In the 1840s Canada West, which had been Upper Canada until 1841, became more populated and wealthy while many British immigrants moved into Canada East which had been Lower Canada until 1841. The Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island also prospered. In February 1845 the Canadian Parliament agreed to a general amnesty that Governor-General Charles Metcalfe supported to win over the French. Denis Papineau helped passed a School Act for Canada East that organized schools by Catholic parishes with a similar plan for the Protestant minority. Metcalfe suffered from cancer, and with failing eyesight he relied on William Henry Draper who negotiated with René-Edouard Caron, Mayor of Quebec and Speaker of the Legislative Council. Metcalfe left for England in late November and died in September 1846. Quebec City suffered from two fires in 1845 on May 28 and June 28 which destroyed two-thirds of the city and the homes of 24,000 people.
An expedition to find a northwest passage to the Arctic west of Greenland led by John Franklin left England with 129 men on May 19, and they were last seen in Baffin Bay by whalers in July. They became icebound in Victoria Strait in the territory of what is now Nunavut in Canada, and no survivors were found.
From June 1845 Earl Charles Cathcart was commander of British forces in North America, and in November he began administering as Governor-General. He let Draper and the Council handle political affairs. American settlers in the Oregon territory had been demanding union with the United States since 1843, and some Americans called for a more northern border, “Fifty-four forty or fight.” In January 1846 the Toronto Globe suggested that fighting for Oregon could lead the British to abolish American slavery in a “world’s war.” However, President Polk decided to expand the US by going to war against Mexico rather than against Britain. Private traders at Red River in Oregon came into conflict with the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), and Cathcart sent troops there in 1846. In June the British and Americans agreed on the 49th parallel as the Canadian border, and the British retained Vancouver Island which got a colonial charter in 1849 that lasted until 1866 when it was united with British Columbia. Fort Victoria had been built there in 1843 by the Hudson’s Bay Company as a fur-trading post, and it was demolished in November 1864.
In 1846 the Canadian Parliament managed to get control over the civil list and Canada’s revenues. Canada West established a Board of Education with Egerton Ryerson as Chief Superintendent in charge of teacher training, textbooks, and standards for private and public schools. Local taxes would support schools, but the Parliament rejected taxing property.
The western merchant William Merritt urged Canada to adopt the free trade that Britain had. The United States Drawback Act passed in August and refunded some duties and fees on imports which affected British markets. In the 1840s wheat acreage in Canada West increased by 400%. Wheat and flour shipped by the St. Lawrence River and favorable prices in the British market helped increase exports from 1,194,000 bushels in 1843 to 3,312,000 in 1846. Water and gradually steam increased industrial production. British Corn Laws were repealed in the spring of 1846, allowing free trade. Colonial Secretary Earl Grey in August recalled Cathcart and appointed the Earl of Elgin in September.
In the spring of 1847 British prices fell sharply as a depression spread in the world, and in autumn the Canadian grain market collapsed. The Canadian Parliament lowered duties on American manufactures from an average of 12% to 7.5% but raised them on the British from 5% to 7%. The potato blight in 1845 had stimulated many Irish to emigrate. Immigration from England, Scotland, and Ireland into Canada had reached a peak of 44,000 in 1842, but in 1847 Canada accepted more than 90,000 poor Irish, some with diseases. About a fifth of the 5,000 quarantined for disease on Grosse Ile died by the end of the year, and 15,000 were put in camps. Toronto accepted more than 35,000 Irish immigrants in 1847 and 1848. In 1848 responsibility for the immigration service was transferred from the imperial government to Canada which had a distressing deficit.
House Speaker Allan MacNab led an effort to provide £40,000 to reimburse citizens of Upper Canada from the damage and losses in the rebellion of 1837. Then representatives of Lower Canada made a similar demand. A commission studied the matter and estimated losses at £100,000, but they proposed providing only £10,000 in compensation. Loyalists did not want any money to be paid, and French Canadians wanted more than 10% of their demands. No one who had supported the rebellion was to be paid. Before the next Governor-General Elgin arrived, they approved the £40,000 for Upper Canada.
