The War of 1812 and religion in Upper Canada
There are images of the War of 1812 familiar to most Canadians: Laura Secord’s desperate trek through the backcountry to warn of an impending American attack. General Isaac Brock’s daring military plans. The brave stand of Mohawk chief John Norton and 80 Indigenous warriors at Queenston Heights.
The effects on religion in Upper Canada that resulted from the war are less well known but equally important.
The war broke out in 1812 after a long series of escalating incidents between British and American ships that occurred as a kind of side effect of another war the British were fighting against Napoleon in Europe. Canada was on the front line of the American attack. Some Americans expected Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) would be easily captured – it was thinly inhabited, far from British reinforcements, and the population was mostly made up of recent migrants from the United States who (it was assumed) would welcome “liberation” by the Americans.
In fact the territory proved difficult to capture. Early victories at Detroit and Queenston Heights under Brock’s leadership gave the British the initial advantage. Later successes by the Americans, like the capture of Fort George (Niagaraon-the-Lake) and York (Toronto) in 1813, faced stiff resistance and did not lead to lasting control of Canadian territory. When the war ended with the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, the status quo was preserved.
Although the population of Upper
Canada indeed consisted mostly of recent arrivals from the U.S., about a fifth of those had actually left the United States because of loyalty to the British crown. The rest had come for cheap land and a fresh start, and mostly just wanted to be left alone. The War of 1812 discouraged any sympathy they might have had for the U.S.
When the war broke out, Upper Canada was still an early frontier society with few pastors and fewer churches. The church life that did exist was badly disrupted by the war. Whole congregations shut down when their men were called to fight, and church buildings were abandoned in the face of American incursions. One church, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian at Niagara-on-theLake, was even burned by the enemy and its minister taken prisoner.
Some clergy were propelled into positions of leadership by the war. The young Anglican minister John Strachan had recently moved to York when the Americans captured the small town in 1813. With the retreat of the British garrison, he was thrust into the role of negotiating the town’s surrender, confronting the American commander when his troops carried out looting, and keeping up the morale of the frightened inhabitants. Three months later he had to do it again when the Americans took the town a second time.
The authorities took notice and after the war Strachan was added to the key government bodies in
Upper Canada, the executive and legislative councils, and subsequently became a major influence in the life of the colony.
The religious group most affected by the war, however, were the Methodists. This upstart evangelical movement was fuelled by elements perfectly suited for a sparsely populated frontier environment – fervent travelling preachers, intense camp meetings and a burning passion for the spread of the gospel.
But the Methodist preachers in Upper Canada were nearly all American missionaries, so in 1812 they were expelled from the colony, leaving churches in chaos. After the war there were not enough preachers, the English and American Methodist bodies quarrelled over who should be in charge in Upper Canada, and the Methodists’ opponents (including John Strachan) charged them with disloyalty because of their American connections. For a decade or so, the future of Methodism in Upper Canada seemed to be in doubt.
Eventually Canadian-born leaders came on the scene including Egerton Ryerson, who had just been a boy during the war but grew up to publicly debate John Strachan and promote the Methodist (and larger evangelical) cause in Upper Canada. Methodism emerged as the most powerful religious force in 19th-century Ontario – a reminder that the true impact of historical events often takes time to reveal itself. /FT
Upper Canada was still an early frontier society with few pastors and fewer churches.