@jd Interesting article. But the struggle has been going on for more than 250 years. The English and French and their colonists fought each other for control of North America almost from the moment they set foot on the continent. I explored this early history in my piece for Canada’s History.
#HeDidNotConquer #Canada250 #cdaUS #histodons
https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/politics-law/friend-or-foe
Journalists love a good quote, but that is no excuse for what is frequently being done to the Trump-Carney exchange about Canada becoming the 51st state.
Most versions I have seen, like this NYT article, note that Carney told Trump that Canada was not for sale and that Trump responded, “Never say never.” But they fail to include Carney’s response: “Never. Never. Never. Never.” It makes a difference.
#HeDidNotConquer #cdaUS #histodons #Canada250
#ScribesAndMakers 13Jun—Self-Promo day: Show us what you're proud of. Boost away!
I’m proud my book, He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada, is out this September.
It looked like a niche topic when I started research five years ago. That changed when Trump began threatening to make Canada the 51st state. Franklin failed 250 years ago. Will Trump?
Preorder on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and indie bookstores in the US and Canada.
#HeDidNotConquer #histodons #cdaUS #franklin
#OTD in 1775, John Adams was having second thoughts about Congress’s decision June 1 not to invade Canada. “We have been puzzled to discover, what we ought to do, with the Canadians and Indians,” he wrote a friend. Reports suggested the Canadians were “not unfriendly” and the Indigenous peoples were neutral. “It Seems to be the general Conclusion that it is best to go, if We can be assured that the Canadians will be pleased with it, and join.”
In the letter, they swore, “we are your friends, not your enemies,” and promised not to do anything “but such as friendship and a regard for our mutual safety and interest may suggest.”
They repeated their invitation to Canadians to join their cause against the British government.
#histodons #Canada250 #HeDidNotConquer #cdaUS #us250thanniversary #rev250
The June 1 resolution -- “That no expedition or incursion ought to be undertaken or made by any colony, or body of colonists, against or into Canada”
– was preceded by their May 29 letter to “the oppressed Inhabitants of Canada," written by Samuel Adams, John Jay and Silas Deane.
#histodons #Canada250 #HeDidNotConquer #cdaUS #us250thanniversary #rev250
#OTD in 1775, delegates to the Continental Congress decided not to invade #Canada. Spoiler alert: They would change their minds within the month.
#histodons #Canada250 #HeDidNotConquer #cdaUS #us250thanniversary #rev250
#OTD in 1775, Benedict Arnold wrote the Massachusetts Committee of Safety about the attack he led on Fort St. Jean (he called it St. John's) in Canada (Province of Quebec). He reported "there is not left a single batteau for the King's Troops, Canadians, or Indians to cross the Lake in, if they have any such intention."
His letter, and a rather vitriolic anonymous one about loyalists can be read here: https://archive.org/details/AmericanArchives-FourthSeriesVolume2peterForce/page/n321/mode/2up
#HeDidNotConquer #Canada250 #cdaUS #histodons
@history-Smithsonianmag Good piece, from the American perspective, on the failed invasion of Canada 1775-76. Concludes that invasion “as a persuasive tactic” to get Canadians to join the American Revolution backfired. Residents of Canada put aside their differences to face the American threat. The same thing happened in the recent election campaign. Trump’s 51st state rhetoric helped the Liberals come from behind and win.
#histodons #HeDidNotConquer #Canada250 #cdaUS
2/2/ Benedict Arnold led the cross-border raid, capturing an armed British vessel, five smaller boats, and some artillery, before fleeing south before British reinforcements could arrive. Flush with success, he and Ethan Allen, whose Green Mountain Boys captured the other two forts, separately asked the Continental Congress if they could lead a full-scale invasion of Canada.
#OTD in 1775: In a prelude to the full invasion of Canada in 1775, armed men from Connecticut and Massachusetts captured the British forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain and crossed the border into the Province of Quebec to attack Fort St. Jean on the Richelieu River. 1/2
Trump’s threats to make #Canada the 51st state need to be seen in context. I wrote about how this school of thought dates back centuries.
Canada as a place first appeared on European maps in the mid-1500s, long before it was officially declared a country. The United States appeared on maps 200 years later. Residents of both places have a history that began long before 1776 or 1867.
#HeDidNotConquer #histodons #CdaPoli #cdaUS
https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/politics-law/friend-or-foe
I can’t get Randy Newman’s song Political Science out of my head these days. He wrote the satirical song about American foreign policy in 1972, but it could have been written today. Give it a listen and see if you agree.
I’m really pleased the Washington Post used my opinion piece today. I look at the letter the Americans wrote Canadians when they invited Canada to become the 14th colony. In it, they boasted about the rights and values that made them great. Sadly, these are the same rights and values that the Trump administration is trampling on, eroding the foundations of the country.
#histodons #cdaUS #CDA #BenjaminFranklin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/25/canada-benjamin-franklin-trump/
I was happy to hear former prime minister Jean Chrétien mention that Benjamin Franklin went to Montreal in 1776 and tried to enlist the French Canadians in the American Revolution. He was told “Non, merci,” Chrétien said. It’s an important part of our history and something I cover in my forthcoming book about Franklin’s many attempts to make Canada American. It didn’t start with Trump.
It’s around the 16-minute mark: https://youtu.be/tU8qNxempS0?si=4asXl1nNSppOh2hh
We tend to forget that the area called Canada or New France or the Province of Quebec used to extend below the Great Lakes. That bit was severed when the British agreed in 1783 it would be part of the US. These maps show roughly the same thing, although the second one from 1777 labels the indigenous groups (whose territory the European powers were claiming). Both are at the Library of Congress: www.loc.gov/item/2009581... www.loc.gov/resource/g33... #cdaUS #histodons #cdapoli #HeDidNotConquer
I had not heard of Project Cassandra for literature before. It sounds potentially useful in our current circumstances. I wonder if anyone is thinking of marshalling the talents of Canadian artists and writers who have clout in the US to present a powerful counter-narrative about Canada?
#histodons #cdapoli #cdaUS
Trump’s aggressive rhetoric aims to reset the narrative on Canada https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-trumps-aggressive-rhetoric-aims-to-reset-the-narrative-on-canada/
Canada does not make much of the defeat of American forces outside Quebec City in 1775. You have to look hard to find the two plaques, one where general Richard Montgomery fell, the other where troops led by Benedict Arnold were defeated. Both are in Lowertown, at the foot of a steep cliff and below the walled city.
#1775 #cdaUS #cdapoli #HeDidNotConquer #histodons
American colonists tried and failed to conquer Canada in 1775. I wrote about lessons both countries could learn from that fiasco in The Globe and Mail today.
#cdaUS #histodons #HeDidNotConquer
Trump's pretext for taking back the Panama Canal is that the US paid for its construction and then gave it back to Panama. Should Canadians be worried about the Alaska Highway, which the US paid for during WWII and then gave to Canada? Or what about other defence projects, including the airport at Iqaluit, which it built and sold back to Canada at a discount? I ask this only partly in jest.
Good chapter on some of these wartime projects here: https://lnkd.in/gNg5qD2X
#CdaPoli #CdaUS #histodons
