Michigan Fought an 1838 War Against Canada No One Remembers Today

Ask any student who has taken Michigan History or is a member of a Michigan-themed group on Facebook, and they will likely be able to tell you all about the Toledo War, the conflict between Michigan and Ohio over the strip of land where Toledo is today. The conflict held up Michigan's admission to the Union and granted the state the Upper Peninsula. There's a much less known war Michigan fought at statehood and that was with Canada - a war little remembered today called the Patriot War.

Michigan History Magazine touched on the Patriot War in its November/December 2024 issue with an article about the Detroit Light Guard.

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The conflict was a 10 month rebellion by a group of both Canadians and American sympathizers who were looking to gain Canada's freedom from Great Britian, not unlike what American colonists had done a half-century earlier. What makes the Patriot War ironic is that the United States allied with Great Britian to put down the rebellion - the same government we overthrew in the 1770s to gain independence.

The Detroit Light Guard, analogous today to a state's National Guards served the American cause during the Patriot War as Detroit - being on the border with Canada - was one of the main theatres of war.

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In January 1838, rebels raided the Detroit jail and took 450 guns and an additional 200 from a US Marshall's office in Detroit. The weapons were used in what was called the Battle of Windsor which largely took place on the islands of the Detroit River. Rebels decamped on Boblo Island and it was the Detroit Light Guard, under the direction of then-governor Stevens T. Mason, that took the lead in putting down the rebellions with action on Boblo, Fighting Island and Hickory Island.

Other theatres of war took place on Lake Erie around Pelee Island (Canada's southernmost point) and around Niagara Falls.

The Patriot War ended at Detroit were a final Battle of Windsor was quashed by the US army and state militia. By December of 1838, just shy of a year when the rebellion started,

the expected reinforcements arrived at Detroit, but the U.S. government prevented a second attack. At a large public meeting, the Patriot volunteers passed resolutions rebuking the US government for taking arms against its own people. The volunteer army dispersed, ending the Patriot War.

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What it is lost to history not to all but the most ardent students of Michigan history, the state did indeed take up arms against Canadians - and fellow Americans - in the 1838 Patriots War.