Lord Durham Racist

Lord Durham was a politician who was sent to Canada to investigate the Upper and Lower Canada rebellions. He was appointed the governor general, and this made it possible for him to be in the position to get findings and report on them and at the same time provide recommendations. Lord Durham activities have been able to be criticized by other historians, and so this has been able to raise questions on his work. The main question was, is Lord Durham a racist or a Democrat? This was brought up after a careful study of his work and all the activities that he took part in while he was in Canada. It has been in the position to raise a more about all his work. Some of the key points being, the recommendations he gave out to Canada, his work based …show more content…
He was in the position to come up with two modes of which he saw were best that the government would use to deal with conquering territory, argues Lord Durham in the Report on the Affairs of British North America. His first argument was that ‘the conquer is to respect the right and nationality of the actual occupants.’ This was a right that the occupants were not to be denied on their land. They were also to be treated well and with respect. The second mode was ‘treating the conquered territory as one open to the conquers of encouraging their influx, of regarding the conquered race as entirely subordinate and endeavoring as speedy and as rapidly as possible to assimilate the character and institution of its new subject.' This was in the position to see Durham as a Democrat as he can fight for the rights of the individuals whose territories have been conquered. Despite the fact that he was fighting to ensure that the rights of the individuals were taken into consideration he was also in a way encouraging the acquiring of the territories. He supported acquiring of territories by the super powers and instead gave out conditions on how the conquers were to operate when in the territories. This in a way made him be portrayed as a racist as he was also in the position to support the territorial …show more content…
This was because all the rules and regulations that were formulated were being referred to the kind of religion that was in the land. He was convinced that assimilation was ‘Already commencing’ in Lower Canada and so the reforms associated with it would be welcomed to the mass of the people. Assimilation was rapidly spreading, and so this was an indicator that the Upper Canada will also soon take the same path. The fact that he was also seen to protect the kind of religion of the individual territories, it was now beyond and so it was spreading