Molnarcsabi;[/b]1247307]
(Vajon hol lenne Kanada, ha Upper Canada-t siratna a mai napig??)
Hol az az upper canada? Mi tortent vele? Elfoglaltak kanadatol ? Rezso tajekoztass bennunket az upper canadai reszletekrol. Elore is koszonjuk.
mar csak olvasnod kell :mrgreen: es mindent megtudsz
Upper Canada, the predecessor of modern
ONTARIO, came into existence when the British Parliament passed the
CONSTITUTIONAL ACT, 1791, dividing the old
PROVINCE OF QUEBEC into
LOWER CANADA in the E and Upper Canada in the W along the present-day Ontario-Québec
BOUNDARY. The Act also established a government which would largely determine the colony's political nature and which, in practice, strongly influenced its social and economic character. The area that became Upper Canada was populated originally by Indians (eg,
HURON,
NEUTRAL,
PETUN,
ALGONQUIN). Samuel de
CHAMPLAIN visited the region in the early 17th century, and was followed by other French explorers. Missionaries were particularly active in
HURONIA, E and S of Georgian Bay (see
STE MARIE AMONG THE HURONS). Through the
FUR TRADE, the French were established in the area by the 18th century. Commerce and war provided the substantiation to the French claim. Permanent European settlement was scarcely a feature of the occupation, although the nuclei of what became modern
TORONTO,
WINDSOR,
NIAGARA and
KINGSTON were established. During the
SEVEN YEARS' WAR (1756-63) the French abandoned most of the region to the British, and upon the surrender of Montréal in Sept 1760, Britain effectively took over the territory which would later become Upper Canada. After the Treaty of
PARIS (1763), the borders of Britain's new Province of Quebec were extended S into the Ohio Valley. When the
AMERICAN REVOLUTION began, the permanent European population of western Québec consisted of a few French-speaking settlers around Detroit. By 1783 - the end of the American revolt - what had been a trickle of wartime
LOYALIST refugees became a stream; 5000-6000 set a tone and fashioned an ideology that would influence much of Upper Canada's future.
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Upper Canada (Detail 1)
Sawmill (artwork by Lewis Parker). </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table style="float: right; clear: right;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td width="10">
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Upper Canada (Detail 2)
Blacksmithing in Upper Canada (artwork by Lewis Parker). </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> The 2-century-old Loyalist myth has these sturdy people overcoming hardship and deprivation but, in fact, few refugees anywhere have been so privileged. Gov Sir Frederick
HALDIMAND began Loyalist settlement initiatives, establishing disbanded army regiments in ranges of quickly surveyed townships stretched along the American frontier; in the event of war, these veterans were intended to form a defensive barrier. Three main areas were selected: along the St Lawrence, around Kingston and the Bay of Quinte, and in the
NIAGARA PENINSULA. A fourth, near Detroit, was considered, but its scheduled surrender to the US postponed development. Land was granted in lots, with heads of families receiving 100 acres (40.5 ha) and field officers up to and eventually more than 1000 acres (405 ha). Clothing, tools and provisions were supplied for 3 years. Although there were difficulties, these favoured displaced persons did well, and many disgruntled Americans - some simply "land-hungry" - moved N to join them. By 1790 western Québec had a population of nearly 10 000. The Loyalists who came to Upper Canada, mostly American frontiersmen, were well able to cope with the rigours of new settlements; moreover, they were not politically docile. Many had been in the forefront of political protest in the old American colonies, and although they had not been ready to take up arms for colonial rights, they were prepared to use every legal and constitutional means at their disposal to better their lives. It was their constitutional complaints that caused Britain in 1791 to modify the inadequate
QUEBEC ACT of 1774.
