Fleeing for Canada is a proud American tradition
Thousands realized America wasn’t for them from the get-go
By Asher Kohn
Getting the hell out of America is the hottest new election-season trend. Spurred by Donald Trump’s Super Tuesday sweep, the Google search for “how to move to Canada” skyrocketed by about 1,150%.
These Americans are thinking life among their northern neighbors — with socialized medicine, butter tarts, and Justin Trudeau — wouldn’t be so bad. What they may not know is that fleeing to Canada is an American tradition. When the United States was founded, about 100,000 people took one look at the flag, glanced at George Washington, then packed up their things. Half of them went north and the rest went elsewhere in the British Empire .
“Loyalists,” as they are known to history, had varied reasons for skipping town. Many had fought for the British crown and didn’t expect Alexander Hamilton’s crew to be kind to traitors. Thousands of African American slaves held the British to a promise that they’d be freed if they took up arms. Out of the 50,000 Loyalists were 3,500 former slaves who were granted freedom on Canadian soil.
And while 50,000 may not seem like a lot of people, keep in mind that the largest city in the newly-formed United States was Philadelphia — with a population of only 43,000. Canada welcomed the Loyalists and gifted land to them. They used it to found cities with names like Kingston.
Joseph Brant was perhaps the best known Loyalist. A Mohawk Indian from near Cleveland, he fought alongside George Washington’s troops in 1763 before taking the British side in the Revolutionary War in a bid to keep Europeans from encroaching on Indian land. He was unsuccessful. But Brant helped craft Canadian policy towards Indians, which was a bit more honest than that of Canada’s newly-independent counterparts.
America’s Loyalist exodus was the one great out-migration that started it all. There have been others: the Underground Railroad saved as many as 40,000 Southern slaves by sneaking them into Canada, many through kinship and church networks that began way back in the 18th century. During the Vietnam War, draft dodgers also went north, but in much smaller numbers than the Revolutionary War migrants. And half of them returned stateside after a President Jimmy Carter pardon. 18th-century Loyalists stayed to help build a newer, calmer, colder country.
Before the United States had its Bill of Rights, its Constitution or even a president, the country experienced its greatest exodus to Canada. Decide for yourself if all those things are worth it in exchange for even one Trump.
