Rebellions of 1837-1838: Uprisings in Upper and Lower Canada

The Rebellions of 1837–1838 were two armed uprisings against British colonial rule in Lower Canada (today southern Quebec) and Upper Canada (today southern Ontario). The Patriotes of Louis-Joseph Papineau and the radical Reformers of William Lyon Mackenzie were quickly defeated, but the crisis forced Britain to rethink how it governed its colonies. The resulting Durham Report led to the union of the Canadas in 1841 and, within a decade, to responsible government.

Background

Since the Constitutional Act of 1791, each Canada had an elected assembly, but real power lay with a governor appointed in London and with appointed legislative and executive councils. In Upper Canada a close-knit network of officials, merchants and Anglican clergy, nicknamed the Family Compact, controlled patronage, land and banking. In Lower Canada a mostly English-speaking elite, the Château Clique, played a similar role, while the assembly was dominated by French-speaking members.

In Lower Canada these tensions overlapped with language, religion and nationality. Papineau, Speaker of the assembly and leader of the Parti patriote, demanded an elected upper house and assembly control of revenue. His party’s Ninety-Two Resolutions of 1834 set out these grievances. In Upper Canada, Reformers such as Mackenzie and Marshall Spring Bidwell attacked the Family Compact, the privileges of the Church of England and favouritism in land grants.

The breaking point came in March 1837, when the British Parliament passed Lord John Russell’s Ten Resolutions. They rejected the main Patriote demands and allowed the governor of Lower Canada to spend public money without the assembly’s consent. At the same time a financial crisis and several poor harvests caused hardship in both colonies.

The rising in Lower Canada, 1837

Through the summer and autumn of 1837 the Patriotes held mass meetings, boycotted British imports and formed a militant youth group, the Fils de la Liberté. A large gathering at Saint-Charles on 23–24 October, the Assembly of the Six Counties, openly called for resistance. After street fighting in Montreal on 6 November, the authorities issued arrest warrants for Patriote leaders, who fled to the countryside of the Richelieu valley.

On 23 November 1837 Patriotes under Wolfred Nelson beat back a British column under Colonel Charles Gore at Saint-Denis. It was their only real victory. Two days later, Lieutenant-Colonel George Wetherall routed the Patriotes at Saint-Charles. Papineau, who had left Saint-Denis before the fighting, escaped to the United States.

The last major battle came at Saint-Eustache, north-west of Montreal, on 14 December 1837. Sir John Colborne, the British commander, attacked with about 2,000 soldiers and volunteers. Some 200 or more Patriotes barricaded themselves in the church, which was set on fire; their leader, Dr Jean-Olivier Chénier, was killed along with dozens of his men, often estimated at around 70. Troops and loyalist volunteers burned much of Saint-Eustache and the nearby village of Saint-Benoît.

The rising in Upper Canada, 1837

Inspired by events in Lower Canada and aware that British troops had been moved there, Mackenzie planned a seizure of Toronto. In early December 1837 several hundred poorly armed men gathered at Montgomery’s Tavern on Yonge Street, north of the city. Confusion over dates and leadership slowed them down, and on 7 December about 1,000 loyal militia under Colonel James FitzGibbon scattered the rebels in a brief clash.

A second rising near Brantford and London, led by Dr Charles Duncombe, broke up a few days later without serious fighting. Mackenzie fled to Navy Island in the Niagara River, where he proclaimed a provisional republic. On 29 December 1837 Canadian militia crossed the river, seized the American steamer Caroline, which was supplying the rebels, set it alight and sent it adrift; an American, Amos Durfee, was killed. The incident caused a serious diplomatic quarrel with the United States.

The second round, 1838

Exiled leaders kept up the struggle from the United States. On 28 February 1838 Robert Nelson, Wolfred’s brother, proclaimed a Declaration of Independence for Lower Canada. In November 1838 his secret society, the Frères chasseurs, launched a second rising south of Montreal, but it was crushed within days at Lacolle and Odelltown. Colborne’s troops again burned farms and villages across the region.

On the Upper Canadian border, American sympathisers organised in Hunters’ Lodges staged raids. At the Battle of the Windmill near Prescott, in November 1838, a force led by Nils von Schoultz was surrounded and forced to surrender; at Windsor in December another raid failed.

Repression was harsh. In Lower Canada 12 Patriotes, among them Chevalier de Lorimier, were hanged at the Pied-du-Courant prison in Montreal, and 58 were transported to New South Wales. In Upper Canada Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews were hanged in Toronto in April 1838; von Schoultz and others followed, and dozens of prisoners were sent to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). Estimates commonly put the dead in Lower Canada at around 300 or more, most of them Patriotes.

Lord Durham and his report

In 1838 Britain sent John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, as governor general with wide powers to investigate. He arrived in Quebec in May, but resigned after only five months when his decision to exile eight Patriote leaders to Bermuda without trial was disallowed in London.

His Report on the Affairs of British North America, presented in early 1839, made two key recommendations. First, Upper and Lower Canada should be united, which would give English speakers a majority and, Durham hoped, assimilate French Canadians, whom he described in dismissive terms. Second, the colony should have responsible government, meaning that ministers would need the support of the elected assembly to stay in office.

Consequences

London adopted the first proposal straight away. The Act of Union 1840 created the Province of Canada, which came into being on 10 February 1841, with a single legislature and English as the only official language of its records. Responsible government was resisted for several years, but Reformers from both halves of the province, led by Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, built a joint party that won power. In March 1848 they formed a ministry based on the assembly’s majority, and in 1849 the governor, Lord Elgin, signed their Rebellion Losses Bill despite fierce opposition, confirming the principle.

Papineau and Mackenzie both received amnesties and returned home, Papineau in 1845 and Mackenzie in 1850. Papineau sat again in the assembly, and Mackenzie, the grandfather of the future prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, was elected to the legislature in 1851.

Legacy

The rebellions are remembered very differently in the two parts of Canada. In Quebec the Patriotes are seen as defenders of French-Canadian rights and democracy; since 2003 the province has marked the Journée nationale des patriotes each May. In Ontario the rising is often recalled as a small, almost comic affair, yet the reforms it helped bring about shaped the parliamentary system that led to Canadian Confederation in 1867.

The tensions also echoed the wider age of liberal and national revolutions, and the border raids worsened Anglo-American relations only two decades after the War of 1812.

Timeline

• 1834, February: Lower Canada’s assembly adopts the Ninety-Two Resolutions.
• 1837, March: British Parliament passes Russell’s Ten Resolutions.
• 1837, 23 November: Patriote victory at Saint-Denis.
• 1837, 25 November: Patriotes defeated at Saint-Charles.
• 1837, 7 December: Mackenzie’s rebels dispersed near Montgomery’s Tavern, Toronto.
• 1837, 14 December: Battle of Saint-Eustache.
• 1837, 29 December: The steamer Caroline is destroyed on the Niagara River.
• 1838, November: Second Lower Canada rising crushed; Battle of the Windmill.
• 1839, February: Durham’s report is presented to Parliament.
• 1841, 10 February: The Province of Canada is created under the Act of Union.

Why it matters

The Rebellions of 1837–1838 failed on the battlefield but succeeded in changing the rules of colonial government. They led directly to the Durham Report, the union of the Canadas and responsible government, a peaceful path to self-rule that later became the model for other British settler colonies. They also left a lasting mark on French-Canadian national memory.