Page 143 [143]
OCR
THE COLORED AMERICAN AND THE CANADIAN REBELLIONS fates. By the 1830s discord arose about the causes of and possible solutions to problems, particularly financial ones, which resulted in a conflict between the elected assemblies and the governor and his executive and legislative councils. To some degree, representative government did exist. Yet, the executive branch, the ultimate authority, disregarded the assemblies’ preferences. The regime’s separation of powers existed not to limit governmental power overall, but to maintain imperial control (Malcolmson and Myers 39). In both provinces, farmers, artisans and small merchants aw subversion of democratic self-rule. The Jacksonian expansion of democracy to the ‘common man’ in the United States rendered the antirepublican character of British rule more evident. Harvest failures in both colonies in 1836 and a decline in public works expenditures in Upper Canada exacerbated discontent. In 1837 a banking crisis hit both Britain and the United States. Causes included a collapse in the inflated price of land, falling cotton prices and fiscal and monetary policies in both countries. Economic hardships beset almost all economic sectors in North America. In Lower Canada, the British government’s expenditures of revenues despite the express will of the elected assembly was but one of numerous actions drawing the ire of the provincials. Francophone and anglophone relations had been fraught since at least 1810, dating to the governorship of Sir Henry Craig, who saw francophones as threatening English control. He interfered with their presses and political leaders. Twice he dissolved the elected Assembly. Francophones feared the government’s dissolution of their cherished identity. Also resented was the privileging of anglophones as civil officers and in economic arrangements. By 1837, some in Lower Canada had had enough. The rebel Patriotes, headed by Assembly member Louis Papineau, began to call publicly for popular control over provincial expenditures. They compared explicitly their situation to that of Americans in 1775. Papineau admired greatly the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. One biographer noted his “unstinted admiration for American institutions” (Dictionary of Canadian Biography). Inspired by American republicanism of Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, he proposed that the legislative council be elected by the people directly. On October 23" of 1837, he issued his own ‘declaration of the rights of man. Throughout that autumn, the situation escalated into violence between Patriotes and Loyalists, with British troops being summoned. Despite inferior organization and arms, the rebels managed several victories. Several hundred Patriotes were killed, property was destroyed and hundreds of insurgents imprisoned. A flareup in November 1838 was quickly snuffed out. Its leaders were executed and scores transported to Australia. + 141 +
