The Fourteenth Colony

First, happy birthday to my son, Bret.

Now to my weekly post: Two hundred and thirty-one years ago tomorrow, on August 16, 1784, the British colonial government in North America officially divided the colony of Nova Scotia in two (at the Chignecto Isthmus), naming the western and northern portions New Brunswick after the German duchy of Brunswick- Lunenburg.  Of course, today New Brunswick is one of ten provinces that constitute Canada.  Happy birthday, New Brunswick. 

Why do I mention this rather obscure fact?  Because it is part of Canadian history.  And because I want to talk about Canadian history as it relates to American history and what might have been.

By the middle of the Eighteenth Century, France and Great Britain were competing colonial powers in North America.  The French colony of New France was concentrated along the St. Lawrence River Valley, with the thirteen British colonies to the south, mostly hugging the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean.  In the interior, the French and British colonies were rubbing up against each other and disputes over territorial boundaries erupted.  The French built Fort Duquesne near present-day Pittsburgh in the disputed Ohio Valley region.  The British Colony of Virginia claimed the area as well. 

From 1754 to 1763, as a result of the many competing claims over land, Great Britain and France fought a war Americans call the French and Indian War (referring to the enemies the British fought during the war).  Canadians call it the Seven Years’s War.  As a result of the British victory in the war, it acquired the territory of New France or Quebec and its roughly 75,000 French-speaking citizens.

Over the next ten years, a movement developed amongst some of the British citizens in their original thirteen colonies which eventually led, after several years of armed conflict, to their full independence.  This was ratified when the Treaty of Paris was signed between the thirteen newly independent states and Great Britain in 1783.

In 1774, 1775, and 1776, the First and Second Continental Congress (gatherings in Philadelphia of representatives of the thirteen original British colonies) sent letters to the inhabitants of what became the province of Quebec in Canada.  Since these inhabitants had no representative system at that time, the First and Second Continental Congress had no other way of communicating with them.  The purpose of the letters was to try to draw the French-speaking population into the cause of North American independence from Great Britain.  Sadly, no one from Quebec came to Philadelphia to participate in either Congress.  It would have been the fourteenth colony.    

However, two regiments of Canadian soldiers did join the American cause.  Unfortunately, their numbers were not as large as was hoped for by the letter senders.  On the other hand, the rich landowners and the Catholic clergy in Quebec rallied around the British governor.  They did not trust their southern neighbors.    

In 1775, American General Philip Schuyler led a military expedition up Lake Champlain to assault the cities of Montreal and Quebec.  On November 13, 1775, the Americans, after a successful campaign by General Richard Montgomery, began an occupation of Montreal after the British garrison withdrew.  On December 31, 1775, the American forces, this time led by Montgomery and General Benedict Arnold, attempted to capture the City of Quebec as well, but were soundly defeated.  The American military maintained a seige of the city until the following March. 

Meanwhile back in Montreal, American General David Wooster proved to be a harsh and oppressive administrator.  Thus, the hoped for support of the inhabitants of Montreal was slipping away.  To try and save the situation, Benjamin Franklin (a man in favor of independence and whose face is today on the $100 bill) was sent to Montreal to win local favor.  Franklin was accompanied by a Jesuit priest whom he hoped would have some influence with the Catholic population of the city.  However, nothing worked.  After an occupation which lasted 188 days, the Americans withdrew and the British regained control of Montreal.  (There was another failed American attempt to capture Canada during the War of 1812.)  The fourteenth colony was not to be.  What a pity! 

The American War of Independence created not one, but two countries, the USA and Canada.  Unfortunately, the American failure to lure those from the former French colony to their side in that war gave the British a foothold to maintain a presence in North America until 1867 when Canada became an independent sovereign nation.  After the British acceptance of the American independence in 1783, many of the colonial loyalists, a number of runaway slaves, and some of the Hessian soldiers hired by the British to fight those in rebellion emigrated to Canada to continue living under British rule. 

Since July 4, 1776, there has been an artificial line that separates the people of Canada and the people of the United States.  During those ninety-one years (1776-1867), the British were able to keep the two peoples, who had more in common than differences, separate without the necessity of an occupying army.  One major way they accomplished it was by spreading anti-American propaganda amongst the Canadians, who came to see themselves as different from the Americans.  And what is a Canadian?  Well, at least he is not an American.  Or at least he is not an American citizen.      

However, what if things had been different and the Canadians had joined the American revolution?  Let’s also assume that their elected representatives had ratified the Constitution and what is today Canada had become part of the United States of America.  How would the area north of the Rio Grande be different?

The estimated population of the USA (2014) is about 319 million people.  The addition of Canada would increase that population by another 35 million, or by 11%.  The size of the USA is 2,959,000 square miles.  The addition of Canada would increase that size by another 3,800,000 square miles, or by 128%.  In other words, the size of the USA would more than  double.

With the addition of Canada, the USA would add a tremendous amount of natural resources.  Estimates are that Canada’s oil sands would make it the second largest petroleum reserve in the world.  A combined USA-Canadian oil sands production would make it energy self-sufficient by 2035.  According to Diane Francis, the Canadian-American journalist, entrepreneur, and professor, Canada “is the world’s third largest producer of aluminum, ranks fifth in diamonds and second in uranium, is in the top five in molybdenum, nickel and salt, and in the top ten in gold and copper.  This is despite the fact that most of Canada has never been explored or visited by humans.”

Also according to Francis in her book, Merger of the Century, Why Canada and America Should Become One Country, “The United States is the only nation with the capital, scientific prowess and motivation to fully develop (and defend) Canada and its wilderness in a sustainable and responsible way.  And Canada’s resourses and Arctic region, the world’s future Panama and Suez Canals, would bestow upon the United States unbelievable opportunities.”  Can the course of history be corrected in the Twenty-first Century to create one giant combined superpower?  I’m all for it.  What about you?