Historiography: An Intersection of Separate Conversations

This dissertation draws from and contributes to three distinct areas of historical research: the War of 1812 as a military campaign; the formation of Upper Canadian society and economy; and women’s lives in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Studies focused on each of these areas—or a combination of two areas—contribute useful comparisons, models, and theories that have informed the discussions and analyses presented here. Layering these complementary frameworks provides a thorough contextual and theoretical foundation for a discussion and analysis of women’s experiences during the War of 1812.

Much of the early scholarship on military aspects of the War of 1812 follows a traditional model, with emphasis on military operations and battle narrative. Most narratives fall into one of two categories: military histories or popular narratives. During the war and for decades to follow, dozens of authors wrote lengthy accounts of the military actions, political causes, and outcomes of the war.⁷ Only a few of the early narratives were concerned with scholarly analysis or interpretation; most described the action in broad strokes, compiled official documents related to the war, or made political arguments suited to their audience. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, military historians began to write more scholarly studies of the war but even with the improved historical standards of documentation, citation, and analysis, most scholars have remained focused on military actions with white men at their centers.⁸

In search of the historical significance of the war, some modern historians have examined its political and economic outcomes. In one of the most thorough monographs to date, Alan Taylor acknowledged, “Superficially, the war seems to have been an inconsequential draw, for the peace treaty changed neither Canada’s boundary nor British policies.”⁹ Taylor also suggested that “a wider and deeper perspective reveals an ultimate American victory that secured continental predominance.”¹⁰ His argument rested primarily on the continued westward American expansion after the war, which the British allowed by betraying native interests during treaty negotiations. Having forced the British to abandon the idea of an independent native buffer zone, the United States exploited North America’s vast lands to gain increasing power in the international community. Yet Taylor, like other historians, confined his analyses and arguments to political, economic, and ideological consequences, primarily in the United States. The impact of the War of 1812 on societies, communities, and individuals, particularly those in the most severely devastated regions, remains relatively unexamined.

In a 2001 assessment of the historiography of the War of 1812, Donald Hickey concluded that despite new works on the war, most remained focused on military history. Hickey suggested that there was a need for more domestic, diplomatic, social, and economic histories of the war¹¹. He identified Plunder, Profit, and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada by George Sheppard as the only social history of the war. In his doctoral dissertation and subsequent monograph, Sheppard investigated the war’s impact on the society and economy of Upper Canada.¹² He positioned his work as a response to writers who had “been reluctant to admit that the war was in any way injurious to the colony.”¹³ In contrast, Sheppard concluded that the injuries caused by enemy and allied armies “remained fresh in the minds of the inhabitants for years to come.”¹⁴ Throughout his monograph, Sheppard argued that inhabitants of Upper Canada had diverse experiences during the war that ranged from profitable military supply contracts to severe losses suffered through looting and burning. Yet he also suggested that the worst atrocities were forgotten decades later, replaced by memories of heroism and national pride. Despite his focus on the experiences of the inhabitants of Upper Canada during the war, Sheppard completely omitted any discussion or analysis of women, who made up nearly half the population of the province.

In a 1995 article, Sheppard attempted to remedy his previous exclusion of women from his social history of the war in Upper Canada. He suggested that the available evidence contradicted many postwar narratives in which women are described only as either victims or heroes and argued that women’s experiences were “far more heterogeneous.”¹⁵ Yet even while Sheppard recognized that some women were affected by the devastations of war, he ultimately concluded, “A great number of women were affected only marginally by the fighting, however, and some actually benefited from the war. For some, the war brought increased profits from sales of goods to the military, as well as unprecedented opportunities for employment, courting, and excitement.”¹⁶ Rather than depicting and understanding the different ways in which women experienced the war, Sheppard perpetuated their exclusion by defining a common set of experiences and downplaying the importance of any experiences that diverged from his chosen categories.

