Lower Canada

The Province of Lower Canada was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, created in 1791 and abolished in 1841. The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the old Province of Quebec into Lower Canada in the east and Upper Canada in the west, giving each a lieutenant-governor, an appointed legislative council and an elected assembly. Lower Canada kept French civil law and the seigneurial system, and granted freedom of worship to Catholics, while Upper Canada received English law; the settlement was designed to accommodate the loyalist refugees and the French-speaking majority alike. Montreal and Quebec City dominated its commerce, exporting timber and wheat to Britain, and the colony's population grew rapidly through natural increase and immigration. Political conflict sharpened as the elected assembly clashed with the appointed councils and the governor, whose spending it could not control. The Patriote movement led by Louis-Joseph Papineau demanded responsible government, and in 1837 armed rebellion broke out in the Richelieu valley and around Montreal. The rebellion was defeated, Lord Durham was sent to investigate, and his report recommended uniting the two Canadas. In 1841 Lower Canada was merged with Upper Canada into the Province of Canada.