Editing Upper Canada (section)

==Population==
{{Historical populations
|title       = Upper Canada
|type        = Canada
|align       = right
|width       = 290px
|state       = 
|shading     = 
|percentages = 
|footnote    = Source: Statistics Canada website Censuses of Canada 1665 to 1871.<br /> See [[United Province of Canada]] for population after 1840.
|1806|70718
|1811|76000
|1814|95000
|1824|150066
|1825|157923
|1826|166379
|1827|177174
|1828|186488
|1829|197815
|1830|213156
|1831|236702
|1832|263554
|1833|295863
|1834|321145
|1835|347359
|1836|374099
|1837|397489
|1838|399422
|1839|409048
|1840|432159
}}

Herbert C. Northcott and Donna M. Wilson emphasize that conditions were severe in the early period:<blockquote> While the infectious diseases brought to Canada by the Europeans were especially devastating for the Indigenous peoples, they did not spare European explorers, traders, and settlers. The harsh climate, rough pioneer existence, low standards of living, and unsanitary practices contributed to many early deaths in the colonies. Infant mortality was high, as was maternal mortality, and life expectancy in general was low. Health care was relatively ineffective, and the few hospitals that existed were considered places of death.<ref> Herbert C. Northcott and Donna M. Wilson, ''Dying and Death in Canada'' (2021), p.249.</ref></blockquote>
===Ethnic groups===

There were multiple ethnic or cultural groups in Upper Canada, but statistics are incomplete before 1842. An idea of the diversity can be had if one considers the religious census of 1842, which is helpfully provided below: Roman Catholics were 15% of the population, and adherents to this religion were, at the time, mainly drawn from the Irish and the French settlers. The Roman Catholic faith also numbered some votaries from amongst the Scottish settlers. The category of "other" religious adherents, somewhat under 5% of the population, included the Aboriginal and Metis culture.

====First Nations====
{{main|First Nations in Ontario}}

See above: Land Settlement

* '''[[Anishinaabe]]''' or '''Anishinabe'''—or more properly (plural) '''Anishinaabeg''' or '''Anishinabek'''. The plural form of the word is the [[endonym|autonym]] often used by the [[Ottawa (tribe)|Odawa]], [[Ojibwa|Ojibwe]], and [[Algonquin people]]s.
* The '''[[Haudenosaunee]]''', also known as the '''Iroquois''' or the "People of the [[Longhouses of the indigenous peoples of North America|Longhouse]]",<ref name="English, 1999"/>

====Métis====
{{main|Métis in Canada}}

Many British and French-Canadian fur traders married First Nations women from the [[Cree]], [[Ojibwa]], or [[Saulteaux]] First Nations. The majority of these fur traders were [[Scottish people|Scottish]] and French and were [[Catholic Church|Catholic]].<ref name="mettis">{{cite web|url=http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/metis.htm|title=Complete History of the Canadian Metis Culturework=Metis nation of the North West|access-date=20 November 2012|archive-date=26 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120226012419/http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/metis.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Canadiens/French-Canadians====
{{main|French Canadian|franco Ontarian}}

Early settlements in the region include the Mission of [[Sainte-Marie among the Hurons]] at [[Midland, Ontario|Midland]] in 1649, [[Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario|Sault Ste. Marie]] in 1668, and [[Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit]] in 1701. Southern Ontario was part of the ''Pays d'en-haut'' (Upper Country) of [[New France]], and later part of the province of Quebec until Quebec was split into Upper and [[Lower Canada]] in 1791. The first wave of settlement in the [[Detroit]]/Windsor area came in the 18th century during the French regime. A second wave came in the 19th and early 20th centuries to the areas of Eastern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. In the [[Ottawa Valley]], in particular, some families have moved back and forth across the Ottawa River for generations (the river is the border between Ontario and Quebec). In the city of [[Ottawa]] some areas such as Vanier and Orleans have a rich Franco-heritage where families often have members on both sides of the [[Ottawa River]].

