Discovery.
About A.D. 1000 Leif Ericsson, a Norseman, led an expedition from
Greenland to the shores probably of what is now Canada, but the first
effective contact of Europeans with Canada was not until the end of the
15th century. John Cabot (q.v.), sailing from Bristol, reached the
shores of Canada in 1497. Soon after fishermen from Europe began to go
in considerable numbers to the Newfoundland banks, and in time to the
coasts of the mainland of America. In 1534 a French expedition under
Jacques Cartier, a seaman of St Malo, sent out by Francis I., entered
the Gulf of St Lawrence. In the following year Cartier sailed up the
river as far as the Lachine Rapids, to the spot where Montreal now
stands. During the next sixty years the fisheries and the fur trade
received some attention, but no colonization was undertaken.
French colony.
At the beginning of the 17th century we find the first great name in
Canadian history. Samuel de Champlain (q.v.), who had seen service under
Henry IV. of France, was employed in the interests of successive
fur-trading monopolies and sailed up the St Lawrence in 1603. In the
next year he was on the Bay of Fundy and had a share in founding the
first permanent French colony in North America--that of Port Royal, now
Annapolis, Nova Scotia. In 1608 he began the settlement which was named
Quebec. From 1608 to his death in 1635 Champlain worked unceasingly to
develop Canada as a colony, to promote the fur trade and to explore the
interior. He passed southward from the St Lawrence to the beautiful lake
which still bears his name and also westward, up the St Lawrence and the
Ottawa, in the dim hope of reaching the shores of China. He reached Lake
Huron and Lake Ontario, but not the great lakes stretching still farther
west.
The era was that of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), and during that
great upheaval England was sometimes fighting France. Already, in 1613,
the English from Virginia had almost completely wiped out the French
settlement at Port Royal, and when in 1629 a small English fleet
appeared at Quebec, Champlain was forced to surrender. But in 1632
Canada was restored to France by the treaty of St Germain-en-Laye. Just
at this time was formed under the aegis of Cardinal Richelieu the
"Company of New France," known popularly as "The Company of One Hundred
Associates." With 120 members it was granted the whole St Lawrence
valley; for fifteen years from 1629 it was to have a complete monopoly
of trade; and products from its territory were to enter France free of
duty. In return the company was to take to New France 300 colonists a
year; only French Catholics might go; and for each settlement the
company was to provide three priests. Until 1663 this company controlled
New France.
It was an era of missionary zeal in the Roman Catholic church, and
Canada became the favourite mission. The Society of Jesus was only one
of several orders--Franciscans (Recollets), Sulpicians, Ursulines,
&c.--who worked in New France. The Jesuits have attracted chief
attention, not merely on account of their superior zeal and numbers, but
also because of the tragic fate of some of their missionaries in Canada.
In the voluminous _Relations_ of their doings the story has been
preserved. Among the Huron Indians, whose settlements bordered on the
lake of that name, they secured a great influence. But there was
relentless war between the Hurons and the Iroquois occupying the
southern shore of Lake Ontario, and when in 1649 the Iroquois ruined and
almost completely destroyed the Hurons, the Jesuit missionaries also
fell victims to the conquerors' rage. Missionaries to the Iroquois
themselves met with a similar fate and the missions failed. Commercial
life also languished. The company planned by Richelieu was not a
success. It did little to colonize New France, and in 1660, after more
than thirty years of its monopoly, there were not more than 2000 French
in the whole country. In 1663 the charter of the company was revoked. No
longer was a trading company to discharge the duties of a sovereign. New
France now became a royal province, with governor, intendant, &c., on
the model of the provinces of France.
In 1664 a new "Company of the West Indies" (_Compagnie des Indes
Occidentales_) was organized to control French trade and colonization
not only in Canada but also in West Africa, South America and the West
Indies. At first it promised well. In 1665 some 2000 emigrants were sent
to Canada; the European population was soon doubled, and Louis XIV.
began to take a personal interest in the colony. But once more, in
contrast with English experience, the great trading company proved a
failure in French hands as a colonizing agent, and in 1674 its charter
was summarily revoked by Louis XIV. Henceforth in name, if not in fact,
monopoly is ended in Canada.
