1961: Robert McGladdery, the last execution in Northern Ireland 1793: 213 or so Lyonnaise

December 21st, 2011 Headsman

On this date in 1838, Joseph-Narcisse Cardinal and Joseph Duquet were hanged for a rebellion.

As the names suggest, these weren’t rosbifs themselves: they were French, born under crown jurisdiction by grace of their forbears’ thrashing at British hands in the Seven Years’ War.

In 1837, French Lower Canada rose in rebellion — la Guerre des patriotes, to the Quebecois. The British dispatched it.

Cardinal and Duquet were young notaries of radical sympathies who organized a sort of aftershock insurrection (French link) in 1838 at their native Chateauguay. It was instantly suppressed, its authors court-martialed for treason.

Those patriotes spared the pains of the gallows were condemned instead to a different kind of suffering — exile. The folk song “Un Canadien Errant” (“The Wandering Canadian”) eulogizes the land lost to these unfortunates.

“If you see my country,

my unhappy country,

Go, say to my friends

That I remember them.”

A monument pays tribute to all those executed or exiled for the rebellion.

On this day..

Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Canada,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,England,Execution,Hanged,History,Milestones,Occupation and Colonialism,Power,Public Executions,Quebec,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Separatists,Treason

Tags: 1830s, 1838, december 21, joseph duquet, joseph-narcisse cardinal, lower canada rebellion

