Canadian History Essay Questions

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bumsted, J. M., 1938-, author A history of the Canadian peoples / J.M. Bumsted,

Michael C. Bumsted. – Fifth edition.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-901491-0 (paperback)

1. Canada–History–Textbooks. 2. Canada–Biography– Textbooks. I. Bumsted, Michael C., author II. Title.

FC164.B862 2016 971 C2015-906397-3

Background map image: © iStock/duncan1890; Biography box image: © iStock/duncan1890; Backrounder box image: © iStock/Nic_Taylor; Document box image: © iStock/Linda Steward;

Histiography box image: © iStock/duncan1890; Material Culture box image: © iStock/juliedeshaies; Contemporary Views box image: © iStock/Pillon

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Printed and bound in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 — 19 18 17 16

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Table of Contents List of Maps vi

Preface vii

Introduction: Understanding History xii

1 The Beginnings 2

2 Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France 38

3 Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763 78

4 Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815 110

5 Relying on Resources, 1815–1840 150

6 Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885 196

7 Becoming Modern, 1885–1915 266

8 Two Wars and a Depression, 1914–1945 322

9 Prospering Together, 1945–1960 378

10 Edging towards the Abyss, 1958–1972 428

11 Coming Apart, 1972–1992 480

12 Freefalling into the Twenty-First Century, 1992–2001 526

13 Into the New Millennium 566

Epilogue: The Speed and Balance of Canadian History 597

References 601

Index 606

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List of Maps Beringia: the “land bridge” at its greatest extent 7

L’Anse aux Meadows 15

Cartier’s first and second voyages 20

Map of the North Pole, 1595, by Gerardus Mercator 21

Distribution of Aboriginal peoples and language areas in the sixteenth century 29

Historic sites: exploration and early European settlement 33

Acadia and environs to 1670 44

Champlain’s map of New France, 1632 51

New France in 1688 69

The Île d’Orléans and north and south shores of the St Lawrence, 1709 73

Early untitled map showing rivers flowing into marine waters north of Churchill Fort 82

European possessions in North America after the peace of Utrecht (1713) 89

Louisbourg in 1734 91

“A Map of the South Part of Nova Scotia and its Fishing Banks,” by Thomas Jefferys, 1750 99

A map by Thomas Jefferys showing the British claims to Acadia 100

The war in 1755 101

The environs of Quebec, a 1760 map by Thomas Jefferys 106

“A Map of the Country which was the scene of operations of the Northern Army; including the Wilderness through which General Arnold marched to attack Quebec” 121

“The country of the Five Nations” 124

Upper Canada and the War of 1812 140

British America in 1825 153

The Oregon Territory 156

British America in 1849 172

Southwestern Lower Canada in 1837 190

Historic sites: the 1837–8 rebellions 191

Canada West, railways and urban centres, 1861 204

Canada in 1873 239

The numbered treaties, 1871–1921 253

Canada in 1882 256

Battle of Batoche 259

Canada in 1898 and 1905 295

Canada in 1949 401

The DEW Line and Mid-Canada Line 411

Map of the Asbestos area east of Montreal 414

Canada in 1999 554

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• Balanced, accessible coverage. The wide-ranging stories of Canada’s social, political, cultural, economic, and military past are carefully integrated into a well-structured, compelling narrative, prefaced by a unique essay on the importance of studying history today.

During World War II, thousands of women worked in Canadian industrial plants manufacturing war materials. Taken in December of 1943, this picture shows Cecilia Butler working in a munitions plant in Toronto, Ontario. Obviously staged, the photograph presents war-time Canada as a racially tolerant, multi-ethnic society. National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque, LAC, e000761869.

Two Wars and a Depression, 1914–19458

586 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Canadian Society and Culture in the Meltdown Era Given the volatility and complexity of developments in the new millennium, it was hardly surprising that social and cultural signals in Canada often were difficult to interpret. Only a few examples of the difficulties can be explored here.

Boomers, Sandwiches, and Boomerangs

The constraints of a static economy in the twenty-first century have led to an increased visibility of certain social phenomena relating to households and families: sandwiched parents and boomerang kids. Sandwiched parents, all members of the baby-boom generation, are those caring simultaneously for aging parents on the one hand and adult children on the other. According to the 2011 census, 42.3 per cent of young adults aged 20–29 were still living with their parents, a figure up

mean that women are not supposed to have the

same basic needs and that they are not thought of

in the same way that men are? I still think our polit-

ical system is absorbing the shock of having women

in it. After all, things don’t integrate that quickly, and

it has only been eighty years since women were

declared persons.

Many students of the psyche tell us that the

best-developed personality contains elements of the

masculine and feminine, but Jung talks about the soul

in each of us, the anima in the man and the animus in

the woman. It is only when you are aware of where

your soul is located, and how to properly express it,

that you are able to become fully developed.

What I have seen in political life has made me real-

ize that the anima in male politicians may be there but is

quite often described as a killer anima—that is, a mon-

strous feminine streak that attempts to kill their human-

ity, strangle it at birth as it were. The same thing can

happen to a woman with a killer animus. But politics is

the place where you see men behaving this way with

the most blatant freedom. The system of competition,

of winning, of annihilating, encourages this behaviour.

When this is all there is, the direction of a country

is lost. We know that people develop disgust or dis-

taste for what they can see is a dehumanizing attempt

to use power, which, after all, is given only temporar-

ily to those who are elected.

Source: Adrienne Clarkson, Heart Matters (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2007), 215–16.

Table 13.3 Public Approval Rates (%) on Hot-Button Social Issues in Canada, the United States, and United Kingdom, 2013

Issue Canada

United

States

United

Kingdom

Contraception 91 79 91

Sexual relations

between

unmarried

partners

83 59 82

Divorce 80 65 70

Having children

outside of

marriage

78 53 74

Gambling 70 63 60

Stem cell

research

65 52 56

Doctor assisted

suicide

65 35 61

Same-sex

sexual relations

64 40 55

Abortion 60 36 54

Death penalty 53 58 50

Source: The Economist, 13 September 2004, 42.

Preface From the Publisher Oxford University Press is delighted to present the fifth edition of A History of the Canadian Peoples by J.M. Bumsted and Michael C. Bumsted. For nearly two decades, the textbook has offered students of Canadian history a rich and nuanced picture of Canada from pre-contact times to the present, through a balanced selection of historical perspec- tives and primary-source documents brought together into an articulate overarching narrative. The new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated with the addition of new pedagogical features; new full-colour images and corresponding captions; expanded coverage of Aboriginal peoples, women, and children; greater emphasis of the pre-Confederation period; and up-to-date treatment of the twenty-first-century events that have shaped the cultural and political landscape of this country.

Outstanding Features of the Fifth Edition

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viii Preface

• NEW! Material Culture boxes. A newly created set of boxes, highlighting the relationship between people and their things, explores items of historical significance and how they impact the story of Canada’s past.

• Biographical portraits. A wealth of boxes profile the women and men, both famous and lesser known, who played a role in the story of Canada’s past.

• Primary-source material. A vast selection of excerpted historical documents—from maps and journal entries to white papers and Royal Commission reports—gives students the chance to work with the raw materials of Canadian history.

• NEW! Historiographical essays. Written by a selection of historians from across the country and the authors, new end-of-chapter historiographical essays help students conceptualize how historians “do” history, highlight ongoing research, and reveal the value of studying history.

3658 | Two Wars and a Depression, 1914–1945

Radio Programming, 1939

Document

Network Highlights cbc

7:00 Songs of the World 7:30 Percy Faith’s Music 8:00 Sunset Symphony 8:30 Nature Talk 9:15 Sunset Symphony 10:00 Everyman Theatre

Nbc—bLUE 7:30 Idea Mart 8:00 Kay Kyser’s Quiz 8:30 Fred Waring Orch. 10:30 Lights Out

cbS

9:00 Amos ’n’ Andy 9:30 Paul Whiteman orch.

Station Programs 5:00 The Lone Ranger, sketch—cKy 5:00 Dinner concert—cbc-cjRc, cbK 5:00 Fred Waring Orch.—KFyR 5:30 crackerjacks, songs—cbc-cjRc, cbK 5:30 jimmy Allen, sketch—cKy 5:45 Howie Wing, sketch—cjRc 5:45 Waltz Time—cKy 5:45 canadian Outdoor Days, Ozark Ripley—

cbc-cbK . . . 7:00 Songs of the World, mixed choir, Montreal—

cbc-cKy

7:00 Reports—cjRc

7:00 Horse and buggy Days, songs of the 90s— KFyR

7:00 Percy Faith’s Music; George Murray, Dorothy Alt, soloists, Toronto—cbc-cKy, cbK

7:30 Modern Music Maestros—cjRc 7:30 Idea Mart—KFyR 8:00 Interview from London, from bbc—cbc-

cKy, cbK 8:00 Reports, blaine Edwards, organ—cjRc 8:00 Kay Kyser’s college, musical quiz—Nbc—

KFy until 9. 8:15 Teller of curious Tales—cjRc 8:30 Dan McMurray’s Nature Talk, bank cbc-

cKy, cbK 8:30 Five Esquires—cjRc 8:45 Lieder Recital—cbc-cKy, cbK 9:00 canadian Press News—cbc-cKy, cbK 9:00 Reports; Piano Moods—cjRc 9:00 Amos ’n’ Andy, sketch—cbS-WjR, WccO,

KMOx, KbL 9:00 Fred Waring Orch.—Nbc-KFTR, WHO, WLW 9:15 Summer Symphony, G. Waddington con-

ducting from Walker Theatre, Winnipeg— cbc-cKy, cbK, cjRc, until 10.

9:30 Milt North Trio, WKNR 9:30 Tommy Dorsey Orch.—Nbc-KOR 9:30 Horace Heidt Orch.—Nbc-KFyR 9:30 Paul Whiteman Orch., guests—cbS-WccO,

KMOx, KSL 9:45 Reports—cjRc

Wednesday 2 August

Source: Winnipeg Tribune, 2 August 1939, 2.

3738 | Two Wars and a Depression, 1914–1945

Studying Canada’s Military Effort in World War I

Roger Sarty, Wilfrid Laurier University

Personal favourites, among many short, introductory accounts, are D.J. Goodspeed, The Road Past Vimy: The Canadian Corps 1914–1918 (Toronto, 1969) and Terry Copp, Matt Symes, and Nick Lachance, Canadian Battlefields 1915–1918 (Waterloo, Ont., 2011).

Books about Canada’s role began to appear dur- ing the conflict1 and continued to pour forth in the following decades. These included memoirs, popular works, and regimental histories. Many are still very useful. The regimental histories, for example, present detailed accounts of operations and sketches of person- alities available nowhere else.2 Among the most distin- guished memoirs are those of the wartime leader, Prime Minister Robert Borden, assembled by his nephew, who drew heavily on Borden’s papers.3

The project initiated by the Department of National Defence for an eight-volume official history, however, produced only the first volume and a supporting vol- ume of documents. These appeared in 1938 and cover the initial year of the war. Immensely detailed, they are still an essential resource.4 A full official account of Canadian participation in land warfare—nearly 500,000 Canadian troops served overseas—appeared in a single volume in 1962.5 Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, a senior member of the professional Army Historical Section, and the noted academic C.P. Stacey led the team that was organized during and after World War II to work on this history. They drew on the vast archives organized by the original historical section and the book is still the best starting place.

Nicholson produced two other thoroughly refer- enced, foundational volumes. The Fighting Newfound lander: A History of The Royal Newfoundland Regiment (St John’s: Government of Newfoundland, 1964) is the first comprehensive account of the extraordinary sac- rifice by this British Dominion, separate from Canada, that did not join Confederation until 1949. Nicholson’s

The Gunners of Canada: The History of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, vol.1, 1534–1919 (Toronto and Montreal, 1967) details the organization and oper- ations of the immensely powerful artillery arm of the Canadian Corps, which was a key element in its formid- able striking power.

Canada’s large contribution to the air war—the provision of some 20,000 personnel to the British fly- ing services—was the least well recorded part of the military effort. This was belatedly corrected when the Army Historical Section became the tri-service Directorate of History in 1965 and focused on aviation history. S.F. Wise, Canadian Airmen in the First World War, The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, vol. 1 ([Toronto], 1980)is still a foremost author- ity on not just the Canadian role, but on aviation more generally during World War I.

At the leading edge of scholarly work that started in the 1960s with the opening of government archives was Robert Craig Brown’s biography, Robert Laird Borden: A Biography, 2 vols (Toronto, 1975–80). Another bench- mark in superbly researched biography is Michael Bliss’s volume on Sir Joseph Flavelle,6 who headed munitions production in Canada from 1916 to 1918. This is the fullest published account of Canada’s indus- trial effort. Strong in its research on both the home front and the overseas effort is Ronald G. Haycock’s life of Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia and Defence from 1911 until 1916, when Prime Minister Borden finally lost patience with Hughes’s erratic, scandal-prone administration.7 General Sir Arthur Currie, the militia officer who succeeded brilliantly on the battlefield and commanded the Canadian Corps in 1917–18, has had three major biographies written about him, all well worth consulting.8

Robert Craig Brown joined Ramsay Cook to pro- duce a survey of signal importance, Canada 1896–1921:

Historiography

1595 | Relying on Resources, 1815–1840

The holds of timber ships like that pictured here car-

ried thousands of immigrants to Canada on their voy-

age (usually 10 to 12weeks in duration) from the British

Isles in the nineteenth century. Although the British

government continually passed legislation improving

provisioning of food and water and controlling num-

bers, it never really altered the primitiveness of the

space itself. At first glance, the timber trade seemed

a perfect fit for developing colonies. Timbering

removed a major impediment to agricultural settle-

ment: trees. From the standpoint of the incoming

settler trees were the enemy, for fields could not be

plowed and seeded until the trees were gone. The

need for removal was so urgent that settlers would

often burn forests in vast fires if no other way existed

to clear them. Fortunately, entrepreneurs could often

be found to cut the timber and ship the wood to mar-

ket in the mother country. In the eighteenth century,

the principal demand in Britain was for timber for

shipbuilding, especially the tall pines that would be

turned into the masts for sailing ships. By the nine-

teenth century, the British demand changed from tall

timber to square (the trees were trimmed with an axe

from their rounded shape to a square one) and deals

(the square timber cut into planks at least three inches

thick). During the first half of the nineteenth century,

Britain encouraged the shipment of square timber

and deals from British America by the judicious use of

duties levied on wood originating elsewhere, includ-

ing the Baltic region. The vessels carrying the wood

frequently were unable to find a return cargo, often

solving the problem by converting the space below

decks to accommodate human passengers. This

practice provided inexpensive—if uncomfortable—

passage for many immigrants, especially the Irish,

driven from their homes by famine. This seemingly

ideal arrangement, removing unwanted wood and

returning much wanted population had some hid-

den drawbacks, however. One was that the trade was

extremely wasteful. Much of the tree was left behind

on the forest floor to rot. The timberers, moreover,

merely removed and never replaced trees, so that

large tracts of land were systematically denuded of

cover with no thought of sustainability. Worse still,

the mentality of those cutting the trees was one of

sheer exploitation, totally lacking in any concern for

reinvestment in the country they were looting. As

for the human return cargo, conditions on the tim-

ber ships encouraged disease and were singularly

unpleasant at best.

As with many forms of material culture, timber

ships provided a dual purpose for Canada. The tim-

ber that the country supplied was a critical resource

to the British Empire, as well as beyond, and the

ships that transported people in that exchange sim-

ply were part of a larger commodity chain that saw

Material Culture

Interior of a lumber ship in Quebec, 1872. While politicians and settlers in central Canada concerned themselves with territorial expansion during the mid-nineteenth century, those living in the Atlantic region were constrained to the older transatlantic way of life, of which shipping was integral. © McCord Museum.

Timber Ships

Continued...

306 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Born in Chatsworth, Ontario, Nellie McClung (née Mooney) (1873–1951) moved with her family to Manitoba in 1880. After attending normal school in Winnipeg, she taught in rural Manitoba for many years. She was active in temperance work and in suffrage agitation. In 1896 she married Robert Wesley McClung, a druggist, who prom- ised, Nellie later reported, that “I would not have to lay aside my ambitions if I married him.” Her emergence to prominence began when she entered an American short story competition in 1902 and was encouraged by an American publisher to expand the story into the novel that became Sowing Seeds in Danny, a lighthearted look at village life on the prairies published in 1908. The book sold over 100,000 copies, was in its seventeenth edition at the time her death, and brought her both fame and fortune.

She and her husband moved to Winnipeg with their four children in 1911, where she helped organize the Political Equality League in 1912. Frustrated with the difficulty of arousing male politicians to suffrage reform, after some humiliating experiences she turned herself into a first-rate platform speaker. In 1914 she organized the Mock Parliament of Women, in which women played all the political roles. McClung herself was Manitoba Premier Rodmond Roblin, one of the major opponents of women’s right to vote. McClung and her associates, sup- porting the Liberal Party, were unable to defeat Roblin’s government in the 1914 election, but it soon fell under the weight of a construction scandal. The Liberal govern- ment of Tobias Crawford soon made Manitoba the first province in Canada to grant women the right to vote.

Meanwhile, the McClungs had moved to Edmonton, where Nellie again led the fight for female suffrage. She was also a strong supporter of the war effort and the Red Cross. In 1921 she was elected to the Alberta legislature, where she championed a host of radical measures of the time, ranging from mothers’ allowances and dower rights for women to sterilization of the mentally unfit. She was defeated in 1926 when her temperance stance became unpopular. Nellie subsequently helped in the successful fight for Canadian woman senators. The McClungs moved to Victoria in 1933. In her west coast years, she became a CBC governor (1936–42), a delegate to the League of Nations (1938), and an advocate of divorce reform.

Throughout her life she was an active Methodist and subsequently a member of the United Church, and was prominent at the national and international levels in her church work. Apart from her first novel, none of her subsequent fiction has withstood the test of time very well. McClung did better with her autobiograph- ical memoirs, all of which were highly regarded and reprinted. Like many early feminists, she was clearly a figure of her own time. She supported the Great War with almost bloodthirsty enthusiasm and was an active advocate of eugenics.

Nellie McClung. Cp photo.

Nellie Letitia McClung

Biography

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ixPreface

• Chapter-opening timelines. Each chapter begins with a timeline of the events and themes that marked the historical period covered, providing a framework for the discussion and an excellent revision tool for students.

• End-of-chapter learning tools. Study questions challenge students to engage critically with what they have read in the chapter, while short annotated bibliographies provide reliable starting points for further study.

• Outstanding art program. A dynamic array of over 200 full-colour maps, photos, paintings, and figures helps to bring history to life.

• Expanded coverage of the pre-Confederation period. New material on the pre-Confederation period, including an analysis of life in New France and an exploration of the American interior, helps to round out students’ understanding of Canada’s past.

256 A

H isto

ry o

f th e

C a

n a

d ia

n P

e o

p le

C anada in 1882.

Quebec

United States of America

Greenland Alaska (USA)

Ontario

Manitoba

District of Alberta

1882

District of Athabasca

1882

District of Saskatchewan

1882

District of Assiniboia

1882

British Columbia

District of Keewatin

1876

North-West Territories

N ew

foundland

Nova Scotia

New Brunswick

PEI

Area Claimed by Ontario

and Manitoba Montreal

Ottawa

Toronto

Vancouver Victoria

Quebec

St L

aw re

nc e

A t l a n t i c O c e a n

A rc t i c O c e a n

P a c i f i c O c e a n

H u d s o n B a y

E W

0 500

kilometres

1,000

A r c t

i c C

i r

c l e

Provinces

North-West Territories: Districts

North-West Territories: Unorganized

Newfoundland

Disputed Area

1841 Union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada proclaimed.

1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty resolves the New Brunswick border. Great Britain experiments

with partially elected, partially appointed

legislature for Newfoundland.

1843 Fort Victoria established on Vancouver Island.

1846 Oregon Boundary Treaty settles western boundary. Corn Laws and Timber duties are

repealed by British Parliament. St John’s,

Newfoundland, is destroyed by fire.

1848 Nova Scotia gets responsible government. Lord Elgin concedes responsible government to

Canada. Newfoundland reverts to an elected

assembly.

1849 Vancouver Island is leased by the British to the Hudson’s Bay Company and becomes a Crown

colony. Rebellion Losses Bill is enacted, leading

to riots in Montreal. Annexation movement

flourishes.

1851 James Douglas becomes governor of Vancouver Island. Cable is laid from

New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island.

Prince Edward Island receives responsible

government. Colonial government takes over

post offices.

1852 Grand Trunk Railway is incorporated.

1854 Reciprocity Treaty with United States is signed, to last 10 years.

1855 Petroleum is discovered in southwestern Ontario. Newfoundland receives responsible

government.

1856 The first legislature meets on Vancouver Island.

1858 British Columbia becomes a colony.

1859 The first steamer is launched on the Red River. First newspaper is established in Red River.

1860 Cariboo Gold Rush begins in British Columbia. Prince Edward Island Land Commission

convenes. Royal Tour of Prince Albert suggests

that what would become Canada is already, in

some senses, a political entity.

1861 American Civil War begins. Montreal and Toronto introduce horse-drawn cars for public

transportation.

1862 Cariboo Road is begun in British Columbia.

1863 First non-Native salmon fishery on the Fraser River established.

1864 Reciprocity Treaty is terminated by a vote of the American Senate, to take effect in 1866.

Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences are

held to discuss union of British North America.

1866 Transatlantic cable laid from Newfoundland to Europe. Union of British Columbia and

Vancouver Island implemented, with Victoria as

capital.

1867 The British North America Act is passed by British Parliament to take effect 1 July 1867.

Emily Howard Stowe obtains a medical degree

in the United States, the first woman to do so.

British Columbia’s legislative council resolves to

request that the province be allowed eventual

admission into Canada, which officially comes

into existence on 1 July under an all-party

government headed by Sir John A. Macdonald.

Resolutions for territorial expansion are passed

by the Canadian Parliament in December. The

Americans purchase Alaska from Russia.

Timeline

320 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Troper, Harold Martin. Only Farmers Need Apply: Official Canadian Government Encouragement of Immigration from the United States, 1896–1911. Toronto, 1972. The standard work on the topic.

Valverde, Mariana. The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885–1925. Toronto, 1991. One of the few overall syntheses of the reform move- ment, focusing particularly on its moral dimensions.

Voisey, Paul. Vulcan: The Making of a Prairie Community. Toronto, 1988. Probably the best historical commun- ity study ever executed in Canada.

Walden, Keith. Becoming Modern in Toronto: The Industrial Exhibition and the Shaping of a Late Victorian Culture. Toronto, 1997. A work in cultural studies that deconstructs the Toronto Industrial Exhibition.

Study Questions 1. What role did the patronage system play in Canadian political parties in the years before the Great War?

2. How did the industrialization of the period 1885–1914 differ from that of the 1850s and 1860s?

3. Compare the major problems of urban and rural life in Canada in the early years of the twentieth century.

4. Are the differences between child labour in factories and on farms significant?

5. What does the poem “Town Directory” tell us about Treherne, Manitoba, in 1895?

6. How was Canada selling the western region to newcomers in 1907?

7. Discuss the relationship between the small town and the development of Canadian fiction, 1890–1914.

8. What were the linkages among imperialism, reform, and racism before the Great War?

9. Was Canada a country truly open to immigrants in this period? What were the limitations?

Visit the companion website for A History of the Canadian Peoples, fifth edition for further resources.

www.oupcanada.com/Bumsted5e

34 A History of the Canadian Peoples

possessed none of the worst traits of European capital- istic society, such as covetousness and rapaciousness; and they revered freedom, while eschewing private property. What relationship the “noble savage” bore to the realities of existence in North America is another matter entirely.

Europeans would blunder on for centuries in their attempts to come to terms with the Indigenous peoples of North America. The First Nations would prove ten- acious in maintaining their own identity and culture in the face of much effort to Europeanize them, but they lacked the physical power to prevent either constant encroachment on their territory, or the continual under- mining of the basic physical and spiritual substance of their way of life. The cultural contact between Native and newcomer truly was a tragedy. Reconciliation of the two cultures proved quite impossible, and the failure of reconciliation resounds still today.

Conclusion

By the mid-1620s the first period of European intru- sion into what is now Canada had been completed. Exploration of the new continent’s eastern seaboard was done, and Europe could construct a fairly decent map of its coastline. What lay beyond was beginning to be investigated. Europe was on the verge of decid- ing that major transplantations of people were going to be necessary if this new northern land were to be exploited. As for the Indigenous population, they had been buffeted by epidemic disease, the causes of which were beyond their comprehension, but they had not yet been marginalized. The First Nations could still meet the newcomers on something approximating equal terms. In retrospect, we can see how ephemeral this equality really was.

The Changing History of Paleo-Indian Migration to the New World

Emőke J.E. Szathmáry, University of Manitoba

The prevailing archaeological paradigm since 1950 stated that “Paleo-Indians,” the putative ancestors of all the Indigenous peoples of the Americas excepting “Eskimos” and Aleuts, entered North America from Asia by crossing the Bering land bridge during the Wisconsin glaciation. From Alaska they moved south through an ice-free corridor on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains into the central Great Plains. Their earliest cultural remains, called “Clovis,” date to 11,500–11,000 radiocarbon years ago (RCYBP). Clovis sites exist across the United States, indicating that the ancestors spread rapidly once they were clear of glaciers.

Challenges to this paradigm accumulated after the 1970s. Though several sites in the Americas appear to be pre-Clovis in age, it was only in 1997, after eminent archaeologists had examined remains at Monte Verde

in southern Chile, that it was generally accepted that people had entered the western hemisphere before 12,500 RCYBP (Meltzer et al., 1997). By then, the rest of the paradigm was also unravelling. The Cordilleran and Laurentide glaciers were shown to have merged east of the Rockies in Alberta, blocking the corridor for some 6,000 years, and north of 60o N the corridor had been covered by Laurentide ice even longer (Jackson and Duk-Rodkin, 1996). With the corridor impassable, what route did the ancestors take south? When did they enter North America to have reached southern Chile so early? Did they come from other places than Asia?

These questions are not new, and evidence con- tinues to show that the roots of the ancestors lie in Asia. Today, many archaeologists reason that people must have travelled south along the northwest coast of North

Historiography

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x Preface

• Extensive coverage of women, children, and Aboriginal peoples throughout the history of Canada. New insights into these groups, the roles they played, the contributions they made, and the challenges they faced provide a rich, balanced account of Canada’s past.

• Updated coverage of twentieth- and twenty- first-century events. Enlightening discussions of topics including international conflict and the role of Canada’s military; the Arctic; health, health care, and elderly Canadians; and the Internet and popular culture help students understand Canada’s present-day political, economic, and socio-cultural identities.

340 A History of the Canadian Peoples

equitable freight rates with a series of particular prov- incial demands. The result was a widespread, if brief, public agitation. Eschewing the third-party route of the Progressives, the Maritime Rights leaders decided in 1923 to appeal to the remainder of the country over the head of Ottawa. Although a major national advertising and public relations campaign on behalf of Maritime concerns had some success, it was not enough. When Maritimers started voting Conservative

in 1923 by-elections, this merely annoyed the King government. After a Royal Commission investigated Maritime grievances, the Liberals bought off the region with concessions on freight rates, subsidies, and port development. None of these concessions touched fun- damental economic problems. In the end, working through the two-party system achieved no more than the creation of a third party. The inability of regional protest in the Maritimes and the West to find common

In 1916, feminist activist and author Emily Murphy

(1868–1933), who wrote under the name “Janey

Canuck,”was appointed a police magistrate in Alberta,

thus becoming the first female judge in the British

Empire. Her appointment was challenged on the

grounds that only males were persons as stated in

the British North America Act of 1867. A year later

the Alberta Supreme Court found that women were

persons in a ruling that applied only within the prov-

ince. Murphy was subsequently ruled ineligible by

Prime Minister Robert Borden to be appointed to the

Canadian Senate, and in 1927 she gathered a consor-

tium of four other Alberta women to sign a petition

to the Supreme Court of Canada, which asked the

question: “Does the word ‘persons’ in section 24 of the

British North America Act, 1867, include female per-

sons?” Murphy’s four collaborators were: Irene Parlby

(1868–1965), a former president of the United Farm

Women of Alberta and an Alberta cabinet minister

in 1921; Nellie McClung (1873–1951), author, female

suffrage advocate, and Alberta MLA (1921); Louise

McKinney (1868–1931), the first woman elected to a

legislature in the British Empire in 1917 and a temper-

ance supporter; and Henrietta Edwards (1849–1931), a

founding member of the Victorian Order of Nurses and

a leading member of the National Council of Women.

The Supreme Court brought down its decision

on 24 April 1928. The Court’s answer to the ques-

tion was that women were not persons, because

at the time of the drafting of the BNA Act, women

could not vote or hold political office. Moreover, it

pointed out, the Act used male pronouns through-

out. The five women appealed this decision to the

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England,

which declared on 18 October 1929 that women

were indeed persons eligible to become Canadian

senators. The Privy Council argued that “the exclu-

sion of women from all public offices is a relic of days

more barbarous than ours,” adding: “to those who

would ask why the word ‘persons’ should include

females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?”

This decision was not only important for women’s

rights, but also because it enunciated the princi-

ple that the BNA Act was “a living tree capable of

growth and expansion within its natural limits.” The

Constitution thus required progressive interpretation

that was different from that applied to ordinary stat-

utes. This principle remains an important compon-

ent of modern Canadian constitutional law. Prime

Minister Mackenzie King responded to the decision

a few months later by appointing Cairine Wilson

(1885–1962) to the Senate.

BACKg ROUNDER The Famous Five and the “Persons” Case

A military cortège transports the body of Corporal Nathan Cirillo from Ottawa to Hamilton, Ontario. Cirillo was on honour guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa when he was shot and killed by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who was subsequently killed during his failed raid on Parliament Hill's Centre Block. Cirillo's death, along with the murder of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in a parking lot days earlier, outraged many Canadians, and both attacks were identified as terrorism by the Prime Minister. The Canadian Press/ Patrick Doyle.

Into the New Millennium13

The village of Château-Richer (on the north shore of the St Lawrence northeast of Quebec City), 1787, watercolour by Thomas Davies. Included in this pastoral scene are whitewashed stone farmhouses, wooden barns, and eel traps in the river. © National Gallery of Canada, 6275.

2 Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

164 A History of the Canadian Peoples

late 1820s the British government rejected a proposal for a major government resettlement scheme to be financed by local authorities as an alternative to poor relief. It was brought forward by the parliamentary undersecre- tary at the Colonial Office, Robert John Wilmot-Horton. Thereafter, government policy abandoned public assist- ance for emigration.

The other three patterns were not mutually exclu- sive. Some emigrants could even combine all three. The second pattern emphasized settlement on the land. It involved private proprietors of land, usually large land companies. These occasionally offered financial assistance, but most frequently they made land on affordable terms available to emigrants who had man- aged to make their way to North America. This process was intended to appeal to emigrants with some finan- cial resources. There were three large land compan- ies: the Canada Company, the British American Land Company (in the Eastern Townships of Quebec), and

the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company. In 1826 the Canada Company had purchased most of the Crown reserves and half of the clergy reserves of Upper Canada, thus providing revenue for the colony. It settled large numbers of emigrants on its lands.

A third pattern emphasized transport to North America but not settlement on the land. Private emi- grant contractors would offer passage to North America in sailing vessels. The ships involved were usually in the timber trade, temporarily converted to provide accom- modation on the outward passage. The contractor pro- vided low rates of passage but as few services as possible. His passengers were frequently deposited at seaports in British America and left to their own devices. The lucky ones managed to make their way to some destination where they could find employment.

The vast majority of emigrants, whatever their transport and settlement arrangements, fitted into the fourth pattern. They had arranged their own passage,

Irish emigrants awaiting departure on the quay at Cork, as depicted in the Illustrated London News, 10 May 1851. How would you interpret this scene? What is the artist trying to depict? LAC, C-3904.

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xiPreface

Supplements Instructors and students alike will benefit from the rich suite of ancillary materials available on the textbook’s companion website: www.oupcanada.com/Bumsted5e.

For the Instructor • An Instructor’s Manual features chapter summaries, suggestions for lectures and further readings, discussion

questions, and annotated lists of key figures, places, terms, research topics, and recommended resources. • A Test Generator provides a comprehensive selection of multiple-choice, true–false, short-answer, and essay

questions. • PowerPoint® slides, fully updated to reflect the content of this edition, summarize key points from the text and

provide a framework for course lectures. • An Online Image Bank provides instructors with access to all photos, maps, and tables found in the text so that

these materials may be incorporated into lectures and discussions.

For the Student • A Student Study Guide offers a variety of useful learning tools, including chapter summaries, learning object-

ives, self-grading quizzes, recommended print and online resources, study and research tips, sample exams, and interviews with historians.

• An Online Primary-Source Library features over 60 canonical and lesser-known primary sources from both pre- and post-Confederation history. Each source is accompanied by an introduction offering students a con- textual and social perspective that will enrich their study of Canadian history.

• Visual History Online is a dynamic resource comprising captioned images grouped into units that correspond to each chapter of the textbook. Images are accompanied by provocative questions that encourage students to consider the importance of visual history and stimulate discussion.

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Introduction Understanding History Every experienced historian has at some point encoun- tered someone from a totally different background who assumes that “anyone can do history.” In the sense that anyone can research, write, and even publish historical work without specialized training, that assumption is correct. History is one of those fields—creative writing is another—where the standards of achievement can be flexible and intuitive, and where much of the meth- odology is based on plain common sense. History’s accessibility to almost all of us, not simply as readers but as actual researchers, is one of its great charms and greater merits. And many people do engage in histor- ical research without calling it by that name. Everyone who tries to trace her ancestry through the labyrinth of historical records (often called “genealogy”) is involved in a form of historical research. Everyone who tries to research the background to a business project as part of a report on its present status, or to explain how a sports team achieved a championship season, is in a sense “doing history.” Every criminal trial (and almost every civil one) is at some level a historical reconstruction. The historical mode is one of the most common ways through which we attempt to understand the world we live in.

To say that nearly all of us engage in some form of historical reconstruction, often unconsciously, is not to say that there are no fundamental rules to such activ- ity. Most of us know instinctively that witnesses can be biased or mistaken, that human motivation is complex, and that in the chronological sequence of events—the establishment of which many non-professional histor- ians regard as the centre of the enterprise—the cause must precede the effect. But history is not a laboratory

science. Even the simplest rules of evidence and argu- ment can be difficult to apply in specific situations, particularly if the researcher is operating intuitively. Understanding what causes these difficulties is import- ant, and becoming sensitive to the problems of history is one of the chief benefits of formal historical study.

A good many Canadians (probably nearly as many as commonly read fiction or poetry) read history, for recreation and for information. Unfortunately, general readers often approach historical writing in much the same way they approach fiction, judging a work’s value by its success in telling “a good story.” But of course story- telling is only one of numerous ways in which history can be written. Although, as with fiction, there is great pleas- ure to be had from reading history simply at the level of entertainment, to remain at that level would be to miss much of the best modern historical writing. It is possible without training or formal critical tools to recognize that a Harlequin romance offers a far less complex view of the world than a Margaret Atwood novel; it is somewhat more difficult to appreciate a parallel difference in his- tory. Readers who expect writers of fiction to have dis- tinctive voices and world views still often assume that all historians participate equally in the effort to recover the truth of the past through application of some unspecified “scientific” method: if history is about truth, then all his- torical writing must be more or less equally true, at least if the historian has “the facts” right. The ordinary reader is frequently unable to distinguish between “facts” and “truth,” failing to appreciate on one level that factual accuracy is in itself a complex issue and on another level that it has limited value as a critical test.

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xiiiIntroduction

In addition, many readers fail to distinguish be - tween history as everything that has happened before the present moment (also commonly known as “the past”) and history as the record (usually written) of the unfolding of some event(s) in that past. Yet that past can never be recovered, for reasons I shall discuss. All we can do is attempt to recreate and analyze discrete parts of that past, refracted through the historian’s prism. Only this history can be studied and investigated. As a fur- ther confusion, history can mean not only the historian’s account of the past, but the systematic study of the past as a discipline or a craft. The study of either the work of individual historians or the discipline itself is often known as historiography. Just as filmmakers make a surprising number of movies about the process of mak- ing movies, so historians devote more of their energy to examining the making of history than they do to any other single project.

The processes of both reading and researching his- tory can obviously be greatly enhanced by some under- standing of the problems that engage historians as they pursue their craft. Before we turn to some of those prob- lems, however, it might be well to consider the question of the value of history.

The Value of History Once upon a time, especially in the nineteenth and ear- lier twentieth centuries, most people did not question the value of historical study or wonder how it was relevant to their lives. They did not doubt the value of the liberal arts or the humanities, much less debate the benefits of studying languages like Greek or Latin. There are really two separate but related issues inherent in the “value of history” question. One is whether or not historical study has a sufficient grip on truth and meaning in our mod- ern world to have any value at all, intrinsic or extrinsic. Ultimately, this question involves us in high philosophy and theory, but it also has a particular Canadian edge. The other question is whether or not historical work has a sufficiently attractive vocational payoff to justify its study at the university. Perhaps we should turn to the latter question first, since it is easier to answer and may be of more interest to the beginning historian.

For many centuries, the opportunity to attend a university was available only to those of outstand- ing intellectual abilities or privileged socio-economic standing. In a world that did not question the import- ance of religion, the original purpose of universities was to educate clerics. The university gradually became the centre of humanistic scholarship and enterprise gener- ally, but so long as society valued education for its own sake—chiefly because it was something available only to the privileged few—its specific vocational role was quite insignificant. Universities turned out educated and “cultured” men (not women until well into the nineteenth century) into a world that took it for granted that such people were important to the society. Specific occupational training was not part of the university’s function, and preparation even for such elevated profes- sions as law and medicine was done outside its doors. Yet gradually the notion of vocational training did enter the cloistered world of the university, particularly in North America, and by 1940 it was possible to prepare for nearly any occupation through specialized studies at a university, although such opportunities were still lim- ited to members of the elites. Despite the new vocational bent of the university, occupational studies were largely confined to the post-graduate level; most undergraduate students at universities (as opposed to acknowledged vocational centres such as teachers’ training colleges) still expected An Education rather than A Vocation.

The great change in the nature of the university really came after 1945, when the idea took hold that all Canadians were entitled to attend university and the number of university places was greatly expanded. A dynamic relationship has existed between the democ- ratization of the university and the introduction of the idea that there should be some demonstrable economic value to a university degree. Thus specific occupational training now starts at the undergraduate rather than the graduate level. Today at many universities it is likely that the majority of students are enrolled in such programs, and even those who are not in such programs them- selves commonly expect a university education to pro- vide some kind of occupational entrée or advantage. In the new occupational sweepstakes, a field like history is of less obvious relevance than one like management or accounting or pharmacy or computing. Some historians

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xiv Introduction

would prefer to ignore the question of occupational rel- evance altogether, but the days of a simple liberal arts education for most university students are probably gone forever. History may not ever compete with account- ing or pharmacy or medical school as preparation for employment, but it is still superb preparation for many professional programs (assuming that they do not insist on specialization from day one). And one can do more in the workforce with a history specialization than most students might at first think.

There are numerous history-related occupations besides teaching. They include work in archives, librar- ies, and museums, as well as in government service. “Heritage” in itself is a major industry in Canada. Other occupations, such as law, journalism, and some branches of the civil service (the diplomatic corps, for example), have traditionally recruited heavily among history graduates, but any job requiring the ability to gather and analyze evidence and then communicate the findings is ideally suited to someone with a background in hist- ory. One individual with a graduate degree in history, Mike Smith, has become the general manager of several National Hockey League teams. What students have to do is learn to translate their historical training into the jargon of the contemporary job market. “Researching term essays in history,” for example, can be translated into “using documentary resources to abstract and analyze complex information.” (At one recent “inter- view” for a summer job with a government department, the student applicant was simply asked to summarize a complex document quickly and accurately.) To the extent that history is a discipline that teaches students both to think and to communicate, it should improve their qualifications for almost any job.

Beyond developing essential skills in research, analysis, and communication, what are the uses of his- tory? Certainly few historians today believe—if they ever did—in the use of historical “laws” of human con- duct for predictive purposes. Most historians who have employed historical laws, such as Arnold Toynbee in A Study in History, Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West, or Karl Marx in Capital, have done so on such an abstract level that it is difficult to translate those laws into specific terms. Toynbee’s notion that civilizations pass through recognizable stages paralleling the human

life cycle is attractive, but it does not tell us when our civilization will die. Employing the insights of Karl Marx, no reader could have concluded that the “dicta- torship of the proletariat” would come first in Russia, or that it would eventually lead not to a classless society but to the collapse of the Soviet Union. No discipline has worked harder than economics to achieve scientific status, but the whole world has come to appreciate that economists constantly disagree on even the most gen- eral level of prediction and analysis.

Yet if history cannot predict, it can help us to under- stand the difficulty of prediction. In the same way it can help us to recognize the recurrent and ongoing nature of many of society’s problems. By and large, historians were far more sanguine about the outcome of the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown constitutional accord than were the scaremongers on either side of the debate or many of the journalists covering the “crisis.” Indeed, those with an understanding of Canadian history, con- stitutional and otherwise, were bound to find the very concept of a “crisis” suspect, just as they would any other popular journalistic concept, such as “conspiracy.” The historical record tells us that there have been crises and conspiracies, but equally that these terms have so often been used without justification that they have lost any real meaning.

History provides us not only with a social context but with a personal one as well. The genealogical search for “roots” has become important for many Canadians seeking to trace their family backgrounds and to under- stand the circumstances that drove their ancestors across the ocean, or the ways their ancestors’ lives changed as a result of the newcomers’ arrival. Nor is the question of personal identity merely an individual matter. It is no accident that as minority groups in Canada work to develop themselves as collectivities, they need to estab- lish and assert their historical experience. Over the past 30 years some Canadians have lost interest in the histor- ical mode, adopting what we might call the “irrelevance of history” position. But this has not been the case with collective “minorities” such as women, Native peoples, blacks, and ethnic minorities. For these groups, estab- lishing their rightful place in Canadian history has been an absolutely primary function. That these groups’ interpretations of their histories have often run counter

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xvIntroduction

to the traditional versions of Canadian history does not render them any less consequential—or less historical.

The Elusive Fact More than 50 years ago a television series called Dragnet became famous for a catchphrase used by one of its characters, a police detective named Sergeant Joe Friday. When questioning witnesses, Friday always repeated the same request, delivered in an emotion- less monotone: “All I want is the facts, just give me the facts.” The monotone was intended to indicate Friday’s objectivity and to extract from his witness a response devoid of personal bias and colouration. Of course he seldom got “just the facts”—which from our perspective is exactly the point. Somehow, just as the popular mind in the 1950s associated Joe Friday with facts, so it has more recently come to think of historians as dealing in the same coin. The equation of facts and history has doubtless been assisted by the traditional way of teach- ing history in the schools, by marching out one name, date, event after another for students to commit to mem- ory and regurgitate at the appropriate time in the course of an examination. Of course, historians do rely on facts as their basic building blocks; but they do not think of them the way Sergeant Friday did, nor do they use them the way common opinion believes they do.

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary offers several mean- ings for “fact.” The most familiar is probably number 1: “a thing that is known to have occurred, to exist, or to be true,” although number 4—“truth, reality”—is also very common. Facts, as Dragnet suggested, are true things, unsullied by any process of interpretation or conclu- sion. Such things may exist, but they are much harder to come by than one might expect, for several reasons. One problem is the language in which “facts” must be stated. Another is the context in which they become significant.

Over the last century we have become increasingly aware that language is not a neutral instrument, but one that carries with it a heavy freight of cultural experi- ence and usage. “John Cabot discovered Newfoundland in 1497” may seem a straightforward statement of fact, but at least half of the words in it conjure up a whole host of meanings. One of those words is “discovered.”

The impli cation is that what Cabot found was previ- ously unknown—but of course an Aboriginal popu- lation had been living in the area for millennia. Even qualifying “discovered” by saying that Cabot “was the first European to discover Newfoundland” doesn’t help much, since we now know that the Vikings had settled at L’Anse aux Meadows in the eleventh century, and even they may not have been the first Europeans to cross the Atlantic. “Discovery” is a complex concept. The term “Newfoundland” is equally problematic, since in mod- ern geographic terms Cabot was not at all precise about his movements, and the land he sighted may not have been part of the island that we know as Newfoundland today. Indeed, Cabot called the land he saw “the New- Founde Land,” and it was only later that the label was applied to the island. Moreover, Cabot’s sightings were not confirmed by anything other than vague self-dec- larations. To top matters off, there are questions about the identity of John Cabot himself, who started in Italy as Giovanni (or Zuan) Caboto and became John Cabot Montecalunya, a resident of Valencia, in the early 1490s, before he called himself John Cabot of Bristol. Almost all but the most simplistic statements are subject to the same difficulties. Philosophers have spent thousands of years trying to formulate “true” statements, with very little success, and historians are unlikely to do much bet- ter. Almost any “factual” statement worth making has to be expressed in a language heavily weighted with values and contexts. Language is only one of the challenges in the quest for the fact.

Even if facts could be expressed in a neutral lan- guage, such as numbers, we would still need to decide which facts are important. At any given moment there exists a virtual infinity of pieces of information that could be isolated and stated. Most “historical facts” are simply labels of events and dates, names and move- ments, which by themselves do not tell us very much. They are not statements in which anything is asserted, and therefore they have no standing as facts. Only when their significance is implicitly or explicitly under- stood do they acquire any utility or susceptibility to truth. “The Battle of Vimy Ridge” is not a fact since it does not assert anything capable of being either true or false. “The Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917 was won by the Canadian army” is an assertion the validity of which

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xvi Introduction

can be assessed. Whether it is false or true (and hence “a fact”) is another matter entirely. The validity of the statement requires a detailed account of the battle in the context of the war.

One of the chief benefits of modern historical study is that it promotes a healthy skepticism about the neu- trality and ultimate truth of the notorious fact. Taken by itself, in isolation, the fact has little meaning. It is only when facts are arranged into some larger picture— some sort of interpretive account—that they acquire significance. Those interpretive pictures themselves are subject to change over time. Anyone today who reads a Canadian history textbook written 30 years ago will be struck by the almost complete absence of any reference to women as important historical figures. Yet 30 years ago the majority of readers—even female readers—took that absence for granted. The absence of women does not mean that women were not present. It simply means that historians of that generation did not regard their activ- ities as worthy of attention. The historian can uncover whole constellations of new facts simply by asking a new question of the historical record, as happened when some scholars asked: “What about the women?” History is not the study of something eternally fixed, of some- thing that can be “discovered,” but rather the continual dynamic re-investigation and re-evaluation of the past.

If historians can recover new facts, however, they are still limited to those facts that have been recorded in some way. The records need not be in written form; sometimes they take the form of oral history, sometimes of artifacts. Whatever form the evidence takes, it has to have been preserved. Preservation may be deliberate or serendipitous, but in either case certain biases may be observed. If we think about our own personal history, we realize that not every part of it has been recorded, let alone recorded with equal care; and much of the individ- ual record that does exist has been preserved not through personal choice but to serve bureaucratic purposes. Not every society keeps public records, however, and even in the record-keeping societies, not everyone produces an equal quantity of evidence. Only a relative handful of historical actors, for example, have left behind their own written accounts. Personal evidence tends to be limited to those involved in self-consciously important activ- ity, as defined by any particular society. Such recorders

usually represent that society’s elite, and what they rec- ord represents what the elites think needs recording. We know far more about taxation in the Middle Ages than we do about sexual behaviour, for example. Whatever their limitations, it is with the records that historians must start. They are the primary sources for historical investigation, as distin guished from secondary sources (usually other historians’ re search gleanings and inter- pretations). In working with primary sources, historians face two problems: the first one of authenticity, the second one of credibility.

For understandable reasons, historians have to be certain that the records they study are genuine. Historians thus prefer to work with original docu- ments, the so-called “manuscript” sources (although not all manuscripts are necessarily handwritten). The republication of such material often raises questions of accuracy, which become even more problematic when the documents have been translated from one language to another. Even the most scrupulous of editors may subtly alter the meaning of a document through chan- ges in punctuation or spelling, and until our own time the editors of historical documents often intervened in other ways as well. A famous editor of Shakespeare named Thomas Bowdler expurgated material that he considered to be in bad taste (his name is now commem- orated in the verb “to bowdlerize”). Other editors silently rewrote texts to what they regarded as the advantage of their authors. Even the appearance of authenticity is no guarantee; many skilful forgeries have been designed to pass close inspection. The famous Shroud of Turin (sup- posedly showing the imprint of the body of Christ) is not necessarily a deliberate forgery, but recent scientific investigation has found that it could not be authentic- ally associated with the crucifixion. As for the suppos- edly fifteenth-century “Vinland Map,” discovered in the 1960s, it still has not been satisfactorily authenticated, and many scholars think it is a fake.

Even if we are dealing with an “authentic” document, there are still many potential problems to face before we can use it as evidence. Many documents cannot be precisely dated or attributed to a specific author. But these questions must be addressed before the historian— acting all the parts in a court of law except that of witness—can determine the document’s credibility.

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Was the author in a position to be authoritative? Are there reasons, obvious or subtle, for suspecting bias of some kind? Bias may appear in many forms. Authors may seek to justify themselves; they may place their interpret- ation of events in a context resulting from their place in society or from their ideological assumptions; they may report hearsay; they may adjust their accounts for literary reasons or simply to tell “a good story.” Evidence is best if it can be corroborated by more than one source; but supporting evidence is not always available, particularly for specific details. Like the “facts” derived from them, the documents themselves are seldom unassailable as sources. Historians work with probabilities rather than certainties, and the more evidence is available, the more likely it is that there will be complications. In any event, students of history need to be both skeptical and critical of what they read, whether documentary evidence itself or interpretations of such material.

The Conventions of History Historians have developed a series of conventions for dealing with their raw data. Historical information pre- sented in its unexplicated form—as a series of unrelated facts—is not history as historians understand it, and insufficient attention to interpretation and context is one of the most common faults of beginning histor- ians. Traditionally, the chief mode for historians has been narrative, the recounting of past events in the sequence in which they occurred. Like all aspects of historical work, narrative requires selection—cutting into the seamless web of the past to isolate a particular sequence of events involving a limited number of char- acters. Narrative deals with the passage of time, and— since it is axiomatic that cause and effect must be in the right sequence—chronology is critical to historical understanding. Many great historians of the past con- centrated almost exclusively on narrative, appropriately embellished with description and context; an example is Francis Parkman, who wrote extensively on the early conflict of the French and British in North America. But most modern historians would agree with Arthur

Marwick (1970: 144) that “the historian must achieve a balance between narrative and analysis, between a chronological approach and an approach by topic, and, it should be added, a balance between both of these, and, as necessary, passages of pure description ‘setting the scene,’ providing routine but essential information, conveying the texture of life in any particular age and environment.” Some historians have even dropped nar- rative entirely, although the sequence of events remains implicitly crucial to their work.

Despite the common use of the term “causation” in historical writing, particularly among beginners, philosophers of history have long emphasized that his- torians really do not deal much in the sort of cause-and- effect relationships usually associated with scientific work. The past is too complex to isolate factors in this way. Instead, historians talk about “explanation,” which is not quite the same as scientific causation. Explanation requires the inclusion of enough context and relevant factors to make it clear that the events in question were neither totally predetermined nor utterly capricious. As E.H. Carr (1964: 103–4) has observed:

. . . no sane historian pretends to do anything so fantastic as to embrace “the whole of experi- ence”; he cannot embrace more than a minute fraction of the facts even of his chosen sector or aspect of history. The world of the historian, like the world of the scientist, is not a photo- graphic copy of the real world, but rather a working model which enables him more or less effectively to understand it and to master it. The historian distils from the experience of the past, or from so much of the experience of the past as is accessible to him, that part which he recognizes as amenable to rational explan- ation and interpretation, and from it draws conclusions.

In their efforts at narrative and/or explanation, historians also use many other conventions. Among them, let us focus on periodization. The division of the past into historical “periods” serves purposes beyond the organization of a teaching curriculum. By focus- ing attention on units of time, periodization serves to narrow and limit the range of material to be considered

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and helps to provide a structure for what would other- wise be a meaningless jumble of events and dates. The choice of beginning and end dates for larger historical sequences is hardly arbitrary, but it is still a matter of interpretation. Take, for example, the standard deci- sion to divide Canadian history at 1867, the year of Confederation. This fundamental periodization reflects the assumption not only that political and constitu- tional development shaped everything else, but also that the creation of a national state called the Dominion of Canada was the critical point in that development. However, it makes little sense for many other themes in Canadian history. Historians of Canada continually debate the question of relevant periods. The authors of the first survey of the history of women in Canada, for example, were forced to find a new way of periodizing their account, since the standard political and consti- tutional periodization reflected a chronology that was mainly masculine in emphasis.

New Interpretations Like all academic disciplines, history is constantly reinterpreting its subject matter. Some of the pres- sure for reinterpretation is a simple matter of growth: within the past quarter-century, the number of aca- demic positions for historians in Canada has more than quadrupled, with the result that more individuals are now researching and writing within the field. At the same time, technological advances (in computers and photocopiers, for example) and the advent of the relatively inexpensive airline ticket have made it pos- sible for historians to examine and process documen- tary materials in ways and quantities that would have been unthinkable at the beginning of the 1960s. Other pressures for revision, of course, come from changes in the social context, which is continually raising new questions for historians to explore and causing shifts in the climate of opinion.

In history, revisionist movements usually arise out of new developments in three (often related) areas: sub- ject matter, conceptual frameworks, and methodologies. A new development in any one of these areas may be enough on its own to provoke significant revision. When

two or three come together (as is often the case), they can completely alter our understanding of the past.

Addressing new subject matter involves asking new questions about hitherto neglected aspects of the past. In Canadian history, with its traditional focus on the political and constitutional ways in which a national state was created, the opportunities for new questions have been quite substantial. Out of a variety of new subjects, we can perhaps offer three examples: women, Aboriginal peoples, and ethnic groups. While each of these subjects would today be regarded as cen- tral to any contemporary understanding of Canadian history, they were virtually neglected until recent years. As we have seen, lack of attention to women in the past did not reflect lack of information but lack of interest on the part of historians. With the simple act of focusing attention on women, a new field of study was opened. In the case of Aboriginal peoples, the subject had not been entirely neglected, but it had virtually always been approached from the perspective of the developing national state. Thus many of the new ques- tions raised today are aimed at understanding the First Nations’ perspectives. As for ethnic groups, research has tended to involve scholars from a variety of disci- plines, such as sociology and geography, and has been encouraged by the availability of grant money from governmental agencies at both the federal and provin- cial levels. Ethnic studies have proved to be politically popular within Canada.

New areas of study often suggest—if not require— new conceptual contexts. In general, all three of the new areas noted above fall under the rubric of “social history.” As early as 1924, an article on “The Teaching of Canadian History” advocated the study of the “actual life of the Canadian people” in “their efforts to secure a livelihood and then to provide for the higher demands of mind and spirit” (McArthur, 1924: 207). Until recent years, however, much of the research in the social his- tory area concentrated on the upper echelons of soci- ety in Canada, the so-called “elites.” Broadening the social base to include individuals outside the ranks of those whose lives were normally documented (women, Aboriginal people, racial and ethnic minorities, ordin- ary working folk) involved a substantial reconceptualiz- ation of the nature of Canada’s past.

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xixIntroduction

Studying those “inarticulate” groups often required new methodologies as well. Perhaps the most important methodological innovation was quantification: gener- ating new data sets by processing existing information not previously practicable for historical purposes out of data such as name-by-name census returns. At its worst, quantification could be little more than mind- less number-crunching, but at its best it enabled histor- ians to open up whole categories of hitherto unusable documentation. The information collected by the Dominion Bureau of the Census or the various provin- cial departments of Vital Statistics has provided much new insight into the way ordinary Canadians have lived (and loved) in the past. Computers have made it easier for historians to process large amounts of aggre- gate information—although the axiom “Garbage In, Garbage Out” continues to apply. The complex processes of collecting and analyzing new categories of data have been contentious, and beginning historians should understand that the apparently simple act of producing a new set of information involves many steps and many disagreements. “Hard” numbers and percentages are no more sacrosanct than information that appears “softer.” Moreover, quantified data still require interpretation and are subject to all the standard rules that apply to historical explanation.

Although explicit controversies do arise within the field of Canadian history, they are probably less common than controversies among historians of other nations, notably the United States and Great Britain. To some extent the profession has avoided confronta- tions by allowing each practitioner his or her own area of specialization (or “turf ”). This has made good sense because the number of questions not yet adequately explored in the history of Canada is considerable. Whatever the reasons for the muting of controversy, dis- agreements in Canadian historiography have had less to do with specific points and interpretations within a single tradition than with first principles and under- lying assumptions. Thus Canadian historians tend to disagree only at the mega-level, as in the recent debate over Canadian “national history,” which was really a debate among scholars with different sets of assump- tions about the role of narrative in the past. Those on the moving frontier of scholarship are in some ways far less

embattled than those still working in older traditions, since they can simply add their “new” interpretations on to the old ones.

But at the same time, the interpretation and prac- tice of history, in Canada as elsewhere, is constantly changing, presenting new issues and questions. As noted above, research over the past half-century has been greatly altered by a variety of technological developments, including the photocopier, the computer, and most recently, the Internet. This last tool, which few fully understand in all its complexity, can alter research processes and provides access to vast amounts of mostly unsorted information, and while it raises new possibilities for acquiring documentation and exchan- ging information it also opens a Pandora”s box of new questions. Its users must develop new ways of authenti- cating what is credible in essentially unsupervised and uncontrolled material. We must figure out how to pro- tect intellectual property in a world where a mere click of a mouse can copy and transfer thousands of pages of material from one file to another, and the resulting risks of plagiarism are enormous. New techniques for documenting the past will have to be developed so that we can be assured that what we are reading online is not simply another “urban myth.” Contemporary teachers and students of history are thus faced with many new challenges.

The search for a credible past has been recently influenced not simply by the emergence of a totally unsupervised database, but, on the other hand, by new efforts on the part of public bodies to shape what we accept as “truth.” Over the years, most historical argu- ments and interpretations have always been judged in the free marketplace of opinion by one’s historical peers, and there has seldom been a “final judgment.” The philo- sophical problems involved when complex historical questions are actually adjudicated by the judicial pro- cess are many. In court cases, increasingly employed in Canada in Aboriginal land claims disputes, the judge listens to a variety of expert testimony and pronounces a verdict that appears to rely on and thus to validate one or more particular historical interpretations or methodo- logical approaches. Does this court approval mean that the judge’s verdict takes on the character of the truth? Is it susceptible to revision? Has anything actually

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xx Introduction

been validated? Apart from court pronouncements are others of an official nature. The Canadian government has recently (November 2009) issued a revised guide for new citizens that undertakes to summarize Canadian history in 10 pages. That history is now formally allowed to include the abuse of Aboriginal peoples and the mis- treatment of several ethnic communities, although few details are given. Whether it has managed to be suffi- ciently vague so as not to introduce a new level of mis- conceptions is another matter entirely.

Simply because history is a cumulative subject, stu- dents should not think that the latest books and journal articles are necessarily better by virtue of their dates of publication. Many older works of historical scholar- ship can still be regarded as the best treatments of their topics. This is particularly true in traditional areas of study that have not attracted much attention from mod- ern scholars, such as the military history of the War of 1812. Earlier generations were fond of publishing edi- tions of documents, which, if well-transcribed, trans- lated, and edited, are just as valuable today as they were a century ago. The complete (and most commonly used) edition of the Jesuit Relations in English was published between 1896 and 1901 (and, as times do change, that entire 73-volume collection is now available online in facsimile from Creighton University, a Jesuit institution in Omaha, Nebraska). On some topics our only sources are earlier documents; for example, Richard Hakluyt’s sixteenth-century accounts are still essential for any study of English overseas voyages.

By now it should be clear that both the writing and the reading of history are extremely complicated enter- prises. Whole books with titles like Understanding History or The Nature of History have been devoted to introdu- cing students to the complexities of the craft, and in the space of a few pages it is impossible to explore all the potential dimensions. In any case, readers of this book should understand that every work of history involves a series of decisions to hold various contradictions in dynamic tension. Among the most important issues held in tension in this book are the following.

1. Interpretive complexity versus authority. Virtually every sentence in this work (or any other work of history) could be hedged in with conflicting evi-

dence and interpretation. The result would almost certainly be incomprehensible. I have chosen to favour readability over total academic accuracy. This is not to say that I do not recognize the issues of interpretive complexity. Rather, I have consciously addressed them in two ways: by introducing ques- tions of interpretation into the text on a regular basis, and by including essays on historiography—”How History Has Changed’—at the end of each chapter.

2. Individual biography versus groups and forces. One problem that all historians face (or ought to face) is how to make the material interesting to readers. As any newspaper editor will tell you, readers like their stories to have people in them. This work uses the experiences of individual people to represent and suggest the complex groups and forces that lie behind them. I do not subscribe to the Great Person theory of history, but I do believe in personalizing history as much as possible.

3. Overarching master narrative versus the complex voices of social and cultural history. Whether or not Canadian history has a single narrative is a hotly debated issue today, sometimes posed in the form of the question “Is there a national history?” The single narrative is also re lated to the problem of authority, although the two are not the same. A coherent and connected single narrative could be based on the concept of the development of the nation, or on viewing events from the perspective of that nation, or on something quite different. The point is that any such narrative line rep- resents an abstraction. Critics of the abstract, single narrative approach associate it with the imposition of a hegemonic “master principle” that in turn is often taken to represent the sequence of events preferred by the “men in suits” or the “ruling class” or the “pol- iticians in Ottawa.” Many groups are commonly left outside such a master narrative: workers, racial and cultural minorities, women, inhabitants of margin- alized regions, inhabitants of alienated regions (e.g., Quebec for much of the twentieth century). Over the past 30 years, Cana dian historians have concentrated on recovering the voices of these groups. But if those voices were all we heard, telling their own stories in their own tongues, the resulting cacophony would be unintelligible; and to establish chronology and

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xxiIntroduction

meaningful periodization, we need a structure that will provide some common reference points. Hence a master narrative of some kind is still essential.

The master narrative around which this book is structured, into which all the other stories are woven,

is a highly abstract one that may be labelled “a history of Canada.” I hope this discussion will help readers to understand the chapters that follow.

J.M. Bumsted

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1 The Beginnings

Although there was not a written alphabet in North America before European “discovery,” a record of the history and culture of the First Peoples was preserved in oral traditions and material culture, and it was permanently imprinted on the landscape, engraved on rock surfaces all across the continent. The engravings shown here—from the “Teaching Rocks” in Nephton, Ontario—are a relatively modern example, dating from between 900 AD and 1100 AD, although there are others that are millennia older.

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Timeline | Major Events in the Early History of the First Nations 12,000 BCE (Before Common Era) Mammal retaining stone weapon killed in New Mexico.

11,000 BCE Glacial retreat escalates with warming trend.

10,000 BCE Continued warming alters physical environment as ice

retreats.

9000 BCE Fluted Point people spread across North America.

7000 BCE Maritime Archaic culture develops the harpoon.

5500 BCE Maritime Archaic culture develops burial mounds.

Notched projectile points appear in British Columbia.

3000 BCE Forest reaches its northernmost extension.

2000 BCE Paleo-Eskimos and other Archaics begin displacing

Maritime Archaics on eastern seaboard and in Arctic

regions.

1000 BCE Ceramic pottery appears in Great Lakes area and

spreads east.

500 BCE Dorset people appear in Arctic Canada. Climate

deteriorates.

500 CE (Common Era) Maize cultivation begins in southern Ontario. Climate

improves.

600 Beothuk culture replaces the Dorset Eskimos in

Newfoundland.

1000 Norse settle briefly in eastern North America.

1150 Dorset culture is replaced by Thule culture among Inuit.

1350 Squash and bean cultivation appears in southern

Ontario.

1497 First recorded European arrival in North America since

Norse.

1634 Beginning of the destruction of Huronia.

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4 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Once upon a history, Canada began with the arrival of the European “discoverers” at the end of the fifteenth century. These events, at best, now mark only the moment at which the inhabited land and its people enter the European historical record, not the beginning of their history. Thousands of years of human development pre- ceded the appearance of the Europeans. The First Nations of North America also have their history. The work of countless modern specialists, chiefly linguistic scholars and archae- ologists, has only begun to uncover the barest outlines of the pre-European period. The record of human settlement in Canada clearly does not begin with the Europeans.

The First Arrivals Unlike other continents on planet Earth, North America did not produce indigenous archaic human forms

going back thousands of generations. No evidence sug- gests that any of the many ancestors of Homo sapiens developed on this continent. There were no Old Stone Age people as in Africa, Asia, or Europe. Instead, the first humanlike inhabitant of North America was Homo sapiens, who probably arrived in the New World during the last Great Ice Age—which ended 10,000 years ago— and did so via Beringia, the now submerged land bridge stretching between what is now Siberia and Alaska. “Land bridge” is a bit of a misnomer for Beringia, esti- mated to be twice the size of modern Manitoba, and cur- rent evidence suggests that humans were living in there in a sort of refugium from the Ice Age, and according to the Beringia standstill model, were first isolated in the territory, then migrated into the western hemisphere 15,000 years ago.

Until recently, the 30,000 years or more of the human occupation of the North American continent

Timeline | Major Events in the Early European History in Northern North America 982–5 CE Eric the Red explores Greenland.

c. 1000 L’Anse aux Meadows is established by the Norse.

1497 John Cabot reaches Newfoundland.

1500 Gaspar Corté-Real lands at Tierra Verde

(Newfoundland).

1501 Gaspar Corté-Real brings the first Aboriginals to

Europe.

1534 Jacques Cartier erects cross at Gaspé Harbour.

1576 First voyage of Martin Frobisher to Baffin Island.

1585 John Davis enters Davis Strait.

1605 Port-Royal established.

1608 Champlain builds habitation at Quebec.

1610 First English settlers arrive in Newfoundland.

1615 Étienne Brûlé investigates New York and Pennsylvania.

1616 Robert Bylot sails through Davis Strait.

1618 Champlain proposes major French colony on

St Lawrence.

1628 Scottish settlement expedition arrives in Maritime

region.

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51 | The Beginnings

before the arrival of the Europeans usually were labelled “prehistoric.” That term has fallen out of common usage, however, because it produces so many misconceptions. No written record of North American development may have existed before the Europeans, but to assume that “history” begins only with writing is misleading. Plenty of earlier records of human activity exist, including oral traditions of the First Nations. From them a fascinating picture of the early history of what is now Canada can be reconstructed. That picture is hardly a static one. Instead, it displays constant movement, adaptation, and change. These early people did not attempt to modify their environment so much as adapt to it. That environ- ment, in turn, was continually shifting, perhaps not over a single season but over several generations.

One of the chief factors influencing the early inhabitants of North America was climate. Until very recently—as the history of the planet goes—most of what is now Canada was covered with glacial ice, which began retreating about 10,000 years ago. Several ice-free corridors ran from Alaska south, through which the first immigrants from Asia probably travelled by land into the warmer regions of the continent, while others, it seems, took a coastal route and entered the southwestern part of the continent by sea. By the time of Christ, around 2,000 years ago, most of Canada had acquired the nat- ural environment recognizable to us today. The land had also acquired permanent inhabitants.

Much of what we know about these people comes to us in the form of physical artifacts, but increasing genetic evidence has recently led to a number of new conclusions. Where there was once some debate over whether these first humans had come from Asia or from Europe, in the forms of the Clovis and Solutrean hypoth- eses respectively, the Asian ancestry of North America seems assured. Most notably, the genome sequence of 12,500-year-old Anzick-1, the infant skeleton found in Montana, shows indisputable links to Asia and to con- temporary Native Americans. Found in association with over a hundred stone and bone Clovis tools, Anzick-1 is clearly a part of the Clovis culture, and this connection allows scholars to re-examine previous evidence in a clearer context.

Because of the limited nature of the evidence, the early history of humankind in Canada is often described in terms of surviving tools and weapons,

especially projectile points. Archaeologists can infer much from tool-making technology and its geographical spread across the continent. Using various dating tech- niques, including laboratory testing of organic substan- ces to determine what remains of a radioactive isotope called carbon-14, it has been possible to provide some overall sense of chronological development. The Clovis tool type, which is associated with tools made from bifacial percussion flaking and the distinctive fluted spear point, is found throughout the Americas. They were mega-faunal hunters of mammoth and other large game, who lived in small units, although not in total iso- lation from neighbours. Evidence also survives of trade and the exchange of goods.

Clovis, eventually, was replaced by the Folsom culture and a different style of projectile point. Folsom evidence, which dates back to 9000 BCE, suggests that new technology, possibly the atlatl, allowed these big- game hunters to kill more effectively the bison of the Lake Agassiz region—a vast glacial lake that covered much of present-day Manitoba and parts of north- western Ontario, central Saskatchewan, and northern Minnesota and North Dakota.

As the ice melted and the continental ice sheet receded northward, hunters who made fluted points spread more widely across the continent and into what is now Canada. These people have come to be known by archaeologists as the Plano People and had their own distinctive projectile-point technology. They flourished from 8000 to 6000 BCE. By 4000 BCE a number of regional offshoots of the Plano People had developed. Over the next 3,000 years these cul- tures stabilized to some extent, although there was still substantial physical movement. On the west- ern Plains, a culture organized around communal bison-hunting emerged, perhaps as early as 3000 BCE. The High Arctic was occupied by Paleo-Eskimos, who gradually moved to the south into the Barren Lands west of Hudson Bay. The northeastern seaboard was occupied between 2000 and 1000 BCE. On the west coast, a semi-sedentary lifestyle based on the salmon had developed by 2000 BCE.

From 1000 BCE to 500 CE, substantial cultural chan- ges occurred across North America. Once we stop trying to compare these developments with what was going on in Europe and see them instead in their own terms, we

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6 A History of the Canadian Peoples

In 1996 two young men found a human skull in the

Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. Over

the next month, other parts of the skeleton were

found by archaeologist James C. Chatters. Within

the skeleton’s right hipbone was embedded a pro-

jectile point, possibly of great antiquity. Forensic

examination disclosed that the nearly complete

skeleton, which included a full set of teeth, was of

a male between 40 and 55 years, of tall but slender

build. He had suffered numerous injuries over his

lifetime, including a basalt spear tip lodged in his hip.

Radiocarbon dating of a bone fragment indicated

that this man had lived about 7,500 years before the

birth of Christ. The skull lacked Mongoloid charac-

teristics and displayed many signs associated with

modern Caucasoids, as a forensic reconstruction

illustrates. The skeleton was caught up for some

years in a legal dispute between modern American

Indian tribes and scientists, which tended to obscure

the purely scientific significance of the find. Having

now been analyzed, skeletal evidence connects

Kennewick man to the Ainu, the ancient Asian cul-

ture. Nitrogen and oxygen isotope analysis suggests

that Kennewick man lived coastally, and not in the

Columbia River Valley where he was found, although

the care taken in his interment suggests that he was

buried by other humans.

Tri-City Herald/André Ranieri

BACKGROuNDER Kennewick Man

can appreciate how substantial the technological innov- ations of this period were. The bow and arrow spread rapidly, for example, profoundly altering hunting tech- niques. In the same years, pottery-making moved from the Yukon to eastern districts. The introduction of the pot changed food preparation substantially, but pottery also provides evidence of rapidly changing aesthetic sensibilities, as ornamentation was added to design.

Archaeologists have shifted their classification sys- tems from the projectile point to the pot to characterize peoples of this era. Another new development was the rapid expansion from the south of new funeral prac- tices, chiefly burial in large mounds. This change, of course, helped provide a new self-consciously created richness of physical evidence.

The First Nations Population around 1500 Although on the eve of European intrusion all Aborig- inal peoples lived in a reciprocal relationship with nature, not all experienced the same relationship. Much depended on the resources of the region in which they lived and the precise combination of survival skills they possessed. Most of the many groups were hunters and gatherers, organized into mobile bands that followed the seasons and the cycles of game. On the coasts, fish- ing was the principal means of collecting a food supply.

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71 | The Beginnings

Siberia

Alaska

Yukon Territory

Northwest Territories

Nunavut

Wrangel Island

St Lawrence Island

Nunivak Island

Mt McKinley

A l e u t i a n I s l

a n d s

A l a s

k a n

P e n

i n s u

l a

A l a s

k a R

a n g e

B r o o k s

R a n g

Anagula

Ugashik

Dry Creek

Fairbanks

Gallagher Flint Station

Tangle Lakes

Healy Lake

Old Crow Bluefish Caves

Onion Portage

Trail Creek

A r c t i c

O c e

a n

G u l f o f A l a s k a

B e

r in

g S

tr a

C h u k c h i S e a

G u

l f o f

A n

a d y r

Ko buk R

iver

Yu ko

n R

iv er

Ku sk

ok w

im R

iv er

Macken zie River

0 500

kilometres

1,000

70°

60°

50°

Arctic Circle

Canada

United States

S E

Beringia: the “land bridge” at its greatest extent. Shaded area was above sea level approximately 20,000 years ago. Adapted from Brian M. Fagan, The Great Journey: The Peopling of Ancient North America (London: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 100

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8 A History of the Canadian Peoples

In the North, as in many other areas, whether one fished or hunted depended on the season. On the Pacific Slope, the rich resource base of salmon and cedar made pos- sible considerable accumulations of wealth and social gradation. These Pacific peoples demonstrated that it was not essential to farm in order to prosper. Only those people living in the area of the Great Lakes pur- sued horticulture. The planting of corn, tobacco, beans, squash, and sunflowers led to the establishment of semi-permanent villages.

Despite the differences in their lifestyles, all First Nations were remarkably adept and ingenious at adapt- ing to their environment. None were more successful than the Inuit, who inhabited an ice-bound territory in the North. At sea they used the speedy kayak and on land the dogsled. They lived in domed snow-huts (igloos) in winter and in skin tents in summer. Caribou hides served as the basic clothing material and provided

much protection from the inclement weather. The Inuit were extremely skilful at making tools and weapons. Their use of bone and ivory for such equipment was extensive, and their aesthetic sense highly developed.

With the possible exceptions of the horticultural- ists of south-central Canada and the fisherfolk of the Pacific Slope, the economies of the First Nations were quite simple. They were organized around the food supply, offering semi-nomadic people little scope for the acquisition of material possessions that would only have to be abandoned at the next—and imminent— move. Nevertheless, these were economies, and those within them functioned according to their inner logic. Food was not cultivated but pursued. The movement of fish and game had certain rhythms, but was poten- tially capricious. When food was available, the popula- tion was galvanized into action, gathering as much as possible and consuming it almost immediately. When

Sadlermiut man paddling an inflated walrus-skin boat, watercolour, c. 1830, artist unknown. Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), Acc. No. R9266-30, Peter Winkworth Collection of Canadiana.

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91 | The Beginnings

food ran out, energetic questing for new sources did not necessarily begin at once. The people knew the general patterns of the wildlife and vegetation they sought, and hurry often did little good. It was, for example, useless to hunt for berries in February. Such economies put little premium on the disciplined pursuit of goals, or on the deferral of expectations.

The First Peoples: A Regional Introduction The number of First Nations peoples living in Canada on the eve of European intrusion has become the sub- ject of debate. One point seems clear. The Aboriginal population, lacking immunities to a variety of European diseases, was quickly decimated by epidemics, which spread across the land, often in advance of the actual appearance of a European human carrier. The size of the population observed by the first European arrivals may have already been modified by disease brought by the earliest fishermen, who may well have preceded the recorded explorers. The Indigenous pre-contact popula- tion of Canada was probably substantially larger than the most generous estimates of first-contact observers. Another general point that needs emphasizing is that great diversity existed among the Aboriginal inhabit- ants living in what is now Canada at the time Europeans arrived. As the map on page 29 indicates, 12 major lan- guage groups existed in this vast territory.

In the Atlantic region, the earliest traces of a human presence have been found near Cobequid Bay, Nova Scotia, where the remains of a Paleo-Indian site have been dated to roughly 8600 BCE. Hard archaeo- logical evidence can be hard to find in this region because coastal settlements may have been washed away by rising sea levels. The first traces of habitation on Newfoundland can be dated to approximately 5,000 years ago, arrivals from Labrador. Two successive waves of settlement are thought to have disappeared around 800 CE. By this time a new people had settled on the island. Their origins obscure, they would come to be known as the Beothuk. Their language was probably Algonquian, and they relied on the fruits of the sea for

much of the year, following the caribou inland in the depths of winter. In the modern Maritime provinces and on the Gaspé Peninsula, by 1500 Mi’kmaq speak- ers of Eastern Algonqian had taken hold. The region was not well suited to agriculture, and the Mi’kmaq were primarily hunters and fishermen who employed an extensive river system to travel between interior and coast, summering on marine life and hunting in the winter. Two other groups of Algonquian speakers— the Wuastukwiuk (Maliseet) around the Saint John River basin and the Passamaquoddy around the Bay of Fundy—resided to the west of the Mi’kmaq. Both peoples were principally hunters.

To the north of the Maritime region was a vast expanse of Precambrian Shield stretching to the north of the St Lawrence River between modern Labrador and the James Bay drainage basin. In a region fairly inhospit- able to agriculture lived the Innu (Montagnais-Naskapi), Algonquian speakers who ranged widely in small hunt- ing bands in search of moose and caribou. Further west lived several groups called by Europeans “Algonquins,” and to their west—north of the Great Lakes as far as the prairies—resided the Ojibwa or Chippewa. Traditionally hunters, the inhabitants adapted to warmer temper- atures by seeking a variety of game animals, supple- mented by such plant foods as berries and wild rice. They continued to travel in small hunting bands.

South of the Ojibwa, in more temperate and fer- tile woodlands around the Lower Great Lakes, resided several peoples belonging to the Iroquian language family. The Huron lived south of Georgian Bay in what is today Simcoe County, Ontario. The Petun were found to their west, the Attiwandaronk (Neutrals) along the north shore of Lake Erie, and the Five Nations Iroquois (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) south of the lakes in modern New York State. Beginning about 1,500 years ago, these peoples picked up a practice coming northward from the south in the Mississippi Valley. They began to grow corn. The results were dramatic. Domesticated plants produced a much more stable food supply than hunting, and made pos- sible for a substantial population to exist in a small area. People here would still hunt and fish, but they no longer travelled long distances looking for food, and they could settle in one place more or less permanently. The

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10 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Iroquoians began to establish villages made up of long- houses: large communal homes typically housing five to ten nuclear families each. A large village might contain as many as 100 longhouses and some 3,000 people.

In the slash-and-burn agriculture practised by the Iroquoians, the land was cleared for fields by cutting the trees and burning off the ground cover; seeds (first corn, then beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco) were planted in holes made with a digging stick; then earth was hoed up around the plants in mounds—up to 6,000 per hectare in fields as extensive as 25 hectares in area. Once the men had cleared the land, the women and chil- dren did the planting, cultivating, and harvesting. The soil was a sandy loam, easy to work but easily exhausted. After several years of steady production, the entire com- munity would move to another site with fresh soil. Land was treated as a unit of production. It did not confer status or wealth, and unused land was held in common. But families possessed their own farm plots, as large as they could reasonably cultivate. Unlike hunting and gathering people, these horticulturalists were able to accumulate possessions, including food supplies for the winter, and to that extent agricultural produce did repre- sent a form of wealth. Hoarding was discouraged, how- ever, and goods were shared through games of chance and ceremonies such a gift-giving. Artifacts discovered hundreds of kilometres from their presumed points of origin demonstrate the development of complex trading patterns among these early Eastern Woodland peoples.

In the vast expanse between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, large mammals remained the centre of human economies. When the mammoth, the earliest prey, became extinct it was replaced by species more familiar to our own time, including the Plains buffalo (or bison). With the arrival of the horse—an introduction into southwestern North America by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, which gradually moved north over the next 200 years—the Plains people would develop one of the world’s great equestrian cul- tures, but until then they hunted on foot, often stamped- ing the animals over cliffs or herding them into gullies or “pounds” where they could be dispatched with spears or stone hammers. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in present-day Alberta (today a UNESCO World Heritage Site) was used by four cultures in succession over more

than 5,000 years. Because they needed to follow the herds as they grazed for forage, the Plains cultures did not establish permanent habitations. Instead, they developed the portable hide tipi, using dogs as pack ani- mals. Changes in spear and arrow points indicate that the Plains cultures were influenced by developments to their south. Burial practices also suggest southern influ- ences and graves containing goods from distant regions, such as shells and copper, indicate elaborate trade net- works. Although horticulture was practised at times in several areas of the prairies, recurring droughts made hunting and gathering a more reliable survival strategy.

Not all of the region between the Great Lakes and Rockies was prairie, however. Between the Shield and the southern Plains was a zone of heavy forest alternat- ing with open clearings covered with tall grasses. This parkland, as it came to be called, extended west from the Red River to the north branch of the Saskatchewan River and ultimately into the Peace River country. The lives of people in this region had more in common with those of the eastern hunters than of the buffalo hunt- ers to the south. The two largest groups in the western interior were the Assiniboine and the Cree; the former were based mainly in the buffalo country and the latter mainly in the woodlands. Linguistically, both peoples belonged to the Algonquian family, as did their west- ern neighbours the Blackfoot. The Gros Ventre and the Sarcee—who, with the Blackfoot, inhabited what is now Alberta—spoke Athapaskan languages.

On the Pacific slope, rivers and coastal waters, set in a temperate climate and teeming with fish and marine animals, made possible a more varied economy than was possible for the bison-centred cultures east of the Rockies. One fish and one tree became central to the cultures of the Northwest Coast: the salmon—fresh, smoked, dried—provided a year-round food supply, while the towering cedar of the coastal rain forest fur- nished material for everything from large houses and sea-going dugout canoes to totem poles, ceremonial masks, and baskets and clothing woven from bark and roots. In this rich environment with the gentlest climate of any in the northern part of the continent, there was little need to pursue a migratory food supply. Relatively large populations were able to settle in one place. Over time they developed highly complex social systems

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111 | The Beginnings

with sharp class divisions based on kinship and wealth, both material and immaterial (such as rights to cultural property, including dances, songs, or rituals). People such as the Haida, Nun-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka’wakw, and Tsimshian also owned slaves, often prisoners of war taken in raids on less powerful peoples such as the Salish of southern Vancouver Island. A strong aesthetic sensibility expressed itself in all aspects of these cul- tures, and the linguistic diversity of the region—of the 12 Aboriginal language families in Canada, half are found only in present-day British Columbia—suggests that it has been occupied for a very long time.

The peoples of the Interior Plateau were heavily influenced by the coastal societies, with clan-based social organization and hierarchical divisions between chiefs, nobles, commoners, and slaves. In their econ- omies, however, groups such as the Interior Salish, Kootenay, Chilcotin, and Okanagan were more closely akin to the hunting and gathering societies of eastern Canada. Semi-migratory, dependent on hunting and fish- ing, most of these peoples spoke Athapaskan languages.

North of the fifty-sixth parallel, in the basins of the Mackenzie and Yukon rivers, lived several other Athapaskan-speaking woodlands people. The lives of the Chipewyan, Dogrib, and Gwich’in were centred on a constant search for game: moose, caribou, bear, bea- ver, and smaller mammals. Historically, the direction of these groups was southward, away from the Barrens— that vast, bleak area stretching from northern Manitoba to the shore of Coronation Gulf (an arm of the Arctic Ocean). In the west they had gradually extended into the Interior of British Columbia, but to the southeast they had found their way blocked by other groups. Their lives were hard and insecure: the sparse, difficult terrain could not support a dense population, and their social organization was that of the small hunting band.

Finally, the earliest human occupants of the High Arctic and Subarctic coasts, known to us as Paleo- Eskimos, had been land-based hunters of caribou and muskoxen. As the climate became more moderate and the sea level stabilized, producing a more reliable food supply based on marine mammals, they expanded eastward from Alaska beginning about 2000 BCE, even- tually reaching as far as northern Greenland. The Paleo- Eskimos were succeeded by the Dorset culture and the

Dorset by the Thule, the direct ancestors of the modern Inuit. Survival in the intractable environment of the Far North demanded extreme ingenuity. Without trees for building, the Inuit used the materials at hand, which var- ied from place to place but were largely derived from the animals they hunted for food: caribou, seal, and whale. Boats were made from animal skins stretched over drift- wood or whalebone frames; sled-runners began as ani- mal bones; tools and weapons (including the toggling harpoon) came from bone and ivory. Dwellings were constructed either of snow blocks (igloos) or rocks, sod, and skins. For transportation, on water these people used both the small, speedy kayak and the large flat-bot- tomed umiak; for land travel they employed the dogsled. Most of their clothing came from caribou skins, which provided a warmth unknown in the skins of other ani- mals. As in other societies reliant on the hunt, political organization was simple, based on the extended family.

The First Arrivals from Europe As every Canadian schoolchild knows, Norsemen made the first documented European visitations to North America. Contemporary evidence of these visits is found in the great Icelandic epic sagas, confirmed in our own time by archaeological excavations near L’Anse aux Mead- ows on the northern tip of Newfoundland. The sagas describe the landings to the west of Greenland made by Leif Ericsson and his brother Thorvald. They also relate Thorfinn Karlsefni’s colonization attempt at a place Leif had called Vinland, an attempt that was thwarted by hostile residents labelled in the sagas as “Skraelings.” It is tempting to equate Vinland with the archaeological dis- coveries, although there is no real evidence for doing so.

Later Greenlanders may have timbered on Baffin Island. They may also have intermarried with the Inuit. Attempts have been made to attribute the Thule culture of the Inuit to such relationships. But Greenland gradually lost contact with Europe, and the Icelandic settlement there died away in the fifteenth century. The Norse activ- ities became part of the murky geographical knowledge of the late Middle Ages.

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12 A History of the Canadian Peoples

In our own time the uncovering of a world map exe- cuted in the mid-fifteenth century, showing a realistic Greenland and westward islands, including inscriptions referring to Vinland, created much speculation about Europe’s geographical knowledge before Columbus. This Vinland map has never been definitively authenticated, and many experts have regarded it with skepticism. The current scholarly view, however, has turned back to a positive evaluation of the map.

Like the Vinland map, none of the various candi- dates for North American landfalls before Columbus— except for the Norse in Newfoundland—can be indisputably documented. In the fifteenth century, Portuguese and possibly English fishermen may have discovered the rich fishing grounds off the Grand Banks. An occasional vessel may even have made a landfall. The fishermen did not publicize their knowledge, although many scholars insist that awareness of lands in the west- ern Atlantic was probably in common circulation in maritime circles by the end of the fifteenth century.

Europe around 1500 The arrival of Europeans in the Americas at the end of the fifteenth century was a collaborative effort by mariners and contemporary scholars of many nations, behind which were profound changes in economies and polities. The ambition to visit new lands was fuelled by the surge of intellectual confidence and the explo- sion of knowledge associated with the Renaissance. By the end of the fifteenth century, geographers—led by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, an Italian cosmographer in Portuguese service—were convinced that Europe and Asia were closer than the ancients had conjectured. The schemes of Christopher Columbus were influ- enced both by Toscanelli and by Portuguese notions of oceanic islands. Geographical speculation and ship design pointed towards transatlantic voyages. Some time in the twelfth century, the Germans developed the cog, a single-masted ship decked over and fitted with rudder and tiller. In the early fifteenth century the

cog’s hull was lengthened and the ves- sel was given two additional masts, becoming the carvel (or caravel). Early explorers found smaller ships more manoeuvrable than larger ones and came to prefer them on their voyages. Rigging also improved, particularly with the addition of the square sail to the earlier lateen (triangular) variety.

The art of navigation showed deve- lop ment parallel to ship design, a grad- ual result of trial and error by countless mariners. The greatest advance was in written sailing directions based on tak- ing latitudes in relation to Polaris (the North Star) and the sun. Longitudes still were based largely on guesswork, mainly on a mariner’s estimates of his vessel’s speed. In addition to the compass, sea- men used quadrants and astrolabes to determine latitude, and were familiar with the need to transfer their data on latitude and longitude onto charts ruled for these variables. Routiers—coastal pilot charts of European waters—were

Sketch of an ocean-going Viking vessel of the eleventh century. In the 1950s archaeologists began excavating a collection of five Viking ships sunk between 1070 and 1090 to create a blockade across a narrow channel at Skuldelev, Denmark. One of these ships was a double-decked cargo carrier with higher sides (called a “knarr”) of the sort the Norse would have sailed in the open Atlantic. It had extra trusses and a sheltered cargo space below deck for people and animals. Source: The Viking Ship Museum, Denmark. Illustration: Morten Gøthche.

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131 | The Beginnings

Karlsefni and the Skraelings

Document

Karlsefni sailed south along the land with Snorri and Bjarni and the rest of their company. They journeyed a long time till they reached a river which flowed down from the land into a lake and so on to the sea. There were such extensive bars off the mouth of the estuary that they were unable to get into the river except at full flood. Karlsefni and his men sailed into the estuary, and called the place Hop, Landlock Bay. There they found self-sown fields of wheat where the ground was low- lying, and vines wherever it was hilly. Every brook there was full of fish. They dug trenches at the meeting point of land and high water, and when the tide went out there were halibut in the trenches. There were vast numbers of animals of every kind in the forest. They were there for a fortnight enjoying themselves and saw nothing and nobody. They had their cattle with them.

Then early one morning when they looked about them they saw nine skin-boats, on board which staves were being swung which sounded just like flails threshing—and their motion was sunwise.

“What can this mean?” asked Karlsefni. “Perhaps it is a token of peace,” replied Snorri. “So

let us take a white shield and hold it out towards them.” They did so, and those others rowed towards them,

showing their astonishment, then came ashore. They were small, ill-favoured men, and had ugly hair on their heads. They had big eyes and were broad in the cheeks. For a while they remained there, astonished, and after- wards rowed off south past the headlands.

Karlsefni and his men built themselves dwellings up above the lake; some of their houses stood near the

mainland, and some near the lake. They now spent the winter there. No snow fell, and their entire stock found its food grazing in the open. But once spring came in they chanced early one morning to see how a multitude of skin-boats came rowing from the south round the headland, so many that the bay appeared sown with coals, and even so staves were being swung on every boat. Karlsefni and his men raised their shields, and they began trading together. Above all these people wanted to buy red cloth in return for which they had furs to offer and grey pelts. They also wanted to buy swords and spears, but this Karlsefni and Snorri would not allow. They had dark unblemished skins to exchange for the cloth, and were taking a span’s length of cloth for a skin, and this they tied round their heads. So it continued for a while, then when the cloth began to run short they cut it up so that it was no broader than a fingerbreadth, but the Skraelings gave just as much for it, or more.

The next thing was that the bull belonging to Karlsefni and his mates ran out of the forest bellowing loudly. The Skraelings were terrified by this, raced to their boats and rowed south past the headland, and for three weeks running there was neither sight nor sound of them. But at the end of that period they saw a great multitude of Skraeling boats coming up from the south like a streaming torrent. This time all the staves were being swung anti-sunwise, and the Skraelings were all yelling aloud, so they took red shields and held them out against them. They clashed together and fought. There was a heavy shower of missiles, for the Skraelings had war-slings too. Karlsefni and Snorri could see the

Continued...

The Norse sagas began as manuscripts of the history of the Icelandic Norsemen collected in the thirteenth century. The following selection is from a manuscript called in English “Eirik the Red’s Saga,” which is a reworking of original material in agreement with well-established rules of the saga tradition. Despite its title, “Eirik the Red’s Saga” is much more interested in the Icelanders Gudrid and Karlsefni than in the family of Eirik the Red.

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14 A History of the Canadian Peoples

readily available, but none of the early explorers who reached North America had the faintest idea of the hazards he was risking. The most remarkable feature of the first known voyages was the infrequency with which mariners ran into serious problems with rocks, shoals, and tides. Such master mariners had an instinctive “feel” for the sea. They were able to read and deduce much from its colour and sur- face patterns.

Though the early explorers had their blind spots, they were without exception skilled sailors, suitably cautious in uncharted waters, which may explain many glaring failures to uncover rivers and bays obvious on any modern map. Once ashore, however, the first Europeans to reach North America threw caution to the winds, particularly in collecting rumours of rich mineral deposits or routes to Asia. Neither they nor their spon- sors were at all interested in the scientific accumulation of knowledge. What they sought was wealth, equivalent to the riches the Spaniards were already taking out of their territories to the south. While other motives—such as national advantage and missionary fervour directed against the resident inhabitants—also entered the pic- ture, the easy and rapid exploitation of the resources of the New World long remained the principal attraction.

The assumption of sovereignty by European states in the early period of exploration consisted chiefly of the performance of various symbolic acts or ceremonies of possession. Such ceremonies were intimately bound up with the culture and language of a particular nation, so that no two nations meant quite the same thing by their actions. The Portuguese, for example, thought that mere discovery was sufficient to establish legitimate domin- ion, and the word “discovery” in Portuguese carried that nuanced meaning, while other nations had quite differ- ent concepts of what produced a legitimate right to rule. For the English, settlement in the form of “first building

and habitation” was one important test, as was “replen- ishing and subduing” a land that had previously existed in common and was seemingly undeveloped (Seed, 1995: 9, 31). Every European nation had its own under- standing of the meaning of “possession.” But in any case, no Aboriginal peoples could comprehend the European concept either of ultimate political authority embodied in a state or of the private ownership of land. In North America, land was used rather than possessed, and one of the continuing gulfs between the First Nations and the Europeans—lasting from first arrival until the present—was over the meaning of the transfer of terri- tory from the Aboriginals to the newcomers, often in formal treaties.

Among those European powers who explored in North America, the French were the most likely to take into account the feelings of the Indigenous peoples they encountered. Indeed, the French—whose monarchical political customs at home relied heavily on the use of ritual and ceremony—often incorporated the consent of the Aboriginal people into their ceremonies as a central component. The early French explorers assumed that physical gestures and body language could be univer- sally understood, and made sure that the Aboriginal people either gave appropriate signs of agreement, or better still, actually participated in the ceremonies of possession. Thus, the French explorers did not simply raise objects of possession like crosses and pillars, but sought to communicate something of their meaning to the Native witnesses and interpreted Native responses as evidence of acceptance or even enthusiasm of the French ceremonialism.

French accounts of ceremonies usually include detailed descriptions of the bodily movements and sounds of the Indigenous observers, which were taken to mean formal consent. For the English, on the other

Skraelings hoisting up on poles a huge ball-shaped object, more or less the size of a sheep’s paunch, and blue-black in colour, which they sent flying inland over Karlsefni’s troop, and it made a hideous noise when it

came down. Great fear now struck into Karlsefni and all his following, so that there was no other thought in their heads than to run away up along the river to some steep rocks, and there put up a strong resistance.

Source: Gwyn Jones, The Norse Atlantic Saga: Being the Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, America (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 181–3. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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151 | The Beginnings

hand, cultural symbols of land possession usually involved signs of successful occupation, such as hous- ing, fencing, and cultivation of the land. Such actions had their own justification. Since the local inhabitants

in most places obviously did not exhibit such signs of permanent occupation, they were not regarded as hav- ing proper jurisdiction over the country in which they resided (Seed, 1995: 41–68).

In 1961 the Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad

announced that he had found Norse buildings in

northern Newfoundland. Many were skeptical, but

in excavations executed between 1961 and 1968 by

Ingstad and his wife Anne (and continued by Parks

Canada in the 1970s), eight ruined buildings were

uncovered in a grassy cove overlooking the Strait of

Belle Isle. Seven of the buildings are grouped into

three complexes located on a north–south axis.

Each complex includes a hall of several rooms and a

smaller one-room hut. Each of the huts may repre-

sent housing for a different vessel. Radiocarbon dat-

ing indicates an occupation between 980 and 1020.

The buildings are substantial, with sod walls and

permanent roofs. They were obviously constructed

to be lived in year-round by up to 100 people. Each

hall had a workshop: the southernmost one a smithy,

the middle one a carpentry shop, and the northern

one a boat-building lean-to. This was not a typ-

ical Norse arrangement, for there were no signs of

livestock or domestic animals. The settlement was

apparently not intended for farming, but probably

as a base for further exploration of the region. The

short duration of the season of navigation in these

northern waters demanded that the Norse win-

ter over in Vinland in order to scout out the region.

The settlement was abandoned fairly swiftly in an

orderly manner, leaving behind little equipment and

no burial site. Archaeologists speculate that the site

was the headquarters of Leif Ericsson himself, for the

population here represented as much as 10 per cent

of the Greenland Norse colony, mainly comprising

workmen. Apparently this location (and the region

surrounding it) was not sufficiently attractive to

produce a permanent colony, both because of the

climate and because of the unfriendly local inhabit-

ants. But it co-ordinates well with what is known of

the Norse experience in Vinland as reported in the

Vinland sagas.

BACKGROuNDER L’Anse aux Meadows

4 5

7 7

Hall F

Building G

Building E

Hall D

Hall A

House B

Building CBuilding C

3 3

Furnace Hut

45 1

Slag Iron rivet Artifact

Worked wood debitage Wood artifacts Butternuts

Wood artifact and debitage concentration

0 10 metres

B lack D

uck B rook

E p a v e s B a y

E W

Source: William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward, eds., Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000).

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16 A History of the Canadian Peoples

From the said copy [of “the land which has been

found,” which is no longer extant] your Lordship will

learn what you wish to know, for in it are named the

capes of the mainland and the islands, and thus you

will see where land was first sighted, since most of

them was discovered after turning back. Thus your

Lordship will know that the cape nearest to Ireland is

1800 miles west of Dursey Head which is in Ireland,

and the southernmost part of the Island of the Seven

Cities is west of Bordeaux River, and your Lordship will

know that he [Cabot] landed at only one spot of the

mainland, near the place where land was first sighted,

and they disembarked there with a crucifix and raised

banners with the arms of the Holy Father and those of

the King of England, my master; and they found tall

trees of the kind masts are made, and other smaller

trees, and the country is very rich in grass. In that

particular spot, as I told your Lordship, they found a

trail that went inland, they saw a site where a fire had

been made, they saw manure of animals which they

thought to be farm animals, and they saw a stick half

a yard long pierced at both ends, carved and painted

with brazil, and by such things they believe the land

to be inhabited. Since he was with just a few people,

he did not dare advance inland beyond the shoot-

ing distance of a cross-bow, and after taking in fresh

water he returned to his ship. All along the coast they

found many fish like those which in Iceland are dried

in the open and sold in England and other countries,

and these fish are called in English “stockfish”; and

thus following the shore they saw two forms running

on land one after the other, but they could not tell if

they were human beings or animals; and it seemed to

them that there were fields where they thought might

also be villages, and they saw a forest whose foliage

looked beautiful. They left England toward the end of

May, and must have been on the way 35 days before

sighting land; the wind was east-north-east and the

sea calm going and coming back, except for one day

when he ran into a storm two or three days before

finding land; and going so far out, his compass needle

failed to point north and marked two rhumbs below.

They spent about one month discovering the coast

and from the above mentioned cape of the mainland

which is nearest to Ireland, they returned to the coast

of Europe in fifteen days. They had the wind behind

them, and he reached Brittany because the sailors

confused him, saying that he was heading too far

north. From there he came to Bristol, and he went

to see the King to report to him all the above men-

tioned; and the King granted him an annual pension

of twenty pounds sterling to sustain himself until the

time comes when more will be known of this busi-

ness, since with God’s help it is hoped to push through

plans for exploring the said land more thoroughly next

year with ten or twelve vessels—because in his voyage

he had only one ship of fifty “tonnes” and twenty men

and food for seven or eight months—and they want to

carry out this new project. It is considered certain that

the cape of the said land was found and discovered in

the past by the men from Bristol who found “Brasil”

as your Lordship well knows. It was called the Island

of Brasil, and it is assumed and believed to be the

mainland that the men from Bristol found. Since your

Lordship wants information relating to the first voy-

age, here is what happened: he went with one ship,

his crew confused him, he was short of supplies and

ran into bad weather, and he decided to turn back.

John Cabot Reaches Land across the Atlantic, 1497

Over the winter of 1497–8, the English merchant John Day wrote a letter to “El Gran Almirante” (probably Christopher Columbus), giving him an account of a recent voyage by John Cabot. This account provides some of our best evidence for Cabot’s landfall.

Contemporary Views

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171 | The Beginnings

The European Entry into North America John Cabot went briefly ashore at the “newfoundland.” Of Italian origin, he had convinced Henry VII of England to finance one small ship of 50 tons and a crew of 18 to sail west and find a short route to Asia. Cabot was lost at sea on a second voyage, and his mantle fell to a num- ber of Portuguese mariners, some in English service, who produced a more clearly defined understanding of Newfoundland. Most of the sixteenth-century place names in Newfoundland were Portuguese rather than English. Portugal actually attempted to settle a colony on the Newfoundland coast under the leadership of Juan Fagundes, who had earlier sailed as far as the Gulf of St Lawrence. Fagundes ended up on Cape Breton Island, where his little settlement was apparently destroyed by the local residents, who “killed all those who came there.” Nevertheless, by 1536 Newfoundland was sufficiently familiar, if exotic, to Europeans that a tourist voyage to the island was organized. London merchant Richard Hore (fl. 1507–40) signed 120 passengers, “whereof thirty were gentlemen.” When provisions ran short on the Newfoundland coast, some participants allegedly resorted to eating their compatriots. Those surviving were understandably relieved to get back to England.

In 1523 the French entered the picture through the activities of Italian master mariner Giovanni da Verrazzano (c. 1485–c. 1528). Of high birth, Verrazzano persuaded Francis I to sponsor a voyage of exploration. He made three voyages in all, opening a French trade with Brazil and convincing himself that what he was investigating was not Asia but a totally new continent. Verrazzano was succeeded by Jacques Cartier (1491–1557), who had allegedly been to Brazil and Newfoundland. In 1534 Francis I ordered him to uncover new lands, “where it is said that a great quantity of gold, and other precious things, are to be found.” Little concern was given to the

conversion of Aboriginal peoples in Cartier’s efforts. He, too, made three voyages: the first to make a great “discov- ery,” a second to locate some mineral resource there that would attract investors and the royal court, and a final large-scale effort that failed to produce any profit.

On his first voyage in 1534 Cartier explored the Gulf of St Lawrence. His second voyage in 1535 took him upriver as far as Mont Royal. He visited several First Nation villages and wintered at one of them, Stadacona. Here he heard about the fabulous kingdom of the Saguenay, somewhere farther west. A third voy- age was actually headed by a great nobleman, the Sieur de Roberval (c. 1500–60). It was a disaster, finding little wealth to exploit and accomplishing nothing. The gold and diamonds Cartier brought back turned out to be iron pyrites and quartz. “False as Canadian diamonds” became a common French expression of the time. Despite the lack of accomplishment, a French claim to the St Lawrence region had been established, and the French ultimately would return there.

The next major adventurer to what is now Canada was the Englishman Martin Frobisher (1539?–94), who spent several years searching for the Northwest Passage and great wealth in the Arctic region. Frobisher was a leading English “sea dog”—part pirate and part merchant. In 1576 he raised the funds for an expedition to sail west to Asia through northern waters. He did not find the passageway, but did bring back mineral sam- ples from Baffin Island. These were pronounced to be gold-bearing, leading to a second expedition in 1577, which brought back 200 tons of ore. About the first of October in 1578, a third fleet returned to England from the land called “Meta Incognita.” Its principal cargo con- sisted of 1,350 tons of rocks, collected with great effort and at considerable expense on Baffin Island. Accounts of the return appeared in print before the experts had a chance to examine the cargo. Everyone was demanding to be paid. The owner of one vessel wrote desperately to the government for money to pay his crew, noting, “Chrystmas beynge so nere, every man cryythe out for

Source: J.A. Williamson, ed., The Cabot Voyages and British Discoveries under Henry VII (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society

of the university Press, 1962), 211–14. (The Hakluyt Society was established in 1846 for the purpose of printing rare or

unpublished Voyages and Travels. For further information please see their website at www.Hakluyt.com.)

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18 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Jacques Cartier Meets with Aboriginal People, 1534

Document

On Thursday the eighth of the said month [of July] as the wind was favourable for getting under way with our ships, we fitted up our long-boats to go and explore this [Chaleur] bay; and we ran up it that day about twenty- five leagues. The next day, at daybreak, we had fine weather and sailed on until about ten o’clock in the morning, at which hour we caught sight of the head of the bay, whereat we were grieved and displeased. At the head of this bay, beyond the low shore, were several high mountains. And seeing there was no passage, we proceeded to turn back. While making our way along the shore, we caught sight of the Indians on the side of a lagoon and low beach, who were making many fires that smoked. We rowed over to the spot, and finding there was an entrance from the sea into the lagoon, we placed our long-boats on one side of the entrance. The savages came over in one of their canoes and brought us some strips of cooked seal, which they placed on bits of wood and then withdrew, making signs to us that they were making us a present of them. We sent two men on shore with hatchets, knives, beads, and other wares, at which the Indians showed great pleasure. And at once they came over in a crowd in their canoes to the side where we were, bringing furs and whatever else they possessed, in order to obtain some of our wares. They numbered, both men, women, and children, more than

300 persons. Some of their women, who did not come over, danced and sang, standing in the water up to their knees. The other women, who had come over to the side where we were, advanced freely towards us and rubbed our arms with their hands. Then they joined their hands together and raised them to heaven, exhibiting many signs of joy. And so much at ease did the savages feel in our presence, that at length we bartered with them, hand to hand, for everything they possessed, so that nothing was left to them but their naked bodies; for they offered us everything they owned, which was, all told, of little value. We perceived that they are people who would be easy to convert, who go from place to place maintaining themselves and catching fish in the fishing-season for food. Their country is more temperate than Spain and the finest it is possible to see, and as level as the sur- face of a pond. There is not the smallest lot of ground bare of wood, and even on sandy soil, but is full of wild wheat, that has an ear like barley and the grain like oats, as well as of pease, as thick as if they had been sown and hoed; of white and red currant-bushes, of strawberries, of raspberries, of white and red roses and of other plants of a strong, pleasant odour. Likewise there are many fine meadows with useful herbs, and a pond where there are many salmon. I am more than ever of opinion that these people would be easy to convert to our holy faith.

