“’Three cheers for the Canadian peasants’: the response of British radicals and Chartists to the Canadian rebellions of 1837-38”

Michael Michie

On Wednesday 10 January 1838, a meeting was held at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in Westminster to discuss the rebellions in Lower and Upper Canada. Attendance was claimed to be 4000, with thousands more unable to get in. The meeting ended with a rousing “three cheers for the Canadian peasants.” This was one of several well-attended meetings of support for the Lower Canadian Patriots and Upper Canadian reformers that were organized by radicals in England and Scotland in early 1838. It is curious that this movement of support has been largely unexamined by Canadian historians and historians of Chartism, all the more so when it is considered that the rebellions coincided precisely with the formative period of Chartism in late 1837 and early 1838. Radicals were receiving news of Canadian events at the same time they were organizing meetings and signatures for the Peoples’ Charter.

The paper first presents a brief account of the rebellions in the context of debates over colonial policy and reform. This is followed by analysis of the arguments and language employed by reformers and radicals, by focusing on a few key themes: comparison between political representation in Britain, Canada and America; the importance of the constitutional framework; perception of the conflict as an ethnic/nationalist one; and the often blurred relationship between Whigs, parliamentary radicals and Chartists.

While there has been considerable discussion around the meaning and impact of the rebellions, primarily as part of the debate on colonial policy in the 1830s, an examination of radical and proto-Chartist support introduces consideration of a challenge to the nature of the British State and the political system itself, in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act. Radicals seized upon news of the conflict as a propaganda weapon against the Whig government; the same government allegedly responsible for suppression of “Canadian” and of British political rights. Parliamentary Radicals saw the conflict in Canada as indicating the need for representative government in the colonies. Proto-Chartists went further, arguing that the Canadian rebels were setting an example for the people of Britain to follow.