Upper Canada: An American Community?

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Upper Canada An American Community?

• I. Intro
• II. Constructing Britishness
• III. American
• a. The Arrival of the Loyalists
• b. An American Community?
• c. The War of 1812
• IV. British
• a. Immigration
• b. Methodists Anglicans
• V. Canadian
• a. People place
• b. Making Old Ontario
• c. The Society of Upper Canada

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Discussion Questions

• Week 1
• Why was it easier, until the 1960s, to write a
  history of colonial America (and Canada)?
• Week 2
• The problems of French-Canadian farmers derived
  more from a lack of land and capital than from
  something in their culture. Discuss.
• OR
• Are you convinced by Igartuas suggestion that
  the failure of French-Canadian merchants to
  retain control of the fur trade can be explained
  by a mood of uncertainty and pessimism among the
  Montreal Merchants? What other aspects of
  Igartuas argument might be more convincing?

3
Constructing Britishness

• How are cultural identities made?
• Cultural construction
• Hegemony (Gramsci)

4
The Arrival of the Loyalists

• How loyal were the loyalists?
• Fall of New France (1760) -- American Revolution
  (1775-1783)
• 30,000 to Nova Scotia -- 14,500 in what is now
  New Brunswick
• Will Ferguson the original boat people

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Loyalists react to Nova Scotia (Saint John, NB)

• Nothing but wilderness before our eyes. The
  women and children did not refrain from tears.
• I climbed to the top of the hill and watched
  the sails disappearing in the distance, and such
  a feeling of loneliness came over me that,
  although I had not shed a single tear through all
  the war, I sat down on the damp moss with my baby
  in my lap and cried.

6
Loyalists in Quebec

• 10,000 in 1783 -- 30,000 by 1791
• Constitutional Act creates Upper Canada, 1791
• Types of loyalists

7
A Model British Colony

• How was Britishness constructed in early Upper
  Canada?
• John Graves Simcoe
• Institutions
• Constitutional Act
• Crown Reserves
• Clergy Reserves

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Simcoe on an Established Church

• in regard to Upper Canada, every
  establishment of Church and State that upholds
  the distinction of ranks, and lessens the undue
  weight of the democratic influence, must be
  indispensably introduced that church
  establishment I consider so necessary to
  promote the national religion, and to maintain
  the true and venerable constitutions of my
  country.

9
An American Community?

• What was the effect of Simcoes policies?
• Land policy
• American settlers
• 75,000 Upper Canadians by 1812

10
The War of 1812

• What was the effect of the War of 1812 on Upper
  Canadas Britishness?
• Tecumsehs confederacy
• General Sir Isaac Brock
• Thomas Jefferson A mere matter of marching
• Fort Detroit
• Queenston Heights
• Battle of Moraviantown
• Battle of Lundys Lane

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The Arrival of the British

• How did post-war British immigrants shape Upper
  Canadas British character?
• 1 million immigrants to BNA, 1815-40
• 1/3 of population of UC British by 1842
• Irish -- Protestants Catholics
• Orange Order

13
Reformers the Family Compact

• How did Britishness social power cohere in
  postwar Upper Canada?
• Family Compact
• Bishop John Strachan
• Robert Gourlay
• Moderate Reformers -- Baldwins
• Radical Reformers -- William Lyon Mackenzie

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John Strachan William Lyon Mackenzie
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Anglicans Methodists

• Evangelicalism
• Egerton Ryerson
• The two worlds of Upper Canada

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Immigrant Societies

• 1 Society ? place
• 2 Only fragments of societies immigrate
• 3 Fragments encounter novel circumstances
• 4 Above leads to social change

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Buildings and Structures

• Georgian
• Victorian

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Georgian Houses
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Victorian Gothic Styling
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LandscapeFarms
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LandscapeSmall Towns
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Georgian StyleKingston City Hall (1844)
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Classical (Georgian) Style for Legal
BuildingsOsgoode Hall, Toronto (1832)
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Market Square, Kingston
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Conclusion

• Pre-industrial -- household at center
• A rural economy based around wheat exports and
  household self-reliance
• A Tory/Anglican elite vs. Reformer/Evangelical
  opposition (two worlds)
• Presence of Native peoples
• The British, the American, and local influences ?
  the society of Upper Canada

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Discuss

• In what ways was the border between UC the USA
  real, and in what ways was it not? What forces
  worked to separate UC from the USA?