Pre-Confederation history of Canada

At around 10,000 BC, the first people entered what is now Canada across a land bridge over the Bering Strait. These hunter-gatherer Paleo-Indian ancestors of today's Canadian First Nations spread throughout Canada, adapting themselves to the various surroundings. The First Nations cultures that developed vary from the Cree in northern Quebec, to the Haida and Salish on the Pacific coast, to the Iroquois in the Saint Lawrence River valley, to the Beothuks in Newfoundland, and the Mi'kmaq of the Maritimes. A unrelated group, Inuit, later crossed the Bering to settle arctic regions.

The First Nations populations were extremely diverse. Some such as the Iroquois and Haida were settled and agricultural. Others like the Blackfoot were nomadic hunter gatherers. Some states like the Iroquois had advanced political structures, others still operated almost wholly on the tribal level. Some common factors include a shamanistic religion, a lack of all but stone age technology, and all participated in a trading network that spanned the continent.

The European arrival

Around the year 1000, Leif Ericson briefly established a colony in Vinland, believed by many to coincide with the Viking colony L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. The Vikings may have travelled the coast from Labrador to Nova Scotia, and possibly even further south, but they were soon forced to abandon their colony due to attacks from an unknown native group and the poor quality of the soil in the area they settled.

Fleets from all of the Atlantic nations came to the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland in the 15th century to take advantage of one of the world's richest fisheries. Fishermen from Spain, Portugal, and the south of France had a distinct advantage in this trade. They had large supplies of solar salt and thus could cure their catches aboard ship. The British ships, and those from northern France did not have this advantage and they had to land at Newfoundland or Nova Scotia and hang their catch to dry in the sun. These sporadic landfalls soon lead to permanent settlements and the southern coast of Newfoundland and the eastern coast of Nova Scotia was soon dotted with small French and English fishing villages.

The first named person known to land in what is now Canada was John Cabot, who landed somewhere on the coast of North America (probably Newfoundland or Cape Breton) in 1497 and claimed it for King Henry VII of England. Portuguese and Spanish explorers also visited Canada, but it was the French who first began to explore further inland and set up colonies, beginning with Jacques Cartier in 1534. Under Samuel de Champlain, the first settlement was made in 1608, which would later grow to be Quebec City. The French claimed Canada as their own and settlers arrived, settling along the St. Lawrence and in the Maritimes. Britain also had a presence in the region, however, and with the advent of settlements, claimed the south of Nova Scotia as well as the areas around the Hudson Bay.

The first contact with the Europeans was disastrous for the native peoples. Relations varied between the settlers and the Natives. The French quickly befriended the Huron peoples and entered into a mutually beneficial trading relationship with them. The Iroquois, however, became dedicated opponents of the French and warfare between the two was unrelenting, especially as the British armed the Iroquois in an effort to weaken the French. It was not warfare that destroyed the native way of life, however, but diseases imported from Europe to which they had no immunities. Smallpox and other maladies wiped out a large portion of Canada's native population.

The first agricultural settlements in what was to become Canada were located around the French settlement of Port Royale in what is now Nova Scotia. The population of Acadians, as this group became known, reached 5000 by 1713.

New France

After Champlain's founding of Quebec City in 1608 it became the capital of New France. While the coastal communities were based upon the cod fishery, the economy of the interior revolved around beaver fur which was the rage in Europe. French voyageurs would travel into the hinterlands and trade with the natives. The voyageurs ranged throughout what is today Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba trading guns, gun powder, textiles and other European manufacturing goods with the natives for furs. The fur trade only encourages a small population, however, as minimal labour was required. Encouraging settlement was always difficult, and while some immigration did occur, by 1759 New France only had a population of some 60,000.

New France had other problems besides low immigration. The French government had little interest or ability in supporting their colony and it was mostly left to its own devices. The economy was primitive and much of the population was involved in little more than subsistence agriculture. The colonists also engaged in a long running series of wars with the Iroquois.

