Author and veteran journalist Madelaine Drohan will speak in Winnipeg on May 25 about her new book, He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada, examining America’s centuries-old ambitions toward Canada and why those lessons remain urgent today. (photo credit: Madelaine Drohan)
Long before Donald Trump floated the idea of Canada becoming the “51st state,” Benjamin Franklin was pursuing his own determined campaign to bring Canada under American control.
That’s the central argument in journalist and author Madelaine Drohan’s new book, He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada, which she will discuss Monday evening at Whodunit? Mystery Bookstore in Winnipeg during a public event hosted by the Canadian International Council.
Drohan, a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Policy at the University of Ottawa and former Canada correspondent for The Economist, said she was stunned to discover how deeply Franklin was involved in the failed American effort to annex Canada during the Revolutionary War — and how little most Canadians know about it.
“My biggest surprise was that Benjamin Franklin had travelled to Montreal, which was occupied at the time by the Continental Army, and that I knew nothing about it,” Drohan said in an interview with the Winnipeg Sun.
“The entire episode, including the 1775-76 invasion of Canada by the Americans and Franklin’s role in it, has been written out of the story Canadians tell themselves about who they are and how they came to be.”
She argues that forgetting this chapter of history has left Canadians unprepared to understand renewed American rhetoric about absorbing Canada.
“If Canadians had a better understanding of what happened 250 years ago, we would not have been caught off-guard when Donald Trump resurrected the continental impulses of the founding fathers,” she said.
According to Drohan, Franklin’s annexation efforts were not an isolated historical curiosity but part of a much older and recurring American ambition.
“The idea that Canada should be part of the United States, or more specifically that Americans should control the territory now called Canada, is older than the United States itself,” she said.
She points to several historical examples beyond Franklin’s campaign, including the American invasion during the War of 1812, expansionist political movements in the 1840s and attempts by some Americans to acquire Rupert’s Land, once controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company.
“Making Canada part of the United States is a recurring theme and not something Donald Trump invented,” Drohan said. “Canadians should take it very seriously.”
Her book details how Franklin used both his celebrity and his political influence to advance the cause. Already internationally famous for his scientific experiments and diplomatic work, Franklin travelled to Montreal in 1776 to help rescue a faltering American military occupation and later made a final attempt to secure Canada during peace negotiations with Britain in Paris.
“He was able to harness his celebrity — he was the most famous American of his time — and use the power of his fame and the posts he occupied to promote his ideas,” Drohan said.
Despite Franklin’s efforts, the annexation failed — and Drohan believes there are important lessons in that failure for Canadians today.
“One of the good lessons is that Canada was saved because former foes — French Canadians and the British — set aside their grievances and united to defeat a common enemy,” she said.
“We need that unity today if Canada is to withstand the pressure coming from Washington. Right now it is economic pressure. But with an unpredictable president, we cannot rule out entirely whether it could become military pressure.”
Drohan also warns Canadians not to assume another global power would necessarily intervene on Canada’s behalf if tensions with the United States escalated.
“Ever since European settlers arrived in what is now Canada, there was always a stronger power in the background ready to step in if help was needed,” she said.
“First it was France. Then it was Britain. Then it was the United States. But it is unclear who would have Canada’s back if the United States is the aggressor.”
For Drohan, the book is both a historical account and a modern-day warning.
“Franklin’s desire to possess Canada is an interesting story in and of itself,” she said. “But it should also be a warning to Canadians that controlling the continent — indeed the hemisphere — is part of the American mindset.”
“Just as Trump is not the first to express this desire, he is unlikely to be the last. We should be prepared.”
Drohan will speak Monday, May 25, at 5:30 p.m. at Whodunit? Mystery Bookstore, 163 Lilac St. Doors open at 5 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, with no registration required.
More information about Drohan and her work can be found at her website.