1. Background of Discontent

From Canadian History Portal - HCO

E. Conflict and Change →→ 1. Background of Discontent → 2. Rebellion Events in Lower Canada → 3. Rebellion Events in Upper Canada → 4. Invasion and Aftermath → 5. The Road to Responsible Government →→ A. The Road to Confederation

The War of 1812 brought renewed economic growth to the colonies of British North America. Wheat and timber emerged as the twin staples of this new burgeoning economy. Transportation and communication improved with canal building and the railway boom. Newly arrived immigrants increased an already expanding domestic market. Montreal merchants, in particular, grew wealthy promoting trade with the United States, Britain, and the Northwest.

Upper Canada, 1838

On many occasions, however, the newly emerging economic elite were frustrated when they could not translate their financial power into political influence. In addition, with the changing demographics, all colonies faced a growing list of problems. These included land distribution, public education, allocation of public funds, and behind them all, political and constitutional reform.

The seeds of rebellion came from the Constitutional Act of 1791. Persuaded by the lobbying efforts of the United Empire Loyalists, the British set up two parallel, oligarchic governments for Upper and Lower Canada. The lieutenant governor was a transitory official, often gone within two years of appointment. Being in a new land, it was only natural that he sought the advice of his councils. The real power within the system resided in the two appointed councils, executive and legislative, whose power could not be challenged.

First, the councilors were appointed for life. Second, they had power over the public purse. Third, they held a veto over any legislation that the elected Assembly might propose. The positions within these two Councils rapidly fell to the highest-ranking members of the business, social, or religious class. Thus, a tiny minority of interrelated elites formed an oligarchy that ruled over the largely agrarian majority.

In Upper Canada, this group became known as the Family Compact, because so many were related. [see biographies] In Lower Canada, they were called the Chateau Clique, taking their name from their meeting place in the governor's palace. In both colonies, the two groups exercised monopoly control over economic and political life. Their power was complete; their word was law.

They were also skilled at combining patronage, authority, and their governmental positions to perpetuate their power. Ties of kinship and marriage merely reinforced their dominance. They used public funds to benefit themselves; for example, they preferred to build canals instead of spending the money on road construction or public education that would have benefited far more people. In Upper Canada, the Family Compact used their control of the Clergy Reserves to preserve the power of the Anglican Church, as the dominant Protestant denomination, against the rapidly growing Methodist Church.

Upper Canada Settlement

As problems arose - land distribution, roads, public education, the Clergy and Crown Reserves - there were continuous conflicts between the appointed Councils and the elected Assemblies. This animosity was strongest in the case of Lower Canada, and aggravated by language, where a small English-speaking oligarchy ruled over the elected members of the Assembly, who were mainly French-speaking Reformers.

Reformers in both Upper and Lower Canada challenged the ruling authorities, voiced public discontent, and demanded political and constitutional reform so that more equitable legislation could be passed. While reformers were repeatedly elected into the Assembly, where they often held a majority, their efforts to reform was paralyzed by the uncompromising hostility and veto power of the Councils. Better roads, schools, and a fairer land distribution system remained impossible without meaningful political reform.

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Land Reform in Upper Canada

Land was the foundation of wealth and power of this rural, agrarian society. And in Upper Canada, it was the Canada Land Company that held sway. Run by members of the Family Compact, it was a major obstacle to growth. So too was the system of Reserves. One-seventh of all the land was held as Crown Reserves to provide government funding. A further one-seventh was kept out of general distribution as Clergy Reserves or "glebes for the maintenance of the Anglican Church. That meant that almost one-third of land was held out of general use. The result was scarcity and speculation, which in turn meant higher prices for land.

Peel Country Clergy & Military Reserves

The Reserve system was also a major hindrance to thousands of farmers. They had laboured long and hard to clear their own land and to build make-shift roads, only to find that they bordered Reserve land that blocked from getting to and from market.

The problem of land distribution was pointed out as early as 1817. Robert Gourlay, a Scottish-born land agent, attempted to obtain land grants to settle dozens of Scottish families. The Upper Canada Executive Council would have none of it and refused his repeated requests. In response, Gourlay circulated a questionnaire and hosted a number of meetings to investigate the land distribution system in the colony.

