Chapter 9

History: From First Peoples to Responsible Government

Aboriginal peoples, the first Europeans, New France, the struggle for a continent, the Loyalists and the War of 1812.

Before the Europeans came

When Europeans explored Canada they found every region occupied by native peoples they called Indians, because the first explorers thought they had reached the East Indies.
Ways of life differed: the Huron-Wendat and the Iroquois were farmers and hunters, the Cree and Dene of the Northwest were hunter-gatherers, the Sioux were nomadic and followed the bison herd, the Inuit lived off Arctic wildlife, and West Coast peoples preserved fish by drying and smoking.
Large numbers of Aboriginal people died of European diseases to which they lacked immunity. Even so, in the first 200 years of coexistence Aboriginal peoples and Europeans formed strong economic, religious and military bonds that laid the foundations of Canada.

Sources for this section

The Vikings from Iceland, who colonized Greenland 1,000 years ago, also reached Labrador and Newfoundland. The remains of their settlement at l’Anse aux Meadows are a World Heritage site.
European exploration began in earnest in 1497 with John Cabot, an Italian immigrant to England, who was the first to draw a map of Canada’s East Coast and claimed the New Founde Land for England.
Between 1534 and 1542 Jacques Cartier made three voyages across the Atlantic, claiming the land for King Francis I of France. He was the first European to explore the St. Lawrence River.
Cartier heard two captured guides speak the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning “village”. By the 1550s the name Canada began appearing on maps.

Sources for this section

In 1604 the first European settlement north of Florida was established by the French explorers Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain, first on St. Croix Island and then at Port-Royal in Acadia.
In 1608 Champlain built a fortress at what is now Québec City.
Champlain allied the colony with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron. The French and the Iroquois made peace in 1701.
The French and Aboriginal people collaborated in the vast fur-trade economy, driven by the demand for beaver pelts in Europe.

Sources for this section

In 1670 King Charles II of England granted the Hudson’s Bay Company exclusive trading rights over the watershed draining into Hudson Bay. For the next 100 years the Company competed with Montreal-based traders.
The skilled and courageous men who travelled by canoe were called voyageurs and coureurs des bois, and formed strong alliances with First Nations.
In 1759 the British defeated the French in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Québec City, marking the end of France’s empire in America. The commanders of both armies, Brigadier James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm, were killed.
To better govern the French Roman Catholic majority, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act of 1774. It allowed religious freedom for Catholics and permitted them to hold public office — not then allowed in Britain — and restored French civil law while maintaining British criminal law.

Sources for this section

In 1776 the 13 British colonies to the south of Quebec declared independence and formed the United States. More than 40,000 people loyal to the Crown, called Loyalists, fled to Nova Scotia and Quebec.
Joseph Brant led thousands of Loyalist Mohawk into Canada. About 3,000 black Loyalists, both freedmen and slaves, came north seeking a better life.
Democratic institutions developed gradually and peacefully. The first representative assembly was elected in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1758, followed by Prince Edward Island in 1773 and New Brunswick in 1785.
The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario) and Lower Canada (later Quebec), and granted the Canadas legislative assemblies elected by the people for the first time. The name Canada became official at this time.

Sources for this section

In 1793 Upper Canada, led by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, became the first province in the British Empire to move toward abolition.
In 1807 the British Parliament prohibited the buying and selling of slaves, and in 1833 abolished slavery throughout the Empire.
Thousands of slaves escaped from the United States, followed “the North Star” and settled in Canada via the Underground Railroad, a Christian anti-slavery network.

Sources for this section

Believing it would be easy to conquer Canada, the United States launched an invasion in June 1812. Canadian volunteers and First Nations, including Shawnee led by Chief Tecumseh, supported British soldiers in Canada’s defence.
Major-General Sir Isaac Brock captured Detroit but was killed defending against an American attack at Queenston Heights, a battle the Americans lost.
In 1813 Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Salaberry and 460 soldiers, mostly French Canadiens, turned back 4,000 American invaders at Châteauguay.
In 1813 Laura Secord made a dangerous 19 mile (30 km) journey on foot to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon of a planned American attack; her bravery contributed to victory at the Battle of Beaver Dams.
By 1814 the American attempt to conquer Canada had failed. The present-day Canada–U.S. border is partly an outcome of the War of 1812, which ensured that Canada would remain independent of the United States.

Sources for this section

When armed rebellions occurred in 1837–38 outside Montreal and in Toronto, the rebels lacked public support and were defeated. Lord Durham, sent to report on them, recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be merged and given responsible government.
Responsible government means the ministers of the Crown must have the support of a majority of the elected representatives in order to govern — the system we have today, in which a government that loses a confidence vote must resign.
In 1840 Upper and Lower Canada were united as the Province of Canada. Nova Scotia was the first British North American colony to attain full responsible government, in 1847–48, and in 1848–49 Lord Elgin introduced it in United Canada.
Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, a champion of democracy and French language rights, became the first leader of a responsible government in the Canadas, in 1849.

Sources for this section