History of Canada

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The history of Canada goes back more than twelve millennia. Around this time, the end of the last Ice Age offered the early human inhabitants of what is now Canada more affordable options. In a long process with the immigration of other groups from Asia, very different cultural areas developed , which ranged from the Inuit , who had adapted to the arctic conditions, to hunter and semi-nomadic to rural cultures of the First Nations , such as the Indians of the Country.

One of the first cards in which the name "Canada" appears, Paulus de Furlanis Veronensis opus hoc exmi. Cosmographi D [omi] ni Iacobi Gastaldi Pedemontani Instaurauit…, Venice 1560, 39 × 51 cm, after: Rodney W. Shirley: The mapping of the world , London: Holland Press 1983, p. 106.

Strong cultural changes, extensive displacement processes and nomadization were triggered by the horse brought by the Spaniards , by the wars of the Iroquois and by Europeans between 1500 and 1700. A large number of indigenous peoples collapsed , as in all of America, due to diseases introduced, especially smallpox .

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Indians ( First Nations ) were forced into reservations by means of coercion and treaties in order to make room for European immigrants. This led to conflicts between the British and the French in the east, which in the west came to conflicts between the Spanish, British and Russians. In 1763 the French lost their New France colony to the British. Two decades later, the British colonies gained independence further south, creating the United States . The French-speaking inhabitants of the British remained part of North America, mainly in the province of Quebec lived, made London a series of concessions. The French Canadians then successfully supported the British colonial power in two wars against the USA. The private trading company of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) administered the west and north as a monopoly from 1821 to 1869/71 .

The US's urge to expand prompted London to grant the remaining area extensive independence in 1867. By 1873 the British colonies between the Atlantic and the Pacific joined this Canadian Confederation , which also began in 1869 to buy up the vast area of ​​the HBC and to conclude contracts with the Indians .

British capital and close ties to the British Empire ensured a massive expansion of Canada's infrastructure in the form of canals, roads and, above all, railways. The aim was to integrate the sparsely populated, huge country more strongly and to secure it against ever-emerging separatism and currents that called for affiliation with the USA. In addition, this promoted the exchange of goods within the country and with the Empire, and it made settlement easier.

Since the Great Depression and World War II , Great Britain lost its status as a world power to the USA. Canada leaned more and more towards its southern neighbor and in 1994 joined a free trade area with the USA and Mexico ( NAFTA ). Yet both British and Native American traditions remain ubiquitous. This is expressed both in the political structures and in the culture, for example in the fact that Nunavut gained a pronounced autonomy in 1999 for the predominantly Inuit living there. Many First Nations , as the Indian tribes are called in Canada , have their own territories. But the disputes over usage rights continue. Overall, the French model meant that other regional cultures also had the “right to be different”.

Settlement and cultural areas (before 10,000 BC to the 16th century)

Earliest traces up to the archaic phase

Genetic and climatic-historical studies suggest that the early Indian immigrants spread relatively quickly along the coast and migrated from there into the interior. Possibly one group followed the west coast, the other the ice-free corridor between the Rocky Mountains and Hudson Bay .

Schematic representation of the spread of man across the earth
  • 1-Homo sapiens
  • 2 neanderthals
  • 3-early hominids
  • Bering Strait satellite image (NASA)

    The oldest human traces in Canada were found at the Little John Site in western Yukon ; they reach up to 12000 BC BC back. In the northern Yukon, the finds in the Bluefish Caves are the oldest. This early Arctic culture spread southward along the coast, possibly also along the Yukon . Tools from around 10,500 BC were found in the Charlie Lake Cave near Fort St. John . There were also two ravens - one with grave goods - that were buried 9,000 and 10,000 years ago. Also from around 9,000 BC. Finds come from Banff and Saskatchewan , but also from Québec . The oldest human remains were dated to around 7800 BC. Dated ( On Your Knees Cave on Prince of Wales Island ). Artifacts from around 8000 to 9000 BC were found on the west coast. BC ( Far West Point ).

    This early phase was followed by the archaic phase , more precisely the early (approx. 8000 to 6000 BC) and the middle archaic phase (approx. 6000 to 4000 BC). Presumably the Plano groups, who are considered to be the successors of the Clovis and Folsom cultures , followed in the east caribou herds along the glaciation border, groups from the west reached around 7500 BC. Southern Ontario . There were spear throwers (Atlatl), a technological innovation that dates back to 8000 BC. Was created.

    Projectile points , drills and, above all, house marks appear as early as 6000 BC. In Vermont (John's Bridge Site in Swanton ). The main focus of these cultures was the Lower St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes . The first larger monuments are burial mounds, the Burial Mounds . For the first time, a social hierarchy is tangible along Lake Erie , the southern Huron Lake , Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River above the present-day city of Québec (around 5500 BC to 1000 BC).

    The Plano cultures on the Great Plains encompass the vast space between the coastal areas of British Columbia and the Northwest Territories and the Gulf of Mexico . New weapons technologies and widespread trade are characteristic. The raw materials for some stone tools and weapons came from areas far south, such as chalcedony from Oregon and obsidian from Wyoming .

    Manitoba was still under an ice sheet, but the first settlement chambers (Refugia) and habitable elevations that protruded beyond the ice line (Nunatuks or Nunataker ) developed, such as in southern Alberta (Agate Basin culture). Here were still around 8000 BC. Chr. Horses hunted; they disappeared as did the megafauna .

    It was only later that the huge cultural area was clearly divided into two large areas, the Early Shield and the Early Plains Culture . Finds were made at South Fowl Lake on the border between Ontario and Minnesota , which indicate that elemental copper was being worked as early as 4800 BC. Indicate.

    In the west it was probably at least until 9000 BC. Settlement dating back to BC was superimposed by the early plateau culture . Contrary to previous assumptions, the increasing salmon migrations on the coast were probably not the cause. The cultures there reach at least 8000 BC. BC back. The oldest find on Vancouver Island ( Bear Cove ) documents the hunting of marine mammals. Aside from Haida Gwaii , which dates from around 7500 BC. Was settled and with the Haida carry one of the oldest localized populations in the world, many coastal artifacts were destroyed by the steep rise in sea ​​levels . This in turn was triggered by the melting ice masses at the end of the last ice age.

    The oldest traceable trade in obsidian , a volcanic glass important for the manufacture of weapons and tools, dates back over 10,000 years and was based on a deposit on Mount Edziza (2,787 m) in northern British Columbia. The extreme north is only around 2,500 BC. Was populated selectively, the north of Ontario only around 2000 BC. Chr.

    From about 4000 to 1000 BC Chr.

    From 2500 BC BC settlements can be identified in the west, along with the first signs of social differentiation. House associations existed, which got together seasonally for hunting in large groups. There are also villages in the Plains. Bow and arrow probably came before 3000 BC. BC from Asia to the northwest, where the invention remained for a long time, then reached the east coast, only to reach the west around three millennia later.

    Burial sites can be found in the east, burial mounds represent the earliest monumental structures in Canada. They go back to the Maritime Archaic People or Red Paint People (because of the use of red ocher ). The before 4000 BC Groups residing in central Labrador avoided a cold spell to the south, around 2250 BC. Chr. Subjected Inuit who by 3000. BC coming from Siberia had reached North America, as far south as these regions.

    Dogs can now be found at the Great Lakes (in Utah as early as 8000 BC) that were buried. The Laurentian Archaic centered around Québec and Ontario and perhaps extended to around 5500 BC. BC back. The Ottawa Valley is considered the center of copper production.

    The Cree , Ojibwa , Algonkin , Innu and Beothuk , which can be found in the early European sources, probably go back to groups of the Shield culture . Around 2000 BC There were complex burial rituals with copper additions, tools and ocher. The trade relations reached as far as Dakota. Seasonal hiking cycles of great continuity become tangible.

    In the plains cultures, between about 6000 BC. Chr. And the turn of the ages notice serious changes. The dry phases became milder, the bison species that still exists today prevailed, dogs were used as carrying and draft animals and thus increased mobility, the tipi prevailed, and a cooking technique with hot stones allowed the production of pemmican , which in turn made it last relieved from phases of deficiency.

    The middle plateau culture between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coastal mountains developed around 2500 BC. A type of house that was partially sunk into the earth. The diet was increasingly based on salmon . Today's inland Salish can be closely associated with this culture. The most important cultural change is the transition from being sedentary to being semi-sedentary with permanent winter villages and summer hiking cycles around 2000 BC. Chr.

    A similar development took place on the west coast, whose cultures can be related to the coastal Salish . The social hierarchy became clearer, some groups had better access to resources, wealth accumulated and trade increased. Towards the end of the era, plank houses can be identified for the first time. The Salish were also already before 1600 BC. Also farmers - as we know about the katzie . The Nuu-chah-nulth on Vancouver Island developed ocean-going canoes for whale hunting.

    In contrast, the Yukon and Mackenzie maintained a culture of long-range hunting with extreme agility in small groups. Here too, salmon migrations over the Yukon and its tributaries increased the size and number of settlement chambers. Between 5000 and 2000 BC There was a southern migration of the Inuit cultures.

    Until the first permanent contact with Europeans (around 1500)

    The production of clay pots reached what is now Canada on the way from South America via Florida . Bows and arrows came from Asia and were probably first used by Paleo-Eskimos .

    east

    The ethnic groups behind the artifacts of the later cultural phases are believed to be the ancestors of today's Mi'kmaq , Welastekwíyek and Passamaquoddy . With the ceramic vessels from around 500 BC. The archaic phase, which was replaced by the Woodland periods , ended on the east coast . Some villages were probably inhabited all year round. Burial practices came from the Adena culture , which is around 1700 km away , and oral traditions of the Mi'kmaq go back to this era.

    Sketch of the Otonabee Serpent Mound at the mouth of the Indian River on the north bank of Rice Lake in Ontario, around 16 km southeast of Peterborough

    The Early Woodland Period also extended to the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River from about 1000 BC. BC to 500 AD. The Iroquois probably go back to this culture , but also some of the Algonquin groups. The importance of the pumpkin only now increased significantly, although it was already selectively around 4000 BC. Was planted, such as in Maine . Between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, as well as New York , several groups brought the flint sites under their control. The Onondaga flints were made until 500 BC. Used for arrows. In addition, the spread from the Ohio valley coming Burial Mounds from extensive burial mound, such as the 60 m long Otonabee Serpent Mound , which is meters today on average 1.70.

    Canadian shield

    The cultures going back to the Middle Shield culture differed only in their tools and less in their way of life, although the eastern branch also adopted clay pots. The influences of the Adena culture can be seen here as far as Central Labrador . Their typical mounds also appear in the western shield culture (Laurel) , for example in southern Ontario.