The public sided with Gourlay and repeatedly - and loudly - voiced its displeasure. The Executive Council was not going to put up with him. They had him arrested for libel on two occasions. But to their chagrin, he was acquitted both times. The Council, however, had the final word by banishing Gourlay, in 1819, on grounds of sedition. Gourlay might be gone, but the issue definitely was not.

Gourlay became a lightning rod for public protest and outrage over the way in which the Canada Land Company and the Family Compact controlled land in Upper Canada. At precisely the same time that the population was rising sharply with the influx of newcomers, land distribution was becoming more restrictive.

Rev. John Strachan

A particularly annoying issue was the Clergy Reserves. One-seventh of all the land was set aside for the maintenance of the Anglican clergy and church property. That amounted to some three million acres, much of it undeveloped. The Anglicans certainly were not the only Protestant denomination within the colony. However, through a combination of British connection and more significantly, the work of Family Compact member, Archdeacon John Strachan of York, it managed to get itself anointed as the established church of Upper Canada. It was the only church that could officially perform marriages and burials. The Anglican Church also controlled education. This clearly violated the North American ideal of separation of church and state. Little, however, could be done about it.

The public dissatisfaction with the privileged position of the Anglican Church strengthened the reform movement. The Methodists, the fastest growing Protestant denomination within the colony, added their voices to the demand for change. Reformers began demanding that the Clergy Reserves be sold off and the money spent on funding public education. As they did, new followers, most notably a young Methodist circuit rider, Egerton Ryerson, joined their ranks.

Robert Baldwin

While political reform and land distribution were crucial causes of discontent, they were not the only ones. The spending of public monies was a constant source of irritation. The oligarchies were content to continue spending public funds on projects that served to benefit themselves. Great sums were allocated on canal construction that brought profits to the mercantile elite of the colonies. At the same time, the Reformers, representing the bulk of the population, wanted money spent in other areas. Road improvement was vital for everybody. So too was spending on public education. The Councils, however, consistently vetoed those kinds of initiatives.

For many years, these conflicts - the oligarchic system, the Crown and Clergy Reserves, the land distribution system, the privileged position of the Anglican Church, and the spending of public monies - all served to make for a volatile political system.

The Reform movement in Upper Canada began to gather steam under the leadership of Toronto lawyer Robert Baldwin. Frustration mounted as the Reformers won majorities in both the 1824 and 1828 elections but achieved no significant political or economic changes.

The latter election first brought into prominence William Lyon Mackenzie, the fiery Scottish-born publisher of "The Colonial Advocate. His biting editorials lambasted the privileged position of the Family Compact and earned Mackenzie their bitter enmity. Mackenzie emerged as a hero and the leader of the radical reform movement when a Tory mob threw his printing presses into Toronto harbour. Not only did Mackenzie receive financial compensation from the courts but also more importantly, he acquired a reputation as a champion of the underdog, an opponent of privilege, and a man of the people.

William Lyon Mackenzie

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Mackenzie's Battles

Despite repeated attempts, the Reformers in both provinces made scant headway during the early 1830s. Mackenzie's calls to secularize the Clergy Reserves, and put in place a responsible executive council and an elected legislative council, brought charges he was both a traitor and an American sympathizer. Governor Sir John Colborne rallied loyal Tory supporters and managed to convince the Assembly to grant him a permanent civil list in exchange for full control over government revenues. The list allowed the Governor to pay the salaries of government officials without having to call the Assembly into session and thereby avoided their protests. Mackenzie was livid and his pronouncements became even more strident.

Governor Colborne

The campaign for the 1834 election in Upper Canada witnessed a split in reform ranks. Mackenzie's radicalism gained him some support, however, it also lost him some crucial moderates. Baldwin, while supporting many of the same policies and programs as Mackenzie, was offended by both Mackenzie's tactics and his rhetoric. The Reverend Egerton Ryerson joined Baldwin and other moderate reformers and broke with Mackenzie. Raucous words flew back and forth. While Ryerson accused the radicals of being godless republicans, Mackenzie responded by charging Ryerson and his Methodist flock with having sold out to the Family Compact.

Election Violence in Upper Canada

As an indication of just how strong the opposition to the entrenched oligarchy was, even with these internal divisions, the Reformers still managed to win the 1834 election - with a majority. Mackenzie had now won a seat in the Assembly four times but had been barred by the Tories from sitting. In 1834, he tired of what he saw as silly games, and ran for election as the first mayor of the newly renamed city of Toronto.

