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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
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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

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.