For most Canadians, the important thing about this national holiday is that it's a day off work. They don't give much of a hoot what it's called.
In this province, however, the name matters more than in the rest of the country, where it's officially designated Victoria Day (in honour of the late British monarch), but unofficially celebrated as the first day of summer in this cold-weather country. In Quebec it's gone through several permutations, from Victoria Day (or Fête de la Reine, its official French designation), to Fête de Dollard, in honour of the Indian-fighting hero of Long Sault, to the current Journée nationale des Patriotes.
This most recent name was proclaimed in 2002 by the last Parti Québécois government, with an eye to appropriating the occasion as a promotional vehicle for the sovereignty movement. What public observances there are on the holiday calendar are decidedly of separatist bent. Along with the usual march and concerts, there will be the launch of a new collection of texts by young sovereignists entitled J'aurais voté OUI mais j'étais trop petit. (I would have voted YES but I was too young.)
The "Patriote" rebels of the 1837 uprising against British colonial rule in what was then called Lower Canada have been conscripted as brothers in arms by Quebec separatists since the movement's modern inception. But there are some things about the Patriotes of which today's young sovereignists are perhaps unaware, and that they should certainly ponder.
Yes, English-French animosities played a significant role in the rebellion, and there was a separatist faction in the Patriote movement that wanted to establish the colony as an independent republic. But it was ultimately more of a class struggle in support of democratic responsible government than an ethnic conflict. The facile parallel with the 20th-century separatist movement is belied by the fact that the Lower Canada Rebellion was mirrored by a simultaneous and similarly motivated uprising in anglo Ontario, then called Upper Canada.
In both cases it pitted rising middle classes against bourgeois oligarchies that were the local arm of colonial rule. While the Patriotes were mostly French Canadian, anglophones were numerous and prominent in the movement's ranks, far more so than they have been in the latter-day sovereignty movement. The anglo likes of E.B. O'Callahan, Thomas Storrow Brown and the Nelson brothers, Wolfred and Robert, were frontline commanders in the revolt and generally considered by the colonial regime as an even more rabidly subversive element than the francophones.
When, in a final show of defiance before they were decisively routed, some 300 Patriote diehards gathered in Vaudreuil to issue a declaration of independence, the anointed president of the newly proclaimed republic was the eminently anglo Robert Nelson. As well, the group's manifesto specified that both French and English would be the nascent state's official languages, not something today's separatists would countenance if they ever got their way.
The excessive brutality with which British forces stamped out the rebellion understandably left a legacy of anti-English sentiment. The dozen rebels who were publicly hanged in the aftermath are solemnly commemorated by Patriote Day marchers. It might surprise some of them, however, that these were for the most part foot soldiers in the revolt, and that most of the principal instigators were let off the hook and went on to play prominent roles in public life and in the drive for Canadian nationhood.
Rebel leaders Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and George-Étienne Cartier went on to serve as prime ministers of the United Canadas established in the wake of the rebellions, and Cartier, in league with John A. Macdonald, was one of the two principal Fathers of Confederation. Wolfred Nelson was subsequently elected to Parliament and later became Montreal's first mayor elected by popular vote.
Louis-Joseph Papineau, the Patriote movement's charismatic founder and leading voice, who absconded south across the border at the height of the hostilities, freely returned in 1845, resumed his former seigneurial seat and was elected to the United Canadas parliament two years later. He then agitated for union with the U.S., but fortunately for the survival of French in the province - not to mention the very existence of today's sovereignty movement - few took him seriously by that point.
The Patriote uprising was above all a quest for social justice inspired by democratic ideals, and was instrumental in the emergence of the Canada we know today. As such it deserves to be celebrated by all Quebecers - indeed, all Canadians - not just be left to separatists for misuse as a hobby horse.