Tecumseh & Brock: The War of 1812
By James Laxer
House of Anansi
360 pp; $29.95
The stalemated debate over who won the War of 1812 faces no risk of closure, no matter how many books are published this year to mark the bicentennial of that pivotal North American military confrontation.
The United States, which initiated hostilities partly out of frustration over Britain’s refusal to respect the sovereignty of U.S. ships at sea, failed utterly to achieve its larger aspiration of annexing British colonial holdings into its widening continental horizons. That said — and despite some humiliating battlefield defeats in the early part of the war — Washington emerged with a unshaken sense of national purpose, enabling a still relatively young country to continue its westward push largely undeterred.
The crucible of war also helped the British colonies, including Upper Canada, to forge a firmer sense of identity. If some inhabitants along the north shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie were ambivalent or even enthusiastic about joining the southern republic when the war started, they were far less so by the time it ended. Canada wouldn’t properly become a country for more than another half-century, but the War of 1812 was a formative episode in the country’s foundational narrative.
Even in the absence of an undisputed victor, however, the War of 1812 did end with a clear-cut loser: the myriad Native tribes whose ancestors inhabited the continent long before the first Europeans arrived. The Natives, already by then engaged in a so-called “Endless War” against U.S. expansion, largely allied themselves with the British in the not entirely futile hope of blunting further western settlement.
The betrayal of Native interests is a strong, if not wholly unifying, theme in James Laxer’s Tecumseh & Brock: The War of 1812, a history of the conflict that focuses on the instrumental roles played by two of its indisputably heroic figures. Laxer, a professor of political science at York University, goes so far as to suggest that the consequences might — emphasis: might — have been different if General Isaac Brock had survived to have a say in the peace terms negotiated in the Treaty of Ghent.
Brock and Tecumseh, though they only fought together once at the successful early siege of Detroit, shared many characteristics, including a strong mutual admiration. Both were natural military leaders with an innate ability to command the respect of their subordinates: Brock as a career English soldier who initially accepted his colonial posting with reluctance but was nevertheless unwavering in his defence of Upper Canada; Tecumseh as a Shawnee chief who enlisted numerous other tribes in a Native confederacy allied with the British.
Both also died relatively early in the war, in each case largely because of an insistence on remaining in the thick of the battle. Brock was felled in October 1812, at the Battle of Queenston Heights on the Niagara River. His death, described at the time as a “public calamity” by one newspaper, had implications beyond his skilled leadership of British and colonial forces. In Laxer’s estimation: “Brock’s death meant that Tecumseh would no longer have a British partner who saw the war the way he did, with Native objectives built into the strategy.”
Tecumseh, increasingly frustrated as his influence with the British leadership weakened, lost his life a year later at the Battle of Moraviantown, near Chatham, Ont., with incalculably greater consequences for the Native cause. “There was no succession of command within the Native confederacy,” Laxer writes. “With its towering leader gone, the confederacy disintegrated.”
One might wish that Laxer, who displays an authoritative and sympathetic grasp of Native history, had ended the story there and proceeded to a necessary postscript about how the British initially intended to honour their bargain with the Natives — guaranteeing tribal entitlement to a significant chunk of the continent — but then backed away from those demands during the war-ending negotiations. Instead, Laxer devotes the last 100 or so pages to checking off an obligatory list of the war’s significant remaining events, including the battles for Washington and New Orleans. Whatever this approach gains in thoroughness doesn’t compensate nearly for the loss of focus.
Maybe it is asking too much to expect more speculation on how the course of history might have been different if the war’s ultimate resolution had been more in keeping with Brock and Tecumseh’s objectives. In any case, it is exceedingly unlikely that any treaty would have stalled the tide of U.S. expansion.
At its best, Tecumseh & Brock promises a valuable alternative to the notion that history is invariably written by the victors. Here, the vanquished also get their due in a story of immensely tragic dimensions. It is hard to maintain the drama, however, when your main characters exit the stage at the end of the second act.
• Vit Wagner is a writer living in Toronto.
Powered by WordPress.com VIP