Northern Exposure: Resistance to Naval Impressment in British North America, 1775–1815

Abstract

Abstract: Focusing on resistance, this article examines naval impressment in British North America from 1775 to 1815. Although neglected in Canadian historiography, press gangs sparked urban unrest and political turmoil in seaports such as Halifax, St John's, and Quebec City. Impressment reached into most coastal areas of British North America by the early nineteenth century and its sailors and inhabitants employed a range of strategies to resist it. They also confronted it directly, sometimes with violent results. Press gang riots in St John's in 1794 and Halifax in 1805 led to a prohibition on impressment on shore for much of the Napoleonic Wars. Popular protest served as the catalyst for official resistance to the British Navy and had a lasting impact on civil–naval relations in the North Atlantic world. While the study of popular disturbances in Canadian history usually begins in the mid-nineteenth century, this paper shows that they were important in earlier generations as well. This was often the re...