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Create AccountFrançois de Beauharnois de La Chaussaye, Baron de Beauville, INTENDANT of New France 1702-05 (bap 19 Sept 1665 near Orléans, France; d there 9 Sept 1746). Beauharnois, a protégé of the minister of marine, faced a difficult situation on his arrival in New France.
Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, colonizer (born 20 June 1771 on St Mary's Isle, Scotland; died 8 April 1820 in Pau, France).
William Kirby, novelist, journalist (b at Kingston-upon-Hull, Eng 23 Oct 1817; d at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont 23 June 1906).
Archibald McNab, 17th chief of Clan Macnab (b in Perthshire, Scot c 1781; d at Lannion, France 12 Aug 1860). McNab came to Upper Canada in 1822 to flee his creditors in Scotland. His settlement scheme was approved Nov 1823 and he was given land on the Madawaska River.
Riall arrived in UPPER CANADA in August 1813 and was placed in command of the Right Division, a geographic entity in the NIAGARA PENINSULA.
Richard Cartwright, businessman, officeholder, judge, militia officer, author (b at Albany, NY 2 Feb 1759; d at Montréal, 27 July 1815). A committed LOYALIST, Cartwright was expelled from New York in October 1777.
The new administration passed the REBELLION LOSSES BILL in 1849, evoking vehement Tory opposition. When Elgin gave the bill his assent, he was attacked by angry mobs and the Parliament buildings in Montréal were burned.
Simon Girty, frontiersman, British Indian agent, Loyalist settler in Upper Canada (Ontario), (born 14 November 1741 near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; died 18 February 1818 in Malden, Upper Canada).
In 1782-83 he was commander in chief at New York, which he refused to evacuate until the LOYALIST refugees had been sent to safety, and he urged their reception in Québec and Nova Scotia. Influenced by William SMITH, he unsuccessfully proposed while in England a single governor general for BNA.
Loyalists were American colonists, of different ethnic backgrounds, who supported the British cause during the American Revolutionary War(1775–83). Tens of thousands of Loyalists migrated to British North America during and after the war. This boosted the population, led to the creation of Upper Canada and New Brunswick, and heavily influenced the politics and culture of what would become Canada.
(This is the full-length entry about Loyalists in Canada. For a plain-language summary, please see Loyalists in Canada (Plain-Language Summary).)
“Freedom and a Farm.” The promise was exciting to the thousands of African Americans, most seeking to escape enslavement, who fought in British regiments during the American Revolutionary War (1775–83). Following the war, they joined tens of thousands of Loyalists — American refugees who had sided with the British. Between 80,000 and 100,000 Loyalists eventually fled the United States. About half came to British North America. The main waves arrived in 1783 and 1784. The territory that now includes the Maritime provinces became home to more than 30,000 Loyalists. Most of coastal Nova Scotia received Loyalist settlers, as did Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island (then called St. John’s Island).
Alexander Roberts Dunn, VC, army officer (born 15 September 1833 in York, Upper Canada; died 25 January 1868 near Senafe, Abyssinia). During the Crimean War, Lieutenant Dunn was the first Canadian ever to be awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for bravery among troops of the British Empire.
After the failed Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada, its leader, William Lyon Mackenzie, retreated to Navy Island, in the Niagara River, accompanied by some 200 followers. The Caroline, an American ship based at Fort Schlosser in New York State, was chartered to bring supplies to the rebels. On 29 December 1837, a force of the Upper Canada militia led by Commander Andrew Drew of the Royal Navy found the Caroline moored at Schlosser. In the quick skirmish that followed, an American was killed. The Caroline, set on fire and adrift, capsized before reaching the falls and sank. The incident aggravated the already tense relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States.
Although little is known about Chloe Cooley, an enslaved woman in Upper Canada, her struggles against her “owner,” Sergeant Adam Vrooman, precipitated the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, 1793 — the first legislation in the British colonies to restrict the slave trade.
The Act recognized enslavement as a legal and socially accepted institution. It also prohibited the importation of new slaves into Upper Canada and reflected a growing abolitionist sentiment in British North America.
Edward Jessup, Loyalist, soldier and founder of Prescott (born December 1735 in Stamford, Connecticut; died 3 February 1816 in Prescott, Upper Canada [Ontario]).
In the early morning of Good Friday, April 17, 1840, a terrific explosion shattered the peaceful atmosphere of the village of Queenston in Upper Canada (now Ontario). Brock's Monument, burial place of General Sir Isaac Brock, the much-revered hero of the War of 1812, was in ruins.
Sir William Johnson, merchant, fur trader, colonial official (born ca. 1715 in Smithtown, County Meath, Ireland; died 11 July 1774 in Johnson Hall, near Johnstown, NY).
Robert Thorpe, judge and political theorist (b at Dublin, Ire c 1764; d in London, Eng 11 May 1836). Appointed puisne judge of the Court of King's Bench, Thorpe arrived in Upper Canada in 1805.
Elijah McCoy, engineer, inventor (born 2 May 1843 or 1844 in Colchester, Canada West; died 10 October 1929 in Wayne County, Michigan.) McCoy was an African-Canadian mechanical engineer and inventor best known for his groundbreaking innovations in industrial lubrication.
William Lyon Mackenzie, journalist, politician (born 12 March 1795 in Dundee, Scotland; died 28 August 1861 in Toronto, ON). A journalist, Member of the Legislative Assembly, first mayor of Toronto and a leader of the Rebellions of 1837, Mackenzie was a central figure in pre-Confederation political life.
