The Rebellions: the
Beginning of the End?
I.
II.
III.
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VI.
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
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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 -- landlordtenant 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
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Since 1970s -- Social Historians
Fernande Ouellet
Allan Greer
economic, social, and cultural roots
of the conflict
Interpretations: Current
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»
»
»
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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self-gov’t
representative gov’t
union of the Canadas
Act of Union,1840
United Province of Canada
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equal representation
English offical language
The Beginning of the End?
» Challenged British
state structure
» Leads to Union
Government
» British authority &
importance of
loyalty reestablished
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?