Chapter 3

Canada's History

From Indigenous societies and European explorers to Confederation, the building of the country, and the two World Wars.

Aboriginal peoples

Europeans called Aboriginal peoples 'Indians' because early explorers thought they had reached the East Indies.
Ways of life varied: the Huron-Wendat and Iroquois of the Great Lakes were farmers and hunters; the Cree and Dene of the Northwest were hunter-gatherers; the Sioux followed the bison herds; Inuit lived off Arctic wildlife; West Coast peoples dried and smoked fish.
Aboriginal groups sometimes fought each other over land, resources and prestige.
Many Aboriginal people died from European diseases, which they had no immunity to.
In the first 200 years of contact, Aboriginal peoples and Europeans formed strong economic, religious and military ties that helped lay the foundations of Canada.

The first Europeans and the name 'Canada'

The Vikings from Iceland settled Greenland about 1,000 years ago and reached Labrador and Newfoundland. Their settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows is a World Heritage Site.
John Cabot, an Italian immigrant to England, was the first to map Canada's Atlantic shore, in 1497. He claimed Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island for England. English settlement did not start until 1610.
Jacques Cartier made three voyages between 1534 and 1542 and claimed the land for King Francis I of France. He was the first European to explore the St. Lawrence River and see the sites of today's Quebec City and Montreal.
Cartier heard the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning 'village'. By the 1550s, 'Canada' was appearing on maps.

New France

In 1604 Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain started the first European settlement north of Florida: first on St. Croix Island (now in Maine), then at Port-Royal in Acadia (now Nova Scotia).
In 1608 Champlain built a fortress at what is now Quebec City.
Champlain allied the colony with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron, who were enemies of the Iroquois.
The Iroquois Confederacy (first five, later six First Nations) fought the French for about a century. They made peace in 1701.
The French and Aboriginal peoples worked together in the fur trade, driven by demand for beaver pelts.
Jean Talon, Bishop Laval and Count Frontenac helped build a French empire from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1690 Frontenac refused to surrender Quebec to the English.
Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, was a hero of New France who won many battles against the English, from James Bay to the Caribbean.

Struggle for a continent

In 1670 King Charles II gave the Hudson's Bay Company exclusive trading rights over the lands draining into Hudson Bay. For 100 years it competed with Montreal-based traders.
Voyageurs and coureurs des bois travelled by canoe and formed strong alliances with First Nations.
The English colonies on the Atlantic coast grew richer and more populous than New France.
In 1759 the British defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City, ending France's empire in America. Both commanders, Brigadier James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm, were killed.

The Province of Quebec

After the war, Britain renamed the colony the 'Province of Quebec'. Its French-speaking Catholic people were called habitants or Canadiens.
The Quebec Act of 1774 allowed religious freedom for Catholics, let them hold public office, restored French civil law and kept British criminal law. It is one of the foundations of Canada's constitution.
Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester), Governor of Quebec, defended the rights of the Canadiens, defeated an American invasion of Quebec in 1775 and oversaw the Loyalist migration.

United Empire Loyalists

In 1776 the 13 British colonies to the south declared independence and became the United States.
More than 40,000 Loyalists, people loyal to the Crown, fled the American Revolution and settled in Nova Scotia and Quebec.
Joseph Brant led thousands of Mohawk Loyalists into Canada.
Loyalists came from many backgrounds: Dutch, German, British, Scandinavian, Aboriginal and others.
About 3,000 Black Loyalists, freed and enslaved, came north seeking a better life. In 1792 some Black Nova Scotians moved to Freetown, Sierra Leone, a British colony for freed slaves in West Africa.

The beginnings of democracy

The first representative assembly was elected in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1758. Prince Edward Island followed in 1773 and New Brunswick in 1785.
The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario; mainly Loyalist, Protestant, English-speaking) and Lower Canada (later Quebec; mainly Catholic, French-speaking).
It gave both Canadas their first elected legislative assemblies, and the name Canada became official.
The Atlantic colonies and the two Canadas together were called British North America.
In 1793 the first elected Assembly of Lower Canada debated whether to use both French and English.

