HISTORY25 - Canada: Part 1

       First Peoples to the Dominion of Canada

This Part 1 article is about the history of Canada, starting from indigenous peoples, then covering first contact and exploration by Europeans, French rule, and British rule through the creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867.  Part 2 of Canadian history, covering the period from the creation of the Dominion of Canada to the present, will be posted in a future blog.

French explorer Samuel de Champlain and his map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The article is a follow-on to my recent blogs on the history of Spain and Mexico in North America, and the territorial evolution of the United States.

Natural Landscape

Canada is the second largest country (counting its waters) in the world after Russia, with a total area of 3,855,100 square miles (about 25% larger than the contiguous United States) and has the world’s largest proportion (8.92%) of fresh water lakes.  Canada’s Arctic islands, Baffin Island, Victoria Island, and Ellesmere Island are among the ten largest in the world. 

Canada has three principle mountainous regions, including the Coastal Mountains, along the west coast, and the Rocky Mountains, a few hundred miles inland - both running north-south; and a chain of mountain ranges extending northwest-southeast across the northern islands. These mountains are geologically active, particularly in southwestern Canada.  The highest mountain in Canada is Mount Logan at 19,551 feet, in northwestern Canada.  The mountains also contain freshwater glaciers. 

The Canadian Shield is a large area of exposed ancient rocks, covered with a thin layer of soil with lots of forests, that stretches from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean in eastern and central Canada. The Canadian Shield is one of the world's richest areas in terms of mineral ores. It is filled with substantial deposits of nickle, gold, silver, and copper.

Forty two percent of the land area of Canada is covered by forests, mostly spruce, poplar, and pine.

Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada range from Arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in southern regions, with four distinct seasons.  Ice is prominent in the northerly Arctic regions and through the Rocky Mountains, and the relatively flat Canadian prairies in the southwest facilitate productive agriculture.  The Great Lakes feed the St. Lawrence River (in the southeast) where the lowlands host much of Canada’s population.

The natural landscape of Canada.

Indigenous Peoples

North America’s first humans probably migrated from Asia, over a now-submerged land bridge from Siberia to Alaska from about 45,000 to 12,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age. Unknown numbers of people moved southward along the western edge of the North American ice cap and then eastward at the southern limit of the ice cap. The presence of the ice, which for a time virtually covered Canada, makes it reasonable to assume that the southern reaches of North America were settled before Canada, and that the Inuit (Eskimo) who live in Canada’s Arctic regions today were the last of the aboriginal peoples to reach Canada.   

By about 11,000 years ago some of the earliest peoples began to move northward into Canada as the southern edge of the continental glaciers retreated.

Over thousands of years, as the climate warmed, early North Americans evolved from hunting large game animals, that eventually died off, to supplementing their diets with smaller game, fish, and a variety of edible wild plants (hunter gatherers), to growing their own crops.  The transition from a hunter-gatherer way of life to one centered on farming, led to permanent small settlements.  They established villages and eventually farming and fishing communities.

Although there are no written records detailing the history of Canada’s indigenous civilizations just before contact with Europeans, archaeological evidence and oral traditions give a reasonably complete picture. There were 12 major language groups among the peoples living in what is now Canada: Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Athabascan, Kootenaian, Salishan, Wakashan, Tsimshian, Haidan, Tlingit, Inuktitut, and Beothukan. Within each language group there were usually political and cultural divisions.

Among the Iroquoian people, for example, there were two major subgroups, the Iroquois and the Huron. These subgroups were further divided. At the time of contact with Europeans, the Iroquois had organized themselves into the Iroquois Confederacy, consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples.  A sixth group, the Tuscarora, joined later.

Considerable variation in cultures, means of subsistence, tribal laws and customs, and philosophies of trade and intertribal relations existed.  In southeastern Canada, the Eastern Woodland Indians, such as the Huron, Iroquois, Petun, Neutral, Ottawa, and Algonquin, created a mixed subsistence economy of hunting and agriculture supplemented by trade. Semi-permanent villages were built, trails were cleared between villages, fields were cultivated, and game was hunted. There was a high level of political organization among some of these peoples; both the Huron and the Iroquois formed political and religious confederacies and created extensive trade systems and political alliances with other groups.

On the Great Plains, the Cree depended on the vast herds of bison to supply food and many of their other needs.

