British colonial era
1763–1867
French colonial era Post-Confederation era
Inside theParliament of the Province of Canada in Montreal, 1848

Part ofa series on the
History of Canada
Benjamin West'sThe Death of General Wolfe
Timeline (list) Pre-colonization Prehistory to 1st century BC 1st millennium 11th century 1534–1763 1764–1867 1867–1914 1914–1945 1945–1960 1960–1981 1982–present
Significant Events Sites People
Topics Agricultural Cultural Constitutional Economic Former colonies Immigration Indigenous Medicine Military Monarchical Peacekeeping Population Sports Religion Territorial evolution Women
Provinces and territories Alberta British Columbia Manitoba New Brunswick Newfoundland and Labrador Nunavut Northwest Territories Nova Scotia Ontario Prince Edward Island Quebec Saskatchewan Yukon
Cities Brampton Charlottetown Edmonton Fredericton Halifax Hamilton Lethbridge Markham Moncton Montreal Northwest Territories capital cities Ottawa Quebec City Regina Richmond Hill Saint John Saskatoon Toronto Vancouver Winnipeg Name etymologies
Research Bibliography Historiography Historians Studies Indices The Canadian Encyclopedia
Canada portal
v t e

Starting with the1763 Treaty of Paris,New France, of which the colony ofCanada was a part, formally became a part of theBritish Empire. TheRoyal Proclamation of 1763 enlarged the colony of Canada under the name of theProvince of Quebec, which with theConstitutional Act 1791 became known asthe Canadas. With theAct of Union 1840,Upper andLower Canada were joined to become theProvince of Canada.

By the 1860s, interest developed in forming a new federation between the Canadas and the other British colonies ofBritish North America, that led to Confederation in 1867. A number of other British colonies that are today part of Canada, such asNewfoundland andBritish Columbia, and large territories such asRupert's Land, initially remained outside the newly formed federation.

In North America, theSeven Years' War had seen Great Britain conquer the entirety of the Frenchcolony of Canada. The war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763. As part of the treaty, France formally renounced its claims to all its North American lands to Britain (of which the French colony of Canada was a part), exceptLouisiana (which had been instead ceded to Spain), and two islands off the shores of Newfoundland (Saint-Pierre and Miquelon).^[1]

With the addition of Canada to the British Empire, Britain gained control of a strip of territory along theSt. Lawrence River with a population of at least 70,000francophoneRoman Catholics, which was expanded and renamed as theProvince of Quebec under theQuebec Act of 1774. Although many British people (including the American colonies to the south) hoped the French Canadians would be assimilated this was not the case as distinct rules of governance for Quebec were set out in theQuebec Act such as allowing the French Canadians to retain theirCatholic religion and their French system of civil law. TheQuebec Act became one of theIntolerable Acts that infuriated the thirteen British colonies in what would become theUnited States of America.

The islandcolony of Newfoundland had been dominated by the British for a long time before the French finally abandoned any claims to the area. An anglophone society had already taken shape prior to 1763, although two islands were reserved for French fishermen.

In the Maritimes, the British had previously expelled many of the French colonists ofAcadia in 1755 to Louisiana, but this would not be repeated in 1763. The remaining indigenousMi'kmaq andWabanaki Confederacy had laid down arms and pledged loyalty to the British Crown. The BritishConquest of Acadia (which includedNova Scotia peninsula, but not present-day New Brunswick) happened in 1710, and the British had already established settlements, includingHalifax. The establishment of Halifax sparkedFather Le Loutre's War, which, in turn, led to the Britishexpelling the Acadians from the region during the French and Indian War.^[2] As they later capturedCape Breton Island andPrince Edward Island, the policy of expulsion was extended there as well. The few Acadians who managed to return to the area have created the contemporary Acadian society.^[3] Once the Acadians were expelled, other settlements were formed byNew England Planters.

In 1775, American revolutionaries (Patriots)attempted to push their insurrection into northeastern Quebec. Support for the Patriot cause was mixed; the clergy and landowners were generally opposed to it, while English-speaking merchants and migrants from theThirteen Colonies were generally supportive of it. Thehabitants were divided; in some areas (notably the region between Montreal andSaint-Jean), there was significant support, and militia companies were raised in support of the Patriots byJames Livingston.

