Pioneers and Immigrants

Introduction

Today, Canada is a multicultural nation, home to members from all walks of life. That wasn't always the case, however. 

Though it was originally home to the Aboriginal peoples, eastern Canada became a predominantly French settlement more than 100 years after its discovery by the white man. The make-up of Canada began to become more British by the mid-1700s with the fall of Acadia in Atlantic Canada and the defeat of New France in 1760. During most of the late 18th and 19th centuries, Canada would receive most of its immigrants either from Britain or the United States. Some of these settlers from America were called Loyalists as they were still loyal to British interests, not ones belonging to the new colony south of the Great Lakes. 

By the late 1800s, Canada had a national railway system that was able to transport settlers who were European in origin. Many of these latter immigrants were impoverished, or escaping religious or political persecution. However, certain groups of immigrants, including Jewish peoples, would be soon prohibited from entering Canada during the two World Wars and the Great Depression. Since the late 1960s, though, most of Canada has generally become more tolerant in bringing in more political refugees and immigrants from various countries around the world. 

Exploration and Early Settlement (1497 - 1760)	2
New France (1608 - 1763)	4
Loyalists, the First Refugees (1775 - 1812)	9
Selkirk Settlement / Creation of Manitoba (1811 - 1870)	15
Post-Loyalist Settlement I (1814 - 1830)	19
Canada-U.S. Relations (1842 - 1903)	28
Building the National Railways (1851 - 1885)	34
Prairie Settlement: The First Major Wave (1870 - 1896)	42
The Last Best West (1896 - 1914)	49
Sources	55

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Exploration and Early Settlement (1497 - 1760)

When French and English explorers discovered what would eventually be called Canada for the first time in the late 15th and early 16th century, it would mark the beginnings of a long period of colonization and competition. The first permanent settlement occurred in 1604 when Samuel de Champlain founded the first settlements in the Bay of Fundy region. This region would be called Acadia, but settlement would be hindered by war and land wrangling with the British. 
Aboriginal Settlement

Aboriginal people lived in what's now Canada long before any European landed on its shore. Archaeologists believe that North American Aboriginals originated in Asia and came over the land bridge connecting Siberia and North America during the Ice Age. It is believed by scientists that Aboriginals first lived in Canada anywhere from 10,000 to 13,000 years ago. However, some Aboriginal tribes believe that life on Earth began with their creation in North America, and entirely reject the notion they immigrated here at all.

European Discovery of Canada 

Europeans first discovered the east coast of Canada in 1497, when explorer John Cabot claimed either Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island for England. This discovery opened up new cod fishing and whaling grounds off the east coast that attracted English, French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen. The latter two groups, however, would become more interested in exploring to the coastal regions areas south of this region.

The French, however, sent explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534 and 1535 in the hopes of establishing an inland presence in the region. Six years later, he returned for a third time to the region, and established a small settlement near where Québec City stands today. The settlement didn't survive a harsh winter, however. France decided to abandon the colony, save for a few fishermen and fur traders who remained.

Acadia: The First French Settlement (1604 - 1758) 

In 1603, Pierre de Monts received a fur-trading monopoly over New France from King Henry IV of France. In return, however, he was now responsible for the following two tasks:

* settling 60 French colonists in the region each year;
* starting religious missionary work to civilize the Aboriginal peoples.

Samuel de Champlain led the first colonizing mission to a region known to the French as Acadia. In 1604, he settled on Île Ste-Croix  (Dochet Island) on what's now the Maine-New Brunswick border. However, that settlement failed due to a harsh winter that began early in October 1604, one that would kill off about half the colonists. 

The following year, Champlain settled at Port-Royal on the Bay of Fundy. That colony, too, would be unsuccessful and became an abandoned location in 1607. 

The Port-Royal location would be re-established twice in 1610 and the early 1630s. Though France gained the location through treaty in 1632, the British and French would fight over it throughout the 17th century.

In 1713, France gave most of the land and fishing rights on the eastern coast to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, except for Île Royale (Cape Breton), Île Saint-Jean  (Prince Edward Island) and the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. 

Treaty of Utrecht, 1713 (bilingual) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/..../9_01832/0004) 

Did You Know ... ?
Britain was generally uninterested in settling much area in what would become eastern Canada during the 1600s and very early 1700s. It limited most of its activity to a few fishing ports and outposts along the coast of Newfoundland. The British were generally more interested in settling the lands to the southwest of Nova Scotia instead - the area which would become the Thirteen Colonies and, later, the United States. Newfoundland itself remained sparsely populated until the 19th century, when European contact on the island would wipe out the Beothuk nation living there.

Louisbourg 

The French would develop Louisbourg on Île Royale as a commercial trading and military outpost in response to the new British presence in the region under the Treaty of Ghent. By 1740, it had become a major garrison that was home to 2,000 people, including 600 soldiers. 

In 1755 and again in 1758, however, Louisbourg was seized by British lieutenant-governor Charles Lawrence. He deported most of the Acadians to New England in what's now the United States. About a third of these people died on ships during their deportation. 

Many of these Acadians, though, were able to escape and resettle back in regions of what's now New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. 

Louisbourg, on the other hand, was completely destroyed in 1760. Lawrence issued a proclamation opening up settlement of Acadian lands to British settlers - many came from New England. Some of the land, particularly on Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, was given to friends of the British Crown. 

An Act for the quieting of possessions to the Protestant grantees of the Lands formerly owned by the French Inhabitants; Nova Scotia, 1759 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/63427/0118)
	
Banishment and removal of the Acadians (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/54985)

Other Interesting or Important Documents 

Collection de manuscrits contenant lettres, mémoires, et autres documents historiques relatifs à la Nouvelle-France (Vol. I) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/08721/0005)

Collection de manuscrits contenant lettres, mémoires, et autres documents historiques relatifs à la Nouvelle-France (Vol. II) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/08722/0005)

Collection de manuscrits contenant lettres, mémoires, et autres documents historiques relatifs à la Nouvelle-France (Vol. III) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/08723/0005)

Une colonie féodale en Amérique (l'Acadie, 1604 - 1710) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/12359/0005)

The Memorials of the English and French Commissaries Concerning the Limits of Nova Scotia or Acadia (Commissioners for Adjusting the Boundaries for the British and French Possessions in America) (bilingual on opposing pages) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/36853/0003)

The perpetual acts of the General Assembly of his Majesty's Province of Nova Scotia, revised 1783 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/63427)





New France (1608 - 1763)

While France was quickly able to establish a new colony called New France along the St. Lawrence River - a colony mainly fueled by farming and the trading of furs with the Aboriginals - the settlement of this region wasn't always peaceful. It came with costly wars and conflicts, first with the Aboriginals, later the British.

New France (1608 - 1763)

In 1608, Samuel de Champlain created the first truly permanent French settlement in the area around where Québec City stands today. It was a small settlement - no more than 60 colonists lived here by 1620. It remained a small fur trading post for the first 50 years of its existence.

In 1663, New France suddenly undertook a period of extensive expansionism. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a leading minister in France, particularly believed in compact settlements that would better protect the colony against warring Aboriginals and the British. 

Did You Know ... ?
In its 150 years as a French colony, no more than 10,000 immigrated to New France. Almost 4,000 of these were engagés who came under three-year contracts as indentured servants to farmers or fur traders. Another 3,500 came from those in the military. Another 1,000 were the Filles du roi. A thousand prisoners were also sent to Québec, and another 500 came on their own. Roughly 40 per cent of these immigrants came after 1700. Almost all were French.
Aboriginal-French European Alliances 

The success of New France was inevitably linked to the Aboriginal population who already inhabited the land. In 1609, Samuel de Champlain began forging a number of alliances with various Aboriginal groups - particularly the Algonquins and Huron - for the purposes of exchanging furs for European trade goods.

Did You Know ... ?
By the 1620s, the Huron were supplying the French with up to two-thirds of the furs available in their trading network.

Champlain sought to cement relationships with the Hurons by sending in priests to the colony to engage in missionary activities that would help convert these Aboriginals to a Catholic, European way of life. By 1627, Jesuits - including Jean de Brébeuf - were sent into the far-flung reaches of the colony to help meet this goal, though Récollet priests had been in French settlements by 1615 for similar purposes as well.

(An early historical account of the Jesuits arrival to New France in the 1905 book) Champlain (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/77420/0253)

Furthermore, Marie de l'Incarnation (née Guyart) founded the first Ursuline convent in New France in 1639. Other such religious groups would come into the colony by the late 1630's. These nuns would also set up a model French society for settlers similar to France's.

The life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation: joint founderess and first superior of the Ursulines of Québec (a 1880 book dealing with Ursuline history, in English only) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/09159)

Glimpses of the Monastery; scenes from the history of the Ursulines of Québec during two hundred years: 1639 - 1839 (a 1897 book dealing with Ursuline history, in English only) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/05834)

Les Ursulines de Québec (a 1863 book dealing with the history of the Ursuline order, in French only) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/34242)

Les Ursulines des Trois-Rivières (a 1888 book dealing with the Ursuline order, in French only) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/25349)

Aboriginal Wars

Champlain took sides with the Huron against the Iroquois at what is now Lake Champlain in 1609. This triggered 90 years of hostilities between the Iroquois and the French. These wars deterred immigration from France. 

The wars wiped out entire settlements, like Ste. Marie Among The Hurons. Aboriginal wars were also a cause of failure for companies like the Communauté des Habitants.

These wars lasted throughout the 17th century, and didn't end until the Great Peace of 1701. Many Aboriginal nations were, by then, suffering great losses in human life due to fighting and diseases introduced by the French, like smallpox. The Great Peace meant that the Iroquois would no longer resist French expansion.

Hurons et Iroquois: le P. Jean de Brébeuf, sa vie, ses travaux, son martyre (a 1877 book detailing Jesuit martyr Jean de Brébeuf in Huronia, in French only) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/77420/0253)

The Seigneurial System (1627 - 1854) 

The seigneurial system was a form of land settlement modeled on the French feudal system. It began in New France in 1627 with the formation of the Compagnie des Cent-Associés (or Company of 100 Associates), which was initially responsible for handing out land grants and seigneurial rights.

The land was divided into five by 15 kilometer plots, usually along major rivers like the St. Lawrence. They were then further subdivided into narrow, but long lots for settlement. These lots were usually long enough to be suitable for faming, and they provided everyone who lived on them with equal access to neighbouring farms and the river. 

There were three main groups of people who lived off the land in this system:

Seigneurs: These were the most important colonists, as they were usually in the military or aristocracy prior to being a settler. These seigneurs then were charged with the task of subdividing large parcels of land into five by 15 kilometer concessions, then renting this land to a habitant. Under regulations set up by the French government in France, the seigneur could also set up a court of law, set up a mill on his land and organize a commune. 

Habitants: This class of people was usually comprised of farmers or labourers who were initially brought over from France to live on this land. They had to pay rent and taxes to the seigneur, though they co-owned the land with the seigneur, and even had to work entirely for the benefit of the seigneur a few days each year. 

Engagés: These were indentured servants who came to New France for three-year contract periods to work as farmers. 

When Britain gained control of New France in 1763, they allowed some of the seigneurial system to remain in place as a favour to the French settlers living in the region. However, it was discontinued in 1854, as it was, by then, considered too cumbersome a system for encouraging economic development. (Britain had recognized French feudal law, but did not grant very many new seigneuries between 1763 and 1854. This was a boon for seigneurs since it gave them control over the land in full perpetuity, which led some at the time to feel that the system inherently and unfairly rewarded old seigneuries.) It was replaced with a law called the Seigneurial Tenures Act, 1854, that allowed tenants to claim the right to their land.

An Act to provide for the extinction of Feudal and Seigneurial Rights in Lower Canada, 1825 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/50481/0003) 

An Act to explain and amend the laws relating to land in free and common soccage in the province of Lower Canada, 1831 (Gives the King of England power of assent to Lower Canada legislation regarding land grants) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01146/0002)

The Seigneurial Tenures Act, 1854 (Abolishes feudal rights and duties in Lower Canada) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03428/0548) 

A Bill to facilitate the reunification of lands, lots or building lots in Lower Canada, 1823 (Bilingual, but in English on even numbered pages and in French on odd numbered pages within the document) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01778/0003)

Bill to enforce the laws of the province, compelling seigneurs to grant land to applicants ..., 1824 (Bilingual, but in English on even numbered pages and in French on odd numbered pages within the document) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01780/0003)

The Causes of Emigration in Upper and Lower Canada, 1857 (Describes emigration from Lower Canada related to seigneurial system failings) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_00955_15_8/0166)

The British Dominions in North America (Description of Québec land allowances post-1759, starts on last paragraph of page) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/42807/0232)

Coureurs de Bois 

While much of New France's economy became agriculturally based under the seigneurial system, there was still, naturally, a significant industry in the fur trade. It remained the most successful business in the economy.

