Ontario history
The history of Ontario , a province of Canada , dates back to the end of the last Ice Age , i.e. at least 9000 BC in terms of human settlement . BC The first inhabitants, probably caribou hunters, were followed by members of the archaic cultures from the west who used spear throwers. From around 3500 BC In the Ottawa Valley and on the large islands in Lake Superior, copper was processed; on South Fowl Lake on the border between Ontario and Minnesota , copper was even processed around 4800 BC. Discovered worked copper. The first larger structures are burial mounds, the Burial Mounds . The Late Archaic Phase (approx. 2500 to 900 BC) probably brought about the use of the bow and arrow .
When the later Iroquois and Algonquin troops immigrated is unclear, but the Iroquois came more from the south, the Algonquin from the west. In the woodland phase from around 1000 BC. The use of pottery emerged in the 4th century BC, as well as an intensive horticultural economy based primarily on the cultivation of pumpkins . Four regional, so-called complexes can be distinguished: couture in the extreme southwest, which reached as far as Michigan and Ohio , Saugeen , which connected eastward (to which the Ottawa may be traced back), Point Peninsula between Ottawa and southern Québec and Laurel in northern Ontario (which may be related to the Cree ). Between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie , Princess Point was added around 700 , an immigration behind which the Iroquois are believed, and a similar culture, especially around Kingston , called the Sandbanks Complex . In both cases, corn and tobacco emerged . In the late woodland phase , the village, often fortified with palisades , dominated, around 1200 the longhouses increased. In the colder north, hunting and gathering continued to prevail, while in the south there was increasing sedentariness and a rural way of life.
The first Europeans came to the region around 1600, which was controversial between the French and British until 1763, who mainly fought over the fur trade . Iroquois were mostly on the British and Algonquian, or Montagnais and Wyandot (Hurons), on the French side. The Dutch sold rifles directly to the Iroquois, who between 1649 and 1655 destroyed Wyandot, Petun and the neutrals and triggered a mass migration to the west. Until 1701 they were also at war with the French. The English settled on Hudson Bay and founded the Hudson's Bay Company . The establishment of what would later become Detroit prompted Ojibwa to move near it. They ruled southwestern Ontario for almost a century.
After the independence of the USA, British allies - besides Iroquois many loyalists - fled to Ontario and English-speaking settlers soon formed the majority. They helped repel the US invasion from 1812 to 1814 . Republican uprisings turned against the domination of the group known as the Family Compact in 1837. In 1841 the two colonies of Upper and Lower Canada were united to form the Province of Canada . Extensive self-government in which Canadian interests should take precedence over those of the British Empire was achieved in 1848. The British divided the colony, with Upper Canada ( Upper Canada ) becoming a separate province called Ontario with the emergence of Canada in 1867 .
This developed into Canada's economic center of gravity, but for a long time stuck to a policy that was hostile to minorities and was primarily directed against the French language and the Catholic denomination. In addition, the longtime Prime Minister and founder of the Liberal Party Oliver Mowat (1872-1896) fought against the rights of the government in Ottawa and expanded the province far north and northwest. When in 1896 the highest British court, the Justice Committee of the British Privy Council , ruled that the federal government could only dispose of energy reserves in the event of war, the provinces were given extensive powers that still exist today and were extended to mineral resources. From 1905 to 1923 the Liberals lost power first to the Conservatives, then to a farmers' party. The Conservatives ruled provincial politics from 1943 to 1985. During the 1960s, the government gave up anti-French and anti-minority policies. In 2003, Dalton McGuinty was the first Catholic premier to take office again. Today the greater Toronto area is home to a particularly high number of immigrants. The north, on the other hand, is very sparsely populated, and many of the 190 First Nations (139 of them recognized ) claim rights in their traditional areas. Some groups try to enforce their mother tongue as their first language, in other cases, like the Caledonia land dispute , it is about the exploitation of raw materials.
Early history
The name Ontario is an Iroquois word and means "beautiful lake" or "beautiful water". Before the Europeans reached the region, the languages of the Algonquin dominated the country - these included, above all, Anishinabe (Ojibwa), Cree and Algonquin - and those of the Iroquois , i.e. the actual Iroquois and the Wyandot (Hurons).
Oldest finds
The oldest datable finds in Ontario document the presence of hunters and gatherers around 8500 to 9000 BC. BC. They used projectile points made of flint type Folsom and followed the caribou herds . There were very different qualities and preferences for flint. Yellow flint from the Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania was obviously in great demand, but Bayport-Flint from Michigan , Kettle-Point-Flint from the southeastern shore of Lake Huron and Onondaga-Flint from Lake Erie were swapped and given away over long distances, or the hiking cycles were very extensive . References to rituals from this period are only weak and ambiguous. Stone tools that were destroyed by fire, possibly indicating a cremation ritual, were found , as well as remnants of ocher and stone blades that were much too fragile to actually have served as projectile points. This phase, known as Paleo-Indian , ended between 8500 and 7500 BC. BC, whereby at this time a slightly increased population of several hundred people can be assumed.
Archaic cultures
Around 7500 BC Groups reached - one reckons with hunting and gathering groups of 20 to 50 people each - of the Archaic cultures from the west of southern Ontario. In spring and summer they lived on the banks of the numerous bodies of water, in winter the hunting and gathering communities probably split up into family groups. They probably lived in wigwam-like accommodations that were covered with sod or bark. The main settlements were the lower St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes .
The Early Archaic culture ( Early Archaic , approx. 7500 to 6000 BC) is characterized by a changing environment: from coniferous forests to coniferous and deciduous forests . The large herds of caribou gave way to deer , elk and bears . This changed the hunting technique, which was reflected in new weapons. In addition, new tools such as hatchet and scraper appeared. There were also traces of spear throwers (Atlatl), a technological innovation that probably dates back to 8000 BC. Started in the southern USA . The flint came more from local sites, but to a lesser extent from more distant areas. Important sites are near Woodbridge and southwest of London , but no early Archaic artifacts were found in southeast Ontario. On the Upper Lake , the sites were probably destroyed by changes in the natural environment. The water level of the lake fell by around 100 m after the Ice Age (low point around 4300 to 4000 BC) and then rose again considerably. This means that all the dwellings that were close to the lakeshore of the lake, which was for a long time smaller than it is today, are under water. The current water level was not raised until 2000 BC. Reached. Occasionally the black hole of the archeology of Ontario was mentioned here. Nevertheless, finds indicate a lifestyle similar to that in the south.