The Patriotslaid siege to Fort Saint-Jean, capturing it and Montreal in November 1775. They then marched on Quebec City, where anattempt to take the city on December 31, 1775, failed. Following an ineffectual siege, the arrival of British troops in May 1776 sent the Patriots into retreat back toward Montreal. Anattempt against British troops at Trois-Rivières failed, and the Patriots were driven from the province in June. Leaving with the rebel army were about 250 Québécois in two regiments: James Livingston's1st Canadian Regiment, andMoses Hazen's2nd Canadian Regiment.

Quebeckers living in the forts of theGreat Lakes region also massively sided with the Patriots and were instrumental in the taking of the fort by the Patriots. MajorClément Gosselin, Pierre Ayotte, Antoine Paulin, Louis Gosselin, Germain Dionne, Pierre Douville,Edward Antill and Moses Hazen and 747 Quebec militiamen were all in Quebec when they joined the Patriots and defeated the British at Yorktown in 1781. In a key act leading up to theSiege of Yorktown,Louis-Philippe de Vaudreuil, the French-born nephew ofFrench Canada's last French governor, theMarquis de Vaudreuil, assisted Bougainville and de Grasse in preventing the British Navy from resupplying or relieving Cornwallis' army in theBattle of the Chesapeake.

In Nova Scotia there was some agitation against British rule, largely instigated byJonathan Eddy andJohn Allan, migrants from Massachusetts who had settled in theChignecto Isthmus area nearFort Cumberland (formerly Fort Beauséjour). The only major event of their resistance was theBattle of Fort Cumberland, when Eddy and a combined force of Massachusetts Patriots, Acadians, and aboriginals besieged the fort in November 1776. The siege was broken and Eddy's forces were scattered when British reinforcements arrived. Eddy and Allan continued to make trouble on the frontier between what is nowMaine andNew Brunswick from a base inMachias for several years.

The Maritime provinces were also affected byprivateering, and raids on settlements by privateers in violation of theirletters of marque. In notable instances,Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island andLunenburg, Nova Scotia were subjected to these raids.

Insouthwestern Quebec, the American forces had much better success there owing to the leadership ofVirginia militia leaderGeorge Rogers Clark. In 1778, 200 men under Clark, supplied and supported mainly by Virginia, came down theOhio River nearLouisville, Kentucky, marched across southern Illinois, and then capturedKaskaskia without loss of life. From there, part of his men tookVincennes, but was soon lost to British Lieutenant ColonelHenry Hamilton, the commander atFort Detroit. It was later retaken by Clark in theSiege of Fort Vincennes in February 1779. Roughly half of Clark's militia in the theatre were Canadien volunteers sympathetic to the American cause.^[4]

In the end, the British Empire was defeated in the Revolutionary War and formallyceded parts of southwestern Canada to the new United States as part of theTreaty of Paris. During and after the Revolution, approximately 70,000 or 15%United Empire Loyalists fled the United States, with the rest of the 85% choosing to stay in the new nation. Of these, roughly 50,000 Loyalists settled in the British North American colonies, which then consisted of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island (created 1769). The Loyalists who settled in western Nova Scotia wanted political freedom fromHalifax, so Britain split off the colony of New Brunswick in 1784. Quebec was also divided intoLower Canada andUpper Canada under theConstitutional Act of 1791, permitting the 8,000 Loyalists who settled in southwestern Quebec (which became Upper Canada) to have a province in which British laws and institutions could be established.

A number of Loyalists that came north after the American Revolution were ofAfrican descent including former slaves who had been freed as a result of service to the British and over 2,000African slaves.^[5] In 1793 Upper Canada became the first British jurisdiction to enact legislation to suppress slavery, with theAct Against Slavery being passed allowing for its gradual abolition.