    Long-distance trade with chalcedony from Oregon and obsidian from Wyoming depended on the river transport with canoes. The only known human remains are from two burial mounds in northern Minnesota , which may have been the origin of the tribes of the northern Algonquian culture in southern Manitoba and adjacent Ontario. Probably due to the domestication of wild rice, there was a prominent class of landowners ( Psinomani culture ). Southern Ontario was involved in the long-distance trade relations of the Hopewell culture . Copper was found in the vicinity of Lake Ontario and was spread throughout eastern North America.

    Plains and prairies

    The late Plains culture relied heavily on buffalo . Place names such as Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump indicate the driving technique used in hunting. The prairies appear to be around 650 BC. To have shrunk in favor of forests. At the latest from approx. 500 BC. The bow began to replace the spear thrower. Mounds only occur here in Dakota. In Montana , tent villages with an area of ​​100 hectares and a service life of around a thousand years have been found that used stone rings around the tipis . Long-distance trade was widespread and reached westward to the Pacific. Apparently there were already holy places where shamans invoked metaphysical powers. In the north, smaller nomadic groups predominated, while in the south a cycle of seasonal migrations had established itself, centered around fixed villages.

    plateau

    The late plateau culture was characterized by its small size. Stocks were stored in holes in the ground, hot stones were used for baking and cooking, so that cooking vessels were unnecessary. The extensive salmon trains provided most of the nutritional value. The fish were preserved by drying in the wind. The villages got bigger and the population increased, some of these big villages were inhabited every winter for over a thousand years. The bow and arrow appeared late. Access to resources depended on reputation, which was becoming increasingly hereditary. Around 2500 BC The so-called pit house ("pit house") can be identified, which was partially dug into the earth and enabled more extensive storage.

    West Coast

    Coastal culture was established between 500 BC. and 500 AD as a ranking society stricter from south to north. A class of leading families dominated trade and access to resources, and had political and spiritual power. Many finds can now be assigned to individual tribes, such as the Tsimshian , who died no later than 2000 BC. Around Prince Rupert lived. Burial mounds also appear here for the first time. The arch did not reach this region until around AD 400.

    The villages grew in number, and apparently larger, except for those on the Strait of Georgia . Today's coastal Salish can be traced back to the Marpole culture, but presumably go back much further. The culture was already characterized by the same social differentiation, from plank houses in which several families lived, from salmon catching and drying, rich carvings of sometimes monumental dimensions, complex ceremonies and clan structures.

    Between 500 and 1000 AD, the dead were given their final resting place in trees, stakes, burial houses and caves more and more often. In some regions, cairns were predominant, such as around Victoria . Around 500 to 700 AD, fortified villages increasingly appeared - especially in the south with dug moats, in the north with palisades. This warlike phase extended well into the time of European colonization and only ended with the severe smallpox epidemic of 1862 .

    Northwest

    Early finds, such as at Anne Lake near Whitehorse , date back to 8000 BC. BC back. Here the extreme climate and strong volcanic activity made permanent settlement difficult. The Taye Lake complex can be traced between 4000 and 1000 BC. While the Taltheilei complex is believed to be due to immigration from British Columbia and the Yukon, a migration that extended beyond Hudson Bay and possibly displaced the predecessors of the Inuit there.

    Sites in the drainage area of ​​the Mackenzie from 1000 BC are connected with the athabasques . It is assumed that the phase known as Old Chief Creek in the northern Yukon produced the later Gwich'in , while the Taye Lake phase in the southern Yukon produced the Tutchone .

    First European

    Areas where Scandinavian seafarers performed
    Detail of the planisphere from 1502 made for Alberto Cantino , presumably in Lisbon as a copy by the Portuguese Padrão Real. Newfoundland lies east of the Tordesillas Line and thus in the legal area of ​​the Portuguese crown and is referred to here as Terra del Rey de Portugall  "Land of the King of Portugal".
    Replica of a “ Viking ” settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows . The settlement was excavated in 1960 and is now a World Heritage Site .

    At the end of the 10th century, Scandinavians from Iceland / Norway were the first Europeans who demonstrably reached the American continent. Bjarni Herjúlfsson is considered to be the first to discover it. In 985 or 986 he went off course on the way to Greenland and reported about “wooded hills in the west”. About ten years later, Leif Eriksson's ship landed on Vinland , which is probably the island of Newfoundland . However, the Scandinavians could not stay in this area permanently and withdrew around 1020 after disputes with the indigenous people they called " Skrælingar ".

    Memorial plaque from 1997 in Halifax for Giovanni Caboto , known in North America as John Cabot.

    The next European known by name to land in what is known to be Canada on June 24, 1497, was Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), an Italian in English service. His ship landed in 1497 at a point on the east coast that could not be determined with certainty, believed that it was in China and took three Mi'kmaq to England and declared the country to be English possession. A year later he set off on another expedition with six ships, from which he never returned.

    In 1498 the Portuguese João Fernandes Lavrador sailed the coast of the Labrador Peninsula, which is probably named after him .

    In Lisbon , the Cabot voyage was considered a violation of the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas , which attributed this area to Portugal , and equipped three ships under the leadership of Gaspar Corte-Real . They landed in Labrador or Newfoundland in 1501 and captured 57 Beothuk , which they brought to Lisbon and sold. At the end of the 15th century, Newfoundland was referred to on Portuguese maps as “Terra dos Corte Reais” (Land of the Corte Reals). Gaspar Corte-Real never returned, but as early as 1506 the Portuguese King Manuel I levied a tax on the cod from Newfoundland.

    More sailors explored the coast, but it was the French who were the first to advance inland. Jacques Cartier's expedition explored the area around the Saint Lawrence River in 1534/1535 and took possession of it for France . The first settlement in New France was Tadoussac, founded in 1600 . The settlement had to be abandoned, but remained as a trading post.

    By the beginning of the 16th century at the latest, the rich fishing grounds off the coast of Newfoundland attracted fishermen from the Basque Country , Portugal , France and the British Isles. They founded smaller settlements on the coast, in which stockfish was dried and thus made ready for transport. Basque fishermen founded a whaling station in Red Bay around 1530 , which existed for around 70 years and at times had over 900 inhabitants.

    Indians and Europeans, British-French rivalry

    French colonists led by Cartier, Nicolas Vallard, 1547

    First contacts and trading activities

    In 1519 the fur trade began and the coastal tribes exchanged furs for knives, axes, hatchets and kettles. In 1524 the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano undertook a first research expedition to the east coast of North America on behalf of Francis I , during which he sailed between South Carolina and the Cape Breton Island .

    Jacques Cartier , who anchored in Chaleur Bay in 1541, was already surrounded by numerous Mi'kmaq canoes whose crew waved beaver pelts . The tribes of the east coast soon waged war among themselves because of the trade contacts. Cartier had also exchanged furs with the Iroquois on the upper St. Lawrence (1534/35) and for a long time trade flourished despite the lack of trading bases. A network of rivers and paths on which Indians traded had existed for a very long time.

    Appearance of Samuel de Champlain (until 1635)

    Champlain's home in Port-Royal was Canada's first seat of government (reconstruction)
    Map of the colony of New France from 1713

    Algonkins or Susquehannock and Montagnais called on Samuel de Champlain in 1601 when landing at Tadoussac for support against the Iroquois. In 1609 the French supported the Hurons against the Iroquois, with whom they had been at war for generations. This decision, which was never revised despite several occasions, permanently turned the Iroquois against the French. In order to be able to wage the wars that followed, they obtained European weapons in exchange for furs from the Dutch allied with them , who acted as colonial power from New Amsterdam , later New York , and from Fort Oranje .

    Jacques Cartier came across the two Iroquois villages of Stadacona and Hochelaga where Québec and Montreal are today . However, they were gone in Champlain's time. The Hurons remained one of the most important allies of the French; the Iroquois soon allied themselves with the English, who in turn ousted the Dutch.

    In 1604, a naval expedition, in which Champlain took part, built the first settlement on Saint Croix Island at the mouth of the St. Croix River . It was moved to Port Royal a year later . Other fortified structures soon followed. The relocation of the colony to Port Royal in the Mi'kmaq area brought the Penobscot against them in 1607 . The Tarrantine War (1607–1615) was an expression of their rivalry in the fur trade.

    In 1608, Champlain founded the city of Québec with 31 settlers, but only nine of them survived the first winter with the help of the Indians. In 1613 the traders from Port Royal had to withdraw to Tadoussac because the English had burned their colony. Champlain moved up the Ottawa to gain allies. After he returned to France, he gave an area of ​​around 30% of the area of New France to the Jesuits in the form of a seigneury . When Champlain attacked an Onondaga fortress in 1615 , however, he was repulsed. In 1627 he traveled to Paris and convinced Cardinal Richelieu that it was worth supporting the colony. The Society of 100 Associates , also known as Compagnie de la Nouvelle France , was founded to encourage emigrants. But the number of settlers remained small. 1630 had 100 inhabitants Québec, 1640 at least 359. It was feudal system of France transferred to the colony, the country manors divided. The Jesuit mission was also supplied with food and building materials. In addition, only Catholics were allowed to live in New France. Since Scots had already come to Acadia in 1628 , but mainly English moved to the colony of Newfoundland around 1630 , a war broke out in the course of which Québec was occupied by English from 1629–1632. The local Beothuk were drawn into the war and exterminated in the process.

    In 1634 Laviolette set up a trading post near Trois-Rivières . Missionaries set up posts along the Great Lakes . The Hurons numbered around 20,000, the Petun ( Tionontati ) are estimated to be over 10,000 in 1623, and the neutrals on the Niagara Peninsula at around 40,000. Although they did not take part in the wars between the Hurons and Iroquois, they did fight the Algonquins they had driven out, who at the time were known as the Fire Nations . In 1650 the Iroquois destroyed the Hurons.

    Anglo-French competition

    Monument to Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye (1685–1749) in front of the Hotel de Ville in Québec

    One of the strongest driving forces was by no means the political dominance or the economic exploitation of the new continent, but the search for the Northwest Passage that connects the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean ; that was also true of Cartier. The hope was to find a short way to South and East Asia and to compete with the world powers Portugal and Spain there. Martin Frobisher undertook to travel from 1576 to 1578, similar to John Davis (1585–1587), William Baffin (1612–1616), Thomas James (1631–1632) and Luke Fox (1631). Baffin and James concluded that no passage existed.