Se also: History of New France

French vs. English

The French were well established in Canada, while Britain had control over the Thirteen Colonies to the south as well as control over Hudson Bay. The English, however, with greater financial power and a larger navy, were consistently in a better position to defend and expand their colonies than the French. The French government gave very little support to their colonists in New France and the colonists, for the most part, had to fend for themselves. Thus in the long series of Anglo-French wars which dominated the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the French steadily lost ground. Quebec City itself was briefly taken by the English in 1629 (but was returned in 1632).

The first areas lost to the British were the Maritimes. After the War of the Spanish Succession, Nova Scotia, other than Cape Breton, was ceded to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht. This gave Britain control over a large number of French-speaking Acadians. Not trusting these new subjects the British tried to dilute their numbers. Thus an effort to recruit Foreign Protestants, primarily from Germany and Switzerland was launched. After only mild success with this effort the British ordered a massive deportation in 1755 and spread the Acadians throughout their North American holdings. While many subsequently returned, the era of francophone Nova Scotia was at an end.

Canada was also an important battlefield in the Seven Years' War, during which Great Britain gained control of Quebec City after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, and Montreal in 1760. Under the Treaty of Paris (1763) France ceded almost all of its Canadian territory to the British. Many British people (including the American colonies to the south) hoped the French Canadians would be assimilated, but distinct rules of governance for Quebec were set out in the Quebec Act of 1774.

The Quebec Act expanded the territory of Quebec, which was then limited to a narrow area around the St-Lawrence river. The most significant expansion was to the southwest, into land that American colonists wanted to settle. The Act also allowed French Canadians to retain their Catholic religion and their French system of civil law. The Quebec Act became one of the Intolerable Acts that infuriated the thirteen American colonies.

The American Revolution

In 1775 American revolutionaries attempted to push their insurrection into Quebec. The Canadiens did not support the revolution, preferring British protection under the Quebec Act to certain assimilation under an American government. The Americans took the towns of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Montreal and laid siege to Quebec City. An attempt to take the city on the night of New Year's Eve 1775 failed, and the Americans were driven from Quebec in 1776.

The American Revolution also led to the arrival of thousands of Loyalists (referred to as "Tories" in the United States) who, as their name suggests, remained loyal to Britain and were compelled to flee north in the face of persecution during and after the revolution. The British government created the colony of New Brunswick in 1784 and divided the Province of Quebec into two colonies, Lower Canada and Upper Canada, in 1791 to partially accommodate those who did not want to live under French civil law. The rights of English and French Canadians were set out in the Constitutional Act of 1791.

The War of 1812

Canada was once again a battleground, this time between the British and the relatively young United States, in the War of 1812. During the war unsuccessful attempts were made by the Americans to invade Ontario, after overestimating the amount of support they would receive from Canadian colonists. Many of the inhabitants of Upper Canada (Ontario) were Americans who had very recently arrived in the colony, and some of them did support the invading force; however, the rest of the population was made up of the descendants of Loyalists or the original French colonists, who did not want to be part of the United States. The first American invasion came in October of 1812, but they were defeated by General Isaac Brock at the Battle of Queenston Heights. The Americans invaded again in 1813, capturing Fort York (now Toronto, Ontario). Later in the year the Americans took control of the Great Lakes after the Battle of Lake Erie and the Battle of the Thames, but they had much less success in Quebec, where they were defeated at the Battle of Châteauguay and the Battle of Crysler's Farm. The Americans were driven out of Ontario in 1814 after the Battle of Lundy's Lane, although they still controlled the Great Lakes and also defeated the British at the Battle of Lake Champlain. The war was essentially a draw, and it is much more important for Canadian mythology than it is as a historical event. In English Canada it is seen as a victory against American invasions, with heroic legends surrounding many of the participants (such as Isaac Brock and Laura Secord) and battles (especially those in the Niagara Peninsula).

