Claim Process and Criteria

During and immediately following the war, the Loyal and Patriotic Society (LPS) was the only source from which the inhabitants of Upper Canada could receive relief for the dire circumstances caused by extensive looting and burning. Beginning in 1813, however, commissions appointed to investigate claims on the army commissariat suggested to inhabitants that there may exist an opportunity to seek compensation for the property and homes they had lost. In 1813, a board of militia officers convened at Niagara to investigate claims against the army commissariat for goods and services provided to the military, but most of their records were lost when the Americans captured, occupied, and then burned the town of Newark.²⁵¹ A second commission in 1815 established boards of accounts in six locations throughout the province to review similar claims. Individual committees composed of militia officers met in each district and reviewed about 1,254 claims from inhabitants across the province.²⁵² In creating these first boards, the British military was attempting to review and pay debts it had incurred during the war through appropriations and unpaid contracts.

The militia officers quickly realized, however, that many inhabitants were seeking compensation for property and articles taken or destroyed by British and American soldiers and native warriors during the war. They summarily rejected these kinds of claims as outside their mandate. Perhaps recalling that the British government provided compensation to Loyalists following the Revolution, the inhabitants of Upper Canada refused to accept rejection and demanded a broader investigation that would cover a wider range of losses. Letters like the one sent by Elizabeth Campbell put pressure on the provincial administrators, who were unsure how to respond to overwhelming requests for aid. In 1815, Lieutenant-Governor Francis Gore wrote to the Earl Bathurst that he had “received information that considerable depredations have been committed by the Enemy, and also by our own Army, and the Indians, in Upper Canada.”²⁵³ He asked for instructions about how to handle “applications from the sufferers.” Bathurst replied that a new committee should be appointed to accomplish the investigation and return its report for consideration by the government. This third board of commissioners solicited and reviewed 2,884 claims covering losses of personal articles, animals, crops, wagons, fences, houses, barns, stables, and outbuildings. Inhabitants of Upper Canada who had suffered personal losses during the war had reason to hope that they would be compensated within a reasonable timeframe.

Controversy arose, however, when inhabitants and government officials in Upper Canada and England criticized the 1815 commissioners for assuming “monstrous and impeachable power”²⁵⁴ by establishing principles of operation that would result in unfair discrimination against claimants. Among the thirteen principles were some that stated the board would reject the claims of “persons notoriously disaffected” (often taken to mean disloyal or just contrarian in some way), would strike out any article for which the value had been “grossly exaggerated,” and that “trifling losses not materially affecting the individuals be rejected.”²⁵⁵ Critics argued that these restrictions and definitions were subjective and would open the process to discrimination and abuse. These policies were so heavily criticized that a fourth and final commission, called the Board of Claims for Losses (BCL), was appointed in 1823 to review all previously submitted claims and to solicit claims from inhabitants who had not already applied.

The complex and contested history of these various boards caused the 1823 commission to adopt a more robust structure and stricter procedures than previous boards. The members of the commission included William Allan, Joseph Wells, Colby Lyons Lucas Foster, Thomas Ridout, and Augustus Baldwin, with J.B. Macauley serving as secretary of the board and Lewis Bright as the official messenger. The board met on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays of each week in the house of Duncan Cameron in York. The commissioners advertised in three provincial newspapers that inhabitants could submit claims to the secretary that included the following components: a claim sworn to before a Justice of the Peace, an affidavit from “at least one indifferent Person,” and “such documents (duly proved) as may be necessary to Substantiate the Same.”²⁵⁶ If the submitted documents did not meet the burden of proof, the commissioners also expected that claimants and their witnesses would appear before them at York to provide further evidence or testimony.

These strict procedures set a high threshold for submitting claims to the board. A claimant was required to prepare a claim in the proper form, including a list of all articles taken or destroyed along with values, and swear before a justice of the peace that the claim was true and properly valued. Preparing such a list required a good memory and a method for assessing typical values for each item. To support their valuations, many claimants relied on expert witnesses, such as carpenters who could say that the value of a specific house was accurately represented. Producing such documents required literacy or sufficient funds and connections to employ a representative to prepare a claim. Once over that initial hurdle, claimants were then required to identify witnesses or supporters for their claims and have those persons make a statement under oath. With the paperwork assembled, sworn, and submitted, the claimants then waited to hear whether the commissioners would accept the evidence and allow an award. If the board required further evidence, the process of finding and preparing evidence began once more. The exacting procedures and investment of time and resources required to make a claim made the process accessible to only a limited number of inhabitants of Upper Canada so that not all who suffered losses during the war could seek compensation.