By this time French explorers were pressing forward to unravel the
mystery of the interior. By 1659 two Frenchmen, Radisson and
Groseillers, had penetrated beyond the great lakes to the prairies of
the far West; they were probably the first Europeans to see the
Mississippi. By 1666 a French mission was established on the shores of
Lake Superior, and in 1673 Joliet and Marquette, explorers from Canada,
reached and for some distance descended the Mississippi. Five years
later Cavelier de la Salle was making his toilsome way westward from
Quebec to discover the true character of the great river and to perform
the feat, perilous in view of the probable hostility of the natives, of
descending it to the sea. In 1682 he accomplished his task, took
possession of the valley of the Mississippi in the name of Louis XIV.
and called it Louisiana. Thus from Canada as her basis was France
reaching out to grasp a continent.
There was a keen rivalry between church and state for dominance in this
new empire. In 1659 arrived at Quebec a young prelate of noble birth,
Francois Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, who had come to rule the church in
Canada. An ascetic, who practised the whole cycle of medieval
austerities, he was determined that Canada should be ruled by the
church, and he desired for New France a Puritanism as strict as that of
New England. His especial zeal was directed towards the welfare of the
Indians. These people showed, to their own ruin, a reckless liking for
the brandy of the white man. Laval insisted that the traders should not
supply brandy to the natives. He declared excommunicate any one who did
so and for a time he triumphed. More than once he drove from Canada
governors who tried to thwart him. In 1663 he was actually invited to
choose a governor after his own mind and did so, but with no cessation
of the old disputes. In 1672 Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac (q.v.),
was named governor of New France, and in him the church found her match.
Yet not at once; for, after a bitter struggle, he was recalled in 1682.
But Canada needed him. He knew how to control the ferocious Iroquois,
who had cut off France from access to Lake Ontario; to check them he had
built a fort where now stands the city of Kingston. With Frontenac gone,
these savages almost strangled the colony. On a stormy August night in
1689 1500 Iroquois burst in on the village of Lachine near Montreal,
butchered 200 of its people, and carried off more than 100 to be
tortured to death at their leisure. Then the strong man Frontenac was
recalled to face the crisis.
Struggles with England.
It was a critical era. James II. had fallen in England, and William III.
was organizing Europe against French aggression. France's plan for a
great empire in America was now taking shape and there, as in Europe, a
deadly struggle with England was inevitable. Frontenac planned attacks
upon New England and encouraged a ruthless border warfare that involved
many horrors. Him, in return, the English attacked. Sir William Phips
sailed from Boston in 1690, conquered Acadia, now Nova Scotia, and then
hazarded the greater task of leading a fleet up the St Lawrence against
Quebec. On the 16th of October 1690 thirty-four English ships, some of
them only fishing craft, appeared in its basin and demanded the
surrender of the town. When Frontenac answered defiantly, Phips attacked
the place; but he was repulsed and in the end sailed away unsuccessful.
Each side had now begun to see that the vital point was control of the
interior, which time was to prove the most extensive fertile area in the
world. La Salle's expedition had aroused the French to the importance of
the Mississippi, and they soon had a bold plan to occupy it, to close in
from the rear on the English on the Atlantic coast, seize their colonies
and even deport the colonists. The plan was audacious, for the English
in America outnumbered the French by twenty to one. But their colonies
were democracies, disunited because each was pursuing its own special
interests, while the French were united under despotic leadership.
Frontenac attacked the Iroquois mercilessly in 1696 and forced these
proud savages to sue for peace. But in the next year was made the treaty
of Ryswick, which brought a pause in the conflict, and in 1698 Frontenac
died.
After Frontenac the Iroquois, though still hostile to France, are
formidable no more, and the struggle for the continent is frankly
between the English and the French. The peace of Ryswick proved but a
truce, and when in 1701, on the death of the exiled James II., Louis
XIV. flouted the claims of William III. to the throne of England by
proclaiming as king James's son, renewed war was inevitable. In Europe
it saw the brilliant victories of Marlborough; in America it was less
decisive, but France lost heavily. Though the English, led by Sir
Hovenden Walker, made in 1711 an effort to take Quebec which proved
abortive, they seized Nova Scotia; and when the treaty of Utrecht was
made in 1713, France admitted defeat in America by yielding to Britain
her claims to Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. But she still
held the shores of the St Lawrence, and she retained, too, the island of
Cape Breton to command its mouth. There she built speedily the fortress
of Louisbourg, and prepared once more to challenge British supremacy in
America. With a sound instinct that looked to future greatness, France
still aimed, more and more, at the control of the interior of the
Continent. The danger from the Iroquois on Lake Ontario had long cut her
off from the most direct access to the West, and from the occupation of
the Ohio valley leading to the Mississippi, but now free from this
savage scourge she could go where she would. In 1701 she founded
Detroit, commanding the route from Lake Erie to Lake Huron. Her
missionaries and leaders were already at Sault Ste Marie commanding the
approach to Lake Superior, and at Michilimackinac commanding that to
Lake Michigan. They had also penetrated to what is now the Canadian
West, and it was a French Canadian, La Verendrye, who, by the route
leading past the point where now stands the city of Winnipeg, pressed
on into the far West until in 1743, first recorded of white men, he came
in sight of the Rocky Mountains. In the south of the continent France
also crowned La Salle's work by founding early in the 18th century New
Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi. It was a far cry from New
Orleans to Quebec. If France could link them by a chain of settlements
and shut in the English to their narrow strip of Atlantic seaboard there
was good promise that North America would be hers.
