Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2019 Archive

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“Loyalist Trails” 2019-32: Aug. 11, 2019

In this issue:
- Loyalists and Canada's First Residential School, Part 2: The Meductic Model, by Stephen Davidson
- JAR: “That Damned Absurd Word Liberty”: Les Habitants, the Quebec Act, and American Revolutionary Ideology
- The Junto: Writing – Revise and Resubmit
- Ben Franklin's World: Virginia, 1619
- Benedict Swingate Calvert: A Privileged Loyalist Who Didn't Leave
- Hair Powder: History of Its Popularity and Unpopularity
- Where in the World?
- From the Twittersphere and Beyond

Articles

Loyalists and Canada's First Residential School, Part 2: The Meductic Model

Within three years of the creation of the Loyalist colony of New Brunswick, seven schools for Indigenous children had been established by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and Parts Adjacent in America. The New England Company appointed commissioners to oversee the schools and to hire teachers – all but one of whom were Loyalist refugees.

While little is known of the day to day operations of the schools in Chatham, Fredericton, St. Andrew's, Westfield and Sheffield, a number of historical records shed light on the "station" that operated in Meductic near Woodstock, New Brunswick. As the New England Company sponsored all of these schools, it is reasonable to assume that the colony's Indigenous institutions of learning would have operated along the same lines as the Meductic school.

Its teacher was Frederick Dibblee, a Connecticut Loyalist who would go on to become Woodstock's first Anglican minister. His mandate was to teach the children of such "Indians as should profess the Protestant religion, and to place such Indians in English families or with English teachers to be instructed in the English language and in the trade and mystery of some lawful calling and in other liberal arts and sciences."

Dibblee opened the Meductic school in 1788. In addition to children, Wolastoqiyik adults (old, young, married and single) attended classes in a log building that measured 26 feet by 22 feet. It had a window on each side, three doors, and a log-lined cellar for storing the various supplies that were distributed to students and their families.

The Wolastoqiyik, the Indigenous Nation that lived along the St. John River, had once been the allies of the Acadians. Many had adopted the Roman Catholic faith, and so were wary of the Protestant, English-speaking Loyalists who were establishing settlements along the upper river.

Therefore, Frederick Dibblee's job description included creating good relations with the Wolastoqiyik, and much of this was done – as one historian put it – by "his personal influence and judicious distribution of presents and provisions... The supplies of provisions and clothing served the purpose intended, securing the confidence and good will of the natives and paving the way for the establishment of a school ... Whatever may have been the prejudices of the Indians against receiving instruction at the hands of English teachers, the charms of the ... goods provided by the New England company proved irresistible."

The first shipment of these supplies included 50 blankets, a barrel of gunpowder, 100 lbs. of lead and 50 flints. The second consignment included 50 blankets, 100 lbs. lead and flints, blue blanket fabric, 40 bushels of corn, 2 barrels of pork and 4 bushels of salt. The third consignment included 50 blankets, a barrel of gunpowder, 200 lbs. of lead, more blanket material, 4 hoes and 4 axes.

In a report that Dibblee completed in November of 1789, he noted that there were 337 Wolastoqiyik in Meductic – 98 men, 74 women and 165 children. (The number of Loyalist families who had settled in nearby Woodstock was only about twenty.) The Loyalist schoolteacher had a total of 22 students: five married men, two married women, five girls and ten boys. The eight families whose members attended the school lived in tents on the school property.

This early experiment in Indigenous education was not a residential school where children were separated from their parents. The children returned to their homes each afternoon where they could live and speak as Indigenous people. Although Dibblee taught his lessons in English, he is noted as having made "considerable progress" in learning the Wolastoqiyik language and was "able to converse with them quite readily after a time".

Dibblee was pleased with the progress of his "scholars". He reported that "They are constant in their attendance and exceeding quick in receiving instruction, five of them in particular are amazingly so, having made great improvements both in spelling and writing. They are continually making applications to be received and there are now thirteen who are making their wigwams with the idea of becoming scholars and receiving provisions and clothing. I believe there is no doubt but there will be a constant school, for their prejudices are removed and they appear to be ambitious of learning, and the whole of them will become scholars if they can receive provision and clothing."

