Sir John A. Macdonald, lawyer, businessman, and the first prime minister of Canada (photo by William James Topley, courtesy Library and Archives Canada/c-10144). (The Canadian Encyclopedia)
A week ago, Canadians celebrated their nation’s birthday: Confederation. On 1st July 1867, Confederation united four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Previously, all Canadians observed their national holiday and were proud of their first Prime Minister. That is no longer the case.
A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald was removed in Victoria, British Columbia. John A. Macdonald put Amerindians on reservations and took Amerindian children from their parents and enrolled them in Residential schools, so they would be assimilated. Many were abused. One is reminded of Tzvetan Todorov‘s La Conquête de l’Amérique. La question de l’autre.[I]
In the wake of Confederation, arrangements were made to transfer the colony and the vast neighbouring territory of Rupert’s Land to Canada, yet without either consultation with the colony’s inhabitants or any guarantees of their political or property rights. That set the stage for the Red River Resistance (…)
(See Red River Settlement, The Canadian Encyclopedia.)
Later, he allowed Louis Riel to be hanged. Louis Riel had entered federal politics and was elected three times as a member of Parliament for Provencher, Manitoba. He was not permitted to enter the House of Commons. When he entered, “he was expelled from the House on a motion introduced by the Ontario Orange leader Mackenzie Bowel.” (See Louis Riel, The Canadian Encyclopedia.) The government of the Red River Resistance had executed Orangeman, Thomas Scott. However, Jean-Louis Riel was viewed as Thomas Scott’s killer.
The Red River Colony was bought from the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), by the Earl of Selkirk. After the Earl of Selkirk’s death, the Colony was returned to the Hudson’s Bay Company, but it was settled. Settled land, such as the Red River Colony and the land the Indigenous people inhabited could not belong to the HBC/Canada, by virtue of the Royal Charter signed on 2nd May 1670.
Sir John A. MacDonald was a member of the Orange Order. The Orangemen opposed the presence of French-speaking Canadians and Catholics outside Quebec. Sir John A. MacDonald had a beautiful dream, a Canada stretching from sea to sea: A Mari usque ad Mare. That is Canada’s motto, its devise. But French-speaking Canadians would have to stay on one side of the wide country. He promised British Columbia a railroad. The railroad had to go across ranges of mountains, the Rocky Mountains. Several Chinese died building the railway whose chief supervisor was Sir Cornelius van Horne. On 4th July 1886, a passenger train arrived at Port Moody, British Columbia. British Columbia entered Confederation in 1871, believing that a railroad would be built.
Arrival of the first Canadian Pacific transcontinental passenger train at Port Moody, British Columbia, July 4, 1886. Canadian Pacific Limited Rail Corporate Archives (Photo Credit: Britannica)
Prince Rupert of the Rhine (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
British Columbia had been New Caledonia. However, it was renamed on 2nd August 1858, by Queen Victoria.
New Caledonia (“New Scotland”), was a name given in 1806 to the central and highland plateau area of British Columbia by Simon Fraser, a partner, trader and explorer in the North West Co.
(See New Caledonia, The Canadian Encyclopedia.)
When Canada bought Rupert’s Land, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company had merged. The North West Company had forts in British Columbia. But it was no longer called the North West Company. Rupert’s Land was bought from the Hudson’s Bay Company.
In 1821, a parliamentary Act granted exclusive trade to the HBC and to William and Simon McGillivray and Edward Ellice of the NWC, in an effort to placate all parties by devising coalition, not amalgamation.
(See The North West Company, The Canadian Encyclopedia.)
The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and The North West Company (NWC) had quarreled for years but they were now the Hudson’s Bay Company. The school I attended in Victoria, British Columbia, St. Ann’s Academy, was built in 1859, before Confederation.
The French Fact
Sir John A. MacDonald put aside not only Canada’s Indigenous population, but he also ignored what I call the French Fact. Jacques Cartier discovered what would become Canada in 1534. In 1867, the year Confederation occurred, the French had been on the North American continent for 333 years and many had married Amerindians. I learned, late in life, that I am métissée, as are other Québécois.