    Henry Hudson , when looking for the passage in 1609, took possession of Hudson Bay for England , which was named after him . Champlain was captured by the English in 1629, and Québec became British by 1632. The power vacuum that developed after Champlain's death (1635) was filled by the Bishop of Québec. In 1642 he initiated a utopian Christian settlement project, the Ville-Marie, the starting point of Montreal . The Laval University was founded 1635th

    After the release of individual trade with the Indians in 1652, numerous young men went out as rangers ( coureurs des bois ) who lived among the Indians while new forts were being built. In 1672 their number was estimated at 300 to 400, which was around a tenth of the population capable of weapons. Voyageurs , the number of which rose to at least 1,000 by 1738 and around 3,000 by 1810, transported goods, animals and people from 1779 on behalf of the North West Company . The rivers played an important role in this. Consequently translated tribes like the Kichesipirini on the Ottawa River nearby L'Isle-aux-Allumettes already in 1630 an interim trade monopoly by. By 1660, large quantities of furs came from the Upper Lake area and occasionally from the Lakota .

    From around 1660 Médard des Groseilliers and his brother-in-law Pierre-Esprit Radisson tried to revive the fur trade, which had collapsed after the destruction of the Hurons. But Frontenac tried to monopolize this trade for France and to collect taxes. To do this, he had the first permanent settlement in Ontario built, a fort on the site of today's Kingston . The fur trading group turned to London, and in 1670 the Hudson's Bay Company was established , which smuggled furs past Fort Frontenac. In 1686 the French tried to burn down the English trading post in return.

    Map of the Great Lakes by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli , published in the Atlante Veneto in 1696 . At the time, it was the best map in the region.

    Although the search for the western border of the continent failed, contacts were made with Indians as far as the upper Mississippi , and for a short time even as far as Santa Fe in the Spanish region. Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye owed the Cree Auchagah a map of the area between the Upper and Winnipeg lakes . Together with his four sons and a nephew, he built a series of forts and reached the Missouri in 1738 . But he died before he could set out again to find the way to the Pacific.

    The conflict of interests between England and France was not only intensified by denominational differences, but above all by the different social and economic models that were transferred to America and further developed there. England had significantly weakened the feudal regime as a result of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and feudalism was formally abolished in the New England colonies in 1776. Property was individualized, freedom of movement applied to all who were not slaves , taxes and services disappeared, and work increasingly became a commodity .

    In the French territories, however, feudalism was not abolished until 1854. Until then, unfree work prevailed in the country, along with slower economic development, a feudal hierarchy with a strong dependency on a few families who saw their center in France. In addition, the mercantilist economic policy was opposed to the independent development of New France. From 1627 on , Richelieu supported the establishment of a trading company to promote colonization and the trade in fur, but only because it did not exist in France. In 1704, Paris consequently forbade the production of fur hats, which, if possible, should only be made in France.

    The number of French settlers remained low due to lack of support, while England, a little later, but then all the more energetically, relied on colonization. In New England as well as in Nova Scotia , the system of crown grants , i.e. the equipment provided by the crown, and quit rents , the associated monetary contributions, dominated.

    Only during a brief period under the artistic director Jean Talon was there a strong state subsidy from 1665 to 1672. Around 500 newcomers came annually, plus 700 to 900 unmarried women from France between 1663 and 1672. In 1668 around 2,000 soldiers came with the Carignan Salières Regiment , of whom 446 remained as settlers and around 100 as soldiers. In addition, 1,500 settlers were recruited. The population rose from 24,500 to 70,000 between 1720 and 1760 due to numerous children born in the colony. After 1700 the development was increasingly overshadowed by the conflict with Great Britain. The superiority of the British colonies was shown by the fact that around one million white settlers were already living in New England in 1750.

    War for trade monopolies

    Residential areas of the Iroquois around 1650

    The Indians brought the majority of the skins into the trade. However, the Iroquois hunted the beavers in the Hudson Valley and therefore pushed further north to hunt, which gave rise to the so-called "Beaver Wars". In 1641 they offered the French peace, but they did not want to drop their Huron allies, who in turn were infected by their French allies with measles , flu and smallpox, which killed around 60% of the Hurons.

    In 1648 the Dutch began selling rifles directly to the Iroquois. In the following year they won a victory over the Hurons, in which not only numerous opponents, but also a group of Jesuits were killed. The Hurons fled and sought help from the Anishinabe Confederation in the Great Lakes. The Petun did not escape the campaigns either and were destroyed in 1650, the neutrals in 1655. Another group, today's Wyandot, fled north, then west and finally to Oklahoma . The vacuum in trade with the French soon filled the Ottawa . Algonquin was a merchant language, the name of which was eventually transferred to all the tribes of this language family.

    A few years after the destruction of the Hurons and other tribes, the Iroquois began to attack the French directly, led by the Mohawk and a tribal coalition around the Mahican (different spelling: Mohegan ). Montreal was no longer safe in 1660. In the west, the Seneca were leaders. They drove out the Attawandaron or "neutrals", then by 1656 they largely destroyed the tribe of the Erie , who had lived on the eastern south shore of Lake Erie .

    With their approach, the Iroquois triggered extensive migrations of peoples that reached westward as far as the Rocky Mountains and far into the southwest of the USA. The newcomers there, in turn, sparked new conflicts. By taking over the horse, some displaced people managed to open up areas that would not have been habitable without the mounts from Spanish herds. In addition, they changed both warfare and hunting techniques, and transformed numerous tribes into equestrian nomads for more than a century from around 1730.

    New France Society and the Iroquois Wars (1663-1701)

    Schutzbrief King Louis XIV. From April 26, 1669 for the Religieuses Hospitalières de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal , the oldest, founded in 1645 Hospital of the recently founded three years Montreal

    Until 1663, the French territories were under the trading company Compagnie de la Nouvelle France (Society of New France). However, this was not able to provide protection against the Iroquois.

    One of the most important barter goods, beaver fur, was the cause of ongoing arguments. These furs were only available with great fluctuations. France tried to make Montreal the only fur trade center. However, this was not acceptable for the Iroquois, whose leaders themselves now depended on bartering, because they gained prestige by giving away coveted goods, which they received mostly in exchange for furs. For the leadership groups among the Indians, the question of the fur monopoly became a question of existence. They attacked Montreal in 1687, and in 1689 the Lachine massacre took place in which 97 French people were killed. All in all, around one in ten French people was killed in the war, i.e. around 250 to 300.

    Since the English were able to take New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664 , the English slipped into their role and have been supplying the Iroquois with weapons ever since. When the King William War broke out (1689 to 1697), it triggered a chain of proxy wars that England and France fought with the help of their Indian allies. At the end of the war, a side war of the Palatinate War of Succession , negotiations began in 1698 and the Great Peace of Montreal with the Iroquois in 1701 . This ended the last of the so-called Beaver Wars , which had lasted since 1640.

    Montreal 1687 to 1723

    To fight the Iroquois, France had sent the Carignan Salières regiment, comprising more than a thousand men, from 1665, which had been in action against the Ottomans since 1659 . Most of the men came from Savoy , Piedmont and Liguria . In New France, on the orders of Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle , the regiment had to wage a winter campaign in January 1666 in which 400 men froze to death without having seen an Iroquois. In the autumn they managed to burn down five abandoned villages, but it was smallpox that forced the Iroquois to seek peace. The majority of the regiment withdrew in 1668, but Pierre de Sorel, Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur and François Jarret de Verchères received huge manors (seigneuries) on the Richelieu River .

    France set up a supreme administrative body that was subordinate to the French Minister of Maritime Affairs. It consisted of the governor, who was responsible for politico-military undertakings, a superintendent who was responsible for administration, jurisdiction and economics, and the Bishop of Québec. The power struggles between Chevalier de Mercy and Bishop François de Laval ended with the first director Jean Talon (1665 to 1672). He tried to settle as many of the soldiers as possible in the country and supported the settlement. In addition, Louis XIV had almost a thousand women (called "the King's daughters"), mainly from Paris and Rouen , furnished and brought to the colony. By 1673 the population grew by around 9,000 people. The descendants of numerous recruited settlers and debt servants were, however, referred to as socially inferior "engagés" - in 1665 they made up a quarter of the male population over the age of 14. Marriages between French colonists and Indian women were also encouraged. The Métis emerged from their descendants, who speak French or Michif to this day . They have been a state-recognized ethnic group since 1982.

    Hudson's Bay Company, Wars for New France

    The map from around 1680/81 shows the results of the western expeditions of Marquette and Jolliet and de la Salles. The Conty forts near Niagara Falls , Miamis, south of Lake Michigan and Crèvecœur on Illinois were built in 1679/80. The course of the Mississippi below the Ohio estuary was unknown to the draftsman.
    Fort Saint Jean at Richelieu around 1750

    Against the English influence, the French built numerous forts, including Fort Frontenac in 1673 . All men between 16 and 65 had to do military service. The situation calmed down for a while, but in 1683 another war began, which the French now waged in the manner of the guerrillas they knew from the Iroquois.

    After the French crown had taken direct control of the colony in 1674, René Robert Cavelier de la Salle , Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette explored the hinterland and sailed the Mississippi . In doing so, they created a basis for a colonial empire that extended to the Gulf of Mexico . A chain of forts and settlements arose from the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and from there along the Mississippi to Louisiana .

    However, the colony struggled to raise money for soldiers. This money was sent from France with merchandise in the summer. But in 1685 the money arrived eight months late, so that the soldiers hire themselves out with settlers and have to be “paid” with playing cards. What initially worked well was practiced annually from 1690, but led to a decline in value, so that inflation is estimated at 300 to 500% for 1713. Attempts were now made to make do with loans, but cash became so scarce that in 1729, at the request of the merchants, the king once again permitted the issue of playing cards. But by 1755 confidence in this type of monetary policy was exhausted. Trade was reduced to barter. In addition, the population began to hoard and hide the few coins.

    The Queen Anne's War from 1702 to 1713 was, similar to earlier, a proxy war , this time 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, the British-French War broke out in North America .

    Between 1713 and 1740, New France succeeded in expanding its trade despite the loss of monopoly and its precarious infrastructure - the St. Lawrence Estuary was only open as long as Louisbourg , a fortress town with several thousand inhabitants, could withstand. The Chemin du Roy ("Royal Route") linked Québec and Montreal overland, Montréal was heavily fortified , as was the city of Québec . Québec became a separate colony within New France in 1722, its population had risen to 24,594, and rose to 70,000 by 1760.

    A British attempt to conquer the colony with the help of the Iroquois during the War of the Palatinate Succession (unsuccessful siege of Québec in 1690) was fought off by the French under the leadership of Governor Frontenac . In a counterattack, the French drove the British out of Hudson Bay , Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, among others, until 1697 . In the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France had to cede the mainland part of Acadia . In 1745 William Shirley , governor of British Massachusetts , attacked Louisbourg. Although the fortress had to be returned in the Peace of Aachen in 1748, the Ohio Company of Virginia was founded as early as 1749, bringing British colonists to the Ohio Valley, which was claimed by France . At the beginning of the Seven Years' War, around 70,000 French faced now around a million British settlers. In 1759 the British conquered Québec.

