Land Policies of Upper Canada

From 1763 to 1867 the land system of Upper Canada was one of the most important questions in the development of the new country. This detailed study of the subject examines Great Britain’s plans for Canada after the conquest, the problems created by the royal ＂promise＂ of land to the loyalists, Lord Durham’s Report, and the failure of the land policies to reach their economic and political objectives. In addition it covers the land problems in Canada after responsible government was achieved: Clergy Reserves, untenanted and abandoned land, settlement duties, speculation, wild land tax and assessment, and the activities of squatters. Based on Colonial Office depsatches, legislative records, the Crown Land Papers, newspapers and various private collections of documents, this work offers an accurate account of the social, economic and political aspects related to land policy in nineteenth-century Upper Canada.

Lillian F. Gates was educated at the University of British Columbia, Clark and Harvard Universities. She has taught at Cornell University and Ithaca College. Her life-long interest in ninteenth-century Ontario history has resulted in numerous articles for The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Ontario History, and the Western Historical Quarterly, as well as her 1968 book Land Policies of Upper Canada.