In 1633 and 1635, the Huron-Wendat were asked by Champlain and Father Paul Le Jeune, S.J. to consider intermarriage with the French.
(See Huron-Wendat, TheCanadian Encyclopedia.)
One could take the view that it was all about the weather. Winters were cold in New France. Moreover, how could the colony’s few colonists get beaver pelts without a canoe and snowshoes. The inhabitants of New France depended on Amerindian skills and equipment to survive. Champlain could not alienate Amerindians. He in fact fought the Iroquois, the Huron‘s enemies.
An account of the alliance between the Indigenous people and the French can be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Interestingly, The Canadian Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica have joined forces to tell the history of Canada.
“Already in 1603 Champlain had noted that the Iroquois, whom Jacques Cartier had found there, had withdrawn from the St. Lawrence under pressure from the Algonquin Indians of the north country. The French then became the allies of the Algonquin in the rivalry that began for control of the inland fur trade. In 1609, in accordance with this alliance, Champlain and three companions joined an Algonquin war party in a raid against the Mohawk, the easternmost group of the Iroquois Confederacy. The party ascended the Richelieu River toward Lake Champlain. In an encounter with a Mohawk band, Champlain and his men killed some Iroquois, and the Europeans’ firearms panicked the remainder. This skirmish signaled the initial commitment of New France to the side of the Algonquin and the Huron (the latter being Iroquoian but hostile to the confederacy) in what became a century-long struggle for control of the output of furs from as far away as the western Great Lakes.”[II]
Buffalo at Sunset by Paul Kane, c. 1851 – 1856 (National Gallery of Canada)
“I have done three good things since I have commenced: I have spared Boulton‘s life at your instance, I pardoned Gaddy, and now I shall shoot Scott.” (Louis Riel, Wikipedia)
Riel, Louis and theFirst Provisional government, 1869 (courtesy Glenbow Archives/NA-1039-1) (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)
March 4, 1870. Protestant Orangeman Thomas Scott is executed on orders from Louis Riel (from the Illustrated Canadian News, April 23, 1870/Glenbow Collection) (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)
Introduction
Executing Thomas Scott is in fact the worst thing Riel ever did. “Some historians say this was one of Riel’s most fatal errors.” (See Execution of Thomas Scott, A Country by Consent.) It was.
Irish-born Thomas Scott, an Orangeman from present-day Ontario, was captured when he and his party tried to break into Fort Garry, the former Red River Colony and future Winnipeg. He could have been freed on the condition that he leave the valley, but he wouldn’t leave the valley. He was a member of the Orange Order, named after Dutch-born Protestant king William of Orange, anti-Catholics Protestants who looked upon French Canadians as “morally inferior:”
Its [the Orange Order’s] members generally viewed Roman Catholics and French Canadians as politically disloyal or culturally inferior. Some Orange members argued that their association was the only one capable of resisting Catholics who, they believed, were subservient to the Pope’s spiritual and political authority and who were therefore disreputable crown subjects.
As an Orangeman and very anti-Catholic, Thomas Scott repeatedly taunted his captors and threatened to kill Riel.” (See Execution of Thomas Scott, A Country by Consent.) Moreover, Orangemen had a “penchant for violence and secrecy.”
Colonial administrators in Upper Canada/ Canada West were at times thankful for their loyalty and service, and other times disparaged their penchant for violence and secrecy.
One can understand that after Canadian Confederation, Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, and his government might wish to expand westward. In 1867, the United States had bought Alaska from Russia. Moreover, the United States had developed an ideology, Manifest Destiny (c. 1850), which suggested that Americans “were destined to expand across North America the special virtues of the American people and their institutions, etc.” (See Manifest Destiny, Wikipedia.)
Therefore, John A. Macdonald and his government purchased Rupert’s Land, a vast territory, named after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who supplied Pierre-Esprit Radisson with a ship, the Nonsuch, that took him near the center of the continent. For men employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company, chartered in 1670, portages were minimized. The HBC’s trading post was York Factory, built in 1684. However, in 1774, the Hudson’s Bay Company built Cumberland House, on the Saskatchewan River, its first western inland post. “Brigades” of canoes would go down waterways to acquire beaver pelts used to make top hats or chapeaux haut-de-forme. At this point, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North-West Company became fierce competitorsuntil the merger of the two companies in 1821.
