The History of Canada to 1867

The History of Canada to 1867

Introduction

The War of 1812 began in June with a U.S. declaration of war against Great Britain. At the time, U.S. grievances seemed clear to a majority of the American public and to members of Congress from the South and West who voted in favor of the declaration. They were convinced that Great Britain was supporting American Indian attacks against U.S. settlers in the Old Northwest, such as Shawnee chief Tecumseh's clashes with settlers in the Ohio River valley, in violation of agreements dating back to the treaty that ended the American Revolution (Miller, 1985).

Question #1

Accordingly, the British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act in 1791, which provided for the division of Quebec into two distinct provinces. Beyond the farthest western seigneury, in the vicinity of where the Ottawa River meets the St. Lawrence River, the new province of Upper Canada was designed to accommodate the Loyalist immigrants. The remainder of the Province of Quebec was renamed Lower Canada and would continue to be governed under the terms of the Quebec Act with a few important modifications. The provinces were given the option of maintaining French civil law or introducing English civil law, and naturally the first legislature of Upper Canada opted for the latter (Gabaccia, 2002).

American Immigration and the War of 1812 in Upper Canada

The international boundary between the newly formed United States of America and the remaining British North American colonies established by the Treaty of Versailles in 1783 was virtually meaningless to many settlers of the North American frontier in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In search of land that could provide a secure means of livelihood, people moved back and forth between American and British territory, often oblivious to notions of national sovereignty and loyalty. A sense of an American nationality was still in its infancy, and many citizens were apprehensive about the recent loss of their status as British subjects or about the prospects of life in the struggling new republic. While devotion to Britain may have prevailed among the first wave of Loyalists to arrive in Quebec and Nova Scotia, they were overwhelmingly outnumbered by the French and other American settlers whose political consciousness was limited by the arduous work of establishing farms and clearing new land. For the most part, nationalism was still tempered by realism in North American frontier life. The overwhelming majority of British immigrants settled in Upper Canada where large areas of fertile land were available, particularly in the central and western interior of the province. Unfortunately for the prospective settlers, this land was often difficult to acquire or access (Kuropas, 1991).

The Great Transatlantic Migration

The end of the War of 1812 in North America and the Napoleonic Wars in Europe marked a turning point in the flow of people to North America. Whether it was the British merchants replacing the French fur traders in Quebec, New Englanders moving to Nova Scotia, Loyalists fleeing the wrath of republicanism, or Late Loyalists satisfying ...