The project was far-reaching, but France could do little to make it
effective. Louis XV. allowed her navy to decline and her people showed
little inclination for emigration to the colonies. In 1744, when the war
of the Austrian Succession broke out, the New England colonies planned
and in 1745 effected the capture of Louisbourg, the stronghold of France
in Cape Breton Island, which menaced their commerce. But to their
disgust, when the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was made in 1748, this
conquest was handed back to France. She continued her work of building a
line of forts on the great lakes--on the river Niagara, on the Ohio, on
the Mississippi; and the English colonies, with the enemy thus in their
rear, grew ever more restive. In 1753 Virginia warned the French on the
Ohio that they were encroaching on British territory. The next year, in
circumstances curiously like those which were repeated when the French
expedition under Marchand menaced Britain in Egypt by seeking to
establish a post on the Upper Nile, George Washington, a young Virginian
officer, was sent to drive the French from their Fort Duquesne on the
Ohio river, where now stands Pittsburgh. The result was sharp fighting
between English and French in a time of nominal peace. In 1755 the
British took the stern step of deporting the Acadian French from Nova
Scotia. Though this province had been ceded to Great Britain in 1713
many of the Acadians had refused to accept British sovereignty. In 1749
the British founded Halifax, began to colonize Nova Scotia, and, with
war imminent, deemed it prudent to disperse the Acadians, chiefly along
the Atlantic seaboard (see NOVA SCOTIA: _History_). In 1756 the Seven
Years' War definitely began. France had no resources to cope with those
of Britain in America, and the British command of the sea proved
decisive. On the 13th of September 1759 Wolfe won his great victory
before Quebec, which involved the fall of that place, and a year later
at Montreal the French army in Canada surrendered. By the peace of
Paris, 1763, the whole of New France was finally ceded to Great Britain.
English possesion.
With only about 60,000 French in Canada at the time of the conquest it
might have seemed as if this population would soon be absorbed by the
incoming British. Some thought that, under a Protestant sovereign, the
Canadian Catholics would be rapidly converted to Protestantism. But the
French type proved stubbornly persistent and to this day dominates the
older Canada. The first English settlers in the conquered country were
chiefly petty traders, not of a character to lead in social or public
affairs. The result was that the government of the time co-operated
rather with the leaders among the French.
After peace was concluded in 1763, Canada was governed under the
authority of a royal proclamation, but sooner or later a constitution
specially adapted to the needs of the country was inevitable. In 1774
this was provided by the Quebec Act passed by the Imperial parliament.
Under this act the western territory which France had claimed, extending
as far as the Mississippi and south to the Ohio, was included with
Canada in what was called the Province of Quebec. This vast territory
was to be governed despotically from Quebec; the Roman Catholic church
was given its old privileges in Canada; and the French civil law was
established permanently side by side with the English criminal law. The
act linked the land-owning class in Canada and the church by ties of
self-interest to the British cause. The _habitant_, placed again under
their authority, had less reason to be content.
In 1775 began the American Revolution. Its leaders tried to make the
revolt continental, and invaded Canada, hoping that the French would
join them. They took Montreal and besieged Quebec during the winter of
1775-1776; but the prudent leadership of Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards
Lord Dorchester, saved Quebec and in 1776 the revolutionary army
withdrew unsuccessful from Canada. Since that time any prospect of
Canada's union to the United States has been very remote.
But the American Revolution profoundly influenced the life of Canada.
The country became the refuge of thousands of American loyalists who
would not desert Great Britain. To Nova Scotia, to what are now New
Brunswick (q.v.) and Ontario (q.v.) they fled in numbers not easily
estimated, but probably reaching about 40,000. Until this time the
present New Brunswick and Ontario had contained few European settlers;
now they developed, largely under the influence of the loyalists of the
Revolution. This meant that the American type of colonial life would be
reproduced in Canada; but it meant also bitter hostility on the part of
these colonists to the United States, which refused in any way to
compensate the loyalists for their confiscated property. Great Britain
did something; the loyalists received liberal grants of land and cash
compensation amounting to nearly L4,000,000.
