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American Revolution: Correspondence of British Commanders in the West

British Commanders Papers from the Revolutionary War

The “Haldimand Papers” are documents, mainly military correspondence, preserved by Sir Frederick Haldimand, who served as the Governor of the Province of Quebec from 1778-1784. The collection was maintained in the archives of Canada at Ottawa in 1886 when representatives of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society began visiting the archives to copy documents. The Society published the collection in five volumes of the Society’s publication, Historical Collections. Those volumes of Historical Collections (and many others) have been made available online by Internet Archives.

The papers printed in the Historical Collections – a total of nearly 1,800 pages – consist largely of military correspondence among British commanders at western frontier posts from 1762 to 1799, and between post commanders and the commanding general at Quebec. This includes the entire period of the Revolutionary War. The papers portray not only military life and military issues, but also civil life of the times. Because British commanders in the west relied heavily on Indian allies, the papers contain a great deal of material about treaties and conferences with the Indians, the means employed to obtain alliances, and the influence of Indians on the war.

The Tables of Contents of the five volumes and the Prefaces contain only very brief guides to the Haldimand documents in that volume. Indexes at the back of every volume cover that installment of the Haldimand Papers as well as all other articles within.

Links to the five installments are found at “The Haldimand Papers“, at the “Revolutionary War” section of this page:

Great Lakes War and Military page

Also See…

Revolutionary War in the Northwest: American Commanders’ Correspondence

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