French Canada and the American Revolution

Remi added some additional commentary on June 30 2026 after I sent him Virgils commentary: “as you know, some of our ancestors in Bellechase [QC] were sympathetic to the American English colonists and even participated in the Revolutionary War against the British. Attached is something that I previously wrote about this.” 

THE ROLE OF FRENCH CANADIANS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Most Canadiens remained neutral during the American Revolution. They saw it as a fratricidal fight between two English camps. In general, they wished for a pox on both houses of the English factions. Most saw the English colonists as liars. However, some Canadiens sided with the revolutionaries and participated in the Revolutionary War.

Recruited initially in Québec and later among Canadien refugees in the northern New York colony, the Second Canadian Regiment (also known as “Congress’s Own”) fought alongside English-speaking Americans against the British. Organized on a French-style four-battalion structure, these soldiers earned a reputation for exceptional discipline and combat performance at Staten Island, Brandywine, and Germantown. They called themselves les patriotes, sharing a deep-seated grievance against the British Crown with their English-speaking American allies. The patriotes hoped that, with French intervention, a revolutionary victory might eventually lead to France returning to govern Canada.

Most significantly, the Canadian Regiment played a vital role in the Siege of Yorktown. On September 24, 1781, Colonel Moses Hazen was given command of the Second Brigade in the Marquis de Lafayette’s Light Division—placing his Canadien soldiers directly under Lafayette’s command. They took part in the critical siege operations that ultimately forced the British surrender.

At Yorktown, where French forces outnumbered the revolutionaries, a fascinating linguistic dynamic existed. While the regular French Army arriving from Europe was composed of men from various provinces who spoke distinct regional dialects, the Canadien soldiers spoke a remarkably unified colonial French. Generationally removed from Europe, the Canadiens had developed a standardized speech that stood out even alongside their metropolitan French allies.

Because they had taken up arms against the British Crown, these men and their families became the United States’ earliest refugees, forced to flee French Canada during the Continental Army’s retreat from Canada in 1776. Unable to return home after the war, many eventually settled in the Refugee Tract of upstate New York, which was officially organized as Clinton County, with the Town of Champlain among its first settlements. It became the first “Little Canada” in the United States and served as a starting point for early French-Canadian migration into the American Midwest.

In the decades that followed, most French Canadians—who were also Americans—viewed the Americans of the young republic with a mix of wariness and admiration. Conversely, they often looked down upon English Canadians—many of whom were descendants of the tens of thousands of United States Loyalists who had fled north—viewing them as Américains manqués: failed, second-class Americans.

In fact, by 1800, roughly 80% of English speakers in Canada were loyalist refugees from the new American Republic. This massive influx explains why the standard English-Canadian accent developed in ways virtually identical to that of many in the United States.

POSTNOTE: July 3 I’ll have some observations as an ordinary person about the first 250 years of our country.  I will be including a half dozen or so other comments from others.  I will likely post in early morning.