Great wave of immigration
The Great Wave of Immigration is a period in Canadian history in which European immigrants in particular ensured that between the years 1815 and 1850, today's Canadian areas experienced a population growth from 500,000 to 2.4 million inhabitants.
prehistory
Early waves of immigration since the Seven Years War
With the victory of the British colonial power over the French troops and the conquest of the former French territories in North America, the British colonial power was confronted by the remaining French-speaking population with the problem of holding the newly acquired territories permanently. Since the francophone population was in the majority, especially in Québec , the British government feared uprisings on the part of the local population, which they tried to prevent by settling Anglophone settlers. At first, Scots who had fought on the side of the British in the Highland regiments during the war were rewarded with free land in New Scotland and Quebec, as the reintegration of Scottish soldiers into previous social structures was difficult and financially difficult due to changed social and economic conditions Compensation would have burdened the British treasury too much. With the proclamation of 1763 and the associated ban on settling west of the 13 British colonies on what is now the United States , the British government tried to lure Anglo-American settlers into the northern areas, particularly New Scotland, where the English had already started to settle. This venture failed because the new areas were an unattractive settlement area for Anglo-American settlers due to the barren landscape and foreign-language residents. The population of New Scotland grew accordingly in the years 1763-1767 from 8,000 inhabitants to just 13,000, including French Acadians and German Mennonites . The few who had immigrated from the 13 colonies were mainly traders and building contractors who did business with the British military or engaged in the lucrative fur trade . The situation changed with the outbreak of the American Revolution in that British loyalists fled the 13 colonies. Of the 40,000–50,000 refugees, only around 10,000 settled in Quebec. The majority settled in the maritime areas and founded the new province of New Brunswick in 1784 . Westward settlement movements, which were encouraged by the British government with the allocation of free land, since it wanted to forestall an American occupation, only existed through a small number of the exiles. The majority of these were farmers, the so-called Frontier Farmers, who formed a very heterogeneous group and comprised less British loyalists, but mostly Scots, Germans and indigenous residents. The main purpose of the granting of free land in Upper Canada , under the leadership of First Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe , was to make the land as a whole more attractive to American and British settlers in the hope that an existing Anglophone population would be an attraction to new settlers develop. Overall, however, these efforts were crowned with little success and the hoped-for large immigration of British settlers did not materialize for a long time.
Migration to Canada since 1815
The great wave of immigration since 1815
With the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the situation changed for the British territories in North America. British immigrants saw a chance for a better life in the overseas territories than that which their former homeland had to offer. The Canadian population grew between the years 1815 and 1850 from 500,000 to 2.4 million. One of the many reasons for the sudden wave of immigration was the rapid population increase in the British Isles and mainland Europe since the early 19th century, which was responsible for massive overpopulation and the associated unemployment. This work situation was exacerbated by the conversion of the war economy to normal operation, which laid off many workers, as well as the return of war veterans who were previously tied to the war and had to be reintegrated into society. In addition, with the beginning of the industrial revolution , many companies were machined, in particular many textile companies were no longer dependent on a large number of workers and the decline of the British cotton industry combined with the switch to the metal industry increased the need and the hope of finding a better life in the North American areas. because land was cheap to buy there. Particularly in Ireland and Scotland, which were also affected by changed cultivation methods and unfavorable lease conditions, recurring crop failures in potato cultivation at the time caused famine in the 1840s, which subsequently caused the British government to fear migration of impoverished people to the British main island. Since there was still plenty of undeveloped land in the otherwise politically neglected North American areas, the British government decided to address the problem by settling in North America by means of cheap land allocation. However, the increase in population caused by immigrants obscures the phenomenon that more than half of the immigrants who landed in British North America soon made their way to the United States.
Settlement of the British territory in North America since 1815
Initially, immigration to the Canadian territories was institutionally disorganized by the British. The cost of the crossing, which the mostly destitute could not afford, was donated by private individuals or social organizations, along with official institutions, and some landlords paid their tenants for the crossing, not always without self-interest. 90% of the crossings took place by means of wooden freighters, which carried the very lucrative passenger freight on their return journey under inhumane conditions, i.e. for weeks in a confined space in an unventilated hold with little light. The grueling crossing, which was responsible for outbreaks of disease and numerous deaths, was countered by the British government in the 1820s with the establishment of the Canadian Immigration Service, which provides transport conditions and basic equipment, such as B. a landing allowance for which immigrants settled. The Canadian Immigration Service also helped newcomers find work and find family and friends. Legal action was taken against violations of the stipulated transport conditions if a suspicion was substantiated on the basis of complaints from passengers.
