The Land Granting Administration of Upper Canada

Université d'Ottawa University of' Ottawa The 'First Business of Govemment': The Land Granting Administration of Upper Canada David T. Moorman, Ph.D copyright O 1997 National Library Bibliothèque nationale b@1of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington ûttawaON K1AON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada neauthor has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive Licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfichelfilm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son pemiission. autorisation. Abst ract When the Loyalist refugees fleeing the American revolution in the 1780's ameved in what would become the province of Upper Canada, the colonial government faced a new and unwelcomed situation. Colonial officiais in both London and Quebec abandoned their plans for the expansion of the French cotony and the preservation of an extensive western Native reservation in favour of a British-style settlement, cornplete with a balanced constitution, common law. and free and soccage land tenure. The first business faced by this new conservative-minded, loyal government was the distribution of land. In conducting this business the Imperia1 government. and its officers in Upper Canada, constructed an administration that mixed inherited continuities with innovation. Through the desire for efficiency and accountability, this administration was slowly transformed from a quasi-feudal to a modern bureaucratie system. Many of the deusions and actions of the colonial administrators proved effective and far-sighted. others were much less so. In the end. however. the government was neither cormpt nor incompetent, and. by the 18301s, they succeed in accornplishing the principal goal of land granting; the broad distribution of land to industrious settiers loyal to the British monarchy. The structures through which this was accomplished became the framework of Canada's modern bureaucracy. Contents: Preface p. iii Introduction P. 1 Chapter One - Getting Land: Policies and Procedures, 1783-96 P. 9 Chapter Two - Financing the Administration p. 58 Chapter Three - The Framework of Administration, 1796-181 5 p. 87 Chapter Four - The Role of the Secretaries of State and the Lieutenant-Governors in Land Granting, 1796-181 5 p. 105 Chapter Five - The Land Cornmittee of the Executive Council and the Principal Officers of the Crown, 1796-1815 Chapter Six - The Surveyor General's Office, 1796-181 5 Chapter Seven - Maitland's Reforms and New Structures in the Land Granting Department Chapter Eight - The Land Sales System and the Commissioner of Crown Lands Conclusion Bibliography Maps, Diagrams and Tables Diagram 1 - Plan of Nine Townships Chapter One, p. 29 Diagram 2 - The Chequered Plan Discriminating the Reserves of the Crown from those of the Clergy Chapter Two, p. 72 Map 1 - Province of Upper Canada, 1800, from D.W. Smith's Topographical Description of Upper Canada Chapter Three, p. 89 Table 1 - Number of Meetings and Petitions Heard by the Land Cornmittee of Council, 1796-1826 Chapter Five, p. 157 Map 2 - Plan of the Principal Settlements of Upper Canada, 1817 Chapter Seven. p. 270 Map 3 - Map of the Located Districts in the Province of Upper Canada, 1828 Chapter Seven, p. 271 iii Preface When I began graduate studies 1 became interested in the process of land distribution and administration dunng the early years of settlement in Upper Canada, a subject of great importance in shaping the social, legal and economic character of the province. The only literature for this early period, however, is lirnited to land policies and their relation to political development. At the same time I read the recent work of historians on the process of state fornation in Canada. Much of this literature, in fact almost al1 of it, focuses on the crucial decades of the mid-nineteenth-century when a new generation of political elites transfomed social relationships in such areas as education, policing, governrnent finance and corporate regulation, to name but a few. As investigators of the mid-century years have pointed out, the power of the state goes far beyond the formulation of policy and its relation to the political process. The irnplementation of policy initiatives have a very real impact on the nature of outcornes, whether they be intended or not. Furthemore. limitations on administration having to do with technology, distance and communication, and hurnan capacity, help define the evolution of specific policies, the direction they take, and ultimately their success or failure. It stfuck me that these insights might be fruitfully applied to the earlier years of colonial development. This study, then, is an investigation of the administration of land policies in Upper Canada. It stems from the very basic question; how did Upper Canadians get land? What were the rules, structures and processes that govemed distribution? Who were the iv administrators and how did they perfomi their duties? From what follows we can see that the roots of the mid-century transformations in the state corne early. This should surprise no one given the importance of land in the pioneer wlony that was Upper Canada. Furthermore, if mid-century developments constituted a revolution in govemment such developments had lengthy antecedents. We can also see that, regardless of their political shortcumings and inadequacies. the province's administrators were neither grossly incompetent nor particulariy compt. This is not the picture often painted of the Family Compact. A great many people have assisted in the research and wnting of this work and I would like to take the opportunity to thank them. My thesis supervisor, Dr. Michael Piva of the University of Ottawa, has provided steady guidaiice and rigorous examination throughout the process. I would like to thank the staff at the National Archives of Canada for their generous assistance. In parücular, Patricia Kennedy of the Pre-Confederation Manuscript Division proved invaluable. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my fellow graduate students in the History Department at the University of Ottawa. Steven High. Dr. Jean Manore, and JO-AnnMcCutcheon, among many others, gave me the emotional and intellectual support necessary to not only complete this project but to make it an enjoyable experience. The 'First Business of Govemment': The Land Granting Administration of Upper Canada Introduction For the pioneers of Upper Canada few aspects of life were more important than land. It was their means of livelihood and their source of security in a new and often uncertain world. For those who govemed the emerging community of pioneers land granting proved to be, as Lord Durham later pointed out, "the first business of govemment".' In his mid-century report on the on the state of Canadian affairs, Durham argued that the process of granting land shaped the general character of society, the distribution of wealth, and the nature of political and legal systems; "Upon the manner in which this business is conducted, it may almost be said that every thing else depends". The process of land granting began with the Loyalist refugee migration in the 1780s and continued through until the l "I allude to an operation of Govemment, which has a paramount influence over the happiness of individuals, and the progress of society.. .the disposal, by the Govemment of the lands of the new country. In old countries no such matter ever occupies public attention; in new countnes... this is the object of the deepest moment of all, and the first business of the Govemment." Lord Durham's Report: An Abridgement of Report on the Affairs of British North Amenca. Gerald Craig, ed. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 4963) p. 1 10. adoption of the sales system and creation of the Office of the Commissioner of Crown Lands in the mid-1820's. This is the story of land granting, a process that for forty years detemined the character of land holding in one of the British Empire's most remote. sparsely populated and yet potentially productive provinces. In a broader sense, this story is also about a transition in the system of govemance, from the arbitrary to the unifomly regulated and from the quasi-feudal to the modem bureaucratie. The Upper Canadian community took shape during a period of profound change in Western society.' Although the settlement process unfolded in a remote wildemess, Upper Canadians were well aware of these changes at the centre of western civilization. By many they were welcorned, but not by all. As a British colony established in the wake of the Amencan and French revolutions those who govemed Upper Canada often feared and distmsted the new liberal, democratic and commercialized society that had begun to emerge both at home in England. and, with greater force. in America. Eariy administrators, such as Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe. quite consciously sought to influence and direct these changes, in the hape of creating a comrnunity that retained traditional elements of social, political and economic stratification. deference to authority and loyalty to Empire. To achieve these conservative ends Simcoe and his successors developed accountable and regulated administrative See R.R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and Amerka, 176O-l8OOl 2 vols.

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