In the Middle Archaic phase (Middle Archaic, approx. 6000 to 2500 BC) the number of people increased. The atlatl was widespread, tools and weapons increasingly turned to quartz and quartzite and other rocks, flint became less common. Fishing with nets was practiced, and around 3500 BC. There is evidence of copper processing , at South Fowl Lake in the Upper Lake basin even around 4800 BC. This metal was found in an extremely pure form and thus easy to work with, especially on the Isle Royale and the Keweenaw Peninsula , but also on the north shore of Lake Superior and on the Black Bay Peninsula . Initially, tools were made from it, such as spearheads, but then also ear coils, such as those found in grave goods. The hunt for big game became less important, but fishing and collecting activities increased, some groups seem to have specialized in acorns.
The first larger monuments are burial mounds, the Burial Mounds . Apparently, a hierarchy had developed within these societies along Lake Erie , the southern Lake Huron , Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River above Québec . The possibly underlying culture is called Proto-Laurentian .
The Middle Great Lakes-St. Lawrence tradition ( Laurentian Archaic ) centered around Québec and Ontario as far as New York State and extended to 4000, perhaps to around 5500 BC. BC back. The Ottawa Valley (the most important sites are Morrison's Island and Isle-aux-Allumettes near Pembroke ) is considered a center of copper mining, as are the large islands in the Upper Lake. The metal was used for arrowheads, awls , hatchets, etc. Copper was now also appearing further east. In addition, bone tools can now be detected, as well as harpoons . Apparently holy places, initially burial places, were also cared for, cremation can be proven. Some people died when they were 50 or 60 years old, but life expectancy was closer to 30 to 35 years.
Peoples probably advanced from the south, but the earlier Laurentian is difficult to pin down archaeologically. Here is z. B. a crescent-shaped knife, the Ulu (knife) , characteristic. Population growth and more complex cultures led to an increase in the number of finds, but numerous finds that come from plowed earth can hardly be assigned to a specific time, such as in the area around Niagara Falls . The oldest datable fish trap was found on the Atherley Narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching ; they come from the late archaic phase.
The Late Archaic Phase (approx. 2500 to 900 BC) probably brought about the use of bows and arrows , indicated by smaller projectile points. In addition, soapstone objects and Onondaga flints were found for the first time . The main locations are around Hamilton and Brantford , near Lake St. Clair , and on the east bank of Lake Huron. At Hamilton there were house structures, probably 4 * 4 m or 4 * 8 m in size. Two burial sites were found at Kingston in Collins Bay and at the York site near Verona , and at Picton in Prince Edward County . They are attributed to the Glacial Kame Burial Complex . Breast shields, copper axes and shells were found there. In Southwestern Ontario was found galena .
In the burial places there is a stronger local bond, possibly even tribal areas, in addition to gifts that symbolized a status within the community. The groups probably comprised 35 to 50 people. It is unclear when the ancestors of today's Iroquois and Algonquin troops immigrated, but the Iroquois came more from the south and the Algonquin from the west.
Woodland
The Woodland Period on the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River ranges from around 1000 BC. BC to AD 500 and beyond. It is characterized by pottery, a technique previously unknown in Ontario today. The Iroquois go back to this culture , but also the Algonquin tribes. The transition from a hunter-gatherer society to a horticultural society differs from region to region. The importance of the pumpkin increased more and more. It turned out that pumpkins were already around 4000 BC. In Maine . Between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and New York, individual groups brought the flint sites under their control. These Onondaga flints - the Onondaga are a group of the Iroquois - were made at least from 1000 to 500 BC. Mainly used for arrows. In addition, the Burial Mounds , large mounds of earth that had come from the Ohio Valley , that housed the deceased, spread out. Long-distance trade increased, especially in copper, silver , shells and colored stones. The main purpose of trade is to strengthen alliances and friendships, to exchange spouses and to gain prestige . Gift traffic was thus a stronger motive for trade than profit.
There are two woodland period traditions at play in Ontario: Meadowood and Middlesex . The Meadowood Complex (approx. 900 to 500 BC) is considered the northern tip of the Kleinspitzen / Late Archaic Glacial Kame tradition , which prevailed in Ontario and neighboring New York. The Meadowood tips consisted practically only of Onondaga flint. There were also "bird stones" with a corresponding shape - they were probably part of the spear throwers - and protruding "eyes", as well as trapezoidal breast shields. Early earthenware was discovered at the Pond Lily Site on Napanee Lake, northwest of Kingston and in the upper Ottawa Valley.
In contrast, the Middlesex Complex is only accessible through burial sites. There were close contacts to the Adena culture , whose focus was in Ohio . Apparently this influence was concentrated in the Kingston area (Lake Mound, Pikes Farm and Button Bay in the Thousand Islands site ) and near Verona ( York site ). Southwest Ontario was more closely related to Michigan .
The Middle Woodland Period (approx. 200/300 BC to 700/900 AD) is characterized less by a change in lifestyle than by slightly changed tool stocks and more pronounced decoration of the pottery. In addition, the cultivation of pumpkins and bottle gourds appeared, although their use as containers may have been in the foreground at the beginning ( calabash ).
Burial expenditure reached its peak, especially the construction of mounds , sometimes huge burial mounds . This is how the serpentine Serpent Mound on Rice Lake and the mounds on the Rainy River were created . There were close contacts to the Hopewell culture , but a decrease can be determined around 250.
In Ontario, a distinction is made between four regional forms: the couture complex in the extreme southwest, which reached as far as Michigan and Ohio, the Saugeen complex , which was connected eastward (to which the Odawa possibly go back), the Point Peninsula complex between the Ottawa (Grand River ) and southern Québec and the Laurel complex in northern Ontario, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (which may be related to the Cree ). Mounds shaped both Point Peninsula and Laurel. They were possibly related to the sturgeon migrations , as mounds are only found at their fishing grounds.
