Daryl wrote:
> Here's to the War of 1812.
I'm not so sure that we should celebrate. Here's a piece that sees
1812 as a major and lasting setback for Canada:
Like most Upper Canadian Tories in those days, Catherine and
William believed that, in the years after the 1815 Treaty of
Ghent, Canada's U.S.-born majority had become potential traitors,
the border was something that had to be sealed tight against both
invaders and immigrants, and such concepts as democracy, public
education, religious freedom, church-state separation and
industrial capitalism were dangerous Americanisms to be kept at
bay.
While the United States flourished, colonial Canada became a
paranoid, insular place, with a sparse population and an economy
limited to resources -- a condition that would poison its growth
for almost a century and leave an even longer legacy of choked-off
development.
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/my-ancestors-and-the-worst-thing-that-has-ever-happened-to-this-country/article4285769/
I only came to Canada from New England 43 years ago and at that time,
I recall noticing something similar that I inferred was a divergence
emerging from the American revolution. When the 13 colonies declared
independence, they abruptly lost the supply of manufactured goods from
England. The result (or one of the results) was that every town,
hamlet and farmstead undertook to produce what they needed because it
would no longer be supplied from foundries, smithies and mills in the
old country. No longer was colonial iron bar shipped to England,
forged into axe heads and door latches and shipped back to Boston.
I surmise (without having made a scholarly or even serious amateur
study of it) that, consequentially, an attitude (and practice) of
self-reliance and entrpreneurship emerged in the newly independent
nation in a way that never happened in Canada.
The above-cited author says that the War of 1812 served to amplify and
reinforce the effect.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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