Cananda 17911841 Hierarchy The Colonial Government was hierarchical Hierarchy is any system of persons or things ranked above one another The wealthy and powerful people believed it was the elites divine right to rule over the rest of the less ID: 647890
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Slide1
Colonial Government
Early settlement of
Cananda
1791-1841Slide2Slide3
Hierarchy:
The Colonial Government was hierarchical.
Hierarchy is any system of persons or things ranked above one another.
The wealthy and powerful people believed it was the elite’s divine right to rule over the rest of the less
priviledged
.
Ex. Power was in the hands of the governor. Day to day small number of wealthy men appointed (hand picked) by the governor – executive council.
Ex. Elected assemblies had no power. Just the image of having a voice.
Ex. The opinions of the farmers in the list of grievances were not viewed as important.Slide4
By granting both Upper and Lower Canada
elected assemblies
it appeared that Canada had a democratic system. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Ultimately, Britain did not trust either the French or the American-Loyalists. The French could not be trusted for obvious reasons (they were French, after all). The Loyalists could not be fully trusted, well...because they were American; and because they were American they may have been "infected" by the ideals of the Revolution, i.e. One man one vote, a desire to expand democracy, a faith in representative government, etc. Therefore, Britain was determined to limit the power of both Upper and Lower Canada's elected assemblies.Slide5
In reality, the elected assemblies for both provinces had absolutely no decision-making power whatsoever. Instead, all power was in the hands of a colonial governor (who was only accountable to the British Parliament). To assist the governor with the day to day affairs of the colony he appointed a small number of wealthy men (lets call them "rich, noble dudes") to one of two administrational councils. By denying the average colonist any power, Britain hoped to preserve traditional authority and minimize the risk of any future revolution breaking out in Canada.Slide6
The Thirteen Colonies insisted that they had rebelled because they felt oppressed and had no other alternative. Britain disagreed. On the contrary, Britain insisted the revolution was precisely a result of the Americans being given too much freedom.
So they did not want to repeat that problem in Canada….
The governor could not of course rule all by himself. Even dictators need help. He could not align himself with the masses. The uneducated and poor majority had to be if anything controlled. No. He needed to look to help from a willing minority. Therefore, the governor aligned himself with the most powerful and rich people of the colony. And he appointed these "ugly, rich noble dudes" to something called the Executive Council. The Executive Council's most fundamental role was in seeing that the governor's policies were enforced. Oh, and by the way, these policies just happened to help the rich get richer. But this of course was just a coincidence.Slide7