    "The Death of General Wolfe": Battle on the Plains of Abraham (1759)

    The construction of French forts near Niagara , on Lake Champlain and on the Allegheny River ( Fort Duquesne ) led to open hostilities in North America in 1754 before the start of the Seven Years' War. In the French and Indian War, the French initially achieved some defensive successes (e.g. in the battles at Monongahela (1755) and at Ticonderoga (1758)), but the British under General James Wolfe won the battle on September 13, 1759 Abraham Plain , where the French commander -in- chief Louis-Joseph de Montcalm was killed. The British then conquered the city of Québec and, in 1760, under the command of Jeffrey Amherst , Montreal . Reluctant attempts to send aid to the beleaguered colony from France were stopped by the British fleet. In the Peace of Paris on February 10, 1763, France ceded Canada and its remaining Acadian areas ( Prince Edward Island , Cape Breton Island) to Great Britain.

    Between 1755 and 1763 around 12,000 French-speaking academics were expelled from their homeland. Many fled to Québec and New Brunswick , others later returned or moved as far as Louisiana, where they established the Cajun culture.

    British colonial rule

    Until the independence of the USA

    In the Quebec Act of 1774, the British reorganized the colony as the Province of Québec . The population was accommodated by maintaining the French Civil Code alongside the British Common Law and protecting the French mother tongue and the practice of the “religion of the Church of Rome”. American revolutionaries viewed the law as one of the intolerable acts , as the borders of Québec were shifted far west and south into the sphere of interest of the Thirteen Colonies .

    Jeffrey Amherst , British Army Commander and First Governor of the Province of Quebec, v. Joshua Reynolds 1765
    The Battle of Quebec (1775)

    In 1760 New France was placed under a military government led by Jeffrey Amherst , who had succeeded in conquering Louisbourg . He stopped giving gifts to the chiefs in 1761, undermining their position secured by giving them away. Groups hostile to the colonial powers feared that Amherst was restricting the sale of weapons in order to disarm them in the long term. Amherst soon faced the Pontiac uprising , and he did not hesitate to at least correspond on smallpox as a weapon.

    With the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the British government delimited Indian and British land claims. The majority of the French ruling class went to France, and many academics were deported . Most of the goods were confiscated and contact with France was cut off. For its part, France supported the Americans' struggle against Britain in the War of Independence . As a result of the Indian uprising under Pontiac , the government changed its policy towards the French. When American troops under Richard Montgomery advanced into Montreal, the Franco-Americans did not take their side, but defended Québec and repulsed the invaders in the Battle of Québec on December 31, 1775. (→  Invasion of Canada (1775) ).

    The French Catholic majority (around 90,000 inhabitants) became a minority in the West when more than 50,000 refugees, known as loyalists , were settled after the end of the American War of Independence . At the same time, their presence was an obstacle to the US taking over Canada or returning it to France. Since they lived mainly on the Great Lakes, a second settlement core was formed, which differed in denomination , economy, culture and language. However, the land for the loyalists was by no means uninhabited. In 1790, Wyandot, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, and Ottawa abandoned land for a total of 1,344,000 acres . By 1827, almost 3,000,000 acres were added.

    The constitutional law of 1791 established two provinces, the English-influenced Upper Canada and the French Lower Canada , each with independent administrations. The Ottawa River formed the boundary between the two. In addition, no clergy reserve was planned for the West , land that had been used to support the Anglican clergy since 1791 . It became free for industrial use and settlement. The seigneurie royale , the order introduced in 1627, in which a feudal lord received land from the king and lent it on in exchange for services and taxes, continued to exist.

    The majority of the Mohawk and Cayuga Iroquois tribes who fought on the side of the British remained in Canada or moved there. Their areas formed another settlement core, but immigration from Europe quickly made them a small minority.

    The West: Smallpox Epidemics, Regional Trade Monopolies, Hudson's Bay Company

    The diseases, especially smallpox , which bothered the Indians so hard in the east, hurried ahead of the Europeans westward and struck tribes that had not yet come into contact with Europeans. From the 1770s onwards, the first Spaniards and British came to the Pacific coast with trade and discovery trips, where a severe smallpox epidemic broke out in 1775 , which was followed by more until 1862 . In conjunction with other diseases such as measles , flu and tuberculosis , they caused extensive damage.

    The Oregon Country , shared by the British and Americans between 1818 and 1846, was divided along the 49th parallel

    The British James Cook was the first explorer to come into contact with the local Indians. The following Europeans were more attracted by the profitable trade in fur, especially otters , to the area between Washington and Alaska , where trade monopolies of three Nuu-chah-nulth tribes under the leadership of Maquinna , Wickaninnish and Tatoochatticus ( Tatoosh ) developed. Russians who came from Alaska, Americans, Spaniards and British competed for influence, but in 1790 they agreed not to establish any more trading posts. Within three decades, the numerous traders and the Indians who mostly hunted for them exhausted important fur animal populations. The large trading companies, such as the North West Company , the XY Company and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), which finally prevailed in 1821 , soon fought over this . After the merger with the North West Company, it took over the colonial state tasks and founded the first permanent trade bases. The provincial capital Victoria was founded in 1843 as a fort of the HBC, which dominated the west until 1871. She also signed the first treaties with the Indians (Douglas Treaties). However, in 1846, after Great Britain and the USA had agreed in the Oregon Compromise on the 49th parallel as the border, it had to withdraw northwards.

    Second war against the USA

    The Capitol with signs of destruction, George Munger 1814

    Another attempt by the USA to conquer Canada in the British-American War from 1812 to 1814/15 ( called the War of 1812 in the historiography of the adversaries ) failed. The resistance against the invaders played an important role in the development of a common national feeling, especially since the Americans occupied and destroyed the capital York, later Toronto , for six days in 1813. They also burned down the parliament building. Outstanding figures in this struggle, such as Major General Sir Isaac Brock and Laura Secord , are popular in Canada to this day. Most of the war took place on the Niagara Peninsula, between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

    The Americans could not achieve any of their war goals, Washington , the seat of government, was even burned on August 24, 1814, the Library of Congress burned. The poem, on which the US national anthem ( The Star-Spangled Banner ) , introduced in 1931, goes back, was written in the final phase of the war. It was not until the Peace of Ghent that the pre-war status quo was restored. In 1817, Great Britain and the USA agreed to keep the Great Lakes free of warships (Rush Bagot Treaty). In 1818 the war opponents settled further conflicts in the London Treaty .

    The last surviving Mohawk, who fought on the British side against the USA from 1812 to 1815, were photographed in 1882. The men between 85 and 90 years old at the time were from right to left: Sakayengwaraton (John Smoke) Johnson, John Tutela, and Young Warner

    The Iroquois, who fled from the Americans and were allied with Great Britain in 2000, mainly Mohawk and Cayuga , who Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea, 1743-1807) had led to Ontario, supported the British again in 1812. In 1785 there were 1,785 Iroquois living in the Six Nations of the Grand River reservation , an area of ​​675,000 acres west of Lake Ontario, which, however, was reduced to 45,000 acres through sales . Brant was given a closed area on the Grand River in 1802 (that's how the Ottawa was called), more precisely around today's Brantford , which is named after him. A second group had settled in Tyendinaga in 1784, named after the Mohawk name Brants, not far from Kingston .

    A few years before the Iroquois lost almost all political importance, because they quickly became a small minority after 1815, they intervened decisively in the military conflicts, as Carl Benn was able to demonstrate in 1998. This applies, for example, to the Battle of Queenston Heights on October 13, 1812.

    Economy and society, connection to the USA or self-government

    In the early 19th century, wood became an important export. The wood of the Weymouths pine was tied together to make rafts and transported over the Ottawa to the seaport of Québec. The abundant oak was heavier than water and therefore had to be tied together with lighter pine. On the way back, the cargo ships carried up to 200 immigrants to Canada cheaply, because neither salt nor brick could fill the stowage space of the westbound ships.

    Between 1815 and 1819, the Hudson's Bay Company and rival North West Company fought an armed trade conflict over control of the Red River Colony and supremacy in the fur trade, the Pemmican War . In 1821 the two companies were forcibly merged and continued under the name of the Hudson's Bay Company.

    Aristocratic families dominated the parliament installed by the colonial administration, as did the economy. Moderate reformers like Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine called for a "responsible government" (responsible government) , the more into account the interests of the population than the United Kingdom. Radical reformers like William Lyon Mackenzie or Louis-Joseph Papineau called for independence and the establishment of a republic . Mackenzie and Papineau organized the 1837 rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, but they were quickly put down. Mackenzie settled on Navy Island in the Niagara River and proclaimed the Republic of Canada with 200 followers on December 13, 1837 , but they had to flee to the USA in mid-January 1838. In the course of the fighting, a ship named Caroline was crashed down Niagara Falls and two Americans were killed (→ Caroline / McLeod affair ). In 1842 the British government apologized for the violation of American territory.

    Territory of the province of Canada (orange: English part, green: French part)

    Governor General Lord Durham wrote the report on the situation in North America in 1839 , in which he proposed increased self-government and a parliamentary form of government. At the same time, English should be made the only official language, because he hoped that the French- Canadians would thereby be assimilated.

    These proposals were implemented with the Act of Union 1840 . From the union of Upper and Lower Canada, the common province of Canada emerged in 1841 . In 1848 London changed its mercantilist economic policy. Thus, the Corn Laws were liberalized. The Tories in the east, which had profited from mercantilist regulations, reacted indignantly with the Montreal Annexation Manifesto , which called for annexation with the USA.

    The Hôtel de ville of Montreal, L'opinion publique, 1874
    The Montreal Parliament after the Fire, The Montreal Daily Star, January – February 1887

    When a new tax was introduced in 1849 to compensate the unconvicted insurgents of 1837, two days of street fighting broke out in Montreal, which was the provincial capital from 1843 to 1849, during which the government building on April 25th 1849 went up in flames (Montreal Riots). A month later, the government decided to move the capital. In the next few years Toronto and Québec alternated in the status of provincial capital. Queen Victoria decided in 1857 that Ottawa , on the border between the French and English-speaking areas, should become the capital of the emerging Dominion Canada.

    In 1851 there were over 950,000 inhabitants in Canada West , 890,000 in Canada East and 2,436,000 in the whole of Canada. The English-speaking West had thus outstripped the French-speaking East.