The regular provisions supplied by the New England Company certainly made an English Protestant education appealing to the Wolastoqiyik. Dibblee noted that his students "receive for five persons one bushel of corn and one piece of pork per week, and there are forty-seven individuals. They often want beans and potatoes, and then they are deducted out of the corn, half a bushel of beans and two of potatoes equal to one of corn – which is the difference when they purchase them. They have received 2.5 yards of blue cloth for coats and stockings, and 2.5 yards of linen for shirts, and thread each; hats and books what I had received."

While some students applied themselves to their studies and learning skills, others recognized that living at Meductic was a "comfortable and profitable way" of getting through the harsh New Brunswick winter. It was a practical solution to the negative consequences of Loyalist settlement as land was being cleared for farms and the number of game hunted for food began to decline.

Dibblee's report indicated Wolastoqiyik families were small, averaging only two or three children. John Manduelmet and his wife had nine children, but the families in which there were more than five children were exceedingly rare.

During his first three years as a teacher of Indigenous students, Dibblee spent at least $2,000 for the benefit of the Wolastoqiyik, "of which by far the larger part went for provisions and supplies". After the school was established, only those families who had members enrolled as students were entitled to receive goods from the New England Company.

This more benign form of Indigenous education did not last. By the early 1790s, the commissioners for the New England Company decided to close six of the colony's Indigenous schools and make the school at Sussex Vale the central academy for Wolastoqiyik students. Because it was far from the Native communities along the St. John River valley, the Sussex Vale site became a residential school.

Henceforth, it would provide room and board for Wolastoqiyik youngsters whose only chance for an English Protestant education necessitated living far from their families. It would be the first Indigenous residential school in what is now Canada – and was a foreshadowing of an all too familiar program of assimilation that would be repeated in the centuries that followed.

The story of how the Loyalist teachers of New Brunswick's residential school tried to assimilate its Wolastoqiyik students through a program of instruction and apprenticeship will be told in next week's Loyalist Trails.

To secure permission to reprint this article, email Stephen Davidson.

JAR: “That Damned Absurd Word Liberty”: Les Habitants, the Quebec Act, and American Revolutionary Ideology

By Sebastian van Bastelaer, 5 August 2019

The American invasion of Quebec of 1775-1776 failed to achieve its primary objective: to bring into the fold what the Continental Congress referred to as "the only link wanting, to compleat the bright and strong chains of union." While Canada would not join its southern brethren in outright rebellion, the Americans' campaign furnishes important insight into the early stages of the Revolution and the appeal it held both in the thirteen colonies and abroad.

Pro-American sentiment was widespread and polymorphous. In the early stages of the invasion, French-Canadian habitants (peasants) provided assistance in various ways to the Continental troops, even if it meant turning on neighbors and flouting traditional societal hierarchies. But why? Were the habitants, as some claim, merely opportunistic? Did they simply choose whichever side appeared to be winning in order to personally prosper and avoid punishment from the victorious army? Did the transatlantic political debates that provided the impetus for the Revolution have any bearing on the habitants' decisions? And if so, were they merely fooled by the war of words between the two sides? One study claims that the peasants' acted as they did because they were "frightened, misled and completely demoralized by American propaganda." This view, however, reduces the large group of peasants to one ignorant bloc. It also echoes some of the elitist rhetoric of the time period: one letter written by an administrator in June 1775 read, "one need not be a great orator to persuade these poor fellows." It also runs counter to historical evidence, which shows that a thoughtful rejection of the 1774 Quebec Act and a partial embrace of the revolutionary ideology of liberty did in fact take place in the province in response to American appeals. The habitants, it appears,were not blindly committing acts of wanton violence or simply transacting out of economic and military expediency. Instead, they were often making considered choices about the belligerents' ideologies and taking risks to fight for the American cause.

Ben Franklin's World: Virginia, 1619

Cassandra Newby-Alexander, a scholar of African American and American History and the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norfolk State University, leads our investigation of why the creation of the first representative assembly and the arrival of the first African peoples in English North America were significant events.

During our exploration, Cassandra reveals details about the Virginia Company and the establishment of Jamestown and the Virginia Colony; When and why the Virginia Company ordered its colonists in Virginia to found a limited representative legislature; And information about how and why the First African peoples arrived in Virginia and about their experiences and impact in the young colony.

