canadian patriot but otherwise described as a smuggler captured and burned a British steamboat and he wrote to Pharaoh. How do you like to have your steamboat Burke Grauer McNabb will get all holy in their damn heart when they little think of such a thing. What is the reason that Navy island was not taken if they were so fast for fighting. All they took good care to keep clear of that. You would have had a small taste in New Orleans. There is a scrap rowing in New York with damned spam ships. Next thing they will be burnt. Goddamn McQueen Bill Johnson for ever.
Well anyway a century later during Prohibition the US Coast Guard wants to have many violent encounters with rum running Canadians like Bill Johnson. But meanwhile the derm report added new impetus to two parallel movements. Reform within and union of the still divided British North American colonies these in turn ran parallel to changes in British colonial policy plus the constant fear of the United States. In the 1840s hard times hit felt particularly by Montreal merchants who had dreamed of their city as the gateway to the Continent a dream which was blasted by the construction of the Erie Canal. They then followed a plaintive note which is still heard today whenever Canadian economic horizons darkened annexation to the United States. The launch alga zaps a cover 11 1849 of all the better days that have been suggested for the acknowledged and inseparable ills with which our country is afflicted. There remains but one to be considered. This remedy consists in a friendly and peaceful
separation from British connection and a union upon equitable times with the great North American confederacy of sovereign states. Nothing came of it. The U.S. maintained a discreet though interested silence during this time the Republic was embarked on what was clearly imperialist expansion over land rather than over water. Oregon territory and Texas had been added to the US maps and the Mexican War admitted by even US historians to be an unjust war. Added New Mexico and California Manifest Destiny became very real in Canadian fears Dean effete soured a University of British Columbia comments on the principle of manifest destiny. It's hard to give a shite definition. I think it's hopeless pair with the pack of imperialism in which a very rich subject chaotically throughout the local century. I mean by that that the desire for expansion constantly active in American life but became a force in politics above every.
Twenty or thirty years the War of 1812. Trouble on the borders in the 1830s the word Medical in the 1840s the rumors of expansion in the 1860s talk of expansion. Beyond the American front and on the beyond the American economy 1890s and phrases about the American flag flying from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean which you'll find of late has led to a hundred and eleven in the conviction of an Englishman who often share this but were perhaps less outspoken about it. That. Providence and God sometimes both. Justified the right of the American people to control the whole of the North American continent that this was their destiny because they were the people who would perform the mission of civilized civilization to the area under their control and were obviously suited to perform the same task
in other parts of the of the western hemisphere with particular reference to Canada. I think it's almost I don't know as an American enthusiasm but certainly it is a real fact in American foreign policy from the face of earth at Versailles in 83 until the. End of World War One by the 1850s industrialism and rail transportation began to reveal their impact on relations between the two halves of divided North America. Some sort of free or reciprocal trade arrangement was advanced as a solution to a growing number of problems. Paradoxically reciprocal trade was advanced in Canada by one statesman as the only means of preventing an exaggeration of Canada while in some parts of the United States it was advanced as an excellent means of accomplishing an exception. And this incidentally is another dispute which still goes on in Canada. Notwithstanding a Reciprocity Treaty with the United States was signed in 1854 this was a time of great railroad building and out of this grew an awareness in Canada and the Maritimes of the vastness of their est
eyes turned to the boundless prairie beyond the Rocky Mountains and then an eight hundred fifty eight. Gold was discovered near the British colony of Vancouver Island. Soon more gold was discovered in the caribou area of the present province of British Columbia and each discovery brought a fresh wave of gold hungry Americans British colonials on the Pacific. I also feared American expansion. A sense of oneness was spreading across the top of North America. April 1861 Confederate guns fired on a union fort the Civil War which then started had decisive effects on the divided wavering colonies north of the forty nights parallel the United States was on the move and the Canadian west was wide open in the Toronto Globe. George Brown wrote on occupation of the Northwest Territory as a blot on our character for Enterprise. We are content to play grown while others are working.
