D. The Colony of Upper Canada

From HCO Jr

Part 4. British North America 1760-1830 → A. American Revolution → B. Coming of the Loyalists → C. Colony of Lower Canada → D. Colony of Upper Canada → E. War of 1812

Loyalist Camp at Adolphustown, June 6, 1784

Upper Canada was a pioneer society. After the loyalists arrived other people began to immigrate to the new colony. Many of these immigrants came from the United States. They are often called the Late Loyalists. They did not come to Upper Canada because they preferred living under British rule. Late loyalists came to Upper Canada because the government offered new settlers free land and help.

At first there were very few settlements in Upper Canada. Usually the settlements started around military forts. There was one at Fort Niagara. Another one started around Fort Frontenac (now called Kingston). Another small settlement started at the mouth of the Humber River. This was the town of York. Today it is Toronto. The Humber River was an important travel route. Fur traders used it to travel north to Lake Simcoe and Lake Huron. Eventually York became the new capital of Upper Canada.

Settlement soon began to spread along the shores of Lake Ontario. Settlers went as far east as present day Cornwall and Kingston. Then some began to move west. People settled near the Grand River close to the Six Nations of the Iroquois. By 1812 there were small settlements in the southwestern part of the province. Settlement also spread when the government of Upper Canada began to build and improve roads.

Making Potash for Soap & Fertilizer

The Loyalists worked from dawn to dusk to clear the land of rocks and trees. They only had axes and saws to clear the land. The trees they cut down were used to build the first homesteads (small one room log cabins), and to make simple furniture. Trees were also burned, and the ashes were collected by the settlers to make home made soap.

Tree stumps were a real problem for settlers. Small tree stumps could be pulled out with oxen or horses. However, large tree stumps could not be pulled out. Farmers left large stumps in the ground for five or ten years. They would cut the stumps with axes and saws to make them soft. When the wood was rotten enough they could pull the stump out, or use axes to smash it into bits. Rocks were also a problem to remove. Farmers gathered them in large piles and then used them to build fences around their property, or build fireplaces in their homes.

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Daily Life in Upper Canada

Spinning Wool

Daily life in Upper Canada was very hard at the beginning. There was not a great deal of food for the settlers to eat. Farms were very small. Early settlers relied on hunting and fishing to get enough food to eat. First Nations people helped settlers learn how to hunt and fish effectively. They also taught them how and when to gather berries and nuts during certain seasons of the year. Most farmers grew wheat, but they also grew the three important First Nations' crops: corn, beans and squash. First Nations hunters also traded wild meat with settlers: deer, moose, bear, geese and duck.

Families kept livestock. They were important not only as a source of food, but for other things as well. Sheep were easy to care for. Sheep could be sheared, and the wool cleaned and spun into thread. Clothing, however, was always a problem. First Nations women taught the colonists how to make deer skin clothing and how to turn furs into warm winter clothes. Pigs, cows and chickens were other important livestock animals.

First Settler's Home

As noted earlier, the first homes that settlers built were very simple. When a family arrived at their lot they had no shelter at all. Usually they spread a tarp, or built a simple lean to, to live in for the first few weeks. The family quickly built a simply log cabin, sometimes referred to as a shanty, to be their first home. Logs were arranged in a square, and notched on the ends so they would fit together. A door was cut into one wall.

There were no glass windows. Usually a piece of wood covered the window openings (if there were any windows at all). Logs were arranged over the roof, and moss or tree branches were put on top to insulate the ceiling. The space between the logs in the wall were filled in with mud and moss in a process called chinking. People had dirt floors, or spruce boughs would be arranged on the floor. Inside the house the logs were stripped of their bark to reveal the light coloured wood. This made the house brighter.

Squared Logs for House Building

Once they were better settled a family would start to build their second home. Their first shanty would be used as a barn to house their animals. The second home was usually large. It would have three or four rooms on the ground floor. An attic was on the top floor. Everyone's bedroom would be in the attic. These houses were also built of logs, and the walls were chinked with moss and clay. Only very wealthy people could afford a house built of sawed logs (or stone or brick). These second homes usually had a wood floor made of pine logs. One side of the logs would be cut to make it flat. All of the heat for the house came from a stone fireplace.

