History Browser

The chart for the final naval battles of the War of 1812 is the first document on this page. In the second half of the document a concise biography of Richard Pierpoint, one of the first black settlers in the Niagara Region, is given.

The resumption of hostilities saw French privateers from Port-Royal attacking ships from New England. The British colonies made two unsuccessful attempts to take the French port before a final expedition supported by British troops and the Royal Navy succeeded in 1710.

Fort Prince of Wales quickly fell to the French in 1782. Built there by the British Hudson's Bay Company after French general d'Iberville's raids in the late seventeenth century, the fort was a very strong stone structure, built in the European fashion. It was, however, very lightly garrisoned.

The British siege of Quebec began in the summer of 1759 with General Wolfe's army establishing a camp on the Île d'Orléans south of Quebec. Then it began trying to force its way onto the north shore of the St. Lawrence. An attack near Montmorency Falls on July 31, 1759 failed.

A small garrison of Troupes de la Marine arrived in Newfoundland in 1687, where fortifications were gradually established. The garrison suffered from desertion, and was attacked by pirates, English privateers and the English Royal Navy.

During the early phase of the war, the Pacific coast was defended by three divisions, later reduced to the 6th Division in order to provide conscripts for Europe. Elements of the division participated in the liberation of the Aleutian islands of Kiska and Attu in 1943.

Earlier reports dealt with the preliminaries of the DIEPPE operation of August 19, 1942, and with the execution of the operation; this report deals with the results of the raid. It discusses what was learned from a tactical standpoint and looks back on military movements that could have been performed differently during the raid.

As the summer of 1813 progressed, the British regained control of Lake Ontario, and their fleet covered a landing at Sacket Harbour, the main American shipyard on the Lake. The British were beaten back with heavy losses by the defenders, led by General Jacob Brown.

In June 1942, some 8,500 Japanese personnel, supported by naval forces, occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska, American parts of Alaska at the western end of the Aleutian island chain. Their aim, which was successful, was to distract the Allies and cause them to take resources away from more significant areas in the central Pacific. When the landings finally went ashore, the troops found that the Japanese soldiers had slipped away. Newspaper articles of the day discussed the battles of the far north.

American efforts to build a navy on Lake Ontario gave them control of the lake in the spring of 1813. They launched a successful raid on the capital of Upper Canada, York (present-day Toronto) in April 1813. The defenders were defeated, and the town partially looted and burned.