    Ontario Chief Justice William Osgoode declared slavery incompatible with British law in 1803

    Another group, black slaves from the United States, came to Canada a long time ago because slavery had been abolished there in 1834. In New France there had been slaves since 1629 at the latest, in 1759 there were exactly 3,604, of which 1,132 came from Africa, the rest from New England or the West Indies . Most lived in Montreal. Although the loyalists brought around 2,000 slaves with them, a few decades later there were 3,500 free blacks in Canada. From 1793 slavery began to be abolished step by step in Upper Canada. In 1803, Judge William Osgoode found that slavery was incompatible with British law. But it was not abolished in the entire British Empire until 1834 (→ slavery in Canada ). Jamaican Maroons came to Canada as late as 1796 after the Spanish and British had fled; from 1813 to 1816, 2000 slaves who had fled the US during the war of 1812 were resettled in Nova Scotia. With the Underground Railroad , founded in 1780, over thirty thousand slaves were freed from the southern states and brought to Canada by 1862 . At times 1000 slaves came every year. With immigration after 1960, this “original black population” became a minority compared to the new black immigrants.

    After Great Britain and the USA agreed in 1846 on the 49th parallel as the border from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, the British government created two more colonies, British Columbia in 1848 and Vancouver Island in 1849. Both were united in 1866 . In 1854, London agreed with the USA to abolish many protective tariffs so that wood, fish and grain could be exported there. Export, especially to Great Britain, was encouraged by the construction of canals and the Grand Trunk Railway to Montreal and on to Halifax . This exchange of goods and capital, along with the relevant interest groups, became the most important integration factor for Canada until the Great Depression.

    Dominion

    Canadian Provinces, Rupert's Land , Hudson's Bay Company Dominated Territory, Northwestern Territory, and British Columbia, 1867–1869

    founding

    As relations between Britain and the United States deteriorated during the Civil War and close to the outbreak of war, political leaders saw the need to counter possible American attacks on Canada with a strong state. Three conferences ( Charlottetown Conference , Québec Conference and London Conference ) discussed the creation of a Canadian Confederation . This resulted in the British North America Act , which came into force on July 1, 1867. It created the Dominion of Canada as a state. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were added to the province of Canada (today's provinces of Ontario and Québec ) . In 1879, parliament declared July 1st a national holiday ; first as Dominion Day and from 1982 as Canada Day .

    Rupert's Land and the Northwest Territories, Riots and Treaties

    The new government under Prime Minister John Macdonald bought in 1869 by the Hudson's Bay Company , the area Rupert's Land and the Northwest Territory , to the Northwest Territories combined. Above all, the Métis refused to settle the West under the conditions given by London, and rose up in the Red River Rebellion in 1869/70 . They were joined by a few Cree under Chief Big Bear . The rebels under Louis Riel formed a transitional government, but the federal government rejected their demands. After the military defeat, Riel fled to the USA. In 1870, when the Manitoba Act came into force, the province of Manitoba was created in the insurrectionary area , whose legal system was supposed to balance the interests of English and French speakers, Indians and Métis, Catholics and Protestants.

    J. Powell's Farm at Kenaston, south of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Province, 1907

    In the sparsely populated areas of the Northwest Territories , the government signed a treaty with seven Indian tribes in 1871, the first of the eleven so-called Numbered Treaties . In the ethnic groups were reserves (reserves) allocated to land for the planned colonization by Europeans, especially the British to evacuate. It was based on the construct that the British Queen would ask her subjects to give their consent to open the country to settlement and immigration. Another six contracts followed within six years, to which more than 170 tribes were willing, mainly because their livelihood, the buffalo , was practically wiped out. The Indian commissioner responsible, Edgar Dewdney , used the leverage of hunger to force the resisting tribes to give in. The conclusion of the other contracts dragged on until 1921; all contracts are still valid today. Only the Yukon area and most of British Columbia remained without contracts.

    Expansion to the Pacific and expansion of the transcontinental railroad

    In 1871, British Columbia joined the Dominion on the Pacific coast, and Prince Edward Island also joined the Confederation in 1873 , after it had refused to join six years earlier. Also in 1873, Macdonald founded the North West Mounted Police as the predecessor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to enforce Canadian law in the vast Northwest Territories and to substantiate Canada's claims to the area. In 1872, an agreement was reached with the USA on the exact course of the border between British Columbia and Washington , more precisely on the division of the San Juan Islands , after the pigs conflict in 1859 due to uncertainties as to which archipelago belonged to .

    Completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway
    The railway network should integrate the distant economic and settlement areas.

    Canada experienced a rapid economic upturn among politicians, some of them conservative and some of liberal. Railway construction, which opened up the prairie provinces, played an important role here . As a result, they developed into a “granary of the world”. The private, but government-sponsored Canadian Pacific Railway completed the transcontinental rail link in 1886 and became Canada's most important company. She had been British Columbia's main motive for joining. Along its routes it revitalized shipping, industries and settlements, but also promoted insider trading and corruption in connection with property purchases. Canada continued to maintain close economic ties with Great Britain, evident among other things from the lowering of tariffs on British goods in 1896 and from the fact that most of the capital for the expansion of the infrastructure came from London.

    Northwest Rebellion, US influence, language dispute

    After the Red River Rebellion of 1869-1870, to which the government responded by complying with almost all demands in the Manitoba Act , many Métis moved further west. But even there, cattle farms began to displace their products with greater efficiency. The free allocation of land also threatened their settlement and way of life. Since the value of the land, which was always the same size, fluctuated very strongly, insider information, which the Métis could not obtain without government and corporate contacts, decided about successful land speculation. So they felt they were being cheated and put up a fight. Louis Riel returned from exile and led the Northwest Rebellion in 1885 . However, the uprising collapsed after heavy fighting and Riel was executed for high treason on November 16 of the same year. This increased tensions between the English and French Canadians, as the latter had sympathized with the predominantly French-speaking Métis.

    Gold prospectors had already moved to the Fraser River in British Columbia since 1858 (→ Fraser Canyon Gold Rush ). The Hudson's Bay Company, which still ruled there and had relocated its headquarters from Fort Vancouver to Victoria on Vancouver Island in 1846 , was already afraid that the numerous Americans who arrived there would take over government. Further gold finds attracted men from California in particular , but also from Europe. The speaker of the local parliament, John Sebastian Helmcken , at times spoke out in favor of a connection to the USA, especially since Washington bought neighboring Alaska from Russia in 1867 . In the course of the Klondike gold rush , which at times lured over 100,000 people to the region, the Yukon Territory was separated from the Northwest Territories in 1898 ; a police force tried to control the development and set up border guards. A policy of proselytizing and segregation was adopted towards the Indians . In 1905 the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were founded .

    The Manitoba school dispute threatened again from 1890 to 1896 to divide the country along the language and denominational lines. Ontario limited the use of the French language after the first year of school with the regulation 17 in July 1912 and even banned it after the fourth. This regulation could never be fully implemented and was repealed in 1927. Similar disputes shaped New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories .

    First mass media

    s. a. History of the Canadian Newspapers

    The first newspaper in the Canadian territory was the Halifax Gazette , which appeared in 1752. William Brown and Thomas Gilmore of Philadelphia founded the bilingual Quebec Gazette as the first newspaper in Québec. In 1785 the oldest paper today, the Montreal Gazette, was created . The early newspapers depended largely on government grants and advertising revenues, hardly on buyers and subscribers. This should prove permanent in Canada.

    Newspapers were often founded to assert group interests. The City Mercury , founded in 1805 and 1811, and the Herald in Montréal were the mouthpieces of the local merchant elites, while Le Canadien (1806) and La Minerve (1826) represented the Francophones. Against these colonial and merchant elites, in turn, the Colonial Advocate in Upper Canada , which William Lyon Mackenzie brought out, and which represented the reform and farmer groups. After all, the papers depended on parties, especially the reformers and the conservatives, mostly as organs of certain political leaders. The Toronto Globe, founded in 1844, was the voice of the reformer George Brown , while the Toronto Mail became the voice of John Macdonald , Canada's first prime minister. Every major city had a liberal and a conservative paper. Until the 1930s, the Quebec papers remained dependent on the respective government. Papers that did not belong to one of the leading groups, such as the communist press, were repeatedly banned. In Québec, the Maurice Duplessis government passed the Padlock Act , which hit its newspapers.

    The first attempt by a daily newspaper, the Montréal Daily Advertiser , existed only from 1833 to 1834. But in 1873 there were already 47 daily newspapers, in 1913 even 138. The spread of radio from the 1930s and television from the 1950s cost the newspapers many advertisers so that in 1953 only 89 daily newspapers existed. In 1986 the number recovered to 110, but only eight cities had two or more daily newspapers.

    From World War I to state sovereignty

    First World War

    Canadian soldiers carry an injured man, Battle of Passchendaele in Flanders
    Bomb crater at Passchendaele

    Although Canadian policy aimed at complete independence in the long term, the United Kingdom supported the Boer War and the First World War . The troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fought near Ypres , on the Somme , near Passchendaele . The Battle of Arras , in which these troops single- handedly conquered a German fortress in 1917, is considered to be one of the identity-forming events of the nation, the place Ladysmith owes its name to a place that became famous during the Boer War.

    330,000 of around eight million Canadians were under arms and over 60,000 died. The soldiers were volunteers. Many French-Canadians, Mennonites , Quakers and pacifists rejected the introduction of general conscription in July 1917 , which is why only a few men were actually drafted. Only 24,132 of 124,588 recruits reached the French theater of war.

    Nellie McClung, Manitoba suffragette

    During the war, the Canadians were able to enforce women's suffrage , which was introduced at the provincial level in 1916 and at the federal level in 1918. This right was withheld from the Indians until 1960. Emily Stowe founded the Women's Literary Club in Toronto in 1876 , which changed its name to the Women's Suffrage Association in 1883 . Analogous to the English suffragettes, they campaigned for women's suffrage, nationwide from 1907 under the name Canadian Suffragette . At the same time, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was established in Winnipeg from 1874 onwards, adding the right to vote to its original goals of prohibition . The leader here was Nellie McClung , who became a founding member of the Political Equality League in 1912 . In January 1916 Manitoba enforced women's suffrage. After other provinces followed, the Wartime Elections Act of 1917 was passed at the federal level , which provided the right to vote for women in the army and for wives of soldiers. With the Women's Franchise Act of 1918, all women aged 21 and over followed, for the first time in January 1919.

    A year before the war began, there was an extreme drought. When the First World War broke out, exports rose sharply. Now there has been a massive expansion of the agricultural land and investments in agricultural machinery. From 1915, an Imperial Munitions Board controlled the production of military equipment. In 1917 it employed 250,000 workers. In 1918, 40% of industrial production consisted of arms and ammunition.

    Treasury Secretary Thomas White resisted tax increases, but the government imposed a tax on business profits in 1916 and an income tax in 1917 . It was not abolished again. The costs of education, health and welfare increasingly weighed on the provinces, while the income flowed to the federal government. Nevertheless, the mountain of debt rose from £ 463 million to £ 2.46 billion .