The fur trade was so successful that it spurned a new class of adventurous fur traders called the coureurs de bois. These traders were considered illegitimate by the French Crown, for these traders would go deep into the interior of the colony, usually around Lake Superior, seeking out furs from Aboriginal tribes. This undercut Aboriginal middlemen who traveled to businesses in Montréal to provide them with fur pelts.

Eventually, professional "voyageurs" would be allowed by the French government to stamp out these fur traders. These voyageurs and coureurs de bois also helped the Europeans stake a claim to land further west by being among the first to explore it. However, this also meant that Aboriginal roles in the fur trade would gradually become diminished as time progressed.  

Filles du roi 

From 1663 to 1673, about 1,000 orphaned, single women were sent by King Louis XIV to redress the disproportionate amount of males versus females in New France. They were called Filles du roi - or "daughters of the King."

These women would spend an average of about two weeks living with nuns or missionaries before they could find a suitable man. In most circumstances, they would marry him right away for the sole purposes of starting a large family.

High birth rates were encouraged in New France by the French government, since it was an easier and cheaper way to settle the region than through a constant, endless stream of immigration. 

France offered financial incentives to couples in the colony to marry while they were young. France also gave additional monetary bonuses to families based on the amount of children they had. 

On the other hand, fathers whose adult children stayed at home without marrying risked paying hefty fines. 

Did You Know ... ?
Measures by the French Crown to encourage natural reproduction worked to some extent. The population of New France grew from 3,000 in 1663 to 20,000 in 1712. It then jumped to 70,000 by 1760. Despite such efforts, almost two million British subjects were living mostly along the eastern seaboard of the Thirteen Colonies by 1763. This was thanks to the million or so people who'd emigrated from the British Isles during the 100-year period from 1663 to 1763.  

Other Interesting or Important Documents 

Collection de manuscrits contenant lettres, mémoires, et autres documents historiques relatifs à la Nouvelle-France (Vol. I) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/08721/0005)

Collection de manuscrits contenant lettres, mémoires, et autres documents historiques relatifs à la Nouvelle-France (Vol. II) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/08722/0005)

Collection de manuscrits contenant lettres, mémoires, et autres documents historiques relatifs à la Nouvelle-France (Vol. III) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/08723/0005)









Loyalists, the First Refugees (1775 - 1812)

Following the French settlements in Acadia and New France in the 1600s and early 1700s, there was a second major wave of immigration starting in the 1770s. These were British subjects who had originally settled in the Thirteen Colonies, but were more loyal to the British Crown following the start of the American Revolution than the Patriots who would go on to win the war. These new settlers were called the Loyalists, and are considered Canada's first political refugees. 

While the majority of these were white, English-speaking settlers who tended to settle in Nova Scotia and the soon-to-be created Upper Canada, there was some black immigration to the Maritimes as well. That's not to speak of Aboriginals given land in Upper Canada for being loyal to the British during the American Revolution.

Loyalists Overview 

With the start of the American Revolution in 1775 within the Thirteen Colonies, many of those loyal to the British cause south of the Québec border faced a dilemma. If they stayed in the Thirteen Colonies and remained loyal to the British, they faced persecution and possible harm from Patriots, who wanted to see the creation of an independent state free of British influence. 

As it became more and more apparent that these rebel Patriots would win the Revolution - which they did in 1781 - these Loyalists began to escape to: 

* Britain;
* British territory in the Caribbean Sea;
* Québec and Nova Scotia, which were still loyal to Britain.

Maritime Loyalists 

Immediately following the American Revolution, Nova Scotia faced the initial brunt of Loyalist immigration. While the colony only had about 20,000 settlers entering 1783, it suddenly saw its population more than double that year with Loyalist immigration. 

These Loyalists were more likely to be highly aristocratic or upper class. They probably settled in the region in order to be closer to their contemporaries and families in Britain. Some 14,000 settled along the Bay of Fundy into the St. John River region in 1783 alone. 

The sheer volume of settlers here led the British government to create the colony of New Brunswick in 1784. Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island were splintered into two separate colonies that same year, too. Cape Breton Island rejoined Nova Scotia in 1820.

Regulations to be observed for the orderly and expeditious settlement of New Brunswick, 14th January 1785 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02015/0002)
	
An Act for the better ascertaining and confirming the boundaries with this province (New Brunswick), 18th May 1785 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02047/0019)

An Act for the registering of ... grants made under the seal of Nova Scotia, of Lands now situated within New Brunswick, 18th May 1785 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02047/0033)

An Act for the registering of all deeds, conveyances and wills, which shall be made of or will affect any lands within New Brunswick, 18th May 1785 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02047/0034) 

An Act to authorize the proprietors of certain islands in the River St. John to make rules and regulations for better improvement and cultivation, 3 January 1786 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02047/0161) 

Absentee Landlords 

British authorities in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia had a particular problem with the sudden influx of Loyalists to the Maritimes. 

During the 1760s, the British government had given land in both colonies to soldiers, couriers, politicians and other friends. In turn, these new landlords had to promise to settle the land with farmers in a manner similar to the seigneurial system in New France. 

However, most landlords were slow to put this system into place and a great deal of this land still sat vacant by the 1770s. What's more, once a land title had been granted, the British government couldn't easily enforce what that land was to be used for. 

This was a particularly thorny issue in Prince Edward Island (PEI), where these landlords were able to trick several hundred Loyalists into settling there. These settlers were usually either Scottish or Irish.

Island landlords promised settlers plots of land for settlement, provided they cleared the land and then build roads and buildings. However, these landlords never intended to keep their promise. They just wanted settlers to do all the hard work for them for free.

This problem wouldn't be solved until 1873, the year when Prince Edward Island joined Confederation. 

At that point, the new province followed the recommendation of the Land Commission of 1860 and enacted the Tenants' Compensation Act, 1872. This allowed compensation to be made available to anyone who could prove their Loyalists ancestors had been tricked by absentee landlords.

Did You Know ... ?
Thomas Selkirk, the Earl of Selkirk, is perhaps most famous for setting up the Red River Settlement in what's now Manitoba in 1811. However, he also established an earlier Scottish settlement on Prince Edward Island in 1802. It had about 800 settlers.

Absentee landlords in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, on the other hand, simply didn't bother to populate their land with new settlers at all. This led to a land shortage crisis in the early 1780s, considering the massive influx of Loyalists coming into the region. Unlike the situation in Prince Edward Island, however, the British government was able to immediately take some of this land back: about 2.5 million acres out of about 5.5 million acres in total. 

In 1783, Britain promised to give:

* one hundred acres of free land to every Loyalist household head;
* an additional 50 acres of free land for each extra family member;  
* even more land to those who held a military rank.

The British government also provided free food rations for many years to these Nova Scotia settlers. That's not to mention free tools and building materials to help clear and settle their land.

Excerpt from the Tenants' Compensation Act, 1872 (in Enclosure 1 of No. 6) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02184/0019) 

Copy of the Address ... praying for the appointment of a commission into existing relations of landlord and tenant in Prince Edward Island), 9th May 1859 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01945/0007)

Extract from the "Island Argus" of April 18, 1871 (newspaper editorial on the proposed Land Tenants Act in Enclosure 3 of No. 1) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02184/0010)

Correspondence relative to the land tenure question in Prince Edward Island (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02184)

Further correspondence relative to the land tenure question in Prince Edward Island, August 1875 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01935)

Further correspondence relative to the land tenure question in Prince Edward Island, April 1876 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02223)

Black Loyalists 

During the 1870s, there was also a significant Loyalist immigration of some 3,000 Blacks into British North America. Most went to Nova Scotia. 

The British Crown had promised to give any freed black slave in America who fought against the Patriots during the American Revolution freedom, equality and land to settle on in the British colonies.  

When these black people arrived from the newly created United States, however, they were given either: 

* land of a smaller or poorer quality than land set aside for white Loyalists;
* no land at all.  

Thomas Peters, a black Loyalist settler, was allowed to go to Britain to plead on behalf of black immigrants to Nova Scotia. While Britain was slow to react on his complaints, he was able to meet up with the Sierra Leone Company, a land firm willing to provide Blacks with free land in Africa. 

Ultimately, many black settlers would leave Nova Scotia in the 1790s to start a new life overseas in the new colony of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Some stayed behind to continue their lives in Nova Scotia, though. 

Between the 1790s and 1830s, Britain very slowly took steps to outlaw slavery in its colonies. (Slavery was finally abolished in all British colonies by 1833.) 

This didn't mean that prejudice and racism disappeared in British North America. It did mean, however, that British North America generally became a more tolerant and free place for black people to settle and live in than the United States, as America didn't outlaw slavery until 1865.

This freedom would later attract more fugitive slaves in the early to mid-1800s in Upper Canada during the period of the Underground Railroad. 

An Act for encouraging new settlers in his Majesty's Colonies and Plantations in America (1790) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/48659/0196) 

An Act to prevent the importation of Slaves to the Colonies (1805) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/48659/0233) 

An Act for the abolition of the African Slave Trade (1807) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/48659/0244) 

Aboriginal Loyalists 

Some Iroquois who were loyal to the British army, and helped them fight in the American Revolution, got free land in what would soon become Upper Canada in 1784. However, these Aboriginals were shut out of the Treaty of Paris, 1783, which ignored earlier promises involving Aboriginal land. 

"First Loyalists" or United Empire Loyalists 

By 1784, some 10,000 Loyalists had arrived from the United States in Québec seeking refuge. They had expected to find familiar institutions: British laws, Protestant churches, and freehold land tenure. Instead, they found Catholic churches and unfamiliar French-language political institutions.

British authorities dealt with this problem in two ways:

* sending most of these Loyalists into the more westerly rural part of the province that would eventually become known in 1791 as Upper Canada;
* creating new law and governmental institutions alongside the French ones to benefit the remaining Loyalists. 

On November 9, 1789, Québec governor Lord Dorchester issued an order in council that gave particular recognition to Loyalists by formally differentiating them from other settlers who had immigrated to the colony after 1783. He allowed them to affix the initials "U.E." after their names so they could be recognized as those who adhered to "the Unity of the Empire". 

These settlers are among those referred to as the United Empire Loyalists, though it has since come to include those who settled in the Maritimes prior to the creation of America in 1783 as well. 

As a result of Lord Dorchester's order, the sons and daughters of adult Loyalist settlers were also to be given 200 acres of free land when they became 21 years old. (Daughters could claim this land even earlier in life if they married before turning 21). 

Summary of Lord Dorchester's Order In Council regarding United Empire Loyalists, November 9, 1789 (No. 6) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01081/0016)

"Late Loyalists" or "Simcoe's Loyalists" 

In 1791, John Graves Simcoe became the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada. After obtaining land from the Aboriginals, he began an aggressive campaign to attract:

* former military officers living in the Maritimes who were loyal to Britain.
* Americans living in what was now called the United States, particularly from New York and Pennsylvania. 

He attracted American settlers by offering cheap land and other kinds of assistance, like food, clothing, building materials and seeds. 

Simcoe extended his invitation to those who were neutral and hadn't taken up arms against the British during the American Revolution. He was particularly targeting those who:

* were unhappy with life in the newly-created United States;
* wanted to obtain fairly inexpensive land in Canada. 

Many historians now feel, though, that most of these U.S. immigrants remained somewhat sympathetic to the ideals of American republicanism well after their arrival, and came not out of loyalty to Britain, but out of forwarding their own self-interests. It is now felt that this does not necessarily make them true "Loyalists".

For instance, members of several pacifist religious sects, like Quakers and Mennonites, came to Upper Canada from America during this period when Simcoe offered them an exemption from having to take part in future military service. While one can admire the moral or religious convictions of these settlers in opposing war, it can be argued that they came to Upper Canada for the sole purpose of avoiding compulsory military service, not out of a sense of loyalty to British interests.

Nevertheless, Americans of various ethnic decent continued to arrive until the War of 1812 began. This is not to speak of the fact that Americans immigrants, who had been designated as being United Empire Loyalists by Lord Dorchester in 1789 (see "First Loyalists" above), had already migrated to the region. Some United Empire Loyalists were living in "Upper Canada" as early as 1781 (a full decade before the province was created) around the Niagara Peninsula. 

