|
Guy Carleton | Jay's
Treaty | Black
Loyalists | Alexander
Mackenzie | Simon Fraser |
David Thompson |
John Graves
Simcoe | Captain
George Vancouver | The
Northwest Company | Prevost's
Conciliation | Tecumseh |
The War of 1812 |
Lord Selkirk |
Newfoundland |
Constitution Act 1791
In 1791 the constitution act separated
the colony of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada. The
first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada and a was John
Graves Simcoe.
John Simcoe was
educated at Eton and Oxford but before he earned a
degree he had begun a career in the military by
obtaining his commission as an ensign in the 35th
regiment in 1771 at the age of 19. He purchased a
commission as a Captain and in 1775 participated
in the initial conflict with the colonists in Boston. By
the time he turned 25, he had assumed command of
the Queen's Rangers as a Major. During the American
Revolution opportunities for promotion were many and
came quickly In 1778 he was promoted to lieutenant
colonel but after the war it took until 1794 to gain the
rank of Major General and 1798 to Lieutenant General. He
fought throughout the revolutionary war and at the end
he surrendered with Cornwallis and was paroled home to
England. Upon returning to England he fell in love with
a rich heiress Elizabeth Gwilliam. His position as a
squire and a gentleman enabled the two to be married
Simcoe entered
Parliament in 1790 from the borough of St. Maws and sat
as an MP where he campaigned to be given a position of
authority in a colony. In 1792 he was given the colony
of Upper Canada which was placed in the heart of North
America. He took on the job with gusto and initiated
many plans and projects intended to build up the
population, infrastructure industry and agriculture of
the colony. Simcoe believed that the formed American
colonies might still be induced to rejoin the British
Empire and he encouraged immigration form the United
States to Upper Canada in the belief that this would
somehow improve relations to the degree that some sort
of union or alliance might be formed.
He believed in a ruling class and a
working class and maintained the rigid class structure
in way he ran the colonial government and managed the
poser of Lieutenant Governor. The governing council was
appointed by him and an elected assembly was formed to
offer advice to the council and Simcoe. Simcoe held on
to power tenaciously and his ideas of how the
system should operate was to evolve into the Family
Compact which boiled over in 1837 when William Lyon
Mackenzie led a rebellious population in armed rebellion
against the privileged council and Lieutenant Governor.
After his duties
finished in America he was brought back to prepare the
southeast coast of England for an expected invasion by
Napoleon and his army in 1801. In 1806 he was given the
position of Commander in Chief of India but died enroute
at Torbay at the age of 54. |