Only one other book has discussed the experiences of women during the War of 1812 in any detail. Dianne Graves provided a broad overview of women’s activities and lives in her book, In the Midst of Alarms: The Untold Story of Women and War of 1812. Unfortunately, Graves covered so many topics across the entire period and geography of the war that each woman mentioned in the book received little attention and their experiences prompted almost no analysis. Graves acknowledged in her introduction that her intent was to “provide a door into the world […] in which these women lived, and a glimpse of the kind of people they were, the events they experienced and how the war affected their lives.”¹⁷ Although an impressive collection of evidence in which each page is filled with the names of many women and descriptions of their experiences, the book offered an informative and broad but scattered view of the war that leaves many women’s lives unexplored. Furthermore, Graves praised the women who “coped with the privations, depredations and unpredictability of war, often alone or with little support” and “survived against great odds by their own efforts and determination” but provided no analysis or conclusions about how women’s actions during the war should be interpreted or whether their actions had effects beyond mere survival. As the only existing collection of women’s stories and narratives from the War of 1812, however, Graves’s book is a valuable resource to any scholar seeking a more diverse and comprehensive view of life during the war.

Although there are few studies of the War of 1812 that focus specifically on women, broader studies of Upper Canada help establish the wider context of life in the province before and after the war. Yet even though there are more social histories of early Upper Canadian life in general, few scholars have studied women’s role in the development of the province. Gerald Craig’s Upper Canada: The Formative Years, 1784-1841 provided an informative overview of the different periods of settlement and growth but Craig’s narrative about the “hard work of plain people” should more accurately read “plain men,” for women are rarely present in his history of Upper Canada.¹⁸ Similarly, Douglas McCalla’s Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada, 1784-1870 included only a few brief references to women’s work as part of the economy of the province. McCalla acknowledged that much “of the province’s food and clothing either was produced at home or did not pass through the marketplace [or] was not captured by standard statistics,” and that “much of the work was done by women.”¹⁹ However, he also suggested that “the scale of local production and consumption would be further enlarged” if only “women’s work was fully quantified and included,” without offering any solution to the apparent problem.²⁰

Fortunately, an earlier study by Marjorie Cohen (whom McCalla referenced) entitled Women’s Work, Markets, and Economic Development in Nineteenth-Century Ontario examined the extensive contributions that women made to the local and export economy of Upper Canada through their work in homes and on farms in the early nineteenth century and later through wage-work in emerging industries.²¹ Throughout this dissertation, analysis and discussion of women’s position within and contribution to the provincial economy during the war is based on the Cohen’s principle argument that “women’s labour was directly related to the process of capital accumulation in the pre-industrial period.”²² Cohen’s basic thesis was further expanded in a social and feminist framework by Elizabeth Jane Errington, who argued, “It was the intersection of these various factors—their sex, where they lived, the economic and social circumstances of their families and, to some degree, when they arrived in the colony—that gave shape to women’s lives, and determined the nature of their work.”²³ Although neither of these studies discussed the War of 1812 and tended to focus on the latter half of the nineteenth century, they provide a contextual background of women’s work in Upper Canada against which to compare how the war disrupted women’s regular patterns of work and production.²⁴

This dissertation also engages with wider scholarship on the experiences of Loyalist and American women who lived through wars in North America during the colonial era. The Upper Canadian women who submitted claims for compensation of their wartime losses were following in the footsteps of Loyalist women who sought restitution from the Loyalist Claims Commission. Like that earlier group, the inhabitants of Upper Canada benefited from the “paternalistic attention” of the British Empire, one of the characteristics of the “spirit of 1783” described by Maya Jasanoff. In her study of Loyalist experiences in the wake of the Revolution, Jasanoff argued that the “structure of the commission especially marginalized the illiterate, the poor, and the poorly connected even while it opened up for them the tantalizing prospect of aid.”²⁵ Building on the work of Mary Beth Norton, Jasanoff also pointed out that female claimants were disadvantaged by the system, which required legal documents and specific details of their losses that women often lacked.²⁶ Furthermore, both scholars agreed that most Loyalists were disappointed in the process that awarded less than 40% of the losses claimed.

