The British ordered the Acadians expelled from their land in 1755 during the

French and Indian War, an event called the Expulsion of the Acadians or le
Grand Dérangement. The “expulsion” resulted in approximately 12,000
Acadians being shipped to destinations throughout Britain’s North America and
to French, Quebec and to French Caribbean colony of Saint-Dominique. The
first wave of the expulsion of the Acadians began with the Bay of the Fundy
Campaign (1775) and the second wave began after the final Siege of
Louisbourg (1758). Many of the Acadians settled in the southern Louisiana,
creating the Cajun culture there. Some Acadians settled and managed to hide
and others eventually returned to Nova Scotia, but they were far outnumbered
by a new migration of New England Planters who were settled on the former
lands of the Acadians and transformed Nova Scotia from a colony of occupation
for the British to a settled colony with stronger ties to New England. Britain
eventually gained control of Quebec City and Montreal after the Battle of the
Plains of Abraham and Battle of Fort Niagara in 1759, and the Battle of the
Thousand Islands and Battle of Sainte-Foy in 1760.
Amongst notable Métis people are television actor Tom Jackson, Commissioner
of the Northwest Territories Tony Whitford, and Louis Riel who led two
resistance movements: the Red River Rebellion of 1869-1870 and the North-
West Rebellion of 1885, which ended in his trial.
The languages inherently Métis are either Métis French or a mixed language
called Michif. Michif, Mechif or Métchif is a phonetic spelling of Métif, a
variant of Métis. The Métis today predominantly speak English, with French a
strong second language, as well as numerous Aboriginal tongues. A 19 th-century
community of the Métis people the Anglo-Métis, were referred to as
Countryborn. They were children of Rupert’s Land fur trade typically of
Orcadian, Scottish, or English paternal descent and Aboriginal maternal descent.
Their first languages would have been Aboriginal (Cree, Saulteaux, Assiniboine,
etc.) and English. Their fathers spoke Gaelic, thus leading to the development of
an English dialect referred to as “Bungee”.
S.35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 mentions the Métis yet there has long been
debate over legally defining the term Métis, but on September 23, 2003, the
Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Métis are a distinct people with significat
rights (Powley ruling).
Métis
The Métis are people descended from marriages between Europeans (mainly
French) and Cree, Ojibway, Algonquin, Saulteaux, Menominee, Mi’kmaq,
Maliseet, and other First Nations. Their history dates to the mid-17th century.
When Europeans first arrived to Canada, they relied on Aboriginal peoples for
fur trading skills and survival. To ensure alliances, relationships between
European fur traders and Aboriginal women were often consolidated through
marriage. The Métis homeland consists of the Canadian provinces of British
Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova
Scotia, and Ontario, as well as the Northwest Territories (NWT).
Warfare was common among Inuit groups with sufficient population density.
Inuit, such as the Nunatamuit (Uummarmiut) who inhabited the Mackenzie
River delta area, often engaged in common warfare. The Central Arctic Inuit
lacked the population density to engage in warfare. In the 13the century, the
Thule culture began arriving in Greenland from what is now Canada. Norse
accounts are scant. Norse-made items from Inuit campsites in Greenland were
obtained by either trade or plunder. One account, Ìvar Bardarson, speaks of
“small people” with whom the Norsemen fought. 14th century accounts that a
western settlement, one of the two Norse Settlements, was taken over by the
Skræling.
After the disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland, the Inuit had no
contact with Europeans for at least a century. By the mid-16th century, Basque
fishers were already working the Labrador coast and had established whaling
stations on land, such as been excavated at Red Bay. The Inuit appear not to
have interfered with their operations, but they did raid the stations in winter for
tools, and particularly worked iron, which they adapted to native needs.
Inuit
The Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule culture,
which emerged from western Alaska around 1,000 CE and spread eastward
across the Arctic displacing the Dorset culture (in Inuktitut, the Tuniit). Inuit
historically referred to the Tuniit as “giants”, or “dwarfs”, who were taller and
stronger than the Inuit. Researchers hypothesize that the Dorset culture lacked
dogs, larger weapons and other technologies used by the expanding Inuit
society. By 1300, the Inuit had settled in west Greenland, and finally moved into
east Greenland over the following century. The Inuit had trade routes with more
southern cultures. Boundary disputes were common and led aggressive acrtions.
Many Aboriginal civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks that
included permanent urban settlements or cities, agriculture, civic and
monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. These cultures had
evolved and changed by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (c.
late 15th-early 16th centuries), and have been brought forward through
archeological investigations.
These are indications of contract made before Christopher Columbus between
the first peoples and those from other continents. Aboriginal people in Canada
interacted with Europeans around 1000 CE, but prolonged contact came after
Europeans established permanent settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries.
European written accounts generally strengthened the more organized political
entities such as the Iroquois Confederation. Throughout the 16th century,
European fleets made almost annual visits to then eastern shores of Canada to
cultivate the fishing opportunities. A sideline industry emerged in the un-
organized traffic of furs overseen by the Indian Department.
First Nations
First Nations peoples had settled and established trade routes across what is now
Canada by 500 BCE-1,000 CE. Communities developed each with its own
culture, customs, and character. In the northwest were the Athapaskan, Slavery,
Dogrib. Tutchone, and Tlingit. Along with the Pacific coast were the Tsimshian;
Salish; Kwakiutl; Heiltsuk; Nootka; Nisga’a; Senakw and Gitxsan. In the plains
were the Blackfoot; Káinawa; Sarcee and Peigan. In the northern woodland
were the Cree and Chipewyan. Arount the Great Lakes were the Anishinaabe;
Algonquin; Iroquois and Huron. Along the Atlantic coast were the Beothuk,
Malisset, Innu, Abenaki and Mi’kmaq.
The Woodland cultural period dates from about 2,000 BCE-1,000 CE, and has
locales in Ontario, Quebec, and Maritime regions. The introduction of pottery
distinguishes the Woodland culture from the earlier Archaic stage inhabitants.
Laurentian people of southern Ontario manufactured the oldest pottery
excavated to date in Canada. They created pointed-bottom beakers decorated by
a cord marking technique that involved impressing tooth implements into wet
clay. Woodland technology included items such as beaver incisor knives,
bangles, and chisels. The population practising sedimentary life ways continued
to increase on a diet of squash, corn, and bean crops.
The Hopewell tradition is in Aboriginal culture that flourished along American
rivers from 300 BCE-500 CE. At its greatest extent, the Hopewell Exchange
System networked cultures and societies with the peoples on the Canadian
shores of Lake Ontario. Canadian expression of the Hopewellian peoples
encompasses the Point Peninsula, Saugeen, and laurel complexes.
The west cost of Canada by 7,000-5000 BCE (9,000-7,000 years ago) saw
various cultures who organized themselves around salmon fishing. The Nuu-
chah-nulth of Vancouver Island began whaling with advanced long spears at
about this time. The Maritime Archaic is one group on North America’s Archaic
culture of sea-mammal hunters in the subarctic. They prospered from
approximately 7,000 BCE-1,500 BCE (9,000-3,500 years ago. Along the
Atlantic Coast of North America. Their settlements included longhouses and
boat-topped temporary or seasonal houses. They engaged in long-distance trade,
using as currency white chert, a rock quarried from northern Labrador to Maine.
