Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T22:30:27.029Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Economic Background of the Rebellions of Eighteen Thirty-Seven

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

D. G. Creighton
D. G. Creighton*
Affiliation:
The University of Toronto
Get access

Extract

In 1837, the Canadian economy was subjected both to the stresses inherent in its own unstable organization and to the strains of a temporary financial and commercial panic. The last crucial stages of economic change and social conflict within the Canadas coincided unhappily with a general financial collapse in the English-speaking world; and the coincidence of these two crises produced a violent exaggeration of all the weaknesses to which the Canadas had been subject. From the very beginning the trades of the St. Lawrence had suffered from persistent fluctuations and shared a common instability; but to these chronic infirmities were now added all the special difficulties of the shift from the trades in fur and timber to the production of wheat and flour. The discord between trade and agriculture, the disagreement between the organization of the commercial system and the demands of the rural communities, had reached the last stages of their development. While the old trading system of the St. Lawrence was expressed politically in the commercial state, the agricultural interest had become vociferously articulate in the reform parties of both provinces. And these economic contradictions and social conflicts were evidently nearing their climax at the very moment when the financial panic broke in England and the United States.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , August 1937 , pp. 322 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1937

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Montreal Gazette, March 5, 1836.

2 Census of Canada, 1870–1871, vol. IV, pp. 83–171.Google Scholar

3 Innis, H. A., “Unused Capacity as a Factor in Canadian Economic History” (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. II, 02, 1936, pp. 1–15).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Montreal Gazette, March 6, 1834; The Patriot, Feb. 14, 1834; Colonial Advocate, Feb. 17, 1831.

5 The Patriot, Feb. 4, 1834.

6 Montreal Gazette, Dec. 11, 1834.

7 Colonial Advocate, Oct. 2, 1834; Belleville Intelligencer, quoted in The Patriot, Nov. 28, 1834.

8 The Patriot, Jan. 19, 1836.

9 Public Archives of Canada, Secretary of State's Papers, Lower Canada, Molson et al. to Craig, 11 22, 1834.Google Scholar

10 Journal of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada, 1835, appendix, vol. I, no. 17.Google Scholar

11 Smith, W. B. and Cole, A. H., Fluctuations in American Business, 1790-1860 (Cambridge, 1935), sec. 2.Google Scholar

12 McGrane, R. C., The Panic of 1837 (Chicago, 1924), pp. 1–42.Google Scholar

13 Quebec Gazette, Feb. 13, 1836; Jan, 25, 1837.

14 Burton, F. W., “Wheat in Canadian History” (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. III, 05, 1937, pp. 210–7).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 The Constitution, Jan. 18, 1837.

16 Ibid., Dec. 19, 1836; Feb. 13, 1837.

17 Public Archives of Canada, Series Q, vol. 237–1, pp. 28–31 Google Scholar, Gosford to Glenelg, May 6, 1837.

18 McGrane, , Panic of 1837, pp. 40–2.Google Scholar

19 Montreal Transcript, May 18, 1837.

20 Q, vol. 396-4, pp. 567-71, Head to Glenelg, April 23, 1837.

21 Ibid., pp. 620-3, Head to Glenelg, April 29, 1837.

22 Public Archives of Canada, Upper Canada Sundries, Dunn to civil secretary, May 5, 1837.

23 Ibid., Macaulay to Hagerman, n.d.

24 Q, vol. 397-1, pp. 154-79, Head to Glenelg, May 23, 1837.

25 The Patriot, May 19, 1837.

26 Ibid., May 30, 1837.

27 Ibid., June 20, 27, 1837.

28 Q, vol. 397-2, pp. 475-9, Head to Glenelg, July 12, 1837.

29 Shortt, Adam, The History of Canadian Currency, Banking and Exchange, part 8: Crisis and Resumption. (Toronto, 1902), pp. 5–8.Google Scholar

30 Public Archives of Canada, Merritt Papers, vol. IV, McGill, to Merritt, , 08 16, 1837.Google Scholar

31 Public Archives of Canada, Series G, vol. 291, Glenelg to Head, July 22, 1837.

32 Journal of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada, 1837–1838, appendix, pp. 154–6.Google Scholar

33 Montreal Courier, quoted in Quebec Gazette, May 26, 1837.

34 Montreal Transcript, Aug. 12, 1837.

35 Quebec Gazette, Jan. 25, 1837; March 20, 1838.

36 Upper Canada Sundries, May 8, 1837.

37 The Constitution, Aug. 9, Sept. 26, Oct. 4, 1837.

38 MacKay, R. A., “The Political Ideas of William Lyon Mackenzie” (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. III, 02, 1937, pp. 1–22).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Quebec Gazette, Oct. 25, 1837; Montreal Herald, quoted in The Patriot, Nov. 7, 1837.

40 The Constitution, Aug. 16, 1837.

41 Q, vol. 239-2, p. 372, Wetherall to Gosford, n.d.; The Patriot, Nov. 14, 1837.

42 The above paper was read at a joint session of the Canadian Historical Association and the Canadian Political Science Association. A paper was also read by Professor Fred Landon on “The Common Man in the Era of the Rebellion”, which will be published in the Report of the Canadian Historical Association.