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, was Governor-General of the united province of Canada 1847-54. He had successfully governed Jamaica 1842-46, and after leave in England he arrived at Montreal in late January. His wife was Durham’s daughter and Grey’s niece, and he had a copy of a dispatch by Grey, who believed in self-government and self-support, which he had sent to the Nova Scotia Lt. Governor writing,
It is neither possible or desirable
to carry on the government
of any of the British provinces in North America
in opposition to the opinion of the inhabitants.1
Elgin believed that allowing Canada preferential trade with the United States would prevent the US from annexing Canada. William Draper left in May for a judicial position, and Henry Sherwood became Attorney General West and William Badgley the Attorney General East. Elgin added two French members from the Legislative Council to his Executive Council which persuaded him to dissolve the Assembly, and he called for elections. They voted in mid-January 1848, and the Baldwin reformers gained a majority in the West 24-18 as 15 of 34 western members lost their seats. In all of Canada the Reformers had 55 members to the Conservatives’ 24. The previous ministers resigned on March 4. Elgin recognized Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine in the East and Robert Baldwin in the West as the leaders of the new Executive Council, and they worked together to overcome the conservatives. Louis-Joseph Papineau broke with Lafontaine when they cut short their session in mid-March. Papineau began publishing a small Montreal newspaper L’Avenir in July. Wheat exports fell in 1848. In February a revolution in France led to the Chartist mass meeting on April 10 in London and the Young Irelander revolt in Dublin on July 29; these events influenced Canadian views.
On 9 August 1848 Peau de Chat of the Ojibway gave a speech on land policy to Canadian officials at a council at the Sault Ste. Marie in which he said,
The miners burn and destroy the land,
and drive away the game upon which we subsist.
We can neither eat the flesh for food,
or can we procure their skins,
wherewith to buy subsistence.
I begin to think that the white man,
having driven away the game,
will steal our land too, and we mush perish.
I will not make reflections upon his conduct.
We are not unwilling to sell our lands;
we will sell both lands and minerals;
but give us good pay for it.2
In January 1849 the Parliament in Montreal lifted the ban on using French, and Elgin even read his speech in French as well as in English. Hincks got a Guarantee Act passed to promote railways in Canada. Baldwin introduced the Municipal Corporations Act for Canada West to improve local self-government by electing wards and treasurers of counties. Lafontaine on February 13 proposed £90,000 to compensate for losses in Lower Canada during the rebellion. On 25 April 1849 Elgin accepted the Rebellion Losses Bill, and his carriage was pelted with rocks and eggs. That night a crowd of 1,500 Tories gathered in the Champ-de-Mars with torches, and they marched to the Parliament, broke windows, entered the building, and set fires that burned it down, destroying two large libraries and public records. The next day soldiers were called out, and the Ministry ordered the arrest of leading rioters; but houses of prominent men including Lafontaine’s were ravaged. The Parliament moved to Bonsecours Market. There were disturbances in Toronto and other towns and then counter-demonstrations and petitions in Canada East and West.
The Assembly voted to move the capital to Toronto for two years and then to Quebec for four years. The imperial Navigation Acts were repealed on June 26, ending the exclusion of foreign ships from the St. Lawrence. In Montreal property values had fallen by 50% in the past three years, and bankruptcies spread. Also in 1849 Baldwin passed the act to reform the Court of Chancery. The Hudson’s Bay Company established a colony on Vancouver Island to protect Britain’s share of
the Oregon treaty.
A movement to have Canada annexed by the United States was taken up by L’Avenir, and the British American League was organized by George Moffat to promote the idea. Some 141 delegates held a conference at Kingston on July 25, and they passed resolutions for retrenchment, a Canadian tariff, and investigating whether to create a federal union of the British American colonies. The Montreal Gazette and three other English newspapers supported annexation by the US. On October 11 the Annexation Association issued a manifesto calling for a peaceful separation from Britain and union with the United States. However, in Canada West most people were loyal to Britain and opposed the United States. Elgin and Grey indicated that Britain would not give up its North American empire, and the government dismissed officers who had signed the manifesto. Lafontaine wanted to protect the privileges of the seigneurs, but socialists and readers of L’Avenir in the East challenged his growing conservatism and were called “The Rouges.” Baldwin led the radicals in the West who wanted several democratic reforms and were called the “Clear Grits.” Their Reform government passed more than 200 bills. In the late 1840s the Canadian and Atlantic provinces had gained control over their customs services and tariffs.