The Pre-Columbian culture, whose members were called Red Paint People, is
indigenous to the New England and Atlantic Canada regions of North America.
The culture flourished between 3,000 BCE-1,000 BCE (5,000-3,000 years ago)
and was named after their burial ceremonies, which used large quantities of red
ochre to cover bodies and grave goods.
The placement of artifacts and materials within an Archaic burial site indicated
social differentiation based upon status. There is a continuous record of
occupation of S'ólh Téméxw by Aboriginal people dating from the early
Holocene period, 10,000-9,000 years ago. Archeological sites at Stave Lake.
Coquitlam Lake, Fort Langley and region uncovered early period artifacts.
These early inhabitants were highly mobile-gatherers, consisting of about 20 to
50 members of an extended family. [verification needed] The Na-Dene people
occupied much of the land area of northwest and central North America starting
around 8,000 BCE. They were the earliest ancestors of the Athabaskan-speaking
peoples, including the Navajo and Apache. They had villages with large multi-
family dwellings, used seasonally during the summer, from which they hunted,
fished and gathered food supplies for the winter. The Wendat peoples settled
into Southern Ontario along the Eramosa River around 8,000-7,000 BCE
(10,000-9,000 years ago). They were concentrated between Lake Simcoe and
Georgian bay. Wendat hunted caribou to survived the glacier-covered land.
Many different First Nations cultures relied upon the buffalo starting by 6,000-
5000 BCE (8,000-7,000 years ago) they hunted buffalo by herding migrating
buffalo off cliffs. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, near Lethbridge, Alberta, is a
hunting grounds that was in use for about 5,000 years.
The Arctic small tool tradition is a broad cultural entity developed along the
Alaska Peninsula, around Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the Bering
Strait around 2,500 BCE (4,500 years ago). These Paleo-Arctic peoples had a
highly distinctive toolkit of small blades (microblades) that were pointed at both
ends and used as side-or end-barbs on arrows or spears made of other materilas,
such as bone or antler. Scrapers, engraving tools and adze blades were also
included in their toolkits. The Arctic small tool tradition branches off into two
cultural variants, including the Pre-Dorset, and the Independence traditions.
These two groups, ancestors of Thule people, were displaced by the Inuit by
1000 Common Era (CE).
Post-Archaic periods
A northerly section focusing on the Saugeen, Laurel and Point Peninsula
complexes of the map showing south eastern United States and the Great Lakes
area of Canada showing the Hopewell Interaction Sphere and in different
colours the various local expressions of the Hopewell cultures, including the
Laurel Complex, Marksville culture, Copena culture, Kansas City Hopewell.
Swift Creek Culture, Goodall Focus, Crab Orchard culture and Havana
Hopewell culture.
The Old Copper Complex societies dating from 3,000 BCE-500 BCE (5,000-
2,500 years ago) are a manifestation of the Woodland Culture, and are pre-
pottery in nature. Evidence found in the northern Great Lakes regions indicates
that they extracted copper from local glacial deposits and used it in its natural
form to manufacture tools and implements.
The Plano cultures was a group of hunter-gatherer communities that occupied
the Great Plains area of North America between 12,000-10,000 years ago. The
Paleo-Indians moved into new territory as it emerged from under the glaciers.
Big game flourished in this new environment. The Plano culture are
characterized by a range of projectile points tools collectively called Plano
points, which were used to hunt bison. Their diets also included pronghorn, elk,
deer, raccoon and cayote. At the beginning of the Archaic Era, they began to
adopt a sedentary approach to subsistence. Sites in and around Belmont, Nova
Scotia have evidence of Plano-Indians, indicating small seasonal hunting
camps, perhaps re-visited over generations from around 11,000-10,000 years
ago. Seasonal large and smaller game fish and fowl were food and raw material
sources. Adaptation to the harsh environment included tailored clothing and
skin-covered tents on wooden frames.
Archaic Period
The North American climate stabilized by 8,000 BCE (10,000 years ago);
climate conditions were very similar to today’s. This led to widespread
migration, cultivation and later a dramatic rise in population all over the
Americas. Over the course of thousands of years, American indigenous peoples
domesticated bred and cultivated a large array of plant species. Thes species
now constitute 50-60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide.
Clovis sites dated at 13,500 years ago were discovered in western North
America during the 1930s. Clovis peoples were regarded as the first widespread
Paleo-Indian inhabitants of the New World and ancestors to all indigenous
peoples in the Americas. Archaeological discoveries in the past thirty years have
brought forward other distinctive knapping cultures who occupied the Americas
from the lower Great Plains to the shores of Chile. Localized regional cultures
developed from the time of the Younger Dryas cold climate period from 12,900
to 11,500 years ago. The Folsom points as projectiles tips at archaeological
sites. These tools assisted activities at kill sites that marked the slaughter and
butchering of bison.
The land bridge existed until 13,000-11,000 years ago, long after the oldest
proven human settlement in the New World began. Lower sea levels in the
Queen Charlotte sound and Hecate Strait produced great grass lands called
archipelago of Haida Gwaii. Hunter-gatherers of the area left distinctive lithic
technology tools and the remains of large butchered mammals, occupying the
area from 13,000-9,000 years ago. In July 1992, the Federal Government
officially designated Xá:ytem (near Mission Site, one of the first Indigenous
spiritual sites in Canada to be formally recognized in this manner.
The first inhabitants of North America arrived in Canada at least 15,000 years
ago, though increasing evidence suggests an even earlier arrival. It is believed
the inhabitants entered the Americas pursuing Pleistocene mammals such as the
giant beaver, steppe wisent, musk ox, mastodons, woolly mammoths and
ancient reindeer (early caribou). One route hypothesized is that people walked
south by way of an ice-free corridor on the east side of the Rocky Mountains,
and then fanned out across North America before continuing on to South
America. The other conjectured route is that they migrated, either on foot or
using primitive boats, down the Pacific Coast to the tip of South America, and
then crossed the Rockies and Andes. Evidence of the latter has been covered by
a sea level rise of hundreds of metres following the last ice age.
The old Crow Flats and basin was one of the areas in Canada untouched by
glaciations during the Pleistocene Ice ages, thus it served as pathways and
refuge for ice age plants and animals. The area holds evidence of early human
habitation in Canada dating from about 12,000. Fossils from the area include
some never accounted for in North America, such as hyenas and large camels.
Bluefish Caves is an archeological site in Yukon, Canada from which a
specimen of apparently human-worked mammoth bone has been radiocarbon
dated to 12,000 years ago.
Maps depicting each phase of three-step early human migrations for the
peopling of the Americas
According to archeological and genetic evidence, North and South America
were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the
Wisconsin glaciation, 50,000-17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed
people to move across the Bering land bridge that joined Siberia to north west
North America (Alaska). Alaska was ice-free because of low snowfall, allowing
a small population to exist. The Laurentide ice sheet covered most Canada,
blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska (East Beringia) for
thousands of years.