Source: H.P. Biggar, ed., The Voyages of Jacques Cartier: Published from the originals with translations, notes and appendices (Ottawa: F. Acland, 1924), 54–7.

mony” (Stefansson, 1938). No money was forthcoming and for five years the sponsors of the expedition tried without success to find evidence of value in the cargo. The rock proved to be nothing more than sandstone

flecked with mica. The business degenerated into an unseemly exchange of recriminations and accusations among the investors, and the rock was used eventually in Elizabethan road construction.

In the summer of 1534, the French mariner Jacques Cartier cruised along the northern coast and St Lawrence region of North America. His original journal or log of this expedition does not survive, but a printed version appeared in Italian in 1565. Various versions of the journal were collated and translated by Henry Percival Biggar and published in 1924.

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191 | The Beginnings

Frobisher’s quest for the Northwest Passage in Arctic waters inspired a series of explorers, mainly Englishmen backed by English capital, over the next 50 years. The best-known of these adventurers was Henry Hudson (d. 1611), who sailed under both English and Dutch aus- pices. On his last voyage in 1610 he entered Hudson Bay and navigated its eastern coastal waters southward to James Bay before his crew mutinied against him and cast him adrift on a small boat, never to be seen again. Most

of the great voyages of discovery had been completed by the end of the sixteenth century, even though much of the North American continent remained to be mapped and charted. They occurred against a complex European backdrop of dynastic manoeuvring, the rise of the mod- ern nation-state, the religious disputes of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the growth of capitalistic enterprise fuelled by the infusion of new wealth in the form of gold and silver bullion from the Indies. In the sixteenth century Henry VII and Elizabeth I of England joined Francis I of France as important patrons of master mariners who set sail for the West hoping to obtain wealth and national advantage from the voyages they sponsored. The dissolution of an earlier alliance between Spain and England in the wake of the latter nation’s becoming Protestant, as well as the complex relationships between the ruling houses of the two countries, encouraged Elizabeth to turn her “sea dogs” (like Frobisher) loose upon the Spanish empire. English exploration was inextricably bound up with “singeing the Spanish beard” and with political hostil- ity to Spain heightened by religious grievances. English adventurers often combined the roles of explorer, pir- ate, and even colonizer. The French had entered the American sweepstakes in the hopes of competing with the Spaniards and Portuguese. After Cartier’s pioneer- ing (and unsuccessful) voyages of 1534, 1535–6, and 1541–2, France was preoccupied with its internal dynas- tic struggles more than with overseas adventuring. The French government did not show much interest in North America until the end of the century, by which time France’s Henry IV had stabilized the monarchy.

In both France and England, overseas investment by an emerging mercantile class took over gradually from the earlier efforts of intrepid mariners backed by the Crown. Cartier’s third voyage marked for France the transition from public to private enterprise, and the 1576 voyage of Martin Frobisher in search of the Northwest Passage to the East demonstrated the new importance of mercantile investment to the English.

By the end of the sixteenth century Europe had established that there were no wealthy Aboriginal civilizations to be conquered on the eastern seaboard, nor any readily apparent sources of rich mineral wealth to be exploited. When it was clear that what the

The frontispiece to The Voyages of Jacques Cartier, edited by H.P. Biggar. This portrait of Cartier—if such it is—is imaginary, since we do not have a likeness. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

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20 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Baie des Chaleurs

Lachine Rapids

Baie des Chaleurs

Newfoundland Gaspé

Anticosti I.

Newfoundland Gaspé

Hochelaga

Stadacona

Anticosti I.

Top: Cartier’s first voyage, 1534. Bottom: Cartier’s second voyage, 1535–6.

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211 | The Beginnings

continent had in abundance were fish and furs, a more complex pattern of exploitation had to be developed that required the year-round presence of settlers. Both France and England shifted their energies from mari- time thrusts to colonization.

The Impact of Disease on the Aboriginal Peoples However rapidly European artifacts and animals (such as the horse) may have spread ahead of the newcomers, what dispersed across the continent with even greater rapid- ity was disease. North America in the sixteenth century was relatively isolated in a geographical sense. A host of

Three Baffin Island Inuit—a man, a woman, and her child—who were taken prisoner by Frobisher on his expedition to the Arctic in 1577. All three died a month or so after arriving in England. British Museum Images.

Map of the North Pole, 1595, by Gerardus Mercator. LAC, NMC-016097.

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22 A History of the Canadian Peoples

communicable diseases common to the “known world” of international trade and commerce either did not exist or were not so virulent on the North American continent, and the population had less immunity to them. Measles, smallpox, typhus, typhoid, mumps, and venereal dis- ease—the last perhaps first contracted by Europeans in the Caribbean region—were as much European intro-

ductions as the gun and the horse. Although these dis- eases spread unusually quickly among an Aboriginal population that had little immunity to them, we must not think that communicable disease was totally unknown in early North America or that the pre-contact popu- lation lived in an Edenic state of robust health. In any case, trade and war, including the Aboriginal custom

Like many another early European explorer, Hudson has left no paper trail beyond the events of the years at the high point of his reputation. We do not know where he was born or when, except that he was apparently an Englishman. In 1607 he was employed by the Muscovy Company (an English company trading with Russia) to seek a Northeast Passage to China across the North Pole, and he followed this voyage up with another in 1608, which sailed to the Russian Arctic but found nothing. This employment has been taken to mean that, what- ever his background, he was regarded as highly compe- tent. The Dutch East India Company hired him in 1609 to continue searching for the Northeast Passage in his ship Half Moon. His crew mutinied near Norway, and he changed his course as a result, crossing the Atlantic to search instead for the Northwest Passage and sailing up the Hudson River, which still bears his name.

Hudson subsequently was hired by a consor- tium of English merchants to search for a route to Asia through North America. His ship Discovery was manned by a number of experienced seamen, includ- ing Robert Bylot, who had earlier sailed with William Baffin. The crew was quite quarrelsome, and the voy- age was replete with open conflict and at least one mutiny in which the mutineers backed down only at the last minute. As was the case with the notorious Captain Bligh less than two centuries later, Hudson was a better mariner than a manager of men. He took reprisals against the mutineers. For reasons unknown, he exhibited blatant and continual favouritism to one

young man, who eventually turned against him in consort with several others. Hudson refused to pause to replenish provisions at Digges Island, apparently expecting to be in China very shortly. On 23 June 1611, shortly after beginning the voyage back from a winter on Hudson Bay and desperately short of food, the con- spirators, led by the former favourite, cast Hudson, his son, and seven other men into a small shallop and cut it adrift. They persuaded Robert Bylot (if his story is to be believed) to pilot the ship back to England. Nothing more is known of the passengers on the shallop, but Bylot brought the Discovery back to England after a des- perate battle with the Inuit at Digges Island in which several mutineers were killed. Most of what we know about the post-mutiny adventures of the Discovery comes to us via a narrative by one of the participants, the curiously named Abacuk Pricket. Bylot was par- doned by a court and went on to a distinguished Arctic career; the other mutineers were eventually tried on a charge of murder and acquitted. Hudson’s widow, Katherine, impoverished by her husband’s disappear- ance, had to fight hard to receive compensation from the East India Company, which called her “that trouble- some and impatient woman.” Finally, it allowed her to trade in India on her own account. She returned in 1622 with considerable wealth. Considering the discontent aboard the Discovery, Hudson’s accomplishment in navigating through Hudson Strait and hundreds of miles into Hudson Bay was outstanding, although his leadership skills left much to be desired.

Henry Hudson

Biography

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231 | The Beginnings

of replenishing population losses by adopting captive women and children, spread new and virulent diseases far beyond points of actual European contact. In fairness to the newcomers, they simply did not understand that their sexual promiscuity with First Nations women, or their taking Aboriginals back to Europe as prize speci- mens or informants, would be devastating to the Native

populations. Europeans themselves had become callous about epidemic disease; it was part of life, and they did not understand the concepts of contagion and immun- ity. They had no reason to view the Aboriginal propen- sity for dying in captivity as something resulting from European intervention. For their part, the Aboriginals did not understand that crowding around a sick person

A confrontation between Inuit and English sailors, 1577. The artist, John White, was a member of Martin Frobisher’s second expedition in search of a Northwest Passage. British Museum Images.

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24 A History of the Canadian Peoples

to offer affection only spread disease, or that sitting in a sweat lodge and then plunging into cold water was not an effective remedy for a disease like smallpox.

As James Axtell points out, the Aboriginal peoples used three techniques to respond to the demographic disaster. The first, the employment of warfare to replen- ish the population through captivity and adoption, was of mixed success, particularly when extended to the Europeans. While the process worked well in some ways, it also helped to spread disease, and it certainly increased the hostility of European settlers to the First Nations. The second strategy was intermarriage, which ignored colour bars and many of the social assumptions of European society. The third strategy was to move after depopulation, often joining with other tribes and peoples. The attraction of the Catholic reserves around

Montreal and Quebec after the 1640s was in large part a result of the population devastations of the preceding period throughout the Northeast region of the continent.

The introduction of new diseases renders all attempts to estimate the size of the Indigenous popu- lation at the time of first contact on the eastern sea- board highly problematic. Estimates for the population of North America north of the Rio Grande River at the beginning of the sixteenth century range as high as 18 million and beyond (Dickason, 2002: 9). We have already noted that the Indigenous pre-contact popula- tion of Canada was substantially larger than the most generous estimates of all the first-contact observers, most of whom spoke of great numbers but were not very specific. The east coast population had probably been seriously reduced by epidemic disease during the

Membertou claimed to have been a grown man when he met Jacques Cartier, which would mean that he had been born in the early years of the sixteenth century. Regardless of his exact birth date, Membertou was a venerable age when the French appeared at Port- Royal in 1605. He was the leader of a small band of Mi’kmaq whose hunting and fishing territory included Port-Royal. The opportunities afforded his band by the arrival of the Europeans were the envy of other Aboriginal leaders, and Membertou was a firm friend of the newcomers. He certainly looked like a leader. Father Biard described him as being taller and larger-limbed than his colleagues, and he apparently sported a beard. Much of what has been written about Membertou by the early chroniclers falls properly into the category of legend, but it was true that he was the first Aboriginal to be baptized in New France, as opposed to being car- ried to France and baptized there. The ceremony was performed by the newly arrived priest, Jessé Fléchéon, on 24 June 1610. All of Membertou’s immediate family were baptized as well, without any proper preparation

because the missionary could not speak the Algonquian language and the Aboriginals could not speak enough French. Membertou was given the European name of the king, Henri. After his baptism Membertou appeared eager to become a proper Christian. He wanted the missionaries to learn Algonquian so that he could be properly educated. However, by 1611 he had contracted dysentery, one of the many infectious diseases brought by the Europeans, and by September of that year he was clearly very ill. He insisted on being buried among his ancestors, which annoyed the missionaries, but they gave him extreme unction anyway, and at the end he apparently requested burial among the French. He died on 18 September 1611. The closing year of his life illus- trates a pattern often repeated among the Indigenous people who were “Christianized” by the first European missionaries. Unable to understand properly the pre- cepts of Christianity, they could hardly have been said to be converted, and they often died shortly after bap- tism, succumbing to contagious diseases probably intro- duced by the missionaries themselves.

Henri Membertou

Biography

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251 | The Beginnings

Astrolabes were essential not just to the navigation

of Europeans to and from “the New World,” but also

in their ability to map the spaces they were mov-

ing through when they arrived there. A simple, if

multi-purpose tool, astrolabes allow their users to

plot the moon, the Sun, and the stars, determine time

if the latitude is known, and most importantly, deter-

mine latitude if time is known.

Very few seventeenth-century astrolabes still

exist, making the “Cobden astrolabe,” shown here, an

object of note regardless of its origins. However, hav-

ing been discovered in 1867, near to where Champlain

was believed to have lost his own such device in 1613,

the connection to Champlain has led to this particu-

lar astrolabe having a much more interesting “object

biography.”

Discovered at Green Lake, Ontario, by 14-year-

old Edward Lee while clearing dead pine trees with his

father, the astrolabe was found alongside two silver

cups and a series of nesting copper pans, which the

family sold to a peddler and melted down for scrap,

respectively. There was also a rusted chain with a

weight that Lee left behind. The astrolabe, thought to

be a sort of compass, was bought by the steamboat

captain Charles Overman for $10.

As Champlain became more prominent in the

1870s, so too did the astrolabe, and the connection

between the two was made. Historians looking at

Champlain’s cartography connected some errors in

the Green Lake region with a story of Champlain los-

ing his own device in 1613, and as the device changed

hands it became known as the “Champlain astrolabe.”

It was even included, albeit held upside down, in the

1915 statue of Champlain erected at Nepean Point

in Ottawa. By 1942, it was donated to the New York

Historical Society, which eventually sold the com-

pass to the current owner, the Canadian Museum of

Civilization. While the museum does not ascribe the

astrolabe to Champlain, displaying it only as an astro-

labe, it does draw the possible Champlain connec-

tion in the panels around it.

Regardless of its original owner, the connection

to Champlain has given this astrolabe a much more

interesting object biography, in the same way that

Material Culture

The astrolabe, a device about six inches in diameter, was one of the tools that had allowed European navigators to determine their locations and keep their headings. They were critical for the dangerous Atlantic crossing, as well as to accurately create the maps that would allow them to return. The disk, or mater, was designed to hold a plate, called tympans, which, when used correctly, allowed the user to move the rete, or pointer, and determine coordinates. Most mariners’ astrolabes would have only featured half of a scale in the upper half. This one, known as the “Champlain astrolabe” or the “Cobden astrolabe” (after the small community in eastern Ontario where it was found), already archaic in design by 1600, is divided into all four quadrants. Also unique is the ring (restored) shown here at the top of the device. Jose Galveia/Shutterstock.

Astrolabe

Continued...

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26 A History of the Canadian Peoples

sixteenth century, and demographic disaster preceded the Europeans right across the country. At the same time, this inadvertent introduction of the early pandemics should not be allowed to dominate the story of North America in the immediate pre-contact and early contact periods. In the first place, there was no “Golden Age” in pre-European America in which contagious disease did not exist at all. In the second, infectious antigens were not the sole cause of the ultimate reduction (in size and power) of the Aboriginal population. Europeans took deliberate actions apart from epidemics that led to sig- nificant reductions in Indigenous populations.

European Contact and the Development of Cultural Conflict The intrusion of Europeans greatly altered the dynamics of First Nations development, while providing us with a somewhat misleading version of the nature of the popu- lation at the moment of contact and beyond. Recorded history was, after all, monopolized by those who had written languages and could make records. In the cen-

turies following European arrival, virtually everything written about the Indigenous population of Canada was produced from the European perspective. That per- spective, moreover, tended to involve considerable mis- understanding of First Nations culture and behaviour.

Whatever technological glitter Europe had (the extent of its actual superiority is debatable), it would prove relatively useless in the wilderness of the New World. For several centuries, Europeans in Canada who were successful in surviving adopted First Nations tech- nology. European inventions may have helped give the intruders a sense of superiority, as did their emerging capitalist economic order, their new political organiz- ation into nation-states, and especially their Christian system of values and beliefs. These pronounced differ- ences between Europeans and the Indigenous popula- tion prevented the visitors from fully comprehending the people they encountered. The Europeans quite unconsciously, often quite subtly, judged First Nations by their own standards.

At the same time, the process of early communica- tion between Europeans and the Aboriginal peoples was a much more difficult business than we might think, or than the contemporary documents would suggest. Europeans and Aboriginals spoke different languages—a good many of them. In Europe, most countries lacked a

Heinrich Schliemann’s connection of his discoveries

in Mycenae to Agamemnon and the Trojan War raised

the profile of those objects as well. Despite its rar-

ity, one of fewer than a hundred such artifacts dis-

covered, the survival of the “Champlain astrolabe” to

the present is very much attributed to the Champlain

connection. And Green Lake has since been renamed

Astrolabe Lake.

The construction of the narrative surround-

ing prominent historical figures and then linking

them to artifacts was a common part of history and

archaeology in the nineteenth century, which was

focused on the prominent men of the time. In a 2004

Beaver article, Douglas Hunter argues the Jesuit

angle, pointing out that when taken in context with

the other objects discovered with it, this particular

style of astrolabe with its four-quadrant scale would

have been better suited to determining topographical

features, and that such devices were used in mission

construction by contemporary Jesuits.

Whether it was in fact Champlain’s, or more likely,

given the style of astrolabe and the other artifacts

found with it, the instrument of a Jesuit missionary also

lost in the same area, the original purpose of the astro-

labe would have remained the same: the mapping

and surveying of the North American interior. While

an anonymous owner made the history of the object

less interesting to nineteenth-century historians, mod-

ern scholars, particularly those who focus on the day-

to-day lives of people, can garner a lot of information

about the Europeans and their actions in the region

from the discovery and examination of such objects.

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271 | The Beginnings

single national language that was understood in every part of the country. Dialects had both regional and class origins. The great European sea captains, many of whom had connections at the royal court, were likely to have a different pronunciation and vocabulary than the com- mon sailors, although technically both groups spoke the same language. The First Nations spoke several hundred different local languages in a myriad of dialects. Fifty different languages were spoken in what is now Canada, although most of these fell into a few language families. In what is now eastern Canada, the three principal lan- guage families were Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan.

But the differences in language between two tribes speak- ing an Algonquian tongue might be as great as the differ- ences between Spanish and Portuguese. Moreover, local patois would vary from place to place. The Aboriginal tongues were often difficult for Europeans to pronounce, and there were at the outset no dictionaries.

The niceties of grammar and the nuances of lan- guage frustrated both Natives and newcomers for centur- ies. Some Aboriginals who were educated in missionary schools learned to speak and understand European languages very well, and a few Europeans who grew up among the Aboriginals (sometimes willingly, often as

Father Biard on the Mi’kmaq, 1616

Document

They are astonished and often complain that, since the French mingle with and carry on trade with them, they are dying fast and the population is thinning out. For they assert that, before this association and intercourse, all their countries were very populous and they tell how one by one the different coasts, according as they have begun to traffic with us, have been more reduced by disease; adding, that why the Armouchiquois do not diminish in population is because they are not at all careless. Thereupon they often puzzle their brains, and sometimes think that the French poison them, which is not true; at other times that they give poisons to the wicked and vicious of their nation to help them vent their spite upon some one. This last supposition is not without foundation; for we have seen them have some arsenic and sublimate which they say they bought from certain French Surgeons, in order to kill whomsoever they wished, and boasted that they had already experi- mented upon a captive, who (they said) died the day

after taking it. Others complain that the merchandise is often counterfeited and adulterated, and that peas, beans, bread, and other things that are spoiled are sold them; and that it is that which corrupts the body and gives rise to the dysentery and other diseases which always attack them in Autumn. This theory is likewise not offered without citing instances, for which they have often been upon the point of breaking with us, and mak- ing war upon us. Indeed there would be need of provid- ing against these detestable murders by some suitable remedy if one could be found.

Nevertheless the principal cause of all these deaths and diseases is not what they say it is, but it is something to their shame; in the Summer time, when our ships come, they never stop gorging themselves excessively during weeks with various kinds of food not suitable to the inact- ivity of their lives; they get drunk, not only on wine but on brandy; so it is no wonder that they are obliged to endure some gripes of the stomach in the following Autumn. . . .

Continued...

In 1616 the Jesuit missionary Pierre Biard (c. 1567–1622), who had been at Port-Royal since 1611, wrote a “Relation,” which was published in France, describing his experiences with the Aboriginals of the region. It was subsequently translated and republished by Reuben Gold Thwaites.

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28 A History of the Canadian Peoples

captives) became equally adept at the Native tongues. But most people came to communicate in new “pidgin” languages composed by reducing speech to its simplest elements and amalgamating parts of both European and Aboriginal languages. Pidgin languages were capable of sophistication as time went on, and they eliminated the potentially inflammatory business of preferring one people’s language over another. One very venerable pidgin language was spoken on the coasts of the Gulf of St Lawrence, where Basque fishermen had traded with local Natives from the early sixteenth century. “Since their languages were completely different,” wrote one observer in 1710, “they created a form of lingua franca composed of Basque and two different languages of the Indians, by means of which they could understand each other very well” (Bakker, 1989: 259). Marc Lescarbot in the early seventeenth century recorded that the Mi’kmaq spoke to the French in a simplified version of their language mixed with “much Basque.” In the later fur trade in the interior of the continent, pidgin tongues were a complex amalgam of French, Gaelic, English, Cree, and Assiniboine.

Not surprisingly, as relations between Europeans and Aboriginal peoples became more formalized, the need for skilled official interpreters acquired a new urgency. An interpreter who was trusted by both sides in complex negotiations to translate accurately the meaning and nuances of language was a rare com- modity and highly prized. As late as 1873, when Treaty No. 6 was being negotiated between the Canadian gov- ernment and the Saskatchewan Cree, the question of interpreters remained a critical issue. The government had brought two interpreters of its own, and argued it was unnecessary to add another brought by the Cree. The Cree chief answered, “Very good. You keep your

interpreters and we will keep ours. We will pay our own man and I already see that it will be well for us to do so” (Christensen, 2000: 229).

The First Nations economies did not produce pol- itical institutions on a European scale. Semi-sedentary people had no need for political organizations larger than the band, which was based on the consolidation of a few family units. Even where horticulture was developed, with its large semi-permanent villages, polit- ical structure was not complex by European standards. “Chiefs” were not kings. They may not even have been “head men” in any European sense. Such a concept of rulership was in most places introduced and imposed on the Indigenous population by the newcomers. As is now well known, the Aboriginal notion of property, espe- cially involving land, was beyond the comprehension of the European. While some First Nations groups could conceive of territory as “belonging” to them, the con- cept was one of usage rather than of ownership. The Indigenous people erroneously identified as kings were quite happy to “sell” to the European newcomers land that neither they nor their people owned, at least as Europeans understood ownership.

Lacking much inclination to create hierarchical polit- ical organizations, the First Nations practised war accord- ing to different rules than those employed in Europe, where institutions of church and state went to war for “rea- sons of state.” Aboriginal wars were mainly raids by a few warriors, conducted partly because success in battle was an important test of manhood. They were often used to capture women and children to replace those lost within the band. Individual prowess in battle was valued, while long-term military strategy and objectives were not. First Nations had their own military agendas, and were notori- ously fickle allies from the European perspective. Only

These are their storehouses. Who is to take care of them when they go away? For, if they stay, their stores would soon be consumed; so they go somewhere else until the time of famine. Such are the only guards they leave. For in truth this is not a nation of thieves. Would to God that

the Christians who go among them would not set them a bad example in this respect. But as it is now, if a certain Savage is suspected of having stolen anything he will immediately throw this fine defense in your teeth, We are not thieves, like you.

Source: Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explanations 1610–1791, 73 vols (Cleveland, 1896–1901), III, 105–9.

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291 | The Beginnings

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Distribution of Aboriginal peoples and language areas in the sixteenth century.

901491_01_Ch01.indd 29 12/16/15 4:08 PM

30 A History of the Canadian Peoples

the Iroquois—who in the seventeenth century may have developed a militarily viable form of political organization partly based on European models—were able to compete with the newcomers and withstand their military power.

Nowhere was the gulf between First Nations and newcomers more apparent than in the spiritual realm. Aboriginal religious beliefs were complex, although not readily apparent to the outside observer. They were part of an intricate religio-magical world that the First Nations inhabited and shared with the flora and fauna. Given the hunting orientation of most groups, it is hardly surprising that animals were endowed with spiritual significance. The very act of food consump-

tion often acquired deep religious meaning, becoming a form of worship of the spirit world through everyday activity. Many peoples had legends about the origins of the world, and some may have believed in a single Creator. The mixture of authentic Aboriginal lore with European thought and missionary teaching has col- oured First Nations legends and tales over the last 350 years. It has made it difficult—perhaps impossible—to separate one from the other. Formal religious ceremon- ies were not readily apparent to the visitors, except for the activities of the shamans, who claimed supernatural powers and engaged in several kinds of folk medicine ranging from herbal treatment to exorcism. Shamans were no more priests than other leaders were kings, but Europeans tended to consider their activities to be at the core of First Nations religion. The newcomers found it impossible to grasp that inanimate objects in nature could be considered to be alive and have their own pow- ers, or that rituals connected with the ordinary round of daily life could have deep spiritual significance. That First Nations religion had no buildings, no clerical hier- archy, and no institutional presence thoroughly disori- ented the Europeans.

Tolerance for alternative spiritual values and belief systems was hardly one of Europe’s strong suits in the Age of Discovery. The period of European arrival in North America coincided with the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Christianity was undergoing profound alteration, with traditional Catholicism subjected to reform from both within and without. Protestants and Catholics alike were quite capable of fierce persecution of any devia- tion from official belief and practice. Both could agree that what was being encountered in Canada was pagan supernaturalism that needed to be uprooted as quickly as possible and replaced with a “true faith.” That Europeans could not agree on the truth among them- selves perplexed some First Nations people, such as the Iroquois, who were exposed to competing French, English, and Dutch missionaries.

The European intruders could not grasp the notion that Christianity was embedded in an intricately developed European value system, or that Indigenous religious beliefs and practices were integral to First Nations existence. Views of the world and of one’s place

“Homme acadien”: a Mi’kmaq hunter, hand-coloured etching, c. 1788–96, from original by Jacques Grasset de Saint- Sauveur, published in Tableaux des principaux peuples de l’Europe, de l’Asie, de l’Afrique, de l’Amérique et les découvertes des Capitaines Cook, La Pérouse, etc. (Paris et Bordeaux, 1796–8). LAC, (R9266-3486) Peter Winkworth Collection of Canadiana.

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311 | The Beginnings

Where the First People Came From: A Cree Legend from the West Coast of James Bay

Document

So then, I shall tell another legend. I’ll tell a story, the legend about ourselves, the people, as we are called. Also I shall tell the legend about where we came from and why we came . . . , why we who are living now came to inhabit this land.

Now then, first I shall begin. The other land was above, it is said. It was like this

land which we dwell in, except that the life seems differ- ent; also it is different on account of its being cold and mild [here]. So then, this land where we are invariably tends to be cold.

So that is the land above which is talked about from which there came two people, one woman and one man, . . . they dwelt in that land which was above. But it was certainly known that this world where we live was there.

Now then at one time someone spoke to them, while they were in that land of theirs where they were brought up. He said to them, “Do you want to go see yonder land which is below?”

The very one about which they were spoken to is this one where we dwell.

“Yes,” they said, “we will go there.” “The land,” they were told, “is different, appears

different from this one where we dwell in, which you dwell in now during your lifetime. But you will find it different there, should you go to see that land. It is cold yonder. And sometimes it is hot.

“It fluctuates considerably. If you wish to go there, however, you must go see the spider at the end of this land where you are. That is where he lives.”

The spider, as he is called, that is the one who is the net-maker, who never exhausts his twine,—so they went to see him, who is called the spider.

Then he asked them, “Where do you want to go? Do you want to go and see yonder land, the other one which is below?”

“Yes,” they said. “Very well,” said the spider. “I shall make a line so

that I may lower you.” So then, he made a line up to,—working it around

up to, up to the top. “Not yet, not yet even half done,” he said. Then he spoke to them, telling them, better for him

to let them down even before he finished it the length it should be.

Then he told them, “That land which you want to go and see is cold and sometimes mild. But there will cer- tainly be someone there who will teach you, where you will find a living once you have reached it. He, he will tell you every thing so you will get along well.”

So he made a place for them to sit as he lowered them, the man and the woman.

They got in together, into that thing which looked like a bag.

Then he instructed them what to do during their trip. “Only one must look,” he said to them. “But one must not look until you have made contact with the earth. You may both look then.”

So, meanwhile they went along, one looked. At last he caught sight of the land.

The one told the other, “Now the land is in sight.” The one told the other, “Now the rivers are in sight.” They had been told however, that “if one, . . . if they

both look together, before they come to the land, they will go into the great eagle-nest and they will never be able to get out and climb down from there.”

That’s where they will be. That’s what they were told.

Continued...

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32 A History of the Canadian Peoples

in it were as integral to life for Aboriginals as they were for Europeans, and the way in which First Nations related spiritually to their environment was a critical part of their culture. Europe could not convert First Nations to Chris- tianity without undermining the very basis of their exist- ence. Naturally, the First Nations resisted.

While commenting on the freedom that chil- dren were allowed, European observers of every First Nations group in northern North America from coast to coast also wrote that women were badly exploited. European society at the time could hardly be called liberal in its treatment of women. What the newcomers saw as exploitation reflected their inability to compre- hend the divisions of labour within a warrior society. Men hunted and fought, while women were responsible for just about everything else. Interestingly enough, when European women were captured by raiding par- ties and integrated into Aboriginal life, many chose to remain with their captors instead of accepting repatri- ation back into colonial society. Those captives who were brought home and who wrote about their experi- ences emphasized that the Aboriginals had a strong sense of love and community and offered—as one set of repatriates acknowledged—“The most perfect freedom,

the ease of living, [and] the absence of those cares and corroding solicitudes which so often prevail with us” (Axtell, 2001: 213).

Almost from the outset, European newcomers to Canada had two contradictory responses to the peoples they were contacting and describing. On the one hand, much of what they saw in First Nations life, particu- larly beyond mere superficial observation, struck them as admirable. The First Nations exhibited none of the negative features of capitalistic society. On the other hand, there was the equally powerful image of the First Nations as brutal savages and barbarians, particularly in the context of war. This dichotomy of response was particularly keen among the missionaries, who kept trying to “civilize” the First Nations by converting them to Christianity and forcibly educating them in European ways. Mère Marie de l’Incarnation, the head of the Ursuline School for girls at Quebec, wrote of her charges in 1668 that there was “docility and intelli- gence in these girls, but when we are least expecting it, they clamber over our wall and go off to run with their kinsmen in the woods, finding more to please them there than in all the amenities of our French houses” (Marshall, 1967: 341).

Then the one told the other, “Now the lakes are in sight. Now the grass.”

Then they both looked before they arrived, as they were right at the top of the trees. Then they went side- ways for a short while, then they went into the great eagle-nest. That’s where they went in, having violated their instructions. . . .

Then the bear arrived. So he said to them, . . . and they said to him, “Come

and help us.” The bear didn’t listen for long; but then he started to

get up on his hind legs to go and see them. Also another one, the wolverine as he is called. They made one trip each as they brought them down.

But the bear was followed by those people. That was the very thing which had been said to

them, “You will have someone there who will teach you to survive.”

This bear, he taught them everything about how to keep alive there.

It was there that these people began to multi- ply from one couple, the persons who had come from another land. They lived giving birth to their children generation after generation. That is us right up until today. That is why we are in this country.

And by-and-by the White People began to arrive as they began to reach us people, who live in this country.

That is as much as I shall tell.

Source: C. Douglas Ellis, ed. and trans., Cree Legends and Narratives from the West Coast of James Bay (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1995), 3–7.

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In the eighteenth century, an idealized and roman- ticized view of Aboriginal society was used by many European philosophers as a literary convention and fictional device for criticizing contemporary European society. As Peter Moogk has pointed out, conditions of press censorship, particularly in France, made it advis- able to use fictitious foreigners, including Amerindians, to express negative opinions about church and state

(Moogk, 2000: 48–9). The first such character probably was Baron de Lahontan’s “Huron” named Adario, who in 1703 observed that the Ten Commandments were routinely ignored in France, while the Aboriginals practised innocence, love, and tranquility of mind. Lahontan’s books went through numerous editions and led to the Enlightenment notion of the bon sauvage advanced by Voltaire and Rousseau. The First Nations

Historic Sites

A t l a n t i c O c e a n

EASTERN CANADA 0 500

kilometres

1,000

1. Frobisher National Historic Site: On

Kodlunarn Island in Frobisher Bay

(close to Iqaluit). This tiny island has the

remains of Martin Frobisher’s habitation

and the smelting plant he operated

between 1576 and 1578.

2. L’Anse aux Meadows National

Historic Park: At the northern tip of

Newfoundland; contains the remains of

seven buildings, cook pits, and a smithy.

3. Gaspé, Quebec: The site of a 30-foot

granite cross commemorating the

cross erected by Jacques Cartier in

1534.

4. Cartier-Brébeuf National Historic

Park: Facing the St Charles River, where

Cartier wintered his three ships in

1535–6.

5. McGill University (Montreal): A

plaque marks the site of the village of

Hochelaga.

6. Port au Choix (Newfoundland)

National Historic Park: Burial sites of

the “red paint people” who inhabited

the region about 5,000 years ago.

7. Port-Royal National Historic Site:

Reconstruction of the “habitation”

and other buildings of the first French

colony established on the banks of the

Annapolis River by Champlain in 1605.

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34 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Conclusion

The Changing History of Paleo-Indian Migration to the New World

Emőke J.E. Szathmáry, University of Manitoba

Historiography

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351 | The Beginnings

America. Un-glaciated areas occurred on Haida Gwaii, for example, and plant as well as animal remains have been found in such refugia. However, movement down the Pacific coast would have been very difficult dur- ing the last glacial maximum, between 28,000–12,000 RCYBP. Such travel would have been more likely as the glaciers began to retreat. Unfortunately, the rising sea levels that accompanied de-glaciation have also sub- merged ancient shorelines, leaving no evidence of early journeys southward by foot or by boat. The few sites without dating controversies, for example, On Your Knees Cave on Prince of Wales Island in southeastern Alaska, are dated around 9,800 RCYBP.

Changing ideas about the likely route south have been accompanied by changes in our understanding of Beringia, which was originally conceptualized as the lands now submerged under the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and the Chukchi Sea. With demonstration that the lands adjacent to these areas were also un-glaciated, the boundaries of Beringia expanded west and to the east. Today, Beringia is regarded as extending from the Verkhoyansk Mountains of Siberia to the Mackenzie River basin of Yukon. This vast plain sustained a mosaic of plant types, with steppe-tundra and shrub tundra in specific regions, and some tree species in local areas (Hoffecker et al., 2014). The vegetation supported large and small mammals, and these supported human life. The Yana Rhinoceros Horn site at 71o N is reliably dated at 28,000 RCYBP in Western Beringia, but the 23,500 RCYBP age of modified mammoth bones used as tools at Bluefish Caves, Yukon, in Eastern Beringia continues to be doubted by many archaeologists (Morlan, 2003). Several sites are dated between these extremes in Alaska, falling between 13,000–11,000 RCYBP.

Also changing is the view that Beringia was just a “bridge” to be crossed in the ancestors’ trek south. Theories of temporally sequential migratory waves into the Americas as suggested by Greenberg et al. (1986), for example, have focused on crossing from Asia to America. An alternate scenario considers that Beringia could have been an ice-bounded home to hunting bands that occupied it for several millennia during the last glacial maximum. In this regard, genetic studies of

living peoples have been persuasive. The five hap- logroups of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that are diagnostic of Native American ancestry have yielded mutations over time, as has the Y chromosome (NRY). Estimates of the ages of these new variants, which are distributed widely in the Americas, overlap: 16,600– 11,200 years ago for mtDNA (Tamm et al., 2007), and 15,000–12,000 years ago for NRY (Zegura et al., 2004). The time depths suggest that these markers arose in a population isolated on Beringia, after which the ancestors dispersed into the Americas. These find- ings reinforce earlier conclusions based on classical genetic markers, especially regarding the ancestry of Eskimos and Na-Dene. Populations south of the gla- ciers, as pre-Clovis sites indicate, would differentiate genetically as would their cognates in Beringia, yield- ing differences among their descendants (Szathmary, 1996; Bonatto and Salzano, 1997), while retaining their American (i.e., Beringian) genetic identity.

The future will tell if such deductions are correct. A recent study of nuclear DNA, for example, supported the notion of three migratory waves into the Americas at different times (Reich et al., 2012). Assuming the adequacy of samples and their analyses, the apparent conflict in colonization scenarios may just be a conse- quence of focusing on different aspects of a migratory process. In the meantime, we must await direct archaeo- logical evidence that could tell us when, where, and how the ancestors moved south from Beringia.

References Bonatto, Sandro L., and Francisco M. Salzano. 1997.

“A Single and Early Migration for the Peopling of the Americas Supported by Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Data.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 94: 1866–71.

Hoffecker, John F., Scott A. Elias, and Dennis H. O’Rourke. 2014. “Out of Beringia?” Science 343: 979–80.

Jackson, Lionel E., Jr, and Alejandra Duk-Rodkin. 1996. “Quaternary Geology of the Ice-free Corridor: Glacial Controls on the Peopling of the New World.” In Takeru Akazawa and Emőke J.E. Szathmáry, eds,

Continued...

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36 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Axtell, James. Natives and Newcomers: The Cultural Origins of North America. New York, 2001. A series of penetrating essays by North America’s leading his- torian of cultural contact.

Bailey, A.G. The Conflict of European and Eastern Algonkin Cultures, 1534–1700: A Study in Civilization, 2nd edn. Toronto, 1969. First produced as a doctoral dis- sertation in 1934, this pioneering study is one of the classics of the field, still as relevant as ever.

Benton, Lauren. A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900. Cambridge, 2010. This work, which looks at European empires in terms of geography and law, discusses how the two merge and deviate to create debates in both the colonies and their motherlands.

Dickason, Olive Patricia. Canada’s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, 3rd edn. Toronto, 2002. Easily the best general survey of the history of the First Nations, current and full of detail. A revised and updated abridged edition—A Concise History of Canada’s First Nations—was first published in 2006 and a third edition, co-auth- ored by William Newbigging, appeared in 2015.

A fourth edition of Dickason’s original work, with David T. McNab, came out in 2009 with updates to that year and a new concluding chapter.

Fagan, Brian. The Great Journey: The Peopling of Ancient America. New York, 1987. A bit dated, but still the best account of the prevailing scholarly interpreta- tions of the subject.

Fitzhugh, William, and Elizabeth Ward. Vikings: The North American Saga. Washington and London, 2000. A splendidly illustrated and authoritative account of the Norse in America.

Harris, R. Cole, ed. Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. 1. Toronto, 1987. This is one of the great collaborative works of scholarship in Canada, presenting a visual and cartographic record of the period to 1800.

Hoffeker, John F., and Scott A. Elias. Human Ecology of Beringia. New York, 2007. This book addresses the debates surrounding the environment and archae- ology of Beringia, and presents an interpretation of how people lived and moved through that now sub- merged territory.

Hunter, Douglas. Half-Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage that Redrew the Map of the New World.

Prehistoric Mongoloid Dispersals, 214–27. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Meltzer, David J., et al. 1997. “On the Pleistocene Antiquity of Monte Verde, Southern Chile.” American Antiquity 62: 659–63.

Morlan, Richard E. 2003. “Current Perspectives on the Pleistocene Archaeology of Eastern Beringia.” Quaternary Research 60: 123–32.

Reich, David, et al. 2012. “Reconstructing Native American Population History.” Nature 488:370–4.

Szathmáry, Emőke J.E.1996. “Ancient Migrations from Asia to North America.” In Takeru Akazawa and

Emőke J.E. Szathmáry, eds, Prehistoric Mongoloid Dispersals, 149–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tamm, Erika, et al. 2007. “Beringian Standstill and Spread of Native American Founders.” PloS ONE 2, 9: e829. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000829.

Zegura, Stephen L., Tatiana M. Karafet, Lev. A. Zhivitovsky, and Michael F. Hammer. 2004. “High- resolution SNPs and Microsatellite Haplotypes Point to a Single, Recent Entry of Native American Y Chromosomes into the Americas.” Molecular Biology and Evolution 21:64–75.

Short Bibliography

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371 | The Beginnings

Study Questions 1. Give three examples of ways in which the First Nations lived in a “reciprocal relationship with nature.”

2. What realities did the various First Nations cultures share in common?

3. Explain the basic cultural, religious, and political factors behind the European misinterpretation of the First

Nations.

4. Comment on the account from Cartier’s Voyages, “Jacques Cartier Meets with Aboriginal Peoples, 1534.”

Did Cartier make any assumptions about the Aboriginal peoples that would lead to cultural conflicts later?

Explain.

5. What can we learn about cultural conflict from Karlsefni’s encounter with the Skraelings? What was the prin-

cipal cause of the conflict between the Norse and the Skraelings?

6. On what grounds could you defend the European intrusion into North America? Identify three grounds and

explain each of them.

Visit the companion website for A History of the Canadian Peoples, fifth edition for further resources.

www.oupcanada.com/Bumsted5e

New York, Berlin, London, 2009. A new look at one of the most elusive f igures of early European exploration.

Jaenen, Cornelius. Friend and Foe: Aspects of French– Amerindian Culture Contact in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Toronto, 1976. An early clas- sic, still the best single work on the early contact between the French and the First Nations.

Nuffield, Edward. The Discovery of Canada. Vancouver, 1996. A recent survey.

Paul, Daniel. We Were Not the Savages: A Micmac Perspective on the Collision of European and Aboriginal Civilization. Halifax, 1993. Probably the first analysis of early cultural contact in Canada written by a First Nations scholar from a First Nations perspective.

Reid, John. Acadia, Maine, and New Scotland: Marginal Colonies in the Seventeenth Century. Toronto, 1981.

A stimulating comparative approach to the early settlement of the Maritimes.

Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640. Cambridge, 1995. More important than its title suggests, this book distinguishes the various national approaches to conquest taken by the major European nations.

Trigger, Bruce. Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s “Heroic Age” Reconsidered. Montreal and Kingston, 1986. A revisionist account of early Canadian culture con- tact by Canada’s leading expert.

Trudel, Marcel. The Beginnings of New France 1524–1663. Toronto, 1975. Still the authoritative account of the early years of New France, written by a scholar who spent his lifetime working on the period.

Wright, J.V. A History of the Native People of Canada, 3 vols. Ottawa, 1995–2000. An encyclopedic survey of Canada’s ancient history.

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2 Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

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Timeline 1598 Marquis de la Roche de Mesgouez establishes

colony on Sable Island.

1605 Settlement established by Pierre Du Gua De Monts moves to Port-Royal.

1607 Port-Royal abandoned. 1611 First French priests arrive in Acadia. 1627 Cardinal Richelieu establishes the Company of

One Hundred Associates.

1628 The Kirke brothers capture Quebec. 1632 Treaty of St-Germain-en-Laye restores Canada

and Acadia to France.

1633 Champlain returns to the St Lawrence. 1634 The Jesuits set up permanent missions in

Huronia.

1635 Champlain dies. 1639 The Jesuits establish Ste-Marie-aux-Hurons. 1640 The Iroquois begin attacking the Huron. 1642 Montreal is established. 1645 Company of One Hundred Associates

surrenders its monopoly to local interests.

Madame La Tour surrenders Fort La Tour.

1647 Canada adopts government by central council. First horse arrives.

1649 Iroquois destroy St-Louis and St-Ignace. Martyrdom of Jean de Brébeuf and Gabriel

Lalemant.

1654 English capture Acadia. 1659 Bishop Laval arrives in Canada. 1660 First pipe organ brought to Canada. 1663 Earthquake strikes Canada. French royal

government takes over New France and

institutes the Coutume de Paris.

1664 Carignan-Salières Regiment arrives in New France. Jean Talon arrives as first intendant.

1665 First contingent of filles de roi arrives. Shipment of 12 horses arrives.

1666 First census in New France. 1667 Peace treaty with Iroquois. 1668 Petit Sèminaire founded. 1685 “Code Noir” defines slavery. 1701 Great Peace with Iroquois. 1703 Counseil Sovereign reorganized. 1711 Edict of Marly. British invasion of Quebec fails. 1719 Colony gets Admiralty Court. 1733 Iron forges at St Maurice established. 1740 Duplessis case confirms Aboriginal slavery. 1759 Battle of Plains of Abraham.

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40 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The First European Communities When generations of painful experience taught Europeans that there was no quick road to wealth by exploiting the Indigenous peoples or the resource base of North America, hopes turned to transplanting Europeans who could take advantage of fish and furs. This shift occurred at the beginning of the seventeenth century. A variety of motives jostled in the minds of the early promoters of settlement, few of whom ever planned to set foot on North American soil. National advantage, religion, humanitar- ianism, greed, personal ambition, and sheer fantasy were present in various combinations. European monarchs and their supporters were flattered by the “enlarging of Dominions.” Missions to the First Nations and the possi- bilities of refuge from religious persecution at home excited the pious. Many a promoter saw colonization as a way to rid Europe of unwanted paupers and petty crim- inals. Investors were tempted with talk of titles and large land grants. In the pursuit of great profits, common sense was easily lost. Although large-scale colonization activ- ities were begun by the English in Virginia in 1607, the first ventures undertaken in the northern latitudes typ- ically were more modest. They consisted mainly of trad- ing posts and fishing settlements.

English familiarity with Newfoundland led London merchants to attempt colonization there begin- ning in 1610. The London and Bristol Company for the Colonization of Newfoundland (usually known as the Newfoundland Company) was organized by 48 subscrib- ers who invested £25 each. The plan was that permanent settlers employed by the company would quickly dom- inate the fishery over those who came in the spring and went home in the autumn. Europe was desperately short of a protein food for the poor, and dried cod found a ready market, especially in Catholic countries. The first settlement of the company was established by John Guy (d. 1629), who led 40 colonists from Bristol to Cupid’s Cove on Conception Bay in July 1610, only months after the company was granted the entire island. The venture was funded by sale of stock. The company did not appre- ciate how difficult local agriculture would be, given the

soil and the climate, or how unlikely it was in the vast expanses of the New World that settlers could be kept permanently as landless employees labouring solely for the profit of their masters.

The Newfoundland Company’s fishing settlements prospered no more than did those of courtiers like George Calvert, First Baron Baltimore (1579/80–1632), who began a plantation at Avalon in 1623. Calvert dis- covered to his surprise, as he wrote his monarch in 1629, that “from the middest of October, to the middest of May there is a sadd face of wynter upon all this land, both sea and land so frozen for the great part of the tyme that they are not penetrable, no plant or vegetable thing appearing out of the earth untill it be about the beginning of May nor fish in the sea besides the ayre so intolerable cold, as it is hardly to be endured” (Cell, 1982: 295–6). Not long after penning this complaint, he left for Virginia. In 1632 Calvert was granted the land north of the Potomac River that would become Maryland.

The French were marginally more successful than the English at establishing colonies in the northern regions, both in Acadia (the region vaguely bounded by the St Lawrence to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, and the St Croix River to the west) and in Canada (the St Lawrence Valley). An early effort by the Marquis de La Roche de Mesgouez (c. 1540–1606) on Sable Island failed dismally, with rebellious settlers murdering their local leaders over the winter of 1602–3. The island was subsequently evacuated. A similar result occurred at a settlement at the mouth of the Saguenay River. In May 1604 Pierre Du Gua de Monts (1558?–1628) arrived on the Nova Scotia coast with a young draftsman named Samuel de Champlain (c. 1570–1635). The two men were searching for a suitable site to establish a settlement, a condition of de Monts’s grant of a trading monopoly in the region. They tried first on an island in the St Croix River. In 1605 the settlement was moved to Port- Royal in the Annapolis Basin, where de Monts built a habitation, a supposed replica of which still exists today as a historic site. In 1606 the Paris lawyer Marc Lescarbot (c. 1570–1642) joined the colony and wrote a narrative of its development, published in 1609 as Histoire de la Nouvelle France. In this work Lescarbot

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noted the foundation of L’Ordre de Bon Temps in 1607, a sort of dining club with extemporaneous entertain- ment. He also described the masque he wrote for it (the first stage play composed and performed in North America). The colonists were obliged to leave in 1607 when de Monts was forced to relinquish his monop- oly, but a French presence would continue in Acadia from the first establishment of Port-Royal, usually in the form of a handful of individuals trading with the First Nations.

As for Samuel de Champlain, he headed up the St Lawrence in 1608 to found a new trading post for de Monts at Stadacona. Another habitation was erected, this one including three buildings of two

storeys—connected by a gallery around the outside, “which proved very convenient,” wrote Champlain— surrounded by a moat and palisades. Champlain provided a careful drawing of this habitation in his Voyages. He was forced to put down a conspiracy and face a devastating attack of scurvy in the first year. The post survived, however, and Champlain grad- ually allied himself with the local First Nations, who supplied him with furs and drew the French into war against the Iroquois. Champlain had little alternative to an alliance against the Iroquois, and they became mortal enemies of the French.

Only about 50 Frenchmen resided on the St Lawrence by 1615. Among the early settlers, only Louis

Champlain’s drawing of the habitation at Port-Royal, built in 1605 on the north shore of the Annapolis Basin. The parts of the complex are identified in an accompanying key. For example, building A was the artisans’ quarters, and B was a platform for cannon. Champlain’s own quarters were in building D. LAC, C-7033.

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42 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Hébert (1595?–1627), who came to Quebec in 1617 after service as a surgeon at Port-Royal, showed an interest in cultivating the land. But Hébert was most useful for his medical and apothecary skills; the trading company actually attempted to discourage him from agriculture. Not until 1618—when Champlain outlined a grand scheme for the colonization of New France in reports to the King and the French Chamber of Commerce—did anything approaching the plans of the Newfoundland Company enter the French vision. Earlier French activ- ities, including those of Champlain himself, had been underfinanced by a succession of individual entrepre- neurs and small syndicates. Trading posts, rather than settlement colonies, were the goal.

Until 1618, Champlain had served as an agent for others rather than as a colonial promoter in his own right. In that year, however, he combined arguments for major investment with a scheme designed to appeal to

the imperial pretensions of the Crown. New France and the St Lawrence not only held the possibility of a short route to Asia but could produce “a great and perma- nent trade” in such items as fish, timber, whale oil, and furs. The annual income was projected at 5,400,000 livres, virtually none of it coming from agriculture and less than 10 per cent coming from furs. Champlain requested that priests, 300 families of four people each, and 300 soldiers be sent to his base on the St Lawrence. Amazingly enough, the French response was enthusias- tic, and Louis XIII instructed the syndicate employing Champlain to expedite his plans. The partners and Champlain, however, were unable to agree upon terms or to make any progress in establishing the colony. Not until 1627, when Cardinal Richelieu assumed super- vision of New France and established the Company of One Hundred Associates, did Champlain’s grandiose schemes receive substantial backing.

Source: Marc Lescarbot, The History of New France, trans. W.L. Grant, intro. H.P. Biggar (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1911), II, 342–3.

The Order of Good Cheer

Document

It would be tedious to attempt to particularise all that was done among us during the winter [of 1606–7] . . . . But I shall relate how, in order to keep our table joy- ous and well-provided, an Order was established at the board of the said M. de Poutrincourt, which was called the Order of Good Cheer, originally proposed by Champlain. To this Order each man of the said table was appointed Chief Steward in his turn, which came round once a fortnight. Now this person had the duty of taking care that we were all well and honourably provided for. This was so well carried out that, though the epicures of Paris often tell us that we had no Rue aux Ours [meat-market district] over there, as a rule we made as good cheer as we could have in this same Rue aux Ours and at less cost. For there was no one who, two

days before his turn came, failed to go hunting or fish- ing, and to bring back some delicacy in addition to our ordinary fare. So well was this carried out that never at breakfast did we lack some savoury meat of flesh or fish, and still less at our midday or evening meals; for that was our chief banquet, at which the ruler of the feast or chief butler, whom the savages called Atoctegic, having had everything prepared by the cook, marched in, nap- kin on shoulder, wand of office in hand, and around his neck the collar of the Order, carrying each a dish. The same was repeated at dessert, though not always with so much pomp. And at night, before giving thanks to God, he handed over to his successor in the charge the collar of the order, with a cup of wine, and they drank to each other.

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432 | Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

Newfoundland Newfoundland represented the British presence in the Atlantic region before the establishment of Nova Scotia in 1713. Neither John Guy’s settlement of Newfoundland in 1610 nor a series of successors sponsored by the Newfoundland Company and private promoters were spectacularly successful. But by the 1660s several com- munities of permanent settlers totalling 1,500 had taken hold along the rocky coast of the “English Shore.” The society of these settlements was considerably more elaborate than historians once assumed, consisting of servants, planter employers, and a planter gentry of lit- erate merchants. Incomes from fishing were reasonably good, and the local communities were no less stable than comparable ones in New England. The elite was dominated by the Kirke family, which was active in the Canadian trade (and buccaneering in the 1620s) and in the Newfoundland sack trade of the 1630s and 1640s, later becoming original investors in the Hudson’s Bay Company. In 1675 the widow of Sir David Kirke and her son operated 10 fishing boats, and the Kirke family had 17 boats, employing 81 crew members. Indeed, on the English Shore of Newfoundland, as in many other early communities of North America, widows found opportunities for autonomy in business enterprises that they would not have enjoyed at home. Although Newfoundland had been one of the earliest sites in the New World for English colonization, the focus had quickly shifted south to New England, where the English by 1650 had developed a number of successful colonies with a total population in excess of 100,000. The “new- found” land continued to provide enormous wealth to the British Empire in the form of fish, however, while remaining an unorganized jurisdiction and a marginal area of English settlement.

In the seventeenth century, almost all the year- round residents were of English origin, chiefly from the West Country counties of Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset. As late as 1732, 90 per cent of the permanent popula- tion remained English, but most of the eighteenth-cen- tury additions came from southern Ireland through the increasing links between Newfoundland and the Irish ports of Waterford and Cork. One census of win- tering inhabitants in 1753 showed 2,668 Irish and 1,916

English. The Irish were being pushed out of Ireland by famine and unemployment, and were attracted to Newfoundland by the cheap fare for the voyage com- bined with work prospects. By 1750 Newfoundland had become a conduit by which Irish Catholics made their way to North America, and it remained so until 1815. Not all who jumped ship on the island remained in resi- dence there.

Parallel to the increase of permanent population in Newfoundland came a shift in fishing practice. After 1714 the English summer visitors abandoned the inshore fishery and turned instead to fishing directly from the offshore banks. By 1750 the inshore fishery was controlled by local residents, but by this time there were already signs of depletion of the inshore fish stocks. The result was not conservation but diversification, with many Newfoundlanders moving into the seal fishery.

The French Maritime Region to 1667 In the Atlantic region, overtones of European imperial rivalries could be detected in the complex conflicts of the seventeenth century, although local factors were equally important. Much of the confusing history of Acadia after 1624 is wrapped up in the activities of the La Tour family, which illustrate the fluid and violent nature of the period. In 1629, when Quebec was cap- tured by the Kirkes, a tiny trading post on Cape Sable (at the southwestern tip of present-day Nova Scotia) was all that was left of the French presence in North America. It was headed by Charles de Saint-Étienne de La Tour (1598–1666). His father, Claude de La Tour (c. 1570–after 1636), had already returned to France to plead for assist- ance, but on the return voyage was captured and taken to England, where he quickly made himself at home. Accepted at court, he married one of the Queen’s ladies- in-waiting. (The English Queen Henrietta was a French princess and surrounded by women from France.) Claude also accepted Nova Scotia baronetcies for him- self and his son from Sir William Alexander, a Scottish courtier, who had been granted Nova Scotia in 1621 by James VI of Scotland (who also was James I of England).

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44 A History of the Canadian Peoples

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Acadia and environs to 1670. Adapted from A.H. Clark, Acadia: The Geography of Early Nova Scotia to 1760 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), 76.

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452 | Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

Sir David Kirke (c. 1597–1654) was one of the notori- ous Kirke brothers who captured Quebec in 1629. This incident is probably the only one for which most Canadians remember him—if they remember at all. But there was more to his complex North American career than one buccaneering expedition. Kirke was the son of an English merchant who worked out of the French port of Dieppe, and David was apparently born in the French town. In 1627 Kirke’s father was one of a consortium of English merchants who financed an expedition, led by David, to drive the French from Canada. David commanded a fleet of three vessels and was accompanied by several of his brothers; hence the common reference to the “Kirke brothers” seizing Quebec. He apparently sailed with a fleet carrying Scottish settlers to Nova Scotia. In 1627 Champlain refused to surrender and Kirke did not press the issue. In the Gulf of St Lawrence, however, his ships met and defeated a French fleet, and Kirke returned to Europe with considerable booty.

The French in Paris protested because they regarded the Kirkes as French citizens. Kirke was rewarded by the British with the exclusive right to trade and settle in Canada, to which Sir William Alexander objected, however. Kirke and Alexander nevertheless negotiated a compromise to establish an Anglo-Scots colony at Tadoussac. The fleet sent out for this purpose (six ships, three pinnaces) also carried Claude de La Tour back to Nova Scotia. Kirke learned from a French deserter of the parlous state of the French garrison in Quebec, and this time Champlain surrendered. The Kirkes not only evacuated the colony but seized all the furs stored in Quebec. They subsequently attempted to work the fur trade with the assistance of a number of bushlopers, including Étienne Brûlé. Quebec was returned to the French by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1632, but Kirke was knighted a year later for his services to the Crown.

His North American activities had made Kirke aware of Newfoundland, and in 1637 he was part of a consortium (the Company of Adventurers to Newfoundland) that was made proprietor of that island. In 1639 he became first governor of Newfoundland and moved into Lord Baltimore’s house at Ferryland. The four Kirke brothers were made English citizens at about the same time. Sir David began to recolon- ize Newfoundland, particularly Ferryland, and he attempted to control summer visiting along the island’s coasts. He became one of the principal leaders of the Planters on the island, although his political actions always were controversial. In 1651 he was called home and charged with withholding taxes. Throughout the early 1650s he was under a cloud until his death in 1654, although his family continued to live in Newfoundland as merchants. Kirke’s heirs, led by Lady Kirke, fought a number of legal battles for compensation (partly for the return of Quebec) after his death. Kirke was a good example of the extremely fluid legal situation among explorers and adventurers in northern North America in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Sir David Kirke, c. 1597–1654. Courtesy of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives (MF231–411), St John’s. Image modified by Wendy Churchill, 1999.

Sir David Kirke

Biography

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46 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Returning with his bride to Acadia in May 1630 as part of a Scots-English expedition, Claude stopped at Cape Sable to persuade his son to join him. Charles replied that “he would rather have died than consent to such baseness as to betray his King” (MacBeath, 1966: 593). Declaring his son an enemy, Claude led an unsuccessful attack on the fort at Cape Sable and retreated to Port-Royal, only to discover that the English planned to abandon it. He was forced to throw himself on his son’s mercy and confess to his wife that he could not return to Europe. Acadia, like Canada, was returned to France by the English with the Treaty of Saint-Germain- en-Laye in 1632. The English monarch Charles I needed

French financial subsidies as he attempted to govern without meeting Parliament, a policy that led to the English Civil War.

In Acadia, Charles de La Tour continued to lead an embattled life, coming into conflict with others who claimed royal authority in the region. In 1645 he was defeated by his chief rival, Charles de Menou d’Aulnay (c. 1604–50) and sought refuge in Canada. D’Aulnay con- trolled Acadia until his death in 1650.

Charles de La Tour returned to France after d’Aul- nay’s death to demand an inquiry into his case. He was completely vindicated and again received into royal favour. Returning to Port-Royal with a few new

Biography

According to her husband’s chief enemy, Françoise- Marie Jacquelin La Tour (1602–45) was the daughter of a barber who became a Paris actress, but little is known of her background and it is at least as likely that she was a member of a family of lesser nobility in France. In 1640 she received a proposal of marriage in absentia from Charles de La Tour, who claimed the governorship of Acadia in competition with Charles de Menou d’Aul- nay, and sailed to Port-Royal to join him. Whether the two had met earlier in France is not clear. After a mar- riage ceremony was performed at Port-Royal, the couple repaired to La Tour’s trading post near Saint John. There Françoise-Marie gave birth to a son. In August 1642 d’Aulnay returned to Acadia with an official order that La Tour appear before the King to answer charges of trea- son. La Tour decided to send his wife, Françoise-Marie, to represent him at the royal court, suggesting that she had some connections there. She successfully argued her husband’s case in 1642, then returned to Acadia in a French warship, carrying supplies for La Tour.

In 1644 she went again to France, but this time was unable to protect her husband’s interests against d’Aulnay’s charges. Escaping to England with borrowed

money, Madame La Tour chartered an English ship to carry her and supplies back to her husband. Off Cape Sable the ship was detained and searched by d’Aulnay, but Madame La Tour hid in the hold. Arriving in Boston, she successfully sued the ship’s captain for unwarranted delay, using the money to hire ships to reinforce La Tour at Fort La Tour.

Early in 1645, with her husband again off in Boston seeking fresh assistance, Madame La Tour commanded the defence of Fort La Tour against an attack by d’Aul- nay. Her 45 defenders held out for four days against an invading force of 200, but she eventually surrendered on the understanding that d’Aulnay would “give quarter to all.” The victor, however, went back on his word. All the captives except one man, who served as the execu- tioner, were hanged. Madame La Tour, who was forced to witness the executions with a rope around her own neck, died scant weeks later.

She was probably the first European woman to have made her home in what is now New Brunswick, but as her experiences demonstrated, early life in the region was dangerous and complicated for both men and women.

Françoise-Marie Jacquelin La Tour

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472 | Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

settlers in 1653, he successfully courted d’Aulnay’s widow. Pursued by creditors, he was forced in 1654 to surrender his garrison of 70 at Fort La Tour to an invad- ing English expedition of 500 men. La Tour was taken to England, where Oliver Cromwell (by now head of the English state) refused to restore his Acadian property but did agree to recognize the long-dormant baronetcy of Nova Scotia (negotiated earlier by Claude) if Charles would accept English allegiance and pay his English debts. Twenty-five years after denying his father and asserting his loyalty to the French Crown, Charles de La Tour accepted Cromwell’s terms. He eventually sold his rights in Acadia to English partners and retired to Cape Sable with his wife and family.

For more than 40 years La Tour and his family had kept French interests alive in Acadia, but he was at best a trader and not a colonizer. The few settlers he brought to the New World were only incidental to his economic and military activities. Unlike Champlain in Canada, La Tour had no vision of a settled agricultural presence in Acadia, perhaps because he had to contend with the spillover from complex European rivalries. After his surrender to the English in 1654, the scattered few hundred Acadian residents were left to their own defences until formal French occupation was restored in 1667. While the per- iod of English control from 1654 to 1667 left little internal mark on the region, it did isolate Acadia from the French court’s rethinking of its American empire in the early 1660s. Acadia was not initially part of the Crown’s deci- sion in 1663 to take a more active interest in its American colonies. As a result, its subsequent status was never properly clarified, leading to an administrative weakness that encouraged its population to have an autonomous outlook and encouraged France (in 1713) under pressure to surrender large parts of the region to the English.

Acadia after 1670 Between 1660 and 1713 Acadians expanded both their population and the extent of territory cultivated. A good deal of data was collected in censuses, although most of these censuses were incomplete. A census in 1671 listed 47 families made up of 400 people, nearly all in the Port- Royal area of the Annapolis Basin. Although it was even-

tually named the capital of the colony in 1700, and was frequently raided by New Englanders, Port-Royal was by no means the whole of the colony. By 1710 the popu- lation had grown to more than 1,500, mostly through natural increase, and had planted settlements along the Minas Basin, Cobequid, and Chignecto Bay.

Most of Acadia’s people came from a relatively small area of southwestern France. The seigneurial sys- tem controlled less of daily life in Acadia than it did in the rest of New France, so the colony expanded in what would become a typical form: settlers moving to new land as resource limits were reached in older com- munities. Younger members of families moved to new communities, which featured dykes that controlled the inundation of lowland areas by the high tides of the Bay of Fundy. Marsh was drained for farming. Farms were small but prosperous, the main crops being wheat and peas. Fruit, especially apples, was common, as one visitor claimed that farms were “as well planted with Apple [sic] trees as they would have been in Normandy” (Diereville 1933: 95). Even without dyking, the tidal marshlands provided large quantities of hay and graz- ing. This was used to feed livestock, especially cattle, which was the chief product of the region. Illegal bar- tering (especially of meat) with New Englanders, their sometimes enemies, was the method by which Acadians obtained most of their imported goods, particularly tools and hardware.

On the outskirts of the tidal settlements, particu- larly the Cap de Sable district, were small fishing com- munities, perched upon the coast. In addition to fishing, inhabitants of these communities supported themselves by hunting, trading furs, and occasional timbering. Raiding and privateering also occurred from bases in these communities, which provided most of the access to the farming settlements. Acadia had few roads and little in terms of overland transportation. Movement was by canoe and small boats called shallops.

Government sat fairly lightly upon this population. The French never really asserted tight administrative control over the region, although at least eight author- ized royal governors were appointed to the region between 1670 and 1710. The Church took a similarly detached view of the colony and operated solely through missionaries who provided some contact with Canada.

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48 A History of the Canadian Peoples

One of the least well-known North American col-

onies of Europe was Placentia or Plaisance, estab-

lished in the early 1660s by the French on the western

side of the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland on the

Bay of Plaisance (Placentia Bay). The middle years

of the seventeenth century were a particularly con-

fusing period on the northern Atlantic coast. The

English Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell had

expanded its naval resources in the region and had

taken over most of Acadia. As a result, French access

to the Atlantic region was being challenged, especially

on the beaches of Newfoundland, where the English

fishing fleet required increasingly large expanses

of beach to dry its catch. The fishery remained an

important imperial factor for all European nations,

since mercantilism cherished it both as a training

ground for a merchant marine and as a source of

protein for hungry citizens. The French decided that

a fortified post on the Newfoundland coast would

be the best way to demonstrate their claims to the

Newfoundland fishery and to protect their subjects in

it. A very young Thalour Du Perron was sent ashore

at the site about 100 kilometres south of St. John’s

in October 1662 with a few soldiers and a supply of

food. He was murdered over the following winter by

a drunken party of his men; the culprits were eventu-

ally brought to justice in Quebec. France spent over

10,000 livres a year before 1670 maintaining the tiny

colony, but was unsuccessful in establishing much

of an agricultural base; a summering population of

256 was fed by only 30 domestic animals and almost

no cultivated ground. Basque merchant vessels visit-

ing the colony charged what the traffic would bear,

since they were virtually the only source of supplies

and labour until the inhabitants managed to develop

a trade with other French traders and eventually with

vessels from Boston. A deep chasm between the set-

tlers and the visitors soon emerged, which lingered

throughout the colony’s existence. The soldiers of

the garrison were quartered in the homes of the

inhabitants and disarmed lest they become unruly,

which rendered them virtually useless in times of

crisis. The settlement was constantly beset with

instability, and easily succumbed in 1690 to a small

English party. Restored to France, it survived another

two decades, serving as the base for French naval

raiders in Newfoundland, until it was turned over to

the English in 1713.

BACKGROuNDER Plaisance (Placentia)

The control of Placentia, seen in this 1786 drawing, shuffled between the English and French for over 50 years until the English gained permanent control of the colony in 1713. Sketch by James S. Meres, “The Log Book of His Majesty’s Ship Pegasus.” LAC, C-002525.

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492 | Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

Culturally and politically, the Acadians remained iso- lated from French Canada. The family (clan) and the local community were the important units for a closely knit peasant society. Acadia had developed an inherent sense of autonomy when—in the chess game of eight- eenth-century imperial warfare—France was obliged under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) to surrender terri- tory in North America. Acadia was one of the pawns given up to the British that year. The anciennes limites of Acadia mentioned in the treaty were not defined, and the French subsequently insisted that they had surrendered only peninsular Nova Scotia, informally retaining northern Maine and New Brunswick, and for- mally retaining Île Royale (Cape Breton) and Île St-Jean (Prince Edward Island). As for the population of the ceded territory, which the British called Nova Scotia to emphasize Britain’s historic claims there, the inhabit- ants were given one year to remove to French territory or to remain as subjects of their new masters.

Canada Fights for Survival In 1627 Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIII’s “grey eminence,” assumed supervision of New France and established the Company of One Hundred Associates. However, Richelieu’s company, unlike the English Newfoundland Company, was organized from the top of the govern- ment rather than from grassroots interest in the prof- its of colonization. It was to be capitalized at 300,000 livres, each participant contributing 3,000, and profits were not to be distributed initially. Of the 107 mem- bers listed in May 1629, only 26 were merchants and businessmen, mainly from Paris. The remainder were courtiers and state officials. The company’s initial ven- ture—at a cost of 164,270 livres—was to send to Quebec in 1628 four ships containing 400 people and carrying “all necessary commodities & quantities of workmen & families coming to inhabit & clear the land and to build & prepare the necessary lodging” (quoted in Trudel, 1973: 118). Unfortunately, England and France had gone to war in 1627, and in July 1628 the company’s ships were captured off Gaspé by an Anglo-Scottish armed

expedition led by the brothers Kirke. Thus began a mil- itary struggle between France and Britain for control of North America lasting more than a century.

In July 1629 David Kirke sent his brothers Lewis and Thomas at the head of an Anglo-Scottish armed expedition that forced Champlain’s little outpost on the St Lawrence to surrender. Later that same year, an attempt by the Company of One Hundred Associates to reoccupy Quebec failed dismally. The colony was restored to France in 1632 under the Treaty of Saint- Germain-en-Laye. One of the first French arrivals that year was Father Paul Le Jeune (1591–1664), recently appointed superior-general of the Jesuit missions in Canada. The Jesuits were to be the principal missionary order in the colony. Le Jeune soon began sending the first of his annual reports, the famous Jesuit Relations, which were forwarded to the provincial father of the Society of Jesus in Paris to explain and promote in the mother country the missionaries’ efforts. They combine a wealth of detail about life in New France, the First Nations, Iroquois warfare, the Huron missions, explor- ation and travel, as well as accounts of various miracles. Champlain returned to Quebec in May 1633 after a four- year exile, tired but optimistic. He would die at Quebec on Christmas Day 1635, his vision of a prosperous col- ony still beyond his grasp. At the time there were but 150 settlers along the St Lawrence.

Over the next few decades, the forces along the St Lawrence that met in bitter rivalry were less French and British and more Catholic evangelical energy on the one hand and resistance from the Indigenous popula- tion on the other. The prize was control of the fur trade. Conflict along the Atlantic seaboard had more trad- itional European overtones, while in Canada the long rivalry between the Iroquois and the Algonquian trad- ing allies of the French created much fear and havoc, with disastrous consequences for the Huron people caught in the middle.

The Huron had access to a seemingly inexhaust- ible supply of furs from the northwest, and the French were determined to keep the flow moving to Montreal and Quebec. The Huron had outnumbered the Iroquois, but in the 1630s their numbers were greatly reduced by diseases chiefly contracted from the French missionaries who lived among them. In 1634, the year the Jesuits set

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50 A History of the Canadian Peoples

up permanent missions in Huronia, the Huron suffered an epidemic of measles. In 1639 the Jesuits oversaw the building of an elaborate fortified headquarters, Ste- Marie-aux-Hurons, on the Wye River. It eventually com- prised 20 buildings, including a residence for priests, a church, a hospital, outbuildings for farming, and resi- dences for lay workers and Huron converts, as well as a canal with three locks.

The Iroquois—supplied by the Dutch with firearms, which the French were reluctant to give to their First Nations allies—were equally determined to control the flow of furs. They ambushed the Huron fur fleets on the Ottawa River, and between 1640 and 1645 they block- aded the river, while also from 1643 onward attacking the settlements on the St Lawrence. Under the force of the assault, the Company of One Hundred Associates virtually withdrew from New France in 1645, giving its fur-trading monopoly to the Communauté des Habitants, an organization of Canadian merchants, which agreed

to continue to pay for the administration of the colony. While the devolution of the fur trade to local interests was probably a positive short-term move for the colony, the new company felt the effects of Iroquois hostility, which limited the fur trade for an entire decade. It also meant that the fur traders Radisson and Grosseilliers were badly treated when they returned from the west with a large stock of furs in 1660.

The Iroquois soon turned their full attention to Huronia. In July 1648 Senecas destroyed the mission of St-Joseph and killed 700 Huron. In March 1649 a party of 1,200 Iroquois destroyed St-Louis and St-Ignace, where the priests Jean de Brébeuf (1593–1649) and Gabriel Lalemant (1610–49) were tortured to death. The weakened Huron surrendered, fled, or were killed. Before the Iroquois could reach Ste-Marie, the Jesuits there “applied the torch to the work of our own hands” and fled with some 300 families to Christian Island in Georgian Bay. Most died of starvation or malnutrition.

In 1603 Pierre Du Gua de Monts (1558?–1628) was

granted a trading monopoly in northeastern North

America in return for an obligation to settle 60 col-

onists each year and to establish missions among the

Aboriginals. Among the first settlers he recruited was

a young draftsman, Samuel de Champlain (c. 1570–

1635), who had been to Tadoussac in 1603 and would

serve as geographer and cartographer for de Monts’s

expedition. Champlain continued a commitment to

explore and colonize the New World that would end

only with his death (on Christmas Day, 1635). unlike

his English contemporaries, William Bradford at

Plymouth Plantation and John Winthrop at Boston,

Champlain had not been able to lead a prospering

colony through the problems of internal growth and

the establishment of permanent institutions. Instead,

much of his career was spent dealing with the pre-

liminaries of settlement, in the interests of which he

sailed to France nine times to further his plans for col-

onization or to resist attempts to negate them.

As a successful geographer and intrepid explorer

who was equal to the most arduous demands of wil-

derness life, and who was capable in complex dealings

with Native peoples, Champlain also left a literary leg-

acy. The three volumes of his Voyages (published in

Paris in 1613, 1619, and 1632) provide much of what we

know about New France during this period. Champlain’s

map of New France (facing page) appeared in the last

volume of his Voyages. It includes the territories he

explored, which are rendered quite accurately, along

with inevitably inaccurate renderings of regions for

which he had only second-hand information.

BACKGROuNDER Champlain’s New France

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512 | Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

The next year the missionaries returned to Quebec with a few hundred Huron, the pathetic remnant of a once-powerful nation.

The Huron were early victims of European ethnocen- trism. As for the missionaries themselves, only the Jesuits’ profound faith and misguided intentions—to educate the First Nations in French ways and induct them into a completely alien form of religion—kept them on their indomitable rounds of travel and life under extremely harsh and tense conditions. Many of the Huron turned against the missionaries, blaming their problems with disease and with the Iroquois on the Christian inter- lopers. Indeed, in exposing the Huron to disease and weakening their culture by introducing alien spiritual elements, the missionaries may have inadvertently con- tributed to the destruction of Huronia.

If the missionaries had only limited success with the First Nations, their influence on the early European population of Canada was far more positive. The mis- sionary enterprise in Canada had two basic wings, often

only loosely connected: that of the Jesuits and that of the lay missionaries.

The Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1540 as a militant (and militarily organized) order devoted largely to missionary activity around the world. The Jesuits travelled around the globe, espe- cially in the period 1550–1650, preaching and teaching among indigenous people ranging from the Aztecs to the Japanese. They developed a reputation for being able to adapt Christianity to the customs of the local people, and they were probably less rigid than most missionaries in their views of what had to happen for true conversion to take place. Members of the order actually looked forward to martyrdom, although they were not supposed to go out of their way to seek it. As soldiers of Christ, they believed that conversion of pagans occurred only through bloodshed. The Jesuits were obviously highly disciplined and committed; to the usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they added one of loyalty to the Pope. Despite the suspicions

Champlain’s map of New France, 1632. LAC, NMC-15661.

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52 A History of the Canadian Peoples

of the Crown, they were given a monopoly of religious service in Canada in 1632. The Jesuits tended to be more involved with missionary outreach than with the European population.

The lay missions were organized as part of the French Counter-Reformation, and were led by lay people

who discovered they had enormous depths of piety that they were anxious to share with others, including the First Nations in North America. When the widow Marie-Madeleine de Chauvigny de la Peltrie (1603–71) recovered from a serious illness in 1635, she made a vow to establish a school for Native girls in New France. She

The great show of power made at first by the

Portuguese in the East and West Indies inspired pro-

found admiration in the minds of the Indians, so that

these people embraced, without any contradiction,

the belief of those whom they admired. Now the fol-

lowing is, it seems to me, the way in which to acquire

an ascendency over our Savages.

First, to check the progress of those who over-

throw Religion, and to make ourselves feared by the

Iroquois, who have killed some of our men, as every

one knows, and who recently massacred two hun-

dred Hurons, and took more than one hundred pris-

oners. This is, in my opinion, the only door through

which we can escape the contempt into which the

negligence of those who have hitherto held the trade

of this country has thrown us, through their avarice.

The second means of commending ourselves

to the Savages would be to send a number of ca-

pable men to clear and cultivate the land, who, join-

ing themselves with others who know the language,

would work for the Savages, on condition that they

would settle down, and put their hands to the work,

living in houses that would be built for their use. . . .

I may be mistaken but if I can draw any conclusion

from the things I see, it seems to me that not much

ought to be hoped from the Savages as long as they

are wanderers; you will instruct them today, tomor-

row hunger snatches your hearers away, forcing them

to go and seek their food in the rivers and woods.

Last year I stammered out the Catechism to a good-

ly number of children; as soon as the ships depart-

ed, my birds flew away. . . .To try and follow them, as

many Religious would be needed as there are cab-

ins, and still we would not attain our object; for they

are so occupied in seeking their livelihood in these

woods, that they have not the time, so to speak, to

save themselves. . . .

The third means of making ourselves welcome to

these people, would be to erect here a seminary for

little boys, and in time one for girls, under the direc-

tion of some brave mistress, whom zeal for the glory

of God and a desire for the salvation of these people,

will bring over here, with a few Companions ani-

mated by the same courage. May it please his divine

Majesty to inspire some to so noble an enterprise, and

to divest them of any fear that the weakness of their

sex might induce in them at the thought of crossing

so many seas and of living among Barbarians.

Father le Jeune on the Conversion of the “Savages,” 1634 This selection by Father Paul le Jeune (1591–1664), the founding editor of the Jesuit Relations, offers some insight into the thinking of the fathers regarding their mission in the early 1630s.

Source: Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit

Missionaries in New France 1610–1791 (New York, 1959), vol. VI, 145–53.

Contemporary Views

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persuaded Marie de l’Incarnation to join her, put much of her fortune in trust for the foundation, and even financed a vessel and some immigrants to accompany her. Once in New France, she founded the Ursuline con- vent in Quebec. Another noblewoman sponsored three nursing sisters of the order of Augustinian Hospitalières on the same ship as the Ursulines. They founded a hos- pital at Sillery to care for dozens of Aboriginals, most of whom were Montagnais, Algonquin, and Abenaki,

with only a few Huron. The Société Notre-Dame de Montréal organized a missionary effort in 1639 that led to the establishment of Montreal in 1642. This work was financed by donations from wealthy lay people. Thirty-four of the 46 members were lay people, and 12 were women. For much of the mid-seventeenth century, Canada would be largely dominated by the energy of its leading women missionaries—Marie de l’Incarnation, Jeanne Mance (founder of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital), and

It is a singular consolation to us to deprive ourselves

of all that is most necessary in order to win souls to

Jesus Christ, and we would prefer to lack everything

rather than leave our girls in the unbearable filth they

bring from their cabins. When they are given to us

they are naked as worms and must be washed from

head to foot because of the grease their parents rub all

over their bodies, and whatever diligence we use and

however often their linen and clothing is changed, we

cannot rid them for a long time of the vermin caused

by the abundance of grease. A Sister employs part of

each day at this. It is an office that everyone eagerly

covets. . . . But after all it is a very special providence

of this great God that we are able to have girls af-

ter the great number of them that died last year. This

malady, which is smallpox, being universal among the

Savages, it spread to our seminary, which in a very

few days resembled a hospital. All our girls suffered

this malady three times and four of them died from

it. . . . The Savages that are not Christians hold the

delusion that it is baptism, instruction, and dwelling

among the French that was the cause of this mor-

tality, which made us believe we would not be given

any more girls and that those we had would be taken

from us. God’s providence provided so benevolent

against this that the Savages themselves begged us

to take their daughters, so that if we had food and

clothing we would be able to admit a very great num-

ber, though we are exceedingly pressed for buildings.

Marie de l’Incarnation on Her Charges

Source: Joyce Marshall, ed., Word from New France: The Selected Letters of Marie de l’Incarnation (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1967), 75–6.

Marie de l’Incarnation, oil portrait attributed to Abbé Hugues Pommier (1637–86). Archives des Ursulines de Quebec.

Contemporary Views

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54 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Marguerite Bourgeoys (founder of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame)—aided by money supplied by lay patrons in France. The missionaries, particularly the women, were always objects of suspicion by the French, both lay and ecclesiastical. They were accused of “Jansenism,” a Protestant heresy. The fear was that their excess of piety and inner spiritual experiences would lead them to operate independently of the authorities, and there is some evidence that many of these people were indeed loose cannons in the wilderness, particularly before the colony had a proper hierarchical structure. They were only brought under control after the arrival in 1659 of Bishop Laval, who had been consecrated the vicar apos- tolic for Quebec.

In 1647 Canada adopted government by a central council, with elected representatives of the districts of Quebec, Trois-Rivières, and Montreal employed for consultative purposes. Such a government was both responsive to the wishes of the inhabitants and autono- mous of the mother country, but the arrangement was more a result of emergency conditions than a genuine reform. With the Huron destroyed, the Iroquois turned the full brunt of their fury on the French at Montreal. François Dollier de Casson (1928: 155) observed that “not a month of this summer [1651] passed without our roll of slain being marked in red at the hands of the Iroquois.” The attacks subsided over the course of the decade, but the menace never entirely disappeared.

“Mort héroique de quelques pères de la Compagnie de Jésus dans la Nouvelle France,” lithograph by Et. David, 1844. LAC, C-4462. This rendering tells us much about how the French by the nineteenth century interpreted these events. There is no evidence to support this particular view of the deaths of the missionaries. What purpose do you think the artist intended by the depiction of the boiling pot?

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Born in Champagne, France, Jeanne Mance (1606–73) was one of a number of female missionaries to Canada whose spiritual and physical energy sustained the col- ony through the middle years of the seventeenth cen- tury, when the Iroquois threat was at its height. Her family was of the bureaucratic middle class, and she was educated with the Ursulines. She gained experience nursing in the hospitals of the Thirty Years War, and in 1640 she learned of the great missionary endeavour in Canada, in which both men and women, including many Ursulines, were engaged. The hagiographic accounts of her life, which are virtually our only sources, all empha- size her obedience and subordination to her confessors. Travelling to Paris, she met with and impressed Father Charles Lalemant, who was in charge of the Canadian missions, telling him of her great hopes to join in the cause. Thanks to a Parisian lady, she was introduced to the Queen, Anne of Austria, and also to Angélique Faure, one of the leaders of charitable enterprise in the city. Faure asked Jeanne to go to Canada to establish a

hospital, providing a substantial sum of money for the purpose.

Prior to setting sail for Canada, she met an associate of Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, who persuaded her to become associated with the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal. Her patron approved her plan for the establishment of a hospital in Montreal, at the western frontier of the colony, and the Hotel-Dieu was founded, in her home, soon after Montreal was established in 1642. The hospital was later transferred to Rue Saint- Paul. In 1650 Mance loaned money to Maisonneuve to recruit soldiers to defend the frontier, and she subse- quently recruited three nursing sisters to assist her with the hospital. In 1657 she fell on the ice and fractured her arm and wrist, recovering its use only through a miracu- lous relic. Her last years were troubled. According to her modern biographer, she “encountered the inability of authorities whom she revered to understand her deeds of deliverance in earlier days” (DCB, I, 487). She died in 1673 after a long illness.

Jeanne Mance

Biography

The period of the Iroquois wars was a difficult one for the French fur traders, and many headed northwest- ward to avoid the enemy. Among these adventurers were Pierre Radisson (c. 1640–1710) and his brother- in-law Médard Chouart Des Groseilliers (c. 1618–96?). Radisson was born in France, but had been captured by Mohawks in 1651. Adopted by a prominent family, he was forced to learn Aboriginal ways in order to survive. In 1659 the brothers-in-law took a journey to Lake Superior that excited their interest in exploring the fur-producing region that they knew extended as far north as Hudson Bay. They returned to Montreal in 1660 with a vast haul of beaver skins, which was seen as the colony’s salvation. The two fur traders were not well received, however; their furs were confiscated and both men were prosecuted for trading without official

permission. Not surprisingly, they wound up in Boston in 1664, where the English were quite enthusiastic about the Hudson Bay fur trade. Eventually the pair would head for London, where their enthusiastic reports about conditions at the Bay led in 1670 to the establishment by the English of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which would contend with the French for control of the region until the French conceded it to the English in 1713.

By the early 1660s the tensions within the col- ony on the St Lawrence seemed to be manifesting in strange forms. A general state of panic was produced by an incident of alleged witchcraft, and in the midst of carnival season in February 1663 the colony was struck by a serious earthquake. Mère Marie de l’Incar- nation noted, “we were all so frightened we believed it was the eve of Judgement, since all the portents were

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56 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Born at Montigny-sur Abre, his father a member of a younger branch of the distinguished Montmorency family and his mother descended from Rouen legal nobility, François de Laval (1623–1708) was marked from childhood for the Church. He studied for some years at the Jesuit College at La Fléche, then at Paris. His studies were briefly interrupted by a family crisis, but he was ordained as a subdeacon in 1646 and as priest in 1647. As archdeacon of Évreux from 1648, he proved indefatigable in his work, and he seemed destined for missionary work in Indochina.

Before the politics of such an appointment could be negotiated, however, Laval found himself the Jesuit

candidate for the post of bishop of New France, an appointment in the giving of the archbishop of Rouen. Again caught up in ecclesiastical politics, Laval ultimately was appointed a vicar apostolic rather than a bishop, and thus subject to the papacy rather than to the archbishop of Rouen. He sailed for his new post in April 1659. His first task was to get his authority recognized. This proved easier than expected, thanks to a letter from Louis XIV to the governor, which ordered Laval’s authority recognized everywhere. His next job was to organize the Church in New France, which before his arrival had been a decen- tralized missionary operation. In 1662 he sailed to France to consult with Louis XIV, returning to Canada with increased powers, an ordinance founding the seminary of Quebec, and an edict creating a Conseil Souverain.

Gradually the Church in Louis XIV’s royal prov- ince of Canada took shape under his direction, and he was named the first bishop of Quebec in 1674. Laval organized a parochial system, which increased from five parishes in 1659 to 35 in 1688, with 102 clergy. He encouraged missionary activity, especially by the Jesuits, and he took the lead in opposing the liquor trade with the Aboriginals, a battle that he and the mission- aries lost eventually. Laval became notorious for his constant disagreements with the governors of the col- ony over a variety of matters, both moral and political.

In 1684 he sailed for France to resign his bishopric, but after having his resignation accepted, he attempted to remain on the job for fear his successor would undo much of his work. Abbé Saint-Vallier was consecrated bishop early in 1688, and Laval returned to Canada as “Monseigneur l’Ancien,” beloved of his people but mainly retired from the fray at his seminary. He per- mitted his successor to reform the seminary without raising any opposition, and in later years he occasion- ally performed episcopal functions in the absence of Saint-Vallier, who was away from Canada from 1700 to 1713. Laval died in 1708 from a chilblain on his heel that became infected.

Portrait of François de Laval, first bishop of New France, from 1674 to 1688. Bishop of Canada (oil on canvas), French School (17th century) / Société des missions-étrangères, Paris, France / Giraudon / Bridgeman Images.

François de Laval

Biography

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to be seen” (Marshall, 1967: 288–9). About this time the French Crown formally withdrew trading privileges and landownership from the Company of One Hundred Associates and made New France a Crown colony. Given the anxieties and problems of the colony, most of its inhabitants were probably happy to trade autonomy for French financial and military assistance. From the date of the royal takeover, the civil code of Canada became the Coutume de Paris, the code of civil law compiled for the royal region of France. The Coutume was subse- quently extended to other French colonies in the New World. It was divided into 16 sections governing family, inheritance, property, and debt. Its provisions tended to be the more responsive to royal authority than those of other regions.

Royal control was not immediately in evidence, but in June 1665 four companies of the Carignan-Salières Regiment arrived to quell the Iroquois. This unit had its origins in Piedmont, where two regiments were merged into one in 1659 in order to avoid disbandment. Returned to 700 men, it was ordered to North America in 1664 and strengthened to 1,000 troops by adding other French companies, some of which may have fought in the Austro-Turkish war of 1663–4. Additional companies were transferred from Martinique to bring the force to full strength. The regiment was brought to New France in seven ships. Despite early campaigns of limited success, the regiment altered the balance of mil- itary power and brought the Iroquois to sue for peace in 1667, a peace that would hold for 20 years. Many men of the regiment stayed on in the colony, tempted by offers of land in the Richelieu Valley and other incentives. The regiment departed Canada in 1668, and thanks to the relative peace, virtually no regular French troops were stationed there until 1684.

In September of 1665 an intendant (or chief admin- istrative officer)—Jean Talon (1626–94)—arrived to revitalize the colony. One of the royal government’s first aims was to increase the population, and the filles du roi (orphan girls raised at the King’s expense) were sent over for that purpose. These “King’s Daughters” would become a contingent of about 800 young women brought to New France between 1665 and 1673 by Louis XIV, who paid for their passage and provided them with a trousseau and a dowry (the dowry was not always paid

in cash). The women were mainly between the ages of 15 and 25, and were required to be of high moral stan- dards and considerable physical fitness. Unfortunately, they were recruited chiefly in the cities and were often not well equipped for an agricultural existence on the frontier. Almost half came from the Paris region, and they helped establish the French spoken in the capital as the language of Canada. Normandy (16 per cent) and western France (13 per cent) provided the bulk of the remaining contingent. Between 770 and 850 young women have been identified. Most did remain in New France, although about 300 did not. Many did marry, often to soldiers in the Carignan-Salières Regiment. Mère Marie reported that 100 girls had arrived in 1665, and more would come later. How long the French Crown would continue such support was uncertain,

Marguerite Bourgeoys, “Le Vrai Portrait,” painted the day after her death in January 1700 by Pierre Le Ber. This work was not discovered until the mid-twentieth century, when x-rays of a work believed to be an authentic likeness revealed the “true portrait” under several layers of paint. Musée Marguerite-Bourgeoys, Montreal.

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58 A History of the Canadian Peoples

but it certainly rejuvenated the colony. The government had begun making a concerted effort to deal with the Iroquois menace and to reform both the administrative and economic structure of New France. It would shortly attempt to establish a foothold in Newfoundland and later regain control over Acadia. Although success would hold within it the seeds of destruction, the French in 1665 were on the eve of almost a century of expansion and dominance in North America.

One of Intendant Talon’s first tasks, undertaken personally, was to conduct a census of the population of the colony. Governments of the time employed the census as a means of asserting their authority. Talon did not count Aboriginal people or those in religious orders, but he found 3,215 inhabitants clustered in three settle- ments: Quebec (547), Trois-Rivières (455), and Montreal (625). Only one-third of the population was or had been married, and 842 were between 21 and 30 years of ages. Those enumerated represented a broad range of occupa- tions and professions, making clear that a substantial population base existed for the King to improve with positive policies.

Canada, 1663–1760 That part of New France along the St Lawrence known as “Canada” mixed French origins and the North American environment in a way that defied easy characterization. The French background provided institutions, a termin- ology with which to express them, and a set of assump- tions about how society ought to be organized and operated. The French government assumed an ordered and hierarchical society in which the various social orders stayed in their places and duly subordinated them- selves to the good of the whole, as defined by the Crown. As a complication, the French Crown was not satisfied simply to replicate the familiar institutions of the Old World in North America, but sought to reform and mod- ernize them by stripping them of centuries of European tradition that had decentralized power and limited royal authority. At the same time, the environment, includ- ing the Indigenous population, provided a set of daily realities that subtly subverted European institutions and assumptions, modifying and altering—while never

totally negating—efforts to imitate the mother country. The result was a society that refracted the metropolis in France through the dual prisms of royal reform and North American experience. The external observer was struck at first by the presence of familiar European pat- terns and terminology, while beneath the surface differ- ent social designs constantly were evolving.

The royal takeover of 1663 put French adminis- trative policy for the colonies and its execution in the hands of two men, the governor, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and the intendant, Jean Talon. Colbert was Louis XIV’s chief bureaucrat, a highly experienced civil servant. His major tasks both at home and abroad were to strengthen royal government and expand the French economy. As Minister of Marine, he served as the seventeenth-cen- tury equivalent of colonial secretary, in addition to a myriad of other responsibilities. To implement policy in America, Colbert decided to establish the position of intendant, a royal official who, in France, had been desig- nated to cut through the accretion of centuries of devolu- tion of royal power and to act decisively on behalf of the state. Beginning with Talon’s appointment as intendant in 1665, the colony’s administration was greatly reorgan- ized and centralized. The governor, though the titular head, was responsible for military affairs, external rela- tions, and the colony’s connections with the Church (including education). Subsequently, the governor invari- ably would be a member of the French aristocracy and an experienced military man, while routine adminis- tration devolved to the intendant, a career civil servant whose social origins were in the middle class. Classic confrontations between intendants and governors would ensue, particularly during the regime of Louis Buade de Frontenac (1620–98, governor 1672–82 and 1689–98). But the royal regime consistently backed the intendant.

Colbert and Talon not only managed to put the colony on its feet, but established its administrative and institu- tional structure for the entire century of French royal con- trol. Their task was no easy one. Political institutions had to be established that were simultaneously responsive to the royal will and satisfactory to the populace. External threats had to be confronted. Population growth had to be stimulated. Some kind of economic viability had to be developed that would not endanger the mother country. Out this complex of factors would emerge a society and

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culture of enormous tenacity, possessing many resources for regeneration and change.

Canada was ruled by the Sovereign Council, made up mainly of the colony’s elite and presided over by the intendant. No regularly elected political body repre- sented the inhabitants. Instead, informal means were used in the colony to express public opinion, including the public protest (or “riot”), which was a typical feature of life in both Europe and America at the time. Most Canadian riots were over food shortages, to which the government usually responded favourably. The Church was a major component of the government. Its main political task was to help establish, within the ranks of its communicants, due subordination to spiritual and secular authority. During the French regime the Church often found this job beyond its capabilities, partly because it was chronically understaffed. In 1759, for example, there were only 73 parish priests among 200 clergymen, hardly enough to provide religious services for everyone in the colony, especially outside the towns. The colony contained 114 parishes, many of which obviously did not have a resident curé. In the symbi- otic relationship between Church and state, moreover, the state dominated. It appointed bishops, granted sei- gneuries, and provided most of the revenue for religion. At the same time, the subordinate role of the Church did not mean that Canada was irreligious or secular, or that Catholicism did not permeate the lives of most of its inhabitants. Canada had been born in deep Catholic piety, and Catholic orthodoxy remained the norm.

The Church was also charged with responsibil- ity for education and social services, and, as we shall see later, would find itself the chief instrument for the creation of high culture in the colony as well. The first institution of higher learning in North America—a college at Quebec—was opened by the Jesuits a year before Harvard in Massachusetts, and for their part, the Sulpicians founded petite écoles, primary schools that provided basic religious instruction. By 1760 the colony was training most of its own priests. The Frères Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph de la Croix (an order founded in Canada) began an orphanage in 1694 and later a hostel for men. The Récollets also ran schools, especially among First Nations children. The Ursulines provided education for the daughters of the colony’s

leaders, while the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre- Dame, organized by Marguerite Bourgeoys, opened schools across the colony. From the beginning, nuns founded and operated the hospitals of Canada. Despite the best efforts of the Church, literacy in Canada, par- ticularly in the rural regions, was very low—perhaps as few as 10 per cent of the population could read or write. On the other hand, there was no enormous gender gap regarding literacy as there was in most parts of Europe, including the mother country.

Because Canada was so often in a state of siege, the role of the military was crucial. France was prepared to spend money on the military that it would not have allowed for civilian matters. The soldiers’ pay was an important source of money for the Canadian economy, and the army was the best local customer for Canadian merchants. Regular soldiers served as a source of labour and as potential additions to the civilian population, which they were encouraged to join at the expiration of their enlistments. Regular troops were supplemented by the inhabitants after 1669, when the entire adult male population of the colony between the ages of 16 and 60 was required to serve in the militia, locally com- manded by capitaines de milice chosen democratically from the ranks of the inhabitants. After 1684 the militia was employed in every war. For much of the period of the French regime, regular troops were members of the Troupes de la Marine. They were not highly regarded by the military command, either in the mother country or in the colony, which was one of the reasons why so much reliance was placed on the militia, who until the last years of the regime were held to be superior to the regulars. Much of this militia service was in collabora- tion with the First Nations in the form of raiding parties, designed to keep the English colonies off balance and to prevent them from using their superior numbers to invade the St Lawrence. The high point of militia-style success came at the end of the seventeenth century, when the exploits of Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville in the Hudson Bay area and in New York made the Canadian militia much feared by the English.

Because of the nature of guerrilla warfare, soldiers in Canada were not heavily drilled until the end of the period, when warfare became more Europeanized and the militia proved less useful. Foreign observers

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Biography

Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville (1661–1707) was a younger son of Charles Le Moyne de Longueuilet de Châteauguay and Catherine Thierry. His father was the son of a Dieppe innkeeper who spent his early years in Canada in the Huron country and had settled at Ville-Marie. Renowned as an Indian fighter, Charles Le Moyne led the settlers in several campaigns against the Iroquois, and in later years often served as an interpreter and negotiator with the Five Nations. He was rewarded with several major land grants, and in 1668 was elevated to the nobility. On his death in 1685 Charles not only held many thousands acres of land, but left a personal fortune valued at 125,000 livres, much of it apparently made in the fur trade. He was one of the shareholders in the Compagnie du Nord that had succeeded the Compagnie de la Baie d’Hudson in 1682. Charles’s success had been a perfect illustration of how immigration to North American could lead to extraordinary upward mobility. He and his wife had 14 children, 12 of them male. Most of the sons emulated their father in both military activ- ity and heroism. Pierre was usually accompanied by one or more of his brothers in his military campaigns.

Born in Montreal, Pierre began his career in his father’s service. Somewhere in his early life he acquired experience at sea. On the eve of his first campaign after his father’s death, he was found guilty by the Sovereign Council of seducing a young woman and fathering an illegitimate child (he was made responsible for this child until she was 15). Such charges of sexual excess would continue to plague him throughout his life, although they could be viewed as merely the private side of his public career. Iberville flourished at the mar- gins of Europe’s American empires in an age when gov- ernments did not make tidy distinctions between public and private sectors, thus encouraging military adven- turism by private entrepreneurs if it could be viewed within a larger imperial context. He was, in effect, a buc- caneer or filibustier rather than a professional soldier in the conventional sense of the term.

Iberville’s first independent campaign in James Bay was typical. The expedition—set under way in 1686 while England and France were attempting to resolve their American differences short of war—utilized the Ottawa River and connected waterways to travel to the north, a perilous journey that took 85 days. At Moose Fort (Moose Factory), Iberville singlehandedly gained entrance to the enclosure, but once inside the palisade the post’s 17 Englishmen closed the gate; while his com- panions worked to force the gate open again, Iberville distracted the Englishmen with his bravado. The fort eventually surrendered. A reputation for intrepid hero- ism was born, and he was put in command of this and two other James Bay posts captured by the French: Forts Rupert and Albany (renamed Saint-Jacques and Sainte- Anne by their captors). In 1687–8 he was in France, returning to James Bay in command of a French vessel. On the Albany River in 1688 he added to his reputation for bravery one of total ruthlessness towards the enemy. When two armed English ships blockaded his own fur- laden vessel in the river in September, and all three ships became immobilized in the ice for the winter, Iberville’s arbitrary conduct led to the deaths of many of the Englishmen, most from scurvy. Arriving back in Quebec triumphantly in late 1689 with booty and furs, Iberville was sent off as second-in-command of a French and First Nations expedition raiding English settle- ments in New York. One of the results was the destruc- tion of Corlaer (now Schenectady) in February 1690.

Sailing with three vessels to Hudson Bay in July 1690, Iberville was driven off York Fort in late August, and in 1692 his naval squadron, complete with French frigates—unable to sail to the Bay before winter ice— was ordered to harass the English coastal colonies. He returned to the Bay in 1694, this time under a buccan- eering agreement with the French Crown, and captured York Fort (renamed Fort Bourbon), again with charges of excess ruthlessness in violation of the terms of surrender. After another successful raiding venture to the coast of

Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville

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were always impressed with the martial spirit of the Canadians, however. One British officer in the eight- eenth century commented, “Our men were nothing but a set of farmers and planters, used only to the axe and hoe. Theirs are not only well trained and disciplined, but they are used to arms from their infancy among the Indians, and are reckoned equal, if not superior in that part of the world to veteran groups.” For many Canadian elite families, as in France, military service in an offi- cer class was preferable to entrance into commerce and industry. By the eighteenth century, the Canadian elite provided most of the officers for the Troupes de la Marine and even expected commissions to be reserved for the sons of serving officers.

One of Canada’s major disadvantages in its constant wars against the English was the small size of its popu- lation. After 1660 French Canada matched the English colonies by doubling in population every 25 years, but it could never keep pace numerically. In 1715 the popula- tion of New France was 20,000, while that of the English colonies was 434,000. By 1754 the gap had widened, with 70,000 in New France and 1,485,000 in the American colonies to the south. After 1672 few French immigrants arrived in the colony, either publicly sponsored or pri- vately motivated. The reasons for the lack of immigra- tion have been much debated among scholars. One constellation of reasons revolves around the unfavour- able publicity that Canada—despite or perhaps because of the Jesuit Relations—continually received in France. The colony had a reputation for a harsh climate and an absence of amenities, which did not dispose the French

to emigrate. Another set of reasons involved conditions in France itself. Both the absence of agrarian dislocation

Newfoundland in 1696–7 (where 36 small outports were destroyed), Iberville’s ship, Pélican, became separated from its companions on its way to the Bay. Reaching the Nelson River in early September, he turned to find three sails on the horizon. Thinking the remainder of his fleet had joined him, he sailed out to join them. Unfortunately, the ships were English. Iberville was forced to fight a naval battle with three English warships, sinking one, capturing another, while a third fled the scene. France

ended up with York Fort. Finally joined by his fleet, he forced York Factory to surrender as well. This triumph over the European nation that regarded itself as master of the sea was the crowning glory of Iberville’s career, and the last of his Hudson Bay exploits. He moved south to the Mississippi River and then to the West Indies for the remainder of his life. Whether Iberville was a great com- mander or not is worthy of debate, as he was never tested on either a large stage or against a worthy opponent.

Jean Talon, intendant of New France. This portrait is a nineteenth-century copy, attributed to Théophile Hamel, of a seventeenth-century painting by Frère Luc. Authentic likenesses are in short supply for the early periods of Canadian history, and most portraits, like this one, are later renderings which may—or may not—have been based on earlier originals. LAC, 1952-10-1.

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62 A History of the Canadian Peoples

and the insatiable demands of the French military for manpower prevented the development of a discon- tented and displaced population available for colonial migration on a massive scale. At the same time, the trad- itional juxtaposition of the French and British colonial experiences is in many ways misleading. In relation to the colonies of most European nations in America— those of the Dutch Republic, Sweden, and Scotland, for example—New France was successful. The British col- onies were unusual in their numbers and dynamism. Unfortunately for the French, the British did not have a mere handful of colonies in America, but a large number on the mainland and more in the Caribbean, which were both economically vibrant and located on the exposed flanks of New France and Louisiana. In the imperial rivalries that inevitably ensued, the French were at a substantial disadvantage.

At the time of the royal takeover in 1663, both Colbert and Talon had attempted to diversify the econ- omy. They were especially concerned about the colony’s heavy dependence on the fur trade. Colbert even saw the fur trade as a menace. “It is to be feared,” he wrote, “that by means of this trade, the habitants will remain idle a good part of the year, whereas if they were not allowed to engage in it they would be obliged to apply themselves to cultivating their land” (quoted in Eccles, 1983: 104). What the French authorities wanted was an agricultural surplus and the exploitation of timber resources, which would enable the colony to supply the French West Indies with goods currently being obtained from the English. But the economy was slow to diversify. Part of the problem was that the fur trade kept expand- ing, contributing to a circular effect. The successful French quest for furs not only deflected attention from other enterprises but brought Canada into conflict with the English to the south. The ensuing struggle made it virtually impossible to limit the fur traders, since they were the ideal shock troops for engaging the enemy.

The numbers involved in the fur trade (the voyageurs and engagés) grew in number from 200 at the end of the seventeenth century to nearly 1,000 by the mid-eighteenth century. The work was both physically and emotionally demanding, and most men were worn out before they reached the age of 40. Perhaps as many as one-quarter of able-bodied Canadian males were involved in the fur

trade at some point in their lives, usually in their younger years before they settled down with wives and families in more sedentary occupations along the St Lawrence. Many left Aboriginal wives and mixed-blood families behind in the forest when they retired to their first families. A few rose to be specialists in the trade, some remaining in the West throughout their lives. A few became marchands équi- peurs (outfitters), organizing the parties and providing the credit for the voyageurs. Unlike the colony’s transatlantic merchants, the fur trade merchants were almost exclu- sively Canadian-born.