A prevailingly French type of government was now no longer adequate in
Canada, and in 1791 was passed by the British parliament the
Constitutional Act, separating Canada at the Ottawa river into two
parts, each with its own government; Lower Canada, chiefly French,
retaining the old system of laws, with representative institutions now
added, and Upper Canada, on the purely British model. (For the history
of Lower and Upper Canada, now Quebec and Ontario, the separate articles
must be consulted.) Each province had special problems; the French in
Lower Canada aimed at securing political power for their own race, while
in Upper Canada there was no race problem, and the great struggle was
for independence of official control and in all essential matters for
government by the people. It may be doubted whether at this time it
would have been safe to give these small communities complete
self-government. But this a clamorous radical element demanded
insistently, and the issue was the chief one in Canada for half a
century.
But before this issue matured war broke out between Great Britain and
the United States in 1812 from causes due chiefly to Napoleon's
continental policy. The war seemed to furnish a renewed opportunity to
annex Canada to the American Union, and Canada became the chief theatre
of conflict. The struggle was most vigorous on the Niagara frontier. But
in the end the American invasion failed and the treaty made at Ghent in
1814 left the previous status unaltered.
Lord Durham.
In 1837 a few French Canadians in Lower Canada, led by Louis Joseph
Papineau (q.v.), took up arms with the wild idea of establishing a
French republic on the St Lawrence. In the same year William Lyon
Mackenzie (q.v.) led a similar armed revolt in Upper Canada against the
domination of the ruling officialdom called, with little reason, the
"Family Compact." Happening, as these revolts did, just at the time of
Queen Victoria's accession, they attracted wide attention, and in 1838
the earl of Durham (q.v.) was sent to govern Canada and report on the
affairs of British North America. Clothed as he was with large powers,
he undertook in the interests of leniency and reconciliation to banish,
without trial, some leaders of the rebellion in Lower Canada. For this
reason he was censured at home and he promptly resigned, after spending
only five months in the country. But his _Report_, published in the
following year, is a masterly survey of the situation and included
recommendations that profoundly influenced the later history of Canada.
He recommended the union of the two Canadian provinces at once, the
ultimate union of all British North America and the granting to this
large state of full self-government. The French element he thought a
menace to Canada's future, and partly for this reason he desired all the
provinces to unite so that the British element should be dominant.
To carry out Lord Durham's policy the British government passed in 1840
an Act of Union joining Upper and Lower Canada, and sent out as governor
Charles Poulett Thompson, who was made Baron Sydenham and Toronto In the
single parliament each province was equally represented. By this time
there was more than a million people in Canada, and the country was
becoming important. Lord Sydenham died in 1841 before his work was
completed, and he left Canada still in a troubled condition. The French
were suspicious of the Union, aimed avowedly at checking their
influence, and the complete self-government for which the "Reformers" in
English-speaking Canada had clamoured was not yet conceded by the
colonial office. But rapidly it became obvious that the provinces united
had become too important to be held in leading strings. The issue was
finally settled in 1849 when the earl of Elgin was governor and the
Canadian legislature, sitting at Montreal, passed by a large majority
the Rebellion Losses Bill, compensating citizens, some of them French,
in Lower Canada, for losses incurred at the hands of the loyal party
during the rebellion a decade earlier. The cry was easily raised by the
Conservative minority that this was to vote reward for rebellion. They
appealed to London for intervention. The mob in Montreal burned the
parliament buildings and stoned Lord Elgin himself because he gave the
royal assent to the bill. He did so in the face of this fierce
opposition, on the ground that, in Canadian domestic affairs, the
Canadian parliament must be supreme.
The union of the two provinces did not work well. Each was jealous of
the other and deadlocks frequently occurred. Commercially, after 1849,
Canada was prosperous. In 1854 Lord Elgin negotiated a reciprocity
treaty with the United States which gave Canadian natural products free
entrance to the American market. The outbreak of the Civil War in the
United States in 1861 increased the demand for such products, and Canada
enjoyed an extensive trade with her neighbour. But, owing largely to the
unfriendly attitude of Great Britain to the northern side during the
war, the United States cancelled the treaty, when its first term of ten
years ended in 1865, and it has never been renewed.
