Friends are Electric

While, at least in Ontario, the history curriculum is incredibly weak, I am fairly certain most of us are familiar with the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.  A truly important point in the development of the Canadian nation.

While this was not the only important event in the Seven Years War, it can be seen as a pivotal one, the turning point in the Canadian theater of the conflict.  The battle itself predicted the outcome of the war and shall be considered one in the same for the sake of argument.

In broad terms, a global perspective, the battle itself and the war by extension was a defeat of the French Empire by the British Empire on a generally worldwide scale.   The French colony of New France was merely a pawn in negotiations at the end of the war.  It is well known that had the British seen more prestige or a larger profit to be made in sugar plantations than they had in the fur trade of what would become Canada, then perhaps France would have regained their colony.  However, the French Empire ceded New France, the colony of Quebec, to the British.

From a French nationalist perspective, the battle and the war were a humiliating loss.  The English were an oppressive, occupying power, not liberators.  While little attempt was made to assimilate the French Canadians, this perspective is not unreasonable.

From a British nationalist perspective, it was a victory.  The allowances made for the French Canadian people were seen as unreasonable, especially in the 13 American colonies.

Neither of these perspectives, however, represents what is needed from a Canadian perspective.  The forbearers of one segment of Canadians were defeated by the forbearers of another part of the population.  Since Canada is a multicultural experiment this poses some difficulties.  How, for example, does someone celebrate our shared history while some see it as a triumph and others as a defeat?

I am myself largely of British ancestry, while possessing some French as well.  I grew up in a French Canadian town outside of Quebec.  The battle and the war were treated as a victory.  I do not think this is the way to deal with the event.  It is too simplistic and I feel as though it places too much emphasis on our historical inclusion in the British Empire.  Certainly, we are members of the British commonwealth and have much shared history and culture, but we are an independent nation with our own complex and interesting history and culture separate from our partners in the commonwealth and it is time we embraced this.

The question is how do we interpret this battle, this war.  Canada was founded largely through an alliance between both French and English Canadians.  Their work together lead to confederation.  Without the other party, neither the French nor the English could have been successful.  Certainly other word events, such as the British actions towards the Confederate States of America, helped found the nation of Canada.  Without the work of the Canadian Fathers of Confederation, however, Canada as we know it would not have worked out.

There were a great many years between the 1763 end of the war and the formation of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada in  1791, their unification in 1841 and the final creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867.  One cannot discount the numerous important events that took place in these intervening years.  However, these years, as well as all the years since 1867,  do lend something to our shared understanding of the battle and thus the war.

Since 1791, perhaps earlier, Canada and that which preceded it has had two European cultural groups living to a large degree peacefully side by side in the same place, and since 1841 under the same government.  For no less than 169 years this has gone on.  Aside from a brief American incursion during their War of Independence and during the War of 1812 and a few scattered and minor rebellions, Canada has been largely peaceful since the Seven Years War.

So how then do we interpret the Seven Years War and the pivotal Battle of the Plains of Abraham?  As a victory or a defeat?  As a victory and a defeat?

We interpret it as the event which put together, in the same place, two different but similar cultural groups and allowed them to act constructively together in the future to build the nation we now call Canada.   The result of the battle may have been a defeat for the French Empire, but French Canadians have been able to practice their culture and speak their language ever since.  The result may have been a victory for the British Empire, but that empire is no more.

The result for Canada was that the right people were able to work together to found a truly interesting experiment.   Not a perfect entity.  Not a static entity.  Not anything that had been tried yet.  An experiment.  The Canadian Experiment.  And while not all aspects of this grand experiment have been successful, overall the experiment has been successful and warrants further study.