This [Rupert’s Land] amounted to an enormous territory in the heart of the continent: what is today northern Québec and Labrador, northern and western Ontario, all of Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, south and central Alberta, parts of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and small sections of the United States.
However, although one can understand Prime Minister John A. Macdonald‘s wish to expand the new Canadian Confederation westward, but he did so without consulting the inhabitants of the Red River Colony, depicted above in Peter Rindisbacher‘s art, many of whom were Métis. The Earl of Selkirk had settled the Red River Colony in the early decades of the 19th century. So, the Colony’s citizens were alarmed because of the influx of immigrants that followed Confederation. New Canadians were moving West in a manner that did not reflect the way the Earl of Selkirk’s had settled the community. (See The Red River Settlement, Canada’s First Peoples and Lord Selkirk’s Grant, CBC.ca) It was located at the juncture of the Red River and the Assiniboine, in modern-day Winnipeg.
When he returned from studying in Montreal, Louis Riel, the grandson of Jean-Baptiste Lagimonière, or Lagimodière, and Marie-Anne Gaboury, noticed that life was changing in the Red River Colony and that it was not changing to the benefit of the Métis, who numbered 10,000. For instance, “[t]he Métis did not possess title to their land, which was, in any case, laid out according to the seigneurial system rather than in English-style square lots.” (See Louis Riel, Wikipedia.) French seigneuries were narrow strips of land on the shores of the St. Lawrence. Given that they were narrow, several seigneuries could be built on each side of the St. Lawrence River. Such a configuration facilitated transportation.
In short, entry of the Red River Colony into Confederation seemed a takeover.
On 20 August 1869, a survey party arrived. On 11 October, the survey’s work was interrupted so, on 16 October, a “Métis National Committee” was formed at which point Louis Riel was summoned by the HBC-controlled Council of Assiniboia and “declared that any attempt by Canada to assume authority would be contested unless Ottawa had first negotiated terms with the Métis.” (See Louis Riel, Wikipedia.) On 2 November, unilingual William McDougall, who had just been appointed Lieutenant Governor of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory, attempted to enter the settlement. McDougall had participated in the purchase of Rupert’s Land. He and George-Étienne Cartier had gone to London seeking funds to purchase Rupert’s Land. Métis “led by Riel seized Fort Garry [present-day Winnipeg].” (See Louis Riel, Wikipedia.) The Métis formed a Provisional Government, the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia, on 6 December and on 27 December 1869, Louis Riel became its President. On 4 March 1870, 28 year-old Irish- born Thomas Scott was executed by firing squad, but he may have been left to die of his wounds. (See Louis Riel, Library and Archives Canada.)
The execution of Thomas Scott: a mistake
The execution of Irish-born Ontario Orangeman Thomas Scott, on 4 March 1870, is central to an account of the Red River Rebellion and to the fate of French-speaking Canadians in western Canada. Thomas Scott was violent. “He took part in a strike in 1869, for which he was fired and convicted of aggravated assault.” Therefore, he may have attempted to kill Louis Riel. Moreover, “Scott backed the annexation of the Red River Settlement to Canada, and the rest of his life revolved around this conflict. Scott had persecuted many metis, or “Half Breeds” in Winnipeg, and his first town, Ottawa, with a mysterious man named Gnez Noel.” Members of the Orange Order “generally viewed Roman Catholics and French Canadians as politically disloyal or culturally inferior.” (See Orange Order, The Canadian Encyclopedia.)
In fact, colonial administrators were of two minds with respect to members of the Orange Order.
Colonial administrators in Upper Canada/ Canada West were at times thankful for their loyalty and service, and other times disparaged their penchant for violence and secrecy.
