5.  In the year 1760, Canada became a British possession, and English settlers commenced to make homes for themselves in Upper Canada.  Their number was greatly increased by the United Empire Loyalists who came over after the American Revolution.  The English disliked the French method of holding land.  Under Seigniorial Tenure, the seller of land in a seigniory was compelled to pay the seignior an amount equal to one twelfth of the purchase money.  As this was chargeable not only on the value of the land, but also on the value of all buildings and improvements, which, costing the seigniors nothing, were often more valuable than the land itself, it was considered by the English settlers an intolerable handicap. (Centuries before this the Feudal System had been abolished in England.)

6.  In 1791 the British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act which gave the people of Upper Canada the privilege of holding lands in their own name.  In Lower Canada, too, those who wished were allowed to avail themselves of the freehold system, but the French did not take advantage of their opportunity.  In the year 1854 Seigniorial Tenure was abolished, the Government recompensing the seigniors for the surrender of their ancient rights and privileges, and freehold tenure, as in Ontario, was introduced.

7.  Reasons why the Seigniorial Tenure failed: 

     (a) It was not adapted to conditions in Canada.

     (b) It did not provide sufficient incentive to settlers to
     improve their lands.

     (c) It gave the habitant no chance to rise.

     (d) It tended to divide the population into three classes.

(e) It failed to develop a civic spirit.  This fact alone made progress practically impossible.  Each seignior was the master of his own domain.  Thus the people had no opportunity of working together, and under such circumstances no great national spirit could be developed.

8.  Note the effect of the conquest of Canada and of the American Revolution, upon Seigniorial Tenure.

CONFEDERATION OF CANADIAN PROVINCES

TOPICAL ANALYSIS

Causes:

1.  The idea of union an old one in Canada and the Maritime Provinces; foreshadowed in Durham’s Report.

2.  Immediate cause in Canada was the question of representation by population; deadlock in Parliament.

3.  Immediate cause in Maritime Provinces was the feeling between Britain and the Colonies and the United States over the Trent affair, the Alabama trouble, and the idea in the Northern States that the British Colonies favoured the cause of the South in the Civil War.

Steps toward Confederation:

1.  Meeting of delegates from the Maritime Provinces in Charlottetown in 1864.

2.  Meeting in Quebec, 1864, of delegates from all the provinces favours Confederation.