Aboriginal genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas
share a single ancestral population, one that developed in isolation, conjectured
to be Beringia. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted
10,000-20,000 years. Around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting,
allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond.
The term Eskimo has pejorative connotations in Canada and Greenland.
Indigenous peoples in those areas have replaced the term Eskimo with Inuit.
The Yupik of Alaska and Siberia do not consider themselves Inuit, and
ethnographers agree they are distinct people. They prefer the terminology
Yupik, Yupiit, or Eskimo. The Yupik languages are linguistically distinct from
the Inuit languages. Linguistic groups of Arctic people have no universal
replacement term for Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people across the
geographical area inhabited by the Inuit and Yupik peoples.
Besides these ethnic descriptors, Aboriginal peoples are often divided into legal
categories based on their relationship with the Crown (i.e. the state) Section 91
(clause 24) of the Constitution Act, 1867 gives the federal government (as
opposed to the provinces) the sole responsibility for “Indians, and Lands
reserved for the Indians”. The government inherited treaty obligations from the
British colonial authorities in Eastern Canada and signed treaties itself with
First Nations in Western Canada (the Numbered Treaties). It also passed the
Indian Act in 1876 which governed its interactions with all treaty and non-treaty
peoples. Members of First Nations bands that are subject to the Indian Act with
the Crown are compiled on a list called Indian Register, and such people are
called Status Indians. Many non-treaty First Nations and all Inuit and Métis
peoples are not subject to the Indian Act. However, two court cases have
clarified that Inuit, Métis, and non-status First Nations people are all covered by
the term “Indians” in the Constitution Act, 1867. The first was Re Eskimos in
1939 covering the Inuit, the second being Daniels v. Canada in 2013 which
applies to Métis and non-Status First Nations.
Notwithstanding Canada’s location within the Americas, the term “Native
American” is not used in Canada as it is typically used solely to describe the
indigenous peoples within the boundaries of the present-day United States.
The characteristics of Canadian Aboriginal culture included permanent
settlement, agriculture, complex societal hierarchies and trading networks. The
Métis culture of mixed blood originated in the mid-17th century when First
Nation and Inuit people married Europeans. The Inuit had more limited
interactions with Europeans settles during that early period. Various laws,
treaties, and legislation have been enacted between European immigrants and
First Nations across Canada. Aboriginal Right to Self-Government provides
opportunity to manage historical, cultural, political, health care and economic
control aspects within first people’s communities.
As of the 2011 census, Aboriginal peoples in Canada totaled 1,400,685 people,
or 4.3% of the national population, spread over 600 recognized First Nations
governments or bands with distinctive cultures, languages, art, and music.
National Aboriginal Day recognizes the cultures and contributions of Aboriginal
peoples to the history of Canada. First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples of all
backgrounds have become prominent figures and have served as role models in
the Aboriginal community and help to shape the Canadian cultural identity.
The term First Peoples and First Nations are both used to refer to indigenous
peoples of Canada. The term First Peoples or Aboriginal peoples in Canada are
normally broader terms that First Nations, as they include Inuit, Métis and First
Nations. First Nations (most often used in the plural) has come into general use
for the indigenous peoples of North America in Canada, and their descendants,
who are neither Inuit nor Métis. On reserves, First Nations is being supplanted
by members of various nations referring to themselves by their group or ethnical
identity. In conversation this would be “I am Haida”, or “we are Kwantlens”, in
recognition of their First Nations ethnicities. In this Act, “Aboriginal peoples of
Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.
Indians remains in place as the legal term used in the Canadian Constitution. Its
usage outside such situations can be considered offensive. Aboriginal peoples is
more commonly used to describe all indigenous peoples of Canada. The term
Aboriginal people is beginning to be considered outdated and slowly being
replaced by the term Indigenous people.
Indigenous peoples in Canada
Indigenous peoples in Canada, also known as Indigenous Canadians or
Aboriginal Canadians, are the indigenous peoples within the boundaries of
present-day Canada. They comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Although
“Indian” is a term still commonly used in legal documents, the descriptors
“Indian” and “Eskimo” have somewhat fallen into disuse in Canada and some
consider them to be pejorative. Similarly, “Aboriginal” as a collective noun is a
specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution
Act 1982, though in some circles that word is also falling into disfavor.
Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are some of the earliest known sites of
human habitation in Canada. The Paleo-Indian Clovis, Plano and Pre-Dorset
cultures pre-date current indigenous peoples of the Americas. Projectile point
tools, spears, pottery, bangles, chisels and scrapes mark archeological sites, thus
distinguishing cultural periods, traditions, and lithic reduction styles.
Under letters patent from King Henry VII of England, the Italian John Cabot
became the first European known to have landed in Canada after the time of the
Vikings. Records indicate that on 24 June 1497 he sighted land at a northern
location believed to be somewhere in the Atlantic province provinces. Official
tradition deemed the first landing site to be at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland,
although other locations are possible. After 1497 Cabot and his son Sebastian
Cabot continued to make others voyages to find the Northwest Passage, and
other explorers continued to sail out of England to the New World, although the
details of these voyages are not recorded.
Based on the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Spanish Crown claimed it had territorial
rights in the area visited by John Cabot in 1497 and 1498 CE. However,
Portuguese explorers like Joāo Fernandes “Labrador” on topographical maps of
the period. In 1501 and 1502 the Corte-Real brothers explored Newfoundland
(Terra Nova) and Labrador claiming these lands as part of the Portuguese
Empire. In 1506, King Manuel I of Portugal created taxes for the cod fisheries
in Newfoundland waters. Joāo Alvares Fagundes and Pêro de Barcelos
established fishing outposts in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia around 1521 CE;
however, these were later abandoned, with the Portuguese colonizers focusing
their efforts.
There are reports of contacts made before the 1492 voyages of Christopher
Columbus and the age of discovery between First Nations, Inuit and those from
other continents. The Norse, who had settled Greenland and Iceland, arrived
around the year 1000 and built a small settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows at the
northernmost tip of Newfoundland (carbon dating estimate 990 – 1050 CE)
L’Anse aux Meadows is also notable for its connection with the attempted
colony of Vinland established by Leif Erikson around the same period or, more
broadly, with Norse exploration of the Americas.
 Pre-Columbian distribution of Na-Dene languages in North America
The Interior of British Columbia was home to the Salishan language groups
such as the Shuswap (Secwepemc), Okanagan and southern Athabaskan
language groups, primarily the Dakelh (Carrier) and the Tsilhqot’in. The inleta
and valleys of the British Columbia Coast sheltered large, distinctive
populations, such as the Haida, Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth,
sustained by the region’s abundant salmon and shellfish. These peoples
developed complex cultures dependent on the western red cedar that included
wooden houses, seagoing whaling and war canoes and elaborately carved
potlatch items and totem poles.
In the Arctic archipelago, the distinctive Paleo-Eskimos known as Dorset
peoples whose cultures has been traced back to around 500 BCE, were replaced
by the ancestors of today’s Inuit by 1500 CE. This transition is supported by
archaeological records and Inuit mythology that tells of having driven off the
Tuniit or ‘first inhabitants’. Inuit traditional laws are anthropologically different
from Western law. Customary law was non-existent in Inuit society before the
introduction of the Canadian legal system.
