Timeline of Ontario History - Upper Canada, 1791 To 1840

Upper Canada, 1791 To 1840

• 1791–The Constitutional Act of 1791 followed the Dorchester Proclamation of 1788 and thereby creates the first land registry for Quebec Upper Canada and the part of present-day Ontario south of Lake Nipissing plus the current Ontario shoreline of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior, and Lower Canada (the southern part of present-day Quebec). Upper Canada's first capital is Newark (present-day Niagara-on-the-Lake); in 1796 it is moved to York, now Toronto.

The population of Upper Canada grows from 6,000 in 1785 to 14,000 in 1790 to 46,000 in 1806. (Lower Canada's is about 165,000). The population is rural, and based on susistence agriculture, with few exports; government spending is a major source of revenue.

• 1790s-1840s: Dueling is common among the elite, government officials, lawyers, and to military officers; they used dueling as a form of extralegal justice to assert their superior claims to honour. However, a new ethic was emerging that opposed dueling and rejected the hyper-masculinity embodied by the code of the duelist. This opposition was part of growing opposition to hierarchic dominance by the elite; opponents valued the bourgeois husband and father and separated male honor from physical violence.
• 1793–John Graves Simcoe is appointed as the first governor of Upper Canada. He encourages immigration from the United States, builds roads. Slavery was gradually abolished starting in 1793 by the Act Against Slavery.
• 1795–The Jay Treaty is ratified by which Britain agreed to vacate its Great Lakes forts on U.S. territory. Britain continues to supply the First Nations operating in the United States with arms and ammunition.
• 1800–First European settlement on the site of present-day Ottawa
• 1803–The North West Company moves its mid-continent headquarters from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Fort William, now part of Thunder Bay to be in Upper Canada.
• 1803–Thomas Talbot retires to his land grant in Western Ontario centred around present day St. Thomas and begins settling it. He eventually becomes responsible for settling 65,000 acres (260 km2). His insistence on the provision and maintenance of good roads, and on reserving land along main roads to productive uses rather than to clergy reserves leads to this region becoming the most prosperous in the province.
• 1804–First European settlement on the site of present-day Waterloo
• 1807–First settlement, Ebytown, on the site of present-day Kitchener
• 1812–1814–The War of 1812 with the United States. Upper Canada is the chief target of the Americans, since it is weakly defended and populated largely by American immigrants. However, division in the United States over the war, the incompetence of American military commanders, and swift and decisive action by the British commander, Sir Isaac Brock, keep Upper Canada part of British North America.
• 1812–1813–Detroit is captured by the British on August 6, 1812. The Michigan Territory is held under British control until it was abandoned in 1813.
• 1813. The Americans send an army of 10,000 men under General William Henry Harrison to recapture Detroit. British and Tecumseh's forces win the first battle at Frenchtown, January 22, 1813, killing 400 Americans and taking 500 prisoners, many of whom are then killed.
• 1813 May. British and Indian forces fail in their siege of Fort Meigs, at the mouth of Maumee river; in August, they are repulsed at Fort Stephenson
• 1813 September 10. At the Battle of Lake Erie, the American Navy, decisively destroys British naval power on Lake Erie. British and Tecumseh forces, with their logistics destroyed, retreat back toward Niagara

• 1813 October 5. At the Battle of the Thames (also called "Battle of Moraviantown"), General Harrison, with 4500 infantry intercepts the retreating British and Indian forces and win a decisive victory. British power in western Ontario is ended, Tecumseh is killed, and his Indian coalition collapses. Americans take control of western Ontario for the remainder of the war, and permanently end the threat of Indian raids into Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.
• 1814 - Population 95,000.
• 1815. War ends and prewar boundaries are reestablished. One of the legacies of the war in Upper Canada is strong feelings of anti-Americanism which persist to this day and form an important component of Canadian nationalism.
• 1816–Waterloo adopts its current name to honor the battle of Waterloo.
• 1817–By the Rush-Bagot Convention Britain and the United States agree to keep large war vessels out of the Great Lakes.
• 1818–The Convention of 1818 reduces boundary and fishing disputes between British North America and the United States.
• 1820s-1840. The Family Compact is a closed oligarchy of landowners, royal officials, lawyers, and businessmen who virtually monopolized public office and controlled the economy of the province in the 1820s and 1830s.
• 1820 - The Talbot Settlement is now completely settled, having resumed following interruption during the war years.
• 1821–The North West Company merges with the Hudson's Bay Company
• 1823-Peter Robinson settles the Bathurst District near Ottawa with immigrants from Cork County, Ireland.
• 1824–The Church of Scotland is granted a share of the revenues from clergy reserves. Presbyterians by the 1830s were a major force for social conservatism. Ministers sent from Scotland in the 1820s and 1830s were surprised by the ethnic diversity, and horrified at the frontier way of life, which they saw as a devil's compound of illiteracy, drunkenness, ignorance of religion, and lack of schools. They promoted conservatism as a means of implanting Scottish moral values.
• 1825– Peter Robinson settles Scott's Plains (later renamed Peterborough in his honour).
• 1826–first settlement of London
• 1826– With the creation of the Canada Company, free land is no longer available to immigrants willing to set up homesteads and farms.
• 1829– as a result of the Fugitive Slave Laws in the United States, the first colony of Black pioneers arrives from Ohio to uncleared land north of London, Ontario. The routes they travelled to Upper Canada become known as the Underground Railroad.
• 1831- Population 236,000.
• 1832–completion of the Rideau Canal from Kingston to Ottawa after six years of construction.
• 1832– a serious Cholera outbreak spreads quickly from Lower Canada killing thousands.
• 1833–Building of the first Welland Canal by William Hamilton Merritt
• 1837–Rebellions of 1837 - Upper Canada Rebellion in favour of responsible government; a similar rebellion (the Lower Canada Rebellion) occurred in Quebec. In the world context of Atlantic revolutions, the Canadian reformers took their inspiration from the republicanism of the American Revolution. They demanded right to participate in the political process through the election of representatives; they sought to make the legislative council elective rather than appointed. The British military crushed both rebellions, ending any possibility the two Canadas would become republics.
• 1839–Lord Durham publishes his report on the causes of the rebellions in 1837.
• 1840–The assembly passes a law providing for the sale of the clergy reserves, but it is disallowed by the British government.
• 1840–Upper Canada is now heavily in debt as a result of its heavy investments in canals.