A reform act in 1850 ended primogeniture so that all sons and daughters would have an equal share in inheriting real estate instead of only the oldest son. Canada had only 66 miles of railways operating, but these would increase dramatically in the 1850s. The Guarantee Act of 1849 had provided the government’s guarantee of bonds for railways with as much as 5% interest after the railway had completed half of its construction.
Imperial control of the Post Office ended when the provinces were given that authority in 1851, the year they decided to stop paying for Indian presents in 1858. Also in 1851 the Clear Grits supported Mackenzie’s bill to abolish the Court of Chancery. When this won over a majority of Canada West’s members, Baldwin resigned; Lafontaine soon followed. Governor-General Elgin had Francis Hincks and Lafontaine’s successor Augustin-Norbert Morin form a ministry, and Hincks included two Grits to maintain the Reform Party.
An effort to combine the two Canadas with the Atlantic provinces was given up in the spring of 1852. Hincks negotiated a deal with the Grand Trunk Railway Company to connect Montreal with the Great Western Railway. William Logan had completed a Geological Survey of Canada in 1842, and this helped Canadian mining companies to explore the north shores of the Huron and Superior lakes. The Montreal Company opened the Wellington copper mine there in the early 1850s.
In January 1852 L’Avenir suspended publication, and Le Pays became the Rouges’ paper for Montreal. The British ordered their Atlantic squadron to enforce more strictly the 1818 Fisheries Convention. Catharine Parr Traill (1802-99) published the novels The Backwoods of Canada in 1836 and Canadian Crusoe in 1852. In November that year the Grand Trunk Railway Company was incorporated.
The Anglican Bishop Strachan got a royal charter and opened Trinity College in Toronto. There Bishop Charbonnel founded St. Michael’s College, and Free Presbyterians started Knox College. In 1853 Hincks passed the University Act which established University College as a non-sectarian college in the University of Toronto, named in 1849 by Baldwin’s government when it removed the Church of England’s influence over what had been King’s College.
A census after the first ten years of the Union was completed in 1852 and estimated that Montreal had grown from 40,000 people to 57,000 and Toronto from 14,000 to 30,000. The two Canadas had doubled their population. Canada West with 952,000 people now surpassed Canada East’s 890,000. Reformer George Brown had been elected to the Assembly in 1851, and he advocated separation of church and state. In 1853 he proposed representation by population, and Parliament increased the membership from 85 to 130 with 65 from each province.
The Welland Canal that connects ship traffic between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie was extended and improved in 1846 and 1848, and in 1853 it was used by 2,743 British ships and 2,705 American vessels. In 1854 it was supplemented by the completion of the Erie and Ontario Railway.
The Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty signed by Governor-General Elgin and US Secretary of State Marcy on 5 June 1854 ended the American tariff of 21% on natural resources and allowed free trade for natural products such as wheat, livestock, meat, poultry, eggs, coal, lumber, ore, hemp, and tobacco. The treaty was for ten years, and then either side could give one year notice to withdraw. The Americans were allowed to fish north of the 36th parallel and could navigate in Lake Michigan. The treaty enabled Canadian exports to increase by 33%, but American exports went up by only 7%. The treaty included New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland as well as the province of Canada. Indian affairs were also transferred from the Empire to the provinces, but the colonial governments still wanted the imperial garrisons in Canada, New Brunswick, and the naval base at Halifax.
