Louis-Joseph Papineau.
The Papineau Revolt was an uprising against the government of the Confederation of Quebec in September 1839 by the Francophone political activist Louis Papineau.
The revolt took place against the backdrop of the Panic of 1836 and Chief John Miller's uprising in the Confederation of Indiana. Over the course of the Era of Harmonious Relations in the early nineteenth century, Quebec had come under the economic control of the New York City-based banks and brokerage firms of the Northern Confederation. When the Panic brought economic hardship to Quebec in the late 1830s, the people there blamed their hardships on the Northern bankers.
Papineau was a charismatic Quebecois politician who organized an underground resistance group called the Patriotes after the Panic. Papineau also blamed Quebec's misfortunes on the New York bankers, and he called for complete independence from the Confederation of North America. When news reached Quebec of the fall of Michigan City to Miller's army in July 1839, Papineau decided that the time had come to rise up against the C.N.A.
In September 1839 Papineau raised the standard of revolt in the town of Mont Michel. Some 3,000 Francophone Quebecois rallied to his banner, along with an additional 800 Francophone Nova Scotians. Papineau led his rag-tag army to Quebec City, storming the city on 21 September. However, the Governor of Quebec, Henry Scott, had learned of the approach of Papineau's army, and he had carefully prepared the city's defenses. Papineau's army was met with a withering storm of musket and cannon fire, and within an hour the attackers, including Papineau himself, had been wiped out. 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."
Although Papineau himself was dead, the Patriote movement lived on, and under other leaders it became a permanent source of conflict in Quebec.
Sobel's source for the Papineau Revolt is Francois Papineau's My Father: His Cause was Just (Mexico City, 1854).