Under the party system in Canada cabinets changed as often as, until
recently, they did in France, and the union of the two provinces did not
give political stability. The French and English were sufficiently equal
in strength to make the task of government well nigh impossible. In 1864
came the opportunity for change, when New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and
Prince Edward Island were considering a federal union. Canada suggested
a wider plan to include herself and, in October 1864, a conference was
held at Quebec. The conference outlined a plan of federation which
subsequently, with slight modifications, passed the imperial parliament
as "The British North America Act," and on the 1st of July 1867, the
Dominion of Canada came into existence. It was born during the era of
the American Civil War, and was planned to correct defects which time
had revealed in the American federation. The provinces in Canada were
conceded less power than have the states in the American union; the
federal government retaining the residuum of power not conceded.
(G. M. W.)
Canada since federation.
When federation was accomplished in 1867 the Dominion of Canada
comprised only the four provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia. Lord Monck was appointed the first governor-general, and at
his request the Hon. John Alexander Macdonald undertook the formation of
an administration. A coalition cabinet was formed, including the
foremost Liberals and Conservatives drawn from the different provinces.
Under a proclamation issued from Windsor Castle by Queen Victoria on the
22nd of May the new constitution came into effect on the 1st of July.
This birthday of the Dominion has been fixed by statute as a public
holiday, and is annually observed under the name of "Dominion Day."
Seventy-two senators--half Conservatives and half Liberals--were
appointed, and lieutenant-governors were named for the four provinces.
The prime minister was created a K.C.B., and minor honours were
conferred on other ministers in recognition of their services in
bringing about the union.
Nova Scotia question.
The first general election for the Dominion House of Commons was held
during the month of August, and except in the province of Nova Scotia
was favourable to the administration, which entered upon its
parliamentary work with a majority of thirty-two. The first session of
parliament was opened on the 8th of November, but adjourned on the 21st
of December till the 12th of March 1868, chiefly on account of the fact
that members of the Dominion parliament were allowed, in Ontario and
Quebec, to hold seats in the local legislatures, so that it was
difficult for the different bodies to be in session simultaneously. It
was not till 1873 that an act was passed making members of the local
legislatures ineligible for seats in the House of Commons. Immediately
after the completion of federation a serious agitation for repeal of the
union arose in Nova Scotia, which had been brought into the federal
system by a vote of the existing legislature, without any direct
preliminary appeal to the people. Headed by Joseph Howe (q.v.), the
advocates of repeal swept the province at the Dominion election. Out of
19 members then elected 18 were pledged to repeal, Dr Tupper, the
minister responsible for carrying the Act of Union, alone among the
supporters of federation securing a seat. The local assembly, in which
36 out of 38 members were committed to repeal, passed an address to Her
Majesty praying her not to "reduce this free, happy and hitherto
self-governed province to the degraded condition of a servile dependency
of Canada," and sent Howe with a delegation to London to lay the
petition at the foot of the throne. Howe enlisted the support of John
Bright and other members of parliament, but the imperial government was
firm, and the duke of Buckingham, as colonial secretary, soon informed
the governor-general in a despatch that consent could not be given for
the withdrawal of Nova Scotia from the Dominion. Meanwhile Howe,
convinced of the impossibility of effecting separation, and fearing
disloyal tendencies which had manifested themselves in some of its
advocates, entered into negotiations with Dr Tupper in London, and later
with the Dominion government, for better financial terms than those
originally arranged for Nova Scotia in the federal system. The estimated
amount of provincial debt assumed by the general government was
increased by $1,186,756, and a special annual subsidy of $82,698 was
granted for a period of ten years. These terms having been agreed to,
Howe, as a pledge of his approval and support, accepted a seat as
secretary of state in the Dominion cabinet. By taking this course he
sacrificed much of his remarkable popularity in his native province, but
confirmed the work of consolidating the Dominion. It was many years
before the bitterness of feeling aroused by the repeal agitation
entirely subsided in Nova Scotia.
A gloom was cast over the first parliament of the Dominion by the
assassination in 1868 of one of the most brilliant figures in the
politics of the time, D'Arcy McGee (q.v.) His murderer, a Fenian acting
under the instructions of the secret society to which he belonged, was
discovered, and executed in 1869.
The reorganization of the various departments of state, in view of the
wider interests with which they had to deal, occupied much of the
attention of the first parliament of the Dominion. In 1867 the postal
rates were reduced and unified. In 1868 a militia system for the whole
Dominion was organized, the tariff altered and systematized, and a Civil
Service Act passed. The banking system of the country was put on a sound
footing by a series of acts culminating in 1871, and in the same year a
uniform system of decimal currency was established for the whole
Dominion. While the new machinery of state was thus being put in
operation other large questions presented themselves.
Inter-Colonial railway.
