In Duty Bound: Men, Women, and the State in Upper Canada, 1783-1841

In Duty Bound is an unprecedented look at Upper Canada's forgotten people and the ways in which their lives were by necessity bound in a mutual relationship of duty and obligation to the Upper Canadian state.

This neglected area of Canada's history has been preserved, in part, in the form of personal petitions submitted to the lieutenant-governor and legislature for land, government jobs, pensions, pardons and the lessening of court sentences, for compensation for damages done by, or work do...