In short, Thomas Scott was not a model citizen. On the contrary. Yet, would that, however “violent and boisterous” he was, 28-year-old Thomas Scott had been spared a death sentence, if only out of compassion. I should think a pardon would have prevented Riel’s own demise and, perhaps, allowed French Canadians to settle west. Thomas Scott was a very young man whom almost everyone would have forgotten, but who would, henceforth, be considered a martyr taken into captivity at Fort Garry, and murdered by a so-called government of ‘Half Breeds.’
Besides, was the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia a government? In their own eyes, they were. Yet, if French Canadians were “morally inferior,” one would surmise that French Métis, a blend of French Canadians and Aboriginals, at first, were morally inferior to French Canadians. I doubt that the Métis Provisional Government, or the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia, could be taken seriously and I believe it could not anticipate the impact of the execution of Thomas Scott(The Canadian Encyclopedia). I suspect that for many Canadians, Métis could not form a government.
In fact, it would be my opinion that Riel was very angry, which is the reason he would be committed to an asylum in the mid-seventies. After the Red River Rebellion of 1870, he was elected to Parliament three times, but he was never allowed to take his seat in the House of Commons. It has been suggested that Riel suffered from megalomania, which could be the case, but, first and foremost, he was very angry and had reason to be.
His [Riel’s] mental state deteriorated, and following a violent outburst he was taken to Montreal, where he was under the care of his uncle, John Lee, for a few months. But after Riel disrupted a religious service, Lee arranged to have him committed in an asylum in Longue Pointe on 6 March 1876 under the assumed name “Louis R. David[.]” Fearing discovery, his doctors soon transferred him to the Beauport Asylum near Quebec City under the name “Louis Larochelle.”
The inhabitants of the Red River Colony, the Métis and Aboriginals especially, had a right to their land. It had belonged to the Hudson’s Company Bay since 1670, but colonial powers usurped the land they occupied. As for the Red River Colony, it had also been settled. The Earl of Selkirk‘s family had bought sufficient shares in the Hudson’s Bay Company to acquire the land he settled, but that land have been claimed by the Hudson’s Bay Company, not purchased.
However, the notion that land in North America had been claimed, not bought, was probably lost on John A. Macdonald and his fledgling government. It had been lost on all colonial powers and colonists. By modern standards, it seems legitimate on the part of the European citizens of the Red River to determine their relationship with Canada.
The Red River Colony occupied land that had been bought by Lord Selkirk. One could say that it was not Rupert’s Land. One could argue that William McDougall and his surveyors were trespassing on land bought by the Earl of Selkirk, that now belonged to the citizens of the Red River Colony, the future Winnipeg, which means that the inhabitants of the Red River Colony had rights. Although Bishop Alexandre-Antonin Taché and Hudson’s Bay Company governor William MacTavish, advised caution on the part of John A. Macdonald’s government, the Canadian minister of public works, William McDougall, ordered a survey of the area, he and his men arrived on 20 August 1869. (See Louis Riel, Wikipedia.)
As for John A. Macdonald, at this stage, he was still inexperienced. He therefore purchased Rupert’s Land, part of which belonged to the Red River Colony (Upper Fort Garry) was located, without consulting its inhabitants, which led to the Red River Rebellion. Following the Red River Rebellion, there was little room in Western Canada for Catholics, French Canadians, and Métis. A committee of three travelled to Ottawa:
Riel’s Provisional Government sent Father Noël-Joseph Ritchot a close adviser of Riel’s, Alfred Scott, a Winnipeg bartender, and Judge John Black, to Ottawa to negotiate with the Canadian government.
The news of Scott’s execution arrived ahead of them. John Schultz and Charles Mair, who had both been imprisoned by the Provisional Government for a period of time, were now in Ontario and determined to turn public opinion against Riel.
However, no sooner was the Manitoba Act of 1870 signed than John A. Macdonald, fearing the United States would annex Manitoba, dispatched the Wolseley Expedition (or Red River Expedition) to “restore order.” The Expedition left Toronto in May 1870 reaching Fort Garry, or the Red River in late August 1870.
After a journey lasting three months of arduous conditions, the Expedition arrived at, and captured, Fort Garry, extinguished Riel’s Provisional Government and eradicated the threat of the U.S. being able to easily wrest western Canada from Confederation.