Abolition of slavery

In 1793 Upper Canada, led by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, became the first province in the British Empire to move toward abolishing slavery. Simcoe also founded the City of York, now Toronto.
In 1807 the British Parliament banned buying and selling slaves, and in 1833 it abolished slavery throughout the Empire.
Thousands of enslaved people escaped from the United States to Canada on the Underground Railroad, a Christian anti-slavery network. They followed the North Star.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary, an anti-slavery activist, became the first woman publisher in Canada in 1853 (The Provincial Freeman newspaper).

A growing economy

The Hudson's Bay Company came to dominate trade in the northwest. Its trading posts, such as Fort Garry (Winnipeg), Fort Edmonton, Fort Langley and Fort Victoria, later grew into cities.
The Montreal Stock Exchange opened in 1832.
For centuries the economy depended mainly on farming and exporting natural resources such as fur, fish and timber.

The War of 1812

Britain was fighting Napoleon, and Americans resented British interference with their shipping. The United States invaded Canada in June 1812.
Canadian volunteers and First Nations, including the Shawnee led by Chief Tecumseh, fought alongside British soldiers.
Major-General Sir Isaac Brock captured Detroit in July 1812 but was killed at Queenston Heights, near Niagara Falls, where the Americans were defeated.
In 1813 Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Salaberry and about 460 soldiers, mostly French Canadiens, turned back 4,000 American invaders at Châteauguay, south of Montreal.
In 1813 Laura Secord, a mother of five, walked about 30 km (19 miles) to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon of an American attack, helping win the Battle of Beaver Dams.
In 1813 the Americans burned Government House and the Parliament Buildings in York (Toronto). In 1814 Major-General Robert Ross led an expedition that burned the White House in Washington.
By 1814 the American attempt to conquer Canada had failed. Today's Canada–U.S. border is partly a result of the war.
The Duke of Wellington chose Bytown (Ottawa) as the end point of the Rideau Canal, part of a network of forts, and so helped found the national capital.

Rebellions and responsible government

In 1837–38 reformers who felt democracy was moving too slowly led armed rebellions near Montreal and in Toronto. British troops and Canadian volunteers defeated them.
Lord Durham, sent from England to report, recommended uniting Upper and Lower Canada and granting responsible government. He also wrongly said French Canadians should assimilate into English Protestant culture.
In 1840 Upper and Lower Canada were united as the Province of Canada.
Responsible government means ministers must have the support of a majority of elected representatives; a government that loses a confidence vote must resign. Canada still uses this system.
Nova Scotia was the first British North American colony to have full responsible government, in 1847–48. Joseph Howe helped bring it about there.
In 1848–49 Lord Elgin introduced responsible government in the Province of Canada. Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, working with Robert Baldwin, became the first head of a responsible government in the Canadas and was a champion of French-language rights.

Confederation

From 1864 to 1867, representatives of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada worked to create a new country. They are the Fathers of Confederation.
They created two levels of government: federal and provincial. Each province controls areas such as education and health.
The British Parliament passed the British North America Act in 1867. The Dominion of Canada was born on July 1, 1867, with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Until 1982, July 1 was called Dominion Day. It is now Canada Day.
Sir Leonard Tilley, a Father of Confederation from New Brunswick, suggested the name 'Dominion of Canada' in 1864, inspired by Psalm 72 in the Bible ('dominion from sea to sea').
In 1921 King George V gave Canada its national colours, red and white, the colours of today's flag.

How Canada grew

1867: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick.
1870: Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. 1871: British Columbia. 1873: Prince Edward Island.
1880: the Arctic Islands were transferred to the Northwest Territories. 1898: Yukon Territory.
1905: Alberta and Saskatchewan. 1949: Newfoundland and Labrador. 1999: Nunavut.

Canada's first Prime Minister

Sir John A. Macdonald became Canada's first Prime Minister in 1867. He was born in Scotland on January 11, 1815, and was a lawyer in Kingston, Ontario. January 11 is Sir John A. Macdonald Day, and his portrait is on the $10 bill.
Sir George-Étienne Cartier, a railway lawyer from Montreal, was the key architect of Confederation from Quebec and helped bring the Northwest Territories, Manitoba and British Columbia into Canada.