Pre-Columbian distribution of Algonquian languages in North America.
Speakers of eastern Algonquian languages the Mi’kmaq and Abenaki of the
Maritime region of Canada and likely the instinct Beothuk of Newfoundland.
The Ojibwa and other Anishinaabi speakers of the central Algonquian languages
retain an oral tradition of having moved to their lands around the western and
central Great Lakes from the sea, likely the east coast. According to the oral
tradition, the Ojibwa formed the Council of Three Fires in 796 CE with the
Odawa and the Potawatomi.
The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) were centred from at least 1000CE in northern
New York, but their influence extended into what is now southern Ontario and
Montreal area of modern Quebec. The Iroquois Confederacy, according to oral
tradition, was formed in 1142 CE. On the Great Plains the Cree or Nēhilawē
(who spoke a closely related Central Algonquian language, the plains Cree
language) depended on the vast herds of bison to supply food and many of their
other needs. To the northwest were the peoples of Na-Dene languages, which
include the Athapaskan-speaking peoples and the Tlingit, who lived on the
islands of southern Alaska and British Columbia. The Na-Dene language group
is believed to be linked to the Yeniseian languages of Siberia. The Dene of the
western Arctic may represent a distinct wave of migration from Asia to Noth
America.
There were four French and Indian Wars and two additional wars in Acadia and
Nova Scotia between the Thirteen American Colonies and New France from
1688 to 1763. During King William’s War (1688 to 1697), military conflicts in
Acadia included: Battle Port Royal (1690); a naval battle in the Bay of Fundy
(Action of July 14, 1696); and the Raid on Chignecto (1696). The Treaty of
Ryswick in 1697 ended the war between the colonial powers of England and
France for a brief time. During Queen Anne’s War (1702 to 1713), the British
Conquest of Acadia occurred in 1710, resulting in Nova Scotia, other than Cape
Breton, being officially ceded to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht including
Rupert’s Land, which France had conquered in the late 17th century (Battle of
Hudson’s Bay). As an immediate result of this setback, France founded the
powerful Fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.
Archeological and Aboriginal genetic evidence indicate that North and South
America were the last continents into which humans migrated. During the
Wisconsin glaciation, 50,000-17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed
people to move across the Bering land bridge (Beringia), from Siberia into
northwest North America. At that point, they were blocked by the Laurentide ice
sheet that covered most of the Canada, confining them to Alaska and the Yukon
for thousands of years. The exact dates and routes of the peopling of Americas
are the subject of an ongoing debate. By 16,000 years ago the glacial melt
allowed people to move by land south and east out of Beringia, and into
Canada. The Queen Charlotte’s Islands, Old crow Flats and Bluefish Caves
contain some on the earliest Paleo-Indian archeological sites in Canada. Ice Age
hunter-gatherers of this period left lithic flake fluted stone tools and remains of
large butchered mammals.
History of Canada
The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians
thousands of years ago to the present day. Canada has been inhabited for
millennia by distinctive groups of Aboriginal peoples, with distinct trade
networks, spiritual beliefs, and styles of social organization. Some of these
civilizations had long faded by the time of the first European arrivals and have
been discovered through archeological investigations. Various treaties and laws
have been enacted between European settles and the Aboriginal populations.
Beginning in the late 15th century, French and British expedition explored, and
later settled, along the Atlantic Coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in
North America to Britain in 1763 after the Seven Years’ War. In 1867, with the
union of the three British North American colonies through Confederation,
Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an
accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy
from the British Empire, which became official with the Statute of Westminster
of 1931 and completed in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of
legal dependence on the British parliamentary.
Great Depression
Canada was hard hit by the worldwide great Depression that began in 1929.
Between 1929 and 1933, the gross national product dropped 40% (compared to
37% in the US). Unemployment reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in
1933. Many businesses closed, as corporate profit of $396 million in 1929
turned into losses of $98 million in 1933. Canadian esports shrank by 50% from
1929 to 1933. Construction all but stopped (down 82%, 1929-33), and
wholesale prices dropped 30%. Wheat prices plunged from 78c per bushel
(1928 crop) to 29c in 1932.
Urban unemployment nationwide was 19%; Toronto’s rate was 17%, according
to the census of 1931. Farmers who stayed on their farms were not considered
unemployed. By 1933, 30% of the labour force was out of work, and one fifth
of the population became dependent on government assistance. Wages fell as
did prices. Worst hit were areas dependent on primary industries such as
farming, mining and logging, as prices fell and there were few alternative jobs.
Most families had moderate losses and little hardship, though they too became
pessimistic and their debts become heavier as prices fell. Some families saw
most or all of their assets disappear, and suffered severely.
In 1930, in the first stage of the long depression, Prime Minister Mackenzie
King believed that the crisis was a temporary swing of the business cycle and
that the economy would soon recover without government intervention. He
refused to provide unemployment relief or federal aid to the provinces, saying
that if Conservative provincial governments demanded federal dollars, he would
not give them “a five cent piece.” His blunt wisecrack was used to defeat the
Liberals in the 1930 election. The main issue was the rapid deterioration in the
economy and whether the prime minister was out of touch with the hardships of
ordinary people. The winner of the 1930 election was Richard Bedford Bennett
and the Conservatives. Bennett had promised high tariffs and large-scale
spending, but as deficits increased, he became wary and cut back severely on
Federal spending. With falling support and the depression getting only worse,
Bennett attempted to introduce policies based on the New Deal of President
Franklin D. Roosebelt (FDR) in the United States, but he got little passed.
Bennett’s government became a focus of popular discontent. For example, auto
owners saved on gasoline by using horses to pull their cars, dubbing them
Bennett Buggies. The Conservative failure to restore prosperity led to the return
of Mackenzie King’s Liberals in the 1935 election.
In 1935, the Liberals used the slogan “King or Chaos” to win a landslide in the
1935 election. Promising a much-desired trade treaty with the U>S, the
Mackenzie King government passed the 1935 Reciprocal Trade Agreement. It
marked the turning point in Canadian-American economic relations, reversing
the disastrous trade war of 1930-31, lowering tariffs, and yielding a dramatic
increase in trade.
The worst Depression had passed by 1935, as Ottawa launched relief programs
such as the National Housing Act and National Employment Commission. The
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation became a crown corporation in 1936.
Trans-Canada Airlines (the precursor to Air Canada) was formed in 1937, as
was the National Film Board of Canada in 1939. In 1938, the Parliament
transformed the Bank of Canada from a private entity to a crown corporation.
On political response was a highly restrictive immigration policy and a rise in
nativism.
Times were especially hard in western Canada, where full recovery did not
occur until the Second World War began in 1039. One response was the creation
of new political parties such as the Social Credit movement and the Cooperative
Commonwealth Federation, as well as popular protest in the form of On-to-
Ottawa Trek.
Second Worl War
Canada’s involvement in the Second World War began when Canada declared
war on Nazi Germany on September 10, 1939, delaying it one week after
Britain acted to symbolically demonstrate independence. The was restore the
Canada’s economic health and its self-confidence, as it played a major role in
the Atlantic and in Europe. During the war, Canada became more closely linked
to the U.S. The American took the virtual control of Yukon in order to build the
Alaska Highway, and were a major presence in the British colony of
Newfoundland with major airbases.