To the northwest were Athabaskan and Tlingit peoples, who lived on the islands of southern Alaska and northern British Columbia.

To the west, the interior of today's British Columbia was home to the Salishan and southern Athabaskan language groups. The inlets and valleys of the British Columbia coast sheltered large, distinctive native populations, sustained by the region's abundant salmon and shellfish.  These peoples developed complex cultures dependent on the western red cedar that included wooden houses, seagoing whaling and war canoes and elaborately carved totem poles.

Peoples living in the far north do not appear to have formed larger political communities, while those of the west coast and the Eastern Woodlands formed sophisticated political, social, and cultural institutions.

Climate and geography undoubtedly were major factors affecting the nature of the societies that evolved in the various regions of Canada. The one characteristic virtually all the groups in Canada shared, before contact with Europeans, was that they were self-governing and politically independent.

 

The location of indigenous peoples during the early years of European contact.

European Contact and Exploration

Exploration of Canada by Europeans began with the Vikings in the late 10th century on the country’s East Coast.  Following John Cabot’s arrival on the East Coast in 1497, over the course of the next three and a half centuries British and French explorers gradually moved further west. Commercial, resource-based interests often drove exploration; for example, a westward route to Asia and later, the fur trade. By the mid-19th century most of the main geographical features of Canada had been mapped by European explorers. 

A short discussion of selected major explorations of Canada follows; the map below summarizes the explorers and their routes during this period.

Selected early explorations of Canada.

Vikings (circa 1000).  Vikings, who had settled Iceland and Greenland, reached the east coast of Canada around the year 1000 and established as many as three small settlements on the northern tip of Newfoundland.  The settlements were soon abandoned for unknown reasons.

John Cabot (1497).  Cabot arrived on the east coast of Canada in 1497 under a commission from the English king to search for a short route to Asia (what became known as the Northwest Passage). In that voyage and in a voyage the following year, during which Cabot died, he and his sons explored the coasts of Labrador, Newfoundland, and possibly Nova Scotia and discovered the waters of the Grand Banks (underwater plateaus) southeast of Newfoundland that were teeming with fish.  Soon Portuguese, Spanish, and French fishing crews braved the Atlantic crossing to fish in the waters of the Grand Banks.

Jacques Cartier (1535).  Frenchman Jacques Cartier was the first European to navigate the great entrance to Canada, the Saint Lawrence River. In 1535, Cartier explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence and claimed its shores for the French crown.  In the following year, Cartier ascended the river itself and visited the sites of modern Quebec City and Montreal.  In 1541, the French king, anxious to challenge the claims of Spain in the New World, decided to set up a fortified settlement just north of Quebec City, but it failed.

Henry Hudson (1610-11).  In 1609, English sea explorer Henry Hudson, looking for a northwest passage to Asia, landed at the site of modern New York city and sailed up the Hudson River.  In 1610-11, on a second expedition, still looking for a northwest passage, Hudson became the first European to see Canada’s Hudson Strait and the immense Hudson Bay.  After wintering on the shore of James Bay, Hudson wanted to press on to the west, but most of the crew mutinied, casting Hudson, his son, and seven others adrift, never to be seen again.  Several follow-on English explorations to Hudson Bay allowed the Hudson’s Bay Company (fur trading business) to exploit a lucrative fur trade along its shores for more than two centuries.

Samuel de Champlain (1613-15).  After helping to found and settle the French colony of Acadia in today’s eastern Canada’s mainland and the Maritime provinces (1604-5), in 1608, French navigator Samuel de Champlain founded what is now Quebec City, one of the earliest permanent settlements, which would become the capital of New France, French colonies in North America. He took personal administration over the city and its affairs, and sent out expeditions to explore the interior.  From 1613-15, he explored the upper Saint Lawrence basin, traveling westward by canoe on rivers to the eastern Great Lakes and then eastward to the future northeastern United States, securing the mid-continent for the French fur trade.  During these voyages, Champlain aided the indigenous Hurons in their battles against the Iroquois Confederacy.  As a result, the Iroquois would become enemies of the French and be involved in multiple conflicts.

