Unit 2 British Canada from Colony to Country

18th Century Settlement

After 1783

Loyalist Migration

Notebook C:

Why is the Loyalist migration significant? Use ALL the criteria of historical significance and consider all the different groups involved (different types of loyalists, people already living in Canada). This migration had impacts for a wide range of people and political movements.

Criteria: unique, large scale impact, long-term consequences, demonstrating a pattern or trend

Brought large numbers of British people to Canada for the first time, a trend that continues throughout the 1800s.

Many former slaves came to settle in Canada after fighting for the British, but many were not granted land. This demonstrates Eurocentrism in Canada’s history.

Large amounts of farm land claimed from First Nations.

The Iroquois Six Nations resettled in British/Canadian territory.

Led to the creation of the colonies of New Brunswick and Upper Canada (now Ontario) in 1791.

British people and Americans brought ideals of responsible government, liberalism, and republicanism. They also brought Protestanism to Canada.

After 1791

1792

York 1804

The Road to Confederation

Confederation Pros and Cons

To discuss:

What might have happened to the different British colonies if Canada had NOT joined in Confederation?

What would have happened if the British North America Act was never passed?

Refers to a government that is responsible to the

people rather than to a monarch. Functionally, this means the executive branch (like Cabinet) answers to an elected parliament rather than appointed leaders.

The idea comes from the British parliamentary system; the English parliament gradually grew in power since the 13th century, limiting the role of the Monarch.

Responsible Government

Originated in Europe in the 16th century; rejected the

authority of the church of Rome.

United by the idea that the Bible is the ‘direct’ Word of God and all should be able to read it, that salvation comes from grace and not the sacraments, and that all can be priests in the church. Some see a direct link between Protestantism and the rise of literacy and democracy.

Canadian Protestants have never been unified, though early on they would have been part of the Church of England.

Protestantism

Notebook 3: Describe the new Dominion of Canada in 1867. Consider the land, who’s in charge, and who lives there. Consider the challenges they face.

Life in Red River

In 1870, an American Indian Agent named Henry M. Rice visited Red River. He remarked:

“It is a difficult matter to tell at all times exactly where the half breed ends and the white man or

Indian begins; correspondingly difficult is it to tell where the buffalo terminates and the pemmican

begins.”

Red River in 1800

• According to the British Empire, this land is part of the HBC’s Rupert’s Land.

• Both the HBC and the NWC have extensive trade posts on the plains.

• Cree, Blackfoot and other FN competed to provision the HBC. This led to increased conflict and overhunting bison.

• The Metis, as neither “Indian” or European, had moved West in the 1700s and carved out a niche for themselves on the plains as bison hunters and provisioners for the NWC.

• The NWC and HBC traders survive primarily on pemmican, which is being produced at the forts in large quantities.

Selkirk Settlers

• The HBC sell a portion of land to Lord Selkirk to re-settle starving Scottish peasants.

• Settlers begin to arrive in 1812, and survive only with the help of Saulteaux and Cree First Nations.

• The settlers are still starving. The Governor of the settlement, Miles MacDonell, issues a ban on pemmican trade, prohibiting food from leaving the colony.

• The Pemmican Proclamation essentially makes NWC provisioning illegal. The Metis and NWC fight for their livelihood. A series of violent encounters culminates in the incident at Seven Oaks.

Seven Oaks Massacre, (1816), destruction of the Hudson’s Bay Red River Settlement in what is now Manitoba, Canada, by agents of the rival North West Company.

On June 19, 1816, a party of about 60 Metis under Cuthbert Grant, a North West Company employee, set out to run provisions for North West Company canoes past the Red River colony; they plundered some outlying posts on the Assiniboine River and then stopped at a place called Seven Oaks, near the Hudson’s Bay Company’s post at Fort Douglas. Robert Semple, the governor of the colony and governor in chief of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territories in North America, led a group of about 25 soldiers and settlers to parley with the Metis. A fight broke out in which Semple and 20 of his men were killed; Grant lost only one man. The Métis gave no quarter to their wounded opponents, and in the following days they forced the remaining settlers to leave under the threat of massacre. The destruction of the Red River colony, however, was only temporary; it was restored the following year.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica

Seven Oaks Incident

Prior to the union of the North West Co and the Hudson's Bay Co in 1821, the endemic struggles between the 2 fur-trading rivals were capped by a violent incident 19 June 1816 at Seven Oaks, a few km from the HBC's Fort Douglas in the Red River Settlement. The so-called massacre of Seven Oaks provoked retaliation and led to a merger of the 2 companies. The colony at the vital junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, established by Thomas Douglas, fifth earl of Selkirk, was perceived by the Nor'Westers as the base from which the HBC was preparing to launch its penetration of the Athabaska country. It posed a threat, as well, to the annual brigades of the Montréal-based company, lying athwart their main communication route.

