Reform movement (pre-Confederation Canada)
In Upper Canada (Ontario), the Reform movement was formed in opposition to the Family Compact. It was led initially by William Lyon Mackenzie, who became the principal figure in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Mackenzie went into exile as a result of the failed rebellion. The uprising led to the 1839 Durham Report, which recommended responsible government and the union of Upper and Lower Canada as a means of assimilating Francophones. Only the union of the Canadas was to be immediately implemented.
Charles Duncombe (Upper Canada Rebellion)
In December 1837, Duncombe heard reports of Mackenzie's rebellion in Toronto. Duncombe, with Robert Alway, Finlay Malcolm, Eliakim Malcolm, Enoch Moore and Joshua Doan, gathered about 200 men on 8 December and marched towards Toronto; this is sometimes known as the Western Rising. A few hundred more rebels joined them on their march, but they dispersed near Hamilton on December 13 when they learned of Mackenzie's defeat, and that a militia under Colonel Allan MacNab was on their way to stop them. Duncombe and Eliakim Malcolm fled to the United States. Duncombe was a central organizer of the Hunters' Lodge, a secret Masonic-like military organization with its Grand Lodge in Cleveland. This organization inducted more than 40,000 men into lodges spread across the Great Lakes and St Lawrence region. They launched the Patriot War in 1838-39, almost bringing the United States and the United Kingdom to war. The organization also declared a provisional Republic of Canada at a convention in Cleveland in September 1838, at which Duncombe established a Republican Bank of Canada to finance the war.
Duncombe remained there for the rest of his life, despite being pardoned in 1843. Joshua Doan was executed in 1839.