Egerton Ryerson

Growing frustration between the councils and assembly reached a fever pitch as the councils resorted to delay and obstruction. The Reformers, led by Mackenzie, drew up a report of their grievances. But this was not some mild criticism. Rather, his Seventh Report on Grievances was a massive 500-page scathing indictment of every complaint, great or small, that the people had against the government. It was the equivalent to Papineau's Ninety-Two Resolutions of a year earlier - and it had equally explosive results.

The Report finalized the split between Baldwin and Mackenzie. While Baldwin and his moderate group favoured reforms based on the British cabinet system, Mackenzie and the radicals embraced American-style mass democracy in which the people would elect both the assembly and the councils.

Francis Bond Head

The die was cast when the British appointed a blustery and stubborn colonial bureaucrat, Sir Francis Bond Head, as Lieutenant Governor. Both he and Mackenzie saw in each other the very embodiment of evil. Given their equally obstinate and aggressive personalities, it was merely a question of time before hostilities broke out.

After Bond Head's first attempt to appease the Reformers by appointing Baldwin and two other moderate reformers to the six-man council, the brief honeymoon quickly gave way to a painful reality. The myopic Bond Head, believing he could govern just fine without either the executive council or the assembly, made several pronouncements of his own. That only angered both sides.

The council resigned and the assembly passed a motion of non-confidence and refused to grant funds. Bond Head would not be outdone. He dismissed the assembly and called a snap election. In an ugly campaign that included widespread intimidation and cheating, Bond Head and the Tories won a massive victory.

That victory was gained in part by Bond Head's active campaigning, as well as his tactic of granting land to known supporters ("quick enfranchisement"), since only property owners could vote. These tactics radicalized Mackenzie and his followers even further. "The Colonial Advocate was replaced with "The Constitution - an even more vociferous newspaper. The radical Reformers, frustrated in their attempts to bring about change through democratic channels now adopted another course of action – armed rebellion.

Lower Canada, 1838

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Rise of the Parti patriote 1830-36

Louis-Joseph Papineau, the seigneur of Montebello, and owner of 180,000 acres west of Montreal, was first elected in the Lower Canada election of 1808. A charismatic and powerful orator, Papineau's power grew rapidly, and in 1815, he was elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. He kept this position until the outbreak of armed rebellion in 1837.

Louis-Joseph Papineau

Papineau rose to lead Lower Canada during the so-called "Reign of Terror" of Governor James Craig in the decade of the 1810s. There was a growing movement, backed by Jonathan Sewell and the English merchants with the support of Craig, for a reunion of both Canadas. This would lead to eventual assimilation for the French.

In 1822, a proposal for the union of Upper and Lower Canada was presented to the Assembly, but it got nowhere, losing by 31 votes to 3. Papineau's Parti canadien mobilized the people against the project, and gathered a petition of 60 000 signatures against the Union project. On January 17, 1823 Papineau and a group that included Anglo reformers Robert Nelson and John Neilson boarded a ship for England to present the petition and to argue for the rights of the people of Lower Canada as British subjects.

John Neilson

On May 10, in London, England, Papineau and the group of Canadians presented the petition to officials of the British government and Colonial Office.

The Canadians in London

The British listened, and Union was put on the back burner, but in 1825, Parliament passed the Canada Trades and Tenures Act, abolishing feudal and seigniorial rights in British North America. This left the property rights of seigneurs like Papineau in limbo, and caused a great deal of confusion in Lower Canada, where the French civil code was used.

Governor Dalhousie, in Silhouette

On September 16, a new Governor, George Ramsay, Lord Dalhousie, arrived at Quebec. The battles continued between the British Governor and the majority in the Lower Canada Assembly. The majority party, disgusted with the continuation of policies made overseas without their consent, renamed their Parti Canadien to the Parti patriote.

The Patriotes founded two new newspapers. In 1826, Ludger Duvernay started the journal La Minerve, as the Parti patriote voice in Montreal. Two years later, Daniel Tracey founded The Vindicator. Originally meant to defend the rights of Irish immigrants, it became the English language voice of the Patriotes.

Ludger Duvernay

In July of 1830, news of the Liberal revolution in France electrified the youth of Lower Canada. But there was no liberalism in Canada - the Parti patriot and the Governor tried to reach a compromise on subsidies and failed.