In the spring of 1816, the HBC officers and men seized and destroyed the Nor'Westers' Fort Gibraltar at the forks, thus exposing the latter's canoe brigades, just as the pemmican supplies were being moved down the Assiniboine to meet the Nor'Westers returning from the annual council at Fort William. The HBC's Fort Douglas thus dominated the Red and denied passage both to the Nor'Westers and the provision boats of their Métis allies.

From The Canadian Encyclopedia

Brandon House, a HBC post on the upper Assiniboine, was captured by the Métis on 1 June 1816 under Cuthbert GRANT, who then organized an escort to secure the pemmican supplies. Leaving the Assiniboine near Portage la Prairie, Grant and his men struck northeast across the plain to intercept the Nor'Westers on the Red. But they were, in fact, themselves intercepted by the HBC's local governor, Robert SEMPLE, who with a score of his men, had unwisely ventured out of Fort Douglas. Although the clash was not premeditated, the Métis quickly enveloped Semple's party and he and 20 of his men were killed. The Métis suffered only one casualty.

In retaliation, Selkirk captured the Nor'Westers' primary base at Fort William and reoccupied Fort Douglas. Law suits and countersuits ensued. Only Selkirk's death in 1820 cleared the way for an end to the rivalry. As for the Métis, they came to see Red River as a place of settlement and for several decades were a permanent element in the colony.

To discuss:

How do the British and Canadian Encyclopedia entries differ?

Why might they be so different?

Red River After Confederation Read pages 200-207 in Shaping Canada.

Before reading: Read headlines; scan the images, maps, or extra blocks of text.

Consider: What’s this going to be about? What do I already know about this topic?

During reading: Pause at the end of every page or chunk of text. Make a jot-notes summary of the key information.

Write down any questions you have about the text. You MUST have at least two questions by the time you finish reading.

After reading: What perspective does the textbook show? Is there another way to think about this history?

Niagara Mail, January 12, 1870

“Let the Dominion Government offer three or four hundred acres of land to every Canadian volunteer who will go up next spring to Red River, and enough good fellows will be found to put Riel and his followers under the sod.”

The Railway and the Nation Industrialization, Protectionism, Racism, Empire

Advocating empire; deliberately extending a

country’s power through colonization, military force, or other means.

Requires a strong central power (state or monarch) that justifies its reach upon more than just financial grounds; usually requires a strong national identity.

The Age of Imperialism refers to European imperialism from around 1700 to the mid 1900s.

Imperialism

The gradual transformation of economic and social

activity from an agrarian society to an industrial one.

Wealth is produced through manufacturing, not simply through extracting natural resources (agricultural or otherwise). More capital (machinery, factories, etc.) is required to produce profit.

A large proportion of the population become wage earners rather than farmers or craftspeople; urbanization and the growth of cities accompanies this transformation.

Industrialization

Government policies that shield domestic production

from foreign competition through tariffs (taxes on imports), quotas (a limit to how much of a particular product can be produced), trade restrictions, etc.

The aim is to promote industry within the nation.

Protectionism

When a society and its institutions (political,

economic, cultural) routinely exclude people belonging to minority groups.

In North American history (and perhaps in much of the world), this is synonymous with white supremacy, a system that ensures the power and privilege of whites by exploiting people of colour.

Racism is not primarily about individual prejudice; it’s about prejudice and power.

Structural Racism

As you watch the video, consider the following questions:

• Which technologies allowed for the industrial revolution?

• When and where did the industrial revolution take place?

Crash Course World History: Industrial Revolution

As you watch the video, consider the following questions:

How did the population feel about the changes brought about by the industrial revolution? How did it change human values?

Crash Course World History: Railway Journey

Settling the West The Dominion Lands Act of 1872 encouraged settlement across the West by granting a quarter section (160 acres) of land to each adult settler (first defined as 21, then dropped to 18).

1.25 million homesteads were made available. Despite this, settlement was slow.

An amendment to the Act created block settlements (villages) instead of individual homesteads for some ethnic groups.

Mennonites and Icelanders were the first two large groups of European immigrants to settle in the new province of Manitoba.

