The Transatlantic Age: Contact, Cooperation, and Conflict 09/27/2016

The Vikings

  • The first documented European visits to North America were made around 1000 CE by the Vikings (Norse explorers from Scandinavia)
  • Evidence for these early expeditions can be found in Norse sagas
  • Around the year 100 CE, Leif Eriksson and his crew wintered at L’Anse aux Meadows
  • L’Anse aux Meadows, located on the northern tip of Newfoundland, is the only confirmed Norse settlement in North America
  • L’Anse aux Meadows was inhabited for no more than a few years (some scholars suggest that conflicts with Aboriginal peoples forced the Norse to return home)
  • Vikings were not just barbarians they were also explorers and farmers
  • Erik the Red colonized Greenland in the tenth century
  • In 1960 a Norse settlement was found

What Motivated Europeans to Explore Other Lands?

  • A range of factors:
    • Demographic
      • Searching for new space because of growing population
    • Political
      • Rivalry between political nations and looking to expand their empires
    • Technological
      • The building of better ships helped to promote sea travel, also the invention of the compass
    • Economic
      • No easy access to China so they were trying to find a more efficient way to access Chinese gold and spices
    • Religious
      • Christians felt the need to spread religion throughout the world

 

  • John Cabot’s (Giovanni Caboto) first voyage May 2-August 6, 1497
    • Europeans were in search for fish, furs, and spices
    • First people to explore Newfoundland was the British
      • The English focused a lot of their efforts on cod fishing
      • Cabot declared possession of Newfoundland with a British flag
      • Cabot took one more voyage in 1948 and was lost at sea
    • In the late 1500’s the English tried to settle in Newfoundland but were mostly unsuccessful

Cuper’s Cove Colony

  • Cuper’s Cove Colony was established by the London and Bristol Company in 1610
  • The Company had received a Royal Charter to establish a colony in Newfoundland, to help “secure and make safe the trade of fishing”
  • John Guy was the leader of this new colony- he led 39 colonists to Cuper’s Cove
  • Over the next few years, the colonists cleared land, planted, gardens, built homes
  • The colony encountered many difficulties- the Beothuk were not eager to trade in furs; agriculture proved difficult; several colonist died of scurvy; the colony was frequently attacked
  • Cuper’s Cove colony was the first formal English settlement in (what would become) Canada
  • By 1660 there were 1500 people who colonized Newfoundland
  • Cartier’s first voyage was 1534
    • The French looking for trade passage to China
    • Also looking to conquer land for the king of France
    • On July 24, 1534, Jacques Cartier erected a cross at the entrance to Gaspe Harbour
  • In 1535 during his second voyage he sailed and named the St. Lawrence river
  • Kidnapping natives was a common practice among early European settlers
  • Cartier’s third voyage was in 1541
    • Cartier lied to the natives and told them that the men they kidnapped had become princes
  • King Henry the IV wanted to send his people to convert the first nations people to Christianity
  • The French had difficulty at first, building up a settlement in Acadia
  • Samuel de Champlain- the ‘father of New France’ Founded Quebec city in 1608
    • Over 25 years he went back to France nine times in order to ask for more money and supplies for the Quebec settlement
    • Much of the information from this time period is from the point of view of the Europeans
  • The native population thought the Europeans were ugly and vulgar
  • Felt beaver hat was in style at this time
  • The fur trade preceded colonization
  • In the short term there were benefits of trading with the Europeans but later it proved to be unfair for Native people
  • Many French people attempted to convert natives to Christianity
  • They felt it was their calling

 Marie de l’Incarnation

  • Founded the convent of the Ursulines in Quebec in 1639
  • Important to the early development of new France
  • Held in high regard by the colony’s civil authorities
  • Felt that she was fulfilling the will of god
  • Her convent functioned as a school for aboriginal children
  • Encountered great difficulties I her efforts to teach (and convert) aboriginal children
  • She regularly whipped herself to stay true to Jesus
  • Gave up trying to educate young native woman
  • Instead they began to teach the settlers children
  • The struggles Europeans were having in Europe continued in North America
  • Europeans brought many diseases such as measles, and mumps
    • Which killed a lot of native people