In the final Middle Woodland (from 700) the Princess Point Complex appeared around 700 between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie , while a similar culture, known as the Sandbanks Complex , spread especially around Kingston . They succeeded in making seamless vessels from clay, corn and perhaps tobacco appeared. The spread of maize in particular could be related to the decline of southern cultures in the Ohio Valley. Sedentariness and the security of food supplies appear to have increased. The increase in fishing fits in with this. It is possible that the Princess Point people , often identified with the Iroquois, advanced from the south into an area inhabited only by Algonquin-speaking tribes. That would explain why the Mohawk-speaking area is encircled by Algonquian languages. The Iroquois may have brought the corn with them too . But there is no evidence.
Late woodland phase
The hallmark of the late woodland phase is the village. Corn, beans and pumpkins were added, the latter now safely and predominantly being used for nutrition. However, this does not apply to the north, where at most new clay decoration styles appeared. This was due to the fact that the harsher climate north of the Severn River did not allow gardening. The contacts to the south were very intensive and extended very far. At one site, 400 vessels were found, almost all of which indicate southern influence, possibly Iroquois. On the basis of the decoration styles one differentiates a chronological sequence of Blackduck , Selkirk and Sandy Lake . The “Blackduck” in Northern Ontario continued to build mounds, but they were considerably lower - more than six feet high.
There are three culturally distinct areas in southern Ontario: the area of the Western Basin Algonquians of the Younge tradition , which extended eastward to London; the Ontario Iroquois tradition in western and central Ontario; finally the St. Lawrence Iroquois , who sat between the eastern edge of Lake Ontario, as far as northern New York and in the lower St. Lawrence Valley. In the north of the province there were Algonk groups such as the Adawa (Ottawa) on the Bruce Peninsula, the Nipissings and others. a. along the French River and at Lake Nipissing , plus other groups in the drainage area of the Ottawa and its tributaries.
The East
In eastern Ontario there were groups who held on to hunting and gathering and which can be traced back to tribes such as the Matouweskarini , the Iroquet and the Kichesipirini . The Iroquois differentiate between early, middle and late phase. For the first time, thinner vessel walls can be detected as well as the first, elliptical house structures in Eastern Ontario. The first villages were still without a recognizable use structure, but waste areas were soon separated from the residential area. The early phase was followed by the middle Iroquois phase between 1300 and 1400, in which the hunt continued to lose importance. Sites near Prescott and towards Cornwall also show larger village structures here. Conflicts between Wyandot (also called "Hurons") and Iroquois, whose cultures were becoming increasingly different , may have started around this time . Typical of the Iroquois are, for example, fishing grounds for the eels , which are important to them , but also better equipment with basic materials for stone tools. In the Trent Valley there was a village that had cultural traces of the Iroquois, who presumably now lived under Wyandot, as well as Wyandot and Europeans. The Saint Lawrence Iroquois disappeared in the 16th century.
Ontario Iroquois
The Ontario-Iroquois tradition began around 900 and ended around 1250 to 1300. It is unclear whether the population growth resulted in village-like structures with corn cultivation or vice versa. The Iroquois still lived semi-nomadically with seasonal migration cycles and winter villages that were moved into year after year. A distinction is made between two groups, the Pickering between Toronto and Kingston , and the Glen Meye between Hamilton and London . It is assumed - and denied - that the picking rings conquered the neighbors, and so the Uren / Middleport culture arose.
After 1250 or 1300, the Middle Iroquois culture emerged, based on large villages with long houses, some of which were over 100 m long. These villages existed for twenty to forty years and were then moved a few kilometers. Beans and pumpkins complemented each other in nutritional value and provided for a growing population. Both appeared in southwestern Ontario between 1000 and 1100.
The later known tribes appeared in the late Iroquois culture from 1400/1450. Earthworks and palisades indicate increased war activities. Human bones also appear in the waste, albeit in very small quantities. In the 16th century, the villages on the north shore of Lake Ontario and in the Trent Valley disappeared. Probably these Wyandot , "Wendat" or "Hurons" appeared again in Huronia . Possibly they moved there because of the European fur trade . Iroquois from the southwest of the province also began to move eastwards and appeared in the Hamilton-Brantford-Hagarsville-Niagara Falls area. They later became known as the neutrals . Then came the Petun , possibly a breakaway from the Wyandot, who took on other factions.
Algonquin in the west
Many Algonquin tribes, however, avoided settling down for longer, even though they grew corn here and there. Family groups began to form larger groups that could contain several hundred people. In summer, during the fishing season, they lived in a few long houses that were around 7 by 20 or 30 m. For the winter, now again in small family groups, they went to areas with walnut stocks, collected nuts that were stored as winter supplies, as well as dried fish. The supplies were sunk into deep pits. The winter houses were more compact and measured around 5 by 7 m. The snow-covered villages made it possible to spend the winter in the house, which, according to oral tradition, produced a complex narrative culture. By 1200 these villages slowly got bigger and were a bit away from the lakes to be able to work on gardens that needed drier and safer soil. By 1400 they were already inhabited for the whole summer. In addition they received palisades and earthworks, probably in order to be able to defend themselves against the neutrals . Shortly after 1550, however, the Iroquois forced their Algonquin neighbors, who were the easternmost branch of the large Algonquin family, to flee Ontario. Therefore, the region was deserted until 1701.
Europeans and Indians, British-French rivalry
An alliance constellation ran through almost the entire history of New France and thus also considerable parts of Ontario. This was based on the one hand on the hostility between the British and the French, on the other hand between the Iroquois and Algonquian, or Susquehannocks and Montagnais. The three opponents of the Iroquois asked Samuel de Champlain for support as early as 1601 when he landed near Tadoussac on the St. Lawrence River . The Iroquois, for their part, saw themselves and their territory to the west of the Hudson River and south of Lake Ontario surrounded by Algonquin-speaking tribes.
