CONFLICTS IN UPPER CANADA DURING THE 1830s 1840s
Upper Canada in the 1830s and 1840s was rife with violence and unrest as a result of Irish immigrants’ disappointment at not finding an escape from the miseries of their homeland. ... This reaction which is somewhat rational and expected of a group of disgruntled peoples when faced with unending despair is quite apparent in the events of the Shiners’ War from 1835 to 1837 and the conflicts on the canals of Upper Canada in the 1840s. ... The conflicts of the 1840s in the canals were similar to the effect that the root causes for the disruption were unemployment and the Irishmen’s explosive reaction to mend their lives. ... ” Ruth Bleasdale on the other hand does not think the Irish had imported a problematic attitude, rather, in her work on the canal conflicts she mentions, “…the violence of the labourers appears not as the excesses of an unruly nationality clinging to old behaviour patterns, but as a rational response to economical conditions in the new world.” However, when analyzing the 1830s and 1840s one can not ignore either the economic struggles or the background of the Irish as both were significant and both worked hand-in-hand along with the lack of authority to create an atmosphere of disorder. ... ” Indeed Ireland was, with its incomparably high crime rate, poverty, foreign rule, terrorist societies, political and religious suppression, and a life expectancy of only nineteen in the 1830s, a place with widespread turmoil in every aspect of life.