Canadian LGBT History/British North America/Overview

Canada under British rule (1763–1867) thumb|right|340px|Map showing British territorial gains following the "Seven Years' War". Treaty of Paris gains in pink, and Spanish territorial gains after the Treaty of Fontainebleau in yellow. With the end of the Seven Years' War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763), France ceded almost all of its territory in mainland North America, except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and two small islands where it could dry that fish. In turn France received the return of its sugar colony, Guadeloupe, which it considered more valuable than Canada.Helen Dewar, "Canada or Guadeloupe?: French and British Perceptions of Empire, 1760–1763," Canadian Historical Review, Dec 2010, Vol. 91 Issue 4, pp 637–660 The new British rulers retained and protected most of the property, religious, political, and social culture of the French-speaking habitants, guaranteeing the right of the Canadiens to practice the Catholic faith and to the use of French civil law (now Quebec law) through the Quebec Act of 1774.Original text of The Quebec Act of 1774 http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/qa_1774.html Canadiana (Library and Archives Canada) 2004 (1774) 2010-04-11 The Royal Proclamation of 1763 had been issued in October, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory.The Royal Proclamation http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/rp_1763.html The Solon Law Archive William F Maton 1996 2010-04-11 The proclamation organized Great Britain's new North American empire and to stabilize relations between the British Crown and Aboriginal peoples through regulation of trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier. American Revolution and Loyalists During the American Revolution there was some sympathy for the American cause among the Canadiens and the New Englanders in Nova Scotia. Neither party joined the rebels, although several hundred individuals joined the revolutionary cause.Kenneth McNaught The Pelican History of Canada Pelican 2d ed. 53 1976 0140210830Raddall Thomas Head Halifax Warden of the North McClelland and Stewart 85 2003 1551090600 An invasion of Canada; by the Continental Army in 1775, to take Quebec from British control was halted at the Battle of Quebec, by Guy Carleton, with the assistance of local militias. The defeat of the British army during the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781, signaled the end of Britain's struggle to suppress the American Revolution.http://www.smuggling.co.uk/history_expansion.html The expansion and final suppression of smuggling in Britain Smuggling.co.uk 2010-08-23 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;Territorial Evolution, 1867 http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/auth/english/maps/historical/territorialevolution/1867/1 Natural Resources Canada 2010 2010-04-12 followed in 1791 by the division of Quebec into the largely French-speaking Lower Canada along the St. Lawrence River and Gaspé Peninsula and an anglophone Loyalist Upper Canada, with its capital settled by 1796 in York, in present-day Toronto.Armstrong Frederick H Handbook of Upper Canadian Chronology Dundurn Press 1985 http://books.google.ca/books?id=ZL9EJW4v2FYC&lpg=PA2&dq=Handbook%20of%20Upper%20Canadian%20Chronology&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=true 0-919670-92-X After 1790 most of the new settlers were American farmers searching for new lands; although generally favorable to republicanism, they were relatively non-political and stayed neutral in the War of 1812. Fred Landon Western Ontario and the American Frontier 1941 Carleton University Press 17–22 0771097344 The signing of the Treaty of Paris 1783, formally ended the war. Britain made several concessions to the Americans at the expense of the North American colonies.Howard Jones Crucible of power: a history of American foreign relations to 1913 http://books.google.com/books?id=TFyLOUrdGFwC&pg=PA23 2011-09-17 February 2002 Rowman & Littlefield 978-0-8420-2916-2 23 Notably, the borders between Canada and the United States were officially demarcated. All land south of the Great Lakes, which was formerly a part of the Province of Quebec and included modern day Michigan, Illinois and Ohio, was ceded to the Americans. Fishing rights were also granted to the United States in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the coast of Newfoundland and the Grand Banks. The British ignored part of the treaty and maintained their military outposts in the Great Lakes areas it ceded to the U.S., and continued to supply the Indians there with munitions. The British evacuated the outposts with the Jay Treaty of 1795, but the continued supply of munitions irritated the