A Collective of “Half-Breeds” in the Baie-des-Chaleurs, Québec. Bonnycastle 1842
283. Further Evidence of a Collective of “Half-Breeds” in the Baie-des-Chaleurs, Québec: This folder contains a copy of Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle’s 1842 book entitled, “The Canadas in 1841 in Two Volumes: Volume II” which is a published account of Sir Bonnycastle’s time spent in “the Canadas” in 1841.
Before I begin my discussion concerning “The Canadas in 1841 in Two Volumes: Volume II,” I will first provide a bit of biographical information concerning its Author, Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle. According to the “Dictionary of Canadian Biography” (see http://www.biographi.ca/…/bio/bonnycastle_richard_henry_7E.…), Sir Bonnycastle was born on September 30, 1791 at Woolwich (London), England and his father was “Professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy there.” Sir Bonnycastle himself was an Officer, a Military Engineer, an artist, and an Author at various points of his life. This article also states that:
“… Richard Henry Bonnycastle’s family was exceptional in that its middle-class status rested on the father’s intellectual achievements rather than on business or inheritance and in that it was associated with a unique military institution. The Royal Military Academy was the first tertiary school in the English-speaking world to furnish advanced engineering and scientific courses to prospective officers of the artillery and the engineers, and John Bonnycastle was among the pioneers of this intellectually oriented system of military education. Academy graduates dealt not only with heavy weapons and fortifications but also with roads, harbours, and canals, with cartographical, meteorological, and geological observations, and with drawing and painting because of the need to sketch for military purposes. A place was found for Richard because his father was on the staff, and because he had the ability to fulfil the rigorous entrance requirements. The academy furnished one of the few pathways into the military and social élite, and Richard made the most of the opportunity. His career was not brilliant, but in the way he applied his education for the benefit of civilian society, especially in Upper Canada, he was the model of a helpful Board of Ordnance officer. Indeed, he and Lieutenant-Colonel John By are the outstanding examples in Upper Canada of constructive imperial military officers…”
And that:
“… Bonnycastle’s contributions to civil society were, however, eclipsed by his military achievements in 1837 and 1838. In 1837 he was promoted brevet major and placed in command of the engineers at Kingston, with the specific task of completing construction of the new Fort Henry, begun in 1832. By late 1837 Bonnycastle, directing a force of mostly Irish artisans and labourers, had finished work. Almost immediately afterwards came the rebellions in the Canadas. Lieutenant Governor Sir Francis Bond Head* had previously ordered most of the regulars in Upper Canada to Montreal, leaving in the Kingston area only the Ordnance personnel and a few sailors. On 6 December, Bonnycastle, the senior officer capable of duty, received a letter from Head informing him that rebellion had broken out at Toronto and ordering him to hold Fort Henry and its invaluable military stores against attacks from rebels. He set about building a garrison from local resources with energy and tact, winning strong support from the colonists. By the beginning of 1838 his force consisted of the Fort Henry workers, whom he had armed, militia from the counties around Kingston, the élite Kingstonians serving in the Frontenac Light Dragoons, a detachment of the Perth Artillery, and a unit of regular sailors called the Queen’s Marine Artillery, together with some Mohawks from the Bay of Quinte region.
The threat to Kingston was now posed by about 2,000 Upper Canadian refugees and American sympathizers in New York state who sought to liberate Upper Canada. Intending to strike at Fort Henry across the frozen St Lawrence, on 22 Feb. 1838 they left Clayton, N.Y., and seized Hickory Island near Gananoque as a preliminary move. Bonnycastle and the Kingstonians expected a battle, but the Patriots, having infiltrated the defences with spies, withdrew the next day. The Kingstonians heaped praise on Bonnycastle for his vigorous leadership, which had probably persuaded the enemy that an attack would be too costly. His superiors were also impressed. In March 1840 they gave him a knighthood.
That year Sir Richard, who now regarded himself as a permanent resident of Kingston, was promoted lieutenant-colonel, and shortly afterwards he did a tour of duty as commanding engineer in Newfoundland. Between 1841 and 1846 he made his main literary contribution, publishing with Henry Colburn in London The Canadas in 1841 (2v., 1842), Newfoundland in 1842: a sequel to “The Canadas in 1841” (2v., 1842), and Canada and the Canadians, in 1846 (2v., 1846). He retired from the engineers in June 1847 and died in Kingston soon after, at the age of 56. A fellow officer and friend, Sir James Edward Alexander, edited Bonnycastle’s voluminous notes and published them in Canada as it was, is, and may be (2v., London, 1852). These works are not great literature, but they were competent and informative tracts which helped to publicize British North America in Britain and to attract middle-class immigrants and investment capital.
Bonnycastle was an enthusiast for imperial development and a believer in progress through education and hard work. He had all the Victorian middle-class virtues, and his writings show few of the prejudices which often went with them. Although only his posthumous volumes dwelt on history in any detail, all his Canadian works are helpful sources for the period. They are equally valuable for the attitudes they reflect, which are those of an imperial official with a most useful colonial career and the founder of a respected middle-class Ontario family…”
We can conclude a couple of things from these excerpts, the first being that although Sir Richard Bonnycastle spent a great deal of his life in the military, he excelled as an Academic and was a very educated man who came from an educated family.
