Canada: history to 1867

The ancestors of the people who were to become American Indians (North American Indians) first entered North America from Siberia some time around 14,000-15,000 years ago. A wave of further migrations from Siberia, beginning about 4,000 years ago, brought the Inuit people, who settled across the whole of Arctic North America, from Alaska through northern Canada to Greenland.

European discovery The first Europeans to sight North America were the Vikings in 986. An expedition led by Leif Ericsson sailed from Greenland, visited Baffin Island, and sailed down the Labrador coast to Newfoundland, which was named Vinland. The remains of a Viking settlement have been found on the island, but it would seem that the Viking colony was short-lived.

The Viking discovery was forgotten in Europe, and it was 500 years before another European, John Cabot (see Caboto, Giovanni), reached the shores of Canada (1497). In 1534 Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, undertook a voyage of discovery along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, and on his second voyage (1536-37) discovered the St Lawrence River and travelled as far as the Huron capital, Hochelaga (the site of Montréal). Some small settlements were made by the French, but abandoned after two years.

French and British rivalry It was not until 1608 that Samuel de Champlain, who had visited the country in 1603 and subsequent years, founded the city of Québec. The St Lawrence region formed a French colony under the name of ‘Canada’ for the next century and a half. Meanwhile, the English formed the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670 and began to trade with the American Indians in what is now the Northwest Territories.

A French colony, known as Acadia, had also been established in Nova Scotia at the beginning of the 17th century, but the arrival of English and Scottish colonists shortly afterwards led to a long-running conflict for possession until the territory came under British control by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713). Finally, in 1749 the British founded the settlement of Halifax and installed many British colonists, and the following year the French settlers were expelled for refusing to swear loyalty to the British crown. Many of these Acadians subsequently settled in Louisiana, where they became known as Cajuns.

The achievement of British supremacy The struggle between the French and the British for the possession of the North American continent was lengthy and determined, and came to a climax in the French and Indian War (the North American arm of the Seven Years' War, 1756-63). The British achieved a decisive victory in 1759 at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham near Québec, in which both the British general James Wolfe and the French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm were killed.

By the Treaty of Paris, 1763 Canada and the disputed lands between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers passed into the hands of the British. The French colonists were allowed to sell their property and return to France if they wished. In Québec, Britain had acquired a colony populated almost entirely by French-speaking Catholics. After a few years of authoritarian rule by British governors, the Québec Act was introduced in 1774. This confirmed the colonists' right to practise their religion, permitted Catholics to hold political office, recognized French as well as English as official languages, and restored French civil law (although the criminal law was English), so allowing the French colonists to continue to hold land according to the old French system.

The creation of Upper and Lower Canada During the American Revolution (1775-83) the French colonists maintained a quiet neutrality. The success of the rebels in the American colonies drove many loyalists from the newly created United States of America to Canada, and many of these colonists settled in what was to become the province of New Brunswick. The colonists, loyal though they were, insisted upon a recognition of their constitutional rights, and they demanded self-government in local affairs. This they were granted by the Constitutional Act of 1791, which divided Canada into English-speaking Upper Canada (much of modern Ontario) and French-speaking Lower Canada (much of modern Québec and all of modern mainland Newfoundland), each having a representative assembly. During the War of 1812 both provinces remained loyal and helped to repel the US invasions. The boundary between Canada and the USA had first been defined by another Treaty of Paris in 1783, at the end of the American Revolution, and was finally fixed, after a further threat of war with the USA, all the way to the Pacific Ocean by the Oregon Treaty of 1846.

Towards dominion status After the War of 1812 the emerging middle class, as in Britain, began to press for democratic reform. The discontent of the colonists erupted into two short-lived rebellions against British rule in 1837. One rebellion was led by Louis Papineau and the other by William Lyon Mackenzie; both were unsuccessful. Lord Durham was sent from Britain to investigate matters as governor general in 1837. In the resulting Durham Report he suggested that the colony should be granted responsible government, and a legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada took place in 1841, forming the United Province of Canada. Rioting at Montréal in 1849 led to the removal of the legislature, first to Toronto and Québec alternately, and finally to Ottawa. A reciprocity treaty in 1854, easing restrictions on trade with the USA, put an end to a vociferous but inconsequential US movement to annex Canada.

After many difficulties and many deadlocks between the political parties, the British North America Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1867, and the dominion of Canada, consisting of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, came into being. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland dropped out of the scheme at the last moment.

There were many reasons for this federation, the chief perhaps being that the fear of US aggression made the colonists feel that united action would safeguard the interests of them all. The new additions were of great value to the colonists of Upper and Lower Canada, and the federation helped to reinforce British power in North America.

For Canadian history after 1867, see Canada.