A complex commercial and small-scale artisanal life did develop in New France. A small merchant class supported itself, particularly at the transatlantic level. Overseas trade was complicated and dangerous, and most merchants operated through family and clan con- nections. Marriage alliances established new branches of family firms in distant ports, and after the deaths of their husbands, women frequently took over the local enterprises. The trading economy over which the mer- chants presided required peace and stability to perform at its best. Only the years after Utrecht (1713) to the late 1730s provided decent conditions, free from the ravages of the British navy and privateers. The economy also suf- fered from a chronic shortage of a medium of exchange, which led the colony to produce its own paper money by using decks of playing cards inscribed in various denominations and signed by the intendant. Officially the cards were promissory notes, but they and the mil- itary ordonnances that circulated as legal tender after 1735 were inflationary. A constant demand existed for the local productions of skilled artisans, particularly those master craftsmen who worked for the Church, providing the furniture, ornaments, and decorations for the many religious buildings in the colony. Artisans also made many things that would have been too bulky and expensive to import, such as furniture. Two major attempts to industrialize New France were made, both in the 1730s. One was an ironworks near Trois-Rivières (the “forges du St-Maurice”), the other a shipyard at Quebec. Both required large amounts of state subsidy to survive, but both demonstrated that Canadian workmen could be mobilized for industrial activity and could manufac- ture serviceable goods on a large scale. The St-Maurice facility employed as many as 500 workers, and was the

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most modern iron manufacturer in North America, pro- ducing mainly iron ware, although experiments were made with cannon as well.

Despite the growth of trade and industry, agricul- ture was always the dominant form of economic activity along the St Lawrence, functioning around the seigneur- ial system brought to the valley in 1627 and governed after 1663 by the Coutume de Paris. Seigneurialism in New France probably worked less to order society than to provide a means of settlement. The state made property concessions to landlords, who were supposed to find settlers to serve as tenants. Seventy seigneuries were granted before 1663 and over 150 by 1740. Roughly one-quarter of the land granted was in the hands of the Church. Although the censitaire (tenant) owed various rents and feudal dues to his seigneur, these amounted to

very little so long as there was more land than settlers. After the Edict of Marly in 1711, the seigneur could no longer withhold land from settlement in anticipation of price increases if there were settlers demanding it. Since they did not own the means of production, the censitaires seldom treated agriculture as a long-term business enterprise. The seigneurial system did not tie settlers to the soil and did not encourage large-scale, staple-crop farming so much as family farms on small holdings. The system was not really feudal, since military obligation in the colony was not tied to land occupation or tenure. Not until the end of the French regime was there suffi- cient pressure on the land to benefit the seigneur eco- nomically. He did acquire social status, however, and by the mid-eighteenth century the typical seigneur was an absentee landlord who lived in town and was involved

“Montreal from the West.” Although agriculture was still the primary form of economic activity in the seventeenth century, a commercial and artisan life emerged in urban centres, such as Montreal, seen in the distance in this painting by Philip John Bainbrigge. LAC, 1983-47-87.

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64 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Intendant Raudot on the Card Money, 1706

Document

Memorandum on the Cards of Canada, Quebec, September 30, 1706

The cards which are issued in Canada serve as money just as coin does in France.

The Kingdom of France derives a certain utility from these cards, since, by this means, the King is not obliged to send funds in coined money for the expendi- tures which he has the goodness to incur. If it were neces- sary to send this, it would withdraw from the Kingdom annually 100,000 écus. Consequently this currency leaving the country would render money scarcer. It is true one would not appreciate this disadvantage during the abundance of money, nevertheless it is certain that it would effect a diminution. Moreover, France, by this device, not sending coined money, runs no risk as to it either from the sea or from enemies.

If coined money were sent to Canada, it would afterwards leave the country by two avenues, one part would return to France, the other would go to New England to purchase certain merchandise, which may be had cheaper there than from France. The part of this money returning to France would run the risks of the sea and enemies. The vessels may be taken or lost, and consequently the money they carry is lost to France, and there can be no greater injury to the Kingdom than the loss of its money.

The other part of this money being carried to New England for the purchase of merchandize, results in a con- siderable injury to France in the loss of its coinage and the advantage which it would produce among her enemies. . . .

Furthermore, there is no fear that money may be carried to New England, which would be very difficult

Beginning in 1685, New France dealt with its shortage of metallic coins by issuing decks of cards signed by the intendant and inscribed in various denominations. In 1706 Jacques Raudot, who was intendant of New France from 1705 to 1711, wrote a memorandum justifying the practice. It offers a little lesson in mercantilist monetary policy.

in a variety of economic and political activities. A sei- gneury became part of a diversified portfolio of invest- ment for those of the elite, within whose ranks little specialization of function had yet occurred.

By the mid-eighteenth century, Swedish visitor Peter Kalm could describe the heartland of French Canada along the St Lawrence as “a village beginning at Montreal and ending at Quebec, which is a distance of more than one hundred and eight miles, for the farmhouses are never above five arpents [293 metres] and sometimes but three apart, a few places excepted” (Benson, 1937, II: 416–17). Each farmhouse, usually of three or four rooms built of stone and timber, stood alone. Rural architecture in Canada was quite differ-

ent from urban building. Although houses were often made of stone, to protect against the harsh weather they were typically covered with a form of stucco that whit- ened over time, providing a distinctive colouring to the structures. A larger number of houses were constructed of wood, most commonly with heavy timber frames and infilled with rubble stone. Inside the houses were usually to be found two rooms, one of which was used as a kitchen and living area, and the other as a com- munal bedroom. Closets were unknown, and most fam- ilies had a large wooden armoire, many of which still survive. Although stoves began to be seen in the eight- eenth century, most houses were heated by the same fireplaces used for cooking. Soups and stews made

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from the abundance of fresh game available in the colony were the typical fare. The colonists spent much time preparing for winter. Food could be preserved in a variety of ways: by pickling, by drying, by smoking, by burying it deep in a root cellar, or by freezing it. The aromas of cooking, wood smoke, and human bodies was powerful, especially during the long winter when being outside was difficult at best. The inhabitants required special social skills to manage the close living quarters. A few tiny villages formed, usually around churches.

Three towns punctuated the continuous village: Quebec towards the eastern end, Trois-Rivières in the middle, and Montreal towards the west. Quebec and Montreal contained impressive and concentrated public

and private buildings, often built of stone, but by our standards both towns were quite small in population and area. On their peripheries, the dominant land- scape pattern of the separate but contiguous farmstead resumed. Narrow lots ran back for long distances from the river, and while there were new rows (rangs) of lots available behind the riverfront ones, population was slow to move inland. Thus French Canada replicated neither the French medieval village, whence many of its rural settlers had come, nor the English colonial ten- dency towards isolated farmsteads in the middle of large holdings separated from one another by considerable distances. Instead, the limited population in Canada sought to cover as much landed territory as possible.

to prevent if there were any in the colony, there being as in France persons who to gain something would risk much.

It is even a matter of policy for kings to attach the prosperity of their subjects to their own persons, in order to render the former more submissive and to take care that all the means which the colonies may have in money are always in the kingdom on which they are dependent. Canada, having nothing but cards, which are secured only on the word of the King, and seeing no other resource except in the good faith of the sover- eign, will be still more submissive to him and still more attached to France for the reason that all the supply it can have in money depends on it. Hence, it appears to me that one cannot do better than to permit the continu- ation of the card money in Canada.

There may arise great abuses regarding these cards; they may be counterfeited in the country; this, however, can be prevented by a close attention, the easier bestowed as the resources of every person are

known. Counterfeits may also be sent from France and so exactly imitated that one cannot distinguish the true from the false. That is almost impossible to do here, there not being clever people enough of that type. But even if there were some counterfeits they could not remain long without being recognised. To prevent this abuse one has only to change the dies, and shape of the cards every year after the departure of the vessels for France.

It is true that the colony of Canada will suffer some- what by these cards, it being quite certain that it will buy French merchandise cheaper if it pays for them in coined money and not in cards, for which the merchants receive only bills of exchange which for the most part are not met at maturity. But it is proper that the colony of Canada suffer for the sake of the kingdom from which it receives its benefits, and it is only fair that this kingdom should run no risk of losing its money by the possible loss of its vessels bound for it. . . .

RAUDOT

Source: Adam Shortt, ed., Documents Relating to Canadian Currency, Exchange and Finance during the French Period (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1925), vol. 1, 157–9.

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66 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Although Montreal and Quebec were not large, they did give Canada an urban life and a proportionately lar- ger urban population than that of most North American colonies. These towns were the centres of government, of the direction of economic activity, and of the Church and its social services, such as health care and education. They inevitably included a heavy concentration of the upper classes of French Canada, and had an impressive polite society. While there were, doubtless, gradations of

wealth and status, French North America was fundamen- tally divided into two orders: those with and those with- out access to government largesse and patronage. The law was available to all, but only some could expect public and military appointments, government contracts, and seigneurial grants. Upward mobility was a possibility, but most observers agreed that the typical Canadian worked no harder than was necessary, spent a disproportionate amount of time pursuing his own pleasures and interests

“Playing Card Money,” pen with black ink with watercolour by Henri Beau (1863–1949): reproduction of examples of the playing card money used in New France. Beau, an employee of the Public Archives of Canada, was employed in the Paris office specifically to copy views, portraits, etc., and to carry out iconographic research. As with all reproductions, there are likely some discrepancies between these drawings and the real cards. LAC, C-17059.

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(which included racing horses and disappearing into the bush), was far more prosperous than his European counterpart, and enjoyed a good deal more liberty.

In 1701 a major international event took place in Montreal. Hosted by “Onontio” (the Aboriginal name for the governor general of New France), this conference involved 1,300 delegates from 39 Aboriginal nations stretched across the interior of North America. The gath- ering was designed to conclude a peace treaty among all the people of the pays d’en haut, but especially the Iroquois, who had been fighting with the French for nearly a century. A number of factors contributed to making this event possible, but the chief ones were the European peace of Ryswick in 1697 and the sudden steep decline in the number of Iroquois warriors, from 2,550 to 1,250, a product of epidemics, missionary success, and the depredations of constant warfare. According to the Onandaga chief Sadekarnaktie in 1694, “the grease is melted from our flesh and drops on our neighbours, who are grown fat and live at ease while we become

lean.” The Great Peace was ratified at a general assem- bly on 4 August 1701 in a huge arena 41 metres long and 21 metres wide in present-day Old Montreal, where more than 3,000 people gathered to listen to speeches and witness the signing of the document. This agree- ment meant the virtual end of Aboriginal involvement in the imperial wars of Europe for many years to come.

Slavery was never prohibited in Canada, but it never flourished because there were no large planta- tions to employ a slave workforce. What slaves existed were mainly domestic servants. Not all were blacks, although 540 blacks have been identified in Canada during the French regime. Aboriginal prisoners (panis) sold to the French were also kept in bondage. The col- onial New Englander John Gyles was technically a slave when he was transferred from his Aboriginal captor to a French merchant on the Saint John River at the begin- ning of the eighteenth century. The image of plantation slavery in the American South or in the Caribbean bears no relationship to the slave situation in French America,

The iron forges on the St-Maurice, by Joseph Bouchette from his book The British Dominion in North America (London, 1832). LAC, C-4356.

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68 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Excerpts from the English Translation of the Montreal Treaty of 1701

Document

THE CHIEF OF THE KISKAKONS: I did not want to fail, my father, having learned that you were asking me for Iroquois prisoners, to bring them to you. Here are four that I present to you to do with as you please. It is with this wampum that I have released them and here is a calumet that I give the Iroquois to smoke together when we meet. I rejoice that you have united the land, which was in turmoil, and I will- ingly subscribe to everything you have done.

THE IROQUOIS: Here we are assembled, our father, as you wished; you planted last year a tree of peace and you gave it roots and leaves so that we would be sheltered there, we now hope that everyone hears what you say, that no one will touch that tree, for we assure you, by these four collars [of wampum], that we will comply with every- thing that you have arranged; we are presenting you with two prisoners here with us, and we shall return the others that we have. We hope too, now that the doors are open for peace, that our people will be sent back to us. . . .

CHICHICATALO, CHIEF OF THE MIAMIS: I have obeyed you, my father, by bringing you eight Iroquois prisoners to do with as you please. If I had had canoes, I would have brought you a greater number, although I do not see here my people who are among the Iroquois. I will bring you those I still have, if you wish, or open the doors for them so that they may return.

ONANGUISSET [ONANUICE] FOR THE SAUKS: I am of one body with you my Father, here is an Iroquois pris- oner whom I took in war, in presenting him to you, per- mit me to give him a calumet to take back to his people to smoke when we meet, I thank you for lighting the sun which has been dark since the war.

Source: Gilles Havard, The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French–Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), Appendix 3.

The treaty signed at Montreal in 1701, with the totemic marks of some of the First Nations signatories. LAC, C-137798.

After all the above-mentioned nations had heard what the Chevalier de Callières said to them, they answered as follows:

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where many levels of bondage were possible. Panis were not the only Aboriginals living in the Canadian colony. Numbers of other First Peoples clustered in vil- lages founded by the missionaries outside the cities of Montreal and Quebec.

Governed by the Code Noir, a decree of Louis XIV which in 1685 regulated slavery in the French Empire, slavery was legally confirmed in Canada by an order issued by Intendant Jacques Raudot in 1709. Raudot acted because some inhabitants had argued that slav- ery was illegal, and he extended the law to cover panis, or Aboriginal slaves. The Code Noir did more than pro- vide rules for slavery. It prohibited Jews from residing in the French colonies and also forbade the exercise of any religion other than Catholicism. But most articles dealt with slavery, intending to provide a legal framework and

establish protocols for treatment of slaves and various other matters such as miscegenation and the rights of freed slaves. The Code delimited all aspects of the slave’s life and provided harsh punishments for transgression, including escape or striking a master. It forbade torture or mutilation except for extreme transgressions, and called for guaranteed food and care for slaves no matter how ill or infirm; in general, the protective provisions of the Code were less strictly enforced than the punitive ones; however, in a landmark decision in 1740, the pro- vost court of Quebec considered the case of Marguerite Duplessis, a Pawnee slave who insisted she was the mixed-blood daughter of a French fur trader who had been baptized. Unfortunately, she had no documenta- tion for either birth or baptism. Nevertheless, the judi- cial system had given full consideration to her claim.

New France in 1688. The cartographer, Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin, worked at Quebec from 1671 to 1692 as both geographer and hydrographer to the King. LAC, Cartographic and Architectural Archives Division PH/1000/1688.

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70 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Women in New France As for the roles and status of women, they did not undergo any remarkable transformation in the New World, although some modification of dependence may have occurred for some women, especially widows. The organization of society continued to be fundamentally patriarchal, with the woman in the traditional role of helpmate and child-bearer. Both the shortage of mar- riageable women and the frequent absence of men to

the frontier or in the military somewhat moderated the oppression. There was some limited protection for the property rights of married women, and the autonomous rights of widows were safeguarded by law and custom. In truth, however, historians do not know very much about the ordinary lives of ordinary women in early Canada, chiefly because of the male orientation of the available documentation. While Canada always had a substantial number of women in holy orders, most women in the col- ony married (at the average age of 22) and raised a family. If marriage and remarriage rates were high, so, too, were birth rates and the number of children. Throughout the

Descriptions of Drowned Persons, 1747–1757

Document

Parish of Très-Ste-Trinité-de-Contrecoeur Date of Burial: 1748–05–03 Date of Death 1748–03 One drowned young child, between ten and twelve

years old, found floating in the river along the shore opposite the church, with blond hair, a waistcoat of homespun wool stuff, a pair of breeches of stuff, linen stockings and deerskin shoes. . . .

Parish of Saint-Antoine-de Longueuil Date of Burial: 1747–06–27 The body of a man found drowned in the Sault

St-Louis, found opposite the house of the widow Trutaut, wearing a shirt and a pair of breeches of homespun linen, a short waistcoat of kersey [coarse wool cloth], a grey coat of homespun wool stuff, we found a shot bag and a yellow knife, his hair long and black.

Parish of Saint-Antoine-de Longueuil Date of Burial: 1747–06–27 The body of a man found drowned in the Sault St-Louis

opposite the house of Andre Lamarre; approximately five

feet and a half tall, long auburn hair with a braid held against the head with a rosary, a shirt of common linen, a pair of breeches of homespun linen, a white short waist- coat, another brown one and a waistcoat fastened with a double row of pewter buttons, blue leggings.

Parish of Saint-Pierre-de-Sorel Date of Burial: 1756–10–05 One dead body found in the river, which seems to

be a woman because of one complete leg, still wearing a violet stocking, a ribbon garter, a woman’s shoe; this shoe was black calf. We also found remains of a black coif [light head covering].

Parish of Saint-Pierre-de –Sorel Date of Burial: 1757–05–15 Found drifting in the river and buried in the cem-

etery of this parish, the half-rotten body of a man wearing a linen shirt, another one of cotton over it, a short waistcoat and mantelet of homespun wool stuff, undyed beef [cow- hide] shoes, and we could not recognize anything else.

Source: Suzanne and André Gousse, Costume in New France from 1740 to 1760: A Visual Dictionary (Chambly, Que.: La Fleur de Lyse, 1997), 65–6.

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eighteenth century, birth rates ran over 50 per 1,000 inhabitants per annum, and women on average bore seven children. These demographic characteristics were typical of all colonial and frontier societies, how- ever. Childbirth was certainly difficult and dangerous. Canada’s men were constantly exposed to the dangers of wartime battle, but their wives faced equal or greater danger every time they gave birth.

The inventory of Jeanne Mance’s wardrobe at her death in 1673 consisted of 33 hats and caps, 30 blouses, 5 jackets, 7 skirts, 1 gown, 5 pairs of stockings, and 3 pairs of shoes. Other and later inventories indicate that elite women did their best to keep up with the latest fashions from Paris, and a litany of complaints from the clergy spoke to the extent that some women followed fashion, hairstyles, and ornamentation. On the whole, the habit- ants dressed much as did their counterparts in Europe, with women in skirts and jackets over loose shifts, men in shirts and doublets with breeches and trousers. Homespun material, even linen, was common. Beaver hats were worn in the winter, and indeed, the harsh win- ter climate dictated that the colonists dressed warmly, with many layers covering all parts of their bodies.

The situation of children in Canada, like most other aspects of life, for the most part reflected experience in France. Canada was a patriarchal society in which chil- dren were legally subordinate; an unmarried child, male or female, was legally dependent on parents until age 25.

Although childhood was relatively short—most chil- dren were out in the workforce before puberty—surviv- ing examples of children’s toys suggest that they were allowed some time for playin early years. Instruction in reading, writing, and mathematics was extremely limited, except among the families of the elite in the cities, and while girls received more formal instruction than boys, vocational training was generally confined to sewing. A few boys could obtain a classical education in Quebec City and Montreal. What appears to have been different in Canada, at least given the frequency of comments on the subject by contemporaries, was the unruliness of the young. Governor Denonville in 1685 commented on the disorders that resulted from the “light control that fathers and mothers and Governors have exercised over youth,” adding that “as soon as the children can shoulder a rifle the fathers can no longer restrain them and do not dare to make them angry.”

Common Life and Culture In many ways the most difficult feature of New France to comprehend is its culture. In Canada, the language came to be the French of the Paris region of that per- iod, spoken extremely well, although with a modified accent and incorporating vocabulary adopted from the Indigenous people. The French spoken by Acadians was far more archaic and regionalized, coming mainly from the west of France. The French spoken in the Canadian interior was heavily laced with words taken over from Aboriginal languages. New France never had a print- ing press or a newspaper, and consequently the spoken language was of greater importance than the written word. The transmission of French colonial culture, as that among peasants in France of the same period, was oral and visual rather than via print and literacy. Oral folklore had a long tradition in Canada, flourishing well into the twentieth century. Folktales, legends, and songs were an integral part of Canadian life, especially for use as entertainment on long winter evenings around the fire. As in other oral cultures, the storyteller in Canada was highly prized. Some stories were imported from

Table 2.1 Marriage and Birth Rates per 1,000 Inhabitants, New France, 1681–1760

Years Marriages Births

1681–90 9.2 43.3

1691–1700 10.5 53.4

1701–10 9.1 57.8

1711–20 10.2 57.5

1721–30 10.2 55.2

1731–40 9.4 56.6

1741–50 10.4 55.9

1751–60 11.3 59.6

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72 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The first Canadian colonists travelled short distan-

ces by foot and longer distances by river and canoe.

The efficiency of the waterways was such as to dis-

courage the making of roads. But gradually roads did

develop, and along with them came wagons and car-

riages to use them and animals to pull them. Winter

was usually an easier time for travel than summer,

and the government after 1727 required winter roads

to be marked by the settlers along the major routes

with eight-foot poles. The two-wheeled open car-

riage became lighter and more commonly used. It

was known when the seat had a back as a barouche

and when the seat had no back as cabroue; both were

extensively employed in the summer. In the winter,

wheels on the vehicle were replaced by thin runners,

producing the carriole, the preferred winter transport

in Canada. One military officer observed in 1735 that

“However short the distance they intend to travel, and

whatever the time of year,” the Canadians “never go

on foot.” The reliance on the carriole was made pos-

sible in New France by what became known as the

Canadian horse.

The first horse was sent to Canada in 1647 by

the Company of Habitants, but the real breakthrough

came in 1665—at the time of the filles du roi and the

Carignan-Salières Regiment—when 12 horses were

dispatched to Canada by Louis XIV. They were prob-

ably intended as mounts for officers in the regiment,

and were subsequently distributed to religious orders

and seigneurs. Breeding of these horses was governed

by formal contract, and because it was done for a

century in a totally closed environment the Canadian

horse became a distinct breed, adapted to the cli-

mate. “These horses are like machines,” commented

Baron Lahontan, “so impervious are they to the cold.”

Racing, especially on river ice, became a major win-

ter avocation of the habitants. On 19 April 1716, the

intendant affixed a notice to the door of every church

in the colony. It read: “We forbid all persons, drivers

of carioles as well as those on horseback, to allow

trotting or galloping while the congregation leave the

church, until they are ten arpents from the church,

afterwards they may give their horses their heads pro-

vided there is no one ahead of them on the road.”

These Canadian horses allowed for the rural col-

onists of New France to use another distinct form of

material culture, the carriole, even in the harshest

conditions. The freedom of movement provided by

the carriole gave the colonists easier access to the

religious and cultural aspects of life in New France,

and, in making it easy to interact with one’s neigh-

bours, allowed for that life to develop. Indeed, for

many people the winter became a time for much

socializing.

Material Culture

“Major W.N. Orange’s Cariole at Fredericton, New Brunswick 1835,” Emma Carter, 1835, 23.4 cm x 28.4 cm. Purchase from Murdoch Mactaggart Books Limited, M978.83.5. © McCord Museum.

The Carriole

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France, while others—such as the tale of Dollard des Ormeaux, who in 1660 led a small expedition and died in a battle against Iroquois believed to be advancing on Montreal—originated in the history and experiences of the pioneers in the colony. Supernatural tales, coming from both the European and the First Nations trad- itions, were extremely popular.

The locus of much of the formal artistic and aes- thetic life in Canada was the Church, which required decorative and ritual ornaments. A great emphasis was placed on music, by the Church and among the people, who brought with them a rich heritage of song, dance, and music for dance as well as the instruments to play

upon. The missionaries used music as part of their efforts to convert the Aboriginal people, and a native choir at the Huron seminary of Sillery was well known in the col- ony. A pipe organ was installed at the cathedral of Notre- Dame de la Paix in Quebec City in 1660. The violin or fiddle was the chief source of music for dancing, and, like the oral storytellers, communities cherished their fiddlers. Most expressions of culture among ordinary Canadians were part of the business of everyday life and experience in habitant households in rural parishes. Sometimes the North American environment changed the imported French culture, but in many cases—such as the use of oaths and pejorative slang—French usage

The Île d’Orléans and north and south shores of the St Lawrence, showing the boundaries of the land grants with the names of the seigneurial families in 1709. This visual image well captures the distinctive effect the seigneurial system had on the landscape of the colony. Detail from a larger map of the Quebec region by Gédéon Catalogne and Jean-Baptiste de Couagne. LAC, NMC-0048248.

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74 A History of the Canadian Peoples

still prevailed. Both the decoration of churches and the few examples of early wooden house furnishings that survive reveal a strong aesthetic sense. The churches preferred the baroque style of the French seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while the everyday furniture featured simple, elegant, and functional designs.

All the artists in the seventeenth century whose names are known were clerics trained in France. Perhaps the finest was Claude François (dit Frère Luc, 1614–83), a Récollet father who had studied in Rome and come to Canada in 1670. He spent 15 months in the colony, leaving behind a number of works that influenced his colleagues in their artistic endeavours. Canadian work was often less polished than that done in Europe, but was often the better for it. Pierre le Ber (c. 1669–1707) was the son of a wealthy Montreal mer- chant family who left a large inventory of painting sup- plies at his death; he has latterly become known as the painter of a portrait of Marguerite Bourgeoys generally regarded as a major work in Canadian art. Non-clerics like le Ber also participated in another important part of artistic expression in New France; the votive paint- ing. These works were contributed to a church or chapel by thankful colonists in fulfillment of a vow, often after a miraculous salvation at sea. Many were dedicated to Ste Anne, the patron saint of sailors. Most tell a story of an event for which the donor was especially grate- ful. Such paintings were displayed where they could be seen by worshippers entering or leaving a church (see illustration). Many votive paintings were executed by anonymous untrained artists. The best-known painter of early votives is Paul Mallepart de Grandmaison du

Beaucour (c. 1700–56), a former soldier who worked mainly in the Quebec City region.

Many of the most impressive buildings in Canada were forts and ecclesiastical structures, including churches, schools and seminaries, and hospitals located in the major cities but also in the rural parishes. Construction of such buildings provided employment for many workers and artisans. Most scholars distinguish three periods: the first runs to 1663, the second to 1700, and the third to 1763. Most building in all three periods was done in stone, with urban structures heavily influ- enced by contemporary French models and the rural ones mainly simplifications of those in the cities. Considerable similarities exist in many of the designs of the second and third periods, as the bishops sought to maintain some sense of control and order over the production.

Conclusion A number of societies slowly emerged from roots planted by Europeans beginning in the early seven- teenth century. Of these, the largest and most success- ful was the one begun by Samuel de Champlain along the St Lawrence River. Nevertheless, Canada remained a colony with a relatively small population, a distant province of France. Most institutions were strongly influenced by French origins and by the relatively small population. Left to its own devices, such a society held much promise. But its involvement in war, first against the First Nations and then against the English, much influenced its development, often in unfortunate ways.

The Jesuit Missionaries and the Jesuit Relations

The French Crown’s assumption of sovereignty over large chunks of territory in northeastern North America— most notably the St Lawrence Valley—opened a fertile field for the missionary zeal of the Counter-Reformation.

Several French missionary orders jostled for dominance, but the Jesuits eventually emerged triumphant. Founded in 1534 by a Spanish soldier, the Jesuits were unswerv- ingly loyal to the papacy. They were an order devoted

Historiography

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752 | Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

to education and to conversion of the non-Christian peoples being encountered by Europe throughout the world. They first arrived in Canada in 1611, but became particularly important after 1632, thanks to the pub- lication in Europe of the Jesuit Relations, a series of 72 sets of self-advertising narratives first published before 1672 and intended to describe the new country and its peoples within a highly literate framework of mission- ary self-sacrifice and martyrdom. They worked mainly with the Huron because they were a sedentary people.

The Jesuit Relations set the template for centuries of accounts of encounters between missionaries and First Peoples in Canada, assuming that the latter were uncouth “savages” who desperately needed to be brought into the European/Christian fold for their own good. (A counter-narrative created by eighteenth-century phil- osophes turned the story upside down by portraying the Aboriginal inhabitants of North America as “noble savages” whose innocence of European decadence and corruption made them superior beings. It flourished briefly among the literati but never penetrated very deeply into the overall portrayal of the encounter). Although he was personally no missionary zealot, Father Pierre Charlevoix (1682–1761), in his extensive eighteenth-century writings on North America, gener- ally accepted and perpetuated the missionary’s version of the encounter of the two civilizations, passing it on to French Canada after the Conquest. Quebec-based writ- ers seized on the more evocative passages of the Jesuit Relations, such as the martyrdom of Jean de Brébeuf or the miracles experienced by Catherine Tekakwitha, in their search for a native literary tradition.

On the whole, historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continued to accept the Jesuit Relations at face value, lionizing the missionaries as heroes and martyrs. Indeed, the most influential of these historians, the American Francis Parkman (1823–93), compared the French respect for the Aboriginal, best

exemplified by the Jesuits, with the contempt of the Spanish and the English. He saw the First Peoples as barriers to the progress of European civilization across North America, and his full-length study of the Jesuits had as its central narrative the hostility to Western civilization of the Aboriginal people, both Huron and Iroquois, in the face of the courageous efforts of the missionaries to convert them to Christianity. A further strengthening of the interpretation of the missions through the eyes of the Jesuit Relations came about through their translation into English and publication in their entirety, a project carried out by the American scholar Reuben Gold Thwaites (1853–1913) between 1896 and 1901.

Since 1945, revision of the traditional view of Jesuit missions has focused on three main fronts. (1) Scholars have sought to correct the narrative lines fostered by Francis Parkman. The main figures here have been the Canadian historian William J. Eccles and the American scholar Francis Jennings, both of whom have labelled Parkman a “liar” and a racist for his negative treatment of the First Peoples. (2) An emphasis on viewing the Aboriginal presence on its own terms and not through a European lens employed by the Relations started in earnest in the 1960s with the discovery that there was more to Canadian history than politics and warfare. This process produced a succession of major studies of the early Aboriginal populations in Canada and was dominated by anthropologists and economic historians who had only a secondary interest in missionaries. The seminal work was probably Arthur J. Ray’s The Indians in the Fur Trade (1974). (3) More recently, scholars have placed the Jesuit effort in an international context, com- paring the North American missions with those else- where in the world, especially in Asia. Takao Abe’s The Jesuit Mission to New France: A New Interpretation in the Light of the Earlier Jesuit Experience in Japan (2011) exem- plifies this international approach.

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Blackburn, Carole. The Jesuit Missions and Colonialism in North America, 1632–1650. Montreal and Kingston, 2000. A study of the missionary activities of the Jesuits with the Huron, placed in a contemporary perspective of colonialism.

Brazeau, Brian. Writing a New France, 1604–1632: Empire and Early Modern French Identity. Farnham, UK, 2009. A recent re-examination of the early years of New France.

Cell, Gillian. English Enterprise in Newfoundland, 1577–1660. Toronto, 1969. Still the standard account of early settlement and its mercantile con- nections in Newfoundland.

Choquette, Leslie. Frenchmen into Peasants: Modernity and Tradition in the Peopling of French Canada. Cambridge, Mass., 1997. A study of the French settle- ment of Canada.

Dechêne, Louise. Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth- Century Montreal. Montreal and Kingston, 1992. An award-winning study of the development of early Montreal.

———. Le people, l’État et la guerre au Canada sous le régime français. Montreal, 2008. The product of a life’s work of study by Quebec’s leading social historian.

Delâge, Denys. Bitter Feast: Amerindians and Europeans in Northeastern North America 1600–1664, trans. Jane Brierly. Vancouver, 1993. An analysis of the early relationships between First Nations and European intruders.

Douville, Raymond, and Jacques Casanova. Daily Life in Early Canada. London, 1968. Still the best study on the subject.

Eccles, W.J. France in America. Markham, Ont., 1990. The best overview of the French Empire in North America.

Harris, R.C. The Seigneurial System in Early Canada: A Geographical Study. Madison, Wis., 1966. The classic revisionist text on the subject, not yet superseded.

Havard, Gilles. The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French–Native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century. Montreal and Kingston, 2001. A fascinating account of a little-known episode.

Landry, Yves, Orphelines en France pioneères au Canada: les filles du roi au xviie siècle. Montreal, 1993. A thor- ough study of the first large contingent of female colonists.

Moogk, Peter. La Nouvelle France: The Making of New France—A Cultural History. East Lansing, Mich., 2000. A fascinating analysis made from the stand- point of culture and cultural studies.

Simpson, Patricia. Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640–1665. Montreal and Kingston, 1997. A sympa- thetic account of one of the leading female figures of seventeenth-century Canada.

Trudel, Marcel. Introduction to New France. Toronto, 1968. A textbook summary of New France by its leading modern historian.

Verney, Jack. The Good Regiment. Montreal and Kingston, 1991. A thorough study of the Carignan-Salières troops.

Short Bibliography

Study Questions 1. Reread the excerpt from Father Le Jeune’s Relation. Identify and explain the three techniques he recommends

for converting the Aboriginal people. By what means did the missionaries hope to sell themselves to the

Huron?

2. Why were the female missionaries such “loose cannons” in early Canada?

3. Do Marie de l’Incarnation’s comments in any way help explain why—as she admitted to her son—so few of her

young charges became “civilized”? How would you characterize these comments?

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772 | Europe Settles In: Newfoundland, Acadia, New France

4. What were the advantages and disadvantages of card money?

5. In the matter of its economic development, did Canada owe more to its European origins or to its North

American location? Explain.

6. How does Intendant Raudot justify the use of card money? Are his economics sound?

7. What factors limited slavery in Canada?

8. Write a paragraph about the drowned bodies on the river. What can you deduce from this formal account?

Visit the companion website for A History of the Canadian Peoples, fifth edition for further resources.

www.oupcanada.com/Bumsted5e

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The fortress (centre background) at Louisbourg exchanged hands multiple times before finally being captured in 1758 by the British, led by General James Wolfe. Painting by Pierre Canot (1762). LAC, 1990-587-3.

Struggling for a Continent, 1627–17633

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Timeline 1667 English return Acadia to France. 1670 Hudson’s Bay Company is granted a charter by

Charles II.

1682 Louisiana named by La Salle. 1689 War of the League of Augsburg begins. 1690 Port-Royal captured by the English. Quebec is

unsuccessfully invaded.

1697 Treaty of Ryswick ends War of the League of Augsburg.

1699 Iberville establishes Fort Biloxi. 1702 War of the Spanish Succession begins. 1703 Kaskaskia established. 1712 Crozat given trading monopoly in Louisiana. 1713 By the Treaty of Utrecht, which ends the War

of the Spanish Succession, France surrenders

Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay

claims to Great Britain.

1715 Fort Michilimackinac established. 1717 Illinois Country annexed to Louisiana. 1718 Civil government decreed for Upper Louisiana. 1719 John Law establishes Mississippi Company. 1720 Establishment of Louisbourg. “Mississippi

Bubble” collapses.

1724 Code Noir extended to Louisiana. 1731 Louisiana reverts to French Crown. 1744 War of the Austrian Succession begins. 1745 Louisbourg is captured by joint Anglo-

American military force.

1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession.

1749 Halifax established. Parliamentary inquiry critical of HBC.

1755 General Braddock is defeated on the Monongahela River. Acadians are expelled from

Nova Scotia.

1756 Seven Years War officially begins. 1758 Louisbourg taken by force under General

James Wolfe. Acadians are rounded up and

again expelled from the Maritime region. Nova

Scotia’s first elected assembly meets. Nova

Scotia’s government advertises for settlers in

New England.

1759 Battle of Quebec. 1760 Final French surrender. 1763 Treaty of Paris transfers New France and Acadia

to Great Britain. King George III of England

issues the Proclamation of 1763.

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80 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The nineteenth-century American historian Francis Parkman wrote of a “Half Century of Conflict,” but in truth the imperial struggle between England and France was much more protracted. The struggle would transcend a straightforward European rivalry, increasingly involving as it did both the population of the colonies and the First Nations of the contin- ent—each fighting with individual agendas—as well as other parts of the world as far away as India. The warfare began in the 1620s, when privateers from Newfoundland first invaded and sacked Champlain’s Quebec. It continued into the 1650s when Oliver Cromwell’s navy was active in the Atlantic region. The French colonies of North America felt the effects of this contest far more than did their British counter- parts to the south. The much smaller population in New France was more often in the front lines of the fighting, which frequently occurred on French terri- tory. Between 1627 and the final military defeat of New France more than 130 years later, the French experi- enced only one extended period (from 1713 to the early 1740s) when they were not constantly at war or under severe military pressure, either from Aboriginal peoples or from the British. The pervasiveness of the international rivalry came equally to affect British col- onists and British policy in the northern region. At its greatest extent, “New France” consisted of a number

of colonies and regions, including a fishing base in Newfoundland (Plaisance), Acadia (before 1713 all of the Maritimes; after 1713 Île-Royale [Cape Breton] and Île St-Jean [PEI]), Canada, the pays d’en haut or fron- tier country in the West, and both Upper and Lower Louisiana. Beyond this formal empire was a further region of French fur-trading that stretched from south of Hudson Bay to the Rocky Mountains. Canada was the most important part of New France, but not of the French Empire in the New World, for sugar islands were preferred to Voltaire’s notorious “arpents of snow.” Table 3.1, which shows the amount of corres- pondence from France’s Bureau of Colonies for 1713, indicates the extent to which New France was only one of several items in the French overseas portfolio.

The Beginnings of Overland Exploration The geographical shakedown of European colonization activity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth cen- turies determined that the French would take the lead in exploring the northern interior of the continent, and their activities would extend far beyond the boundaries of what is now Canada. While the English, Scots, Dutch,

Table 3.1 Volume of Correspondence of the Bureau of Colonies, 1713

Destination No. of Folios Per cent No. of Letters Per cent

Îles français de l’Amérique* 225 37.1 440 57.9

New France (Canada) 118 19.5 126 16.6

Louisiana 10 1.7 15 2.0

St Domingue 114 18.8 73 9.6

Martinique and the Îles du Vent 122 20.1 81 10.7

Cayenne 10 1.7 21 2.8

Indes Orientales 7 1.2 4 0.5

Totals 606 100 760 100

*Correspondence pertaining to the Marine’s shipping to colonial ports. Source: Kenneth J. Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea: Communications and the State in the French Atlantic, 1713–1736 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2002), 51, Table 2.1. In addition, a single letter was written to the “Indes d’Espagne” (presumably the Spanish Main), but not included in the microfilmed set analyzed at the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa.

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813 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

and Swedes established settlements along the eastern seaboard, the French founded their settlements on the St Lawrence River, in the interior of the continent. Providing access to the Great Lakes and to most of the major river systems of North America, this river would confer enormous power and influence on the nation that controlled it. The St Lawrence focused the French need for new sources of furs to supply the major export com- modity of New France. The river’s access to the interior ensured that most of the great feats of inland explor- ation would be executed by the French. The ability of young Frenchmen to adapt themselves to the ways of the First Nations was also critical.

Champlain himself was active in moving inland to investigate territory previously unknown to Europe, but he was not a typical figure. The first major French overland explorer, in many ways quintessential, was Étienne Brûlé (c. 1592–1633), who lived with the Huron near Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, in 1612, and may have been the first European to sight Lakes Superior and Erie. A shadowy, elusive figure, Brûlé, like many early explorers, left no written accounts of his life or adventures. It is likely that he had volunteered in 1610 to live with the First Nations and learn their language. He was probably the young man to whom Champlain referred in 1611 as “my French boy who came dressed like an Indian” (DCB, 1966: I, 131). In 1615 Brûlé accom- panied a party of Huron braves into the territory of the Susquehanna to the south of the Iroquois, in what is now southwestern New York State. He took advantage of the opportunity to investigate the neighbouring regions, perhaps reaching Chesapeake Bay and cer- tainly tramping around modern Pennsylvania. Brûlé subsequently journeyed to the north shore of Georgian Bay, and then in the early 1620s along the St Mary’s River to Lake Superior. Like many Europeans who “went native,” Brûlé was respected by his compatriots as an interpreter, although they were intensely suspi- cious of his new persona. In Brûlé’s case, his moral char- acter and behaviour were criticized by Champlain even before his final “treachery” in 1629 when he entered the employment of the Kirke brothers after they success- fully captured the tiny French colony at Quebec. By pursuing his own agenda rather than observing the abstract national loyalties dear to European hearts and

values, he established what would become a familiar pattern among Europeans coming to terms with North America. By 1633 Brûlé was dead, reportedly killed and eaten by the Huron.

Over the course of the seventeenth century, the interpreters, as represented by Brûlé, would be trans- formed into the coureurs de bois—the “runners of the woods” or “bushlopers,” as the English often called them. These men would be responsible for most of the constantly broadening geographical knowledge of the North American continent. Their desire was less to improve cartography than to exploit new sources of wealth, particularly furs, and above all to enjoy an adventurous life in the woods. Whether or not these wilderness bravoes became completely assimilated into First Nations life and culture (some did), they all learned skills from the Aboriginals that made them cru- cial figures in the economy of New France. Marine skills like sighting latitude or reading the surface of the water were replaced by the ability to live off the land, to pad- dle a canoe for long distances with few breaks, to hunt animals for food, and of course to communicate success- fully with a local First Nations population, not merely at the level of language but at one of genuine empathy. These inland explorers travelled in exposed parties and had no defensive structure such as a ship to protect them from attack. They lived by their wits and had to be constantly adaptable. They made splendid guerrilla warriors when Europe moved into warfare for control of the continent.

When the Iroquois were temporarily cowed by the Carignan-Salières Regiment at the end of the 1660s, the southern Great Lakes were opened to both the coureurs de bois and the Jesuits. For the fur traders, wrote Nicholas Perrot—one of their number—“it was a Peril.” By the early 1670s the First Nations had pro- vided enough information that the French were able to construct a fairly accurate map of the region, but they still did not know the ultimate destination of the great river that ran south from the lakes. Early in 1672 Louis Jolliet was chosen by Intendant Talon to answer this question, and he headed west with orders for Father Jacques Marquette to join his expedition “to seek . . . new nations that are unknown to us, to teach them to know our great God.” The two men set out in May 1673 from

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82 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Michilimackinac, asking directions of local Aboriginal peoples as they proceeded. When they finally found themselves unable to communicate with the locals— somewhere around the present boundary of Arkansas and Louisiana—the Frenchmen decided they had seen enough. Having ascertained that the river they were following flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, which they thought was close by (in fact, it was still some 1,100 kilo- metres away), they turned back.

The follow-up to this expedition was led by René- Robert Cavelier de La Salle, a scapegrace son of a wealthy Rouen family who, although without much wilderness experience, had received an authorization from Louis XIV in 1677 to explore the American interior. Finally reaching the mouth of the great river early in 1682,

La Salle took possession of the country in a splendid cere- mony on 9 April of that year. According to its chronicler, “the whole party, under arms, chanted the Te Deum, the Exaudiat, the Domine salvum fac Regem; and then, after a salute of firearms and cries of Vive le Roi . . . and with a loud voice in French” made his proclamation, to which the whole assembly responded with shouts of “Vive le roi!” and salutes of firearms. La Salle went on to establish a French colony in Louisiana, but he was murdered by a colleague with a personal grudge against him. Although his contemporaries saw him as a man who mixed “great defects and great virtues,” nineteenth-century histor- ians in both the United States and Canada turned him into the quintessential western explorer. His overblown reputation has been much demolished in recent years.

Early untitled map showing rivers flowing into marine waters north of Churchill Fort; drawn c. 1716–17 either by Chipewyan informants themselves or from their reports by James Knight of the HBC. Inset is a modern map of the same territory (based on June Helm, “Matonabbee’s Map,” Arctic Anthropology 26, 2 [1989]). River A is the Coppermine; B is the Back; C is probably the Thelon; and D is the Thlewiaze. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Archives of Manitoba, G.1/19.

Victoria Island

South- hampton

Island

Boothia Peninsula

Melville Peninsula

Saskatchewan Manitoba

District of Keewatin

a b

District of Mackenzie

Churchill (Prince of Wales’s Fort)

Hudson Bay

Wager Bay Ba ck

R.Copperm ine R.

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833 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

As Canadian schoolchildren are only too pain- fully aware, there were a good many overland explor- ers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some of whom have had automobiles and hotel chains named after them. While most Canadians could, if pressed, name one or two of these explorers, it is very doubtful whether they could offer the name of a single compar- able First Nations explorer. Does this mean that the First Nations did not do any travelling in North America? Of course not. The Native geographical knowledge of the continent—much of which predated the arrival of the Europeans, who relied very heavily on it—has been ignored by most writers on exploration. The First Nations became part of the fuzzy background rather than the sharply focused foreground. Historians of exploration have long known of the great assistance provided by the First Nations in the “discoveries” of the Europeans. The Aboriginals provided much geograph- ical information—even maps—and typically served as guides, interpreters, and canoe paddlers.

The Pays d’en Haut The constant quest for furs also drove Canada inexor- ably westward into the pays d’en haut, where some sort of satisfactory relationship had to be worked out with the First Nations. The upper country was the territory upriver from Montreal, beginning beyond Huronia and stretching through the Great Lakes and then south to Louisiana. This territory was claimed by the French by right of exploration and usage. It was originally an important fur-trading region, inhabited almost exclu- sively by Aboriginals who were mainly Algonquian speakers. Many of the traditional Native groups of the region had been joined by those fleeing westward from the Iroquois in the seventeenth century. These refugees re-established themselves in the country between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes and extending to the west of Lake Michigan. This area had been reduced in population by the Iroquois. The expansion of the fur trade could continue only as far as the western country of the Sioux, another military people. The French had come to serve as the glue that held the First Nations com- munities together, and especially after the Great Peace

of 1701, relationships between the Native peoples and the French were carefully orchestrated. Casual liaisons between fur traders and Native women were regularized into formal marriages, accepted by the missionaries although opposed by the authorities in Canada as lead- ing to licentious and independent mixed-blood children who might disrupt the trade. Central to the working relationship of alliances was the exchange of gifts. The authorities in France sought to minimize the expense of gift-giving, but for the First Nations gifts had a great symbolic value beyond the material cost of the goods involved. Gradually after 1700 a number of permanent communities began to develop in the Illinois Country, and in 1717 the French government annexed Illinois to Louisiana under the Coutume de Paris. A year later, a civil government for the region was established by decree from Paris.

Lower Louisiana Louisiana was named in 1682 in honour of Louis XIV by the French explorer La Salle. Its territory at its greatest extent incorporated much of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River, running north–south from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and east–west from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rockies. There were two main areas of settlement: the Illinois Country (Haute Louisiana) and Lower Louisiana, centred on Biloxi, New Orleans, and Mobile. Canadian history tends to lose sight of these colonies, because they ceased to remain within the Canadian ambit, but before 1763 they were definitely a part of New France and cannot be ignored.

Lower Louisiana was first settled in 1699 by Pierre le Moyne d’Iberville, who established a trading settle- ment at Fort Biloxi. Two years later another settlement was founded on the west side of the Mobile River, later moving to the river’s mouth at Mobile. In 1712 the French financier and tax-farmer Antoine Crozat (1655–1738) was given a 15-year trading monopoly in the region, in return for which he was responsible for the territory’s settlement (although not its government). Crozat spent his money searching for mineral wealth, bowing out of the picture without any real accomplishments except the establishment of a few colonists. The territory then

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84 A History of the Canadian Peoples

got into the hands of the Scottish economist John Law, who consolidated the region’s trade into the Mississippi Company, thus creating a speculative empire that rose to great heights and fell equally rapidly in 1720. This occurred at the same time as Britain’s “South Sea Bubble,” brought on when the management of the over-invested South Sea Company sold their shares in the company, which triggered a rush by many smaller investors to sell and caused the bubble to burst. Between 1719 and 1720 Law sent a large contingent of settlers to the terri- tory, and after the collapse of the “Mississippi Bubble” these colonists began importing African slaves to serve as a labour force on their plantations. In 1724 the Code Noir was extended to Louisiana, which reverted to the Crown in 1731. The colony fashioned a successful plan- tation economy amid much infighting among a number of religious and imperial factions. Lower Louisiana was a drain on the French treasury, costing up to 800,000 livres a year, but along with Upper Louisiana it suc- ceeded in encircling the English colonies, holding them along the eastern seaboard for the first half of the eight- eenth century.

Upper Louisiana Upper Louisiana consisted of two sorts of commun- ities. Some grew up around forts, the largest of which was Fort Michilimackinac, where a permanent popu- lation of several hundred became much larger in the summer. Located on the southern shore of the Straits of Mackinac, connecting Lakes Huron and Michigan, it was founded by the French in 1715 along the key fur trade route into the interior. Most communities were fur-trade towns catering mainly to local Aboriginal populations. One such community was Kaskaskia, a town in what is now the state of Illinois, adjacent to the rich bottom land of the Mississippi Valley. A hand- ful of French traders and their wives settled there at a Jesuit mission established in 1703. French and Native residents planted together in the fields, and the crops were abundant. The village of Kaskaskia developed its own local government, with most business conducted in assemblies held in front of the church after mass. Much the same system grew up in Acadia, with which

the Illinois Country could be usefully be compared, although no study has yet been attempted.

The village itself consisted of a central church sur- rounded by roughly 80 houses in the Canadian style but with the addition of a “galerie” (porch) extending around several sides of the house. Most of the houses had three rooms and a stone fireplace. By 1752 a regional census counted livestock, including more than 600 cattle and around 500 horses. Over 130 arpents of land were under cultivation, and most households had at least one slave. The male householders practised a variety of trades, including toolmakers, joiners, car- penters, masons, gunsmiths, blacksmiths, and even a wig-maker. The community also served as a base for transient voyageurs who traded in the interior. The 1752 census showed a total population for the commun- ities of Kaskaskia, Fort de Chartres, St Philippe, Port du Rocher, Cahokia, and Ste Genevieve of approximately 1,000 Europeans, more than 500 blacks, and several hundred Native people, not counting the 300 soldiers in garrison at several locations.

Beyond the Formal Empires: Hudson Bay and the Prairies On 2 May 1670, as a result of negotiations with Pierre Radisson and his brother-in-law, Groseilliers, a group of English merchants who had sent two ships to Hudson Bay in 1668 founded, by royal charter, a formal trading company, The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson Bay, usually called the Hudson’s Bay Company, which received title to the entire drainage basin of Hudson Bay—some 40 per cent of modern Canada. From this date to 1713, the French and the British had vied for supremacy in the region, but the French had relinquished their claims in the Treaty of Utrecht.

Although the English had been trading furs from 1670, they had showed little interest in moving much beyond their posts at the edge of the Bay. By the first third of the eighteenth century, the pattern of trade between

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853 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

the Bay posts and their Aboriginal trappers had settled into its own routine with its own customs and traditions. The fur-trading system that the Hudson’s Bay Company developed at the bottom of the Bay was highly institu- tionalized and ritualized. Ritualization reflected the Aboriginal desire for ceremony as part of a gift-giving and gift-exchange arrangement that carried on prac- tices probably begun long before the Europeans had arrived. The complex trading ceremony began when the Aboriginal trading parties arrived at the trading post, led by their trading captain. Whether trading captains had existed before the arrival of the Europeans is not clear. The position probably reflected the new demands of the fur trade. At the height of the system’s prominence, in the mid-eighteenth century, many captains would be given red military coats (the “captain’s outfit”) as a mark of their status. They also got other gifts, most of which would be subsequently distributed among their follow- ers. The trading captain had little real power among his fellows, but he knew how to speak ceremonially with the European traders and how the system worked so that his people would not be totally out-traded.

The ritual began with the smoking of the peace pipe or calumet before the beginning of trade. The captain would “harangue” the traders, emphasizing how hard his people had worked, how far they had come, how much they loved the English, how much they wanted to be treated fairly. One such speech was recorded by James Isham in 1743:

You told me last year to bring many Indians; you See I have not lyd; here is a great many young men Come with me; use them Kindly! use them Kindly, I say! give them good goods; give them good goods, I say! we Lived hard Last winter and in want, the powder being short measure and bad, I say! tell your Servants to fill the measure and not to put their fingers within the Brim; take pity of us; take pity of us, I say! we Come a Long way to See you; the French sends for us but we will not hear; we Love the English . . . . (Rich, 1949)

The captain would then make a gift of furs to the factor based on a levy against his people. The HBC factor

would respond by stating how much the English loved the Aboriginals, how generous they would be, and how necessary it was for the Aboriginal people to trade only with them. The factor would then return the cap- tain’s gift, usually in the form of brandy and tobacco. Tobacco was one commodity in which the English had the advantage over the French, because of their access to the Brazilian tobacco—“of the Sweetest Smell and of a Small Role about the size of a man’s little finger” that was “moist and hard twisted”—preferred by the Aboriginal traders. Both of these commodities could be and usually were adulterated. Then, with the cap- tain looking on from inside the warehouse, the trade would be conducted with each individual Native trader through a “hole-in-the-wall” or open window. Native wants were fairly limited given the semi-nomadic way of life of the bands. After the trading was completed, the captain would distribute the gifts he had received to his fellows, and a feast would be held. Then the Aboriginal people would go away for another year. Increasing com- petition from the French to the south after the 1730s led to political attacks on the Hudson’s Bay Company for its lack of activity, and a parliamentary inquiry in 1749 was highly critical of the “sleep by the Frozen Sea.” But little changed until after the end of the French wars.

Beginning in 1716 the French resumed their quest for the “Western Sea,” a search overland for an equiva- lent to the Northwest Passage. This Western Sea was also known as the Pacific and the Southern Sea, and was believed by some to be connected to Hudson Bay by the Strait of Anian, an imagined extension of the Northwest Passage. After 1731 the French in Canada began a policy of occupying the fur region of the North-West by the establishment of a line of “forts”—more like primi- tive trading posts—northwest of Lake Superior. Many of these forts were established by various members of the La Vérendrye family, headed by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Vérendrye (1685–1749). Pierre had been born in Trois-Rivières, the son of a lieutenant in the Carignan-Salières Regiment brought to Canada in 1666 who had received a seigneury in the new coun- try. Pierre had fought in the French army at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709 and was seriously wounded. He then retired to his seigneury on the Île aux Vaches. But like most Canadians, he dabbled in the fur trade. In 1728

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86 A History of the Canadian Peoples

la Vérendrye sent the government in Canada a mem- oir describing the information he had gathered from Aboriginal informants about the Sea of the West, and included a map. He concluded by proposing to establish a trading post on the shores of Lake Winnipeg as a base for further western exploration. The French govern- ment consulted Father Charlevoix, who was quite skep- tical of the value to exploration of such a post, which “might degenerate into a mere business of fur trading” (Charlevoix, 1866: vol. 4).

The Minister of Marine decided to focus directly on the search for the Western Sea rather than on the expan- sion of the fur trade, but it was, of course, nearly impos-

sible to explore the region without becoming involved in trade. The government at Versailles did not provide enough money to finance fully an expedition, and La Vérendrye found the remaining money by trading in furs. Whether La Vérendrye was serious about explor- ation or merely used it as a cloak for his trading is not clear, but in any event, over the next few years he and his family established a number of trading posts (the “Posts of the West”) on the lakes and rivers of what is now Manitoba and in adjoining Ontario. In 1734 the first prairie post, Fort Maurepas, was built. The precise location of most of these forts is unknown. The only one of these posts of which we know the exact location

The heart of the fur trade was the beaver. Stretched

on racks into spherical or ovoid shapes, beaver skins

would be left to dry in the sun. While an adult bea-

ver provided 20 to 30 kilograms of fatty meat, bones,

claws, and teeth that could be used as food, tools,

and as decorative objects—as well as the salicin-rich

castoreum sac—the fur provided the greatest trade

value to the First Nations and European trappers who

pursued them. Parchment beaver was the most basic

unit of that material, and is a suitable starting point

for any discussion of the trade. Also known as cas-

tor sec (dry beaver), when stretched, the pelts would

typically range from 50 to 70 centimetres in diameter

and contain between 12,000 and 23,000 hairs per

square centimetre (Coles, 2006: 54). The density of

the double-layered hairs with long overcoat and soft

undercoat meant that these furs were both warm and

waterproof. As such, they were used by many First

Nations groups as a clothing material, typically worn

with the fur inside, rubbing against the skin of the

wearer, keeping the wearer dry and insulating him or

her against the cold. Andrew Graham, writing while

chief factor of York Factory in 1771–2, described a

typical First Nations (probably Cree) man’s outfit as

follows:

The dress of the men consists of a close

jacket of moose or deerskins finely

dressed. . . . Over this in winter they wear

another made of deer, or beaver skins, with

the hair on, but the sleeves are not joined to

the body. . . . Over this is thrown a blanket or

garment made of deer, otter or beaver skins;

it is only tied over the shoulders and hands

loose, being in the day part of the clothing,

and at night covers them while they sleep

. . . in very cold weather they use mittens

made of beaver skins. . . . a piece of beaver

or hare skin, or cloth, is put under the chin

and reaches to the back of the head where it

is tied; this is only used in winter to preserve

those parts from freezing. (Williams, 1969:

145–6)

Graham goes on to detail what Cree women

wore, stating that “the outer garments are the same

in both [sexes]” (Williams, 1969: 149). Over extended

Material Culture The Beaver Skin

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873 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

periods of use, the outer garments would gradually

lose their long guard hairs to friction and absorb

increasing amounts of the sweat of their owners.

Consequently, these would be replaced, presumably

because the long hairs were worn away and the coat

itself stank. These used coats were known in the trade

as castor gras (greasy beaver), coat beaver, or made

beaver: a pelt with most if not all of its guard hairs

gone and a hide soft from being soaked in human

sweat. Almost all types of fur were welcomed at the

trading post, because, as Susan Sleeper-Smith (2009:

xxv) points out, “Furs were highly transportable,

required no capital investment in either people or

land, and possessed a global receptivity both as a raw

material and a finished good.” But the used garments,

classed by the Europeans as beaver robes, were the

most welcome at the posts. The lack of guard hairs

and the pliability of the hide made it easier for the

undercoat to be removed. It was the undercoat that

was coveted by the felters of Europe, and this market,

and the desire for hats made of such material, motiv-

ated the pursuit of beaver. Regardless of the material

used, beaver was such an important part of that pro-

cess that the hats themselves were referred to as bea-

vers, or castors.

With this demand in mind, beaver came to play

such an important role in the fur trade that made

beaver, referred to as MB, became the standard of

exchange for the Hudson’s Bay Company, function-

ally the currency of the posts.

As a result, the object biography of even the mean-

est beaver skin was very complex. From the back of

the living creature it moved from clothing material, to

currency, to trade good, and back to clothing material.

Beaver skins played an important role in the expansion of Europeans into the West. In turn, they also played an important role in European material culture. © Ken Gillespie Photography/ First Light/Corbis

was Fort Saint-Charles, built in what is now the North West Angle inlet on American territory southeast of Lake of the Woods. At least one source claims that Fort Maurepas was near the outlet of the Winnipeg River. By 1735 these posts were providing half of the total value of furs for the colony of Canada.

La Vérendrye had been forced by the government of Canada after 1736 to devote his full time to discovery. In 1738 he established a new fort commonly known as Fort La Reine, probably at what is now Portage la Prairie, and ostentatiously headed west with an exploration party that ended up meeting with the Mandans somewhere on the Missouri River. He would subsequently dispatch

some of his sons to pursue further exploration between the Missouri and the Cheyenne River, but these forays, while providing much new geographical information about the western prairies, brought no news or sighting of the Western Sea. La Vérendrye insisted that he had been assiduous in the search for the Western Sea, claiming that he had been prevented only by a series of unfortunate accidents from achieving his goal. But clearly he financed his operations by trading extensively in furs, and, equally clearly, he was generous in his gifts to the Aboriginal people with whom he traded. Whatever his ultimate pur- pose, he had succeeded in winning for France the friend- ship of the Aboriginal peoples of the region.

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88 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Acadia and Nova Scotia Acadia, an ill-defined geographical region that included more than peninsular Nova Scotia, had been contested ground between the British and the French since the early days of European settlement. Returned to France in 1670, Acadia and especially the village of Port-Royal often were attacked by New Englanders. Port-Royal, which was considered by its British neighbours to be “a Nest of Privateers & a Dunkirk to New England” (Dummer 1825 [1709]) was captured in 1690 by an expedition of seven vessels and a “foot regiment” of 450 New Englanders, but it was returned to France by the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. New England failed to take Port-Royal in 1707 with a much larger force. When the remaining members of the 1,000-man, 23-transport-ship force returned to Connecticut, they were met by a num- ber of jeering women. According to the Governor of the colony, John Winthrop, the women presented the men with “a great wooden sword, and said wthall ’Fie, for Shame. pull off those iron spits wch hang by yor sides, for wooden ones is all the fashion now’” (Winthrop 1889 [1707]) after which the women encouraged those who lived along the road to pour their chamber pots on the returning soldiers. Though they were successful in a later attempt in 1710, the humiliation of the 1707 defeat remained in the collective memory of New Englanders.

Nobody except the French wanted the Acadians removed, so they were tacitly allowed to remain in Nova Scotia on sufferance. Questions such as their land, lan- guage, and religious rights, as well as their political and military obligations to the new rulers, were unresolved. The government of Nova Scotia dealt with the Acadians on an ad hoc basis, accepting their insistence on political neutrality and failing to exercise much authority within the Acadian community. The Acadians were neither the first nor the last group to translate unofficial tolerance born of irresolution into enshrined “rights.” The dealings of the Nova Scotian authorities with the Acadians on the question of loyalty before 1740 were never authorized in London, but they led the Acadians to believe that they had an understanding. Unfortunately for the French population of Nova Scotia, their loyalties were tested

constantly by the French, who had begun after 1720 to construct a fortress at Louisbourg on the southeastern coast of Île-Royale.

The British capture of Louisbourg in 1745 and its return in 1748 had several important effects in Nova Scotia. One was to encourage the British to counter Louisbourg with some military settling of their own. Another was to turn the attention of the local author- ities to the Acadians. The Nova Scotia Council in 1745 declared of the Acadians that “if they are not abso- lutely to be regarded as utter Enemies to His Majesty’s Government they cannot be accounted less than unprofitable Inhabitants for their conditional Oath of Allegiance will not entitle them to the Confidence and Privileges of Natural British Subjects” (Library and Archives Canada, 1745: A27). British settlement and Acadian removal were commonly coupled in the minds of British officials on both sides of the Atlantic. With the founding of Halifax, a sequence of events was set in motion that would result in the forcible expulsion of 6,000 Acadian residents from the colony.

The decision of the British government to use the public purse to populate a British colony—the first time Britain had done so in America and at a cost of more than £600,000 between 1749 and 1764—marked a new British interest in the Atlantic region. In 1749 Britain recruited some 2,500 people, including soldiers and sailors recently disbanded and some London artisans, and shipped them to Nova Scotia. They arrived to find huts, tents, and primitive conditions. The new governor, Lord Edward Cornwallis (1713–76), complained that most of the new arrivals were “poor idle worthless vagabonds” (quoted in Bell, 1990: 344n). The British government soon sought a new source of more reliable settlers, turning to “foreign Protestants” from Switzerland, France, and Germany. It employed as recruiting agent the young Scotsman John Dick (d. 1804), who was empowered by the Board of Trade over the winter of 1749–50 to recruit up to 1,500 “foreign Protestants,” who would receive land, a year’s subsistence, arms, and tools, but not free transporta- tion. Dick protested that free passage would be the main inducement, but he managed to fill the order. There were again complaints about the recruits, who were labelled “in general old miserable wretches” (Bell, 1990: 344n). In the end Dick sent over 2,700 Germans and Swiss, many

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893 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

Bahamas (B)

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European possessions in North America after the peace of Utrecht (1713).

901491_03_Ch03.indd 89 12/23/15 4:45 PM

90 A History of the Canadian Peoples

. . . on the 15th [of June 1745] a squadron of six

warships from London reached the English. These,

together with the frigates, cruised about in view of

the town without firing a single shot. We have, how-

ever, since learned that if we had delayed capitulating,

all the vessels would have brought their broadsides

to bear upon us and we should have had to undergo

a most vigorous fire. Their arrangements were not

unknown. . . . The siege of Louisbourg . . . notwith-

standing our fortifications, would not have lasted

so long had we been attacked by an enemy better

versed in the art of war. No complaint can be made

of the settlers, who served with the same precision

as did the troops themselves, and had to bear the

greatest fatigues. The regular soldiers were distrusted

so that it was necessary to charge the inhabitants

with the most dangerous duties. Children, ten and

twelve years old, carried arms, and were to be seen

on the ramparts, exposing themselves with a cour-

age beyond their years. Our loss scarcely reached

one hundred and thirty men, and it is certain that

that of the English was more than two thousand. Yet

their force was so great that for them this loss was

inconsiderable. They had, at disembarking, as many

as from eight to nine thousand men. We should have

done more injury if we had been able to make sorties.

I have told the causes which prevented our doing this.

The bombs and bullets of the enemy caused fright-

ful desolation in our poor town; most of our houses

were demolished, and we were obliged to remove

the floor from the general magazine to expose it to

the weather in the King’s garden; we feared that it

might be burned by the enemy, as most of the bombs

fell upon this magazine. More than three thousand

five hundred must have been fired against us. I do not

know exactly how much flour remained to us still,

but I know that there was a large quantity, and there

were other provisions in proportion. These, however,

could not take the place of the munitions of war,

which were absolutely exhausted. We had no more

bombs, and if we had had any they would have been

perfectly useless, for our mortars had cracked, after

some shots had been fired. All misfortunes were ours

at once.

The Capture of Louisbourg, 1745

Source: G.M. Wrong, ed., Louisbourg in 1745: The Anonymous Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg (New York, 1897),

64–8.

of the latter actually French Huguenots from Lorraine. These immigrants were mainly farmers and skilled labourers. Uncertainty over land titles confined them to shantytown Halifax until the Nova Scotia government determined to remove them to a site 50 miles (80 km) west of Halifax, renamed Lunenburg. There they reset- tled, an unhappy crowd that was “inconceivably turbu-

lent, I might have said mutinous,” according to the officer in charge of the relocation, Major Charles Lawrence (c. 1709–60) (Bell, 1990: 435).

The settlement of Halifax was only one of a series of new pressures brought upon the province’s Acadians. The French were reinforcing Louisbourg and construct- ing new forts (Fort Beauséjour and Fort Gaspéreau) on

The capture of Louisbourg by New England militiamen in 1745 was one of the great military success stories of the colonial wars. The following is part of the explanation for the capitulation of the supposedly impregnable fortress given by an anonymous resident of the town.

Contemporary Views

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913 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

After 1713 the French had turned their attention to

Île-Royale, and particularly to building a large fort-

ress at Louisbourg on the southeastern coast. In

1716 Louisbourg contained about 600 people,

mainly fishermen brought there from Plaisance in

Newfoundland, which had been evacuated. After

1720 it grew rapidly as the French government for-

tified the town, garrisoned it, and employed it as the

military and economic nerve centre of the Atlantic

region. By 1734 the townsite—four east–west streets

on about 100 acres—was surrounded by walls on

three sides, with impressive gates. The fortifications—

poorly located and poorly built—were never com-

pleted. Inside the walls were the huge and stately

King’s Bastion and barracks (the largest building in

New France), and numerous stone dwellings and

other structures. In the 1740s the Louisbourg popula-

tion was made up of 600 soldiers (increased to 3,500

in the 1750s) and some 2,000 administrators, clerks,

innkeepers, artisans, fishermen, and families.

We know a substantial amount about Louis-

bourg, much more than about Acadia, partly because

BACKGROUNDER Louisbourg

Louisbourg in 1734. Source: A.J.B. Johnston, Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg , 1713–1758 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001), xlii. Direction des Archives de France/Centre des Archives d’Outre-Mer.

Continued...

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92 A History of the Canadian Peoples

the disputed Chignecto Peninsula. The French also began encouraging the Acadians in Nova Scotia to remove to French territory, especially the previously neglected Île St-Jean, which grew to more than 2,000 residents by 1752. The bulk of Nova Scotia’s Acadians remained where they were, but after the renewal of

undeclared war in North America in 1754, the govern- ment of the colony decided to settle the question. In July 1755 the Executive Council of Nova Scotia summoned Acadian deputies into a meeting room in Halifax and informed them that conditional fealty was impos- sible. The Acadians must immediately take the oath of

as a fortress it generated a considerable volume of

records and partly because its reconstruction as a

National Historic Site has produced a minor industry

of subsidized historical research. Its complex urban

society—consisting of people who came from vari-

ous parts of France as well as from New France (see

Table 3.2)—was heavily subsidized by the Crown and

included a wide variety of tradesmen and a sub-

stantial servant-keeping class, headed by 20 mer-

chants. Always a major fishing port, serving as the

centre of the French fishery after the surrender of

Plaisance in 1713, Louisbourg in its prime was also

an important naval station harbouring French war-

ships as well as fishing vessels. Since its hinterland

was completely undeveloped, supplies had to be

imported from afar: from Canada, France, Acadia,

and New England. The Yankees even supplied much

of the building material for its fortifications, which

cost 5 million livres.

By the time open warfare was resumed between

Great Britain and France on 27 April 1744, Louisbourg

had become a major military and commercial

entrepôt in northern North America. The fortress was

attacked in 1745 by a joint Anglo–American force

under the command of Sir William Pepperell and Sir

Peter Warren. Weakened by bad garrison morale that

led to mutiny earlier in the winter of 1744–5, the fort-

ress surrendered after only token resistance, leaving

the victors to squabble over credit for the success.

The fortress was returned to France in 1748 at the

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in exchange for Madras in

India, but despite considerable reinforcement of for-

tifications and garrison in the 1750s, it fell quickly to

the British again in 1758.

Table 3.2 Origins of the Habitants of Louisbourg

1724 1726 1734

No. % No. % No. %

New France 18 16.8 25 16.3 31 21.2

Normandy/Brittany 16 15.0 31 20.3 28 19.2

Southwest France 12 11.2 18 11.8 16 11.0

West France 29 27.1 36 23.5 24 16.4

Île de France 10 9.4 14 9.2 11 7.5

France (elsewhere) 21 19.6 25 16.3 27 18.5

Foreign 1 0.9 4 2.6 9 6.2

Total 107 100 153 100 146 100

Source: Adapted from A.J.B. Johnston, Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg, 1713–1758 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001), xlii.

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933 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

allegiance in its common form. The Acadian represent- atives temporized overnight. When they were told that if they refused to take an unconditional oath, “effectual Measures” would be taken “to remove all such Recusants out of the Province,” some offered to concede (Akins, 1869: 259–60). The council then refused to administer the oath, however, saying “that as there was no reason to hope their proposed Compliance proceeded from an honest Mind, and could be esteemed only the Effect of Compulsion and Force, they could not now be indulged with such Permission” (Akins, 1869: 259–60). A classic confrontation between the civic inflexibility of the state and a collective minority demanding special treatment was in the closing stages of resolution. The council decided not only to expel the Acadians but to distribute them to several British colonies in the south.

More than 6,000 Acadians were summarily rounded up in the late summer and early autumn of

1755 by the British military and transported by ship to the south. There was little resistance, although many escaped to the woods and headed for French territory or to the uninhabited north. The Acadians were not received with great enthusiasm in the British colonies, which had not been warned to expect them, and many eventually returned to the province. The British govern- ment never commented on the action of the Nova Scotia government, which it had never authorized, except to note that the colony had regarded it as “indispens- ably necessary for the Security and protection of the Province” (quoted in Brebner, 1927: 230). As for those who did escape to the French, after the British forced the surrender of Louisbourg in July 1758 another expulsion began. A further 6,000 Acadians, including 3,500 on Île St-Jean, were summarily rounded up by the British mil- itary and sent back to France. A storm at sea destroyed many of the vessels carrying the Acadians, and perhaps as many as half of them drowned. The British never succeeded in eliminating the French presence from the region, however. Many Acadians escaped into the bush, others returned from their exile. What the expulsion did accomplish was to remove the Acadians from their traditional lands and force them to the unsettled mar- gins of the Maritime colonies.

The founding of Halifax also had a substantial impact on the 1,000 Mi’kmaq remaining in the colony. The Mi’kmaq had attempted to pursue their own best interests during the years of warfare between the French and the English. They understood that British concepts of landownership and settlement were disastrous to them. As a result they declared war against the British in 1749 and were met with a policy of extermination ordered by Lord Cornwallis. A final peace treaty with the Mi’kmaq in 1761 did not deal with land rights. No longer a military threat, the Aboriginal people would soon cease to be regarded as important in the colony.

In the wake of the final conquest of Louisbourg, the Nova Scotia government in October 1758 sent out adver- tisements to New England, offering to those who would settle in the colony free land, free transportation to it, and initial assistance in the form of food and tools. A few days before these advertisements were published, a legislative assembly—the first widely elected governing body in what is now Canada—met in Halifax. Nova

The Porte Dauphine, the entrance to the reconstructed Louisbourg, with the clock tower of the King’s Bastion and barracks in the distance. © Parks Canada / Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site.

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94 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Scotia was now a full-fledged British colony, the four- teenth mainland colony in Britain’s North American empire. This point had been reached with brutal meas- ures that were characteristic of the age.

The First Three Anglo–French Wars Although sporadic warfare had occurred in North America since the earliest settlements, a protracted struggle for the continent between the European imper- ial powers—in which the First Nations were important players—began only in 1689. North American hostil- ities had their own dynamic, although they were always associated with the larger international rivalries of the mother countries. There were four wars. The first three were the War of the League of Augsburg (1689–97), set- tled by the Treaty of Ryswick; the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13), settled by the Treaty of Utrecht; and the War of the Austrian Succession (1744–8), settled by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The North American aspects of these first three wars shared a good deal in common. The North American fighting in these con- flicts was conducted mainly by the colonists themselves employing their own military methods. Occasionally, the mother country would undertake a brief initiative, usually disastrous. Much of the fighting occurred in the backcountry and along the frontier. Such conflict involved the First Nations, who joined the battles for reasons of their own.

The strategy of the French was to send out raiding parties on land and sea to keep the British colonies dis- united and off balance. The French hoped that the British would not be able to utilize their superior manpower, resources, and command of the sea (the British con- trolled the Atlantic for all but brief periods throughout these wars) to invade and capture French territory. The British unsuccessfully—and disastrously—attempted to invade the St Lawrence in the first two wars. In the War of the League of Augsburg (also known as King William’s War), an expedition under Sir William Phips in 1690 captured Port-Royal, and Phips followed this up

later that year with an attempted invasion of Quebec. Thirty-two vessels brought 2,300 English colonist volun- teers—ill-trained and ill-equipped—up the St Lawrence. As the flotilla reached Quebec, smallpox struck and the ice closed in. Hundreds of Canadian farmers swarmed to the fortress from the countryside, and with the militia at his back, Governor Frontenac responded to a demand for surrender with the rejoinder, “I have no reply to make to your general other than from the mouths of my can- non and muskets.” The invaders were quickly sent pack- ing. In the War of the Spanish Succession (Queen Anne’s War), a large force of New England militiamen were turned back in 1707 from Port-Royal. They were greeted on their return to Boston with the contents of cham- ber pots. A much larger English invading army, partly marching overland along Lake Champlain and partly transported in 14 ships of the line and 31 transports, was again turned back at Quebec. This war saw the most notorious of colonial raids, on Deerfield, Massachusetts, which led to the capture of Eunice Williams, the seven- year-old daughter of the village’s Puritan minister. She was adopted by her Native captors, and later stubbornly refused to return to her people. She married a Mohawk, and although she visited her family several times over the years, she died in Caughnawaga, Quebec, in 1785, the best known of a number of European captives who preferred to remain with the First Peoples.

This war ended with the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, in which France surrendered much North American ter- ritory. It renounced all claims to Newfoundland except for a few fishing rights and the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon, which were returned to France as a refuge for exiled Acadians. At the same time, most of Acadia and all claims to the Hudson Bay territory were granted to the British. In addition, France agreed to Clause XV: “The Subjects of France inhabiting Canada shall hereafter give no Hindrance or Molestation to the Five Nations or Cantons of Indians subject to the Dominion of Great Britain nor to the other natives of America who are Friends to the same.”

In the War of the Austrian Succession, New England troops and British naval forces captured Louisbourg in 1745, leading to the dispatch of a major French fleet to North America in 1746. The fleet met bad weather and

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953 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

experienced epidemic disease, limping back to France without ever engaging the enemy. France hoped to make sufficient military gains around the world so that any territory lost in North America would be returned in the peace treaty. This strategy was not always successful. In 1713 it was forced to give up Acadia and its claims

to Newfoundland, although in 1697 and 1748 it surren- dered nothing of substance in North America. Neither mother country considered the North American theatre anything but a sideshow most of the time until the 1750s, when the British, after settling Nova Scotia at govern- ment expense, decided to take the New World seriously.

After years of relative military inaction, based on a

defensive strategy for North America, the French

government in late 1745 stirred itself finally to

respond to the British seizure of the fortified fort-

ress of Louisbourg in late June of 1745. The task

of restoring French supremacy fell to the navy, a

military arm that had been long neglected and

underfunded, with an over-age officer corps, too

few ships, and inadequate armaments. Command

was given to Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Frédéric de la

Rochfoucauld de Roye, duc d’Enville, a man with-

out naval experience and only limited military back-

ground, but with the best of family connections. The

government, under the direction of the comte de

Maurepas, assembled in the early months of 1746

a massive expedition of more than 15 warships (in

bad shape and ill-equipped), 45 troop carriers and

support vessels, and almost 11,000 soldiers and sail-

ors. Maurepas managed to put this force together

despite grave financial shortages and a number of

other problems, including a shortage of available

seamen. The fleet departed in late June, choosing

a safer southern route to America that added thou-

sands of miles to the voyage, which was undertaken

with considerable sickness (probably a combination

of typhus and typhoid fever) and shortage of pro-

visions (caused chiefly by unfit supplies), and com-

plicated by the appearance of a great storm off the

American coast.

Crippled, the expedition sailed into the harbour at

Chibouctou, but without most of its warships, which

remained lost for days. The commandant, who had

been ill for months, promptly died. His replacement,

Constantine-Louis, commandeur d’Estourmel, was ill

and unprepared for command. On 30 September he

told fellow officers, “There is too much to be done.

For me all is lost. We shall not succeed.” Soon after, he

attempted suicide, apparently by falling on his sword,

was unsuccessful, and resigned his command to the

Marquis de la Jonquière, a capable man who soon

realized the extent of the disaster that had befallen

the expedition. A statement of the state of the force

dated 13 October recorded that of 7,004 seamen and

infantry, 603 were dead, 1,478 unfit, and 782 conva-

lescent (for a total of 2,861, or 40 per cent of the force

out of action). English estimates were even higher. An

attack on Annapolis Royal was withdrawn and the

fleet limped back to France. The disaster had little

immediate result; it was partially balanced by victor-

ies in the Low Countries in 1747, which made it pos-

sible for the peace treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748

to restore matters to their pre-war status. But in 1749

the British made a major settlement in Chibouctou,

while the French returned to their defensive thinking.

BACKGROUNDER The French Naval Expedition of 1746

Source: J.S. Pritchard, Anatomy of a Naval Disaster: The 1746 French Expedition to North America (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s

University Press, 1998).

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96 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The Seven Years War Officially, the Seven Years War began in 1756 in Europe, although the North American contestants had been engaged in open conflict for several years. In 1754, a desperate struggle between the British and the French for the allegiance of the Aboriginal peoples in the Ohio Valley and for sovereignty over the region came to a head. The French had tried to assert their claim in 1749 by sending a military expedition, led by Pierre-Joseph Céleron de Blainville (1693–1759), which planted lead tablets all along the Ohio and Allegheny rivers stating the French claims to the region. The French in 1752 and 1753 built military posts in the area. In the latter year the British sent George Washington with a small party to deliver a letter to the French commandant at one of the French posts, Fort Le Boeuf, claiming the Ohio Valley and requesting the French to leave. They refused. In turn, the British governor of Virginia was authorized to use force to expel the French. He sent Washington back a year later with a force of 159 men, backed by a party of Aboriginals, to establish a fort on

the Ohio. On the way, the expedition confronted a small French party of 30 men commanded by Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville (1718–54), who were travelling east to see whether Washington had entered what the French regarded as their territory. If he had, he was to be ordered formally to withdraw. Jumonville’s party was specifically ordered not to provoke trouble; he was on a diplomatic mission, not a military one.

On 28 May 1754, Washington and some of his men entered the French camp, which was not well guarded. In the course of the ensuing melee, Jumonville (who had been wounded) was dispatched in traditional Aboriginal fashion with a tomahawk by one of the warriors. “You are not yet dead, my father,” Tanacharison said to the wounded Frenchman in the ritual language of the time, and so he killed him (White, 1991: 241). Washington subsequently did his best to deny that Jumonville had been murdered, arguing that the French had hostile intentions—putting in jeopardy his reputation for never telling a lie. The incident led the French to send out a much larger force from Fort Duquesne, which in early July forced the Virginians to surrender. This surrender

A Relation of the Misfortunes of the French Neutrals, as

laid before the Assembly of the Province of Penn sylvania,

by John Baptiste Galerm, one of the said People.

. . . Almost numberless are the Instances which

might be given of the Abuses and Losses we have

undergone from the French Indians, on Account of

our steady Adhearance to our Oath of Fidelity: and

yet notwithstanding our strict Observance thereof,

we have not been able to prevent the grievous

Calamity which is now come upon us, which we

apprehend to be in a great Measure owing to the

unhappy Situation and Conduct of some of our

People settled at Chignecto, at the bottom of the Bay

of Fundi, where the French, about four Years ago,

erected a Fort; those of our People who were settled

near it, after having had many of their Settlements

burnt by the French; being too far from Halifax and

Annapolis Royal to expect sufficient Assistance

from the English, were obliged, as we believe, more

through Compulsion and Fear than Inclination, to

join with and assist the French. . . . As these People’s

Conduct had given just Umbrage to the Government

An Acadian Account of the Removal of 1755 Many of the Acadian exiles ended up in the colony of Pennsylvania, which in 1758 collected a number of their narratives, including the following.

Contemporary Views

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973 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

in turn led the British to dispatch two regiments under General Edward Braddock to America, and they were devastated at the Monongahela River in the early sum- mer of 1755. News of this defeat—war still not having formally been declared—contributed to the British deci- sion in Nova Scotia to expel the neutral Acadians from their province. Thus did the imperial struggle in the west impact the maritime region, demonstrating that however marginal these regions were, their domestic development was affected by larger events.

In the beginning, the French seemed to be doing well. They had destroyed General Braddock’s army of British regulars in 1755. On this occasion, the French tactics of ambush and guerrilla warfare easily tri- umphed over professional soldiers. A year later, under General Montcalm, they took 1,700 prisoners at the sur- render of the three forts associated with Fort Oswego (on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, known to the French as Fort Chouaguen). Hit-and-run raiders kept the American backcountry in a constant uproar along the Ohio frontier. General Montcalm and other French officers were not happy with the brutality of these mil-

itary actions. Given their naval weaknesses, however, the French needed to keep the British off balance to pre- vent a buildup of forces that would lead to an invasion.

In 1757 the French concentrated on New York as the major battlefield. Montcalm won several more nota- ble victories, putting the French in control of the lake route into Canada. But the British continued to pour men and supplies into North America. A year later, the British managed to force the surrender of the garrison at Fort Frontenac on the north shore of Lake Ontario. A sideshow in the Ohio region saw the British capture Fort Duquesne on the Ohio River. The British fur- ther increased the number of troops at their disposal, employing their naval superiority to besiege success- fully the exposed French fortress at Louisbourg in 1758. The French garrison held out just long enough to prevent the enemy from continuing on to an invasion of Quebec that same year, but the French were pulling back militar- ily. The situation in New France was becoming desper- ate. The government was unable to get reinforcements of men or fresh supplies, especially of arms and munitions, because the British controlled the sea. Moreover, the

and created Suspicions, to the Prejudice of our whole

Community, we were summoned to appear before

the Governor and Council at Halifax, where we

were required to take the Oath of Allegiance with-

out any Exception, which we could not comply with

because, as that Government is at present situate,

we apprehend that we should have been obliged

to take up Arms; but we are still willing to take the

Oath of Fidelity, and to give the strongest Assurance

of continuing peaceable and faithful to his Britannic

Majesty, with that Exception, But this, in the present

Situation of Affairs, not being satisfactory, we were

made Prisoners, and our Estates, both real and per-

sonal, forfeited for the King’s Use; and Vessels being

provided, we were some time after sent off, with

most of our Families, and dispersed amongst the

English Colonies. The Hurry and Confusion in which

we were embarked was an aggravating Circumstance

attending our Misfortunes; for thereby many, who

had lived in Affluence, found themselves deprived of

every Necessary, and many Families were separated,

Parents from Children, and Children from Parents.

—John Baptiste Galerm

Source: “Relation of the French Neutrals, 1758,” Pennsylvania Archives, 1758, First series, vol. 3, as reprinted in N.E.S.

Griffiths, The Acadian Deportation: Deliberate Perfidy or Cruel Necessity? (Toronto: Copp Clark, 1969), 151.

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98 A History of the Canadian Peoples

colony was in terrible shape financially, with runaway inflation. The civilian government and the military leadership were at constant loggerheads, and morale was very low.

At the beginning of 1759, the situation was very grave for New France. After more than a century and a half of successful struggle against the environment, First Nations enemies, French neglect, and British hos- tility, the Canadians had their backs to the wall. The Acadians had been forcibly removed from Nova Scotia and Louisbourg had been captured. A series of power- ful British armies, backed by a wealthy government determined to win, was gathering for the invasion of the St Lawrence. The locus of power was about to shift, to the detriment of the French in North America.

The Conquest and Its Aftermath The series of abortive and aborted British attempts (in 1690, 1711, and 1746) to seize Quebec, the administra- tive capital of New France, did not prevent another major expedition under General James Wolfe (1727–59) from trying again. The largest and best-equipped military force that North America had ever known assembled at Louisbourg over the winter of 1758–9, while the frozen ice of the St Lawrence isolated the French. The British force consisted of 8,600 troops, most of them regulars, and 13,500 sailors aboard 119 vessels, including 22 ships of the line and five frigates. This great armada required

Letter from Charles Lawrence regarding the expulsion of the Acadians, 11 August 1755. LAC, MG53, No. 71 2-4.

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993 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

six days simply to clear Louisbourg harbour in early June 1759. On 27 June, Wolfe landed his army on the Île d’Orléans without serious French opposition. There followed over two months of skirmishing, as Wolfe attempted to land his army closer to the French forces, and the French commander-in-chief, the Marquis de Montcalm (1712–59), sought to prevent such a move. Meanwhile, Wolfe and the British admiral, Sir Charles Saunders (1713?–75), were constantly at loggerheads, and Montcalm found evidence that his forces, mainly French-Canadian militiamen, would not stand up to offensive action.

Wolfe tried a number of plans, all without success. He was becoming desperate. As the end of summer approached, there was less time for the massive British fleet to remain in the St Lawrence, and its commanders

were pressing for a final confrontation. Finally, after par- tially recovering from a fever, Wolfe made a final effort. His troops found a path up the cliffs to the plain above at the Anse au Foulon, and managed to pass the French sen- tries unmolested. The British drew their battle lines cov- ering the plain above the cliffs. Inexplicably, Montcalm decided to attack the British army without waiting for reinforcements. The French ranks broke first, both Wolfe and Montcalm were mortally wounded, and the British possessed Quebec. The war was not ended, for the bulk of the French army escaped and would fight on valiantly for another year. The Battle of Quebec (or the Battle of the Plains of Abraham) was probably the first military engagement in North America that was fought almost entirely on European rather than on North American terms. A fully professional army, disciplined and on the

“A Map of the South Part of Nova Scotia and its Fishing Banks,” by Thomas Jefferys, 1750. Inset at the upper right is “A Plan of the new town of Halifax Surveyed by M. Harris”; at the lower right, “A View of Halifax drawn from ye top masthead.” LAC, NMC 1012.

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100 A History of the Canadian Peoples

A map by Thomas Jefferys showing the British claims to Acadia. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, 705008.

day well led, defeated a partly untrained one. Backed by a government at home with regular troops and naval support, the British finally breached the defensive pos- ition that the French had enjoyed for over a century.

British reinforcements and supplies arrived first on the St Lawrence in 1760, and a traditional three- pronged attack on Montreal—anchored by a large army led by General Jeffrey Amherst (1717–97) from New York—forced the surrender of that town, the final French stronghold, in early September. The 55 articles of capitulation would govern the British occupation of Canada until the governments in Europe finally settled

matters with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Until Europe made a final determination, Britain dealt with the col- ony with a fairly light hand. Canada was governed by military administrators who spoke French and accepted it as the “language of the country.” A few of the French- Canadian elite departed for France, while a number of new suppliers (mainly American colonials tied to British and American trading patterns) made their inevitable appearance.

Peace negotiations in 1761 proved unsuccessful, not because the French had balked at sacrificing North American territory, but because war minister William

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1013 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

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The war in 1755. Adapted from Seymour Schwartz, The French and Indian War 1754–1763: The Imperial Struggle for North America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 37.

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102 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Pitt had wanted more concessions around the world. When the French West Indies fell totally and the British began an assault on Spanish Havana—Spain had earlier foolishly entered the war on the side of France—the French and Spanish had their backs to the wall. The French offered to sacrifice more continental

American territory. Louisiana east of the Mississippi was surrendered for Martinique and Guadeloupe. The French were granted fishing rights in Newfoundland and the tiny islands of St Pierre and Miquelon in exchange for the surrender of all other claims to ter- ritory in the northern part of the American continent.

Source: Edith Fowke and Alan Mills, eds, Canada’s Story in Song (Toronto: W.J. Gage, 1965), 49.

His father served as Governor General of New France from 1703 to 1725, and Pierre de Vaudreuil (1698–1778) advanced quickly in the French military service. After his father’s death, his mother arranged for him the appointment as major of the troops in Canada. On a visit to France in 1728 he made a favourable impression on the Minister of Marine and received a promotion. In 1733 he became Governor of Trois-Rivières, the first rung on the ladder of political advancement in New France. After successful service in this appointment, in 1742 he was made Governor of Louisiana, where he was quick to take advantage of the independent author- ity the distance from Quebec gave him, and he boasted both of his reforms and of his diplomatic successes with the local Indian nations, especially the Choctaws.

In 1746, already in middle age, he married a woman considerably older than himself. The two had a very happy marriage. Vaudreuil’s responsibilities included the Ohio Valley and the Illinois Country, which became a hotbed of intrigue and imperial contention in the 1750s and brought him to the attention of Quebec. His major success in Louisiana was improving the eco- nomic situation, stressing the production of indigo and other goods and attracting a larger French expenditure on defence.

He was recalled to Paris in 1753, and in 1755 he was appointed Governor General of New France. While in Paris he missed the conflict in the Ohio Valley at

Fort Duquesne, but he acquired the responsibility for defending New France against the British. His plan was to defend his territory tenaciously by gathering all authority in his hands and employing interior lines of communication to advantage, while simultaneously hoping that the British would remain as disunified as they had been in the past. This strategy worked for awhile, but it took a heavy toll on Vaudreuil, who was complaining about ill health by late 1756. In this war the British took over from the colonials and put much pres- sure on New France.

The Governor General became on increasingly bad terms with his military commander, the Marquis of Montcalm, over a variety of issues, including the French regulars’ disrespect for the people and for the militia. In 1758 he convinced the King’s ministers to replace Montcalm, but the King rejected the order and promoted Montcalm to a military rank higher than the Governor General, which made him Montcalm’s subordinate. The two were still disputing while the British were at the col- ony’s door.

The death of Montcalm on the battleground made it necessary for Vaudreuil to order the capitulation of Montreal in 1760 to prevent further bloodshed and also ensured that Vaudreuil and Intendant Bigot would be made the scapegoats for the loss of France’s American empire. After a long trial the tribunal declared him innocent and restored his pension. He retired in Paris.

Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial, Marquis de Vaudreuil

Biography

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1033 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

The Spanish proved no problem after the fall of Havana. In a complicated arrangement, Britain returned Havana and Puerto Rico and kept Spain’s Florida, while France compensated Spain for its losses by ceding to it the western half of Louisiana and the port of New Orleans.

The final arrangement was “sold” to the British public by emphasizing the great gains made in North

America. Having stressed the security won for the American colonies as a result of the war—at monumental expense to the British people in manpower and money— the government needed an American policy. The addi- tion to the British Empire in North America of a sizable number of French-speaking Roman Catholics, as well as complete responsibility for the First Nations everywhere east of the Mississippi River, meant that regular troops

Brave Wolfe

Document

Then forth went this brave youth And crossed the ocean, To free America Was his intention. He landed at Quebec With all his party, The city to attack, both brave and hearty.

Brave Wolfe drew up his men In line so pretty, On the Plains of Abraham Before the city. The French came marching down Arrayed to meet them, In double numbers ’round Resolved to beat them.

Montcalm and this brave youth Together walkéd; Between two armies they Like brothers talkéd,

Till each one took his post And did retire. ’Twas then these numerous hosts Commenced their fire.

The drums did loudly beat, With colours flying, The purple gore did stream, And men lay dying. Then shot from off his horse Fell that brave hero. We’ll long lament his loss That day in sorrow.

He raiséd up his head Where the guns did rattle, And to his aide he said, “How goes the battle?” “Quebec is all our own, They can’t prevent it.” He said without a groan, “I die contented.”

The Americans celebrated the victory of Quebec in broadside poetry (often intended to be sung) that was sold in single printed sheets on the streets of Boston. Here is one of those broadsides. This song went through so many variations that it is probably America’s first best-seller.

Source: Edith Fowke and Alan Mills, eds, Canada’s Story in Song (Toronto: W.J. Gage, 1965), 49.

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104 A History of the Canadian Peoples

would have to be stationed in North America. This also meant that the Americans would have to contribute at least a token amount for their support. Over the winter of 1762–3 the British government debated imposing a tax on the colonies to support the army, but it paused to seek more information before proceeding.

Its first effort at creating a policy was the Proclamation of 1763. Like most British policy for its northern posses- sions produced over the next few years, the Proclamation of 1763 was not directly intended to effect fundamental changes for Britain’s older seaboard colonies. Four new

governments were created out of the American acqui- sitions, including Quebec, which was limited to its St Lawrence settlements. This truncated province was to be governed by British law and, as soon as possible, an elected assembly. The Island of Saint John and Cape Breton were attached to Nova Scotia. Land grants were to be readily available to retired officers and disbanded servicemen. In the West, beyond the river systems of the Atlantic coast, no land grants were to be made. This terri- tory was to be reserved for the First Nations, and any trad- ing in it was to be regulated by the imperial government.

In this manner, the General had his Army on the

Enemies Shore, within two miles of the Town, before

his arrival was well known at their Head Quarters: For

Mr. Montcalm had taken all our latter Motions for so

many Feints, & thought our grand Aim was still below

Quebec & pointed towards Beauport; And he was con-

firmed in this, by the several well laid Feints & Motions

of Mr. Saunders, who laid Buoys in the Night, close in

shore, towards Beauport, . . . Montcalm was surprised;

but lost not a moment to repair his Misfortune—he

marched his Troops with the greatest Expedition from

Montmorency & Beauport, to the Heights nearest the

Citadel & adjacent to those already possessed by our

Troops: But he was deceived to the last; for he could

not believe it possible that we had so suddenly thrown

over so large a Body of Forces; & the inequalities of

the Ground, covered numbers of our Men, & kept

him from forming a just opinion of their Strength: He

resolved therefore to attack them before they were

reinforced, or had got up any Cannon. From eight to

near Ten, he was busy assembling & drawing up his

Army. It consisted of about 9000 Men, among whom

were five Battalions of Regulars. Our Army consisted

of 4600 Regulars. About Ten, he marched in order of

Battle & attacked us on the Plains of Abraham. His

Disposition was excellent, his Army advanced in very

good order. Wolfe was entirely prepared; & overjoyed

at the unexpected Resolution of the Enemy. They

fired twice before he made any return. Then com-

menced the Battle, which hardly lasted a quarter of an

Hour. Lascelles’s Regiment was the first that broke in

upon them, with fixed Bayonets, and the Highlanders

flanked them at the same time: The Body opposed

to them was instantly turned & routed; & their whole

Army gave way and fled to the Town: the rest was

Pursuite & Carnage; in which the Highlanders broad

Swords did great Execution. Gen’r Wolfe fell early in

the action, & only lived long enough to know that

his Troops were victorious: On learning of which he

said—“Since I have conquered I dye satisfied.”

The British Landing at the Foot of the Plains of Abraham, 12 September 1759

Rear-Admiral Charles Holmes was in charge of the British landing of troops at the foot of the cliffs of the Plains of Abraham. In this letter, dated 18 September 1759, he describes the outcome of the landing:

Source: Special Collections, University of Waterloo Library.

Contemporary Views

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1053 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

At the same time, neither the Proclamation of 1763 nor any other British document ever laid out a fully articulated policy for what is now Canada, although the outlines of such a policy were perfectly plain. The British did not wish to populate their northernmost possessions in America with settlers sent directly from the mother country. Great Britain was just beginning a major economic change usually called the Industrial Revolution, and it wanted to retain its own population, both as a labour force and for military purposes. It was, however, prepared to make land grants to disbanded professional soldiers, who would not represent any great economic loss to the mother country. It was also willing to accept “foreign Protestants” as new settlers, although it clearly hoped that people already living in North America would make up the majority of the fresh

arrivals. As a result of their experience in Nova Scotia, the British had learned two lessons for dealing with its newly acquired territory. First, the state could not afford to subsidize a large movement of people to a new colony (as it had in the case of Halifax and Nova Scotia). Second, the best way to deal with an alien population was to out- number it; forcible removal, as of the Acadians, was nei- ther humane nor effective.

The Proclamation had ramifications beyond the territory ceded by the French. It was preceded by the beginning of a major Aboriginal uprising in the interior, known as Pontiac’s Rebellion. Both the declaration of limits for American westward expansion and the need to finance Britain’s new military responsibilities would enrage the American colonials. They began a series of provocative responses to Britain that would escalate

The British subjected Quebec to a devastating artillery bombardment in 1759, as can be seen in this painting by one of the British officers, Richard Short. In the days before cameras, many officers and travellers created first-hand illustrations, often in watercolours, as the only way to provide visual evidence of the events in which they had been involved. Indeed, a skilled artist was a highly valued member of any military contingent. “A View of the Bishop’s House with the Ruins as They Appear in Going down the Hill from the Upper to Lower Town,” by Richard Short from a drawing made at the siege in 1759, LAC, 1989-283-11.

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106 A History of the Canadian Peoples

into an organized colonial rebellion or “revolution.” It soon became apparent that policy for the new territories could not be executed by Great Britain in isolation.

Conclusion Before 1763, the French Empire in North America sprawled in a great arc from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River and then southward to Louisiana. Although not all sections were equally developed, all posed a threat to the English (British after 1707) colonies to their south, and all were caught up in the constant imperial warfare after 1690. These wars would finally end with the French expulsion from most of North America. This expulsion, in turn, led to some dramatic changes in France itself, some of which would come back to impact other elements of North America. In the course of the con- flict, resident populations like the Acadians and the First Nations often became victims of the ongoing struggles, sometimes because of their allegiances, but sometimes simply because of circumstance. For some, the displace- ment was permanent, and the changes irreversible.

Preparatory drawing for the engraved print “The Death of Wolfe” by James Barry, watercolour, c. 1763. LAC, Peter Winkworth Collection of Canadiana, R9266-335.

The environs of Quebec, a 1760 map by Thomas Jefferys, who was then geographer to George III, illustrates the Quebec campaign in 1759. Wolfe set up camp on the Île d’Orléans (lower right); tried and failed to land at Montmorency, on the north shore (above the North Channel), in July; moved his fleet upriver past Quebec in September; and landed at l’Anse au Foulon (extreme left) to wage the brief battles on the Plains of Abraham (above). LAC, C-128079.

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Understanding the Colonial Wars

The North American colonial wars, which began in the 1680s and continued sporadically until the 1760s, were of sufficient duration and complexity to sustain a number of competing storylines developed over the years. Perhaps the oldest (and also the most misleading) is concluded by the descriptor “the French and Indian War,” in which the first three wars in the conflict have been known in the English colonies/states since the seventeenth century by the names of the British mon- archs under which they were fought (King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, King George’s War), with only the last (and greatest war) named after the two princi- pal opponents of the Americans instead of the term “the Seven Years War” commonly used in Europe.

The concentration on the American aspects of the conflict has long been paramount among American his- torians, including the greatest of them, Francis Parkman, very much a typical nineteenth-century American in his approach. Parkman greatly downplayed the contribu- tions of the First Nations to the military efforts of both the British and the French in the conflict, especially by focusing his account on the showdown event of the war—the Battle of the Plains of Abraham—which was the first time that a battle was actually fought in this war in European terms and without Aboriginal allies play- ing an important role. He further skewed his account by treating the confrontation at the Plains of Abraham as a struggle between the two generals, Montcalm and Wolfe, employing a standard (for the time) “great man” approach to the subject, which greatly enhanced its liter- ary potential. Indeed, Parkman’s instinct was always to go for the dramatic whenever possible. To some extent, American accounts of the French and Indian wars still suffer from a surfeit of Francis Parkman. If Americans still see the last war against the French as a splendid vic- tory, the conflict looks quite different from the perspec- tive of those who lost this war and their descendants. The losers found themselves, against their wills, trans-

ferred from French to British sovereignty. The transfer was accompanied by threats to their language, religion, and culture—indeed, to their very identity—although in the end the losses were less severe than had been anticipated. The Canadian perspective, as seen in Guy Frégault’s La Guerre de la Conquête (2009), shows that the French were holding their own until the early 1760s, when the British really brought a heavy manpower advantage to bear. Somewhat to the surprise of Spain, which entered the Caribbean aspect of this war very late in the game, Spanish territorial losses were very heavy: Florida and Spanish claims east of the Mississippi River.

Several of the most interesting storylines actually extend beyond the Treaty of Paris, which ended this war in 1763. One of the more intriguing was propounded by Lawrence H. Gipson (1880–1971), whose 15-volume “The British Empire before the American Revolution,” pub- lished between 1936 and 1970, was generally regarded throughout the twentieth century as the most import- ant scholarly statement made on the subject, although it was heavily laden with British imperial history and had little interest in the international situation beyond London. Gipson suggested in an influential article in 1950 (“The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War for the Empire,” Political Science Quarterly) that the ultimate real importance of the colonial wars was in setting the stage for the American War of Independence. He saw British policy towards the col- onies after the war as a constantly escalating series of clumsy actions, each of which made matters worse. Some of those actions, although not of the same ultim- ate consequence, involved the British effort after the war to create a new Aboriginal policy that would satisfy the aspirations of the First Nations, notably through the Proclamation of 1763.

In the twenty-first century, there has been a general consensus on seeing the colonial wars in the broader context of international imperial rivalries. William

Continued...

Historiography

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108 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Banks, Kenneth. Chasing Empire across the Sea: Communications and the State in the French Atlantic, 1713–1763. Montreal and Kingston, 2002. A fascin- ating study of the eighteenth-century French Empire in the New World.

Eccles, W.J. France in America. Markham, Ont., 1990. The best overview of the French Empire in North America.

Faragher, John Mack. A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland. New York, 2005. A recent synthesis by an American scholar.

Griffiths, Naomi. The Contexts of Acadian History, 1587– 1781. Montreal, 1992. A series of fascinating essays by the leading specialist on early Acadia.

Handcock, Gordon. “So Longe As There Comes Noe Women”: Origins of English Settlement in Newfoundland. St John’s, 1989. The story of early English settlement in Newfoundland.

Head, C. Grant. Eighteenth-Century Newfoundland: A Geographer’s Perspective. Toronto, 1976. An interest- ing example of what the historical geographer con- tributes to Canadian historical analysis.

Johnstone, A.J.B. Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg. East Lansing, Mich., 2001. A study of the administration of Louisbourg.

MacDonald, M.A. Fortune and La Tour: The Civil War in Acadia. Toronto, 1983. A well-written account of the La Tour family and its vicissitudes.

MacLeod, D. Peter. Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Vancouver/Toronto, 2008. The latest attempt to explain this key battle.

Moore, Christopher. Louisbourg Portrait: Life in an Eighteenth-Century Garrison Town. Toronto, 1982. An award-winning book based on early court records, demonstrating how much fascinating material can be teased out of such sources.

Nicholls, Andrew D. A Fleeting Empire: Early Stuart Britain and the Merchant Adventurers to Canada. Montreal and Kingston, 2010. The early history of the Maritime region cast into an imperial context.

Pritchard, J.S. Anatomy of a Naval Disaster: The 1746 French Expedition to North America. Montreal and Kingston, 1998. A wonderful account of the French navy in a time of crisis, demonstrating how difficult it was to co-ordinate military activities in the eight- eenth century.

Steele, Ian. Guerillas and Grenadiers: The Struggle for Canada, 1689–1760. Toronto, 1969. A useful short history of the Canadian wars, emphasizing the roles of both the regular and irregular forces.

White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empire and Republics in the Great Lakes Region 1650–1815. Cambridge, 1991. A revisionist work that takes the First Nations seriously in strategic and cultural terms.

Nestor, in The First Global War: Britain, France and the Fate of North America, 1756–1775 (2000), and William Fowler, in Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754–1763 (2006),

exemplify this broader view of the colonial conflicts. On the whole, the recent studies take a more balanced approach to the conflict, although most of them con- tinue to see it chiefly in North American terms.

Short Bibliography

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1093 | Struggling for a Continent, 1627–1763

Study Questions 1. Is the anonymous habitant in the description of the 1745 siege of Louisbourg a neutral observer?

2. Why was the Acadian expulsion such a tragedy? Could it have been prevented?

3. Briefly explain why the Maritime region was a scene of such violence in the seventeenth century.

4. In the matter of its economic development, did Canada owe more to its European origins or to its North

American location? Explain.

5. What were the three chief differences between the earlier colonial wars and the Seven Years War?

6. Does the first-person account of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham surprise you in any way?

7. How did the Proclamation of 1763 respond to the problems of the British in North America at the time? Why

did it fail to avert the American Revolution?

Visit the companion website for A History of the Canadian Peoples, fifth edition for further resources.

www.oupcanada.com/Bumsted5e

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The Battle of Quebec of 1759, also known as the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, was a pivotal event in the Seven Years War. The battle left much of the town destroyed and lives uprooted, although this scene emphasizes that life carries on among the ruins. “View of the Bishop’s house with the ruins as they appear in going up the Hill from the Lower, to the Upper Town,” by Richard Short. © McCord Museum. Compare this view with that by the same artist of the same location, but going down the hill, on p. 105.

Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

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1769 Publication of Emily Montague. 1773 The Island of Saint John calls its first assembly. 1774 Parliament passes the Quebec Act. It

also passes Palliser’s Act to regulate the

Newfoundland fishery.

1775 The Americans invade Canada. 1776 An American party invades Nova Scotia. 1778 Peter Pond reaches the rich Athabasca country.

James Cook arrives at Nootka Sound.

1781 The British surrender at Yorktown. A smallpox epidemic decimates the First Nations around

Hudson Bay.

1782 The first Loyalist fleet departs for Nova Scotia. Shelburne founded.

1783 Treaty of Paris ends the War of the American Revolution by recognizing American

independence.

1784 British North America is reorganized. New Brunswick is separated from Nova Scotia and

given a separate government. Cape Breton gets

a government but no assembly.

1786 Guy Carleton (now Lord Dorchester) is appointed Governor General of British North

America.

1787 Charles Inglis, the first Anglican bishop in North America, arrives at Halifax.

1788 King’s College is established by the Nova Scotia Assembly (it actually opens in 1790 in Windsor).

1789 The British and Spanish spar at Nootka Sound. 1791 Upper and Lower Canada are separated

by the British Parliament’s passage of the

Constitutional Act of 1791.

1792 First legislature in Upper Canada is convened at Newark (Niagara-on-the Lake). Captain George

Vancouver begins his survey of the BC coast.

1793 Alexander Mackenzie of the North West Company reaches the Pacific Ocean via an

overland route from Montreal.

1800 King’s College (now the University of New Brunswick) is founded at Fredericton.

1806 Le Canadien, the first French-language newspaper, is published in Quebec.

1808 Simon Fraser reaches the Pacific via the Fraser River.

1809 First steam vessel (the Accommodation) begins service between Montreal and Quebec.

1811 Hudson’s Bay Company makes a land grant of 116,000 square miles (300,429 km2) to Lord

Selkirk.

1812 Americans declare war on Great Britain and invade Canada. The first settlers arrive at Red

River.

1813 York (Toronto) is sacked by the Americans. Laura Secord treks through enemy territory to

warn the British of the American attack.

1814 Treaty of Ghent inconclusively ends the War of 1812.

Timeline

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112 A History of the Canadian Peoples

T he British established a foothold in Canada with their victory at the Battle of Quebec in 1759. They consolidated their position in 1760, and kept the con- quest at the peace treaty in 1763. The theory was that eliminating the French would stabilize North America. It did not work out that way. Within a few years of the conquest, the American colonists had begun an armed rebellion and attempted unsuccessful invasions of Quebec and Nova Scotia. The British reorganized their North American empire after the Americans left it, tak- ing advantage of the thousands of exiles and refugees, called Loyalists, the war had produced. Within a gen- eration, in 1812, the Americans declared war on Great Britain and attempted another round of invasions of Canada, but they were beaten back by British regulars and colonial militia, albeit with considerable difficulty. The period from 1759 to 1815 was, thus, one of great tur- moil and change. British North America would settle down only after 1815.

From the Proclamation to the Rebellion In Nova Scotia, a third contingent of subsidized settlers was added to the first group at Halifax and to the “for- eign Protestants.” The New England “Planters” came to the province between 1759 and 1762. Governor Charles Lawrence took advantage of a substantial annual par- liamentary grant for Nova Scotia to recruit over 8,000 Yankees. He provided them with land, transportation, and subsidies until the financial tap was turned off in 1762. The New Englanders came mainly from land-hungry areas of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and southeastern Massachusetts. They saw migration to Nova Scotia as a particularly attractive alternative to moving to northern areas of New England because it was financed by the government. The migrants tended to move in kinship groups, often as entire communities. Most were farm- ers, although others were fishermen seeking improved access to superior fishing grounds. The farmers settled on Acadian land in the Minas Basin region at the top of the

Annapolis Valley, while the fishermen moved to south- shore outports they named Yarmouth and Barrington after their New England counterparts.

The Planters had been promised not only cheap land but liberty of conscience and a government “like those of neighbouring colonies,” a guarantee they took to mean that they could replicate the participatory local democracy of their former homes. They soon found that Nova Scotia had no intention of permitting strong local government. Political disillusionment was added to dis- appointment over the climate and the absence of mar- kets. Perhaps half the newcomers left within a few years of the termination of subsidies, complaining of “Nova Scarcity.” While Yankee farmers dealt in small parcels of land, the elite office-holding classes (both within and without the colony) acquired large grants of wil- derness land—3 million acres (1,214,100 ha) in the last few days before the Stamp Act became effective in 1765. The Stamp Act put a tax—in the form of an embossed stamp—on all paper used in legal transactions; having to buy stamped paper would greatly increase the cost of obtaining the grants. Only a handful of these specula- tors became active in either settlement ventures or com- mercial development.

By 1767, when a detailed census of Nova Scotia was taken, the colony was well populated, with 11,072 people in Nova Scotia proper, another 707 in Cape Breton, 1,196 in the northern section (now New Brunswick), and 519 on the Island of Saint John. The census also demon- strated that a heterogeneous population was already in place, consisting of 11,228 Protestants and 2,246 Catholics, and several ethnic groups (see Table 4.1). In addition, the returns showed 95 “Negroes” and a scat- tering of “Indians” (apparently no serious attempt was made to count them). Within a few years, substantial numbers of Scots would come to the region from the Lowlands but especially the Highlands, adding Gaelic to the English, German, French, and Mi’kmaq already freely spoken throughout the region.

Land speculation also dominated the development of the Island of Saint John. The entire land surface of the island was distributed to absentee owners (mainly British office-holders and military men) by lottery in 1767. These proprietors were supposed to settle the land in return for their grants, but most would merely hold

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1134 | Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

it in the hopes that it would become more valuable. The British allowed the proprietors on the Island of Saint John, which was initially attached to Nova Scotia,

to petition for a separate government in 1769, on the understanding that it would not cost the mother coun- try a penny.

Table 4.1 Population of Nova Scotia in 1767 by Ethnicity

Place English Irish Scottish Americans Germans Acadians

Nova Scotia 686 1,831 143 5,799 1,862 650

Cape Breton 70 169 6 170 21 271

North (NB) 25 53 17 874 60 147

Saint John 130 112 7 70 3 197

Totals 912 2,165 173 6,913 1,936 1,265

The Lords of Trade and Policy for the West

Document

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty . . .

We have taken this important Subject into our most serious Consideration and do most humbly concur in Your Majesty’s Opinion, of the propriety of putting this Country under a particular Government, by a Commission under Your Great Seal, with a most precise Description of its Boundaries, in Order to ascertain the actual possession of its Property, and with such Powers as may be necessary, as well to maintain and secure the free Exercise of the Indian Trade, which it is pro- posed all Your Majesty’s Subjects shall enjoy within it,

under proper Regulations, as to prevent its becoming a Refuge to Criminals and Fugitives.—But at the same time, we beg Leave to submit to your Majesty, the follow- ing Objections which have occurred to us, against the annexing this Country to any particular Government, especially to that of Canada.

1st We are apprehensive that, should this Country be annexed to the Government of Canada, a Colour might be taken on some future Occasion, for suppos- ing that Your Majesty’s Title to it, had taken its Rise, singly from the Cessions made by France, in the late Treaty, whereas Your Majesty’s Title to the Lakes and

Continued...

In the late spring of 1763, the British government turned its attention to what it should do with the new territories ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris. It was easily agreed that most of the territories could be included in old colonies or established in new ones, but one exception was “that large Tract of Country bounded by the Mississippi and the Limits of the Hudson Bay Company on the one hand and on the other by the Limits of Canada, East and West Florida and His Majesty’s ancient Colonies.” The Lords of Trade—the equivalent of a colonial office at the time—offered a different policy for this territory in a report of 5 August 1763. This report led directly to the Proclamation of 1763.

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114 A History of the Canadian Peoples

circumjacent Territory as well as to the Sovereignty over the Indian Tribes, particularly of the six Nations, rests on a more solid and even a more equitable Foundation; and perhaps nothing is more necessary than that just Impressions on this Subject should be carefully pre- served to the Minds of the Indians, whose Ideas might be blended and confounded if they should be brought to consider themselves as under the Government of Canada—

2d We are apprehensive as the whole of this Country would become subject to the Laws of a particu- lar Government or Province, it would give that Province such superior Advantage in respect to the whole of the Indian Trade, which Your Majesty in Your Justice and Wisdom has determined to leave as open as possible to all Your Subjects, as might controul and obstruct it to the Prejudice of Your other Colonies—

3d If this great Country should be annexed to the Government of Canada, we are apprehensive, that the Powers of such Government could not be carried prop- erly into execution, either in respect to the Indians or British Traders, unless by means of the Garrisons at the different Posts and Forts in that Country, which must contain the greatest Part of Your Majesty’s American Forces and consequently the Governor of Canada would become virtually Commander in Chief or constant and

inextricable Disputes would arise, between him, and the commanding Officers of Your Majesty’s Troops—. . . .

We would further submit, whether the issuing such Commission and Instructions may not be delayed; till by the receipt of such Information, which your Majesty has been graciously pleased to direct, We are enabled to make a full and particular Report on that very import- ant subject.—. . . In the mean time, We humbly propose that a Proclamation be immediately issued by Your Majesty as well on Account of the late Complaint of the Indians, and the actual Disturbances in Consequence, as of Your Majesty’s fixed Determination to permit no grant of Lands nor any settlements to be made within certain fixed Bounds, under pretence of Purchase or any other Pretext whatever, leaving all that Territory within it free for the hunting Grounds of those Indian Nations Subjects of Your Majesty, and for the free trade of all your Subjects, to prohibit strictly all infringements or Settlements to be made on such Grounds, and at the same time to declare Your Majesty’s Intentions to encour- age all such Persons who shall be inclined to commence New Settlements from Your old Colonies, together with all foreign Protestants, coming by themselves or with such Undertakers, in Your new Colonies of East and West Florida or your old Colony of Nova Scotia . . . .

Source: Adam Shortt and Arthur G. Doughty, eds, Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada 1759–1791 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1907), 110–12.

In Quebec, a number of military officers (and some- times their men) took advantage of the British offer of land grants. The anticipated stampede of American set- tlers to Quebec did not occur, however. The Americans were put off partly by the presence of thousands of francophone Roman Catholics and the absence of fam- iliar institutions such as representative government and universal freehold tenure. In a classic vicious cir- cle, the laws, government, and culture of Quebec could not very well be reconstructed until large numbers of anglophones arrived, and this immigration was not likely to happen until change had occurred. Moreover, Americans did not move north into any of the British colonies after 1763. Most of the newcomers were British,

mainly Scots, who began leaving their homes in the mid-1760s. The Scottish influx had only begun to gain momentum when it was closed down by the warfare of the American rebellion.

Everywhere in the northernmost colonies in these years, freehold land tenure and the concept of the yeo- man farmer fought an uphill battle. The seigneurial system still controlled land in Quebec, the Island of Saint John had been distributed to proprietors who were expected to settle as tenant farmers did in Europe, and much of Nova Scotia was held by large landholders. In the absence of aggressive government settlement activ- ity, those who acquired grants of land in North America in order to settle them were committed to replicating

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1154 | Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

a European pattern of landholding, with aristocratic landlords and peasant tenants.

The administration of the new province of Quebec was greatly complicated not only by the small number of anglophones but by the emerging political turmoil to the south. The colonial authorities in Quebec began by introducing some British elements into the system, but ended by confirming many French ones. English crim- inal law was put into effect, but the French civil law was largely retained. The British in London agreed that British laws against Catholics did not extend to Quebec. Grand- Vicar Jean-Olivier Briand (1715–94) was chosen by his Canadian colleagues to head the Church in Quebec, and was consecrated bishop near Paris on 16 March 1766. Officially he would be only “superintendant” of

the Quebec Church, but in practice he was accepted as its bishop and the collecting of tithes was officially sup- ported. There could be no elected assembly until there were more Protestants. The process of confirmation of the institutions of the Old Regime gained a real boost from Governor Guy Carleton (1724–1808). An Anglo-Irishman, Carleton was a firm believer in a landed aristocracy, the subordination of a tenant class, and a close connection between church and state. He came to see that, with adjustments to circumstance, his overall vision for society was quite compatible with that of the Old Regime of New France. As the Americans to the south became increas- ingly restive and turbulent, Carleton became less eager for reform and more interested in pacification. Inevitably he turned to the handiest instruments at his disposal.

Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague Document

The corn here is very good, though not equal to ours; the harvest not half so gay as in England, and for this rea- son, that the lazy creatures leave the greatest part of their land uncultivated, only sowing as much corn of different sorts as will serve themselves; and being too proud and too idle to work for hire, every family gets in its own har- vest, which prevents all that jovial spirit which we find when the reapers work together in large parties.

Idleness is the reigning passion here, from the peas- ant to his lord; the gentlemen never either ride on horse- back or walk, but are driven about like women, for they never drive themselves, lolling at their ease in a calache:

the peasants, I mean the masters of families, are pretty near as useless as their lords.

You will scarce believe me, when I tell you, that I have seen, at the farm next us, two children, a very beautiful boy and girl, of about eleven years old, assisted by their grandmother, reaping a field of oats, whilst the lazy father, a strong fellow of thirty two, lay on the grass, smoaking his pipe, about twenty yards from them: the old people and children work here; those in the age of strength and health only take their pleasure.

A propos to smoaking, ’tis common to see here boys of three years old, sitting at their doors, smoaking their

Continued...

Frances Moore Brooke (1724–89) was an English writer who accompanied her chaplain husband to Quebec in 1763 and remained in the province for a number of years. One contemporary described her as “very short and fat, and squints, but has the art of showing agreeable ugliness.” In 1769 she published in London an epistolary novel entitled The History of Emily Montague. This letter was written in the voice of her leading female character, Arabella Fermor, who the author used to describe social behaviour and customs in the province.

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116 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Instinctively grasping the need for collaborators to rule an “alien” population, Carleton recognized the clergy and the seigneurs as natural leaders who could be won over if their rights and privileges were protected. In the process some of the damage to the economy resulting from the geographical dismemberment of Quebec in 1763 could be undone. The result was the Quebec Act of 1774. Most of the ancient boundaries of Quebec were restored to the colony. His Majesty’s subjects in Quebec “professing the Religion of the Church of Rome” were

granted free exercise of their religion and exempted from the traditional oaths of supremacy (a new one was supplied). The Catholic clergy were allowed “their accus- tomed Dues and Rights, with respect to such Persons only as shall profess the said Religion.” Provision was made for the support of a Protestant clergy. All matters relating to property and civil rights were to be decided by the traditional laws of Canada. This clause, in effect, preserved the seigneurial system. English criminal law was continued, and the province was to be governed by

pipes, as grave and composed as little old Chinese men on a chimney.

You ask me after our fruits: we have, as I am told, an immensity of cranberries all the year; when the snow melts away in spring, they are said to be found under it as fresh and as good as in autumn: strawberries and rasp- berries grow wild in profusion; you cannot walk a step in the fields without treading on the former: great plenty of currants, plumbs, apples, and pears; a few cherries and grapes, but not in much perfection: excellent musk melons, and water melons in abundance, but not so good in proportion as the musk. Not a peach, nor any thing of the kind; this I am however convinced is less the fault of the climate than of the people, who are too indolent to take pains for any thing more than is absolutely neces- sary to their existence. They might have any fruit here but gooseberries, for which the summer is too hot; there are bushes in the woods, and some have been brought from England, but the fruit falls off before it is ripe. The wild fruits here, especially those of the bramble kind, are in much greater variety and perfection than in England.

When I speak of the natural productions of the country, I should not forget that hemp and hops grow every where in the woods; I should imagine the former might be cultivated here with great success, if the people could be persuaded to cultivate any thing.

A little corn of every kind, a little hay, a little tobacco, half a dozen apple trees, a few onions and cab- bages, make the whole of a Canadian plantation. There is scarce a flower, except those in the woods, where

there is a variety of the most beautiful shrubs I ever saw; the wild cherry, of which the woods are full, is equally charming in flower and in fruit; and, in my opinion, at least equals the arbutus.

They sow their wheat in spring, never manure the ground, and plough it in the slightest manner; can it then be wondered at that it is inferior to ours? They fancy the frost would destroy it if sown in autumn; but this is all prejudice, as experience has shewn. I myself saw a field of wheat this year at the governor’s farm, which was manured and sown in autumn, as fine as I ever saw in England.

I should tell you, they are so indolent as never to manure their lands, or even their gardens; and that, till the English came, all the manure of Quebec was thrown into the river.

You will judge how naturally rich the soil must be, to produce good crops without manure, and without ever lying fallow, and almost without ploughing; yet our pol- itical writers in England never speak of Canada without the epithet of barren. They tell me this extreme fertility is owing to the snow, which lies five or six months on the ground. Provisions are dear, which is owing to the prodi- gious number of horses kept here; every family having a carriage, even the poorest peasant; and every son of that peasant keeping a horse for his little excursions of pleasure, besides those necessary for the business of the farm. The war also destroyed the breed of cattle, which I am told how- ever begins to encrease; they have even so far improved in corn, as to export some this year to Italy and Spain.

Sources: The History of Emily Montague (1769), letter 22; Dictionary of Canadian Biography, IV, 553–6.

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1174 | Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

a newly structured legislative council; there was no pro- vision for an elected assembly.

Parliamentary critics of the administration that introduced this measure complained of its “sowing the seeds of despotism in Canada.” The Americans assumed a direct connection between it and their own situation, including the Quebec Act as one of the “Intolerable Acts” passed by the British Parliament at this time to punish the Americans for the Boston Tea Party. The legislation was certainly influenced by the need to pacify Quebec, but it was not intended to aggra- vate the Americans. If the Act was supposed to secure the loyalty of the Canadians, however, the strategy was not entirely successful.

Implementing British policy in the old pays d’en haut was, if anything, even more difficult than com- ing to terms with the old and new subjects of Quebec. Part of the problem was that the British army, which

was responsible for administering this region, did not really appreciate the extent to which the French and the Aboriginals had become connected with one another by trade and by marriage. One soldier commented of the French residents of the region—the British called them the “Interior French”—that “they have been in these upper Countrys for these twelve, twenty, or thirty years, [and] have adopted the very principles and ideas of Indians, and differ little from them only a little in col- our.” The return of British persons who had been taken prisoner by the Aboriginals would not be easy, since many had become thoroughly integrated into their adoptive tribes. The British did not trust these people, who often took Aboriginal names, and thus did not treat them with the same kindness that the people of Canada received. The British army had expected to be able to employ the sort of imperialistic policies that it thought proper to use with “heathen savages.” The army did not

“Part of the Town and Harbour of Halifax in Nova Scotia, looking down Prince Street to the Opposite Shore,” one of six prints of drawings of Halifax made by Richard Short in 1759. LAC, C-4294.

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118 A History of the Canadian Peoples

understand the system by which the fur-trading coun- try had long been governed. General Jeffrey Amherst, who was responsible for the West in the early 1760s, saw the region in the simple terms of British conquest and Native subjects. He sought to eliminate the whole mediation process that had governed the “middle ground” under the French, including the gift-giving relationship. “Purchasing the good behaviour, either of Indians or any others is what I do not understand,” he wrote. “When men of what race soever behave ill, they must be punished but not bribed.” As British fur trader George Croghan observed, “The British and French Colonies since the first Settling America . . . have adopted the Indian Customs and manners by indulging them in Treaties and renewing friendships making them large Presents which I fear won’t be so easey to break them of as the General may imagine.”

Further complicating matters for the British con- querors was the emergence of an insurgency among

the Aboriginal population of the Great Lakes region. This began in the prophetic teachings of Native lead- ers like Neolin, but soon became a general war against the British when they tried to fill the policy vacuum between the conquest of Canada and its actual ces- sion in 1763. Amherst had no compunctions about suggesting in response that the Aboriginal people be given blankets infected with smallpox. But the upris- ing quickly burnt itself out. The ostensible leader, the Ottawa chief Pontiac, was unable to unite the many factions, and Amherst’s successor, Thomas Gage, decided to try to mend some fences. Gage also deter- mined to take advantage of Pontiac, and offered to treat him as if he really were an Aboriginal leader. In 1765 Pontiac accepted George III as his father and formally made peace. He would die in 1769 in the streets of the French village of Cahokia, clubbed from behind. Some Aboriginal leaders fought on, including Charlot Kaské, a Shawnee leader whose father was German and whose wife was a British captive adopted by the Shawnees since childhood. Kaské insisted that the British would strip his people of their land:

The English come there and say that the land is theirs and that the French have sold it to them. You know well our fathers have always told us that the land was ours, that we were free there, that the French came to settle there only to pro- tect us and defend us as a good father protects and defends his children.

Despite the Proclamation of 1763, the British army administrators on the spot were prepared to tolerate European settlement in the region, and the Algonquians knew it. The British administration also attempted to resurrect the old alliance of the region between the Europeans and Aboriginals, with the British in place of the French. This policy was limited by the failure of London to provide the money for presents. But its adoption meant that the British began to discourage their fur traders from moving into the lower Great Lakes. Instead, the British used forts to distribute trade goods to the Interior French, who continued to dominate the trade. British traders would have far more success in the Northwest, where trading networks had not yet been established.

Governor Guy Carleton, painted in 1923 by Mabel B. Messer “from a copy that hung in Rideau Hall”; original artist unknown. LAC, 1997-8-1.

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The First American Civil War In early April 1775 British troops, attempting to raid clandestine colonial arms depots in Massachusetts, were fired upon by the Americans. A long-festering imperial political crisis turned into a shooting war. From the vantage point of the American leadership, they were involved in a “revolution” to secure their rights against the arbitrary authority of the British Crown. From the vantage point of the British government, the Americans were engaged in a “rebellion” against duly constituted authority. Whatever its label, for many of the inhabitants in British North America the event meant involvement in an extended civil war in which brother fought brother, friend opposed friend, and many were eventually pushed into exile. Indeed, the proportion of exiles from the new United States (relative to population) exceeded that from France after 1789, from Russia after 1917, and from Cuba after 1955. Instead of seeing the people of the northernmost colonies as impotent victims of the American Revolution taking place to the south, it makes far more sense to view them as participants (although often at a distance) in a great civil war that affected the whole transatlantic region of Britain’s vast empire.

The Americans moved quickly in 1775 to organize an alternative government and raise an army, under the command of George Washington of Virginia. While that force was still in embryo, the Second Continental Congress authorized an invasion of Quebec as a move to give “the coup de grace to the hellish junto” governing Great Britain. Washington was somewhat more enthusi- astic about this plan than he was about subsequent pro- posals to invade Nova Scotia. One army was ordered to proceed to Quebec by way of Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River. Another was authorized to travel across northern Maine and along the Chaudière River to the St Lawrence.

The sudden turn of events found the government of Quebec in a state of shock and confusion. Governor Carleton, only recently returned from London with the Quebec Act in his dispatch case, complained he had insufficient military force to withstand an invasion. A public mandement from Bishop Briand, ordering the

population to ignore American propaganda under threat of denial of the sacraments, had little effect. The seigneurs appointed to raise a militia found it difficult to do so. Carleton’s alliance with Quebec’s traditional leaders proved useless, largely because he misunder- stood the dynamics of the Old Regime. The Church never had much influence on habitant behaviour, and the seigneurs never had much to do with the militia. The British merchants of Quebec had never been cultivated by Carleton and proved singularly unco-operative. Not even the First Nations leapt into action on Britain’s behalf; most of the Iroquois would remain neutral until they were forced to side with the British later in the war.

Fortunately for the British, the Americans were neither as well-organized nor as lucky as Wolfe’s exped- ition had been in 1758–9, and the Québécois were not as enthusiastic about “liberation from tyranny” as the invaders had hoped. General Richard Montgomery (1736–75), struggling to bring an invading army up the Lake Champlain route, wrote that “the privates are all generals” and that those from different colonies did not get along together (quoted in Hatch, 1970: 60). Benedict Arnold (1741–1801), bringing his army across what is now Maine under horrendous late autumn conditions, lost nearly half his troops in the process. On 11 November, Montgomery and his troops arrived near Montreal and pressed on to Quebec, although his soldiers were constantly deserting. At the same time, the habitants were hardly rushing to enlist in the American army. In Quebec, Colonel Allan Maclean (1725–84), who had earlier organized two battalions of disbanded Highland soldiers, had stiffened resistance. Montgomery joined Arnold at Pointe-aux-Trembles on 3 December. He quickly determined that he lacked the force and the sup- plies to besiege Quebec. He decided, instead, to storm the town. The assault on 31 December was a desperate move by the Americans, who were suffering from small- pox as well as problems of logistics and morale.

The garrison held. The result, wrote one British offi- cer, was “A glorious day for us, as compleat a little victory as ever was gained.” General Montgomery’s frozen body was found not far from the barricade against which he had led the charge. He subsequently was buried with military honours, with Guy Carleton, who had known him from earlier campaigns, as chief mourner. General Arnold

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120 A History of the Canadian Peoples

took a ball through the left leg at the first battery, and over 300 Americans were taken prisoner. The American forces, now under Arnold’s command, remained in military occupation of more than 50 parishes over the winter of 1775–6. Their desperate seizure of foodstuffs, sometimes paid for with worthless Continental currency, according to one American, cost the occupying army “the affections of the people in general.” A commission from the Continental Congress, headed by Benjamin Franklin, pronounced from Montreal, “Till the arrival of money, it seems improper to propose the Federal union of this Province with the others.” In May 1776 British reinforcements arrived at Quebec, and by mid-June the Americans had completely retreated, never to return. Quebec became an important centre for the British army, later serving as the staging point for a counter-invasion of the United States (equally unsuccessful) in 1778, led by General John Burgoyne.

The Americans had desperately wanted Quebec. George Washington wrote to Benedict Arnold early in 1776: “To whomsoever it belongs, in their favour, prob- ably will the balance turn. If it is ours, success, I think, will most certainly crown our virtuous struggles; if it is theirs, the contest, at least, will be doubtful, hazardous and bloody.” The Rebel leaders did not feel the same way about Nova Scotia, partly because of its protection by the British navy, partly because there was not enough visible evidence of enthusiastic residents ready to sup- port an invading army. Some American sympathiz- ers, including Jonathan Eddy (1726/7–1804) and John Allan (1747–1805), recruited a private army in Machias and Maugerville, consisting of 80 men, who marched overland from the Saint John River towards the British outpost at Fort Cumberland in late October and early November 1776. This “invasion” was joined by a few residents from the area, but was quickly suppressed by British reinforcements, leaving those Nova Scotians who had supported the Americans either abjectly explaining away their actions or quickly departing for American lines, leaving behind their wives and fam- ilies to be sworn at and “often kicked when met in the street.” Civil wars were truly nasty ones.

The affair at Fort Cumberland was more typical of this war than was the earlier invasion of Quebec. Away from the armies, the opposing parties—rebel and

Loyalist—fought vicious little battles with one another for control of the uncommitted local population, often paying back old scores along the way. On the high seas, legalized pirates (called privateers) captured unarmed ships and attacked unprotected settlements along the coasts. Between 1775 and 1781 the privateers literally brought commerce to a halt in the Atlantic region, causing a number of food shortages, particularly in Newfoundland and the Island of Saint John. Both these colonies went for long periods without the arrival of a single vessel from overseas. On the borders between Loyalist and Rebel territory, guerrilla raiders (often including Native allies) attacked farms and villages. Since most of the population of the northernmost prov- inces lived on the coast or near an American border, everyone lived in constant fear of attack.

Given the insecurity of the times, it is hardly sur- prising that the radical preacher Henry Alline (1748–84) had considerable success in the Maritime region in introducing a movement of Christian pietism and rejuvenation often called The Great Awakening. Alline rejected secular affairs in favour of the self-government of the godly, emphasizing that Christ had commanded his followers “to salute no man by the way” (quoted in Bumsted, 1971: 93). He travelled the countryside, com- posing and singing hymns, regarding music as a way to attract and to hold an audience and as a useful vehicle on the road to salvation. At his death he left a legacy of evangelism and revivalism among his followers, who were called New Lights. In a period of confusion, Alline offered an alternative path to public involvement.

Not all residents of the northernmost colonies who did make a conscious choice selected the British side. One who did not was Moses Hazen (1733–1803), a native of Massachusetts, who had settled in the Richelieu Valley of Quebec after the Conquest. After a period of fence-sitting in 1775, Hazen committed himself to the United States and was appointed by the Continental Congress to command a regiment he was to raise in Canada. Hazen successfully recruited sev- eral hundred habitants, many of whom retreated with him from Canada in June 1776 and stayed together as a unit throughout most of the war. His men (and the Nova Scotia refugees) ultimately were compensated by the American Congress with land and financial assistance.

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“A Map of the Country which was the scene of operations of the Northern Army; including the Wilderness through which General Arnold marched to attack Quebec.” Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library.

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Biography

Molly Brant (Konwatsi’tsiaiénni, 1736?–96) was born to a Mohawk couple living in Canajoharie, New York, who were completely undistinguished in Mohawk society. We know very little of Molly Brant’s early life. In 1753 her mother married a Mohawk sachem named Brant Canagaraduncka, a friend of Sir William Johnson, who brought her children Molly and Joseph into the upper reaches of Mohawk society.

Within a few years, Molly was Sir William’s house- keeper and his chatelaine. He was by this time one of the richest men in New York, made a baronet by the King a few months before receiving the appointment as Colonel of the Six Nations and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the colony in 1756. Johnson found it advan- tageous to have a Mohawk “wife,” who soon became a clan mother as well as a competent household manager and mother of Johnson’s youngest children. In 1763 Sir William and his family moved into a grand new house at Johnson Hall. From the beginning he held councils with the Aboriginals at or in his house, including a large peace gathering in 1768 attended by thousands of Native peoples. The result was the peace treaty of Fort Stanwix, soon sundered by the American Revolution. Sir William died in 1774 shortly after another peace gathering at which he had exhausted himself.

Molly was no longer in charge of Johnson Hall, although she was left considerable property and was by now the head of the Iroquois clan matrons. She returned

to Canajoharie and began a store. When rebellion began against the King, Molly remained loyal to the Crown. While most of the Johnson clan retreated from the Mohawk Valley in late 1775, Molly remained. Among the Mohawks she counselled loyalty, and she collected what information she could on Patriot plans, even warning her brother Joseph of a colonial army that was met and defeated at Oriskany.

From the beginning, she was suspected by the rebels, and she escaped Canajoharie only minutes ahead of arrest. After leaving her home she spoke publicly at a council meeting at Onondaga, opposing peace with the rebels and declaring the need for friendship with the King of England. She was soon pressed to come to Fort Niagara to help manage her people, and arrived there in late 1777. Gradually her interferences disturbed her hosts, and they encouraged her to move to Montreal. She subsequently went to a large Six Nations settlement at Carleton Island, NY, where she was credited with inducing “uncommon good behaviour” on the part of her people.

She moved in 1783 to Kingston, Upper Canada, and remained there for the remainder of her life, worship- ping at the local Anglican Church. In 1787 she contemp- tuously refused an American offer of compensation for her expropriated lands if she would return to the Mohawk Valley. Although her brother Joseph got most of the publicity, Molly Brant was equally and deeply a committed Loyalist.

Molly (Mary) Brant

Like many other North Americans, most Native people attempted to remain out of the conflict. For the Iroquois, neutrality proved impossible. One of the Mohawk leaders, Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea, 1742–1807), became persuaded that only continued active alliance with the British could protect the interests of Native people by preserving their land from the encroachment of European settlement. Brant and his sister Molly (head of the Iroquois clan matrons) were unable to convince the Iroquois coun-

cils, but he recruited a force of about 300 Aboriginal warriors and 100 Loyalist settlers, which was active in scouting and raiding operations, and in 1778 collaborated with Butler’s Rangers (a Loyalist regiment) in guerrilla raids in the Mohawk Valley of New York. The Americans responded to such activity in 1779 with a major expedition into the land of the Iroquois, laying waste to the country. The Iroquois, including Brant, were forced to retreat to Fort Niagara, where they became supplicants for British aid.

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Thursday, April 9th, [1778]—Pleasent [sic] day. Wind

N.W. Capt. Hopkins, and Capt. Gorham, Capt. Dean,

B. Harrington, are about going to Halifax. Some of

them get to the mouth of the Harbour and discover

a privateer sloop at anchor back of the Island. . . . She

continues at anchor till towards night she came into

the Harbour, and the wind being small, rowed up into

Herring Cove and sent a boat almost up to the Bar. I

went on the Point to hail them but she tacked about

and returned on board the sloop. Seeing a sloop full

of men come into the Harbour it was truly alarming in

our defenceless condition. . . . I had some men under

arms, and kept a sentry on the Point, relieved every

half hour. Soon after Mr Collins return I found that the

sentry, Robert Bramham, was deserted. Had left his

musket, and taken a skiff from shore, and no doubt

remained but he was gone on board the privateer. This

put us in some Consternation, as this Bramham . . . had

heard all our Council. The sloop soon got under way,

and stood athwart the Harbour, and finally went out

of sight. I then ordered a guard of one sergeant and

four privates[,] dismissed the remainder of the People,

and went home. In less than two hours I was informed

that the Privateer was coming in again. I immediately

alarmed the People from one end of the street to

the other, and mustered about 15 under arms. The

sloop came in with Drum and fife going, and whuz-

zaing, etc. They anchored a little above the Bar, and

sent a boat on board Mr Gorham’s schooner, and Mr

Hopkins schr. I gave orders not to speak to them or fire

upon, except they offered to come on shore to rob the

stores, etc. If they made any such attempt to engage

them. They searched the two schrs. mentioned, and

returned on board the Privateer, and hove up their

anchor, and went out after daylight. They had boarded

a sloop in Herring Cove, Benjamin Harrington, master,

and demanded a hhd. of Rum, which was landed as

she was coming in, but finally took up with 40 gallons,

which Harrington produced. . . .

It is now Fryday morning, April 10th,—The

Privateer is gone out. Wind S.E. All is quiet. A small

schr., Prince Doan, Master, arrives from Barrington.

The Privateer put a man on board her in the night,

but released her this morning. I am mutch fatigued,

and sleep a sound nap. In the afternoon I hear the

Privateer is gone into Portmatoon.

An American Privateering Raid Simeon Perkins (1734/5–1812) was born in Norwich, Connecticut, and migrated to Liverpool, Nova Scotia, in 1762. When the American Rebellion began, Perkins remained loyal to the Crown. As lieutenant-colonel of the Queen’s County militia, he was responsible for the defence of Liverpool.

Source: Harold A. Innis, ed., The Diary of Simeon Perkins, 1766–1780, vol. 1 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1948), 139–41.

Farther west in the fur-trading country, Native peoples were better able to ignore the war. The western fur trade was relatively unaffected by the American Revolution. The western movement of the Montreal- based fur trade, now dominated by English-speaking traders, continued unabated. By the time of Lexington and Concord, they were pressing up the Saskatchewan River into the basin of the Churchill River. In 1778 Peter Pond (1740–1807?) broke through into the richest fur

trade country of the continent: the Athabasca region. The competition, the “Pedlars from Quebec,” as one Hudson’s Bay Company man contemptuously labelled them, galvanized the English company into more aggressive action. It moved inland from its posts on the Bay to open up ones on the Saskatchewan. Trading competition was always a mixed blessing to the Native peoples. It gave them a choice and lower prices, but because the Native consumer had a relatively inelastic

Contemporary Views

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124 A History of the Canadian Peoples

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“The country of the Five Nations,” based on the frontispiece to vol. 2 of The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada (New York, 1902) by Cadwallader Colden (1688–1766), surveyor-general (1720) and lieutenant-governor (1761) of colonial New York.

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need for trade goods, competition also increased the amount of non-material and non-essential consumer goods on offer, particularly tobacco and alcohol, which was a negative feature.

Any official British attempts to limit settler intru- sions in the Ohio country were ended by the American assumption of independence. For the duration of the war, the First Nations once again found an opportunity to manoeuvre between conflicting powers, although for the most part the war was a painful experience for them. The Americans sought to keep the Aboriginals neutral, while the British wanted their active military assist- ance. In the West, small roving bands of settlers fought with the Aboriginals. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 totally ignored the First Nations. Their lands in the West were transferred to the United States, and no provision was made for their protection. Although the British would prove reluctant to evacuate their posts in the West, holding most of them until Jay’s Treaty in 1794, the Aboriginals were now at the mercy of punitive American military expeditions and advancing settlement. Many of the more militant First Nations leaders (such as Tecumseh) would support the British in the War of 1812, finding little joy in the eventual military stalemate.

Outside of the trans-Appalachian West, the British assumed after 1763 that in most eastern places the First Nations were a declining people who needed to be integrated into the European population as quickly as possible. Those Aboriginals who insisted on main- taining their old ways were quickly shoved to the mar- gins of society and, at least in Newfoundland, driven to extinction. The situation was different in Upper Canada and in the vast northwestern regions of the continent. The core of British policy in this region since 1763 had consisted of maintaining an orderly frontier. In theory this involved a legal procedure for the orderly purchase of lands, the reservation to the Aboriginals of suf- ficient land on which to make a living, and, in Upper Canada, the full application of legal rights under the law wherever possible. This approach was taken partly to distinguish Canada symbolically from the United States. It involved the application of the common law to everybody, including the Aboriginals, both because the common law was a bulwark of Tory ideology and because it provided a framework for good government.

The law-centred approach was meant to avoid unneces- sary violence and warfare and to re-educate Aboriginal people into the new order. It worked better in theory than in practice. The law-centred approach assumed that the First Nations did not become a part of society until they were thoroughly integrated into Europe’s hierarchies and authority structures.

“Portrait of Joseph Brant,” c. 1807, by William Berczy, oil on canvas. This portrait was painted after Brant’s death in November 1807, perhaps as a tribute, but Berczy had painted him from life at least once. In 1799 he wrote of Brant: “he is near 6 feet high in stance, of a stout and durable texture able to undergo all the inconvenience of the hardships connected with the difficulties to carry on war through immense woods and wildernesses—His intellectual qualities compared with the phisical construction of his bodily frame—he professes in an eminent degree a sound and profound judgement. He hears patiently and with great attention before he replies and answers in general in a precise and laconic stile. But as soon as it is the question of some topic of great moment, especially relative to the interest of his nation he speaks with a peculiar dignity—his speech is exalted energy and endowed with all the charm of complete Retorick.” Photo © National Gallery of Canada, 5777.

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126 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The revolutionary period did see one curious development in Hudson Bay. A great French fleet had been beaten by the British off Jamaica in 1781, and three of the dispersed vessels ended up in the Bay, where they did significant damage to Hudson’s Bay Company posts before returning to France. Far more serious than the French depredations, however, was the appearance in this region in 1781 and 1782 of a major epidemic of smallpox among the Native peoples, who lacked European immunities and suffered heavy mortalities.

On the Pacific coast, the American Revolution was even more remote than on Hudson Bay. From the European perspective, the major event was the appear- ance in March 1778 of Captain James Cook (1728–79) in Resolution Cove, Nootka Sound, off the western coast of Vancouver Island. Cook was on another quest

for the Northwest Passage, spurred by new informa- tion that suggested one might exist. In Nootka Sound, he and his crews observed the Nuu-chah-nulth people. The visitors were much impressed with their trading acumen and especially their principal trading com- modity: the sleek, thick fur pelt of the sea otter. Cook was killed on the return voyage through the Pacific to England. An impressive account of the voyage in 1784 included descriptions of the sea otter pelts. Soon there was a rush to cash in on their obvious value, for they offered something to trade in the otherwise difficult Chinese market.

While James Cook’s crews were still on the high seas returning to England, the British lost the war of the American Revolution. Whether they could ever have won it remains an open question. Military suppression

Biography

Tecumseh (the name means “shooting star”) was born around 1768 in present-day Ohio. He first distinguished himself at the Battle of Falling Timbers in 1794, and subsequently helped translate the prophetic teachings of his brother Tenskwatawa (“the Prophet”) into a move- ment devoted to holding onto First Nations land. As he told one American “Indian agent” in Ohio, “The Great Spirit above has appointed this place for us, on which to light our fires, and here we will remain. As to bound- aries, the Great Spirit above knows no boundaries, nor will his red people acknowledge any.”

Although the Americans blamed this resistance on the British, it is clear that the Natives had their own agenda. Tecumseh and his brother were active after 1808 in an effort to unite all the First Nations under one banner, but both “the Prophet” and the movement lost credibility when they failed to halt the Americans and were badly beaten in battle by Governor William Henry Harrison at Vincennes late in 1811. When Tecumseh returned to his village from the Vincennes defeat, he

found it devastated, and although he rebuilt, he was obviously determined to join the British in an effort of resistance against the Americans.

He led a war party into Upper Canada in June of 1812. At the head of 600 Native warriors, Tecumseh helped cut General William Hull’s supply lines and eagerly supported Isaac Brock’s aggressive scheme to attack Detroit. Brock would later comment that he never met “a more sagacious or a more gallant Warrior” than Tecumseh. In 1813, Tecumseh was at the head of an even larger party of Aboriginal fighters that helped attack Fort Meigs. He stepped in to prevent his warriors from completing a slaughter of prisoners at this point and became known as a humane leader. Later in 1813, at the Battle of Moraviantown, Tecumseh was killed. His body disappeared. The man himself quickly passed into myth and legend, one of the most popular figures of nineteenth-century Canadian verse and story, most of which attempted erroneously to make him out to be a Canadian patriot rather than a First Nations leader.

Tecumseh

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of movements of national liberation has never been a very successful strategy. The Americans managed to hold on, assisted by considerable British military stupidity and inefficiency, and they found allies in Europe. France joined the war in 1778. Unable to defeat the Americans with regular troops, the British turned increasingly to provincial Loyalist units to do the actual fighting, thus further enhancing the civil war aspect of the conflict. On the New York and Carolina frontiers, Loyalists and Rebels fought fierce battles in which no quarter was asked or given.

With the help of the French navy, the Americans finally succeeded in 1781 in trapping a large contingent of the British army under Lord Cornwallis in Virginia. The surrender of Cornwallis was really the end of the line for the British. The ministry could no longer pre- tend that victory was just around the corner. It sur- rendered, allowing its critics to negotiate the peace. The final agreement worked out with the Americans, signed on 30 November 1782, gave the Rebels most of what they wanted. It recognized the independence of the United States, allowed the new nation fishing rights in the Atlantic, and gave to it the entire Ohio Valley. Equally important, the British negotiators failed to insist on any real security for either their Aboriginal allies or the Loyalists.

Accommodating the Loyalists From the beginning of the revolutionary conflict, some colonials had supported the British. As the war continued, many more were pressured by events into choosing sides and ended up with Great Britain. The struggle had been a bitter one, and officers of the prov- incial Loyalist regiments insisted that they be included in any Loyalist resettlement scheme, since “The per- sonal animosities that arose from civil dissension have been so heightened by the Blood that has been shed in the Contest, that the Parties can never be reconciled” (quoted in Wright, 1955: 41–2). The British authorities in New York, where most of the Loyalists had gathered, accepted this argument. They were allowed to join

the contingents of Loyalists that departed by ship for Nova Scotia in 1782 and 1783. Other Loyalist regiments already in Quebec joined British regulars in settling there at the close of the hostilities. The British were prepared to make extensive grants of land to these new arrivals and to support them with supplies while they remade their lives. Perhaps 40,000 people received land grants and assistance as Loyalists, with about 30,000 settling in Nova Scotia (part of which would become the province of New Brunswick in 1784), 750 on the Island of

“A Man of Nootka Sound,” drawing by John Webber, c. 1778. The artist was a member of Captain James Cook’s expedition of 1778 to the west coast of North America. The expedition was motivated partly by increased European activity in the region, but mainly by a renewed interest in a short route to Asia. Cook arrived in Resolution Cove, Nootka Sound, off the west coast of Vancouver Island in March 1778 and spent more than a month there, devoting much of his time and that of his crew to studying the Aboriginal people he encountered there. Webber’s drawings were subsequently published with Cook’s journal in 1784. LAC, 1991-265-232, C-013415.

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128 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Charles Inglis (1734–1816) was born in Ireland, where his father was a clergyman who died while his son was still young, forcing Charles to seek his fortune in the American colonies. He taught school for some years in Pennsylvania before returning to England in 1758 to take holy orders. He then returned to the New World as a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), serving for six years in a Delaware parish before becoming curate at Trinity Church in New York City. This position put Inglis in the centre of Anglicanism in North America, and he submerged him- self in several fashionable Anglican causes, including

the quest for a colonial bishopric and missionary work among the Iroquois. Inglis believed that the British prob- lem with the rambunctious colonies was a product of too much liberty and too little insistence on proper social order, a typical position for Anglican clergymen to take in the years before the outbreak of rebellion. After the American Revolution turned to armed conflict, he took advantage of the British occupation of New York City to become a leading Tory/Loyalist pamphleteer; one of his pamphlets, The True Interest of America Impartially Stated, answered Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.

In New York he developed a reputation as an ambi- tious clergyman, which turned to notoriety after he sailed to England in 1783 to campaign for promotion. He managed to catch the eye of Lord Dorchester (Guy Carleton), who selected him to become the first bishop of Nova Scotia (and the first Church of England bishop in North America). Inglis was not very popular initially with his clergy, partly because of a deficient classical education and partly because of his strident politi- cizing during the war. The arrival of Governor John Wentworth in 1791 improved his situation, although he still found much opposition from Loyalist clergy- men. Inglis adopted a policy of not maintaining close supervision of his clergy, especially those distant from Halifax (or Windsor after he moved there in 1798). He got the bulk of his funding from the British government and the SPG, using the money to build church structures and a college at Windsor, the first institution of higher learning in what would become Canada. He spent his later years as a gentleman farmer who allowed his son to manage the diocese after 1802. Inglis left a legacy of relative harmony within his church and decent relations with other denominations, both achieved by lack of provocative action, although whether these achievements represented positive policy on his part is another matter.

Charles Inglis, by Robert Field. Oil on canvas, 1810, 43 in. x 35 in. (1092 mm x 889 mm). Given by the sitter’s grandson, Thomas Cochran Inglis, 1895. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Charles Inglis

Biography

Sources: R.V. Harris, Charles Inglis, Missionary, Loyalist, Bishop (Toronto: General Board of Religious Education, 1937); Judith Fingard, The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia, 1783–1816 (London: The Church Historical Society, 1972).

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Saint John, 1,000 on Cape Breton, and the remainder in Quebec—mainly in what would become Upper Canada.

The Loyalists were quite a disparate group of new- comers. Of the total of 40,000, well over 3,000 were blacks who settled in Nova Scotia, and almost 2,000 were Aboriginals who settled in Upper Canada. Over half of the 40,000 were civilian refugees and their fam- ilies; those remaining were officers and men either from former Loyalist regiments or from British regiments dis- banded in America. A large proportion of both groups were neither American nor English in origin. Quite apart from the blacks and the Aboriginals, a substan- tial number of the new settlers came from Scotland, Ireland, or various German principalities. Anglican clergyman Jacob Bailey (1731–1808) characterized his new neighbours in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia as “a collection of all nations, kindreds, complexions and tongues assembled from every quarter of the globe and till lately equally strangers to me and each other” (quoted in Bumsted, 1986: 34).

Some unknown number of the Loyalist settlers were women. Most of the records of the Loyalists list only the males, who got land grants, served in the mil- itary, and received stores. But of the 3,225 individuals who presented claims to the British government for compensation of losses during the war, 468 (or about 14 per cent) were women. Only a small percentage of these women had worked outside the home, and most of them obviously were most familiar with their immedi- ate households. Many other women and their families accompanied their husbands into their new surround- ings. The loss of homes and cherished contents was probably more traumatic for Loyalist women than were property losses for men. Certainly the gradual recrea- tion of stability was much more difficult. Men could re-establish friendships and relationships in meeting places outside the home, but women usually could not. Women—who were often not consulted about the deci- sion to support the King or to emigrate—had sacrificed a great deal for a principle. They had every reason to be bitter about their fate.

From the first days of the war, the British military authorities in America had attempted to enlist some of the half-million slaves to fight against their masters, chiefly by promising them their freedom. Thousands

of blacks found their way to British lines by whatever means possible, drawn by promises only the British could possibly honour. Loyal blacks usually were evacu- ated when the British withdrew from an American district. Most of them ended up in New York with the other Loyalists and the British army. More than 3,000 were transported to Nova Scotia. Although they were free, they were not treated well. Only 1,155 of the black Loyalists in the province actually received land grants, which averaged less than 11 acres (4.5 ha) per grant. Blacks became part of the mobile population of the region, taking up whatever employment was available. They suffered many disabilities. In Nova Scotia they were not entitled to trial by jury. In New Brunswick they were not allowed to vote. Freed blacks were treated more harshly in the courts than European people convicted of the same or similar crimes. An unknown number of blacks, who were brought to British North America as slaves by Loyalist masters, continued in that status until the early years of the nineteenth century, when local courts ruled slavery out of existence in the colonies by extending English laws. Not surprisingly, in 1791 nearly half of the Nova Scotia black Loyalists would accept with alacrity a chance to immigrate to the African col- ony of Sierra Leone.

Throughout the war the British had played on the First Nations’ fear that the Americans intended to set- tle in large numbers on their ancestral lands, which had never been recognized as belonging to them. Some Natives had joined the British, and all were punished for this choice by both sides. The Iroquois were driven from their lands in the state of New York. The First Nations were abandoned by the British in the rush for extrication from an unpopular and expensive war. Britain transferred sovereignty over land south of the Great Lakes and as far west as the Mississippi River to the Americans, totally ignoring the fact that most of that land was claimed by its Aboriginal allies, who would insist they had never surrendered it to the Americans. The Native refugees were given a grant of land along the Grand River in what would become Upper Canada. Here a 1785 census showed 1,843 Native residents, including more than 400 Mohawks.

Few of the Loyalists stayed where they were set- tled initially. The town of Port Roseway (or Shelburne),

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130 A History of the Canadian Peoples

In 1781 a regular weekly meeting was held at a New

York tavern between representatives of the American

and British governments. At issue were the fates of

more than 3,000 black residents of the city of New

York, most of whom had escaped from slavery by

crossing British lines, encouraged to do so by the

British military. The British negotiators of the prelimin-

ary peace agreement were so anxious to end the war

that they agreed to the American demand to return

these fugitives to their slave masters, but General

Guy Carleton (the commander of New York) refused

to consent. Instead, he agreed to keep a record of all

blacks being removed and to allow the Americans to

dispute individual names. Brigadier General Samuel

Birch, whom Carleton placed in charge of evacua-

tion from New York, was instrumental in creating and

maintaining this documentation of black Loyalists. In

the end, only 14 cases were disputed as Carleton and

Birch’s “Book of Negroes” was being prepared. The

personal information included for those being listed

varied. The entry for Billy Williams offers one example:

35, healthy stout man, (Richard Browne

[former master]). Formerly lived with Mr. Moore

of Reedy Island, Caroline, from whence he

came with the 71st Regiment about 3 years

ago.

Those who were included thought that they were

now proper Loyalists, which would prove to be not

quite the case. Two copies were made of the list, one for

each side. The British original is in the Carleton Papers

in the Public Record Office, London, and the American

original is in the National Archives in Washington.

Copies of the originals exist in the Public Archives of

Nova Scotia and the Public Archives of Canada.

As an artifact, the “Book of Negroes” is a compli-

cated part of material culture. In some ways it is an object

of resistance, having been constructed by Samuel Birch

to prevent the American slave owners from reclaim-

ing those they thought of as their property. The same

freemen would name their settlement in Shelburne

County, Nova Scotia, in his honour: Birchtown. That

said, it also is a symbol of oppression. The need for its

construction and the legal disputes that occurred as a

result were made possible by the inequality of slavery. It

is also, as a historical document, one of the best resour-

ces on the daily lives of black Americans. The profes-

sions, the ages, the names, and the former masters of

these people were recorded and provide insight into

the way that free and “escaped” people made their way

in the British colonies, including Boston King (discussed

below), formerly a slave from South Carolina who made

his way to New York, then Nova Scotia, and eventually

became a missionary in Africa.

Material Culture The “Book of Negroes”

on the southwest coast of the Nova Scotia peninsula, became notorious as a place where almost all of the 10,000 people who had been transported there left within 10 years. The decade of the 1780s saw contin- ual Loyalist relocation, sometimes within the colony of original settlement, sometimes in another colony of greater promise, and often eventually back to the United States after subsidies ran out and the initial

American hostility had died down. Much of the land initially granted to the Loyalists had only limited agri- cultural potential, and everywhere homes had to be hewn out of a wilderness. The Loyalist settlement did reassert the principle of freehold tenure in all the col- onies. The most stable newcomers were members of the office-holding elite, who tended to cluster in the prov- incial capitals.

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If the Loyalists were a restless population phys- ically, they were a discontented and highly vocal one politically. Only a small fraction would receive formal compensation for property lost in the United States. All felt that they had suffered for their allegiance to the Crown, and that this made them deserving of both land and government assistance. Since many of the Loyalists were former American colonials, they were accustomed to certain levels of political participation. They also shared many political assumptions with their former neighbours. Loyalists may have supported George III, but they expected to be admitted to full participation in the political process for which they had fought. Quebec Loyalists thus complained bitterly about the absence of a representative assembly in the province. Nova Scotia and Island of Saint John Loyalists were unhappy about the domination of government by earlier inhabitants. Furthermore, Loyalists were divided among them- selves, with the chief divisions being between the old elite, who sought to re-establish themselves as the nat- ural leaders of society, and the more articulate among the rank and file, who sought a more democratic and open future. The coming of the Loyalists finally pro- vided the cadre of articulate anglophone settlers that the British had hoped for in 1763. The new settlers not only spoke English, but did so with an American accent.

Patrick Campbell, on the Grand River in Upper Canada in 1792, was answered by a man “in a twang peculiar to the New Englanders”: “I viow niew you may depen I’s just a-comin.” When asked how far, the response was, “I viow niew I guess I do’ no,—I guess niew I do’ no—I sear niew I guess it is three miles” (Campbell, 1837: 157). In most respects—except for loyalty to George III—the Loyalists were thoroughly Americanized.

Reinventing British North America The loss of the American colonies, combined with pres- sure from the Loyalist leadership, gradually produced a political reorganization of British North America. It is at least arguable that since the Americans were the ones who had separated, what remained of British America carried on the imperial continuity in the New World. Stage one came in 1784, after the Treaty of Paris of 1783, when a governor-generalship was established to adminis- ter Britain’s remaining North American colonies. Sir Guy Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, was the first appointee to this post in 1786. Britain also created two new provinces in 1784. New Brunswick was hived off from Nova Scotia

“Encampment of the Loyalists at Johnston, a New Settlement on the banks of the St Lawrence River in Canada,” watercolour by James Peachey, 6 June 1784. An officer in the 60th Regiment, Peachey was deputy surveyor-general at the time, surveying lots for disbanded troops and Loyalist refugees. “Johnston” was the future Cornwall, Ontario. LAC, 1989-218-1.

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132 A History of the Canadian Peoples

and given a set of political officials chosen from the “needy” Loyalist elite. The capital, Fredericton, was laid out in 1785, the year the first governor, Thomas Carleton (brother of Guy), arrived. Cape Breton was given a separ- ate government, administered by a lieutenant-governor and a council without an assembly—until it was reunited with Nova Scotia in 1820. No changes were made in the government of Newfoundland, which still was being administered by officials resident in St John’s during only the summer months; there was yet no assembly. A court system was operating on the island, however. Nor

were alterations made immediately in Quebec, although Dorchester arrived in 1786 with a new chief justice in the person of William Smith (1728–93) of New York. Smith’s political views were distinctly Anglo-American. He was known to have little sympathy for the Old Regime. We will use the term “British America” to distinguish the new version of the British colonies in America from the old “British North America.”

In 1787 a former Loyalist pamphleteer, the Reverend Charles Inglis (1734–1816), arrived in Halifax as the first North American bishop of the Church of

Biography

Boston King (1760–1802) was born a slave on a plan- tation near Charleston, South Carolina, King’s parents were household servants rather than field hands, and he was apprenticed at age 16 to a carpenter, who beat him mercilessly but provided him with a skill useful to him throughout his life. His master adhered to the reb- el side when the American Revolution broke out, and in 1780 King took advantage of the British occupation of Charleston and the offer to grant blacks their freedom if they joined the royal standard. Once free in the town, he found ways of making himself useful, although he was constantly in danger of risking re-enslavement, partly through the actions of unsympathetic loyalists.

King managed to get to New York City in 1782, but found himself again in danger when the prelimin- ary peace treaty—in article 7—called for the return of all American property, including slaves, to its owners. He was saved when Guy Carleton, commander of the British forces in New York, refused to accept that slaves were part of the property provision in article 7 and enrolled him in the“Book of Negroes” instead. King and his wife Violet were carried on a ship to Port Roseway (i.e., Shelburne), Nova Scotia, where they were set- tled with other blacks in a separate community called

Birchtown, which by early 1784 had a population of over 1,500 blacks located on small garden lots. A religious revival in Birchtown, led by Methodist evangelists, broke out in 1783, and both King and his wife were con- verted. “All my doubts and fears vanished away,” he later wrote. “I saw, by faith, heaven opened to my view.” King became an itinerant evangelist and continued working as a carpenter. He eventually left Birchtown because of the poverty of the settlement—the blacks had not been allocated enough land for successful farming—ending up preaching in a black settlement near Halifax.

In 1791 he joined other black Nova Scotians in sup- porting John Clarkson’s Sierra Leone Company, which planned a black settlement in Africa. In January 1792 he and Violet left Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone. She died soon after arriving in Africa. After serving as a mission- ary and teacher in the colony, King left for England in 1794 to acquire further education. While in England he wrote his memoirs, and later returned to Africa where he maintained his missionary endeavours until his death. Better educated and prepared for life as a free- man, King’s account of his experiences represents one of the few available windows into the world of early blacks in Nova Scotia.

Boston King

Source: “Memoirs of the life of Boston King, a black preacher, written by himself during his residence at Kingswood School,” originally published in Methodist Magazine (London), 21 (1798): 105–10, 157–61, 209–13, 261–5.

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1334 | Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

England. Although most Loyalists were not Anglicans, the British government wished to establish a close con- nection between church and state. Initially, the new bishop was responsible for Quebec. Inglis worked uphill for years to bring Anglicanism to a level worthy of state support. The Loyalists pressed hard for institutions of higher learning in the colonies. William Smith of Quebec advocated a secular university for his province, Inglis helped establish King’s College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, and Benedict Arnold (who lived in Saint John as an unpopular Loyalist refugee from 1786–91) spear- headed a movement for a university in New Brunswick, which did not take root at that time.

In the western part of Quebec, demands for British institutions, particularly an assembly, pro- duced the second stage of political reorganization: the Constitutional Act of 1791. This parliamentary legis- lation split Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada, giv- ing the former a lieutenant-governor—the first one was John Graves Simcoe (1752–1806)—both an executive and a legislative council, and an assembly. In theory, Upper Canada’s lieutenant-governor would be responsible to the governor of Quebec, and all the chief officials in the various colonies to the Governor General, but Britain’s efforts to create an administrative hierarchy were not very effective. Each colony of British America continued to turn directly to the British government as the source of real authority.

Despite self-denying legislation by Parliament in 1777 that no direct taxes would be collected in British America without the consent of the governed in a legis- lative assembly, and however much eighteenth-century British statesmen remained committed to the principle of colonial assemblies, Great Britain was reluctant to universalize these institutions.

French Canada obtained an assembly in 1791 less because Britain felt it was entitled to one than because the Loyalist settlers up-country insisted on having one, and symmetry between Upper and Lower Canada needed to be maintained. For the British, assem- blies implied that colonies had come to full maturity, including the control of decent revenue. Cape Breton, because of its small size and remote location, would have to grow into an assembly, which it never did. As for Newfoundland, Britain still hesitated to grant it full

colonial status, partly because of its large population of Roman Catholics. The Loyalist period, however, saw the achievement of full political privileges for Roman Catholics in most of British America, both through local legislative initiative and parliamentary fiat (for Quebec). Only on the Island of Saint John (which in 1786 passed laws permitting Catholics to own land but not to vote) and in New Brunswick until 1810 were Catholics still disenfranchised politically. In 1791 the British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act of 1791, which separated Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada and gave each a legislative assembly.

A less publicized development than the introduc- tion of assemblies and the expansion of voting franchises was the elaboration of the legal system of the various colonies. This system was based chiefly on English law and English models except in Quebec, where English criminal law was joined to most aspects of French civil law. The establishment of colonial courts and assemblies meant that new English statute law extended to British America only where specifically authorized, but the colonial legal system took over earlier English statute law and the whole body of the common law, including its patriarchal treatment of women. The introduction of the law was necessary both to good government and especially to business, which would have been lost with- out the adjudication of the complex system of credit

“Part of the Town of Shelburne in Nova Scotia, with the Barracks Opposite,” pencil drawing by William Booth (1746–1828), 1789. Booth was a surveyor who laid out much of the town of Shelburne. A competent artist, he depicted much of the early development of the town, especially the section reserved for blacks. LAC 1990-289-1.

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134 A History of the Canadian Peoples

17 November 1787

Polly Dibblee to William Jarvis

Kingston, New Brunswick

Dear Billy

I have received your two Letters and the Trunk, and

I feel the good Effects of the Clothes you sent me and

my Children, and I value them to be worth more than

I should have valued a thousand Pounds sterling in the

year 1774. Alas, my Brother, that Providence should

permit so many Evils to fall on me and my Fatherless

Children—I know the sensibility of your Heart—there-

fore will not exaggerate in my story, lest I should con-

tribute towards your Infelicity on my account—Since I

wrote you, I have been twice burnt out, and left desti-

tute of Food and Raiment; and in this dreary Country

I know not where to find Relief—for Poverty has

expelled Friendship and charity from the human Heart,

and planted in its stead the Law of self-preservation—

which scarcely can preserve alive the rustic Hero in

this frozen Climate and barren Wilderness—

You say “that you have received accounts of the

great sufferings of the Loyalists for want of Provisions,

and I hope that you and your Children have not had

the fate to live on Potatoes alone”—I assure you,

my dear Billy, that many have been the Days since

my arrival in this inhospitable Country, that I should

have thought myself and Family truly happy could

we have “had Potatoes alone”—but this mighty Boon

was denied us!—I could have borne these Burdens of

Loyalty with Fortitude had not my poor Children in

doleful accents cried, Mama, why don’t you help me

and give me Bread?

O gracious God, that I should live to see such

times under the Protection of a British Government

for whose sake we have Done and suffered every

thing but that of Dying—

May you never Experience such heart piercing

troubles as I have and still labour under—You may

Depend on it that the Sufferings of the poor Loyalists

are beyond all possible Description—The old

Egyptians who required Brick without giving straw

were more Merciful than to turn the Israelites into a

thick Wood to gain Subsistence from an uncultivated

Wilderness—Nay, the British Government allowed to

the first Inhabitants of Halifax, Provisions for seven

years, and have denied them to the Loyalists after

two years—which proves to me that the British

Rulers value Loyal Subjects less than the Refuse of

the Gaols of England and America in former Days—

Inhumane Treatment I suffered under the Power of

American Mobs and Rebels for that Loyalty, which

is now thought handsomely compensated for, by

neglect and starvation—I dare not let my Friends

at Stamford know of my Calamitous Situation lest

it should bring down the grey Hairs of my Mother

to the Grave; and besides they could not relieve

me without distressing themselves should I apply—

as they have been ruined by the Rebels during the

War—therefore I have no other Ground to hope, but,

on your Goodness and Bounty—

I wish every possible happiness may attend

you, and your amiable Wife, and Child—and my

Children have sense enough to know they have an

Uncle Billy, and beg he will always remember them

as they deserve.

A Loyalist Woman in New Brunswick As the text of this letter suggests, Polly Dibblee (1747–1826) was a member of the Jarvis family of Stamford, Connecticut. She moved with her husband to New Brunswick during the Loyalist migration from New York. The new life was often hardest on Loyalist women.

Contemporary Views

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1354 | Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

employed in commerce. While the law in British America would develop its own characteristics over time, it was always closely linked to its English origins. Here was the origin of what Lord Macaulay would later describe for England as a system where “the authority of law and security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and individual action.”

The Loyalist migration had ended by 1786, when compensatory land grants and provisioning ceased vir- tually everywhere in British America. In one decade the loyal provinces of British America had received a sub- stantial contingent of American settlers, well-subsidized by the British government, that they had not previously been able to attract.

So-called “late Loyalists” continued to come to Upper and Lower Canada, drawn by offers of land. The Atlantic region has not since then experienced a substantial American influx. For all colonies of British America, immigration and settlement would have cru- cial importance, but the post-Loyalist wave would have to be managed under quite different circumstances.

Immigration and Settlement, 1790–1815 Between 1790 and 1815 immigration to British America came from two major sources: the British Isles (mainly the Scottish Highlands and Ireland) and the United States (mainly upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and New England). The British newcomers settled every- where, while the Americans were almost entirely con- fined to the Canadas. Most of the Scots were drawn to the Maritime region, where they had already estab-

lished beachheads of settlement, but some went to Lower Canada and eastern Upper Canada to join Scottish communities there. The major movement from Britain occurred in a brief interlude of European peace between 1801 and 1803, chiefly to the northeast shore of Nova Scotia, to Cape Breton, and to Prince Edward Island (which the Island of Saint John became in 1799). Prosperity in Newfoundland and New Brunswick dur- ing the period 1812–15 drew many Irish to these col- onies, more of whom were Protestant than Catholic because they came from northern Ireland.

Some of the American arrivals were pacifist Quakers and Mennonites encouraged by offers of exemption from military service in Upper Canada, but they soon were joined by a large influx of settlers who took up readily available land from government or pri- vate entrepreneurs. Lieutenant-Governor John Simcoe encouraged such grants. Some of these newcomers were fleeing American policies they disliked, including the new Constitution of 1789 and the severe repression of Pennsylvania whisky distillers in the 1790s, but most simply were part of the North American moving fron- tier. Until 1798 the Upper Canadian government treated these arrivals as Loyalists. Between 1791 and 1812 the English-speaking population of Lower Canada (mainly American) tripled from 10,000 to 30,000 and repre- sented 10 per cent of the province’s population. The Americans were located mainly in the Ottawa Valley and the Eastern Townships. In Upper Canada, by the time of the War of 1812, Americans made up as much as 80 per cent of a population estimated by one contempor- ary at 136,000. As tensions grew between Britain and the United States after 1807, the British began to be worried by the predominance of Americans in Upper Canada. In both Canadas, Americans tended to recreate their own

I have only to add—that by your Brother Dibblee’s

Death—my Miseries were rendered Compleat in this

World but as God is just and Merciful my prospects

in a future World are substantial and pleasing—I

will therefore endeavour to live on hopes till I hear

again from you— I remain in possession of a grace-

ful Heart,

Dear Billy,

Your affectionate Sister,

Polly Dibblee

Source: Letter from Polly Dibblee to William Jarvis, 17 November 1787, Kingston, [NB], National Archives, London, docu-

ment no. 13_41, Audit Office, series 13, bundle 41.

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136 A History of the Canadian Peoples

local culture and institutions rather than to insist on political and legal reform of provincial political systems they regarded as oligarchical and repressive.

Another distinctive population emerged from obscurity in the Maritime region in this period. Despite the best efforts of the British to eliminate the Acadians in the 1750s, the campaign had not been completely effective. We do not understand very well the process by which the Acadians regrouped in the region, since most of the movement occurred outside record-keeping and beyond the reach of central authority, which may well be the point. After the Treaty of Paris of 1763, British policy permitted Acadian resettlement, provided that oaths of allegiance were taken and that the population moved to designated places in small numbers. Acadians gradually returned to the Maritime region to farm and fish, usually in remote districts far from existing settlement and often on marginal land. The governments of the region made no attempt to assist or accept them, but they were tolerated and left to create their own institutions. Those institutions were dominated, as they always had been, by the nuclear family and kinship ties, and to a much lesser extent by the Church. The scattered Acadians had great difficulty in obtaining priests, especially French- speaking ones, from the Quebec Church, which claimed it had few priests to spare for missionary service. As a result, the Acadians became accustomed to a religion dominated by laymen and supplemented by the arrival of occasional missionaries. Many of the regulations of the Church, including those on marriage, were not enforced, and parochial organizations were slow to develop. Despite the problems, by 1803 a religious census showed nearly 4,000 Acadians in Nova Scotia, nearly 4,000 in New Brunswick, and nearly 700 in Prince Edward Island.

It was certainly the case that government and pol- itics everywhere in British America were, to say the least, cozy. The governments of the various provinces were dominated by a small cadre of well-paid officials appointed chiefly in England, in collaboration with local elites represented on the councils. While serious political conflict between the elected assemblies and the provincial oligarchies that governed British America was almost inevitable, it was slow to develop. The oli- garchy associated the aspirations of the assemblies with the worst aspects of levelling republicanism—after 1789

the French Revolution succeeded the American as the chief example. Criticism of government was immedi- ately rejected and critics were silenced by any means necessary, including violence.

In most provinces, early political opposition was sporadic and usually conducted within the ranks of the elite according to well-defined rules. Many of the early opponents of government—men like James Glenie (1750–1817) in New Brunswick, William Cottnam Tonge (1764–1832) in Nova Scotia, Robert Thorpe (1764–1836) in Upper Canada, and William Carson (1770–1843) in Newfoundland—were outspoken political gadflies who received very little consistent support from their colleagues. Only in Prince Edward Island and Lower Canada did anything resembling political parties develop before the War of 1812.

Lower Canada started its separate legislative exist- ence with politics divided along class lines. The “French Party” consisted chiefly of Canadian seigneurs, sup- ported by the clergy and a few English officials. They wanted all of the French civil law restored and retained. The bulk of the French-Canadian population was not yet integrated into the political system. The opposition, mainly English merchants, wanted the introduction of English commercial law, radical constitutional changes, and the right of habeas corpus. Over the next few years, the ideas and controversies of the French Revolution gradually made their way to Canada, often assisted by deliberate propaganda and subversion from France via the United States. In 1796–7, the French government actually developed a plan for the invasion of Canada from Vermont, although it had little public support.

The English official elite in Lower Canada over- reacted to the French threat, exaggerating the colony’s importance to France and the disloyalty (or potential disloyalty) of the Canadian people. The elite acted as though the colony was constantly faced with insurrec- tion, and then engaged in repressive tactics. In 1794, the assembly, opposed by only a few Canadian members, passed an Alien Act that suspended habeas corpus not only in cases of treason but also in cases of sedition. The legislation was used to conduct a witch hunt and to jail many persons without recourse to bail.

As the French-Canadian population became more experienced at electoral politics—and their experience

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grew rapidly—they inevitably reacted to the suspicions and repressive tactics of the official elite. By 1796, the Canadians had won a majority of seats in the assembly. Official Lower Canada saw this election as a victory for treason and the revolt of the Canadian lower orders. The new ethnic division was quickly made more permanent by the authorities’ insistence on viewing the French Canadians as determined to turn the colony over to the French “sans-culottes.” The ethnic division also ended any possibility of reform of the government created by the Constitutional Act of 1791. The Canadians continued to favour reform, while the former anglophone reform- ers now allied themselves with the English officials to form the “English Party,” which was devoted to preser- vation of the status quo. The French-Canadian reformers received little support from the Catholic Church, either. Virtually the only emigrants from France to Lower Canada during this period were clergymen, refugees

from the anticlericalism of the Revolution who hardly were likely to preach revolution to their flocks.

By the end of the eighteenth century the ethnic div- ision was probably irreparable, and it only became more entrenched in the years before the War of 1812. The English party in the assembly and the “Château Clique,” the anglophone oligarchy that ran the government, con- tinued to fear an imminent French invasion, one that would be warmly supported by the Canadians. Such fears were encouraged by the deterioration of relations between the United States and Great Britain and by the increased pressure of the “Parti Canadien” (as it came to be called) for a constitutional change that the English elite was certain represented the start of rebellion. Partisanship reached a new height during the 1810 elec- tions, in which Governor Lieutenant-General Sir James Henry Craig seized newspaper printing presses and jailed both printers and leaders of the Parti Canadien,

“Part of York the Capital of Upper Canada on the Bay of Toronto in Lake Ontario,” 1804, by Elizabeth F. Hale. Looking east along Palace (now Front) Street, this view shows Cooper’s Tavern (at left, facing what is now Jarvis Street) and the houses of Duncan Cameron (a merchant), William Warren Baldwin, and William Allan. In the distance are the government buildings and blockhouse (with flag). LAC, 1970-188-2092 W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana.

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138 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Electoral Behaviour in French Canada

Document

TO THOSE ELECTORS OF THE COUNTY OF QUEBEC

Who have voted, and those who were prevented

from voting in my favour the 25th, 26th, 27th June last:

The more obstacles you have surmounted, you have shown the greater wisdom and firmness, in a country where liberty is but just dawning; for the general good and at the same time of esteem for myself, in thinking me worthy of being a representative, penetrated like yourselves with patriotism and gratitude for so distin- guished a degree of your confidence, I entreat you to accept my sincere thanks and to be persuaded that I will neglect nothing for the accomplishment of your wishes and to obtain the justice due to us.

I cannot help observing on the silence kept by the Quebec Gazette, with respect to the extraordinary cir- cumstances of the Upper and Lower town of the County of Quebec, particularly on the abstract and mysterious turn that the Quebec Gazette of Thursday last has given to what passed at Charlebourg during the election for the County of Quebec, doubtless the author of that paragraph is one of those who heretofore have so much fatigued themselves to write, print, and vaguely cry against the laws of this country, against the Honourable profession of Advocate, and who have employed such low means as those known to the public, but who have found no advantage in publishing the true facts arising from the Constitution; I shall not, however, undertake to establish them in this paper, the election for the County of Quebec being intended to be a subject for examina- tion and I hope of just censure in the House of Assembly.

I confine myself at present to inform the public of the state of the poll.

Salaberry, Esq……………515 Lynd, Esq………………...462 Berthelot, Advocate….......436

It is evident that I find myself the lowest by 26 votes, but the public cannot be ignorant how many are to be deducted from the other two candidates of persons who are neither proprietors nor naturalized. I might depend on this point alone or contest the election altogether. By the means contained in my protest signi- fied by two Notaries when the poll was unexpectedly closed, 62 Voters more on the spot presented themselves in my favor and formally protested even in the build- ing where the election was held, from which they were chased by some gentlemen who demolished it by force, but they continued their protest and finished it in the neighbourhood.

I hope that the country and the truth will not fail to direct resources, and that no personal influence will deprive my fellow countrymen of the advantages of our Constitution, which is in itself so good that the elections have made known the good subjects in this country, as well as the intentions and cabals of some others who have preached up union and non-distinction of birth, while they would secretly favourize a certain class of men who alone are neither able to effect the welfare or the peace of this colony.

—Berthelot Dartigny

The following notice, by a French-Canadian candidate in the first election for an assembly in Lower Canada, illustrates both the rapidity with which the French Canadians adapted to the new constitution and the ways in which elections were fought in the province. Michel Amable Berthelot Dartigny (1738–1815) became a lawyer in 1771 and a judge in 1791. He was a major property speculator in the town of Quebec. Finally elected to the assembly in 1798, he was an early supporter of the Canadian Party.

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thus making himself a symbol of British tyranny. The French Canadians had quickly adopted the tactics of a popular party in a British-style legislature. But they had been forced to do more. They had also turned their popular party into one committed to the preservation of French-Canadian values and even the perpetuation of French-Canadian nationalism.

The period before 1815 also saw the beginnings of the settlement of the West. In 1811 the Earl of Selkirk (1772–1820) received from the Hudson’s Bay Company a grant of 116,000 square miles (300,417 km2) cov- ering parts of present-day Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota. In return for this grant Selkirk was to supply the HBC with employees to aid in its bitter struggle with the North West Company for control of the western fur trade. Selkirk hoped to be able to keep the colony he intended to establish at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers separate from the fur

trade rivalry, but this would prove impossible. Miles Macdonell (c. 1767–1828) was named the first governor of Assiniboia, as the territory was called in June 1811. On 26 July he and the first contingent of colonists left for Hudson Bay, arriving two months later at York Factory. After wintering on the Nelson River until the breakup of ice (at the end of June), they did not arrive at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers until 30 August 1812. The colony soon ran afoul of the North West Company, which used the Red River region as the source of pemmican for provisioning its traders on the vast inland canoe routes it had established.

The War of 1812 After some years of worsening relations, the Americans declared war on Great Britain on 18 June 1812. There were several factors behind the war. One was Britain’s high-handedness in searching American ships on the high seas during the Napoleonic blockade, removing British subjects aboard them, and recruiting them into her navy. Another was the British failure to abandon the Ohio Valley, where military posts continued to mon- itor the fur trade. Most of all, the Americans coveted Canada and they proceeded again to invade in 1812 and in 1813. Invading armies successively were thrust back through the major entry points: the Detroit–Windsor corridor, the Niagara Peninsula, and Lake Champlain. A relatively small number of British regulars, assisted by colonial militia and Native peoples, held the prov- ince against American armies, which were neither well-trained nor well-led. A number of Canadian heroes emerged from the war, their reputations to be further mythologized after it was over: General Isaac Brock, Tecumseh, and Laura Secord.

The appearance of invading American armies posed a crisis of allegiance for many of the American settlers in Upper Canada. Most remained silently on their farms, although some supported their countrymen and retreated across the border with them. A handful of Americans were arrested and tried for treason at Ancaster in 1814, but the Canadian authorities gener- ally did a good job of avoiding unnecessary witch hunts. Civilian damage was heavy (Table 4.2).

Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk. This painting was based supposedly on a portrait by the Scottish artist Henry Raeburn. The location of the original is unknown. LAC, C-1346.

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140 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The loyalty question would not emerge as an open political issue until after the war was over. Well- led British regulars were assisted by militiamen from both the Canadas and by a number of Aboriginal allies. The Upper Canadians came out of the war convinced that their militia had won the war single- handed, although most militia died of disease and fewer than 30 died in battle (Niagara Spectator, 11 Dec. 1817). When the ministry of Alexander Mackenzie decided in 1875 to grant pensions for War of 1812 veterans, it expected only a few hundred to come for- ward. Instead, almost 2,000 veterans claimed service.

The “militia myth” contributed to the emergence of an Upper Canadian identity through the middle years of the nineteenth century.

The naval war was fought on several fronts. The first and best-known one was on the Great Lakes, especially Lake Ontario, where both sides built substantial nav- ies from scratch and fought to a standstill from 1812 to 1814. The Atlantic Ocean front consisted of a handful of legendary set battles between individual American and British naval vessels—which the Americans typically won—and a considerable quantity of prize-taking, both by the British navy and by privateers on both sides

Lake Erie

Lake Ontario

Lake Huron

Georgian Bay EASTERN

HOME

LONDON

WESTERN

GORE

NIAGARA

NEW CASTLE

MIDLAND

JOHNSTOWN

Kingston

Ft Erie

Burlington Heights

Ft Niagara

Buffalo

Newark

York

Dover Port

Talbot

Fairfield

Sandwich

Ft Detroit

Amherstburg

UPPER CANADA & THE WAR OF 1812

Upper Canada and the War of 1812. Drawing by Cy Morris. Map 1, from George Sheppard, Plunder, Profit and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994).

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1414 | Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

Table 4.2 Claims for War of 1812 Damages by District, Upper Canada

Claims Submitted Percentage of Total Estimated Damages (£)

Western 415 20.2 65,196

London 296 14.4 50,797

Niagara 678 33.0 182,169

Gore 310 15.1 44,243

Home 80 3.9 12,379

Newcastle 13 0.6 2,633

Midland 21 1.0 6,938

Johnston 63 3.1 6,007

Eastern 167 8.1 12,065

Other* 12 0.6 18,301

Total 2,055 100 400,728

*There were 12 claims for damages outside the province.

Source: George Sheppard, Plunder, Profit and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 14, 123, from LAC, RG 19, E5 (a), Board of Claims.

A military unit of mercenary soldiers initially recruited

by Comte Charles de Meuron in 1781 to serve the Dutch

East India Company’s colonies, especially the Cape of

Good Hope, the De Meuron Regiment was soon sent

from Capetown to Ceylon, where it helped expel the

British from Cuddalore. Returned to Capetown, the

regiment did garrison duty until being sent back to

Ceylon, where two of its companies were imprisoned

by the British in 1795. When the Dutch could not pay

their troops, the regiment entered British service.

When full service was finally arranged in 1798, the unit

consisted of two battalions of five infantry compan-

ies each, which were dispatched to India until 1806,

and Malta until 1809, under Sir Arthur Wellesley’s

command in the region. In 1813 the unit added new

recruits and as a regiment comprised mostly of Swiss

Material Culture

The De Meurons were originally Swiss mercenaries in the service of the Empire. Unlike British regulars, they had a uniform that emphasized their international nature. Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Department of Prints and Drawings/Photo Archive

Uniform of the De Meuron Regiment

Continued...

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142 A History of the Canadian Peoples

(Table 4.3). The British probably won the war of the prizes. Business-like privateers from Atlantic Canada made a substantial economic contribution to their communities and helped keep the economies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick humming during the con- flict (Kert, 1997).

Before the war had ended, York (Toronto) was burned, the American capital at Washington was sacked in retaliation, and Fort Michilimackinac (on western Lake Huron) was captured and held by Canadian voya- geurs. The final struggle for naval control of the Great Lakes took place in 1814; the Americans appeared to be winning. The last battle of the war, at New Orleans on 8 January 1815, was actually fought after a peace of stale- mate had been signed at Ghent on 24 December 1814.

Slow communications of the time kept the combatants from knowing that hostilities had ceased.

The Americans treated the War of 1812 as a second War of Independence, a necessary struggle to complete the process of separation from the mother country. National survival was taken as victory—although the United States was had been the aggressor through much of the conflict—perhaps not least because of Andrew Jackson’s decisive victory over the attacking British fleet at New Orleans. From the British perspective, the war had been little more than a sideshow to the major strug- gle, which was fought against Napoleon in Europe. As for British America, in the lower provinces (as the Maritime region was coming to be called) the War of 1812 mainly represented an opportunity to serve as a conduit for

and Germans was sent from Malta to Upper Canada

in October 1813. In North America they saw gar-

rison duty and did rearguard duty at the Battle of

Plattsburgh (the last battle of the War of 1812 prior to

the Treaty of Ghent) in September 1814. The regiment

was disbanded by the British in 1816, and a number of

men from it and from de Watteville’s Swiss Regiment—

5 officers, 80 men, and 20 de Wattevilles, still wear-

ing uniforms—were available to be recruited by

the Earl of Selkirk as a private army. Under Selkirk’s

leadership and commanded by their former officers,

these soldiers helped capture Fort William in 1816

and recapture Fort Douglas (at Red River) from the

Métis in January 1817. They were arguably the decid-

ing factor in the ultimate victory of the Hudson’s Bay

Company over the North West Company in the fur

trade struggle for control of the West. Subsequently

brought by Selkirk to Red River as settlers, many of

the de Meurons married Swiss and German women

imported to the settlement by Selkirk’s estate in

1821. Residing on the banks of the Red River, they

were flooded out by the Great Flood of 1826 and

removed with their families to Fort Snelling, near

St Paul, Minnesota.

The uniform of the regiment, redcoats, blue

cuffs, and brushed felt hats with plumes, was par-

ticularly distinctive, as were the company buttons

with their interlocking DM. The use of the blue, to

distinguish the Des Meurons from British regulars,

was intentional, but that they also ended up wearing

the same red uniforms is not to be overlooked. That

these uniforms were still used by the regiment after it

was disbanded also evokes their connections to the

Empire as a whole.

As a result, the uniforms are an element of

material culture that shows the international flavour

of the British Empire and the growing multicultural

nature of the soldiers fighting both in Canada and

abroad. The blue cuffs, which associated the regi-

ment with Switzerland, allowed the soldiers to ref-

erence their own heritage, in a way similar to the

Highland regiments’ use of tartan. That said, the red-

coats identified them as members of the British army

and as a part of the larger Empire.

When looking at the materials the uniforms are

made of, the international elements of the Empire

become even clearer. The felt that their hats were

made of probably had its origins in Canadian fur, while

the cotton likely came from India, as did the plumes.

Although manufactured in British factories, the materi-

als used to clothe the symbols of British authority in

the colonies came from the colonies themselves.

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Table 4.3 Privateering in the Atlantic Region

Privateer Type Number % of Total Prizes % of Prizes

Schooner 26 55 182 81

Sloop 6 13 21 9

Brigantine/brig 6 13 18 8

Ship 2 4 0 0

Others* 4 11 5 2

Unknown 3 4 2

*Includes jebacco boats, cutters, and a lugger.

Source: Faye Margaret Kert, Prize and Prejudice: Privateering and Naval Prize in Atlantic Canada in the War of 1812 was originally published as Research in Maritime History No. 11 (St John’s, NL, 1997), and excerpts are reprinted here with the kind permission of the International Maritime Economic History Association.

“The Battle of Queenston. October 18th, 1813 [sic],” by Major James B. Dennis, coloured lithograph, c. 1866, after the original print published in 1836 by J.W. Laird & Co. in London. The Battle of Queenston Heights actually took place on 13 October 1812. LAC, R13133-387.

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144 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Laura Secord to the Prince of Wales, 1860

Document

Having the privilege accorded me this day of presenting myself before your Royal Highness I beg to assure you that I do so with the greatest gratification to my feelings. I am confident your Royal Highness will pardon the lib- erty I have taken when your Royal Highness is informed of the circumstances which have led me to do so.

I shall commence at the battle of Queenston, where I was at the time the cannon balls were flying around me in every direction. I left the place during the engagement. After the battle I returned to Queenston, and then found

that my husband had been wounded; my house plundered and property destroyed. It was while the Americans had possession of the frontier, that I learned the plans of the American commander, and determined to put the British troops under Fitzgibbon in possession of them, and if pos- sible, to save the British troops from capture, or, perhaps, total destruction. In doing so I found I should have great difficulty in getting through the American guards, which were out ten miles in the country. Determined to perse- vere, however, I left early in the morning, walked nine- teen miles in the month of June, over a rough and difficult part of the country, when I came to a field belonging to a Mr Decamp [DeCew], in the neighbourhood of the Beaver Dam. By this time daylight had left me. Here I found all the Indians encamped; by moonlight the scene was terri- fying, and to those accustomed to such scenes, might be considered grand. Upon advancing to the Indians they all rose, and, with some yells, said “Woman,” which made me tremble. I cannot express the awful feeling it gave me; but I did not lose my presence of mind. I was determined to persevere. I went up to one of the chiefs, made him under- stand that I had great news for Capt. Fitzgibbon, and that he must let me pass to his camp, or that he and his party would be all taken. The chief at first objected to let me pass, but finally consented, after some hesitation, to go with me and accompany me to Fitzgibbon’s station, which was at the Beaver Dam, where I had an interview with him. I then told him what I had come for, and what I had heard—that the Americans intended to make an attack

Laura Secord (1775–1868) was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Her father moved to Upper Canada in 1795 to obtain land, and she married a Loyalist. In 1813 she overheard some American soldiers discussing a planned attack on a British installation, and walked 30 miles through enemy territory to warn the British. Later in life she began to petition the government for a pension based on her loyal service, but nothing happened until 1860 when the Prince of Wales responded to a petition (reprinted below) by granting her 100 pounds for her loyalty. Her tale subsequently became part of Canadian mythology. The candy manufacturer has no connection except commercial exploitation of her name, Laura Secord.

This postage stamp, issued by Canada Post in 2013 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Laura Secord’s walk to warn the British of an attack, illustrates how she has become entrenched into Upper Canadian mythology. © Canada Post Corporation 2013. Reproduced with permission.

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upon the troops under his command, and would, from their superior numbers, capture them all. Benefiting by this information Capt. Fitzgibbon formed his plan accord- ingly, and captured about five hundred American infan- try, about fifty mounted dragoons, and a fieldpiece or two was taken from the enemy. I returned home next day, exhausted and fatigued. I am now advanced in years, and when I look back I wonder how I could have gone through so much fatigue, with the fortitude to accomplish it.

I am now a very old woman—a widow many years. A few short years even if I should so long live will see me no more upon this earth. I feel that it will be gratifying

to my family and a pleasure to myself that your Royal Parent the Queen should know that the services which I performed were truly loyal and that no gain or hope of reward influenced me in doing what I did.

I request that your Royal Highness will be pleased to convey to your Royal Parent Her Majesty the Queen the name of one who in the hour of trial and danger— as well as my departed husband who fought and bled on Queenston Heights in the ever memorable battle of 13th Oct. 1812—stood ever ready and willing to defend this Country against every invasion come what might.

Source: Laura Secord’s Memorial to the Prince of Wales, 1860, LAC, RG 7, G23, 1.

illicit trade between Britain and the United States; the region was never actively involved in the military strug- gle. Only in the Canadas did the War of 1812 have any great impact. In Lower Canada, the support the French Canadians gave the British demonstrated their loyalty. In Upper Canada, the war provided a demarcation point between the loyal and the disloyal, the latter composed almost entirely of Americans. During and after the fighting, the Canadian oligarchies (especially in Upper Canada) were able to appropriate Loyalism as their mon- opoly and use it against their American opponents. The great struggle between British and American allegiance was played out internally in Upper Canada between 1812 and 1815, and the British won. After 1815 the overt American influence on Upper Canada—and the preva- lence of American culture—would gradually decline.

Despite the return to the status quo antebellum, the War of 1812 had considerable impact upon British America in several areas. One was in the domestic pol- itics of Upper Canada. To earlier notions of loyalty to the British Crown inherited from the period of the American Revolution was added a new ideological stream. The Upper Canadian Tory elite became con- vinced that the province had been in great danger, as much from the internal menace of American residents as from the external one of American troops. That elite

carried over into the post-war period their beliefs in the necessity of the simultaneous suppression of political opposition and the maintenance of social harmony, by force if necessary. These twin beliefs served as the basis for Upper Canadian Toryism for several generations (Mills, 1988).

Another important effect of the War of 1812 was upon the Aboriginal people, many of whom had sup- ported the British. It was never quite clear how a British victory would contribute to the cause of Aboriginal unity or the dream of a First Nations state, but it was certainly plain that the maintenance of the status quo was—from the Aboriginal perspective—a victory for the American expansionists. The United States had used the war to solidify its control of the “Middle Ground” in the Ohio Valley and to push the Aboriginals farther towards the margins. One of the articles of the Treaty of Ghent stipulated that both the United States and Great Britain would endeavour not only to end hostil- ities with the Native peoples, but “forthwith to restore to such tribes or nations respectively all possessions, right and privileges which they may have enjoyed or been entitled to in one thousand eight hundred and eleven, previous to such hostilities” (quoted in Allen, 1992: 169). This clause remained a dead letter. As it became clear that the British sought détente with the Americans in

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146 A History of the Canadian Peoples

the wake of the war, many of the tribes near the border sullenly came to terms with the American government after the Treaty of Ghent, while others retreated farther west to continue a resistance they understood full well was doomed.

In the North-West, a little war between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company ran its own course, occasionally touching on the larger Anglo– American conflict. In 1813, for example, Lord Selkirk very nearly succeeded in persuading the British government to finance the recruiting, equipping, and transporting to the Red River of a Highland regiment that he would command. The purpose of the unit was to protect the West from an American takeover. The scheme won min- isterial approval, but was vetoed at the last moment by the commander-in-chief, the Duke of York, not because it would have crushed the North West Company but because it involved Highlanders. In 1816 Selkirk recruited as soldier/settlers a number of disbanded troops from several Swiss regiments that had fought for the British in North America, leading them to the Red River. As in the War of 1812, the western fur trade war was fought to an expensive draw. The two rival companies would settle matters by merging in 1821, shortly after Selkirk’s death.

Conclusion

By a diplomatic convention in 1818, Great Britain and the United States would agree to declare the Great Lakes an unarmed zone and the forty-ninth paral- lel to be the Anglo–American border from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. British policy after the war would consistently be to seek entente rather than trouble with the Americans, so in a sense the Americans had won. The final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, rather than the Treaty of Ghent, marked the major watershed for Britain and her North American colonies, however. After 1815 the shift from an overheated war economy to a peacetime one in the British Isles produced substantial unemployment. Even after the post-war depression had ended, a new round of industrialization and agricultural ration- alization left many without work in their traditional occupations and places of residence. The result was a new era of emigration and immigration. Between 1815 and 1860 more than a million Britons would leave their homes and come to British America. In the process they would help bring the colonies into maturity.

Studying the Loyalists

Elizabeth Vibert, University of Victoria

In a 1784 petition to the governor of the Colony of Nova Scotia, new settlers Thomas Peters and Murphy Steel made very explicit their identities as Loyalists to the British Crown. They had served Britain in its long war against American rebels, the men explained, and came north with other Loyalists on the expectation that they would be granted land, provisions, and other necessities to start anew:

We first Inlisted in the year one Thousand Seven Hundred & seventy six & was promised

when we was swore . . . [that] when [the war] was over we was to be at our own Liberty to do & provide for our selves . . . We would be verrey much obliged to your Excellency if you would be so good as to grant the Articles allowed by Government to us[,] the same as the rest of the Disbanded Soldiers of his Majestys Army.1

Peters and Steel viewed themselves as Loyalist sol- diers like any others, and equally deserving of a help- ing hand from the British government. The problem for

Historiography

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1474 | Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

these men was that the colonial government did not view them as equal to other Loyalists. Peters and Steel were free people of African descent, more than 3,000 of whom were among the 35,000 refugees of the American Revolutionary War who made their way to Nova Scotia and the new colony of New Brunswick at war’s end. Their racialized status as formerly enslaved people, their class status as people who had lost no substantial property in the war, and their gender status—black men in the era of slavery were often imagined as lazy or unreliable, black women as sexually available—constrained their options in British North America. As a government official deal- ing with Loyalist compensation claims in Britain put it at the time, black Loyalists had already gained their freedom: they “ought to be satisfied.”2

Much Loyalist scholarship in recent years attends closely to the experiences, agency, and self-fashioning of previously ignored categories of Loyalist immigrants. Beginning in the 1970s a substantial body of scholarship developed around the black Loyalists, men and women who had fled slavery and joined the British war effort as soldiers, cooks, servants, and in other roles.3 One aim of this scholarship has been to highlight the social and racial diversity of the Loyalist influx: these were not simply upper-class pro-British Tories, but ordinary people seeking a new start after the Revolutionary War. Another aim has been to tell the story of the racial dis- crimination that was stitched into the fabric of these settler colonies. Not only were Indigenous people mar- ginalized and swept aside by settlement; people of African descent were systematically disadvantaged as well. Important as it is to understand the processes of colonial dispossession and marginalization that shape Canadian history, a danger is that such narratives can turn historical actors who lived complex and meaning- ful lives into passive victims.

Recent approaches include the work of historian Amani Whitfield, who seeks to recover the identities of the perhaps 1,200 still-enslaved people of African heritage who were brought north as the “property” of Loyalist mas- ters in the wake of the revolution. Whitfield is especially interested in these people’s efforts to free themselves from enslavement. Historian Cassandra Pybus uses peti-

tions and other productions of free black people to tell the stories of their peripatetic lives around the globe. A recent treatment of Loyalist history by historian Maya Jasanoff makes clear that mobility and migration were common features of many Loyalist lives following the Revolutionary War.4 Peters and Steel were highly mobile: Peters travelled to London with a petition on behalf of fellow Loyalists unable to “do & provide for [them] selves,” and the two were among nearly 1,200 people of African descent who left Nova Scotia in disgust in 1792, taking a chance on yet another new life in West Africa.

The stories that predominate in Loyalist studies today are a fair distance from those told by earlier generations of scholars. In the late nineteenth century, historian Henry Coyne described Loyalist settlers in British North America as “the very cream” of the former American colonies, an image that persisted.5 Well into the twentieth century, scholars focused on Loyalists of elite status, emphasizing their commitment to all things British and their disdain for America. Those founding scholars of the Loyalist tradition were in search of what has been called a “usable past”—his- tory deliberately infused with political lessons for the present.6 Might the same be said of more recent approaches to Loyalist history?

Notes 1. NSARM, RG 1, vol. 359, folio 65, petition from

Thomas Peters and Murphy Still [sic] to Governor Parr, 24 Aug. 1784.

2. National Archives (UK), Audit Office Papers, Series 12, vol. 99, folio 356.

3. A key work is James W. St G. Walker, The Black Loyal- ists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone (Halifax and New York, 1976).

4. Harvey Amani Whitfield, “The Struggle over Slavery in the Maritime Colonies,” Acadiensis 41, 2 (2012): 17–44; Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty (Boston, 2006); Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York, 2011).

Continued...

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148 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Boyd, Robert T. The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774–1874. Vancouver and Seattle, 1999. A pioneering study.

Brown, Wallace, and Hereward Senior. Victorious in Defeat: The Loyalists in Canada. Toronto, 1984. Somewhat dated, but still the best survey of the Loyalists.

Bumsted, J.M. The Peoples’ Clearance: Highland Emigration to British North America 1770–1815. Edinburgh and Winnipeg, 1982. A revisionist work that argues the early Scots came to British North America of their own volition.

Clarke, Ernest. The Siege of Fort Cumberland: An Episode in the American Revolution. Montreal and Kingston, 1996. A study emphasizing that remaining loyal in revolutionary Nova Scotia was no easy matter.

Dowd, Gregory. A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity 1745–1815. Baltimore and London, 1992. A book focusing on the conflicts in the Ohio country from the First Nations perspective.

Greenwood, F. Murray. Legacies of Fear: Law and Politics in the Era of the French Revolution. Toronto, 1993. A work making the point that British officialdom and its anglophone allies in Lower Canada helped create the province’s ethnic division through their para- noid politics.

Greer, Allan. Peasant, Lord and Merchant: Rural Society in Three Quebec Parishes 1740–1840. Toronto, 1985. A detailed localized study of rural French Canada.

Kert, Faye Margaret. Prize and Prejudice: Privateering and Naval Prize in Atlantic Canada in the War of 1812. St John’s, 1997. A thorough account of the importance of privateering in the War of 1812.

Kimber, Stephen. Loyalists and Layabouts: The Rapid Rise and Faster Fall of Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Toronto, 2008. A new look at the biggest failure in Loyalist resettlement.

Knowles, Norman. Inventing the Loyalists: The Ontario Loyalist Experience and the Creation of Usable Pasts. Toronto, 1997. A postmodern work more interested in Loyalist mythology than in Loyalist actuality.

Lawson, Philip. The Imperial Challenge: Quebec and Britain in the Age of the American Revolution. Montreal and Kingston, 1989. A well-researched study of Quebec in the British Empire.

Neatby, Hilda. Quebec: The Revolutionary Age 1760–91. Toronto, 1966. Old, but still the standard study.

Potter-MacKinnon, Janice. While the Women Only Wept: Loyalist Refugee Women. Montreal and Kingston, 1993. A pioneer work focusing on Loyalist women in Canada.

Sheppard, George. Plunder, Profit and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada. Montreal and Kingston, 1994. A revisionist study concentrat- ing on the internal struggle in Upper Canada during the War of 1812.

Taylor, Alan. The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies. New York, 2012. The most recent survey of the War of 1812, by an American scholar attempting to be even-handed.

5. J.H. Coyne, “Memorial to the United Empire Loyalists” (1898), cited in L.F.S. Upton, The United Empire Loyalists: Men and Myths (Toronto, 1997), 138.

6. On the Loyalist tradition and mythology, see espe- cially Norman Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists: The Ontario Loyalist Tradition and the Creation of a Usable Past (Toronto, 1997).

Short Bibliography

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1494 | Becoming and Remaining British, 1759–1815

Study Questions 1. What was the political effect of the American invasions of Canada in 1775–6?

2. Who were the Loyalists?

3. Were the Loyalists the “founders” of English-speaking Canada? Explain your answer.

4. What does the biography of Boston King tell us about the black Loyalists?

5. Identify three reasons to explain why the War of 1812 was so crucial to British North America.

6. Why is a “fair” account of the War of 1812 so difficult to achieve?

7. Why is Laura Secord a heroine?

8. Define the term “oligarchy.” Explain how this concept operated in British North America, especially in Lower

Canada, during this period.

Visit the companion website for A History of the Canadian Peoples, fifth edition for further resources.

www.oupcanada.com/Bumsted5e

Walker, James St G. The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone,

1778–1870. Halifax and New York, 1976. The pion- eering study of the black Loyalists and their fate.

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Relying on Resources, 1815–18405

Fishing was one of the principal extraction industries of British North America in the nineteenth century. The fisheries that were established came in various forms. Depicted here is a shad fishery on the St Lawrence River in 1840. The largest member of the herring family, the shad is too bony to be a profitable commercial good. However, the shad's appearance is a sure sign of spring in eastern Canada. LAC, 1983-47-71

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1816 Métis and Selkirk settlers clash at Seven Oaks. 1817 Bank of Montreal founded. 1818 Britain agrees to allow France to carry on a dry

fishery on Newfoundland’s west coast. Britain

and the United States agree in principle to

extend their boundary across the forty-ninth

parallel from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky

Mountains. Dalhousie University is founded in

Halifax.

1820 Cape Breton is annexed to Nova Scotia. Buffalo Wool Company founded.

1821 Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company merge as the Hudson’s Bay

Company. Bank of Canada is chartered.

Contract is let for the first Lachine Canal. First

letter by “Mephiboseth Stepsure” published in

Acadian Recorder.

1824 Founding of Canada Company. 1825 Lachine Canal completed. 1826 Canada Company is chartered and purchases

most of the Crown reserves and half of the

clergy reserves of Upper Canada. Rideau Canal

is begun.

1827 British Parliament rejects major government resettlement scheme for Canada brought

forward by Robert John Wilmot-Horton.

Hudson’s Bay Company establishes Fort

Langley on the Fraser River.

1829 First Welland Canal is opened. King’s College is founded in Toronto.

1832 John Richardson publishes Wacousta. Newfoundland establishes its first assembly.

1833 Slavery in the British Empire is abolished by the British Parliament. First crossing of the Atlantic

by a steamship (the Royal William). Cholera

epidemic in Lower Canada.

1834 Village of York is incorporated as Toronto. The Rideau Canal is completed. Assembly of Lower

Canada passes the Ninety-Two Resolutions.

1835 The Selkirk family’s interests in Red River are sold to the Hudson’s Bay Company and

the General Quarterly Court of Assiniboia is

established.

1836 T.C. Haliburton publishes The Clockmaker as a book. New Brunswick legislature gains control of

Crown lands in the province. The first railway in

Canada is completed, running 16 miles (26 km)

from La Prairie to St John’s, Quebec.

1837 Rebellions erupt in Upper and Lower Canada. 1838 Lord Durham is appointed Governor

General to investigate colonial grievances. A

second uprising in Lower Canada is brutally

suppressed.

1839 Durham submits his report on British America. The Hudson’s Bay Company establishes the

office of Recorder of Rupert’s Land. Cunard

Line established.

Timeline

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152 A History of the Canadian Peoples

A fter the end of the War of 1812 the various prov-inces of British America began to develop their economies. Not surprisingly, those economies were based almost exclusively on exploitation of the rich natural resource base of the country, with a rising mer- chant group providing commercial links to the outside world. In this period, the resource economy relied heav- ily on transatlantic (chiefly British) markets and took full advantage of imperial trade advantages whenever they could be found. Overseas trade to the Caribbean also expanded. While there was some trade with the United States, few in British America concentrated on the continental American market. The economies of the United States and British America were still too similar in their reliance on primary resources to develop much interdependence. The society that took shape within the resource economy depended heavily on immigration from the British Isles to fuel its growth. Like the econ- omy itself, it had a fairly simple structure, dominated by a self-conscious elite that was challenged politically towards the end of the period. In cultural terms, French Canada continued to survive and even flourished. In several of the English-speaking provinces, there was a subtle but significant movement away from a highly derivative Americanized culture (chiefly attributable to the Loyalists) to a more hybrid culture that consciously looked to Great Britain for its priorities.

The Resource Economy British America began the post-war period of peace after 1815 with an extremely limited economy, heavily depend- ent on British financial aid. By the 1840s it could boast a very active, even vibrant, commercial economy based on its rich inheritance of natural resources and a grow- ing transatlantic carrying trade. The economic growth worked together with the appearance of new immi- grants who flocked into its seaports and made their way onto its wilderness lands. Economic development was always complex, never straightforward. In most regions of European settlement it was anchored from the outset by natural resources. Fish, furs, timber, and grain—along with their ancillary industries—represented well over

90 per cent of all economic activity in British America during this period.

Natural resources required a market, and before the 1840s Britain’s colonies found the market chiefly in the United Kingdom and within the British Empire, where trade policies tended to remain favourable to col- onial raw materials. In the 1840s, when Britain shifted to a policy of international free trade, British America had significant adjustments to make to fit into the new economic and commercial patterns. But for infant col- onies rapidly expanding in population, British prefer- ential treatment for colonial raw materials constituted a major boost. The mother country provided not only the market but also much of the capital with which British Americans developed their resource base. British invest- ment capital was never very adventuresome. It preferred known industries and may well have constricted colonial diversification. For a people desperately short of cap- ital, however, no real alternative to British investment seemed possible. The Americans were using what capital they generated to develop their own internal economy. The British government also provided considerable cash in other forms. It continued to pay pensions to military officers, collectable by their widows until their deaths. It also paid the salaries of the officials of most of the col- onies. The capital brought by immigrants totalled sev- eral million pounds over this period.