    Grand Trunk Pacific station in Toronto, 1907

    The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern Railway were bought out by the government. In British Columbia, the Panama Canal opened the east coast to local products for the first time. In addition, wheat from Alberta was now transported more cheaply via Vancouver than via the east. Vancouver's population rose from 29,000 in 1901 to 247,000 in thirty years. This made it the third largest city in Canada. Rationing and price controls dominated everyday life throughout the country, and considerable sums of money could now be raised for war bonds in Canada itself.

    In the Versailles Treaty and in the League of Nations , Canada appeared as an independent state, and from 1927 it sent an ambassador to the USA.

    Interwar period, urbanization, sovereignty

    The northernmost border post between Canada and the USA, 1931. The Canadian side still hoisted the British flag.
    William Lyon Mackenzie King is Canada's longest-serving Prime Minister (1921-30, 1935-48)

    Wheat prices fell by around 75% from 1918 to 1929. The number of people working in agriculture decreased. At the same time, the country became increasingly urbanized. In Québec, the proportion of city dwellers rose from 29 to 60% between 1891 and 1931, and in Ontario from 35 to 63%. The Progressive Party took care of the interests of the prairie provinces. She supported the liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King , who was re-elected in 1926 in the wake of the King Byng affair . The Maritime Rights Movement called for less federal power, and Québec became a stronghold of separatism.

    In 1919, however, the various unions merged to form a single union. Only since 1872 was their existence secured with the Trade Unions Act . Around 1900, with around 100,000 members, hardly every tenth worker was organized. This level of organization only rose to 20 to 30% in the 1940s and peaked at 34% in 1954.

    With the Westminster Statute , Canada became a sovereign state in 1931, headed by the King or Queen of Great Britain and thus remained part of the British Commonwealth of Nations . In 1934, the Bank of Canada was established as its own state bank, and in 1935 Canada concluded a trade agreement with the USA.

    Great Depression

    Demonstration by the unemployed, around 1930

    As the United States' closest trading partner, Canada suffered particularly badly from the Great Depression . Unemployment rose to 25% in the US and 27% in Canada. The Conservative government of Richard Bedford Bennett (1930-1935) tried to combat the crisis through high tariffs and high government spending. However, due to the tight budget situation, the economic stimulus program had to be scaled back. In 1935, the Liberal Party under Mackenzie King again won a majority of the votes. His government initiated a housing program and labor market administration, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1936) and Trans-Canada Airlines as the forerunner of Air Canada (1937). It was not until 1939 that the economic output of 1929 could be reached again, the Great Depression was considered to have ended.

    The world economic crisis changed the political system. Some members of the Progressive Party founded the Social Credit Party , which represented a free economic program. Other members merged with the Labor Party to form the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation . The Canadian Communist Party also received a lot of attention at times, its leader Tim Buck was sentenced to two years of forced labor and the party was banned in 1941. The Canadian welfare state emerged in the 1930s and was further developed by politicians from all parties.

    In Canada, exports fell at the end of 1928, and imports did not follow until 1929. The inflow of capital did not peak until 1930. The national income fell from $ 4.3 billion in 1929 to $ 2.3 billion in 1933. In the formerly subsidized agricultural regions alone, income fell from 600 to 200 million (from 1928 to 1932). The provinces' expenditure on welfare rose correspondingly, as urbanization increasingly deprived Canadians of accessing the resources of the soil. At the same time, numerous tasks were communalized or taken over by the provinces, such as gas and electricity supply. Public opinion tended towards government intervention and investment.

    The crisis developed not only enormous social and party political explosive power, but it threatened to split the state. British Columbia's Prime Minister Thomas Dufferin Pattullo tried to set up national unemployment insurance at the head of the western provinces in 1934. He called for the provinces to have access to federal income tax and the "rational use of national credit", and he also enforced a law that gave the provincial government in Victoria similar rights as the federal government in Ottawa. When Ottawa called for austerity measures, Pattullo threatened to split off the province. Even Maurice Duplessis , Premier of Québec, separatist idea was not averse to that found on the east coast supporters.

    Ultimately, however, the so-called Ottawa Men enforced a course that ensured protective tariffs, undercutting standards and prices, and devaluations in order to keep the country economically viable. In addition, Great Britain was used as a source of capital for the last time. Great Britain agreed tariff cuts through the Imperial Trade Conference . On the other hand, Canada agreed with the USA in 1935 to increase free trade among themselves. The economic link to the United States took hold from the late 1930s, a development that the Second World War and the decline of the British Empire accelerated.

    Second World War

    Prime Minister Mackenzie King considered the outbreak of another world war unlikely until September 1, 1939, the day of the German attack on Poland. The declaration of war against the German Empire did not take place until September 10, to emphasize Canada's independence from Great Britain.

    Participation in the war and dispute over conscription

    Canadian soldiers fought in Hong Kong in 1941 , near Dieppe in 1942 , in Italy in 1943 - 92,757 Canadians were deployed here, 5,764 died - and in Normandy in 1944 during the invasion of Juno Beach - 237,000 Canadians were deployed in northwest Europe, 11,336 were killed . 249,663 Canadians served in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), around 17,101 died, in the Royal Canadian Navy in 2024 of over 100,000 deployed. In 1945 Canadian soldiers took over the liberation of the Netherlands and were also involved in northern Germany. A total of 1,159,000 men and women volunteered in the armed forces during the war, 44,093 lost their lives in the process.

    One of the first encounters between British-Canadian soldiers and Soviet tank soldiers near Wismar on May 3, 1945

    The longer the war lasted, the fewer volunteers volunteered for the war. Prime Minister Mackenzie King promised voters that there would be no compulsory military service. On June 21, 1940, the National Resources Mobilization Act was passed, which made it possible to introduce compulsory military service to defend Canada. English-speaking Canadians called for active participation in the theaters of war, while the French-Canadians opposed any deployment outside of Canada. On April 27, 1942, a referendum took place on the introduction of conscription. The French-speaking residents of Québec violently resisted any conscription. It was not until 1944 that the first conscripts were drafted. Of the 13,000 drafted conscripts, only 2,463 reached the front, where 69 of them died. (→ Conscription crisis of 1944 )

    Internment of Japanese and German prisoners of war

    Internees in a road construction camp at Yellowhead Pass , March 1942

    After the attack of Japan on Pearl Harbor all 22,000 Japanese-Canadians were expropriated without compensation and to end of war in camps ( "detention camps") interned in the interior. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , the military and the experts from the Far Eastern Division of the State Department defended themselves , but the racism prevailing among politicians in British Columbia prevailed, but politics in Ottawa did not counter it. In 1941, around 95% of those referred to as "Japs" lived in British Columbia who had no right to vote there. Ian Mackenzie was the driving force behind the campaign to banish all Japanese . 20,881 Japanese were held in Hastings Park alone, around 12,000 of whom went to prison camps. Around 4,000 were deported to Japan after the end of the war, 4,700 were now living east of Alberta, and only 6,776 were living in British Columbia in January 1947. It was not until 1988 that the Canadian government issued a formal apology.

    The British government made efforts to house German prisoners of war in the Dominions, particularly Canada, while Italian prisoners remained in Britain. The overpasses began in June 1940. They were housed in camps far away from the cities and were often used in road construction there. In the autumn of 1942 there were 8,940 German prisoners in Canada, compared to only 300 in Great Britain. The Canadian government opposed Churchill's views, for example on the question of the shackling of prisoners. At the same time, Nazi officers managed to exercise considerable power within the camps. The largest camp was in Medicine Hat , Alberta, which was intended for more than 12,000 prisoners. The senior officers were housed in the Bowmanville POW camp not far from Toronto, a total of 880. It is the only surviving POW camp in Canada, but it is to be demolished.

    In addition , more than half of the seamen of the German merchant navy interned by the Allies between 1939 and 1946 worldwide were brought to Canada. "No other country held a similar number of German seafarers in custody during the Second World War."

    After the war ended, the prisoners from Canada and the USA were mostly taken to Great Britain, where 300,000 prisoners were held in mid-1946.

    Jewish immigration

    The oldest synagogue in Canada, Congregation Emanu-El , is in Victoria and was built in 1863, renovated in 1982

    In 1871, 1115 Jews lived in Canada according to the first census , 409 of them in Montreal, 157 in Toronto, 131 in Hamilton , the rest scattered along the St. Lawrence River. Victoria also had around a hundred Jews who had been attracted by the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush (from 1858) and the Klondike Gold Rush . Canada's first synagogue was built in Victoria in 1862 . Henry Nathan Jr., who played a role in British Columbia's accession negotiations to Canada in 1871, was the first Jewish member of parliament.

    The Jewish Colonization Association brought numerous Russian Jews who fled pogroms from 1881 to Canada. The majority lived in Montreal and Toronto, although some farmed in the Prairie Provinces. In 1918, the Canadian Jewish Congress was established to represent Jewish interests in Canada. 25,000 Canadian Jews took part in the election of delegates. An immigration organization was founded there, the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society . However, these associations did not succeed in opening the borders to refugees from the National Socialist regime in Germany .

    Growing influence of the federal government, resistance from the provinces

    As the Justice Committee of the British Privy Council had determined, the government received unrestrained power for the duration of the war. Immediately after the war began, employment rose 12%, industrial production doubled, and expenditure rose from $ 0.5 billion to $ 5 billion. The number of employees in the federal service rose to 115,000 and had almost tripled. While spending in fiscal 1939-40 was $ 118,291,000, it rose to $ 752,045,000 the next year and peaked in 1943-44 to 4,587,023,000. Total expenditures from 1939 to 1950 were $ 21,786,077,519.12.

    With the mentioned measures of cultural promotion and political propaganda up to the relocation of the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company from London to Canada, the government strengthened the national feeling against the particular forces in the provinces. However, they successfully defended themselves against the assumption of all the tasks of the provinces by Ottawa.

    The radio program was broadcast nationally only by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the private broadcasters were only allowed to broadcast regionally. The CBC also took on the regulatory tasks of television, which was created in 1952, and at the same time became the most important broadcaster. As with radio, private networks served as distributors for CBC-TV . The aim was to “protect, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic structure of Canada”.

    post war period

    Cold War, annexation of Newfoundland and expansion of the welfare state

    Canada became increasingly involved in the US war effort in conflict with the Soviet Union. This is how military bases and observation stations were created, as the shortest route to the enemy was via the North Pole and Canada. In Labrador, in the Yukon and in Alberta, the last nomadic peoples were resettled for this purpose. After all, the natives were given the right to vote in several provinces, in 1960 also in the federal government. But it was not until the 1970s that the boarding school system , for which the Prime Minister apologized in June 2008, was abolished, which is responsible for the destruction of numerous languages ​​and cultural idiosyncrasies.