New France 10/04/2016

  • What strikes you about the roles that the settlers played?
  • Was life better or worse in New France (than in France)?
    • Woman would be paid 300 pounds for 10 babies and 400 for 12
    • All poor people would be better in New France than France
    • Opportunity to work and be successful
    • Runaways could be whipped publicly or hanged
    • 15,000 people between 1608-1700 and only 3,400 remained
  • First Settlements
    • Governance
      • Fur trade companies in control (pre:166)
      • Creating a royal province: 1663
    • Military Issues
      • Defending New France
      • Treaty of Utrecht
    • Ile Sainte-Croix- settled by Pierre Du Gua de Monts in June 1604. This settlement was the first attempt by the French at year round colonization in North America, The little colony remained on the island for one very cold winter- more than half the crew died of scurvy
    • In the spring of 1605, De Monts and Champlain moved the settlement across the bay, to Port Royal.
    • Order of Good Cheer
      • Social club started by Samuel de Champlain at Port Royal during the winter of 1606-1607
      • Purpose: boost morale and health of the colonists during the long, cold winter
      • Each man took turns planning a delicious feast, and organizing the entertainment for the evening
      • Although it was a success, the Order only lasted for one year
      • New France:
        • 1628: approx. 300 European settlers
        • 1663 was the date that New France went from a fur trading post to an official colonized state
        • 1759: approx. 85,000 European colonists
  • Great Peace of 1701
    • By the late 17th Century, the Iroquois were greatly weakened by years of warfare and disease
    • In 1701, representatives for the Iroquois agreed to meet up with the French in Montreal to discuss the terms of peace
    • The French recognized the independence of the Iroquois
    • In return, the Iroquois agreed to give up their claims west of Detroit, and promised to remain neutral in any future war between France and England
    • The Great Peace ended almost a century of war between the Iroquois and the French
  • Treaty of Utrecht (1713)
    • Settled the War of Spanish Succession (1702-1713)
    • The war was fought not only in Europe but in North America
    • France agreed to abandon Hudson’s Bay, Acadia, and Newfoundland to the British
    • France retained fishing rights in Newfoundland
    • France also kept the two islands protecting the entrance to the gulf of St. Lawrence
  • Louisbourg (Cape Breton Island)
  • Mercantilism in New France
    • Louis XIV and his minister of finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, favoured the economic system known as mercantilism
    • Under this system, France’s overseas colonies were seen as important only to the extent that they provided goods, and a market, for France
    • Some scholars argue that mercantilism slowed economic growth in New France by discouraging colonial economic initiatives
  • Coureurs des Bois (Runners of the woods). In 1680, over 600 coureurs des bois were active in the fur trade in the area of New France.
  • The Acadian Expulsion
  • The Fall of New France
    • The Seven Years’ War
    • The struggle for empire- on North American soil
    • Battle of the plains of Abraham
    • Surrender and Negotiation
  • Conclusion: assessing the impact of the conquest
  • Halifax was founded as a military counterweight to Louisbourg
  • July 28 1765 the Acadians are deported to the United States or sent back to France
  • The Great Expulsions (also known as the deportation, or Le Grand Derangement)
    • 1754: beginning of war between the French and English in North America
    • Most Acadians refuse to sign an unconditional oath to British Crown
    • 1755: British capture Fort Beausejour, and discover 300 armed Acadians inside French lines
    • Lieutenant-governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council decided to deport the Acadians
  • Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)
    • War between France and Britain (and their respective allies)
    • The war in Europe was officially declared in 1756
    • Informal warfare between the French and English had broken out in the Ohio Valley in 1754, two years before war was formally declared in Europe
    • The Seven Years War profoundly altered the balance of power in North America: by the end of the war New France had fallen to the British!!
    • The War also opened the way for a dramatic confrontation between Britain and its thirteen colonies- the American Revolution
  • The Plains of Abraham was a turning point in Canadian history

Adjusting to British Rule 1763-1814 10/18/2016

  • Issued by King George III on October 7, 1763
  • Replaced French laws with British laws, and defined the boundaries of Quebec
  • The interior region west of the Allegheny Mountains was declared to be “Indian territory”
  • Stated that transactions involving Aboriginal land had to be properly negotiated through the British Crown
  • Contributed to outbreak of the American Revolution (1776)

 

Three-Tiered State System 11/08/2016

  • Lieutenant Governor (appointed)
  • Legislative Council (appointed)
  • House of Assembly (elected)
    • Louis Joseph Papineau
      • Elected to the lower Canadian assembly in 1809
      • Elected leader of the Parti Patriote in 1827
      • Leader of the lower Canadian rebellion 1837-1838
    • Bishop John Strachan (1778-1867)
      • First Anglican Bishop of Toronto
      • Member of the executive council from 1815-1836, and of the legislative council from 1820-1841 (upper Canada)
      • Pillar of the Family Compact” – and elite, conservative group that controlled the colony
    • Moderates
      • Continued rule of Britain in the colonial government
      • Appointed executive council
    • Radicals
      • Elected executive council
      • Lieutenant Governor reduced to a figure-head
      • More elected government positions
    • Close to 10,000 people stood to bear witness as Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, two of William Lyon Mackenzie’s most loyal supporters, were hanged on April 12, 1838
    • John George Lambton (Lord Durham)
    • The Durham Report (1839);
      • Responsible Government
        • Executive Council (cabinet) drawn from the majority party in the elected Assembly and must have the support of the majority in the Assembly to pass their legislation
      • Union of Upper and Lower Canada

