Riots in New Brunswick: Orange Nativism and Social Violence in the 1840s

Raymond B. Blake is an assistant professor of history at Mount Allison
University in New Brunswick.

Despite much evidence to the contrary, the myth of Canada as a peaceable
kingdom persists. This book on violence in New Brunswick in the 1840s
should finally lay the myth to rest as Scott W. See demonstrates that
Catholics and Protestants waged battles with a fervor that matches
anything in the supposedly more violent United States. He focuses on the
violence between crowds of Irish Catholics and Orangemen in three
different New Brunswick communities: Woodstock, Fredericton, and Saint
John.

The strength of this book lies in See’s explanation for the violence.
The 1840s, he argues, were a decade of “profound transition.” The
colony moved from a pre-industrial economy to industrial capitalism just
as the staple-based timber economy started to decline and people became
concerned about jobs. Moreover, the decade saw a dramatic increase in
Irish-Catholic immigration, one that “evoked responses of fear and
prejudice among Protestant New Brunswickers.” The Orange Order became
a vigilante force intent on protecting its society from the perceived
Catholic threat, and on keeping its communities Protestant and loyal to
the Crown. Protestants from the middle and upper classes supported the
Orangemen as a means of exerting control over the largely working-class
Catholics and thus solidifying their dominant position in the society.

By the end of the decade, the Orangemen had established hegemony in the
three communities that had experienced social violence. The Irish
Catholics, See writes, “grudgingly accepted their adversary’s show
of strength.” Given the severity of the clashes between the two
groups, one would not have expected the Catholics to acquiesce so
quickly and easily; perhaps more explanation was needed here.
Regardless, this book is essential reading for those interested in the
social history of pre-Confederation Canada.