In particular, native men and women living within Upper Canada were not eligible to apply for compensation, even though they undoubtedly experienced material losses during the war. Unfortunately, the wartime experiences of native communities in Upper Canada have received almost no attention in histories of the war or the province. The ever-shifting relationship between the Crown and native tribes in Upper Canada was a mutual alliance (though increasingly unbalanced in favor of the British) that did not compel the Crown to take responsibility for losses incurred by native men and women who had supported the war effort. In the post-war years, the official British policy considered continued efforts to maintain good relationships with native allies “largely unnecessary and even irrelevant.”²⁵⁷ In a token gesture that hardly compensated the native tribes for their sacrifices, William Claus, an Indian Department official, “distributed £2,300 worth of presents to the Indian allies as a gesture of gratitude by the king for the military assistance of the tribes during the late war.”²⁵⁸

The three native people who are represented in claims made to the various boards that reviewed wartime losses were exceptions to the general exclusion of native people from the claims process. In 1819, a Mohawk war chief named Henry A. Hill sought payment for the use of his team of oxen that the British army pressed into service during the war. Hill’s early claim was not resubmitted to the BCL in 1823, however, and his name does not appear in the vouchers or paylists. Only a single successful claim represented the losses of a native person, who likely benefited from her status within white society to gain access to the claims process. Ohtowaˀkéhson (also known as Catherine Brant) was head of the turtle clan of the Mohawks and third wife of Thayendanegea (also known as Joseph Brant). Joseph had who fought alongside the British in the Seven Years’ War and the Revolution before visiting England to petition the Crown for compensation of losses incurred during the war and secure British support in any future conflicts between the Six Nations and the United States.²⁵⁹ Before his death in 1807, Joseph established the Mohawk settlement at Grand River near present-day Brantford, where Catherine lived during the War of 1812.

In 1816, Brant submitted a claim for destroyed fence rails and crops, animals that were killed, and damages done to her house and barn. For evidence, she relied on witness statements from her youngest son John, Michael and Henry Groat (both black men), and Augustus Bates (a white man).²⁶⁰ Although Brant was still living in 1823, her claim was resubmitted by John Brant, who referred the board to the previous claim. The voucher and other registers both list John and Catherine Brant as payees, making it difficult to determine whether Catherine retained control of the compensation payments. She may have relied on John to administer the claim while keeping authority over how the money was used or perhaps allowed him to use her name to collect payment for his own use. In either case, Brant’s successful claim for compensation is the sole exception to the rule that the British government did not recognize or compensate the wartime losses of native people in Upper Canada. The explanation for Brant’s access to the claims policy is a result of her prominence in the Mohawk community and status within white society. Through her husband’s reputation and her own role as a native leader, Brant occupied a position in elite society in Upper Canada, earning her respect and consideration that were not available to most native people. While the commissioners would have clearly recognized that Brant was not white, they would also have seen that making an exception in this case was not only reasonable but important to maintaining good relations with the Mohawk community.

Black inhabitants of Upper Canada were similarly underrepresented in the claims process but were not explicitly excluded based on their race. During the War of 1812, the black population in Upper Canada was still relatively small, comprising mostly free persons and some enslaved persons. Although slavery was legal in the province until the 1830s, by 1812 free black people outnumbered the enslaved population. A 1793 act had prohibited importing new enslaved persons, abolished the enslavement of black persons arriving in the province, and set in place mechanisms ensuring that the children of enslaved persons would be freed, and their grandchildren born free.²⁶¹ As legal subjects of the Crown, “whether free born, manumitted, or escaped, the black residents [of Upper Canada] assumed the rights and the responsibilities of full citizens.”²⁶²

The language appearing in the claims suggest that white inhabitants of Upper Canada perceived an important distinction between themselves and black inhabitants, even though the law and the board of commissioners did not. At least six black men and one black woman submitted claims for compensation after the war. Three of the men, John Smith, Peter Lee, and Robert Jupiter, were from Niagara Township. Michael Groat was from Grand River and Edward Page lived in Malden Township of the Western District. The sole black female claimant, Sarah Long, lived in York. All the black claimants’ documents were prepared by white men, many of whom added descriptors such as “a man of Colour,” “a Black woman,” or “a Black man” next to the names of the claimants or witnesses. Yet like the directors of the LPS, the commissioners of the BCL (or at least their secretary Macauley) recorded no official comments about claimants’ perceived race in their proceedings and seem to have assessed claims made by black persons without prejudice. If claims included the required evidence, the only potential for discrimination was in the commissioners’ valuation of the losses compared to the valuation provided by the claimants. According to the commissioners’ report on the 1,874 claims they had decided, awards were on average 53% lower than the values submitted.²⁶³ The value of awards for black claimants were on average 32% lower than the amounts they claimed. Additionally, while all claimants received payment of only 35% on their awards, black men and women received payments at the same rate. These figures indicate that while black inhabitants may have had less access to the claims process due to the strict procedures and requirements for evidence, the board of commissioners did not discriminate based on race in the assessment and payment of claims.