Jacques Cartier came across the two Iroquois villages of Stadacona and Hochelaga where Québec and Montréal are today . They had disappeared in Champlain's time. The Nipissing lived in Ontario, whose material culture was very similar to that of the Wyandot, as shown by archaeological finds at Lake Nipissing and the French River . It was also shown that the Wyandot were engaged in extensive trade with Petun and Odawa. They were probably also the ones who brought European goods further west from the early 17th century. The Wyandot were actually a confederation of four or five tribes in what is now Simcoe County . The total number of inhabitants in their 18 to 25 villages is estimated at around 20,000 people. The Petun around Collingwood is estimated to be around 6,500 people in 1615, but over 10,000 in 1623. They lived in 7 to 9 villages. The neutrals lived on the Niagara Peninsula . Their confederation consisted of around 30 villages and around 40,000 people. They not participated in the wars between Wyandot and the New York Iroquois in part, that the tribes of the Seneca , Cayuga , Onondaga , Oneida and Mohawk , but she still warred marketed by them Algonquian, which at that time as Fire Nations were called .
The French explorer Étienne Brûlé was sent by Champlain to the Wyandot at the age of 16, and in return they sent a young man named "Savignon" to Champlain. With their chief Iroquet, Brûlé moved to a village in the south of Georgian Bay , a large side bay of Lake Huron . From 1610 to 1612 he explored and described the areas of what is now Québec , Ontario and Michigan . His travels reached south to Chesapeake Bay , west to Minnesota and Lake Superior . In the process he learned their language and customs and later taught them to Jesuit missionaries .
English explorer Henry Hudson sailed past Nova Scotia at almost the same time and sailed into New York Bay on September 11, 1609 , then turned north and spent October exploring Hudson Bay, later named after him . He took possession of the bay for England.
Champlain, who founded Québec in 1608 and Montreal in 1611, reached Lake Huron in 1615, and French missionaries set up posts along the Great Lakes . As "General Governor in New France " he also claimed large parts of what is now Ontario for France. The alliance with the Wendat ("Hurons"), which he concluded in 1609, goes back to him . In return, the Iroquois, who were enemies with the Wendat and especially with Champlain, entered into an alliance with the English. In 1613 Champlain moved up the Ottawa to negotiate with the Algonquin chief Tessouat about an island in the river, the Isle des Allumettes , which seemed suitable as a fort. After he returned to France and published his travelogues, he gave an area of around 30% of the area of New France to the Jesuits in the form of a seigneury , a kind of manorial rule . When Champlain attacked an Onondaga fortress in 1615, however, he was repulsed and spent the winter in the region. In the following years he had forts built and negotiated a peace treaty with the Iroquois.
Champlain's English opponents, with whom he refused to engage in fur trade, looted various posts, and eventually Champlain was even captured in 1629. Québec became British by 1632. He only returned to New France after four years. Again he moved against the Iroquois, whom he wanted to “bring to their senses” or exterminate, and had a trading post built at Trois-Rivières . However, he died in 1635.
15 years later, the Iroquois succeeded in driving the Wyandot from their homes. They benefited from the fact that the Dutch around Fort Orange supplied them with weapons, while the French only occasionally gave weapons as gifts to their allies. But this armament had another effect: the beavers in the Hudson Valley disappeared and the Iroquois hunted further and further north, to where the fur trade was increasingly concentrated. In 1641 they offered peace to the French, but they did not want to abandon their wyandotic allies, who have meanwhile been infected with serious diseases such as measles , flu and the like by their French allies . They are believed to have killed around 60% of the Wyandot.
The Iroquois tried to cut off the Wyandot trade over the St. Lawrence. In 1648 the Dutch began selling rifles directly to the Iroquois. In the following year they achieved a victory over the Wyandot, in which not only numerous opponents, but also a group of Jesuits were killed. The Wyandot fled and sought the help of the Anishinabe Confederation in the Great Lakes. The Petun did not escape the war campaigns either and were destroyed in 1650, the neutrals in 1655. Many of them moved village by village to the victors, the five Iroquois nations, others went to Christian Island under the protection of the Jesuits, but they had to flee the next year . Another group, today's Wyandot, fled north, then west, and landed in northeastern Oklahoma .
The vacuum in trade with the French was soon filled by the Odawa or Odawa. Eventually the Iroquois, led by the Mohawk, began attacking the French directly, and even Montreal was no longer safe in 1660. Where the Mohawk were in the lead in the east, the Seneca were in the west . They drove out the Attawandaron or "neutrals" in southern Ontario. Then they destroyed the tribe of the Eries who had lived on the eastern south shore of Lake Erie, finally they drove other Algonquin groups, such as the Shawnee from the Ohio area, and gained extensive control over Illinois as far as the Mississippi . These conquests in turn triggered mass migrations westward into the plains, such as with the Lakota .
From 1670 onwards, the trading power of British traders was also consolidated through the establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company , which in what would later become Ontario as a monopoly area claimed all rivers that drained into the Hudson Bay . Against the growing British influence, the French built numerous forts, including Fort Frontenac in 1673 (today Kingston on the eastern edge of Lake Erie ). The French succeeded in concluding a peace treaty with the Iroquois in 1667 and stabilized the situation through reinforcements such as the Carignan-Salières Regiment , and even succeeded in taking Chief Canaqueese prisoner. All men between 16 and 65 now had to do military service.
The situation calmed down for some time, but in 1683 another war began, which the French now waged according to the guerrilla style used by the Iroquois.
The fronts between the French and British in North America were clear, and when the King William's War broke out (1689 to 1697), a chain of proxy wars was triggered which the two colonial powers fought with the help of their Indian allies in North America. What the War of the Palatinate Succession was as a European war in this case was, in the case of the subsequent Queen Anne's War, from 1702 to 1713 a proxy war during the War of the Spanish Succession . The same applies to the King George's War (1740 to 1748) and the War of the Austrian Succession . Finally, during the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1763 in North America, the French and Indian War broke out .
