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Chapter 3: Canada's history

Aboriginal peoples and the first Europeans

The ancestors of Aboriginal (Indigenous) peoples are believed to have come from Asia many thousands of years ago. When Europeans arrived, native peoples lived in every region. Early explorers called them "Indians" because they thought they had reached the East Indies. Some groups hunted and gathered, others farmed; the Sioux followed the bison herds, and the Inuit lived off Arctic wildlife.

European diseases killed large numbers of Aboriginal people, yet for some 200 years both sides also built strong economic, religious and military ties. About 1,000 years ago, Vikings reached Labrador and Newfoundland; their settlement survives at L'Anse aux Meadows. John Cabot mapped the East Coast starting in 1497, and Jacques Cartier made three voyages between 1534 and 1542, claiming land for King Francis I of France. The name Canada comes from kanata, an Iroquoian word for "village".

New France and the struggle for a continent

In 1604 Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded the first European settlement north of Florida, at St. Croix Island and then Port-Royal in Acadia. In 1608 Champlain built a fortress where Quebec City now stands. He allied the French with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron, enemies of the Iroquois, who fought New France until peace came in 1701. The fur trade, driven by European demand for beaver pelts, was carried by voyageurs and coureurs des bois.

In 1670 King Charles II gave the Hudson's Bay Company trading rights over the lands draining into Hudson Bay. In 1759 the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City; both Wolfe and Montcalm died. Britain renamed the colony the Province of Quebec, and the Quebec Act of 1774 gave Catholics religious freedom and the right to hold public office, restored French civil law and kept British criminal law.

Loyalists, early democracy and the War of 1812

After the 13 American colonies declared independence in 1776, more than 40,000 Loyalists moved to Nova Scotia and Quebec. Joseph Brant led thousands of Loyalist Mohawks north, and about 3,000 Black Loyalists came too; in 1792 some moved on to found Freetown, Sierra Leone.

The first representative assembly was elected in Halifax in 1758. The Constitutional Act of 1791 created Upper Canada and Lower Canada and gave them elected assemblies. In 1793 Upper Canada, under John Graves Simcoe, moved toward abolishing slavery, and Britain ended slavery across the Empire in 1833. Mary Ann Shadd Cary fought slavery and was Canada's first woman publisher.

In June 1812 the United States invaded. Isaac Brock took Detroit but died at Queenston Heights; Tecumseh's Shawnee helped defend Canada; de Salaberry won at Chateauguay. After the Americans burned York, Robert Ross burned the White House in 1814. The American attempt to conquer Canada failed, and the war helped ensure that Canada did not become part of the United States.

Rebellions, responsible government and Confederation

In 1837–38 rebels near Montreal and in Toronto took up arms because reform was too slow, but they lacked public support and were defeated. Lord Durham recommended uniting the two Canadas and granting responsible government, meaning ministers need the support of a majority of elected members. Upper and Lower Canada became the Province of Canada in 1840. Nova Scotia, where Joseph Howe pushed for reform, was first to gain responsible government in 1847–48. Lord Elgin introduced it in the Province of Canada in 1848–49, and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine led the first responsible government there.

From 1864 to 1867 the Fathers of Confederation from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada designed a new country with federal and provincial governments. The British North America Act created the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867, a day called Dominion Day until 1982. Leonard Tilley proposed the name Dominion, inspired by Psalm 72.

Expanding the Dominion: Riel, the Mounties and the railway

Manitoba joined in 1870, British Columbia in 1871, Prince Edward Island in 1873, Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905, and Newfoundland and Labrador in 1949. BC joined after Ottawa promised a railway to the West Coast.

When Canada took over the northwest from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869, the Métis of Red River were not consulted. Louis Riel seized Fort Garry; soldiers retook it in 1870, and Manitoba was created. Riel was elected to Parliament but never took his seat. After a second rebellion in present-day Saskatchewan in 1885, he was executed for high treason. Macdonald set up the North West Mounted Police in 1873.

Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona) drove the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway on November 7, 1885. Chinese workers who helped build it later faced the Head Tax; Ottawa apologized in 2006. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the first French-Canadian prime minister after Confederation, encouraged settlement of the West.

The First World War and the vote for women

More than 600,000 Canadians served in the First World War, most as volunteers. The Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge in April 1917, and Vimy Day is marked on April 9. General Sir Arthur Currie, called Canada's greatest soldier, led the Corps in the last hundred days of 1918. The war ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918; about 60,000 Canadians were killed. Sadly, Ottawa also interned over 8,000 former Austro-Hungarian subjects, mainly Ukrainian men, as "enemy aliens".

At Confederation only property-owning adult white men could vote. Dr. Emily Stowe, the first Canadian woman to practise medicine in Canada, founded the women's suffrage movement. Manitoba gave women the vote in 1916. In 1917 Sir Robert Borden's government gave the federal vote first to nurses at the front, and in 1918 most women aged 21 and over could vote. Agnes Macphail became the first woman MP in 1921, and Quebec women won the vote in 1940.

Between the wars and the Second World War

After the First World War, the British Empire grew into the British Commonwealth of Nations, in which Canada is still a leading member. The stock market crash of 1929 began the Great Depression; unemployment reached 27% in 1933, and the Bank of Canada was created in 1934. Many refugees were turned away, including Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939.

The Second World War began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served, and 44,000 were killed. The navy's finest hour was the Battle of the Atlantic. Canadians took part in the liberation of Italy in 1943–44. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Canadians captured Juno Beach, and they helped free the Netherlands in 1944–45. Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. Japanese Canadians were forcibly relocated even though the military and the RCMP said they posed little danger; the government apologized in 1988.

Practice questions on this chapter

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