====Loyalists/Later Loyalists====
{{main|United Empire Loyalist|Expulsion of the Loyalists}}

After an initial group of about 7,000 [[United Empire Loyalists]] were thinly settled across the province in the mid-1780s, a far larger number of "late-Loyalists" arrived in the late 1790s and were required to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown to obtain land if they came from the US. Their fundamental political allegiances were always considered dubious. By 1812, this had become acutely problematic since the American settlers outnumbered the original Loyalists by more than ten to one. Following the War of 1812, the colonial government under Lt. Governor Gore took active steps to prevent Americans from swearing allegiance, thereby making them ineligible to obtain land grants. The tensions between the Loyalists and late Loyalists erupted in the "Alien Question" crisis in 1820–21 when the Bidwells (Barnabas and his son Marshall) sought election to the provincial assembly. They faced opponents who claimed they could not hold elective office because of their American citizenship. If the Bidwells were aliens so were the majority of the province. The issue was not resolved until 1828 when the Colonial government retroactively granted them citizenship.

====Freed slaves====
The [[Act Against Slavery]] passed in Upper Canada on 9 July 1793. The 1793 "Act against Slavery" forbade the importation of any additional slaves and freed children. It did not grant freedom to adult slaves—they were finally freed [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833|by the British Parliament in 1833]]. As a consequence, many Canadian slaves fled south to New England and New York, where slavery was no longer legal. Many American slaves who had escaped from the South via the [[Underground Railroad]] or fleeing from the [[Black Codes (United States)|Black Codes]] in the Ohio Valley came north to Ontario, a good portion settling on land lots and began farming.<ref>Cooper, Afua, "Acts of Resistance: Black Men and Women Engage Slavery in Upper Canada, 1793–1803," ''Ontario History,'' Spring 2007, Vol. 99 Issue 1, pp 5–17</ref> It is estimated that thousands of escaped slaves entered Upper Canada from the United States.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/underground-railroad|title=Underground Railroad|encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]|access-date=9 September 2019}}</ref>

====British====
{{see also|Great Migration of Canada}}
The [[Great Migration of Canada|Great Migration from Britain]] from 1815 to 1850 has been numbered at 800,000. The population of Upper Canada in 1837 is documented at 409,000. Given the lack of detailed census data, it is difficult to assess the relative size of the American and Canadian born "British" and the foreign-born "British." By the time of the first census in 1841, only half of the population of Upper Canada were foreign-born British.<ref>{{harvp|Wilton|2001|page=9}}</ref>

=====Irish=====
{{main|Irish Canadian#Irish in Ontario}}

=====Scottish=====
{{main|Scottish Canadian#Ontario}}

=====English=====
{{main|English Canadian#Ontario}}

===Religion===

{{Histpop
|title       = 1842 Religion in Upper Canada
|type        = Canada
|align       = right
|width       = 10em
|shading     = off
|percentages = off
|footnote    = Source: Statistics Canada website Censuses of Canada 1665 to 1871.<br /> See [[United Province of Canada]] for population after 1840.
|Anglican|107791
|Baptists|16411
|Catholics|65203
|Congregational|4253
|Jews|1105
|Lutherans|4524
|Methodists|82923
|Moravians|1778
|Presbyterians|97095
|Quakers|5200
|Others|19422
}}

====Church of England====
{{main|Anglican Church of Canada|John Strachan}}

The first Lt. Governor, Sir [[John Graves Simcoe]], sought to make the Church of England the [[Established Church]] of the province. To that end, he created the clergy reserves, the revenues of which were to support the church. The clergy reserves proved to be a long-term political issue, as other denominations, particularly the [[Church of Scotland]] (Presbyterians) sought a proportional share of the revenues. The Church of England was never numerically dominant in the province, as it was in England, especially in the early years when most of the American born Later Loyalists arrived. The growth of the Church of England depended largely on later British emigration for growth.

The Church was led by the Rev. [[John Strachan]] (1778–1867), a pillar of the [[Family Compact]]. Strachan was part of the oligarchic ruling class of the province, and besides leading the Church of England, also sat on the Executive Council, the Legislative Council, helped found the [[Bank of Upper Canada]], [[Upper Canada College]], and the [[University of Toronto]].

====Catholic Church====
{{main|Roman Catholicism in Canada|Alexander Macdonell (bishop of Kingston)}}

Father Alexander Macdonell was a Scottish Catholic priest who formed his evicted clan into '''''The Glengarry Fencibles''''' regiment, of which he was chaplain. He was the first Catholic [[Royal Army Chaplains' Department|chaplain in the British Army]] since the [[Reformation]]. When the regiment was disbanded, Rev. Macdonell appealed to the government to grant its members a tract of land in Canada, and, in 1804, {{convert|160000|acre|sigfig=1}} were provided in what is now [[Glengarry County, Ontario|Glengarry County]], Canada.
In 1815, he began his service as the first Roman Catholic Bishop at St. Raphael's Church in the Highlands of Ontario.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Parish of St. Raphael Glengarry Emigration of 1786 Bishop Alexander Macdonell 1762–1840 |url=http://www.ontarioplaques.com/Plaques_STU/Plaque_Stormont44.html |website=ontarioplaques.com |access-date=16 April 2012}}</ref> In 1819, he was appointed [[Vicar Apostolic]] of Upper Canada, which in 1826 was erected into a suffragan [[Diocese|bishopric]] of the [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec|Archdiocese of Quebec]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/multiculturalism|title=Multiculturalism|encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia|access-date=9 September 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/why-is-canada-the-most-tolerant-country-in-the-world-luck/article19427921/ | title=Why is Canada the most tolerant country in the world? Luck}}</ref> In 1826, he was appointed to the [[Legislative Council of Upper Canada|legislative council]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Bishop Alexander MacDonell|url=http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bmcdoa.html|publisher=catholic-hierarchy.org|access-date=16 April 2012}}</ref>

Macdonell's role on the Legislative Council was one of the tensions with the Toronto congregation, led by Father [[William John O'Grady|William O'Grady]]. O'Grady, like Macdonell, had been an army chaplain (to [[Connell James Baldwin]]'s soldiers in [[Brazil]]). O'Grady followed Baldwin to [[Toronto Gore Township, Ontario|Toronto Gore Township]] in 1828. From January 1829 he was pastor of St. Paul's church in [[York, Upper Canada|York]]. Tensions between the Scottish and Irish came to a head when O'Grady was defrocked, in part for his activities in the Reform movement. He went on to edit a Reform newspaper in Toronto, the ''Canadian Correspondent''.

====Ryerson and the Methodists====
{{main|Egerton Ryerson|Methodist Episcopal Church}}

The undisputed leader of the highly fractious Methodists in Upper Canada was Egerton Ryerson, editor of their newspaper, ''[[The Christian Guardian]]''. Ryerson (1803–1882) was an itinerant minister&nbsp;– or circuit rider&nbsp;– in the Niagara area for the Methodist Episcopal Church&nbsp;– an American branch of Methodism. As British immigration increased, Methodism in Upper Canada was torn between those with ties to the Methodist Episcopal Church and the British [[Wesleyan Methodist Church (Great Britain)|Wesleyan Methodists]]. Ryerson used the ''Christian Guardian'' to argue for the rights of Methodists in the province and, later, to help convince rank-and-file Methodists that a merger with British Wesleyans (effected in 1833) was in their best interest.

====Presbyterians====
{{main|Presbyterian Church in Canada}}

The earliest Presbyterian ministers in Upper Canada came from various denominations based in Scotland, Ireland, and the United States. The "Presbytery of the Canadas" was formed in 1818 primarily by Scottish [[Associate Presbytery|Associate Presbyterian]] missionaries, yet independently of their mother denomination in the hope of including Presbyterian ministers of all stripes in Upper and Lower Canada. Although successfully including members from Irish Associate, and American Presbyterian and Reformed denominations, the growing group of missionaries belonging to the Church of Scotland remained separate. Instead, in 1831, they formed their own "Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Established Church of Scotland". That same year the "Presbytery of the Canadas", having grown and been re-organized, became the "United Synod of Upper Canada". In its continued pursuit for Presbyterian unity (and a share of government funding from the clergy reserves for established churches) the United Synod sought a union with the Church of Scotland synod which it finally joined in 1840. However, some ministers had left the United Synod prior to this merger (including, notably, Rev. James Harris, Rev. William Jenkins, and Rev. Daniel Eastman). In the 1832 new Secessionist missionaries began to arrive, belonging to "The United Associate Synod in Scotland" (after 1847, the [[United Presbyterian Church of Scotland]]). Committed to the voluntarist principle of rejecting government funding they decided against joining the "United Synod of Upper Canada" and on Christmas Day 1834 formed the "Missionary Presbytery of the Canadas". Although this new presbytery was formed at Rev. James Harris's church in Toronto, he and his congregation remained independent from it. However, the voluntarist, Rev. Jenkins and his congregation in Richmond Hill joined the Missionary Presbytery a few years later. Rev. Eastman had left the United Synod in 1833 to form the "Niagara Presbytery" of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. After this presbytery dissolved following the Rebellion of 1837, he rejoined the United Synod which then joined the Church of Scotland. Outside of these four Presbyterian denominations, only two others gained a foothold in the province. The small "Stamford Presbytery" of the American Secessionist tradition was formed in 1835 in the Niagara region, and the Scottish Reformed Presbyterian or "Covenanter" tradition was represented in the province to an even lesser extent. Despite the numerous denominations, by the late 1830s, the Church of Scotland was the main expression of Presbyterianism in Upper Canada.