National Trade • John A. MacDonald’s National Policy (1878) levied

high tariffs (import taxes) on foreign manufactured goods. These largely remained in place until after WWII.

• “We desire that the people may at once declare whether they wish to have fair trade, plenty of work, and prosperity, or free trade, want of labour, and poverty.” (MacDonald, 1882)

• Over time “National Policy” came to refer to the broader plan for national growth, which included the Dominion Lands Act and the building of the railway.

Pacific Scandal

John A MacDonald’s Conservatives needed money to run his 1872 election campaign, and Sir Hugh Allen, a railway builder, donated significantly.

After the election, Allen’s company was awarded the bid to build the Canadian Pacific Railway.

When the scandal came to light in 1873, MacDonald resigned, only to come back and win in 1878.

Chinese Labour & the Railway

Watch the interviews and take notes on the Chinese immigrant experience. Include events for all of the following dates:

• 1858

• 1872

• 1881-1885

• 1885

• Late 1880s

• 1890s

• 1904

• 1923

http://www.sfu.ca/fromctoc/timeline/

• 1858 – “Arrival of Chinese”, “Society & Culture”

• 1896 – “Politics and Law”

Disenfranchisement

• 1862 – “Chinese Labourers”

• 1881 – Howe Lee, Larry Wong, Gordon Lee, Henry Yu

• 1886 – “Stranded Labourers”

Head Tax

• 1893 – “Chinatown”, “Chinatowns”

• 1862 – “Gold Mountain”

• 1905 – “Headtax Issues”

Notebook E:

Pretend it’s 1885. The CPR is complete, and the Northwest Rebellion has been crushed. Write a brief editorial with a clear perspective on one of the following issues:

• Riel’s trial

• Indian policy

• The cost of the railway

The perspective will depend on who’s writing and where that person lives. Please identify a location and give a strong call to action, either to the gov’t or the people. Argue directly against those who disagree with you.

Treaties and the Indian Act The Story of First Nations Land OR The Railway and the Nation Continued

In general, a treaty is any agreement or contract

between two or more parties.

Typically refers to trade or peace agreements between two or more states or governing bodies.

In Canada’s history, treaties have been made between various First Peoples and European groups in order to trade peacefully or make peaceful shared use of the land traditionally occupied by indigenous people.

Treaties

A law or set of laws that hold authority because they

are put forward by a state or other recognized governing body.

As opposed to a treaty, legislation is unilateral.

In order for legislation to hold power, there must be some way of enforcing the laws stated.

Legislation (n)

1867

Setting the Stage

1. When had Europeans and indigenous peoples made Treaties prior to Confederation?

2. Why did Canada need treaties after Confederation?

3. Why did the First Nations need treaties after Confederation?

1873

The Numbered Treaties 1871-1921

4. Who was included in the Treaties?

5. How were they negotiated?

• Treaty 1 example

6. What did the Canadian government promise?

7. What did the First Nations people promise?

Numbered Treaties

The Treaty Legacy

7. Do these Treaties still hold today?

APTN video

8. Why did the Treaties fail to create a good relationship between First Nations and the Canadian government?

Residential Schools

Saskatchewan, 1874

Yukon, 1921

Cross Lake MB, 1940

BC, 1960

The Practice of Potlatch

Read the article on the potlatch ban. Consider the following.

1. What is a potlatch and why did West Coast First Nations practice potlatch?

2. Why did the Canadian government oppose the potlatch and make it illegal?

3. How did the FN people respond?

4. Do people practice potlatch now? How do you think it differs from before?

Notebook D:

Read the story of Piapot as recounted by Katherine Pettipas in The Ties that Bind. Then tell Piapot’s story in you own words, in about half a page. Focus on how the Treaties and the Indian Act had an impact on his life.

/10

To consider:

How did the British/Canadians justify the restrictions they imposed upon the First Peoples?

What kinds of attitudes allowed for the Indian Act?

British Perspectives – Late 1800s

• The Victorian era fostered a belief in humanitarian progress and the importance of “civilizing” all cultures, opposing things like child labour and poverty.

• Liberal economics suggested that economic behaviour that did not result in surplus was irrational. Indigenous societies were seen as “indolent” (lazy) and inefficient.

• In the mid-1800s, the new science of anthropology was being used to argue that physical, but also intellectual and moral, traits were determined by race.

The process by which a minority group (or

individual) is absorbed into a majority group, taking on the practices, language, and economics of the dominant culture.

Assimilation