All of these American settlers generally lived on the north shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario or in the uppermost reaches of the St. Lawrence River valley system well to the southwest of the Montréal region.

By 1800, Upper Canada's population had grown to 50,000 from about 12,000 in 1791. By 1815, the population grew to 95,000. About 80 per cent of those living in the colony around this time had been born in America.

Did You Know ... ? 
While a great deal of attention is given to United Empire Loyalists in Upper Canada, a small but significant amount of immigrants to the region - about 10 per cent - were actually German. 

The Diaries of Lady Elizabeth Simcoe 

Lady Elizabeth Simcoe - the wife of John Graves Simcoe, Upper Canada's first lieutenant-governor - kept diaries and sketches of her life in Upper Canada during the late 1700s. They remain some of the earliest examples of recorded pioneer history in what's now called Ontario.

Among the Thousand Islands in 1776: fragments of a journal of Ms. Simcoe (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/13621)

Other Important or Interesting Documents

Papers relating to American Loyalists (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01282)

Further papers relating to American Loyalists (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01283)

The acts of the General Assembly of his Majesty's province of New Brunswick (up to 1805) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02047)

Correspondence relative to the land tenure question in Prince Edward Island (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02184)

Further correspondence relative to the land tenure question in Prince Edward Island, August 1875 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01935)

Further correspondence relative to the land tenure question in Prince Edward Island, April 1876 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02223)

Among the Thousand Islands in 1776: fragments of a journal of Ms. Simcoe (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/13621)


Selkirk Settlement / Creation of Manitoba (1811 - 1870)

In the early 1800s, British aristocrat Thomas Selkirk tried to create a new colony in what is now southern Manitoba. He purchased land from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1811 to begin settlement. However, a number of factors - like fighting among rival fur traders and famine - led to this colony's demise. The Métis and various Aboriginal nations also felt this colony would lead to the loss of their hunting and fishing grounds, if not their way of life, and often took part in fighting. In 1821, the land would be mostly vacant once again and would be later sold to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC).

By the 1850s, this land was looked upon as choice land for new settlement as wild land in Canada West became less and less available. In 1869, the land was to be sold back to the federal government for re-settlement. However, the Métis would rebel against surveyors and settlers trying to ready the region for mass inhabitation, which was one of the major causes behind the Red River Rebellion. This rebellion delayed the sale of HBC land until 1870.

The Selkirk Indenture, 1811 

In 1811, British aristocrat Thomas Selkirk wished to create a new colony in a region owned by the Hudson's Bay Company. Selkirk purchased some 300,000 square kilometers of land mostly located in what is now lower Manitoba and upper Minnesota from the fur trading company. 

Selkirk called this region Assiniboia. This led to the creation of the Red River Settlement or Selkirk Settlement in 1812. It was mainly home to Scottish and Irish settlers, as well as three Swedes. It would also eventually become home to Swiss mercenaries who fought in the War of 1812. 

The colony only lasted for three years, however. The Métis and Scottish fur traders who had originally called the area home were angered that they were not consulted about this community. They felt these new settlers - who practiced agriculture - would get in the way of their hunting lifestyle and food supplies.

The fur traders and Métis wound up being right. The settlers had great difficulty trying to survive as farmers, and often had to turn to the fur traders for help. Miles Macdonell, the governor of Assiniboia, issued the Pemmican Proclamation in January 1814, which prohibited the export of food provisions from the region in order to help the settlers and their families.

This proclamation angered fur traders employed by the Montréal-based North West Company, who feared it would interrupt their trading network. 

In early 1815, these fur traders burned the colony, arrested Macdonell and forced the remaining settlers - those who still hadn't left after being offered better land elsewhere by the North West Company, at least - to flee back to Upper Canada.

Did You Know ... ?
The Red River Colony was host to a couple of Canada's greatest explorers and surveyors. For instance, Peter Fidler would survey lots for settlement in 1811. Simon Fraser also even tried to retire to the colony in 1815 to take up life as a fur trader. Fraser, however, got caught up in the aftermath of the Seven Oaks Incident in 1816, and was charged for not helping Selkirk in his fight against the North West Company. Fraser was acquitted of these charges in 1818.

Excerpt of the Pemmican Proclamation, 1814 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/30050/0267) 

Indenture of sale from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Earl of Selkirk, 1811 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/30387/0302) 

The Hudson's Bay Company's Land Tenures and the Occupation of Assiniboia by Lord Selkirk's Settlers with a List of Grantees under the Earl and Company (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/30386/0005) 

The Seven Oaks Incident, 1816 
After the Red River Colony was destroyed in 1815, there were attempts to resettle the land under a new administrator, Robert Semple. However, such attempts would be doomed to failure.

On June 19, 1816, a group of Métis led by Cuthbert Grant killed Semple and 20 of his men when both parties intercepted each other accidentally during the Seven Oaks Incident. This was a massacre that was the result of an intense rivalry between the British-owned Hudson's Bay Company and Montréal-based North West Company. 

Some of the circumstances leading to this event included:

* the Hudson's Bay Company's capturing of Fort Gibraltar from the North West Company in early 1816;
* the North West Company's capturing of Brandon House on June 1, 1816.

Two months after the Seven Oaks Incident, Thomas Selkirk and a mercenary force attacked and captured Fort William, the Métis primary base of operations. Selkirk's forces also took Fort Douglas. 

The massacre is notable in that it forced the two rival fur-trading companies to reconsider their hostility and competition with each other. 

In 1821, after Selkirk's death, both companies finally decided to merge. The Hudson's Bay Company absorbed the North West Company, putting an end to bloodshed in the region.

The Hudson's Bay Company, including an account of the North West Company and French traders (a history book from 1900) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/30050)

Papers relating to the Red River Settlement, 1819 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/18595)

The Selkirk Treaty, 1817 

In 1817, Selkirk decided to sign a treaty with the Cree and Chippewa nations, among others, to extinguish their claims to a tract of land on his domain stretching along the Red River. He distributed this land to new settlers. 

When Selkirk died in 1820, the executors of his estate sought to control spiraling costs by ending new European settlement on the land. Only those who had settled during the late 1810s, plus some retired Métis fur traders, remained on the land.

In 1836, land covered by this treaty reverted back to the Hudson's Bay Company. 

Did you know ... ?
In September 1855, the last remaining piece of wild land that the government didn't own was sold to a settler in Canada West (formerly Upper Canada). This led some political leaders like George Brown to push for western expansion. This also led to "scientific expeditions" to the West under the likes of Hind and Palliser by 1857 to see how well-suited the Prairies really were to mass settlement. 

The Selkirk Treaty, 1817 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/30387/0301) 

Papers relating to the Red River Settlement, 1819 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/18595/0003)

The Red River Rebellion, 1869 - 1870 

The land owned by the Hudson's Bay Company was set to change hands once again in 1869 and became the property of the new Dominion of Canada. This angered many Métis and Aboriginals, who felt that new European settlers coming into the region were violating their land rights and disrupting their way of life. This was a leading cause of the Red River Rebellion in 1869-70.

In the middle of the year 1870, the land was finally handed back to the federal government. However, a new province, Manitoba, was created in part to appease the French-speaking Métis living in the region. 

Did You Know ... ?
In the 1870s, there was a sizable Icelandic community living in the Lake Winnipeg area that even had its own form of self-government. (There were roughly 10,000 people of this heritage in what would become part of Manitoba by some estimates.) However, when the borders of Manitoba were expanded in the 1880s, this community chose to become absorbed into the province. 

Rupert's Land Act, 1868 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03428/0668)

Correspondence Regarding Disturbances at Red River, 1869 - 70 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03764/0004)

Other Important or Interesting Documents 

The Hudson's Bay Company, including an account of the North West Company and French traders (a history book from 1900) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/30050)

Papers relating to the Red River Settlement, 1819 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/18595)

The Hudson's Bay Company's Land Tenures and the Occupation of Assiniboia by Lord Selkirk's Settlers with a List of Grantees under the Earl and Company (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/30386)

The Treaties of Canada with the Indians (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/30387)

Narrative of Red River Expedition (Hind Expedition), 1857, Vol. I
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/35699)

Narrative of Red River Expedition (Hind Expedition), 1857 Vol. II (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/35700)

Palliser Expedition notes, 1857 - 1860 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01593)

Sir Sandford Fleming's note about building a territorial road through Red River settlement region, in anticipation of a railway, 1863? (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/23064/0032)

Correspondence Regarding Disturbances at Red River, 1869 - 70 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03764/0004)


Post-Loyalist Settlement I (1814 - 1830)

The War of 1812 between Britain and the United States briefly paused immigration to Upper and Lower Canada and the Maritimes. When settlement resumed after the war, however, much of the land would now go to British military officers who'd served in the War of 1812 and Napoleonic War. Virtually no settlers would come from the United States as a result of cooled relations between the two countries. More immigrants would arrive from Britain, instead.

Treaty of Ghent, 1814 

Under the Treaty of Ghent, 1814, the old borders between British North America and the United States were restored to where they were before the War of 1812. However, as a consequence of the war, Britain decided to prevent American citizens from buying land in British North America. Americans had to have been already living in any North American British colony for at least seven years before they were allowed to purchase any land. 

This would stop most migration from the United States, and encourage more people from Britain to settle in Canada. In fact, by the early 1820s, Upper Canada was actively attracting poor weavers from Scotland to immigrate here. 

War Veterans, 1816 

As a reward for their service, the British Crown gave its war veterans stationed in Canada after the War of 1812 free land grants. These veterans usually received land between the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers in Upper Canada, and the size of the plots they received depended on their rank. All were given eight months worth of food rations, so they'd have enough to eat until they were able to set up sustainable farms.  

Out-of-work British soldiers and naval officers who had fought during the Napoleonic Wars in Europe also were allowed to settle here as well. The British government aggressively encouraged these veterans to settle its North American colonies, as many of them would otherwise be returning to lives of utter poverty in Britain. 

Britain benefited enormously by sending these veterans to British North America:

* It allowed Britain to sidestep a costly social problem (i.e. having to provide money to support thousands of soldiers stricken with poverty and disease in the United Kingdom). 
* The British colonies would become full of upstanding military veterans who would be more likely to take active leadership roles in burgeoning communities.

The policy of giving free land to soldiers and sailors would last until 1833. A deadly outbreak of cholera in Britain caused the discontinuation of this policy.  

Information for the use of Military and Naval Officers proposing to settle in the British Colonies, 1834 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/91267/0002)

Did you know ... ?
English immigration to the towns of Montréal and Québec within Lower Canada would rise heavily during this period. Up to 40 per cent of those living in Québec would be anglophone, and about a third living in Montréal would be English-speaking as well. However, French populations skyrocketed in rural areas of the province.

Clergy Reserves 

Clergy Reserves were created under the Constitution Act of 1791. Under this act, one-seventh of all land granted had to go to the Church of England (also known as the Anglican Church). If it wanted to, the Church of England could then lease the land to settlers for a profit. 

This act naturally upset many non-Anglican Protestants living in Upper Canada, particularly those involved with the Scottish Presbyterian Church (also known as the Church of Scotland). Scots wanted their churches to receive this land and the potential cash crop in land sale or rent revenues that would go along with it. 

However, most of this land would sit vacant and undeveloped. There was still far more than enough free land to go around for settlement purposes in the early 1800s. Only when some of this land finally seemed destined to be sold to land grant companies - like the newly formed Canada Company (1825) - did these reserves once again become a major cause of concern among settlers wanting reform

Clergy reserves were finally secularized in 1854, thus ending years of debate about their usage. 

The Constitution Act, 1791 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?doc=21241) 

Address of Assembly, 2 July 1819, and Reply, 5 July 1819 (Question posed by the Upper Canada elected assembly about Clergy reserves and reply.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03427/0039) 

Opinion of Crown Law Officers, 1819 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03427/0039) 

Clergy Reserves: James Stephen's Opinion, 1829 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03427/0215) 

Resolution of Assembly, Upper Canada, 1824; Clergy Reserves and the Church of Scotland (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03427/0217) 

An Act for the distribution of funds from the sale of clergy lands to the Church of Scotland, Lower Canada, 1824 /Acte pour la distribution des fonds provenant de la vente des réserves du clergé à l'Église d'Écosse, Bas-Canada, 1824 (bilingual) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_00938_34/0344) 

An Act for the relief of Religious Societies, March 25, 1828 (Regarding church land for Quakers, Mennonites, Lutherans, etc. in Upper Canada.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03427/0433) 

Report of Committee to House of Commons, 1828 (Examines Lower Canada and makes recommendations for changes in law.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?display=9_03427+0478) 

Crown Reserves 

Crown reserves were reserves of uninhabited land rich in minerals, timber and other resources that the colonial governments owned, similar to current-day Crown land owned by the federal or provincial governments. The idea was the Crown would own valuable land to create revenue from its future residential or industrial usage. 

