Rebellions of (1837)

1 A rebellion in Lower Canada (Quebec) generated by stalemate between the elected Legislative Assembly and the appointed Executive Council over control of provincial revenues. Led by Papineau and his Parti Patriote, it sought to locate authority in the largely Canadian Assembly. It was crushed by government troops after several brief confrontations. 2 Later in 1837, a rebellion in Upper Canada (Ontario), which opposed the oligarchical control exercised by the Family Compact, and the position of preferment enjoyed by the Church of England. Armed Radicals led by Mackenzie marched on Toronto to seize the government, but were repulsed by pro-government troops and volunteers. Mackenzie and Papineau both fled to the USA.

The Rebellions of 1837 were a pair of Canadian armed uprisings that occurred in 1837 and 1838 in response to frustrations in political reform and ethnic conflict.

The rebellions occurred in two Canadian colonies:

The Lower Canada Rebellion — a larger and more sustained conflict by French Canadian and English Canadian rebels against the British colonial government The Upper Canada Rebellion — an abortive uprising in Upper Canada against the ruling clique of the colony, known as the Family Compact.

The rebellion in Lower Canada began first, in November of 1837, and was led by Robert Nelson and Louis-Joseph Papineau. This probably inspired the much shorter rebellion in Upper Canada led by William Lyon Mackenzie in December.

Historical Debate about the Rebellions

A major point of debate among English Canadian historians is how closely linked the reform movements in Upper and Lower Canada were. This view usually interprets the rebellion in Lower Canada largely in ethnic and cultural terms, suggesting that it was primarily a conflict between French Canadian nationalists and an English ruling class, while the less-successful rebellion in Upper Canada was a conflict between republican and monarchical ideology. Saul suggests the rebellions were both part of the same broad movement for democratic and republican reform, pointing to the extensive correspondence between the leaders of the rebellion, and the prominence of some English speakers in the rebellion in Lower Canada such as the brothers Wolfred Nelson and Robert Nelson. French Canadian historians often see the rebellions as part of the first international movement for decolonization, which also included the United States, Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, and several other Central and South American colonies in the early 19th century, as well as independence movements in Belgium and Greece.

The Mac-Paps in the Spanish Civil War

In 1937, exactly one century after the Rebellion, William Mackenzie and Louis-Joseph Papineau were to give their name to the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion or the Mac-Paps, a battalion of Canadian soldiers who fought on the Republican side in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.