1837 Canadian Rebellion - prisoners transported to Australia

Question

Does anyone have a project / interest in French Canadians transported to Australia after the 1836 rebellion?  I have someone on my watchlist that was part of that transportation.  (Apparently the only French Canadian to remain in New South Wales).  Not my direct line and I do not have any more info than that I have shared. But thought I would post here in case it is of interest to anyone

Comments

Thanks for working on this, Kerri.  The most appropriate project (and relevant G2G tag) would be Canada.

I haven't seen a lot of coordinated work on the rebellions in Lower and Upper Canada in 1837/1838 by the project, though I could be mistaken.  It would be great to see more work on those events, as they are important in the history of Canada.

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from the article M. Ross shared below, few of them actually stayed in Australia but returned home.  The 1837-8 rebellion in both upper and lower Canada is one of those periods of change in political system, that was actually quite slow in coming.  The French side was treated more harshly than the English side, par for the course in that era.

Not aware of anyone who is interested in actually doing the research required to find all the people concerned and fill in the blanks in our tree.

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This is the first I have ever heard of those who partook of the rebellion being shipped to Australia, and I read a lot of Canadian history. This doesn't mean its not true; however, most of the leaders of the rebellion in what was then Lower Canada, left for the U.S, which is only about 30 minutes by car today from the area where most of the activity was. That is along the Richelieu river between about Beloeil and St-Jean and had been settled by the family's of many French soldiers. The Richelieu River was also the major communication route between Montreal and New York City. Go up the Richelieu River to Lake Champlain, then continue to Albany, portage to the Hudson River and then go down to New York. This is how many left for the US. This route is one of the reasons for the existence and the past importance of Albany, along with the fact that it is also near the Mohawk River over which one can canoe and portage all the way to Lake Erie (i.e. Erie canal).

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the ones who left for the US did not get imprisoned and stand trial mostly, the ones who did were either hung or transported.

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thanks everyone for your comments.  As suggested I have updated the tags and included "canada" as a tag, it might get to a few more people.

Regards

Kerri

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add Québec as a tag to really get the attention of those closest to that part

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In Quebec, those who participated in the rebellion are called "Les Patriotes". There is also a "Route des Patriotes" (i.e. Patriot Road. This essentially follows the south shore of the Richelieu River. As I mentioned earlier most of those involved were from families of ex-French soldiers and they were also part of the militia. In fact their fathers had likely fought with de Salaberry at Chateauguay 25 years earlier to repulse an attack by the US during the War of 1812.

One of the main politicians of this movement and of later importance to Canada's political development was Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine.

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There is a lot of information out there. Here is a link to the convict ship Buffalo.

Answer 1

For anyone interested these links have some good background,

https://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/australia-australie/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/history-histoire.aspx?lang=eng

https://canadabayheritage.asn.au/canada-bay-history/the-french-canadian-exiles-of-1840/

Answer 2

There is actually such a category. It has one person on it, Joseph Marceau, who stayed in Australia.

Comments

My great, great, great uncle was Joseph Marceau, and he was the only convict who stayed behind, married and raised a family.