    In 1949, after a referendum , the previously independent Dominion Newfoundland became the tenth Canadian province for financial reasons. In a runoff election, 52% of voters voted for the connection to Canada, 48% for independence.

    The Second World War increased the political influence of the federal government, which built a welfare state with child benefit, health insurance and pension insurance. The economy, which was stable due to military spending, was reinforced by new oil discoveries in Alberta (1947).

    The term welfare state for welfare or welfare state first appeared in Canada in 1941, it came from William Temple , the Archbishop of Canterbury . As early as the 19th century there were measures to protect the population against violence, arbitrariness and imponderables, for example by giving support to the impoverished, and consideration was also given to those who were obviously unable to work. But it was only the protection of children from exploitation and neglect that led to deeper state interventions in the existing social structures, apart from interventions in the conditions of the indigenous people.

    The onset of industrialization produced strong contradictions, so that the state intervened in distribution conflicts, mostly in favor of the entrepreneurs. The first step towards a social security system came with the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1914. During World War I, invalids and single mothers had to be supported. From 1919 to 1924 efforts were made to develop a house building program, and it was not until 1927 that a pension insurance system was implemented. Sick people over 70 were thus materially covered for the first time.

    It was not until the global economic crisis that unemployment insurance (Dominion Unemployment Relief) was enforced , which was accompanied by the establishment of camps in which the unemployed, often in remote areas, were employed with road construction work and the like. Bennett's New Deal , announced by Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett in a radio speech in 1935, is seen as a turning point towards the welfare state. The federal government should take care of the insurance systems, especially against unemployment, the provinces of people who could not be placed in the labor market, and general social services.

    With World War II, most Canadians accepted government intervention (circa 1941–74). 1951–52 all over 70 years of age received a pension for the first time, all over 65 if the public coffers allowed this. For the first time, Indians also received social benefits. Full unemployment insurance followed with the Unemployment Assistance Act , followed by funding for hospitals, education and training. The system was rounded off with the Canada Pension Plan , a contribution-based pension scheme, the Canada Assistance Plan , a comprehensive insurance plan, and Medicare , a health insurance and coverage scheme. The National Housing Act provided low-interest home loans from 1964. In addition, the points system for people willing to immigrate was introduced, which is still valid today and takes personal skills, experience and age into account.

    The system was continued in the course of the 1970s and 1980s, but was partially undermined by tax systems, increased access barriers and privatization. In October 1994, the Improving Social Security in Canada paper thoroughly discussed the balance between government spending and welfare. The Canada Assistance Plan then expired in 1996. It has been replaced by Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) . The government cut spending by $ 6.3 billion in 1994-98.

    Food Banks Canada , a not-for-profit organization, feeds the poor, caring for over 700,000 people in 2008, 37% of whom are children. The problem of homelessness has similarly increased in large cities. It is often associated with drug addiction, prostitution and crime.

    More active foreign policy

    The United States finally became Canada's main economic and foreign policy partner. Canada was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and NATO in 1949 . In the Korean War (1950–1953) and during the Suez Crisis , it took over diplomatic mediation between the United States and its opponents. For this, Foreign Secretary Lester Pearson received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 .

    In the Korean War, the Canadian Army Special Force (CASF) was supposed to support the UN troops against North Korea . After MacArthur's US forces drove the enemy back across the old north-south border, the Canadian government expected the war to end, but the Americans marched further north. The 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry went to Korea in December 1950, followed by the CASF. Of the 21,940 soldiers and 3,600 members of the Navy, 312 were killed and over 1,200 were injured.

    On July 26, 1956, the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which has been controlled by the British and the French since 1869 . Israeli troops then marched towards the canal. Lester Bowles Pearson , 1948-57 Canadian Foreign Minister, proposed the dispatch of UN troops for the first time, and the Canadian General Eedson Louis Millard Burns took over their leadership. Above all, pressure from the USA forced the British, who had disregarded the UN mandate, to withdraw and give up the channel.

    The railroad declines in favor of planes and cars, and the oil boom sets in

    The infrastructure, which was still largely based on railways, was supplemented by the Trans-Canada Highway between 1948 and 1952 , the state-owned Trans-Canada Air Lines were founded in 1937 and began operating from coast to coast in 1939. Most of the federal institutions were seated in Montreal. But, apart from Trans-Canada, these were in decline. In 1951, the railways had 70 million passenger kilometers, eight years later it was only 60. The airlines, on the other hand, increased from 700 million to over 3 billion in the same period. While 2.6 million cars were registered in 1950, their number had doubled by 1959.

    The country split further economically due to the huge oil discoveries. Ontario received a petrochemical industry in 1953, with the Trans Mountain Pipeline crude oil came to Vancouver, which was mainly in demand in California , while from Montreal eastward the dependence on transatlantic oil continued to exist. While the Atlantic provinces and Québec continued to be strongly oriented towards Europe, Ontario oriented itself towards the emerging industrial centers of the USA, above all Detroit , Chicago and New York . The West, on the other hand, gained increasing access to the world market, was closely linked to the prairie provinces and benefited above all from California.

    Repeal of racist laws, increased immigration

    European immigration had begun with the first settlements from around 1600, but was only encouraged temporarily, and only a few headed north. With the deportation of the Acadians, groups of Germans and Swiss came to Nova Scotia for the first time, such as to Lunenburg . The loyalists represented the first major wave of immigration. They were also political refugees , which were followed by other waves, such as from Europe from 1848 onwards.

    The first large wave of immigration came from Ireland, which suffered from a catastrophic famine from 1845 to 1849 . The Catholic Irish often lived in their own quarters and worked in the emerging industries, but were poorer than the British population. Many of them continued to migrate to the United States, especially as British policies tended to encourage rural immigration. From there, numerous prospectors came to western Canada from 1858 , a development that culminated with the Klondike gold rush . To compensate for this, the government encouraged British immigration.

    Canada, especially since Wilfrid Laurier , encouraged massive immigration to the rural regions that had been taken from the Indians by enforced contracts . Home Secretary Clifford Sifton not only encouraged British peasant immigration, but also that from the USA. Only behind were French, Belgians, Dutch, Scandinavians, Swiss, Finns, Russians, immigrants from Austria-Hungary , Germans, Ukrainians and Poles. Least of all people wanted Italians, southern Slaves, Greeks and Syrians, Jews, Asians, Gypsies and blacks. Especially against the Chinese there were racist laws and riots. So they had to pay bounties, there were limitation agreements and travel restrictions. Women were often not allowed to enter the country at all in order to prevent permanent settlement. Black American immigration was countered by claims that medical reasons preclude them. The provinces had a say in this. Québec had its own immigration ministry that encouraged the return of emigrated French Canadians.

    During the First World War there were expropriations of German property, such as those directed against the Japanese during the Second World War. The Great Depression caused immigration to be viewed as harmful, and even political refugees, such as Jews from Germany, were rigorously turned away.

    The growing war economy and especially the boom of the post-war years let the labor market grow, so that immigration was encouraged again. This was especially true for Europe, but now also increasingly for southern Europe, especially Italy, Greece and Portugal. The immigrants now went to the industrial regions, hardly to the countryside, like previous generations.

    The joint efforts during the war also meant that the racist laws were abolished by the end of the 1960s. Instead, a points system was introduced that took into account age, education, knowledge of English and French, and the labor market. The majority of immigrants have not come from Europe since 1971. Self-employed, well-trained and immediately deployable immigrants are preferred today. You can apply for citizenship after a few years.

    Refugees also reached Canada after 1945 from the Soviet sphere of influence, but also from other crisis areas such as Uganda or Chile , and were admitted by circumventing the usual procedure. Since 1978 refugees are no longer regarded as immigrants, but are subject to their own legislation. Canada, for example, took in the Vietnamese boat people when officials visited these refugees in Southeast Asia. However, the majority of them have come to the country in the meantime and only declare that they are political refugees after their arrival.

    During the 1990s, a large number of immigrants came from Hong Kong , which was taken over by the People's Republic of China in 1997 . They came mainly to Vancouver , which was nicknamed Hongcouver , and to Toronto.

    The Canadian government had set a target of 220,000 immigrants, or around 1% of the population. The immigration program was last revised in 2008.

    Québec Silent Revolution and Independence Movement

    Flag of the Province of Quebec

    In general, during this phase, the provinces regained influence over the federal government. They again invested more in administration and control than Ottawa, whose share of government spending was 63% in 1952, but only 47% in 1965. Nevertheless, the vast majority of tax revenue went to Ottawa. At the same time, the proportion of provincial spending financed by Ottawa rose from less than 10% in 1956 to just under 27% in 1960.

    Québec resisted the associated requirements. It blocked a federal program for education, welfare and health, and obtained the grants in 1951/52 without any guidelines. In 1960, Québec nevertheless demanded that it take on the costs and administration itself, and demanded a higher share of income taxes.

    The province of Québec experienced a social upheaval from 1960 to 1966, which is known as the silent revolution . The Liberals overthrew the Conservative Union Nationale government . The government of Prime Minister Jean Lesage , whose motto was “master of one's own house” (maître chez nous) and which started with “It is time for a change”, pushed back the dominant influence of the Catholic Church . He took the education system into state hands, exempted divorced women from the status of minors, and developed a pension and health plan. He also nationalized the energy supply and Hydro-Québec was created, along with steel, mining and oil companies. In the north, Indian tribes were forced to resettle in the way of development plans, and nomadic groups like the Innu were put under pressure to make them settle down. The new self-confidence of the French Canadians was also expressed in an upswing in Québec culture. The government also lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. The budget grew dramatically, from $ 745 million to $ 2.1 billion. Embassy-like institutions emerged in Paris, London and Washington under the name Maisons du Québec , but Ottawa slowed the establishment of such relations with other countries. On June 5, 1966, the renewed Union Nationale regained a majority of the seats. During his visit to Expo 67 in 1967, Charles de Gaulle fueled the separatist mood in the province when he shouted in front of 100,000 Québecers: “Long live free Québec!” (“Vive le Québec libre!”) .

    In protest against the poor social situation of the Francophone population, the Front de liberation du Québec (FLQ, Front for the Liberation of Québec) , founded in 1963, carried out over 200 bomb attacks. Even in Vancouver, sympathizers threatened Mayor Tom Campbell in 1970 . Pierre Vallières , who in 1968 described the French Canadians in a book title as the “white negroes of America”, was one of their leading figures. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Liberal Party) fought the terrorists with emergency laws and deployed the Canadian army in Montreal during the October crisis in 1970 .