These reserves were a source of discontent amongst settlers worried about their property values. Because the cost of building and repairing roads fell squarely on individual farmers who owned the land, and because large swaths of uninhabited Crown land often lay between neighbouring farms, building a road to one's neighbours became particularly work-intensive or expensive for farmers in Upper Canada. 

This kept close communities from forming in Upper Canada, which in turn kept property values lower than their U.S. counterparts. American farmers were more apt to able to work together and tended to form small, tightly-knit and more efficiently run communities, which eventually made their land more valuable as time went on. 

Because of this, some farmers in Upper Canada - namely, the so-called American "late Loyalists" who'd come to Upper Canada after 1791 and weren't particularly loyal to the British Crown - argued that British North America should become a republic just like the United States. They hoped that in turning to a more American system, their land might become much more valuable. In fact, a Scottish pollster named Robert Goulay became something of a political folk hero in 1804 when the British government expelled him from Upper Canada, out of fear that he was stirring up republican sentiment in the province over Crown reserves.

Following the War of 1812, Crown reserves came under control of wealthy owners in the Family Compact. By 1825, these lands were being sold to land grant companies like the Canada Company for the purposes of settlement, which brought the issue of Crown reserves back to the forefront among those agitating for more responsible government.

Report of Executive Council Respecting Crown Lands, Lower Canada, 4 February 1792 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03421/0074) 

Proclamation about settlement of Crown lands in Lower Canada, 1792 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03421/0074) 

Simcoe to Portland, January 22, 1795 (Regarding his opinion to Britain about renting Crown lands to Loyalist settlers, as opposed to selling them.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03421/0215) 

Portland to Simcoe, 20th May 1795 (Feels no special limits should be placed by Britain on what Crown reserves can be used for.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03421/0219) 

An address of the Legislative Assembly relative to grants relative to reward or otherwise, and also to the sales of uncultivated Crown Lands in Lower Canada.  (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_00955_11_6/0007) 

Correspondence regarding British emigration to Lower and Upper Canada, among other British colonies in Australia, 1834 (Refers to proposed new regulations for granting Crown Lands in Lower Canada in the 1830s) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03448/0002)

The Canada Company, 1825 - 1953 

The Canada Company was a private firm, the brainchild of John Galt, whose sole purpose was to sell land to settlers. The formation of this company marked a major shift in land granting policy. Now, private companies, not the government, would be in charge of land administration in Upper Canada. 

The Company drew the ire of Reformers, however. They felt the Company:

* was poorly managed;
* treated farmers and lower class settlers unfairly;
* was too closely URLed to the Tory government and its wealthy friends.

This situation helped fuel the mass anti-government sentiment that led to the 1837 Rebellion in Upper Canada.

The Canada Company's problems finally died down in the early 1840s. Management and administrative changes were made to make the business run in a smoother and fairer manner. 

The company ran this way, more or less, until 1951, when it announced it was selling off all its lands and going out of business. It finally closed down in 1953.

Did You Know ... ?
Lesser-known land companies sprang up in other colonies. These included the British American Land Company in Lower Canada in 1825 and the New Brunswick Land Company in 1831.

An Act To Create the Canada Company, 1825 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_00907/0002) 

Minutes of the Intended Arrangements between Earl Bathurst, Her Majesty's Secretary of State, and the Canada Company, 1825 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03560/0003)

Other Important or Interesting Documents 

Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, Vol. I (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_03427)

Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, Vol. II (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_0342) 


Post-Loyalist Settlement II (1830 - 1867)

A deadly worldwide outbreak of cholera in 1832 threatened to pause immigration to British North America yet again. The disease first entered North America through what is now considered eastern Canada thanks to infected British immigrants who brought it here. (However, German immigrants first transmitted cholera to Britain; the epidemic itself originated in India.) 

In an effort to quarantine and protect the colony, governments would tax immigrants for the first time. This was done to pay for the construction of new hospitals to treat the diseased at ports along the St. Lawrence River and Atlantic coastline. 

This tax, however, would not deter impoverished immigrants from emigrating from Ireland, which underwent a devastating potato famine in the late 1840s. It also didn't prevent Black fugitives from the United States from sneaking into Upper Canada to seek freedom from a life of slavery.

In fact, there was a dramatic surge in Upper Canada's population during this period. It went from 95,000 in 1815 to more than 950,000 in 1851, the year it surpassed the French population of Lower Canada (then officially known as Canada East) for the first time.

Immigration Restrictions and Taxes, 1830s 

During the early 1830s, a number of particularly fatal outbreaks of cholera began to occur in Britain. Since the vast majority of immigrants to British North America were from Britain, the disease spread into port communities along the St. Lawrence River in Lower Canada where would-be settlers disembarked. 

Most of these settlers were either:

* from the British military;
* paupers from Ireland.

The swift spread of cholera into the colony led to the creation of new temporary and permanent hospitals along the river to treat the diseased. Since new hospitals cost money to build, the Lower Canada Legislative Assembly decided to issue a temporary tax of five shillings on all new immigrants until May 1, 1834. Other Atlantic colonies followed suit with their own taxes or quarantines.

The new immigrant levy in Lower Canada was used to:

* help fund immigrant hospitals in Montréal and Québec;
* assist impoverished immigrants arriving in Canada; 
* fund new immigrant communities in Montréal. 

Health provisions were also made by Britain through the safety provisions in the Passenger Act regarding the shipping of goods. Also, British naval officers and soldiers were no longer given free land in the Canadian colonies to help stem the spread of disease. 

These taxes did not stop despondent immigrants from arriving in any of the colonies in North America. In fact, immigrants found ways to pay through various means. 

Money often came from: 

* British emigration trade unions, which were allowed to provide financial assistance for those wishing to settle in British North America; 
* wealthy Irish or Scottish landlords who felt particularly generous towards tenants wishing to leave for the colonies;
* church parishes, which were allowed to raise funds to help the poor settle in Upper and Lower Canada after 1834. 

Did You Know ... ? 
The effects of some farmer's failed crops and the aftermath of the violent 1837 and 1838 Rebellions led some French settlers in Lower Canada to head for the United States. More people would emigrate from Lower Canada between the 1830s and Confederation in 1867 than immigrate. Since natural reproduction couldn't produce new citizens faster than immigration could, English settlement in Canada easily overtook the French population by the early 1850s.

Prince Edward Island: Practical Rules and Precautions for the Prevention and Cure of Spasmodic Cholera, probably circa 1832  (http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/60788/0002)

Copy of a Circular dispatch addressed to the governors of Lower Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by Viscount Goderich, 11 December 1831 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01016/0007)

Lower Canada: An Act to create a fund for defraying the Expense of providing Medical Assistance for Sick Emigrants ... , 25 February 1832 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01016/0008) 

Nova Scotia: An Act relating to passengers from Great Britain and Ireland arriving in this province, 10 February 1832 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01016/0011) 

New Brunswick: An Act to regulate Vessels arriving from the United Kingdom with passengers and emigrants (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01016/0013) 

An act to repeal certain Acts (regarding British emigrants to Lower Canada), probably circa 1849 (About taxes on new emigrants, and certain emigrants who were not allowed into the province, like the mentally ill.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01028/0009) 

Information for the use of Military and Naval Officers proposing to settle in the British Colonies, 1834 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/91267/0002) 

Irish Famine, 1846 - 1847 

Following a particularly nasty famine in Ireland in 1847, the Irish were immigrating to the New World in droves looking to escape hunger, disease and poverty. In fact, some 200,000 destitute Irish people would attempt to arrive in British North America in 1847 alone. 

Sadly, half that number would die on the ships on the way over, due to the combined effects of hunger and disease. What's more, roughly 30,000 of the 100,000 that arrived in Canada would die within a year of their arrival. 

This horrific situation would cause New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to implement head taxes of 10 to 20 shillings on new settlers. This money was specifically for the purpose of funding the care of destitute arrivals. Similarly, ship captains would pay fines of five shillings per head if any of the immigrants on their vessels were quarantined.

Many of these Irish settlers would later immigrate to the United States, hoping to find better fortune as labourers in the cities along the northeast coast. In an attempt to ensure that such immigrants would not spread disease in other parts of North America, some colonies like Prince Edward Island, put quarantines on boats leaving their ports.

New Brunswick: Money for the Relief of Destitute Poor in Ireland and Scotland, 1847 (Cash donation by the province for the use of helping poor in Britain) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01912/0003) 

Prince Edward Island: Proclamation regarding length of voyage to other ports in North America, 1849 (Enclosure No. 1) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_00993/0067) 

Earl Gray's response to Prince Edward Island Proclamation (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_00993/0068) 

The Underground Railroad, 1840 - 1860 

During the early to mid 1800s, a number of efforts were made in British North America to protect freed black slaves from persecution in the United States. During the War of 1812, for instance, Britain gave about 2,000 black slaves it had freed in American fighting the option of joining the British army or living in Upper Canada, where they would be protected.

Additionally, black slavery in Britain and its colonies was beginning to be phased out. By 1833, slavery would be illegal in every British colony. This made British North America a very attractive place to live for many black Americans, even though there was still much racial prejudice and ignorance in the colonies.

* A digest of the laws ... including the laws and treaties for the abolition of the slave trade, 1819 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/64464)
 
The hope of freedom attracted free Blacks to Upper Canada to live via the Underground Railroad. This was a series of white and black-owned safe houses scattered across Upper Canada (later Canada West) and the United States that would hide slaves escaping to freedom north of the Great Lakes

The leader of this movement, a freed slave named Harriet Tubman, even lived in Canada West between 1851 and 1858. She bravely made numerous trips back to America to lead slaves to the "promised land."

Not all was perfect in Canada for black settlers. Susanna Moodie recorded in Roughing It In The Bush (1852) the lynching of a black man in Upper Canada. There was also a movement to segregate white and black school children in some regions of Canada West in the late 1840s that succeeded. 

However, compared to the injustices involved with slavery in the States, British North America was a relatively safe and peaceful haven. 

The black immigration to Canada West would only be temporary, however. With the onset of the American Civil War in 1861, many blacks returned to America to fight on the side of the North, which opposed slavery. When the North won in 1865, many blacks remained in America to begin new free lives with their families.

Did You Know ... ?
Many communities in southwestern Ontario, like Woodstock and Welland, were either founded or settled by Blacks during the early 1800s.

The Diaries of Susanna Moody and Catherine Parr Traill 

Much of what historians know about the social history and pioneer lifestyle of Upper Canada comes from the writings of two women in particular: Susanna Moody and Catherine Parr Traill. 

Catherine and Susanna were actually sisters born into a British family with the surname Strickland. They were born in 1802 and 1803 respectively. Their upbringings were said to be relatively happy and uneventful, seeing as though their family was somewhat upper class. 

However, by the early 1830s, Catherine and Susanna were married and falling on hard times in England. Their husbands decided to emigrate from England to Upper Canada in the hopes of finding a better way of life. 

The sisters, their husbands and children immigrated into an area of Upper Canada directly north of Lake Ontario. They started their lives over again by clearing land and building homes like other pioneers. While Susanna in particular would move around from homestead to homestead during her life in the colony, both sisters generally lived much of their lives not very far from present-day Peterborough, Ontario. At one point, they even lived on neighbouring homesteads.

Both sisters would keep diaries and journals of their struggles adapting to their new pioneer lifestyle. Eventually, British publishers would publish their work as field guides about what it was like to live in British North America. These books became quite popular amongst Britons, and probably inspired a few people to immigrate to Canada.

These books are of significance today to historians because they're one of the few non-government documents of what life must have been like back in the early 1830s. Susanna Moody's work, in particular, is also hailed as being one of the very first examples of popular Canadian literature. 