Between 1690 and 1710, groups of the Ottawa and Mississauga began to migrate to southern Ontario and Michigan, leaving their traditional area around Sault Ste. Marie. The Mississauga who had wanted to join the Iroquois found that they had already been driven out. The Ojibwa moved further south, the differences between the different tribes increasingly disappearing. Meanwhile, the Frenchman Médard des Groseilliers and his brother-in-law Pierre-Esprit Radisson tried to reactivate the fur trade, which had collapsed due to the destruction of the Wyandot. To secure the trade, the fur traders built the first permanent European settlement in Ontario, a fort on the site of today's Kingston. In the late 1660s, Louis Joliet was looking for copper. At the same time, Robert Cavelier de La Salle set out on a journey of discovery, and the two met in 1669 in an Iroquois village west of Lake Ontario, near Brantford. However, when Lassalle tried ten years later to trade by ship (on the Griffon ) across Lake Michigan , he encountered the rejection of the Ottawa, who had de facto secured a trade monopoly. The ship never reappeared.
The establishment of a trading post, the starting point of today's Detroit , prompted Wyandot, Ottawa, Potawatomi and Ojibwa to move near it. The Ojibwa ruled southwestern Ontario for almost a century, but they were now semi-nomadic again. From 1749 Detroit was heavily promoted and two years later already had 600 French in its stockade works. Settlers soon began to surround the fort and their farms, eventually they crossed the border river, and a first settlement emerged around Petite Cote , the first permanent one in Ontario, apart from trading posts.
The Paris Peace of 1763, which ended this series of wars, at least in North America, led to almost all of New France falling to the British. As early as 1730, the English had succeeded in establishing a colony in Ontario, the Moose Factory , today the oldest English-speaking settlement in the province. The two largest colonies should be Sault Ste. Marie and Detroit will.
Similar to the French, there were numerous connections between settlers and Indian women , from which even a whole people emerged, the Métis, who the English called mixed-bloods or Countryborns for a long time .
British colonial rule
Quebec
The Paris Peace of 1763 brought the formerly French territory into British hands. They made the vast area the province of Quebec in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 . In the Quebec Act of 1774, London guaranteed the French majority the protection of their mother tongue and religion. This majority was broken in what would later become Ontario when more than 10,000 refugees had to be settled in the remaining parts of the British colonial empire in North America after the end of the American War of Independence . This happened mainly in the area of what would later become Toronto in southern Ontario.
Upper Canada
From 1783 to 1796, London granted the American loyalists who had fled 200 acres (approx. 0.8 km²) each to enable them to survive. The English population grew so strongly that the Constitutional Act 1791 divided the province. This is how the mostly English-speaking Upper Canada and Lower Canada emerged , where a majority spoke French.
In addition, there were parts of the Indian tribes formerly allied with Great Britain, such as the Mohawk , to which London was indebted. Many of them were settled west of Lake Ontario. Today they are summarized under the name Six Nations of the Grand River , whereby the Grand River means the Ottawa. One of their chiefs, Joseph Brant , was given a closed area on the Grand River in 1802, more precisely: around today's Brantford , which is named after him. Despite the sale of part of the land to private farmers, the Brantford reserve is still the largest in southern Ontario to this day.
The loyalists were mainly settled around Niagara , but also around Hamilton and Kingston . In 1788 the British traded over 1,000 square kilometers of land for a small amount of goods valued at around £ 1,700 from the Mississaugas of New Credit . Fort Rouillé existed here between 1750 and 1759, south of the village of Taiaiagon. There the British founded under Governor John Graves Simcoe York, which later became Toronto, which initially hardly attracted any settlers. On July 29, 1793, it was elevated to the capital of Upper Canada, but only provisionally. The main motive for the move from Newark, today's Niagara-on-the-Lake , was the proximity of the American cannons from Fort Niagara . Simcoe became the first governor of the new province. He encouraged further immigration from the south and banned slavery in the Act Against Slavery of 1793. Great Britain only banned slavery throughout its entire colonial empire 40 years later.
In 1794, the last British forts south of the Great Lakes were dissolved under the Jay Treaty .
However, the land for the loyalists was not uninhabited. In 1790, Wyandots, Ojibwa, Potawatomi and Ottawa abandoned land with a total area of 1,344,000 acres in southwestern Ontario. By 1827, almost 3,000,000 acres were added.
The river system in southern Upper Canada remained the main artery. This has been true for a long time for the fur trade, but also for the retail trade and, from around 1800, for the peeling of wood. Philemon Wright began logging and supplying the towns further downstream that year. His company gave birth to Hull , now a district of Gatineau , the first town in the area that would later become the capital of Ottawa . In addition, the North West Company moved its headquarters for the central continent to Thunder Bay .
But one of the most significant developments was the fact that large parts of the country were no longer designated as so-called clergy reserves . This land served the upkeep of the Anglican clergy since 1791 and was thus largely withdrawn from intensive use. Especially Thomas Talbot stood out, who received land of 20 km² around the Port Talbot, which was later named after him, and also awarded areas of 263 km² to settlers. He allowed neither clergy reserves nor crown lands, and the region quickly became the one with the fastest economic growth. Other settlements such as Waterloo (1804) and what later became Kitchener (1807) followed. Colonel Richard Beasley had bought land there from the Indians who had settled there and were allied with Great Britain. In 1800 he sold it to a group of Mennonites from Pennsylvania .
Open war and US influence
The tension between Great Britain and the United States, which had been declared independent in 1783, continued to smolder and was finally ignited by the fact that the British forced numerous Americans, whom they continued to regard as their subjects, into their fleet service.
In the British-American War (1812-1814) American troops crossed the Niagara and Detroit Rivers and invaded Upper Canada. But they were repulsed by 350 British soldiers, militias and First Nations warriors , especially the Ojibwa. The British then occupied Detroit. A second attack was also repulsed.
Nevertheless, the Americans gained control of Lake Erie and, for a short time, Lake Ontario, occupied and sacked the capital York and burned the parliament building. In return, British troops occupied Michigan until 1813 and burned the White House in Washington in 1814, which also burned the Library of Congress in this attack . The British also successfully defended Lake Ontario, but suffered a defeat on Lake Champlain .