Mackenzie King- and Canada- were largely ignored by Winston Churchill and
the British government despite Canada’s major role in supplying food, raw
materials, munitions and money to the hard-pressed British economy, training
airmen for the Commonwealth, guarding the western half of the North Atlantic
Ocean against German U-boats, by providing combat troops for the invasions of
Italy, France and Germany in 1943-45. The government successfully mobilized
the economy for war, with impressive results in industrial and agricultural
output. The depression ended, prosperity returned, and Canada’s economy
expanded significantly. On the political side, Mackenzie King rejected any
notion of a government of national unity. The Canadian Federal election, 1940
was held as normally scheduled, producing another majority of Liberals.
Building up the Royal Canadian Air Force was a high priority; it was kept
separate from Britain’s Royal air Force. The British Commonwealth Air
Training Plan Agreement, signed in December 1939, bound Canada, Britain
New Zealand, and Australia to a program that eventually trained half the airmen
from those four nations in the Second World War.
After the start of war with Japan in December 1941, the government, in
cooperation with the U.S, began the Japanese-Canadian internment, which sent
22,000 British Columbia residents of Japanese descent to relocation camps far
from the coast. The reason was intense public demand for removal and fears of
espionage or sabotage. The government ignored reports from the RCMP and
Canadian military that most of the Japanese were law-abiding and not a threat.
The Battle of Atlantic began immediately, and from 1943 to 1945 was led by
Leonard W. Murray, from Nova Scotia. German U-boats operated in Canadian
and Newfoundland waters throughout the war, sinking many naval and
merchant vessels, as Canada took charge of the defenses of the western Atlantic.
The Canadian army was involved in the failed defence of Hong Kong, the
unsuccessful Dieppe Raid in August 1942, the Allied invasion of Italy, and the
highly successful invasion of France and the Netherlands in 1944-45.
The Conscription Crisis of 1944 greatly affected unity between French and
English-speaking Canadians, though was not as politically intrusive as that of
the First World War. Of a population of approximately 11.5 million, 1.1 million
Canadians served in the armed forces in the Second World War. Many
thousands more served with the Canadian Merchant Navy. In all, more than
45,000 died, and another 55,000 were wounded.
Post-war Era 1945-1960
Prosperity returned to Canada during the Second World War and continued in
the proceeding years, with the development of universal health care, old-age
pensions, and veterans’ pension. The financial crisis of the Great Depression
had led the Dominion of Newfoundland to relinquish responsible government in
1934 and become a crown colony ruled by a British governor. In 1948, the
British government gave voters three Newfoundland Referendum choices:
remaining a crown colony, returning to Dominion status (that is, independence),
or joining Canada. Joining the United States was not made an option. After
bitter debate Newfoundlanders voted to join Canada in 1949 as a province.
The foreign policy of Canada was a founding member of NATO (which Canada
wanted to be a transatlantic economic and political union as well). In 1950,
Canada sent combat troops to Korea during the Korean War as part of the
United Nations forces. The federal government desire to assert its territorial
claims in the Arctic during the Cold War manifested with High Arctic
relocation, in which Inuit were moved from Nunavik (the northern third of
Quebec) to barren Cornwallis Island; this project was later the subject of a long
investigation by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.
In 1956, the United Nations responded to the Suez Crisis by convening a United
Nations Emergency Force to supervise the withdrawal of invading forces. The
peacekeeping force was initially conceptualized by Secretary of External Affairs
and future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. Pearson was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1957 for his work on establishing the peacekeeping operation.
Throughout the mid-1950s, Louis St. Laurent (12th Prime Minister of Canada)
and his successor John Diefenbaker attempted to create a new, highly advanced
jet fighter, the Avro Arrow. The controversial aircraft was cancelled by
Diefenbaker in 1959. Diefenbaker instead purchased the BOMARC missile
defense system and American aircraft. In 1958 Canada established (with the
United States) the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
In 1604, a North American fur trade monopoly was granted to Pierre Du Gua,
Sieur de Mons. The fur trade became one the main economic ventures in North
America. Du Gua led hid first colonization expedition to an island located near
the mouth of the St. Croix River. Among hie lieutenants was a geographer
named Samuel de Champlain, who promptly carried out a major exploration of
the northeastern coastline of what is now United States. In the spring of 1605,
under Samuel de Champlain, the new St Croix settlement was moved to Port
Royal (today’s Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia).
The Quebec Settlement: A. — The Warehouse. B—Pigeon-loft. C. – Detached
Buildings where we keep our arms and for Lodging our Workmen. D —
Detached Building for the Workmen. E. —Sun-dial. F. Another Detached
Building where is the Smithy and where the Workmen are Lodged. G. —
Galleries all around the Lodgings. H. —The Sieur de Champlain’s Lodgings. I.
—The door of the Settlement with a Draw-bridge. L. Promenade around the
Settlement ten feet in width to the edge of the Moat. M. —Moat the whole way
around the Settlement. O. The Sieur de Champlain’s Graden. P. — The Kitchen.
Q. — Space in front of the Settlement on the Shore of the River. R. —The Great
River St. Lawrence.
Music
The Aboriginal peoples of Canada encompass diverse ethnic groups with their
individual musical traditions. Music is usually social (public) or ceremonial
(private). Public, social music may be dance music accompanied by rattles and
drums. Private, ceremonial music includes vocal songs with accompaniment on
percussion, used to mark occasions like Midewivin ceremonies and Sun Dances.
Traditionally, Aboriginal peoples used the materials at hand to make their
instruments for centuries before Europeans immigrated to Canada. First Nations
people made gourds and animal horns into rattles, which were elaborately
carved and brightly painted. In woodland areas, they made horns of birch bark
and drumsticks of carved antlers and wood. Traditional percussion instruments
such as drums were generally made of carved wood and animal hides. These
musical instruments provide the background for songs, and songs the
background for dances. Traditional First Nations people consider song and
dance to be scared. For years after Europeans came to Canada, First Nations
people were forbidden to practice their ceremonies.
There are three (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) distinctive groups of North
America indigenous peoples recognized in the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982,
sections 25 and 35. Under the Employment Equity Act and in the view of
Statistics Canada.
The 2011 Canadian Census enumerated 1,400,685 Aboriginal people in Canada,
4.3% of the country’s total population. This total comprises 851,560 people of
First Nations descent, 451,795 Métis, and 59,445 Inuit. National representative
bodies of Aboriginal people in Canada include the Assembly of First Nations,
the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Métis National Council, the Native Women’s
Association of Canada, the National Association of Native Friendship Centres
and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.
Visual art
Indigenous peoples were producing art for thousands of years before the arrival
of European settler colonists and the eventual establishment of Canada as a
nation state. Like the peoples who produced them, indigenous art tradition
spanned territories across North America. Indigenous art traditions are
organized by art historians according to cultural, linguistic or regional groups:
Northwest Coast, Plateau, Plains, Eastern Woodlands, Subarctic, and Arctic.