Susanna Moodie's Roughing it in the Bush (1852)
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/38879)

Susanna Moodie's Life In The Clearings (1853) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/43989)

Catherine Parr Traill's Backwoods of Canada (1836) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/41930)

Catherine Parr Traill's The Female Emigrant's Guide (1854) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/41417)

Catherine Parr Traill's The Canadian Settlers Guide (1860) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/22860)

Other Interesting or Important Documents 

North America: Emigration: copy of any acts passed by the colonies in British North America, 1832 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01016)

Papers Relating to British Emigration, 1849 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_00993)


Canada-U.S. Relations (1842 - 1903)

Throughout the mid-to-late 19th century, Canada had a topsy-turvy relationship with America. There were threats of American expansionism into land on the Prairies that the colonial or federal government wanted to occupy. A group of Irish invaders called the Fenians even used the United States as a springboard for attacks on the British colonies. These threats from America were one of the prime motivations many colonies had for joining Confederation. 

During this period, there were also a few border disputes between the nations that helped lower Canadian sentiment towards America. This was in spite of the fact the two nations had engaged in free trade briefly and that some Americans were coming to Canada to settle. 

The Ashburton-Webster Treaty, 1842 

This treaty is sometimes also known as the Treaty of Washington. Several sources of friction going back to the Treaty of Paris, 1783 were removed as a result, as this treaty did two things in relation to British North America:

* It set the British North America-U.S. boundary from Lake Huron to the Lake of the Woods region west of Lake Superior.
* More controversially, it set the border between the two countries between Maine and New Brunswick. This settled a land and timber resources dispute. 

The latter item was controversial, because it allowed Acadian settlements south of the Saint John River to slip into the United States. This was seen as a move Britain made to please Americans living in New England, as both sides had been engaged in a bloodless standoff over the issue in 1839.

French settlements that remained in New Brunswick were allowed to retain their language and culture. However, Acadian settlements that slipped into the American side gradually became assimilated into American culture.

Correspondence respecting the Commission for tracing the Boundary Line between Her Majesty's Possessions in North America and the United States, under the Treaty signed at Washington, August 9, 1842 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/22014)

The Reciprocity Treaty, 1854 - 1866 

In 1854, British North America and the United States signed a reciprocity treaty or "free trade agreement". This treaty was particularly beneficial for the Maritimes because it allowed fishermen from the Atlantic region of British North America to fish in American waters without many conditions placed on them. Also, agricultural goods, among other imported items, could be brought into Canada free of customs duties under the terms of this treaty. Naturally, this period became one of increased trade with the U.S.

However, the American government gave notice to Britain in 1865 that it wanted to end its involvement in the treaty. Its cancellation the following year was a major reason why many British North American colonies decided to pursue Confederation, since the merger would provide new trading partnerships.

Memorandum on the fisheries question, 1870 (A description of what led up to, during and after the Reciprocity Treaty with regard to the fisheries.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02305/0002)

The Palliser and Hind Expeditions, 1857 - 1860 

By 1855, the last remaining piece of wild land in Canada West (formerly Upper Canada) was sold for settlement. This allowed politicians to look to the Prairies as a possible region to open up for immigrants. Starting in 1857, two explorers named John Palliser and Henry Youle Hind would set out on a "scientific expedition" to discover if this land was suitable for mass settlement. 

However, Palliser's expedition had another purpose. It was to survey the 49th parallel as a possible western border between the U.S. and Canada. This was crucial as America created massive east-west Intercolonial railways during the 1860s, which some in British North America viewed as an attempt by the Americans to expand their territory into what was to become Canada.  

Narrative of Red River Expedition (Hind expedition), 1857, Vol. I
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/35699)

Narrative of Red River Expedition, 1857 Vol. II (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/35700)

Palliser Expedition notes, 1857 - 1860 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01593)

Papers calling for the removal of the (British) seat of government and the (United States) annexation movement, 1850 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/45282)

The Fenian Threat, 1866 - 1871 

The Fenian movement began in the United Kingdom in 1857 to secure Irish independence from Britain. An American wing soon sprouted up, however, and by 1865 it had about 10,000 Civil War veterans signed up for duty and roughly $500,000 in reserve.

The goal of this American arm was to invade British North America to draw support for its cause.  

In April 1866, the Fenians tried to invade New Brunswick. While they were successfully repelled, this invasion underscored to many the necessity for having a unified country that could easily stop cross-border invasions or rebellions.

While the Fenian threat did taper off somewhat after Confederation, three other notable events involving this group occurred:

* In 1868, an alleged Fenian named James Patrick Whelan is said to have assassinated a somewhat unpopular Irish politician named Thomas D'Arcy McGee. (There were errors made in Whelan's trial that have led some historians to question his guilt in the matter.) 
* In 1870, two small Fenian raids were made on Québec.
* In 1871, a group of Fenians attempted to enter Manitoba. They'd hoped to win the support of Louis Riel and the Métis, and draw attention to their cause by staging a rebellion. However, this group was stopped just before they reached the Canada-U.S. border by American authorities.

The creation of the North West Mounted Police in 1873 finally put an end to the threat of Fenian attacks. 

An act to provide for the widow and children of the late honourable Thomas D'Arcy McGee, 22 May 1868 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0745)

Acte pour autoriser Sa Majesté à secourir la veuve et les enfants de l'honorable Thomas D'Arcy McGee (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0767) 

Correspondence regarding the recent Fenian aggression upon Canada, 1867? (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/34299)

Documents relatifs aux incursions des rebelles sudistes sur la frontière des États-Unis et à l'ivasion = l'invasion du Canada par les Féniens, 1869 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/34299)

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, 1869 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/09480)

American Immigration 

While the Canadian public generally didn't like Americans immigrating to western Canada, the federal government supported the movement of Americans into the country at times. This was because:

* Americans were generally wealthier than European migrants, which meant they were usually more self-reliant.
* America was closer for the purposes of bringing in skilled labour.
* Americans in the northern states were already used to our climate and may have been aware of some Canadian customs.

While American immigration was fairly slow until the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s, Canada attracted a few American labourers looking for seasonal or permanent jobs. Carpenters were needed to build houses. So were bridge builders and mechanics for work on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).
 
Cattlemen from the U.S. also moved northward for a time, thanks to available year-round grazing land in what's now southern Alberta.

Did You Know ... ?
In 1884, Britain was concerned about importing tainted beef livestock from areas of the United States through Canada. The affected cattle were feared to have a disease called contagious bovine pleuropneumonia - a slow-spreading illness affecting the lungs and joints. Unlike modern worries over the transmission of mad cow disease to humans, this disease was solely limited to cattle. It was a serious enough illness, though, that mass beef quarantines and slaughters were often ordered in the 1880s. This disease was finally eradicated in America by 1892.

* Correspondence relative to the admission of cattle (to Britain) from the United States, 1884 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02226)

There were high tariffs on items shipped from America to Canada after Confederation. This led some American companies to set up "branch plants" in Canada where manufacturing took place as a means of getting around these tax laws. 

Religious groups like the Mormons were allowed generous plots of land, particularly just after the turn of the 20th century. This was because they were hardy and good at agriculture.

For the most part, though, American migration to the Prairies was fairly slow until about 1910. This was partly due to the fact that the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) had a 20-year monopoly on land extending south of its line from 1885. This meant that American rail companies couldn't hook up branch lines connecting to Canadian railway without paying outrageous sums of money to the CPR. 

Most settlers, thus, would have to come to Canada through existing north-south rail service to Winnipeg. This was out of the way for most of those living in the western half of America. 

Also, the North West Rebellion of 1885 painted Canada's west in a negative light. Rumours circulated stateside about Canada's savage, untamed wilderness thanks to this skirmish.

The Alaska Boundary Dispute, 1903

A longstanding dispute between Canada and the United States about the border of Alaska shared with the Yukon Territory broke out in the late 19th century. 

When Alaska was purchased by America from the Russians in 1867, the territory came with its boundaries fixed by a treaty dating back to 1825. This boundary included areas covered by deep fjords along Alaska southern coastline.

In 1897, a gold rush broke out in the Yukon Territory that attracted an influx of prospectors and would-be settlers. Since the quickest means of arriving in the Yukon was to come by steamship up the coast, travel to the region became complicated for Canadian citizens. Prospectors would have to stop in American territory and be approved for entry into that country before they could continue their journey into the Yukon. This made many Canadians afraid that the Americans were over-asserting their authority over who could enter the Yukon and, thus, Canada. 

A 1903 tribunal featuring three Americans, two Canadians and a British chief justice named Lord Alverstone was formed to look into the matter. Rather than create a deadlock and anger America by siding with Canada, Alverstone suggested a compromise. He allowed the United States to keep most of the disputed land in exchange for four islands that would now belong to Canada. 

Canada also received slightly more territory just beyond the coastal edge of the deep inland bays under this deal. However, Canada didn't get any land along the coast itself. 

This made many Canadians at the time particularly angry, because they now felt Britain was asserting its treaty rights over Canada. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, however, admitted that there was little that Canada could do, since Britain still exerted a great deal of parliamentary and judicial power over the country. The Canadian government did not act to appeal this decision either, probably because by 1903 the gold rush was over. 

Did You Know ... ?
Robert Service famously wrote many poems and one novel about the Klondike Gold Rush. However, he didn't live in the Yukon until 1904, long after most prospectors had left. 

Copy of a (British Columbia) report ... on the question of a boundary between Canada and Alaska, 1885 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/14348/0002)

Correspondence respecting the proceedings of the joint commission on the questions pending the United States and Canada, 1898 - 1899 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/14677/0002)

Memorandum on the boundary between Canada and Alaska, 1899
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/15036/0002)

Further Correspondence respecting the proceedings of the joint commission on the questions pending the United States and Canada, 1900 (URL: 
http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/14679/0002)

Other Important or Interesting Documents 

Acts of the legislatures of the provinces now comprised in the Dominion, and of Canada, 1887 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01824) 

Actes des législatures des provinces formant aujourd'hui partie de la puissance et actes du Canada, 1887 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01931)

Narrative of Red River Expedition (Hind expedition), 1857, Vol. I
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/35699)

Narrative of Red River Expedition, 1857 Vol. II (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/35700)

Palliser Expedition notes, 1857 - 1860 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01593)

Correspondence regarding the recent Fenian aggression upon Canada, 1867? (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/34299)

Documents relatifs aux incursions des rebelles sudistes sur la frontière des États-Unis et à l'invasion du Canada par les Féniens, 1869 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/34299)

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, 1869 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/09480)

Memorandum on the fisheries question, 1870 (A description of what led up to, during and after the Reciprocity Treaty with regard to the fisheries.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02305/0002)

Copy of a (British Columbia) report ... on the question of a boundary between Canada and Alaska, 1885 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/14348/0002)

Correspondence respecting the proceedings of the joint commission on the questions pending the United States and Canada, 1898 - 1899 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/14677/0002)

Memorandum on the boundary between Canada and Alaska, 1899
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/15036/0002)

Further Correspondence respecting the proceedings of the joint commission on the questions pending the United States and Canada, 1900 (URL: 
http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/14679/0002)


Building the National Railways (1851 - 1885)

By the time of Confederation in 1867, the new federal government would seriously look at creating a national railway from coast-to-coast to bring new settlers and goods into Rupert's Land, and help stave off America from expanding its borders. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) even became a condition for British Columbia's entry into Confederation in 1871. However, a scandal related to its construction brought down the government of the first Canadian prime minister, John A. Macdonald. The national railway was also a source of controversy involving Chinese labourers who came to help build the CPR. 

The Railway Act, 1851 

Prior to the 1830s, the main means of transportation in British North America was through a system of canals and inland waterways by ship. However, the steam locomotive - first used in Britain in 1830 - provided a new and more efficient means of shipping goods and people to far-flung places fast. 

The very first railway in British North America was built in Lower Canada in 1836, and construction started up in earnest throughout the Maritime colonies after that. 

Did You Know ... ?
Horses powered the first Canadian colonial locomotive that arrived in 1836. 

One of the more ambitious railways of the period, the Grand Trunk Railroad, was incorporated in 1852 to connect Toronto and Montréal. However, the company overestimated demand for rail service and was plunged into debt by 1860. 

The Grand Trunk wasn't the only railway line with problems. Other smaller companies without proper financial resources were getting swept away by railway fever. Many of these companies were cutting corners on construction and operating costs, so legislation was needed to allow the government to closely control railway activities. This would ensure the safety of passengers riding the rails and those working to build the railways. 

The Railway Act was first passed in the legislature of Canada (West and East) in 1851. 