On January 31, 1831, Dalhousie ordered the arrest of Duvernay and Tracey, for making statements against the government. Tracey spent another 35 days in prison in January 1832 for writing an editorial attacking the bureaucrats of the colonial government.

The decade of the 1830s saw the population of Lower Canada increasingly restive and frustrated. Immigration was a major concern. In 1832, 50,000 people arrived in the Canadas by ship, but many were Irish fleeing poverty, and the ships were disease ridden. An Asian cholera epidemic brought by immigrant ships from Ireland killed 6000 people in Lower Canada that year.

Cholera Epidemic in Quebec, by Joseph Légaré; detail of firepots used in a mistaken attempt to stop the disease

The economy sputtered when the US passed protective tariffs that hurt Canadian trade. This act caused great distress and commercial depression from this date to the end of the decade.

The reformers won the election that year, but not without bloodshed. On May 21, 1832, British troops opened fire on a crowd of voters in Montreal West, killing three Patriotes. Papineau's rhetoric grew ever more revolutionary, and moderate liberals like John Neilson and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine broke with the Parti patriote.

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The Ninety-Two Resolutions

On February 17, 1834, Louis-Joseph Papineau and Augustin-Norbert Morin presented the Ninety-Two Resolutions to the Lower Canada Assembly; the document included all the Patriote demands, including responsible government and control of the executive branch; it was adopted by a vote of 56 to 32.

On June 24, in Montreal, Ludger Duvernay hosted the founding banquet of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society. The maple leaf was chosen as the emblem of the association, because farmers knew that the maple tree grew where the best soil was to be found. The motto of the Society was 'Nos institutions, notre langue nos droits' [Our own institutions, language and laws]. At the close of the evening, the gathering rose to sing a patriotic song, O Canada, mon pays, mes amours, [O Canada, my beloved nation], composed for the occasion by a 20 year old lawyer and Secretary of the Society, George-Etienne Cartier.

Cartier at St-Jean Baptiste Banquet

In October of that year, Papineau's Parti patriote and supporters of the Ninety-Two Resolutions swept the elections in Lower Canada, winning 77 of the 88 seats in the Assembly, and 75% of the registered vote: 483,739 votes, against 28,278 for the Constitutional Party – remember only land owners could vote.

The Lower Canada Assembly met on February 17, 1835, but only one law was passed during the month long session - most of the time was spent on fruitless constitutional debate.

In May of 1835, British Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg appointed a Royal Commission to examine the problems in Lower Canada, and he chose Archibald Acheson, Lord Gosford to serve as Governor-in-Chief of Lower Canada, and to report on the situation there. Gosford arrived at Quebec on August 23 with two assistants, Sir Charles Grey and Whig MP Sir George Gipps.

Governor Gosford

Gosford's "full platform of conciliation towards French-Canadian reformers showed that the Crown was prepared to make some reforms to satisfy the Assembly. The report recommended: that the assembly have control over expenditures in exchange for a civil list (this would ensure the salaries and pensions of government officials); that judges be kept independent; and, that the government set up an independent manager of Crown lands.

Gosford appeared conciliatory to the Parti patriote, but he soon fell into the clutches of the English merchants. A leak of his secret instructions - that giving responsible government was not in his mandate - suggested other motives beyond conciliation. His real purpose was to deal with the growing threat of violence on both sides, and potential civil war.

On January 15, 1836, Gosford banned private armies or paramilitary groups on both sides, including the British Rifle Corps, recently formed by 300 young men opposed to the Reformers. The Corps reluctantly dissolved after a demonstration of 1,000 people in Montreal. In reality, they just went underground. On December 12, a group of 425 Quebec Tories founded the anti-reform Constitutional Association.

The 3rd session of the 15th Parliament of Lower Canada sat at Quebec on September 22, 1836, but met only until October 4. The members adjourned after only 13 days of sitting to protest a lack of land reform and no movement toward meeting their demand for an elected Legislative Council. The Assembly refused to approve any money bills, which ground all public works to a halt and the government to a standstill. The province was in open rebellion in all but name.

A bad harvest that Fall caused rural unrest throughout the Canadas, and crop failures in parts of Lower Canada left many farmers near starvation. This combined with the international economic downturn of the 1830s, an increase in immigration from the British Isles, and the outbreak of cholera, brought by immigrants, all contributed to ethnic and social divisions in the province. It was only a matter of time before the frustrations and suffering of the people of Lower Canada exploded into violence.