The land allocation itself was initially carried out by land companies, such as the Canada Company, who bought up large parts of the Canadian land and put them out to tender. This was accompanied by aggressive advertising campaigns, with recruiters posted at the immigrant arrival points. In addition, wealthy private individuals, such as the Scot Thomas Douglas , sold Lord Selkirk, who had been trying to attract Scottish immigrants to Upper Canada and Manitoba since the early 19th century . His biggest project was the so-called Red River Colony in what is now Manitoba, which, however , had to suffer from great difficulties with the indigenous inhabitants, the Métis . With the worsening social crisis in Ireland, triggered by falling prices for agricultural products and inefficient cultivation, the British government decided in the 1830s to intervene in land allocation itself in order to keep the purchase of land affordable for poor people. Promoted by the measure, which was intended to keep impoverished Irish out of the British Isles, the number of immigrants from the British Isles doubled in the year according to the records in the port of Quebec (1829: 13,307; 1830: 30574). About two thirds of the immigrants came from Ireland and one tenth from Scotland. British from the main island made up the rest.
Immigration since 1840
Immigration to Canada saw a slight decline again at least in the first half of the decade. The hopes of many immigrants for a better life in their new homeland could not be satisfied, because on the one hand the hoped-for employment in the construction of the infrastructure, in particular the canal construction, could not be realized to the promised extent and on the other hand the immigrants were mostly unskilled workers. Likewise, the agricultural activity in the harsh climate with its barren soils left many immigrants disaffected, so that, for example, in the winter of 1842–1843 around 9,500 Brits drove back to their homeland. From the second half of the decade, there was a massive increase in new immigrants, mainly of Irish origin. The trigger for this was widespread poor harvests in potato cultivation in Ireland, caused by potato rot, known in Irish history as "The Great Famine of 1845" . As a result of which between 1846 and 1854 around 400,000 migrants, mostly of Irish origin, translated from the British Isles to Canada.
Integration problems and consequences
The maritime areas of Canada in particular had to struggle with high overpopulation in places due to immigration and accordingly could not offer enough job opportunities, which led to high unemployment and the resulting social grievances. Promoted by the large number of immigrants, the region saw the outbreak of numerous epidemics, of which the cholera epidemic of 1832 was the worst. Of the 52,000 new immigrants, a twelfth died as a result of the epidemic and a few thousand of those living in Lower Canada and Upper Canada. The irritation arose especially among French-speaking Canadians who feared for their political influence, since they represented the previous majority, which had accordingly been given institutional recognition, including the retention of an official French language. Thus, conspiracy theories spread among the French-speaking residents, aiming at political assimilation.
Immigration since 1850
In response to the decline in British immigrants, the government decided to set up recruitment agencies such as B. Liverpool, and launched massive advertising campaigns, yet persuade British workers and farmers to relocate to Canada. However, the focus slowly changed. The Canadian territories were no longer to serve to accommodate impoverished citizens, but just as well-trained workers and capable farmers who could cope with the harsh landscape of the western areas to be settled.
literature
- Valerie Knowles: Strangers at Our Gates. Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy 1540–1997. Dundurn, Toronto 1997 ISBN 1-55002-269-5 pp. 17-46
- Ninette Kelley / Michael Trebilcock: The Making of the Mosaic, A History of Canadian Immigration Policy. University of Toronto Press, 1998 ISBN 0-8020-4323-2 pp. 21-60
- Robert Bothwell: The Penguin History Of Canada. Penguin, Toronto 2008 ISBN 0-14-305032-X
Individual evidence
- ^ Valerie Knowles: Strangers at Our Gates, Canadian Immigration an Immigration Policy, 1540–1997 , ISBN 1-55002-269-5 , p. 30.
- ↑ Knowles, pp. 17-18.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 18
- ↑ Knowles, p. 18.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 20.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 20.
- ↑ Knowles, pp. 22-23.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 27.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 30.
- ^ Ninette Kelley / Michael Trebilcock: The Making of the Mosaic, A History of Canadian Immigration Policy. Univ. of Toronto Pr., Toronto 1998, ISBN 0-8020-4323-2 , p. 44.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 39.
- ↑ Kelley / Trebilock, p. 53.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 34.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 37.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 36.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 31.
- ↑ Knowles pp. 37-40.
- ↑ Knowles p. 39.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 43.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 44.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 40.
- ↑ Knowles, p. 41.
- ↑ Kelley / Trebilock, pp. 50–51.