Hincks was involved in two corruption scandals with railways, and in 1854 he had gone to England with Elgin to negotiated the Reciprocity Treaty. When the representation of the two Canadas was to be increased to 65 each and believing that the Clergy Reserves issue and others needed the enlarged Assembly, he dissolved the old Assembly. In the hot summer election his ministry did not get a majority, and he resigned. The new Parliament opened in Quebec City on September 5. The Ministry’s candidate Cartier was defeated for speaker, and Hincks helped Louis-Victor Sicotte get elected and then resigned two days later.
On September 11 Elgin asked MacNab to form a ministry which he did with Morin. John A. Macdonald became Attorney General West, and John Ross, the President of the Grand Trunk Railway, was chosen to be Speaker of the Legislative Council. This coalition of French reformers with British Conservatives formed the Liberal-Conservative Party. They passed the secularization of the Clergy Reserves and managed to abolish seigneurial tenure by providing compensation. The Anglican Church became self-governing and ended its connection to the Crown. Protestant churches were now private, but the Roman Catholics were still partially established in Canada East.
When Governor-General Elgin retired in 1854, he was succeeded by Edmund Walker Head who had been Lt. Governor of New Brunswick since 1848. Early in 1855 Morin retired, and he was succeeded by Etienne Pascal Taché. The School Bill of 1855 enlarged Catholic school rights in Canada West to make them comparable to the Protestants in Canada East. The government moved back to Toronto in October.
The Great Western Railway was completed in 1855 with 360 miles of track from Niagara Falls by way of Hamilton and London to Windsor opposite Detroit, and that year the Northern Railway ran a hundred miles from old Toronto to Collingwood at Georgian Bay in the Upper Lakes.
Governor-General Head while touring Canada West in early 1856 said the British race was “superior,” angering the French Canadians. The freshly revived L’Avenir responded. An act in 1856 made the Legislative Council elective. The Tories agreed because it meant those elected must have a property qualification. MacNab turned out to be so incompetent that he resigned on May 21 and was replaced by John Alexander Macdonald in the West. In a letter to a Lower Canadian journalist he wrote,
No man in his senses can suppose that
this country can for a century to come
be governed by a totally unfrenchified govt.—
if a Lower Canadian Britisher desires to conquer
he must “stoop to conquer”—
He must make friends with the French—
without sacrificing the status of his race or lineage
he must respect their nationality—
Treat them as a nation and they will act
as a free people generally do—generously.
Call them a faction, and they became factious—
Supposing the numerical preponderance of British in Canada
becomes much greater than it is.
I think the French could give more trouble
than they are said now to do.3
Canada’s economic boom in the 1850s was ended in 1857 as the crash of the New York Stock Exchange affected the Canadians. The economic crash of 1857 depleted provincial finances and many investors. Land values fell, and banks deeply involved in mortgages struggled to survive. The Bank of Upper Canada failed while the Bank of Montreal without mortgages continued to prosper. Canadian governments found it necessary to raise tariffs for revenue. British merchants complained, but Canadian politicians argued that unless the British wanted to pay for their administration, they would have to let Canadians run their own governments.
In 1858 Canadian politics was deadlocked between the Macdonald-Cartier Liberal-Conservative coalition that was declining in Canada West while the Reformer George Brown’s Grits joined with the Rouge minority in Canada East. After the Cartier-Macdonald ministry resigned on July 29 and was replaced by the reformers Brown and A. A. Dorion for only six days, Governor-General Edmund Head asked Cartier and Macdonald to form another government in what was called the “double shuffle.” Then they accepted the proposals for a confederation made by Alexander Tilloch Galt as a way out of the deadlock.
The first trans-Atlantic cable was laid on the seabed in 1858 from Ireland to Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, but sea-water corroded the insulation, and a second cable would not be operational until it was brought to Heart’s Content, Newfoundland in July 1866.
In 1858 the Province of Canada adopted the decimal monetary system of the US dollar. In 1859 the Colonial Bank and the International Bank failed, followed by the Bank of Clifton and the Bank of Western Canada. In 1860 Finance Minister Alexander Tilloch Galt suggested that the government could issue bank notes to replace the notes of private banks, but the latter feared they would lose money and rejected the proposal.