Art traditions vary enormously amongst and within these diverse groups.
Indigenous art with a focus on portability and the body is distinguished from
European traditions and its focus on architecture. Indigenous visual art may be
used conjunction with other arts. Shamans’ masks and rattles are used
ceremoniously in dance, storytelling and music. Artworks preserved in museum
collections date from the period after European contact and show evidence of
the creative adoption and adaptation of European trade goods such as metal and
glass beads. The distinct Métis cultures that have arisen from inter-cultural
relationships with Europeans contribute culturally hybrid art forms. During the
19th and the first half of the 20th century the Canadian government pursued an
active policy of forced and cultural assimilation toward indigenous peoples. The
Indian Act banned manifestations of the Sun Dance, the Potlatch, and works of
art depicting them.
It was not until 1950s and 1960s that the indigenous artists such as Mungo
Martin, Bill Reid and Norval Morrisseau began to publicly renew and re-invent
indigenous art traditions. Currently there are indigenous artists practising in all
media in Canada and two indigenous artists, Edward Poitras and Rebecca
Belmore, have represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and 2005
respectively.
Approximately 40,115 individuals of Aboriginal heritage could not be counted
during the 2006 census. This is due to the fact that certain Aboriginal reserves
and communities in Canada did not participate in 2006 census, since
enumeration of those communities were not permitted. In 2006, 22 Native
communities were not completely enumerated unlike in the year 2001, when 30
First Nation communities were not enumerated during 1996 when 77 Native
communities could not be completely enumerated. Hence, there were probably
1,212,905 individuals of Aboriginal ancestry (North American Indian, Métis,
and Inuit) residing Canada during the time when the 2006 census was conducted
in Canada.
Indigenous people assert that their sovereign rights are valid, and point to the
Royal Proclamation of 1763, which is mentioned in the Canadian Constitution
Act, 1982, Section 25, the British North America Acts and the 1969 Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties (to which Canada is a signatory) in support
of this claim.
Languages
There are 13 Aboriginal languages groups, 11 oral and 2 sign, in Canada, made
up of more than 65 distinct dialects. Of these, only Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibway
have a large enough population of fluent speakers to be considered viable to
survive in the long term. Two of Canada’s territories give official status to
native languages. In Nunavut, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun are official languages
alongside the national languages of English, French, and Inuktitut is a common
vehicular language is territorial government. In the NWT, the Official
Languages Act declares there are eleven different languages: Chipewyan, Cree,
English, French, Gwich'in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavery,
South Slavery and Tłįchǫ. Besides English and French, these languages are not
vehicular in government; official status entitles citizens to receive services in
them on request and to deal with the government in them.
Aboriginal cultural areas depend upon their ancestors’ primary lifeway, or
occupation, at the time of European contact. These cultures areas correspond
closely with physically and ecological regions of Canada. The indigenous
peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast were centered around ocean and river
fishing; in the interior of British Columbia, hunter-gatherer and river fishing. In
both of these areas the salmon was of chief importance. For the people of the
plains, bison hunting was the primary activity. In the subarctic forest, other
species such as the moose were more important. For people near the Great
Lakes and Saint Lawrence River, shifting agriculture was practiced, including
the raising of maize, beans, and squash. While for the Inuit, hunting was the
primary source of food with seals the primary component of their diet. the
caribou, fish, other marine mammals and to a lesser extent plants, berries and
seaweed are part of the Inuit diet. One of the most noticeable symbols of Inuit
culture, the inukshuk is the emblem of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
Inuksuit are rock sculpture made by stacking stones; in the shape of a human
figure, they are called inunnguaq.
Culture of Indigenous peoples
Through storytelling and other interactive learning styles, countless North
American Indigenous words, inventions and games have become an everyday
part of the Canadian language and use. Thanks to groups such as the Aboriginal
Language and Culture (ALC) teachers of British Columbia, these practices
continue to be passed down to each generation. The canoe, snowshoes, the
toboggan, lacrosse, tug of war, maple syrup and tobacco are just a few of the
products, inventions and games. Some of the words include the barbecue,
caribou, chipmunk, woodchuck, hammock, skunk, and moose. Many places in
Canada, both natural features and human habitations, use indigenous names.
The word “Canada” itself derives from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word
meaning “village” or “settlement”. The province of Saskatchewan derives its
name from the Saskatchewan River, which in the Cree language is called
“Kisiskachewani Sipi”, meaning “swift-flowing river”. Canada’s capital city
Ottawa comes from the Algonquin language term “adawe” meaning “to trade”.
Modern youth groups such as Scouts Canada and the Girl Guides of Canada
include programs based largely on Indigenous lore, arts and crafts, character
building and outdoor camp craft ang living.
Indian reserves, established in Canadian law by treaties such as Treaty 7, are
lands of First Nations recognized by non-indigenous governments. Some
reserves are within cities, such as the Opawikoscikan Reserve in Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan, Wendake in Quebec City or Stony Plain 135 in the Edmonton
Capital Region. There are more reserves in Canada than there are First Nations,
which were ceded multiple reserves by treaty. Aboriginal people currently work
in variety of occupations and may live outside their ancestral homes. The
traditional cultures of their ancestors, shaped by nature, still exert a strong
influence on them, from spirituality to political attitudes. National Aboriginal
Day is a day of recognition of the cultures and contributions of the First
Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada. The day was first celebrated in
1996, after it was proclaimed that year, by then Governor General of Canada
Roméo LeBlanc, to be celebrated on June 21 annually. Most provincial
jurisdiction do not recognize it as a statutory holiday.
Royal Commission
The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was a Royal Commission
undertaken by the Government of Canada in 1991to address the issues of the
Aboriginal peoples of Canada. It assessed past government policies toward
Aboriginal people, such as residential schools, and provided policy
recommendations to the government. The Commission issued its final report in
November 1996. The five-volume, 4,000-page report covered a vast range of
issues; its 440 recommendations called for sweeping changes to the interaction
between Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal people and the government in Canada. The
report “set out a 20-year agenda for change”.
Political Organization
First Nations and Inuit organizations ranged in the size from band societies of a
few people to multi-nation confederacies like the Iroquois. First Nations leaders
from across the country formed the Assembly of First Nations, which began as
the National Indian Brotherhood in 1968. The Métis and the Inuit are
represented nationally by the Métis National Council and Inuit Tapiriit
Kanatami respectively.
Today’s political organization have resulted from interaction with European-
style methods of government through the Federal Interlocutor for Métis and
Non-Status Indians. Aboriginal political organizations throughout Canada vary
in political standing, viewpoints, and reasons for forming. First Nation, Métis
and Inuit negotiate with the Canadian Government through the Indian and
Northern Affairs Canada in all affairs concerning land, entitlement, and rights.
The First Nation groups that operate independently do not belong to these
groups.