You know Carol July 1861 Canadian generals are terribly exasperated against the Northern press for the stand it's taken against the insidious designs of England. Let us hear no more of Canadian liberty. The Toronto Globe August 1861 the insolent bravado of the Northern press towards Great Britain and the insulting tone assumed toward these provinces have unquestionably produced a marked change in the feeling of our people. When the war commenced there was only one feeling of hearty sympathy with the North. But now it is different how and kind of the Times December 1861. Every place must be fortified and that immediately and where there is no place to fortify one must be made. And so a union or Confederation of the separate provinces became imperative soured comments on the forces leading to Canadian Confederation. I think undoubtedly one of the very influential reasons for it was the genuine fear of the United States but the exists of the monthly budget Confederation
and 1867 and the basis for this fear and also hostility has to be found in the can two or three distinct elements. One was a recollection the War of 1812 with its impact of particularly upon what is now the problems of Ontario that left behind a suspicion of Yankees which certainly must have been still alive in the minds of people in the 1860s. The second problem was the irritation caused by the Fenian raids of the Irish Republican advocates and that of states crossing in into played in territory since it couldn't get out the British. We were in a sense see the third party victim of irritation over it directed against Great Britain overly runs of Ireland and these raids again were chiefly on the border of Upper Canada. Two students in University of Toronto died in the so-called Battle of Ridgeway 1866 and there were fears of these Fenian raids might also take place. That's concerning Manitoba
and there were certain fears I think in the case of New Brunswick The third factor was the loss of preference in trade to United States. The reciprocity agreement of 1854 had been most successful and most useful to Canada. This was terminated at the American request because of exasperate over the alleged partiality of Canada towards the south in the American Civil War. I say it led because it wasn't can as simple as being all pro south or all pro north. And I think the fourth reason in this group was a genuine fear of the United States which was the most powerful military power in the world in 80 hundred and sixty seven. A million Americans in arms and a prevailing sense of manifest destiny. The fathers of Canadian Confederation saw safety and strength in unity. There was however opposition to unions particularly in the Maritimes. One Nova Scotian opponent declared I nationality would be merged into that of Canada. We'd be
made use of by the Canadians as where the Israel likes of all of the Egyptians to dig their can out but the tide was certain direct and pro-union George Brown of The Toronto Globe. I go for a union of the provinces. It will bring a new prominent label for the world. Brown's political opponent the man who was to become kind of his first prime minister Sir John A MacDonald declared. It seems to me if we wish to be a great people if we wish to form a great nationality commanding the respect of the world able to hold our own against all opponents and to defend those institutions we prize this can only be obtained by a union composing the British North American Provinces. The American Civil War was barely over when the fathers of Confederation met to draft the terms of the Canadian Union. Less a new national species had sunk its roots in the land dismissed by Voltaire as a few acres of snow forever in the shadow of the giant United States. It flowered
adding province and territory until its dominion extended from Atlantic to Pacific from the forty ninth parallel to the Arctic Pole. Yet the new American nation SU new dangers to its survival by the very act of its creation in the 20th century which was said to belong to Canada she would have to quote with both her neighbor and the motherland as she sought to extend her independence from each. Canada's battle in the 20th century became a battle between the times and the maintenance of her borders. Next week. Time and the border to a view of Canada in 20th century relations with the United States script intervention by William McCarthy production Bill about one time the border in question. This program was produced and recorded by the University of British Columbia Canada under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center and is being distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters.
This is the end. A radio network.
Please note: This content is only available at GBH and the Library of Congress, either due to copyright restrictions or because this content has not yet been reviewed for copyright or privacy issues. For information about on location research, click here.
Series
The border in question
Episode
Time and the border, part 1
Producing Organization
University of British Columbia
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-9882pg9g
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-9882pg9g).
Description
Episode Description
This program, the first of two parts, looks at Canada's past and some of the factors that have influenced its relationship with the United States.
Series Description
Documentary series on U.S.-Canadian relations, from a Canadian point of view.
Broadcast Date
1961-08-11
Topics
Global Affairs
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:21
Credits
Narrator: Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Producing Organization: University of British Columbia
Production Manager: Valentine, Bill
Writer: McCarthy, William
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 61-57-1 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:08
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “The border in question; Time and the border, part 1,” 1961-08-11, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-9882pg9g.
MLA: “The border in question; Time and the border, part 1.” 1961-08-11. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-9882pg9g>.
APA: The border in question; Time and the border, part 1. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-9882pg9g