The Railway Act, 1851 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0126) 
Acte concernant les chemins de fer, 1851 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0127) 

An act in amendment of the Railway Act, 1860 (Allows constables to be put on trains) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0331) 
Acte pour amender l'Acte des chemins de fer, 1860 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0341) 
	
An act to explain and amend the Railway Act, 1861 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0348) 
Acte pour expliquer et amender l'Acte des chemins de fer, 1861 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0358) 

The Intercolonial Railway, 1867 - 1876 

One of the conditions between the Canadas and the Maritime provinces upon Confederation was the building of an inter-colonial railway that would connect the regions. This condition was even written into the British North America Act, 1867. 

The federal government provided assistance for the building of the Intercolonial Railway, but often had to take out loans from Britain to ensure its completion. 

Sir Sandford Fleming was involved with the creation of these railways, which took part mainly in the 1870s. He also notably invented Standard Time Zones around this period, which created the idea of a uniform time within 24 different geographic regions separated by 15 degrees longitude around the world. 

This system worked in opposition to having an infinite number of local times in a particular region, which had been the norm until Fleming devised his system during the late 1870s. (It was presented at an international tribunal in 1884 and adopted.) Local time, which had been adequate before people traveled long distances by train, caused chaos whenever passengers tried to figure out the correct arrival and departure times at particular stops along a rail line. For instance, one could now travel a fairly short distance rather quickly by locomotive, only to discover that the time at his destination was either many hours ahead or behind the time set at his original departure point!

The Intercolonial was finally completed in 1876. In 1879, the Intercolonial absorbed part of the preexisting Grand Trunk Railway. 

Did You Know ...?
Sir Sandford Fleming also created Canada's first postage stamp in 1851.

British North America Act, 1867 (bilingual version) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?doc=92338) 

An act regarding the construction of the intercolonial railway, 1867 
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0738) 
Acte concernant la construction du chemin de fer Intercolonial, 1867
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0760) 

An act to amend the act regarding the construction of the intercolonial railway, 1874 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0851) 
Acte pour amender l'Acte concernant la construction du chemin de fer Intercolonial, 1874 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0875) 

An act respecting the Intercolonial railway, 1875
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0869) Acte concernant le chemin de fer Intercolonial, 1875
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0893) 

An act for the acquisition by the Dominion of a certain portion of the Grand Trunk Railway to be made part of the Intercolonial railway, 1879 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0928) 
Acte à l'effet d'autoriser le gouvernement fédéral à faire l'acquisition d'une certaine partie du Grand Tronc de chemin de fer, afin de l'annexer au chemin de fer Intercolonial (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0952) 

An Act to confirm the purchase by the Dominion of a portion of the Grand Trunk Railway and the agreement made with the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada with respect thereto, 1880 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0958) 
Acte ratifiant l'achat par le gouvernement fédéral d'une partie du Grand Tronc de chemin de fer, ainsi que la convention conclue (avec) la compagnie du Grand Tronc de chemin de fer du Canada à ce sujet, 1880 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0983) 

1889 Act regarding freight on the Intercolonial Railway (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_04224/0986)

Ocean to Ocean: Sir Sandford Fleming's 1872 journey (involves Intercolonial Railway) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/30275)

The Canadian Pacific (Part I), 1871 - 1885

In 1855, the last remaining wild land in Canada West (formerly Upper Canada) was sold for settlement. This made many politicians in the province like George Brown think about moving settlements westward into Rupert's Land. Naturally, the country would need a mode of transportation to get these settlers onto this land quickly. Steam locomotives provided the main answer to the problem of getting people and goods out to far-flung places on the Prairies fast.

Aside from the issue of practically shipping settlers, there was another need for a railway extending to the West Coast.

In 1862, U.S. Congress agreed to the construction to:

* the Union Pacific, a railroad that would stretch from the Missouri River to the west coast. 
* the Northern Pacific, a railway that was to run from Lake Superior to Puget Sound in the American northwest. 

These American railways gave Canadian politicians pause, for it was felt they were the first step toward America obtaining land in the Canadian prairie. This is primarily why the federal government wanted to purchase Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company and have it settled as quickly as possible. 

The proposed railway would take a great deal of money to complete. It would be 1,600 kilometers longer than America's longest Intercolonial railway. 

The railway would be an important factor in getting British Columbia into Confederation in 1871. One of the conditions into Confederation the province wanted was that construction on the railway had to begin within two years of joining Canada. The railway also had to reach B.C. within the following 10 years.  

However, the Pacific Scandal abruptly halted plans for the railroad in 1872. 

The Pacific Scandal, 1872 -1873 

The Pacific Scandal brought down the Conservative government of Sir John A. Macdonald. It was revealed by newspapers of the era that Macdonald had received about $360,000 in election campaign funds for the 1872 federal election from a railroad magnate named Sir Hugh Allan. Allan, in turn for his help, was to be given the contract to build the Canadian Pacific.

Macdonald's Conservatives performed poorly in the 1872 election, and his majority government had been reduced to minority status. After news of the scandal broke following this election, Macdonald resigned as prime minister, and a new federal election was called in 1873.

This issue particularly angered voters during the 1873 election because:

* Taking campaign money in exchange for political favours showed the government to be open to corruption.
* Macdonald and some members of his cabinet were guilty of patronage, or favouring a railway builder loyal to their party over another bidder who wanted to construct the railway.
* American railway promoters backed Allan, which probably meant Americans would be involved in building the railway.

Although the new Liberal government promised to start railway construction in 1874, nothing happened until 1880. 

The Canadian Pacific Railway Act, 1874 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0840)
L'Acte du chemin de fer Canadien du Pacifique, 1874
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0863) 

Sir John A. Macdonald's note about the Pacific Scandal, 20th September 1878 (Footnoted material; Macdonald apologies for his role in the scandal.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/15459/0199) 

The Canadian Pacific Railway (Part II), 1880 - 1885

The federal government, back under the control of Sir John A. Macdonald, tried to revisit constructing a railroad between British Columbia and Ontario. A contract was given to a new business called the Canadian Pacific Company in 1880. George Stephen headed this new railway firm between 1880 and 1888. Sir William Van Horne later managed it.

The company agreed to construct the railway for $25 million and 25 million acres of land from the federal government.

The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) also received:

* Seven hundred and twenty miles of existing rail line in the Canadian west.
* An exclusive monopoly on the land to the south of the main railway line for 20 years.
* Tax breaks and land right-of-ways.

Did You Know ... ?
In 1883, the CPR wanted another $22.5 million - just about all the money the federal government had in revenue - to finish the railway. The federal government agreed to the loan, which naturally led to more requests for money by the CPR. By 1885, the entire project had cost the federal government more than $60 million in grants and $35 million in loans.

In November 1885, the railway was completed. The westbound and eastbound sections of rail line were joined in British Columbia during a ceremony featuring main stockholder Donald Alexander Smith. This ceremony was known as The Last Spike.

An act to amend the Canadian Pacific Railway Act, 1874; 15 May 1879 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0935) 
Acte pour amender l'Acte du chemin de fer Canadien du Pacifique, 1874 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0960) 

An act to further amend the Canadian Pacific Railway Act, 1874; 15 May 1879 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0942) 
Acte pour amender de nouveau l'Acte du chemin de fer Canadien du Pacifique, 1874 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/0967

Sir Sandford Fleming's Recommendation for the CPR route through northern British Columbia, 1879 (No. 7; in English only) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/09730/0024) 

An act regarding the construction of the CPR, 1881
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/0986)
Acte concernant le chemin de fer Canadien du Pacifique, 1881
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/1012) 

An Act to authorize the construction on certain conditions of the Canadian Pacific Railway through some Pass other than the Yellow-Head Pass, 1883 (notable for the fact that this act rejects the recommendation of Sir Sandford Fleming.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/1076)
Acte autorisant à certaines conditions la construction du chemin de fer Canadien du Pacifique par une passe autre que celle de la Tête-Jaune (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/1108) 

An Act to amend the Act entitled An Act respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway and for other purposes, 1884 (regards government subsidies to the railway). (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/1091) 
Acte à l'effet de modifier l'Acte concernant le chemin de fer Canadien du Pacifique et à d'autres fins, 1884 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/1123) 

An act further to amend the acts respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway, and to provide for the completion and successful operation thereof, 1885
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/1132)
Acte modifiant de nouveau les actes concernant le chemin de fer Canadien du Pacifique, 1885 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/1164) 

An act further to amend the Act respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway, 1886 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01824/1152) Acte modifiant de nouveau l'Acte concernant le chemin de fer Canadien du Pacifique, 1886 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01931/1186)

Sir Sandford Fleming's Report in reference to the Canadian Pacific Railway, 1879 (Includes proposed costs of operation.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/09730)

Canada on the Pacific (An account from Edmonton to the Pacific, with remarks on the proposed Canadian Pacific Railway route and Indian tribes of British Columbia, 1874) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/07247/0003)

Chinese Labourers 

Between 1880 and 1885, about 15,000 Chinese labourers were brought into Canada from China and California to work on the British Columbia section of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Many of these immigrants were hoping this job would help them escape from crushing levels of poverty in China.

The Chinese often had the most dangerous jobs on the railway carrying heavy rocks or planting unstable explosives. They were also paid about 30 to 50 per cent less than other workers. They lived in unsafe canvas tents that offered poor protection from the elements, including sudden rockslides in the Rockies.

Many of these workers died from diseases like smallpox and cholera, or were killed in work-related accidents.

Did you know ... ?
Of the 5,000 or so Chinese workers who came to Canada in 1880, about 3,500 workers would be killed by the following year during construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. 

In 1885, work on the railway was nearing completion. Chinese men generally didn't make enough on the railway to pay for a return fare back, so many wanted to stay in Canada.

Suddenly, trade union workers and some politicians on the west coast wanted to get rid of the Chinese, since Asians were willing to work hard at any job no matter how low the wages were or how appalling the conditions. This situation led to a Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration.

In 1885, the federal government decided to pass the Chinese Immigration Act, which put a special $50 head tax on Chinese immigrants in the hopes that this would deter the Chinese from entering Canada. No other ethnic group had to pay this kind of tax at the time. 

Did You Know ... ?
Chinese people were prevented from voting in British Columbia as early as 1875. They only gained the right to vote provincially and federally in 1947. 

1885 Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration (http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/14563) 

Rapport sur l'immigration chinoise, 1885 (http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/93650) 

Chinese Immigration Act, 1885 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02345/0019) 

An act to amend the Chinese Immigration Act, 1887 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02345/0024) 

An act to further amend the Chinese Immigration Act, 1892 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02345/0025) 

Other Important or Interesting Documents 

Acts of the legislatures of the provinces now comprised in the Dominion, and of Canada, 1887 (Contains at least 35 documents related to the construction of various Canadian railways; see indexes) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01824) 

Actes des législatures des provinces formant aujourd'hui partie de la puissance et actes du Canada, 1887 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01931)

Sir Sandford Fleming's Report in reference to the Canadian Pacific Railway, 1879 (Includes proposed costs of operation.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/09730)

Canada and its vast undeveloped frontier (an 1878 book by Sir Sandford Fleming talking about railroad construction and exploration of the west.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/18053)

Ocean to Ocean: Sir Sandford Fleming's 1872 journey (involves Intercolonial Railway) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/30275)

Canada on the Pacific (An account from Edmonton to the Pacific, with remarks on the proposed Canadian Pacific Railway route and Indian tribes of British Columbia, 1874) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/07247/0003)


Prairie Settlement: The First Major Wave (1870 - 1896)

The development of more luxurious steamships now allowed more people to travel by sea faster than ever before. While this didn't translate into an influx of settlers to Canada right away, there were steps being taken by the federal government to ensure that there was enough land for settlement when immigration opened up onto the Prairies. The Numbered Treaties took land away from the Aboriginals in the region, and the Dominion Lands Act began to subdivide this newly acquired land in anticipation of settlement. The North West Mounted Police would also come into being to help keep law and order as this area made the transition from wilderness into new communities. 

Canada began to see new settlers come into the country from agriculturally based religious groups like the Mennonites, among others. Other ethnic groups from central and eastern Europe would begin to immigrate to Canada in earnest, as well as new classes of hired domestic help: female servants and home children. 

Immigration Act, 1869 

Canada's first Immigration Act dealt primarily with preventing diseases from entering Canada and ensuring the safety of passengers on immigrant ships. Provisions included placing limits on the number of passengers on non-cargo ships, and forcing passenger lists to be made available to quarantine officers before they embarked from their port. 

Rules involving quarantine of passengers were introduced in a separate Quarantine Act in 1872. It forced all vessels transporting physically ill passengers or passengers who had died on board to report at Grosse Île, Québec. (Grosse Île was a quarantine point prior to this, however.)