Riel fled the Red River upon the conclusion of the Wolseley Expedition (Wikipedia). During the 1879s, he was elected into office three times, but was never allowed to sit in the House of Commons. After his illness, a nervous breakdown, he went to the United States, worked as a teacher and married, Marguerite Monet,à la façon du pays, and fathered two children. He returned to Canada in 1885, summoned by Gabriel Dumont, he was taken prisoner when Métis were defeated at the Battle of Batoche, Saskatchewan, (in May 1885).
Conclusion
How does one conclude?
Louis Riel attempted to protect land the white man, Europeans, had taken from North-American Indians, Amérindiens. However, Riel made the mistake of condemning Thomas Scott to death, giving a martyr to the Orange Order and pursuing Riel for fifteen years and executing him? The Métis were not recognized as an aboriginal people until the Patriation of the Constitution (The Canadian Encyclopedia), in 1982.
As for the Métis List of Rights(A Country by Consent), recognized in the Manitoba Act of 1870, they were short-lived rights. In 1890, Manitoba passed An Act to Provide that the English Language shall be the Official Language of the Province of Manitoba (See Manitoba Act, The Canadian Encyclopedia). In March 1890, the government of Manitoba “passed two bills amending the province’s laws on education: An Act respecting the Department of Education and An Act respecting Public Schools.” These bills abolished the province’s dual school system: Catholic and Protestant. French-speaking children attended English language schools.
Orangemen disparaged the Jesuits’ Estates Act of 1888 and resented the influx of French Canadian Catholics into Eastern Ontario at the turn of the 20th century. Finally, in the debates surrounding the Manitoba Schools Question and the Ontario Schools Question, Orangemen vigorously agitated against Catholic education because of its ties to the French language.
As for Riel, he was neither a hero or a rebel, but a victim, a victim of colonialism. Amerindians were nomadic, which they could not be after the purchase of Rupert’s Land. Colonial powers gave themselves rights they did not have. Riel was executed for High Treason, after the Battle of Batoche, following the North-West Rebellion(1885).
Red River Expedition at Kakabeka Falls by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1877 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have been reading about the Conferences that took place between 1864 and 1867, leading to Confederation, and I believe you may find this little post useful. There were differences and I would not be in the least surprised to learn that Ontario breathed a sigh of relief when it parted ways with Quebec. Yet discussions were conducted with a view to ensure that no conflict such as the American Civil War would tear Canada apart, which meant
that provincial imperatives would be respected;
but that Canada would constitute a solid entity, and
that it would develop an identity.
Let us look at the three conferences that preceded the BNA Act of 1867.
Charlottetown (September 1864),
Quebec (October 1864),
London, England (December 1866).
The Conferences
Charlottetown Conference, September 1864(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We have already read a little about the Charlottetown Conference of 1864. The Province of Canada was not invited to that particularly conference. However, upon hearing that the leaders of Britain’s Maritime colonies were meeting in Charlottetown, the Province of Canada asked to be represented.
The Maritime Colonies, the current Maritime Provinces, were convening so they could discuss how to gain greater economic and military independence from the Crown. But, having learned that this conference would take place, the Province of Canada asked to join the Maritime colonies in the hope a union would include the Province of Canada.
Newfoundland was not represented at the conference because it had been invited too late. But the Charlottetown Conference, which took place between 1stSeptemberand 9September 1864, became the first meeting of the Fathers of Confederation. Participants are listed under Wikipedia’s Charlottetown Conference entry.
Prince Edward Island was not interested in joining a union that would include the Province of Canada.
As for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in particular, they expressed considerable reticence at the idea of entering into a union with the Province of Canada. See Joseph Howe’s (13 December 1804 – 1st June 1873) The Botheration Scheme in the Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 11 January 1865. However, all parties agreed to meet a month later in Quebec City.
A second conference, the Quebec Conference, was held in Quebec City in October 1864, a month after the Charlottetown Conference. There was a total of sixteen delegates from the provinces that had participated in the Charlottetown conference. As for Newfoundland, it sent two observers. Yet delegates started drafting the Seventy-two Resolutions that would transform the various British colonies north of the 49th parallel into a country, the Dominion of Canada.
