Placing the Blame: The Villain in the War of 1812 Storytelling in New York and Ontario, 1815–1915

            The War of 1812 was a war of uncertain outcomes and unsatisfying stories. There was no clear victor, and despite the variety of creative conclusions reached by historians, political activists, and other storytellers in the border regions of New York and Ontario, debates over the major questions of the war continued to rage long after the war had passed from living memory. These debates played out in the pages of history books and novels, creative fiction and serious scholarship, and although their authors may have had wildly different opinions about the causes, outcomes, and events of the war, all their stories shared a common element. They wrote their histories as adventures and dramas, and among the heroes and heroines that shone as proud reminders of a glorious past lurked a far less praiseworthy figure: the historical villain.

            The villain, whether blatantly fictional or based in part or fully on reality, served a number of purposes in War of 1812 storytelling throughout the long nineteenth century. He (or more rarely, she) served as a personification of the causes of war, shifting blame from broader international forces to a more readily vilified soldier, general, pirate, or president. He allowed men and women in the immediate aftermath of the war to seek recourse from actual individuals to repay losses. And as the war began to fade from living memory, he became the embodiment of all that was wrong in the world, a cautionary tale for children and adults alike. To be like the villain, these tales warned, was to be un-American or un-Canadian. In this way, War of 1812 chroniclers demonstrated the perversion of the heroic, patriotic ideal, and provided an answer to the perpetual question: who was to blame for a war that, by many accounts, went completely wrong?