Railroads such as the Grand Trunk, which ran from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Detroit River and farther, improved transportation and trade with the United States. The Victoria Bridge over the St. Lawrence River at Montreal took five years to construct and was completed in December 1859. The British colonial railways in Canada became part of American commerce in the Midwest. Borrowing money for railroads increased Canada’s debt from $18,782,565 in 1850 to $54,142,044 in 1859.
George Brown’s Reform Party in a convention at Toronto in November 1859 demanded that the Province of Canada West get a fair representation in the Assembly based on its larger population, having already a half million more people than Quebec in the East. The Reform Party proposed the federation of Canada with one overall government with limited powers and local governments for the East, West, and the maritime provinces.
Canadian government did depend on the British Navy which was based at Halifax. Their Pacific base was in Valparaiso, Chile and would not move to Vancouver Island until 1865. Some Canadian volunteers served the British Empire in the Crimean War against Russia in 1854-56 and during the Mutiny in India in 1857, and 53,532 Canadians volunteered and fought for the Union Army in the American Civil War. In 1861 Canada West had 11,223 Negroes while Canada East had only 190.
During that Civil War the British recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent but remained neutral. During the crisis in the fall of 1861 when a United States ship stopped the British Trent from transporting Confederate diplomats to Europe, the British insisted they be released and sent 11,000 troops to reinforce garrisons in Canada. They would be spread out from the Bay of Fundy to Lake Huron. Benjamin Disraeli, the conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, considered it an “anomaly” that the army in their colony did not permit them to govern the colony.
In May 1862 Canada’s Conservative government was defeated in an attempt to strengthen the Canadian militia. Other governments also had difficulties, and in June 1864 the Conservative Taché-Macdonald administration was forced to resign after Finance Minister Galt loaned the Grand Trunk Railroad $100,000 without authorization. Then George Brown offered a compromise federation that would include all of British North America including the vast and sparsely settled western regions.
Confederate States of America agents in Canada tried to provoke a war with raids on American territory, and the one against St. Albans Vermont in 1864 stole $200,000 from three banks. Canadian officers arrested some of the Confederates but the government refused to extradite them to the United States. On November 23 the United States gave notice of ending the Rush-Bagot Treaty that banned armaments on the Great Lakes. Then on December 17 the US imposed passport controls on travelers at borders, leaving some Americans stranded in Toronto, Saint John, and Halifax. The United States denounced the Reciprocity Treaty in March 1865 and withdrew the next year.
Efforts for the confederation of Canada had begun in June 1864 when the liberal George Brown and the conservatives John A. Macdonald and George-Etienne Cartier formed a coalition government to work on forming a federal union. The maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island were also considering a Maritime Union, and the delegates from Canada met with them at Charlottetown in September and again at Quebec City in October 10-29. They also included Newfoundland and approved Macdonald’s 72 Resolutions which became the basis of a new constitution. The six provinces would be the Atlantic colonies and West and East Canada (Ontario and Quebec). Newfoundland decided not to join. The federation would be called “Canada.”
The British Colonial Secretary Edward Campbell, once he was assured this had local support, made the plan British policy in early December. British Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the new capital, and Parliament buildings were built in the town of 14,000 people. The federalist Samuel Leonard Tilley lost the March 1865 election in New Brunswick, but Charles Tupper pushed it through the legislature in Nova Scotia over much opposition in the province. Those on Prince Edward Island were concerned that their island was too small. Many French Liberals called “Rouges” opposed confederation while Cartier and Conservative “Blues” believed it would be good for French Canadians who would be a majority in the province of Quebec. The British Government would pass the British North American Act in March 1867 that created the Dominion of Canada.