The construction of the Inter-Colonial railway as a connecting link
between the provinces on the seaboard and those along the St Lawrence
and the Great Lakes was a part of the federation compact, a clause of
the British North America Act providing that it should be begun within
six months after the date of union. The guarantee of the imperial
government made easy the provision of the necessary capital, but as
this was coupled with a voice in the decision of the route, it
complicated the latter question, about which a keen contest arose. The
most direct and therefore commercially most promising line of
construction passed near the boundary of the United States. Recent
friction with that country made this route objected to by the imperial
and many Canadian authorities. Ultimately the longer, more expensive,
but more isolated route along the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence was
adopted. The work was taken in hand at once, and pressed steadily
forward to completion. It has since been supplemented by other lines
built for more distinctly commercial ends. Though not for many years a
financial success, the Inter-Colonial railway, which was opened in 1876,
has in a marked way fulfilled its object by binding together socially
and industrially widely separated portions of the Dominion.
Hudson's Bay Company territories.
Within a month of the meeting of the first parliament of the Dominion a
question of vast importance to the future of the country was brought
forward by the Hon. W. McDougall in a series of resolutions which were
adopted, and on which was based an address to the queen praying that
Majesty would unite Rupert's Land and the North-West Territories to
Canada. A delegation consisting of Sir G.E. Cartier and the Hon. W.
McDougall was in 1868 sent to England to negotiate with the Hudson's Bay
Company (q.v.) for the extinction of its claims, and to arrange with the
imperial government for the transfer of the territory. After prolonged
discussions the company agreed to surrender to the crown, in
consideration of a payment of L300,000, the rights and interests in the
north-west guaranteed by its charter, with the exception of a
reservation of one-twentieth part of the fertile belt, and 45,000 acres
of land adjacent to the trading posts of the company. For the purposes
of this agreement the "fertile belt" was to be bounded as follows:--"On
the south by the U.S. boundary, on the west by the Rocky Mountains, on
the north by the northern branch of the Saskatchewan river, on the east
by Lake Winnipeg, the Lake of the Woods, and the waters connecting
them." An act authorizing the change of control was passed by the
imperial parliament in July 1868; the arrangement made with the Hudson's
Bay Company was accepted by the Canadian parliament in June 1869; and
the deed of surrender from the Hudson's Bay Company to Her Majesty is
dated November 19th, 1869. In anticipation of the formal transfer to the
Dominion an act was passed by the Canadian parliament in the same month
providing for the temporary government of Rupert's Land and the
North-West Territories. On the 28th of September the Hon. W. McDougall
was appointed the first governor, and left at once to assume control on
the 1st of December, when it had been understood that the formal change
of possession would take place.
Red river rebellion.
Meanwhile a serious condition of affairs was developing in the Red river
settlement, the most considerable centre of population in the newly
acquired territory. The half-breeds regarded with suspicion a transfer
of control concerning which they had not been consulted. They resented
the presence of the Canadian surveyors sent to lay out roads and
townships, and the tactless way in which some of these did their work
increased the suspicion that long-established rights to the soil would
not be respected. A population largely Roman Catholic in creed, and
partly French in origin and language, feared that an influx of new
settlers would overthrow cherished traditions. Some were afraid of
increased taxation. A group of immigrants from the United States
fomented disturbance in the hope that it would lead to annexation. Louis
Riel, a fanatical half-breed, placed himself at the head of the
movement. His followers established what they called a "provisional
government" of which he was chosen president, and when the newly
appointed governor reached the boundary line he was prevented from
entering the territory. Several of the white settlers who resisted this
rebellious movement were arrested and kept in confinement. One of these,
a young man named Thomas Scott, having treated Riel with defiance, was
court-martialled for treason to the provisional government, condemned,
and on the 4th of March 1870, shot in cold blood under the walls of Fort
Garry. This crime aroused intense excitement throughout the country,
and the Orange body, particularly, to which Scott belonged, demanded the
immediate punishment of his murderer and the suppression of the
rebellion. An armed force, composed partly of British regulars and
partly of Canadian volunteers, was made ready and placed under the
command of Colonel Garnet Wolseley, afterwards Lord Wolseley. As a
military force could not pass through the United States, the expedition
was compelled to take the route up Lake Superior, and from the head of
that lake through 500 m. of unbroken and difficult wilderness. In August
1870, the force reached Fort Garry, to find the rebels scattered and
their leader, Riel, a fugitive in the neighbouring states. Meanwhile,
during the progress of the expedition, an act had been passed creating
Manitoba a province, with full powers of self-government, and the
arrival of the military was closely followed by that of the first
governor, Mr (later Sir) Adams G. Archibald, who succeeded in organizing
the administration on a satisfactory basis. Fort Garry became Winnipeg,
and there were soon indications that it was destined to be a great city,
and the commercial doorway to the vast prairies that lay beyond.