Americans in the run-up to the war of 1812.Timothy D. Willig Restoring the chain of friendship: British policy and the Indians of the Great Lakes, 1783–1815 http://books.google.com/books?id=FtzyNOrEjY8C&pg=PP1 2011-09-17 2008 U of Nebraska Press 978-0-8032-4817-5 243–44 War of 1812 thumb|240px|Loyalist Laura Secord warning the British (Lieutenant – James FitzGibbon) and First Nations of an impending American attack at Beaver Dams June 1813. – by Lorne Kidd Smith, c. 1920 The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and the British with the British North American colonies being heavily involved.John Herd Thompson Stephen J Randall Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies http://books.google.ca/books?id=UVGHdmbzUTwC&lpg=PP1&dq=Canada%20and%20the%20United%20States%3A%20Ambivalent%20Allies&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=true University of Georgia Press 2008 19–24 0820324035 2010-09-01 Greatly outgunned by the British Royal Navy, the American war plans focused on an invasion of Canada (especially what is today eastern and western Ontario). The American frontier states voted for war to suppress the First Nations raids that frustrated settlement of the frontier. The war on the border with the U.S. was characterized by a series of multiple failed invasions and fiascos on both sides. American forces took control of Lake Erie in 1813, driving the British out of western Ontario, killing the Native American leader Tecumseh, and breaking the military power of his confederacy. Allen Robert S Tecumseh The Canadian Encyclopedia 2009 http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0007898 2010-04-25 The war was overseen by Isaac Brock, with the assistance of First Nations and loyalist informants like Laura Secord.Biography of Laura Secord http://www.warof1812.ca/laurasecord.htm University of Toronto – Université Laval (from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online at Libraries and Archives Canada) 2000 2010-06-21 The War ended with the Treaty of Ghent of 1814, and the Rush–Bagot Treaty of 1817. A demographic result was the shifting of American migration from Upper Canada to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. After the war, supporters of Britain tried to repress the republicanism in Canada, that was common among American immigrants to Canada. The troubling memory of the war and the American invasions etched itself into the consciousness of Canadians as distrust of the intentions of the United States towards the British presence in North America.Richard Gwyn Sir John A.: the Man Who Made Us http://books.google.ca/books?id=CHs8qlWcl4gC&lpg=PP1&dq=Sir%20John%20A.%3A%20the%20Man%20Who%20Made%20Us%2C&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true Random House of Canada Limited 2008 Vol 1 9780679314769 2010-04-27pp. 254–255 Rebellions and the Durham Report The rebellions of 1837 against the British colonial government took place in both Upper and Lower Canada. In Upper Canada, a band of Reformers under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie took up arms in a disorganized and ultimately unsuccessful series of small-scale skirmishes around Toronto, London, and Hamilton.The 1837–1838 Rebellion in Lower Canada. McCord Museum's collections. 1999. accessdate 2006-12-10 left|thumb|The Burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal −1849, Joseph Légaré, c.1849 In Lower Canada, a more substantial rebellion occurred against British rule. Both English- and French-Canadian rebels, sometimes using bases in the neutral United States, fought several skirmishes against the authorities. The towns of Chambly and Sorel were taken by the rebels, and Quebec City was isolated from the rest of the colony. Montreal rebel leader Robert Nelson read the "Declaration of Independence of Lower Canada" to a crowd assembled at the town of Napierville in 1838. The rebellion of the Patriote movement were defeated after battles across Quebec. Hundreds were arrested, and several villages were burnt in reprisal.Elinor Kyte Redcoats and Patriotes, The Rebellions in Lower Canada Canadian War Museum publication 1985 http://books.google.ca/books?id=MF8Im65MTqsC&lpg=PA297&dq=Redcoats%20and%20Patriots%2C%20The%20Rebellions%20in%20Lower%20Canada&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q&f=true 6 0802069304 British Government then sent Lord Durham to examine the situation, he stayed in Canada only five months before returning to Britain, and brought with him, his Durham Report which strongly recommended responsible government. A less well received recommendation was the amalgamation of Upper and Lower Canada for the deliberate assimilation of the French-speaking population. [The Canadas were merged into a single colony, United Province of Canada, by the 1840 Act of Union, with responsible