It was not until the Treaty of Ghent ended the war with a certain delay the beginning of 1815. According to the site of Napoleon's defeat in what is now Belgium was Waterloo named in Kitchener. In 1817, Great Britain and the United States agreed to rid the Great Lakes of warships (Rush Bagot Treaty), and a year later, the war opponents settled further conflicts in the London Treaty (1818) .
After the end of the war, the population of Upper Canada, which comprised less than 100,000 people, continued to increase. This was mostly done through immigration, which the Canada Company , founded in 1825, promoted. Of the 10,000 km² of land administered by the society, however, more than half was intended for the clergy. The other half, more precisely 4,450 km², was on the east side of Lake Huron (Huron tract). The company had its own ships to bring the recruited settlers across Lake Ontario, but it was increasingly suspected of corruption. A network of aristocratic families, the so-called Family Compact , still dominated business and politics and also played an important role in the Canada Company . But republican groups resisted this supremacy. In 1837 two uprisings broke out, both aimed at the introduction of self-government, the Lower Canada Rebellion led by Louis-Joseph Papineau and the Upper Canada Rebellion led by William Lyon Mackenzie .
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Without their help, a first settlement was finally built on the site in 1826, which Governor Simcoe had originally planned as the new capital of the province and which was therefore also called London . From 1829 onwards, fleeing slaves from the USA were settled north of the city. By 1831 the province's population had risen to around 240,000. At the same time, paths were built and, from 1827, the Rideau Canal , which connects the later Canadian capital Ottawa with Kingston on Lake Ontario (since 2007 World Heritage Site). In the event of a new war with the USA, the rivers near the border should be circumnavigated and the connection between Upper and Lower Canada can be maintained.
Although the two uprisings of 1837/38 were quickly put down, the British government sent Lord Durham to investigate the causes of the unrest. He proposed extensive self-government, plus the unification of Upper and Lower Canada in order to gradually assimilate the French Canadians . London followed his suggestions, and with the Act of Union , the first step was to unite the two colonies to form the Province of Canada . The colony was granted the right to self-government in 1848. For further distinction one spoke of Canada West and East . At that time Canada West already had over 450,000 inhabitants. The first governor was Charles Bagot (1841 to 1843). He felt compelled to admit the reformers Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine in the east and, at his pressure, Robert Baldwin . Bagot's successor Charles Metcalfe, however, refused any concession to the leaders of the reformist blocs, but he agreed to the rebel amnesty of 1837. In 1846, however, Colonial Secretary Lord Albert Gray determined that the lieutenant governor should not rule against the majority of the population. In 1848 he commissioned Baldwin and La Fontaine to form a government. In the same year, London changed its colonial policy on another crucial point, namely the mercantilist orientation of its economy. In 1848 the Corn Laws were liberalized accordingly . The Tories in the east, which had benefited most from mercantilist regulations to date, reacted indignantly with a manifesto (the Montreal Annexation Manifesto) calling for entry into the United States.
With the sudden immigration of more than 100,000 Irish who came to Ontario fleeing hunger in their homeland , the population structure changed again. By 1851, Canada West had a population of over 950,000, which is the first time the region exceeded the population of Canada East. In 1850, William Benjamin Robinson negotiated a treaty with the Ojibwe that made crown land out of the east and north banks of Lake Huron and the north bank of Lake Superior.
In 1854, London and the United States agreed to abolish numerous protective tariffs so that timber, fish and grain could be exported there, a trade that was greatly encouraged by the construction of several canals and the Grand Trunk Railway to Montreal and on to Halifax. This intensified trade exchange with its emerging interest groups became one of the most important integration factors for the emerging Canada. On the other hand, the freedom of political decision-making began to have an effect that in West and East different political orientations repeatedly gained the upper hand. In 1858, for example, the West chose the Liberals and the East the Conservatives. A coalition government between John Macdonald and Antoine-Aimé Dorion fell after a few days. Alexander Tilloch Galt, the lieutenant governor who had urged the coalitioners to form a government, now called for the British colonies in North America to be united in order to oppose the United States. The Liberals of Canada West, the Clear Grits , also called for this in 1859.
An insurmountable political stalemate between English- and French-speaking MPs as well as the fear of American aggression - incidents by Irish freedom fighters against Great Britain, the Fenians , occurred near Niagara from 1866 to 1871 - during the War of Secession were decisive for the leading politicians in British -North America agreed in several conferences to unite the various British colonies. The London Conference (1866) also supported this line. With the establishment of the Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, the province of Canada was divided along the old borders into Québec and Ontario.
Ontario as part of Canada (from 1867)
The beginnings of the province
The first Prime Minister of the Province of Ontario was John Sandfield Macdonald (1867 to 1871). Originally an opponent of the Confederation, he soon supported John Macdonald, who made his namesake Prime Minister. He was Ontario's only Catholic premier until 2003, but his Conservative and Liberal government lost the election in 1872 to the reformers led by Edward Blake and Oliver Mowat .
The Mowat Era and the Liberals (1872-1905)
With the constitutional law of 1867 , which came into force on July 1st of that year, the British colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were united with the province of Canada to form the Canadian Confederation . The provinces should be represented in the lower house proportionally to the population, but each province was represented with 24 seats in the Senate. The first Prime Minister was John Macdonald , who is considered one of the fathers of the Confederation . Similar to British Columbia in 1871 , New Brunswick and Nova Scotia made the construction of a railroad connection a prerequisite (see Intercolonial Railway ).
The Red River Rebellion of the French-speaking and Catholic Métis in Manitoba caused strong tensions within the confederation, because Ontario and Québec were opponents and supporters of the demands of the Métis leader Louis Riel . This was all the more serious as the two provinces had by far the largest population. Ontario was home to exactly 1,620,851 people in the first Canadian census in 1871.
Oliver Mowat , Prime Minister of the Province from 1872 to 1896, co-founded the Ontario Liberal Party and the Liberal Party of Canada . As a reformer, he weakened the power of the federal government in favor of the provinces. He promoted a decentralization of the state, also against the intentions of John Macdonald . He invested in schools, modernized the administration and enlarged the territory of the province to the north and west.