A colonial economy based on natural resources was inevitably one that depended on international and even transatlantic trade. Such an economy also had substantial implications for society and its structure. The extraction and production of the raw materials of trade was a seasonal business, for example. Rhythms depended on the commodities being produced. Fish and grain required summer labour, and while tim- bering flourished in the winter months shipbuilding was a warm-weather activity. Moreover, initial produc- tion was in the hands of small-scale commodity produ- cers. These people exploited those working for them and were in turn exploited by the merchants who handled the commercial system of marketing. Most primary resource producers had little connection with the inter- national market. They had no control over the prices they received for their products. As a result, they tended to attempt to maximize production by ruthlessly exploit- ing the resource regardless of economic conditions.

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1535 | Relying on Resources, 1815–1840

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901491_05_Ch05.indd 153 12/16/15 4:21 PM

154 A History of the Canadian Peoples

As a small capitalist, the typical primary producer— whether boat owner, farmer, or timberer—identified with the commercial system rather than with his labour force, thus impeding the development of any working-class consciousness or the formation of an articulated class structure. Merchants had to be successful entrepreneurs, but found it difficult to move beyond their immediate commercial horizons. They were prepared to invest in pro- cessing raw materials within their own sphere of interest, but not outside it. The result was a highly exploitative and unadventurous economy, with a fluid and fuzzy social structure. It was an economy that could celebrate the values of an independent yeomanry at the same time that it took advantage of a labour force not composed of those yeomen.

The Staple Resources The fishery was the oldest and most rewarding of British America’s resource commodities. It had been successfully exploited since the early years of the sixteenth century. Traditionally associated with Newfoundland, it continued to dominate that colony’s economic picture throughout the nineteenth century. By the end of the War of 1812, the actual production of fish was almost entirely in the hands of Newfoundland residents. Although after 1815 the mar- ket for Newfoundland cod remained stagnant for decades, the fishing economy experienced considerable change. Smaller buyers of fish in the outports were squeezed out by the larger merchants of Water Street in St John’s. The fishery expanded into Labrador, and sealing became far more important, representing over one-third of the value of fishery exports by 1831. Newfoundland was unable to gain ground in the lucrative Caribbean trade. Nova Scotia merchants now had their own local suppliers of fish and were able to carry more diversified cargoes to the West Indies. The Lower Canadian fishery of the Gaspé region was the object of the agricultural interests’ disdain. While the industry was not a particularly buoyant one after 1815, it did employ a considerable workforce. It produced a significant export trade, and it required a large number of sailing vessels both large and small. These characteris- tics contributed both to the shipbuilding industry and to the carrying-trade capacity of British America.

The fur trade was the other traditional resource industry. By the nineteenth century, the fur trade’s eco-

nomic value was very small in comparison with that of other resources. In a non-economic sense, however, the fur trade was of enormous importance. It provided the means by which Great Britain retained its claim to sovereignty over much of the northern half of the con- tinent. It also supplied the administration of the British relationship with the Indigenous peoples of that region. With the merger of the two great rivals in 1821, the fur trade stabilized under the aegis of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Pacific coast became increasingly import- ant to the HBC. It deliberately over-trapped in the Far West since it assumed that it would eventually lose out to the Americans. Indeed, the company was able to hold its own against fur competitors, but not against the constant stream of American settlers into the Willamette Valley in the Oregon Territory. The fur trade had a remarkable influence in the West, chiefly because furs were its only export commodity. The entire region was organized pol- itically and economically around the trade.

The old staples of fish and fur were replaced by tim- ber and grain in primary economic importance in the nineteenth century. Both these commodities benefited from imperial preference, which gave them considerable advantage in the large and lucrative British market during their start-up years. Not until the 1840s did Britain begin seriously to eliminate the differential duty scales that the Corn Laws and the Timber Laws had created during the Napoleonic Wars. Every hint of change in imperial regula- tions brought a chorus of fears of economic disaster from the colonial mercantile community. While colonials may have been chained economically to the mother country, they revelled in the chains and were loath to break them.

Every province of British America except New- foundland quickly became involved in the timber trade after Napoleon closed the Baltic (the traditional source of British supply) in 1807. Even tiny Prince Edward Island enjoyed a considerable boom from cutting down its trees, most of which were relatively accessible to open water. Primary-growth forest was cut as quickly as possible with no thought for either conservation or oversupply- ing the market, although the finest white pine forest in North America, in Norfolk County, Upper Canada, was ruthlessly chopped down for potash and firewood. In no province was the industry more important than in New Brunswick. Its dependence on timber as an export com- modity had become almost complete by the mid-1820s.

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1555 | Relying on Resources, 1815–1840

The needs of the industry controlled every aspect of the province’s life. Settlement was closely connected to the opening of new timber territory. It was no accident that the few timber princes who controlled the licences to cut on Crown land were also the leading politicians of the province. Under the large entrepreneurs worked a var- iety of local businessmen—storekeepers, brokers, and sawmill operators—who actually organized and dealt with the hundreds of small parties that wintered in the

woods. Provisioning the timberers was a lucrative busi- ness. The industry preferred to do as much processing of the timber on the spot as possible, moving inexorably in that direction. As early as 1837 the sawmills of Samuel Cunard, on the Miramichi River in northeastern New Brunswick, were capable of cutting 42,471 feet (12,945 metres) of boards per day, “the produce of 320 logs and 50 workmen” (quoted in Wynn, 1980). Much timber also was processed into wooden sailing ships.

March 12th: Again foggy, with a southeast wind. As

we stood on deck this morning before breakfast, we

heard a cry down to leeward, like the cry of a gull,

which some of the men said it was. It became, how-

ever, so loud and continued, that both Stuwitz and

I doubted its being the cry of any bird, and one of

the men took a gaff and went to look. We watched

him for some distance with our glasses as he pro-

ceeded slowly through the fog till he suddenly began

to run, and then struck at something, and presently

returned dragging a young seal alive over the ice, and

brought it on deck. It was of a dirty white colour, with

short close fur, large expressive eyes, and it paddled

and walloped about the deck fierce and bawling. A

Newfoundland dog called Nestor, belonging to the

captain, approached it, but it snapped at his nose and

bit him, though its teeth were just beginning to appear.

After taking it down below to show the captain and

demand the usual quart of rum for the first man who

caught a seal, one of the men knocked it on its head

and skinned it. Stuwitz then cut off its “flippers” or paws

and its head, and after breakfast we took it into the

“after-hatch” or steerage where he drew and dissected

it. In the middle of the day we heard from some of the

men who had been out on the ice, that a vessel a few

miles ahead of us had already 2,500 seals on board, so

we pushed on through the ice, and shortly came into

a lake of water. On the borders of this many young

seals were lying and two or three punts were hoisted

out to despatch and collect them. I shot one through

the head that was scuffling off a pan of ice, but the

crew begged me to desist, as they said the balls might

glance from the ice and injure some of the men who

were about. Having picked up the few which were

immediately about us, we hoisted in our punts again,

as there were several vessels near us, and more com-

ing up, and bore away farther north through an open

pool of water. In passing through a thin skirt of ice, one

of the men hooked up a young seal with his gaff. Its

cries were precisely like those of a young child in the

extremity of agony and distress, something between

shrieks and convulsive sobbings. . . . We soon after-

wards passed through some loose ice on which the

young seals were scattered, and nearly all hands were

overboard slaying, skinning and hauling. We then got

into another lake of water and sent our five punts. The

crews of these joined those already on the ice, and

dragging either the whole seals or their “pelts” to the

edge of the water, collected them in the punts, and

when one of these was full brought them on board.

Sealing in Newfoundland Joseph Jukes was an Englishman employed on a geological survey of Newfoundland in 1839. In a book about his experiences published in 1842, he recorded the following from his diary.

Source: J.B. Jukes, Excursions in and about Newfoundland, 2 vols (London, 1842), as reprinted in Peter Neary and Patrick

O’Flaherty, eds, By Great Waters: A Newfoundland and Labrador Anthology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 82–3.

Contemporary Views

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156 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Before 1840 the export market for Upper Canadian timber was somewhat limited by transportation dif- ficulties, but after that date the United States took all the timber Upper Canada could produce. The Ottawa Valley was a region of 8,000 square miles, most not arable but initially covered with primary-growth for- est. It was timbered by professional crews who fos- tered a rough and violent society. The first serious ethnic conflicts in British America occurred in the “Shiner’s Wars” of the 1830s, as Irish timberers fought with French Canadians and others for dominance of the forests. Much of the forest in Upper Canada and elsewhere was timbered in advance of the arrival of

settlement, with little except minimal license fees as the only charge for the cutting.

In the extensive agricultural lands of the St Lawrence Valley and Upper Canada, wheat quickly became the dominant crop. It met a growing demand abroad and it transported well as either grain or flour. Wheat quickly turned farmers into agricultural spe- cialists, who exploited their soil much as did the tim- berers the forest. Lower Canada’s wheat yields on rapidly exhausted soil often cropped for decades were frequently inadequate for home consumption. While Upper Canada was able to transform its wheat profits from great surpluses into non-agricultural investment,

The Oregon Territory. One of the best accounts of the Oregon Territory was written by the fur trader Alexander Ross after he retired to Red River with his Okanagan wife and their children. Fur-Hunters of the Far West was first published in 1853. This map is from the 1855 edition. Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library.

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1575 | Relying on Resources, 1815–1840

by the 1850s it, too, had exhausted its best soils and was looking westward. Most farmers also produced for their own consumption, of course, and some (such as those on Prince Edward Island) produced livestock and potatoes for export or supplied a local market with produce. Even Maritime farmers grew more wheat than was good for them, however.

The Mercantile System The resource economy worked only because of its cap- acity to deal with the international market. The merchant capitalist looked after transportation and marketing in a world of totally unsophisticated credit and banking. Merchants operated at all levels of volume and capital investment. Some placed goods in a number of vessels and invested small amounts in other ships and voyages, as had been done in the colonies since the earliest days. The growing extent of the resource trade demanded entrepreneurs with more capital, however. Whether the merchant’s business was large or small, international mercantile activity in the first half of the nineteenth century was extremely dangerous. Financial disaster lurked everywhere. Ships could be lost at sea, markets could be miscalculated, debtors could be unable to pay. Communications were incredibly slow. Because of the difficulties in finding trustworthy partners and agents abroad, the extensive family network was still the inter- national basis of much mercantile activity. Few of the large merchant princes of this period avoided at least one bankruptcy, and fewer still left fortunes to their heirs. The sailing ship, filled with outgoing cargoes of resource commodities and incoming ones of manufactured goods and new immigrants, remained the backbone of British America’s economic system in this period.

Some manufacturing activity did exist in British America. It involved relatively small establishments that engaged in two kinds of production. One was by artisans producing for local markets goods and services that either could not be imported profitably or could not be imported at all. Every town had its saddler, every village its blacksmith. The second type of production

involved the processing of resource commodities. Grain was distilled into whisky, brewed into beer, and milled into flour. Wood from land being cleared by farmers was burned into potash, and timber was cut at sawmills into deals (planks). Among many specialized manufactur- ing enterprises, shipyards that transformed timber into sailing vessels were the most extensive. The small ship- yard was to be found wherever there was timber and open water; the commerce of the Great Lakes required as many sailing vessels as the transatlantic trade.

Shipbuilding was the ideal colonial processing industry. It relied primarily on a rich natural resource— timber—that British America had in abundance. It did not require excessive capital outlay for physical plant or materials, and its end product provided its own trans- portation to market. On the other hand, even during its heyday it was not an industry with either a future or a capacity to generate industrial development. As early as 1840 wood and sail were being overtaken by iron and steam. These technologies required an entirely differ- ent form of industrial organization than a handful of craftsmen employing hand tools, carefully assembling a wooden ship on the edge of open water. Neither the technology nor the industrial organization flowed logic- ally out of the nature of colonial shipbuilding, which became instead the symbol of the mercantile resource economy’s limitations.

Providing the infrastructure for trade and com- merce was a gradual development. Banks were slow to expand because most colonials were suspicious of institutions that could, in effect, manufacture money. The Bank of Montreal was founded in 1817 and the Bank of Canada was chartered in 1821, opening at York in 1822. Early banks did not co-operate and their ser- vices were limited. An expanding internal economic system required roads, bridges, and canals to con- nect the population with their markets and sources of supply. Most people wanted such facilities, but they did not want to pay for them out of taxes. Much road-building was done by labour levies on the local population. After the American success with the Erie Canal, canal-building became the craze in the Canadas. The early Canadian canals—the Lachine Canal, the Welland Canal, the Rideau Canal, and the Chambly Canal—either opened water access into Lake Ontario

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158 A History of the Canadian Peoples

These two photos from the New Brunswick lumber camps obviously postdate 1840 and the invention of the camera, but there is no reason to think that conditions in the timber trade changed much over the course of the nineteenth century. Top: a cookhouse; bottom: men with peaveys on a log-jam. From Adam Shortt and A.G. Doughty, eds, Canada and Its Provinces (Edinburgh, 1914), vol. 14. Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library.

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1595 | Relying on Resources, 1815–1840

The holds of timber ships like that pictured here car-

ried thousands of immigrants to Canada on their voy-

age (usually 10 to 12weeks in duration) from the British

Isles in the nineteenth century. Although the British

government continually passed legislation improving

provisioning of food and water and controlling num-

bers, it never really altered the primitiveness of the

space itself. At first glance, the timber trade seemed

a perfect fit for developing colonies. Timbering

removed a major impediment to agricultural settle-

ment: trees. From the standpoint of the incoming

settler trees were the enemy, for fields could not be

plowed and seeded until the trees were gone. The

need for removal was so urgent that settlers would

often burn forests in vast fires if no other way existed

to clear them. Fortunately, entrepreneurs could often

be found to cut the timber and ship the wood to mar-

ket in the mother country. In the eighteenth century,

the principal demand in Britain was for timber for

shipbuilding, especially the tall pines that would be

turned into the masts for sailing ships. By the nine-

teenth century, the British demand changed from tall

timber to square (the trees were trimmed with an axe

from their rounded shape to a square one) and deals

(the square timber cut into planks at least three inches

thick). During the first half of the nineteenth century,

Britain encouraged the shipment of square timber

and deals from British America by the judicious use of

duties levied on wood originating elsewhere, includ-

ing the Baltic region. The vessels carrying the wood

frequently were unable to find a return cargo, often

solving the problem by converting the space below

decks to accommodate human passengers. This

practice provided inexpensive—if uncomfortable—

passage for many immigrants, especially the Irish,

driven from their homes by famine. This seemingly

ideal arrangement, removing unwanted wood and

returning much wanted population had some hid-

den drawbacks, however. One was that the trade was

extremely wasteful. Much of the tree was left behind

on the forest floor to rot. The timberers, moreover,

merely removed and never replaced trees, so that

large tracts of land were systematically denuded of

cover with no thought of sustainability. Worse still,

the mentality of those cutting the trees was one of

sheer exploitation, totally lacking in any concern for

reinvestment in the country they were looting. As

for the human return cargo, conditions on the tim-

ber ships encouraged disease and were singularly

unpleasant at best.

As with many forms of material culture, timber

ships provided a dual purpose for Canada. The tim-

ber that the country supplied was a critical resource

to the British Empire, as well as beyond, and the

ships that transported people in that exchange sim-

ply were part of a larger commodity chain that saw

Material Culture

Timber Ships

Continued...

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160 A History of the Canadian Peoples

or improved the St Lawrence River system. Their thrust was to enable the economy to shift from a transatlantic focus to an internal one. This process really took hold with the introduction of the railroads in the 1850s.

Trade and commerce were the basis of urban growth, although the major cities of the British colonies in North America were centres of political activity as well as of commerce. It was easier to flourish, however, without being a capital (e.g., Montreal or Hamilton) than without trade (e.g., Fredericton). No city dom- inated more than its immediate region and none was very large. Nonetheless, most urban centres in British America were growing rapidly. York in 1795 contained 12 cottages. By the time it was incorporated and

renamed Toronto in 1834 it had over 1,000 houses, 100 shops, and a population of 9,252. The cities were small in area as well as in population, many being collec- tions of tightly packed buildings radiating from a port facility. Such a city had little concept of zoning and not many amenities, although by the 1830s matters were improving. Toronto was fairly typical for 1830 in lacking sidewalks, drains, sewers, water supply, and street lighting, all of which became developments of the 1830s and 1840s. Policing consisted at best of a few ward constables and a night watch. For most urban centres in British America, 1840 marked the break between remaining an eighteenth-century town and becoming a nineteenth-century city.

timber spread far and wide. The influx of immigrants

who were essential to the development of Canada

made the return journey in poor conditions in the

holds that nevertheless were spaces of opportun-

ity. The timber ships were the vehicles of that

opportunity.

Source: A.R.M. Lower, Great Britain’s Woodyard: British America and the Timber Trade, 1763–1867 (Montreal and

Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1973).

Shipbuilding at Dorchester, New Brunswick, 1875. The technology of shipbuilding remained fairly constant throughout the nineteenth century. Over the years, Dorchester’s river silted up, and the community is now landlocked. Alexander Henderson, LAC, C-010103.

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“View in King Street [Toronto], Looking East,” hand-coloured lithograph, 1835, by Thomas Young. The buildings on the left (north) are the jail, the courthouse, and St James Church at Church Street. King Street is on the extreme right of the lithograph. LAC, 1970- 188-1507, W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana.

Immigration After 1815 circumstances combined to alter patterns of immigration, especially from the British Isles. Resistance to emigration from both the British govern- ment and the British ruling classes was quickly broken down by unemployment and a new round of indus- trialization and agricultural rationalization. Pressures increased on Britain’s relief system for the poor, and among those who governed the nation common wisdom again was that Britain was overpopulated. The burgeon- ing North American timber trade provided the shipping capacity for the transatlantic movement of immigrants at low cost. Immigrants came to British America chiefly to obtain access to land, something that was becom- ing increasingly difficult to obtain in the British Isles. Many Britons had an extremely idealized picture of

the wilderness. The essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1839 of the vastness of North America, “nine-tenths of it yet vacant or tenanted by nomads, . . . still crying, Come and till me, come and reap me!” Despite the best efforts of a number of writers of immigration manuals, many newcomers failed to appreciate the need for cap- ital or the difficulties involved in clearing much of this vacant land of trees and brush. In 1846, in her book The Backwoods of Canada, Catharine Parr Traill included “some official information” “to render this work of more practical value to persons desiring to emigrate.”

What we know about the numbers departing the British Isles suggests that Scottish emigration remained relatively steady throughout the period at 10–15 per cent of the total flow. A far higher proportion of Highlanders than Lowlanders departed in these years. Irish emigration was more variable, ranging annually

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162 A History of the Canadian Peoples

from 30 to 70 per cent of the total numbers. Irish move- ment to North America before the 1840s was dominated by Protestants from Northern Ireland. Only in the mid- 1840s did the Irish emigrants begin to include huge numbers of Catholic southerners. As a result, the whole nature of Irish emigration to British America was quite different from Irish emigration to the United States. British America received far more Irish emigrants in the early period than did the United States. The Irish flow to what is now Canada included far more Protestants and Orangists than did that to the United States, where the emigrants were almost exclusively Catholics from the south. Not all newcomers to British America came from the British Isles. A relative handful, for example, of Sephardic Jews arrived individually or in family groups from Europe after 1763 to form the first continuing synagogue in Montreal, founded in 1768.

The national and regional complexity of the popu- lation in the British Isles at this time produces several interesting questions and problems. It is tempting to assume from a twenty-first-century perspective, for example, that the British emigrants were a relatively homogeneous anglophone group of people. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each of the historic nations of Britain continued in the nineteenth century to preserve its own culture and history. The immi- grants presented homogeneity neither of language nor of religion. Many of the Irish, especially in the south, spoke the Irish tongue. Almost all Scots from north of the Highland fault spoke Gaelic as a first language, while those in the Lowlands spoke a Scottish variant of English. Dialects and linguistic variants were extensive in England and Wales, also. In the latter place, there was a north–south division whereby the northerners were more likely to speak Welsh than English. At the same time, the nineteenth century saw a considerable growth of a common “Britishness” that to various extents over- came regional distinctions. On the other hand, accept- ance of the concepts of Great Britain and Britishness was quite variable. Many of the southern Irish, for example, would not have agreed that they were British or that they were willing subjects of the British Crown.

Another difference between immigration to the United States and to British America occurred in the nature of the vessels employed in the transatlantic

passage. This had certain ramifications for the sorts of emigrants who departed for each of the countries. Those going to the United States tended to travel in large vessels specifically designed to carry passengers, while those going to British America usually travelled in smaller vessels designed for the timber trade. These smaller ships carried passengers on the return voyage in makeshift accommodations instead of sailing in ballast. The port of Quebec was the principal entry for immigrants into the Canadas because sailing vessels could collect a load of timber there for the voyage to Britain. One result of the sort of passage provided was that the passage to British America cost significantly less than that to the United States. When this difference in cost is combined with the much shorter duration of the passage from the British Isles to the eastern seaports of British America (which meant that fewer provisions were required for the journey), it seems likely that far more immigrants to British America sailed on extremely limited budgets and without much capital in reserve than was typically the case for those who went to the United States. It is hard to generalize, because the rates for passengers varied substantially from time to time. One Belfast advertisement from 1820 put the charge for a family of husband, wife, and six children to the United States at 80 guineas, for example, and the cost for the same family to New Brunswick at 24 guineas. Either way, such rates meant that only those with considerable capital—or who were willing to acquire considerable debt—could afford to sail at all. Many of those arriv- ing in British American ports without capital may have intended to move on to the United States when they had acquired the means, but how many actually managed to do so is another matter entirely. Large numbers of those arriving with little or no capital were already in debt to friends or relatives at home. They had borrowed the price of steerage passage and were bound to repay the debt out of their first earnings.

Costs and geography also meant that British America rather than the United States throughout the period received the vast bulk of the emigrants from the Highlands of Scotland. Many of these Highlanders arrived virtually destitute in British America and could not afford to continue on to the United States. Sufficient numbers of Gaelic-speakers from Highland Scotland

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arrived in various parts of British America (nota- bly parts of Upper Canada, the eastern townships of Lower Canada, Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island) to make the language an important medium of communication in these areas. This simply did not happen in the United States, where newcomers were strongly encouraged to assimilate immediately to the dominant society.

Four patterns of organized emigration and settle- ment developed after 1815. The first pattern involved government assistance, which was often a combination

of British official recruitment of emigrants and settle- ment, with public aid, on land made available by the several colonial governments. Such schemes, frequently involving either soldiers disbanded after the wars or excess Irish population, continued sporadically until 1830. What the various schemes best demonstrated was that the financial cost of establishing British emigrants in British America was high and the chances of success- ful transplantation were low. Even those who argued that the existing operations were unnecessarily profli- gate estimated £60 subsidy for a family of five. In the

Ann Thomas, Waterloo Township, Upper Canada, to

Her Father. 15 October 1832.

MY DEAR FATHER, I write these few lines to you,

hoping to find you in good health, as, thank God, it

leaves us at present. We had a very long voyage over.

We were 9 weeks on the seas. We landed the 7th of

June. We were tossed about very much indeed. The

rest of May we all thought of being lost, the births all

fell down, from one end of the ship to the other. And

I was not well after that till I was confined, and that

was the 3rd of June. I got about again quite as soon

as I could expect. It is a fine boy, and goes on well. I

am happy to tell you, that America is quite as good

as we expected to find it. Edmund has had plenty of

work, ever since we have been here. We have no rea-

son to repent leaving England at present, and I hope

we never shall. He has earned 3s.9d. a day, and his

board, and sometimes not so much. Give my love and

Sarah’s [her sister] to my brothers and sisters. Sarah is

about 30 miles from me, in service, and is doing very

well. Give Edmond’s love to his father and mother,

and all. Thomas and James are about 100 miles. They

are all well, and send their love to all. If Thomas and

William should come out next spring, it is Sarah and

my wish for you to come with them, as I think we

should [be able] to help support you here. The worst

of it will be getting over. Edmond’s brother has got

100 acres of land each. We might have 100 acres if we

liked to go where it is, but we don’t like to leave the

place where we are, at present. The cholera has been

very bad indeed in this country but thank God not

one of us has had it. Henry Smart’s wife is dead, and

both his children. She was confined the same night

that I was. Please to thank Mr. Greetham for his kind-

ness to us, and I hope he will do the same for you, if

you should come. We have had a very fine summer,

but hotter than in England, and they say the winter is

much colder. But there is one great comfort here: we

have as much wood as we like to burn. If you should

come, you had better send us a letter on, when you

get to York, for us to meet you. Please to answer this,

on the first opportunity, as I should very much like

to hear from you. I have no more to say, at present. I

remain your affectionate daughter. ANN THOMAS

An Immigrant Letter Home Letters from immigrants are always a problem to interpret. Most of those surviving sound very positive, but would you send a letter to your kinfolk if you were not succeeding in the new country?

Source: Wendy Cameron, Sheila Haines, Mary McDougall Maude, eds, English Immigrant Voices: Labourers’ Letters from

Upper Canada in the 1830s (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 68–9.

Contemporary Views

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164 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The vast majority of emigrants, whatever their transport and settlement arrangements, fitted into the fourth pattern. They had arranged their own passage,

Irish emigrants awaiting departure on the quay at Cork, as depicted in the Illustrated London News, 10 May 1851. How would you interpret this scene? What is the artist trying to depict? LAC, C-3904.

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Advice for Immigrants

Document

There is nothing of more importance to Emigrants on arrival at Quebec, than correct information on the leading points, connected with their future pursuits. Many have suffered much by a want of caution, and by listening to the opinions of interested designing char- acters, who frequently offer their advice unsolicited, and who are met generally about wharves and landing places frequented by strangers. To guard Emigrants from falling into such errors—they should immediately on arrival at Quebec, proceed to the Office of the Chief Agent for Emigrants, in Sault-au-Matelot street, Lower Town, where every information requisite for their future guidance in either getting settlement on lands, or obtaining employment in Upper or Lower Canada, will be obtained (gratis.)

The following directions are of importance to the Emigrant arriving in Canada, and are addressed to him in the simplest language:

Previous to disembarkation arrange your baggage in a small compass, the fewer packages the better, but have them well secured—old dirty clothing, large boxes, and other useless articles, are not worth the carriage. If you have any provisions left, such as oatmeal, potatoes, &c. You can sell them at Quebec at a profit, and avoid the expense of transport, and you can purchase baker’s bread, butter, tea, sugar, and other necessaries more suited for your journey. All sorts of provisions, may be bought cheaper, and generally of a better quality, in Montreal and Upper Canada, than at Quebec. Dress yourself in light clean clothing. Females frequently bring on sickness by being too warmly clothed. Cut your hair short, and wash daily and thoroughly. Avoid drinking ardent spirits of any kind, and when heated do not drink cold water. Eat moderately of light food. Avoid

night dews. By attending to the preceding directions sickness will be prevented, with other serious inconven- iences. When every thing is ready for disembarkation, and, if the ship is lying at anchor in the river—take care in passing from the ship to the boat; avoid all haste, and see that your baggage is in the same conveyance with yourself, or left under the charge of some friend, with your name on it. If the ship hauls to the wharf to disem- bark, do not be in a hurry, but await the proper time of tide when the ship’s deck will be on a line with the quay or wharf. Passengers are entitled by law to the privilege of remaining on board ship 48 hours after arrival; and it is unlawful for the Captain to deprive his Passengers of any of their usual accommodations for cooking or other- wise: you may therefore avoid the expense of lodgings, and make all your arrangements for prosecuting your journey, previous to disembarkation. Should sickness overtake you, proceed immediately, or be removed to the Emigrant Hospital, in St. John’s Suburbs, where you will be well taken care of, and provided with every thing needful until restored to health. Medicine and medical advice can also be had at the Dispensary attached to the Quebec Charitable Emigrant Society. This Society will grant relief to all destitute Emigrants. In Montreal there is a similar institution for the relief of Emigrants. It is particularly recommended to Emigrants not to loiter their valuable time at the port of landing; but to proceed to obtain settlement or employment. Many have regret- ted when too late that they did not pursue this course, and take advantage of the frequent opportunities that presented themselves for settlement in convenient situ- atious [sic] in Upper or Lower Canada, instead of squan- dering their means and valuable time to looking after an imaginary Paradise in the aguish swamps of Illinois and

Continued...

Numbers of books and pamphlets were published between 1800 and 1860 devoted exclusively to offering advice for immigrants. Most of the advice was useful, although few authors went into details on how difficult the passage and transition would be.

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Missouri, or other distant regions of the Western States. There is no portion of the American continent more con- genial to the constitution or habits of Emigrants from the United Kingdom, or that offer a wider field, or surer reward for industry and good conduct, than the fer- tile districts of Upper Canada or Lower Canada. Many Emigrants will din employment in the city of Quebec and its vicinity, as also in and about Montreal. Single men in particular are advised to embrace the offer; but Emigrants with large families had better proceed with-

out delay, to Upper Canada, as hereafter directed—or, to situations in Lower Canada, particularly the Eastern Townships—and if they have sons and daughters grown up, they will find a sure demand for their ser- vices. Artificers, and Mechanics of all denominations, and farming Labourers, if sober and industrious, may be sure of doing well. Blacksmiths, particularly those acquainted with steam engine work, also good Mill- wrights, Masons and Sawyers, by machinery, are much wanted in the Canadas.

Source: Information Published by His Majesty’s Chief Agent for the Superintendence of Settlers and Emigrants in Upper and Lower Canada. For the Use of Emigrants (Quebec, 1832).

frequently coming to British America without fixed plans or destination. Sometimes they intended to join relatives or friends who had preceded them. If they had capital, they found land. It was generally estimated that at least £100 (beyond the cost of passage) was required to establish a farm on wilderness land, and even more was required to purchase one already improved. Those who could not afford this expense joined the ranks of the labouring class or, in the case of unattached females, went into domestic service. Most immigrants apparently understood that their important baggage was cash money, good health, and family connections. The transatlantic passage in sailing ships lasted from six to eight weeks, and was long and arduous even for those who could afford cabin accommodation. For those in steerage (the vast majority), the discomfort and health hazards were high. After 1825 the British govern- ment abandoned attempts to regulate the traffic in any serious way.

Aside from the assisted settlement schemes, pub- lic policy was never really mobilized to settle British America. The major shift in policy after the mid-1820s, apart from the termination of assisted settlement, was the abandonment of the practice of giving colonial land away; now a “sufficient price” was to be charged, to ensure a revenue for colonial improvement, and to guarantee that those acquiring land had some capital. In the end, settlement was achieved out of the trials and tribulations of the many who tried their luck, not always successfully. Apart from their physical energy, the immi-

grants were also a great source of wealth for the colonies they entered. If every immigrant brought on average only £10, between 1815 and 1845 that amount would have injected £10 million into the local economies.

The Resource Society The resource society of the early nineteenth century was dominated by two overlapping elites. One gov- erned; the other controlled international commerce. In most colonies their separate identities were easily confused when they battled politically, employing imported rhetoric that suggested deeper divisions than actually existed. By far the majority of the population was composed of the non-elite: small shopkeepers, arti- sans, minor civil servants; owners of small industries such as gristmills, tanneries, soap factories, and brew- eries; and resource workers and farmers. In the British sense of distinguishing between those who held land and those who did not, an important distinction in Europe, few “landholders” in British America possessed anything but land that was in the process of becoming farms. Undeveloped land had little value. Most land- owners were forced to hold multiple employments, often working side by side with the landless. Women in this society acquired the status of their husbands. Those without spouses had some autonomy, but were severely limited in any upward mobility. Finally, the Indigenous peoples lived completely outside the social

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structure, although the missionaries constantly tried to bring them into it.

The governing elite included the leading appointed colonial officials of government, military officers, church leaders, and the merchants who lived in the cap- ital city. The first three enjoyed the enormous advantage of a substantial guaranteed annual salary, usually paid in London in pounds sterling. This income, the access to credit, and the style of living it encouraged all enabled colonial officials to emulate the British values of the landed gentry. Their houses reflected their aspirations. The magnificent house of John Strachan (1778–1867) on Front Street in Toronto was popularly known as “The Palace” even before he became bishop of Toronto in 1839. In 1819, the year after it was built, his brother visiting from Scotland is alleged to have commented, “I hope it’s a’ come by honestly, John” (quoted in Arthur, 1986: 44). Not surprisingly, colonial officials believed

in the balance of interests and order, the maintenance of which John Beverley Robinson (1791–1863) once described as “the foundation of good government in the social state” (quoted in Brode, 1984: 175). Such men were well-educated and very able. They governed British America with an extremely limited vision, usually with- out soiling themselves in sordid graft and corruption.

The most successful merchants (and a few profes- sional men) shared the lifestyle of the major colonial office-holders, usually without their status. What really limited the social positions of the merchants was the impermanence of their incomes, which could be greatly affected by conditions in the market. The British asso- ciated status with land because an income from landed estates was rightly regarded as far more permanent and inheritable than income from trade or industry. British America was never able to generate a landed aristocracy. The colonial official’s income was only for life, although

“The Emigrant’s Welcome to Canada,” c. 1820. In this satirical cartoon, what kind of reception for emigrants is the cartoonist trying to convey to his audience? LAC, R9266-3510, Peter Winkworth Collection of Canadiana.

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168 A History of the Canadian Peoples

a few offices were passed on from father to son. The typical seigneur in Lower Canada did not have enough income to cut much of a figure. The trouble with land in North America was its sheer availability. An Upper Canadian backwoods farm consisted of a larger acre- age than many an English landed estate. Most land was held for speculation rather than status. Lacking an aris- tocracy based on land, British America instead began developing a social structure based on wealth and con- spicuous consumption. Money might be temporary, but it could be made visible. British America also held in high regard education, professional training, and the life of the mind. The concentrations of leading profes-

sional men in the larger towns were admitted to the ranks of elite society, though in a subordinate position.

While the governing elite and their merchant part- ners lived mainly in the political capitals that were also the great commercial centres of British America, a sprinkling of others in the hinterlands also assumed the functions of leadership. Such regional leaders included local merchants and professional men, prominent farm- ers, and retired half-pay officers. These were the men who were elected to the provincial houses of assembly from the countryside, where they inevitably came to contend with the governing elites for political control of the province. Regional prominence was recognized

This scene is a somewhat romanticized, but probably fairly accurate, depiction of the early days of settlement almost anywhere in British America, with the tree stumps representing logs used to build the cabin. The cabin itself is built with cog joints; the hewn logs (as opposed to unhewn or round logs, a more primitive and less permanent form of cabin construction) have notches cut into them to allow them to interlock and improve structural integrity; chinking, consisting of such materials as mud, straw, moss, and stone, fills in the spaces between the hewn logs. Choosing a site like this one, with easy access to the materials required to build such a cabin, was typical, although there were other factors to consider. “A First Settlement,” by W.H. Bartlett, engraved by J.C. Bentley, from N.P. Willis, Canadian Scenery (London, 1842), vol. 2. LAC, C-2401.

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by election to the assembly and appointment to local civic office. Thus, these also were the men who served as local justices of the peace. They tended to be the militia officers as well. Before 1840 most would have described themselves as farmers, although they usually engaged in a variety of occupations, hoping to succeed and sur- vive. One of the most striking features of the lives of most British Americans was their lack of occupational specialization. Over the course of a lifetime most coloni- als would hold many different jobs, both in succession and simultaneously.

Coming to terms with the remainder of society in British America is more complicated than dealing with the elite. Despite the vaunted availability of land, not everyone represented that British (and American) ideal: a land-holding yeoman farmer. In some places (Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and Lower Canada), freehold land was not easily available. Moreover, the land that was worth holding was not wilderness but an improved market farm. Cultivating land carved out of primary-growth forest was a tedious and laborious process. Such “improvement” was ham- pered by the difficulties of finding a market for surplus agricultural products. Farmers inevitably embraced crops such as wheat, which could be transported into a regular market system. Improvement was further ham- pered by the availability of alternative employment in fishing, timbering, shipbuilding, and construction— which could sustain a farming family before it was plugged into the market—but would also slow down the land-clearing process essential to agrarian success.

At the bottom of colonial society were the poor. They fell into three categories: permanent, immigrant, and casual; and into two major groups: those who had relations or friends to look after them and those who did not. While British America was spoken of on both sides of the Atlantic as a “land of opportunity” and a “good poor man’s country”, it was absolutely essential to be healthy or to have kinfolk prepared to help with one’s welfare. Those who through disability, incompe- tence, or misfortune (such as young orphans) could not look after themselves and had no one to do it for them became the objects of charity or lived permanently in squalor. Recent immigrants who arrived in port without capital resources joined the ranks of the poor wherever

they disembarked. Unable to move onto the land, these newcomers merged into the third category, the cas- ually employed. Because of the seasonal nature of most Canadian employment, winter saw the largest number of unemployed. Winter was also the worst time to be poor, for food costs increased and the need to keep warm in a Canadian winter was inescapable. Malnutrition and inadequate clothing, combined with inadequate heating, provided a recipe for the spread of illness and contagious disease. The poor were “relieved” chiefly to prevent their turning “by despair to commit depre- dations” (quoted in Fingard, 1988: 197). Contemporary society tended to identify poverty with the city and per- sonal failure. It saw poverty as a moral rather than as an economic problem.

Between the poor and the prosperous fell a var- iety of occupational and social groups that defy ordering by almost any scheme. An examination of the Newfoundland fishing-boat owner suggests some of the difficulties. A property owner and an employer, the boat owner was probably landless except for a small house lot for which he held no deed. He was usually deeply in debt to the merchant who bought his fish and supplied him with essentials. Forced to contract debt, the fisher soon found himself in slavish servitude. The fishery’s truck system also operated in the timber districts and the fur trade. In another guise it also worked in farming communities, where families accumulated large debts to local storekeepers who supplied goods that could not be made at home. Moreover, huge portions of British America consisted of uneconomic farms that were kept operating on a subsistence level, often by women and children, while the male landholder was off elsewhere working for wages. As with the elites, houses told the tale. Settlers hoped to progress from log hut (or shanty) to log house to permanent dwelling built of stone or brick or finished lumber in accordance with their pros- perity. In 1831 Upper Canada had 36,000 dwellings, of which 75 per cent were constructed of logs and fewer than 1,000 built of brick and stone.

Colonial society also included a number of categor- ies of people who were quite outside the social structure as it was then understood. One such group was women. The law in British America was quite different for men and for women. Women were citizens only in that they

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were inhabitants of British America whose civil rights had yet to be ultimately decided. They were for the most part “non-legal entities”. A variety of disabilities oper- ated against women. They could not be legislators, or lawyers, judges, magistrates, or members of juries that decided the fate of many women in both civil and crim- inal actions. Politically disenfranchised—several prov- inces even passed legislation in this period specifically depriving widows of the vote—women were especially disadvantaged by marriage. As the English jurist Sir William Blackstone put it, “In law husband and wife are one person and the husband is that person.” All real property passed into the hands of the husband, who was entitled to control his spouse. Women were expected to produce many children in an age when maternal mortality ran very high. Despite the drawbacks, most women preferred marriage to the alternatives.

At least among the elite and the very prosperous, a process began of converting the home into the central social unit for cultural transmission and the pursuit of happiness. As British American society became more settled, and somewhat more urbanized, within the ranks of the middle and upper classes emerged a clear separation of work life and home life, and women with- drew into the privacy of the home. This growth of the concept of domesticity began in the ranks of the elite but gradually made its way into the middle class. It was con- nected with increasing prosperity and the construction of larger houses, which in turn encouraged new notions of social space. It became possible to conceive of reserv- ing different rooms for different functions (and differ- ent people), to distinguish “public” rooms from “private” rooms, and to introduce ideas of privacy as well. Instead of spending his life almost entirely in public spaces, the husband and father now came “home” from work to renew himself. Women were placed on a pedestal as keepers of culture and as civilizing influences.

For most women in British America, struggle with the pioneering conditions of carving farms out of the wilderness was the principal reality of life. An absence of labour-saving devices—except the domestic servant, for those who could afford one—meant that most work asso- ciated with the home involved heavy physical drudgery and long hours. Women were not only responsible for food preparation, but for much food production—gardening

and berry-picking, churning butter and making cheese, keeping chickens for eggs and meat—and for most of its preservation. In addition, women made soap and can- dles; they washed clothes; they tended the fires under the maple syrup vats. While conditions could become less primitive over time, there was never any appreciable reduction in the amount of a woman’s labour required to keep the family going. She was also responsible for bear- ing and raising children. In a society in which infant mortality was high and labour outside the family hard to come by, a considerable incentive existed for the produc- tion of large families. Women were also expected to help their men in work in the male sphere when required. In the resource society of British America in the first half of the nineteenth century, men were away from home often and for long periods. In their absence, their wives had to run households and farms, as well as to manage businesses. Although women’s work was drudgery never done, they were never properly rewarded. Domestic dut- ies were not regarded as a labour to be remunerated, and women’s contributions to the success of the family estate were rarely taken into account in inheritance strategies. The typical pattern was for sons (usually eldest sons) to inherit the property, while the caring patriarch specified, at best, that the heir was responsible for the maintenance of his mother. Daughters counted for very little in this pattern of inheritance.

Other groups almost completely marginalized by colonial society included Indigenous peoples and blacks. In much of the eastern region of British America, settle- ment had eliminated hunting grounds, and there was no place for the Indigenous peoples to go. They were offered the choice of provisions of land in unsurveyed local reserves or general integration into the farming community. Unlike the blacks, the First Nations had no desire to assimilate into British American society. They wanted to remain apart and continue to practice their traditional way of life, at least in so far as that traditional way remained possible. After 1790 living conditions for Aboriginal peoples in eastern British America deterior- ated, in direct relation to the initial date of contact. The British government operated on the assumption that the native population was declining, and needed to be integrated into European society as quickly as possible. The year 1836 saw several major and contradictory

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Clearing a Farm

Document

I may begin by observing, that the country is one entire forest of wood; all the exceptions to the truth of this lit- erally are not much more, even including the present clearances, than the dark spots upon the moon’s face, as they appear to the naked eye, compared with the brighter parts thereof. . . .

New settlers (who should always be here as early in the spring as possible) begin to cut down the wood where they intend to erect their first house. As the trees are cut the branches are to be lopped off, and the trunks cut into lengths of 12 or 14 feet. This operation they call junking them; if they are not junked before fire is applied, they are much worse to junk afterwards. Thus, when the space intended to be cleared is cut down, junked, and all lying in a promiscuous manner over the whole sur- face, fire is applied to it in as dry and windy a day as can be selected, and if the fire runs well, the greater part of the small branches will be consumed, but the trunks will only be scorched. These are next rolled together and made up in piles, lying flat upon the ground; then the remaining small branches are gathered up and thrown upon the heavier wood, to help it to kindle for burning a second time. The stronger part of the family then go on to make up more piles, while the weaker part set fire to those which are thus prepared. In this way they pro- ceed till the whole of what was cut down is gone over; then when the piles go out they are kindled again, and those that continue to burn are thrust closer together, till all is consumed. I must say this is a piece of work of the most dirty and disagreeable nature, and when the wood is heavy, as tiresome as any I have seen in America.

I have often passed by the settlers when engaged in this employment, and what with smoke, sweat, and the dust of the burnt wood, their faces were little fairer than those of the negroes in the West Indies, while their clothes were much the same as if they had been dragged up a sooty chimney. After the wood is all burnt, the stumps are left standing about two feet high, scorched black with the first burning, like so many flocks, of a blacksmith’s anvil. The people then begin planting their potatoes, which is done in the following manner;—with their hoes they scratch or rake a little of the [earth] to one side, about eight inches square, and after raking a little of the ashes lying upon the surface into this groove, they place four cuttings of seed potatoes in it in square form, and then cover them up with earth till it resembles a small mole-hill, and still repeating the same operation they go on putting all their seed into the ground by four at a time, and when the space cleared is all planted it looks as if it were all covered with small mole-hills. And this is the only labour bestowed upon the potatoes till they are ready for raising. But when the time for planting arrives, man, wife, children, and all that can handle a hoe, must work, as the season is short; and if the crop is not got in to a sufficient extent, want may stare them in the face, when a supply will be difficult to procure, and when there will be nothing in their pocket to pay for it.—This work of planting with the hoe is very laborious, for there are always a great number of small roots spread over the surface, which they have to cut to pieces with their hoes, otherwise they could not plant it at all. . . .

The following appeared in Walter Johnstone, A Series of Letters, Descriptive of Prince Edward Island, in the Gulph of St. Laurence, Addressed to the Rev. John Wightman, Minister of Kirkmahoe, Dumfries-shire (Dumfries: J. Swan, 1822). Johnstone had travelled extensively on the Island as a missionary.

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Angélique Pilotte was born c. 1797 near Michilimackinac to Aboriginal parents. In 1815 she engaged as a servant and accompanied her mistress to France, returning in 1817 to Drummond Island (now Michigan), where she again became a “waiting woman.” She went with her mistress to Chippewa, Upper Canada, where in early August the body of a dead baby was discovered in a shallow grave. Pilotte confessed that she was the mother and was subsequently put on trial for infanticide under a 1624 English statute, although there is little evidence that she had admitted to killing the child.

Pilotte had spent most of her life in Ojibwa society and does not appear to have understood much English or most of the legal niceties connected with the charge against her in the Niagara court. Several of the wit- nesses, including her mistress, thought that she was mentally challenged, although the problem may have been one of language, combined with racial prejudice, rather than mental acuity. In any event, she had admit- ted to concealing a pregnancy, to bearing a live child, and to burying it when it subsequently died—which were the key points in the law against infanticide. A jury quickly found her guilty but recommended mercy. Nonetheless, the judge—who over the years insisted that Aboriginals should be brought under English justice— sentenced her to be hanged, with the body subsequently given over for dissection.

Pilotte’s lawyer, Bartholomew Beardsley, encour- aged her to petition for mercy, partly on the grounds of

substantial communications problems; Pilotte insisted that she had been misunderstood and misinterpreted. But Beardsley also emphasized that Pilotte was a victim of cultural misunderstanding. In Ojibwa society, the girl had acted perfectly appropriately in the way she had given birth. Pilotte knew only “the customs and maxims of her own nation,” which included “the invariable cus- tom of Indian women to retire and bring forth their chil- dren alone, and in secret.” The jury backed her plea for a pardon. One juror wrote to the local newspaper that the jury had recommended mercy because “she was a savage and had no knowledge of the usages of the Christians.” A number of prominent citizens of Niagara, many of whom were involved in trade with Aboriginals, also supported her petition, as did Robert Gourlay (the Scots-born oppon- ent of the Upper Canadian government at the time).

The appeal went to Upper Canada’s chief execu- tive, colonial administrator Samuel Smith, who sent it to London for a final decision. Pilotte waited in prison while the appeal crossed the Atlantic. The British author- ities altered her sentence to one year’s imprisonment. She had already served most of that time, and she was apparently released to return to her people. The Pilotte case could be read in a number of ways. It could be seen as an illustration of the harshness of the laws against women, as an example of the way in which minorities were treated (for the successful appeal was not common practice), or as an instance of the ultimate triumph of British justice.

Angélique Pilotte

Biography

developments in First Nations policy. In that year the first serious British attempt at co-ordinating policy came with a parliamentary inquiry that covered the entire empire. Canada featured prominently in this investigation, with a litany of abuses exposed from one colony to the next. The government of Nova Scotia refused to provide any infor- mation whatsoever. In its 1,000-page report, the commit- tee concluded that First Nations policy should remain

under British control. It also recommended against mak- ing treaties with local Aboriginals, on the grounds that the treaty process was so heavily weighted in favour of government that it could never produce a satisfactory result. This recommendation was never implemented, and treaty-making was instead transferred from imper- ial authorities to colonial governments in ensuing years. Together, an unjust treaty process and a tendency toward

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corrupt administration would leave First Nations people increasingly impoverished and restless.

Symptomatic of the problem were developments in Upper Canada in 1836, when Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis Bond Head decided that attempts at assimila- tion were a mistake. Instead, he argued that the “great- est kindness we can perform towards these Intelligent, simpleminded people is to remove and fortify them as much as possible from all Communication with the Whites” (Dickason, 2002: 211). Head subsequently engineered the cession of 3 million acres of land by the Ojibwa in return for a promise that Manitoulin Island and its adjacent islands would be protected as Aboriginal territory. The Ojibwa knew full well that the deal was a bad one, but reasoned that if they did not agree they might lose everything. For all the First Nations, the reverberations of extensive settlement could be felt at long distances from the actual European presence, and settlement was inexorably coming to the west as well as to the east.

Thousands of blacks flocked to Upper Canada between 1820 and 1860. Some were slaves seeking freedom, for it was well known in the United States that slavery was illegal in British America. By and large, the Upper Canadian authorities protected slaves who made their way into the province. After 1830, an increasing level of organization moved fugitive blacks from the United States. One key development was that of the “Underground Railroad.” This was, of course, not a railroad at all, but a complex network of organizations, people—black and white, male and female—and safe houses through which black fugitives were smuggled northward and eventually across the border. Fugitive slaves were joined by thousands of freed northern blacks seeking a better life in British America. Many of the freed blacks were active in abolitionist activities and in the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman (1820–1913, known as “Moses”) made a number of trips into slave territory from her home in St Catharines, rescuing as many as 300 slaves over the course of her career. Unfortunately, all blacks faced prejudice and social disadvantage in their new land. They were granted civil liberty but were never really made to feel at home. The Reverend Thomas Kinnard, a Toronto- based abolitionist and former slave, wrote in 1863, “If

freedom is established in the United States, there will be one great black streak, reaching from here to the utter- most parts of the South” (quoted in Prince, 2009: 217). As he predicted, many blacks returned to the United States after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

Religion and Education The privileged elites were supported by the clergy of the established church, the Church of England, as well as by the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church. All these churches taught the doctrine of subordination to rightful authority. Those not associated with these churches found the pretensions of the ecclesiastical establishment, particularly in maintaining such trad- itional monopolies as marriage rites and education, constant irritants that could be associated with the oli- garchic constitutional system. Dissenters chafed under arrangements that granted “liberty of conscience” to all Christians while denying them full powers to act in such matters as the solemnization of marriage. The Church of England fought an unsuccessful rearguard action to maintain its pretense to monopoly.

In Lower Canada, the Catholic Church solidified its position within the political structure, especially under Bishop Joseph-Octave Plessis (1763–1825, bishop and archbishop, 1806–25), who was appointed to the province’s legislative council in 1817. Plessis presided over the devolution of the Church in British America. In 1819 Rome elevated him to an archbishopric at the same time that it created new dioceses in Upper Canada and Prince Edward Island, both headed by Highland Scots. Plessis was not himself an ultramon- tanist. He did not believe that the Church, although the guardian of moral law, must be heeded in all mat- ters relating to politics. But he did attempt, with some success, to strengthen the structure of his Church by educating more clergy, by obtaining government recog- nition of its legal position (especially in Lower Canada), and by reforming its far-flung governance. His succes- sors were more sympathetic to the pretensions of Rome than Plessis had been.

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Dissenters in every colony not only chafed at the conservative social vision of the established churches and their support of hierarchy and privilege but also objected to the view of God they promulgated. The most numerous dissenters were Methodists and their itin- erant preachers, although the Baptists also had a con- siderable following. Most dissenters were evangelicals who believed that God had to be experienced emotion- ally and spiritually rather than comprehended ration- ally. This awareness was “awakened” at revivals and at the Methodist “camp meetings” that were so common in Upper Canada. The evangelicals were not only pas-

sionate but also populist in their attitude. For many in the establishment, passionate populism was viewed as tantamount to revolution. Education was another area of conflict between establishment privileges and the needs of an expanding population. The Church of England attempted to insist that it alone was entitled to the rev- enue from Crown lands set aside for the support of a Protestant clergy. It also tried to maintain close control over the institutions of higher education—universities, colleges, and academies—on the grounds that such edu- cation had to involve moral as well as technical know- ledge. Only a relative handful of students had places

Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796–1865) was the first of a long line of internationally known best-selling au- thors and humorists from what is now Canada. Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, and a product of King’s College, he later practised law in Annapolis Royal. In 1826 he was elected the Tory MHA for Annapolis Royal. In the legislature he became known as a loose cannon, and consequently he was appointed in 1829 as a judge in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas in order to remove a disturbing element from the House of Assembly. In 1841 he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the province, serving industriously but without great distinction until his retirement in 1856. Taking advantage of his literary success, he then moved to England, where in 1859 he was elected to the House of Commons. A convivial man, he was most comfortable consorting with equals in the tavern or in his own home. Despite the demands of his public life, Haliburton produced a considerable quan- tity of written work, much of it in the form of history and compendiums of humorous writing. Like many authors in the nineteenth century, he was not very solicitous of the intellectual property of others, a characteristic that helps explain his volume of output.

His literary success, however, rests upon his cre- ation of Sam Slick, a Yankee travelling clock salesman

whose observations—in Yankee dialect—on society, pol- itics, and human nature made Haliburton a best-selling writer in Britain, British America (although not Nova Scotia), and the United States. Much of Haliburton’s writing commented on the Americans, whom he saw as excessively chauvinistic, boasting, and opportunis- tic, as well as industrious and adaptable. He combined the literary tradition of the moral essay of the eight- eenth century with the nineteenth century’s dramatic tradition of humorous dialogue, particularly a stage Americanism rooted in excess, bombast, and vulgarity combined with an inventive and basically uneducated or common vocabulary. He was most successful in his observations about his home province, while his com- ments on England and America tended to be superficial and facile, distorted by his dislike for liberalism and radicalism. Sam Slick was a major creation, although not Haliburton’s only attractive character. Not surpris- ingly, he was not well admired in his home province, partly because of his social attitudes and partly because of the success of his satire. The most accessible of Haliburton’s writings for modern readers are probably The Clockmaker, or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville (Halifax, 1836), and The Old Judge, or, Life in a Colony (2 vols, London, 1849).

Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Biography

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at these institutions. For the authorities, education was seen as necessary for social order. For the common folk, it represented a means of mobility and liberation. Systems of education brought to the colonies after 1815 were based on teaching the older children, who in turn passed their lessons by rote to the younger. Only towards the end of the period was there much demand for broadly based public education. The curricula of such schools as existed were extremely eclectic. Despite the absence of regular schooling in most provinces, the population was surprisingly literate. Immigrants brought with them their educational experiences in England, Ireland, Scotland, or America. These experiences often were col- oured by a substantial class bias as well as by ethnic and denominational ones.

Colonial Culture Before 1840 the schools were not yet the bearers of the cultural aspirations of the resource society of British America. While a common stereotype identifies this period as one of extremely limited and primitive cul- tural and artistic production—particularly by European or American standards—such a view reflects a particu- lar set of assumptions about culture. Locally based high culture was understandably rare. Foreign models were usually employed. There was, however, a substantial folk culture, which included a well-established oral tradition, in the form of tales and songs, handed down from generation to generation and from group to group. There was also a tradition of craftsmanship. The simple pine furniture of clean, uncluttered, functional lines produced by hundreds of anonymous craftsmen during the colonial period found little favour in succeeding generations, which regarded heavy ornamentation and the use of highly polished wood veneers as exemplary. But today we recognize that the aesthetic values of those anonymous furniture-makers were on a level with their high craftsmanship.

Most high culture was produced by people who made their living in some other way, and who often regarded their artistic activity as diversion or by-prod- uct rather than conscious art or professional activity. The majority of the producers of elite culture—like

most of the elite of this period—were born abroad. Of the 538 people given entries in Volume VII of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, covering those who died between 1835 and 1850, fewer than 200 were born in the colonies, and most of these were born in Lower Canada. Young people educated in British America were usually trained by those who were educated abroad, usually with emphasis on slavish reproduction of both form and content. Some respectable work was done within these constraints.

In literature, John Richardson (1796–1852) pro- duced one unusual novel, Wacousta, or, The Prophecy, published anonymously in London and Edinburgh in 1832. Thomas McCulloch (1776–1843) had literary success with short sketches, The Letters of Mephibosheth Stepsure, originally published in a newspaper and not collected in book form until 1960. Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796–1865) wrote 21 sketches about Sam Slick in 1835–6, which became The Clockmaker; or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville. Haliburton went on to become an international best-selling writer. Both McCulloch and Haliburton produced their best work for a local colonial audience. When they wrote for international markets, they were less imaginative and inventive.

Another interesting development of this period was the emergence of middle-class female authors, often recent immigrants, who portrayed the colonial scene in their works. The first novel by a native British American—St Ursula’s Convent; or, The Nun in Canada, published in Kingston in 1824—was written by Julia Catherine Hart (1796–1867), née Julia Beckwith, of Fredericton, New Brunswick. Nearly 150 subscribers paid 9s 4d for copies of the two-volume work. Hart published several other novels, all of which were char- acterized by unrealistic, often fantastic, plots and set- tings. In St Ursula’s Convent she tapped a rich vein of Protestant suspicion of what Catholics “got up to” in convents, although her tale was more of melodrama than of immorality.

The Strickland sisters—Catharine Parr Traill (1802–99) and Susanna Moodie (1803–85)—were more polished writers, and each sister wrote a work based on her experiences as an immigrant in Canada that is now a classic (Gray, 1999).

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Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada (London, 1836) is made of 18 letters home to family and friends in Suffolk. It is a sensitive early account of the pioneer experience. Never complaining, she leaves readers with an overall impression of cheerful adaptation to the rigours of life in a previously unsettled area of Upper Canada, where she willingly made do with whatever was at hand. Upper Canada itself, however, is portrayed as a land “with no historical associations, no legendary tales of those that came before,” and the impenetrable forest all around her is “desolate,” “interminable,” “a maze.” It simultaneously isolates and liberates the author. Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush: or, Forest Life in Canada (1852) is the best known of a number of works by Moodie that offer trenchant (and often discouraging) descriptions

of the pioneering experience. Moodie was particularly good at the satirical description of the customs of the average immigrant, customs such as the “bee” and the “charivari.”

Another successful writer was Anna Brownell Jameson (1794–1860). More willing to flout the gender rules of her society than most females, Jameson was a frequently published author in 1825 when she married the lawyer Robert Jameson. She did not initially accom- pany her husband to Dominica or to Upper Canada when he received judicial appointments in the colonies, but joined him temporarily in 1836 as she attempted to negotiate a legal separation. While in Canada she trav- elled extensively, and the result of her journeys was the book Winter Tales and Summer Rambles in Canada

Foreign models of high culture were generally employed in the early nineteenth century, such as social dances, common in England and France. However, they took place in a very different context and garb. Château St Louis was the seat of the governor of Lower Canada, and where the elite of Quebec would meet. Looking at similar images from Europe, how does this compare? “Dance in the Château St. Louis,” by George Heriot, 1801. LAC, 1989-472-1.

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(1838). Jameson deliberately set out to relate her adven- tures from both a personal and a feminist point of view. As she records under the date of 13 March 1837, “In these days when society is becoming every day more artificial and complex, and marriage, as the gentlemen assure us, more and more expensive, hazardous and inexpedient, women must find means to fill up the void of existence” (quoted in Gerry, 1990–1: 37). Most women from the elite classes did not attempt to publish their literary efforts, but instead composed lengthy and fascinating letters to friends and family or kept diaries that remained in family papers and have only in recent years been read and published.

In the non-literary arts, the official culture of British America was derivative and unadventurous. Painters inevitably emphasized European styles and techniques, which were sometimes acquired from work- ing with established masters, and the market had little interest in anything else. Within this tradition a few fine painters emerged, such as William Berczy (1744–1813), Louis Dulongpré, and Joseph Légaré (1796–1855). In architecture, Late Georgian style predominated. It was not only what architects and craftsmen knew, it symbol- ized British authority and epitomized British standards.

Rather more interesting developments were occur- ring in the vernacular culture of the common people,

Mephibosheth Stepsure Explains a Nova Scotia Cycle of Failure

Document

My neighbour Gosling is completely an every-day char- acter. His exact likeness may be found at any time, in any part of the Province. About thirty years ago, his father David left him very well to do; and Solomon, who at that time was a brisk young man, had the prospect, by using a little industry, of living as comfortably as any in the town. Soon after the death of old David, he was married and a likelier couple were not often to be seen. But unluckily for them both, when Solomon went to Halifax in the winter, Polly went along with him to sell her turkeys and see the fashions; and from that day the Goslings had never a day to do well. Solomon was never very fond of hard work. At the same time he could not be accused of idleness. He was always a very good neigh- bour; and at every burial or barn raising, Solomon was set down as one who would be sure to be here. By these means he gradually contracted the habit of running

about; which left his own premises in an unpromising plight. Polly, too, by seeing the fashions, had learnt to be genteel; and for the sake of a little show, both less- ened the thrift of the family and added to the outlay; so that, between one thing and another, Solomon began to be hampered, and had more calls than comforters. . . . Though Goose Hill farm, from want of industry, had not been productive, it was still a property of consider- able value: and it occurred to Solomon, that, converted into goods, it would yield more prompt and lucrative returns than by any mode of agriculture. Full of the idea, accordingly, my neighbour went to town; and, by mortgaging his property to Caliboogus, the West India merchant, he returned with a general assortment of merchandise, suited to the wants of the town. When I say a general assortment, it is necessary to be a little more explicit. It did not contain any of those articles

Thomas McCulloch (1776–1843) was a Scots-born Presbyterian minister and educator who spent the bulk of a long career in Pictou, Nova Scotia. Here his observations of the frailties of his neighbours led to a series of satirical letters published in a Halifax newspaper in 1821.

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which tended to be oral rather than written, traditional rather than imitative, and often connected either with artisan conventions or with religious energy. For all inhabitants of British America, singing religious hymns and secular songs was an important part of their lives. People sang as they worked in the fields, the voyageurs sang as they paddled their canoes, and fishermen sang as they pulled up their nets. Most of what was sung was inherited from Europe, although both music and lyrics were frequently altered by time and new circumstances. Many pioneers sprang from ethnic backgrounds in which the bard, a combination of poet and songster, represented important folk memory. Gaelic-speaking

bards from the Highlands of Scotland not only carried on the tradition in British America but extended it. A rich heritage of crafting in wood produced not only furniture and useful ornamentation (such as the weather vane), but the sailing ship, a monument to the skills of car- penters and builders. Popular culture suggested some of the rich possibilities for creative adaptation. By 1840, for example, Scottish settlers familiar with the sport of curling had not only imported the game into a climate ideally suited for it but had made great strides forward in its popularization and regularization. So successful was the game that around 1840 the world’s first indoor curling facility was constructed in Montreal.

which are employed in subduing the forest, or in culti- vating the soil. These he knew were not very saleable. . . . When a merchant lays in his goods he naturally con- sults the taste of his customers, Solomon’s, accordingly, consisted chiefly of West India produce, gin, brandy, tobacco, and a few chests of tea. For the youngsters, he had provided an assortment of superfine broad cloths and fancy muslins, ready-made boots, whips, spurs and a great variety of gumflowers and other articles which come under the general denomination of notions. In addition to all these, and what Solomon considered as not the least valuable part of his stock, he had bought from Pendulum & Co. a whole box of old watches ele- gantly ornamented with lacquered brass chains and glass seals; little inferior in appearance to gold and Cairngorms. When all these things were arranged, they had a very pretty appearance. For a number of weeks, little was talked of but Mr. Gosling’s Store; for such he had now become by becoming a merchant. . . . Mr. Gosling, too, had in reality considerably improved his circumstances. The greater part of my neighbours

being already in debt to old Ledger and other traders about; and considering that if they took their money to these, it would only go to their credit, carried it to Mr. Gosling’s Store; so that by these means he was soon able to clear off a number of his encumbrances, and to carry to market as much as cash as established his credit. Among traders punctuality of payment begets confi- dence in the seller; and the credit which this afford to the purchaser, is generally followed by an enlargement of orders. My neighbour returned with a much greater supply; and here his reverses commenced. Credit could not be refused to good customers who had brought their money to the store. Those, also who formerly showed their good will by bringing their cash, proved their present cordiality by taking large credits. But when the time for returning to the market for supplies arrived, Mr. Gosling had nothing to take thither but his books. These, it is true, had an imposing appearance. They contained debts to a large amount. . . . But when his accounts were made out, many young men who owed him large sums, had gone to Passamaquoddy.

Source: Thomas McCulloch, The Stepsure Letters (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1960), 11–13.

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The Politics of the Elite Like the culture, the politics of the resource society were in flux. By 1820 the governments of the vari- ous provinces of British America were becoming well ensconced in power. The pattern was a fairly standard one, even for Newfoundland, which still did not have representative government and would not acquire it until 1832. Each colonial government was headed by a governor (or lieutenant-governor). Appointed in England, he was often a military man. No mere figure- heads, governors of this period had considerable power and autonomy. The governor administered the province in association with the principal office-holders—also imperial appointments, although sometimes colonials were appointed—who, with the prominent merchants,

comprised his council or councils. The resultant oli- garchies were given various derisive labels. In Upper Canada there was the “Family Compact,” in Lower Canada the “Château Clique,” in Nova Scotia the “System,” and in Prince Edward Island “the Cabal.” As administrations, these groups were not necessar- ily unenlightened Tories. They believed in the need to increase the prosperity of their colonies and usually attempted to mediate among the conflicting interests that emerged, provided they remained orderly. Most of the oligarchies favoured government intervention in the economy, particularly through the creation of new infrastructure such as banks, roads, and canals. Not all members of the official factions in English-speaking colonies belonged to the Church of England, and not all members of the government in Lower Canada

“The Woolsey Family,” William Berczy, 1809, oil on canvas. If the sitters in this portrait look oddly detached from one another, the reason is that the artist drew each one separately. Once all the figures had been transferred to the canvas, he painted in the background around them. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 5875. © National Gallery of Canada, 5875.

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1815 | Relying on Resources, 1815–1840

Petition in Support of Reform, Upper Canada, 1818

Document

To His Excellency Major General Sir Peregrine Maitland HCB Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada.

The petition of the undersigned inhabitants of the Township of [named as Ernestown, Hallowell, Cramahe and Percy in each separate copy.]

Humbly Sheweth. That the undersigned inhabitants of the township

of [named] have perused with deep regret that part of your Excellency’s speech to the Parliament of Upper Canada wherein it is said “You will, I doubt, not feel a just indignation at the attempts which have been made to excite discontent and to organized sedition” and it is with shame as well as with regret, they have perceived that the Commons House of Assembly have not only confirmed these sentiments but descended to launch out wanton and invidious reflections against an innocent individual.

The undersigned believe that your Excellency has been grossly deceived as to the discontent which exists in Upper Canada, and very ill informed as to any attempt to organize sedition, but they are sorry to think that the reply of the Commons can Plead no such excuse.

The undersigned do not deny that discontent exists; but they speak with a determination which is unalterable in saying that there has been much cause for discontent. As to sedition, the very idea is ground- less: yet if it did exist that Courts of Law are open for its prosecution. They have seen an individual prosecuted, nay persecuted, by the present ministry under the plea of promoting sedition and libelling the government: but twice has this individual been honorably acquitted, and far are they from thinking that any new Statute is

necessary to circumscribe the liberty of the subject. The organization which has been formed in this Province is such, as, when properly considered, must excite admir- ation. It manifests a spirit of order and peace. It proves that the People of Upper Canada are advanced in the progress of civilization and above the mobbish habits of European nations. It shews they possess the most valu- able knowledge how to redeem their political affairs when sunk in the slough of confusion and pressed down by the weight of installed power.

The undersigned wish to see no other organization save that of the regularly constituted authorities, if these would perform their duty: but they have witnessed their present parliamentary Representatives the third time in session without even the appearance of beneficial result. Twice did these representatives propose an enquiry into the State of the Province:—twice where they ignomini- ously dismissed in the midst of weighty considerations; and twice have they returned only to display grovelling sentiments and temporizing acts. The late organization of the people never had but one object—that of enquiry and the appointment of a commission to go home to England with a petition to the Throne that the same may be effectual. The accomplishment of this object constitutes the most earnest desire of the undersigned: and if this object is not speedily attained through the manly endeavors of the Present Parliament they most fervently pray that Your Excellency will dissolve it, and issue writs for the assembly of men who may represent more faithfully the wishes, and more ably perform the business, of their constituents.

This petition was orchestrated by Robert Gourlay. Although he is not named explicitly, Gourlay, who was twice acquitted of sedition earlier in August 1818 (once in Kingston and once in Brockville), was behind these public objections to the “Act to Prevent Certain Meetings,” which Maitland, the new lieutenant-governor, had proposed to suppress meetings seen as seditious.

Source: Civil Secretary’s Correspondence, Upper Canada Sundries, 1766–1841, LAC, RG5 A1.

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182 A History of the Canadian Peoples

were Anglos. Under pressure from the Colonial Office, they surrendered the revenues in dispute between the assemblies and themselves, particularly those from the sale and lease of Crown lands. The popularly elected assembly, which comprised one part of the legislative system that also included the council (or in some prov- inces, a separate legislative council), had a very limited role in the process of government. In 1820 the assem- blies did not yet have control of the revenue or finances of the provinces, much less any real involvement in their administration, although they gained control over more revenue in the 1830s.

Under this constitutional arrangement, polit- ical conflict could take a number of forms. One involved disagreement between the governor and the oligarchy that comprised the provincial administration. This could

come about either because the governor was expected to implement unpopular instructions from the mother country, or because he sought to limit the self-perpetu- ating power of the oligarchs. More frequently after 1820, the conflict involved a fierce struggle between the administration and the leaders of an assembly eager to expand its prerogatives and authority. A new generation of political leaders emerged who were willing to invoke popular support on behalf of their attacks on the pre- vailing governments. Reform was no more monolithic than the oligarchies. It broke into several main camps with much overlap among them. One group of reformers represented the radicals, the other consisted of various factions with more moderate voices who extolled the glories of the English Constitution and its supposed entrenchment of British rights and liberties. Moderate

“Curling on the lake near Halifax,” c. 1867, from Lt Henry Buckton Laurence, Sketches of Canadian Sports and Pastimes (London, 1870). How many other winter sports and pastimes besides curling are depicted in this illustration? LAC, 1970-188-2074, W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana.

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reformers did not wish to eliminate the imperial con- nection, but instead wanted to employ it to obtain a colonial constitution that more closely resembled what they thought was that of the mother country. Many of the members of the evangelical sects so critical of the Church of England were former Americans, and they would play a prominent role in the rebellions of 1837 and 1838. Four reformers stand out in this period: William Lyon Mackenzie (1795–1861) of Upper Canada, Louis-Joseph Papineau (1786–1871) of Lower Canada, Joseph Howe (1804–73) of Nova Scotia, and William Cooper (1786–1867) of Prince Edward Island. None of these men actually overturned the political system, but each did make some inroads against it, anticipating in a variety of ways a gradual democratization of politics in British America.

All four reformers (and others) sounded radical in their rhetoric. All believed in the importance of the “independent cultivator of the soil,” displaying pro- found hostility to commerce, the merchant classes, and expensive economic development by the public sector

(quoted in Halpenny, 1976: 156). Equality of conditions and opportunity was what mattered. William Cooper sought this equality through “escheat,” a process by which the large landholders of Prince Edward Island would be stripped of their ill-gotten holdings and the land redistributed to those who actually tilled the soil. In the 1830s both Papineau and Mackenzie turned to the American ideas of Jacksonian democracy when they found themselves unable either to persuade the British government of the inadequacy of existing con- stitutional arrangements or to alter the system by pol- itical activity. These reformers wanted to overturn the corrupt oligarchies that ran their respective provinces and replace them with administrations that would be responsible to the province as represented in the elected Houses of Assembly. They could also agree, as a result of their agrarian and anti-commercial assumptions, that public “improvements” paid for by the public purse or sponsored by the government (such as canals and banks) represented an unnecessary financial burden on the taxpayer, being in effect “class legislation.” As Mackenzie argued, the “true source of a country’s wealth” was “labour usefully and prudently applied” (quoted in Fairley, 1960: 217). For Papineau in Lower Canada, an active economic state was being dominated not only by a mercantile class but by a British mercan- tile class, which promoted capitalism.

It is in the context of the struggle between com- mercial capitalism and agrarian idealism that we must understand both the Tory commitment to public involvement in economic activity and the reform oppos- ition. These political reformers had no conception that economic development could be directed by govern- ment on behalf of the people, any more than they had a general conception of any positive role for the state in ensuring the social well-being of its citizenry. They were instead typical nineteenth-century liberal democrats who sought to reduce (rather than to increase) the influ- ence of government on the lives of the population, as well as to limit the temptation of special privilege. As Mackenzie put it in a broadside entitled “Independence” in late November 1837, “We contend, that in all laws made, or to be made, every person shall be bound alike—neither should any tenure, estate, charter, degree, birth or place, confer any exemption from the ordinary

William Lyon Mackenzie, 1834, by an unknown artist; lithograph published in Canadiana Military Events, III, 337. LAC, 1958-046, Volume III.

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184 A History of the Canadian Peoples

course of legal proceedings and responsibilities where- unto others are subjected” (quoted in Fairley, 1960: 223).

Reform and Rebellion Unrest had been building in the Canadas for a num- ber of years before it first broke out in violent defiance of the government in 1837. Several strands of discon- tent can be identified. Some of them were common to both provinces, while others were distinctive to only one. In both provinces the uprisings were more than brief affairs occurring in the capital cities and

led by the political elite. One of the major strands experienced in common was a sense of challenge to the established oligarchic order in the spirit of liberal democracy and in the name of “the people.” Another common strand was a nascent sense of national liber- ation from the tutelage of the British Empire. A third less abstract strand was rural discontent, caused by clumsy agricultural and land policies of the colonial governments, and enhanced by a series of bad har- vests. Structural rural discontent was shared in com- mon by the two Canadas, but its causes were quite different, although both revolved around the land in an era in which large amounts of waste and unsettled

John Galt (1779–1839) was born into a Scottish ship cap- tain’s family. He grew up in ill health, and spent much time with the old women who lived with his grand- mother. Despite his sickness, he was tall and imposing in appearance. He clerked in a counting house before heading to London, like many another Scot intending to make his fortune. This he did initially as a broker, but his firm soon went bust due to a correspondent’s financial failure. The study of law at Lincoln’s Inn led to a breakdown in health, and Galt began travelling in 1809 in order to recover. When he returned to London in 1811 he began to make his living by his pen, which he had been employing for years in various literary endeavours. Books based on his travels, self-published, brought him a decent living. Much of his work was published under pen names or anonymously. By his own account he became a professional writer in 1820, when he began writing novels. Annals of the Parish in 1821was his first great success, written in a fictional- ized autobiographical voice. His most successful work appeared between 1820 and 1822, although he con- tinued with three historical novels modelled on Walter Scott’s successes.

In the early 1820s Galt again became a business- man, becoming involved with the Canada Company, a private firm that eventually would acquire the scattered Crown and Clergy Reserves of Upper Canada for 3s.6d. per acre and offer them for sale. Galt became a resident of Upper Canada in December 1826. Charged with run- ning the company’s business in the colony, Galt founded towns in Guelph and Goderich to serve as a basis for settlement. He seemed unable to stay out of trouble with either the political elite or the government (virtually the same people) in the colony, or the company’s direc- tors in London. A terrible bookkeeper, he overspent on various schemes of development, most of which were quite ingenious but were very expensive. He returned to England in 1829 to be imprisoned for failure to pay the school fees of his sons. In prison he returned to writing, and used his Canadian experiences as the basis for a ser- ies of novels (Laurie Todd; Bogle Corbett) that returned him to solvency. Galt’s contribution to the success of the Canada Company was long under-appreciated, as were his contributions as a novelist. Perhaps his most import- ant achievement was his recognition of the new vocabu- lary of North America.

John Galt

Biography

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land were rapidly disappearing. Upper Canadian rural unhappiness was caused mainly by the inability of the government to distribute sufficient land to settlers at a reasonable price; Lower Canadian dissatisfaction was connected to the carryover from the French regime of the seigneurial system, the various tithes and financial obligations of which had not been so much of a burden before population pressures set in. In addition, Lower Canada’s restlessness had an ethnocultural edge, as French Canadians complained of being treated as inferiors by the province’s anglos and by the imperial authorities that supported them.

While it is tempting to treat the outbursts in the two provinces as a common event, from a legal per- spective they were quite different, which carried over into the way in which rebels and traitors were dealt with by the courts. A complicating feature, moreover, was the subsequent armed return to British America of rebels who had earlier fled the country, now accom- panied by American and Irish associates whose pres- ence meant armed invasion. In any event, we are not dealing with a single set of trials but with a number of sets of trials spread over two provinces. There is little pattern to the package of trials, except that gov- ernment orchestration and even manipulation was endemic. Not all judges took the same view of high treason. Some tended to interpret it narrowly, while others were quite expansionist in the latitude they allowed for judicial interpretation.

Upper Canada

The government of Upper Canada responded to the Yonge Street insurrection led by William Lyon Mackenzie with a special assizes in Toronto in March 1838, where 133 prisoners were indicted with high treason; another 30 escaped. Most of the defendants were people from the Toronto district. The govern- ment employed special legislation, a Pardoning Act (1 Vic. c.10), which allowed it to extend a conditional pardon to those involved in the “late treasonable insur- rection” who had been misled and seduced into their actions. By petitioning for pardon under this Act, the individual had obviously admitted his involvement

in the uprising. Most prisoners thus escaped trial and punishment. Those who were American citizens were banished. The petitioning business was a brilliant stroke that enabled the government to be lenient with- out seeming to be soft. Twelve cases actually were tried, resulting in seven convictions.

A number of those tried had petitioned for pardons under the Pardoning Act, including Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, who as supposed ringleaders were deliberately tried to set an example to others. The sub- sequent executions of these two men were carried out publicly in the sight of the other prisoners. Most of the other cases brought to trial were of small fry who had not petitioned for clemency. In one case the jury found the defendant, tavern-keeper John Montgomery, guilty, but recommended mercy. Montgomery had his sentence commuted to transportation for life, went to the United States to establish a boarding house, which was a home for exiled Canadian patriots, and was pardoned in 1843. Many years later the Ontario legislature awarded him $3,000 for the loss of his tavern. Recent study of these trials by Romney and Wright (2002: 74) concludes that Chief Justice John Beverley Robinson not only exhibited prejudice against some of the defendants, but actually falsified his trial notes in several cases to help produce a conviction. They also note that contemporary charges of jury-packing were probably accurate. Several defend- ants were acquitted after long deliberations by the jury; these men had been defended by lawyers who argued that their clients had used violent words but denied hav- ing acted upon them.

Separate “revolts” in western Upper Canada led to trials at London and Hamilton in the spring of 1838. The defendants here were much less likely to petition under the Pardoning Act. In Hamilton, 27 men were tried, with 10 found guilty. The British Colonial Secretary, Lord Glenelg, had written to Upper Canada that “great cir- cumspection will . . . be requisite in carrying into effect any capital sentences,” and a review by the Executive Council of the Hamilton cases led to the decision that the guilty there should be spared because only treason and not other crimes were involved. In London, 15 men were tried for high treason, with nine acquitted. Much debat- able evidence was presented, but none were executed.

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186 A History of the Canadian Peoples

An incursion from the United States into Canada by a number of exiled Canadians, led by an American, occurred at Short Hills, on the escarpment behind St Catharines in June of 1838. Some of the 50 men who were captured and subsequently tried at Niagara were dealt with under the “Lawless Aggressions” Act passed in January 1838, which permitted foreigners captured with traitorous subjects to be tried for felony by court martial, punishable by death. The lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada wanted the ring- leaders of this raid dealt with harshly, and recommended at least four executions. A number of Americans were tried and convicted. In the case of James Morreau—one of the leaders of the raid—defence counsel objected to the “law- less aggression” legislation (already before the Colonial Office for review) as unconstitutional, and, indeed, the British law officers would advise against its proclama- tion before the execution of the defendant. This was the only execution in these trials. Thirteen Canadians were also tried, with most convicted. Pressure from both the Americans and the British was exerted against more exe- cutions, and the 15 men convicted were sentenced to trans- portation to British penal colonies (such as Australia) rather than being sentenced to banishment, which meant exile from British-controlled territory. Historians have disagreed as to whether this treatment substantiates the charge that the Canadian authorities were severe in the 1837–8 crisis, or followed severity with leniency. The proceedings at Hamilton, London, and Niagara demonstrated no con- sistent violations of procedure, but inconsistency was the norm, and there was considerable bias in some of the cases.

As Short Hills illustrated, by 1838 Upper Canada was not dealing with simple rebellion but with invasion, usually by Americans with the assistance of Canadians who had been banished from the province. The British government wanted these offenders dealt with under court-martial proceedings, which was done at Kingston and London in late November 1838 and early January 1839. The charge was lawless aggression rather than high treason. In 138 of 140 cases tried in Kingston, at least 10 of which were of British subjects, the result was convic- tion, and in 43 of 44 cases tried in London, at least nine of which were of British subjects, the result was convic- tion. Courts martial obviously produced a much higher success rate of conviction, partly because of the limited availability of counsel and partly because the prosecut-

ing judge advocate also acted as adviser on points of law. All but three of the 181 convicted were sentenced to death (the exceptions were adolescents), with the court or judge advocate then recommending lesser treatment in some cases. Of the 181, 17 were executed, 78 were trans- ported, and 83 were pardoned on condition they left the province. The procedure deprived a number of British subjects of rights they would have had in regular treason trials, a point made by a young John A. Macdonald before the Kingston court without much success. Historian Barry Wright insists that while in most of these cases the evidence was “clear and damning,” at the same time out- comes might have been different if regular trial procedure had been employed.

Lower Canada

Although martial law went out of favour in Great Britain in the nineteenth century as a legal procedure for deal- ing with popular insurrection—chiefly on the grounds that martial law could be introduced only where the very fabric of law and order had disintegrated—it became increasingly popular for dealing with colonial movements of resistance to British authority. As Jean- Marie Fecteau points out, one of the implications of this tendency was to distinguish legally the resisting colonials from other British subjects. Martial law was proclaimed by Governor Gosford in Lower Canada on 5 December 1837, without the approval of the assem- bly, after the peasant resistance at Saint Charles had been ended and before the battle at Saint-Eustache on 14 December. Gosford’s successor, Sir John Colborne, continued the policy until the end of April 1838. By the time Lord Durham arrived on 27 May 1838, the upris- ings had been well and truly quashed, but 140 prison- ers still had to be dealt with. Durham dealt with them by a process of “enlightened despotism,” resolving the fate of the leading insurrectionaries without trial by exiling them to Bermuda. He then amnestied the remaining individuals accused or suspected of high treason, thus producing much objection in Britain to arbitrary behaviour and the disallowance of the Bermuda action. Durham justified his decisions by pointing to subsequent acquittals by French-Canadian juries of men involved in the rebellion.

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Born probably in Montreal into a family of farmers, Jean-Olivier Chénier (1806–37) trained as a doctor and was licensed to practise in 1828, setting up his practice in Saint-Benoit. Chénier was soon active in politics and a supporter of the Patriotes, although he did not

run for public office until October 1837, when he became one of 22 justices of the peace elected at Sainte-Scholastique. Nevertheless, he was one of those for whom the authorities obtained arrest war- rants in November of 1837, and he was in effective command of the revolutionary forces in Ste-Eustache, persisting in re- sistance despite counsels of the hopeless- ness from many quarters. His badly out- numbered forces met a substantial party of British regulars and local volunteers backed by artillery in the village on 14 December 1837. Under no illusions about the seriousness of the situation, he told those among his men who complained they had no guns: “Don’t worry; some will get killed and you can take their arms.” As the British forces surrounded the village and cut off retreat, he refused to give up. “Do as you wish,” he told those who want- ed to surrender, “but as for me, I shall fight and if I am killed, I shall kill some others before dying.” He ultimately barricaded himself with a few others in the church buildings. When the church was set on fire, Chénier was killed trying to escape by jumping out of a window. The British insisted on doing an autopsy on his body, leading years later to a considerable con-

troversy over whether his body had been deliberately mutilated. Chénier was one of the few Patriote leaders who stood his ground against the authorities, and his death subsequently would become the subject of much mythology and verbal excess.

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The Battle of St Eustache, 14 December 1837. Based on a sketch drawn by HB Parry and engraved by A. Bourne, 1839, PAC, NMC H3 340 St. Eustache, 1837.

Jean-Olivier Chénier

Biography

Sources: Based on: Dictionary of Canadian Biography; Elinor Kyte Senior, Redcoats and Patriotes: The Rebellions in Lower Canada, 1837–38 (Ottawa: Canadian War Museum, 1985), 124–30.

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188 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Charles Duncombe to Robert David Burford

Document

24 October 1837 Your favor of the 17th instant has this moment

come to hand, in which you say that the time has come when reformers ought to be on the alert in forming pol- itical unions and in organizing for our common safety;

I heartily concur with you that it is high time for the reformers to be up and doing. When Sir Francis Head declares that the British Government never intended any such absurdity as giving us the British Constitution, (of course we are to continue to be gov- erned by the Oligarchy of Toronto,) And when the doors of the Colonial Office are closed against reform- ers (or republicans as Sir Francis Head tauntingly styles us;) because we are guilty of the crime of appealing to His Majestys Government with our Complaints, and when we see [the] Province under the dynasty of a foreign Governor and an Orange Oligarchy, retrograd- ing in one year as much as it had advanced in five, the only interest our oppressors have in the Province being the plunder they can amass and take away with them; I think any one not willfully blind, not interested in the continuation of the abuses, must see, that while this baneful domination continues we have not the slightest chance for prosperity and that if we will be well gov- erned we must govern ourselves; Our oppressors have shown us more clearly than ever before, that their great object is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer,

for if the people should become wealthy they would become intelligent and unwilling slaves; my maxim has always been educate the people, this can now be done only upon a few matters upon politics[;] we may do much by “the assembling our selves together” and hearing political lectures, by the forming political unions, publishing periodicals and encouraging the circulation of reform news-papers—this can be best done by union and by our devoting the few pence we save from our grog bills to the purchase of correct information upon the subject of our own affairs—and the time formerly spent in drinking to reading and reflection; I shall be most happy to meet with you any time next week (as I have heard that there is to be a reform meeting in Oakland one day next week but have not heard what day)—and I must (God willing) be there; . . . I hope when you appoint the time you will let me know as the time has come when we are to decide whether we will be bondsmen or slaves—the reformers of Westminister [sic] have done nobly; your name I see among the immortal patriots who feel the oppressor’s iron rod; thank God we are strong in the justice of our cause, and although we may suffer for a time, we shall assuredly in the end prevail; “A nation never can rebel” those only are rebels who resist the will of the people; from them (the people) emenates all legitimate, consti- tutional government.

Charles Duncombe (1792–1867) was born in Connecticut and came to Upper Canada after graduation from medical school in 1819. By 1830 he had a flourishing medical practice in Burford, Upper Canada, and extensive landholdings, and was first elected to the legislative assembly in that year. In the legislature he led reform in prisons, insane asylums, and education. He formed a rural uprising near Brantford, Upper Canada, on 8 December 1837, and then dispersed his followers on 13 December upon hearing of the defeat of Mackenzie’s rebels north of Toronto. Duncombe fled to the United States, where he remained for the rest of his life, eventually becoming a state politician in California.

Source: Colin Read and Ronald Stagg, eds, The Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada: A Collection of Documents (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1985), 88–9. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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Sorel

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St Hyacinthe

Ste Julie de Verchères

Boucherville

St Lambert

St Hilaire

St César

Chambly Canton Ste Marie de Monnoir

Mount Johnson

St Athanase

Moore’s Corners

St Philippe

Chateauguay Basin Caughnawaga

Pt Claire Lachine

Mile End

Montreal

Chateauguay

St Annes

Beauharnois

Coteau Landing

Coteau de Lac

Vaudreuil

Rigaud

St Joseph du Lac

St Eustache

St Benoit

St Andrews E St Martin

Bord à Plouffe

Ste Geneviève

St Hermas

Carillon Pt. Fortune

Belle Rivière

St Scholastique Lachine

Napierville

Lacolle

Swanton

Alburg

St Albans

Grand Isle

Chazy Rouses Point

Berthier

Lanorie

Belosil Village

Chambly Basin

St Johns

St Edouard de Napierville

Cedars

Odelltown Hemmingford

Grande Ligne

Farnham

L’Acadie

Te r r e b o n n e

S t H y a c i n t h e

C h a m b l y

R o u v i l l e

I b e r v i l l e

M i s s i s q u o i

V e r m o n t

St Johns

N a p i e r v i l l e

C h a t e a u g u a y

H u n t i n g d o n

U n i t e d S t a t e s

B e a u h a r n o i s

Isle Perrot

V e r c h è r e s

V a u d r e u i l

S o l a n g e s

J a c q u e s

C a r t i

e r

Hochelaga L a v a l

Ya m

as ka

R iv

Lake Champlain

Missisquoi Bay

L it

tl e

R iv

er M

on treal

at ea

ug u

a y

R iv

La ke

S t F

ra nci

R iver B

eaudette

La ke

St Lo uis

St L

aw re

nc e

R iv

Ottawa

0 10

kilometres

International

Boundary

45°

46°

73°74°

74° P ro

vi n ci

a l B

o u n d a ry

Southwestern Lower Canada in 1837, showing the region of Lower Canada in which the major fighting of the 1837 rebellion occurred. Villages are indicated by dots. The battles, mainly the result of local rural uprisings, are marked with crossed swords. Based on a map from A.D. Decelles’s The Patriotes of ’37: A Chronicle of the Lower Canadian Rebellion (1916).

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190 A History of the Canadian Peoples

(above left) Execution of Lount and Matthews [date and artist unknown]. LAC, C-001242. (above right) “The Insurgents at Beauharnois, Lower Canada,” 1838, watercolour by Katherine Jane Ellice (1814–64). The artist was visiting her father-in-law’s seigneury at Beauharnois when it was captured by Patriote rebels on the night of 4 November. She made this sketch during the week that she and other members of the household were held hostage before British troops arrived to free them and set fire to the village. The next day, Ellice recorded in her diary that the fire was “still burning; women and children flying in all directions. Such are the melancholy consequences of civil war.” LAC, 1990-215-24R.

In early November 1838, rebellion began again. This second uprising was much more seriously orches- trated in advance than the first one, which had been relatively spontaneous, and involved a secret society (the Frères Chasseurs) crossing the border. The govern- ment again moved repressively. Most of the leaders, once again, scurried across the border into the United States. Within a few days, however, 753 people had been arrested in the District of Montreal, and starting on 24 November a General Court Martial sat continuously until 8 May 1839, paying only limited attention to the civil liberties of the accused. Murray Greenwood calcu- lates there were at least 25 cases of blatant miscarriage of justice in these treason trials. This tribunal acquitted 72 prisoners, sentenced 99 to death (12 of these were executed, 58 deported to Australia, and 29 conditionally

released). Those who paid the supreme penalty were not leaders, but were either guilty of collateral atrocities or died to make a local point.

After reports of the first rebellions had reached Britain, the authorities dispatched a fact-finding com- mission headed by John George Lambton, Lord Durham (1792–1840). Although he did not remain long in Canada, his famous “Report on the Affairs in British America,” filed in January 1839, was a thorough and eloquent exam- ination of the problems in Canada based on information from local reformers. Durham recommended two polit- ical solutions: the introduction of responsible government and the unification of the two Canadas. He also wanted changes in land policy, including a general system for the sale of Crown land at sufficient price and the elimination of the proprietorial system in Prince Edward Island.

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1915 | Relying on Resources, 1815–1840

Historic Sites

1. Saint-Denis, Quebec: A cairn marks the site of

Maison Saint Germain, where Patriotes fought

the British regulars on 23 November 1837.

2. Saint-Eustache, Quebec: Saint-Eustache

Church, at 123 St-Louis Street, was the site

of a battle on 14 December 1837, where 250

Patriotes attempted unsuccessfully to hold

off nearly 2,000 British soldiers. The church

was virtually destroyed by cannon and fire in

the battle, and has been extensively rebuilt.

3. Montebello, Quebec: Here is the Manoir

Papineau National Historic Site, encompassing

the seigneury on the Ottawa River of Louis-

Joseph Papineau, including his stone house

and chapel.

4. Prescott, Ontario: Fort Wellington National

Historic Park contains the 66-foot stone tower

built as a windmill and captured by “Patriot

Hunters” on 12 November 1838 at the Battle

of the Windmill.

5. Toronto, Ontario: The Toronto Necropolis,

at 200 Winchester Street, is the final resting

place of William Lyon Mackenzie and Samuel

Lount and contains a 20-foot granite monu-

ment to Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews.

The monument has a broken peak, symboliz-

ing life cut short.

6. Scotland, Ontario: At the corner of Talbot and

Simcoe streets is a plaque marking the spot where

Charles Duncombe rallied “the Patriots” in 1837.

Lake Huron

Georgian Bay

Lake Ontario

Lake Erie

2 1

Conclusion While the rebellions accomplished little more in the short run than to focus Great Britain’s attention on the need for change in her American colonies, Durham’s recommendations for the union of the Canadas and for

responsible government were adopted over the next few years. Nevertheless, other forces would profoundly help remake British America. Free trade, railroads, economic expansion, and industrialization were, in the end, more powerful engines of change than either political upris- ings or constitutional reform.

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192 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The Architecture of Early Economic Expansion

As Europeans moved further into the interior and westward from their original colonies on the east coast of North America, they brought with them European ideas of architecture and settlement. When towns and cities took shape, these ideas quickly came to the fore. However, the architecture of the semi-permanent and early settlements was much less confined to “traditional” ideas. Instead, structures were influenced by both sides of the Atlantic, and in adapting these influences the set- tlers created some very Canadian spaces.

The first indigenously inspired economic expan- sion occurred in British America between 1815 and 1860. It left a thin but identifiable architectural foot- print across the landscape of the several provinces. One distinctively Canadian structure was to be found during the winter months in isolated regions of virgin timber. The “camboose shanty,” as it was called, was the bunkhouse, kitchen, and dining room of the tim- bering crews who pushed ever deeper into the forest in search of the timber that was transported by horse- drawn sleds and then downriver log drives and booms to ports for shipment to Britain. The shanty was an

ingenious construction designed to house a logging crew of as many as 60 men during the winter months. The structure was built of large, unhewn logs (usually pine) set atop one another to a height of six to eight feet, with the logs usually dovetail-notched at the corners to fit together and chinked with some combination of straw, mud, sticks, stones, and moss. Flooring was rough wooden planks. The roof, made of hollowed-out logs, included a large square hole above the fire pit for smoke to escape, which worked reasonably well unless it was windy, at which times the inside of the shanty could become choked with smoke. Inside were a large central fireplace (the camboose), i.e., a fire pit filled with sand, and bunks along the walls. The shantymen slept in their clothes and were of a rich fragrance from wood smoke and body odour by the spring of a cold winter. Not until the introduction of the wood stove around 1900 was the shanty replaced.

Another architectural form familiar in western Canada was the fur-trading post, typically located on a grassy knoll overlooking a river. Most posts were called “forts” because they were primitively fortified, usually by the construction of a wooden stockade around the exterior of the building. Encamped outside the walls of the post was a group of Aboriginals, the “Homeguard Indians,” mainly women and children since the men were often engaged in trapping and provisioning for the post. Sometimes—on special occasions or for domestic service—the Homeguard Indians were allowed inside the post. These posts were strategically located for commerce and the sites often became centres of popu- lation when the fur trade was ended. A less common form of the fur trade era was the post of York Factory, located at the mouth of the Hayes River 200 km south– southeast of present-day Churchill, Manitoba. This wooden structure replaced a stone-and-brick fort, built in the 1790s, which became structurally unsound from the heaving permafrost of the Subarctic region and was

Interior of shanty, c. 1900. Photo by W.H. Harmer. LAC, C-025718.

Historiography

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1935 | Relying on Resources, 1815–1840

razed in the early 1830s. In fact, the fort constructed of wood was actually a series of interconnected build- ings, and it served as the headquarters of the Northern Department of the Hudson’s Bay Company for most of the nineteenth century. Because of its isolation, York Factory evolved into a self-contained settlement con- sisting of several hundred males with occasionally the female spouse of a head trader in residence. The post, now a National Historic Site, still survives, but the buildings are both too fragile and too remote to become a tourist attraction.

The lumbermen’s shanty, especially, and the early trading posts, because of the methods and materials of construction, were not built to last forever. The shanty, made of round logs, would not last as long as the set- tler’s hewn log cabin because hewing the logs to square them removed the bark and the softer outer wood from the logs. Also, carefully chinked hewn logs, with a suf- ficiently overhanging roof, did not allow the pooling of water between the logs, as did the hastily built cam- boose shanty. And, of course, the settler’s cabin did not have an open hole in the roof but a stone chimney.

Those in involved in urban commerce, however, wanted their buildings to last and stand as monuments to business (and perhaps to themselves), so stone and brick were the preferred construction materials. The

first bank was established in Canada in 1817 by gov- ernment charter. This Bank of Montreal was initially granted an exclusive right to issue promissory notes as currency. It was soon joined by other similar insti- tutions. Under the terms of their charters they could also issue currency, but the fact that the banking sys- tem was essentially in private hands often constrained economic growth. Nevertheless, by 1840 most com- mercial centres had at least one branch bank, often easily recognizable as a Greek temple, complete with columns. The idea of designing a bank building to resemble a Greek temple had its origins in the United States and quickly spread to Canada, where the clas- sical mode was meant to suggest an institution that was the font of wealth and commercial activity and that had lasted (or would last) for centuries; it still res- onates in many cities today.

By the early 1850s Canadian entrepreneurs were beginning to think in terms of larger economic struc- tures. In 1854 John Redpath created a large indus- trial complex on the Lachine Canal in Montreal that included a seven-storey refinery building, two brick warehouses, and other buildings, thus producing a self-contained industrial complex—one of the first in Canada. It had easy access via the canal to sugar imported from the Caribbean.

Short Bibliography Brown, Jennifer. Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company

Families in Indian Country. Vancouver, 1980. A fas- cinating study of family life in the fur trade in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Cadigan, Sean T. Hope and Deception in Conception Bay: Merchant–Settler Relations in Newfoundland 1785–1855. Toronto, 1995. A revisionist analysis of socio-economic relations in Newfoundland, based largely on under-utilized court records.

Cameron, Wendy, and Maude McDougall. Assisting Emigration to Upper Canada: The Petworth Project 1832–7. Montreal and Kingston, 2000. A recent account of one of the largest assisted emigration schemes of the 1830s.

Creighton, Donald. The Empire of the St Lawrence. Toronto, 1958. The classic study of the old mercantile system of Canada.

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194 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Errington, Elizabeth Jane. Emigrant Worlds and Transatlantic Communities: Migration to Upper Canada in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Montreal and Kingston, 2007. A recent synthesis of early migration to one important colony.

Greenwood, F. Murray, and Barry Wright, eds. Canadian State Trials, vol. 2, Rebellion and Invasion in the Canadas, 1837–1839. Toronto, 2002. An important collection of essays focusing on the way the law was used in the rebellions.

Greer, Allan. The Patriots and the People: Rebellion of 1837 in Rural Lower Canada. Toronto, 1994. An account of the Lower Canadian rebellion of 1837, focusing on the rural community and popular agitation.

Houston, Cecil, and W.J. Smyth. Irish Emigration and Canadian Settlement: Patterns, Links, and Letters. Toronto, 1990. A useful study of the emigration of the Irish—from both north and south—to Canada.

Johnston, Hugh. British Emigration Policy, 1815–1830: “Shovelling Out Paupers.” Oxford, 1972. The stan- dard study of British policy in the era of pauper emigration.

Lower, A.R.M. Great Britain’s Woodyard: British North America and the Timber Trade 1763–1867. Montreal, 1973. An important analysis of British America’s timber trade.

McCalla, Douglas. Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada 1784–1870. Toronto, 1993. An excellent synthesis of the early economic history of a critical province.

McCallum, John. Unequal Beginnings: Agriculture and Economic Development in Quebec and Ontario until 1870. Toronto, 1970. A controversial and revisionist study that argues Ontario enjoyed advantages over Quebec because of its agricultural beginnings.

Macdonald, Norman. Immigration and Settlement: The Administration of the Imperial Land Regulations, 1763–1840. Toronto, 1939. An old but useful study of land policy and immigration.

Ouellet, Fernand. Economic and Social History of Quebec, 1760–1850: Structures and Conjunctures. Toronto, 1985. A provocative survey by the leading scholar of French Canada in the early nineteenth century, based on European historical conceptualizations.

Read, Colin. The Rising in Western Upper Canada, 1837–8: The Duncombe Revolt and After. Toronto, 1983. A good corrective to the notion that William Lyon Mackenzie led the only rebellion in Upper Canada in 1837.

Sager, Eric, and L. Fischer. Shipping and Shipbuilding in Atlantic Canada, 1820–1914. Ottawa, 1986. An innovative study, based on a massive collaborative project funded by the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada.

Sheppard, George. Plunder, Profit and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada. Montreal and Kingston, 1994. A revisionist analysis of the War of 1812 in the central colony.

Stewart, Gordon. The Origins of Canadian Politics: A Comparative Approach. Vancouver, 1986. A pro- vocative survey based on American and British pol- itical models.

Taylor, Alan, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies. New York, 2010. The latest American attempt to subordinate Canadian events to American events during wartime.

Warkentin, Germaine, ed. Canadian Exploration Literature: An Anthology. Toronto, 1993. A rich collec- tion of what was probably the most robust writing in British America before 1850.

Wilton, Carol. Popular Politics and Political Culture in Upper Canada, 1800–1850. Montreal and Kingston, 2000. A study focusing on popular politics in Upper Canada.

Wynn, Graeme. Timber Colony: A Historical Geography of Early Nineteenth Century New Brunswick. Toronto, 1981. A richly rewarding analysis of timbering in early New Brunswick.

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Study Questions 1. Why was the relationship between land policy and immigration so critical?

2. How did the British attitude towards emigration change in the first half of the nineteenth century?

3. If you were contemplating immigration to British America in the first half of the nineteenth century, what

would be the most important questions you would want answered before you made a decision?

4. Identify the four staple resources in British America at this time.

5. Identify and explain the most important characteristics of the resource economy of British America between

1815 and 1840.

6. How were timbering, shipbuilding, and immigration connected?

7. How did elite society operate in British America in the first half of the nineteenth century?

8. What were the causes of the rebellions of 1837? Were they the same in both Upper and Lower Canada? Would

you have supported the rebellions? Why or why not?

9. What were the chief consequences of the rebellions?

Visit the companion website for A History of the Canadian Peoples, fifth edition for further resources.

www.oupcanada.com/Bumsted5e

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Becoming a Nation, 1840–18856

The construction of the Parliament buildings of a united Canada was one of the largest projects of its kind in 1860s Ontario. This photo, from 1862, shows the nearly finished buildings that would become the home of the new Canadian government in 1867. Samuel McLaughlin, LAC, C-018016

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1841 Union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada proclaimed.

1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty resolves the New Brunswick border. Great Britain experiments

with partially elected, partially appointed

legislature for Newfoundland.

1843 Fort Victoria established on Vancouver Island.

1846 Oregon Boundary Treaty settles western boundary. Corn Laws and Timber duties are

repealed by British Parliament. St John’s,

Newfoundland, is destroyed by fire.

1848 Nova Scotia gets responsible government. Lord Elgin concedes responsible government to

Canada. Newfoundland reverts to an elected

assembly.

1849 Vancouver Island is leased by the British to the Hudson’s Bay Company and becomes a Crown

colony. Rebellion Losses Bill is enacted, leading

to riots in Montreal. Annexation movement

flourishes.

1851 James Douglas becomes governor of Vancouver Island. Cable is laid from

New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island.

Prince Edward Island receives responsible

government. Colonial government takes over

post offices.

1852 Grand Trunk Railway is incorporated.

1854 Reciprocity Treaty with United States is signed, to last 10 years.

1855 Petroleum is discovered in southwestern Ontario. Newfoundland receives responsible

government.

1856 The first legislature meets on Vancouver Island.

1858 British Columbia becomes a colony.

1859 The first steamer is launched on the Red River. First newspaper is established in Red River.

1860 Cariboo Gold Rush begins in British Columbia. Prince Edward Island Land Commission

convenes. Royal Tour of Prince Albert suggests

that what would become Canada is already, in

some senses, a political entity.

1861 American Civil War begins. Montreal and Toronto introduce horse-drawn cars for public

transportation.

1862 Cariboo Road is begun in British Columbia.

1863 First non-Native salmon fishery on the Fraser River established.

1864 Reciprocity Treaty is terminated by a vote of the American Senate, to take effect in 1866.

Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences are

held to discuss union of British North America.

1866 Transatlantic cable laid from Newfoundland to Europe. Union of British Columbia and

Vancouver Island implemented, with Victoria as

capital.

1867 The British North America Act is passed by British Parliament to take effect 1 July 1867.

Emily Howard Stowe obtains a medical degree

in the United States, the first woman to do so.

British Columbia’s legislative council resolves to

request that the province be allowed eventual

admission into Canada, which officially comes

into existence on 1 July under an all-party

government headed by Sir John A. Macdonald.

Resolutions for territorial expansion are passed

by the Canadian Parliament in December. The

Americans purchase Alaska from Russia.

Timeline

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198 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Timeline 1857 British Parliament holds inquiry over the

future of the Northwest. Palliser and Canadian

Exploring Expeditions are sent West to

investigate the region. Gold is discovered on

the Thompson and Fraser rivers. Ottawa is

chosen by Queen Victoria as the site for the

capital of the Province of Canada. Canadian

legislature passes an Act for the Gradual

Civilization of the Indian Tribes in the Canadas.

1868 Canada First is founded in Ottawa. Five hundred and seven Zouaves are recruited in

Quebec for the papal army.

1869 Resistance to Canada, led by Louis Riel, begins in Red River. Newfoundland election produces

an anti-confederate assembly.

1870 Louis Riel allows execution of Thomas Scott. The Manitoba Act is passed by the Canadian

Parliament. The Wolseley Expedition is sent to

Red River. Negotiations are begun with British

Columbia for admission to Canada. Dominion

Notes Act of 1870 is passed.