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Upper Canada (Detail 3)
Shearing sheep (artwork by Lewis Parker). </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table style="float: right; clear: right;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td width="10">
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Rebellions of 1837, Upper Canada
</td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> The Constitutional Act was a clear response by London to the American Revolution. The excess of democracy that had permeated the southern colonies would not be allowed in the 2 new provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. A lieutenant-governor was established in each province, with an executive council to advise him, a legislative council to act as an upper house, and a representative assembly. Policy was to be directed by the executive, which was responsible not to the assembly but to the Crown. The Church of England (see
ANGLICANISM) was to tie the colonies more firmly to Britain: in Upper Canada, a permanent appropriation of funds "for the Support and Maintenance of a Protestant clergy" was formally guaranteed by the establishment of one-seventh of all lands in the province as reserves, with the proceeds from sale or rental going to the church (see
CLERGY RESERVES). Subsequent instructions established crown reserves, another seventh of the land, the revenue from which would be used to pay the costs of the provincial administration. Land ownership, the question that concerned most settlers, was to be on the British pattern of freehold tenure. The
SEIGNEURIAL SYSTEM was permanently eradicated in the upper province. The franchise was fairly wide, and the assembly numbered no fewer than 16 members while the Legislative Council was made up of 7. <table style="float: right; clear: right;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td width="10">
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Simcoe, John Graves
Simcoe only resided in the province from 1792-96 but had a profound influence on its early development (miniature in watercolour, courtesy Metropolitan Toronto Library). </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> The first leader of this new wilderness society was Lt-Gov John Graves
SIMCOE, whose avowed purpose was to create in Upper Canada a "superior, more happy, and more polished form of government," not merely to attract immigrants but to renew the empire and by example to win Americans back into the British camp. Governmental institutions were established, first at Newark [Niagara-on-the-Lake] and then at the new capital at York [Toronto]. Simcoe used troops to build a series of primary roads, got the land boards and land distribution under way, established the judiciary, grandly abolished
SLAVERY and showed a keen interest in promoting Anglican affairs. When he left the province in 1796 he could take pride in his achievements, although he had failed to convert Americans from republicanism and to persuade Britain to turn Upper Canada into a military centre. To Britain, Canada still meant Québec, and Simcoe's elaborate plans for the defence of a western appendage beyond the sea-lanes were unrealistic.
Upper Canada did not flourish under Simcoe's followers, the timid Peter Russell, the busy martinet Gen Peter Hunter, the scarcely busy Alexander Grant and the lacklustre Francis
GORE. It was still a remote frontier of fragmented settlement; and land, the only real source of prosperity, had been carelessly carved up in huge grants by lax administrators. Politics began to emerge in provincial life, bearing the mark of the Constitutional Act, which, by its very nature, had created a party of favourites. Lieutenant-governors chose their executive and legislative councils from among men they could trust and understand, who shared their solid, conservative values: Loyalists or newly arrived Britons. These men (later called the
FAMILY COMPACT) quickly became a kind of Tory faction permanently in power. They could not conceive any brand of loyalty to the Crown apart from their own; when opposition arose, as it did frequently over money bills, those advocating extension of the shackled assembly's powers were branded, in exchanges of fiery rhetoric, as Yankee Republicans. But the influence of political critics such as Robert Thorpe, Joseph Willcocks and William Weekes, who were not merely "smoke-makers" but true parliamentary whigs, was to be washed away in the vortex of the
WAR OF 1812.
During the war, Upper Canada, whose inhabitants were predominantly American in origin, was invaded, violated and, in parts, occupied. American forces were repulsed by British regulars assisted by Canadian militia. The war strengthened the British link, rendered loyalism a hallowed creed, fashioned martyr-heroes Sir Isaac
BROCK and
TECUMSEH, brought a certain prosperity, and appeared to legitimize the political status quo. Later commentators would find in it a touchstone for Canadian
NATIONALISM and the explanation for much of Canada's persistent public, if not personal, anti-Americanism.
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York, Upper Canada
Watercolour by Eliazbeth Hale, 1804 (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-40137). </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table style="float: right; clear: right;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td width="10">
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Upper Canada, Map
</td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> The war ended Upper Canada's isolation. American immigration was formally halted, but Upper Canada received an increased number of British newcomers - some with capital. The economy continued to be tied to Britain's declining
MERCANTILISM, and the wheat trade gained primacy among Upper Canadian farmers. Still, the province remained capital-poor: for example, the Welland Canal Co, a public works venture, had to look abroad for investors. The expense of administering the growing colony increased substantially in the early 1820s. Schemes to reunite the 2 Canadas were occasionally considered. In 1822 an effort was made to adjust the customs duties shared with Lower Canada to provide the upper province, which had no ocean port, with a larger share of revenue. <table style="float: right; clear: right;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td width="10">
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Upper Canada (Detail 4)
Log cabin (artwork by Lewis Parker). </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> Revenues remained inadequate and the province was plunged into debt, unable to pay the interest on its own badly received debentures without further borrowings. The establishment of the
BANK OF UPPER CANADA (1821) and other banks failed to bring real fiscal stability, and neither did the contributions of the massive British-based colonization venture, the
CANADA COMPANY. In fact, Canada Co payments were used to defray the salaries of government officials (the civil list) and thus the assembly was sidestepped in its desire to control government revenues.