Soon districts were formed or divided up in the previously barely developed north. The Thunder Bay District on the north shore of Lake Superior was created by separating it from the Algoma District , which was created in 1858, as was the Manitoulin District in 1888 , which included the islands in the lake. The Sudbury District was also separated from the Algoma District in 1874. Other areas followed in the north, which at the same time clarified the boundaries of the province, which had long been disputed and whose membership of Ontario was not recognized until 1889: Rainy River District in 1885, Kenora District in 1907 and Cochrane District in 1921.
During Mowat's tenure, Ontario developed not only into the population but also the economic center of gravity of Canada. The exploitation of raw materials contributed significantly to this, and hydropower plants were added later. For this purpose, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario , later called Ontario Hydro , was founded in 1906 . This, in turn, was related to the fact that in 1896 the highest British court, the Justice Committee of the Privy Council , had decided that the federal government could only dispose of the energy reserves in the event of war. This gave the provinces extensive powers in peacetime, which they later tried to extend to other areas, such as education and health. The conservative Adam Beck (1857 to 1925), born in Baden and Mayor of London , was the driving force behind the nationalization of the electricity supply.
The Liberals also advocated free trade with the US, which gave them broad support in the prairie provinces, whose farmers were interested in the free export of their products, but this policy was less conducive to the sales of the young industrial companies than the "imperialist" economic policy, that the Conservatives stood for. They wanted to export mainly within the framework of the British Empire and to protect Canadian industry from that of the USA by means of targeted protective tariffs, such as those introduced in 1879. The Liberals received intermittent support from Canada First , which had set itself the goal of promoting Canadian nationalism. Against this stood above all the annexationists , who called for affiliation with the USA or a union.
In 1883, discoveries of natural resources at Sudbury and Cobalt started a real boom. Numerous mine workers moved there from the province of Québec and shaped the region. However, the conflict between the linguistic nations and the denominations broke out again when Louis Riel led the Northwest Rebellion , which demanded a separate province for the Métis. Numerous Protestants called for the death penalty for Riel. The conflict flared up again through the Manitoba Schools Question, which lasted from 1890 to 1896. Although it mainly affected the neighboring province, the Catholic communities were supposed to be compensated through a federal tax, which Ontario and other Protestant provinces opposed. The crisis was exacerbated by a recession that began in 1893.
Oliver Mowat resigned in 1896. He was succeeded by Arthur Sturgis Hardy (1896 to 1899). During this time, the Liberals were harassed by the Grand Association of the Patrons of Industry in Ontario , founded in 1890 , which had run for elections in 1894 and represented the interests of the farmers. With up to 30,000 members, it specifically supported certain candidates, but by 1900 it lost all influence. But the Liberals also lost political ground under Prime Minister George William Ross (1899-1905). After all, a scandal over bought votes and her position on the prohibition question cost her the majority in 1905.
The Conservatives (1905-1919)
After 33 years, the Conservatives, first under James Whitney (1905 to 1914), then under William Howard Hearst (1914 to 1919), replaced the Liberals. With the so-called Reglement 17 , the Ministry of Education (MOE) limited the use of the French language after the first school year and banned it after the fourth. This regulation remained in force until 1927 and the repeal was only carried out against the federal government for reasons of strategic alliance with the government of Québec. During World War I , the city of Berlin was renamed Kitchener in a referendum with very little turnout.
From 1916 to 1927 the provincial government banned the consumption of beer and spirits outside the home, but smuggling into the USA flourished. Prime Minister Hearst even had a plebiscite carried out, which he linked to the 1919 elections. However, while Prohibition was advocated, the Conservatives lost the election.
United Farmers of Ontario (1919 to 1923)
The surprise winners of the election were the United Farmers of Ontario . Together with eleven liberal and one independent MP, the party was now forced to form a government. One of its leaders, James J. Morrison, even refused to form a government, but only wanted to put pressure on the existing governments. The new government under Ernest Charles Drury founded a kind of state-owned Raiffeisen bank, the Province of Ontario Savings Office , which provided farmers with cheap loans. In addition, she started Canada's first reforestation program.
But Drury, who did not see the party as a peasant party, failed to get industry on his side. On the contrary, Adam Beck became one of his fiercest opponents. For the unions, Drury was an agrarian who could not even get higher wages in state companies. In 1922, the government's treasurer was embroiled in a corruption scandal that cost the Peasant Party additional supporters. As the party continued to lose its traditional following, it eventually succumbed to the Conservatives, who achieved a landslide victory.
Return of the Conservatives, Great Depression
The conservatives, who returned under Howard Ferguson , suspended their anti-French policies in 1926 in order to enforce more rights for the provinces in alliance with the Premier of Québec. Ferguson pushed through in a plebiscite that beer could be sold again, but only from state outlets, against which the Liberals opposed until 1930. This sale brought the province considerable additional income, as did the state electricity production. A large part of this flowed into road construction, a policy that his successor George Stewart Henry (1930 to 1934) continued, albeit under the influence of the Great Depression . This unpopular premier was followed in 1934 by the then 37-year-old liberal leader Mitchell Hepburn (1934 to 1942).
Return of the Liberals (1934-1943)
Hepburn supported the mining companies and was also an opponent of the unions, especially the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations , or AFL-CIO for short . When General Motors went on strike around the eight-hour day in Oshawa in 1937 , he tried to take action with volunteer units, agreed with management, but Ottawa refused to provide him with the Mounted Police , i.e. the federal troops. Hepburn had to give in and remained a bitter opponent of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King . After being reprimanded by the Liberal Party, Hepburn resigned in October 1942.
After the interim premier Gordon Daniel Conant , who had been installed by the lieutenant governor, the party opted for Harry Nixon . But three months later he did not succeed in winning the election as leader of the quarreling party.
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (1943-1985)
With George Alexander Drew , an era of conservative power began in Ontario that only ended in the mid-1980s. In 1943 Drew's Progressive Conservative Party narrowly won against the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). He criticized the government for delaying general mobilization for too long. In 1945 an anti-communist campaign led to another election victory, but Drew lost his own constituency in Toronto in 1948.
