The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in Rural Lower Canada

Chris Raible is the author of Muddy York Mud: Scandal and Scurrility in
Upper Canada.

Canada’s history is evolutionary, not revolutionary, historians tell
each other. Responsible government, Confederation, westward expansion,
and control of international policy were all eventually achieved without
resort to the violent upheavals experienced by others. The 1837
Rebellions in Lower and Upper Canada (and the Riel Rebellions, for that
matter) are thus seen as an anomaly, singularly un-Canadian (except that
they failed).

But the 1837 Rebellions continue to fascinate, and a few historians
have studied them seriously. Earlier this century, Stanley Ryerson
offered a Marxist view that others almost universally discounted. More
recently, Fernand Quellet examined socioeconomic conditions in Lower
Canada and presented a reading of the era not always appreciated by
Quebec nationalists.

With this new study, Allan Greer starts with a refreshingly novel
notion: the events of 1837–38 must be seen in the context of their
contemporary revolutions in much of Europe and most of Latin America. He
thus focuses on the peasant culture and experience, rather than on the
price of grain and the distribution of property. He looks more at the
rural society than at the political turmoil in the legislature. “To
understand the habitants in the Rebellion, we must look at the
habitants.”

Greer goes out of the cities of Montreal and Quebec into the country.
He discusses the symbolism of the maypoles, the importance of the
charivaris, the role of the militia, the resistance to church
authorities, the tensions between francophones and anglophones, the
resentments over seigneurial dues and tenure, and much more. His
habitants were hardly the simple, cheerful, obedient, passive folk often
portrayed. He even spends one chapter—“The Queen Is a
Whore!”—examining apparent sexist bias, in both language and
practice, among the Patriotes.

Greer assumes a prior knowledge of the major events of the
Rebellion—this is no introductory history—but his arguments are
clearly stated, carefully supported, and readily understood. His
splendid exposition should be required reading for anyone who dares hold
an opinion about that controversial era.