After the war the British expanded their mercantile interests in the North Pacific. Spain and Britain had become rivals in the area which came to a head with theNootka Crisis in 1789. Both sides mobilised for war, and Spain counted on France for support; when France refused, Spain had to back down and capitulated to British terms leading to theNootka Convention. The outcome of the crisis was a humiliation for Spain and a triumph for Britain, for the former had practically renounced all sovereignty on the North Pacific coast.^[6] This opened the way to British expansion in that area, and a number of expeditions took place; firstly anaval expedition led byGeorge Vancouver which explored the inlets around the Pacific North West, particularly aroundVancouver Island.^[7] On land, expeditions took place hoping for a discovery of a practicable river route to the Pacific for the extension of theNorth American fur trade, namely theNorth West Company.Sir Alexander Mackenzie led the first starting out in 1792 overland fromLake Athabasca via thePeace andFraser Rivers, reaching the Pacific ocean near present-dayBella Coola on 20 July 1793.^[8] Mackenzie became the first European to reach the Pacific overland north of theRio Grande which preceded theLewis and Clark Expedition by twelve years. Shortly thereafter, Mackenzie's companion,John Finlay, founded the first permanent European settlement inBritish Columbia,Fort St. John. The North West Company sought further explorations firstly byDavid Thompson, starting in 1797, and later bySimon Fraser. These men pushed into the wilderness territories of theRocky Mountains and Interior Plateau and all the way to theStrait of Georgia on the Pacific Coast expandingBritish North America Westward.^[9]

From 1783 through 1801, the British Empire, includingBritish North America (but notIndia, which was under theEast India Company, and later theIndia Office), was administered by theHome Office and by theHome Secretary, then from 1801 to 1854 by theWar Office (which became theWar and Colonial Office) and Secretary of State for War and Colonies (as theSecretary of State for War was renamed). From 1824, theBritish Empire was divided by the War and Colonial Office into four administrative departments, includingNorth America, theWest Indies,Mediterranean and Africa, andEastern Colonies, of which North America included:^[10]

North America

• Upper Canada,Lower Canada
• New Brunswick,Nova Scotia,Prince Edward Island
• Bermuda,Newfoundland

TheColonial Office and War Office, and theSecretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for War, were separated in 1854, dividing the civil and military administration of the British Empire. The War Office, after 1854 and until the 1867confederation of theDominion of Canada, split the military administration of the British colonial and foreign stations into nine districts:North America and North Atlantic;West Indies;Mediterranean;West Coast of Africa and South Atlantic;South Africa;Egypt and The Sudan;Indian Ocean;Australasia; andChina.North America and North Atlantic included the followingstations (or garrisons):^[11]

North America and North Atlantic

• New Westminster (British Columbia)
• Newfoundland
• Quebec
• Halifax
• Kingston, Canada West
• Bermuda

The Atlantic archipelago ofBermuda (originally administered by theVirginia Company and, withThe Bahamas, considered with North America prior to 1783), was grouped withthe Maritime provinces from 1783 until formation of the Dominion ofCanada in 1867, and thereafter generally with the colonies in theBritish West Indies (although the Church of England continued to place Bermuda under theBishop of Newfoundland until 1919).^[10]

Following the war, the Royal Navy spent a dozen years charting the barrier reef around Bermuda to discover the channel that enabled access to the northern lagoon, theGreat Sound, andHamilton Harbour. Once this had been located, a base was established (initially atSt. George's before the construction of theRoyal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda) in 1794, when Vice AdmiralSir George Murray, Commander-in-Chief of the newRiver St. Lawrence and Coast of America and North America and West Indies Station, set up the firstAdmiralty House, Bermuda at Rose Hill, St. George's. In 1813, the area of command became theNorth America Station again, with the West Indies falling under theJamaica Station, and in 1816 it was renamed theNorth America and Lakes of Canada Station. The headquarters was initially in Bermuda during the winter and Halifax during the summer, but Bermuda, became the year-round headquarters of the Station in 1821, when the area of command became theNorth America and West Indies Station.^[12] TheRoyal Naval Dockyard, Halifax was finally transferred to theRoyal Canadian Navy in 1907. Bermuda and Halifax, Nova Scotia, along withGibraltar andMalta would be designatedImperial fortresses.^{[13][14][15][16]}

