Its former name was unofficially used afterward for denoting the territory, especially by Poles, and today is used by modern historians to refer to different political entities until 1918.

The Poles were the primary ally of Napoleon Bonaparte in Central Europe, participating in the Greater Poland Uprising of 1806 and supplying troops for his campaigns.

[1] At the beginning of the Prussian takeover of Polish territories, the discrimination and repression of Poles consisted of reducing their access [citation needed] to education and the judicial system.

After 1824 attempts to Germanise the school system were hastened and the government refused to establish a Polish university in Posen.

[2] The 1830 November Uprising within Congress Poland against the Russian Empire was significantly supported by Poles from the Grand Duchy.

Afterward, the Prussian administration under Oberpräsident Eduard Flottwell known for his anti-Polonism[1] introduced a stricter system of repression against the Poles.

Local self-government in the landed estates of land-lords, which was dominated by Polish nobility, was abolished, and instead the Prussian state appointed commissioners.

He also blamed the authorities for erasing the Polish Eagle from the Grand Duchy's seals and emblems and for expelling Poles from offices in order to replace them with Prussians or foreign-born persons of German ethnicity.

[5] Large patriotic demonstrations were held in memory of Antoni Babiński, a member of the Polish Democratic Society.

Anti-Prussian sentiment grew as response to policy of Germanisation and repression by Prussian authorities and the conspiracy organisation called Związek Plebejuszy found a potent ground.

[5] During the Revolutions of 1848, the Frankfurt Parliament attempted to divide the grand duchy into two parts: the Province of Posen, which would have been annexed into an united Germany, and the Province of Gniezno, which would have remained outside Germany, but because of the protest of Polish parliamentarians these plans failed and the integrity of the grand duchy was preserved.

The grand duchy was 28,951 square kilometres (11,178 sq mi) in area and was subdivided into two government districts: Posen and Bromberg.

In 1824, the Grand Duchy also received a provincial council (term started in 1827) but with little administrative power, limited to providing advice.

By 1815 in the grand duchy Catholics were by majority Polish-speaking, most Protestants were native speakers of German and many Jews then spoke Yiddish.

[1] However, there were regional differences, with Polish being the prevalent language in central, eastern and southern Posen, and German speakers constituted majorities in the north and west.

[13] Since the government tolerated Judaism, but did not recognise it,[citation needed] no Jewish umbrella organisation, comparable to those of the Christian denominations or the former Council of Four Lands, forbidden in 1764, did emerge in the grand duchy.