Leslie Frost became Prime Minister in 1949 (until 1961). His government significantly increased the share of state investment in the economy. Then there was the expansion of the education system - expenditure rose from 13 to 250 million dollars, and the number of universities rose from four to twelve - and the infrastructure, which at that time was synonymous with road construction. A change in health insurance was enforced under government direction: the Ontario Health Insurance Plan , a public insurance company. The fundamental change on questions of immigration and ethnic diversity is reflected in the fact that Frost made discrimination of any kind a criminal offense. He also successfully pushed for the Indians to have full voting rights.
Frost's successor, John Robarts, ruled a prosperous province in which, however, some regions threatened to become impoverished. Robarts initially opposed Medicare Canada , a new concept for the state health insurance system, but he was persuaded. In contrast to the previous policy of his party, he also supported bilingualism. Bill Davis (1971-1985), former Secretary of Education, stayed on Robarts' line. But the 1975 election nearly resulted in defeat. The progressive conservatives only won 51 of the 125 seats, but were able to form a minority government. The Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) won 38 seats and the Liberals 36 seats.
Rapid change of government (since 1985)
From 1985 to 1987, ruled Ontario Liberal Party of David Peterson , along with the NDP, in 1987, after winning 95 of the 130 seats, she ruled alone. It was possible to achieve a balanced budget from 1988 to 1990. But in 1990 the party lost much of its support. One reason was the failed attempt to amend the constitution ( Meech Lake Accord ), in which English-speaking Canada saw too many concessions. In addition, there was an incipient economic crisis and, as so often, a bribery scandal. Eventually the Liberals tried to get a respectable result by bringing the elections forward, but lost the election so severely that even the prime minister lost his constituency.
Bob Rae , the first NDP Premier in Ontario, was sworn in in 1990. He tried to fight the economic crisis through employment initiatives and public investments. He also allowed casinos and campaigned to keep jobs. But in 1992 he lost the election in a landslide victory. The so-called “Rae days”, ten days a year during which public servants had to take unpaid leave, were not a means of strengthening his backing either. The break with the trade unions was even more drastic. At the same time, the settlement pressure continued to increase, and so it came to renewed land conflicts with the Indians. The Supreme Court even ruled for the first time in 1994 that a tribe (in the Williams Treaties of 1923) had waived their land rights - the only case of this kind to date.
Mike Harris (1995 to 2002) and the “ common sense revolution ” propagated by the conservatives were based on neoliberal economic programs of the 1980s. So was Ontario Hydro privatized, as is the state liquor stores. But it was not until the late 1990s that the government managed to benefit from the renewed economic upswing and to win the 1999 elections. Nevertheless, Harris resigned in 2002, and his successor Ernie Eves could not stop the dwindling support.
Liberal Dalton McGuinty , head of government since 2003, is Ontario's second Catholic Prime Minister. The four “deficits” he believed the Conservatives had left were the health, education, infrastructure and tax sectors. The booming economy allowed the Liberal Party to tackle these fields. In 2007, McGuinty was re-elected.
See also
literature
- Kerry Margaret Abel: Changing places: history, community, and identity in northeastern Ontario , McGill-Queen's University Press 2006.
- Edward S. Rogers, Donald B. Smith: Aboriginal Ontario: Historical Perspectives on the First Nations , Toronto a. a .: Dundurn Press 1994.
- Thomas E. Emerson, Dale L. McElrath, Andrew C. Fortier: Archaic Societies: Diversity and Complexity Across the Midcontinent , State University of New York 2009.
Remarks
- ↑ With a view to the finds in Ontario, I am following the article The Archeology of Ontario: A Summary , FIRST PEOPLE OF ONTARIO: THE PALEO-INDIANS .
- ↑ D. Bruce Dickson: The atlatlly assessed: A review of recent anthropological approaches to prehistoric North American weaponry , in: Bulletin of the Texas Archaeological Society 56 (1985) 1-36.
- ↑ Thomas E. Emerson, Dale L. McElrath, Andrew C. Fortier: Archaic Societies: Diversity and Complexity Across the Midcontinent , State University of New York 2009, p. 803.
- ^ Susan R. Martin: Wonderful power: the story of ancient copper working in the Lake Superior Basin , Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1999, p. 143.
- ↑ Richard B. Johnston and Kenneth A. Cassavoy: The Fishweirs at Atherley Narrows, Ontario , in: American Antiquity 43.4 (October 1978) 697-709.
- ^ Based on Roy Dalton, The Jesuit Estates Question 1760–1788, University of Toronto Press, 1968, p. 60.
- ↑ For the current residential areas of the Indians in the Great Lakes region, which belong to the Union of Ontario Indians , cf. Union of Ontario Indians .
- ↑ Although the treaty was revised in 1805, the development was irreversible. To this day, the Mississauga still claim the Toronto Islands, which they believe were not included in the treaty. In June 2003 the government began with the approximately 1,800 Indians who now live near Hagersville on a reservation of approximately 2,400 hectares. However, it sees itself only in a position to negotiate non-private property. There are also further demands of the Mississauga. See Mississauga Nation Treaties ( Memento of May 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
- ^ The text of the Jay Treaty can be found here: Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, by their President, Ratified June 24, 1795 .
- ↑ The Josef Schneider House is still there today ( Memento from May 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ The text of the agreement can be found here: Rush-Bagot Agreement, Archives & Collections Society .
- ↑ To Canada Company: Moving here, staying here. The Canadina Immigrant Experience .
- ↑ The manifest is available in Wikisource: [1] .
- ↑ See The Art of Paul Kane .
- ↑ COPY OF THE ROBINSON TREATY Made in the Year 1850 : Indian and Northern Affairs Canada ( Memento from June 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ See Article v. Libraries & Archives Canada: What's In a Name? Berlin to Kitchener ( Memento from June 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ See interview v. October 9, 1961 ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Peggy J. Blair: Lament for a First Nation. The Williams Treaties of Southern Ontario , UBC Press 2008, ISBN 978-0-7748-1512-3 .
Web links
- The Archeology of Ontario , Ontario Archaeological Society
- First Nation Communities, Chiefs of Ontario
- Métis Nation of Ontario. Oral History Project
- Ontario Black History Society Archives
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