President Trump might dream of taking Canada but a previous US president, James Madison, sent troops to take Toronto – successfully – in 1812. However, this invasion ended badly when British forces came to the aid of Canada and burned down the White House. An episode from history that we need to re-visit!
Throughout 2025, US President Donald Trump has kept referring to Canada as America’s 51st state. Canadian voters reacted to this angrily in April by re-electing the Liberal Party under Mark Carney, who is determined to resist American attempts to swallow up Canada. This increased tension between the two countries has boosted royalist sentiment in Canada.
In May 2025, King Charles III opens the Canadian parliament as the country warms again to the fact that Charles is still the head of state there. Trump’s belligerence towards Canada has, ironically, bolstered support for the continuing British royal presence. This is a hangover from the British Empire when Canada was a colony of the crown. Today it is an independent country but has opted to keep the British monarch as head of state.
In 1812, Canada was very much a British colony – as the United States had also been, until it achieved full independence from Britain in 1783. Canada was divided into English-speaking Upper Canada and French-speaking Lower Canada. The latter were less happy about British rule but the majority of the population, for different reasons, chose to remain within the British Empire. They rejected the American model of independence from the crown.
But there were minority elements sympathetic to the idea of merging with the United States – while the Americans dreamed of annexing their neighbour to the north. Trump is not the first president to have harboured these ambitions. An opportunity to grab Canada presented itself in the early 19th century as Britain was locked into a bloody war with the Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Pro-American accounts of the 1812 invasion of Canada excuse this military aggression as a response to legitimate grievances regarding the British trying to stop American traders supplying the French by imposing a de facto blockade. In reality, a faction within the American establishment was itching to take Canada to the north and Florida to the south, which was still ruled by Spain. The war with Napoleon presented a chance to turn a political dream into reality.
American invasion of Canada gets underway
Britain was horrified as American forces, on 19 June 1812, crossed the border and marched on Toronto – which was then called Fort York. Very quickly, they subdued Toronto and annexed it to the United States. The British were initially reluctant to commit forces for its defence. In Europe, they were tied up with the war against Napoleon. While in the Americas, defence of the lucrative sugar plantations in the Caribbean took priority over defending Canada.
However, in August that year, local militia forces recovered their nerve and retaliated by invading Detroit! Major-General Isaac Brock seized the city for the British Empire. The Americans continued with their attempt to take Lower Canada but miscalculated the attitude of the French-speaking population. Mainly Roman Catholic and granted some self-rule by the British, these French Canadians didn’t warm to the Protestant, English speaking United States. Despite their incessant grumbling, they figured that better deals could be struck with their British overlords than the Americans.
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In October 1813, American forces tried to invade French-speaking Montreal but were soundly defeated by a combined French-Canadian and Mohawk militia under the command of Colonel Charles de Salaberry. By 1814, Napoleon was being defeated in Europe and a furious Britain finally sent soldiers to deal with the United States. The battles were hard fought but ended with British soldiers occupying Washington DC and, infamously, burning down the White House.
The lesson learned by the British Empire was to grant Canada a much greater degree of self-government. In 1867, the Dominion of Canada was created, which gave the country a huge degree to autonomy. As late as 1982, the British North America Act restated Canada’s constitutional independence.
The decision in 2025 by Prime Minister Carney to invite King Charles to open the Canadian parliament in Ottawa doesn’t reflect a desire to fully integrate back into Britain. It’s very much a response directed at Washington DC and President Trump’s threat to Canada’s sovereignty. If history is a guide to the future, then the current American administration might want to think twice about an invasion of Canada. It didn’t work out too well last time!
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