Canada, Congress, and the Continental Army: Strategic Accommodations, 1774–1776

Between 1774 and 1776 American rebels feared the British government would use French Catholic Canadians to contain their insurrection. As the empire advanced incorporation of its new subjects through the Quebec Act, the Continental Congress invited them to join its fellowship and invaded Canada to secure its cause. The invitations required that the rebels broaden definitions of civil, specifically religious, liberties, whereas enlistment of some Canadians challenged the Continental Army to practice what Congress proclaimed. Recruiting Catholic Francophone “others” by Protestant Anglophones as a strategy of war and nation building tested ideologies within the military sphere; the results reveal a precarious fit between developing public policy, military exigencies, and older biases.