Indigospirit

In The Decade Ending In 1837 The Population Of Upper Canada Doubled To 397,489 Fed In Large Part By Erratic Spurts Of Displaced Paupers The "surplus Population" Of The British Isles Historian Rainer Baehre Estimated That Between 1831 And 1835 A Bare Minimum Of One-fifth Of All Emigrants To The Province Arrived Totally Destitute Forwarded By Their Parishes In The United Kingdom The Pauper Immigrants Arriving In Toronto Were The Excess Agricultural Workers And Artisans Whose Growing Ranks Sent The Cost Of Parish-based Poor Relief In England Spiralling; A Financial Crisis That Generated Frenetic Public Debate And The Overhaul Of The Poor Laws In 1834 "Assisted Emigration," A Second Solution To The Problem Touted By The Parliamentary Under-Secretary In The Colonial Office Robert Wilmot Horton Would Remove Them Permanently From The Parish Poor Rolls The Roots Of Wilmot-Horton's "assisted Emigration" Policies Began In April 1820 In The Middle Of An Insurrection In Glasgow Where A Young Already Twice Bankrupted William Lyon Mackenzie Was Setting Sail For Canada On A Ship Called Psyche After The Week-long Violence The Rebellion Was Easily Crushed; The Participants Were Driven Less By Treason Than Distress In A City Of 147,000 People Without A Regular Parish System Of Poor Relief Between Ten And Fifteen Thousand Were Destitute The Prime Minister Agreed To Provide Free Transportation From Quebec To Upper Canada A 100-acre Land Grant And A Year's Supply Of Provisions To Any Of The Rebellious Weavers Who Could Pay Their Own Way To Quebec In All In 1820 And 1821 A Private Charity Helped 2,716 Lanarkshire And Glasgow Emigrants To Upper Canada To Take Up Their Free Grants Primarily In The Peterborough Area A Second Project Was The Petworth Emigration Committee Organised By The Reverend Thomas Sockett Who Chartered Ships And Sent Emigrants From England To Canada In Each Of The Six Years Between 1832 And 1837. This Area In The South Of England Was Terrorised By The Captain Swing Riots A Series Of Clandestine Attacks On Large Farmers Who Refused Relief To Unemployed Agricultural Workers The Area Hardest Hit � Kent � Was The Area Where Sir Francis Bond Head Later Lt Governor Of Upper Canada In 1836 Was The Assistant Poor Law Commissioner One Of His Jobs Was To Force The Unemployed Into "Houses Of Industry."