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (1731-41).  La Vérendrye was a French military officer, fur trader and explorer.  In the 1730s, he and his four sons explored the area west of Lake Superior and established trading posts there. They were part of a process that added Western Canada to the original New France territory that was centered along the Saint Lawrence basin.  He was the first known European to reach present-day North Dakota and the upper Missouri River in the United States. In the 1740s, two of his sons crossed the prairie as far as present-day Wyoming, and were the first Europeans to see the Rocky Mountains north of New Mexico

James Cook (1778).  British explorer James Cook, a Captain in the British Navy, after making detailed maps of Newfoundland, being the first to reach the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first to  circumnavigate New Zealand, in 1778, explored the west coast of North America, north of the Spanish settlements in California, including from today’s Oregon, along Canada’s west coast, all the way to and through the Bering Strait until he was stopped by ice. In a single visit, Cook charted the majority of the North American northwest coastline on world maps for the first time, determined the extent of Alaska, and closed the gaps in Russian (from the west) and Spanish (from the south) exploratory probes of the northern limits of the Pacific.

David Thompson (1785-1811).  David Thompson was a British fur trader, surveyor, and cartographer who spent his life exploring and mapping southcentral and southwestern Canada, including mapping the Columbia River from its source to its mouth.  Over Thompson’s career, mostly working for the North West Company (a fur trading business competitive with the Hudson Bay Company), he mapped 1.9 million square miles; he has been described as the “greatest practical land geographer that the world has produced.”

Alexander Mackenzie (1793).  Mackenzie was a Scottish-born English explorer, who, on behalf of the Northwest Company, after exploring north from Lake Athabasca in central Canada to the Arctic Ocean 1789, in 1793, completed (in more than one trip) the first east-to-west crossing of North America north of Mexico (preceding the more famous Lewis and Clark American expedition by 12 years), reaching the Pacific coast at today’s Bella Coola in British Columbia.

Simon Fraser (1808).  Simon Fraser was an English fur trader and explorer of Scottish ancestry, who charted much of what is now the Canadian Province of British Columbia.  Alexander Mackenzie’s explorations had been primarily reconnaissance trips; Fraser’s assignment from the North West Company was to build trading posts and take possession of the country, as well as to explore travel routes - a mission he pursued from 1805-08.  Fraser established the first permanent European settlements in the area and his exploratory efforts were partly responsible for Canada’s boundary later being established at the 49^th parallel.

John Franklin (1845-47).  Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who investigated possible sea routes to the North Pole (1818), surveyed the Pacific coast of Canada (1825-27), and made two missions to chart Canada’s Arctic coastal mainland.  In 1845, Franklin set out from England with two ships, carrying 128 men, to search the Arctic Ocean for the northwest passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Franklin’s vessels were last sighted by British whalers north of Baffin Island at the entrance to Lancaster Sound.  It was later learned that the icebound ships were abandoned and the entire crew had died while trying to travel overland.

For centuries, European explorers sought a navigable passage as a possible trade route to Asia. An ice-bound northern route was discovered in 1850 by the Irish explorer Robert McClure; it was through a more southerly opening in an area explored by the Scotsman John Rae in 1854 that Norwegian Roald Amundsen made the first complete passage in 1903-06. Until 2009, Arctic pack ice prevented regular marine shipping throughout most of the year. Recent Arctic sea ice decline has rendered the waterways more navigable.

A northwest passage, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was finally discovered in 1850.

The Settlement of New France

The French called their North American territory New France, first claimed in the name of the King of France in 1535, during the second voyage of Jacques Cartier.  “Canada” was France’s first colony, located along the Saint Lawrence River, within the larger territory of New France.

The name “Canada” originates from a Saint-Lawrence Iroquoian word Kanata (or canada) for “settlement,” “village,” or “land.”

Acadia, part of today’s Nova Scotia, was France’s second colony in North America, established in 1604.

By the early 1700s, New France settlers were well established along the shores of the Saint Lawrence River and the colony of Acadia, with a population around 16,000.  French explorer, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, had explored the Mississippi River by canoe in 1682-3, giving France a claim to the Mississippi River Valley, where fur trappers and a few settlers set up scattered forts and settlements.

But other territory was contested.  The English had claimed St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1583 as the first North American English colony.  They established other settlements in Newfoundland, and soon after (1607) established the first successful permanent settlement in the future United States at Jamestown, Virginia, to the south.