1871 British Columbia enters Confederation on 20 July 1871. The Washington Treaty is signed

with the United States. The Bank Act of 1871 is

passed.

1872 In a federal election, Conservatives win 103 seats to 97 for the Liberals. Ontario Society of

Artists is formed.

1873 Prince Edward Island enters Confederation. The Macdonald government resigns over the Pacific

Scandal. Liberals under Alexander Mackenzie

take over federal government.

1874 Liberals win a clear majority in Parliament (133 to 73) over Conservatives. Woman’s Christian

Temperance Union is founded in December in

Picton, Ontario.

1876 Intercolonial Railway is completed, linking Saint John, Halifax, and Montreal. Alexander Graham

Bell invents a workable telephone. The first

wheat crop is exported from Manitoba.

1877 Saint John fire leaves 13,000 homeless.

1878 Sir John A. Macdonald returns to power as Conservatives elect 137 members to 69 for the

Liberals.

1880 Royal Academy of Arts is formed. Canadian government signs contract with the Canadian

Pacific Railway.

1881 CPR reaches Winnipeg. The boundaries of Manitoba are expanded. 15,000 Chinese

workers are allowed into Canada.

1882 Royal Society of Canada is formed. Conservatives are re-elected, winning 139 seats

to 71 for the Liberals, now led by Edward Blake.

Macdonald remains Prime Minister.

1883 CPR construction crews discover nickel near Sudbury, Ontario. Canadian Labour Congress is

founded.

1884 Louis Riel returns to Canada.

1885 The second resistance led by Louis Riel (the North West Rebellion) is crushed. Riel is

executed. The last spike is driven in the CPR.

A seamless web of political and economic expan-sion, beginning around 1840, brought Canadian Confederation. Between 1840 and 1874, British America became “British North America” and then the “Dominion of Canada,” changing from a collection of

loosely connected colonies in the northeastern sec- tor of the continent, heavily dependent on the mother country both economically and politically, to a trans- continental nation—at least on paper—with a rapidly diversifying internal economy in the early stages of

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industrialization. Because the Province of Canada took the lead in national unification, the beginning of the process can be identified as the Act of Union, which joined Upper and Lower Canada in July 1840.

British Americans had witnessed many changes over the centuries since first settlement. But in terms of technology, a settler of 1640 still would have been quite at home in the Canada of 1840. The era of political unifi- cation was the first period that experienced substantial technological advances, radically altering perceptions of distance and time in a vast domain separated from Europe by thousands of miles of ocean. With the rail- road, travel not only sped up substantially, it acquired a predictable timetable. The invention of telegraphy and the laying of a transatlantic cable from Newfoundland in 1866 affected the perception of time as well as of dis- tance. By 1870 the largest telegraph company in Canada had 20,000 miles (32,000 km) of wire extended across eastern Canada. Communication could take place in seconds instead of months. The ability to operate to a schedule and communicate instantly completely altered the world and the way people operated within it. These changes were not a necessary prerequisite for union, but they were clearly part of the facilitating background. In many respects, modern Canada began not in 1867 with political unification but in the 1840s, the first era of transforming technological change.

The Mobile Society Throughout the 1840s and 1850s British immigration to North America continued at high levels, although its makeup was now quite different. The proportion of new arrivals from southern Ireland, mainly Roman Catholic, increased and the number of those landing in British America without capital was much higher; the most impoverished were usually forced into the cities since they could not afford to obtain land. Driving immigra- tion were the potato famines in Ireland (and to a lesser extent in Scotland), which peaked in 1846. Between 1840 and 1860 well over 600,000 British immigrants arrived in British North America, many of them seeking land on which to build a new life. They were joined in the 1850s and 1860s by numbers of Germans and Poles

deliberately recruited by the Canadian government in the German states.

Combined with the natural population increase within the colonies, the arrival of this horde of new set- tlers put enormous pressure on available agricultural land, particularly land suitable for staple crop farming for the market. Second-generation farmers accepted less desirable land or moved to the United States, where a more rapid industrialization than in British America had created new employment and where the West was open to settlement. Thus, at the same time as thou- sands of land-hungry immigrants were moving in, thousands of disillusioned members of the younger generation within the colonies were moving out.

The first sign of serious out-migration came from the seigneurial districts of French Canada, the heart- land of French-Canadian culture, language, and reli- gion. Almost any opportunity was superior to a future on a farm of less than 100 acres (40 ha) of worn-out land. Over the course of the 1830s more than 40,000 left Lower Canada for the United States, and that figure jumped to 90,000 in the 1840s and to 190,000 in the 1850s. One clergyman called this population loss “the cem- etery of the race.” The visitor to New England can still see standing, usually empty and forlorn, the extensive brick buildings that housed the nineteenth-century fac- tories employing these migrants. Thousands of French Canadians also moved into the Eastern Townships of Canada East, originally intended as anglophone enclaves. In the Upper St Francis district of the Eastern Townships, for example, the francophone population grew from 9.7 per cent of the district in 1844 to 64.1 per cent by 1871. Others continued to fill unpopulated regions in the Laurentians and around Lac St-Jean. State and church both promoted colonization of these regions as an alternative to migration to the United States. As well as moving out of the country or into new districts, thousands of French Canadians moved into the cit- ies and expanding towns of the province where they often found employment as manufacturing workers. In Montreal, especially, many of the newcomers were female. Some found employment as domestic servants, but most worked in a few burgeoning industries, par- ticularly clothing manufacture, textile production, and the making of tobacco products.

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200 A History of the Canadian Peoples

In Canada West, most of the movement into the United States before 1870 was into the rich agricul- tural districts of the American Midwest and beyond. A constant stream of Canadians crossed Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois onto the American prairies, contributing to the rapid settlement of Minnesota and the Dakotas. A key factor driving the migrants was the inability of the family farm to accommodate the needs of all family members. Successful farming required several children, but large families also created pressures for the expan- sion of landholdings and eventually led to the departure of some of the younger generation. In this male-dom- inated society, only males, as a rule, had expectations of inheritance; hence the tendency in all British North American rural society was to send disproportionate numbers of females (usually between the ages of 15 and 21) into the cities and non-agricultural employ-

ment. Some farms in some districts were more divis- ible than others, but the pressures were always strong on the younger members of the next generation to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Elder sons (and the women they married) could look forward to becoming pillars of and local leaders in their communities. For most of the children of most farmers, however, coming of age meant moving on. Some new land within Canada West was available to the north. Settlement after mid-century moved rapidly up to Georgian Bay and into the Muskoka country, heedless of the prominent rock outcroppings of the Canadian Shield. For most who chose to remain in Canada West, however, cities and towns were the obvious destinations.

The years before 1860 saw considerable internal expansion in the Atlantic region. Settlers moved on to less desirable and more remote lands, while others

“Roxburgh Place, Residence of A. Marshall, Esq.,” 1868. The unnamed artist who painted this farmstead—located in Oxford County, in southwestern Ontario—is thought to have been a local schoolteacher. The painting has probably idealized both the property and the animals in residence on it. On the other hand, the fences are quite accurately portrayed. Courtesy Michael S. Bird.

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2016 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

moved into the major urban centres. Neither expansion nor seasonal migration could, in the end, accommodate the growing population. Many began to migrate, often to the United States. By the 1860s over one-third of the counties in the Maritime provinces were losing people, mostly to the United States, particularly to New England. The correlation between rural counties (with economies largely dependent on fishing and farming) and depopu- lation was very high. While out-migration was a general phenomenon, Scots and Irish were over-represented in the exodus and Acadians under-represented. Most of those departing were 15–25 years of age.

From Mercantilism to Free Trade By 1840 the mercantile economy of British North America had reached its apex, and it began to undergo considerable change. That alteration resulted from a number of factors. The most important was clearly the British government’s demolition of the imperial trad- ing system, which had prevailed since the seventeenth century. Instead of mercantilism, Britain moved to free trade. In the process, the mother country wiped out protectionist advantages for her colonies. As a result, instead of a transatlantic economy based on the sailing ship, some of British North America began to think in terms of a continental economy. Fortunately, the railway came along at exactly this time, providing possibilities for internal development and internal markets. Equally fortunately, Britain resolved long-standing differences with the Americans, making possible the negotiation of a trade treaty, providing some access for British North America to the lucrative American market. An import- ant factor in the reorganization of the commercial econ- omy was the rise of industrialization. Internal markets within the continent required not raw materials but finished goods. Colonial business sought to oblige.

By the 1840s, the British industrial economy could no longer afford the luxury of protectionism, which lim- ited its access to foreign raw materials and protected markets. The ministry, led by Sir Robert Peel, gritted its teeth and systematically removed protection for corn

and other raw materials, including timber. The British still sought to emphasize importing cheap raw materi- als and exporting finished goods overseas. Instead of trading with colonies, however, they sought to trade with the entire world. Most colonial merchants appre- ciated the nature of the revolution that was occurring in Britain. The Quebec Gazette summarized several generations of argument in 1842 when it wrote of the timber trade, “Our great ground of complaint is that British Acts of Parliament created the trade, caused capital to be invested in the trade, trusting to these acts, which by the uncertain character they now assume may ruin thousands. We never asked for protection; it was given on grounds of national policy” (quoted in Lower, 1973: 88). British free trade policies would have a tre- mendous psychological impact on colonial merchants.

In the short run, the British North American rush to export wheat and timber under the old system, before the repeal of the Corn Laws and Timber duties of 1846 took effect, resulted in a collapse of prices in 1847 that would last for the remainder of the decade. Further complicating matters for colonial governments was the arrival of thousands of impoverished Irish immigrants, refugees from the Great Famine of the 1840s. They brought sickness and expense to the colonies along with their anguish. The result of these blows was a conviction that the mother country had subverted the old empire. The crisis seemed much worse in the united Province of Canada because of its reliance on wheat exports. Canadian mercantile policy in the later 1840s was to attempt to come to terms with the Americans. The Canadians continued to improve their canal system. They argued for reciprocal free trade between British North America and the United States in the natural products of each.

Britain’s industrial needs also contributed to the need for international peace and bilateral understand- ings. One of these understandings came with the United States. Since 1815 Britain had sought entente with the Americans, a process that gained momentum during the period of free trade. By 1846 most of the outstanding boundary questions between the two nations had been resolved. In 1842 the Webster-Ashburton Treaty had sorted out the complex eastern boundary issues along the Maine–New Brunswick border. The boundary question

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202 A History of the Canadian Peoples

was even more complex west of the Rocky Mountains, where the two nations had agreed in 1818 to share occupation until there was a need for a decision. Many Americans had settled in the Oregon Territory south of the Columbia River, and presidential candidate James K. Polk in 1844 had rattled American sabres with his cam- paign slogan of “54–40 or Fight”; 54’ 40” is the latitude of what was the southernmost Russian boundary on the Pacific slope. Under the Oregon Boundary Treaty of 1846, the border across the West from Lake of the Woods con- tinued at the forty-ninth parallel to the Pacific (exclud- ing Vancouver Island). This “compromise” allowed the Americans to possess the state of Washington, in which they had virtually no nationals and which had been occu- pied chiefly by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The forty- ninth parallel artificially bisected the Pacific slope, where mountain ranges and river valleys ran north and south rather than east and west. While the geographical inter- ests of British North America may have been sacrificed by the Oregon settlement, entente was good for business.

Along the way to reciprocity, for a short time some Canadians were seduced by the idea of annexation to the United States. Annexationism gained support after an intense political debate over compensation for Lower Canadians who had not rebelled but had lost property in 1837. It was a far less important movement than that of reciprocity. Both flourished in the economic and pol- itical uncertainties of the late 1840s. Many British North Americans saw annexation as the inevitable result of the failure to achieve reciprocity rather than as a desir- able end in itself.

Canadians, especially those dependent on the wheat economy, viewed internal markets—which to them meant the United States—as the only alternative to those lost in Britain. The eastern provinces also saw advantages to gaining access to the American market. The Americans displayed no interest until 1852 when the British government decided to toughen its fishery policy. The resultant Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 was hardly a very broad free trade agreement. It removed tar- iff and other barriers on a variety of enumerated goods, chiefly raw materials common to both countries. It did not remove barriers on finished goods, although the Americans hoped that a more prosperous British North America would buy more American manufactures. The

treaty was potentially much more beneficial to British North America than to the United States. This helps explain why the Americans were so eager to end it at the expiration of its initial 10-year term. It does not appear to have greatly increased trade in either direction while it was in effect. The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, never- theless, was of enormous psychological value to British North America.

The Rise of Industrialism The Reciprocity Treaty encouraged merchants, entrepre- neurs, and politicians (mainly in the Province of Canada) to continue reconceptualizing their economic orienta- tion. They moved from an imperial context, in which the British market was critical, to a continental context, in which internal markets were dominant. Supplying the American market in preference to the British one was quite advantageous to the Canadas, especially Upper Canada/Canada West, since these provinces had little open access to the Atlantic Ocean. Once turned from its traditional transatlantic economy to a continental one, Canada began to industrialize. Indeed, one of the prin- cipal reasons why American trade in dutiable items did not expand during the 10 years of the reciprocity agree- ment was that the manufacturing capacity of British North America—again, particularly in the Province of Canada—grew substantially in this period. The internal market permitted agriculture in Canada West to shift partially out of grain cultivation into mixed farming. The concern for modernization led to the elimination of the seigneurial system in the St Lawrence Valley by legislative fiat. A bill replaced traditional seigneurial obligations with a “quit rent,” which gave tenants the opportunity to purchase their lands.

The process of economic reorientation was not a uniform one. Canada and the Atlantic region moved in somewhat different directions. While the Canadians became immersed in internal development—even ter- ritorial expansion into the prairie West—the Atlantic provinces continued to find the older transatlantic economy quite comfortable. They based their prosperity

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2036 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

on a shipping industry committed to the wooden sail- ing ship, which the region was still successfully produ- cing. The period from 1840 to the early 1870s was the “Golden Age of Sail” in the Atlantic region. With hind- sight, it is possible to recognize the long-term techno- logical weaknesses of the wooden sailing ship. So long as vessels that cost less than half as much to produce as iron steamers were more than half as profitable, however, they would flourish. The carrying trade pro- vided employment for thousands. It also produced an outward-looking international orientation rather than one that focused on internal continental development. The Atlantic provinces sought to expand transportation links with Canada (mainly railways) in terms of trans- atlantic linkages.

The Province of Canada saw railways as a means to continental destinations rather than as transatlantic linkages. Canadian railway expansion would not occur in earnest until after 1850, after the complete demolition of the old imperial trade system. By 1850 only 60 miles (97 km) of track were in use in Canada. The obstacles were not technological; the technology had been avail- able since the 1820s. Finance and psychology were the barriers. Railways were expensive capital investments, few routes in British North America promised to be immediately profitable, and investors shied away until the railway boom of the 1850s. In that decade a mania for internal development totally captured the imagin- ations of Canadian politicians and investors, encour- aged by exaggerated promises of profits resulting from railway expansion. Canadian railway tracks had to be built well on deep beds because of the climate varian- ces that caused heaving. American railroads were less expensive to construct. By 1867 the total cost to Canada of 2,188.25 miles (3,520 km) of track was $145,794,853, or roughly $66,000 per mile. In order to pay for this con- struction, the railways borrowed on the British exchan- ges. Governments had to guarantee the loans and make contributions. The Canadian government, by 1867, had incurred a provincial debt on railway construction of over $33 million, and its municipalities added con- siderably more. The result, however, was the economic linking of cities and towns in a new way.

Vast expenditures brought out the worst in busi- nessmen and politicians, who commonly served together

on interlocking directorates and engaged in the various aspects of railway construction. Allan MacNab (1798– 1862), who was seven times chairman of the Canadian assembly’s railway committee between 1848 and 1857 and served the province as co-premier in 1854–6, was at various times president of three railway companies, chairman of another, and director of two more. Small wonder he once commented, “All my politics are rail- roads.” Bribes to politicians were common. Construction overruns were a way of life. Corruption ran rampant. The most serious problem, however, was that too much construction occurred in advance of a settled population that could sustain a profitable level of traffic. Perhaps the greatest disaster was the Bytown and Prescott Railway, financed by Boston interests in 1852 to carry timber from the Ottawa Valley into the United States but unable to find much other trade. This would always be the Canadian dilemma: trading off development against sustainability.

All railway promoters insisted that their lines would promote manufacturing by reducing transpor- tation costs. Railways not only closed the distance between markets, they also served as a major market for industrial goods, often becoming industrial manufac- turers themselves. The Grand Trunk Railway, incorpor- ated in 1852 to build a railway from Toronto to Montreal, began by building its own rolling stock. By 1857 it had decided to produce its own rails as well, constructing an iron foundry and rolling mill in Hamilton. This was the heavy-industry section of the economy. Most railroads relied heavily on carrying Canadian timber, ultimately into the American market. By 1853, no fewer than 51 ports in the Province of Canada were export- ing at least a million feet of planks and boards into the United States. As manufacturing grew and required increasing amounts of capital investment, most of the large firms were relatively recent creations. Some of the old entrepreneurs successfully made the shift from the commercial economy. Many others did not. Canadian cities certainly changed in the process.

The growth of industrialization—the introduction of manufacturing and related commerce on a large scale—inevitably made labour relations an increas- ingly important issue in British North America. The resource economy had employed large numbers of

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204 A History of the Canadian Peoples

men on a seasonal basis, offering little opportunity for organization. Industrialization rationalized and stabilized the labour market. Manufacturing tended to be more continuous, and much of it was conducted indoors. Overhead costs encouraged employers to seek a stable and experienced labour force. The rise of a cap- italistic labour market stabilized and settled the work- ers but did little for their bargaining position. Those with highly developed skills were in the strongest pos- ition, and labour organization first developed in indus- tries employing skilled workers, such as printing. Early trade unions emerged in certain skilled industries in various cities. Such unions almost never had any con- tact with one another. They could achieve only immedi- ate and localized gains.

Like union organization, labour militancy was local and extremely limited. Most industrial action con- sisted of unsystematic rioting. Employers responded to industrial action of any kind by calling in the police or the military. Before the 1850s there was a tendency for unions to identify with their particular trades rather

than with fellow workers in other trades in other places. The development of industry and the rise of factories employing mechanization brought considerable change to the incipient labour movement. A handful of inter- national unions appeared, either British or American in origin. Unions with several local chapters also organ- ized. Although mechanization encouraged unioniza- tion, the impersonality of the factory system created problems for labour, particularly when juveniles and women were drawn into the labour market. These work- ers were hard to organize.

Westward By mid-century there were signs that the vast territory west of the Lakehead would not forever remain the mon- opoly of the fur trade. There were also signs of Canadian interest in the West, beginning with editorials in the Toronto Globe in 1850. One key development in western settlement was the establishment in 1848 of Vancouver

Lake Huron

Georgian Bay

Lake Ontario

Lake Erie

Ottawa River

St Lawrence River 21 24

GTR

2322

4 9C&P

O&P GTR

B&O

PHL&B 2019

13 7

616 1

1110

14 GWR

GWR

8 GWR

Northern

E&O

B&LH

L&PS

GTR

Welland

2,500 to 4,999 10. Windsor

11. Chatham

12. Goderich

13. Stratford

14. St Mary’s

15. Ingersoll

16. Woodstock

17. Galt

18. Dundas

19. Whitby

20. Bowmanville

21. Peterborough

22. Port Hope

23. Cobourg

24. Brockville

25. Prescott

5,000 to 9,999 6. Brantford

7. Guelph

8. St Catharines

9. Belleville

2,500 to 4,999

1,000 to 2,499

10,000 & over

5,000 to 9,999

10,000 & over 1. London

2. Hamilton

3. Toronto

4. Kingston

5. Ottawa

Canada West, railways and urban centres, 1861. Source: Douglas McCalla, Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada 1784–1870 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).

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2056 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

Island as a British colony. Until then, Britain had been content to allow the Hudson’s Bay Company to act as custodian of all British interests in the West. Earlier, the HBC had sent James Douglas (1803–77) from Fort Vancouver (now in the state of Washington) to establish Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island. This was a fallback position if the Oregon Territory were to be lost, as it was in 1846. In 1849 Vancouver Island was leased to the Company for an annual payment of seven shillings. The HBC would organize the colony there. James Douglas

returned to Fort Victoria as chief factor of the Company, subsequently becoming its governor in 1851. Settlement on the west coast was slow. Most newcomers came from the British Isles. They sought to reproduce on the Pacific slope the life of the British gentry. This was not easy. The Colonial Office insisted on encumbering Vancouver Island with unworkable land policies. Land must be high-priced (a pound per acre) and settlement must be led by those who could afford to bring out labourers as settlers to work the lands.

A movement to supply adult educational oppor-

tunity for the working classes, who were virtually

ignored in the school and university systems, began

in Scotland at the end of the eighteenth century and

spread to London, where George Birkbeck founded

the London Mechanics Institute in 1823. The growth

of the movement in Great Britain—over 100 local

Institutes by 1826—was facilitated mainly by wealthy

businessmen and industrialists, who sought to pro-

vide self-improving facilities for working men, thus

enabling them to move up the social and economic

ladder. The Mechanics Institutes movement was

transferred to British America at the end of the 1820s,

with the establishment of a Montreal Institute in 1828,

one at Toronto in 1830, and one in Halifax in 1831. The

movement spread across the colonies in the 1840s,

with almost every prominent town and city estab-

lishing an Institute and constructing or taking over a

building to house the activities of the organization.

Most of the Institutes served three functions:

first, they housed libraries and reading rooms pub-

licly accessible to the working classes, who were

encouraged to borrow books; many of these facili-

ties eventually provided the basis for public librar-

ies in their respective cities. Second, they provided

classroom and lecture space for adult education in

the local community; and third, they provided space

for local organizations and groups to meet informally.

The Institutes offered venues for visiting lecturers

and others to speak on important issues and move-

ments of the day, and in the 1840s and 1850s much

of public awareness of science in British America was

spread by the Mechanics Institutes. Lectures featur-

ing practical exhibitions of scientific principles were

common activities at most Mechanics Institutes, and

were very well attended. Few Mechanics Institutes

remained solvent on the contributions of members

of the working classes, relying instead increasingly

on government grants and largesse from wealthy

benefactors who saw the value of these institutions

of adult education.

The Mechanics Institutes seldom served as active

sponsors of workingmen’s associations or unions, and

were more likely to be involved in temperance activity

than in labour agitation. Nevertheless, the Mechanics

Institutes movement remained a powerful one in

Canada throughout the nineteenth century, with

more than 300 local Institutes established in Ontario

alone before 1900, but the heyday of the Mechanics

Institute was between 1840 and Confederation.

BACkGROUNDER Mechanics Institutes

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206 A History of the Canadian Peoples

A dour Scot, Kenneth McKenzie (1811–74), was put in charge of farming operations, and he found him- self constantly struggling with the social pretensions of the bailiffs. “Balls & parties every now & then for farmers in a new country will not do,” he admonished one of his underlings, telling another, “It is profits we want at as little outlay as possible” (Ormsby, 1958: 102–3). The HBC was astounded to discover that one of these bailiffs spent eight times his annual salary in 1854 on various expenses and purchases, including 1,606 pounds of sugar and 70 gallons of brandy, rum, whisky, and wine.

In 1838 the British government had extended the Hudson’s Bay Company monopoly over the West for 21 years. A major parliamentary inquiry took place in 1857 before the government decided its ongoing policy in regard to the Company. The HBC officials had attempted to argue that the West was inhabitable only in river valleys limited in extent; most of the region was a vast desert too cold and too arid to be settled. The inquiry’s report was not very favourable to the

HBC. It acknowledged “the desire of our Canadian fellow-subjects that the means of extension and regu- lar settlement should be afforded to them over a por- tion of this territory” (quoted in Bumsted, 1969: 220). It recommended that the HBC cease to control Vancouver Island. It also encouraged the annexation to Canada of the districts on the Red River and the Saskatchewan River. At the same time, the report maintained that for much of the West the continuation of the trading monopoly of the Company was desirable and appro- priate. While the British Parliament was considering the future of the West, two scientific expeditions (one British and one Canadian) set out in 1857 to inves- tigate the region first-hand. The leader of the British expedition was an Irishman, Captain John Palliser (1817–87). The Canadian Exploring Expedition was under the titular command of George Gladman (1800– 63), assisted by Simon James Dawson (1820–1902) and Henry Youle Hind (1823–1908). The findings of these expeditions helped to end the public perception of this vast region as utterly unfit for human habitation.

The Great Western Railway station, Hamilton, c. 1850–60. The Great Western Railway initially connected Toronto and Hamilton, but eventually would connect much of the Niagara Peninsula to the rest of Canada. Stations like the one pictured above bound these communities together to help create larger regional and national identities. LAC, C-019415.

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2076 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

To Mrs. Dugald MacTavish, York Factory, September 1840

The usual dinner for our mess meaning the 3 ladies

& me was—a roast of venison at the top 3 geese at the

foot, 4 ducks on one side 6 plovers on the other, a large

Red river ham (whole leg) & potatoes & mashed turnips

or boiled lettuce. For something green when they have

broth they put lettuce [in] & the bitterness is surpriz-

ing—They have radish & lettuce after dinner. I am get-

ting a superfine blue cloth gown but I do not see how I

am to wear it as I cant bear a cap on my head, the room

is so close & the fire quite small. There are 3 windows in

it. We have 2 sitting rooms but the kitchen in our house

is not used except in Winter. . . . Our house is a good

size, 1 bedroom off each sitting room & men servants

rooms off the kitchen a very large closet off the dining.

. . . I had nearly forgot my piano. It is a very fine one &

the handsomest I ever saw. The wood is beautiful & Mr

Finlay[son] is croaking for one the same. Mrs. F does

not play except to accompany herself. I was astonished

at its appearance as I did not expect the case to be any

great thing. The hinge of the lid, & the lock have cre-

ated a sensation among the geniuses here from the

uncommon elegance of their contrivance & mechan-

ism. There was not a scratch upon it nor a note out of

tune. The form of the pedal is magnificent & the wood

beautifully marked. Mr. Gladman has a barrel organ in

wch are a drum & some other instruments. It is never

silent, the family imagine themselves so fond of music.

To Mary MacTavish, York Factory, 1st Sep’r 1840

There are 3 windows in each room & 2 in our bed-

room so that the sun cant fail to look in when it pleases

as they are in all the airts & there is no way of putting on

shutters as there is no jut in the windows from the walls

being so thin. The stoves are frightful. Mrs Finlayson

could not keep the temperature of her rooms lower

than 90. . . . I am quite baked with the stove. There are

3 windows open but Gibout [her servant] has made

such a fire that the thermometer is 72 & feels like a very

warm green house & my eyes are smarting & inflamed.

. . . By last years journal the snow began on the 19th of

this month but only in showers. There is a small plot

of pease in full flourish but they never pod to any size.

Indeed the blossoms look more luxuriant than at home

but not above half a dozen have formed & they are as

flat as a piece of paper. I take them for flowers as there

is a great scarcity of such.

Letitia MacTavish Hargrave Born in Edinburgh, Letitia MacTavish Hargrave (1813–54) married fur trader James Hargrave in 1840. The couple spent most of their married life, from 1840 to 1851, living at York Factory, the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post on Hudson Bay. Her letters to her family give a vivid account of life at the post.

Source: Margaret Arnett MacLeod, ed., The Letters of Letitia Hargrave (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1947), 61–3, 72, 74.

Contemporary Views

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208 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Both expeditions produced reports acknowledging the great agricultural potential of the West, once opened by a railway.

Meanwhile on the west coast, sheer serendipity brought the region to the attention of the world. In 1857 the discovery of gold on the mainland, along the Thompson and Fraser rivers, attracted fortune hunters from around the world. The amount of gold easily avail- able was quite small by earlier California standards. The ensuing rush was a pale imitation of the American one. Nevertheless, hundreds of miners, mainly from California, made their way to the Fraser River in the interior of British Columbia in the spring of 1858. The quiet village of Victoria was transformed overnight

into a major port. South of the forty-ninth parallel, talk of American annexation spread rapidly. The British government rushed through legislation putting New Caledonia under the direct jurisdiction of the Crown. The mainland colony of British Columbia came into formal existence on 2 August 1858, with James Douglas as Governor. The two colonies were at first administra- tively separate. The miners, however rough in appear- ance, were not really badly behaved and accepted British authority readily enough.

The extraction of most of the gold required proper machinery and capital expenditure. Many of the gold-seekers found employment in other ways, taking advantage of the developmental spinoff from the rush.

The Aurora gold mine, Williams Creek, BC, 15 August 1867, by Frederick Dally. Courtesy of Toronto Public Library, T14321. Note the ramshackle condition of the buildings, typical of the sense of impermanence in mining country.

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2096 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

The discovery of gold irreversibly altered life for the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific slope. Even remote regions could contain great mineral wealth. The set- tlers and the government ignored the land claims of Indigenous peoples in the rush to exploit the land itself.

Few settlers disagreed with the view that the “indolent, contented savage, must give place to the busteling [sic] sons of civilization & Toil” (quoted in Fisher, 1977: 105). For the Aboriginal peoples the result was a very serious

Gold Mining in British Columbia

Document

The metallic sand in which gold is found is primar- ily sought, and the peculiar quality of earth that contains the amalgam is technically called the “colour.” While engaged in the pursuit of this indication of the presence of gold, the miner is “prospecting.” The requisites for this task are a “pan” and some quicksilver. When the miner comes to a spot on the bank of the river which he sup- poses to be auriferous, he proceeds to test the value of the “dirt” in the following manner. Having filled the pan with earth, he gently dips it in the stream, and by the assist- ance of a rotatory motion which he gives to the contents, loosened by the introduction of water, the black sand with pebbles is precipitated to the bottom. The lighter earth is allowed to pass over the edge of the pan or basin. After all has been removed except the sand and any specks of gold that may be in combination with it, the pan is placed by a fire or in the sun to dry. The lighter par- ticles of sand are blown away, and if the gold be very fine it is amalgamated with quicksilver. By thus ascertaining the value of the remaining particles of gold dust, skilful “prospectors” conclude whether the ground would pay to work. In this rough method of searching for gold the superior specific gravity of that metal over every other, except platinum, is the basis of operations—auriferous particles, on this principle, settling at the bottom.

The readiest and most primitive contrivance for washing gold is the “rocker”, which is still used by

Chinamen and a few white men, on the banks of the Fraser. The rocker is constructed like a child’s cradle, with rockers underneath. The box is 3 12 to 4 feet long, about 2 feet wide and 1 12 feet deep. The upper part and one end are open, and the sides gradually slope toward the bot- tom. At the head is a section closely jointed with a sheet- iron bottom, perforated so as to admit of small stones passing through. Along the bottom of the rocker riffles [these are strips of wood or metal arranged after the man- ner of a Venetian blind] or cleets are arranged to arrest the gold. This apparatus placed on the margin of the river, the upper iron box is fed by one miner with earth, and by another is rocked and supplied with water. The gold and pebbles passing down to the bottom, the water carries away the latter, and the riffles detain the former. In case the gold is very fine, part of a blanket is often laid along the under box, covered with quicksilver to attract the gold dust. By this simple agency from 1 pound sterling to 10 pounds sterling per day and upwards to the hand has been realised. In an ordinary sluice 40 or 50 lbs. of quick- silver is employed daily, and in a rocker from 8 to 10 lbs. But after the gold has been retorted from it, the same quicksilver may be applied several times over.

The next method to be described, and the one most prevailing on the Pacific, is Sluicing. This is a process of mining that can be conducted on any scale and in connection with the labour of an indefinite number of

Continued...

The following account of the pre-industrial techniques of gold mining is taken from Matthew Macfie’s Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Macfie had journeyed from Britain to British Columbia in 1859.

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210 A History of the Canadian Peoples

cultural disruption, recovery from which would be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible.

The Fraser River gold rush presaged a new element in the resource economy of British North America: exploitation of the rich mineral wealth of the north- ern part of the continent. New technologies provided a constantly expanding market for British North America’s mineral wealth. They also brought new means of extracting it from the ground. By the 1850s copper ore was being mined along Lake Superior, and petroleum was discovered in southwestern Ontario in 1855. Production of crude oil in Canada by 1863 ran to 100,000 barrels a year. Unlike timbering, mineral production tended to be extremely capital-intensive, requiring specialized scientific knowledge. Until the twentieth century, production involved only a few minerals located conveniently for transportation in bulk. Coal seams on both coasts were obvious targets. The continent’s burgeoning industrialization would demand ever-larger quantities of minerals, and the future potential was indisputable.

Responsible Government and the Reorientation of Politics The British government gradually resolved the con- stitutional problems of the commercial period in British North America over the decade following the unification of Upper and Lower Canada in July 1840. Legislative union did not by itself satisfy Lord Durham’s other major recommendation for Canada, the right of the assembly to decide policy and its implementation through control of “the persons by whom that policy was to be administered” (quoted in Craig, 1963: 141). Part of the problem was that nobody at the time understood the importance of political parties or how they could work in responsible government. Colonial governors served as party brokers rather than conceding responsible gov- ernment. Finally, in 1848 the governor of Canada, Lord

men. It is almost invariably found in conjunction with a system of “flumes” or wooden aqueducts of various extent, running parallel with the claims on a creek or river. It is necessary, in separating the earth from the gold which is mixed with it, that each sluice should be supplied with a fall of water, and if the stream contigu- ous to the mine run on too low a level to supply this want, miners . . . are often compelled to go consider- able distances in quest of water sufficiently elevated to afford the object desired. Flumes are thus brought into requisition, and by openings made in that side of them opposite the mine, water is admitted to the sluice, which is placed at such an angle that the water may have forced enough to carry off the earth, while leaving the gold behind.

Sluice-boxes are of various sizes, and are fitted closely together so as to form a strongly built and extended trough. The fall of the water in the sluice-box is adjusted to allow sufficient time for the riffles and quicksilver to arrest the gold as it passes, and the supply from the flume is regulated by a slide in the opening on the side of it. The bottom of each sluice is usually intersected with strips of wood, and in the interstices of this grating quicksilver is spread to intercept the fine gold in its descent, nuggets and grains of coarse gold being caught by the grating itself. The sluice is supported on trussels so as to raise or lower it to the level convenient for shoveling in the earth. Several miners introduced “dirt” on either side, and others assist in loosening the heap and removing large stones, so that the gold may be easily precipitated. . . .

Source: Matthew Macfie, Vancouver Island and British Columbia: Their History, Resources and Prospects (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1865), 267–70.

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2116 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

Elgin (1811–63), called on the leaders of the Reform par- ties, recently successful at the polls, to form a ministry. Louis LaFontaine (1807–64) and Robert Baldwin (1804– 58) had allied their respective parties in 1842 on a Reform platform. In placing himself, as a representative of the Crown, above party politics and leaving govern- ment in the hands of leaders selected by their parties, Lord Elgin inaugurated responsible government in the Province of Canada.

The victory of responsible government in Canada did not begin the story or end it, however. Nova Scotia— where Joseph Howe had been agitating for responsible government as a Reformer since 1836—finally achieved it after an election on 5 August 1847, which focused on that single issue. The Reformers were victorious, and when a Reform administration took office in late January 1848, the province became the first colony to achieve responsible government. Prince Edward Island acquired responsible government in 1851 and New Brunswick in 1854. A British attempt at alternative con- stitutional arrangements complicated the situation in Newfoundland. In 1842 Britain gave the colony a legisla- ture composed partly of elected and partly of appointed members, thus amalgamating the old council and assem- bly into one body. The experiment was not popular and never had a proper chance to work. The older Consti- tution returned in 1848. Newfoundlanders immediately began agitating for “a form of Government . . . with a departmental Government and Executive Respons ibility similar in character to that form lately yielded to . . . Nova Scotia” (quoted in Gunn, 1966: 315). The British reluc- tantly gave in to this demand in 1855.

The lower provinces, even including Newfoundland, were sufficiently homogeneous to be able to live with a two-party system. Canada was not so fortunate. It could and did create four parties, two for each section. The Reform alliance of Baldwin and La Fontaine was largely illusory. It quickly transpired that Canada East (the unofficial designation for the former Lower Canada) had slipped back into old voting patterns removed from Reform. The principle of governing by a coalition from each of the two sections of the united province was inherently unstable. By the mid-1840s the French had become enamoured of the principle of the “double majority,” in which the province would be governed by

an assembly majority in each of its two main sections. Such an arrangement naturally appealed to French Canada’s growing sense of nationality. It also required the parallel growth of political parties in the two sec- tions. Two factors emerged to complicate matters for the Province of Canada.

One was the rise of a new political movement in Canada West at the end of the 1840s. A radical Reform group known as the Clear Grits, with whom the mod- erate Reformers gradually merged, appeared under the leadership of George Brown (1818–80). Centred in the western districts, the Grits were the heirs of William Lyon Mackenzie rather than of Robert Baldwin. They were democrats, populists, geographical expansionists, and opponents of close connections between church and state in a Protestant rather than a true secularist sense. Furthermore—and ominously—they were hos- tile to French Canada in traditional anglophone ways. In 1840, when the population of Canada East had been greater than that of Canada West, each section of united Canada got 40 seats in Parliament. When the census of 1851 showed that the population of the anglophone sec- tion was growing more rapidly, George Brown adopted “representation by population”—“rep by pop”—as a cam- paign slogan when he stood as an independent Reformer in the general election of that year. He won easily. “Rep by pop” came to epitomize the brassy reformism of the Clear Grits.

The growing pressures of the Grits contributed to, but did not by themselves produce, the second development of the 1850s. This was the gradual with- drawal of French Canada into its own agenda, centred on the development of nationalist aspirations and the preservation of French-Canadian culture and society. The leaders of the Catholic Church took upon them- selves the mantle of nationalism. They used the Grits to separate nationalism from reform. In the context of Canada West, the Grit espousal of “voluntaryism”—the separation of church and state—was directed chiefly against the Anglican Church. Such ultra-Protestantism had even more implications for the Catholic Church. Voluntaryism was not quite the same as secularism. The voluntaryists sought to free the state from “reli- gious privilege,” but could contemplate with equanim- ity the passage of legislation controlling the availability

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212 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Probably the least well known of the principal “Fathers of Confederation,” Samuel L. Tilley (1818–96) was born in Gagetown, New Brunswick, the son of Loyalist par- ents. He was locally educated at the Church of England’s Madras school and then a grammar school before apprenticing as a druggist in Saint John, opening a drug store in the city in 1838. Tilley entered public life as a consequence of his religious beliefs, which demanded that he support various reforms, particularly the elim- ination of alcohol from society. He became in 1847 a leading figure in the New Brunswick branch of the Sons of Temperance, originally an American organiz- ation, which expanded into British America, utilizing

his earlier experience with the Saint John’s Mechanics Institute to great effect. For Tilley, prohibition and sup- port for the local business community went hand in hand. He supported protection for infant industries, railway construction, and the New Brunswick Colonial Association (which debated a “Federal Union of the British North American Colonies” and advocated honest government for the province). Tilley entered provincial politics in 1850 as a Reformer, and became provincial secretary when Reform won a majority in 1854. In office, he fought for financial control of the province by the Executive Council and for prohibition, becoming so unpopular that he was defeated in the election of 1856. Unhappy out of politics, however, he ran successfully for the legislature as a Reformer in 1857, returning to the office of provincial secretary in a government headed by Charles Fisher. As secretary, Tilley proved an indus- trious administrator and demonstrated a real skill at financial management. In 1861 he led a cabinet revolt against Fisher (who had been involved in an unsavoury land scandal), ending up as Premier.

In the early 1860s, Tilley joined Nova Scotia’s Joseph Howe as a principal promoter of Maritime railroads, particularly for a rail connection between the region and the province of Canada. His efforts on behalf of an intercolonial rail line led him inexorably to advocacy of the political union of the British American colonies. In August of 1864 he insisted that the colonies should be bound together from Atlantic to Pacific, for “that was the destiny of this country and the race which inhabited it.” He attended both the Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences in 1864. Not surprisingly, he opposed Maritime Union and seconded John A. Macdonald’s motion at Quebec for a federal union. Although he returned from Quebec aware that there was “a strong current running against Federation,” he was surprised at the extent of the government’s defeat (and his own) in the election of 1865. Tilley led the pro-Confederation forces in the 1866 “union

Samuel L. Tilley, politician, Montreal, QC, 1864. William Notman photo, I-13477.1. © McCord Museum.

Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley

Biography

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2136 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

of alcoholic beverages during the Sabbath (which they held sacrosanct). While God might not be eligible to hold land or be exempt from taxation, he could be used to justify state intrusion in matters of morality. Such ideas were very much at odds with the principles of French-Canadian religious nationalists. The result was an alliance between the latter and the Upper Canadian opponents of the Grits.

The rise of denominational divisions as major factors in politics was not confined to the Canadas, although the sectional situation—Roman Catholicism in Canada East and evangelical Protestantism in Canada West—gave such matters a special edge in that province. To a considerable extent, denominational politics reflected the growing democratization of the political process. As the interest, involvement, and size of the electorate grew, politicians turned to issues that appealed to the voter. Denominations also reflected ethnic background and regional strengths. Infighting among religious denominations constantly tussling for advantage transferred easily into the political arena. In Nova Scotia such struggles had occurred for years over the creation of institutions of higher learning. No denomination could allow another an educational edge, and the result was the creation of a series of colleges and universities, one for each major denomination (and one for each ethnic branch of Catholicism in the prov- ince). By the 1850s the venue for denominational dis- agreements had shifted to public education. In Prince

Edward Island the question began over Bible-reading in the schools, a practice pressed by the evangelical Protestants and opposed by the Roman Catholics. The “Bible Question” helped realign Island politics as Catholics and liberal Protestants, backed by the old Tories, joined against evangelical Protestants. By 1858 the principal issue in that year’s election was between Protestantism and Romanism, and the result was a Protestant party and a Catholic party. In Newfoundland as well, the contending political parties wore denomina- tional as well as ethnic faces, the Liberals backed by the Irish Roman Catholics and the Tories supported by the English Protestants.

In Canada, John A. Macdonald (1815–91), the Scots- born lawyer from Kingston, came gradually to domin- ate the anglophone Conservatives. Macdonald was not a man to allow abstract principle, such as the double majority, to stand in the way of power. In 1856 he was able to forge a new coalition among the moderate (some said very pragmatic) Tories he led and the Bleus of French Canada, led after 1859 by George-Étienne Cartier.

This alliance enabled the Tories to remain in power despite Grit victories in Canada West. It also led George Brown’s Globe to comment in August of 1856 that “If Upper and Lower Canada cannot be made to agree, a federal union of all the provinces will probably be the result.” By 1863 most of Canada’s leading politicians had come to concur on the need for some other form of union.

or disunion” election, backed by the British govern- ment and the Roman Catholic Church, and in a nega- tive sense by a Fenian raid at the mouth of the St Croix River in April. One Nova Scotia confederate wrote him, “All the Saints in the Calendar must have been on your side.” He took pro-Confederation resolutions passed by the New Brunswick legislature to England in July 1866, and then had to wait impatiently for the Canadians to join him. Tilley’s reward for his service was the inferior post of Minister of Customs in the Macdonald govern- ment. Nevertheless, Tilley operated efficiently with the customs until 1873, when he briefly became Minister of Finance before the government fell. He then returned

to New Brunswick as its lieutenant-governor. In 1877 he re-entered politics, winning a seat in Saint John in 1878 and becoming Minister of Finance in the Macdonald government, a post in which he served until 1885. Tilley’s second term as Minister of Finance saw him put in place the tariff structure that implemented the “National Policy,” and he was a strong supporter of the CPR. He was appointed again as lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick in 1885, serving until 1893. Tilley was never very well known outside his native province dur- ing his lengthy public career, but his persistent advo- cacy of political union and his financial skills made him essential both to New Brunswick and to Canada.

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214 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Born at Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Lower Canada, George-Étienne Cartier (1814–73) attended the College of Montreal beginning in 1824 and started legal train- ing in 1831. Becoming a lawyer in 1835, he had already gravitated towards the radicals, and he was clearly a Patriote in 1837, present at the battle of St-Denis. He then fled to the United States until October 1838, when he returned to Montreal and apparently was rehabilitated.

After a number of years of feverish legal activity, he entered the legislature in 1849 and subsequently worked increasingly for the Grand Trunk Railway, with which his name was always associated. He did not enter

the debate on the Rebellion Losses Bill. Cartier became associated with the moderate reformers and entered the MacNab-Taché government as provincial secretary for Canada East in 1855. He won an election caused when his acceptance of office required him to seek a fresh mandate from the voters after vociferous opposition from the radical Rouges, and in the Taché-Macdonald cabinet of 1856 he became Attorney General for Canada East. When Taché withdrew from politics in 1857, he joined with John A. Macdonald to form a government. The two remained close political associates until his death. He was part of the “double shuffle” of 1858, in which a defeated government returned to office by briefly accepting different portfolios and then resum- ing their former ones. In the years before 1862, when he and Macdonald were defeated on a militia bill, he was the guiding force behind a number of legislative meas- ures that reshaped united Canada, including municipal reform, educational reform, and legal reform.

He returned to power in 1864 and became part of the Grand Coalition committed to the unification of British America. He was the chief spokesman for French Canada in the various discussions that pro- duced the Quebec Resolutions, maintaining that only Confederation would do as an alternative to American annexation and insisting on the importance of a separ- ate province for French Canada in which religious and linguistic rights would be preserved. He was also, of course, a strong advocate of a transcontinental railroad. When he entered the first cabinet of the Dominion he refused an honour inferior to Sir John A. Macdonald’s knight of the Order of the Bath, and subsequently accepted a baronetcy. He served initially in both the federal and the provincial houses of Parliament, but was clearly Macdonald’s chief lieutenant in Quebec and co-leader of the government.

Cartier played a central role in the negotiations that brought the Red River Settlement into Canada, and was

Sir George-Étienne Cartier. Notman & Son, LAC, C-02162.

George-Étienne Cartier

Biography

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2156 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

The New Imperial Relationship The imperial government conceded responsible gov- ernment in British North America because it had little choice, given its unwillingness in the era of free trade to devote unnecessary amounts of money to colonial administration. There was a feeling in both the Colonial Office and in the Parliament that the separation of col- onies, particularly colonies populated with large num- bers of British emigrants, was inevitable when those colonies had reached a point of sufficient “maturity.” An equally strong feeling was that the costs of imperial administration were an unnecessary drain on the pub- lic purse. Britain was responsible for the direction and financing of the land and sea defences of British North America. Under free trade and responsible government, Britain reduced its military establishment in British North America and attempted with mixed success to convince the colonials to take up the burden. When the American Civil War endangered the stability of the continent, the imperial authorities would respond by attempting to strengthen colonial defence through pol- itical and constitutional revisions. The “mother country” also had considerable authority in the West, and was in charge of Aboriginal policy everywhere.

Victorian Society The relationship between political unification and social change was a complicated one. There were some obvious connections, however. A number of major themes dominated the society of these years. First, there was an unmistakable sense of geographical move- ment, as we have already discussed, mainly out of the

older and more settled rural districts. Second, the class structure of society began to take shape and to solidify. The chief changes were the appearance of a new busi- ness class, the emergence of a working class associated with urbanization and industrialization, and the rapid professionalization of certain educated and skilled segments of the middle class. Along with the develop- ment of social classes went a strengthening of certain caste lines associated with class but not identical with it; many of these lines emphasized ethnicity. Finally, an enormous expansion of voluntary organizations of all sorts occurred, at least partly to maintain personal iden- tities and a sense of belonging in a time of great mobility and social change.

unquestionably more sympathetic to Louis Riel and his “rebellion” than were most of the Macdonald cab- inet members in 1870. He probably made promises to the delegates from Red River that he could not honour, but he was unable to gain approval for an amnesty for

Riel and his government, despite Riel’s relinquishment of a nomination to Parliament in 1872 in his favour. Cartier was a genial man who at the same time brooked no opposition to his will, especially in terms of political and religious innovation.

John A. Macdonald, c. 1883–4, oil portrait by Thomas Horsburgh, from a photograph by William James. LAC, C-097288.

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216 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Most British North Americans uprooted them- selves at least once, and many were constantly on the move. Wilson Benson, an immigrant of the 1830s, tells the story in his autobiography. Beginning in Ireland at age 15, Benson changed his district of residence 11 times (six times in Ireland and Scotland between 1836 and 1838 and five times in Canada West between 1838 and 1851) before finally settling on a farm in Grey County in 1851 at age 30. He bought the farm not with his sav- ings but with an inheritance from Ireland. Benson had changed jobs 29 times in those years and apprenticed to

at least six different trades in the 1830s and 1840s before finally settling down to farming. In his later years, he also kept a store in his community. On the whole, tran- sients like Wilson Benson were not economically suc- cessful. In both urban Hamilton and rural Peel County, Upper Canada, there was a remarkable correlation between transience and poverty. Whether such people failed because they were continually on the move, or constantly moved in search of a better life they never found, is debatable. So, too, is the question of whether their failure was so deep-rooted as to be transmittable to

The Orange Order was founded as the Loyal Orange

Association in the 1790s in County Armagh in response

to the increasing disorder in Ireland. Protestants in

Ulster created local societies devoted to the memory

of William of Orange, who had intervened in Ireland

militarily in 1688 to replace James II and to guarantee

the Protestant succession in England, thus guarantee-

ing the position of the Protestant minority in Ireland.

William’s great victory at the Battle of the Boyne in

1690 was celebrated every 12 July with a parade and

commemoration, including the festooning of every-

thing imaginable in the colour orange.

In Ulster the Order existed as a hierarchy of

local lodges devoted to the maintenance of the

Protestant faith and loyalty to the Crown of England,

and included a good deal of secrecy and costumed

ritual similar to the Masons. In British America the

Order downplayed its secrecy and emphasized vari-

ous fraternal aspects, including life insurance and

support for families of members. The first lodge in

Canada was founded in Brockville, Upper Canada,

in 1830 by Ogle Gowan, and thereafter it spread

rapidly. By the later 1830s the Order had over 100

lodges, most of them in Upper Canada. Probably the

most important ingredients in its Canadian spread

were its transcendence of Irish ethnicity in favour of

a non-denominational Protestantism encompassing

immigrants from all over the British Isles, its identifi-

cation with deep-seated fears of Roman Catholicism

in many parts of British America, and its various fra-

ternal aspects.

At its height the Orange Order probably had no

more than 50,000 actual members, but its degree

of popular support in Newfoundland and New

Brunswick, as well as in Protestant Upper Canada/

Ontario, made it seem much more ubiquitous.

The Order had begun by opposing Irish Roman

Catholicism through demonstrations and violence. Its

leaders insisted that its enthusiasm was mainly a dis-

play of support for the Crown, but the Crown during

the 1860 visit of the Prince of Wales to British America

made clear that waving an orange flag did not find

any favour with the monarchy. The Order gradually

transferred its hostility from Irish to French-Canadian

Catholics and, in Manitoba especially, to the Métis led

by Louis Riel. After Confederation the Orange Order

became much more constrained in its public demon-

strations, but it always maintained a stance of hostility

to Roman Catholicism and support for British values

(especially the monarchy) in Canada.

BACkGROUNDER The Orange Order

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2176 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

their children. In any case, the success stories in terms of the accumulation of wealth usually involved those who remained more or less permanently in one place.

The need for a sense of belonging in an era of change and mobility helps explain the enormous expansion in the number of private associations devoted to non-oc- cupational and non-economic goals. Despite the growth of the state, even in Canada it did not weigh heavily on the lives of British Americans. Political allegiances were not as important to the average person as family, religion, and fraternal commitments. Churches con- tinued to be important. They were increasingly dom- inated—especially on the Protestant side—by women, who made up the bulk of the attending congregations. Women also supported their own religious organiz- ations with their own money, kept separate from the larger funds of the church, and these organizations offered many women their first glimpse of independent administration. British Americans also found a place in the temperance societies, which had begun in the 1820s but really expanded in the 1840s under the Sons of Temperance, a fraternal organization that served “no liquor stronger than tea.” The temperance movement crusaded against drunkenness, but it was also a way of reacting against new immigration—mainly Irish—and asserting a sense of Protestant hegemony.

By 1870 few British Americans—whether urban or rural—could be found who did not belong to a good number of voluntary societies beyond their churches. In earlier eras, private fraternal organizations had supple- mented or provided public services such as water, light, fire protection, and library facilities. By 1870, many organizations had virtually relinquished charitable and public goals in favour of entertainment and companion- ship for their members. Some of the new societies were created to provide a framework for sporting activities such as curling, lacrosse, or baseball.

Rural overpopulation produced some migrants who would settle and tame undeveloped regions and others who would provide a labour force for industrial- ization. While the farming pioneers remained small- scale commodity producers indeterminately related to the class structure, the urbanized workforce swiftly turned into a landless working class. At the other end of the scale, merchants turned into bankers, financiers,

and industrialists, and became far wealthier. Over the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the older social structure of elites and non-elites disappeared, to be replaced by one far more clearly stratified.

Successful businessmen were highly esteemed in the era of economic transformation, achieving their high status partly by self-ascription and partly by their acknowledged economic and political power. Nowhere was the power more evident than at the municipal level, where businessmen formed a mutually supportive coterie that took the lead in all aspects of life in the city, including its development and land market. Most busi- ness leaders in this period were self-made men, not in the sense that they had risen from rags to riches, but in that they had achieved their position in the commun- ity by their own efforts. Scots were over-represented in business ranks, where Protestantism predominated. The new wealth was in finance and manufacturing. The wealthier business leaders of Montreal and Toronto began to adopt extravagant lifestyles that were in many respects comparable to those of their American counterparts.

As Canadian cities began the shift from commer- cial entrepôts to industrial and financial centres, they already contained significant inequalities in terms of wealth and income. In Hamilton, for example, the most affluent 10 per cent of the city held 88 per cent of its propertied wealth, drew nearly half its income, and controlled about 60 per cent of its wealth. On the other hand, the poorest 40 per cent earned only about 1 per cent of the city’s total income and controlled about 6 per cent of its total wealth. A close relationship existed between wealth and emerging class status, and between class status and ethnicity. The last was an important determinant of status both because ethnic groups like the Southern Irish carried over their Old World poverty into the New World and because the poorer immi- grants tended to arrive later when opportunity was less fluid. The Irish were by far the largest element of the working-class poor in Hamilton and were the most sub- stantial non-Francophone part of the poor in Montreal.

Nevertheless, before 1860 rich and poor in both Hamilton and Montreal lived in close proximity to each other. Only as cities grew larger and developed an expanding middle class that could afford to move out of

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218 A History of the Canadian Peoples

the urban centre and a working class desperate for hous- ing would the industrial city emerge with its clear div- isions between rich and poor and between one economic function and another. In the pre-industrial city the role of women and children in the labour force was fairly limited. Industry could and did employ both women and children for some of the simple repetitive tasks that supplemented the machines, however. Factory owners found that children worked for low wages. Families often insisted that employers take on the entire family, so they would earn enough to live, and the income of all members of the family—including older children—was crucial for survival. In the last analysis, the major char- acteristic of families on the unskilled side of industrial- ization was their vulnerability to poverty. Not all the working-class poor worked in factories. Opportunities for women were strong at the lower end of the labour force in domestic service, and increasingly as well as in business and clerical occupations. The mid-Victorian Age saw changes in the retail trade as well as in manu- facturing. In 1840 retail establishments were relatively small. By 1870 general merchandising had begun to spawn the department store: the T. Eaton Company was founded in Toronto in 1869.

The relatively small physical size of cities before 1865 made residential segregation relatively difficult, and as various British ethnic communities turned into British North Americans, they came to share loyalty to their new homeland and to a common Empire and mon- archy. At the same time, an increase of certain forms of ethnic conflict was imported from the British Isles. Ireland was a major arena for such conflict, as Protestants and Catholics in that land became constantly more aware of their antipathies for one another. The success of the Orange Order was a sign of the problem. As Irish immigration turned into a flood—especially after the potato famine drove thousands of impoverished and embittered Irish Catholics across the Atlantic—the Irish groups were increasingly forced into contact with one another. Irish ethnic differences were not simply con- fessional or geographical. They also were class-driven. In most places the Catholic Irish were both the latest and the poorest arrivals, forced to take the worst lands (often as tenants) in the countryside or the worst jobs in the cities. The Irish were looked down upon, and often

responded with anger to their treatment. The Irish had a long-standing tradition of parades and public events to celebrate their major ethnic holidays, a tradition they brought to North America. Such occasions, particularly in New Brunswick, the Ottawa Valley, and the city of Toronto, which had especially large Irish Catholic popu- lations, produced continual ethnic tensions.

Between rich and poor, the middle class—although it ranged from small urban merchants to small-town industrialists to well-to-do rural farmers—came increas- ingly to be anchored by members of the educated profes- sional occupations. Professionals’ relative dependability of income tended to set them apart. Guaranteeing that dependability through professionalization was the chief development within the middle classes in this period. The numbers of qualified practitioners were increased through formal education, and at the same time strin- gent licensing requirements were imposed, often set by the occupation itself. The doctors took the lead. An attempt to legislate the creation of a College of Physicians and Surgeons of Upper Canada failed in 1840, although another similar attempt in Canada East in 1847 was more successful. Perhaps significantly, doctors were one of the first groups to organize nationally: the Canadian Medical Association formed in the very year of Confederation. Lawyers engaged in a similar policy, with most provin- cial law societies formed between 1846 and 1877.

Outside the class structure entirely were women, Aboriginal peoples, people from Asia, and blacks (or Negroes, as they were then called). In Victorian Canada the woman, as the bearer and nurturer of children, was regarded as belonging in the home as wife, helpmate, and mother. Women had few legal rights. A woman could not expect automatically to inherit a deceased husband’s property. In most provinces, a husband could sue a wife for divorce on grounds of adultery, but a wife could sue a husband only if he were adulterous and had committed some other heinous offence. The courts expected women to reform violent husbands rather than to prosecute them. Mothers had a better chance to rights of guardianship over children even if they were unwed. Despite the domestic ideal, many women worked. The most invisible women workers were the domestic ser- vants. The typical domestic servant in the census of 1871 was a single woman in her twenties who lived in

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2196 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

the house and could both read and write. The most pres- tigious occupation to which most women could aspire was that of schoolteacher. Actively recruited into the teaching ranks, they then remained at the lower end of the ranges of both salary and responsibility. There was little opportunity for entry into the professions. Emily Howard Stowe (1831–1903) obtained a medical degree from the New York Medical College for Women in 1867, but she could not achieve proper accreditation until 1880. The first woman lawyer would not appear until the next century.

Blacks and Chinese joined the Aboriginal peoples in suffering from widespread racial prejudice and dis- crimination in British North America. Chinese migration before 1870 was relatively small, and confined to British Columbia. But thousands of blacks fled the United States for freedom north of border, often encouraged by blacks like Harriet Tubman. After 1840 governments pressured the Indigenous peoples of the settled provinces to become freehold farmers. While governments recognized some Native rights, that alone did not lead to much protec- tion. In 1850 the Canadian Parliament passed legislation

Orange Order parade along King Street, Toronto. Parades were important public occasions in nineteenth-century British America, and were often the occasion for violence. Courtesy of Toronto Public Library, T13222.

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220 A History of the Canadian Peoples

that operationally defined who was and who was not an “Indian” within the meaning of the Acts involved. The process of legislating for Aboriginals rapidly escalated after 1850. In 1857 the legislature of Canada passed the Act for the Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes in the Canadas. It contained many provisions that ran against the expressed wishes of the Aboriginals. Canadian policy became devoted to removing Natives from the paths of settlement, by coercion and compulsion if necessary. Most of these policies—which defined “Indians,” made them citizens when properly educated, and provided for land grants—passed on to the Dominion of Canada from the Province of Canada in 1867.

Few British North Americans believed that the state would come to their assistance in times of trouble. For some, politics and government were a source of employment or patronage, but for the average person the government (whether local, provincial, or federal) existed mainly to act as an impartial and somewhat distant umpire. Government mostly affected events outside the citizen’s personal experience. Nevertheless, the exodus from older settled districts with traditional agrarian and resource-oriented economies into towns and cities demonstrated two points. First, it showed the extent to which the older mercantile economy was fail- ing to support the rate of population growth. Second, it showed the extent to which new economic development was essential. By the 1860s politicians were extremely conscious of out-migration, particularly to the United States. Territorial expansion westward was one solution. A more sophisticated economy was another. In the view of many political leaders across British North America both seemed to require new political arrangements.

The Creation of Cultural Infrastructure The conscious cultivation of mind, creativity, and aes- thetic taste—which is what most people have in mind when they think of “culture”—is obviously something that does not come easily to a pioneer society living on

the edge of a vast wilderness and spending most of its energy on survival. Such culture requires a complex infra- structure in order to flourish. While small parts of that infrastructure had been in place almost from the begin- ning of settlement in North America, the elaboration of substantial institutional support for culture was slow to develop. The years between 1840 and 1870 were import- ant in terms of that elaboration, if only because they wit- nessed such a striking growth in urban populations. Only a few illustrative examples can be discussed here.

Until the 1830s most newspapers had been pub- lished weekly, but biweekly editions for papers in the larger cities began in the late 1830s. The Saint John News introduced a penny edition in 1839, and dailies started in the 1850s. Most early papers were four page- sheets and had relatively small circulations, printing no more than 1,000 copies, although readership could be far greater. Susanna Moodie described the typical newspaper of her day as “a strange mélange of politics, religion, abuse, and general information,” adding that it “contains, in a condensed form, all the news of the Old and New World, and informs its readers of what is passing on the great globe, from the North Pole to the Gold Mines of Australia and California” (quoted in Rutherford, 1982: 38). One modern content analysis of four papers from this era corroborates this description (Rutherford, 1982: 39). George Brown published the first daily in 1853, printing it on a steam-powered cylinder press, and he reached a hitherto unheard of circulation of 28,000 by 1861. In British North America Brown was a pioneer in the regular serialization of popular fiction, including the works of Charles Dickens. He also aggres- sively covered the arts, especially in the local commun- ity. All newspapers, especially the dailies, benefited from the introduction of telegraphy to British America in the late 1840s.

In history everything connects. Critical to the emer- gence of the daily newspaper and the development of a larger and more sophisticated arts community was the introduction of mass education. This began in the 1840s, especially in anglophone British North America. Mass education was a product of the introduction of publicly supported schooling combined with the principle of universality. The result was that increasing numbers of people learned to read and write, and this increased the

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2216 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

Petition of a Number of Colored Inhabitants of the City of Montreal

Document

Respectfully Sheweth, That the undersigned Petitioners, loyal and dutiful

subjects of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, and residing in the City of Montreal, Canada East, are desir- ous of proving their attachment to the British Crown under which they hold their rights and privileges as Free Citizens, in common with their brethren of European origin, humbly and respectfully solicit the Authority of Your Excellency as the Representative of Her Majesty in this part of Her Dominions, to allow your Petitioners to raise and organize from themselves a Volunteer Militia Company of Foot, in class B, to be dominated, if it should please Your Excellency, the Colored Company of Montreal Volunteer Rifles; to be drilled & exercised in conformity with the regulations of the Service in all respects.

That Your Petitioners pledge themselves should Your Excellency feel disposed to favor their views, to cloth themselves at their own expense, in a neat and appropriate uniform (subject to the approval of Your Excellency), and to conform in every way to the Militia Rules & Regulations,

That Your Petitioners venture most respectfully to bring to Your Excellency’s notice, that in the West

India Island belonging to Her Majesty, there exist many Companies of Militia composed entirely of the Colored population, who have at all times been found ready to do their duty when called on; and that the Regular Colored Colonial Regiments in the West Indies volunteered their Services to a man on the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny; thus proving that the Colored race, under a free and enlightened Government like that of Great Britain, are second to none in loyalty, fidelity and truthfulness to their Country and their Queen.

Your petitioners, in conclusion, would most respect- fully entreat Your Excellency to grant them a favorable reply to this their earnest Petition, to be allowed to par- ticipate as Citizens, in the duties of the Militia Force of this valuable Colony; and should your Excellency under all the circumstances of Your Petitioners case, view the same in a favorable light, they, as in duty bound will ever pray—

Proposed Strength of Company 1 Captain 3 N.C. Officers 1 Lieutenant 1 Bugler 1 Ensign 59 Rank & File [signed with 38 names]

One way of showing loyalty to Canada in the nineteenth century was by offering to organize a militia company, as did a number of blacks in Montreal in 1860. We do not know whether the petition was successful.

Source: Gary Collison, Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 227–8.

To His Excellency Sir Edmund Walker Head, Governor General of British North America and Captain General and Governor in Chief of the Provinces of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Island of Prince Edward, &c. &c.

The humble Petition of a number of the Colored Inhabitants of the City of Montreal, Canada East,—Montreal, 19th February 1860.

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222 A History of the Canadian Peoples

François-Xavier Garneau (1809–66) was born in Quebec (City) into a quite poor family, his father a man of shift- ing occupations. He was educated at local schools until age 12, when he entered a Lancastrian school for two years. His family was unable to afford the Séminaire de Québec, and Garneau instead became an assistant to the clerk of the Court of King’s Bench before apprenticing as a notary in 1825. Throughout his life he was conscious of his lack of formal education. While an apprentice, he read widely and taught himself Latin, Italian, and English. In 1828 his employer recommended him as a travelling companion for an Englishman who visited the United States. Three years later, on his own initia- tive, he visited England and France. While in London, he accepted an appointment as Denis-Benjamin Viger’s secretary, meeting many of the leading politicians of the time. He returned to Lower Canada in 1833, publishing

poetry and briefly editing a newspaper. Then, in 1834, he returned to the practice of notary and became an ardent nationalist.

By 1837 Garneau had determined to write the his- tory of Canada, but he was apparently not active in the rebellions. In 1842 he was appointed as French trans- lator to the Legislative Assembly, a post that gave him much free time and access to a number of libraries. Locating sources was one of the hardest problems for a historian when Garneau began his work. The first vol- ume of his Histoire du Canada, taking events to 1701, appeared in August of 1845. It was heavily criticized for being unsympathetic to religion. At about this time he used his friendship with Edmund O’Callaghan (a Patriote who somehow became state archivist in New York) to consult documentary material copied from French archives. The new documents greatly enhanced the second volume of the Histoire, published in April 1846. Continued publication was hampered for some years by ill health, but volume 3 of the Histoire appeared in 1849, getting the story to 1792. Garneau disarmed his critics in this volume by declaring the unity of reli- gion and nationality. For several years he worked on revision of the first three volumes (published in 1852, with an account of the period 1792–1840 appended). Here Garneau offered a narrative sympathetic to the Patriotes and highly critical of the Union of the Canadas. In 1855, Francois-Marie-Uncas Maximilien Bibaud, the son of Michel Bibaud, who had written a history hostile to the Patriots, wrote a piece attacking Garneau, referring to his work as “charlatanism in hist- ory.” This attack could not undermine his growing repu- tation as French Canada’s leading historian. Garneau, with the help of his son, prepared one more edition of the Histoire. It appeared in 1859, polishing the style and adding more documentation. A year later Andrew Bell produced an English translation. Garneau complained that the translation was too free and distorted his work,

François-Xavier Garneau. Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec.

François-Xavier Garneau

Biography

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2236 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

but it remains the version by which Garneau is known to English Canada. Self-taught and extremely conscious of his formal educational deficiencies, Garneau saw the history of French Canada as one of survival against “the Anglo-Saxon race.” His work stood at the time as

a denial of Lord Durham’s sneering remarks about the lack of culture in French Canada. He remains today, for most French-speaking Canadians, the leading French- Canadian author of the nineteenth century and French Canada’s greatest historian.

The Victorian era was fond of graphic illustrations of progress. Here four schoolhouses illustrate the improvements made from the early days of settlement to the 1860s. Such images were intended to show not just that education was available in the early settlements, but also to show how quickly it came into line with that of established communities, evolving from one-room structures to more significant structures. Beyond the buildings themselves, what other elements of these illustrations suggest that progression? Top: two “First Settlers’ School-houses”; bottom left: “Country District School-house”; bottom right: “Village School-house.” From H.Y. Hind, The Dominion of Canada: Containing a Historical Sketch of the Preliminaries and Organization of Confederation (1869).

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224 A History of the Canadian Peoples

audience and market for the arts and culture. Census data from 1861 suggest that more than 90 per cent of the population of Canada West could read, a tribute to the early introduction of free schooling. The figures were lower in Canada East, where over one-third of the popu- lation could not read in 1861, and in the Maritimes, where 22.6 per cent could not read and 32.7 per cent could not write. The 1871 census indicated that only just over 12 per cent of Ontarians could not write; the figure for Quebec was 45.8 per cent and for the Maritimes 23.3 per cent. The data suggest that French Canada remained a much more oral society than English Canada. Naturally, the younger members of society were more literate than their elders, and males in most places were more literate than females. Raw literacy data do not tell us much about how indi- vidual people employed their skills, but combined with increases in the number of libraries and the availability of books and newspapers, the figures suggest a marked increase in the audience for cultural productions.

The Road to Confederation The political problems of the Canadas were the immedi- ate stimulus for Canadian politicians to begin to explore the possibility of a larger union with the east- ern provinces, beginning at the famous Charlottetown Conference of September 1864. Such a solution did not come out of thin air, however. Politicians had dis- cussed the political unification of the provinces of British North America on and off since the days of the Loyalists. Few of the early proposals were very elabor- ate. Most gave no consideration to whether the proposed union would result in an independent national state. Most came from Tories concerned with enhancing the power of the Crown or providing a basis for economic development. By the 1850s, however, particularly in the Canadas, some sense was emerging of “a true Canadian feeling—a feeling of what might be termed Canadian nationality, in contradistinction to a feeling of mere colonial or annexation vassalage,” as the Montreal Pilot put it on 6 April 1850. Sometimes these sentiments were couched in high-flown rhetoric. Often economic

or cultural protectionism dominated the phraseology, but a new Canadian nationalism was growing in power after mid-century. It flourished partly on changing communications technology that made it possible to transmit fast-breaking news across the provinces in moments. The royal tour of Prince Albert in 1860 sug- gested that British North America was already in some senses a political entity.

Neither the bind of the double majority nor the beginning of national sentiment was sufficient, how- ever, to propel British North Americans to national unification. As so often had been the case, events in the United States provided the catalyst. The American federal union broke apart with surprising suddenness in 1861. The southern states seceded into their own Confederacy. The American Civil War began. Many Canadians quietly rooted for the Confederacy despite its maintenance of slavery. Britain adopted an official policy of neutrality. The British watched warily while public opinion in the northern states, whipped up by American newspapers, talked openly of finding com- pensation for the lost Confederacy by annexing British North America.

Britain could hardly leave its North American col- onies unprotected. Defending them at great expense was not something the British faced with relish, how- ever. By the 1860s the British ruling classes believed that colonies like British North America would inevit- ably separate from the mother country. Why not hasten the process and save money? An independent British North America could organize its own defences. In 1864 the military situation in the United States turned more dangerous for British North America, as the Union forces gained clear victories over the Confederacy. In several respects the efforts of the Canadians to create a larger union fitted very well with British desires for reduced colonial responsibility and expense. The full weight of the still considerable influence of the British colonial system came down on the side of unification.

In Canada the difficulty of agreeing to military mobilization was one of the many factors that led George Brown to propose a political coalition with his ene- mies. The understanding rested on a commitment to a British–American federal union. This Great Coalition—a ministry formed by a union of the Conservatives under

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2256 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

The Blackfoot Confederacy, or the Siksikaitsitapi,

lived a nomadic lifestyle bounded by the Great Sand

Hills of Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains.

Buffalo hunters, the Blackfoot were one of a num-

ber of western First Nations who came into contact

with European material culture long before they

encountered a person of European origin. As with

many Plains tribes, the most important of these was

the horse. The horse and other objects of European

origin were adapted to fit into their daily lives.

One of the best ways to see that adaptation is

in the clothing they wore. The Blackfoot made intri-

cately beaded shirts that were intended to show

their accomplishments and prowess. Used to display

identity, the shirts, originally made of hide, sinew,

and other animal materials, eventually began to

incorporate European materials such as beads and

cloth. European tools, like scissors, came to be used

in the construction of these objects, and images of

guns and other trade goods were incorporated in

the quillwork and patterns displayed on the shirts

themselves. Quillwork was incredibly difficult to

produce, and was considered a sacred, female art

among the Blackfoot. The patterns and preparation

of quills required exceptional skill. Some shirts were

also painted, with details of horses captured and

enemies defeated.

The histories of those shirts that survive are

complicated. The one pictured above, for example,

is today a part of the Pitt Rivers Museum’s ethno-

graphic collections. It was given as part of a cloth-

ing exchange to Sir George Simpson of the Hudson’s

Bay Company at Fort Edmonton in 1841. The shirts

sometimes were exchanged for “chiefs’ coats,” often

scarlet cloth coats with lace on cuffs and collars. The

exchange of garments was part of creating diplo-

matic trade and political alliances between groups.

While tensions still arise surrounding the owner-

ship and repatriation of material culture of this type,

collectors and collections like the one at Pitt Rivers

Museum are responsible for the survival of many of

these forms of First Nations heritage. Simpson’s sec-

retary, Edward Hopkins, ended up in possession of

these shirts, and after he took them back to England

in 1870 they were purchased in 1893 by the museum.

Today, these objects are being given new life, informing

groups like the Blackfoot of the skills and traditions of

their ancestors. Modern technology has allowed the

plant materials used for quill dying to be identified. They

have also allowed the Blackfoot to reclaim the history

and narratives of some of their ancestors, as the shirts

serve as a form of document into the owner’s history.

Material Culture

This hide shirt, with its quillwork rondell, was part of the formal attire of the Blackfoot. Worn for ceremonial occasions and in warfare, the shirt displays the honours and history of the wearer. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 1893.67.2.

Blackfoot Shirt

Continued...

Source: Laura Peers, “kaahsinnooniksi Ao’toksisawooyawa: Reconnections with the Historic Blackfoot Shirts,” Pitt Rivers

Museum, http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/blackfootshirts/index.php/about-the-shirts/index.html.

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226 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Macdonald and the Bleus under Cartier, with the Grits led by Brown, announced in the Canadian Parliament on 22 June 1864—broke the political deadlock. The new gov- ernment moved on a variety of fronts over the summer of 1864. Most important was to prepare the outlines of fed- eral union for a conference of Maritime delegates called at Charlottetown in September to discuss Maritime union. The Maritime region contained a good deal of abstract support for unification with Canada, tempered by two realities: any Maritime participation in a larger union must not work to the disadvantage of the provinces, and many felt strongly that the Maritimes were doing pretty well within the existing imperial structure. Historians sympathetic to central Canada have tended to view the Maritime defence of local interests as parochial. Such an interpretation misses the point. One problem with the Canadian initiative was that Canada was so much bigger and more powerful than the other provinces that almost any union would seem more like annexation than con- federation. The Maritimes, moreover, were already part

of a larger political and economic system known as the British Empire. Many Maritimers had travelled on sailing ships to the far corners of the world, and in many ways Maritime voters were far more cosmopolitan than the Canadians. At the time, the case against Confederation was quite reasonable. Unification seemed an impractic- able visionary scheme, proposed by politicians in the Province of Canada to meet their needs. It was not neces- sarily in the best interests of the other colonies.

Considerable ingenuity was required in 1864 to explain to delegates from smaller constituencies how the Canadian proposal really worked to their benefit. The union as finally developed was somewhat different from the one initially proposed. The biggest difference was in the place of the provinces. The Canadians ori- ginally intended to create a strong central government by consolidating all the provincial legislatures (and their powers) into one grand Parliament. This proced- ure of legislative union was how Great Britain had ear- lier incorporated Scotland and Ireland. The Canadians

The Charlottetown Conference, September 1864. Charles Tupper is standing against the pillar on the left and D’Arcy McGee against the pillar second from the left, with George-Étienne Cartier in front of him; seated next to Cartier is John A. Macdonald. George P. Roberts, LAC, C-000733.

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2276 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

granted the need for local governments to deal with local matters. They did not intend those local govern- ments to be fully articulated provincial governments, certainly not provincial governments capable of form- ing a counterweight to the central federal one. Neither Scotland nor Ireland (after union) had separate political administrations based upon legislatures, although both still had local governments. The Maritime delegates at Charlottetown responded to visions of greatness, fuelled by food, drink, and much convivial conversa- tion. They agreed to the Canadian scheme. By the time of the Quebec Conference a month later, many had sober second thoughts.

Prince Edward Island took the lead at Quebec against the Canadian steamroller. The smallest province of British North America, the island had fought annex- ation to Nova Scotia for almost a century. It found it hard to give up its autonomy to proposals that reflected Canadian dominance. When John A. Macdonald moved that the three sections of British North America—Canada West, Canada East, and the four Atlantic provinces— each have 24 members in the Senate, he gave away the game. In the American Senate, each state had two sen- ators regardless of population; in the Canadian Senate, the four smaller provinces would have only one-third of the senators among them. Eventually the Quebec Conference in October 1864 accepted this arrangement, offering Newfoundland an additional four senators. Prince Edward Island also made a big issue—without any success—over getting one more member of the House of Commons than its population allowed (six instead of five). A further and telling debate came over the power of the local governments. The majority case was that Canada’s fundamental principle had always been that “all the pow- ers not given to Local should be reserved to the Federal Government” (quoted in Waite, 1962: 95). But a number of Atlantic delegates were not happy. The subsequent debate over the Quebec resolutions was not over the principle of union but over its terms. While it would be convenient to see the matter of terms as a petty haggling over details, some of the details were fairly important.

Another Canadian principle was legislative sover- eignty. “We the People” would not create this union, as in the United States. Instead, an Act of the British Parliament would create Canada. Conveniently enough, this denial

of popular sovereignty meant that Confederation did not go before the public in the form of an election, a ratifi- cation convention, or a referendum/plebiscite. But at the same time, the union had been worked out totally in a parliamentary context. The public debate on the Quebec resolutions did not always take into account the niceties of political theory. Critics understood the basic thrust of the proposals well enough, however, and the debate did affect their interpretation and ultimate implemen- tation. While the Canadians had initially intended to reduce the provincial governments to municipal pro- portions, both French Canada and the Maritimes made clear that the provinces would have to survive rela- tively intact. The proponents of union in Canada East emphasized that Confederation meant giving French Canadians their own province, with—as the Courrier de St-Hyacinthe put it in September 1864—the two levels of government both “sovereign, each within its jurisdic- tion as clearly defined by the constitution.” An informal adjustment addressed this matter. On the other hand, the opposition fulminated unsuccessfully to the end over the refusal of the proponents of Confederation to take the scheme to the people.

Newspapers, pamphlets, and debates held in the legislatures of each of the provinces discussed the Quebec resolutions. What these demonstrated most of all was the success of the proponents of union in capturing most of the positive ground. Critics could reduce the proposals to rubble, but had little to put in their place. For Canada, the absence of alternatives was particularly striking. The debates also demonstrated that the Quebec resolutions were, on the whole, far more acceptable to Tories than they were to Reformers. Although the debates in the Canadian Parliament were lengthy and long-winded, the ultimate result was approval. The eastern provinces could stand pat, however, and some did. Newfoundland—convinced it would be little more than “the contemptible fag-end of such a compact” with Canada after an election fought on the question in 1869—remained outside Confederation until 1949. Prince Edward Island felt insufficiently com- pensated for “the surrender of a separate Government, with the independent powers it now enjoys.” It would not join until 1873.

The situation in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was more complex. In the former province, a coalition of

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228 A History of the Canadian Peoples

opponents to union headed by A.J. Smith (1822–83) blew away the pro-Confederation government of Samuel Leonard Tilley (1818–96) in an 1865 election. A year later another election was held against the background of threatened invasion by thousands of Irish nationalists (the Fenians), many of them veterans of the American Union army who had kept their arms when disbanded. The threat was sufficient to return Tilley to office. The new administration moved an address favouring Confederation, not, it must be noted, as embodied in the Quebec resolutions but “upon such terms as will secure

the just rights and interests of New Brunswick, accom- panied with provision for the immediate construction of the Intercolonial Railway.” When this motion carried, opposition disappeared.

In Nova Scotia, which owned one ton of sailing ship for each of its 350,000 inhabitants, there was much con- certed opposition to union. Joseph Howe led the oppon- ents of Confederation. He attacked the union’s Canadian origins from the vantage point of someone perfectly con- tent with the British Empire. Confederation smacked too much of Canadian self-interest. It gave Upper Canada

In Nova Scotia Mr. Howe has organized an active and

formidable opposition to the Union of the Lower Prov-

inces with Canada and although Messrs. Archibald and

McCully who have been the leaders of that opposition

to the present government have co-operated with us

most earnestly and are sustained by the uncommitted

group of that party, yet the great body of the oppos-

ition will unite with Mr. Howe to defeat confederation

and obtain power. On the other hand the Government

have rendered themselves and many of their supporters

extremely unpopular by carrying a measure providing

for the support of education by direct taxation. Many of

the Bankers and most wealthy merchants who formerly

sustained us[,] under the impression that confederation

will injure their position[,] have transferred their support

to Mr. Howe. The financial position of Nova Scotia is in

the most flourishing condition and the opponents of

confederation excite the masses of the people by the

assertion that their taxes will be increased to sustain

the extravagance of a Canadian Government and to

defend the long line of exposed Canadian frontier while

the best interests of the Maratime [sic] Provinces will be

sacrificed by a Government in whose Legislature their

influence will be overborne by numbers. Just at the time

when the friends of confederation were endeavouring

to meet these arguments Mr. Galt proposed a Bill largely

increasing the expenditure and the people of Nova

Scotia are deeply annoyed at finding that the fisheries of

the Maratime [sic] Provinces have been sacrificed by the

adoption of the Canadian policy to issue fishing licenses

to foreigners. Able agitators thus effectively armed

with the means of inflaming the popular mind against

Canada are obtaining numerously signed petitions to the

Imperial Parliament against confederation and there can

be no doubt that an appeal to the people would result in

the reversal of the resolution to the Legislature in favor of

the Union and the defeat of the measure for many years.

Indeed so strong is the feeling against Canada on the

question of the fisheries that I have reason to fear that

any delay in consummating the Union may involve the

members of the Legislature by whose votes a majority

was obtained to sanction the Union memorialising Her

Majesty in opposition to any action being taken thereon

until it has been submitted to the people.

Charles Tupper to Lord Carnarvon, 28 July 1866 Charles Tupper, Premier of Nova Scotia, explains his province’s resistance to union with Canada.

Source: G.P.L. Browne, ed., Documents on the Confederation of British North America (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969), 192–3.

Contemporary Views

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2296 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

rep by pop and Lower Canada provincial autonomy, but offered nothing to Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotia legisla- ture never did approve the Quebec resolutions. The gov- ernment, led by Charles Tupper (1821–1915), introduced a motion calling for a “scheme of union” in which “the rights and interests of Nova Scotia” would be ensured (quoted in Pryke, 1979: 27). It passed by a vote of 31 to 19. Unlike their counterparts in New Brunswick, the oppon- ents of Confederation in Nova Scotia did not melt away. They eventually went on to elect full slates of candidates provincially and federally that promised to take Nova Scotia out of the union in which it had become involved.

Although neither Nova Scotia nor New Brunswick ever actually approved the Quebec resolutions—which all but the most ardent unionists recognized would con- sign the smaller provinces to national impotence—the fundamentals laid down at Quebec became the basis of the new Constitution. Small wonder that the region later complained about the deal they had made. In November 1866 delegates from Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick met in London to work out the final details, essentially the Quebec resolutions with more money for the Maritimes and the Intercolonial Railway. All agreed that the name of the new country should be that of its principal progenitor, thus openly declaring the primacy of Canada in the arrangement and causing confusion ever afterwards for students of Canadian history. The resulting legislation, the British North America Act, passed quickly through the British Parliament in 1867. The MPs barely looked up from the order paper as they voted. The Queen signed the bill into law on 29 March 1867, with the date of proclamation 1 July. Governor General Lord Monck (1819–94) called upon John A. Macdonald, the man everyone most closely associated with the union, to be the first Prime Minister.

On the morning of 1 July—a day of celebration and military parades in all four provinces—the new country was proclaimed in the recently completed Parliament buildings in Ottawa. Macdonald received a knighthood. The ceremonial launching of the new nation did not, however, guarantee its success. Much work still would be needed to make Canada an integrated nation.

The road to Confederation was a complex one, with many paths coming together. The British cut British North America free from their mercantile system. The

British North Americans naturally were drawn to the continental economy, and began to build railroads and industrialize. The Province of Canada cast covetous glances westward, where the hold of the Hudson’s Bay Company was weakened by the beginnings of settle- ment. A unified Canada was not only more powerful but also a leader in achieving responsible government and in producing a new imperial relationship. Immigration to British North America continued, producing much mobility, which in turn led to a need for roots. Population growth brought a new cultural infrastructure. By the 1860s, the Canadians were ready to take the lead in cre- ating an expanded nation, which they did against the judgement of many in the Atlantic region.

Although 1 July 1867 would be celebrated a cen- tury later as the date for Canada’s 100th birthday, it was in the larger sense only an interim point. The new union consisted of four provinces—Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—carved from the three that had created it. Sir John A. Macdonald’s gov- ernment was conscious that a lot of British territory on the continent had been excluded. The new government was also quite obviously the old Canadian coalition, with a few Maritime faces added. Its organization was the former Canadian departments. It used buildings erected in Ottawa for the old Province of Canada. If the new administration seemed familiar, so did many of its policies.

Adding New Territory One of the earliest legislative actions of the new Canadian government in December 1867 was the pas- sage of resolutions calling for transcontinental expan- sion. Most of the legislators regarded such expansion as the nation’s inevitable right, a sort of Canadian version of manifest destiny. As a result, in 1868 a ministerial delegation went to London to arrange the Hudson’s Bay Company’s transfer of the Northwest to Canada. While complex negotiations continued, the Canadian government began building a road from Fort Garry to Lake of the Woods. This was part of a proposed road and water system linking Red River with Canada. The road builders established informal connections with Dr John

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230 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Christian Schultz (1840–96), the influential leader of the local faction that had been agitating for Canadian annexation for years. Nobody paid any attention to the Métis who constituted the bulk of the local population of the settlement. The Canadian delegation in London finally worked out a deal for the transfer. The British government received the territory from the Hudson’s Bay Company (the Canadians put up £300,000 and agreed to substantial land grants for the Company) and subsequently transferred it intact to Canada.

Since the arrangements for the West were made without bothering to inform the Red River people of their import, it was hardly surprising that the locals were suspicious and easily roused to protest. The Métis were concerned on several counts. The road-building party had been involved in a number of racist incidents. There was transparent haste on the part of the Canadian government to build a road and to send in men to sur- vey land. This rush suggested that Canadian settlement would inundate the existing population without regard for their “rights.” Canada made clear that it intended to treat the new territory as a colony. Furthermore, some of the road builders bought land cheaply from the Aboriginal peoples—land that the Métis thought was theirs. The Métis quickly perceived the Canadians as a threat to their way of life, perhaps even to their exist- ence. The Canadian government received a number of warnings in 1869 that trouble was brewing. The warn- ings came from the Anglican archbishop of Rupert’s Land, Robert Machray (1831–1904); from the governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, William Mactavish (1815–70); and from Bishop Alexandre Taché (1823–94), the Catholic bishop of St Boniface. Ottawa received all such reports with little or no interest. Subsequent events were largely a consequence of avoidable Canadian blun- ders and insensitivities. In colonial thralldom itself until only a few years previously, Canada had little experience in managing imperial expansion. It handled the project very clumsily, and the entire nation would pay dearly for its mistakes.

In October 1869 a leader of the Métis emerged in the person of Louis Riel (1844–85), a member of a leading family in the community. His father, for whom he was named, had successfully led a Métis protest in 1849 against the Hudson’s Bay Company,

which had won the right to trade freely in furs. The young Riel spoke out publicly against the surveys. He then led a party that stood on the surveyors’ chains and ordered them to stop. In the meantime, William McDougall (1822–1905) was on his way from Canada to assume office as lieutenant-governor of the North- West. A newly formed National Committee of the Métis resolved that McDougall should not be allowed to enter the country. The Métis made it clear that they would oppose him by force if necessary. Canada responded to the unrest by refusing to take over the territory until it was pacified. Riel escalated the conflict. In early November he and a large band of armed Métis took possession of Upper Fort Garry, the Hudson’s Bay Company central headquarters. The Métis then invited the anglophone inhabitants of the settlement, most of whom were mixed bloods themselves, to send delegates to meet and co-ordinate policy. Riel managed to get tacit consent for the establishment of a provisional government and approval of a “list of rights.” On 7 December he and his men surrounded Dr Schultz’s store, taking Schultz and 48 Canadians to Fort Garry as prisoners. The next day Riel issued a “Declaration of the People,” announcing a provisional government. He declared that the people of Red River wanted to be allowed to negotiate their own entry into Confederation on the basis of the “rights” already agreed to by the residents. William McDougall made a fool of himself with an illegal proclamation of his gov- ernment—Canada having refused to take possession of the territory—and then returned home.

Louis Riel marshalled his forces brilliantly. A con- vention of 40 representatives, equally divided between the two language groups, debated and approved another “list of rights.” The convention endorsed Riel’s provisional government. It appointed three delegates to go to Ottawa to negotiate with the Macdonald government. So far, so good. But in early March, Thomas Scott, a prisoner who was an Orangeman, got into trouble with Riel and his guards. A Métis court martial condemned Scott to death without offering him a chance to be heard. Riel accepted the sentence, commenting, “We must make Canada respect us.” The “murder” of Scott would have enormous repercussions in Orange Ontario, which was looking desperately for an excuse to condemn the Red River

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2316 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

This letter, dated 6 October 1869, represents the ear-

liest written statement of the Métis case for oppos-

ition to Canada. The letter was probably drafted by

Louis Riel. It claims no authority except “the people

themselves,” meeting in an assembly composed of

two representatives of each parish. The letter claims

“indisputable rights” that are unspecified.

St Boniface, 6 Oct., 1869

Dear Mr Editor,

. . . Several newspapers of Upper and Lower

Canada have freely published their views on what

inconveniences might arise in the organization . . .

[of a territorial government by Canada for Red River].

And now that the Canadian people have heard these

different discussions, would they not be glad to know

what the people of Red River themselves think of all

that? Here it is:

They do not appear to be at all ready to receive a

Canadian governor. A Council chosen and constituted

outside the country cannot hope, we think, to see its

decrees highly respected. One perhaps can judge by

the demonstrations which the Métis population of

Red River has just made. Each parish has elected two

representatives in order that they might pronounce in

its name on the proceedings of the Canadian govern-

ment with respect to the people of Red River, and the

following are the resolutions that these representa-

tives have passed in their first assembly:

1. These representatives declare in the name of the

Métis population of Red River that they are loyal

subjects of Her Majesty the Queen of England.

2. These representatives acknowledge themselves,

in the name of the Métis population of Red

River, beholden to the Honourable Hudson’s Bay

Company for the protection which they have

received under the government of that Company

whatever the nature of that government may have

been.

3. The people of Red River having till now upheld

and supported the government of the Honourable

Hudson’s Bay Company, which has been estab-

lished in the country by the Crown of England,

the said representatives declare, in the name of

the Métis population of Red River, that Snow and

Dennis have disregarded the law of nations in

coming to carry out public work here in the name

of an alien authority without paying any attention

to the authority to-day existing in the country.

4. The Honourable Hudson’s Bay Company being

about to lay down the government of Red River,

the said representatives declare, in the name of the

Métis population of Red River, that they are ready

to submit to that change. But at the same time,

being settled, working and living on the lands

which they have assisted the Company [to open

A Red River Letter

Louis Riel, a carte-de-visite portrait taken in Ottawa following his election as member of Parliament for Provencher, Manitoba, in 1873. Notman Studio, LAC, 1957-049, C-002048.

Continued...

Contemporary Views

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232 A History of the Canadian Peoples

up, the people] of Red River, having acquired in the

above manner [indisputable rights in that country,]

the representatives of the Métis population of Red

River loudly proclaim those rights.

5. The colony of Red River having always been

subject to the Crown of England, and having

developed in isolation, through all the hazards

of its situation, the said representatives declare

in the name of the Métis population of Red River,

that they will do everything necessary to have the

privileges accorded so liberally by the Crown of

England to every English colony respected on

their behalf.

There, Mr Editor, is what we would like to com-

municate to you. And those who take the liberty to

send these things to you will not be the last to ensure

that the rights of the people of Red River may be

respected.

—TWO MÉTIS SETTLERS OF RED RIVER

Source: Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe, 28 Oct. 1869, as translated in W.L. Morton, ed., Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal

(Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1956), 411–13. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

This photograph shows Louis Riel at the centre of his provisional government sometime in early 1870. In the top row, left to right, are Bonnet Tromage, Pierre de Lorme, Thomas Bunn, Xavier Page, Baptiste Beauchemin, Baptiste Tournond, and Thomas Spence. In the middle row are Pierre Poitras, John Bruce, Louis Riel, John O’Donoghue, and François Dauphenais. In the front row are Robert O’Lone and Paul Proulx. Although Canada had not annexed Red River in December 1869 as planned, it never admitted that the provisional government was legal. LAC, PA-12854.

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2336 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

In April of 1868, a young man named Charles Mair

headed to Ottawa to see his first book through the

press. He soon fell in with an old friend, Henry J.

Morgan, a clerk in the office of the secretary of state

and author of the 1862 book Sketches of Celebrated

Canadians. Morgan introduced Mair to three other

visitors to Ottawa: George Taylor Denison III, William

Alexander Foster, and Robert Grant Haliburton. All

five men were writers, all were bachelors, and only

Haliburton was over 30. They quickly discovered their

common interests and fell into the habit of spend-

ing the early evening listening to the parliamentary

debates in the House of Commons before returning

to Morgan’s rooms at the Revere Hotel to discuss

public affairs over smokes and drinks. During the

period between 15 April and 20 May 1868, the five

young bachelors formed a secret society later called

“Canada First.” Inspired by the assassination of D’Arcy

McGee, they agreed on the evil of provincialism and

the need to inculcate a new “national spirit.” They

also agreed on the necessity of securing for the new

Dominion the vast territory west of Ontario. Except for

Haliburton, who was from Nova Scotia, the remaining

four were Upper Canadians who were sensitive about

being colonials and who wanted increased Canadian

autonomy under an imperial umbrella.

Like many Canadians of their day, the five young

men also believed in the innate superiority of white

Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Haliburton was one of the

earliest exponents of the notion that Canadians were

the heirs of the Aryan northmen of the Old World.

He told the Montreal Literary Club in March 1869 that

the new Canadian nationality comprised “the Celtic,

the Teutonic, and the Scandinavian elements,” and

embraced “the Celt, the Norman French, the Saxon

and the Swede.” Canada Firsters looked down their

noses at Aboriginal peoples and the Métis. They

saw the French as the great “bar to progress, and

to the extension of a great Anglo-Saxon Dominion

across the Continent,” as the Toronto Globe put it on

4 March 1870. They were utterly contemptuous of

“half-breeds.”

Canada First remained only a debating soci-

ety until the spring of 1870, when it determined to

orchestrate public sentiment to the execution of

Thomas Scott by the provisional government of Red

River headed by Louis Riel. The reaction in Ontario to

Riel before Scott’s death had been fairly quiet, but by

denouncing the execution of Scott, a member of the

Orange Lodge, in editorials planted in leading news-

papers—it was “like putting a match to tinder,” George

Denison later wrote—the Canada Firsters managed to

inflame Protestant Ontario against Louis Riel and his

Métis followers.

In a huge public meeting in Toronto in April,

Canada First introduced three resolutions that were

passed easily. The first endorsed resistance of the

usurpation of power by “the murderer Riel.” The

second advocated decisive measures to suppress the

uprising, and the third declared that it would be gross

injustice to negotiate with emissaries of a govern-

ment who “have robbed, imprisoned and murdered

loyal Canadians, whose only fault was zeal for British

institutions, whose only crime was devotion to the

old flag.” As a result of the Canada First intervention,

negotiations between Ottawa and Red River had to

be conducted unofficially, the military expedition to

Red River was allowed to go forward, and the leaders

of the Red River resistance received no amnesty for

their deeds in 1869–70.

BACkGROUNDER Canada First

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234 A History of the Canadian Peoples

uprising. The three-man delegation from Red River, headed by Abbé Noël Ritchot (1825–1905), gained sub- stantial concessions from the Canadian government. If honoured, they would guarantee some protection for the original inhabitants of Red River against the expected later influx of settlers and land speculators. In what the Canadians always regarded as an act of extortion at the point of a gun, the Métis obtained the Manitoba Act of 1870. This legislation granted provincial status to a Manitoba roughly equivalent to the old Red River settle- ment, with 1.4 million acres (566,580 ha) set aside for the Métis and bilingual services guaranteed. The remainder of the North-West became a territory of Canada. One of its government’s principal tasks was to extinguish Aboriginal title through the negotiation of treaties with the Indigenous peoples. These agreements would open the way for settlement by people of European origin.

In May 1870 the Canadian government sent a so-called peaceful military expedition to Red River. The troops occupied the province for Canada in late August, forcing Riel and his associates to flee for their lives. The Scott execution provided the Canadian govern- ment with the excuse to deny Riel and his lieutenants an official amnesty for all acts committed during the “uprising.” Those who negotiated with Canada always insisted that such an amnesty had been unofficially promised. The result was that Louis Riel went into long- term exile instead of becoming premier of the province he had created. (An amnesty was granted Riel in 1875, on the condition that he be banished from the country for five years.) Whether the government would keep better faith over its land guarantees to the Métis was another matter.

After the postage-stamp province called Manitoba was taken out, the remainder of the territory transferred to Canada by the Hudson’s Bay Company—the North- West Territories—was initially administered under the original legislation passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1869 to deal with the West. It clearly envisioned a region held in colonial tutelage, with both govern- ment and natural resources under the strict control of Canada. The lieutenant-governor of Manitoba also served as lieutenant-governor of the Territories. The tem- porary legislation of 1869 was renewed without change in 1871. Not until 1872 were the Territories actually

given even an appointed council. It consisted of 11 mem- bers, only two of which resided in the region. The other nine lived in or near Winnipeg, and initial meetings of the council were held there. Only in 1905—long after a second rebellion, in 1885—was provincial status finally granted to the Territories, which became Saskatchewan and Alberta.

While the question of Rupert’s Land dragged slowly to its conclusion, the Canadian government was presented with an unexpected (although not totally unsolicited) gift. It consisted of a request from British Columbia—to which Vancouver Island had been joined in 1866—for admission into the new union. The initia- tive from the Pacific colony had originated with the Nova Scotia-born journalist Amor De Cosmos (William Alexander Smith, 1825–97), a member of the colony’s legislative council. As early as March 1867 he had introduced a motion that the British North America Act, then about to be passed by the British Parliament, allow for the eventual admission of British Columbia. Entry into Confederation would introduce responsible government and resolve the colony’s serious financial difficulties, which resulted partly from the interest on debts incurred for road building during the gold rushes. Union with Canada received an additional impetus when—coterminous with the passage of the British North America Act but quite independent of it—the American government purchased Alaska from the Russians. The purchase touched off demands in the American press for the annexation of British Columbia as well. Officially the British notified the colony in November 1867 that no action would be taken on its relationship with Canada until Rupert’s Land had been duly incorporated into the new nation.

Union with Canada was debated by the British Columbia Legislative Council in March 1870. This debate was different from earlier ones in the eastern legislatures, for the British North America Act was already in place and in operation. British Columbia could not hope to influence the shape of Confederation, only to decide whether it would enter the union and upon what terms. The debate was a bit curious. The opponents of Confederation wanted the issues of popu- lar elections (in an elected assembly) and responsible government cleared up in advance of union, while the

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2356 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

pro-confederates—the government party—were quite satisfied with the local status quo.

Negotiations between British Columbia and Canada took place in the late spring of 1870. The Canadians were generous to a fault. Of course, British Columbia

could have responsible government. Of course, the debt would be wiped out. Of course, there would be subsidies and grants, as well as federal support for the naval sta- tion at Esquimalt. And, of course, British Columbia could have a rail link with Canada, to be begun within

Confederation Complete

Document

To-day, British Columbia passed peacefully and, let us add, gracefully into the confederated empire of British North America. Perhaps it would be more proper to put it thus: To-day the confederated empire of British North America stretches to the shores of the Pacific, “whose limpid waters” to quote the poetic language of Mr. J. Spencer Thompson, “leave in baptismal welcome to brow of the new-born Province which forms the last link in the transcontinental chain—the last star in the constellation which is destined hereafter to shine so brightly in the northern hemisphere.” To-day the great scheme of Confederation in British North America may be regarded as practically complete. It is true that two islands of the Atlantic (Prince Edward and Newfoundland) still stand aloof. But Confederation can get on without them much better than they can get on without it. . . . To-day British Columbia and Canada join hands and hearts across the Rocky Mountains, and John Bull the younger stands with one foot on the Atlantic and the other on the Pacific—with his back to the North Pole and his face looking southward—how far we will not now venture to predict. Let the larger political union which we celebrate to-day be symbolic of a union of parties, of purpose and of action. Let the people of this Pacific Province accustom themselves to think of the Dominion as a second edition of Great Britain, and let all learn to regard each other as a band of brothers upon whom has devolved the honor and the responsibility of laying the foundations of empire. There is a feeling in the minds of some that the day which celebrates the

nuptials of British Columbia and Canada at the same time celebrates the divorce of the former from the parent empire, and this feeling may tend to damp the enthusi- asm of such as are the subjects of it: and we readily con- fess that, did not ground for the idea exist, we would sympathise with the feeling it is calculated to beget. Not only is there no ground for the idea, but the reverse is actually true. Instead of the union we celebrate weak- ening those bonds which connect us with the parent empire, it will impart additional strength and vitality to them. It will release us from the red tape and seal- ing wax of Downing street, it is true—but then, it will draw us nearer to the throne. It will do more. It will draw together all the peoples of British North America into one common brotherhood and beget a national senti- ment, a sentiment more truly British than would be compatible with isolation and discontent. Let the union we celebrate be suggestive of a drawing together, a har- monizing and a nationalizing of all those sometime discordant elements which have culminated in local faction; and while joining hands with Canada in the grand and patriotic work of building up a second British Empire on this continent, let us join hands among our- selves in a friendly but firm resolve to begin our new pol- itical life a united and harmonious band for the purpose of making British Columbia—what Nature designed her to be—the Queen Province of the Dominion. With one common nationality, one common interest, one object should now actuate every heart and obliterate all those lines created by the factions of the past.

Source: From The British Colonist (Victoria), 20 July 1871

901491_06_Ch06.indd 235 12/18/15 3:53 PM

236 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Source: From The Patriot (Charlottetown), 3 July 1873.

Dominion Day in Charlottetown

Contemporary Views

On Tuesday, whether for weal or woe, Prince Edward

Island became a province of the Dominion of Canada.

At 12 o’clock noon, the Dominion flag was run up on

the flag staffs at Government House and the Colonial

Building, and a salute of 21 guns was fired from

St. George’s battery and from HMS. Spartan now in

port. The Church and City bells also rang out a lively

peal, and the Volunteers under review at the City Park,

fired a feu de joie. So far as powder and metal could

do it there was for a short time a terrible din. But

among the people who thronged the streets there

was no enthusiasm. A few moments before 12, Mr.

Sheriff Watson stepped forward on the balcony of the

Colonial Building and read the Union Proclamation.

He was accompanied by two ladies and about half a

dozen gentlemen. The audience below within hear-

ing consisted of three persons, and even they did not

appear to be very attentive. After the reading of the

Proclamation was concluded, the gentlemen on the

balcony gave a cheer, but the three persons below—

who like the Tooley street tailors who claimed to be

“the people of England,” at that moment represented

the people of Prince Edward Island,—responded never

a word. Most of the shops in the city were shut, and

a good deal of bunting was displayed. HMS Spartan,

and some of the merchant shipping in the harbor,

were gaily decked with flags. At night the Colonial

and new Post Office Buildings were illuminated, and

presented a fine appearance. A few sky rockets were

also fired off from the top of the latter building about

10 o’clock, with good effect. But the most beautiful

sight of the day was the illumination of the Spartan,

between 9 1/2 and 10 o’clock. With her ports all lit

up, and various kinds of lights in the rigging, she was

really an object worth looking at. . . .

We have already remarked that there did not

appear to be any enthusiasm among the people.

Probably no effort the Government could have put

forth would have made the celebration of Dominion

Day a grand success, but we beg leave to express the

opinion the arrangements were very lame indeed.

The public were not notified that the Sheriff was to

read the union Proclamation in front of the Building at

12 o’clock, consequently no person was there except

two or three people who happened to be passing by at

the time. Had one of the “able men” been called upon

to prepare an oration for the occasion, and due notice

thereof given there might have been a crowd on Queen

Square to listen to both it and the proclamation. . . .

The great majority of the people of the Island,

it is pretty evident, have accepted Confederation

as a necessity. They did not take up the question

con amore and when the day arrived that the union

was a fait accompli, they had not a cheer to give.

Many of our citizens look upon last night’s illumin-

ation as but the complement of the one which took

place when the Railway Bill was passed. We have a

shrewd suspicion that their view of the case is tol-

erably correct; but now since Confederation is a

fact—since the Island is now part and parcel of the

Dominion, the duty of our people is to make the

best of their position. We are now with the Sister

Provinces in regard to political institutions; let us

perform our part so that we may do more than

merely keep pace with them in the march of intelli-

gence and reform.

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2376 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

Continued...

