#cdaus — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #cdaus, aggregated by home.social.
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What a pleasure to talk about my book with members of the Canadian International Council, Waterloo branch, last night at St. Jerome's University. An engaged and thoughtful audience!
There are a lot of people to thank for making it happen. Special thanks to John English for the invitation, Shawky Fahel for smoothing the way, Ryan Touhey of the history department at St. Jerome’s for co-sponsoring my talk, and Krenare Recaj for dashing out and getting more books when it looked like we did not have enough!
#hedidnotconquer #canada #cdnhist #cdaus @dundurnpress
Photo credit: Frances Barclay
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#OTD February 22, 1776, the commander of the American forces occupying Trois-Rivières, Quebec, wrote Benjamin Franklin, urging him to use his reputed supernatural powers to conquer Canada.
“I understood you are a great man that you Can Turn the Common Course of nature that you have power with the Gods and Can Rob the Clouds of their Tremendious Thunder,” wrote William Goforth.
“Rouse once more my old Trojan Collect the Heavey Thunders of the United Colonies and Convey them to the Regions of the North and Enable us to Shake the Quebec walls or on the other hand inform us how to Extract the Electric fire from the Center.
“Then Perhaps we may be able to draw a Vein athwart their Magazene and Send them upwards Cloathd as Elijah was with a Suit of fire. One or the other of these must be done or we shall be drove to the Necessity of another Frolick of boarding the Town.”
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #cdaus #america250 @dundurnpress
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“The Unanimous Voice of the Continent is Canada must be ours. Quebec must be taken.” So wrote John Adams in a letter sent #OTD Feb. 18, 1776, to fellow revolutionary James Warren.
At the time, the Continental Army occupied Montreal and Trois-Rivières and were laying siege to Quebec City, the last major population centre in the British colony.
Adams said that if the British kept Canada “it would enable them to inflame all the Indians upon the Continent, and perhaps induce them to take up the Hatchet, and commit their Robberies and Murders upon the Frontiers of all the southern Colonies as well as to pour down Regulars, Canadians and Indians together upon the Borders of the Northern.”
He seemed heartened by the decision to send Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton to Montreal to salvage the faltering invasion. “These three Gentlemen compose a Committee, which I think promises great Things,” he told Warren.
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #cdaus #America250 @dundurnpress
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#OTD Feb. 15, 1776, the Continental Congress asked Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton to go to Canada to ask the French Canadians to join the American Revolution.
It was acting on the advice of a sympathetic French Canadian, Prudent Lajeunesse, who had told the Committee of Secret Correspondence that the only way to overcome the suspicions of the Catholic clergy and the seigneurs was for delegates to make the case in person.
The clergy and seigneurs were happy with what Britain had given them in the Quebec Act of 1774 and feared the Americans would ban the Catholic religion and end their privileged positions in Canada.
Carroll was not a delegate. But he was a rich Catholic who could speak French. Congress asked him to bring along his relative, John Carroll, a Catholic priest. The three Americans, who would later become founding fathers, would not set out for Montreal until April 2.
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #cdaus #americanrevolution @dundurnpress
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There’s an ongoing guessing game about how far in the past Trump is trying to drag the US. I argue that it’s 1775, the year the Americans began their revolution and invaded Canada.
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It is heartening to see two former prime ministers, from different parties, have a friendly conversation about Canadian unity in the time of Trump.
I will admit being slightly biased because Mr. Chrétien mentioned my book (He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada).
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #cdaus #americanrevolution @dundurnpress
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My take on the historical aspects of the prime minister’s Quebec City speech.
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #books #cdaus @dundurnpress
https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/op_eds/opinion-carney-picks-the-wrong-battle-in-quebec-city
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Notice something missing from this chronology of the American Revolution in a commemorative edition put out by Time magazine?
It jumps from August 1775 to January 1776, without mentioning the American invasion of the British colony of Canada, which began in September 1775 and ended in failure.
Canadians consume tremendous amounts of American culture, and with it the American version of history.
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #books #cdaus #americanrevolution250
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Benjamin Franklin received a disappointing birthday present when he turned 70 years old #OTD January 17, 1776.
He and fellow delegates to the Continental Congress learned that the Continental Army failed to take Quebec City by storm more than two weeks earlier.
It would take many more months and a personal visit by Franklin to Montreal before they realized that the American invasion of Canada, begun in September 1775, was a complete failure.
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #cdaus #books #bookstodon #americanrevolution @dundurnpress @lizcovart.bsky.social
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Trump is not inventing a new foreign policy with his threats to take over Greenland. He’s resurrecting an approach that was used 250 years ago on the British colony of Canada.
I wrote about it for the Centre for International Policy Studies.#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #cdaus @dundurnpress
https://www.cips-cepi.ca/2026/01/14/americas-roots-are-showing-with-its-threat-to-greenland/
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#OTD Jan. 6, 1776, David Wooster, the general in charge of American troops in Canada, issued a declaration that threatened any Canadian who opposed the American invasion.
Wooster was reacting to the disastrous failure of the Continental Army to take Quebec City on December 31. Privately, he told a superior officer the defeat rendered the army’s prospects in Canada “very dubious.” Publicly, he cracked down on the inhabitants of Montreal and Trois-Rivières, the towns the invaders still controlled.
See reply for text of the declaration.....
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #books #cdaus #americanrevolution @dundurnpress
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There are a lot of lessons Canada can learn from the American invasion of 1775-1776, including that it could happen again.
I wrote about that invasion in my book, He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada.
#hedidnotconquer #canada #history #books #cdaus @dundurnpress