The Patriotes were a Francophone underground resistance group in Quebec founded by Louis Papineau in the late 1830s. Although there had been separatist sentiment among Francophone Quebecois going back to the Trans-Oceanic War in the late 1790s, Papineau was able to harness popular anger at the economic hardships of the Panic of 1836 to create an insurrectionary movement.
When word reached Papineau that Chief John Miller's Indian army had taken Michigan City, the largest city in the Confederation of Indiana, in July 1839, he decided that the Confederation of North America was at it most vulnerable, and that the time was ripe to strike for Quebec's independence. He assembled an army of 3,000 Quebecois Patriotes, along with 800 from Nova Scotia, at Mont Michel, then marched for Quebec City. However, Governor Henry Scott got word of the approach of Papineau's army, and he was able to prepare the city's defenses. When Papineau attacked on 21 September 1839, his men were met with a withering hail of musket and cannon fire. Papineau was killed, and his army was wiped out in less than an hour. The Francophone leaders dying words were, "Our cause is just and will prevail. But flesh and blood can do little against a wall of lead and iron."
After the failure of the Papineau Revolt, Louis Papineau's son Francois Papineau fled to the United States of Mexico, where he worked to keep the Patriote cause alive, including the publication of a biography of his father. The outbreak of the Rocky Mountain War between the C.N.A. and Mexico in 1845 presented the Patriotes with another opportunity to rise up, this time under the banner of Charles de Frontenac. This uprising failed as well, but the North American government was forced to keep a considerable portion of its army in Quebec to guard against further uprisings, hampering the war against the Mexicans.
The Rocky Mountain War ended in 1855, but Frontenac's war against the C.N.A. did not. Frontenac launched a war of terror against Quebec's Anglophone residents, killing 3,000 between 1855 and his capture in 1864. The Anglophones responded by creating a rival terrorist group called the Anti-Papists which burned Catholic churches and killed Francophones. The near civil war between the two groups prompted some half million residents to emigrate; the Anglophones to Massachusetts, Indiana, and Vandalia, and the Francophones to New Orleans, the U.S.M., and France. Between 1855 and 1870 Quebec's population fell from 5.9 million to 4.8 million.
In the 1870s the power and reach of the Patriotes was strengthened by the appearance of a radical labor union, the United Workers of the World. Under the leadership of Daniel Schwartz, a German immigrant, the U.W.W. denied that the capitalist system could be reformed by peaceful means, and sought a revolution that would overthrow the industialists and leave the factories under the control of the workers. The U.W.W.'s aims meshed well with those of the Patriotes and Francophone industrial workers were strongly attracted to the new union. By 1878, the U.W.W. joined with the Patriotes and has largely disappeared from the rest of the C.N.A.
The growing power of the Patriotes allowed them to elect a member to the Grand Council in the 1888 elections. However, this proved to be the movement's high-water mark. The 1888 elections returned a plurality for the People's Coalition, a recently-founded reformist party, allowing Ezra Gallivan, an Irish Catholic, to become Governor-General of the C.N.A. In his inaugural address, Gallivan admitted that "Quebec has real and long-standing grievances against the national administration," and pledged that "every attempt will be made to secure the full loyalty of every citizen of that important state." Days later, Gallivan traveled to Quebec City, defying death threats from the Patriotes to walk among the people and give an impromptu speech that concluded with the words, "I have heard, and I have understood."
On 1 February 1889, Gallivan gave an address to the Grand Council in which he proposed a plebiscite for Quebec, in which the confederation's people could vote to either remain part of the C.N.A., become an associated state, or become independent. The speech was received in shocked silence by the majority of the council, but the Quebec delegation rose up to cheer Gallivan, and after a moment the rest of the Council gave a round of polite applause. The next day, most North American newspapers supported Gallivan's proposal, and it was ratified by the Grand Council on 9 February.
The Quebec Plebiscite was scheduled to take place on 6 July 1889, and the confederation's population immediately divided among three parties: the largest was the pro-independence Free Quebec Coalition, which included the Patriotes. The smallest was the pro-C.N.A. Loyalty Party, which included wealthy businessmen and monarchist exiles from France. In between was the pro-association Justice and Peace Party, which included middle-class farmers and Quebecois with ties to Nova Scotia.
Supporters of the Free Quebec Coalition destroyed opposition offices and threatened an uprising if the vote did not go for independence. However, the attempt at intimidation backfired. Support for the Free Quebec Coalition fell, and on 6 July a majority of Quebecois voted for associated status: the vote went 54% for associated status, 41% for independence, and 5% for the status quo. The results of the plebiscite were ratified by Quebec's legislature in October 1889, and the confederation devolved to associated status.
Sobel does not follow the history of Quebec after the devolution, so it is unknown whether the Patriotes continued their campaign for full independence, or whether the movement died out as Quebecois accepted their new associated status.
Sobel's sources for the Patriotes include Francois Papineau's My Father: His Cause was Just (Mexico City, 1854); Armond Fleur's We Leave as Friends: The 1889 Plebiscite (New York, 1945); Wayne Carton's Brothers in Oppression: The U.W.W. and the Patriotes (Mexico City, 1950); John Reynald's Background for Rebellion: Quebec, 1800-1838 (New York, 1956); Etienne Bayard's The Decline of Quebec (New York, 1965) and The Sputtering Fuse: The French Question in Quebec in the Nineteenth Century (Quebec City, 1967); and Davis Malone's The History of Quebec (Dorchester, 1967).