Pioneer Saw Mill

Very slow life improved for the settlers. Small villages and towns appeared. Business people started saw mills and grist mills for lumber and wheat. Small shops appeared to sell goods to the settlers. However, there were difficult times before things improved. One very hard year was in 1788. In that year the British government stopped supplying aid to the settlers. That same year there was a serious crop failure, and settlers did not grow as much food as they hoped. Some people starved to death. Many settlers had to eat tree bark and leaves to make it through the winter. Life as a settler in Upper Canada was not easy.

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John Graves Simcoe

When Upper Canada was created the British government needed to appoint a lieutenant-governor. Their choice was John Graves Simcoe. Simcoe had fought in the American Revolution as part of a group called the Queen's Rangers. From a young age he had been in the British military. He had also spent time in different political positions for the British government. In September 1792, Simcoe along with his wife Elizabeth and their two youngest children set sail for the new colony of Upper Canada.

Elizabeth Simcoe

When Simcoe and his family arrived at the small capital of York, they found a very small colony. York was only a few wooden buildings on the shore of Lake Ontario. There was no real government in the colony. Simcoe did not really want to be the lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada. He hoped that Britain would make him their ambassador to the United States. However, Simcoe was someone who worked very hard not matter what job he was given.

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Simcoe and Upper Canada

Simcoe Lands at Toronto, 1793

Simcoe knew that the colony needed settlers to turn the forests into farmland. Simcoe believed that Americans were good farmers, so he encouraged Americans to immigrate to Upper Canada. This may seem odd since Britain and the United States had just fought a war against each other. Simcoe hoped that once Americans came back to a British colony they would realize that life was better being part of a British colony.

Simcoe hoped to create a smaller version of England in Upper Canada. He started by naming rivers and small villages after spots in England. One river he named the Thames River. He named the land it ran through London (this is where London, Ontario, is today). He named another small town site Stratford.

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Creating Colonial Leaders

Thomas Talbot

Simcoe also thought it was important to create a group of colonial leaders. To help develop this he gave large grants of free land to the people in the colony who he thought would be good leaders. This land was some of the best land in the new townships. As settlement grew in the colony this land would become more valuable, and these people would be able to sell this land. Some people received thousands of acres of land. By selling this land these people would become wealthier than the other settlers. Today this would be considered very unfair.

William Berczy

One example of someone who received a great deal of land was William Berczy. he came to Upper Canada from New York State in 1794. Berczy wanted to bring German settlers from the United States to Upper Canada. To help him, Simcoe gave Berczy 26,000 acres of land (in the present-day city of Markham, Ontario). Another person who received large amounts of land was Thomas Talbot who came to Upper Canada in 1792. He received even more land in an area that was called the Talbot settlement. By 1842 there were 50,000 people living in the Talbot settlement (in what is today southwestern Ontario).

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Building the Foundation of Upper Canada

Upper Canada Bush Road

Simcoe also ordered that roads be built in Upper Canada. The government did not construct roads like the provincial governments do today. These were large paths cut through the forests. In the spring time and after a heavy rain they became flooded and almost impossible to drive over in a wagon. However, they did help settlers travel through the province. One road, called Dundas, ran from near present day London, Ontario to Burlington. Another street, Yonge Street, ran from Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe. Many smaller roads were also built. These were sometimes called corduroy roads. Trees that were cut down to clear the road were laid into the road to make it firmer. It made the roads look like corduroy.

These were also important roads to move soldiers around the province. Simcoe and many other people still worried that another war might break out between Britain and the United States. These roads would allow soldiers to travel more quickly. Military supplies could also be taken along the roads more easily than being carried through the forest.