The second thing that we can conclude from these excerpts is that Sir Richard Bonnycastle’s “The Canadas in 1841 in Two Volumes” is a published account of his time spent in Canada in 1841, therefore, this publication can be considered a highly reliable source of information.
That being said, it’s now time to begin our discussion concerning the importance of “The Canadas in 1841 in Two Volumes: Volume II.” Although this publication provides an excellent depiction of what life in the “Canadas” was like in 1841, I’ve chosen to focus only on a few select excerpts. The first of these excerpts concerns the Mi’kmaq people that Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle encountered in the area of Restigouche, New Brunswick/Québec. This excerpt can be found on pages 165 and 166 and is as follows:
“… I was sorry to observe that their breed had been mixed, as some of their features were decidedly European, and the hair, in those cases, had a tendency to curl, instead of hanging in long black tresses, as usual.
The Micmac Indians are an inoffensive, harmless people, who are daily vanishing from the land of their fathers, as they are shut in by the whites, their grant being but six hundred acres, of which they only possess three hundred and fifty fit for cultivation, or, in fact, at all certainly belonging to them. They appear poor, and are, no doubt, much exposed to the chicanery of their neighbours. Their interpreter, who is a half-breed, seemed also a designing fellow; and it was whispered, that they had not much confidence in their religious instructor, who had very little of the vivacity or bonhommie of a Frenchman, and was not very cleanly dressed for such an unusual occasion. But the regularity in which they live, their innocent behaviour, simplicity, and the acknowledged merit of their conduct in the country, would, nevertheless, seem to be fostered by the priest…”
This excerpt is important because despite Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle observing the “Restigouche Micmacs” (Restigouche Mi’kmaq) to be “mixed” overall, he still noted his Interpreter to be a “Half-Breed.” Unfortunately, Sir Bonnycastle fails to provide insight as to why he classified the Interpreter as such when the Mi’kmaq themselves were mixed-blooded.
A second important excerpt from “The Canadas in 1841 in Two Volumes: Volume II” concerns the people who frequented the fishing establishments along the coast of a place named “King’s Post” to the “westward” of the “Bay of Seven Islands” region of the Sept-Îles, Québec. This excerpt can be found on pages 234 to 236 and is as follows:
“… This night the north-western horizon presented a very singular appearance. By ship time it was nearly half-past nine, and by my watch it wanted twenty-five minutes to that hour, when I observed a long red edge, or belt of light, as though the sun had just set, although it had disappeared about half-past seven. Perhaps this may be the effect of mirage; but as I saw similar appearances over the north-western horizon afterwards, and have since reflected upon the account given in the second volume of the Quebec Transactions, of the dark days of Canada, of the position of the three ships, and of the appearances at Quebec, in July 1814, where the darkness was most attentively observed, together with a lurid redness of the horizon which preceded it, I am inclined to believe that there is a very active volcano in the Labrador country. Showers of fine ashes accompanied this darkness; and the Indians of the coast all assert, that there is a volcano in Labrador. If so, by comparing the course of the winds which brought the heavy vapours to Quebec, to Cape Chat, and to the banks of Newfoundland in that season, on three different days, with my own observations of the lurid light seen over the north shore, on the present occasion in the gulph, I am inclined to believe that this volcano exists somewhere in the rear of the Bay of Seven Islands, to the westward, a country almost wholly unknown ; the Esquimaux and half-breeds who frequent the fishing establishments of the coast called King's Post, not daring to venture inland, on account of a warlike and savage race of mountaineers who hunt that country…”
The importance of this excerpt lies in the fact that we see Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle distinguishing between the “Esquimeaux” and the “Half-Breeds” who “frequented the fishing establishments of the coast called King's Post.” This distinguishing of these two groups of people is similar to the previously-discussed excerpt from pages 165 and 166 of “The Canadas in 1841 in Two Volumes: Volume II” where Sir Bonnycastle distinguishes between the “Restigouche Micmacs” (Restigouche Mi’kmaq) and the “Half-Breed” Interpreter that he encountered in the region of Restigouche, New Brunswick/Québec.
A final excerpt that I’ve chosen to discuss from “The Canadas in 1841 in Two Volumes: Volume II” can be found on page 136 and concerns the inhabitants of “Gaspé Bay.” This excerpt is as follows:
“… These people told us they were a lawless set; meaning, no doubt, that very little law was to be had in Gaspé Bay…”
The importance of this rather brief excerpt is simply that it accords with the conclusions made by the Authors of other documentation concerning the Baie-des-Chaleurs/the Gaspé region of Québec that we’ve discussed elsewhere in this collection. Basically, it was the belief of outsiders to this region that the inhabitants of the region were “a lawless set.”
In conclusion, Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle’s 1842 book entitled, “The Canadas in 1841 in Two Volumes: Volume II” does not really add any new and/or “groundbreaking” evidence to this collection. It is however, an important addition to this collection because it provides yet another first-hand account from a visitor to the region of the Baie-des-Chaleurs/Gaspé in the first half of the nineteenth century that makes note of “Half-Breeds” who the Authors of these documents distinguish from the “Micmacs” (Mi’kmaq) and the “Esquimeaux” (Inuit) Peoples.
*A huge thanks to Eli Laliberte for tipping me off about this amazing document*
