Indigenous warriors turned tide of the Battle of Queenston Heights
War cries helped convince American reinforcements in Lewiston to refuse to join the fray
Maj.-Gen. Sir Isaac Brock is forever memorialized atop the towering, neoclassical monument erected in his honour at Queenston Heights where he was felled by a musket ball in battle in the War of 1812, but unknown to generations of Canadians was the crucial role that Indigenous warriors played in that important historical event.
Taking place on Oct. 13, 1812, just months after the Americans declared war on the British, planning the conquest of Upper Canada starting with the capture of Niagara, some 1,400 American soldiers attacked after crossing the Niagara River from Lewiston.
The invaders captured a strategic battery on the escarpment. Brock was mortally wounded during an early-morning counter attack to try to recapture the key position.
Things were going very badly for the defenders — British soldiers and Canadian militia, local farm boys and a few escaped slaves from the U.S.
Members of the Rotary Club of Niagara Falls walked across those battlegrounds this week and gained a better understanding of how Indigenous warriors turned the tide in that battle that
ended with a huge defeat for the invading Americans.
The Rotarians, attending their 10th annual Lilac Luncheon on May 29 at the site of the battle, got new insight in to the role of the Indigenous fighters from Jim Hill, superintendent of heritage for the Niagara Parks Commission, which maintains Queenston Heights Park.
At the time, there were no trees on the heights, giving whoever controlled it a panoramic view of the Niagara River dividing Upper Canada and New York state, said Hill.
“This is a pretty strategic site,” he said. “You can see a long way from here.”
That’s when about 200 Six Nations warriors jogging to the battle site from Fort George encountered a group of soldiers.
“They run into Canadians running the other way,” said Hill. “One Canadian militia solider said, ‘listen, the Yankees hold the heights, thousands of them. If anybody should be turning around it should be you.’”
That led to one of the best lines in Canadian history, uttered by an unnamed Indigenous warrior, said Hill.
“He said ‘the more game, the better the hunting.’”
The small band of fleet-footed Indigenous warriors continued on, climbing up behind the American soldiers outnumbering them many times over and forcing them to turn, said Hill.
“They’re the only defenders of Canada at that point and they’re heavily outnumbered,” he said. “But they’re scaring the Americans and making the Americans
waste a lot of precious ammunition.”
Thousands of American militia men held in reserve in Lewiston were ordered to cross the river and join the fight, but Hill said they’d been mistreated with poor food and no tents for weeks.
“They could hear the crashing volleys of the British army’s well-trained troops, and the final straw … maybe magnified by the gorge, was the sound of Six Nations war cries,” said Hill.
“That convinced a lot of the American militia men to stay home.”
That allowed time for British reinforcements to arrive and rout the demoralized Americans, almost a thousand of whom were captured. Hill said many Niagara residents consider the War of
1812 ancient, but by Indigenous
standards it was practically yesterday. He told the Rotarians that the spot they were having lunch at was, 12,000 years ago, part of “massive” Lake Iroquois, which started draining out toward the Atlantic Ocean.
“When it started to drain there were people standing here,” he said. “About 600 generations of them. And they’re still here."
“What this site means to Indigenous people goes far beyond the Battle of Queenston Heights,” said Hill. “They have real ancient history."
“We’re sitting on their ancestral lands.”
The historian took some of the Rotarians on a walking tour of the area to discuss the millenniaold history of Indigenous peoples in the area.
The annual Lilac Luncheon is a celebration of the 1967 donation of $5,000 by Rotary clubs across the border to purchase and plant 1,200 lilac trees near the floral clock to mark Canada's centennial in 1967.
Over the last five years the Niagara Parks Commission has rejuvenated the lilac gardens and planted several hundred more trees, said Barbara Greenwood, past-president of the Rotary Club of Niagara Falls.
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They’re the only defenders of Canada at that point and they’re heavily outnumbered.
JIM HILL
NIAGARA PARKS COMMISSION