Upper Canada 1784-1841: The Formative Years

by Gerald M. Craig

Volume VII of the Canadian Centenary Series

Now available as e-books for the first time, the Canadian Centenary Series is a comprehensive nineteen-volume history of the peoples and lands which form Canada. Although the series is designed as a unified whole so that no part of the story is left untold, each volume is complete in itself.

With firm authority based on expert knowledge and in a lively and straightforward manner, Gerald M. Craig recounts the events in Upper Canada from the flood of immigration in the aftermath of the American Revolution and the Act of Union in 1841 which reunited the two Canadas. During this period the great and abiding issues of Canadian history--the adjusting of French and English institutions, the relationship between church and state, and the claims of responsible government against those of imperial unity and American expansionism--were raised and hotly debated. Those crucial years were to shape the character of much of English-speaking Canada and to lay the foundation for Confederation.

Never before had this turbulent era in a colony divided by political, religious, and economic rivalries been so vividly and excitingly set before the reader. Professor Craig brilliantly tells not just the story of the the Simcoes and Mackenzies, the Strachans and the Durhams but also the story of the ordinary people who cleared the land and built the farms and towns, who evolved from war and invasion, rebellion and confusion, to be neither British nor American, but distinctive in their own new Canadian personality.

First published in 1963, Gerald M. Craig’s important contribution to the Canadian Centenary Series is available here as an e-book for the first time.

Genres: Canada, History

422 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Gerald M. Craig (1916-1988) was a professor of history at the University of Toronto. He studied at the University of Toronto and the University of Minnesota, where he earned his Ph.D. after serving in the Second World War.

Reviews

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book quite good. Having grown up in Niagara and having read a lot on the War of 1812, it nicely filled in for me the activity around that time. I faintly recall discussing the Family Compact and the Durham report in high school and I found that this gives good background and discussion of that topic. It nicely tied in a lot of stuff I didn't know such as the Crown reserves and the Clergy reserves in the townships and how the management of that lead to some of the friction between those of the tory vs reform. I had not heard of the Centenary Series and most of it is probably out of print but I now have a new series to search for when visiting a used book store.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the best of the Centenary Series books, and its recent reprinting by Oxford UP is welcome. When I first went to read it 20 years ago, I found it rather dry and narrowly focused. On rereading recently, however, I find the detail Craig provides of great value. I value Craig's take on the family compact: as not just an oligarchy of self-interested men, but a less coherent group that nonetheless had a real vision for the colony.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just no. Too jumpy, political and hard to follow