From 1670 on, through the Hudson's Bay Company, the English also laid claim to Hudson Bay and its drainage basin, known as Rupert's Land, establishing new trading posts and forts, while continuing to operate fishing settlements in Newfoundland.  

Map of North America in 1702, showing forts, towns, and areas occupied by Europeans  Ownership of "striped" regions was disputed.

The conflict between French, Spanish, and English colonists for control of the American continent resulted in the Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713) that was fought in Spanish Florida, New England, Newfoundland, and Acadia.  The Treaty of Utrecht ended the war in 1713, where France ceded the territories of Hudson Bay (Rupert’s Land), Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland to Britain, while retaining Cape Breton Island and other islands in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

New France enjoyed steady territorial growth during the early 18th century:  in Canada, to the north and east from the Saint Lawrence River; to the south, from Rupert’s Land, and northwest of the Great Lakes; in America, far to the south in the Midwest, along the Ohio River to the east, pushing up against the British American colonies; and along both sides of the Mississippi River.  However, new arrivals stopped coming from France after Queen Anne’s War, resulting in English and Scottish settlers in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the southern (American) Thirteen Colonies vastly outnumbering the French population approximately ten to one by the 1750s.  

The greatest extent of New France occurred in the 1750s.

The French and Indian War (1754-1763) brought New France to an end. The war pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France, each side supported by military units from the parent country and by Indian allies.  At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British colonies.  

The French and Indian War was part of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), a global conflict that included colonial rivalries between Britain and France, as well as territorial disputes between Prussia and Austria.  The conflict was pursued around the globe, with fighting in India, North America, Europe, and elsewhere, as well as on the high seas.

In North America, the war began with a dispute over control of the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  From there, battles would be fought in New England, Novia Scotia, and along the Saint Lawrence River.  Most of the fighting ended in North America in 1760, with a British victory over New France, although the war in Europe between France and Britain continued until 1763. 

In the Treaty of Paris (1763), that officially ended the war:  France ceded all its remaining territory in North America to Britain, except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the two small islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, where its fishermen could dry their fish.  France had already secretly transferred its vast Louisiana territory to Spain under the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762).  Britain returned to France its most important sugar-producing colony, Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean, which the French considered more valuable than Canada.  Also, in 1763, the British created the colony of Quebec.

Map of North America in 1783, showing British territorial gains following the French and Indian War.  Note also the presence of Russia in Alaska beginning in 1733.

Canada Under British Rule

King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America.  The proclamation organized Great Britain's new North American empire and tried to stabilize relations between the British Crown and native peoples through regulation of trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier.

During the American Revolution (1775-1783), there was some sympathy for the American cause among the Acadians and the New Englanders in Nova Scotia.  Neither party joined the rebels, although several hundred individuals joined the revolutionary cause.  An invasion of Quebec by the Continental Army in 1775, with a goal to take Quebec from British control, was halted at the Battle of Quebec.  The defeat of the British army during the Siege of Yorktown (with Americans getting considerable help from the French) in October 1781 signaled the end of Britain's struggle to suppress the American Revolution.

North America after the American Revolution.  Britain lost a sot of territory, but remained a power in North America.

When the British evacuated New York City in 1783, they took many Loyalist refugees to Nova Scotia, while other Loyalists went to southwestern Quebec. So many Loyalists arrived on the shores of the St. John River that a separate colony - New Brunswick - was created in 1784.

After 1790 most of the new settlers were American farmers searching for new lands.

In the Constitutional Act of 1791, the Province of Quebec was divided in two. The largely unpopulated English-speaking Loyalist western half became Upper Canada, and the largely French-speaking eastern half became Lower Canada. The names “Upper” and “Lower” Canada were given according to their location along the St. Lawrence River.  Upper Canada’s people were mostly members of the Anglican Church of England and received English law and institutions, while Lower Canada retained French civil law and institutions, including feudal land tenure and the privileges accorded to the Roman Catholic Church.

The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and the British, prompted by restrictions on U.S. trade from British blockades and by British and Canadian support for North American Indians trying to resist westward expansion.  Greatly outgunned by the British Royal Navy, the Americans focused on invasions of Canada, especially north of the Great Lakes in Upper Canada. The American frontier states supported the war to suppress the Indian raids that frustrated settlement of the frontier.  The war on the British border with the United States was characterized by a series of multiple failed invasions and fiascos on both sides.  But the American forces did take control of Lake Erie in 1813, driving the British out of the region, and breaking the power of the Indian confederacy.  The War ended with no boundary changes.  A demographic result was the shifting of the destination of American migration from Upper Canada to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, without fear of Indian attacks.