Newfoundland’s Civil Governor John Harvey (1841-46) and Speaker James Crowdy provided a conciliatory government in Newfoundland until 1847. New Foundland become self-governing in 1855, and British Governor Charles Darling brought a new system. In July the legislature opened shore fisheries to all Canadians and Americans. In 1857 the Newfoundland legislature was united against the British and the other colonies. Roman Catholics regained power in the elections of 1859, but they came into conflict over a steamship service, poor relief, and public salaries. The conservative opposition leader Hugh Hoyles formed a new government, won an election, and was Prime Minister from March 1861 for four years. When the new legislature met in May 1861, the St. John’s Catholics protested in the streets; but troops repressed them and wounded the priest Jeremiah O’Donnell. Eventually politicians learned to share power between the Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists in filling public offices and providing aid to schools even though it was less efficient.
Lucius Cary, 10th Viscount Falkland, was a reformer and governed Nova Scotia from 1840 until he came into conflict with his council in 1846. The army officer John Harvey governed Prince Edward Island 1836-37, New Brunswick 1837-41, Newfoundland 1841-46, and Nova Scotia 1846-52. The Assembly in New Brunswick had gained control over the Civil List and territorial revenues in 1837. On 28 January 1848 Harvey accepted a Reform ministry in Nova Scotia.
In 1844 Joseph Howe had resumed editing the Nova Scotian and the Morning Chronicle, and he was Provincial Secretary for the liberal administration of Nova Scotia from 1848 to 1854. In 1853 he became the first Chief Commissioner of Railways, but in 1855 the conservative Charles Tupper defeated him in the election for his Assembly seat. He allied with the Catholic minority and promoted railroad construction. Liberal William Young was Premier 1854-57. Conservatives took over the government in February 1857, and James W. Johnston was Premier for three years. Tupper began working in June with New Brunswick and Canada to develop an intercolonial railway system; but he failed to get support in England in 1858, and in the 1859 election the Liberals regained control of the Nova Scotia legislature. A Liberal effort to restrict voting was unpopular, and in the June 1863 election the Conservatives gained a large majority in the Assembly.
Many Scots, Irish, and British immigrants came to Nova Scotia, and their population increased from 130,000 in 1840 to 276,854 in 1851. The British colony of New Brunswick accepted Harvey’s reforms in 1848. British colonies in America suffered during the worldwide depression 1847-50 as many poor Irish arrived. In 1852 the Sons of Temperance persuaded the government to prohibit the use of alcohol in January 1853, but it was repealed the following year. The economy improved in the 1850s and was helped by the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. They tried temperance again in 1856, and it brought down the government. By 1861 New Brunswick had 252,047 people, and the population of Prince Edward Island increased to 80,857.
James Douglas had been governing Vancouver Island as the Hudson’s Bay Company chief factor since 1851. In the fall of 1857 gold was discovered at Fraser River in British Columbia. On December 29 Governor Douglas proclaimed that all the gold there belonged to the British Crown, and he tried to impose the company’s monopoly by requiring licenses with a tax of 21 shillings per month. He was a strict governor and canceled the licenses of those who disobeyed him. News of the gold lured about 33,000 miners to come there in the spring of 1858 from California, but all but 3,000 would return by the end of the year. The ships leaving San Francisco carried three times what the law permitted.
British Parliament proclaimed British Columbia a colony on August 2 with James Douglas as its first governor. That month miners harassed Indians at Big Canyon. By the end of the year the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia were established. In early 1859 Douglas set up elected mining boards with broad regulating powers except for judicial matters. He appointed a police chief, constables, and gold commissioners to avoid the anarchy of the California gold rush. Hudson’s Bay Company’s exclusive license expired, and the British Government purchased their rights on Vancouver Island and made the last payment of £57,000 in October 1862. By 1863 the HBC had only 13 stations in the new province. British Columbia formed a Legislative Council in January 1864 with three equal parts for Victoria officials, local magistrates, and elected representatives. Douglas retired and left in 1864.
Notes
1. Quoted in The Union of the Canadas: The Growth of Canadian Institutions 1841-1857 by J. M. S. Careless, p. 115.
2. Green Bay (Wisconsin) Advocate, November 30, 1848 quoted in Great Documents in American Indian History ed. Wayne Moquin, p. 162.
3. “John A. Macdonald on the Racial Balance” in Canadian History in Documents, 1763-1966 ed. J. M. Bliss, p. 97