. . . [A] general election was ordered; Confederation

being the burning question, everyone rampant on

one side or the other; of course the American ele-

ment being against the Union. At this time no dis-

tinct terms had been proposed, but if I recollect

rightly De Cosmos and the colored man Gibbs and

[John Norris] had been to the “Yale Convention”; a

Convention for the purpose of an organization for

Confederation purposes. The Convention was ridi-

culed and lambasted by opponents—the colored

man [Gibbs] having a good share. By the bye I had

been a means of getting the coloured man elected

to the House of Assembly and really he was in some

measure a superior man and very gentlemanly withal.

I think he claimed being a West Indian.

I came out against Confederation distinctly,

chiefly because I thought it premature—partly from

prejudice—and because no suitable terms could be

proposed. The tariff was a sticking point: although

we had at this time a tariff but could change it to suit

ourselves. Our income too would be diminished and

there at this time appeared no means of replenishing

it by the [British] North America Act. Our population

was too small numerically. Moreover it would only be

a confederacy on paper for no means of communi-

cation with the Eastern Provinces existed, without

which no advantage could possibly ensue. Canada

was looked down upon as a poor mean slow people,

who had been very commonly designated North

American chinamen. This character they had achieved

from their necessarily thrifty condition for long years,

and indeed they compared unfavourably with the

Americans and with our American element, for at

this time and previously very many liberal-handed

and better class of Americans resided here, many in

business—some on account of the Civil War neces-

sitating their remaining even after the frightful inter-

necine killing had ceased. Our trade was either with

the U.S. or England—with Canada we had nothing

to do. Of course my being an Anti-confederationist,

led to my being dubbed an Annexationist, but really

I had no idea of annexation, but merely wished the

Colony to be let alone under HM Govt and to fight her

way unhampered. I had nothing whatever to do with

annexation petitions, and do not know who signed

them—tho I have heard that some who now hold or

have held official positions have done so. This peti-

tion doubtless went to the President of the U.S. but

no one has ever been able to see a copy of it since,

altho it is said to exist in Victoria somewhere. There is

no doubt the Americans had a contempt for Canada

and this feeling extended to the colonists.

I suppose the election was one of the fiercest

ever fought in Victoria, everyone seemed crazy, I

among the number—these were the days of great

excitements. I had the British and American elements

and Jewish element on my side and after a time

the election came on. Numberless ladies wore my

colours, red, white and blue, in shape according to

their taste, the men likewise. Ladies were at the win-

dows waving their handkerchiefs, every hack in the

place was frightfully busy. The polling went actively

on, but there were no rows, or if there were, they

were insignificant. Various committees had districts

The Reminiscences of Dr John Sebastian Helmcken In 1892, Dr John Sebastian Helmcken (1824–1920) of British Columbia wrote in manuscript a lengthy collection of his memories. The manuscript ended up in the Provincial Archives of British Columbia in Victoria, and was edited for publication by Dorothy Blakey Smith, appearing in print in 1975. Here Helmcken discusses the election of 1868, fought over the issue of Confederation. His use of what we would regard as racist language was quite common in the nineteenth century.

Contemporary Views

Continued...

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238 A History of the Canadian Peoples

under control; they had to get the voters up and were

responsible therefore. The cry went round that both

sides had a number of voters locked up and were

feeding them with whisky, to get them into proper

trim; altho this accusation was not strictly true, still

voters came to the polling place, where the Courts

of Justice now stand, in files. Notwithstanding all this

there were no rows outside the polling places, the

matter was too serious for this. At length 4 o’clock

struck—the polls closed; everyone tired—thirsty,

hoarse and expectant. The Anti-confederates had

won handsomely. . . .

Source: Reprinted with permission of the Publisher from The Reminiscences of Doctor Sebastian Helmcken by Dorothy

two years and completed within 15 years. The promise was audacious, although Canada obviously needed a transcontinental railroad to match the lines rapidly being constructed across the United States. The terms were far better than expected, and on 20 July 1871 British Columbia entered Confederation as the sixth province. While in most respects the new province remained isolated until the completion of the rail link in 1885, Confederation encouraged the development of a new land policy for the province. The provincial govern- ment opened its Crown lands to massive pre-emption and free land grants; the largesse of British Columbia would far exceed that of the federal government.

Prince Edward Island’s acceptance of terms in 1873 was almost anticlimactic. The tiny province had tried to survive without much support from the British, who made clear their lack of enthusiasm for a Crown colony. The imperial refusal to pay the salary of the lieutenant-governor was seen as a “confederate screw unfairly put upon us.” Both the Americans and the Canadians actively wooed the island. In the end, it entered Confederation in the wake of a profligate policy of railway construction, which many saw as a scheme to force it into union. As well as offering to take over the debt and the railway, Canada agreed to guarantee continuous communication with the mainland and to help buy out the last of the old landed proprietors. Only one island MLA, the crusty farmer Cornelius Howatt, refused to vote for the Canadian offer.

Unlike Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland was not persuaded to join the union at all. In 1869 Newfoundland held an election fought on the issue of Confederation with Canada. The economy improved in

the period before the election, while the opponents of Confederation employed every argument in their rhet- orical arsenal. These included rumours that Canada would use Newfoundland children as wadding for their cannons. The 1869 election went decisively against the pro-confederates. The island’s Catholics opposed union. In one Catholic area, a pro-confederate candidate was greeted by priest and populace carrying pots of pitch and bags of feathers. The Protestant vote split equally. In the end the election returned nine confederates and 21 antis. The confederates blamed their defeat on the nasty cam- paign tactics of the opposition, but Newfoundland’s union with Canada was not a matter of high priority for anyone. Both the British and Canadian governments acquiesced in Newfoundland’s continued autonomy—despite spor- adic union discussions as in 1887 and 1895—until 1949.

While adding new territory, the Canadian gov- ernment also had to pacify Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. This was especially true of Nova Scotia, where pledged anti-confederates took both federal and provincial seats in the election that accompan- ied union. The British government refused to allow reconsideration of the initial decision to join Canada, chiefly on the grounds that such important political actions should not be taken at the whim of local elec- torates. The leading anti, Joseph Howe, eventually accepted that there was no alternative to accepting confederation. In February 1869 Howe ran as a pro- confederate in a federal election in Hants County, which was hotly contested. He won with a comfortable majority and headed off to Ottawa, joining the federal cabinet within weeks. In some ways this grudging acquiescence in a situation with which he did not

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2396 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

agree may have been the most important political act of his career.

By 1873 Canada as a nation stretched from east coast to west coast, but not from the American border to the Arctic. Early in 1874, however, the British government received inquiries about the ownership of the Arctic Islands in Cumberland Gulf. Uncertain about its claim to sovereignty, the Colonial Office decided to transfer the land of the Arctic Islands to Canada, providing Canada was “prepared to assume the responsibility of exercis- ing surveillance over it as may be necessary to prevent the occurrence of lawless acts or other abuses.” The Hudson’s Bay Company denied that it had ever claimed the territory, and so had not sold it to Canada in 1870. The government of Alexander Mackenzie told Britain in November of 1874 that it was “desirous” of assuming Arctic responsibility, but wanted more information. The

documents relating to the transfer were finally tabled in the Canadian House of Commons in 1878, and a joint address to the Queen from the Canadian Senate and House of Commons accepted the transfer, but asked for an imperial Act of Parliament with precise details about the boundaries. Still uncertain about title, the British were not anxious for imperial legislation, and Canada ultimately agreed to an Order-in-Council, which stated that as of 1 September 1880 all British territory in the North, except Newfoundland and its dependencies, was “annexed to and form part of the . . . Dominion of Canada.” The Canadian government was not told about the British reservations over title, and would not learn of them for another 40 years. On the other hand, during the years after 1880 Canada did not do much to exer- cise sovereignty over the vast region of the North it had apparently acquired.

Quebec

United States of America

GreenlandAlaska (USA)

Ontario

Manitoba 1870

British Columbia

1871

District of

Franklin

N o r t h - W e s t T e r r i t o r i e s N ew

foundland

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PEI 1873New

Brunswick

Montreal

Ottawa Toronto

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A t l a n t i c O c e a n

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P a c i f i c O c e a n

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Provinces of the Dominion of Canada

Territories Controlled by the Federal Government

British Territory

Disputed Area

Canada in 1873.

901491_06_Ch06.indd 239 12/18/15 3:53 PM

240 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The Development of National Policies As well as completing the creation of a transcontinental nation, the Macdonald government gradually impro- vised some national policies with which to govern the new Dominion. Confederation was encouraging to foreign investment. From its inception, Canada was able to import large amounts of capital to help create its infrastructure. Between 1865 and 1869 Canada raised $16.5 million in Great Britain, a figure that rose to $96.4 million in 1870–4, $74.7 million in 1875–9, and $69.8 million in 1880–4.

The government obtained some recognition of Canadian diplomatic autonomy by its acquiescence to the Treaty of Washington in 1871. Outstanding issues with the Americans included the Alabama claims. The Alabama was a Confederate raider built in Britain for the southern states. The Americans, half-seriously, demanded the ces- sion of British-American territory in compensation for the losses it inflicted on northern shipping. In 1871 the British government made Macdonald a member of an inter- national joint commission set up in 1870 to deal with the fisheries question. The British made clear they were will- ing to surrender Canadian interests in the fisheries to set- tle outstanding Anglo–American differences. Macdonald signed the resulting treaty. On the domestic front, the banking system of the new nation grew rapidly from 123 chartered bank branches in 1869 to 279 in 1879 and 426 by 1890. Two major pieces of national legislation were the Dominion Notes Act of 1870 and the Bank Act of 1871. The former allowed the government to issue circulating notes of small denominations, only partly backed by spe- cie. The latter exerted control over the banking system. The Bank Act specified capital requirements for banks, prohibited new foreign-owned banks, and supplied gen- eral regulation. Canada accepted the international gold standard, but the government would share the issuance of currency (and the control of the creation of money) with the banks until well into the twentieth century.

One of the major new developments of the Macdonald government was a new federal system of justice for the new nation commensurate with Confederation’s div- ision of the administration of justice between federal

and provincial governments. It began in 1868 with the establishment of a Department of Justice, creating the post of Minister of Justice to administer it as well as an Attorney General; the Minister of Justice was given the task of reviewing provincial legislation and the attorney general the supervision of the criminal law. Other reno- vations to the administration of justice followed. The creation of a national penitentiary system also began in 1868, with the enactment of a statute that envisioned a prison system where punishment and deterrence were meted out through discipline and rewards (Swainger, 2000). The Canadian government established the North- West Mounted Police in 1873 to act as its quasi-military agent in the West. It modelled the NWMP on the Irish constabulary. Its officers, drawn from the elites of eastern Canada, believed in a notion of public stability that asso- ciated crime and violence with the “lower orders” and the Aboriginal peoples. The Mounties kept ahead of settle- ment and have always been seen as the chief instruments of a more peaceful process of western expansion than occurred in the neighbouring United States. Certainly, in Canada there was less overt violence, but this was often owing to the early exertion of state power and control.

Much capital would be invested in railways. The opportunity for railway expansion was one of the prin- cipal arguments for Confederation. Railways were a prime target of foreign investors. The Macdonald gov- ernment was slow to move on a transcontinental line, chiefly because of the enormous expense involved in building so far ahead of population needs. To some extent, the offer to British Columbia cast the die. There followed an unseemly scuffling over a charter, awarded in 1873 by Parliament to the Canada Pacific Railway Company of Sir Hugh Allan (1810–82). Then the Pacific Scandal broke. Allan had provided the government with money for its 1872 election campaign. Macdonald was unable to steer totally clear of the corrupt dealings. In November 1873 the government resigned. Replacing it was a Liberal government headed by a Scottish-born former stonemason, Alexander Mackenzie (1822–92). He sought to build a transcontinental line more grad- ually, using public funds. He also encouraged private interests to hook up with American western lines. Trains began running from Minnesota to Winnipeg late in 1878.

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2416 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

Born in London, Upper Canada, to evangelical Angli- can parents from Northern Ireland, Edward Blake (1833–1912) attended Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto (BA, 1854), where he developed a reputation for fierce intellectuality and intensely hard work. These would combine with a moral rigidity to disable him frequently in later life. Becoming a lawyer specializing in equity, he became highly successful and wealthy at an early age; he was lecturing in equity at the University of Toronto before his thirtieth birthday. A conscience-driven Anglican, he was soon sought after as a politician, winning both provincial and federal seats in the first elections after Confederation. In 1869 he introduced into the Ontario legislature motions oppos- ing change to the British North America Act without

consultation with the provinces, an early statement of provincial rights.

In 1871 he became Premier of Ontario, but in 1872 was forced to decide between federal and provincial politics when dual representation was abolished. He chose the Dominion, and began a curious federal career of refusing to take on positions of responsibility that he desperately wanted, beginning with the leadership of the Reform Party in March 1873. His problem was continual nervous collapse, brought about by overwork and personal anxiety—contemporaries said he suffered from neurasthenia—exacerbated by aggravation at not being offered positions he thought he deserved because of concerns about his instability. Given his extreme ego, this was a recipe for trouble. During the 1870s he consorted with the Canada First movement and was a firm opponent of Louis Riel, but he would tempor- ize on Riel in 1885–6. In 1874 he made an unsuccess- ful attempt to replace Alexander Mackenzie as Prime Minister, following up with a notorious speech at Aurora, Ontario, which staked out his political creed, including expanded suffrage, imperial federation, and Senate reform. In 1875 he became Minister of Justice, subsequently declining the appointment as first Chief Justice of the newly created Supreme Court. He resigned his post in 1877 because of ill health, returning to pol- itics in 1880 as leader of the Liberal Party. As leader he dealt unsuccessfully with the discontent of Catholics and French Canadians, continually threatening resig- nation until finally stepping down in June 1887. Out of office, he became a firm opponent of the unrestricted reciprocity that captured many Liberals at this time. In 1892 he unexpectedly removed himself from Canadian politics by accepting a seat in the British Parliament as an Irish Nationalist, serving until 1907. Blake’s weak- nesses were many, and could not be overcome by sheer intelligence and hard work.

Edward Blake. LAC, D #20738, Ewing, C-30444.

(Dominick) Edward Blake

Biography

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242 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Mackenzie’s government was also largely respon- sible for the initial funding of western railway construc- tion. It gave the railway companies large land grants along the right of way. Although Canada developed a seemingly generous homestead policy by which pioneers could receive free land grants in return for developing the land, the generosity was deceptive. Almost no homestead land was available within easy access to the rail lines. Most early settlers ended up purchasing their land, either from the railways or from the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Mackenzie’s government had a number of posi- tive achievements to its credit. It resolved the Louis Riel question in 1875 by granting the Métis leader an amnesty, conditional on his residence in exile for five years. It established the Supreme Court of Canada that same year, and subsequently created the office of the Auditor General. But the real importance of the Mackenzie government was its demonstration that the nation could be governed without serious upheaval by another political party with different policies from the one led by Sir John A. Macdonald. Mackenzie was a man without charisma, however, and many critics thought he spent too much energy micromanaging the budget.

The probity of his government did not save Alexander Mackenzie in 1878. Sir John A. Macdonald returned to power. Recognizing the temper of the times, Macdonald worked hard to restore in the public mind a sense of identification between his party and the pro- cess of nation-building. Decisiveness and flamboyance were part of the image. Even before the election was called, Macdonald had his platform. He introduced into the House of Commons a resolution “That this House is of the opinion that the welfare of Canada requires the adoption of a National Policy, which, by a judicious readjustment of the Tariff, will benefit and foster the agricultural, the mining, the manufacturing, and other interests of this Dominion” (quoted in Easterbrook and Watkins, 1962: 238). The Tory leader invented neither the policy nor the term used to describe it. Both went well back into the history of the Province of Canada, which had begun using a tariff as an instrument of both protection and revenue in the late 1840s. Nor did John A. Macdonald ever articulate the version of the National Policy as it was later lovingly described by economic historians and textbook writers. But he certainly rec-

ognized some relationship involving tariffs, manufac- turing, employment, and national prosperity. He also wanted a transcontinental railway and the accompany- ing western settlement necessary to make it a reality. All these features had been and remained a traditional part of Canadian economic expansionism.

What Macdonald achieved was masterful in its own way. He succeeded in persuading a large number of Canadians in all provinces that policies strongly driven by the economic self-interest of some of the people in some of its constituent parts were in the best interest of the nation as a whole. He then persuaded the electorate that his party was the one that had successfully built the nation and would continue to do so. The fact that the opposition party took the lead in developing a dif- ferent and less overt version of nation-building helped in this identification.

The responsibility for immigration policy had been divided between the Dominion and the provinces by the British North America Act. Both the Macdonald governments and the Mackenzie government sought to develop federal supremacy over immigration policy, in large measure to make possible the rapid settlement of the West. The Dominion also began to set rules indi- cating which immigrants would be acceptable. The fed- eral Parliament passed its first immigration legislation in 1869 and, in 1872, prohibited the entry of criminals and other “vicious classes.” That same year Parliament passed the Dominion Lands Act, which created home- steading privileges on western lands. The Dominion then began extensive advertising in Europe for new settlers. While the Canadian government discouraged the Métis from settling in concentrated blocks of land, in the mid-1870s it negotiated with several European groups, including the Mennonites and the Icelanders, for group settlement in Manitoba.

The first successful arrangements for block settle- ment were conducted by the Canadian government with Russian Mennonites beginning in 1872 and 1873. These Mennonites were European Quakers commit- ted to pacifism who had originated in Prussia and Poland in the sixteenth century. They were driven out of their homes by threats of military conscription in Frederick the Great’s Prussia, finding an asylum in Russia, where Catherine II offered them generous

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2436 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

conditions of resettlement, including land, freedom of religion, their own schools, and permanent exemption from military service. By 1870s the Mennonites were again threatened, this time by a rising Russian nation- alism that resented a people set apart. The Canadian government offered inducements similar to the earlier Russian ones: exemption from military service, reli- gious liberty, control of education, free homesteads of 160 acres, and the right to purchase additional land at one dollar per acre. Canada set aside two blocks of townships for the Mennonites in southern Manitoba. One block of eight townships was on the east side of the Red River southwest of Winnipeg, and another block of twelve townships (“The West Reserve”) was located along the international boundary west of the Red River. The blocks of reserves signalled to the Mennonites that they could live in their own com- munities (and hold land in common) apart from their neighbours; about 8,000 Mennonites settled in 1874 in southern Manitoba.

In 1879, a federal Order-in-Council prohibited the entrance of paupers and destitute immigrants. Not long afterwards, the government began to admit large numbers of Chinese immigrants (over 15,000), approximately half of them as labourers on the trans- continental railroad. In 1882, a public response to Russian pogroms led to the admission of a contin- gent of 247 Jews leaving London for Manitoba and the North-West to establish a “New Jerusalem” in what would become Saskatchewan. They did not receive land until 1884, by which time their numbers had been greatly reduced, and the settlement soon failed. By the early 1880s demands for further restrictions on the number of immigrants surfaced in Canada, particu- larly of those outside previous Canadian experience regarded as “unassimilable.” Sir John A. Macdonald told the House of Commons in 1883 that “It will be all very well to exclude Chinese labour, when we can replace it with white labour, but until that is done, it is better to have Chinese labour than no labour at all” (quoted in Magocsi, 1999: 359). As soon as the rail- road was completed, Macdonald gave in to pressures from British Columbia and elsewhere to deal with the Chinese, who were blamed for a variety of social and economic evils. A Royal Commission on Chinese

immigration in 1885 recommended restrictions on the number of Chinese workers, and Macdonald instituted a head tax of $50 on every Chinese person entering the country. His legislation also restricted the number of Chinese people who could be carried on individual vessels entering Canadian ports. (On 22 June 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized to the Chinese community for this policy, which con- tinued until 1923.) The federal legislation was added to numerous provincial statutes (especially in British Columbia) to limit the rights of the Chinese in Canada.

The Quest for Regional and National Identity The British North America Act had no guarantees that political unification would necessarily create a nation. After 1867 Canadians made various attempts to locate themselves in their world. Some of these attempts were political and constitutional. Others were cultural, with intellectuals and artists playing their part by providing rhetorical flourishes as well as creating national institu- tions in which the arts could operate.

The development of nationhood in the years after 1867 did not mean that all Canadians shared in the same vision (or version) of the meaning of the nation. One of the major questions was whether Canada was an indissoluble new creation or the product of a compact among the provinces that they could modify or even leave. Since the time of the debate over Confederation in the 1860s, people had disagreed over the nature of the union. While most Canadians in 1867 saw the British North America Act as creating a strong cen- tral government, provincial legislatures still existed. They would quickly assert more than the merely local power accorded them by the Quebec resolutions. One of the arch-critics of Confederation, Christopher Dunkin (1812–81), had prophesied in 1865 that “In the times to come, when men shall begin to feel strongly on those questions that appeal to national preferences, prejudi- ces and passions, all talk of your new nationality will

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244 A History of the Canadian Peoples

People from Iceland had been coming to Canada from

the early 1870s, prompted by both volcanic eruptions

and grassland shortages in their homeland and a gen-

eral population excess pressing on available resources.

The first arrivals had come to Ontario and Quebec, but

were attracted west by promises from the Canadian

government of an autonomous settlement in the

west. The land they chose was on the west side of

Lake Winnipeg, about 15 miles wide and 40 miles long

stretching from present-day Selkirk to Hecla Island and

including the modern community of Gimli. This territory

was beyond the then northern boundary of the prov-

ince of Manitoba, and the newcomers were allowed

autonomous settlement, “the Republic of New Iceland,”

with its own laws and judicial system. The Canadian

government accepted a provisional council (“Thing”) set

up by the Icelanders, and allowed them to produce a

fully articulated system of self-government. This entity

became part of Manitoba when the boundaries of the

province were expanded in 1881, but self-govern-

ment remained until 1887. Although the territory the

Icelanders chose was good for fishing on Lake Winnipeg,

it contained some of the poorest agricultural land in the

region. The Icelanders were struck by epidemic disease

and spring flooding, and in the later 1870s a religious

dispute emerged as well. Many moved to the United

States or to Winnipeg. Most who remained made a living

by fishing. Icelanders were generally well-educated and

committed to preservation of their language. Schools

and newspapers were established in New Iceland within

months of settlement, and the community over the next

half-century would produce a number of poets, journal-

ists, and writers who employed the Icelandic language

before the area was absorbed gradually into Manitoba.

BACkGROUNDER The Republic of New Iceland

Many Icelanders who settled in Manitoba hoped to make a living through agriculture, but due to flooding and disease, as well as settlement on marginal land for farming, most were unsuccessful. Archives of Manitoba, New Iceland 312 (N11314).

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2456 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

sound but strangely. Some older nationality will then be found to hold the first place in most people’s hearts” (quoted in Waite, 1963: 511). Even Sir John A. Macdonald had admitted in Parliament in 1868 that “a conflict may, ere long, arise between the Dominion and the States Rights people” (quoted in Cook, 1969a: 10).

Ontario initially spearheaded the provincial-rights interpretation of the new union. The seeds of this interpretation were inherent in the constitutional arrangements, and the movement could have begun anywhere. As early as 1869 Ontario became distressed at “the assumption by the Parliament of Canada of the power to disturb the financial relations established by the British North America Act (1867), as between Canada and the several provinces” (quoted in Cook, 1969a: 11). Not surprisingly, the old Reform Party of Canada West, in the persons of George Brown, Edward Blake (1833–1912), and Oliver Mowat (1820–1903), took the lead. They demanded—in Blake’s phrase of 1871—“that each government [Dominion and provin- cial] shall be absolutely independent of the other in its management of its own affairs” (quoted in Cook, 1969a: 13). The Rouges of Quebec soon joined in the same call, adding the identification of French-Canadian “national” rights to Ontario’s “provincial” ones. Before long, Liberals in most provinces—many of whom had either opposed Confederation or been lukewarm about it—had embraced provincial rights.

Provincial rights often seemed interchangeable with Ottawa-bashing for local political advantage, lacking in any other principle than the desire to pres- sure Ottawa into fiscal concessions. In its early years, Quebec did not dominate the movement. There was little insistence that Confederation was a cultural deal between two distinct societies. In 1884, for example, the Honourable Honoré Mercier (1840–94) tabled reso- lutions in the Quebec legislature stating merely that “the frequent encroachments of the Federal Parliament upon the prerogatives of the Provinces are a permanent menace to the latter” (quoted in Cook, 1969a: 31). The ensuing debate involved no more cultural nationalism than one backbencher’s assertion that “le Québec n’est pas une province comme les autres” (quoted in Cook, 1969a: 33). Although the Riel affair of 1885 (discussed

later in this chapter) pushed Quebec towards the brink of arguments of cultural distinctiveness, when Mercier (by this time Premier of Quebec) invited the provinces to the Interprovincial Conference in 1887 to re-examine the federal compact, broad agreement could be reached on demands for better terms and constitutional change by the five provinces attending without the need for such concepts.

Provincial rights involved on one level a political- constitutional struggle over revenue and power. On another level they were a reflection of the continued iden- tification of the people of Canada with their province of residence as much as, if not more than, with their nation. The educational structure of Canada certainly encour- aged this identification. In all provinces education passed from private to public financial support at the same time that schooling became increasingly universal. However, section 92 of the British North America Act left educa- tion completely in the hands of the provinces. It is almost impossible to talk about any integrated national move- ments. Indeed, education would become one of the most divisive issues in the new nation. A major question was whether provinces would have a single public school sys- tem for all students or would support separate religious (and linguistic) education as well. Educational divers- ity was still the norm after Confederation. There were, at best, provincial educational systems and norms, not national ones.

Although a sense of nationalism was beginning to develop, it did not pose a serious challenge to provincial loyalties. The movement calling itself Canada First, for example, did not have a program that was particularly attractive outside Protestant circles in Ontario. Canada First was an exclusive secret society rather than a broad-based organization. It did not help that its vision of Canada was really that of Canada West writ larger. While Canada First’s notions were compatible, to some extent, with the westward thrust of Canada West, they were, fortunately, not totally typical of the conscious development of Canadian nationalism. The French- Canadian poet Octave Crémazie (1827–79), for example, lamented ironically that Canada’s major literary lan- guages were entirely of European origin. He continued: “if we spoke Huron or Iroquois, the works of our writ-

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246 A History of the Canadian Peoples

ers would attract the attention of the old world. . . . One would be overwhelmed by a novel or a poem translated from the Iroquois, while one does not take the trouble to read a book written in French by a native of Quebec or Montreal” (quoted in Rasporich, 1969: 225). The search for an essential “Canadian-ness” went on in many cor- ners of the new Dominion. It was nowhere so success- ful as in the somewhat remote New Brunswick town of Fredericton, home of the University of New Brunswick. There the rectory of St Anne’s Parish (Anglican) pro- duced Charles G.D. Roberts (1860–1943), while not far down the road lived his cousin Bliss Carman (1861–1929). Along with Ottawa’s Archibald Lampman (1861–99) and Duncan Campbell Scott (1862–1947), these men comprised the first school of Canadian poets, designated “Confederation Poets” by modern literary critics. Roberts, Lampman, Carman, and Scott brought Canadian themes into their writing, notably the local or regional landscape, with some degree of skill and sensitivity. As Crémazie had suggested, however, the European origins of their literary influences limited their efforts.

While many intellectuals and artists sought ways to articulate Canadian-ness in their work, others took a more prosaic route towards the realization of a Canadian national identity. Curiously enough, it was the paint- ers, not normally known for their political acuity, who took the lead in organizing national groups to main- tain professional standards and publicize Canadian achievement. The Ontario Society of Artists, formed in 1872 and incorporated in 1877, was at the forefront of this effort. The OSA was instrumental in the formation of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1880—in collaboration with the Governor General, Lord Lorne (1845–1914)—and in the establishment that same year of the National Gallery of Canada. One of the founders of this organization wrote, “We are bound to try to civil- ize the Dominion a little” (quoted in Williamson, 1970: 64). The year 1880 was doubly important in art circles, for in that year the Canadian Society of Graphic Art was also founded.

The first president of the Royal Canadian Academy, the painter Lucius O’Brien (1832–99), was art director of an elaborate literary and artistic celebration of the young nation. Picturesque Canada (1882) was based on

the highly successful books Picturesque America and Picturesque Europe. It was the idea of two Americans, the Belden brothers, who had established themselves in Toronto. The editor of the project—George Monro Grant (1835–1902), principal of Queen’s University— stated in the preface: “I believed that a work that would represent its characteristic scenery and history and life of its people would not only make us better known to ourselves and to strangers, but would also stimu- late national sentiment and contribute to the rightful development of the nation.” The two large volumes of Picturesque Canada—which can sometimes be found in second-hand bookshops—contain 540 illustrations. They included wood engravings based on paintings and, for the West, photo engravings of photographs that offered serene vistas fulfilling the promise of the title. The descriptive texts by Grant, Charles G.D. Roberts, and others presented an idealized, complacent view of the cities, towns, and regions of Canada, praising the present and pointing to a glorious future.

The Royal Society of Canada was founded in 1882 to promote research and learning in the arts and sciences. Lord Lorne again provided much of the impetus, replicating a British institution to establish the importance of cultural accomplishments in creating a sense of national pride and self-confidence. The first president, J.W. Dawson (1820–99), principal of McGill University (another Nova Scotian transported to cen- tral Canada), emphasized in his presidential address a sense of national purpose. Dawson stressed especially “the establishment of a bond of union between the scat- tered workers now widely separated in different parts of the Dominion” (quoted in Royal Society of Canada, 1932: 91–2). Thomas Sterry Hunt (1826–92), a charter member and later president, observed that “The occa- sion which brings us together is one which should mark a new departure in the intellectual history of Canada” (Royal Society of Canada, 1932: 91–2). He added that “the brightest glories and the most enduring honours of a country are those which come from its thinkers and its scholars” (Royal Society of Canada, 1932: 91–2). However romantic that praise might sound, what mat- tered was Hunt’s emphasis on the country as a whole. Like the Royal Canadian Academy, the Royal Society had its headquarters in Ottawa.

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2476 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

Religion and the Churches The mid-Victorian period was a crucial era for Roman Catholicism in Canada. Within French Canada the per- iod witnessed the emergence of the Church as the lead- ing voice of French Canada’s national aspirations and the assumption of local leadership by the curé. It also saw the Church take on the ultramontane character that would remain with it for many years. In Quebec, the man who symbolized the ultramontane Church in the mid-Victorian period was Bishop Ignace Bourget (1799–1885). Bourget was consecrated coadjutor to the Bishop of Montreal in early 1837, on the very eve of rebellion, and succeeded to the see in 1840. He died in June 1885, on the eve of the second Riel uprising, although he had retired a few years earlier. Bourget was always an active defender of both the papacy and the position of the Church in Canada. He introduced the Roman liturgy and fervently opposed the principles of the European revolutions of 1848. Gradually, he became the leading opponent of liberal thinking in the prov- ince, particularly as it was represented by the Institut Canadien in Montreal. Bourget carried on a lengthy bat- tle against the Institut and especially its library, which contained many prohibited books. Equally important was his expansion of the ecclesiastical administrations of his diocese, so that nearly every parish had a priest and nearly half the priests had an assistant. The clergy were now able to mobilize public opinion, and they did in 1868 when they helped raise 507 Zouaves in Quebec (and over $100,000 to support them) to serve in the papal army. Quebec bishops strongly supported the doctrine of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council in 1870.

English-speaking Catholicism had succeeded by 1840 in separating itself from francophone control. At about the same time, the hierarchy had also re-established its control over the laity, which had previously assumed con- siderable autonomy in the absence of local bishops and clergy. Anglophone bishops from the Maritime region were among those who attempted unsuccessfully to prevent the issue of papal infallibility from being decided at the Vatican Council. Contemporaries often overlooked the importance of Anglophone Catholicism in the nineteenth century.

Only in Canada West/Ontario were Protestants in such a clear numerical ascendency and position of power that the regional culture assumed obvious Protestant dimensions. This Ontario culture, especially as it expanded westward onto the prairies, began to be confused with Canadian cul- ture in some circles.

By 1840 Protestantism everywhere in British North America had largely cut itself free from its foreign origins in either Great Britain or the United States. The major development of the mid-Victorian period, notably in an Ontario where Protestantism emerged as a distinct and all-embracing culture, was the construction of a broad alliance among the major denominations: Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist. The gradual elimination of the major points of public friction between the estab- lished churches and the dissenters made this possible. The result was a Victorian Protestant culture in Ontario that emphasized the relationship between social stabil- ity and Protestant morality. A firm belief in God and his millennium formed the basis for the latter. Gradual social change was progressive, offering a way of under- standing the events and changes that swirled around the individual in the Victorian era. The moral code was strict, but chiefly voluntary and individualistic.

The churches, especially the Protestant ones, were also a key to the growth of a vast network of clubs, soci- eties, and charities. By the mid-nineteenth century women members were implicitly challenging the male governance of the churches. Evangelically oriented churches frequently employed their ladies auxiliary groups to sponsor missionary activity. By 1885 there were 120 Baptist Women’s Missionary Aid Societies scattered across the Maritimes. Women generally used their own money to support their religious organizations, which kept separate accounts and offered many women their first opportunity at independent administration.

Cultural Life The creation of the nation did not directly affect all aspects of cultural life. Indeed, most culture in Canada existed quite apart from political considerations. Despite their new self-consciousness about the need for cultural achievements to match their political accomplishments,

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248 A History of the Canadian Peoples

most Canadians probably did not appreciate how much progress was being made in many cultural spheres. Only a brief sampling of cultural activity in Victorian Canada—focusing on painting, theatre, music, organ- ized sports, and literature—can be included here.

Painting was the most vibrant and productive of the arts in the era immediately after Confederation, with many artists producing large numbers of canvases, some of them key works in the history of Canadian painting. The beginning of the period coincided roughly with the end of a tradition of landscape painting that had become dominant partly in response to the developing quest for national identity and the topographical beauties of the new country that were still being discovered. Lucius O’Brien (1832–99) and John A. Fraser (1838–98) were two of numerous painters who travelled west in 1880 at the invitation of the Canadian Pacific Railway to paint the Rockies. O’Brien’s most famous painting, however, is Sunrise on the Saguenay (1880). It is a remarkable depic- tion of the sublime in nature, while in its poetic, moody treatment of the romantic scene it is also an outstand- ing Canadian example of a style, popular in the United States, that came to be called “luminism.” This paint- ing was hung in the inaugural exhibition of the Royal Academy, of which O’Brien was the first president, and deposited in the new National Gallery of Canada.

Homer Watson (1855–1936) and his friend Horatio Walker (1858–1936) both came to concentrate on Canadian landscapes that romanticized rural scenes. Oscar Wilde, after seeing Watson’s work in Toronto, called him “the Canadian Constable.” In fairness to Watson, he was no imitator, since at the time he had never heard of Constable. Walker, who was born in Listowel, Canada West, wintered in New York and summered on the Île d’Orléans just north of Quebec in the St Lawrence. He specialized, with great commercial success, in strik- ing, sentimentalized interpretations of Quebec farm life in the style of the French painter Jean-François Millet. Walker himself described his preoccupations:

The pastoral life of the people of our country- side, the noble work of the Habitant, the mag- nificent panoramas which surround him, the different aspects of our seasons, the calm of our mornings and the serenity of our even-

ings, the movement of ebb and flow of our tides which I have observed on the shores of my island which is truly the sacred temple of the muses and a gift of the gods to men: such are the preferred subjects of my paintings. I have passed the greatest part of my life in trying to paint the poetry, the easy joys, the hard daily work of rural life, the sylvan beauty in which is spent the peaceable life of the habitant, the ges- ture of the wood cutter and the ploughman, the bright colours of sunrise and sunset, the song of the cock, the daily tasks of the farmyard, all the activity which goes on from morning to evening, in the neighbourhood of the barn. (Quoted in Harper, 1966: 204)

By 1880 young Canadian painters sought to study in the academies of Paris, the centre of the art world of the time. There they learned to paint large, richly detailed, subtly coloured, naturalistic canvases fea- turing the human figure and sentimental subtexts. Robert Harris’s studies of everyday life were exem- plars of this approach. They included: The Chorister (1880), showing a young man singing in a church choir; Harmony (1886), a portrait of a young woman (his wife) playing the harmonium, a popular musical instrument in rural Canada; and A Meeting of the School Trustees (1885), in which a young Prince Edward Island teacher, identified as Kate Henderson, doubtless with “new- fangled ideas,” faces the suspicious gazes of four male trustees.

Perhaps the most important development in Canadian theatre in this period was the extension of railroad con- struction, which would make possible extensive touring across the nation by theatrical and vaudeville companies. By the 1880s, most Canadian cities could look forward to visits by professional performers, which undoubtedly raised the standard of presentation and provided models worthy of emulation. At the same time, the arrival of pro- fessionals and the raising of standards could be damag- ing to local amateurs, who had previously dominated the theatrical scene and occasionally even produced home- grown plays and musicals.

Although only a few trained musicians existed in British North America, the mid-Victorian era saw the

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2496 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

development of a widespread musical life. Garrison bands and choral groups were the chief components. In British Columbia the band of the Royal Engineers brought new standards of musical performance when it arrived in the colony in 1859. From that year until 1863 (when it was reposted to Britain) it entertained as militia band, fire-brigade band, brass band, and even a dance band. In British Columbia, as elsewhere, brass bands were the most common and popular instrumental ensembles throughout the nineteenth century. Few band musicians were professional or professionally trained. A number of brass bands were organized in the province in Aboriginal communities and residential schools. At least 33 sprang to life between 1864 (when the Oblates

founded the St Mary’s Mission Band near Mission City) and the end of the century. In Red River, a brass band from St Boniface played as the Métis provisional gov- ernment raised its new flag in December 1869.

By the time of Confederation, larger cities were producing substantial numbers of musical societies, chiefly choral in their orientation. In 1864, for example, the Mendelssohn Choir and the Société Musicale des Montagnards Canadiens, as well as Les Orphéonistes de Montréal, joined the Montreal Oratorio Society. Montreal also helped produce the first well-known Canadian composer, Calixa Lavallée (1842–91), best known today for the music to “O Canada.” He made his debut at the piano in Montreal at age 13, spending much

Luminism was a North American style that focused on detail and emphasized the striking vistas of the continent. The vastness of the natural landscape compared to the human element of the boats, especially when compared to the growing industrial cities of Europe, made Canada seem wild and vast. “Sunrise on the Saguenay,” oil on canvas, 1880, by Lucius O’Brien. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo © National Gallery of Canada, 113.

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250 A History of the Canadian Peoples

time in the United States until he went to Paris in 1873. Returning to settle in Quebec, Lavallée wrote a grand cantata for the reception of Governor General Lord Lorne and his wife. It concluded with a stirring contrapuntal arrangement of “God Save the Queen” and “Comin’ thro’ the Rye.” Unable to make a living in Canada, the com- poser spent the last years of his life in exile in the United States. Although Canada was not often generous to its professional musicians, it embraced amateur musical performance with gusto. Most music-making occurred in the home, with people gathering around the piano to sing hymns and popular songs of the day.

The mid-Victorian period in Canada saw a continued development of organized sports and games. Most were imported, although some (like lacrosse) had local ori- gins. Lacrosse had begun as an Aboriginal game called baggataway or tewaarathon, and was played by many tribes under various rules. In 1833 the First Nations near Montreal played lacrosse, and in 1856 the Montreal Lacrosse Club was organized, to be joined by two others before 1860. A Montreal dentist, William George Beers (1843–1900), codified the game in Montreal and pro- moted it across the country. Lacrosse flourished between 1868 and 1885, achieving great success as a spectator

“A Meeting of the School Trustees,” oil on canvas, 1885, by Robert Harris. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Here the artist captures the dynamic of many a school district in Canada in this period. Purchased 1886, #6. Photo © National Gallery of Canada, 6 R.

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2516 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

sport until it was overtaken by baseball and hockey. Snowshoeing, which became very popular as an organ- ized winter activity in the 1860s (often among the sum- mer lacrosse crowd), was another obviously Aboriginal development. The Montreal Snow Shoe Club was organ- ized in 1843, and in Winnipeg a snowshoe club, begun in 1878, was the major winter diversion for members of the city’s elite by the early 1880s.

The formulation of rules for these and other sports occurred in most cases between 1840 and 1880, which was the great era of codification of sports. Precise dates are very contentious, with many communities advan- cing their own claims for “firsts.” Certainly by 1880 most sports and games familiar to us today had reached a stage of rule development that would have made them comprehensible to a modern Canadian. What is import- ant about the development of sports is not simply the introduction of standardized rules, techniques, and equipment, but the sheer scope and ubiquity of sporting activity on the part of both participants and spectators. While many Canadians participated, many more gath- ered to watch sporting activity. The development of any of the major games followed roughly the same path of regularization, which made it possible for teams from one place to play teams from another.

By 1885 two aspects of sports in Canada had evolved: participation and spectacle. Sports still had not achieved an overt political meaning. There was not yet the creation of either national leagues or national teams to play in international competitions. Expansion, sophistication, and growing organization matched the development of the nation. The mobility of the population moved vari- ous sports and games around the country and made the standardization of rules both possible and necessary. The development of official rules and growing hierarch- ies of teams and players pointed to the future.

The Struggle for the West Sincere efforts were made in the new Dominion to encourage a sense of nationhood transcending the lin- guistic barriers between French and English and the

geographical barriers of the provinces and the regions. Nevertheless, the new Canadian nationality remained fragile, more than a bit artificial, and very racist. In addition, at least outside French Canada, it tended to express the prejudices and values of British Ontario. The crucible for the new Canada, many believed, was in the vast expanse of territory west of the Great Lakes. Here its limitations were most clearly evident.

The interests of the Canadian government in the North-West Territories, especially under Sir John A. Macdonald, were focused on agricultural settle- ment. This would provide both an outlet for excess eastern population and the means of encouraging the development of a truly transcontinental nation. The process of settlement and government policy pushed the Aboriginal inhabitants of the region out of the way as quickly as possible. The federal government con- tinued the pre-Confederation policy of the Canadas by establishing an Indian Department and insisting on the rule of law in its westward expansion and in its dealings with the Native peoples. Foremost in the rule-of-law approach were the creation of the North- West Mounted Police and the working out of treaties with the First Nations that extinguished Aboriginal claims to the land as first inhabitants in exchange for reserves on the most marginal and least attractive land. Eleven “numbered” treaties were negotiated between 1871 and 1930, the first five of which were land ces- sion agreements covering most of the Canadian West, except for British Columbia. As well as reserves, the Aboriginals received cash money, allowances for blan- kets and tools, seed and livestock, and the right to hunt on land not otherwise used by Canadians. The govern- ment’s hope was to convert the First Peoples into set- tled farmers, and its rhetoric featured an insistence on its humanitarianism and paternalism, under which a good deal of racism and prejudice flourished. As one Indian Commissioner wrote in 1887, the government was engaged in “the slow and tedious work of uplifting a savage race and eradicating the nomadic and other inherent tendencies which centuries of a wild and barbarous life have firmly planted” (quoted in Titley, 2009: 207). While the Aboriginal people might eventu- ally aspire (with Canadian government assistance) to full citizenship by assuming all the characteristics of

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252 A History of the Canadian Peoples

the European colonizers, in the meantime they would be denied full citizenship and given a special inferior status experienced by no other Canadians.

Administration of the treaties and of Dominion “Indian policy” in the West left a good deal to be desired. The Aboriginal peoples were obviously caught in an inexorable process that was going to change forever their traditional way of life. The buffalo were rapidly dis- appearing, the victims of overhunting and of the arrival of settlement and new technology. Most Aboriginal leaders saw the handwriting on the wall clearly enough. They did not get anywhere near enough help from the Department of Indian Affairs, however. The government expected the Aboriginals to be able to become self-suffi- cient virtually overnight. It did not supply the reserves with enough food to prevent starvation and disease, and it complained when the Natives slaughtered their live- stock for something to eat. The reserve land tended to be marginal, the assistance supplied was inadequate—

often for financial reasons—and the attitude of many of the government’s Indian agents was unsympathetic. By the early 1880s, the North-West was a virtual pow- der keg of Aboriginal discontent. Cree leaders in what is now Alberta sent a letter to John A. Macdonald (who was Minister of the Interior and head of Indian Affairs as well as Prime Minister) complaining of destitution and noting that the motto of their people was: “If we must die by violence let us do it quickly.” The winter of 1883–4 was particularly harsh and severe, and many were starving. Some Indian agents wrote to Ottawa, but noth- ing was done. In June 1884, Big Bear and his followers, with many others, travelled to Poundmaker’s reserve to hold a big meeting. They discussed the serious state of affairs, after which some 2,000 Aboriginals held a Thirst Dance, a religious ritual.

Like the First Nations, settlement drove the Métis to the margins. By 1885 Ontario-born settlers outnumbered the Métis five to one in Manitoba, and only 7 per cent of

Caughnawaga (Kahnawake) Mohawks, lacrosse champions of Canada, 1869; photo by James Inglis. This photograph makes clear that Aboriginals were skilled and successful lacrosse players. James Inglis, LAC, C-001959.

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2536 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

the population of the province was of mixed-blood origin. Many Métis drifted farther west, to the Saskatchewan Valley, where they formed small mission settlements including Qu’Appelle, Batoche, and Duck Lake. The buf- falo were becoming scarce everywhere. Government sur- veyors caused uncertainty and fear, as they had in Red River a decade earlier. Over the harsh winter of 1883–4, many Métis and Aboriginals starved. The Métis turned in despair to Louis Riel. He had apparently put his life back together after years of exile in the United States and hos- pitalization for mental disturbance in 1876–8 at Longue Pointe, Quebec. He became an American citizen and was teaching in St Peter’s, Montana (where he had married), when a delegation from the Saskatchewan country vis- ited him on 4 June 1884. They told him of the grievances that were burdening the peoples of the region, explained that agitation was developing against the Canadian gov-

ernment, and pleaded with him to return to Canada to lead them. Why Riel agreed to do so is one of the many mysteries surrounding his life. However, within a month he and his family were in Batoche. By December 1884, Riel and W.H. Jackson (secretary of the Settlers’ Union) had finished drafting a long petition (with 25 sections), which they sent to Ottawa. It concluded by request- ing that the petitioners “be allowed as in [1870] to send Delegates to Ottawa with their Bill of rights; whereby an understanding may be arrived at as to their entry into confederation, with the constitution of a free province.” Ottawa acknowledged the petition, but gave no other response.

In March 1885 events took a menacing turn. Riel’s military leader, Gabriel Dumont (1836–1906), inter- cepted a small NWMP detachment near Duck Lake. The engagement turned into a full-fledged battle in which

Nahani

Slave

Chipewyan Chipewyan

Beaver

Cree

Assiniboine

Cree

OjibwaOjibwa Ojibwa

Sekani

Sarcee Blackfoot

Blood Stoney Piegan

11 1921

1 1871

2 1871

3 1873

4 1874

5a 1875

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8 1899

9 1905

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The numbered treaties, 1871–1921. Adapted from J.R. Miller, Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of Indian–White Relations in Canada, rev. edn (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 166.

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254 A History of the Canadian Peoples

fatalities occurred on both sides. Riel called upon the First Nations to assist him, and there were incidents of Aboriginal violence connected less to Riel’s resistance than to younger warriors’ discontent with conditions. Poundmaker’s people broke into buildings in Battleford, terrifying settlers. The Cree warrior, Wandering Spirit (Kapapamahchakwew, c. 1845–85), one of Big Bear’s war chiefs, led a band that attacked Frog Lake, killing nine. Prime Minister Macdonald determined to crush this rebellion quickly, sending an armed force under Major General Frederick Dobson Middleton (1825–98) by way of the new Canadian Pacific Railway. The Canadian force of 800 men arrived at Batoche on 9 May. They quickly defeated Riel and about 200 Métis. The upris- ing was over by 12 May. Dumont and others fled to the United States. The government arrested Riel. In order to achieve this result, the Canadian government had mustered “5,546 soldiers in three columns, 586 horses, 2 Gatling Guns, 6,000 Snider Enfield, 50 calibre rifles, 2 field hospitals, 70,000 Gatling Gun rounds, 1,500,000 rifle cartridges and 2,000 cannon shells,” at a cost of $4,451,584.38 (Barnholden, 2009: 13).

A formal charge of high treason, carrying the death penalty, was laid against Riel on 6 July. (Despite the fact that Riel was an American citizen, the Canadian gov- ernment held with the British government that he was also a British subject, since British citizenship acquired through birth could never be renounced.) Even if Riel was a foreign national, however, he could still be tried for treason. The government chose to focus responsibil- ity for the rebellion on Riel, which would allow leniency towards most of his followers. The trial began on 28 July in Regina, where feelings ran high. It was a political trial, infamously coloured in many ways by Macdonald’s determination to have Riel found guilty and executed.

Riel passionately denied a plea of insanity intro- duced by his lawyers, realizing that to be declared insane (i.e., not responsible for his actions) would dev- astate his reputation and impugn his honour. The six- man jury (operating under the law of the North-West Territories) found him guilty but recommended mercy. It is not clear whether the jury brought in the mercy rec- ommendation because it felt Riel’s resistance was par- tially justified or because it did not really believe that he was responsible for his behaviour. In any case, because

the charge was high treason, a guilty verdict brought a mandatory death sentence. The Canadian government could have heeded the jury’s recommendations, but refused to do so. Ottawa dismissed two appeals, and Riel was hanged at Regina on 16 November.

If Riel was treated without sympathy by the Canadian government, the punishments meted out to the First Nations, who were regarded as having joined Riel’s resistance rather than acting on their own initia- tive, proved to be equally severe. The Macdonald gov- ernment used the occasion of the rebellion and the violence committed by the leaders of the First Nations to crush the Aboriginal protests against the failure to observe the negotiated treaties. Eight warriors, includ- ing Wandering Spirit, were executed in late November of 1885, and before the courts were finished more than 50 others had been sentenced to imprisonment. Among the leaders, Poundmaker stood trial for treason and was sentenced to three years in prison. Released after a year, he died four months later. Big Bear received a sim- ilar sentence, but was released after a year and a half because of poor health and died soon after. The trials were most improper, conducted without full translation against people who understood little English and less of the law being employed. Few were properly represented in court. Most First Nations leaders and people tried to remain clear of the Métis uprising, but this did not save them from a subsequent campaign of repression by Assistant Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed, who argued that the rebellion had abrogated the treaties and who introduced a series of policies that made the First Nations totally dependent on the largesse of Canada.

The execution of Louis Riel had a lasting impact on Canada. In Quebec it strengthened French-Canadian nationalism and helped turn voters away from the Conservative Party, which they had supported since Confederation. On 22 November 1885, at a huge gather- ing in the public square in Montreal called the Champ de Mars, Honoré Mercier, the Liberal leader in Quebec, joined Wilfrid Laurier in denouncing the government action. Mercier insisted: “In killing Riel, Sir John has not only struck at the heart of our race but especially at the cause of justice and humanity which . . . demanded mercy for the prisoner of Regina, our poor friend of the North- West.” Laurier added: “Had I been born on the banks of

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2556 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

The fact that little is known of Big Bear’s lineage— his parents were probably Salteaux but he became a leader among the Cree—tells us much about the fluid- ity among First Peoples on the Canadian Plains in the nineteenth century. Big Bear (c. 1825–88) was appar- ently brought up in a “homeguard” family near Fort Carlton in present-day central Saskatchewan, later moving as a chief to reside near Fort Pitt. Around 1870 he moved south to the Plains, and reportedly partici- pated in the last major Aboriginal battle in the region at Belly River (near present-day Lethbridge, Alberta) in October of that year. He was one of the few chiefs who rejected friendly overtures from the Canadian govern- ment in the 1870s, suspecting that the next step would be peace treaties in which the First Nations would surrender land and end up on reserves. Regarded as a troublemaker, he did not attend the negotiations for Treaty Six in August 1876, and was the first important chief to refuse to sign a treaty. Increasing numbers of dissident warriors joined him over the next few years as the number of buffalo coming north decreased, and then, after 1879, disappeared from the region. Still resistant, Big Bear and his people moved to Montana and hunted the remaining buffalo until late in 1882, when Big Bear capitulated and signed Treaty Six in return for food. For the next several years, he argued with Indian Department officials before host- ing a Thirst Dance, a ritual explicitly forbidden by

the Canadian government, at Poundmaker’s reserve in April 1884. Several thousand First Nations war- riors gathered, many later confronting the RCMP and nearly provoking an open battle. Big Bear made clear in August of 1884 that he wanted the signed treaties revised and renegotiated by one chief speaking for all the tribes. That same month he met with Louis Riel. But the government paid little attention.

When news of a Métis victory at Duck Lake reached the First Nations camped at Frog Lake, Big Bear’s son, Ayimasis (Little Bad Man), and the war leader Wandering Spirit emptied the Catholic church and despite Big Bear’s shouts of “Stop! Stop!” killed most of the worshippers and priests present. The subsequent trial (for treason-felony) was told that Big Bear had said afterwards, “it is not my doings and the young men won’t listen, and I am very sorry for what has been done.” Others testified that the warriors paid no attention to Big Bear. The judge instructed the jury of six that the old chief could be called innocent only if he had removed himself from the band when it rose up in violence. The jury took 15 minutes to bring in a sentence of guilty, with a recommendation for mercy. Big Bear was sentenced to three years in the Stony Mountain prison near Winnipeg, dying shortly after his release in 1887, probably of tuberculosis. He was one of the last of the traditional chiefs to oppose European civilization, but despite his conviction and jail sentence, he had not done so with guns.

Big Bear (Mistahimaskwa)

Biography

the Saskatchewan . . . I would myself have shouldered a musket to fight against the neglect of governments and the shameless greed of speculators.” The two leaders dis- agreed over Mercier’s proposal that French Canadians leave the two major parties and form one of their own. Laurier insisted that Mercier’s proposal would destroy Confederation. Symbolically, French Canada took the execution of Riel to represent the final exclusion of the

francophone from the West. Few spoke of the symbolic meaning for the Aboriginal peoples of the shearing of Big Bear’s long hair when he was in captivity, or of the execution of Wandering Spirit.

The military defeat of the Métis, the humiliation of the First Nations, and the public execution of Louis Riel in November 1885 were only part of the reason why that year and that month were so significant, not only

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256 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Canada in 1882.

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901491_06_Ch06.indd 256 12/18/15 3:54 PM

2576 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

in the history of the West but in the history of Canada. In November 1885 workers drove the last spike at Craigellachie in eastern British Columbia, marking the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The CPR had been resurrected in 1881 as a hybrid corporation controlled by private capitalists and financed largely by the state, which, along with public subsidies, gave it about 25 million acres (10,117,500 ha) of land along its right of way. Contemporaries actively debated the

question of building in advance of settlement, particu- larly given the inducements needed to persuade hard- headed businessmen to proceed with construction. The Macdonald government defended the railway on the grounds of national interest. Since this concept is not measurable in dollar amounts, it is impossible to know whether the price was too high. Even before the line was completed, Macdonald used it to send troops west to help suppress the Métis uprising of 1885.

I have reason to be thankful to see His Excellency and

since this [treaty] medal was put on my neck from the

Great Mother I am thankful—& all my tribe—to see the

Great Mother’s representative here that I will speak

for her as I speak for my children. I am a poor man

and now will express my views on this subject, but

as I look round I do not see anything I could live by. I

see nothing, all that I used to live on has gone. Where

I used to get my [living] was the animal the buffalo,

and also I had horses, now the buffalo and the horses

have left me. I say with that I am a poor man.

You may have seen the poverty of the land as

regards the animal—that was my hunting ground. I

used to find them all I wanted. Now it is a solitary wil-

derness. I find nothing there, when I look at all this I

see but one thing left, that is to work the ground. I am

too old to work but I think of my children & grandchil-

dren they may learn.

The first thing [we want] is some strength, i.e.,

farm implements & cattle—these are necessary. If we

don’t progress faster than in the past years, we shall

move very shortly and my Grandchildren will not see

it for we walk very slowly now. Why I say this is that

the crops we have raised the half was spoilt as sick-

ness came on us and my people could not work. I

remember right on the treaty it was said that if any

famine or trouble came the Government would see

to us and help. My trouble arose from partly star-

vation and sickness. The remedy I ask for now. We

want nets, we want guns. I ask for these only for liv-

ing. There is another thing we lack. When I take a flail

to thrash I lose part of my wheat. I want a thrash-

ing machine. A thrasher and a reaper and the power

to work them. There is no end to my losses. I loose

[lose] in the thrashing. I have miles sometimes to go

through the snow to have my grain ground, and I am

only about to bring back a handful. I make no doubt

that his Excellency will sympathize with us, that he

will open his heart towards the trouble of his Indian

Children. What we want is speedy help on my farms. I

have no more to say. I wish to be remembered to the

Great Mother & to the Princess and please remember

me in the cold winter days & give me covering for my

women and children.

“All That I Used to Live on Has Gone” At a meeting with the visiting Governor General of Canada, the Marquess of Lorne, at Fort Carlton in 1881, Chief Ahtahkakoop of the Plains Cree addressed Lord Lorne.

Source: “Report of the Marquis of Lorne’s Trip,” quoted in Deanna Christensen, Ahtahkakoop: The Epic Account of a Plains Cree Head Chief, His People, and Their Struggle for Survival 1816–1896 (Shell Lake, Sask.: Ahtahkakoop Publishing, 2000), 422–3.

Contemporary Views

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258 A History of the Canadian Peoples

With rumours of armed trouble rife across western

Canada, a contingent of militia from Winnipeg was

mustered and ordered west before the encounter

at Duck Lake near Prince Albert, where a column of

Mounties and special constables were badly beaten

by a force of Métis commanded by Gabriel Dumont.

After Duck Lake, Major General Frederick Middleton,

arriving in Winnipeg via American rail lines, left the city

with the 90th Rifles, 260 strong and badly equipped.

The railroad got the troops only as far as Qu’Appelle,

whence they marched north to Fort Qu’Appelle to

practise firing rifles before heading further north

to Batoche, a village on the east bank of the South

Saskatchewan River, where Middleton had decided to

confront the Métis.

The troops made about 25 miles a day under

adverse conditions. It was over 200 miles from the

end of the railway line to the Métis strongholds,

and so the CPR played very little active role in the

campaign. By 24 April they had made Fish Creek

and found signs of smouldering Métis campfires in

a ravine between bluffs. The troops suffered heavy

casualties from a crossfire from Métis sharpshoot-

ers, who disappeared into the bush of a ravine and

withdrew as their ammunition ran out. Middleton

camped on the site of this first battle for 12 days,

waiting for reinforcements from eastern Canada and

a detachment manning a Gatling gun.

The village of Batoche was a scattered settlement

of houses and outbuildings on both sides of the river,

connected by a ferry operated on a cable. On 5 May

the paddlewheel steamer the Northcote arrived on

the river and was ambushed by the sharpshooters,

then damaged severely when its smokestacks hit the

ferry cable. Middleton had 800 men, most of them in-

fantry but including about 100 horsemen. He also had

four field guns and the Gatling gun. Gabriel Dumont

later estimated he had 200 effectives (Métis), and per-

haps 200 Aboriginal warriors to fight with him. Louis

Riel and Dumont disagreed over tactics. Riel prayed

for divine assistance, while Dumont dug into rifle pits

across a two-mile front.

The initial encounters impressed General Middle-

ton, but he was afraid to fall back because he doubted

his inexperienced troops could sustain their discipline

in retreat. The Canadians held their ground, con-

structing a little fort of wagons in the midst of the

prairie. Middleton wanted a decisive victory and was

prepared, if necessary, to starve out Batoche. He or-

dered his troops to fire away, but did not yet order an

assault. Finally Middleton ordered a battle plan for 12

May. He would attack the village from two sides, using

mounted troops from the north and the infantry from

the south. The men on horseback were to be the feint,

the infantry assault the major attack. The feint went

well, but the infantry attack did not occur, apparent-

ly because the order to advance had not reached

Colonel van Straubenzie, the officer in charge.

In the meantime Middleton had met emis-

saries from Riel, asking him to stop shelling the

BACkGROUNDER The Battle of Batoche

The construction of the CPR was a spectacular feat of engineering, partly thanks to the managerial skills of William Van Horne (1843–1915). The CPR was built chiefly on the backs of 6,500 Chinese coolie labourers especially imported for the job. Many died, and those who survived

were summarily discharged when the work was com- pleted. With the CPR finished, the Canadian government moved swiftly to limit Chinese immigration. With the Plains peoples and their Métis allies totally subjugated, Canada was open for settlement from coast to coast.

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2596 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

Conclusion

By the 1860s the united province of Canada was ready to take the lead in creating an expanded nation. The two Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova

Scotia were reluctantly joined to the new union (with Prince Edward Island soon following suit), and United Canada itself became the two provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Now Canada began casting covetous glances westward, and over the next few years pro- duced a transcontinental nation. The West was to be

Saskatchewan River

‘A’ Company 90th

Gun Batteries

10th

‘C’ Company 90th

‘D’ Company 90th

Camp

Boulton ’ s Scouts

Intelligence

C orps

‘E’ ‘F’

Indian Camp

V illage of B A TOCHE

Metis Fi r e Position

Me tis

Fi r e P

osi tio

Me tis

Fi r e P

osi tio

Metis Fi r e Position

BATOCHE

Fought 12 May 1885

‘B’ Company

MIDLANDERS

Battle of Batoche. The battle took place over several days, and included several different stages. What does this map/ diagram tell us about the battle? Source: Bruce Tascona and Eric Wells, Little Black Devils: A History of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles (Winnipeg: n.p., 1983), 50). Courtesy of The Royal Winnipeg Rifles.

houses harbouring women and children. Middleton

responded by telling them to gather the women and

children in a house marked with a white flag, which

would not be shelled. But he would not negotiate

and would only accept unconditional surrender. It

was never clear who gave the infantry the order to

advance, but once the order was given the troops

quickly overran the rifle pits and headed for the vil-

lage. The battle was over within half an hour. Batoche

was taken and the resistance melted away.

On this last day the army lost five dead and 25

wounded, while the Métis casualties were never count-

ed. Mounted riders quickly brought the news of the

victory back to the telegraph lines and then east to

a victory-starved Canada. The army soon rounded

up the Aboriginals who were independently fighting

the settlers, the NWMP, and the Canadian military. The

Last Stand of the Aboriginal West had ended.

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260 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Big Bear (centre) trading at Fort Pitt, an HBC post on the North Saskatchewan River, 1884. In the same year the post was taken over by the North-West Mounted Police. In April 1885, in the course of the uprising, Big Bear’s band attacked the fort, which they evacuated and then burned. O.B. Buell, LAC, PA-118768.

Riel in the prisoner’s box. He addressed the court twice during his trial, once after all the evidence had been presented (when he spoke for more than an hour) and once before sentence was pronounced. O.B. Buell, LAC, 1966-094, C-001879.

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2616 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

A CPR construction crew laying track at Malakwa, BC, early 1880s. This photo does not show any of the Chinese workers who laboured on this project. This was likely an intentional decision. LAC, C-001602.

The first transcontinental passenger train arrives at the foot of Howe Street in Vancouver, 23 May 1887. These trains were not the only way to access the Pacific coast. Notice that the station has been built right up to the harbour and the development that runs along the shore. City of Vancouver Archives, LGN 460.

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262 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Confederation and the Canadian Senate

One of the curious features about Canadian Confed- eration is that it has generated virtually no historiog- raphy. A handful of books and articles appeared during the Centennial years of the 1960s, but those were mainly interested in explaining how a bunch of disparate col- onies had managed to achieve unification rather than exploring historical questions in any depth. There was much learned discussion of the federal principle. After this spate of material there was virtual silence until Christopher Moore’s 1997 study, 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal. This strange history helps to explain, as Moore observed, why the existing studies failed to address usefully issues of current interest. One of those questions is: why is the Canadian Senate so useless? The simple answer is: because the Fathers designed it that way. Why they did so is a rather more complicated and interesting business.

The delegates to the Quebec Conference met on Monday, 10 October 1864, in the second-floor library of the Legislative Council. The conference continued a dia- logue begun at Charlottetown a month earlier between representatives of Canada and those of the Maritime provinces of British America, with a view to unification. The dialogue was in some ways unequal. The Canadians met regularly in caucus and planned their moves in con- cert. The average Maritime delegates had no such organ- izational support. As a result, the Maritimers were often simply overwhelmed—or bullied—into agreement by the force of Canadian prior agreement, perhaps chivvied along a bit by champagne and rich dinners. According to PEI’s Edward Palmer, “for the first few days, the lead- ing delegates of the lower provinces exhibited caution and vigilance upon every question affecting the inter- ests of these provinces.” But after the Senate debate, compromise in favour of Confederation was much more common. Many thought Charlottetown had resolved the broad outlines of a scheme to establish a new nation; all that remained were the details. But these details were

not easily agreed upon. The biggest problem faced by the delegates was the disparity in size between Canada and the lower provinces, even when the latter were combined. Maritimers understandably feared being swallowed up by the behemoth. To assuage Maritime concerns, Canada had conceded at the outset that it would forgo its preference for a single elected legisla- ture to form a two-tiered (or bicameral) structure, with an upper house formed on principles more favourable to the Maritimes.

On 16 October John A. Macdonald introduced the Canadian proposal for the Senate, offering sectional equality among Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes combined into one unit. The Maritimers seemed to accept unification, but argued for more senators. As Andrew Macdonald of PEI insisted, if there was to be representation by population in the elected chamber, “the upper house should be more responsible of the smaller provinces, as it was to be the guardian of their rights and privileges.” He proposed that each province should have an equal number of representatives, as was the case in the American Senate. Why Macdonald’s proposal did not win more favour from the Maritimes contingent is not clear, Instead, Canada proposed addi- tional seats if Newfoundland joined the union. After several more days of debate, the delegates unanimously agreed that senators would be appointed for life by the federal government. As Christopher Moore observes, such a method of appointment would assure that the Senate would not be a powerful independent body. And such, it turned out, was exactly the point. In the 1850s most provinces had toyed with the idea of an elective upper house—Canada had even accepted one in 1856. But most British Americans were still fascinated by the concept of responsible government, and responsible government could not work properly if both houses of a bicameral legislature were equally powerful. Money bills had to originate in the House of Commons. The

Historiography

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2636 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

Bolger, Francis. Prince Edward Island and Confederation, 1863–1873. Charlottetown, 1964. The standard study.

Bradbury, Bettina. Working Families: Age, Gender, and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal. Toronto, 1993. An exciting work on early industrialization in Montreal from the twin perspectives of women and the working classes.

Buckner, P.A. The Transition to Responsible Government: British Policy in British North America 1815–59. Westport, Conn., 1985. Now the standard study, based on detailed research and elegantly argued.

Bumsted, J.M. The Red River Rebellion. Winnipeg, 1996. A revisionist account.

Courville, Serge, and Normand Séguin. Rural Life in Nineteenth-Century Quebec. Ottawa, 1989. A middle- level synthesis of an important topic.

Curtis, Bruce. Building the Educational State: Canada West, 1836–1871. Sussex and London, 1988. A revisionist work that argues the importance of edu- cational policy for state formation in this period.

Daschuk, James. Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life. Regina, 2014. A controversial study arguing that the First

Nations were deliberately starved in the West in the 1870s and 1880s.

Gagan, David. Hopeful Travellers: Families, Land, and Social Change in Mid-Victorian Peel County, Canada West. Toronto, 1981. The product of a huge quantifi- cation project, this book attempts to explain the rela- tionship between land and mobility in rural English Canada.

Galbraith, John S. The Hudson’s Bay Company as an Imperial Factor.Toronto, 1957. The classic statement of the imperial role of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the nineteenth century.

Grant, Shelagh D. Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America.Vancouver, 2010.

Greer, Allan, and Ian Radforth, eds. Colonial Leviathan: State Formation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Canada. Toronto, 1992. A collection of essays informed by inter- national thinking about the nineteenth-century state.

Hodgetts, J.E. Pioneer Public Service: An Administrative History of the United Canadas, 1841–1867. Toronto, 1955. A pioneer work decades ahead of its time.

Katz, Michael. The People of Hamilton, Canada West: Family and Class in a Mid-Nineteenth-Century City.

delegates could accept an upper house of “sober second thoughts,” but not a strong Senate.

As George Brown argued in Toronto shortly after Quebec, he doubted whether “two elective chambers, both representing the people and both claiming control over the public finances,” could possibly work in con-

tinual harmony. There was considerable agreement— indeed virtual unanimity—at Quebec that the demands of responsible government could only be met by con- structing a weak Senate, and such was what the Fathers of Confederation put together, however strange a legis- lative body resulted from their efforts.

Short Bibliography

an anglophone colony of Canada. Not only were First Nations, Métis, and Chinese cast aside as quickly as possible, but French Canadians were not expected to settle there in any substantial numbers. National con- solidation was arguably complete in 1885, but much Canadian “nationalism” still bore the distinctive mark

of the Ontario WASP. Two cultures, French and English, were in firm opposition to each other, and other cul- tures were thoroughly marginalized. Trying to satisfy the nation’s two main components would continue to be the most challenging task facing the Canadian gov- ernment for many years.

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264 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Cambridge, Mass., 1975. The first attempt to apply American quantitative methodology on a large scale to a Canadian subject.

Lewis, Robert. Manufacturing Montreal: The Making of an Industrial Landscape, 1850 to 1930. Baltimore, 2000. A study from a geographer’s perspective of the growth of industrial Montreal.

Lucas, Sir Charles, ed. Lord Durham’s Report on the Affairs of British North America, 3 vols. Oxford, 1912; reprinted New York, 1970. The scholarly edition of the complete Durham Report.

Masters, D.C. The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. Ottawa, 1963. Still the standard account of this important treaty.

Metcalfe, Alan. Canada Learns to Play: The Emergence of Organized Sport 1807–1911. Toronto, 1987. An important work that documents the development in Canada of organized sport in the nineteenth century.

Monet, Jacques. The Last Cannon Shot: A Study of French-Canadian Nationalism. Toronto, 1969. The classic study of the emergence of nationalism, under the watchful eye of the Church, in Lower Canada/ Canada East.

Pryke, Kenneth. Nova Scotia and Confederation 1864– 1873. Toronto, 1979. The standard account.

Saddlemyer, Ann, ed. Early Stages: Theatre in Ontario 1800–1914. Toronto, 1990. A collection of pioneering essays that demonstrate how much is to be learned about Canadian culture in the nineteenth century if one chooses to look.

Shelton, W. George, ed. British Columbia and Confed- eration. Victoria, 1967. A useful collection of essays.

Shippee, L.B. Canadian–American Relations 1849–1874. New Haven, 1939. Still the best overall study of the topic.

Tucker, Gilbert. The Canadian Commercial Revolution 1845–1851. Ottawa, 1970. The most useful survey of this question.

Waite, Peter B. The Life and Times of Confederation, 1864–1867: Politics, Newspapers, and the Union of British North America. Toronto, 1962. Still the best account of the central period of unification.

Winks, Robin. Canada and the United States: The Civil War Years. Montreal, 1971. Old, but still the standard work; a thorough account of Canadian–American relations during the war years.

Zeller, Suzanne. Inventing Canada: Early Victorian Science and the Idea of a Transcontinental Nation.Toronto, 1987. A work with a controversial argument—that science helped unite British North America—and a good deal of material on colonial science.

Study Questions 1. Explain how Britain’s espousal of the free trade doctrine affected markets for Canadian wheat in the late

1840s.

2. Explain why the free trade doctrine led to the Reciprocity Treaty between British North America and the

United States. How did this lead to more railway-building and the rise of industrialism in British North

America?

3. Identify three reasons why people in Canada West were so anxious to move into the Canadian West.

4. Outline the political consequences of the move to responsible government in Canada East.

5. Why did volunteer and fraternal organizations become so popular in British North America?

6. Explain how the infrastructure of an educational system and a publishing industry contributed to Canadian

cultural production during this period.

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2656 | Becoming a Nation, 1840–1885

7. What is important about George Brown’s observation that the Maritime delegates agreed that union was

desirable “if the terms of union could be made satisfactory”?

8. Give two reasons to explain why people in the Maritimes might think of Confederation as a “Canadian plot.”

9. How would you have felt about Canadian policy towards the West if you were a settler living in Saskatchewan

in 1885? If you were an Aboriginal person?

Visit the companion website for A History of the Canadian Peoples, fifth edition for further resources.

www.oupcanada.com/Bumsted5e

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Becoming Modern, 1885–19157

Trolley cars became a principal mode of urban transport in the 1890s. The single-truck car shown here is from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Trolleys varied from city to city and were adapted to their specific urban environments. Note that this car has a mesh guard attached to its front and to its back, suggesting that there was a reasonable chance that it would encounter humans or animals on its tracks. City of Vancouver Archives, H-303

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1886 W.S. Fielding introduces legislation in Nova Scotia calling for secession from the union. The

first CPR transcontinental arrives in Manitoba.

1887 Honoré Mercier leads nationaliste Liberals to victory in Quebec. St Catharines opens first

electric streetcar system in Canada.

1890 Manitoba government abolishes public funding for Catholic schools. CPR builds rail

line through Maine to connect Moncton with

Montreal.

1891 Sir John A. Macdonald dies. 1892 A great fire destroys St John’s, Newfoundland. 1896 Wilfrid Laurier leads the Liberal Party to a

national electoral victory. Gold is discovered in

the Klondike. The Manitoba Schools Question

becomes a national issue.

1898 A national referendum is held on prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Newfoundland completes

a railway across the island.

1899 Canadian Northern Railway is incorporated. Alaska Boundary Dispute is referred to an

international tribunal. Canada agrees to send

volunteer troops to South Africa.

1900 Art Museum of Toronto is founded. Prohibition legislation is passed on Prince Edward Island.

1901 The first wireless message transmitted across the Atlantic is received on Signal Hill near

St John’s, Newfoundland.

1902 Ernest Thompson Seton founds Woodcraft Indians.

1903 Alaska Boundary Dispute between Canada and the United States is handed over to a joint

commission of six “impartial jurists of repute.”

1905 Saskatchewan and Alberta are created as provinces out of the North-West Territories.

Ontario Conservatives finally win political

control of the province.

1906 Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission is created. 1907 Development of Marquis wheat. Canadian

Department of Interior begins paying bonuses

to European immigrant agents for labourers.

Canadian Art Club is founded in Toronto.

1908 Border crossings established at 38 points across the US–Canada border.

1909 Department of External Affairs is created. 1910 Steel Company of Canada is created by an

amalgamation of smaller firms.

1911 Robert Borden’s Conservatives take over federal government in the Reciprocity Election.

Marius Barbeau is appointed as anthropologist

in the Museum Branch of the Geological Survey

of Canada. Noranda gold/copper mine opens

in Quebec.

1912 Social Services Council of Canada is organized. Quebec’s boundaries are extended

to Hudson Bay.

Timeline

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268 A History of the Canadian Peoples

I n the years after Confederation, Canada became one of the richest nations in the world in terms of gross national product and per capita income. Given the advantage of hindsight, historians from comparably sized countries—such as Mexico, Brazil, or Argentina— can only envy Canada’s privileged position of wealth, if not power, in this critical period. From the late 1870s to the end of World War I, Canada was among the top 10 of the world in industrial development. Though the country possessed rich agricultural and natural resour- ces, much of the key to its success lay in the exploita- tion of these advantages by a burgeoning industrial sector. Canadians often saw only the weaknesses of the Canadian economy. From the vantage point of most of the world, however, Canada was rich, powerful, highly industrialized, and “progressive,” even if still a part of the British Empire. It possessed a vibrant labour move- ment. Before the Great War, Canada had created a self-sustaining internal economy and a dynamic foreign trade. While the nation was transforming its economy, it was also altering its society and culture. There was another round of immigration, and Canada became an increasingly urbanized country. This was also the great era of reform, both political and social. As well, there was a great national debate over Canada’s place within the British Empire. The political system that made all these developments possible operated through the mediating influence of political parties.

As a result of both its geographical position and its colonial situation, Canada before 1914 was able to enjoy relative isolation from the turmoil of international politics, concentrating on its own domestic develop- ment. Like Americans, most Canadians were relatively inward-looking, even isolationist, in their attitudes towards the wider world. Most French Canadians saw themselves as an autonomous people without close European or international connections, while Canadians of British origin felt varying degrees of loyalty to Great Britain, which looked after most inter- national affairs in the name of the Empire. Canada’s corps of diplomats was tiny, confined to Washington, London, and Paris. After 1909 a small Department of External Affairs supervised and co-ordinated the nation’s sporadic formal relations with the world. While most Canadians felt no need to be citizens of the world

before 1914, they were not necessarily ignorant of it. The larger daily newspapers covered foreign affairs far more assiduously than their modern equivalents, for example.

The Developing Political and Constitutional System The Fathers of Confederation had not written political parties into the Canadian Constitution. Nevertheless, by the mid-1880s a two-party system had evolved at both the federal and provincial levels that would remain unchanged until World War I. Indeed, this period was in many respects the golden age of Canadian party politics. Party affiliation was a serious matter. Being a Liberal or a Conservative was a commitment passed on from father to son; small towns had parallel Liberal and Conservative business establishments, including funeral parlours. The seeming vitality of the two-party system disguised, to some degree, the underlying ten- sions of Canadian federalism. Before 1914, however, the parties appeared flexible enough to contain various cur- rents of conflict and disagreement. Both national par- ties developed consensual systems capable of holding together differing ideologies, sections of the country, and interest groups.

The key to the successful functioning of the national parties—and the allegiances of their adherents—was in large part the power of patronage. Both parties, in office, distributed honours and jobs to their leading support- ers, carefully apportioning rewards to those whose qualifications were judged solely in terms of political service and loyalty. The patronage system rewarded chiefly those members of the Canadian professional and business elites (mainly from the so-called middle class) who ran the two parties. The system diminished ideological and regional differences, offering French Canadians their own opportunities for advancement. Patronage thus encouraged a stable party system in which matters of principle were less important than the division of the spoils of victory.

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Despite their consensual utility, Canadian polit- ical parties had considerable difficulty in mediating the relationships between the federal and provincial levels of government. The rise of a strong movement for provincial rights, initiated by Ontario, joined by Quebec, and supported on occasion by all provinces, was almost inevitable. The chief, although not sole, bone of contention would be economic development. Provinces insisted that they, not the federal gov- ernment, should control development within their boundaries. What was unexpected was the support for provincial rights provided by the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council, the court of last resort for federal–provincial disagreements. In a series of land- mark decisions stretching from the 1880s to the Great War, the Judicial Committee consistently reduced the power of the federal government and enhanced that of the provinces. Both anglophone and francophone voters tended to support this readjustment of Confederation. They saw the provinces as a check on the federal govern- ment’s power, and they consistently supported provin- cial parties that wanted to confront Ottawa. Thus there was nothing unique about the 1887 victory in Quebec of the nationaliste Liberal government of Honoré Mercier (1840–94). W.S. Fielding (1848–1929) had won for the Liberals in Nova Scotia in 1884 on a platform of prov- incial rights. In 1886 Fielding introduced legislation calling for the secession of Nova Scotia from the union. Obviously, provincial parties could not afford too close an identification with their federal counterparts, par- ticularly while the latter were in power. Only with the success of Laurier’s Liberals in 1896 did the Ontario Tories escape the albatross of a federal Conservative Party, for example. By 1905 they won control of the province, which they would seldom relinquish over the remainder of the century.

A great irony of Confederation was that French Canada continued as the region upon which national political success had to be built. Until the death of Sir John A. Macdonald in 1891, the Conservatives had suc- cessfully appealed to Quebec with a judicious combin- ation of local political patronage and national political policies. The execution of Louis Riel late in 1885 threat- ened that appeal, but the government’s Quebec ministers held firm. The Grand Old Man’s successors, including

J.J. Abbott (1821–93), John S. Thompson (1844–94), and Charles Tupper (1821–1915), simply did not have the magic. In 1896 Wilfrid Laurier (1841–1919) became the national chef. He had put together a coalition of provin- cial Liberal parties by softening the potential issues of division. Laurier’s agonizing over the Manitoba Schools Question of the early 1890s, when his distaste for a uni- lingual policy for Manitoba schools was matched only by his refusal to prevent provinces from running affairs within their own general mandate, was a pure reflection of his approach. Laurier saw national unity and national harmony as identical and, not surprisingly, viewed a bicultural state as essential.

The Conservatives of Robert Borden (1854–1937) replaced Laurier’s Liberals in 1911. The Tories split the Quebec vote while sweeping Ontario, thanks in large measure to the support of the Ontario provincial party. Key issues in the 1911 election were American reciprocity and imperial naval defence. Borden’s vic- tory was a triumph for Canadian imperial sentiment, anti-continentalism, and middle-class reform. Borden had set out his Halifax Platform in 1907, calling for civil service reform, public ownership of telephones and telegraphs, a reformed Senate, and free mail delivery in rural areas. Borden spoke for the “progressive” forces of Anglo-Canadian society and reform, which had been marshalling strength since the mid-1880s. Laurier had enacted some of Borden’s planks, including civil ser- vice reform in 1908, but the Conservatives still claimed the close imperial connection and had added the pro- gressive mantle. Borden achieved some of his imper- ial vision only with the beginning of the Great War. The Conscription Crisis of 1917 completed the process, which began in 1911 with the defeat of Laurier, of the political isolation of French Canada. At the same time, neither the West nor the Maritimes were content, as events after the war’s end soon demonstrated.

The Economic Infrastructure Control of capital through chartered banks headquar- tered chiefly in central Canada was one of that region’s

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270 A History of the Canadian Peoples

great advantages. Unlike the United States, Canadian banking was always highly centralized. In 1914 in Canada there were only 26 banks operating 2,888 branches. Some of the larger banks (the Royal Bank, the Bank of Commerce) had more than 300 branches each. From the beginning, Canadian chartered banks focused less on serving local customers than on facili- tating the transfer of commodities and funds. Their credit facilities, especially for outlying districts of the nation, were quite limited. The banking industry itself wrote Canadian banking legislation. The Canadian Bankers’ Association was an organization of a few powerful men.

Although in 1913 Montreal-headquartered banks held half of the assets of all Canadian banks ($788 million of $1.55 billion), Quebec contained considerably fewer branch banks per capita than the remainder of the nation. The result was the founding by Alphonse Desjardins (1854–1920) of the caisses populaires, often run by curés in association with Catholic parishes. Financial institutions to compete locally with the chartered banks did develop, not only in the form of caisses populaires but as gov- ernment savings banks, local savings banks, and credit unions. Their economic power was limited, however, and the chartered banks continued to grow. Banks with head offices in central Canada refused to make local loans and

The family heritage of Wilfrid Laurier (1841–1919), born in a small Quebec village outside Montreal, dated back to seventeenth-century Quebec. As part of his education,

Laurier lived for two years with an English-speaking family and attended an English-speaking school. His facility in both languages was subsequently one of his great political strengths. After education at l’Assompt- ion College and McGill University, he was called to the Quebec bar.

From his earliest days Laurier was a Liberal, and after election to Parliament in 1874 he soon joined the Mackenzie cabinet. Laurier was an outspoken critic of the ultramontane wing of the Catholic Church in Quebec and defender of both the Liberals as a party of moderation and of the laity as entitled to make their own choices free of clerical pressure. Like many French- Canadian Liberals of his generation, he not only wanted a non-denominational party but was also attracted to British history and to the British Constitution.

Somewhat chastened by political failure in the early 1880s, his career was rejuvenated by the execution of Louis Riel, whose constitutional grievances he cham- pioned. But Laurier resolutely refused to become a racial and religious nationalist, and he advocated conciliation between French and English. He exploited the clumsi- ness of both the Conservatives and French-Canadian

Wilfrid Laurier, c. 1882. Topley Studio Fonds, LAC, PA-013133.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Biography

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2717 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

set local interest rates at high levels. Sir Edmund Walker (1848–1924), president of the Bank of Commerce, labelled regional complaints “local grievances against what we regard as the interests of the country as a whole” (quoted in Naylor, 1975, I: 103).

Transportation continued to be an essential ingredient of development. As in the age of the first rail- way boom of the 1850s, railways were both a means of development and a field of investment. Substantial rail- way construction involved significant public subsidies, often in the form of land grants along the right of way, as well as other boons. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) received from the government the completed line

from Fort William, Ontario, to Selkirk, Manitoba, as well as the line from Kamloops to Port Moody in BC. Moreover, it received a cash payment of $25 million, plus 25 million acres (10,117,500 ha) “fairly fit for settle- ment,” and various tax exemptions on its land. In addi- tion, it had a monopoly position. Nor was the Canadian Pacific the only railway so favoured. Dozens of railways incorporated in Canada during these years. Local com- munities fought desperately for railways, seeing them as links to a prosperous future. Sir William Mackenzie (1849–1923) and Sir Donald Mann (1853–1934) con- structed a second transcontinental line, the Canadian Northern Railway, which passed considerably to the

clerics over the Manitoba Schools Question, insisting that he could effect a satisfactory compromise, which he did.

Once elected to office as Prime Minister in 1896, with the strong backing of Quebec voters, he appointed a strong cabinet composed mainly of prov- incial leaders with progressive ideas. Fortunately for the Liberal government, Canada was entering a period of great growth and economic boom, especially in the West, providing a tide upon which almost any gov- ernment could have ridden successfully. The Liberals became involved with Canadian big business interests over the construction of two new transcontinental railroads, but eventually came to grief over military and imperial policy, issues that still divided English and French Canada. Laurier survived the Boer War by allowing English Canadians to participate as vol- unteers and by stifling all initiatives for closer imper- ial co-operation. He even managed to deal with the problem of increased German naval construction by introducing a Canadian navy instead of Canadian contributions to the British one.

One issue that helped defeat his government in 1911 came unexpectedly, when the United States

offered Canada a reciprocal economic arrangement and Laurier accepted it enthusiastically. To its surprise, the Liberal government discovered that Canadians were not willing in boom times to pay the price of a potential loss of national sovereignty in return for American advantages, although the loss of Quebec support on imperial issues was probably more import- ant, as was a perception that the Liberals had lost their reformist edge and were less progressive on social issues than were the Conservatives. Laurier supported Canadian entrance into World War I wholeheartedly, but refused to co-operate in 1917 with the govern- ment over conscription or to join a coalition govern- ment committed to the question. He was deserted by many English-speaking Liberals, and in the election of November 1917 his support was reduced almost solely to Quebec seats.

Laurier was well known as a conciliator who sought compromise and opposed political extremism and sec- tional division in word and deed. In retrospect, one of his most important achievements may have been his refusal to allow his nation to become more closely inte- grated into the British Empire.

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272 A History of the Canadian Peoples

north of the CPR. Everyone outside central Canada complained about the high costs of freight, but all Canadians relied on the railway. Passenger travel was swift and relatively inexpensive.

Energy was another essential. Canada always pos- sessed rich potential energy resources. Coal never pro- vided much advantage, but abundant water power did. Changing technology at the close of the nineteenth cen- tury enabled major natural waterfalls to be harnessed and others to be created through dams. Development for hydroelectric power was substantial in the early years of the twentieth century. No province had greater potential for hydroelectricity generation than Quebec. Unlike Ontario, which established the Ontario Hydro- Electric Commission in 1906 under the chairmanship of Sir Adam Beck (1857–1925), Quebec permitted its hydroelectric development to be carried out by private enterprise. The process of exploiting electricity, both for light and for power, was one of the great unsung technological developments of the age. Industry could use water power as an alternative to fossil fuel. Cheap hydroelectric power became an advantage for Canadian industry. The manufacturing community saw cheap power as essential to its growth and development. Hydroelectricity lit Canadian homes at relatively low cost. It fostered the growth of electric-powered public transportation, such as the tram and the trolley.

The period between 1880 and 1919 was a great age of science and technology throughout the Western world. Most fields of scientific endeavour transformed out of all recognition the basic theoretical assumptions that had dominated humankind for generations. The number of inventions that altered in practical ways how people lived and worked was astounding. Canada played little role at the frontiers of pure science. Its record in the technical application of science was somewhat better, as the activities of the Dominion Experimental Farms system (created by Ottawa in 1886) demonstrated. The great achievement of Canadian agricultural research in this period was the development of Marquis wheat in 1907 by Charles Edward Saunders (1867–1937). In both science and technology, however, Canada was for- tunate to be able to borrow heavily from Great Britain and the United States. Most Canadian technical accom- plishment came through adapting imported technology

to Canadian conditions, although a number of useful Canadian inventions were introduced in this period.

Population growth was also necessary for economic development. Immigration provided much of that growth for Canada in this period, as in others. Between 1880 and 1920 nearly 4.5 million immigrants arrived in Canada, mainly although not exclusively from Europe and the United States. Beginning in the mid-1890s, the origins of the newcomers shifted perceptibly. Most of the earlier immigrants came from the British Isles, while after 1896 large numbers came from Eastern and Southern Europe. In addition, Americans again began arriving in Canada in large numbers, their destinations the “Last Best West” in Alberta and Saskatchewan. By 1901, 34 per cent of the newcomers to the prairie West came from other coun- tries than Canada, with 33 per cent from the United States and 22 per cent from Britain. During the peak dec- ade of immigration (1905–14), nearly 2.8 million people immigrated to Canada, with the numbers about equally divided among Central and Eastern Europe, the United States, and the British Isles. (A small number of Asians and people from the Near East were included in the total. Most of the Near East immigrants came from Lebanon and were listed as “Syrians” in the official records. (Many of the victims in April 1912 on board the ill-fated passen- ger liner Titanic were “Syrians” travelling in steerage on their way to Canada.) Between 1901 and 1911 alone, the Canadian population grew by 43 per cent. In the 1911 census, over 20 per cent of all Canadians enumerated had been born abroad. While many of the newcomers settled on farms, fully 70 per cent joined the labour force in industry and transportation. Canadian business and government specifically recruited many of the newcom- ers, often on a contract basis, to provide an industrial workforce. In 1907 the Canadian Department of the Interior began paying bonuses to European immigra- tion agents for people who had labour experience, such as farmers, navvies, or miners. Much of this industrial workforce ended up in Canada’s cities.

While the typical newcomer to Canada in these years continued to be the unassisted immigrant, arriv- ing under his or her own power, either alone or as part of a family group, several other categories need to be singled out for special attention, particularly British “orphans” and European contract labourers.

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2737 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

Canadians were generally more willing to accept immigrants from the British Isles than from any other place, although resentment was common against those Britons who looked down their noses at their “colonial cousins.” On the other hand, many Canadians objected to the activities of British philanthropists and philan- thropic institutions in employing Canada as a dumping ground for unwanted children of the urban poor. These children were recruited as cheap labour, mainly for Canadian farms and as domestic servants. The majority were young boys, but a substantial number were young girls. Nearly 100,000 of these “home children” were sent to Canada before the Great War, most of them recruited in British slums. Many were encouraged to go by their parents; others were literally seized from parents and sent overseas “for their own good.” The results were

mixed, with the worst experiences probably suffered by children of both genders who were sent into rural homes, where many were badly exploited by their sup- posed benefactors. This immigration was constantly accompanied by opposition to its continuance. Much of the opposition to child immigration came from the Canadian labour movement, especially between 1888 and 1895. It was concerned less with the treatment of the victims than with their presence as an unregulated low-wage component of the workforce.

Perhaps the most colourful of the philanthropists involved in child “rescue” was the Dublin-born Thomas John Barnardo (1845–1900), who was personally respon- sible for sending more than 30,000 youngsters to Canada. Barnardo, always known as “Doctor” Barnardo, actually scoured the streets of London for waifs, col- lecting thousands of pounds from the British public for his charity work. He used the money less to improve existing conditions than to expand the scope of his activities. Barnardo was a lightning rod for complaints of abuse and victimization. His activities were criticized on a number of occasions, and he came to take care that records were kept, using photographs and letters from children to demonstrate how well they were getting on. As for the children, one modern study of Barnardo children has concluded that some evidence exists that 9 per cent of the boys and 15 per cent of the girls were actually abused (Parker, 2009: 221). (In February 2010, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met with a group of former immigrants and others to apologize for their treatment [Boycott, 2010].)

Despite the emphasis on agricultural settlement and the concerns about the assimilability of non-British immigrants, a number of Canadian corporations insisted on their need for willing workers. For these companies, headed by the railroads, British immigrants were not desirable because they complained about wages and working conditions; farmers were unsuitable because they left their jobs at harvest time. The CPR turned increasingly after 1901 to contract workers, often from southern Italy. According to Donald Avery (1995: 30), these workers—sup- plied by labour agents working in Europe—could “live for a year on the wages they earn in six months.” The railroads liked Bulgarians, Poles, and Italians because by working hard and living simply, they were “peculiarly suited for

The Canadian Bank of Commerce building at 25 King Street West, designed by R.A. Waite and erected in 1889–90, was one of several new office buildings in Toronto that had some claim to architectural distinction and even grandeur. At seven-and-a-half storeys, it soared over neighbouring three- and four-storey buildings, and reflected the influence of the first skyscrapers in New York and Chicago. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1497, Item 21.

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the work.” A massive national railway construction pro- gram between 1900 and 1914 was sustained by 50,000 to 70,000 immigrant navvies (unskilled construction work- ers) per year. Mining corporations were equally attracted to Slavic and Italian workers, and by 1913 more than 300 labour agencies were recruiting more than 200,000 work- ers per year from abroad for labour in Canada. Several foreign governments protested the treatment of their nationals by labour agencies and Canadian employers, and both organized labour and nativist groups opposed the contract workers as being scabs. More than half of these workers were sojourners, who intended to use the savings from their earnings to return to their homelands, but a substantial minority would remain in Canada permanently. The Italians brought several new elements in their cultural baggage. Several secret societies mod-

elled on the Sicilian Mafia and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta provided a range of services to immigrants, sometimes also engaging in extortion activities that were attributed by the Canadian media to the “Black Hand.” A few Italians were also anarchists; one of their leaders, Luigi Galleani, was deported from Canada in 1903.

Another Round of Industrialization Financial centralization and growing industrial cap- acity, particularly the shift from the processing of primary goods into the secondary manufacturing of finished goods, were major economic developments in Canada in the years 1880–1919. Continued industrial- ization always involved more than the construction of new and larger factories. Canadians needed to extend and rationalize transportation facilities. They had to mobilize investment, exploit resources, and recruit a labour force. Despite the National Policy, Ottawa did not maintain control over, or ownership in, the Canadian economy. The country’s emergence on the international scene increased its vulnerability to world economic conditions and economic cycles. Moreover, its industrial development was distinctly uneven, with industrial growth well above the national average in Ontario, at the national average in Quebec, and well below the national average in the Maritime and western provinces. Larger urban centres, such as Montreal and Toronto, expanded constantly, while smaller commun- ities fell steadily behind.

One of the keys to Canadian economic growth between 1885 and the Great War was an influx of foreign investment. Few nations depended so heav- ily on foreign capital to fuel economic growth as has Canada throughout its history. Investment in this era—particularly in the boom years 1900–13—was significant. Like other countries, Canada used most of its imported capital to finance large development pro- jects, such as railways and hydroelectric generation. Canada’s imports of capital came in the two forms of indirect (portfolio) investment and direct investment. These two types of investment reflected the respective

A 1907 poster exhorting immigrants to settle in western Canada. This poster well illustrates the mentality of western development in the first years of the new century. How would you describe this mentality? LAC, C-30621.

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activity of Canada’s two largest financial partners. Much of the portfolio investment came from Great Britain. Much of the direct investment came from the United States. In terms of the foreign domination of the economy that resulted, the two types of investment were quite different. Direct investment resulted in far greater control. At the time few Canadians agonized overly much about the extent or the origin of foreign ownership. Foreign control did not become a serious issue in Canadian economic theory or public life before the late 1950s. Until then, almost all Canadians might have agreed with the American entrepre- neur Frank Clergue, who declared in 1901 that “for- eign money injected into the circulating medium of Canada” would “remain forever to the everlasting blessing of thousands of its inhabitants” (quoted in Bliss, 1972: 38).

As students now learn routinely in introductory economics courses, portfolio investment represents money borrowed against securities, in this period mainly bonds. Bonds are a relatively safe investment. They do not carry management implications. The British preferred portfolio investment in Canada because their prosperous citizens wanted to clip coupons in their old age. Government (federal, provincial, municipal) and the railways did most of Canada’s borrowing in Britain. The money went to finance transportation networks and public works. Little was available for private enterprise, almost none for venture capital. In the first years of the twentieth century, Canadian entrepreneurs exploited the British investment market in new ways. The chief innovation was the promotion of bond issues for giant industrial operations created from the merger of smaller companies. Nobody was more successful at merging than William Maxwell Aitken (1879–1964, later Lord Beaverbrook), son of a New Brunswick Presbyterian minister. His great triumph came in 1910 with the cre- ation of the Steel Company of Canada (Stelco), the bonds for which his Royal Securities firm sold in London. “I believe in consolidations,” Aitken told Maclean’s maga- zine in 1911. “They are more efficient. They give bet- ter service to the consumer. In a large country such as Canada, they reduce the distribution costs. They are good for the consumer” (quoted in Marchilson, 1996: 181). He was the most visible and sharpest oper-

ator in a movement that saw 58 giant corporations cre- ated in Canada between 1909 and 1912.

The United States was an importer of British capital before World War I and had little available for overseas portfolio investment. The Americans invested directly in Canada to gain access to Canadian raw materials and the Canadian market. They went heavily into the resource sector. They also invested in Canadian manu- facturing to gain maximum access to the Canadian mar- ket. Less than half of American direct investment was in manufacturing, but the total amount involved was over $100 million by 1910. The protective tariff played an important role in encouraging American branch- plant investment. Early Canadian protectionism sought to foster employment. Canadians did not worry much about the outflow of profits or the influx of foreign man- agers. Canadians generally accepted that Canadian businessmen and investors were not very adventurous, preferring familiar fields and allowing the Yankees to take the chances. Far from endangering the Canadian identity, American investment fostered it. The alterna- tive was immigration to the United States.

The Americans preferred to locate their branch plants in southern Ontario. This choice came for a var- iety of reasons. Americans were active in the heavy industries of Ontario, partly because Ontario was so close to the industrial heartland of the United States south of the Great Lakes. Moreover, Ontario deliberately encouraged Americans to invest in the processing of raw materials by allowing them virtually free access to the province’s natural resources. Ontarians believed that they had all the requirements for self-sufficiency within their own borders. The province required that resources taken on Crown land be processed in Canada. “Debarred from the opportunity of cutting logs for export, it is an absolute certainty that the American lumberman, in default of other sources of supply, will transfer his saw- mill enterprises to Canadian soil” (quoted in Nelles, 1974: 217). American preference both contributed to and reflected the industrial development of Ontario.

After 1885 manufacturing replaced commerce as the chief propellant of urban growth in Ontario. Much of the new industrial plant involved sophisticated techno- logical applications, often imported from the United States. Ontario became the centre of the Canadian iron

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and steel industry. The transformation of the older iron industry into the steel industry was symptomatic of the process that was occurring. Coal replaced charcoal as the source of heat. The refining process turned into two steps, first involving open-hearth furnaces and then a steam-driven rolling mill. The result was a product with a slightly higher carbon content. Its name was steel. Mechanization occurred at every step in the manufac- turing process. “Gigantic automation” was the watch- word at huge installations like Stelco’s Hamilton plant and Algoma’s Sault Ste Marie operation. Steel rails were the most common standard product. Ontario’s manufac- turing grew in a number of smaller urban centres.

Quebec manufacturing relied far less on heavy industry (and vast capitalization) than did manufac-

turing in Ontario. It depended far more on an indus- try based on labour and fussy mechanization, such as clothing, wood products, textiles, and food processing. Part of the explanation for the difference may reside in labour availability. Part may have been the availabil- ity of cheap hydroelectric power in Quebec after 1900. Quebec had eliminated Ontario’s early advantage in sec- ondary over primary manufacturing by 1915. Montreal provided the greatest concentration of Quebec’s manu- facturing sector. By 1900 workers in that city repre- sented about half the manufacturing labour in the province. It is easy to overemphasize the notorious lag between the two central Canadian provinces. They were more like one another than they were like the remain- der of the nation. The industrial disparity between the

Workers at looms, c. 1908. As this photograph indicates, most workers in the textile industry were women, working in crowded conditions on the shop floor. City of Toronto Archives, James Collection, Fonds 1244, 137.

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Manufacturing Output, 1870–1890

Document

Percentage Change in Manufacturing Output, 1870–1890

One of the developments of the post-Confederation period was the tendency for the industrial output of the Maritime region to lose ground to Ontario and Quebec. The following table documents the change in output by province in various industrial sectors between 1870 and 1890.

Industry Nova Scotia New Brunswick Quebec Ontario

All factories 128 42 104 116

Farm production (butter, cheese, and

cloth)

60 67 50 34

All manufacturing 120 44 101 113

Consumer goods 160 95 100 119

Durable goods 30 –10 83 61

Intermediate goods 214 50 120 162

Chemical products 210 3 149 410

Clothing 224 49 125 277

Coal & petroleum products 164 321 365 –5

Food & beverages 361 292 122 82

Iron & steel products 142 21 92 90

Leather & fur products –1 –12 50 41

Nonferric metal products 348 204 191 854

Nonmetallic mineral products 114 121 186 215

Printing 54 111 86 177

Paper products 48 –52 313 254

Rubber goods n.a. n.a. 202 4,311

Transport equipment 3 –38 154 26

Tobacco products –78 64 162 263

Textiles 505 443 406 150

Wood products 213 2 64 153

Source: Kris Inwood, “Maritime Industrialization from 1870 to 1910,” Acadiensis 21, 1 (Autumn 1991): 147. Reprinted by permission.

central provinces and the others grew continually in the years before 1914.

While the absence of industrialization in the Canadian West was a consequence of the recentness of its settlement,

this did not apply to the Maritime region. Here rural stagna- tion joined a crisis in the shipbuilding industry. The growth of new technologies was partly to blame, but the problem was mainly a failure of the Maritime shippers’ nerve. The

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278 A History of the Canadian Peoples

shippers always viewed their ships as instruments of trade. Instead of reinvesting their capital in a modern shipbuild- ing industry, they and the business community of the region made a desperate effort to exploit the internal mar- ket. They accepted the National Policy and tried to work within it. The attempts at continentalism seemed initially successful in the 1880s, but rapidly turned to failure.

The reasons for the ultimate Maritime failure remain uncertain. Most Maritime entrepreneurs seemed to lack the financial resources to withstand the ups and downs of the economic cycles. They tended to blame many of their problems on high railway freight rates. At about the same time that the region’s business community was moaning about railway rates, outside capital moved in and began buying up locally based companies. Montreal capitalists did most of the damage. They bought up and dismantled many burgeoning industries still servicing the local market.

Maritime entrepreneurs, convinced that they were at a substantial geographical disadvantage in competing with central Canada, ceased trying in most sectors after 1895. Instead, the region turned to the panacea of iron and steel. Surely the presence of local raw materials would make this industry a competitive one. Unfortunately, central Canadian interests soon took over the Maritime steel industry. By 1911 Montreal controlled much of the region’s industrial enterprise. Toronto, on the other hand, moved into the region’s wholesale and retail marketing sector. Between 1901 and 1921 the number of regional businesses that were branches of central Canadian firms more than doubled, from 416 to 950. The net result of both sorts of takeovers was a regional loss of economic autonomy. Outsiders siphoned capital away from the Maritimes, and when times got tough they closed stores and factories. The region was systematically deindustrialized and decom- mercialized. It would never recover its economic vitality.

Most of the businessmen who operated the indus- trializing economy were immigrants or sons of immi- grants, with Scots farmers over-represented in both categories. Few had begun at the bottom of the social scale. French Canadians were seriously under-represented among large-scale entrepreneurs and industrialists, even within their own province. Most French-Canadian busi-

nesses remained small in scale, family-controlled, and confined chiefly to the province of Quebec. These busi- nessmen did share an overall philosophy. They insisted on government involvement in large schemes of public development, such as railways. They accepted govern- ment power to grant monopolies of public service through charters or access to Crown lands through advantageous leases. They sought to minimize competition wherever possible, even if public regulation was the price paid for the reduction. Small businessmen who could not combine institutionally to control trade, such as the small retailers, fought hard for early closings and price-fixing. Business rhetoric about competition had less to do with extol- ling the virtues of free enterprise than with complain- ing about unfair competition. The business community insisted that what it wanted was a “living profit,” a reason- able return on investment of time and capital.

While few business leaders believed in policies of laissez-faire in the relationship between the state and business, the situation was quite different when it came to labour organizations. From the view of business, organ- ized labour was an illegitimate combination designed to erode the right of the individual to run his business as he saw fit. Nevertheless, the growth of industrializa- tion was conducive to expanding worker militancy. The Canadian state proved relatively receptive to the rights of labour to organize. Whereas in the United States public policy was almost universally hostile to labour organization, in Canada laws that legalized union activ- ity were put on the books beginning in the 1880s. Many of the late nineteenth-century labour organizations in Canada were foreign imports, chiefly from the United States. If Canadian labour got much of its structure from the Americans, it drew much of its practical experience from Great Britain. The Noble and Holy Knights of Labor spread from the United States across Canada in the 1870s.The Knights were all-inclusive reformers, as their agenda suggested. For Canada as a whole, the Canadian Labour Congress formed in 1883 as an umbrella organ- ization for local trade councils, and in 1892 it became the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada.

In this period most labour conflict revolved around the right to organize and the recognition of unions. Government acceptance of union activity in some ways

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increased the frequency of conflict. Moreover, the civil authorities frequently intervened in labour conflicts, usually in the name of public order and often on the side of management. Such intervention often produced violence. Strikes were certainly common everywhere in Canada, especially after 1900. In Ontario’s 10 largest cit-

ies, between 1901 and 1914, there were 421 strikes and lockouts involving 60,000 workers. In the Maritimes, 324 strikes occurred between 1901 and 1914. Except in the Far West, the majority of the workers involved in these confrontations were skilled rather than unskilled. By 1914 approximately 155,000 Canadians belonged to

Declaration of Principles of the Knights of Labor (1883) Document

1. To bring within the fold of organization every department of productive industry, making know- ledge a standpoint for action, and industrial moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and national greatness.

