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In a few short years, a handful of small and separate British colonies are transformed into a new nation that controls half the North American continent. The story of Confederation, its supporters and its bitter foes, is told against a backdrop of U.S. Civil War and Britain's growing determination to be rid of its expensive, ungrateful colonies. The dawn of the photographic era provides a vivid portrait of the diverse people who make up the new Dominion of Canada: the railway magnates, the unwed mothers of Montreal, the nuns who provide refuge for the destitute, the prosperous merchants of Halifax, the brave fugitives of the Underground Railroad, and the tide of Irish immigrants who flood into the cities.
Before 1867, Britain's colonies were collectively referred to as British North America.
British North America • In 1860, British North America was made up of scattered colonies (Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Vancouver Island and BC merged in 1866.) The colonies were geographically, politically and economically separate from each other although all were intricately tied to Britain.
Newfoundland • In the east, Newfoundland sat in isolation, and the separate colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island had little to do with one another.
United Province of Canada • In the centre, was the large, bickering United Province of Canada - composed of the French-Catholic dominated Lower Canada and English-Protestant Upper Canada. (officially called Canada East and Canada West although the named Lower and Upper Canada persisted).
1841 • In 1841, the formerly separate colonies of Lower and Upper Canada had been forced into an unhappy political marriage. Although Lower Canada had a much larger population, the two provinces were given the same number of elected representatives, and French Canadians resented this inequality. By 1850, immigration had changed the balance, giving Upper Canada a larger population.
By 1860, about four million people lived in British North America. They were scattered across the northern half of the continent although most Europeans lived along the East Coast or in Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec.)
Hudson's Bay Company • The Hudson's Bay Company still loosely held much of the northwestern territory of the continent. The prairies were a vast area already coveted by the United States and sparsely inhabited by natives, Métis and fur traders. British Columbia, cut off by the Rocky Mountains, was in the throes of the gold rush, which was bringing Americans up by the thousands. The territory had become a British colony in 1858.
Government • The colonies each had a separate government with locally elected representatives, although all were still subject to the overriding political authority of Britain. By the 1860s, Britain was growing tired of maintaining its colonies. The costs, especially of defending British North America, were burdens that a growing number of British politicians could do without.
In 1862, one member of parliament expressed the views held by others in London, "I want the Canadians clearly to understand that England would not be sorry to see them depart from her tomorrow."
American Civil War • British North America was also facing pressure from another side. To the south, the outbreak of the American Civil War posed a threat to the safety of the colonies. Some colonial politicians felt the only way to avoid being absorbed by the United States was to unite.
Underground Railroad • Underground Railroad
In the 1850s and 1860s, British North America became a popular refuge for slaves fleeing the horrors of plantation life in the American South. In all 30,000 slaves fled to Canada, many with the help of the underground railroad - a secret network of free blacks and white sympathizers who helped runaways.
Canada was viewed as a safe haven, where a black person could be free. In Upper Canada (officially called Canada West), slavery had been illegal since the end of the 1700s. Southern slave-owners tried to discourage flight by telling slaves that the Detroit River was 3,000 miles wide and that the abolitionists (people who opposed slavery) were cannibals: "they get you darkies up there, fatten you up and then boil you."
others countered the slave-owners' propaganda and encouraged slaves to take flight. Mary Ann Shadd was a freeborn black woman - not born into slavery - from Delaware who settled in Canada. She wrote a 45-page booklet for American blacks entitled, A Plea for Emigration, or; Notes of Canada West in its Moral, Social and Political Aspect. "In Canada as in recently settled countries, there is much to do, and comparatively few for the work... If a coloured man understands his business, he receives the public patronage the same as a white man," Shadd wrote.
Many blacks were willing to risk everything for a chance at freedom and one of their heroes was a black woman named Harriet Tubman. Tubman was born into a slave family in Maryland. After she fled north to freedom, she became one of the chief organizers of the underground railroad. "There are two things I had a right to - liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other for no man should take me alive," Tubman said. Month after month Tubman helped blacks safely across the Canadian border. They followed rivers, hid in swamps and forest and always feared slave-hunters at their backs. Tubman became known as the Moses of her people and slaves owners put a bounty on her head of $40,000. Tubman made 19 trips to the South between 1850 and 1860 leading around 300 people to freedom. After the American Civil War, Tubman remained active for such causes as equality in education and women's rights.
Despite hostility from white colonists, thousands of black Americans, many fleeing slavery, settled in pre-Confederation Canada. (Courtesy of the Archives of Ontario)
In the 1860s, Montreal was a thriving city of more than 100,000 people. It was home to many of the wealthiest and poorest citizens of the colonies. The English-speaking elite lived in an enclave on the south slope of Mount Royal called the Square Mile. They controlled about two-thirds of the country's wealth, fortunes that came from beer (John Molson), furs (James McGill), sugar (John Redpath), and flour (the Ogilvies). The richest was Hugh Allan, a shipping magnate who shunned tobacco and alcohol, preferring hard work and curling. His mansion had 34 rooms and from his bell tower, he could look through a brass telescope to the harbour to watch his ships being unloaded
Many of the wealthy were Scots Presbyterians who came to Canada with little money or education and built their fortunes. These people were the country's aristocracy and they were eager to associate with British royalty.
Industry in British North America was becoming mechanized in the 1850s and 60s. (Courtesy of the National Archives of Canada)
In contrast to this ostentatious wealth, many Montreal residents lived in wretched poverty. Many poor, including children, worked in the new steam-powered factories, at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Some factory owners were ruthless, taking advantage of people's desperate circumstances. Some workers laboured for nothing during their first months on the job and the troublesome ones were beaten. In the 1860s, Montreal had one of the highest levels of infant mortality in North America - one in three children died before reaching the age of five. Winter was hardest on the poor when the port froze up and the factories closed. People turned to volunteer organizations and churches for help. Montreal had one of the highest levels of infant mortality in North America; one in three children died before reaching the age of five. Every day children were found abandoned on the steps of charities. Some of the parents had died of typhus. Other families were too poor to feed or clothe the children. In 1867, the Grey Nuns, a Catholic order, took in 662 infants. Within a month of their arrival, 369 had died. At the end of the year, only 39 survived. The convent of the Grey Nuns was a clearinghouse for illegitimate children. The babies were found by the river, left in baskets at the orphanage's doors, or discovered wrapped in newspapers. The few survivors were sent to live with rural families.
Irish Immigration • Pre-Confederation British North America became home to thousands of people fleeing poverty or oppression in their homelands with hopes to build a better life. In the 1840s, Irish peasants came to Canada in vast numbers to escape a famine that swept Ireland. Robert Whyte kept a record of the terrible conditions many Irish immigrants endured while crossing the Atlantic in so-called "coffin ships" during the 1840s. (As portrayed by Robert Haley in Canada: A People's History) • Year after year, the potato crop failed in Ireland. Unable to pay the rent, families were evicted from their homes by ruthless landlords. By the time the worst was over, one million people had died of disease and starvation. Survivors were forced to emigrate. • The Irish peasants came to North America in overcrowded and unsanitary ships known as "coffin ships." Cabin passenger Robert Whyte recorded the horrifying conditions in the steerage section of a ship."