Health Policy

In 1995, the federal government announced the Aboriginal Right to Self-

Government Policy. This policy recognizes that First Nations and Inuit have the
constitutional right to shape their own forms of government to suit their
particular historical, cultural, political and economic circumstances. The Indian
Health Transfer Policy provided a framework for the assumption of control of
health services by Aboriginal peoples, and set forth a developmental approach
to transfer centred on self-determination in health. Through this process, the
decision to enter transfer discussions with Health Canada rests with each
community. Once involved in transfer, communities can take control of health
programme responsibilities at a pace determined by their individual
circumstances and health management capabilities. The National Aboriginal
Health Organization (NAHO) incorporated in 2000, is an Aboriginal-designed
and-controlled not-for-profit body in Canada that works to influence and
advance the health and well-being of Aboriginal Peoples.
Those people accepted into band membership under band rules may not be
status Indians. C-31 clarified that various sections of the Indian Act would apply
to band members. The sections under debate concern community life and land
holdings. Sections pertaining to Indians (First Nations peoples) as individuals.
(in this case, wills and taxation of personal property) were not included.
Indian Act
The Indian Act id federal legislation that dates from 1876. There have been over
20 major changes made to the original Act since then, the last time being in
1951; amended in 1985 with the Bill C-31. The Indian Act indicates how
Reserves and Bands can operate and defines who is recognized as an “Indian”.
In 1985, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-3, “An Act to Ament the Indian
Act”. Because of the Constitutional requirements, the Bill took effect on April
17, 1985.
 • It ends discriminatory provisions on the Indian Act, especially those that
• It changes the meaning of “status” and for the first time allows for limited
reinstatement of Indians who were denied or lost status and/or Band
membership.
• It allows bands to define their own membership rules.
According to the First Nations- Federal Crown Political Accord “cooperation
will be a cornerstone for partnership between Canada and First Nations, wherein
Canada is the short-form reference to Her Majesty the Queen in Right of
Canada. The Supreme Court argued that treaties “served to reconcile pre-
existing Aboriginal sovereignty with assumed Crown sovereignty, and to define
Aboriginal rights”. First Nations people interpreted agreements covered in
treaty 8 to last “as long as the sun shines, grass grows and rivers flow”.
Politics, law and legislation
Treaties
The Canadian Crown and Aboriginal peoples began interactions during the
European colonization period. Numbered treaties, the Indian Act, the
Constitution Act of 1982 and case laws were established. Aboriginal peoples
construe these agreements as being between them and the Crown of Canada
through the districts Indian Agent, and not the Cabinet of Canada. The Māori
interprets the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand similarly. A series of eleven
treaties were signed between First Nations in Canada and the reigning Monarch
of Canada from 1871 to 1921. The Government of Canada created a policy,
commissioned the Treaty Commissioners and ratified the agreements. These
Treaties are agreements with the Government of Canada administered by
Canadian Aboriginal law and overseen by the Minister of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development.
Because of laws and policies that encouraged or required Indigenous peoples to
assimilate into a Eurocentric society, Canada violated the United Nations
Genocide Convention that Canada signed in 1949 and passed through
Parliament in 1952. The residential school system that removed Aboriginal
children from their homes has led scholars to believe that Canada can be tried in
international court for genocide. A legal case resulted in settlement of 2 billion
C$ in 2006 and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission
which confirmed the injurious effect on children of this system and turmoil
created between Aboriginal Canadians and Canadian Society. In 2008 Prime
Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology on behalf of the Canadian
government and its citizens for the residential school system.
The final government strategy of assimilation, made possible by the Indian Act
was the Canadian residential school system:
Of all the initiatives that were undertaken in the first century of Confederation,
none was more ambitious or central to the civilizing strategy of the Department,
to its goal of assimilation, than the residential school system… it was the
residential school experience that would lead children most effectively out of
their “savage” communities into “higher civilization” and “full citizenship”.
Beginning in 1847 and lasting until 1996, the Canadian government, in
partnership with the Catholic Church, ran 130 residential boarding schools
across Canada for Aboriginal children, who were forcibly taken from their
homes. While the schools were said to educate, they were plagued by under-
funding, disease, and abuse.
Forced assimilation
From the late 18th century, European Canadians (and the Canadian government)
encouraged assimilation of Aboriginal culture into what was referred to as
“Canadian culture”. These attempts reached a climax in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, with a series of initiatives that aimed to complete assimilation
and subjunction of the Aboriginal peoples. These policies, which were made
possible by legislation such as the Gradual Civilization Act and the Indian Act,
focused on European ideals of Christianity, sedentary living, agriculture, and
education.
The attempt at Christianization of the Aboriginal people of Canada had been
ongoing since the first missionaries arrived in the 1600s, however it became
more systematic with the Indian Act in 1876, which would bring new sanctions
for those who did not convert to Christianity. For example, the new laws would
prevent non-Christian Aboriginal people from testifying or having their cases
heard in court and ban alcohol consumption. When the Indian Act was amended
in 1884, traditional religious and social practices, such as the Potlatch, would be
banned, and further amendments in 1920 would prevent “status Indians” (as
defined in the Act) from wearing traditional dress or performing traditional
dances in an attempt to stop all non-Christian practices.
Another focus of the Canadian government was to make the Aboriginal groups
of Canada sedentary, as they thought that this would make them easier to
assimilate. In the 19th century, the government began to support the creation of
model farming villages, which were meant to settle in an area and begin to
cultivate agriculture. When most of these model farming villages failed, the
government turned instead to the creation of Indian reserves with the Indian Act
of 1876. With the creation of these reserves came many restricting laws, such as
further bans on all intoxicants, restrictions on eligibility to vote in band
elections, decreased hunting and fishing areas, and inability for status Indians to
visit other groups on their reservations.
Through the Gradual Civilization Act in 1857, the government would encourage
Indians (i.e., First Nations) to enfranchise – to remove all legal distinctions
between [Indians] and Her Majesty’s other Canadian Subjects. If an Aboriginal
chose to enfranchise, it would strip them and their family of Aboriginal title,
with the idea that they would become “less savage” and “more civilized”, thus
become assimilated into Canadian society. However, they were often still
defined as non-citizens by Europeans, and those few who did enfranchise were
often met disappointment.
Canada under British rule (1763-1867)
The new British rulers of Canada retained and protected most of the property,
religious, political, and social culture of the French-speaking habitants,
guaranteeing the right of the Canadiens to practice the Catholic faith and to the
use of French civil law (now Quebec law) through the Quebec Act of 1774. The
Royal Proclamation of 1763 had been issued in October, by King George III
following Great Britain’s acquisition of French territory. The proclamation
organized Great Britain’s new North American empire and stabilized relations
between the British Crown and Aboriginal peoples through regulation of trade,
settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier.
With the end of the Seven Year’s War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris
(1763), France ceded almost all of its remaining territory in mainland North
America, except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the two small islands
of Saint Pierre and Miquelon where its fishermen could dry their fish. France
had already secretly ceded its vast Louisiana territory to Spain under the Treaty
of Fontainebleau (1762) in which King Louis XV of France had given his
cousin King Charles III of Spain the entire area of the drainage basin of the
Mississippi River from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the
Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. France and Spain kept the
Treaty of Fontainebleau secret from other countries until 1764. In return for
acquiring Canada, Britain returned to France its most important sugar-producing
colony, Guadeloupe, which the French at the time considered more valuable
than Canada. (Guadeloupe produced more sugar than all the British islands
combined, and Voltaire had notoriously dismissed Canada as “Quelques arpents
de neige”, “A few acres of snow”).
