Mackenzie was a fiery, populist reformer and enemy of the elite, perhaps a 19th century Canadian version of today’s Bernie Sanders.  He had railed for more than a decade—in his newspaper and as a legislator—against the few wealthy families that controlled Canada, demanding a representative form of government for the British colony. But the ruling families continued their grip over Upper Canada, as Ontario was then known.

A week prior to his appearance in Buffalo, on December 4, several hundred followers had gathered at the Montgomery Tavern on Yonge Street in Toronto, where Mackenzie called for an armed rebellion. Three days later, loyalist militia fired on and quickly dispersed this band of rebels, many of them unarmed. Mackenzie fled the scene and went into hiding with the help of friends for a day and a night, then rowed across the Niagara River, narrowly escaping “mounted dragoons, in their green uniforms.”

Once in Buffalo, he rested a night at the home of infamous Buffalonian Dr. Cyrenius Chapin, and then addressed the American audience at the Buffalo theater.  Among them were veterans of the War of 1812 and survivors of the burning of Buffalo, many still harboring anger against the English for the deaths of their families and friends and the torching of their homes that occurred two-and-a-half decades earlier.

Mackenzie explained to these “Friends of Canada” the reasons for the rebellion and the similarities to America’s revolution: “To prove the justice of the cause,” the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser reported the next day, “he took the Declaration of Independence - went through it, article by article, and stated that, in every particular, the Canadas had similar grievances, and in some cases that they were even more onerous.”

At first, hundreds of prominent and ordinary Buffalo residents heeded Mackenzie’s cry for help, offering to take up arms in an invasion to overthrow the European rulers. Later, as word of this Canadian rebellion spread along the eastern seaboard, thousands more Americans flocked to the border to join the fight.

The resurrected rebellion resulted in the short-lived “Republic of Canada” on a small, British-owned island in the Niagara River, about three miles above Niagara Falls and 19 miles north of Buffalo. American volunteers broke into local armories, taking weapons and artillery, and cannonaded the militia and British regulars gathering on the far shore. The British retaliated, returning fire prior to launching a commando raid on the U.S. side of the river, where they killed an American sailor and sent a burning steamship, flying the stars and stripes, over Niagara Falls.

President Martin Van Buren, fearful that the fighting would escalate into another war between Great Britain and the United States, interceded to stamp down populist support for the Canadian-American insurgency. But the raids continued and spread along the border, as far west as Detroit and as far east as the St. Lawrence River. British, Canadian and American blood would be spilled in more than a dozen battles over the next 12 months. When the war fizzled out, the British hanged 11 Americans, summarily executed four others and sent scores more to its penal colony in Australia.

The Patriot War of 1837-38 is little remembered today in the United States, but it was not without consequence. It awakened Britain to the corruption and oppression in its North American colony, and contributed to the federation of Canada three decades later. And that British raid on the American shore that destroyed a steamboat resulted in a rule of law justifying preemptive strikes that is still recognized today by international law and the United Nations.

It all started with “the greatest agitator that ever Upper Canada has had within her limits.”

When the fugitive Mackenzie arrived in Buffalo December 11, 1837, both the Lake Erie city and the United States were experiencing a period of great expansion. The Erie Canal had been completed a decade earlier, and Buffalo was now the gateway for western migration. There was also talk of expansion to the nation’s south.  Just a year earlier, American frontiersmen had taken up arms and carved the Republic of Texas out of Mexico. Could northern expansion also be part of America’s destiny? If not expansion, could Americans at least help their neighbors throw off the last English claim in North America?

As Mackenzie took the stage to speak on December 12, the balconies, the pit, the boxes and the lobby were crowded and the audience excited.  Many were turned away because there was no more standing room.  Some in the crowd thought the “peppery little Scotchman,” as one biographer described him, resembled President Van Buren. Mackenzie spoke for more than an hour, comparing the oppression he saw in Canada with the motives for the American Revolution. He spoke of taxation without consent of the taxed, of packed juries and packed legislatures, of a perpetual Senate, of the want of education and “of the repeated overwhelming majorities chosen by the people...whose reform acts were uniformly set aside and vetoed,” the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser reported the next day.