Challenge in the West

When Canada took over the Hudson's Bay Company's northwest lands in 1869, the 12,000 Métis of the Red River were not consulted.
Louis Riel led an armed uprising and seized Fort Garry. In 1870 Ottawa sent soldiers, Riel fled to the United States, and the province of Manitoba was created.
In 1885 a second rebellion in what is now Saskatchewan led to Riel's trial and execution for high treason, which was strongly opposed in Quebec. Many see Riel as a defender of Métis rights and the father of Manitoba.
Gabriel Dumont was the Métis' greatest military leader.
In 1873 Macdonald established the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) to bring peace to the West. It founded Fort Calgary, Fort MacLeod and other centres, and Regina became its headquarters. Today the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), 'the Mounties', is the national police force and one of Canada's best-known symbols. Sam Steele was a famous frontier hero and Mounted Policeman.

A railway from sea to sea

British Columbia joined Canada in 1871 after Ottawa promised to build a railway to the West Coast.
On November 7, 1885, Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona) drove the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).
British and American investors paid for the railway, and European and Chinese workers built it. Chinese immigrants later faced the Head Tax, a race-based entry fee. The Government of Canada apologized in 2006.

Moving westward

During the boom of the 1890s and early 1900s, about one million British and one million Americans moved to Canada.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the first French-Canadian Prime Minister since Confederation. He encouraged settlement of the West. His portrait is on the $5 bill.
Before 1914, about 170,000 Ukrainians, 115,000 Poles and many Germans, French, Norwegians and Swedes settled the West and built a thriving farm economy.

The First World War

More than 7,000 Canadians volunteered for the South African (Boer) War (1899–1902); over 260 died. Victories at Paardeberg and Lillefontein in 1900 boosted national pride.
When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada formed the Canadian Expeditionary Force, later the Canadian Corps. More than 600,000 Canadians served, out of a population of about 8 million.
In April 1917 the Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge, with 10,000 killed or wounded, earning a reputation as the 'shock troops of the British Empire'. April 9 is Vimy Day.
From 1914 to 1920, Ottawa interned over 8,000 former Austro-Hungarian subjects, mainly Ukrainian men, as 'enemy aliens' in labour camps.
In 1918, under General Sir Arthur Currie, Canada's greatest soldier, the Canadian Corps advanced in the war's last hundred days, including Amiens on August 8, 1918 ('the black day of the German Army').
The war ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918. About 60,000 Canadians were killed and 170,000 wounded.

Remembrance Day

On November 11 Canadians remember the more than one million who served and the 110,000 who died.
Canadians wear red poppies and keep a moment of silence at 11 a.m.
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian medical officer, wrote the poem 'In Flanders Fields' in 1915. It is often recited on Remembrance Day.

Women get the vote

At Confederation, only adult white men who owned property could vote.
The women's suffrage movement was founded by Dr. Emily Stowe, the first Canadian woman to practise medicine in Canada.
1916: Manitoba was the first province to give women the vote.
1917: Sir Robert Borden's government gave the federal vote first to women nurses at the front, then to women related to men in active service. 1918: most women aged 21 and over got the federal vote.
1921: Agnes Macphail, a farmer and teacher, became the first woman MP.
1940: Quebec gave women the vote, thanks to Thérèse Casgrain and others.
More than 3,000 nurses, called the 'Bluebirds', served in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps.

Between the wars

After the First World War, the British Empire became the British Commonwealth of Nations. Canada is still a leading member.
The 'Roaring Twenties' were prosperous, but the 1929 stock market crash began the Great Depression ('the Dirty Thirties'). Unemployment reached 27% in 1933.
The Bank of Canada, a central bank, was created in 1934.
Immigration dropped, and many refugees were turned away, including Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939.

The Second World War

The war began in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. Canada joined its democratic allies.
More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served (Newfoundland was then separate). About 44,000 Canadians were killed.
Canadians fought in the defence of Hong Kong (1941) and the failed raid on Dieppe (1942).
The Royal Canadian Air Force fought in the Battle of Britain. Over 130,000 Allied aircrew trained in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
The Royal Canadian Navy had its finest hour in the Battle of the Atlantic, protecting convoys. By the end of the war Canada had the third-largest navy in the world.
Canadians helped liberate Italy (1943–44). On D-Day, June 6, 1944, about 15,000 Canadian troops captured Juno Beach in Normandy; about one in ten Allied soldiers that day was Canadian.
The Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands in 1944–45. Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, and Japan on August 14, 1945.
The government forcibly moved Japanese Canadians from their homes and sold their property without compensation. It apologized in 1988 and compensated the victims.

Checked against the official study guide: Discover Canada: Canada's history. Summarized in our own words.

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