OPINION: History lesson

Two-hundred years ago our country was invaded and according to one interpretation, not only did we fight off the invading army – we taught them a lesson they would never forget.

I should have paid more attention to Mr. Boyce. He was my history teacher in Grade 8  and I vaguely remember him entertaining the class with stories about the War of 1812. Unfortunately, it was never really clear to me which side actually won.

I’ve been thinking about Canadian history lately for two reasons.  First, this year is the 200th anniversary of that old war our teacher was telling us about and there are celebrations and events taking place everywhere.  It’s hard to ignore.

Canadian history used to be viewed the same way as Canadian television, bland and uninteresting.  But to the true connoisseur of Canuck culture, our colourful past is full of heroic acts, amazing feats of endurance and entertaining personalities. 

When we think about our collective history, it doesn’t take long to discover a long list of unsung heroes that easily stands up to the Hollywood-style history of our American friends to the south. We just don’t talk much about them.

As a group Canadians are a pretty unobtrusive lot. We don’t make a big deal of things and we don’t like to draw attention to ourselves. In fact, we sometimes even prefer to poke fun at our success and our accomplishments instead of taking credit. We also tend to downplay our role in history, even the history of our own country.

That brings me to the second reason for my sudden interest in Canadian history, in particular the War of 1812. A Canadian musical parody group, The Arrogant Worms, has written a tribute song to boast a little about how we won that war and taught those uppity Americans a lesson they would remember for 200 years.

When I listened to their little ditty I felt my chest swell with Canadian pride and I thought to myself – why not?  Why not sing a little about our military exploits? And even if this particular version takes a few liberties with the facts (the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of babies) we still have bragging rights.

When President Madison declared war on the British Empire on June 18, 1812 (Mr. Boyce would be proud I got the date right) the Amrricans weren’t prepared to sail across the Atlantic to fight Great Britain so they decided to invade a nearby British colony instead.  They looked north for a suitable candidate.

The colony they chose to attack was British North America but you may know it by another name - Canada. The Americans faced an opposing force of veteran British soldiers and the Royal Navy along with English and French speaking militiamen from Upper and Lower Canada, First Nations warriors  and a smattering of escaped slaves. 

It was a far cry from the shock and awe of modern warfare and much of the war was a series of small skirmishes along the border. Still, as the song goes, American butts were kicked soundly on many occasions.

They don’t like to talk about it.  They still think they won that war.

The Arrogant Worms focus on one important event in 1814 when, according to their interpretation, we went to Washington and burned it to the ground.  To use their own proud, rollicking refrain, “the White House burned, burned, burned and we’re the ones that did it.”
That’s right, after a victory at the Battle of Bladensburg we (with considerable help from British soldiers) marched into Washington and burned the White House down.

This was quite rude and impolite by Canadian standards but those pesky invaders were asking for it.

Not only that, we got the idea from the Americans.  In the previous year, at the Battle of Fort York, they set fire to our Parliament buildings after burning the fort to the ground. We were just giving them a taste of their own medicine.

It worked. After burning down the White House we retuned home and we eventually became good friends with our neighbours to the south. 
They learned the hard way not to mess with us and that’s a lesson they remembered for two centuries.  They never did it again.

Of course, like I said, I wasn’t paying attention in history class so this account may not be totally accurate.  The Americans still claim victory but thanks to one arrogant Canadian song, we now know what really happened.