Meanwhile, till adequate means of transportation were provided, it was
seen that city and prairie alike must wait for any large inflow of
population.
New provinces.
Provision was made in the British North America Act to receive new
provinces into the Dominion. Manitoba was the first to be constituted;
in 1871 British Columbia, which had hitherto held aloof, determined,
under the persuasion of a sympathetic governor, Mr (later Sir) Antony
Musgrave, to throw in its lot with the Dominion. Popular feeling in
British Columbia itself was not strongly in favour of union, and the
terms under which the new province was to be received were the subject
of much negotiation with the provincial authorities, and were keenly
debated in parliament before the bill in which they were embodied was
finally carried. The clause on which there was the widest divergence of
opinion was one providing that a trans-continental railway, connecting
the Pacific province with the eastern part of the Dominion, should be
begun within two, and completed within ten years. To a province which at
the time contained a population of only 36,000, and but half of this
white, the inducement thus held out was immense. The Opposition in
parliament claimed that the contract was one impossible for the Dominion
to fulfil. The government of Sir John Macdonald felt, however, that the
future of the Dominion depended upon linking together the Atlantic and
the Pacific, and in view of the vast unoccupied spaces lying between the
Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, open to immigration from the United
States, their audacity in undertaking the work was doubtless justified.
The construction of the Canadian Pacific railway, thus inaugurated,
became for several years the chief subject of political contention
between opposing parties.
Anticipating the order of chronology slightly, it may be mentioned here
that in 1873 Prince Edward Island (q.v.), which had in 1865 decisively
rejected proposals of the Quebec conference and had in the following
year repeated its rejection of federation by a resolution of the
legislature affirming that no terms Canada could offer would be
acceptable, now decided to throw in its lot with the Dominion. The
island had become involved in heavy railway expenditure, and financial
necessities led the electors to take a broader view of the question. In
the end the federal government assumed the railway debt, arrangements
were made for extinguishing certain proprietary rights which had long
been a source of discontent, and on the 1st of July 1873 the Dominion
was rounded off by the accession of the new province.
Finally in 1878, in order to remove all doubts about unoccupied
territory, an imperial order in council was passed in response to an
address of the Canadian parliament, annexing to the Dominion all British
possessions in North America, except Newfoundland. That small colony,
which had been represented at the Quebec conference, also rejected the
proposals of 1865, and, in spite of various efforts to arrange
satisfactory terms, has steadily held aloof, and so has proved the only
obstacle to the complete political unification of British North America.
[Illustration: CANADA]
Difficulties with the United States.
A signal proof was soon furnished of the new standing in the empire
which federation had given to the Canadian provinces. A heritage of
differences and difficulties had been left to be settled between
England, Canada and the American Union as the result of the Civil War.
In retaliation for the supposed sympathy of Canadians with the South in
this struggle the victorious North took steps to abrogate in 1866 the
reciprocity treaty of 1854, which had conferred such great advantages on
both countries. It followed that the citizens of the United States lost
the right which they had received under the treaty to share in the
fisheries of Canada. American fishermen, however, showed so little
inclination to give up what they had enjoyed so long, that it was found
necessary to take vigorous steps to protect Canadian fishing rights, and
frequent causes of friction consequently arose. During the progress of
the Civil War American feeling had been greatly exasperated by the
losses inflicted on commerce by the cruiser "Alabama," which, it was
claimed, was allowed to leave a British port in, violation of
international law. On the other hand, Canadian feeling had been equally
exasperated by the Fenian raids, organized on American soil, which had
cost Canada much expenditure of money and some loss of life. In,
addition to these causes of difference there was an unsettled boundary
dispute in British Columbia, and questions about the navigation of
rivers common to the United States and Canada. In 1869 the government of
Canada sent a deputation to England to press upon the imperial
government the necessity of asserting Canada's position in regard to the
fisheries, and the desirability of settling other questions in dispute
with the republic. The outcome of this application was the appointment
of a commission to consider and if possible settle outstanding
differences between the three countries. The prime minister of the
Dominion, Sir John Macdonald, was asked to act as one of the imperial
commissioners in carrying on these negotiations. This was the first time
that a colonist had been called upon to assist in the settlement of
international disputes. The commission assembled at the American capital
in February 1871, and after discussions extending over several weeks
signed what is known as the treaty of Washington. By the terms of this
treaty the "Alabama" claims and the San Juan boundary were referred to
arbitration; the free navigation of the St Lawrence was granted to the
United States in return for the free use of Lake Michigan and certain
Alaskan rivers; and it was settled that a further commission should
decide the excess of value of the Canadian fisheries thrown open to the
United States over and above the reciprocal concessions made to Canada.
