O'CALLAGHAN, Edmund Bailey. - Politician and historian, b. 28 Feb 1797 at Mallow (county of Cork, Ireland), d. 29 May 1880 at New York. He emigrated in 1823 to Canada, to Québec, where he completed his medical studies, then went to Montréal. He soon began to take part in Canadian political life and there organized the Society of Friends of Ireland, holding meetings and writing political articles.
It was at this time that the French-speaking part of the population, fearing excessive predominance of the English element, and thanks to the growing national consciousness fostered also by the European events of 1830-31, could ill tolerate being governed by an administration almost exclusively English and demanded a more direct participation in the government of public affairs with the right to control those in power. At the head of this movement was the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, Papineau, and among his followers, the so-called patriots, was also O'C. They demanded the establishment of a legislative assembly, on the model of that set up in France following the Revolution, and a federal system similar to that of the United States. Their attitude, however, was not without a certain anticlerical spirit, which alienated from them the sympathies of some Catholics. O'C. soon became, together with Papineau, one of the representative figures of this movement. In 1834, as editor of the *Vindicator*, the patriots' newspaper, he was elected the following year as a deputy to the Assembly of Lower Canada. The clear refusal of the authorities to grant any reforms brought the crisis to a head. In November 1837, O'C.'s and Papineau's departure from Montréal was interpreted as a prelude to an insurrection, and warrants for their arrest were issued against them and other patriots. To escape the authorities, some patriots took up arms; there were skirmishes without result; O'C. and Papineau, who had in vain opposed recourse to arms, had to seek asylum in the United States, where O'C. remained even after the amnesty was granted. He settled in Albany, in the State of New York, as a physician and journalist. He also began notable activity in the field of historical studies and published several works: among them a history of New York under the Dutch (*History of New Netherland, or New York under the Dutch*, New York 1846). His *Documentary History of the State of New York*, in 4 vols., published from 1849 to 1851, constitutes the first true history of the State, which prompted the government to collect the relevant documents lying in archives, even abroad. O'C. was entrusted with the translation of the French and Dutch records, as well as with the general supervision of the publication, which resulted in the eleven volumes of *Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York* (Albany 1856-61). A practicing Catholic, O'C. was in New York a member of the local Catholic Union.