A popular uprising in Upper Canada (now part of Ontario). Growing pressure for democratic reform in Upper Canada could find no peaceful outlet after the defeat of the Reformers by the Tories in the election of 1836. The radical Reformers, led by the Scottish-born journalist and political agitator William Lyon Mackenzie (1795–1861), attempted an armed uprising on York (now Toronto) that was soon put down. Mackenzie fled to the USA where he set up a provisional government. In 1849 all those exiled as a result of this rebellion and Papineau’s Rebellion in Lower Canada, were pardoned, and in 1850 Mackenzie returned to Canada, settling in Toronto.