Rival colonies, uneasy coalitions and a powerful neighbour to the south. Learn the language of the political deals, border threats and population shifts that drew British North America together into a new country.
These terms were extracted from Canadian History: Post-Confederation by John Douglas Belshaw, eCampusOntario (originally published by BCcampus, 2016) which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The third Canadian constitution since the Conquest in 1763. The Act of Union contained measures for the management of French-Canadians, built on the premise (from Lord Durham's 1839 Report on the Affairs of British North America) that assimilation of French-Canadians was essential to the future of the larger colony.
The Province of Canada — created by the Act of Union in 1840-41 — was a single entity hinged at the middle, along the Ottawa River.
Reformers in Canada West (Ontario) before Confederation. Anti-Catholic and largely anti-French, the Grits opposed John A. Macdonald's Tories and advocated the annexation of Rupert's Land. In the post-Confederation period they became one section of the Liberal Party.
George Brown — Toronto newspaperman, Clear Grit reformer, and a Father of Confederation — made his support of Confederation conditional on the purchase of Rupert’s Land.
Also called the Cabinet. The highest offices — either elected or appointed — in Canadian politics: before the 1840s, a mostly appointed Executive Council led by the Governor General; after 1867, an elected body comprised of members of the current House of Commons and supported by a majority of votes in the House of Commons.
Better to have a handpicked local and loyal Executive, at least that was the view until the 1840s.
In demographic studies, the consolidation of population information from censuses, church records, and civic documents to enable a complete history of a family, street, or community in terms of births, marriages, deaths, divorces, movement, and other demographic behaviours.
A family reconstitution database of the Quebec Catholic population allows us to trace the growth of this population throughout the French and British colonial period.
Term used to describe anyone involved in the Charlottetown or Quebec Conferences leading to Confederation; sometimes extended to the first premiers of the new Dominion as well; term sometimes used to describe Newfoundland Premier Joey Smallwood from 1949.
There is the matter of what the so-called “Fathers of Confederation” believed they were doing and agreeing to.
An assemblage of states or provinces with roughly comparable rights in which all the constituent parts relinquish some of their authority to a separate, central government.
The former colonies — now “provinces” — were not uniformly happy to be part of the new federation.
Irish-Americans, bound together as an anti-British army; mounted and/or threatened invasions of British North America in the 1860s and ’70s.
The 60th Battalion braces itself for a Fenian Raid in May 1870.
A population deriving from a small initial influx of immigrants.
Present-day Quebecois who trace their origins to the French colonists are a founder population, descended from just 8,573 men and women.
In 1864, an alliance between the Bleu-Conservatives and the Clear Grits in the Province of Canada. The Great Coalition launched a renewed effort to revise the Canadian constitution, a campaign that culminated in Confederation.
They were able to wrestle George Brown into a new Great Coalition in 1864.
Until 1968 all Canadian provinces had a Legislative Assembly, either as their only house of elected representatives or as a lower house — in either instance equating to the federal and British House of Commons. In 1968 the Quebec Assembly was renamed the National Assembly of Quebec. Sitting members are described in most provinces as Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and in Ontario as Members of the Provincial Parliament (MPPs). In Quebec they are Members of the National Assembly (MNAs).
By the late 1850s it was virtually impossible to forge a coalition in the Legislative Assembly that could muster enough votes to build a government.
American notion that it could control, and was destined to control, the whole of North America; literally, it was the will of God (destined) and it was apparent (manifest) in the incremental territorial expansions of the United States.
American acquisition of Alaska, in 1867, reminded British Columbians that the Americans held on to their belief in a manifest destiny to rule the whole of the continent.
A proposal to create one colony out of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island; the original impetus for the Charlottetown Conference; abandoned in favour of Confederation.
It was over this issue — Maritime Union — that they assembled at Charlottetown when the Canadians came calling.
Boundary between the American colonies, then states, of Maryland and Pennsylvania; also used to define the American South from the American North, and slave and non-slave states.
In the United States, a century-old federation came apart along the Mason-Dixon Line.
The growth of population from more births than deaths; that is, not by immigration and not factoring in emigration.
Between 1811 and 1861, 84% of Canada’s population growth was on account of natural increase.
1854 agreement between the British North American colonies and the United States; enabled freer trade; was cancelled by the Americans at the end of the Civil War.
The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 — which enabled freer trade between the colonies and the United States — was cancelled by the Americans at the end of the war.
Representation by population; the higher the population of a province, the higher the number of seats allocated for that province in the House of Commons.
Francophones would be outnumbered by anglophones in the federal Assembly, which was a little like handing the English-speakers the rep-by-pop they’d been clamouring for since 1851.
Government in which the Executive level (or Cabinet) is responsible to — and can be dismissed from office by — the majority of votes in the Assembly. In contrast to pre-Confederation systems in which the Executive was appointed by and was responsible to the Crown or its representative.
Responsible government came first in Nova Scotia, then in Canada (both in 1848).
The ratio of men to women. A sex ratio of 2:1 indicates that there are two men for every one woman.
Male immigrants dominated the colony in its early years, creating a severe sex ratio imbalance.
The Atlantic Coast colonies established in the 17th and 18th centuries; rebelled against British rule in 1775-83 and became the core elements of the United States.
Canada in 1867 covered an area roughly equivalent to the original Thirteen Colonies of Britain.
Refers to the seat of British parliamentary government in Westminster, London.
The possibility of secession might be ruled out by Westminster, but anti-Confederationist politicians saw it as a matter of popular consent.