2. To secure to the toilers a proper share of the wealth that they created; more of the leisure that right- fully belongs to them; more society advantages; all of the benefits, privileges and emoluments of the world; in a word all those rights and privileges necessary to make them capable of enjoying, appre- ciating, defending and perpetuating the blessings of good government.

3. To arrive at the true condition of the producing masses in their educational, moral and financial con- dition, by demanding from the various governments the establishment of bureaus of labor statistics.

4. The establishment of co-operative institutions, pro- ductive and initiative.

5. The reserving—of public lands—the heritage of the people—for the actual settler. Not another acre for railroads or corporations.

6. The abrogation of laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor; the removal of unjust tech- nicalities, delays and discriminations in the admin- istration of justice; and the adopting of measures

providing for the health and safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing and building pursuits.

7. The enactment of laws to compel chartered corpora- tions to pay their employees weekly, in full, for labor performed the preceding week, in the lawful money of the country. The enactment of laws giving mechanics and labor- ers the first lien on their work for their full wages.

8. The abolishment of the contract system on national, state and municipal roads or corporations.

9. The substitution of arbitration for strikes, whenever and wherever employers and employees are willing to meet on equitable grounds.

10. The prohibition of the employment of children in workshops mines and factories, before attaining their fourteenth year.

11. To abolish the system of letting out by contract the labor of convicts in our prisons and reformatory institutions.

12. To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work. 13. The reduction of the hours of labor to eight per day,

so that the laborers may have more time for social enjoyment and intellectual improvement, and be able to reap the advantages conferred by the labor-saving machinery which their brains have created.

Source: Labor Union (Hamilton), 1883, as quoted in Gregory S. Kealey and Bryan D. Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario, 1880–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 399–400.

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280 A History of the Canadian Peoples

organized labour unions, many of them affiliated with American internationals.

Natural Resources If Canada was to avoid eternal international balance-of- payment deficits (the plague of Third World countries in our own era) it obviously needed commodities to export. It found many of these in the natural resour- ces sector. To a considerable extent Canada’s resources were the old mainstays of the colonial staple economy, now produced under different guises. Resources not

only earned money abroad, they encouraged manufac- turing at home.

Agriculture

As if on some master schedule, the Canadian wheat economy continued to expand without pause. Fields of operation moved from central Canada to Manitoba and slightly later to the North-West Territories (which became the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1905). Between 1870 and 1890 thousands of farmers, chiefly from Ontario, poured into the West. The num- ber of acres of occupied land went from 2.5 million to

“Steel mills at Sydney, Cape Breton,” oil on canvas, 1907, by the railway magnate Sir William Cornelius Van Horne. Built between 1900 and 1905, these two plants attracted hundreds of workers, creating an instant city. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, gift of the artist’s grandson, William C. Van Horne. Photo: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Brian Merrett.

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over 6 million (1,011,750 to 2,428,200 ha) in the years 1881–91, while the acres of land under cultivation exploded from 279,000 to 1,429,000 (112,911 to 578,316 ha) in the same 10-year period. The opening of the CPR was critical for the production of western wheat. So, too, was the appearance of new wheat strains capable of mat- uration in the short prairie growing season.

Before the mid-1890s the typical prairie settler was an Ontario-born farmer who came west to make a new start. Despite the passage of the Dominion Lands Act of 1872, which made a fair amount of homestead land available, most farmers preferred to purchase land from companies set up by the great corporate benefac- tors of government land grants, especially the railways. Farmers believed (with some legitimacy) that homestead land was less likely to acquire rail transportation than was land owned by the railway itself. Although home- stead land was free to the male settler (women could not apply for homesteads), successful farming still required substantial capital investment. Conservative estimates of the costs of “farm-making” ranged from a minimum of $300 (the annual wage for an unskilled labourer) to $1,000. Most farmers brought money with them from the sale of land back east. The western farmer was a mar- ket farmer. Although the family grew as much food as possible for personal consumption, the farmer’s instinct was to increase constantly his acreage under production. Before World War I, mechanization was limited mainly to harvesting. Animals (horses and oxen) did most of the ploughing and cultivation. Nevertheless, the indi- vidual farmer managed to cultivate considerable quan- tities of land, limited mainly by the size of his labour force. In 1898 Ontario-born A.J. Cotton (1857–1942) har- vested a crop of over 17,000 bushels of top-grade wheat in Treherne, Manitoba.

Before the 1890s, western settlement was ham- pered by several factors. In the first place, the American West seemed a more attractive option to most potential new arrivals, with a longer growing season and bet- ter transportation networks. Between 1871 and 1891, more people from Canada had departed to the United States than had come to Canada from abroad. In the second place, Canadian immigration authorities had concentrated on recruiting British farmers, with only limited success. People with agricultural backgrounds

in Britain were, on the whole, doing well and not anx- ious to move. Finally, the large private land companies that had received large land grants were not anxious to select their lands and release them onto the market, speculating that land would increase in value after the country was better settled. Beginning in the 1890s an open and aggressive Canadian immigration policy, con- ducted by both the federal and provincial governments, brought new settlers to the prairies. In 1896 a new Minister of the Interior (with responsibility for immi- gration) took office. Clifford Sifton (1861–1929) was an Ontario-born Manitoban who believed in massive agri- cultural immigration as the key to Canadian prosper- ity. The trick, he held, was to find suitable immigrants and to get them onto the land. Sifton decided to take his immigrant farmers from wherever in the world he could find them, rather than concentrating on people from the United Kingdom. He was prepared to recruit in Eastern Europe, especially on the steppes of Russia where grain cultivation was well established. Sifton saw a quality immigrant as a “stalwart peasant in a sheep-skin coat born on the soil, whose fore-fathers have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half-dozen children” (quoted in Petryshyn, 1985: 21). He was also prepared to recruit in the United States, which no longer had an unsettled frontier of its own, despite a previous Canadian reluctance to encourage American settle- ment. Changing conditions in both Eastern Europe and the United States worked to Canada’s advantage.

The Ukrainians and Doukhobors Ukraine is a vast territory on the central and southern plains of Eastern Europe, and during the later nine- teenth century 85 per cent of this territory was part of the Russian Empire, while 15 per cent belonged to the Austrian Empire. The first settlers from Ukraine to Canada had come in the early 1890s, joining Mennonites and Hungarians as early arrivals from these European empires. In 1895, Dr Joseph Oleskiw, a Ukrainian aca- demic who taught agriculture, visited Canada and proposed an extensive Ukrainian immigration to the Canadian West, which Clifford Sifton did his best to implement. Between 1896 and 1914, about 170,000 Ukrainians—chiefly from the overpopulated Austrian

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provinces of Galicia and Bukovyna—entered Canada, mainly settling on the prairies. In their homeland, these people had been experiencing increasing subdivision of their land and declining productivity because of lack of capital resulting from heavy taxation. By 1900, half of the landholdings in the provinces of Galicia and Bukovyna were less than two hectares in extent, and many small landholders were heavily in debt. The Ukrainians would probably have preferred to go to the United States, but they faced increasing immigration restrictions and an often hostile reception from the Americans, who no longer had any unsettled agricultural land to distribute to newcomers. Many of the immigrants came to Canada because of a secret agreement between the Canadian

government and the North Atlantic Trading Company, which directed immigrants to Canada in return for under-the-table payments on a per capita basis. Indeed, steamship and railway companies were probably more successful recruiters of immigration outside the British Isles than was the Canadian government.

Canada may have been a second choice, but at least it encouraged Ukrainians to settle and it could make land available to them. Most Ukrainian immigrants were poor but not destitute. Like generations of immi- grants before them, they had sold their land and pos- sessions to purchase their passage. Like all immigrants of the time, they found the transatlantic passage in steerage to be a difficult experience. As their own his-

In western Canada, farmers’ instincts were to increase acreage as much as possible, creating large, profitable farms. Here, farmers are seen breaking land in Pincher Creek, Alberta. Despite the width and size of the plows illustrated here, they are still being drawn by horses. Note the size of the crew apparently required for this operation. Glenbow Archives, NA-2382-9.

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torians have emphasized, the situation the Ukrainians entered in Canada was little different from that at home: bare survival on the land and an early death for those who failed. But they were stubborn—and hopeful. Many new arrivals found the quarter-section homestead concept—160 acres or one-fourth of a square mile township, the standard survey unit in the West—to be beyond their comprehension, partly because of its size and partly because of the difficulty of reproducing compact village communities like the ones they had left.

The first Ukrainians typically emigrated without many of their natural leaders, especially parish clergy- men. They were particularly assisted by three members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia—Joseph Oleskiw, Kyrole Genik, and the Reverend Nestor Dmytriw—employed by the Canadian government as “overseers” and advisers. These three men produced a substantial body of writ- ing to assist the new arrivals. They emphasized the need for capital to establish a farm, the adoption of Canadian styles of dress, and the acquisition of free land. Canadian society received the Ukrainians with considerable sus- picion, chiefly because they were obviously non-British “foreigners” who spoke an alien language and practised different customs. Those who settled in the cities (espe- cially Winnipeg’s North End) in ethnic slum commun- ities were almost visible. But the willingness of the new arrivals to work hard was in their favour, at least before the onset of the Great War. After 1914, Austria-Hungary joined Germany as the enemy, and many Ukrainians in Canada became “enemy aliens.”

Usually considered separately from the Ukrainians, although originating from the same region, the Doukh- obors were a sectarian movement that broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church in the eighteenth century. The Doukhobors (the term literally means “spirit wrest- lers”) became a Quaker-like pacifistic group that empha- sized the brotherhood and sisterhood of all men and women and the validation of their beliefs not in books but in the “book of life.” With the aid of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, the Doukhobors came to western Canada in search of refuge from Russian persecution. The first con- tingent was granted recognition as conscientious object- ors by the Canadian government on 6 December 1898. Over the next few years, more than 7,500 Doukhobors arrived in Canada to settle on tracts reserved for them in

what would become Saskatchewan and Alberta. They were joined by their leader, Peter Verigin (1859–1924), in 1903. In 1907 the Canadian government backed away from an earlier commitment to allow the Doukhobors to live and work communally, insisting instead on individual home- steading and an oath of allegiance. As a result, under the leadership of Verigin, communal-living Doukhobors bought land in the Interior of British Columbia and moved into the Kootenay region, where they would subsequently struggle with the authorities over their beliefs.

The Americans Although the Canadian press would occasionally com- plain about the “Americanization” of the West and other places, most Americans had always been regarded as desirable settlers who “understood the ways of the continent and its institutions” (Troper, 1972: 12). Many Americans, of course, had started their lives in British America before moving to the United States earlier in the century. Some exceptions to the favourable atti- tude towards Americans prevailed, however. Many Canadians objected to the polygynous marriage prac- tices of the Mormons, who were one of the earliest groups of immigrants into Alberta in the 1880s, and few Canadians showed any enthusiasm for the admission into their country of American blacks from Oklahoma and elsewhere. In addition to the Mormons, American cattle and sheep ranchers arrived before the 1890s, but following the well-publicized “closing of the frontier” in the United States during that decade the Canadian government made a real effort after 1896 to recruit American farmers of European origins for what would become known as “The Last Best West.”

Canadian agents openly sought wealthy immi- grants. One common form of recruitment was through personal correspondence from successful settlers to prospective ones, organized by the Department of Immigration. Much of the settlement in Saskatchewan and Alberta occurred in the so-called Palliser’s Triangle, a dry-belt region with marginal rainfall. American farm- ers were alleged to be the best settlers of such land, as they were familiar with the techniques of dry-land farm- ing. In a series of land rushes, thousands of American farmers settled the dry belt in the years between 1906

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and 1914. They prospered because there was adequate rainfall during this period, but later they abandoned the region when drought conditions returned.

By 1921 over 44 million acres (17,806,800 ha) of the prairies were under cultivation. According to one set of calculations, the wheat economy in 1901–11 contributed over 20 per cent of the growth in per capita income in Canada. While wheat was the big prairie crop, other crops were possible. Before the arrival of farmers, much of southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan was the domain of ranchers, who grazed their cattle on open range leased from the federal government. At the height of the cattle boom in 1898, Canadian ranchers exported 213,000 live head. Most cattlemen were American, but a

substantial minority were British, and polo-playing was common in early Alberta. Although ranchers insisted that much of the range land was unsuitable for farming because of water shortages, their obvious self-interest in an open range negated the force of much of their argu- ment. Nevertheless, water remained a major potential problem in much of the West.

Mines and Timber

In 1890 Nova Scotia was the leading mining province in Canada, chiefly because of its rich coal resources. After that year, three factors hastened a great shift in Canadian mineral extraction. One was the development of new

Ukrainian (Galician) immigrant family in Quebec, 1911. While immigrants came from many parts of the world to Canada, a number of programs were directed at Eastern Europeans. Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton desired these “stalwart peasants in sheep-skin coats,” such as those pictured here, to farm the West. Photo by W.J. Topley, LAC, PA-10401.

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technologies to extract ore. Another was the increasing availability of railway transportation to remote areas. Most important of all, the international market created a new demand for metals that Canada had in abundance: copper, nickel, and silver. Almost overnight, Ontario and British Columbia became the leading mineral producers.

Although the most famous mining rush of the per- iod was to the Yukon’s Klondike district for gold, the Klondike was hardly typical of the mining industry. More representative were the mining towns that sud- denly sprang up and equally rapidly closed down in the mountains of British Columbia and Alberta. Like most Canadian mines, these required considerable machin- ery and expertise to exploit, well beyond the resources of the individual miner. Well-capitalized corporations opened such mines, employing money and technology often imported from the United States. In Quebec, the most buoyant segment of the mineral industry between 1900 and 1920 was asbestos fibre, used chiefly in con- struction material consumed in the United States. The Canadian mining industry greatly benefited from the military requirements of the Great War.

In the forest industry, the decline through perma- nent depletion of the white pine forests of eastern Canada pushed the centre of activity to the West. British Columbia had millions of acres of Douglas fir and cedar. The province started harvesting in the coastal regions close to water, but soon pushed inland. Most of its production went to American markets. The remain- ing forests of eastern Canada proved valuable for their softwood. The pulp and paper industry expanded rapidly, driven by an insatiable American demand for inexpensive newsprint. By 1915 wood pulp and paper represented one-third of the value of Canadian exports, virtually equal to wheat and grain in the overseas mar- ket. Quebec produced nearly one-half of Canada’s wood pulp and paper.

The resource sector produced its own version of labour militancy. The sector was difficult to organize by traditional means. In mines and lumber camps, the distinction between skilled and unskilled labour had little meaning. Nevertheless, worker alienation was often extreme. In British Columbia, unrest was par- ticularly strong among miners, who worked for large

absentee corporations under difficult conditions. In this kind of environment, syndicalists and radicals (such as the Wobblies or the Impossibilists) did very well. They preached the need for the organization of all workers into general unions and the destruction of capitalism by revolution.

Urban and Rural Canada In 1881 Canada had a population of 4,325,000, of whom 3,349,000 lived outside urban centres. Forty years later, of the nation’s 8,788,000 inhabitants, only 4,811,000 resided in non-urban areas, and 1,659,000 lived in cities with populations over 100,000. While the non- urban population had grown over these years from 3,349,000 to 4,811,000, the number of city dwellers had burgeoned from 974,000 to 3,977,000. Urban growth was obviously a major trend of the period 1880–1918. Canada developed some very large metropolitan cen- tres, but their residents did not constitute the entire urban population. If 1,659,000 Canadians lived in cit- ies of over 100,000 in 1921, another 2.2 million lived in smaller centres, with 1,058,000 in towns of 5,000 to 29,999 people and 765,000 in towns of 1,000 to 4,999. Canadian urban growth in this era produced all sorts of new problems for the nation. At the same time, urban development was not the entire story for these years. As the statistics well demonstrate, before 1921 more Canadians continued to reside in rural than in urban areas. Rural Canada, although its earlier dominance was gradually eroding away, was still very important to the national ethos. Moreover, the very sense of the grad- ual loss of traditional rural values was critical for the Canadian psyche.

The City

As with most other aspects of Canadian development in this period, urban growth was uneven across the regions. Maritime cities grew fairly sluggishly. None could establish regional dominance. Indeed, Halifax lost ground as central Canada siphoned off its financial

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286 A History of the Canadian Peoples

The 1889 Royal Commission on the Relations of Labor

and Capital documented through first-person testi-

mony that a substantial number of children of both

sexes between the ages of 10 and 14 were employed

full-time (10 hours a day, six days a week) in the factor-

ies of Ontario and Quebec. They were paid between

$1.00 and $2.00 per week, depending on their age and

production during a time when the typical working-

man earned $7.00 per week and females somewhat

less. These children were subjected to heavy discipline,

including corporal punishment. They were frequently

fined when they fell behind quotas, and one factory

even had a “black hole” in which a child could be con-

fined for hours or even days. Laws against the use of

child labour, especially children under the age of 14,

existed but were not enforced any more than were

the laws calling for compulsory school attendance.

Parents supported the employment of their children,

even insisted upon it, as part of a “family economy”

that helped sustain many in the working classes of the

nation. The absence of any clear concept of child-

hood beyond the early years helped contribute to the

presence of children in factories and elsewhere in

the Canadian industrial workforce, but such a pattern

was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to the

employment of children in Victorian Canada. Most of

Canada remained agricultural, and in this sector of

the economy the dominant economic institution was

the family farm, which operated on the assumption

that every family member beyond the earliest years

worked to contribute to its survival and prosperity.

Unlike the child factory workers, many of whom

probably turned their earnings over to their fam-

ilies, the children working on the farm received no

wages. Also unlike those employed in factories, of

course, some of those children who worked on

the family farm had a prospect of an inheritance at

the end of the day, although usually only the older

males and almost never the females benefited in this

way. According to one recent study of prairie child

labour in the Victorian period, the Canadian West

could not have been successfully settled without the

heavy use of child labour. “Children contributed to

production, took part in paid employment or other

money-raising activities, worked at domestic and

subsistence tasks, and thereby increased the sup-

ply of cash, food, and other necessary commodities

to the family” (Rollings-Magnusson, 2009: 133–4).

Indeed, settlement in Canada in any period was based

on the exploitation of the unpaid labour of the family,

including both women and children.

BACKGROUNDER Child Labour in Victorian Canada

Although there were laws in place to protect child labourers, such as the children seen here separating the ore from the rock in a Quebec copper mine, these laws were not enforced. © McCord Museum.

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institutions. In Quebec, Montreal continued its path to the status of the Dominion’s premier city, with Quebec City and other towns lagging far behind. In Ontario, Toronto was clearly the “Queen City,” although a num- ber of smaller cities (Hamilton, London, and Kingston) were vibrant. Ottawa inhabited a world of its own as the nation’s capital, as it always would. The most spectacu- lar urban growth rates were in the West, which in this era spawned two major cities, Winnipeg and Vancouver, and two contenders for such a rank, Edmonton and Calgary. While western settlement usually suggests farms and agriculture, urban development in the West was strong from the outset. Land speculation drove local pretensions, and many communities aspired to be regional entrepôts. In the Prairie provinces the urban population grew from 103,000 to 606,000 between 1900 and 1916. City dwellers, who represented 25 per cent of the region’s population in 1901, had increased to 35 per cent only 10 years later. By 1921 in British Columbia, Vancouver (117,217) and Victoria (38,727) contained 25 per cent of the population of that Pacific province.

The larger cities of Canada most clearly exposed the social problems of the later Victorian and sub- sequent Edwardian eras. The greatest problem was poverty. Existing evidence suggests that up to half of the Canadian urban working class lived below, or at best around, the poverty line. Most working-class fam- ilies were glad to supplement the father’s income with the earnings of wife and children in menial occupa- tions. Given the grinding conditions of their lives, it is not surprising that many sought refuge in alcohol. Unbalanced diets and malnutrition were only the start of the problems of the poor. Their housing was typically overcrowded, with poor sanitation and a lack of open yards and spaces.

Home ownership was difficult, even for the mid- dle classes, because mortgages were hard to obtain and were only of short duration, often no more than three or four years. Malnutrition and deplorable housing condi- tions combined to produce high overall death rates and high infant mortality rates in Canada’s largest cities. The mortality differentials between the poor and the pros- perous were substantial, ranging from 35.51 deaths per 1,000 in 1895 in one working-class ward in Montreal to less than 13 per 1,000 “above the hill.” Infant mortality

rates in Canadian cities were little different from those in places like Calcutta and Bombay. The children of the urban poor often got little schooling. Moreover, the poor resisted pressures for compulsory education.

If the city had social problems, it also made pos- sible a rich and varied cultural life. Before 1918 cultural life maintained an amateur tradition of considerable vitality. The major development in Canadian urban culture in this era was not so much the appearance of first-rate artists as the creation of an institutional infrastructure that might eventually enable them to emerge. The city made possible the development of cultural institutions in the form of both organiza- tions and buildings to house them. The construction of museums, for example, was characteristic of the age. The Art Museum of Toronto appeared in 1900, the Royal Ontario Museum in 1912 (it opened in 1914). Equally characteristic of the era was the formation of artistic organizations. The Canadian Art Club (1907) was organized in Toronto, although its founders had no idea how to achieve their goal of introducing new Canadian painting to the entire nation. Formal art and music schools were organized in most of the lar- ger urban centres, offering regularized instruction to neophyte painters and musicians. Theatrical buildings became a measure of a city’s status. As early as 1891 Vancouver had a 1,200-seat opera house. Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre (1906–7) seated 1,525, and Winnipeg’s Walker Theatre (1907, recently renovated as a theatrical venue) seated 2,000 in splendid com- fort. These buildings operated continuously, housing mainly professional touring companies and local ama- teurs. Homegrown professional theatre emerged first in Montreal. There were 10 different professional compan- ies at work in Montreal in the 1890s. In 1899 alone these companies gave 618 performances of 109 plays.

The extent of the growth of urban Canada between 1880 and 1919 was largely unanticipated. The large city cut against most of the dominant ideologies of the time, which were traditional and rural. The insti- tutions of urban government were not well integrated into the overall Canadian political system. The British North America Act did not leave much room for the governance of cities that would have budgets and rev- enues as large as those of the provinces in which they

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288 A History of the Canadian Peoples

were located. Urban government and urban politics operated outside the structures of Confederation, with their own agendas and distinct party labels. Most cities were slow to abandon property qualifications for vot- ing. Local merchants and real estate promoters tended to dominate city councils, even in cities with a relatively democratic franchise. The ward system produced muni- cipal politicians who curried favour with the electorate through corrupt practices ranging from the purchasing of votes to offers of “jobs for the boys.”

No urban centre could expect to prosper in this era if it was not on a main-line railway. Contemporaries clearly recognized this reality. During the several out- bursts of railway expansion—particularly between 1906 and 1915, when more than 14,000 new miles (22,530 km) of railway track were laid in Canada—efforts by aspir- ing communities to become depots and junction points were prodigious. Conversely, rumours of new railway construction were sufficient to create a village where none had existed previously. The extremes to which communities would go to publicize themselves in order to attract railways were occasionally ludicrous and often

expensive. Agricultural fairs, as well as the presence of town bands and sports teams, publicized communities. A marching brass band and a baseball team were two of the best advertisements an “up-and-at-’em” town could enjoy. “Bonusing”—financial inducements for railways and business entrepreneurs alike—was a way of life in this period.

If urban growth relied on railway networks, it operated in a context of fairly blatant and open land speculation. The attempted creation of every new city in western Canada began with a land boom. This stage of development usually ended with a collapse in land prices that required years of recovery. Many small businessmen in the West made a decent living selling out in one community just ahead of the bust and moving to a new townsite further down the rail line. The false fronts on western small-town stores were symbolic of the transitory nature of commitment. Speculation in land involved not merely businessmen—or the West. Almost all segments of local communities across Canada joined in real estate speculation whenever they could. Indeed, the attempt to turn a profit by investing in undeveloped

The “foreign” quarter of Winnipeg, c. 1909. Archives of Manitoba, Immigration 17, N7936.

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land must surely be one of the most enduring features of Canadian life. Speculation was different from develop- ment. The former involved the holding of land for future profit, the latter the translation of land—often acquired at bargain prices—into immediate profit as sites for houses or factories.

Town and Suburb

In the larger urban centres land speculation and develop- ment were inseparable from the process of suburbaniz- ation. This trend combined with urban expansion away from the commercial core of most cities. There were

three distinct motives for suburban expansion. Different types of suburbs were the result. The first motive dom- inated among the prospering business and professional classes, who moved to new residential suburbs to escape the noise, odours, and bustle of the central city. Horse droppings on busy city streets, for example, were a major problem before the Great War. Some of these suburbanites were attempting to separate themselves from the growing slums of the industrializing city. The architectural style most closely associated with the new suburban elites grew out of the English Arts and Crafts movement and became known as the English Domestic Revival. A second motive for suburban growth was the

Interior of slum home, Winnipeg, c. 1915.What assumptions can we make about the subjects and surroundings in this photograph? Archives of Manitoba, Foote 1491, N2438.

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290 A History of the Canadian Peoples

quest for lower land costs and lower taxes outside the central city. The result was the development of a number of industrial suburbs, such as Maisonneuve in Montreal, which flourished outside the city but were still within its orbit. The third motive was proximity to work. As indus- trial development moved into the cheaper outskirts, workers were forced to follow their jobs into often inad- equate new housing. During this period, most large cit- ies in Canada grew by a continuous process of absorbing outlying communities.

The genuine Canadian small town tended to fit one of two models. It was either a community serving a surrounding rural area, sometimes with a manufactur- ing plant or two, or a single-resource community, often remotely located, that had formed around a mine or

mining/smelter operation. The resource town consisted almost exclusively of single males, with only a handful of women. There were precious few sources of entertain- ment other than booze and gambling. Many resource towns, though not all, were company towns. Such com- munities were both violent and restive, often centres of labour unrest.

The service community, on the other hand, was the centre of economic, social, and recreational life for its district. Before the advent of radio and television, the social life of small-town Canada bustled impressively. Organizations of all kinds proliferated and flourished. Most towns had a variety of lodges and an endless round of meetings, dances, and “occasions.” These occasions included concerts, plays, sermons by visiting evangelical

It will be remembered that, according to our indus-

trious census, the total number of poor families was

reckoned at 888 in “the city below the hill.” Half of

this number were by the writer selected as material

for a second and more searching investigation, with

a view of more fully examining the characteristics,

conditions and causes of our west-end poverty. Four

hundred and thirty-six families were sought for, and

the first fact that was brought to the notice of the

investigator was that 46 families, or 10 1/2 per cent

of the above number, had left their former abodes,

within the two months between the first and second

canvass, drawing attention to one of the sad fea-

tures of poverty’s lot, viz., the constant necessity to

move on because of inability to satisfy the claims of

the landlord. If this ratio were maintained, and each

month saw 5 per cent of the poor evicted, in a year

not half these families could be found at the former

addresses.

A second fact, made apparent by the special

investigation, was that our west-end poverty was not

the result of recent immigration. Quite the reverse

from what would have been the case in New York or

Chicago, hardly a dozen families were discovered that

had not been residents of the city for at least three

years. The vast majority were old residents who had

lived in Montreal for the greater part of their lives.

The presence of poverty, then, in the nether city is

not chargeable to any considerable influx of foreign

elements.

Herbert Brown Ames on Poverty in Montreal In 1897 the Montreal businessman Herbert Brown Ames published a series of articles in the Montreal Star that subsequently appeared as a book. The articles were based on his careful survey of social conditions in part of the west side of Montreal. The district he had selected probably offered a fair sample of working-class residences in Montreal at the end of the nineteenth century.

Contemporary Views

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preachers, and lectures on temperance or exotic places. By the end of the Great War, most towns had a “movie house” or a hall that exhibited motion pictures on a regular basis. Many small towns had exercised the local option permitted by liquor legislation and “gone dry.” Small-town social relations were often strained, particu- larly between the middle classes and those who worked in the factories that many eastern small towns possessed. In the West, class conflict often pitted farmers against hired hands or the crews of threshing contractors. The possibility of outbreaks of violence was never far away.

Even more serious were the gender constraints inherent in the structure of small towns. Masculinity dominated the life of the town, in terms both of family relationships and especially of extracurricular activity.

Local sports were controlled by notions of manliness, and most athletic organizations catered only to men. Local fraternal organizations were equally mascu- line and exclusionist, although occasionally they had women’s auxiliaries. One of the most important under- lying tensions in many (although not all) small towns was between church-related and other voluntary organ- izations. The church organizations were dominated by women and often sought reform, including prohibition of alcohol and elimination of gambling. The mascu- line-dominated voluntary structure was often, by impli- cation, the chief target of these reformers. The attentive and careful reader can find all these tensions exhibited in the novels of small-town life that dominated Canadian literature in these years.

In the case of 323 families inquiries were made

as to the causes, assigned by the people them-

selves, for their indigent condition. With 109 families,

or 34 per cent the reply was “irregularity of work.”

The wage-earners were not without vocations but

their employment was intermittent and often work

ceased altogether for considerable periods. With

87 families or 28 per cent the answer was that the

wage-earners had no work whatever, nor did there

seem to be any immediate prospect of getting any.

With 27 families, or 9 per cent, old age had unfitted

and with a like number sickness had prevented the

worker from earning the requisite support. Out of

these 323 families, among the poorest of the poor,

62 per cent claimed to be able to better their condi-

tion were employment regular and abundant. That a

certain percentage of the answers given did not state

the real facts of the case is quite probable. Few are

the families that will admit to a stranger that drink,

crime or voluntary idleness is the cause of their mis-

ery, though in 7 per cent of the cases visited drunk-

enness was clearly at the bottom of the trouble. Still

it is the belief of the investigator that the undeserving

among the poor form a far smaller proportion than is

generally imagined.

As to the composition of the family, out of 390 fam-

ilies, 86 were found wherein the head of the household

was a widow, and 54 cases where the husband was

too old or too ill to work, making in all 140 families, or

36 per cent of the whole, that might be called “decapi-

tated” family groups. In about two-thirds of the fam-

ilies, or in 64 per cent of the cases examined, there was

an able-bodied man in the house, oftimes more than

one, a man able to work and professing to be willing to

do so. If these proportions may be taken as fairly indi-

cating the average among the families of the poor, it is

evident that at least one-third of them are in indigent

circumstances through no fault of their own. . . .

Source: H. Ames, The City Below the Hill, pp. 74–6. © University of Toronto Press, 1972.

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292 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Rural Canada

A number of major changes occurred in Canadian agri- culture during the period from 1880 to 1914. The most obvious was the enormous expansion of farming in the prairie West, concentrating single-mindedly on grain cultivation. Elsewhere, the era saw a major shift in east- ern Canada towards specialized farming. In central Canada, farmers moved into specialized high-quality consumer production, becoming increasingly depend- ent on off-farm processing, particularly of cheese, but- ter, and meat. By 1900 Ontario had over 1,200 cheese factories, which captured over half of the British mar- ket. Ontario cheese makers were renowned around the world. Quebec farmers had greater difficulty in making the change because of the marginality of much of their land. Specialty farming was very remunerative for those able to engage in it. The aristocrats of farming were the dairy farmers and the fruit farmers. Along with special- ized farming came new technology, although the ubi- quitous tractor did not replace the horse until after the Great War. More important were mechanical harvesters, centrifugal cream separators, and the introduction of refrigeration. Technology was essential to specializa-

tion. It was also capital-intensive. Not all farmers could make the shift. Those who could not often stagnated or failed absolutely. Between 1891 and 1921 the Maritime region lost 22,000 farms and 1,556,709 acres (630,000 ha) of farmland under cultivation. Unmodernized farms could not continue to support the entire family. By 1911 the Farmer’s Advocate could refer to the “perennial debates as to ‘Why the Boys Leave the Farm’.” While urban migration was one response, another was that farmers—and farm women—moved into the traditional resource industries of the nation. Males went to sea to fish or into the woods to cut timber. Females worked seasonally in factories, processing farm products or fish.

Contemporaries often blamed the growing rural exodus on the social and cultural attractions of the city. While it might thus be tempting to visualize rural Canada as a vast wasteland of isolated and unlettered country bumpkins, such a view would be most inaccurate. Isolation did exist, as did educational limitations. On the other hand, a relatively efficient and inexpensive postal service provided contact with the wider world. People read books and discussed them at clubs that met in local churches. Clergymen often talked about controversial books and topics from their pulpits. Many farm families received at least one daily newspaper through the mail— seldom on the day of publication, but usually only a day or two later. Canadian dailies in this era provided more substantial fare than today. International coverage was much fuller, and many papers saw themselves as “papers of record,” often reproducing verbatim accounts of court trials and important meetings. In the spring of 1919, for example, the Winnipeg Tribune carried a full stenograph- er’s report of the debates at the labour convention in Calgary, which agreed to “an Industrial Organization of all workers.” Most rural folk also relied heavily for their edification on farm journals such as the Grain Growers’ Guide (1908–28) and more general magazines like the Christian Guardian, the voice of the Methodist Church; it was begun in 1829 by Egerton Ryerson and continued under that name until 1925. The wide range of letters to the editor included in most of these periodicals suggests both their circulation and their vitality.

If rural Canadians had access to considerable infor- mation, they were also surprisingly able to get together socially with each other. The school and the church

Although most athletic organizations catered only to men, by the turn of the twentieth century, hockey was being regularly played by women as well as men. Here is the Rossland, British Columbia, Ladies’ Hockey Team, c. 1900. Rossland Museum Archives, RHMA02-18-997.

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2937 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

The Town Directory of Treherne, Manitoba, 1895

Document

Town Directory 1895

E. Hamilton’s our high school master; D. Hamilton puts on the plaster; Revds. McClung, Fraser and George Fill On Sundays do our pulpits fill; T.J. Lamont’s our town M.D.; One blacksmith’s name is Thos. Lee; Rogers sells dry goods and coffees; Alexander keeps post office; D. Williams and J.K. McLennan Sell dry goods, cod, haddock finnan, Ben Englewain repairs the clocks; Our miller’s name is Jas A. Cox; James Telford Reid’s our legal light One retired farmer’s called John White; ’Tis G.A. Anderson that carried The business on for Massey-Harris; And S.L. Taylor sells the pills, That sometimes cure and sometimes kill; C.W. Barkwell is town baker; Ed Roberts is the undertaker; Tom Roberts helps his brother Ed

Sell furniture and house the dead; Joe Straube is town hardware man; In athletics Paulin leads the van; One livery’s kept by the Parker Brothers; And John Perrie keeps the other; Jas. Stevenson keeps the “Manitoba,” With parlor, dining-room, and lobby; Fred Rocket keeps the “Rocket House”; Our tailor’s name is Harry House; D. Harvie harness makes and collars Watt Smith irons wagons, sleighs and rollers And general blacksmith shop controls; His carriage maker’s William Bowles; Andrew Ross supplies the butcher meat; Malcolm McClarty shoes the feet; H. Watson, Senior health inspector; James McAdam’s tax collector; Claude Somerville’s mill engineer; John Coulter is mill charioteer; James Emmond sues for delinquent debts, And William Frame does serve the writs; Robson deals in lumber, lime, and bricks . . . .

In 1907 Alan Ross, a local poet in Treherne, Manitoba, published a small volume of his verse. It included the following poem, the subject of which is self-explanatory.

Source: Alan Ross, Poems (Treherne, Man.: The Treherne Times, 1907), 18.

were two local institutions that served other functions besides providing formal education and worship servi- ces. School districts were usually the only sign of public organization in vast regions of rural Canada that were otherwise politically unorganized. The community jealously guarded its schoolhouse, which, from coast to coast, was typically of one room. The most common Quebec school in the 1913 census had one room, built at a cost of $1,200. Whether Protestant or Catholic,

francophone or anglophone, rural Canadians took their religion seriously. Sermons provided topics for daily conversation. The activities of various auxiliary groups connected with any church, particularly the picnics and socials, were very popular. Winter did not shut down social life in rural areas, but permitted it to flower. The demands of the farm were much lighter in winter, while snow and ice provided a decent surface for horse-drawn sleighs and carrioles to travel about the countryside. “A

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294 A History of the Canadian Peoples

working day . . . was from about 4:30 a.m. to 11 o’clock at night,” reported one western farmer, “but this was only in seeding and harvesting time. In the winter we used to really have fun” (quoted in Voisey, 1988: 158).

A number of diaries and journals kept by rural Canadians in this period have recently appeared in print. They provide two revelations for the modern reader. The first is the sheer volume of social inter- change, especially among the young, that actually occurred. The second is the extent to which Canadians of this era actively participated in their own entertain- ment rather than being amused as passive spectators by the activities of others. Canadians of both sexes and all ages routinely spent social evenings singing hymns and other songs. They created and performed their own skits and joined together in active games such as charades.

Rural life was not all bucolic pleasure, of course. The real reason for the rural exodus was not isolation but exploitation and lack of economic opportunity. The underside of life on the family farm was the exploitation and abuse of those who would not in the end inherit a substantial share in the property. The system was par- ticularly hard on women, who usually did not share in the ownership of the farm and who seldom received remuneration for their labour. Western farmers espe- cially were hostile to “anachronistic” legal concepts such as dower rights. The homesteading system was generally unsympathetic to the rights of women to set up as independent farmers. For many women every- where in Canada, the daily routine was even more continually demanding than it was for men. Women’s responsibilities included not only the kitchen garden and the smaller livestock, such as chickens and pigs, but care of the family itself. One consequence of the shift into specialized farming was that parts of the farm operation previously consigned to women that provided them with a small income (“egg money”) were taken over by the males. Canadian rural society con- tinued to be inherently patriarchal in its organization. Men owned the land and usually made the decisions, including when to uproot and resettle, often against the wishes of their wives. The figure of the rural patriarch as an intensely self-righteous, land-hungry, materialistic tyrant became a common motif in Canadian fiction of this and a slightly later period.

Despite the darker side, a vast majority of Canadians continued to hold rural values and to think of the nation largely in pastoral terms. Those who read Canadian poetry or looked at Canadian art found little but Canadian nature. Foreigners inevitably saw Canada as a completely undeveloped country and Canadians as an agricultural people. In the hands of the poets, Canadian nature was chiefly benign. Writers of prose sometimes depicted nature differently, often in terms of the victory of hardy settlers over the harsh landscape and climate. Many Canadian writers and painters of this period romanticized the farm and farming, none more so than Lucy Maud Montgomery. Anne of Green Gables summed up a major conflict of the era: the problem of reconciling the bucolic beauty and tranquility of the rural landscape with the need to leave it in order to fulfill one’s ambitions. For large numbers of Canadians of this era, growing up meant leaving the farm.

Another form of romanticization of rural life was the collection of its folklore and folksongs. Marius Barbeau (1883–1969) was the first great Canadian col- lector of folk traditions, beginning in 1911 when he was appointed an anthropologist at the Museum Branch of the Geological Survey of Canada (now the National Museum of Canada). Barbeau recorded and preserved in archives thousands of songs and narratives that document not only the folk traditions of rural Quebec but also those of the Aboriginal peoples in British Columbia. The folkways and songs that Barbeau and others collected were part of the traditional rural experience of Canada. They preserved almost nothing of urban origin. The collectors desperately gathered up dialects, riddles, tall tales, and children’s rhymes, all of which told more of the daily life of the people than most other historical evidence. Underlying the desperation was the fear that these traditions would disappear in the rapidly changing society of the period.

The dominance in Canada of the myth of agricul- ture carried over into the various efforts of the period to turn Aboriginal peoples into “peaceable agricultural labourers.” Agrarian ideology had the advantage of both justifying the dispossession of the Native peoples of their hunting grounds and providing them with an alter- nate way of life. Before the Great War most Canadians regarded agriculture as “the mainspring of national

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A t l a n t i c O c e a n

P a c i f i c O c e a n

H u d s o n B a y

E W

0 500

kilometres

1,000

A r c t i c C i r c l e

Provinces

Northwest Territories

Yukon Territory

Newfoundland

Disputed Area

Provinces

North-West Territories

Yukon Territory

Newfoundland

Disputed Area

Canada in 1898 and 1905.

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296 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Basket socials may not be a form of amusement

peculiar to Prince Edward Island, but in all events, I

have never seen a place where they attained to such

prominence, among the various schemes for getting

money, as in this province. . . .

Often it happens that in country villages a debt

is to be paid by a congregation, either a balance

due on their church or perhaps for a new organ.

Instead of raising the necessary amount by pri-

vate subscription, the people decide upon a basket

social, and word is sent to everyone. Upon hearing

this the young ladies all begin to prepare baskets

containing ample lunch for two people. These they

carry, carefully wrapped in many sheets of paper,

to the hall on the night of the social, and hand over

to the committee in charge. The baskets are sold

by auction, and the purchaser of each must share

its contents with the young lady who brought it.

Of course every young man is anxious to get the

basket prepared by his “best girl”: but as the names

are not announced until after the baskets are sold,

many mistakes are made, and the remarks some-

times uttered, by fond lovers who have paid a high

price for the wrong one, look much better in print

when expressed by a dash.

Let us try to imagine ourselves in a hall in almost

any country settlement on the evening devoted to

one of these popular meetings. . . . The committee,

composed of elders of the church, were kept busy

finding seats for the ladies; taking care of the bas-

kets handed to them, and doing the many little things

necessary at all such entertainments. Now, however,

we see them placing a row of chairs on the platform,

and pushing the organ into a more convenient pos-

ition. Hardly had this been done when there enter

from a side door a number of ladies and gentlemen,

who proceed to occupy the chairs. This is the village

choir, and during the past week they have been prac-

ticing pieces to be sung to-night. . . .

Cheers, whistles and stamping of feet greeted

the choir, who arose and, to the accompaniment

of a hard-breathing organ, sang “Jingle Bells.” The

first verse was sung amid perfect silence, but in the

second the crowd caught the rhythm of the piece and

kept time to it with their feet, especially in the chorus,

when a string of sleigh bells was used to make the

effect more realistic. A recitation, “Curfew shall not

ring to-night,” given by a young lady, followed the

chorus, but as most of the audience knew the piece

by heart, very little attention was paid, and the greater

portion of the piece remained almost unheard. But

amid the din the speaker’s voice could be heard every

now and then, and bravely she struggled through

until, with the saving of the lover, the piece ended and

the “Amen corner” burst into thunderous applause.

Then came a fine-looking soloist—tenor in the choir

and local auctioneer. He began “Ten thousand leaves

are falling,” but having pitched the song in too high a

key, his voice broke and he stopped, his failure being

greeted by frantic howls and advice from one of the

“A Basket Social in P.E. Island” “Preserve me from ‘pie socials’,” wrote Lucy Maud Montgomery in her journal on 4 April 1899. “They are the abomination of desolation.” The following more positive view was expressed by “Welland Strong” (presumably a nom de plume) in a 1901 issue of the Prince Edward Island Magazine. Whoever the author may have been, he or she was quite right in thinking that the social was not distinctive to the Island, but appeared everywhere in rural Canada.

A Basket Social in P.E. Island

by Welland Strong

Contemporary Views

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2977 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

greatness” and farming as a way of life that uplifted one “morally and emotionally” (Carter, 1990: 20). Scientists saw agriculture as a crucial step in the ladder of prog- ress. They perceived other ways of using the land, such as mining or lumbering, as tainted and inferior. The government displaced Aboriginals by treaties, then removed them to reserves and encouraged them to farm. Exhortation was not the same as useful practical assist- ance. Native Canadians on the prairies needed a good deal of help to shift from a semi-nomadic hunting/gath- ering existence to a settled agricultural one, and they did not consistently receive assistance. Government aid was sporadic, cheese-paring, and patronizing. After 1885 coercion replaced subsidization as the federal gov- ernment’s major weapon to impose agriculturalism on the reserves. Not surprisingly, the policy failed.

A final illustration of nature’s appeal for Canadians came in the various back-to-nature movements. One form involved mounting crusades to preserve Canada’s natural environment in the face of encroaching civilization. The fight for the conservation of Canadian wildlife involved the establishment of game reserves and legislation to curb indiscriminate hunting. The crusade’s major vic- tories came with the establishment of large numbers of national and provincial parks across Canada in the years before the Great War. Another expression of the back-

to-nature movement was the summer cottage, which flourished among urbanites who could afford one by the early years of the twentieth century. Many refugees from the farm resolved their ambivalences through the sum- mer cottage or summer travel, often into the wilderness. Thus, alongside the burgeoning Canadian cities came the growth of summer cottages and resort hotels, located at lakeside or seaside, and frequently directly served by rail. Weekend train services poured middle-class Canadians by the thousands into the Laurentians of Quebec, the Muskoka, Algonquin Park, and Haliburton districts of Ontario, and from Winnipeg into the Lake of the Woods district. The Canadian fascination with the summer cottage had taken firm hold before the Great War. During this same period, the establishment of a national park system had begun with the creation of Rocky Mountain Park (later Banff National Park) in 1885, and this and other parks in the Rocky Mountains (Yoho, Glacier, Jasper, Waterton Lakes) of British Columbia and Alberta were conveniently reached by rail and, in some cases, the railways built expensive, sumptuous hotels to accommodate sojourners from the city.

While some Canadians settled temporarily into cottage or tourist hotel, others became fascinated with the recreational possibilities of wilderness travel. The waterways of Ontario and Quebec grew crowded

small boys to “start her at five thousand.” The pro-

gramme went on; chorus following reading, and solo,

chorus, the last few numbers being rendered ’midst

an almost deafening noise and shouts of “Bring on

the baskets.”

When it ended the choir moved to one side of the

platform, the schoolmaster who was to act as secre-

tary and treasurer took his place at the table, and the

auctioneer stepped forward holding in his hand the

first basket, now unwrapped and decorated in a most

fantastic manner with flags, flowers and coloured tis-

sue paper. . . . After all the baskets have been sold,

the names of the purchasers and ladies are read off

by the secretary, and the baskets opened by them.

Usually besides various kinds of cake and pie, the

basket contains glasses and a bottle of home-made

wine; but in case this has been left out, and also for

the benefit of the older people, the committee fur-

nish plenty of tea. When the lunch has been disposed

of, the men go to the nearest stables for their horses,

which have been left there, while the young ladies

gather their belongings, get muffled up ready for the

drive home and, while waiting for their friends, sing a

verse of “God save the King.”

Sleigh after sleigh drives up to the door, the

women and girls depart, and in a very few minutes

no one remains in the hall save the members of the

committee—counting over the money they have

made and writing a report of the social to be pub-

lished in the papers next day.

Source: The Island Magazine 46 (Fall/Winter 1999): 7–12. Reprinted with permission.

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298 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Wed. June 29 [1892]. Well here it is just a beauti-

ful day, fine and just warm enough to be pleasant.

This is the third day of our holidays and I can’t say

I have enjoyed them very much so far. Yesterday it

poured rain from dinner time until tea time, but still

I was not very lonely because there is such a house-

ful of us. Besides, Aunt Rose (who came over a week

ago tomorrow) came up and stayed all day, and she

is just splendid company. In the morning I did my

housework up and then trimmed May’s sailor hat,

and after dinner I got Winnie’s ready for trimming and

then made lemon filling for my Washington pie which

I made yesterday and made frosting for it also. And I

practised some and read some of a book called Little

Journey in the World by the same author of Baddeck

and That Sort of Thing. Mr. Bailey and Eddie White,

Fred Henderson and Leonard Webster came up and

spent the evening. We had lots of fun as usual over

those Tiddlywinks. We had two tables, and when

one side missed they had to go to the other table,

and the best players kept their same places. There

were Mr. B. and Nell, Win and Fred, Leonard and

Bois, and Eddie and I. After playing we had a lot of

music. Leonard sang “They are After Me” and some

other songs, and Mr. Bailey gave us a solo, then we

had some Charades. We also made up an orchestra

just for fun. Mr. B. played on the mouth organ (he

plays just beautifully on it), and Leonard had the tam-

bourine, Bois a tin whistle, Eddie another, and May

the table bell, and Winnie played one piano and Nell

accompanied her on the other, while I had the zither.

Oh but we had fun over that.

Monday morning (day before yesterday) was

fine but the afternoon was wet. I wrote a long let-

ter to Ted before dinner. She wrote Nell and I while

she was on her journey that they had stopped for

a while at a little place a hundred miles from Port

Arthur. Her mother told me yesterday that they both

liked it in Winnipeg very much and Lottie was feeling

very well only tired and sleepy. It is just three weeks

I think from Monday since they left. For the past

month back, part of the Lodge members were get-

ting up a drama for the Lodge called The Social Glass.

Nettie Evans, Mrs. Lodge, and Floss White and Eddie

McDonald, Mr. Russell, Mr. Butler, Mr. Colwell, and

Mr. Belyear and Es Hamilton are the ones that took

part in it. So they gave it to the public last Monday

evening. It was just fine. They had a full house and

the band played between every act, some very pretty

selections. They all took their parts splendidly. Hardly

anybody knew Flo, when the curtain rose, and she

was dressed as a bride in a light blue dress and her

hair done up and flowers in it and she looked just

sweet but so womanly. Es Hamilton was too comical

for anything as Bob Brittle. Oh he was grand. Nettie

Evans as Nettie Nettlebee could not have been bet-

ter. It just suited her to a tee. “She did love to make

folks happy.” Will Butler was splendid as Fairly. He

acted the delirium tremens fine and all the rest were

good too. Though it was ridiculous and comical in

lots of places, yet it was sad when you thought it was

just real life. This social glass at first and then it gets to

more and more until your own life is ruined by it and

many many others.

Sadie Allen’s Diary, Summer 1892

Source: Mary Biggar Peck, ed., A Full House and Fine Singing: Diaries and Letters of Sadie Harper Allen (Fredericton: Goose Lane Press, 1992), 66–7.

with weekend canoeists enjoying a brief respite from the pressures of the city. Ernest Thompson Seton (1860–1946), who founded an organization called Woodcraft Indians in 1902, promoted a junior version

of this outdoor activity from his apartment in New York City. Some of the best publicists for the canoe and the wilderness were painters, especially those who eventu- ally formed the Group of Seven in 1920. Its members,

Contemporary Views

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2997 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

mainly English-born Torontonians making a living as commercial artists, had begun travelling north into the Georgian Bay and Algonquin wildernesses as early as 1911. This group captured the iconographic essence of wilderness Canada: a bleak and sombre but none- theless curiously beautiful landscape of Jack pines, rock outcroppings, and storm-driven lakes, totally uninhabited by people.

Other Identities We can easily make too much of the political and religious arena. The elaboration of competing and occasionally incompatible identities by and for its cit-

izens characterized the Victorian Age. As well as their national and provincial loyalties, most Canadians had firm allegiances to their ethnic origins, whether these were French Canadian, Acadian, or British. French Canada further elaborated its cultural identity in this period, and the Acadians began self-consciously to develop one. As for those people whose origins were in the British Isles, they simultaneously thought of themselves as British as well as Welsh, Scottish, Irish, or English. Indeed, British Canadians may well have thought of themselves as more British (as opposed to Welsh or Scottish) than did their compatriots at home.

The state did not weigh heavily on the daily lives of most Canadians in this era, although the administrative state had begun its development before Confederation.

“Odabin Cottage,” the summer house of Charles Howard Millar, the local postmaster, Drummondville, Quebec, c. 1903. Canadians’ fascination with the summer cottage had already taken hold before 1914. Except for some ostentatious present-day “cottages” on some lakes, this cottage of more than a century ago is little different from those that Canadians rush to in the summer months today. Such cottages are perhaps most notable for how they blend into—as opposed to stand out from—the surrounding natural environment, in this case even with the decking built around small trees. © McCord Museum.

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300 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Taxation had not yet become ubiquitous and occurred mainly as tariffs and duties. Moreover, the state—as represented by province, nation, or city—did not nor- mally provide social benefits or solace when people got sick, lost jobs, retired, or died. For some, politics and gov- ernment were a source of employment or patronage. For most Canadians, however, government had very little to do with their lives. For many people, political allegiance to the state was therefore not as important as loyalty to the caring institutions: family, ethnic group, religion, and fraternal organization. Churches and religion were most important. Canada was a Christian country and few of its citizens openly defied Christian norms and values. By the 1880s the mobility of many Canadians contributed to the tendency to belong to a good many other voluntary organizations beyond the church. In an earlier period, voluntary organizations supplemented or provided municipal services such as water, light, fire, and libraries as well as charity. By the 1880s some organizations had begun providing entertainment and companionship for their members.

Technically independent of the churches, but closely connected in overlapping membership and social goals, were reform organizations like the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Letitia Youmans (1827–96), a pub- lic school teacher and Sunday school teacher in the Methodist Church, founded the first Canadian local of the WCTU in December 1874 in Picton, Ontario. The WCTU spread rapidly across Canada in the 1880s, preaching that alcohol abuse was responsible for many of the social problems of contemporary Canada and campaigning for public prohibition of the sale of alco- holic beverages. Most of its membership came from the middle class, and much of its literature was directed at demonstrating that poverty and family problems among the lower orders could be reduced, if not elim- inated, by cutting off the availability of alcohol to the male breadwinner.

Canadians of the time tended to associate Orangeism with political matters—organizing parades on 12 July, opposing Roman Catholics, objecting to the 1870 execution of Thomas Scott—and with the Irish. Nevertheless, the Orange Order’s real importance and influence continued to rest on the twin facts that its membership united British Protestants of all origins

and that it served as a focal point on the local level for social intercourse and conviviality. As a “secret” society, it had elaborate initiation rites and a ritual that appealed to men who spent most of their lives in drudgery or dull routine. Lodges provided a variety of services for members, including an elaborate funeral. But if local fraternity was the key to Orangeism’s success, its public influence was enormous. In 1885 John A. Macdonald’s government would prefer to risk alienating Quebec by executing Louis Riel than alienating Orange Ontario by sparing him.

The Orange Order was not the only fraternal organ- ization that grew and flourished in Canada. Because most of these societies were semi-secret, with rites based on Freemasonry, they appealed mainly to Protestants. The Masons themselves expanded enormously during the mid-nineteenth century. They were joined by a num- ber of other orders, such as the Independent Order of Oddfellows (founded in England in 1813 and brought to Canada by 1845), the Independent Order of Foresters (founded in the United States in 1874 and brought to Canada in 1881), and the order of the Knights of Pythias (founded in Washington, DC, in the early 1860s and brought to Canada in 1870). The Knights of Labor was an all-embracing labour organization that owed much to the lodges. Fellowship and mutual support were the keys to the success of all of these societies. Their success led to the formation in 1882 of the Knights of Columbus as a similar fraternal benefit society for Roman Catholic men, although the first chapters in Canada were prob- ably not founded until the early 1890s. While few of these societies admitted women directly, most had adjunct or parallel organizations for women. By the 1880s many Canadians belonged to one or more of these societies. Membership offered a means of social introduction into a new community, provided status and entertainment to members, and increasingly supplied assurance of assist- ance in times of economic or emotional crisis.

Culture In the Victorian and Edwardian eras, most Canadians continued to amuse themselves at home by making music and playing numerous parlour games. Outside

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3017 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

the home, the amateur tradition remained strong. In most fields of artistic endeavour, Britain and the United States remained the dominant influences. Perhaps the outstanding original achievements in Canadian cultural production in this period occurred in fiction. Three developments stand out. One was the creation of the Canadian social novel. A second was the rise of a major figure in Canadian humour to carry on the ear- lier tradition of Haliburton and McCulloch. The third development, related to the previous two, was the emer- gence of several Canadian authors as international bestsellers. Some of these authors were women. All the successful authors were at their best in writing about the values of rural and small-town Canada at the end of the nineteenth century.

The best example of the social novel—also a novel of ideas—was The Imperialist by Sara Jeannette Duncan (1862–1912). Duncan had been born in Brantford and educated at the Toronto Normal School. She then became a pioneering female journalist, working for a long list of newspapers in the United States and Canada. In 1888 she and a female friend began a trip around the world, which she subsequently fictionalized. In 1904 she produced The Imperialist, a novel intended to describe the Imperial Question from the vantage point of the “average Canadian of the average small town . . . whose views in the end [counted] for more than the opinions of the political leaders” (quoted in Klinck, 1965: 316). Duncan drew on her childhood experiences in Brantford to describe conditions in Elgin, a “thriv- ing manufacturing town, with a collegiate institute, eleven churches, two newspapers, and an asylum for the deaf and dumb, to say nothing of a fire department unsurpassed for organization and achievement in the Province of Ontario” (Duncan, 1971 [1904]: 25). The opening chapter began with an account of the celebra- tions in Elgin on 24 May, the Queen’s Birthday. Duncan interwove the issue of imperialism with the social values of late Victorian Canada. For her protagonist, young politician Lorne Murchison, Canada’s continu- ation as a British nation was of moral rather than stra- tegic importance.

Duncan was perhaps the first Canadian writer to rec- ognize the literary potential of small-town Canada, espe- cially for satirical purposes, but she was not the greatest.

Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) had been born in England, but grew up on a farm near Lake Simcoe. Educated at Upper Canada College, the University of Toronto, and the University of Chicago, Leacock published a successful college textbook, Elements of Political Science, in 1906. He produced his first volume of humorous sketches, Literary Lapses, in 1910, and two years later published Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. This was an affectionate satirical look at life in Mariposa, a fictionalized version of Orillia, the nearest town to his boyhood home. Leacock per- fectly captured the hypocrisy, materialism, and inflated notions of importance possessed by Mariposa’s residents. He followed this triumph with a much more savage sat- ire of a North American city, obviously the Montreal in

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942) sold the rights to her highly successful novel Anne of Green Gables to an American publisher for $500. Anne has gone on to become a mythic Canadian heroine, equally popular in Japan as in Canada itself. Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island. Lucy Maud Montgomery 3110-1.

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302 A History of the Canadian Peoples

which he lived and taught (at McGill University). The work was entitled Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1914). In this book, which he pretended to set somewhere in the United States, Leacock began the transference of his satire from Canada to North America. He moved on from these early works to produce a volume of humorous sketches virtually every year, increasingly set in an inter- national milieu. His books were very popular in Britain and the United States. Many critics feel that Leacock’s

best work was his early Canadian satire, in which he scourged Canadian pretensions.

Duncan and Leacock both achieved international reputations as writers of fiction, and they were joined by several other Canadians in the years between 1900 and 1914. One was the Presbyterian clergyman Charles W. Gordon (1860–1937), who under the pseudonym “Ralph Connor” was probably the best-selling writer in English between 1899 and the Great War. Born in Glengarry

The Spell of the Yukon

Document

I wanted the gold, and I sought it, I scrabbled and mucked like a slave. Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it; I hurled my youth into a grave.

I wanted the gold, and I got it— Came out with a fortune last fall,— Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it, And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?) It’s the cussedest land that I know, From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it To the deep, deathlike valleys below. Some say God was tired when He made it; Some say it’s a fine land to shun; Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it For no land on earth—and I’m one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason); You feel like an exile at first; You hate it like hell for a season, And then you are worse than the worst. It grips you like some kinds of sinning; It twists you from foe to a friend; It seems it’s been since the beginning; It seems it will be to the end.

British-born Robert W. Service (1874–1958) was the most popular poet in Canada at the end of the nineteenth century, best known as the “poet of the Yukon.” His poem, “The Spell of the Yukon,” reprinted below, suggests his attraction.

The Chilkoot Pass. This iconic photograph suggests some of the difficulties gold seekers endured to reach the Yukon. © World History Archive/Alamy.

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County, Canada West, and educated at the University of Toronto and Edinburgh University, Gordon became minister of a Presbyterian church in Winnipeg, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Ralph Connor’s first three books, published between 1899 and 1902, sold over five million copies. One of these, Glengarry School Days: A Story of Early Days in Glengarry (1902), was probably the best book he ever wrote. Like Duncan and Leacock, Connor excelled at the evocation of small-town life and

mores, drawing from his personal experiences as a boy. He was not a great writer but knew how to sustain a narrative and to frame a moral crisis. Some of his work—including novels in which clerical examples of muscular Christianity faced a variety of frontier challenges—obviously struck a responsive chord in an international audience. Connor’s heroes triumphed over sin, anarchy, and unregenerate people by sheer force of character, Christian conviction, goodness, and even physical strength; they represented

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim; I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow In crimson and gold, and grow dim, Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming, And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop; And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming, With the peace o’ the world piled on top.

The summer—no sweeter was ever; The sunshiny woods all athrill; The grayling aleap in the river, The bighorn asleep on the hill. The strong life that never knows harness; The wilds where the caribou call; The freshness, the freedom, the farness— O God! how I’m stuck on it all.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you, The white land locked tight as a drum, The cold fear that follows and finds you, The silence that bludgeons you dumb. The snows that are older than history, The woods where the weird shadows slant; The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery, I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t.

There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back—and I will.

They’re making my money diminish; I’m sick of the taste of champagne. Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish I’ll pike to the Yukon again. I’ll fight—and you bet it’s no sham-fight; It’s hell!—but I’ve been there before; And it’s better than this by a damsite— So me for the Yukon once more.

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting; It’s luring me on as of old; Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting So much as just finding the gold. It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder, It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

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304 A History of the Canadian Peoples

A wooden church in the French Gothic style located

on Prince Edward Island, St Mary’s Church in

Indian River was designed by William Critchlow Harris

(1854–1913), perhaps the leading architect in the

Maritime provinces in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries. Harris was born near Liverpool,

England, and immigrated with his family to the Island

in 1856. One of seven children, he attended Prince

of Wales College and spent his life in the Maritimes,

a residential choice that may have cost him the

opportunity to achieve a national or even inter-

national reputation as did his elder brother Robert

Harris, the painter. Harris began designing churches

in 1880, most of them located on PEI or in Nova

Scotia. Although he frequently built with stone, his

most characteristic and iconic churches are, like St

Mary’s, renderings in wood of buildings in the Gothic

style. Indeed, his adaptation of wood to a Victorian

vocabulary was his most original contribution to the

architectural landscape of the region. The buildings

stand out today partly because they are painted in

bright colours. Harris began working in High Victorian

Gothic, but gradually shifted to French Gothic, as

exemplified in St Mary’s. A keen amateur musician,

Harris’s churches were invariably acoustical triumphs,

in effect musical instruments rendered as buildings.

This church was decommissioned by 2009 and is

presently used as a concert hall. Harris’s designs were

distinguished by multi-paned pointed-arch Gothic

windows and often by circular side-towers, as well

as clipped gable roofs and bargeboards with drilled

holes as decoration. The tower at Indian River also

contains representations of the 12 apostles, perhaps

a tribute to the Cathedral at Chartres. Harris’s willing-

ness to adapt wood to the Gothic style is an obvious

repurposing of a specific material culture tradition

to Canada. The use of classic architectural forms to

produce distinctively regional churches is a repeated

theme of colonial encounters, but in St Mary’s we see

that trend continuing even after Canada has become

an established nation. That the building now hosts

concerts and other musical events is a holdover from

the interests of its architect, but also an adaptation of

the space to present needs.

Material Culture

St Mary’s Church. © Bill Gozansky/Alamy.

St Mary’s Church, Indian River, Prince Edward Island

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what his generation saw as the forces of civilization and progress. Fellow Presbyterian Nellie McClung (1873–1951) also had great success with similar material, even less art- fully rendered, in books such as Sowing Seeds in Danny (1908); her fame was more in the political arena.

A much superior artist was Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942), whose Anne of Green Gables also first appeared in 1908. Montgomery’s books lovingly described rural life and presented some of the standard dilemmas faced by her readers, ranging from growing up to having to leave the farm.

Imperialism, Reform, and Racism Contemporaries often characterized Canadian political life in this era in terms of its lack of ideology and its pre- dilection for what the French observer André Siegfried called the “question of collective or individual interests for the candidates to exploit to their own advantage” (Siegfried, 1907: 142). Lurking only just beneath the sur- face, however, were some serious and profound issues. First was the so-called Canadian question, which bore in various ways upon the very future of the new nation. It often appeared to be a debate between those who sought to keep Canada within the British Empire and those who wanted it to assume full sovereignty. Into this discus- sion other matters merged subtly, including the “race” question and the reform question. The former involved the future of French Canada within an evolving Anglo- American nation. The latter concerned the institution of political and social change through public policy. Debate and disagreement over the three loosely linked issues—imperialism, Anglo–French antagonisms, and reform—kept political Canada bubbling with scarcely suppressed excitement from the 1880s to the beginning of the Great War. Canada’s involvement in the military conflict of Europe would bring those issues together, although it would not resolve them.

Imperialism

The period from 1880 to 1914 saw a resurgence of imper- ial development around the world. The French, the

Germans, even the Americans, took up what Rudyard Kipling called the “White man’s burden” in underdevel- oped regions of the world. About the same time, Great Britain began to shed its “Little England” free trade sentiments. The world’s shopkeeper discovered that substantial windfall profits came from exploiting the economies of Asia, Latin America, and Africa, espe- cially the last. Canada first faced the implications of the resurgence of Britain’s imperial pretensions in 1884 when the mother country asked it to contribute to an expedition to relieve General Charles Gordon, besieged by thousands of Muslim fundamentalists at Khartoum in the Egyptian Sudan. Sir John A. Macdonald’s immedi- ate response was negative, but he ultimately found it politic to allow Canadian civilian volunteers to assist the British army. By the end of the century Joseph Chamberlain at the Colonial Office in London was advocating that Britain’s old settlement colonies be joined together in some political and economic union, the so-called Imperial Federation.

Encouraged by a new infusion of immigrants from Britain—nearly half a million between 1870 and 1896 and a million between 1896 and 1914—many anglophone Canadians began openly advocating Canada’s active participation in the new British Empire. Their sense of imperial destiny was not necessarily anti-nationalistic. They saw no inconsistency between the promotion of a sense of Canadian unity and a larger British Empire. “I am an Imperialist,” argued Stephen Leacock in 1907, “because I will not be a Colonial.” Leacock sought “some- thing other than mere colonial stagnation, something sounder than independence, nobler than annexation, greater in purpose than a Little Canada” (quoted in Bumsted, 1969, II: 78). Such pan-Britannic national- ism came to express itself concretely in demands for Imperial Federation. It was most prevalent in the prov- ince of Ontario.

Unfortunately for the imperialists, not all Canadians agreed with their arguments. Several strands of anti- imperial sentiment had emerged by the turn of the cen- tury. One strand, most closely identified with the political journalist Goldwin Smith (1823–1910), insisted that the geography of North America worked against Canadian nationalism. Smith advocated Canadian absorption into the United States. Fear of this development led many Canadians to oppose a new reciprocity agreement with

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306 A History of the Canadian Peoples

Nellie McClung. CP PHOTO.

Nellie Letitia McClung

Biography

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3077 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

the United States in 1911. Another strand, led by John S. Ewart (1849–1933), insisted on Canada’s assumption of full sovereignty. Ewart argued that “Colony implies inferiority—inferiority in culture, inferiority in wealth, inferiority in government, inferiority in foreign rela- tions, inferiority and subordination” (Ewart, 1908: 6). Yet another perspective was enunciated by Henri Bourassa (1868–1912), who advocated a fully articulated bicultural Canadian nationalism. He wrote, “My native land is all of Canada, a federation of separate races and autono- mous provinces. The nation I wish to see grow up is the Canadian nation, made up of French Canadians and English Canadians” (quoted in Monière, 1981: 190). The Bourassa version of nationalism was considerably larger than the still prevalent traditional nationalism of French Canada. As the newspaper La Vérité put it in 1904, “what we want to see flourish is French-Canadian patriotism; our people are the French-Canadian people; we will not say that our homeland is limited to the Province of Quebec, but it is French Canada.”

The most common confrontations over the role of Canada within the Empire occurred in the context of imperial defence. At Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebra- tion in June 1897, Laurier had fended off a regulariz- ation of colonial contributions to the British military. The question arose again in July 1899 when the mother country requested Canadian troops for the forthcom-

ing war in South Africa against the Boers. When the shooting began on 11 October 1899, the popular press of English Canada responded with enthusiasm to the idea of an official Canadian contingent. But news- papers in French Canada opposed involvement. As La Presse editorialized, “We French Canadians belong to one country, Canada: Canada is for us the whole world, but the English Canadians have two countries,

Professor Stephen B. Leacock, Montreal, 1914. Leacock was both a successful Canadian writer of humorous fiction and a skilled polemicist on the subject of Imperialism for Canada. © McCord Museum.

We speak of “our Empire.” Have you ever considered

how little we Canadians count in that Empire, the most

wonderful fabric of human organization that has ever

existed. Of course, as far as land is concerned, and

water, and rocks, and mines, and forests, we occupy

a large portion of the Empire. As to population we are

only seven millions out of over four hundred millions.

As to imperial powers, we have none. The people of

the British Kingdom, forty millions in number, possess

as their sole property the rest of that Empire. Suppose

you except Canada with her seven millions, Australia

with her four millions and a half, New Zealand with one

million, and South Africa, with a little over one million

of white people: apart from those semi-free states, the

whole empire of India, the hundreds of Crown colonies,

and those immense protectorates in Africa or Asia, no

On Imperialism and Nationalism One of the opponents of Canadian imperialism was Henri Bourassa (1868–1952). In 1912 he explained his position in an address to the Canadian Club.

Continued...

Contemporary Views

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308 A History of the Canadian Peoples

one here and one across the sea.” The government com- promised by sending volunteers, nearly 5,000 before the conflict was over. The defence issue emerged again in 1909, this time over naval policy. Under imperial pressure, Canada finally agreed to produce a naval unit of five cruisers and six destroyers. Both sides attacked Laurier’s compromise Naval Service Bill of January 1910. The anglophone Tories insisted it did

not provide enough assistance for the British, while in Quebec nationalists and Conservatives joined forces to fight for its repeal.

Reform

The reform movement of this period was rich and var- ied in its interests. It ranged from the women’s suffrage

more belong to us than they belong to the Emperor of

Germany, or to the President of the French Republic.

We have no more to say as regards the government,

the legislation, the administration, the revenue and the

expenditure, and the defence of that territory, compris-

ing four-fifths of the total population of the Empire, than

have the coolies of India or the Zulus of Matabeleland!

I am not saying this in disparagement of the system; I

am simply putting our position as it is. At the present

time, the seven millions of people in Canada have less

voice, in law and in fact, in the ruling of that Empire,

than one single sweeper in the streets of Liverpool, or

one cabdriver on Fleet Street in London; he at least has

one vote to give for or against the administration of that

Empire, but we, the seven million Canadians, have no

vote and no say whatever.

When I hear splendid phrases, magnificent ora-

tions, sounding sentences, about that “Empire of ours,”

I am forcibly reminded of the pretension of a good

fellow whom I had hired to look after the furnace of a

building of which I had the management in Montreal.

Every year, when the time came to purchase the coal

for the winter, he used to exclaim, with a deep sense

of his responsibilities: “How dear it costs us to keep

up our building!” Our right of ownership, of tutelage,

of legislation, in the British Empire is exactly what the

right of partnership of that stoker was in that building.

. . . [A]t the sixth Imperial Conference, the dele-

gates from Australia, representing a courageous,

intelligent, progressive British community, with a

high sea trade amounting in imports and exports to

$650,000,000 a year, asked the representatives of the

British Government why the British authorities, with-

out even thinking of asking the opinion of Canada, of

Australia, of South Africa, and of New Zealand, had

concluded with the great maritime powers the inter-

national treaty known as the Declaration of London,

which may affect beneficially or otherwise the trade of

the world in future naval wars. They enquired also if it

would be possible to have at least one representative

from the self-governing British colonies on the Board

of Arbitration, eventually to be constituted, under the

terms of that treaty, to adjudicate upon the seizures

of trade and ships in times of war. Sir Edward Grey,

undoubtedly one of the ablest men in British public

life to-day, showed there, I think, his great tact and his

extraordinary command of words and of diplomatic

means. But, when all the courteous terms and all the

frills were taken off, his answer amounted to this: On that

board the negro President of Hayti could sit, the negro

President of Liberia could sit, but the Prime Minister of

Canada or of Australia could not sit, simply because

Hayti and Liberia are nations, whilst Canada or Australia

are not nations. He explained that the colonies were

not consulted because they exist only through Great

Britain, and that the moment Great Britain accepted that

treaty it applied to us as to her. Undoubtedly true and

another evidence, I think, to show that in the “imperial

partnership,” in the enjoyment of that imperial citizen-

ship of which we hear so much, there still remains a

slight difference between the British citizen in England,

Scotland and Ireland, and the British citizen of Canada:

one is a member of a sovereign community, the other

is the inhabitant of a subjected colony.

Source: H. Bourassa, Canadian Club Addresses 1912 (Toronto: Warwick Bros & Rutter, 1912), 78–80.

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movement to various efforts at social and humanitarian change. Mainstream Canadian reform movements had some features in common, however. Their leaders were members of the middle and professional classes who shared assumptions of the age about regeneration and social purity. Those of Protestant backgrounds tended to predominate, particularly in temperance/prohibition, public health, education, and women’s suffrage. Women,

because of their general nurturing role in society, played a major role in most reform movements. These women were often less concerned with restructuring gender roles in society than with the need for inculcating middle-class virtues or with helping the poor. French- Canadian women were significantly under-represented in most national reform movements, partly because of the political isolation of Quebec and partly because the

The average age of school children is from six to six-

teen years. During this time both mind and body are

undergoing development. Throughout school per-

iod the growth of the body is continued until almost

completed. There are unusual demands, therefore,

upon the functions of absorption and assimilation.

The food must be abundant, and of the charac-

ter to furnish new tissue, and to yield energy in the

form of heat and muscular activity. The food should

also contain salts of lime to meet the requirements

of formation of the bones and teeth. Many children

acquire habits of dislike for certain articles of food,

which become so fixed in later life that they find it

very inconvenient, especially when placed in circum-

stances, as in travelling, where one cannot always

obtain the accustomed diet; it therefore is unwise

to cultivate such habits, which are often a serious

obstacles to normal development. . . . An important

consideration in school diet is to avoid monotony,

which becomes so common from economic rea-

sons, or more often from carelessness. It is much

easier to yield to routine and force of habit than to

study the question. The hours for study and for

meals should be regulated that sufficient time will be

allowed before each meal for children to wash and

prepare themselves comfortably without going to the

table excited by hurry, and they should be required to

remain at the table for a fixed time, and not allowed

to hastily swallow their food in order to complete an

unfinished task or game. An interval of at least half an

hour should intervene after meals before any men-

tal exertion is required. Constant nibbling at food

between meals should be forbidden; it destroys the

appetite, increases the saliva, and interferes with gas-

tric digestion. . . . [C]hildren should have their meals

made tempting by good cooking and pleasant var-

iety, as well as an agreeable appearance of the food.

Meat which is carved in unsightly masses and vege-

tables which are sodden and tasteless will be refused,

and an ill attempt is made to supply the deficiency in

proper food by eating indigestible candy, nuts, etc.

Children often have no natural liking for meat, and

prefer puddings, pastry or sweets when they can

obtain them; it is therefore more important that meat

and other wholesome foods should be made attract-

ive to them at the age when they need it.

A Few General Rules Regarding Diet for School Children Adelaide Hoodless (1858–1910) was the leading advocate of domestic science in Canada before the Great War. She was also the inspiration for the organization of Women’s Institutes, and with her friend Lady Aberdeen (the wife of the Governor General) she was the co-founder of the National Council of Women of Canada, the national YWCA, and the Victorian Order of Nurses. In 1898 she published a textbook entitled Public School Domestic Science, from which the following is an excerpt.

Contemporary Views

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310 A History of the Canadian Peoples

ideology of the traditional society greatly limited the place of women in that province.

The suffrage movement did emphasize the gender question. It addressed women’s political powerless- ness by attempting to win for them the right to vote. The movement was chiefly an urban one, dominated by well-educated women who saw political power as necessary to bring about other legislative change. The suffragist leaders were almost exclusively Canadian or British-born and belonged to the mainline Protestant churches. Well over half of these women were gainfully employed, mostly in journalism and writing. The suffra- gists gradually lost contact with working-class women, who were suspicious of the class biases in both the suf- frage and reform movements. They also failed to gain the support of farm women because they did not under- stand rural issues, especially the concern over rural depopulation. Many rural women became involved in their own organizations designed to deal with their own problems, such as the Women’s Institutes. Adelaide Hoodless (1858–1910) founded the first Institute at Stoney Creek, Ontario, in 1897. (In Henry James Morgan’s biographical compilation The Canadian Men and Women of the Time, 2nd edn, 1912, Hoodless is listed under the entry for her husband John, who was an obscure furniture manufacturer in Hamilton.) Women’s Institutes promoted appreciation of rural living, as well as encouraging better education for all women for motherhood and homemaking. In 1919 the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada organized with its motto “For Home and Country.”

One female reform organization, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, had both rural and urban memberships. Founded in 1874 in Picton, Ontario, the WCTU claimed 10,000 members by 1900 and had an influence far beyond that number. Despite its name, the WCTU wanted prohibition, soon seeing the elimination of alcoholic beverages as a panacea for many of the ills currently besetting Canadian society, such as crime, the abuse of women and children, political corruption, and general immorality. The WCTU was only one of sev- eral members of the Dominion Alliance for the Total Suppression of the Liquor Traffic. Like most Canadian reform movements, prohibition required state inter- vention to be effective, and this eventually led some of its supporters to women’s suffrage. Laurier held a

national referendum on prohibition in 1898. Although its supporters won a narrow victory, the Prime Minister refused to implement national legislation because only 20 per cent of the total electorate had supported the principle. The prohibitionists turned to the provinces, succeeding in getting legislation passed in Prince Edward Island in 1900 and in Nova Scotia in 1910. The local option was even more effective, since it involved local communities where prohibitionist sentiment could be strong. Prohibitionism exemplified both the best and the worst features of reform. It had little Catholic or urban working-class support. Moreover, it tended to clothe its single-minded arguments with intense moral fervour, often of the social purity variety.

Humanitarian reform, usually of urban abuses, often focused on the human victims of disastrous indus- trial social conditions. One of the main spearheads of such reform was the social gospel. Beginning in the Methodist Church and expanding to all Protestant denominations in Canada, the social gospel saw Christ as a social reformer and the institution of the Kingdom of God on earth as its (and his) mission. The growth of city missions and church settlement houses led to the establishment of the Social Services Council of Canada in 1912. The most prominent social gospeller was J.S. Woodsworth (1874–1942). Another branch of humani- tarian reform involved various professionals who became concerned with social problems through their professional practices. Thus doctors, for example, were active in promoting a public health system and in recom- mending ways of improving public health care. Among the medical profession’s public health recommendations was compulsory medical inspection of schoolchildren.

Schools and members of the teaching profession were also in the front lines of humanitarian reform. In this period educators pushed not only for improved schooling but for the schools to assume much of the burden of social services for the young by acting in loco parentis for the children of slum and ghetto dwell- ers. The pressure for compulsory school attendance legislation, extended on a province-by-province basis across the nation by 1914, was partly reformist in nature. Regular school attendance would provide a more suitable environment for children than roaming the streets or working in factories. The children might learn skills that would lift them out of their poverty and (in

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The Americanization of Canada

Document

In 1850, 147,711 persons of Canadian birth were living south of the border—about one-sixteenth of the num- ber of people living in the British possessions at the same time. In 1860 the Canadian-born population of the United States had increased to 249,970, a gain of 76 per cent, while the general population of the Union was increasing at the rate of 35.6 per cent, and that of the British provinces at about 33.6. In 1870 there were 493,464 Canadians in the United States, an increase of 97.4 per cent for the decade against 22.6 per cent for that of the population of the Republic as a whole, and 16.2 per cent for that of the British colonies, now united in the Dominion of Canada. . . . While the population of the Republic was a little more than tripling in fifty years, and that of Canada was being multiplied by less than two and a half, the little Canada south of the boundary line saw the number of its inhabitants multiplied by eight. Of all the living persons of Canadian birth in 1900, more than one-fifth were settled in the United States. But if the statement stopped there it would be incomplete. In addition to the native Canadians in the United States in 1900, there were 527,301 persons of American birth but with both parents Canadian. There were also 425,617 with Canadian fathers and American mothers, and 344,470 with Canadian mothers and American fathers. Thus there were in all 2,480,613 persons in the United States of at least half Canadian blood, which is more than half the number of similar stock in Canada. . . .

In density of Canadian population, ignoring all other elements, Massachusetts stands first, exceeding any province of Canada, and Rhode Island second. The relative rank of the various Provinces and States previ- ously named on this basis is:

Canadian population per square mile 1 Massachusetts 64.2 2 Rhode Island 64.0 3 Prince Edward Island 45.36 4 Nova Scotia 20.6 5 New Brunswick 11.2 6 Connecticut 10.9 7 New Hampshire 10.8 8 Ontario 8.4 9 Michigan 7.1 10 Vermont 6.8 . . .

Classified in the same way, the principal Canadian cities in 1900–1 were:

1 Montreal 267,730 2 Toronto 208,040 3 Boston 84,336 4 Quebec 66,231 5 Chicago 64,615 6 Ottawa 49,718 7 Detroit 44,592 8 New York 40,400 . . .

In 1907 the American journalist Samuel E. Moffatt published a book entitled The Americanization of Canada, which extended Goldwin Smith’s earlier arguments about the extent of Canadian integration into the United States.

Source: Samuel Erasmus Moffatt, The Americanization of Canada (1907).

the case of immigrants) they would become assimilated to the values of Canadian society.

Educators clearly believed that using schools for reform purposes was in the best interests of Canadian

society. It was also in their best interest. Compulsory education opened more employment and introduced the educator as social expert, a professional who knew more about what was important for children than

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312 A History of the Canadian Peoples

parents, particularly the parents of the disadvantaged. Compulsory education, medical examinations, school nurses, and lunch programs all were part of a new form of social engineering that would only increase in emphasis over the century.

In the course of time, many of the private agen- cies of reform became conscripted as quasi-public ones under provincial legislation. They served as arms of the state in the intermediate period before the estab- lishment of permanent government bureaucracies. Thus private child welfare programs became officially responsible for abandoned, abused, and delinquent children. Despite this trend towards a public approach, the framework remained that of individual morality. The humanitarian reformers commonly linked vice, crime, and poverty. Even those who focused on poverty tended to attribute it to almost every other cause than the failure of the economic system to distribute wealth equitably. The concept of a basic minimum standard of living as the right of all members of society was slow to develop in Canada. Attacks on poverty in this period retained a certain class overtone, with a “superior” class helping an “inferior” one.

Another whole category of reformers sought structural alteration within the Canadian system.

Their model was often sound business practice, for the leaders of this movement were usually successful businessmen. They sought the elimination of wasteful graft and corruption through political reform, the cre- ation of publicly operated (and profitable) utilities to reduce unnecessary taxation, and the introduction of public planning. They tended to focus on the big city, although they spilled over in various directions. These reforms, which in the United States were associated with the Progressive movement, all found allies within associated middle-class and professional groups. The City Beautiful Movement, for example, received much of its support from an expanding community of profes- sional architects, who combined an urge to plan the city as a whole with aesthetic considerations of coherence, visual variety, and civic grandeur. Like Americans, many Canadians saw cities as the culmination of civil- ization, and many grand plans made their appearance on paper. Cities settled for a few monumental new buildings, such as the imposing legislative structures completed in many provinces before the war. Political reform of municipal government concentrated on “throwing the rascals out,” combined with structural changes to reduce the damage they could do when they were in. The changes often included the replacement of

Sample Questions for Junior Grade Examinations, May 1911

Document

1. If there are before you two tumblers of colorless liquid and you are told one contains water and the other alcohol, by what four tests can you determine which contains alcohol?

2. Explain how the juices of raspberries, cherries and currants are turned into wine. Why is the use of such home-made wines objectionable?

3. Explain the real cause of the so-called “stimulating” effect of alcohol on the heart.

4. Explain why employers do not wish to employ per- sons who use alcoholic liquors, tobacco or narcotics.

5. Why is alcohol which quickens action, hurtful, while exercise, which does the same thing, useful?

6. What is sleep? Show the necessity for it, and the evil effects of narcotics upon it.

Source: Canadian White Ribbon Tidings, May 1911, as quoted in Sharon Anne Cook, “Through Sunshine and Shadow”: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874–1930 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995), 121.

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3137 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

The pioneering woman in the Canadian legal profes- sion was Clara Brett Martin (1874–1923), who graduated with high honours in mathematics from Trinity College, Toronto, in 1890. In 1891 she petitioned the Law Society of Upper Canada to be registered as a student. The pe- tition was denied, and she was advised to “remove to

the United States,” where more than 20 states admitted women to the bar. Instead of leaving the country, Martin found an Ontario legislator willing to introduce a bill into the provincial legislature that would explicitly define the word “person” in the Law Society’s statutes as including females. This initiative was supported by Dr Emily Stowe, leader of the Dominion Woman’s Enfranchisement Association, who gained the approval of Premier Oliver Mowat for the new legislation. By the time it was passed in 1892, the legislation was emasculated so that women could only become solicitors (not barristers), and then only at the discretion of the Law Society.

The Law Society subsequently again refused admis- sion to Martin, and Oliver Mowat himself attended the next Law Society Convocation to move her admission. The Law Society agreed by the narrowest of margins, and Clara Martin became a student-at-law, accepted as an articling student by one of the most prestigious law firms in Toronto. Martin met much disapproval from within her law firm and was forced to change firms in 1893. She was also harassed in the lecture halls of Osgoode Hall and missed as many lectures as she possibly could. She eventually completed her degree and easily passed the bar examinations. Martin also pressed for revision of the legislation that allowed women to act only as solici- tors, not barristers. She won this battle, too, and then had to face the Law Society again. A final controversy came over the dress code for female barristers, when women were required to wear their gowns over a black dress. Martin was finally admitted as a barrister and solicitor on 2 February 1897, the first woman in the British Empire entered into the legal profession. She practised for most of her legal career in her own firm in Toronto.

Clara Brett Martin, first female lawyer in the British Empire. Law Society of Upper Canada Archives, Archives Department collection, “Photograph of Clara Brett Martin,” P291.

Clara Brett Martin

Biography

elective councils with more professional government by commission. Businessmen reformers also fought fierce battles over the question of the ownership of utilities. While the utilities barons complained of the

attack on private enterprise, the corporate reformers countered by arguing that utilities were intrinsic mon- opolies that should be operated in the public interest. Much of the impulse behind reform of all sorts came

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314 A History of the Canadian Peoples

from fear of class warfare and moral degeneration. The reformers did for the poor rather than with the poor. The results were a vast increase in the public concerns of the state and the beginning of the growth of a public bureaucracy to deal with social matters.

Racism: The Darker Side of Canada’s Growth

Racialist thinking was at its height during this period. Part of the “race question” in Canada was not about “race” at all, of course, but about the conflict between French and English Canada. While there was no racial barrier between French and English, contemporaries accepted race-based arguments and analyses as “scien- tific.” Many imperialists regarded the historical prog- ress of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada as evidence of the special genius of the “Anglo-Saxon race.” The French were acceptable partners because they, too, were a northern people. Out of the scientific theories of Charles Darwin came the conviction that inheritance was the key to evolution. Races were formed by natural selection, exhibiting quite unequal characteristics. In almost everyone’s hierarchy, the dominant Canadian population was at the progressive top of the racial scale. Newcomers who could not or would not assimilate would inevitably lower the Canadian “standard of civil- ization.” Sexual morality was an important component of the racism of the time.

Canadians saw the new immigration after 1896 as particularly troubling. Even that secular saint J.S. Woodsworth, the Methodist minister and social worker in Winnipeg who would become a leftist federal par- liamentarian and the first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), associated crimin- ality with the newcomers. Many feared the potential degeneracy of the “great northern race” through com- mingling with lesser stocks. Others concentrated on the campaigns for social purity, mixing restrictions on the consumption of alcoholic beverages with hostility to prostitution, venereal disease, and sexual exploita- tion. The first serious efforts at large-scale immigration restriction, designed mainly to keep out the “degener- ates,” began in the early years of the century. Campaigns for social purity, immigration restriction, and exclusion

of Asians all came out of the same stock of assumptions about heredity and environment that informed many other reform movements of the period. The reformers often emphasized social and moral aspects, directing their efforts chiefly against newcomers.

Immigration restrictions came in three senses. One was an insistence on the good health, good character, and resources of the individual immigrant. A second was an equally strong insistence on preventing group immigration by certain peoples deemed unassimil- able, headed by Asians but also including American- born blacks. Efforts at a broader exclusionary practice involved bilateral negotiations with foreign nations to restrict the departure of their nationals, such as an exclusionary agreement with Japan in 1907 that fol- lowed anti-Asian riots in Vancouver. The third involved provincial legislation, mainly in British Columbia, to limit the rights of the unwanted. By 1907, the British Columbia legislature had disenfranchised nationals of China, Japan, and imperial India. Federal immigration policy was expressed mostly in informal ways before 1906, but thereafter, immigration authorities became much more concerned with formal regulation of the flow of newcomers, emulating the Americans in this regard.

In 1906 a new Immigration Act consolidated many earlier laws, barring large categories of people, including prostitutes and pimps, the insane, the mentally retarded, epileptics, and the “deaf and dumb.” An expanded immi- gration service in 1908 for the first time began to monitor the border with the United States at 38 border crossings across the continent—before this time the border had been wide open with little checking of those crossing it in either direction—and was allowed to deport individuals who belonged to prohibited categories or become public charges. In 1908, another amendment to the Immigration Act provided that all immigration to Canada had to come via a continuous journey on a through ticket from the country of origin. This “continuous journey” proviso was intended to make it more difficult for immigrants to Canada to evade immigration restrictions placed by the governments of their homelands, often established at Canadian insistence, and it effectively cut off immi- gration from India. Another restrictive Immigration Act in 1910 gave the cabinet the power to regulate immigra- tion according to race and to keep out “prohibited and

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3157 | Becoming Modern, 1885–1915

undesirable classes.” Any group deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada could be deported on grounds of political or moral undesirability. Political grounds for rejection included the advocacy by a person not a Canadian citizen of the overthrow by force or vio- lence of the government of Great Britain or Canada. The Act also introduced a head tax on all immigrants except the Japanese, who had been paying $500 since 1903 (9–10 Edward VII Chap 27, An Act respecting Immigration).

Perhaps the most extreme example of Canadian exclusionism occurred in May of 1914, when the Japanese vessel Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver harbour with 376 passengers aboard. Of these, 165 had boarded at Hong Kong, 111 at Shanghai, 86 at Maji, and 14 at Yokohama. Of the passengers, 340 were Sikhs, a people who had been arriving in British Columbia for more than a decade. Most had been males from the Jat Sikh community in rural Punjab who came to Canada as sojourners, intending to return to their homes; accord- ing to official Canadian statistics, the number of East Indian adult females who entered Canada over the years 1904–7 was 14, and the number of children was 22. The East Indian community soon began to become organized and articulate. The Khalsa Diwan Society, a fraternal organization with nationalist overtones, was organized in Vancouver in 1907. East Indian revolu- tionary agitators began their work in North America, including Canada. Separating the activities of Indian nationalists into those directed at abuses at home and in host countries is not easy. Much of our knowledge about the nationalists comes from information collected by police undercover agents, and must be understood in this context. The agents were convinced that the leading nationalists were advocates of violence and terrorism.

The Komagata Maru’s organizer expected that the Canadians would overlook the continuous voyage requirement when the ship docked in Vancouver and that the local community would raise the money for the head tax. He was right on the second count but wrong on the first. The Canadian government—backed by Vancouver municipal authorities and the British Columbia govern- ment, both of which became quite hysterical—refused to allow the passengers to land. Conditions on board ship deteriorated rapidly, and the incident quickly became an international one. Canadian immigration authorities

attempted to storm the vessel by force but were driven off. Eventually the ship sailed out of Vancouver harbour under naval escort and headed back to India, a powerful symbol of Canada’s exclusionism.

Canada’s Entrance into the Great War The sudden arrival of the Great War in September of 1914 would subsume events such as those in British Columbia, as it would virtually everything in Canadian life. Canada officially went to war at 20:45 hours (Ottawa time) on 4 August 1914, as an automatic consequence of the British declaration of war on Germany. If Canada had no voice in the decision to go to war, it did have some control over the extent of its involvement, and it chose to plunge into the maelstrom quickly and completely. The Canadian Minister of Militia was Colonel Sam Hughes, who had long expected that Canadians would eventu- ally meet Germans on the battlefield. On 10 August, an Order-in-Council permitted him to call 25,000 men to the colours. By this time, some militia units had already begun appealing for recruits. In Winnipeg, for example, Lieutenant-Colonel J.W. de C. O’Grady had mustered his unit, the 90th Winnipeg Rifles, in their drill hall and announced that he had promised that the regiment would turn out “not only [in] full strength but one thou- sand strong. Who goes?” (Tascona and Wells, 1983: 63). The response was overwhelming, and on 9 August— the day before the Order-in-Council—the Rifles held a recruiting parade on the streets of Winnipeg. When formal sign-ups began after 10 August, one of the rules was that married men had to have the permission of their wives, many of whom dragged their spouses out of the ranks while brandishing their marriage certificates. These early volunteers had virtually no uniforms or equipment, and were sent for first training aboard trams.

By the time the Canadian Parliament met on 18 August the die was cast. Canadian volunteers would participate in the war on a massive scale. On 22 August Parliament passed “An Act to confer certain powers upon the Governor in Council in the event of War, Invasion, or Insurrection”—the famous War Measures Act—enabling the government to act in the defence of the realm with- out consulting Parliament. Before August was over,

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Sam Hughes had created a vast training camp north- west of Quebec City at Valcartier—a tent city capable of housing 32,000 men. Before the end of September the first contingents of soldiers from Valcartier were board- ing the passenger liners that would take them to Britain. The fleet sailed on 3 October and arrived at Plymouth 11 days later. “Canada’s Answer,” as the British called the new arrivals, numbered 31,200. Sent to bivouac on Salisbury Plain, they were finally reviewed by King George V on 4 February 1915, and before the end of the month they were suffering their first casualties on the front lines in France. One of the advantages of the breathtaking speed with which Hughes had moved to create Canadian regiments was that Canadian troops

were kept together as units rather than being broken up and integrated into the British forces.

World War I brought to fruition several major trends of the period between 1885 and 1914. It marked a triumph of sorts for Canadian imperialism, for example, as Canada subordinated its substantial military effort to the needs and direction of Great Britain. It also rejuvenated Canadian reform. The patriotic fervour of the war and the eventual political isolation of French Canada made possible a sweeping program of reform, much of which French Canada had opposed. Reform has always required an active state, and wartime conditions encouraged the Canadian government to intervene in almost all areas of life and work.

How History Has Changed: Aboriginal Peoples and Christian Missions

Susan Neylan, Wilfrid Laurier University

For a long time, histories of Christian missions to Aborig- inal peoples in Canada privileged the churches’ perspec- tives and valorized heroic missionaries. They highlighted conversion experiences and, for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emphasized what was termed the “civilizing” project. Historians told the story of how Aboriginal people encountered Christianity through the teachings of Euro-Canadian missionaries and cast aside former belief systems for the new religion and, often, its Western associations. Aboriginal spiritualities and Christianity were cast in opposition to one another.

Parallel to the rise of Native history as a distinct field of Canadian historical scholarship in the 1970s and 1980s, a new generation of mission historians arose who gave far more attention to the role of Aboriginal peoples. Scholars stressed either their agency or victimization by casting a critical eye on the churches and mission- aries. John Webster Grant’s Moon of Wintertime (1984)

argues that Aboriginal peoples accepted Christianity at a moment of severe cultural disruption; as missionaries arrived on the scene bent on transforming Aboriginal cultures, Native spiritual systems were thrown into crisis. First Nations were not helpless in this encounter, yet they had little input beyond the local context.

However, this generation of scholars also high- lighted the importance of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis in the narrative. Many actively resisted the encroach- ment of missions through rejection and opposition; others embraced elements of Christianity and assumed roles of leadership within the missions and churches. Such latter individuals were cast as cross-cultural medi- ators who enabled the transmission and the translation of religious ideas. Accordingly, biographies of Aboriginal men and women abound in the literature, ranging from those who enthusiastically spread the gospel as mission employees to others who walked in two worlds. Winona

Historiography

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Wheeler’s study (2003) of Askeenootow (Charles Pratt) demonstrates how adopting Christianity was never a clear-cut replacement of his Cree-Assiniboine identity with the Christian one.

The third scholarly generation was influenced by the so-called “cultural turn” of the 1990s that drew on theories from anthropology, cultural studies, linguistics, and literary studies, notably post-colonial literature. It encouraged historians to look at the big picture, particu- larly when it came to culture, and the socially constructed nature of all human reality. Historians recognized the place of missions within older frameworks of Indigenous histories of change and continuity and broader patterns of systemic colonialism. Accordingly, the encounter bet- ween Aboriginal peoples and Christians came to be represented in far more nuanced terms than the mission hagiographies of the first generation or the agency/vic- timization or Aboriginal spirituality/Christianity mod- els of the second.

Scholars proceeded from the idea that Christianity can be translated and incorporated as an integral part of an authentic Indigenous identity without hav- ing to wholly replace what came before. Adopting a post-colonial interpretation, Aboriginal spiritual practi- ces were seen to have altered Christianity itself. Hence the Aboriginal–Christian encounter could be studied from points on meeting and similarities, instead of only underscoring distance and differences. Susan Neylan (2003) studies the role in mission work of the first gen- eration of Aboriginal Christian converts, highlighting their contributions to mission forms in ways that did not forsake older spiritual traditions, despite the negative effects of missions. Many turned to Christianity for more than its spiritual appeal and resonance. They were seeking citizenship in a wider Western framework that would allow them to survive as Indigenous people regardless of the political, economic, and cultural chan- ges instituted under colonialism.

Third-generation scholars demonstrate Aboriginal creativity and initiative alongside missionary coer- cion and dogma, and analyze the impact of the Indigenization (whereby Christianity is made cultur- ally relevant and naturalized as their own), syncretism (the creation of new beliefs and practices through the

compatibility of religious forms and traditions), and genuine conversion. However, there is no denying the part Christian churches played in the colonial pro- cess itself, which included the attempted destruction of Aboriginal cultures, identities, lands, and resour- ces. Aboriginal residential schools are probably the best-known tool of Christian colonialism. J.R. Miller’s Shingwauk’s Vision (1996), John Milloy’s A National Crime (1999), and studies authored by residential school survivors expose this dark, shameful aspect of Aboriginal–Christian relations.

Whether talking about first-generation scholars or those of the twenty-first century, the trajectory of this historical scholarship has also been heavily influ- enced by changes in methodologies. Initially, church records and missionary accounts comprised the bulk of the primary sources used as evidence. There were Aboriginal voices within this colonial archive, but usually very few, or the materials had to be read closely “against the grain” to find Aboriginal perspectives. This changed with the application of ethnohistorical meth- odologies. Ethnohistory is an approach to the study of the Aboriginal–non-Aboriginal encounter that consid- ers textual, oral, and material sources in its analysis. Scholars sought to evaluate Native responses to Christian missions in as much detail as they had invested in the examination of missionary goals and criteria.

More recently, ethnohistorians have turned from colonialism as the only way to assess the encounter between the colonizers and the colonized. Change, even when it first appears to be evidence of colonialist suc- cesses at work, can simultaneously exemplify cultural continuities. Canadian history can also be situated within Aboriginal history and chronologies. Research with rather than about Aboriginal peoples, employing Indigenous research methodologies, has served to accentuate Aboriginal voices, world views, and concep- tualizations of the past. Standing Up with Ga’axsta’las (2012) reconsiders one Christian Aboriginal woman’s life in the context of both Kwakwaka’wakw systems of prestige, knowledge, and status and colonial political histories. By prioritizing Indigenous insights and writ- ten as a collaboration, the study shifts from merely an analysis of Aboriginal–Settler interactions to one that

Continued...

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shows internal community dynamics and tension. After all, history is also negotiated in the present.

Bibliography Agnes, Jack, ed. Behind Closed Doors: Stories from

the Kamloops Indian Residential School, rev. edn. Penticton, BC, 2006.

Axtell, James. “Some Thoughts on the Ethnohistory of Missions.” Ethnohistory 29, 1 (1982): 35–41.

Bradford, Tolly. Prophetic Identities: Indigenous Missionaries and British Colonial Frontiers, 1850–75. Vancouver, 2012.

Carlson, Keith Thor. The Problem of Place, the Problem of Time: Aboriginal Identity and Historical Consciousness in the Cauldron of Colonialism. Toronto, 2010.

Furniss, Elizabeth. Victims of Benevolence: The Dark Legacy of William Lake Residential School, 2nd edn. Vancouver, 1995.

Grant, John Webster. The Moon of Wintertime: Missionaries and the Indians of Canada in Encounter since 1534.Toronto, 1984.

Gray, Susan Elaine. “I Will Fear No Evil”: Ojibwa– Missionary Encounters along the Berens River, 1875– 1940. Calgary, 2006.

Haig-Brown, Celia. Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School. Vancouver, 1988.

Johnston, Basil H. Indian School Days. Toronto, 1988. Lutz, John Sutton. Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal–

White Relations. Vancouver, 2009. Miller, J.R. Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native

Residential Schools. Toronto, 1996.

Milloy, John. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879–1986. Winnipeg, 1999.

Neylan, Susan. The Heavens Are Changing: Nineteenth- Century Protestant Missions and Tsimshian Christianity. Montreal and Kingston, 2003.

Regan, Paulette. Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada. Vancouver, 2010.

Robertson, Leslie A., with the Kwagu’ł Gixsam Clan. Standing Up with Ga’axsta’las: Jane Constance Cook and the Politics of Memory, Church, and Custom. Vancouver, 2012.

Rutherdale, Myra. Women and the White Man’s God: Gender and Race in the Canadian Mission Field. Vancouver, 2002.

Sellars, Bev. They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School. Vancouver, 2012.

Smith, Donald. Sacred Feathers: The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians, 2nd edn. Toronto, 2013 [1987].

———. Mississauga Portraits: Ojibwe Voices from Nineteenth-Century Canada. Toronto, 2013.

Wheeler, Winona. “The Journals and Voices of a Church of England Native Catechist: Askenootow (Charles Pratt), 1851–1884.” In Jennifer S.H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert, eds, Reading Beyond the Words: Contexts for Native History, 2nd edn, 237–61. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2003 [1996].

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Avery, Donald. Reluctant Host: Canada’s Response to Immigrant Workers, 1896–1994. Toronto, 1995. The best synthesis of the topic.

Bacchi, Carole. Liberation Deferred? The Ideas of the English-Canadian Suffragists, 1877–1918. Toronto, 1983. An analysis of English-Canadian suffragism, emphasizing the distinction between maternal and radical feminism.

Berger, Carl. The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867–1914. Toronto, 1970. The pioneer study of these ideas in Canada, and still easily the best.

Bliss, J.M. A Living Profit: Studies in the Social History of Canadian Business, 1883–1911. Toronto, 1974. A col- lection of stimulating essays on Canadian business in a critical period.

Bradbury, Bettina. Working Families: Age, Gender, and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal. Toronto, 1993. A valuable study on the effect of industrializa- tion on the family and its strategies.

Carbert, Louise. Agrarian Feminism: The Politics of Ontario Farm Women. Toronto, 1995. The first full-length analysis of what farm women were up to before 1914.

Christie, Nancy. Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada. Toronto, 2000. A controver- sial work that locates the origins of the Canadian welfare state in the quest for stability for the family.

Copp, Terry. The Anatomy of Poverty: The Condition of the Working Class in Montreal 1897–1929. Toronto, 1974. An early study of the urban working class in Montreal, probably still the best analysis available.

Courville, Serge, and Normand Séguin. Rural Life in Nineteenth-century Quebec.Ottawa, 1989. A synthe- sis of a good deal of secondary literature, which emphasizes how similar rural French Canada was to English Canada.

English, John. The Decline of Politics: The Conservatives and the Party System, 1901–20. Toronto, 1977. The best study of politics before the Great War.

Heron, Craig. Working in Steel: The Early Years in Canada, 1883–1935. Toronto, 1988. A brilliant account of the

origins of steelmaking in Canada, especially strong on labour issues.

Johnston, Hugh. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar. Delhi, 1979. A dispassionate recounting of the story.

Linteau, Paul-André. The Promoters’City: Building the Industrial Town of Maisonneuve, 1883–1918. Toronto, 1985. A wonderful study of the creation of an indus- trial suburb in French Canada.

McCormack, A.R. Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899–1919. Toronto, 1977. A work that resurrects and brings to life a collection of radicals previously neglected in the traditional literature.

McDonald, R.J. Making Vancouver: Class, Status, and Social Boundaries, 1863–1913. Vancouver, 1996. Urban social history that takes advantage of all the latest conceptualizations.

Magocsi, Paul Robert. Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples. Toronto, 1999. A co-operative project by dozens of scholars providing a vast compendium of material on Canadian ethnicity.

Miller, Carman. Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War, 1899–1902. Montreal, 1993. The best study of Canada and the Boer War.

Parker, Roy. Uprooted: The Shipment of Poor Children to Canada, 1867–1917. Vancouver, 2008. A thorough scholarly synthesis of an emotive subject.

Petryshyn, Jaroslav. Peasants in the Promised Land: Canada and the Ukrainians, 1891–1914. Toronto, 1985. A careful study of the early Ukrainian migration.

Rollings-Magnusson, Sandra. Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders: The Labour of Pioneer Children on the Canadian Prairies. Edmonton, 2009. A recent study that suggests how much the settlement of the West depended on the work of children.

Sager, Eric, with Gerald Panting. Maritime Capital: The Shipping Industry in Atlantic Canada, 1820–1914. Montreal, 1990. A study, based on quantitative data, of an important industry.

Short Bibliography

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