Washington hoped the Canadians would rise up with the Americans against the British.

George Washington launched America's first invasion of a foreign land scarcely two months after assuming command of the Continental Army. In September 1775, he dispatched troops to the far north to attack the scantly guarded city of Quebec, which the French had ceded to the British 12 years earlier. The goal of the campaign was not only to deliver a crushing strategic blow to the British by capturing the gateway to the St. Lawrence River and thereby to all of Canada, but also to convince the French-speaking Canadians to join the Revolution on the side of the United Colonies.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in American History magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

But he faced a vexing dilemma: Would the Americans, whose greatest asset was their legitimate claim to the moral high ground, be viewed as liberators by the local people? If the Quebecois viewed the expedition as an unwelcome invasion, the American troops would be hard-pressed to sustain a successful attack on the fortress city.

The Quebec campaign is now viewed as one of Washington's early missteps, before he grew into his role as a military commander. But a close examination of Washington's pre-campaign instructions to Colonel Benedict Arnold offers a glimpse of his foresight and genius. Instead of focusing strictly on logistical concerns, he included guidance on how "Officers and Soldiers" should behave in a foreign land, amidst civilians with very different traditions, customs and religious beliefs. Indeed, his instructions could offer useful insights to contemporary American leaders and soldiers as they carry out military campaigns in distant lands.

—

Rule 1: Don't Assume You Are Welcome
"You are by every means in your Power to endeavor to discover the real Sentiments of the Canadians towards our Cause, and particularly as to this Expedition, ever bearing in Mind, that if they are averse to it and will not cooperate, it must fail of success."

When the British gained control of Canada in 1763, at the conclusion of the French and Indian War, nearly 70,000 French-speaking Catholics in Quebec came under imperial rule. The British military tried to institute English law, which at the time still withheld political rights from Catholics. But as rebellion spread in America following Parliament's passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, Quebec Governor Guy Carleton shrewdly set out to separate Canada from the 13 colonies and turn it into a potential bastion of British armed strength by allowing French inhabitants to retain their heritage. "Barring a catastrophe too shocking to think of, this country will remain French till the end of time," he declared. That policy came to be embodied in the Quebec Act of 1774, which granted freedom of religion to Catholics in Canada, restored French civil law and extended the boundaries of Quebec to include Indian lands south of the Great Lakes between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

The changes were viewed with great alarm in the 13 colonies. The Quebec Act was passed in the same session of Parliament as a series of punitive acts designed to quell the patriot uprising sparked by the Boston Tea Party. Since Canadians were denied any electoral privileges, Americans suspected it marked a first step by the British to strip all the colonies of their elected assemblies. Moreover, the act kindled old fears among Protestants of a Catholic majority to the north.

Washington and other leaders of the American Revolution hoped that their neighbors to the north would rise up with them against the British. But he also had good cause to wonder: Might the cultural, historic and political differences between Anglo-Americans in the rebellious colonies and the French Canadians overshadow their common concerns and shared interests? The expedition would be self-defeating if the local population proved to be actively hostile to patriot forces. "In that case," Washington warned Arnold, "you are by no Means to prosecute the Attempt; the Expence of the Expedition, and the Disappointment are not to be put in Competition with the dangerous Consequences which may ensue, from irritating them against us, and detaching them from that Neutrality which they adopted."

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to