Did You Know ... ?
Immigration was handled by the Department of Agriculture from Confederation in 1867 until March 1892, when the Department of the Interior was formed. That department lasted until October 1917, when it merged with the Ministry of Labour.

An act concerning emigrants and quarantine, 1866 / Un acte concernant les émigrants et la quarantaine, 1866 (bilingual on opposite pages) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/46586/0003) 

Extracts from the Immigration Act, circa 1893 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02345/0012) 

Extracts from the Quarantine Act, circa 1893 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02345/0026) 

Statutes passed by the colonies to restrict Pauper Immigration, 1886 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/91235/0034) 

Manitoba, 1870 

The province of Manitoba was created in 1870 after negotiation with the predominantly French-speaking Métis. They had caused a rebellion over the sale of land from the Hudson's Bay Company to the federal government. This province was created so that the Métis would have some means of control in governmental affairs. A significant amount of land was provided for the Métis as well.

The Numbered Treaties, 1871 - 1921 

The Numbered Treaties - also called the Land Cession or Post-Confederation Treaties - were signed between 1871 and 1921, and granted the federal government large tracts of land throughout the Prairies, Canadian North and northwestern Ontario for white settlement and industrial use. In exchange for the land, Canada promised to give the Aboriginal peoples various items like cash, blankets, tools, farming supplies, and so on.

The Dominion Lands Act, 1872 

The federal government passed the Dominion Lands Act to describe how all of the lands purchased from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) were to be used. This had a particular significance in Canada's West, where most of the settlement on these former HBC lands was to take place.

The act divided up parcels of land into townships, and further partitioned each township into 36 sections, which were numbered. The following rules applied to the sections:

* Sections 11 and 29 had to be set aside for schools. 
* Another one-and-three-quarter sections had to remain with the HBC.
* Remaining odd numbered sections were for sale or for railway usage, particularly after 1881.
* Remaining even-numbered sections were to be used for homestead grants.

The government set land prices as low as $1 an acre. However, some settlers could qualify for a "free" quarter-section homestead grant (160 acres or 65 hectares) upon payment of a $10 registration fee. They also had to be 21 years of age or older and be the sole head of a family. The latter limitation profoundly affected women, and often prevented them from acquiring land.

The deed to the land would freely pass from the government to this settler if he followed certain conditions, like:

* turning a certain percentage of land into farmland within three years;
* living on the land for at least six months of each of the first three years.

If the settler didn't follow such conditions, the federal government could take back the land. Changes would be made to these conditions as needed in revisions to this act. 

From 1874 on, settlers were also encouraged to buy adjacent lands for as little as $1 an acre from the government. This would allow settlers to expand their farms before others bought up the adjoining land. 

However, this practice led to land speculation. Some farmers mortgaged their homes and farms in order to acquire this extra land, hoping this land's value would go up. If it did, these farmers could later sell their land at a huge profit. 

More often than not, though, the land value didn't increase dramatically, and many settlers lost their homesteads as they failed to make mortgage payments. The federal government eventually discontinued this practice.

This act also set aside land for Indian reservations and land for the Métis under the scrip system.

Dominion Lands Act, 1872 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_08050_5/0181) 
Acte concernant les terres publiques de la Puissance, 1872 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01839_5/0183)

Dominion Lands Act (revisions), 1879
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03749/0003) 

Dominion Lands Act (revisions), 1883
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_03762/0003) 

Dominion Lands Act legislation affecting Manitoba and the North West Territories, 1889 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_04224/0857) 
North West Mounted Police, 1873 
The North West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a parliamentary police force created in 1873. It was meant to:

* keep law and order among incoming settlers to the region west of Ontario;
* help Aboriginals make the transition to Indian reserves;
* act as a symbol of Canadian sovereignty against American annexation.

The police force was partially created in response to Fenian invaders who nearly made it to Manitoba in 1871. The NWMP had a particularly important role in helping to quash the North West Rebellion of 1885.

The North West Mounted Police Act, 1873 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_08051_1/0134) 
Acte concernant l'administration de la justice et l'établissement d'un corps de police dans le Territories du Nord-Ouest (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_01840_1/0143) 

An act to further amend the North West Mounted Police Act, 1875 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02041/0050) 

An act to amend the North West Mounted Police Pension Act, 1900 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02129/0003) 

New Immigrants 

Immigration to Canada during the period from Confederation up to 1896 was actually fairly poor in number. There were a number of reasons for this:

* unorganized and misleading advertising campaigns;
* limits placed on emigration promotion by foreign countries like France and Germany;
* competition for immigrants with the United States and other countries;
* an economic depression in Canada that lasted throughout the 1870s and 1880s. 

Did you know ... ?
American booking agents frequently placed European immigrants on ships based for Canada, but sent them on a roundabout route through ports in the United States to promote America as a better choice for settlement. 

The government would have preferred to receive more immigrants from places like Britain, France, Germany and the United States. However, the Canadian government was fairly successful in bringing in religious groups who tended to settle in agricultural communities. These included:

* Mennonites from Russia
* Jewish people from Russia
* Mormons from the United States

Other immigrants to Canada during this time also included groups from:

* Hungary
* Iceland and other Scandinavian countries like Norway, Finland and Sweden
* Russia and Prussia
* Poland

At the same time, the Canadian government also made moves to exclude Asian immigrants from entering the country, by placing restrictive head taxes on them in 1885. It was felt such immigrants wouldn't adapt well and would take away jobs from white Canadians.

Many immigrants during this period were transient in nature, and tended to stay only for short periods. Some came to Canada to find temporary work, while others left Canada for better opportunities in the United States. 

Female Domestic Servants 

During the 1870s, there suddenly became a high demand for female domestic servants that lasted well into the early 20th century. The reason for this was that women already in Canada preferred higher-paying factory work to the poor pay, long hours and low status that being a servant brought.

To fill the demand for domestic servants, private Canadian recruitment agencies were started to work with the federal government and British groups to bring women to Canada. 

Interestingly enough, steps had to be taken in the Immigration Act to prevent women from being sexually assaulted on their passage to Canada. "Seduction" and sexual intercourse between the captain or crew of a passenger ship and women were outlawed in the Immigration Act so long as the vessel was in Canadian waters and the female passenger remained aboard ship. 

Women also required matrons to be with them at all times during their transportation to ensure their safety. Government officials often met immigrating domestic servants and ensured that they were being placed into respectable employment. 

In 1887, the federal government even established a Superintendent of Female Immigration to oversee the settlement of single women in Canada. New organizations like the Women's National Immigration Society set up offices in Québec and Montréal to help these women.

House of Commons debate on female immigration, 1892 (See "on section 184") (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/90881/0942)

Did you know ... ?
In 1882, the Toronto Globe newspaper reported that single women emigrating from Britain to Montréal were being lured into prostitution rings. This prompted a special investigation by the Canadian government, which heard testimony from high-profile sources like the general manager of the Grand Trunk Railway. Ultimately, the investigation concluded that this story was false. 

Reception and Protection of Female Immigrants in Canada (Department of Agriculture, 1879) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/06583/0036) 

Domestic Servants (In "Women of Canada," published in 1900 by the National Council of Women in Canada) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/11965/0132)

Domestic Service (From "Woman, her character, her culture, her calling," 1890) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/06583/0036)

Domestic Servants (From "The Conditions of Female Labour in Ontario,"1892, (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/13259/0020)

Domestic Service and other callings for females (From an 1899 circular promoting western Canada.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/94077/0032) 

Catherine Parr Traill's The Female Emigrant's Guide (1854) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/41417)

Home Children, 1870 - 1939 

Around 1870, private agencies began sponsoring British children, usually aged six to 15, to work and live in Canada. These children were known as the home children. The largest supplier of these children was Dr. Barnardo's Homes.

Orphaned child paupers were sent to work as farm workers or domestic servants in Canada or Australia. They were shipped from Britain to receiving homes in Atlantic Canada and Ontario, until a sponsor was ready to take them. The children were then sent by train to live with farm families, usually on the Prairies. 

This served at least three purposes: 

* It rid the British government of the responsibility of paying for the care of thousands of pauper children.
* It took delinquent children thought to be a threat to public safety off the streets of London. 
* The relocation would provide spiritual guidance and a good upbringing to these children in a comparatively cleaner environment.

Unfortunately, the home children system had a number of problems:

* Children were treated like indentured servants in Canada and worked long hours.
* They were often physically and emotionally abused. (Particularly boys.)
* There were reports of non-orphaned children being kidnapped right off the streets of impoverished regions in British cities by overzealous boarding agents. 
* Some of these children came to Canada with serious "hidden" diseases like syphilis (a sexually transmitted disease).
* Some of these children had behaviourial problems that put a strain on the Canadian social welfare and justice systems.

By 1897, Ontario would pass laws to ensure that boarding houses and agents were properly licensed, and that regular inspections of these children took place. This was meant to stop some of the abuses these children had to endure. Similar laws would be passed in Manitoba, Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 

Unfortunately, some historians believe that nobody was ever hired by these provincial legislatures to enforce these laws. Ontario even struck this legislation from its books by the late 1920s, which perhaps shows that this provincial government didn't take its own law very seriously.  

The home children movement didn't end until the Great Depression of the 1930s, when up to a third of the country's adult workforce was looking for work and farms on the Prairies started to fail. However, federal immigration law was slightly changed in 1925 so that immigrant children had to be at least 14 years old for the purposes of employment unless accompanied by a parent.

Did you know ... ?
Between 1870 and 1897, roughly 40,000 British children immigrated to Canada for work or employment purposes. The sheer number of children coming to Canada probably inspired Prince Edward Island author Lucy Maude Montgomery to make the plight of orphaned children a plot element in her 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables, which remains the all-time best-selling work of fiction in Canadian history. 

Further acts affecting the emigration of children (under British Law.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/91235/0033) 

Reports of Canadian immigration officers on pauper children immigration (Contains statistics.) (From "Emigration Statutes and General Handbook," Britain, 1892) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/91235/0017)

British children in Canadian homes (A small book about British children placed in Canadian orphan asylums and foster homes circa 1879.) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/05813)

Other Important or Interesting Documents

Acts of Parliament relating to criminal law, 1877 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02041)

Statutes relating to immigration, 1893 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02345)

Colonization circular, 1872
(URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/15108/0074)


The Last Best West (1896 - 1914)

Eighteen ninety-six marked a dramatic shift in Canadian immigration policy. The new minister of immigration, Sir Clifford Sifton, decided to spare no expense in opening up the Prairies for settlement. He increased advertising abroad and introduced a series of reforms to the Immigration Department in order to make Canada look more attractive and affordable. Thanks to these measures and an economy that was generally booming, more than three million people came to Canada between 1896 and 1914. 

However, immigration would gradually become more selective and focused on either the types of skills immigrants brought to Canada or their ethnic backgrounds. French people in Québec would start to worry that these new arrivals to the country would marginalize their language and culture.  

"The Last Best West" 

In 1896, Sir Clifford Sifton became Canada'a new minister responsible for immigration in Sir Wilfred Laurier's new Liberal government. 

With the economic depression of the 1870s and 1880s starting to lift, Sifton decided it was time to increase immigration to the Prairies from Britain, other western European countries and the United States. It was felt that people from these areas were best suited to agricultural life on the Prairies. 

Sifton increased immigration by:

* embarking on an extensive promotional campaign, featuring the slogan "Canada: The Last Best West." (This was a reference to the fact that American land on the Plains was becoming less available and more expensive to settlers by this period.)
* reorganizing the immigration department to give it more power in setting immigration policy;
* increasing the number of immigration agents and support personnel aboard; 
* freeing up unused land owned by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR);
* offering "free" land to settlers. 

While Sifton advertised that settlers could claim up to 160 acres of free land in Canada, this claim wasn't entirely true. Settlers still had to pay a land registration fee of $10 - or roughly $150 in modern-day currency once inflation is factored in - under the Dominion Lands Act. This also didn't cover the cost of equipment and animals for the land, not to mention the cost of building shelter. Many settlers during their first year would build sod houses, as they simply couldn't afford to build their own homes out of lumber. 

Since many European countries still had limits on the amount of foreign immigration advertising that could be allowed, Sifton also allowed bonuses to be given to booking companies and agents who sent agricultural settlers to Canada. This policy would be discontinued in 1905 due to Canadian opposition party protest. 

In 1896, about $120,000 was spent to support and promote immigration that year. By 1905, close to $1 million was being spent annually on immigration.