Although the “spirit of 1783” is not reflected in the United States after the Revolution, women living in the southern states used petitions to “seek the aid and protection of public men while demonstrating their continued deference to male authority.”²⁷ Female claimants in Upper Canada share similarities with both the Loyalist claimants and petitioners in the southern United States. In her work on southern women’s petitions, Cynthia Kierner suggests that female petitioners were “neither fully empowered citizens of the republic nor its abject dependents.”²⁸ Though operating in a different context, women who submitted claims to the Loyalist Claims Commission and the Board of Claims for Losses might be described as neither fully empowered subjects of the Crown nor its abject dependents. The greatest similarity between all these women is coverture, a common-law principle in England, Upper Canada, and the United States, which empowered a married woman’s husband “to represent her in all legal and economic matters.”²⁹ Kierner also identifies factors that limited women’s ability to petition that are similar to the difficulties faced by Loyalist women. Female petitioners in the southern states may have lacked documents needed to support their cases, been unable to travel to the appropriate place to make their cases, or lacked sufficient information about when and where to submit their petitions.³⁰ These kinds of limitations, in addition to the restrictions of coverture, also shaped women’s experiences in making claims for losses they incurred during the War of 1812.

The Board of Claims for Losses (BCL) in Upper Canada was similar to the Loyalist Claims Commission and courts that received petitions but differed in ways that were significant for female and black claimants. First, the board conducted its business largely through documents, only requiring claimants to appear before them at York if additional testimony was required. This meant that women did not have to travel in order to submit a claim and had the opportunity to prepare their statements, lists of articles lost, and evidence before submission. While a majority of the female claimants were illiterate, they were able to submit claims with the help of justices of the peace and agents. In terms of literacy, women who submitted claims to the BCL are dissimilar to female petitioners in southern states following the Revolution, nearly half of whom were literate.³¹ Women in Upper Canada were also able to seek help in determining the value of their homes and property before submission, meaning that most were unlikely to be questioned in person about their knowledge of values and prices. Witness statements were also sworn before a justice and submitted in writing, meaning that women could assemble expert and eyewitness testimony without requiring their supporters to travel to York.

Second, the BCL had a much lower threshold for proof than the Loyalist Claims Commission. Only rarely were claimants required to submit official documents such as deeds or bills of sale in support of their claims. Most of the evidence provided was in the form of sworn statements and affidavits from neighbors, respected members of the community, or experts such as carpenters who attested to the value of goods. For instance, Jane Bunting submitted a claim for her house in St. David’s, which was burned by American soldiers in 1814. The commissioners awarded her nearly the full amount of her claim based on the testimony of one local merchant and three carpenters who had “taken a survey of the Dwelling House” and determined that the value assigned was just and reasonable.³² Due to these relatively straightforward requirements for evidence, only 10% of female claimants received no payment on their claims.³³ Similarly, although only six black claimants sought restitution from the commission, all of their claims were approved for awards.

For these reasons, the BCL might represent one of the most generous government boards of claims operating under the “spirit of 1783.” It is possible that the commissioners of the BCL recalled the disappointing results of the Loyalist Claims Commission and defined a more equitable procedure for dealing with the losses incurred during the War of 1812. Yet the claimants to the BCL were similarly disappointed by the decade of delays and limited availability of funds that meant most received only 35% of their awards. While access to the claims process had improved during the forty years since the first war claims commission, the promises of a paternalistic British Empire remained unfulfilled.

Another significant difference between the experiences of Loyalist women during the Revolution and women in Upper Canada is that the former group shared a “common refugee experience.”³⁴ Because the treaty that ended the War of 1812 reaffirmed pre-war national boundaries, most of the women in Upper Canada who suffered displacement due to the destruction of their homes and communities were able to remain in the general vicinity of their former homes or rebuild on the same land. In fact, the lack of permanent displacement combined with women’s increased access to and control over money paid on claims meant that they played a greater role in the rebuilding homes and restoring communities after the war, a topic explored in Module 5.