The timber trade

As the fur trade declined in importance the timber trade became Canada's most important commodity. The industry became concentrated in three main regions. The first to be exploited was the St. John River system. Trees in the still almost deserted hinterland of New Brunswick were cut and transported to St. John where they were shipped to England. This area soon could not keep up with demand and the trade moved to the St. Lawrence River where logs were shipped to Quebec City before being sent on to Europe. This area also became insufficient and the trade expanded westward, most notably to the Ottawa River system, which by 1845 provided three quarters of the timber shipped from Quebec City. The timber trade became a massive business. In one summer 1200 ships were loaded with timber at Quebec City alone.

The cutting of the timber was done by small groups of men in isolated camps. For most of the nineteenth century the most common product was square timber, which was a log that had been cut into a square block in the forest before being shipped. The timber was transported from the hinterlands to the major markets by assembling it into a raft and floating it downstream. Because of the narrower and more turbulent waters that one would encounter on the Ottawa River system, smaller rafts, known as "cribs," were employed. On the St. Lawrence, however, very large rafts, some up a third of a mile in length would be employed. The most common type of tree harvested was white pine, mostly because it floated well. Oak, which does not float, was in high demand but was much harder to transport and oak timbers needed to be carefully integrated into the raft if they were to be carried to market.

In 1842 the British preferential tariff were lifted, however, the transatlantic trade still remained a profitable one. Demand in Britain remained high, especially for railway ties. Improved ships and new technologies, especially the steam engine, allowed the trade to continue to prosper. After the middle of the century the trade in timber began to decline, being replaced by trade in cut lumber and the pulp and paper industry.

One of the most important side effects of the timber trade was immigration to British North America. Timber is a very bulky and not a particularly valuable cargo. For every ship full of British manufactured goods dozens would be needed to carry the same value of timber. There was no cargo coming from the British Isles to Canada that could take up as much room on the return voyage. Exporting salt filled a few ships, and some vessels were even filled with bricks, but many timber ships made the westward voyage filled with ballast. The population of Canada was small and the lack of wealth in the area made it an unattractive market.

There was, however, one cargo that the ship-owners did not have to worry about finding a market for in the sparsely populated New World: people. Many of the timber ships turned to carrying immigrants for the return voyage from the British Isles to fill this unused capacity. Timber ships would unload their cargo and sell passage to those desiring to emigrate. During the early nineteenth century, with the preferential tariff in full effect, the timber ships were among the oldest and most dilapidated in the British merchant fleet, and travelling as a passenger upon them was extremely unpleasant and dangerous. It was, however, very cheap. Since timber exports would peak at the same time as conflicts in Europe, such as the Napoleonic Wars, a great mass of refugees sought this cheap passage across the Atlantic.

In later decades after the repeal of the tariff and the increase of competition, the quality and safety of the ships improved markedly. Since the travellers would bring along their own food and bedding the trade was an extremely easy one to operate. All that was required was a few advertisements, generally in Irish newspapers, and the installation of bunks along the side of the hold. An average timber ship could thus carry about 200 passengers. Even with only a fraction of the hundreds of timber ships carrying passengers, this created an unprecedented influx of new inhabitants. By comparison it has been calculated that the trade between New France and Europe only included an average sixty-six immigrants per year over the lifetime of that colony.

"Responsible government" and the Rebellions of 1837-38

After the War of 1812, the first half of the 19th century saw the growth of political reform movements in both Upper and Lower Canada, largely influenced by American and French republicanism. The colonial legislatures set out by the Constitutional Act had become dominated by wealthy elites, the Family Compact in Upper Canada and the Chateau Clique in Lower Canada. The moderate reformers, such as Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, argued for a more representational form of government which they called "responsible government." By "responsible," the reformers meant that such a government would be ultimately responsible to the will of the subjects of the colonies, not to the British legislature or monarchy. The radical reformers, such as William Lyon Mackenzie and Louis-Joseph Papineau demanded equality or a complete break from British rule and the establishment of a republic.

