The US might have a bigger military, but Canada has always had a secret weapon.
I recently heard Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy say that Canada doesn’t have a military. And JD Vance said that Canada relies on America for protection. When I think of those two, and Donald Trump, I compare them to American Brigadier General William Hull during the War of 1812.
Hull had over 2,000 men inside Fort Detroit, but he was terrified of Indigenous warriors. British Major General Isaac Brock intercepted a letter from Hull that showed what a chicken s**t he was. Brock only had about 700 British regulars and militia. To make his force look massive, he dressed his local Canadian militia units in spare red coats belonging to the regular British army, tricking Hull into thinking he faced an elite, overwhelming British force.
And Brock teamed up with Tecumseh, who was an Indigenous Shawnee chief. Tecumseh had about 600 warriors. He marched his men in a loop, with the warriors in a single file, through a clearing in plain view of the fort. Then he had them disappear into the woods. Then he looped them back around to march past the fort again. This made it look like thousands of warriors were surrounding the fort.
Brock sent a letter to Hull demanding surrender. He explicitly stated that once the fighting began, the large force of Indigenous warriors would be completely beyond his control, hinting at an inevitable massacre.
General Hull completely panicked and s**t his pants. He surrendered Fort Detroit, his entire army, 30 cannons, and 2,500 muskets without putting up a fight. Tecumseh was widely admired in his lifetime, even by Americans who had fought against him.
His primary American foe, William Henry Harrison, described Tecumseh as “one of those uncommon geniuses, which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions and overturn the established order of things.”
After his death, he became a folk hero in American, Indigenous, and Canadian history.
So, JD Vance, Sean Duffy and Donald Trump should learn a little history. We don’t care how big your military is. If your military leaders thought 600 Indigenous warriors was terrifying in 1812, they should know that we have almost 2 million Indigenous people living in Canada today.