A British Armygarrison was re-established at Bermuda in 1794 (a small regular infantry garrison had existed from 1701 to 1768, alongside the militia, and part of theRoyal Garrison Battalion had been stationed there in 1778 but the battalion was disbanded there in 1784) and was expanded greatly during the 19th Century, both to defend the colony as a naval base and to launch amphibious operations against the Atlantic coast of the United States in any war that should transpire. Prior to 1784, theBermuda Garrison had been placed under the military Commander-in-Chief America in New York during the American War of Independence, but was to become part of the Nova Scotia Command until the 1860s (in 1815, Lieutenant-General SirGeorge Prevost wasCaptain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the Provinces of Upper-Canada, Lower-Canada, Nova-Scotia, and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty's Forces in the said Provinces of Lower Canada and Upper-Canada, Nova-Scotia and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, and in the islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, Cape Breton and the Bermudas, &c. &c. &c. Beneath Prevost, the staff of the British Army inthe Provinces of Nova-Scotia, New-Brunswick, and their Dependencies, including the Islands of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Prince Edward and Bermuda were under the Command of Lieutenant-General SirJohn Coape Sherbrooke. Below Sherbrooke, theBermuda Garrison was under the immediate control of theLieutenant-Governor of Bermuda, Major-GeneralGeorge Horsford).^[17] The Royal Navy, British Army, Royal Marines, and Colonial Marines forces based in Bermuda carried out actions of this sort during the American War of 1812 (most notably theBurning of Washington in retribution for the "wanton destruction of private property along the north shores of Lake Erie" by American forces under Col. John Campbell in May 1814, the most notable being theRaid on Port Dover^[18]) to draw United States forces away from the Canadian border.^{[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]} In 1828, His ExcellencyGeorge, Earl of Dalhousie, (Baron Dalhousie, of Dalhousie Castle,) Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath wasCaptain General and Governor in Chief in and over the Provinces of Lower-Canada, Upper-Canada, Nova-Scotia, and New-Brunswick, and their several dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty's Forces in the said Provinces, and their several dependencies, and in the Islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, and Bermuda, &c. &c c. &c. Beneath Dalhousie, theProvinces of Nova-Scotia, New-Brunswick, and their Dependencies, including the Island of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Prince Edward and Bermuda were under the Command of His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir James Kempt GCB, GCH.^[29][30]

The establishedChurch of England in Bermuda (since 1978, titled theAnglican Church of Bermuda) and Newfoundland was attached to theSee ofNova Scotia from 1825 to 1839 and from 1787 to 1839, respectively. From 1839, the island of Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador, as well as Bermuda, became parts of theDiocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda, with the shared Bishop (Aubrey George Spencer being the first) alternating his residence between the two colonies. A separate Bermuda Synod was incorporated in 1879, but continued to share its Bishop with Newfoundland until 1919, when the separate position ofBishop of Bermuda was created (in 1949, on Newfoundland becoming a province of Canada, the Diocese of Newfoundland became part of theAnglican Church of Canada; the Church of England in Bermuda, which was re-titled theAnglican Church of Bermuda in 1978, is today one of sixextra-provincial Anglican churches within theChurch of England overseen by theArchbishop of Canterbury).^[31][32]

In the War of 1812,the Canadas were once again a battleground, this time between the British and the relatively young United States.^[33] During the war, unsuccessful attempts were made by the Americans to invade Upper Canada, after overestimating the amount of support they would receive from Canadian colonists. Much of the settler population of Upper Canada (now southern Ontario) were Americans who had very recently arrived in the colony, and some of them did support the invading force; however, the rest of the settler population was made up of the descendants of Loyalists or the original French colonists, who did not want to be part of the United States. The first American invasion came in October 1812, but they were defeated by GeneralIsaac Brock at theBattle of Queenston Heights. The Americans invaded again in 1813, capturingFort York (now Toronto). Later in the year, the Americans took control of theGreat Lakes after theBattle of Lake Erie and theBattle of the Thames, but they had much less success in Lower Canada, where they were defeated at theBattle of Châteauguay and theBattle of Crysler's Farm. The Americans were driven out of Upper Canada in 1814 after theBattle of Lundy's Lane, although they still controlled the Great Lakes and defeated the British at theBattle of Lake Champlain. In English Canada, it is seen as a victory against American invasions, with heroic legends surrounding many of the participants (such as Isaac Brock andLaura Secord) and battles (especially those in theNiagara Peninsula).

