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Upper Canada |
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Northwest Rebellion
William Lyon Mackenzie was a fiery and
vocal critic of the Upper Canadian system in the 1820's
and 30's. His temperament and conviction led him to the
point where he not only advocated armed rebellion
against the colonial government but led it.
He was born in Dundee Scotland on March
12, 1795 and immigrated to Canada in 1820 where he began
writing for the Montreal Herald after a stint of manual
labour building the Lachine Canal.
In May of 1824 he
decide that he could run a newspaper and started the
Colonial Advocate, in Queenston, which was a newspaper
which served as an opposition position to the group
known as the family compact who were firmly in power in
Upper Canada. He mover to Toronto and continued his
attacks on the lack of responsible government and the
family compact's corrupt and self serving record.
He quickly became a folk hero among the
common man in Upper Canada who generally felt that he
was right about the family compact and that something
should be done. Not satisfied with just writing about
the government, he ran for office in 1828 and was
elected to the House of assembly for York county.
1829 was a critical
year in his political development when he visited the
United States and while in Washington he visited and had
a meeting with the U.S. President Andrew Jackson. He
left this meeting feeling that his criticisms of the
Upper Canadian political elite were justified and that a
republican government was perhaps the only real answer
to achieving political and social reform at home.
In 1832 he travelled to London to make a
persona appeal to the British Government concerning the
grievous state of affairs in Upper Canada and was
received with courtesy and a genuine sympathy. His
aggressive and direct attacks upon the Family Compact
brought an immediate response with threats of legal
action, libel suits and an attack upon his newspaper
office where his printing presses were broken and thrown
into Lake Ontario.
He was continually re-elected to the
legislative assembly and in 1834 when Toronto elected
it's first mayor, Mackenzie was their choice. The
compact mounted a strong campaign against him in the
1836 legislative election and he was defeated. Mackenzie
began to believe that power and money could not be
defeated by the "fixed" electoral system in Upper Canada
and regardless of who was elected to the legislature,
they held no real power anyway.
By December of 1837 his high opinion of
the American Republic was leading him to believe that
the American Revolution might be the only practical
example of how change might be effected in Upper Canada.
On December 6, 1837 Mackenzie had gathered a group of
reformers who were worked into a frenzy and decided to
march on Toronto. They came streaming down Young Street
looking to destroy compact property and business as an
act of defiance and potentially trigger a large scale
rebellion. When they came up against the local guards
they first group of reforms fired their weapons and
because they were in a position that did not allow
movement to the sides, laid down so the rebels behind
them could fire next. The men in the back thought that
the men in the front were all being shot and killed and
panicked and started to run. Within a few moments the
panic had spread and the reforms fled back up Young
Street to Montgomery's Tavern.
On December 7th the
government forces had recovered and were organized enough
to mount an expedition to the Tavern where they easily
routed Mackenzie and his men. Mackenzie was forced to
flee to the U.S. and tried to mount a comeback but was
Canadian Militia thwarted these attempts.
Although he failed in
his attempt to start a revolution in the colony, the
results were to stun the British Government who were
finally moved to action and is dispatched a
representative to the Canada's to look into all of the
issues.
Mackenzie spent 10 years in exile in the United States,
one of which was in prison, and only returned to Canada
in 1849 when he was granted a pardon. He quickly resumed
his political career as MLA for Haldimand but by this
time reform had been initiated and government had become
responsible and much more representative. He finally
retired in 1857 and resigned his seat in 1858 after
seeing many of the goals he had worked for either
achieved or within reach of being achieved.
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