The Rebellions of 1837–1838 (), were two armed uprisings that took place in Lower and Upper Canada in 1837 and 1838. Both rebellions were motivated by frustrations with lack of political reform. A key shared goal was responsible government, which was eventually achieved in the incidents' aftermath. The rebellions led directly to Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America and to the Act of Union 1840 which partially reformed the British provinces into a unitary system and eventually led to the British North America Act, 1867, which created the contemporary Canadian federation and its government.
Atlantic context
Some historians contend that the rebellions in 1837 ought to be viewed in the wider context of the late-18th- and early-19th-century Atlantic revolutions. The American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783, the French Revolution of 1789–99, the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the rebellions in Spanish America (1810–1825) were inspired by republican ideals, but whether the rebels would have gone so far as to usurp the Crown remains a subject for historical debate. Great Britain's Chartists sought the same democratic goals. Historians have tended to view the two Canadian rebellions and the subsequent US Patriot War in isolation, without reference to each other, and without reference to the republican impetus they shared. Recent reconsiderations have emphasized that this was a purposeful forgetfulness by the Reformers after the Rebellions, as they attempted to repudiate the bold republicanism of William Lyon Mackenzie, yet steer an acceptable course to national independence under the guise of responsible government. Ducharme (2006) puts the rebellion in 1837 in the context of the Atlantic Revolutions. He argues that Canadian reformers took their inspiration from the republicanism of the American Revolution. The rebels believed that the right of citizens to participate in the political process through the election of representatives was the most important right, and they sought to make the legislative council elective rather than appointed. Rebellion in Upper Canada (and Lower Canada also) broke out after the 1836 Legislative Assembly elections were corrupted. It seemed then that the reformers' struggles could only be settled outside the framework of existing colonial institutions. The British military crushed the rebellions, ending any possibility the two Canadas would become republics. Some historians see ties to the Chartist Newport Uprising of 1839 in Wales, suppressed by Sir Francis Bond Head's cousin, Sir Edmund Walker Head.
Rebellions
There were two types of rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada. Many of the rebels (including Mackenzie) fled to the United States. Mackenzie established a short-lived "Republic of Canada" on Navy Island in the Niagara River, but withdrew from armed conflict soon thereafter. Charles Duncombe and Robert Nelson, in contrast, helped foment a largely American militia, the Hunters' Lodge/Frères chasseurs, which organized a convention in Cleveland in September 1838 to declare another Republic of Lower Canada. The Hunters' Lodges drew on the American members of the radical Equal Rights Party (or "Locofocos"). This organization launched the "Patriot War", which was suppressed only with the help of the American government. The raids did not end until the rebels and Hunters were defeated at the decisive Battle of Windsor, nearly a year after the first defeat near Montgomery's Tavern.
Similarities
The constitutions of Upper and Lower Canada differed greatly, but shared a basis on the principle of "mixed monarchy"—a balance of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. The colonies, however, lacked the aristocratic element, and found their non-elective Legislative Councils dominated by local oligarchies that controlled local trade and the institutions of state and religion. In Lower Canada they were known as the Château Clique; in Upper Canada they were known as the Family Compact. Both office-holding oligarchies were affiliated with more broadly based "Tory parties" and opposed by a Reform opposition that demanded a radically more democratic government than existed in each colony.