Act of Union: 1840

  • Upper and Lower Canada united to become the “Province of Canada”
  • English made the official language of the Parliament of the Province of Canada
  • Canada East and Canada West given equal numbers of representatives, despite the fact that Canada East has a far larger population

British North America – Economy and Society, Mid-19th Century

  • Industrialization- Revolution or Evolution
  • Foundations of industrialization
    • End of Mercantilism
    • Reciprocity Treaty, 1854
    • Railway mania
    • Population
  • British North American Society
    • Courtship, marriage, and family
    • Health and welfare
    • Religion and social reform
    • Schooling
    • The workplace
  • Small craft-shops turned into large factories

Pros/Cons of Industrialization

  • PROS
    • More goods
    • Created jobs
    • Increased technology/ agriculture
    • Better travel (facilitated joining of colonies)
    • Improved trade
  • CONS
    • Takes business away from families
    • Child “slavery”
    • Environmental pollution
    • Exploitation of nature = nature becomes a commodity
    • Safety = work in factory is precarious
    • Shifting quality of goods

 

  • Reciprocity Treaty
    • Ratified in 1854 (in effect from 1855-1866)
    • Established free trade of major natural products between the British North American colonies and the United States
    • Opened up navigation rights to Lake Michigan and the St. Lawrence
    • Although it did not increase trade very much, the treaty had enormous symbolic significance
    • British North America began to focus on north-south trade
  • Railway Mania
    • Railways facilitated industrialization by:
      • Transporting goods more quickly and efficiently
      • Providing a market for goods
      • Becoming the first major industrial manufacturers in Canada
    • Railroads are “iron civilizers”
    • As “a people we may as well in the present age attempt to live without books or newspapers, as without railroads”
    • The locomotive “waits for no convenient season”
    • 1841-1851 population increased from 1.1 million to 2 million
    • “The perfection of womanhood is the wife and mother. The center of the family, the magnet that draws man to the domestic altar that makes him a civilized being, a social Christian. The woman is truly the light of the home…”
    • The social reform movement
      • Developed throughout Canada in the mid-19th century in response to the social conditions of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration
      • Influenced by the growth of the ‘social gospel’ (focused on applying Christianity to solve societal ills – to bring about the “Kingdom of God on earth”)
      • Social reformers sough to improve society, but they did so from a limited perspective – white, middle class and Christian

The Road to Confederation 11/22/2016

  • The American Civil War (1861-1865)
  • Political Developments
    • The Great Coalition
    • The Charlottetown Conference
    • The Quebec Conference
  • Responses to the Confederation Proposals
  • External Pressures
    • British support for Confederation
    • The American contribution to Confederation
    • Fenian Raids
  • “A more unpromising nucleus of a new nation could hardly be found on the face of the earth”
    • Joseph Howe, 1866
  • “Somewhere on Parliament Hill in Ottawa… there should be erected a monument to this American ogre who has so often performed the function of saving us from drift and indecision”
  • Trent and Alabama Affairs
  • Alban’s Raid
  • John A. Macdonald (Conservative)
  • George Brown (Clear Grits)
  • The Charlottetown Conference (Sept.1-9, 1864)
    • Continued loyalty to the British Crown
    • A strong central government within a federal union in which the provinces retained control over their own local affairs
  • The Quebec Conference
    • Regional representation
    • Financial control
    • Federal/Provincial powers
      • The delegates eventually hammered out an agreement, and produced the Seventy-Two resolutions (or Quebec Resolutions), which became the basis for the British North America Act
    • Quebec Resolutions
      • Appointed Senate with Canada West (Ontario), Canada East (Quebec), and the three Atlantic Provinces (Maritimes) each with 24 members
    • “rep by pop” in the House of Commons
    • Fenian Marching Song:
      • “We are the Fenian Brotherhood skilled in the art of war, And we’re going to fight for Ireland, the land that we adore. Many battles we have won, along with the boys in blue. And we’ll go and capture Canada for we’ve nothing else to do.
    • The British North America Act: Signed by Queen Victoria on March 29, 1867, and came into effect July 1, 1867.
    • The four original provinces in Confederation: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick
    • Years of entry for the other provinces/territories
    • Manitoba: 1870
    • Northwest Territories: 1870
    • British Columbia: 1871
    • Prince Edward Island: 1873
    • Yukon: 1898
    • Alberta: 1905
    • Saskatchewan: 1905
    • Newfoundland: 1949