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Title

Series consists of

22 lower level description(s)

Arrangement structure

Series part of

Executive Council Office of the Province of Upper Canada fonds [textual record] (R10875-0-8-E)

Date(s)

1787-1841

Place of creation

Ontario

Extent

Language of material

English

Scope and content

Series consists of minute books which record the deliberations and decisions of the Executive Council, sitting as a land committee, concerning land business during the period 1787-1841. These records are commonly known as the "Land Books". The sequence of entries within the volumes is chronological, such that a report appears according to the date of its presentation, rather than by its date of preparation. In the later volumes, the practice of inscribing the meeting date at the head of each page makes this more obvious. A table of contents and a nominal index of petitioners is generally found within each individual minute book, although these indexes have been superseded by finding aid MSS1802 (described elsewhere within this entry). With the creation of the Province of Upper Canada in 1791, there was an immediate need for a record of the administration of those lands in the new colony which were formerly situated within the boundaries of the now-defunct Province of Quebec. Relevant minutes for the years 1787-1791 were copied from the Quebec Land Books for reference purposes and deposited with the Clerk of the Executive Council of Upper Canada. These extract minutes now constitute the volume titled "Quebec Land Book" in the present series (vol. 18). During the years 1792-1796, the land and state minutes of the Executive Council of Upper Canada were entered in a single minute book (which has been shelved in the present series as vol.19). Thereafter, two sets of minute books were maintained to record separately the deliberations and decisions of the Executive Council concerning its land and its state business. The evidence shows that the Executive Council did not necessarily hold separate meetings for its land and state work. Rather, on those days on which the Council met to address both state and land matters, two separate agendas were presented and the proceedings and decisions were then recorded in the different minute books. However, given the volume of petitions and other land business to be transacted (particularly after the demise of the District Land Boards in 1794), there were many instances in which the Executive Council met solely in its capacity as a land committee in order to discuss and decide matters of land disposition. The decision on a specific petition was frequently inscribed as an endorsement on it. When the decision was extracted from the minutes to serve as authorization for subsequent action, it took the form of an order-in-council. On those occasions when the Lieutenant Governor (or Administrator as the case may be) attended such meetings, decisions took the form of orders. In the absence of the Lieutenant Governor, decisions were rendered as "recommendations" only, subject to subsequent confirmation by the Lieutenant Governor. By 1815 this latter scenario was the much more common with the Lieutenant Governor rarely in attendance for the detailed discussions of individual land grants. As the system evolved, specific days of the week came to be reserved for land business, although meetings were also held as required in response to references from the Lieutenant Governor on land matters. The line of distinction between "land" and "state" issues was not always clearly maintained in the two sets of minutes. Matters relating to particular land grants, leases and associated topics were documented in the land minute books. Land-related issues of a broad or policy nature, on the other hand, were generally considered to be "state" matters and are found documented in the state minute books. As a result, one finds records of land-granting policy, of the acquisition and distribution of Indian lands, of military reserves (Ordnance lands transferred to civil control), and similar topics documented in the state minute books.

Conditions of access

Terms of use

In order to protect the fragile originals, the records in this series have been microfilmed and the originals withdrawn from circulation. The microfilm must be used for consultation and copying rather than the originals.

Finding aid

Textual records The CAB RG 1 Shelf List (see RG 1, L1 section) is a typed volume-level description which provides volume titles and inclusive dates and corresponding microfilm reel numbers. The Shelf List also correlates the current volume number (assigned by the National Archives) to the letter designation (A, B, C, ... U) assigned to each volume by the records creators. CAB RG 1 Shelf List 90 (Paper)

Textual records Finding Aid MSS1802, an alphabetically-arranged card index by name of petitioner, commonly called the Upper Canada Land Index, provides nominal access to both the Land Books in this series and the land petitions in the Land Submissions to the Executive Council series (found elsewhere within this fonds). Petitions on behalf of groups were indexed, but not necessarily under modern headings. MSS1802 90 (Paper)

Textual records The index cards which make up Finding Aid MSS1802 have been microfilmed on reels C-10810 to C-10836 and H-1976 to H-1978. CAB RG 1 Shelf List (see RG 1, L3 section) includes a microfilm shelf list for these reels. MSS1802 90 (Paper)

Textual records This shelf list indicates the range of petitioner names appearing on each reel (e.g., reel C-10810: from Aaron (Mohawk Chief) to Baker, G. W.). When using the microfilm of the index, researchers should search under possible variant spellings of a surname, and watch for inconsistencies in the filing order of the cards. As the card index identifies the page reference for a Land Book or the alpha-numeric reference for a petition, copies of the CAB RG 1 Shelf Lists (L1 and L3 sections) were included as a preface to each reel when the index was microfilmed so that users may identify the corresponding microfilm reel numbers for the petitions. MSS1802 90 (Paper)

Textual records In that Finding Aid MSS1802 serves two series in this fonds, additional comments on its use will be found in the descriptive entry for the Land Submissions to the Executive Council series. Included there are comments about the correlation of Land Book and petition references, which are useful in those situations where the index provides only a Land Book entry or a petition reference, but not both. Finally, users should note that this finding aid also serves both the Land Books and land petitions for the Province of Canada, 1841-1867, records not found in this fonds but, rather, in the Records of the Executive Council Office of the Province of Canada fonds. MSS1802 90 (Paper)

Additional information

Source

Private

MIKAN no.

205068