Did You Know ... ?
An innovation that helped increase the number of people settling in the Canadian West was the invention of a hardier strain of wheat called Marquis Wheat in 1903. This wheat was able to extend the growing season on Canada's Prairies, and made farming there a more prosperous occupation. This wheat was commercialized and sold starting in 1911.

Sifton's new immigration policy eventually eliminated any threat of American annexation in Canada's West. However, it would further marginalized French-speaking people in Québec, some of whom felt this policy was excluding them from settling on the Prairies.

Henri Bourassa, a Québec Member of Parliament, was particularly upset about this immigration policy and would speak out against it occasionally in the House of Commons.

Despite general attempts to get people to settle in rural areas in Canada's West, about 50 per cent of people actually settled in Canadian cities (including Winnipeg, Edmonton, Montréal and Toronto) where they took labour industry jobs. Another 30 per cent went to rural farms in the Prairies and the remaining 20 per cent or so took remote jobs in mines, lumber camps or on the railways.

Did You Know ... ?
Between 1910 and 1914, about a million Americans arrived in Canada. Many of them came as available frontier land for settlement became overtly expensive in the United States. It was so expensive because little unused settlement land was left.

Religious Settlement 

During Clifford Sifton's tenure as Immigration Minister between 1896 and 1905, many religious groups that practiced agriculture were attracted to Canada. These included:

* Mennonites from Europe
* Doukhobors from Russia
* Mormons from the United States

The federal government approved of the entry of these groups because they were adept at farming. However, there were sometimes clashes between these groups, the government and other settlers.

In 1902, a group of Doukhobors marched across the Prairies believing they would meet Christ during His Second Coming. When this group encountered the North West Mounted Police, male Doukhobors stripped naked and staged a sit-down protest. Such clashes with the government were a primary factor behind a mass exodus of Doukhobor people to the United States starting around 1908.

The Klondike Gold Rush, 1897 - 1903 

In August 1896, prospectors found gold deposits in the Yukon River. When news of this filtered back into the United States the following summer, thousands of would-be prospectors headed for the Klondike hoping to strike it rich. 

At the peak of the gold rush, at least 100,000 settlers arrived in the region, particularly from the United States. These settlers gave birth to new towns like Dawson, which swiftly became the biggest urban centers west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle, Washington. 

These settlers brought new innovations, like electricity and telephone service, to Canada's North. However, these settlers brought a particularly rowdy edge to the region, too. Saloons, dance halls and gambling dens opened to provide entertainment to prospectors. 

The North West Mounted Police would establish a presence in the region to maintain order, as would the Yukon Field Unit - a military force meant to maintain Canadian sovereignty among American settlers. The region also became the site of a contentious diplomatic dispute between Canada and the United States, known as the Alaska Boundary Dispute. 

So many settlers were arriving in the Yukon en masse that, in 1899, the federal government negotiated a treaty with northern Aboriginals. It was meant to take land from these Aboriginals for the purposes of anticipated white settlement and industrial usage. This treaty is known as Numbered Treaty Eight. 

The vast amount of white settlers in the region spelled trouble for Han Aboriginals. Because these Natives had had particularly limited contact with the white man prior to the late 1800s, these prospectors introduced diseases like smallpox into the region. These diseases moved so swiftly through the Han community, which had no natural immunities to these illnesses, that this tribe quickly became driven to the brink of extinction.

American settlement to the region slowed in 1898 with news of labor unrest through a workers' strike in Alaska, which painted a picture of the Klondike region in the mainland U.S. as one that was in turmoil. This is not to speak of the fact that 1898 marked the start of the Spanish-American War, which required young men from the U.S. for battle duty. By the early 1900s, the Klondike gold rush had waned and many prospectors returned to the United States. 

Numbered Treaty Eight (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02042/0347) 

The Birth of Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1905 

Between 1897 and 1911, two million people came to Canada. By 1905, enough people were living in the Northwest Territories that the federal government decided to create two new provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan. These provinces were given authority over dominational schools, which caused the resignation of Sir Clifford Sifton as Minister of Immigration.

The Alberta Act, 1905 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?display=9_03428+0712) 

The Saskatchewan Act, 1905 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?display=9_03428+0716) 

Racial Exclusion 

While Canada was becoming a more multi-cultural society due to the new groups of settlers flooding the country, there was still some racism towards certain groups who were considered to be unable to adapt to Canada's harsh climate. The Immigration Department would, as time went on, become more cautious as to which ethnic groups would be allowed into Canada. This is particularly true after 1905, when Frank Oliver succeeded Sir Clifford Sifton as Immigration Minister.

Oliver favoured immigrants to Canada's West from certain regions believed to have the settlers best suited to life on the Prairies. He tended to support the immigration of those who came from the following regions in this exact order of preference:

* nearby Canadian provinces
* Britain
* the United States
* northwestern Europe 

Did You Know ... ?
The English port of Liverpool was a major departure point for British emigrants. A third-class ticket from Liverpool to Québec City cost $24 in 1900. Demand became so great that the ticket price would increase to $37.50 by 1906. The trip usually took seven days, if the weather was good. 

Oliver was particularly against those who came from Slavic or "Galician" regions like the Ukraine in Eastern Europe. He felt these people were not as intelligent, would be harder to assimilate into Canadian culture and were not as ideally suited to agriculture as other groups. (However, historians now feel that these immigrants were probably moderately wealthy, free of debt, successful at farming, and often carried a significant amount of cash upon entering Canada.) 

The Canadian government did not take steps to stem the tide of these immigrants. The government tolerated these settlers since they also tended to go into poor-paying, menial jobs in labour industries like lumbering. This group of people was additionally more favourably looked upon in Canadian society than other ethnic or racial groups.

Other racial or ethnic groups weren't as lucky as the Galicians: 

* African-American blacks were, unofficially, no longer encouraged to immigrate to Canada in large numbers during the early 1900s. This policy was never officially put into the Immigration Act likely for two reasons: 1) to avoid diplomatic problems with the U.S. government, and 2) to also avoid angering pockets of black voters in Nova Scotia and Ontario. However, immigration agents made it clear to black people south of the border that Canada would no longer support them. Only seven black people came to Canada from the United States between 1909 and 1910. That said, though, about 200 black immigrants from the Caribbean arrived in Canada between 1912 and 1915. Most of these blacks were hired by Nova Scotia mining firms to work in Cape Breton.

* Sikhs were thought to not be well suited to living in Canada by the government. This was because Sikhs tended to take poorly paying menial jobs and lived in impoverished, disease-ridden Vancouver slums. Thus, the government placed a landing fee of $50 on all Sikh immigrants in 1905; the fee was increased to $200 in 1908. The federal government also placed another strict entry requirement on this group. Because Sikhs were considered members of the colonial British Empire, Canada couldn't easily ban these immigrants based on where they lived without banning white British immigration, too. Thus, the federal government made a law in which Sikh immigrants could only come to Canada from their country of ancestry, and only if they migrated by taking a non-stop "continuous journey" by ship. This rule forced Sikhs to buy tickets for their voyage to Canada in India. There was a slight problem, however: no passenger ships ran between India and Canada at the time. Understandably, the number of Sikhs entering Canada went from more than 2,500 people in 1908 to just six in 1909.

* By 1903, the Chinese head tax was increased to $500 per person to eliminate Chinese immigration. This fee was roughly equivalent to two years worth of wages for a Chinese labourer living in Canada at the time. However, some employers in the railway industry needed cheap labour, and were willing to pay this fee for adult men. That meant that Chinese immigration wasn't eliminated altogether, but that Chinese women and children didn't get the opportunity to join their husbands and fathers. This created a Chinese bachelor society in Canada.

* Starting in 1907, Canada entered into an unofficial "gentleman's agreement" with the United States to start limiting the number of Japanese people coming to the country. A similar agreement was also established with Japan that year, which wanted to stem emigration to other countries. A quota was placed on the immigration of the Japanese, and after 1907 no more than 450 people from Japan would enter the country each year. In practice, however, the number of Japanese immigrants allowed into Canada would be much less than this agreed-to quota number.

Chinese Immigration Act, 1901 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_03479) 

An Act Respecting Chinese and Japanese Labour in Mines, 1901 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/9_02264/0003) 

Further Immigration Restrictions 

Measures were introduced in the 1906 Immigration Act to prevent other groups of people the government feared would place a strain on the federal government. On top of pre-existing rules meant to keep the insane or criminally minded out of Canada, this act was expanded to include former inmates of mental hospitals or jails, or anyone who had been charged but not convicted of serious crimes.

Immigration laws were also strengthened in 1906 and 1910 to allow the government to deport unwanted immigrants, like those suffering from severe illness. A probation period of three years was additionally set in place for every immigrant coming to Canada in 1910. If immigrants committed crimes in Canada within that three-year period, they risked being sent back to their home countries.

Around the same time, Canada experienced a mild economic recession. A measure was introduced in which all immigrants to Canada would have to possess at least $25 upon landing as a way of proving to government officials that they weren't destitute. 

Did You Know ... ?
Between 1902 and 1913, the Canadian government deported almost 870 people on the grounds that they were insane. Another 6,900 were ordered out of the country for criminality and some 2,850 were forced to leave for fear that they were about to become criminals. Since detailed crime statistics weren't kept, historians think this could be anything from a would-be pickpocket to someone who was a political protester.

Immigration Act, 1906 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_07188) 
Acte concernant l'immigration et les immigrants, 1906 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_07189)

Immigration Act, 1910 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_07184) 
Acte concernant l'immigration et les immigrants, 1910 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_07187) 

Anti-Asian Vancouver Riot, 1907 

In September 1907, there was a serious riot against Asian businesses in downtown Vancouver that was started by members of the racist Asiatic Exclusion League. 

A mob of about 9,000 white people riled up by the Asiatic Exclusion League descended upon Oriental businesses in downtown Vancouver, smashing windows and destroying signs. Later that year, a federal government inquiry was held to look at providing compensation to the Oriental community. 


Sources 

The treaties, acts and other documents that make up pioneer and immigration history in Canada stretch back hundreds of years. They have been researched from:

Online Texts

* The Early Canadiana Online collection. (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq)

* Canada (1887). Acts of the legislatures of the provinces now comprised in the Dominion, and of Canada. Ottawa: Brown Chamberlin. (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01824)

* Canada (1887). Actes des législatures des provinces formant aujourd'hui partie de la puissance et actes du Canada. Ottawa: Brown Chamberlin. (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_01931)

* Canada (1877). Acts of Parliament relating to criminal law. Ottawa: Brown Chamberlin. (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02041)

* Canada (1893). Statutes relating to immigration. Ottawa: Government Print Bureau. URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02345 (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/9_02345)

Books

* Bruce, Jean. (1976). The Last Best West. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside.

* Kelly, Ninette and Michael Trebilcock. (1998). The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 

* Keywan, Zonia. (1977). Greater Than Kings: Ukrainian Pioneer Settlement In Canada. Montreal: Harvest House.

* Martin, Chester. (1973). Dominion Lands Policy. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited.

* Palmer, Howard. (Ed.) (1975). Immigration and the Rise of Multiculturalism. Toronto: Copp Clark Publishing. 

Maps

* Berton, Pierre. (1971). The Last Spike. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

* The Canadian Encyclopedia online. (URL: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?Params=A1)

* Harris, R. Cole. (Ed.) (1987). Historical Atlas of Canada: From the Beginning To 1800. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 

Web Sites

* Across the Generations: A History of the Chinese in Canada online. (Industry Canada Digital Collections). (URL: http://collections.ic.gc.ca/generations)

* Alberta Métis Historical Society (Collections Canada) (URL: http://collections.ic.gc.ca/albertametis)

* Black Loyalists: Our History, Our People online (Industry Canada Digital Collections). (URL: http://collections.ic.gc.ca/blackloyalists/wireframe.htm)

* The Canadian Encyclopedia online. (URL: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?Params=A1)

* Library and Archives Canada (Collections Canada) (URL: http://www.collectionscanada.ca/index-e.html)

* The Dictionary of Canadian Biography online. (URL: http://www.biographi.ca/EN/)

* Exploration, the Fur Trade and Hudson's Bay Company (Canadiana.org) (URL: http://www.canadiana.org/hbc)

* Immigrant Voices (Industry Canada Digital Collections). (URL: http://www.canadianhistory.ca/iv/)

* Pathfinders and Passageways (Collections Canada) (URL: http://www.collectionscanada.ca/explorers/index-e.html)

* The Virtual Museum of Canada online. (URL: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca)