Editing Upper Canada (section)

===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}}