====Mennonites, Tunkers, Quakers, and Children of Peace====
{{main|Mennonite|Society of Friends (Upper Canada)|The Children of Peace}}
[[File:SharonTemple.jpg|thumbnail|The [[Sharon Temple]], built by the [[The Children of Peace|Children of Peace]]]]
These groups of later Loyalists were proportionately larger in the early decades of the province's settlement. The Mennonites, Tunkers, Quakers and Children of Peace are the traditional Peace churches. The Mennonites and [[Tunkers]] were generally German-speaking and immigrated as Later Loyalists from Pennsylvania. Many of their descendants continue to speak a form of [[German language|German]] called [[Pennsylvania Dutch language|Pennsylvania Dutch]]. The Quakers (Society of Friends) immigrated from New York, the New England States and Pennsylvania. The Children of Peace were founded during the War of 1812 after a schism in the Society of Friends in York County.<ref>{{harvp|Reaman|1957|pp=40–124}}</ref> A further schism occurred in 1828, leaving two branches, "Orthodox" Quakers and "Hicksite" Quakers.

===Poverty===
{{see also|Imprisonment for debt (Upper Canada)}}
In the decade ending in 1837, the population of Upper Canada doubled, to 397,489, fed in large part by erratic spurts of displaced paupers, the "surplus population" of the British Isles. Historian Rainer Baehre estimated that between 1831 and 1835 a bare minimum of one-fifth of all emigrants to the province arrived totally destitute, forwarded by their parishes in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Baehre|first=Rainer|title=Pauper Emigration to Upper Canada in the 1830s|journal=Historie Sociale/Social History|year=1981|volume=XIV|issue=28 |pages=340}}</ref> The pauper immigrants arriving in Toronto were the excess agricultural workers and artisans whose growing ranks sent the cost of parish-based poor relief in England spiralling; a financial crisis that generated frenetic public debate and the overhaul of the [[Poor Laws]] in 1834. "Assisted emigration", a second solution to the problem touted by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Colonial Office, Robert Wilmot Horton, would remove them permanently from the parish poor rolls.

The roots of Wilmot-Horton's "assisted emigration" policies began in April 1820, in the middle of an [[Radical War|insurrection in Glasgow]], where a young, already twice bankrupted [[William Lyon Mackenzie]] was setting sail for Canada on a ship called Psyche. After the week-long violence, the rebellion was easily crushed; the participants were driven less by treason than distress. In a city of 147,000 people without a regular parish system of poor relief, between ten and fifteen thousand were destitute. The Prime Minister agreed to provide free transportation from Quebec to Upper Canada, a {{convert|100|acre|adj=on}} land grant, and a year's supply of provisions to any of the rebellious weavers who could pay their own way to Quebec. In all, in 1820 and 1821, a private charity helped 2,716 Lanarkshire and Glasgow emigrants to Upper Canada to take up their free grants, primarily in the [[Peterborough, Ontario|Peterborough]] area.<ref>{{harvp|Johnston|1972|pp=51–54}}</ref> A second project was the [[Petworth Emigration Scheme|Petworth Emigration Committee]] organized by [[Thomas Sockett]], who chartered ships and sent emigrants from England to Canada in each of the six years between 1832 and 1837.<ref>{{harvp|Cameron|Maude|2000|p=}}</ref> This area in the south of England was terrorized by the [[Captain Swing|Captain Swing Riots]], a series of clandestine attacks on large farmers who refused relief to unemployed agricultural workers. The area hardest hit&nbsp;– Kent&nbsp;– was the area where [[Sir Francis Bond Head]], later Lt. Governor of Upper Canada in 1836, was the [[Poor Law Commissioner|Assistant Poor Law Commissioner]]. One of his jobs was to force the unemployed into "Houses of Industry."