John Richardson (author)

John Richardson
Major John Richardson by Frederick William Lock
Born	4 October, 1796 Queenston
Died	12 May, 1852 New York City
Nationality	United Kingdom

John Richardson (4 October 1796 – 12 May 1852) was a Canadian officer in the British Army who became the first Canadian-born novelist to achieve international recognition.

Life[]

Richardson was born at Queenston, Ontario on the Niagara River in 1796. His mother Madelaine was the daughter of the fur trader John Askin and an Ottawa woman. His father, Dr. Robert Richardson, was a surgeon with the Queen's Rangers. As a young boy, Richardson lived for a time with his grandparents in Detroit and later with his parents at Fort Malden, Amherstburg. His time at Fort Malden would later impact his literature and his life.

At age 16, Richardson enlisted in the British 41st Regiment of Foot. During his service with this regiment. he met Chief Tecumseh and Major General Isaac Brock, whom he later wrote about in his novel The Canadian Brothers. While stationed at Fort Malden during the War of 1812, Richardson witnessed the execution of an American prisoner by Tecumseh's forces at the River Raisin, a traumatic experience which haunted him for the rest of his life. During the War of 1812, Richardson was imprisoned for a year in the United States after his capture during the battle of Moraviantown.

Richardson was commissioned into the 8th Foot in 1813, exchanged into the 2nd Foot in 1816 and transferred to the 92nd Foot in 1818. His later military service took him to England and, for two years, to the West Indies. While in the West Indies, Richardson was appalled by the treatment of slaves there.

Richardson stated that his mixed racial background made him uneasy with his fellow officers in the West Indies. This is surprising given the stereotypical and racist treatment of First Nations people in his novels. Although Richardson's most savage characters, Wacousta in the novel Wacousta (1832) and Desborough in The Canadian Brothers (1840), are in fact white men who have turned "savage," his depiction of other Indigenous characters typically affirms a European settler perspective that envisions Indigenous people as pre-modern, irrational, and innately warlike.

Richardson began his fiction-writing career with novels about the British and French societies of his time. In his third and most successful novel, Wacousta, he turned to the North American frontier for his setting and history. He followed the same practice in the sequel, The Canadian Brothers.

In 1838, Richardson returned to Canada from England, promoted to the rank of major. He tried to earn his livelihood by writing fiction and by setting up a series of weekly newspapers. He was appointed superintendent of the police on the Welland Canal in 1845, but was fired the next year. In 1849 Richardson moved to New York City, where he continued to write fiction. However, his attempts to build a literary career in the US failed.

John Richardson died (supposedly of starvation) in New York City in 1852. He was buried in the paupers' cemetery in New York; his grave site is unknown.

Further reading[]

• Michael Hurley: The Ward of 1812: Major John Richardson. Child Soldier, War Historian, and the Father of Canadian Literature. International Journal of Canadian Studies IJCS - Revue internationale d'études canadiennes, 53, 9, Spring 2016, University of Toronto Press doi:10.3138/ijcs.53.9 (abstract & references online)

External links[]

• "John Richardson". Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016.
• Works by John Richardson at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Richardson at Internet Archive
• John Richardson's entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia