April 2000 - Nr. 4
German Heritage in Canada
by Alidë Kohlhaas
Part 31
Upper Canada,
My home and Native Land?
The original Loyalists and the newer American settlers soon started to be at odds with the British officials, who came to rule them from across the Atlantic. The North Americans had different ways, even a different accent, from the British, and they had different expectations.
Even before the end of the first decade of the new century, the Upper Canadians began to resent the British "carpetbaggers", who governed them. Then came the War of 1812-14 with the United States. The citizens of both Upper and Lower Canada gave their neighbours to the south a clear sign that they had no wish to become part of the United States. At the same time, there was a large section of citizenry that stayed neutral in the conflict, including some of the "Germans". Of course, for the latter the reason was religious, although records show many Mennonites assisted the Canadian Militia and British troops in a non-military way. Yet, they and the non-Loyalist American settlers, who had arrived a decade or more after the Revolutionary War, were now viewed with suspicion by both the British rulers, and by some of the "true" Loyalist population of Upper Canada.
By the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century, more than two-thirds of Upper Canada’s population was American in origin. These were people, who had come not for love of the monarchy, but for a desire to settle on good, cheap land. No one had questioned their citizenship, and no one had prevented them from owning land.
Europeans, who came north via the United States–as the German group led by William Berczy–discovered to their dismay that they could not get title of land in Upper Canada for at least seven years, because they were not British. So, while the Berczy settlers built a large section of Yonge Street, and cleared thousands of acres for a settlement that is now Markham, in the end their dreams shattered. They had no right to the land they worked so hard to clear.
Governor Simcoe had encouraged emigration from the United States to stimulate the economy of Upper Canada. Nobody challenged the idea that Americans could be British subjects. Only the King’s subject’s could own land and participate in politics, and these Americans did so from the start. After the war, there were many, especially in British and "true" Loyalist circles that questioned the immigrants’ nationality. This legal wrangling over the rights of the "aliens" became a firm feature of Upper Canada for many years.
That is why Christian Nafziger, who led the Amish to Wilmott Townships in 1821, wisely went to London, to have the land grand of 50 acres per family confirmed directly by King George IV. It was in that year that government officials in London and in the colony began to imply that the American immigrants, and their children, though born in Upper Canada, were aliens. As such, they had no political rights and no title to the farms they had worked so hard to make profitable. The Amish, who were not even Americans, were in an even more precarious position.
It took seven years to resolve the question, with politicians battling each other on both sides of the question, and on both sides of the Atlantic. At one time during these tumultuous years, a journalist drew on the fate of the Israelites in Egypt, who had first been invited to settle there, then were stripped of their rights and were enslaved, to make the point for the endangered settlers.
Although Upper Canada needed more residents, all of this wrangling did nothing to attract settlers from Europe, and especially from the German lands during the 1820s and ‘30s. Political and economic stagnation in these lands during that time drove many people from their German homelands. Those, who managed to get permission from their lords and masters to leave, chose to come to the United States.
The politicians, who wanted to disenfranchise the American settlers after 30 years of toil and active participation in the running of the province, now began to encourage large-scale immigration from Ireland. Peterborough had its beginning in 1825 as an effort to de-Americanize Upper Canada’s population. Another attempt to emphasize the Britishness of the province was the formation of King’s College in York (the forerunner of the University of Toronto) in 1827. The province’s executive council advised that a university connected with the Church of England "would tend to establish a more affectionate connection between this Colony and the Parent state." It further stated that "its natural relation with an increasing Clergy, would gradually infuse into the whole population a tone and feeling entirely English."
Of
course, things did not work out that way. The 1828 election produced the
most radical government in Upper Canada’s history and gained the aliens
their rights. The Reformers, for a short time had the upper hand over the
Tories. And from this victory would eventually, with many ups and downs over
many decades, emerge a confederated Canada that more and more disentangled
itself from Britain. But, that is an entirely different story.
To be continued . . .
Comments to: alide@echoworld.com
( German-Canadian, history, culture, heritage )
Copyright ©2000 Alide Kohlhaas