For centuries one of the most important economic ventures in North America was thefur trade. This trade, which had been pioneered by the French, came to be dominated by the British as they gained increasing territory on the continent. The main British fur trading posts were located inside of what became the United States (the British were forced to relocate northward as borders were established with the new nation).^[34]First Nations were central to the trade as they were the primary fur trappers. The role gave the peoples of many of the First Nations a political voice as, though they were viewed as an underclass, they were too important to simply be ignored. The American Revolution led to intense competition between the British and the U.S. By the 1830s changing fashions in Europe had begun a steep decline in fur prices and an overall collapse in the market. Apart from the economic losses towhites involved in the fur trade, many of the First Nations were devastated, both in terms of economic loss and in terms of loss of influence in local politics.

As the fur trade declined in importance, the timber trade became Canada's most important commodity. The industry became concentrated in three main regions. The first to be exploited was theSaint John River system. Trees in the still almost deserted hinterland of New Brunswick were cut and transported to Saint John where they were shipped to England. This area soon could not keep up with demand, and the trade moved to the St. Lawrence River where logs were shipped to Quebec City before being sent on to Europe. This area also became insufficient, and the trade expanded westward, most notably to theOttawa River system, which by 1845 provided three quarters of the timber shipped from Quebec City. The timber trade became a massive business. In one summer 1200 ships were loaded with timber at Quebec City alone.

After the War of 1812, the first half of the 19th century saw the growth of political reform movements in both Upper and Lower Canada, largely influenced by American and French republicanism. The colonial legislatures set out by the Constitutional Act had become dominated by wealthy elites, theFamily Compact in Upper Canada and theChâteau Clique in Lower Canada. The moderate reformers, such asRobert Baldwin andLouis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, argued for a more representational form of government which they called "responsible government".

By "responsible," the reformers meant that such a government would be ultimately responsible to the will of the subjects of the colonies, not to authorities in London. The critical move toward responsible government came between 1846 and 1850. In practice, it meant that the Executive Council of each colony formulated policy with the assistance of the legislative branch. The legislature voted approval or disapproval, and the appointed governor enacted those policies that it had approved. It was a transition from the older system when the governor took advice from an executive council, and use the legislature chiefly to raise money.^[35] The radical reformers, such asWilliam Lyon Mackenzie andLouis-Joseph Papineau demanded equality or a complete break from British rule and the establishment of a republic.

Louis-Joseph Papineau was elected speaker of the colonial assembly in 1815. His attempts at reform were ignored by the British, and in 1834, the assembly passed TheNinety-Two Resolutions, outlining its grievances against the legislative council. Papineau organized boycotts and civil disobedience. The colonial government illegally ordered the arrest of Papineau. ThePatriotes resorted to armed resistance and planned theLower Canada Rebellion in the fall of 1837. British troops in the colony quickly put down the rebellion and forced Papineau to flee to the United States. A second rebellion by theFrères chasseurs ofRobert Nelson broke out one year later, but the British put it down as well, with much loss of life and destruction of property.

William Lyon Mackenzie, a Scottish immigrant and reformist mayor of York (Toronto), organized theUpper Canada Rebellion in December 1837 after the Patriotes rebellion had begun. Upper Canadians had similar grievances; they were annoyed at the undemocratic governance of the colony, and especially by the corrupt and inefficientBank of Upper Canada and theCanada Company. On December 4, the rebels assembled nearMontgomery's Tavern, where the British troops stationed in the city met them on December 7. The rebels were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned and were defeated in less than an hour. Mackenzie escaped to the United States.

Also in December, a group of Irish immigrants attempted to seize southwestern Ontario by force in thePatriot War. They were defeated by government troops atWindsor.