The Quebec conference started on 10October and ended on 27 October. By then, the provinces had agreed on a division of powers which, as I noted above, would avoid the kind of conflict that had and still divided the United States : the Civil War.
Sir George-Étienne Cartier, 1st Baronet, promoted the establishment of a Civil Code, based in part on the Napoleonic Code of 1804, for Canada east. The Quebec Civil Code has been amended several times, but experts tell me Quebec’s Code civil is quite an achievement. Cartier also promoted compulsory primary education. Sir Albert James Smith, PC, KCMG, QC (12 March 1822 – 30 June 1883) and Nova Scotian Joseph Howe led the opposition for their respective provinces.
The Seventy-two Resolutions or Quebec Resolutions
At the end of the Conference a proposed structure for the government was written out in the form of the ‘Seventy-two Resolutions,’ also called the Quebec Resolutions, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick agreed to join the Province of Canada.
At the Charlottetown (September 1864) and Quebec Conferences (October 1864), the Fenians (extremist Irish nationalists) had not conducted raids in Canada yet. But by December of 1866, they had attacked New Brunswick and the Province of Canada and were singing:
We are the Fenian Brotherhood, skilled in the arts of war,
And we’re going to fight for Ireland, the land 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.
— “Fenian soldier’s song”
The London Conference
A third conference, which began in December 1866, took place in London, England, hence its name: London Conference. Sixteen delegates from the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick gathered with officials in Britain and drafted the British North America Act, 1867. That conference was mostly “a continuation of the Quebec Conference held earlier about the ‘Seventy-two Resolutions’.”
Education
Education was a central issue in the discussions. But by the end of the Conference, it was agreed that Ontario and Quebec would have separate school systems. For both the Province of Quebec and the Province of Ontario, the division of the United Province of Canada into two provinces was a benefit of Confederation. These provinces were inhabited by compatible but distinct societies that had been Lower and Upper Canada. The two Canadas were joined in 1840, by virtue of the Act of Union.
Defence
However, defence had become a major issue. The Fenian raids were beginning to compromise the territorial integrity of the future Dominion of Canada. The Fenians were Irish extremists who despised the British and for whom the end justified the means: revolution, if need be. Their first raid was the Campobello Island Raid of 1866 and their second, the Niagara Raid. The British fought the Fenians at Ridgeway and Fort Erie in 1866. The same year, the Fenians also raided Pidgeon Hill (1866)
On 1st July 1867, Queen Victoria assented to the bill that created the Dominion of Canada which formed four provinces and would soon attract provinces located west of the current province of Ontario.
The Fathers of Confederation meeting in Charlottetown in 1864
Although the British had secured the northern part of the Oregon country,[i] fear of American expansionism, as expressed in the Manifest Destiny, remained the chief motivation for Britain to unite the provinces of its North-American colonies. Its two British colonies in what had been the Oregon Country were amalgamated in 1866 as the United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Moreover, in 1870, the Province of Canada bought land formerly owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company. So, finally, “British Columbia, was enticed to join the new confederation in 1871, but only with the promise that a transcontinental railway be built within 10 years to physically link east and west.”[ii]
“The Canadian Pacific Railway Company was incorporated February 16, 1881, with George Stephen as its first president.” Building a railway through ranges of mountains was well-nigh impossible but “[t]his incredible engineering feat was completed on Nov.7, 1885 – six years ahead of schedule – when the last spike was driven at Craigellachie, B.C.”[iii] (The Fenians were there.)
The Provinces, territories and Yukon entering into Confederation
Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Alberta & Newfoundland
Manitoba joined in 1870, followed by British Columbia, in 1871, bringing the number of provinces of the Dominion of Canada to six (6). Prince Edward Island (7) joined on July 1, 1887, Saskatchewan and Alberta, on September 1905 (8 & 9). However, the tenth province, Newfoundland, now Newfoundland and Labrador, did not join until 1949 (10), under Joseph Roberts “Joey” Smallwood, PC, CC (December 24, 1900 – December 17, 1991), Newfoundland’s first Premier.
