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>> NARRATOR: On Upper Canada's Western Frontier, no one represents British authority more than
Colonel Thomas Talbot. Talbot settled on the north shore of Lake Erie in 1803, and by the
War of 1812, has the authority to settle who he sees fit over a large swath of the London
and Western Districts. Talbot's quest is to change the region's demographics:
>> THOMAS TALBOT: I will halt the growing tendency to insubordination and revolt, already
manifested by persons brought up in the wilds of America.
>> DOUGLASLAS LEIGHTON: He’s the master of this – it’s almost feudal domain. If
you want to settle in the southwest you have to go out and ask the Colonel. He liked to
drink, but he feared at the same time of becoming what we would call an alcoholic. So anyone
who drinks before noon is not a gentleman, noon is defined for his purposes as eleven
a.m. Well if you wanted to see the Colonel, the time to see him is the morning, right?
If you come in late in the afternoon, God knows what’s going to happen. Now, suppose
all works out and you get to have an interview. Now what he’s obliged to do by the law,
is to give you a location ticket and a semi-deed. If you farm your land for five years and you
build certain kinds of buildings - you get your land, that’s the way that the system
works. Well if at some point you fail in your settlement duties, or if you somehow cross
the Colonel, or you show reform tendencies - the Colonel would then say that, ‘I’ll
simply rub you out.’ Now it doesn't quite mean what a Chicago gangster means, he just
takes his eraser and does this - and you aren't there any more. You have no recourse; arbitrary
and probably illegal. The government at York winks at this.
>> NARRATOR: Perhaps unsurprisingly, it doesn't take long for Talbot to make enemies. Among
Talbot's adversaries are a land speculator from Montreal - Simon Zelotes Watson, and
two local entrepreneurs: the eccentric Ebenezer Allan, and hugely successful Andrew Westbrook.Watson
in particular has reason to be upset at Talbot. He made a deal with the Upper Canadian authorities,
allowing him to sub-divide a large land grant, provided that his settlers met with Talbot's
approval. Although he was able to recruit 185 people, because the majority were from
the United States, they are rejected by Talbot. Watson is left financially ruined.
>> DOUGLASLAS LEIGHTON: To a lot of people Tom Talbot represents all that they dislike
or despise about the British constitutional monarchical system and all they despise about
British graded society. ‘Who does Colonel Talbot think that he is anyway? We’re just
as good as he is.’