By Pierre Beaudry FOREWORD During the course of 1777, one year after the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, British General John Burgoyne, head of the British United Imperial Loyalists located in Canada, designed an ill-fated scheme to invade the American colonies from Quebec by moving south via Lake Champlain, capturing Ticonderoga, and attempting to isolate New England from the southern colonies by joining forces with another British army under General William Howe, Commander in chief of the British expeditionary forces in the American colonies, whom he expected to join coming from New York. His lack of understanding strategy, and his overconfident belief that he could win this war with superior forces, led him to be trapped, in fact, by superior American strategy.
An absolutely fascinating window on Canada’s history at the time of the American Revolution. I have no idea what is being taught for Canadian history in schools today, but when I was in high school years ago, it seems there was mostly the British “narrative”. It is obvious propaganda and indoctrination of the masses through “education” is a well practised art with a lengthy history, and the single “British” narrative I was schooled with helped forge a hugely misshapen perspective about our modern day ‘Dominion’. I appreciate learning about Gosselin and his heroic alliance with General George Washington, and about the Indigenous peoples part in this dramatic history. As a 4th generation European in Canada, I have never taken kindly to the manner in which east and west or ‘English’ vs French or “us vs. them” appears to have been a careful strategy all along the way to keep Canadians fractured, manipulated, and controlled.
An absolutely fascinating window on Canada’s history at the time of the American Revolution. I have no idea what is being taught for Canadian history in schools today, but when I was in high school years ago, it seems there was mostly the British “narrative”. It is obvious propaganda and indoctrination of the masses through “education” is a well practised art with a lengthy history, and the single “British” narrative I was schooled with helped forge a hugely misshapen perspective about our modern day ‘Dominion’. I appreciate learning about Gosselin and his heroic alliance with General George Washington, and about the Indigenous peoples part in this dramatic history. As a 4th generation European in Canada, I have never taken kindly to the manner in which east and west or ‘English’ vs French or “us vs. them” appears to have been a careful strategy all along the way to keep Canadians fractured, manipulated, and controlled.