Trump Scolds Trudeau For Canada Burning Down White House (They Didn't)
I've learned over the years to be careful about over-generalizing my own experiences to all American schools.
But here's my own experience--tell me if this jives with your recollections or not.
In school, I learned nothing about Canada's involvement in the war of 1812. (I'm using "Canada" here to refer to the geographical region, even though the political entity of the country of Canada did not yet exist.")
I was therefore confused then in college when my Canadians friends would refer to this incident. In the course of some playful joking around about which country was better, my Canadian friends would tell me, "Well, we kicked your ass in the War of 1812."
I had no idea what they were talking about. "You guys weren't in that War," I would say. "It was the British."
I've since heard from many Canadian friends that Canada's role in the War of 1812 is one of the highlights of their history curriculum. And I'm given the impression that a lot of them take pride in the burning of the White House.
4 comments:
Indeed, Canadians are unduly proud of the War of 1812. I think it's just another stupid war, and quite like this guy's take on it.
Thanks for the link. That was an interesting article. I had no idea about any of it.
...funny that Canada ended up being much more liberal than the U.S.A., after all that, huh? Funny how history works.
In the past couple days, I've been seeing a lot of articles on this, and it looks like it was the British soldiers who burned down the White House, not the Canadians. I've known several Canadians over the years who have taken credit for it, though.
Yeah, we'd like to take credit for that, but...
I suppose if you really stretched the argument you could say we were all the same army, what with the country being British North America, and not yet Canada. But things get really dopey when you argue that way. My ancestors were still a year or two away from landing on these shores, and would not have participated in the incursions even if they'd been given the chance.
Actually, now that you mention it, my ancestors didn't come over until 1880s. So we totally missed out on all this drama.
Funny how thorough Americanization works. Once your family assimilate, you have an owndership of all of American history. I'm constantly taking credit for, or apologizing for, things my ancestors had nothing to do with.
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