Simcoe had laws passed that helped to start the colony of Upper Canada. He had land set aside to help the Anglican Church (but not the other Protestant religions). Simcoe tried to convince the British government to build a small university in Upper Canada. He hoped that this university would help educate people in Upper Canada to become leaders. However, the British government did not think that such a small colony needed a university.

Simcoe also decided that York would be the capital of Upper Canada. At some point he wanted to move it to where the city of London, Ontario is today. However, York was a good location at that time. It was on Lake Ontario and could be travelled to easily by boat from Montreal, Kingston and Niagara. Different rivers connected York to Lake Simcoe. Even though it was the capital, York took a long time to become the large city of Toronto that it is today. When Simcoe and his family left Upper Canada in 1796 the entire town was less than twelve city blocks in size.

Simcoe Opens First Assembly, 1792

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Slavery and Upper Canada

Simcoe also made a very important decision for Upper Canada. Some people in Upper Canada owned slaves. They brought their slaves with them after the American Revolution. Governor Simcoe personally hated slavery. There were also Black settlers in Upper Canada. These people had been slaves, but gained their freedom at some point. Peter Martin was a spokesperson for the free Blacks that were living in Upper Canada. He appealed to Governor Simcoe to abolish slavery in Upper Canada.

Simcoe agreed with Martin. He wanted to abolish slavery as well. However, many wealthy people in Upper Canada did not want to lose their slaves. Simcoe could not ignore these people even though he did not like slavery. He tried to compromise. He had a law passed in 1793 (The Slave Act) that did two things:

No new slaves could be brought into Upper Canada.
The children of slaves in Upper Canada would automatically become free people when they reached twenty-five years of age.

This was not the best solution. It would have been far better if Simcoe could have freed all slaves in the colony. However, even though he was governor he was still restricted by other powerful people. Upper Canada was still the first colony in the British Empire to put a limit on slavery. Soon there were very few slaves in the colony since new slaves could not be brought into Upper Canada.

Slaves remained in Upper Canada until the British Empire abolished all slavery in the 1830s. There were never many slaves in Upper Canada. It did not have the type of economy that needed large numbers of people. Upper Canada did not have large plantations such as those found in the southern United States. Most slaves in Upper Canada were servants for wealthy families.

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Simcoe's Legacy

In 1796 Simcoe and his family left Upper Canada. Governor Simcoe had become ill. He left for England, and officially gave up his job in 1798. During his time in Upper Canada, Simcoe made many important decisions that affected the colony for many years. Settlement was a very important change. In 1795, Upper Canada only had 15,000 settlers living in it. By 1812 it had over 90,000 people. Roads and schools were built in many of the larger settlements because of Simcoe. Much of this success is due to Governor Simcoe.

However, he did fail to have a university built in the province. The British government refused many of his requests for extra money to help the colony. Simcoe gave out large land grants to certain people, but after a few years this made regular settlers angry. Simcoe's legacy is not easy to define.

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First Nations and Upper Canada

In the previous chapter you read how the Crown (the British government) signed treaties with First Nations when the first settlers began to arrive. As more settlers entered the colony more treaties were created to make land available for them. This did not always help First Nations people. They lost access to important fishing sites that they used every autumn and spring. In the winter time some First Nations groups found difficult to find enough animals to hunt. They began to rely more and more on the government to help them.

Some First Nations asked the government to help teach them how to farm. They did not want to rely on hand outs from the government. Farms and small communities were built for some First Nations families to live in. Instructors taught them how to farm, and schools were built to teach the children English.

These communities all failed. First Nations people wanted to learn how to farm, but they did not want to give up their religious and spiritual beliefs. The government wanted First Nations people to become like British settlers, and become Christian. Instructors also expected First Nations people to adapt to farming too quickly. They did not appreciate how difficult it was for Native peoples to change. Eventually these settlements all failed because the government did not listen to what the First Nations wanted.

Disease was another problem. Between 1790 and 1820 a horrible disease called smallpox killed hundred of First Nations people in Upper Canada. Other diseases also killed Native peoples. They did not have the same resistance to these diseases as the settlers did, and usually suffered much more as a result.

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