The War of 1812 consolidated the political control of the province's ruling oligarchy, whose leading light was Anglican Archdeacon (later bishop of Toronto) John
STRACHAN. Many commentators have labelled the Family Compact corrupt, although recent evidence suggests that the group was rigorous and methodical in its administration and thorough in its investigation of irregularities. It had a strong sense of duty to development, as shown by its unswerving support of public works such as the
WELLAND CANAL. But an oligarchy, enlightened or not, was an anachronism in an age in which democracy was becoming the fashion.
By 1820 opposition in the province was becoming sophisticated but had not yet taken the form of disciplined parties. Some agitators such as Robert
GOURLAY, the celebrated "Banished Briton," had earlier dramatized popular grievances in martyrlike fashion. Until the mid-1830s the major impulse of opposition was frequently conducted by more moderate and whiggish politicians such as Dr William
BALDWIN, Robert
BALDWIN and Rev Egerton
RYERSON. Reformer William Lyon
MACKENZIE sometimes wanted Upper Canada to be a kind of Jeffersonian dream and envisaged a province composed of yeomen-farmers wedded to the soil, firmly patriotic and ready to become British-American minutemen. At the same time he never failed to laud technological advances. He, like the compact he so vigorously opposed, was actually a stranger to the forces and values that eventually dominated the 19th century: moderate liberalism and increasing industrialism. His
REBELLION OF 1837 misfired because, like so many politicians after him, he failed to understand the basic, moderate political posture of Upper Canadians. The rebellion marked the nadir of Upper Canada's never buoyant fortunes. Political chaos was accompanied by economic disaster as the panic of 1837 swept Anglo-American finance and the province found itself over a million pounds in debt.
Mackenzie's violent posturing and his poorly supported rebellion turned out to be unnecessary, since gradual reforms were already under way in both the colony and Britain. The inadequacies of the rigid Constitutional Act were by now apparent. For battered post-rebellion Upper Canada the impetus for real political change could only come from Westminster, although it might be accelerated by advocates in the province, as was later shown by the brief but powerful government of Robert Baldwin and Louis
LAFONTAINE. Some immediate change came through the efforts of the earl of
DURHAM in 1838. As governor general he spent only a few days in Upper Canada, but he found time for a short, formal visit to Toronto and an interview with Baldwin. He also received sound counsel from his advisers, especially Charles Buller, all of which he placed in his report (see
DURHAM REPORT).
Durham set in motion a scheme that had long been considered: the reunification of Upper and Lower Canada. By 1838 Upper Canada had a diverse population of more than 400,000 and stretched W from the Ottawa R to the head of the Great Lakes. It was still a rough-hewn and somewhat amorphous community, poorly equipped with schools, hospitals or local government. Durham, from his lofty imperial perch, argued that a reunion of the provinces would swamp the French of Lower Canada in an English sea and, more important, that the economic potential of both colonies would be enhanced and they would thus be less burdensome to Britain. All this Durham insisted would easily be advanced under
RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT, whereby the Cabinet is rendered responsible to the assembly rather than to the Crown. The errors of the Constitutional Act could be exorcised and unruly politics temporized without fear of further revolts. Britain approved the union, although the granting of responsible government would take almost a decade more. On 10 Feb 1841 Upper Canada's short, unhappy history came to an end. The relationship with its French-speaking counterpart would remain to be worked out under the new legislative union. Meanwhile, Upper Canadians could make some claim to having a collective past and, with the prospects of a rapidly increasing population and improving agricultural opportunities, a collective future. See also
PROVINCE OF CANADA.
kicsit meglepett a dolog. Ebbol is latszik, hogy szamtalan dolog nem ugy van ahogy az egyszeri ember elkepzeli, ahogy logikus lenne. A burokracia mindenutt hatekonyan kepes kart tenni.