Lower Canada - the Patriotes Rebellion

Louis-Joseph Papineau was elected speaker of the colonial assembly in 1815. His attempts at reform were ignored by the British, and in 1834, the assembly passed The Ninety-Two Resolutions, outlining its grievances against the legislative council. Papineau organized boycotts and civil disobedience. The colonial government illegally ordered the arrest of Papineau. The Patriotes resorted to armed resistance and planned a rebellion in the fall of 1837. British troops in the colony quickly put down the rebellion and forced Papineau to flee to the United States. A second rebellion by the Frères chasseurs of Robert Nelson broke out one year later, but the British put it down as well, with much loss of life and destruction of property.

The Rebellion in Upper Canada

William Lyon Mackenzie, a Scottish immigrant and reformist mayor of York (Toronto), organized a rebellion in December of 1837 after the Patriotes rebellion had begun. Upper Canadians had similar grievances; they were annoyed at the undemocratic governance of the colony, and especially by the corrupt and inefficient Canada Company. On December 4 the rebels assembled near Montgomery's Tavern, where the British troops stationed in the city met them on December 7. The rebels were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, and were defeated in less than an hour. Mackenzie escaped to the United States.

Also in December, a group of Irish immigrants attempted to seize southwestern Ontario by force in the Patriot War. They were defeated by government troops at Windsor.

Lord Durham's Report

Lord Durham was appointed Governor General of Canada in 1838. He was assigned to investigate the causes of the Rebellions, and concluded that the problem was essentially animosity between the British and French inhabitants of Canada. His Report on the Affairs of British North America contains the famous description of "two nations warring in the bosom of a single state." For Durham, the French Canadians were culturally backwards, and he was convinced that only a union of French and English Canada would allow the colony to progress in the interest of Great Britain. A political union would, he hoped, cause the French-speakers to be assimilated by English-speaking settlements, solving the problem of French Canadian nationalism once and for all.

Act of Union (1840)

Lord Durham was succeeded by Lord Sydenham who was responsbile for implementing Durham's recommendations in the Act of Union (1840) passed on July 23, 1840 by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and proclaimed February 10, 1841. Upper and Lower Canada became, respectively, Canada West and Canada East, both with 42 seats in the legislative assembly of the Province of Canada despite Lower Canada being more populated. The official language of the province became English and French was explicitly banned in the parliament and in the courts.

The moderate reformers Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin fought two successive governors general Sir Charles Bagot and Sir Charles Metcalfe to secure what became known as responsible government. Metcalfe fought to preserve the prerogatives of the Crown and the governor's control over the administration and patronage. He nonetheless had to make some concessions to win support, and the most notable of these was persuading the Colonial Office to grant amnesty to the rebels of 1837-38, and to abandon forced anglicization of the French-speaking population. Lafontaine and Baldwin reintroduced French as an official language alongside English in the Assembly, the Courts and other governmental bodies. Under the progressive Governor General Lord Elgin, a bill was passed to allow the leaders of former Patriote movement to return to their homeland; Papineau returned and for a short time re-entered Canadian politics. A similar bill was passed for the former Upper Canadian rebels. Elgin also implemented the practice of responsible government in 1848, several months after it had already been conceded in the colony of Nova Scotia.

The parliament of United Canada in Montreal was set on fire by a mob of tories in 1849 after the passing of an indemnity bill for the people who suffered losses during the rebellions of Lower Canada.

One noted achievement of the Union was the Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty of 1855 which sanctioned free trade in resources. However, the achievement must be seen in the wider politics of British North America which had seen the major boundary disputes with the United States settled (except the boundary with Alaska) (see Rush-Bagot Treaty, Treaty of 1818, Webster-Ashburton Treaty, Oregon Treaty), thus easing tensions which for most of the first half of the 19th century had Americans threatening war or retaliation.

The Union Act of 1840 was ultimately unsuccessful, and led to calls for a greater political union in the 1850s and 1860s. Support for independence was strengthened by events such as the Battle of Ridgeway, a 1866 invasion into Ontario by some 1500 Irish nationalists which was repulsed largely by local militia.

Continued at: Post-Confederation history of Canada

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Categories: History of Canada