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Fixing Ownership: Land Agents, Settlers, and Property Relations in Two Eastern Townships, 1840–1865
| Type of resource | |
|---|---|
| Author/collaborator |
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| Title |
Fixing Ownership: Land Agents, Settlers, and Property Relations in Two Eastern Townships, 1840–1865
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| Abstract |
The author points out that the general fluidity and ambiguity of property relations during colonization meant settlers, who were often “squatters,” relied on land agents to fix their relationship with property-owners. In turn, the latter needed the agent’s on-the-ground expertise to manage their affairs and responsibilities for “improvements.” Land agents thus became intermediaries between cash-poor settlers and absentee owners. One such agents that the author examines was the Scottish-born George Bonnallie (1811 or 1812-1892), active in the northern part of Stukely Township and western Orford Township, who pursued a repertoire of routine practices. Organized in a typology by the author, these practices detail about late colonization in the Eastern Townships and reveal the part played by entrepreneurial intermediaries in fixing property relations in areas still peripheral to the market economy. However, the author explains, with in-coming settlement completed in these townships by the mid-1860s, after municipal reform, and with the arrival of speculation by local notables, neither property-owners nor settlers needed the suite of routines deployed to enable settlement. A standardized market for land transfers had developed.
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| Publication |
Histoire sociale / Social History
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| Volume |
Vol. 55
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| Issue |
no. 113
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| Pages |
27-48
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| Date |
2022
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| URL | |
| Citation |
Jenson, Jane. “Fixing Ownership: Land Agents, Settlers, and Property Relations in Two Eastern Townships, 1840–1865.” Histoire sociale / Social History Vol. 55, no. 113 (2022): 27–48. https://hssh.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/hssh/article/view/41212.
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