When the British evacuated New York City in 1783, they took many Loyalist
refugees to Nova Scotia, while other Loyalists went to southwestern Quebec. So
many Loyalists arrived on the shores of the St. John River that a separate
colony—New Brunswick—was created in 1784; followed in 1791 by the
division of Quebec into the largely French-speaking Lower Canada (French
Canada) along the St. Lawrence River and Gaspé Peninsula and an anglophone
Loyalist Upper Canada, with its capital settled by 1796 in York, in present-day
Toronto. After 1790 most of the new settlers were American farmers searching
for new lands; although generally favorable to republicanism, they were
relatively non-political and stayed neutral in the War of 1812.
American Revolution and the Loyalists
During the American Revolution, there was some sympathy for the American
cause among the Acadians and the New Englanders in Nova Scotia. Neither
party joined the rebels, although several hundred individuals joined the
revolutionary cause. An invasion of Quebec by the Continental from British
control, was halted at the Battle of Quebec by Guy Carleton, with the assistance
of local militias. The defeat of the British army during the Siege of Yorktown in
October 1781 signaled the end of Britain’s struggle to suppress the American
Revolution.
War of 1812
The war of 1812 was fought between the United States and the British, with the
British North American colonies being heavily involved. Greatly outgunned by
the British Royal Navy, the American war plans focused on an invasion of
Canada (especially what is today eastern and western Ontario). The American
frontier states voted for war to suppress the First Nations raids that frustrated
settlement of the frontier. The war on the border with the United States was
characterized by a series of multiple failed invasions and fiascos on both sides.
American forces took control of Lake Erie in 1813, driving the British out of
western Ontario, killing the Native American leader Tecumseh, and breaking the
military power of his confederacy. The war was overseen by British army
officers like Isaac Brock and Charles de Salaberry with the assistance of First
Nations and loyalist informants, most notably Laura Second.
Lower emphasizes the positive benefits of the Revolution for Americans,
making them an energetic people, while for English Canada the results were
negative:
[English Canada] inherited, not the benefits, but the bitterness of the
Revolution. It got no shining scriptures out of it. It got little release of energy
and no new horizons of the spirit were opened up. It had been a calamity, pure
and simple. To take the place of the internal fire that was urging Americans
westward across the continent, there was only melancholy contemplation of
things as they might have been and dingy reflection of that ineffably glorious
world across the stormy Atlantic. English Canada started its life with as
powerful a nostalgic shove backward into the past as the Conquest had given to
French Canada: two little peoples officially devoted to counter-revolution, to
lost causes, to the tawdry ideals of a society of men and masters, and not to the
self-reliant freedom alongside of them.
Rebellion and the Durham Report
The rebellion of 1837 against the British colonial government took place in both
Upper and Lower Canada. In Upper Canada, a band of Reformers under the
leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie took up arms in a disorganized and
ultimately unsuccessful series of small-scale skirmishes around Toronto,
London, and Hamilton.
In Lower Canada, a more substantial rebellion occurred against British rule.
Both English- and French-Canadian rebels, sometimes using bases in the neutral
United States, fought several skirmishes against the authorities. The towns of
Chambly and Sorel were taken by the rebels, and the Quebec City was isolated
from the rest of the colony. Montreal rebel leader Robert Nelson read the
“Declaration of Independence of Lower Canada” to a crowd assembled at the
town of Napierville in 1838. The rebellion of the Patriote movement was
defeated after battles across Quebec. Hundreds were arrested, and several
villages were burnt in reprisal.
The signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the war. Britain made
several concessions to the Americans at the expense of the North American
colonies. Notably, the borders between Canada and United States were officially
demarcated; all land south of the Great Lakes, which was formerly a part of the
Province of Quebec and included modern day Michigan, Illinois and Ohio, was
ceded to the Americans. Fishing rights were also granted to the United States in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the coast of Newfoundland and the Grand
Banks. the British ignored part of the treaty and maintained their military
outposts in the Great Lakes areas it had ceded to the U.S., and they continued to
supply their native allies with munitions. The British evacuated the outposts
with the Jay Treaty of 1795, but the continued supply of munitions irritated the
Americans in the run-up to the War of 1812.
The War ended with no boundary changes thanks to the Treaty of Ghent of
1814, and the Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817. A demographic result was the shifting
of the destination of American migration from Upper Canada to Ohio, Indiana
and Michigan, without fear of Indian attacks. After the war, supporters of
Britain tried to repress the republicanism that was common among American
immigrants to Canada. The troubling memory of the war and the American
invasions etched itself into the consciousness of Canadians as a distrust of
intentions of the United States towards the British presence in North America.
British Government then sent Lord Durham to examine the situation; he stayed
in Canada only five months before returning to Britain and brought with him his
Durham Report, which strongly recommended responsible government. A less
well-received recommendation was the amalgamation of Upper and Lower
Canada for the deliberate assimilation of the French-speaking population. The
Canada were merged into a single colony, the United Province of Canada, by
the 1840 Act of Union, and responsible government was achieved in 1848, a
few months after it was accomplished in 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 rebellion in
Lower Canada.
Between the Napoleonic Wars and 1850, some 800,000 immigrants came to the
colonies of British North America, mainly from the British Isles, as part of the
great migration of Canada. These included Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots
displaced by the Highland Clearances to Nova Scotia and Scottish and English
settlers to the Canadas, particularly Upper Canada. The Irish Famine of the
1840s significantly increased the pace of Irish Catholic immigration to British
North America, with over 35,000 distressed Irish landing in Toronto alone in
1847 and 1848.
Spanish explorers had taken the lead in the Pacific Northwest coast, with the
voyages of Juan José Pérez Hernández in 1774 and 1775. By the time the
Spanish determined to build a fort on Vancouver Island, the British navigator
James Cook had visited Nootka Sound and charted the coast as far as Alaska,
while British and American maritime fur traders had begun a busy era of
commerce with the coastal peoples to satisfy the brisk market for sea otter pelts
in China Trade. In 1789 war threatened between Britain and Spain on their
respective rights; the Nootka Crisis was resolved peacefully largely in favor of
Britain, the much stronger naval power. In 1793 Alexander MacKenzie, a
Canadian working for the North West Company, crossed the continent and with
his Aboriginal guides and French-Canadian crew, reached the mount of the
Bella Coola River, completing the first continental crossing north of Mexico,
missing George Vancouver’s charting expedition to the region by only a few
weeks. In 1812, the North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company merged,
with a combined trading territory that was extended by a licence to the North-
Western Territory and the Columbia and New Caledonia fur districts, which
reached the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Pacific on the west.
Confederation
The Seventy-Two Resolutions from the 1864 Quebec Conference and
Charlottetown Conference laid out the framework for uniting British colonies in
North America into a federation. They had been adopted by the majority of the
provinces of Canada and became the basis for the London Conference of 1866,
which led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. The
term dominion was chosen to indicate Canada’s status as a self-governing
colony of the British Empire, the first time was used about a country. With the
coming into force of the British North America Act (enacted by the British
Parliament), the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia became
a federated kingdom in its own right.