The time was ripe for rebellion, Mackenzie told his listeners. A few thousand men would settle the business in a hurry, as there were few British troops in Canada, mostly pensioners and militia. Great Britain was exhausted from its many wars. She could hardly spare troops or money to carry on a foreign war, he told them, observing that it required 30,000 bayonets to keep Ireland quiet. At the end of his speech, Mackenzie “was greeted with prolonged cheering,” the newspaper reported.

Thomas Jefferson Sutherland, a 36-year-old Buffalo man, jumped up and declared he was going to Canada to fight for its people’s independence. Who would join him? he asked. “Cries of Yes! Yes!—I’ll go!—all over the house,” the Commercial Advertiser reported. Then came calls for money and arms, and the crowd again responded enthusiastically. Finally, Sutherland called for a military force to seize unoccupied, British-owned Navy Island in the Niagara River. The British had built a blockhouse and stockade there during the War of 1812, but the island had since been abandoned.

The next day, rhetoric turned to logistics. Mackenzie and Sutherland met at the Eagle Tavern, an inn and stagecoach stop across Main Street from the theater.  Also present was Rensselaer Van Rensselaer, a member of the prominent New York family from the Hudson Valley whose father, Solomon, had led the initial militia crossing of the Niagara during the Battle of Queenston in 1812. He was presented as a cadet from West Point and as a soldier who had served with Simon Bolivar during the liberation of South America from Spanish rule. He was neither. 

Nevertheless, Van Rensselaer became general of the army of volunteers gathering on the Niagara Frontier. But he drank a lot.

After meeting at the Eagle Tavern, Mackenzie and Van Rensselaer headed for Navy Island.  They expected 250 volunteers to join them with arms, cannon and provisions, but found just 24 men waiting at the launching point, according to Charles Lindsey’s 1862 biography, The Life and Times of Wm. Lyon Mackenzie. Undaunted, on December 13 they landed on the on the 316-acre island, declaring it “the Republic of Canada” under a newly stitched red-white-and-blue flag emblazoned with two stars. 

While General Van Rensselaer set up camp, “President” Mackenzie went to work writing proclamations to explain the rebellion and call for volunteers. "For nearly fifty years has our country languished under the blighting influence of military despots, strangers from Europe, ruling us, not according to laws of our choice, but by the capricious dictates of their arbitrary power,” MacKenzie wrote. “They have taxed us at their pleasure, robbed our exchequer and carried off the proceeds to other lands, they have... ruled us, as Ireland has been ruled, to the advantage of persons in other lands.”

By the end of December, 600 armed men and 24 cannon stolen from local armories occupied the island. While the rebel army was at first composed mostly of British subjects, American volunteers were soon equal in number. Many, no doubt, were influenced by the Jacksonian political philosophy of the era.  Andrew Jackson recently had completed two terms as president, riding a wave of populist enthusiasm for greater democracy for the common man and weakened influence for the landowning and wealthy elite. 

Anti-British animosity also contributed to the growing ranks of American volunteers, but economic forces no doubt played a role, too. A severe recession had swept the United States in 1837. More than a third of the nation’s banks closed, unemployment skyrocketed and farmers lost their farms. Now Mackenzie was offering a $100 bounty in silver to each volunteer and promised 300 acres of land for every soldier, once the revolution succeeded in throwing out the British.

It was not long before the cannon on Navy Island started firing into Canada, toward Chippawa, where 4,000 soldiers, mostly militia, gathered.   The British fired back with cannon and mortar, but the barrage did little damage.  One patriot was reported killed from the British response that went on for several days. The restless patriot army, though, was anxious to land on Canada’s mainland, where they expected sympathetic Canadian patriots to welcome and join them. 

But Van Rensselaer issued no orders to invade and said little, marching around the island branding both a sword and a bottle of brandy.  According to Shaun J. McLaughlin’s 2012 book, The Patriot War Along the New York-Canada Border, “His drunkenness was obvious and his cowardice suspected. Men sought action but found boredom, and only crude huts for shelter from the cold and snow.’’

Then, in the early morning of December 29, the “patriots” noticed flames coming from Schlosser, a docking area on the American shore just above Niagara Falls and about a mile northeast of Navy Island. “At length the mass of flame was distinctly perceived to move upon the waters, and approach the rapids and the middle of the river above the falls,” Mackenzie later recalled. “Swiftly and beautifully it glided along, yet more rapid in its onward course as it neared the fathomless gulf into which it vanished in a moment amid the surrounding darkness. This was the ill-fated steamboat Caroline."

Use this text area to share information about your brand with your customers. Describe a product, share announcements, or welcome customers to your store.

The British had watched as the Caroline, a steamboat out of Buffalo, ferried supplies, food and recruits to the “pirates” on Navy Island. Their patience was short. Thus, Colonel Allan MacNab, who commanded the militia forces at Chippawa, had ordered a night-time raid to destroy the ship, which was docked for the night at Schlosser, where the intakes for the Niagara Power Project now stand.

Captain Andrew Drew of the Royal Navy recruited 60 men and seven boats and rowed across the Niagara River in the early morning darkness.  Two boats turned back but five successfully battled the swift current. They surprised and killed one sailor, set fire to the steamboat and cast it adrift to plummet over Niagara Falls. 

If Americans were sympathetic to the patriots’ cause before, this British incursion inflamed their emotions, not just on the frontier but across the entire nation. How dare the British set foot on American soil, killing an American citizen while destroying a ship flying the stars and stripes?

Initial newspaper accounts were exaggerated and chilling, but they fueled passions. The Cleveland Herald and Gazette reported the boarding party shouted “No prisoners! - No quarters!” and "Those who attempted to escape were killed, with a few exceptions.” The Buffalo Commercial Advertiser reported 22 American civilians sleeping aboard the steamboat had died in the attack. Later historians believe that just one American was killed.

But even that one death was vividly reported, as in the Cleveland Herald and Gazette: “Amos Durfee of Buffalo, was found dead upon the dock, having received a shot from a musket, the ball of which, penetrated the back part of the head and came out at the forehead.” The British took responsibility for the raid onto American soil, justifying it as a preemptive and defensive strike to prevent an invasion of Canada.

Throughout the United States, “Remember the Caroline” became a rallying cry that attracted more recruits, forced Congress and President Van Buren into debate and threatened to ignite a new war between the United States and Great Britain. A force of 1,000 American militia was called up to protect the border from further British raids—as well as to prevent attacks from the United States into Canada—and President Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott, who had commanded soldiers on the Niagara Frontier during the War of 1812, to command them. However, the allegiance of many in this force lay with the patriot army and it took some effort to prevent them from crossing over to Navy Island themselves.

 This mobilization of troops represented the largest such action since Washington’s efforts to put down the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.  Van Buren could also invoke the Neutrality Act of that same year, which forbade anyone in the United States from waging war against a country at peace with the United States. Not long after the raid on the Caroline, a U.S. marshal arrested Mackenzie in Buffalo for violating the act. The patriot army withdrew from Navy Island two weeks later, on January 13, 1838, without launching an invasion of Canada. But that didn’t end the rebellion. 

In the 19th century, an invading army could traditionally advance by one of two means: land or water. But the patriot army saw a third variation—by ice. Having withdrawn from Navy Island, some saw the opportunity to cross to a more secluded portion of the Canadian shore via the frozen surface of Lake Erie. Word spread accordingly for patriots to gather at Bayview, just south of modern Woodlawn State Park, for the frozen trek across the lake, where they expected to find Canadians eager for liberation.

But that word also slipped to local authorities in Buffalo, who were intent on preventing an escalation of hostilities. A company of local militia went onto the lake in sleighs, and three or four miles out discovered as many as 40 armed men encamped on the ice.  These men quickly surrendered to the militia, who then destroyed their shelters and confiscated their weapons. As the militia looked around however, they saw hemlock boughs stuck in the ice. “An unusual aspect of [the patriots’] preparation was a nearly straight line of hemlock bushes extending from their camp to the Canadian shore,” reported one local newspaper. “They had planted the bushes in holes made in the ice, then freezing them, as that it served as a route to follow for the invading army in the night lest they lose their way and perish on the ice fields.”

A couple weeks later, in late February 1838, a much larger party of armed men gathered near a tavern on the Lake Erie shore, also south of Buffalo. They numbered between 300 and 400, and this time they apparently had a cannon. But again, local authorities prevented an invasion, as a force of regulars and volunteers from Buffalo surprised the camp and took possession of their artillery.

Though this was to be the last of the patriot invasion efforts in Western New York, passions remained high. In the months that followed, hundreds more American volunteers joined the patriot army along the routes to new battlegrounds. And much more blood would be shed.

Throughout 1838, various invasion attempts were made along both the Detroit and St. Lawrence frontiers.  In every case, the patriots (along with their American recruits) had to contend not only with resistance from Canadian military forces but also from American authorities attempting to thwart their incursions into a foreign country.  

The bloodiest and perhaps pivotal encounter occurred near Prescott, Upper Canada, across the St. Lawrence River from Ogdensburg, NY, in what became known as the Battle of the Windmill. Landing at Windmill Point on November 12, 1838, a force of 250 invaders held off a much larger force of British soldiers and militia near a stone windmill near shore for over four days before surrendering. In the process, more than 50 invaders were killed, 60 wounded and 137 taken prisoner.  British and Canadian losses amounted to 16 killed and 60 wounded.

By the end of the year, the Patriot War was over, and Mackenzie was a wanted man in Canada and a prisoner in the United States.

The British still had a bounty on Mackenzie’s head at the end of 1838. What’s more, he faced trial in the United States for violating the Neutrality Act. It was the first trial held for violating the act, which was passed into law in 1794.

At the conclusion of his two-day trial in Canandaigua in June 1839, Mackenzie spoke for six hours. "I have been told to say pleasant things to you,” he said, “to use  honeyed words, and avoid any topic that might touch the national pride or wound the national vanity; but as I did not stoop to flatter power in the few on the other side of the Great Lakes, it is not likely that I shall cringe to it here…."

The jury found Mackenzie guilty after deliberating two-and-a-half hours, sentencing him to 18 months in the Monroe County Jail and fining him $10. He could have received three years behind bars and been fined $3,000. After serving his prison term, Mackenzie lived in New York City. He returned to Toronto in 1849 when he received a pardon and died there in 1861.

These days, few people in the United States know of the Patriot War. But the British raid to destroy the Caroline would come to be seen as a precedent that is recognized throughout the world nearly two centuries later. The principle of preemptive strike would become known as the “Caroline Test,” which Britain insisted was an act of self-defense.

The Caroline Test is still part of customary international law, recognized by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the United Nations.  It holds that a preemptive strike is justified only when the threat of an attack is imminent, and peaceful solutions are not an option. It also stipulates that the use of preemptive force must be proportional to the threat of attack. It is a curious thing that the destruction of this otherwise unremarkable vessel, in the midst of an event has been referred to as “comic opera” by one scholar, would result in an international principle that has helped to govern the use of force ever since.

The futile rebellion that Mackenzie had launched is also credited with bringing about reform—and eventually, confederation—for Canada. In the aftermath of the events of 1837-38, the newly appointed Governor General of Canada, John George Lambton, the Earl of Durham, was tasked with investigating the causes for the insurgency.  He would report back that a corrupt elite controlled the government of Canada. “A monopoly of power so extensive and so lasting could not fail,” his report stated, “in process of time, to excite envy, create dissatisfaction and ultimately provoke attack.” Lord Durham recommended a united Canada (Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces) and proposed a legislative government elected by the people and possessing significant authority and power. It took many years for these reforms to be enacted, but Lord Durham’s report confirmed for many in Britain the validity of Mackenzie’s grievances.

As Mackenzie’s biographer Charles Lindsey wrote: “He encountered a thoroughly bad system of government and administration and enormous public abuses. These he persistently assailed, and, in the long and bitter conflict which closed with the rebellion, he received no quarter." While Mackenzie later found pardon and redemption in Canada, however, many of the Americans captured while fighting for an independent Canada were not as fortunate. 

After the Windsor-Detroit campaign, four American patriots were summarily executed while 18 were sent to penal colonies in Australia. And after the Battle of the Windmill on the St. Lawrence, the British tried and hanged 11 Americans and then sent 60 captured Americans and 58 Canadians to penal colonies in Australia.

Many were taken there aboard HMS Buffalo.