Colonising Space and Producing Territory: John and Elizabeth Simcoe and Water, Power, and Empire in Upper Canada, 1791-1796

This dissertation examines how John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, and his wife, Elizabeth, manifested imperial expressions of power, sovereignty, security, and population within the new colony in the 1790s.There are also three chapters that focus on how territorial and route surveying played a critical role for both Simcoes, serving as a scientific foundation for reframing Upper Canada as a territory and a population.It does so by offering a re-examination of both their well-From her lodging in Québec City on 15 March 1792, Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim Simcoe (1756-1850) wrote the following letter to the caretaker of her children at her Wolford estate near Devon, England: Another mail arrived and no letter from you, my dear friend Mrs. Hunt.How is it that you I esteem so wise, should not have had observation enough to have found out by the news papers [sic] that Packets go to N. York & Halifax every month & are immediately forwarded from thence here?Do you not remember Lake Champlain & Lake George & all that route from N. York to Québec which you have so often drawn & which is passed constantly & in a rapid manner when the lakes are frozen?This Town is now supplied with fresh Cod in a frozen state from Boston distant 700 miles & it is sold at 6d per lb.So you have proof that we are not excluded from communication with the rest of the World, or destitute of Luxuries.We have had some excellent Venison from the township of Matilda above Cataraqui.I daresay you remember that name on the Map above 400 miles from hence.I find our Maps to be little better than Sketches, little of the country being surveyed.The Surveyors draw slowly & I am told when they want to suit their map to the Paper do not scruple cutting off a few miles of a River or adding to it.2This letter is part of one captured and published in Elizabeth's "diary" that she created during her stay in Upper Canada with her husband John Graves Simcoe (1752-1806).They had arrived in Upper Canada in November of 1791 and until they returned to England in the fall of 1796 neither of them was far from the shores of the St. Lawrence River.This excerpt is not an unusual piece of writing from Elizabeth on a variety of subjects.It demonstrates her interest in the various waterways of the eastern North American continent.Exemplified here and throughout her diary, she demonstrated a keen knowledge of and, more importantly, an interest in a deeper knowledge of the geography of Upper Canada.She considered herself intimately connected with her friend through an imperial network of communication and understanding.She was informed of the costs and structures of the place where she was currently staying.Finally, it is clear here and throughout her diary that she adjudicated observed behaviours and situations, like those of the surveyors, and actively assessed and compared them to those with which she was familiar.Elizabeth and her husband John responded in similar ways to the geographical spaces of Upper Canada, and as such they belonged to an Atlantic and transnational imperial structure and network and framework of knowledge.Married in 1782, by 1789 John and Elizabeth had relocated to Devon, England.Writing from their Wolford Estate that year, John sent a copy of his memoirs to Evan Nepean (1752-1822), the Under Secretary of State, detailing his experience with the Queen's Rangers in New York and Philadelphia during the war with the colonies, 3 and enclosed this supplication: Should Canada act upon the wise, enlarged, and just plan of annihilating at once every vestige of Military Government in her native Colonies, and undermining by degrees the miserable feudal system of old Canada… I should be happy to consecrate myself to the Service of Great Britain in that Country in preference to any situation of whatever emolument or dignity.The minds of thinking men are anxiously turned

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