Lord Durham was appointedGovernor General of Canada in 1838. He was assigned to investigate the causes of the Rebellions, and concluded that the problem was essentially animosity between the British and French inhabitants of Canada. HisReport on the Affairs of British North America contains the famous description of "two nations warring in the bosom of a single state." For Durham, the French Canadians were culturally backwards, and he was convinced that only a union of French and English Canada would allow the colony to progress in the interest of Great Britain. A political union would, he hoped, cause the French-speakers to be assimilated by English-speaking settlements, solving the problem of French Canadian nationalism once and for all.^[36]

Lord Durham was succeeded byLord Sydenham who was responsible for implementing Durham's recommendations in theAct of Union 1840 passed on July 23, 1840, by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and proclaimed February 10, 1841. Upper and Lower Canada became, respectively,Canada West andCanada East,^[37] both with 42 seats in theLegislative Assembly of the Province of Canada despite Lower Canada being more populated. The official language of the province became English and French was explicitly banned in the Parliament and in the courts.

The moderate reformers Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin fought two successive governors general SirCharles Bagot and SirCharles Metcalfe to secure what became known as responsible government. Metcalfe fought to preserve the prerogatives ofthe Crown and the governor's control over the administration andpatronage. He nonetheless had to make some concessions to win support, and the most notable of these was persuading theColonial Office to grant amnesty to the rebels of 1837–38, and to abandon forced anglicization of the French-speaking population. Lafontaine and Baldwin reintroduced French as an official language alongside English in the Assembly, the Courts and other governmental bodies. Under the progressive Governor GeneralJames Bruce (Lord Elgin), a bill was passed to allow the leaders of former Patriote movement to return to their homeland; Papineau returned and for a short time re-entered Canadian politics. A similar bill was passed for the former Upper Canadian rebels. Elgin also implemented the practice of responsible government in 1848, several months after it had already been granted to the colony ofNova Scotia.

The parliament of United Canada inMontreal wasset on fire by a mob of Tories in 1849 after the passing of an indemnity bill for the people who suffered losses during the rebellions of Lower Canada.

One noted achievement of the Union was theCanadian–American Reciprocity Treaty of 1855 which sanctionedfree trade in resources. However, the achievement must be seen in the wider politics of British North America which had seen the major boundary disputes with the United States settled (seeRush–Bagot Treaty,Treaty of 1818,Webster–Ashburton Treaty,Oregon Treaty), thus easing tensions which for most of the first half of the 19th century had Americans threatening war or retaliation.

TheUnion Act of 1840 was ultimately unsuccessful, and led to calls for a greater political union in the 1850s and 1860s. Support for independence was strengthened by events such as theBattle of Ridgeway, an 1866 invasion into Ontario by some 1500 Irish nationalists which was repulsed largely by local militia.

Although Spain had taken the lead in the exploration of the northwest Pacific Coast, with the voyages of Juan José Pérez Hernández in 1774 and 1775,^[38] by the time the Spanish determined to build a fort on Vancouver Island, the British navigatorJames Cook had himself visitedNootka Sound and charted the coast as far as Alaska,^[39] while British and American traders had begun settling on the coast so as to develop resources for trade with Europe and Asia. In 1793,Alexander Mackenzie a Scotsman working for the North West Company crossed the continent and with his aboriginal guides, French-Canadian voyageurs and another Scot, reached the mouth of the Bella Coola River, completing the first continental crossing of North America north of Mexico, missingGeorge Vancouver's charting expedition to the region by only a few weeks. The competing imperial claims between Russia, Spain and Britain were compounded by treaties between the former two powers and the United States, which pressed for the annexation of most of what is now British Columbia, not recognizing the title of the many First Nations present.

With the signing of the Oregon Treaty in 1846, the United States agreed to establish its northern border with western British North America along the49th parallel.^[40] By 1857, Americans and British were beginning to respond to rumours of gold in theFraser River area.^[41] Almost overnight, some ten to twenty thousand men moved into the region around present-dayYale, British Columbia, sparking theFraser Canyon Gold Rush. GovernorJames Douglas was suddenly faced with having to exert British authority over a largely alien population. In order to normalize its jurisdiction, and undercut any Hudsons's Bay Company claims to the resource wealth of the mainland, theCrown colony ofBritish Columbia was established August 2, 1858.^[42] Douglas signed a few treaties with the First Nations on Vancouver Island, but did not otherwise recognize the First Nations of the colony. In 1866, it was united with theColony of Vancouver Island into theunited Colony of British Columbia.

