Talk:William Jarvis (Upper Canada official)

William Jarvis - Civil Servant and Enslaver

There has been a fair amount of nonsense written about William Jarvis. He was not a politician although he did make one half-hearted attempt to become a member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada. He was not a member of the Executive Council or the Legislative Council. He certainly was not a member of John Graves Simcoe's inner circle. William Jarvis was a senior civil servant who was apparently not very good at his job and had limited influence on government decisions.

A number of authors writing about the history of slavery in Canada refer to Jarvis's "vehement opposition" to Simcoe's move to end slavery in Upper Canada. The only evidence of this, however, appears to be the letter that his wife wrote to her father after the Act Against Slavery was passed in 1793. Jarvis was an enslaver, however, it is probably more accurate to say he objected to the legislation. Griffin's Sword (talk) 15:20, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

@Griffin's Sword: The article has to reflect what high-quality, reliable sources say. However, if more recent high-quality sources are reevaluating Jarvis's legacy, that information should also be added to the article, and the reevaluation noted in the article (as information about the change in Jarvis's legacy is encyclopedic information). Z1720 (talk) 15:49, 3 May 2023 (UTC)