Listen to the podcast.

Benedict Swingate Calvert: A Privileged Loyalist Who Didn't Leave

Benedict Swingate Calvert (January 27, 1722 - January 9, 1788) was a planter, politician and a Loyalist in Maryland during the American Revolution. He was the son of Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, the third Proprietor Governor of Maryland (1699-1751), and may have been the grandson of King George I of Great Britain. He was certainly a descendant of Charles II through Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield, the daughter of Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, one of the king's mistresses. As he was illegitimate, he was not able to inherit his father's title or estates, which passed instead to his half brother Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore.

Benedict Calvert spent most of his life as a politician and planter in Maryland, though Frederick, by contrast, never visited the colony. Calvert became wealthy through proprietarial patronage and became an important colonial official, but he would lose his offices and his political power, though not his land and wealth, during the American Revolution.

In 1742, aged twelve or twenty years, the young Benedict was sent to the Calverts' proprietary colony of Maryland, which in the mid 18th century was still a somewhat sparsely settled, largely rural society. In 1730 the population of Annapolis was just 776. The population of colony was 120,000 at the time.

Through his family connections Calvert was able to benefit from considerable proprietarial patronage, at least until the American Revolution in 1776 ended proprietarial rule in Maryland. In 1745, aged around 15 years, he was appointed by his father the Patuxent district customs collector and naval officer.

On April 21, 1748 Benedict and his cousin Elizabeth were married in St Ann's Church by the Reverend John Gordon. The couple, aged 18 and 17 years respectively, moved into a house at State Circle, Annapolis.

In 1751 Calvert's father Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore died, leaving his illegitimate son the 10,000-acre estate of Anne Arundel Manor in Anne Arundel County. Unfortunately, Lord Baltimore's legitimate son and heir, Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore, successfully challenged the will and invalidated Benedict's bequest, apparently worth £288 per annum.

In 1751 Calvert inherited a 4,000-acre plantation known as Mount Airy, originally a hunting lodge for his great-grandfather Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, near Upper Marlboro in Prince George's County, Maryland, where he grew tobacco. Mount Airy was most likely a gift from his father, Lord Baltimore, who had ensured that Calvert would be provided with lands and revenues. Calvert began construction on the house at Mount Airy in 1751, expanding it considerably, to create the house which still survives today. Building continued in spite of a fire, rumored to be arson, in 1752.

In 1769 his half-sister Caroline Calvert married Robert Eden (the last royal governor and ancestor of Anthony Eden, British Prime Minister) who in the same year succeeded Governor Horatio Sharpe as Governor of Maryland. Eden and Calvert shared a love of horse racing and Benedict Swingate Calvert would soon find himself appointed to the Governor's Council.

By the 1770s Benedict Swingate Calvert controlled a large and profitable estate of around 4,000 acres, with upwards of 150 slaves.

In 1774, Calvert's daughter Eleanor Calvert (1758-1811), married John Parke Custis, son of Martha Washington and the stepson of George Washington. Washington himself did not approve of the match owing to the couple's youth, but eventually gave his consent, and was present at the wedding celebrations, which took place at Mount Airy.

As a member of the Maryland political establishment, Calvert was a Loyalist, and he soon found himself on the losing side of the Revolutionary War, the consequences of which would effectively end his political career. Calvert did not leave Maryland, nor did he involve himself in the fighting, even though many other Maryland Loyalists went on to form a Maryland Loyalists Battalion. On occasion Calvert supplied the Continental Army with food and provisions.

After the war's end, Calvert had to pay triple taxes as did other Loyalists, but he was never forced to sign the loyalty oath and his lands and property remained unconfiscated.

Calvert's Loyalism does not appear to have affected his cordial relations with the leader of the Revolution, George Washington. Most likely this was because of the marriage of Washington's stepson to Calvert's daughter. In 1783, after the war was over, Washington stayed with the Calverts at their Mount Airy plantation, shortly after resigning his commission in Annapolis on December 23. Because Calvert was a known Loyalist, the visit drew much criticism from Washington's political enemies.

Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2019 Archive

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