Much to the annoyance of the people of the Dominion the claims for the
Fenian raids were withdrawn at the request of the British government,
which undertook, to make good to Canada any losses she had suffered. To
some of these terms the representative of Canada made a strenuous
opposition, and in finally signing the treaty stated that he did so
chiefly for imperial interests, although in these he believed Canadian
interests to be involved. The clauses relating to the fisheries and the
San Juan boundary were reserved for the approval of the Canadian
parliament, which, in spite of much violent opposition, ratified them by
a large majority. Under the "Alabama" arbitration Great Britain paid to
the United States damages to the amount of $15,500,000, while the German
Emperor decided the San Juan boundary in favour of the United States.
The Fishery Commission, on the other hand, which sat in Halifax, awarded
Canada $5,500,000 as the excess value of its fisheries for twelve years,
and after much hesitation this sum was paid by the United States into
the Canadian treasury. An imperial guarantee of a loan for the
construction of railways was the only compensation Canada received for
the Fenian raids.
Canadian Pacific railway question.
The second general election for the Dominion took place in 1872. It was
marked by the complete defeat of the Anti-Unionist party in Nova Scotia,
only one member of which secured his election, thus exactly reversing
the vote of 1867. While Sir John Macdonald's administration was
supported in Nova Scotia, it was weakened in Ontario on account of the
clemency shown to Riel, and in Quebec by the refusal to grant a general
amnesty to all who had taken part in the rebellion. Two important
members of the cabinet, Sir G. Cartier and Sir F. Hincks, were defeated.
Opposition to the Washington treaty and dread of the bold railway policy
of the government also contributed to weaken its position. But a graver
blow, ending in the complete overthrow of the administration, was soon
to fall as the result of the election. In 1872 two companies had been
formed and received charters to build the Canadian Pacific railway. Sir
Hugh Allan of Montreal was at the head of the one, and the Hon. David
Macpherson of Toronto was president of the other. The government
endeavoured to bring about an amalgamation of these rival companies,
believing that the united energies and financial ability of the whole
country were required for so vast an undertaking. While negotiations to
this end were still proceeding the election of 1872 came on with the
result already mentioned. Soon after the meeting of parliament, a
Liberal member of the House, Mr L.S. Huntingdon, formally charged
certain members of the cabinet with having received large sums of money,
for use in the election, from Sir Hugh Allan, on condition, as it was
claimed, that the Canadian Pacific contract should be given to the new
company, of which he became the head on the failure of the plan for
amalgamation. These charges were investigated by a royal commission,
which was appointed after it had been decided that the parliamentary
committee named for that purpose could not legally take evidence under
oath. Parliament met in October 1873, to receive the report of the
commission. While members of the government were exonerated by the
report from the charge of personal corruption, the payment of large sums
of money by Sir Hugh Allan was fully established, and public feeling on
the matter was so strong that Sir J. Macdonald, while asserting his own
innocence, felt compelled to resign without waiting for the vote, of
parliament. Lord Dufferin, who had succeeded Lord Lisgar as
governor-general in 1872, at once sent for the leader of the Opposition,
Mr Alexander Mackenzie (q.v.), who succeeded in forming a Liberal
administration which, on appealing to the constituencies, was supported
by an overwhelming majority, and held power for the five following
years.
On the accession to power of the Liberal party, a new policy was adopted
for the construction of the trans-continental railway. It was proposed
to lessen the cost of construction by utilizing the water stretches
along the route, while, on the ground that the contract made was
impossible of fulfilment, the period of completion was postponed
indefinitely. Meanwhile the surveys and construction were carried
forward not by a company, but as a government work. Under this
arrangement British Columbia became exceedingly restive, holding the
Dominion to the engagement by which it had been induced to enter the
union. A representative of the government, Mr (later Sir James) Edgar,
sent out to conciliate the province by some new agreement, failed to
accomplish his object, and all the influence of the governor-general,
Lord Dufferin, who paid a visit at this time to the Pacific coast, was
required to quiet the public excitement, which had shown itself in a
resolution passed by the legislature for separation from the Dominion
unless the terms of union were fulfilled.