The Northwest Territories and Yukon
As for the Northwest Territories and Yukon, the rest of what would constitute the Dominion of Canada, they entered into Confederation respectively in 1870 (the Northwest Territories) and, the Yukon, in 1898.
The Fenians or Irish Republican Brotherhood
Fenians
There was reluctance to join Confederation on the part of the three Atlantic provinces: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, once called collectively Nova Scotia. They simply had no need, a crucial factor, to enter into a partnership with British Provinces to the West. Quebec stood to regain its Lower Canada, which was important motivation.
However the initial reluctance on the part of the Atlantic provinces was overcome when, as mentioned above, US expansionism became a threat to Britain’s colonies in North America. However, threats did not emanate from believers in the Manifest Destiny, but from Fenians who were attempting to invade the British colonies north of the 49th parallel.
Fenianism
The first threats from the US had little to do with the expansionist Monroe Doctrine. On the contrary, attempts to invade lands north of the border were made by Fenians, an Irish Brotherhood: the Fenian Brotherhood devoted to building an independent Irish Republic (Irish Republican Brotherhood: IRB).
In Britain, the Fenians were promoting trade unionism as well as armed revolution to further their goals. Consequently, Fenians, were poor candidates for American citizenship. Yet, they found their way across the Atlantic to the US. The US branch of the Fenian Brotherhood, was founded by John O’Mahony and Michael Doheny,[iii] the author of the Felon’s Track, a Gutenberg Project EBook (simply click on the title: Felon’s Track to read). As well, the Great Irish potato famine (1845 and 1852) had led to massive emigration to the United States and to Canada, but I do not think the Irish Potato Famine refugees can be associated to Fenianism. They arrived in North America between 1845 and 1852.
In Canada, the Fenians first attacked the Missisquoi County, in the Loyalist Eastern Townships, the area of Canada where I live. But other Fenians targets were Campobello Island, New Brunswick (United Empire Loyalist country), which they attacked in April 1866, and the current Ontario. In the current Ontario, about a thousand Fenians crossed the Niagara River on June 1, 1866 under Colonel John O’Neill. The Fenians then attacked the future western provinces of burgeoning Canada all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
In Ottawa, Patrick James Whelan was hanged, perhaps too hastily, for the murder of Thomas D’Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee, PC, (April 13, 1825 – April 7, 1868 ). D’Arcy McGee was an Irish nationalist but he was also one of the Fathers of Confederation, which had just been achieved.
In other words, the Fenians raids played a significant role in bringing about Confederation, as did the Oregon Treaty of 1849. So, ironically, aggressiveness on the part of the United States was to be feared by Britain’s colony to the north of the United States, but in a man the British provinces had not suspected.
Nineteenth-Century Nationalism
However, we do see signs of the times in the actions of the Fenians. After the Congress of Vienna (September, 1814 to June, 1815), nationalism grew considerably in Europe leading to the various revolution of 1848 and, ultimately, to World War I. Michael Doheny took part in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848.[iv]
In fact, European nationalism had also fuelled French-Canadian nationalism. When Lord Durham suggested the Union of Upper and Lower Canada and the assimilation of French-speaking Canadians, he inadvertently gave great impetus to French-Canadian nationalism, which, as mentioned above, helps understand why French-speaking Canadian leaders living in what would be the Province of Quebec, supported Confederation.
Conclusion, but to be followed
So a threat from the US, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or the Fenians, led to Atlantic Canada’s willingness to join the Confederation. Under Confederation the Atlantic provinces gained muscle. Newfoundland, however was beyond the grasp of Fenians. Other provinces would join after 1867, but there had a need or something to be gained. In the case of British Columbia, the construction of a railway would be condition and a need.
—ooo—
I will pause here in order to talk about the Red River Rebellion and the yet to be understood the life and execution of Louis Riel, the member of Parliament for Provencher (Manitoba) and the “father of Manitoba.”
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[i] Under the terms of the Oregon Treaty of 1849, Britain ceded it claims to ownership of land south of the 49th parallel. But it kept Vancouver Island and coastal islands as well as Vancouver.
© Micheline Walker
April 20, 2012
