Upper Canadian Politics RevisitedSIR JOHN JOHNSON: LOYALIST BARONET. Earle Thomas. Toronto and Reading: Dundurn Press, 1986. 19lpp. Illustrated.THE LION, THE EAGLE, AND UPPER CANADA: A DEVELOPING COLONIAL IDEOLOGY. Jane Errington. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987. 272pp. Illustrated.THE ORANGEMAN: THE LIFE & TIMES OF OGLE GOWAN. Don Akenson. Toronto: James Lorimer, 1986. xiii, 330pp. Illustrated.THE BANK OF UPPER CANADA. Peter Baskerville. Carleton Library Series No. 141. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1987. cliii, 400pp. Illustrated.

1989 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 135-145
Author(s):  
Carol Wilton-Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Upper Canada ◽  
Canadian Politics ◽  
Upper Canadian ◽  
Queen's University

Social Class and the Family Compact: the Class System in the Cataraqui Townships, Ernestown, and Kingston from 1791-1820

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Holdsworth
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
War Of 1812 ◽  
Class Consciousness ◽  
Upper Canada ◽  
Class System ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The Family ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Upper Canadian ◽  
Post War

Scholars have often assumed that the Upper Canadian social class system was shaped by a hierarchical and landed patronage system known as the Family Compact. Based on the views of Bishop John Strachan and Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, this Family Compact is viewed as a post-War of 1812 development and is said to replace the oligarchy that was in place in 1791. An examination of the Loyalist settlement townships, in particular Ernestown Township and the Cataraqui Townships, suggests instead that a mercantile aristocracy of patronage and wealth existed by 1791, including Richard Cartwright Jr. of Kingston, along with rural leaders such as the Fairfields and Parrotts of Ernestown. This study of a key and complex time and place challenges prevailing views on class and class consciousness in Upper Canada and refines our understanding of this society. Such an investigation is timely given both the seeming unwillingness of historians to fully challenge existing depictions of the Upper Canadian class system, despite their noticeable flaws, and the impending commemorations of the War of 1812. Using archival documents ( accounts and letters) relating to two Loyalist/merchant families (the Parrotts and the Fairfields) along with a re-interpretation of secondary sources, a new view of a “Merchant Compact” is explored. This approach encompasses the changing relations of the settlements in question (Ernestown/Bath and Kingston) and shows the importance of previously neglected figures such as James Parrott. More broadly, it contributes new layers of analysis to the discussion of class consciousness in Upper Canada.

scholarly journals Constructing Innocence: Representations of Sexual Violence in Upper Canada’s War of 1812

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsbeth Heaman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The United States ◽  
War Of 1812 ◽  
Upper Canada ◽  
National Differences ◽  
The Press ◽  
Upper Canadian ◽  
Political Differences

This essay explores the way in which rape was represented in Upper Canada circa 1812. It draws upon a broadly defined Upper Canadian print culture that drew upon and reacted against wider trends, especially those prevalent in the United States. Whereas American newspapers spoke openly of sexual violence against American women during the War of 1812, Upper Canadian sources tended to suppress any such discussion, for reasons that reflect profound cultural and political differences. Americans stoked a rowdy, popular patriotism that Canadians distrusted and sought to avert. The analysis of national differences is contextualized within broader changes in the ways that rape was constructed in the press and the courts over the first half of the nineteenth century, in ways that worked to muffle women’s public voice. But the War of 1812’s most famous heroine, Laura Secord, was not silenced. Writing almost half a century later, Secord challenged discursive conventions of gender when she had her say and made herself a hero. The final section examines how Secord and her early commentators interwove literary signals of danger and respectability in their published accounts.

scholarly journals Upper Canada Preserved

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 60-68
Author(s):  
Nathan Ewen
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
War Of 1812 ◽  
Upper Canada ◽  
Canadian Society ◽  
Canadian Identity ◽  
Conscious Effort ◽  
Citizen Soldiers ◽  
Upper Canadian

Following the end of the War of 1812, there was a conscious effort on the part of prominent Upper Canadians to immortalize the deeds and contributions of the Canadian Militia. Hugely overstating their meagre efforts,  these figures claimed the lions share of victory for the citizen soldiers, ignoring the far more meaningful and significant effect that British redcoats and Indigenous warriors had in defeating the Americans. By creating this myth these prominent men, many of whom served in the militia, sought to enrich and entrench their positions in Upper Canadian society. Additionally, this Militia Myth helped form a new sense of Canadian identity (a specifically British version of it), that would be crucial in fostering a new nationalism that would emerge in mid-19th century Upper Canada.

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