The Treaty of 1818 between the United States and the United Kingdom resolved British southcentral boundary issues.  The two nations agreed to a 49th parallel central boundary line, because a straight-line boundary would be easier to survey than the pre-existing boundaries based on watersheds.  The British ceded all of the so-called Rupert's Land, south of the 49th parallel, east of the Continental Divide, covering the northern parts of today’s North Dakota and Minnesota.  The United States ceded the northernmost edge of the Louisiana territory, north of the 49th parallel and north of today’s state of Montana.  The treaty also allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country to the west.

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Spain’s long-standing claims to the northwestern U.S and Canadian Pacific coasts began to be challenged in the form of British and Russian fur trading and colonization.  (See European Contact and Exploration above.)  In the end, Spain withdrew from the North Pacific and gave up its claims to the region in the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, leaving the eventual settlement of the future border of British Columbia to Great Britain and the U.S. (See below.)

The rest of North America also was experiencing significant changes.  In 1801, Spain had ceded Louisiana back to France in exchange for territories in Tuscany, Italy, and in 1803, France, desperate for funds to pursue European interests, sold the territory to the U.S. for $15 million in the Louisiana Purchase - doubling the size of the U.S.  In 1810, Mexico began its fight for independence from Spain, achieving that goal in 1821, taking over all Spanish territory in North America.

North America in 1837.  British North America (in today's Canada) a has expanded to the west and north.

The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825 settled the boundary between Russian and British territorial possessions on the Pacific Coast, including the Russian Alaskan fishing-rights-related southernmost boundary at the 54-degree, 40-minutes north parallel, the present southern tip of the Alaska Panhandle, and set the current eastern boundary of Alaska along the 141^st meridian.

From about 1815 to 1850, some 800,000 immigrants came to the colonies of British North America, mainly from the British Isles.  These included Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots to Nova Scotia and Scottish and English settlers, particularly to Upper Canada. The Irish Famine of the 1840s significantly increased the pace of Irish Catholic immigration to British North America, with over 35,000 distressed Irish landing in Toronto alone in 1847 and 1848.

Dominion of Canada

In 1837-38, armed uprisings had taken place in Lower and Upper Canada.  The rebellions were motivated by frustrations with political reform.  A key shared goal was responsible government.  The Rebellions of 1837-38 led directly to the Constitution Act of 1867 which created the country of Canada and its government.

The Act created a Canadian confederation by uniting the North American British provinces.  The Act created the Dominion of Canada, and defined a major part of the constitution of the new country, similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom, including its federal structure, the House of Commons, the Senate, the justice system, and the taxation system.  The term “dominion” was chosen to indicate Canada’s status as a self-governing colony of the British Empire.  The name of the country was confirmed as “Canada” and the city of Ottawa was named the capital of the country.

The Dominion of Canada was established initially with three provinces: Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The Province of Canada was divided into Ontario and Quebec so that each linguistic group would have its own province.  Both Quebec and Ontario were required to safeguard existing educational rights and privileges of Protestant and the Catholic minority.  Thus, separate Catholic schools and school boards were permitted in Ontario.  Toronto was formally established as Ontario's provincial capital.

Meanwhile, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, had settled two border disputes between the United Kingdom and the U.S.  Along the U.S. Maine northern border, the British gained 5,000 square miles of disputed territory, but to the west along the U.S. Minnesota northern border, the British lost 6,500 square miles of land. 

Also, the Oregon Treaty of 1846, settled the Pacific Coast (British Columbia) boundary issue between Great Britain and the U.S. at the 49^th parallel north.  Vancouver Island was an exception and retained in its entirety by the British.  

British Columbia became an official North American territory of Great Britain in 1858, and the North-Western Territory was established in 1859.  The Rupert’s Land territory and Newfoundland territory had been ceded to Great Britain by France in 1713.

The Dominion of Canada in 1867, a new country with four provinces in the east, leaving three huge British territorial possessions to the west, and contiguous Newfoundland, for future Canadian expansion.