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CANADIAN HISTORICAL ERRORS
Ernest Green Writes the Following Letter to the Globe:-
[The Welland Tribune and Telegraph, 17 March 1921]
A short time ago there appeared in the columns of The Globe a prize winning essay entitled “The Life of Laura Ingersoll Secord” by a Hamilton school girl. This essay has been reprinted in several Western Ontario newspapers, and doubtless many copies of it have passed into scrap books or laid away for reference by persons who regard it as authoritative.
Unfortunately the article bristles with errors, but its publication serves to direct attention to the sources from which the young people of this Province draw their historical information. Prominent among these sources is the “Ontario High school History of Canada,” published under authority of the Minister of Education, a book which, in part at least, is as full of errors as the Hamilton school girl’s essay.
On page 158 this school history tells the story of Laura Secord and the battle of Beaver Dams. Explaining how the contest came about, it says the “Americans….endeavored to surprise the British post at Beaver Dams.” As a matter of fact, the British post was not at Beaver Dams, but at DeCou’s, farther west, an objective that the American expedition failed to reach. That they “missed their way,” as the book says, is inaccurate because they did not get off the road to their objective- DeCou’s. That they “were attacked by Colonel Fitzgibbon….with about thirty men and a few Indians” differs from the facts. The American force was stopped, surrounded and beaten by the Indians and a few Lincoln militiamen before Fitzgibbon reached the scene. The “dare-devil Irishman” was just in time to display his redcoats and negotiate for a surrender. Fitzgibbon at this time was Lieutenant, not a Colonel.
Referring to James Secord, the school history says: “Both he and his wife Laura were children of Loyalists.” Secord was the Loyalist son of a Loyalist, but Laura Ingersoll was the daughter of an officer of the “Continental” army during the Revolutionary war, who came to Canada in Simcoe’s time.
Quoting Cruikshank regarding the experience of Laura Secord with the Indians, the book says: “Some delay ensued before she was entrusted to Fitzgibbon.” The original reads “before she was conducted to Fitzgibbon,” which gives a rather different impression.
Continuing the history of the war in the school book, we are told that the British were “under Riall” in the battle of Lundy’s Lane. As a matter of fact, Drummond commanded from the commencement of the fight. The “reinforcements” came up after Drummond’s troops had fought for about three hours, but the book says that Drummond “came up with reinforcements.”
“The enemy…next day recrossed the river,” says the book. That would be on July 26, 1814. As a matter of fact, they remained in Canada until November. In the interval was waged the desperate and bloody siege of Fort Erie, the only regular siege operation of the war, which the book entirely ignores.
Canadians have long criticized American school histories for their inaccuracies. It is time that we put our own schoolhouse in order.
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