The Rebellions: the Beginning of the End?

The Rebellions: the Beginning of the End? • Intro • The Events of 1837-38 • Durham to Today: Interpreting 1837-8 • Revolution • Reconstruction • The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

Events of 1837-38 • Why did rebellion break out in the Canadas? • Brewing crises in the Canadas • Availability of land • Newcomers vs. longer-settled • Tory office holders vs Reform opposition • “masculine-democratic-republican” opposition

Events of 1837-38 • Differences between UC and LC • LC: Seigneurial tenure -- landlord-tenant tensions • LC: French-Cdn majority • UC: Greater number of British immigrants -- Tory office holders have much wider support • UC: Presence of Moderate Reformers

Events of 1837-38 • Battles in District of Montréal -- British troops win most • Uprisings in Toronto and London -- put down by militia • Border raids • Rebels hanged and transported • State system entirely remade • Union of LC & UC most obvious result -- remaking of how Canadians governed longer and deeper result

Interpretations: Lord Durham • What happened and why? • “a contest between a government and a people”? • Upper Canada: A “petty, corrupt, insolent, Tory clique” • Lower Canada: “two nations warring in the bosom of a single state”

Interpretations: Nationalists: French Canada • F.-X. Garneau -- Histoire du Canada, 1845-48, 3 volumes • Fr-Cdns a distinct people with a history and a culture • Abbé Lionel Groulx • Moral interpretation • Patriotes defenders of the nation, but wrong to be democratic and anti-clerical

Interpretations: Nationalists: English Canada • Donald Creighton • Commercial Empire of the St. Lawrence (1937) • Patriotes represented outmoded agrarianism • Liberal historians -- Arthur Lower • Critical of the colonial oligarchy, sympathetic to moderate reform • Radical reformers illegitimately hijacked a perfectly good, moderate reform mvmt with American-style republicanism • Yet: “The Rebellions were blessings in disguise, the corner stones of Canadian nationhood.” (Lower)

Interpretations: Social Historians • Since 1970s -- Social Historians • Fernande Ouellet • Allan Greer • economic, social, and cultural roots of the conflict

Interpretations: Current • Allan Greer • Ian McKay • Political events • Serious challenges to the legitimacy of colonial state • Ideological • “Republicanism” or “Civic Humanism” versus • “Tories” leading to • “Liberalism”

Republicanism • “All men are created equal” • Declaration of Independence, 1786 • “We the People of the United States … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. • Constitution of the United States (1787) • "The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual can exert authority which does not emanate expressly from it. • Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen(1789)

The Tricolour

Tensions in Upper Canada • What were the reasons for rebellion in Upper Canada? • William Lyon Mackenzie • Election of 1836 • Declaration of the Reformers of the City of Toronto to their Fellow Reformers in Upper Canada, Toronto, August 2, 1837

The Declaration of the Reformers of the City of Toronto “…The time has arrived, after nearly half a century’s forbearance under increasing and aggravated misrule, when the duty we owe our country and posterity requires from use the assertion of our rights and the redress of our wrongs. Government is founded on the authority and is instituted for the benefit of a people; when, therefore, any government long and systematically ceases to answer the great ends of its foundation, the people have a natural right given them by their Creator to seek after and establish such institutions as will yield the greatest quantity of happiness to the greatest number…

The Declaration of the Reformers of the City of Toronto We have now to choose on the one hand between submission to the same blighting policy as has desolated Ireland, and on the other hand, the patriotic achievement of cheap, honest, and responsible government…. The affairs of this country have been ever … subjected in the most injurious manner to the interferences and interdictions of a succession of Colonial Ministers in England who have never visited the country… … the Reformers of Upper Canada are called upon by every tie of feeling, interest, and duty, to make common cause with their fellow citizens of Lower Canada, whose successful coercion would doubtless be in time visited upon us, and the redress of whose grievances would bet the best guarantee for the redress of our own.”

Rebellion • What were the reasons for the outbreak of rebellion in Lower Canada? • British American Land Company • Ninety-Two Resolutions (1834) • Russell’s Resolutions (1837) • boycott • Six Counties Address, Montréal, October 31, 1837

The Six Counties Address “Fellow Citizens… The wise and immortal framers of the American Declaration of Independence, embodied in that document the principles on which alone are based the Rights of Man; and successfully vindicated and established the only institutions and form of government which can permanently secure the prosperity and social happiness of the inhabitants of this Continent, whose education and habits, derived from the circumstances of their colonization, demand a system of government entirely dependent upon, and directly responsible to, the People. government is but a mere human institution … intended for the benefit of all who may consent to come, or remain under, its protection and control; and therefore, … its form may be changed whenever it ceases to acccomplish the ends for which such government was established…”

The Six Counties Address “the People of this Province have for a long series of years complained by respectful petitions, of the intolerable abuses which poison their existence and paralyse their industry. Far from conceding our humble prayers, aggression has followed aggression, until at length we seem no longer to belong to the British Empire for our own happiness or prosperity, or freedom or the honour of the British Crown or people, but solely for the purpose of fattening a horde of useless officials …”

Rebellion in Lower Canada • Fils de la liberté • Doric Club • Battle of St-Denis • Battle of St-Charles • 850 Patriotes arrested - 12 hanged, 85 transported

Rebellion in Upper Canada • Montgomery’s Tavern • 885 people arrested, 2 hanged (1837) • Border raids -- Niagara, Detroit • 156 arrested, 18 hanged, 99 deported (1838)

Results of the Rebellions • What were results and meaning of the Rebellions? • Lord Durham’s Report • self-gov’t • representative gov’t • union of the Canadas • Act of Union,1840 • United Province of Canada • equal representation • English offical language

The Beginning of the End? • Challenged British state structure • Leads to Union Government • British authority & importance of loyalty re-established

Discussion • Ouellett says that the habitants “were not trying to promote a democratic society.” Why did they act, then? What were the leaders of the revolt after? How might Ouellet characterized this conflict? • What sort of society were the Patriotes trying to usher in, according to Greer? • Were the rebellions a challenge to the British Empire, or were they something else?

The Rebellions: the Beginning of the End?