By the mid-1850s, politicians in theProvince of Canada began to contemplate western expansion. They questioned theHudson's Bay Company's tenure of Rupert's Land and the Arctic territories, and launched a series of exploring expeditions to familiarize themselves and the settler population with the geography and climate of the region.

In 1854, the Governor General of British North America, Lord Elgin, signed a significanttrade agreement with the United States on behalf of the colonies. This agreement endured for ten years until the American government abrogated it in 1865.^[43]

Effective governance of the Province of Canada after 1840 required a careful balancing of the interests of French and English- speaking populations; and between Catholics and Protestants.John A. Macdonald emerged in the 1850s as a personality who could manage that task. A political conservative, MacDonald forged political relationships and coalitions withGeorge-Étienne Cartier, the leader of powerful French Canadianbleus, andGeorge Brown of the more stridently reformist English-Canadian and anti-French "Grits".^[44] MacDonald came to realize that Canada's likeliest hope of resisting absorption into the United States was to reform itself into a workable federation. A delegation from the Canadas made its way to aconference being held inCharlottetown in 1864 by representatives from theMaritimes who had intended to hold discussions regarding a federation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.^[45] This conference was followed by a subsequentconference in Quebec City. TheSeventy-Two Resolutions from the1864 Quebec Conference laid out the framework for uniting British colonies in North America into afederation. They were adopted by the majority of the provinces of Canada and became the basis for the London Conference of 1866, which led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. Federation emerged from multiple impulses: the British wanted Canada to defend itself; the Maritimes needed railroad connections, which were promised in 1867; British-Canadian nationalism sought to unite the lands into one country, dominated by the English language and British culture; many French-Canadians saw an opportunity to exert political control within a new largely French-speaking Quebec.^[46] Finally, but by no means least significant, were fears of possible U.S. expansion northward in the wake of the end of theUnited States Civil War. On a political level, there was a desire for the expansion of responsible government and elimination of the legislative deadlock between Upper and Lower Canada, and their replacement with provincial legislatures in a federation. This was especially pushed by the liberalReform movement of Upper Canada and the French-Canadianrouges in Lower Canada who favoured a decentralized union in comparison to the Upper Canadian Conservative party and to some degree the French-Canadianbleus which favoured a centralized union.^[47] Even Queen Victoria was supportive, noting "...the impossibility of our being able to hold Canada, but we must struggle for it; and by far the best solution would be to let it go as an independent kingdom under an English prince."^[48] In the end Canada went as aDominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom itself. It was a fresh start, but not one that was greeted with universal joy. While some envisaged Confederation for the British North American colonies as a way forward together,La Minerve, a newspaper in the new Province of Quebec endorsed the federation because it provided "la seule voie qui nous soit offerte pour arriver à l'indépendance politique." ("the only way offered to us to achieve political independence").^[49] A change of heart toward Confederation was evident in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where theMorning Chronicle newspaper announced on the front page of its July 1, 1867, edition the death of "the free and enlightened Province of Nova Scotia".^[49]

• Heritage Minutes
• History of Canada
• Former colonies and territories in Canada

• Cruikshank, Ernest (2006) [1814].The Documentary History of the campaign upon the Niagara frontier. (Part 1-2). University of Calgary. Archived fromthe original on May 27, 2011. RetrievedMay 11, 2009.

• History of Canada by period
• British North America
• British colonization of the Americas
• Pre-Confederation Canada
• Canadian Confederation
• 18th century in Canada
• 19th century in Canada
• 18th century in the British Empire
• 19th century in the British Empire
• 1760s in Canada
• 1860s in Canada
• Former colonies in North America

• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from February 2020
• Use Canadian English from February 2020
• All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English
• Articles using infobox templates with no data rows
• Articles with excerpts
• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from August 2024
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• CS1 errors: ISBN date