Raiders and Rebels

The forces that shaped the Upper Canada rebellion in the Western District often affected whole families. The best example is the Malcolm clan, which spawned 13 rebels spread across two generations. Despite two being sentenced for treason and two having rewards on their heads, all survived with great stories to tell.

During the Patriot War, few of the US-based civilian armies that amassed to attack Upper Canada had the luxury of a competent leader or posed any real threat to that British colony. The principal exception was Henry S. Handy and the regiments he formed and armed in 1838.

Of the 10 published personal accounts by Patriot War rebels, the biography of Elijah Crocker Woodman appeared last, 113 years after his death. Unlike the other Patriot War chroniclers transported to a distant penal colony, he never made it home.

Robert Marsh participated in three of the nine raids into Upper Canada during the Patriot War, including the first and the last. In his 1848 memoirs—the short title is Narrative of a Patriot Exile—he demonstrated an unflinching belief in American-style democracy and an unbending dislike of British colonial rule. Despite seven years of hard times, he never regretted his actions.

By the end of 1839, the Hunter and Patriot movements had atrophied into a pathetic club of old men who schemed and dreamed of impossible glories. With Bill Johnston either in jail or avoiding jail, one Patriot warrior kept Upper Canada on edge: Benjamin Lett.

Most of the men hanged for their parts in the Lower Canada rebellion did not start out as rebels at arms. Heavy-handed actions by the colonial executive in denying demands for responsible government, and by the British army in response to a peaceful assembly in October 1837, pushed men to the brink.

Late on July 26, 1839, a Hunter gang carrying heavy trunks boarded a small schooner, the Guernsey, at Oswego, New York. The ship sailed at midnight. At daybreak, the strangers emerged on deck, drew weapons from their trunks and took over the schooner.

Throughout the Patriot War, the majority of Patriot and Hunter raiders tended to follow rules of engagement on par with their British enemy. That is, they behaved as soldiers, not murderers. While the British called them pirates and brigands, they were no more or less prone to abuses on the battlefield than the Upper Canadians. There was one notable exception, Benjamin Lett.

Updated February 2014
In January 1838, Canadian militia repulsed Brigadier-General Thomas Jefferson Sutherland at Fort Malden. The militia also captured the Patriot's schooner and her commander, Brigadier-General Edward Alexander Theller.

One of the curious footnotes of the Patriot War is the makeup of the militia. It included an all-black company, with Rev. Josiah Henson, 48, as the senior black officer. Like many, he was an escaped American slave. Canada gave the black militiamen freedom and the opportunities available to free men, and they were grateful.

After the executions of four Hunter raiders in Kingston on January 4, 1839, weeks passed without additional hangings. The remaining 150 prisoners in Fort Henry, who'd seen their comrades taken away to die every week or two, began to believe that the hangings had ceased. The Upper Canada public was tiring of the brutal executions. The time was right to show some mercy.

While all eyes were riveted on the trials and executions of captured Hunters at Kingston in eastern Upper Canada, a new army of Hunters and Patriots prepared to attack the colony’s western border near Windsor. It turned out to be the final organized invasion of the Patriot War and a bungled bloody affair like all the raids before it.