government achieved in 1848, a few months after it was granted to Nova Scotia.1839–1849, Union and Responsible Government http://www.canadiana.org/citm/themes/constitution/constitution11_e.html Canada in the Making project 2005 2010-04-11 The parliament of United Canada in Montreal was set on fire by a mob of Tories in 1849 after the passing of an indemnity bill for the people who suffered losses during the rebellion in Lower Canada.R. D. Francis Richard Jones, Donald B. Smith, R. D. Francis Richard Jones Donald B. Smith Journeys: A History of Canada http://books.google.com/books?id=GbbZRIOKclsC&pg=PA147 2011-06-15 February 2009 Cengage Learning 9780176442446 147 Between the Napoleonic Wars and 1850 some 800,000 immigrants came to the colonies of British North America, mainly from the British Isles as part of the great migration of Canada.Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm The Industrial Revolution 2007-11-14 Robert Lucas, Jr. 2003 it is fairly clear that up to 1800 or maybe 1750, no society had experienced sustained growth in per capita income. (Eighteenth century population growth also averaged one-third of 1 percent, the same as production growth.) That is, up to about two centuries ago, per capita incomes in all societies were stagnated at around $400 to $800 per year. Robert Lucas, Jr. These included Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances to Nova Scotia and Scottish and English settlers to the Canadas, particularly 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.Mark McGowan Death or Canada: the Irish Famine Migration to Toronto 1847 Novalis Publishing Inc 2009 97 2896461299 Pacific colonies thumb|260px|Map of the Columbia District, also referred to as Oregon Country. Spanish explorers had taken the lead in the Pacific Northwest coast, with the voyages of Juan José Pérez Hernández in 1774 and 1775.The West beyond the West: a history of British Columbia Jean Barman http://books.google.ca/books?id=_X_aK5pD5kgC&lpg=PA20&dq=Juan%20Jos%C3%A9%20P%C3%A9rez%20Hern%C3%A1ndez%20in%201774%20and%201775&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q&f=true University of Toronto Press 1996 22–26 0802071856 2010-04-12 By the time the Spanish determined to build a fort on Vancouver Island, the British navigator James Cook had visited Nootka Sound and charted the coast as far as Alaska, while British and American maritime fur traders had begun a busy era of commerce with the coastal peoples to satisfy the brisk market for sea otter pelts in China, thereby launching what became known as the China Trade.http://books.google.com/books?id=J2MNSaoAecIC&lpg=PP1&dq=makuk&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=true Makuk – A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations John Sutton Lutz University of British Columbia Press 2009 44 0774811404 2010-04-16 In 1789 war threatened between Britain and Spain on their respective rights; the Nootka Crisis was resolved peacefully largely in favor of Britain, the much stronger naval power. In 1793 Alexander MacKenzie, a Canadian working for the North West Company, crossed the continent and with his Aboriginal guides and French-Canadian crew, reached the mouth of the Bella Coola River, completing the first continental crossing north of Mexico, missing George Vancouver's charting expedition to the region by only a few weeks.Margaret Ormsby British Coumbia:a History Macmillan 1976 0758188137 33 2010-04-16 In 1821, the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company merged, with a combined trading territory that was extended by a licence to the North-Western Territory and the Columbia and New Caledonia fur districts, which reached the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Pacific Ocean on the west.Our History Hudson's Bay Company http://www.hbc.com/hbc/history/ 2009 2010-04-16 The Colony of Vancouver Island was chartered in 1849, with the trading post at Fort Victoria as the capital. This was followed by the Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1853, and by the creation of the Colony of British Columbia in 1858 and the Stikine Territory in 1861, with the latter three being founded expressly to keep those regions from being overrun and annexed by American gold miners.Jean Barman The West Beyond the West-A History of British Columbia University of Toronto Press http://books.google.ca/books?id=_X_aK5pD5kgC&lpg=PA454&dq=The%20West%20Beyond%20the%20West-A%20History%20of%20British%20Columbia&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true 2007 0802071856 67–72 2010-04-16 The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands and most of the Stikine Territory were merged into the Colony of British Columbia in 1863 (the remainder, north of the 60th Parallel, became part of the North-Western Territory). References