Life in Upper Canada

Life in Upper Canada was very different than it is today Most people lived in small communities close to the Great Lakes There were few roads connecting communities and much of the land was covered in forests

Most people were farmers. It required lots of hard, physical labour There were no farming machines. All work had to be done by hand or with the help of horses People had to work together to build roads and houses

It sometimes took years to raise crops, which could be destroyed by bad weather, insects or disease Many farmers would have to mortgage the next year’s crops. This means that they would offer some of the crops as a security to get money. If the crop was not successful then they would be in debt

The colonists often had a barter economy, meaning that they traded items instead of paying money for them. For example, I might trade you 20 chickens for 1 pig. The colonists started growing new crops that they had been shown by the First Nations. These included potatoes and corn, which became major parts of the diet.

Upper Canada’s population was a mix of new British immigrants and Loyalists who had left the United States after the American Revolution Most community and colony leaders were loyalists, retired army officers or members of the gentry

Loyalists were New England colonists who had sided with Britain during the American Revolution. They moved to Canada in large numbers and had strong ties to Britain The gentry, or aristocrats, were the upper class in Britain. They inherited lands and titles from their fathers and had more privileges than common people

People followed British rules and customs Religion was a very important part of colonists’ lives. Most colonists went to church The clergy, or priests, played an important role in education and advising the colonists

Social class was important to the colonists Social class was important to the colonists. The upper class considered itself superior to the common people In Britain, the gentry were rich and had servants to do physical work for them. They ran the government and were treated with more respect than common people

In the colonies, the gentry were mostly the sons of British gentry and former army officers Because there was so much work to be done in Canada, and there were so few servants to do it, the gentry often found themselves working with common people and the class distinctions were less than they were in Britain

The gentry tried to set up Canada with the same system that existed in Britain. In Britain, the gentry controlled the government and almost all of the land They established estates, large sections of land owned by the gentry. People called tenant farmers would work on these estates, keeping some of what they produced as payment

The common people did not like the way the gentry tried to keep control of the land and government. Many had left Europe because the class system there prevented them from owning their own land In the United States, there was no gentry and the class system was more equal. Non-gentry Colonists in Canada pushed for a more equal, American-style system

Role of Women Most women in the colonies were married. The status of a woman depended on the status of her husband. Matches were made based on benefits for the family. Among upper classes, matches had to be made with people of equal or greater class. Women rarely had jobs outside the house, but were expected to clean the house, cook, help with farming and do many other tasks. Families were usually large, as there was a lot of work to do and more children meant more helpers

Most people who moved to Upper Canada wanted to own and farm land Those who did not farm land usually worked at jobs related to farming, such as selling farming supplies Many immigrant arrived to find that most of the good land was already taken

Absentee Landlords are people who own land and rent it to others, but do not live near the land. Land Speculators are people who buy land at a low price, then try to sell it at a high price when land becomes more difficult to find These two groups took much of the best land and made the prices for land much higher

A group called the Family Compact owned a lot of land in Upper Canada The Family Compact was a group of upper-class officials in Upper Canada They formed the Executive Council of Upper Canada, which was local government.

Because of high prices, people were forced to settle in areas with poor land, where they struggled to survive People were also angry about Crown and clergy reserves These were areas of land that belonged to the king and to the Anglican Church

The Family Compact was very powerful The Family Compact was very powerful. They controlled who got government jobs and how tax money was spent. People resented the Family Compact because it was so wealthy and had so much power People hated the land speculators because they took the best land, which made the remaining land very expensive

The king and the church each had their own lands, which they could sell or rent to make money Together the reserves made up two-sevenths (2/7) of all the land in Upper Canada Most of this land was left undeveloped and was not cleared of forests

The reserves blocked roads, because colonists could not build in the reserves without permission They also caused a lot of good land to be unusable, which made the cost of land higher for everyone else The problems of the high cost and low availability of land led to greater conflicts between the colonists and the government.

Immigration Immigrants arrived from Britain, Ireland, Scotland, the United States and Europe Most travelled by ship, which was a long and dangerous journey In order to make more money, ship owners would cram as many people as possible into a ship Many people got diseases and died on the way, giving these boats the name coffin ships