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1838 in Canada

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ2810072 ↗
Source-derived summary

Events from the year 1838 in Canada.

Incumbents

Monarch: Victoria

Federal government

Parliament of Lower Canada: 15th (until March 27)

Parliament of Upper Canada: 13th

Governors

Governor of the Canadas: Robert Milnes

Governor of New Brunswick: George Stracey Smyth

Governor of Nova Scotia: John Coape Sherbrooke

Commodore-Governor of Newfoundland: Richard Goodwin Keats

Governor of Prince Edward Island: Charles Douglass Smith

Events

January to June

January – Samuel Lount captured.

January 13 – Navy Island evacuated.

January 13 – Lord Eldon, Lord Chancellor under three kings, dies.

January 14 – The rebels, under Mackenzie, evacuate Navy Island.

January 17 – Lord John Russell introduces a bill to suspend the Constitution of Canada. Lord Brougham says, "You propose to punish a whole Province, because it contains a few malcontent parishes; thus, by your indiscriminating prescriptions, you chastise those, even, who have helped you to stifle the insurrection.

February – Border raids begin: Lake Champlain, Hickory, Fighting and Pelee Islands.

April 12 – Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews hanged in Toronto.

May to July – Guerrilla actions: roasting of the Sir Robert Peel.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “1838 in Canada” as open-knowledge reference entry. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1838—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Canada, Open-knowledge and entry can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as open-knowledge reference entry. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2810072. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1838.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1838 in Canada”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1838 in Canada primary sources, 1838 in Canada archive and Canada research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1838 in Canada”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1838 in Canada” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.