    During the Quiet Revolution , the idea of ​​independence became popular among part of the population. In 1968 the Parti Québécois (PQ, Québec Party) was formed as the political arm of the sovereignists, which in 1976 formed the provincial government under its chairman René Lévesque . The following year his government declared French the only official language (→ Charter of the French Language ) and in 1980 organized a referendum on the independence of the province, which was rejected by 60% of the electorate.

    Multiculturalism, constitutional law of 1982, demarcation from the USA

    The Canadian flag since 1965

    The changes in Québec also had an impact at the federal level. Symbolically, the older flag with the British Red Ensign disappeared in 1965 with the new national flag with the maple leaf (Eng. Maple Leaf , French Unifolié ) . In 1969, a good century after the founding of the Canadian Confederation, French became the official language of the country on an equal footing with English (→ bilingualism in Canada ). These measures, enforced against opposition from Anglophone Canadians, were intended to bind the Francophone Canadians closer to the state.

    On April 17, 1982 the Constitutional Act of 1982, jointly passed by Canada and Great Britain, came into force. With the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this contains a detailed catalog of fundamental rights as well as detailed provisions on how the constitution is to be amended in future, and thus supplemented the British North America Act of 1867, which is now called the Constitution Act 1867 , and, as before, the constitutional structure of the country arranges. With the Constitutional Act of 1982, the British Parliament also renounced its right to legislate for Canada, which removed the last remnants of its dependence on Great Britain. This constitution made multiculturalism a state principle. It should facilitate the reception of the recently immigrated Canadians.

    The Canadians owe bilingualism and multiculturalism to the liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1968–1979). He strove to bring Canada to the international stage. As an opponent of the Vietnam War and an advocate of good relations with Cuba , he snubbed the United States. In addition, he was concerned about cultural independence from the USA and specifically promoted Canadian culture in the sense of the duality of the French and Anglophone population.

    Since the 1980s

    Political rapprochement with the USA, free trade agreement

    After the 1984 general election, Anglo-Québec and Conservative Brian Mulroney became the new Prime Minister. His policy of rapprochement with the USA culminated - after his term of office - in early 1994 in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which incorporated Canada, the USA and Mexico into a free trade area. The first steps towards a free trade agreement with the USA were taken as early as 1989. Taxes were reduced and an arbitration process was implemented that allowed Canada to influence informal restrictions on trade, such as bureaucratic hurdles or manipulated tenders.

    Separatism in Québec, failed referendums

    The Meech Lake Accord (Accord du Lac Meech) of 1987 was intended to bind Québecers more closely to the state and weaken sovereign tendencies in Québec by establishing a separate Québec society (distinct society / société distincte) within the state. The agreement failed, however, due to opposition from the parliaments in Manitoba and Newfoundland . When in 1991 a tax was in the amount of seven percent introduced sank Mulroney's popularity, which led in 1993 to his resignation.

    Jean Chrétien of the centrist Liberal Party won the parliamentary elections of 1993 with a promise to abolish VAT. However, this election promise could not be implemented due to the poor economic situation. Until 1995 Canada was the only G7 country to have a balanced national budget. In 1995, the Parti Québécois , spurred on by the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord, held a second referendum on independence. In the Québec referendum in 1995 , only a narrow majority of 50.6% of Québecers voted against secession from Canada.

    In 1998 the Supreme Court ruled that a province could not unilaterally declare its independence (→ Renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec ). However, this notification is not binding, but it has never been contradicted. Therefore an attempt was made in the Clarity Act of March 15, 2000, under which conditions the federal government could enter into negotiations. Furthermore, the provinces have the right to referendums on the separation issue, but they are only called for negotiations with a “relevant” majority, in which all prime ministers of the provinces and the federal government must be involved. In addition, the constitution may need to be amended. The government stated on November 27, 2006 that it recognized Québec as a “nation within a united Canada”, but that its unity could not be called into question.

    Distance to US foreign policy and renewed reference to the USA

    In 2003 Paul Martin took over the Canadian government. His Liberal Party was hit hard by a sponsorship scandal during Chrétien's reign and lost a majority in the 2004 general election. As a result, Martin ruled with a minority government that was sporadically supported by the New Democratic Party . In terms of foreign policy, Martin kept his distance from the USA by not sending any troops to the Iraq war and refusing to participate in the US military defense shield ( National Missile Defense ).

    Stephen Harper

    In early elections after a vote of no confidence , the conservatives won on January 22, 2006 under Stephen Harper , who promised to take stronger action against corruption and crime . In terms of foreign policy, he leaned on the USA and opened the Canadian capital and labor market even further in this direction.

    Creation of Nunavut, participation of indigenous groups

    In 1999, Nunavut became the first Canadian territory with a predominantly indigenous population. The 2006 census recorded 1,172,790 indigenous people (aboriginals) or members of the First Peoples, i.e. 3.8% of the total population. The vast majority belong to the Indians , who are known as First Nations in Canada . Most live in British Columbia and Ontario . There are contracts, but numerous conflicts over land, cleared areas and the extraction of raw materials are simmering, especially with the government authorities of the provinces. This in turn has to do with the fact that the provinces have fought for privileges over the federal government in the field of raw material extraction. Since 2001, the first contracts between British Columbia and the Canadian government on the one hand and First Nations on the other, which were previously without a contract, have been concluded. Most of the groups in the north (Yukon, Northwest Territories) have signed agreements since 1997 that give them rights of participation. In June 2008, Prime Minister Harper apologized to the indigenous people of the country for the boarding system and its consequences, above all the forced assimilation.

    Afghan War (since 2001)

    Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan as part of Operation Cherokee Sky in July 2002

    Since October 2001, the Canadian Army has been participating in the US-led war in Afghanistan , a country with almost exactly the same population as Canada. From February to July 2002, 850 soldiers took part in Operation Enduring Freedom . In September 2003 the Canadian embassy opened in Kabul , where the army tried to do reconstruction work (Operation Athena). In 2005 the army became responsible for the Kandahar area , where 2,250 men were stationed. According to ISAF, there were 2,830 Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan at the beginning of December 2009. 36 Canadian soldiers were killed in 2006, 30 in the following year, and 32 in 2008. Of the 108 dead up to February 2009, 360 were injured. The number of deaths rose to 133 by the end of November 2009. 153 dead were counted by the end of the war. The valley of Arghandāb near Kandahar was only able to recapture the Canadian forces from the Taliban at the end of 2009 with the support of American forces . The Canadian parliament decided in 2009 to keep the army in the country until at least 2011.

    Economic crisis from 2007

    The severe economic crisis from mid-2007 hit the Canadian economy with some delay, despite its close ties with the USA, which was mainly affected. However, the first signs were already there in 2006. In 2008, the oil price rose to unprecedented heights, so that income and government revenue continued to rise, especially in Alberta. But with the collapse of the financial industry in Toronto, the real estate market in most major cities and the drop in the price of oil by over 75% at times, unemployment rose from 5.9% to 8.7% from September 2007 to August 2009, and has since stagnated at 8, 2 to 8.5%. Other raw material industries were also badly affected, the same applies to the auto and its supplier industry, which is heavily dependent on US corporations.

    Archives and museums, editions, publications and the Internet

    The Canadian government explicitly pursues the goal of making as many sources as possible available on the Internet. Therefore this medium is of considerable importance for the historical sciences. One of the reasons lies in the great distances between archives, libraries and other institutions relevant to research. In addition, a considerable part of the holdings is in the archives of the former colonial powers, especially in London and Paris, but also in Madrid , some like the Codex canadiensis is in the USA. The same applies to secondary literature, because a large part of the academic qualification work such as dissertations is not available.

    For pre-European history and ethno-historical and ethnological work, in addition to research and documentation of extensive oral tradition, archeology is of great importance. In addition, there is systematic research on processing marks , such as on trees ( Culturally Modified Trees ), which are known as "CMT Archives", especially on the west coast.

    Michigan State University provides an introduction to secondary literature and resources. For the historical sciences, the Directory of Online Canadian History Publications, Journals, Databases, & Exhibits should be mentioned in particular. Access to the sources is provided by Canadiana.org , a publication medium to which almost all institutions with research centers and archival material have joined forces. These include the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec , the Canadian Association of Research Libraries , Library and Archives Canada and the most important universities.

    Important sources on colonial history are to be found (in addition to the corresponding main European archives) with the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company in Winnipeg, as well as extensive collections in the provincial capitals, especially in Victoria , Montreal, Toronto and Québec. Outside of Canada, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of the American Indian are important to First Nations history .

    There are also more than 2,400 museums, many of which have research departments. The main museum is Canada's National Museum of History and Society near Ottawa; in the provinces, the central museums such as those of Toronto , Edmonton and Victoria stand out. In terms of city museums, Vancouver is one of the most important, plus numerous territorial and local museums (such as the MacBride Museum of Yukon History ) and thematically specialized museums such as the anthropological and ethnographic museum in Vancouver , the Canadian Canoe Museum , and the Canadian Railway Museum , the Museum of Agriculture in Ottawa or the Canadian War Museum . The simplest type of museum is that of the Interpretive center , such as the Tagé Cho Hudän Interpretive Center in Carmacks , Yukon. These centers offer local artifacts and sometimes elaborate didactic materials. In remote areas, they are often the only access to local history.

    The regional archives and museums, such as the Nicola Valley Museum and Archives , also play a role in regional history .

    The same applies to the museums as to the archives, because here, too, so-called virtual exhibitions , i.e. exhibitions that can be accessed via the Internet, are heavily funded (Virtual Museum of Canada). All in all, in 2003 all heritage institutions together offered almost 11,000 full-time and around 15,000 part-time jobs; there are also almost 50,000 volunteers . Around 60 million visitors brought in around 130 million dollars, members another 16 million.

    In addition to the Canadian or US museums, there are usually specialist departments on the subject in regional museums in the ports of dispatch of the emigrants, as these events clearly shaped the ports for 2 to 3 centuries. An example of emigration from France is the Musée du Nouveau Monde in La Rochelle , the name of which indicates the focus. Since the demand from visitors is low, the numerous preserved, often very valuable artefacts can sometimes be found in the archive rooms of the museum, so that one (in advance) inquires to get access.

    historiography

    Some of the major debates dominated the historiography of Canada. One of them is the Frontier thesis put forward by Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 . The region on the Pacific was described as West beyond the West by Jean Barman, who described the connections to the east as extremely weak and late onset, and rather emphasized the connections to the north and south, i.e. above all the role of the connecting Pacific and thus shipping in the rugged country cut off by the Rocky Mountains, which has a completely different character than the prairie provinces.

    Harold Innis, ca.1930

    The economically oriented thesis of Harold Adams Innis - who made a contribution to the independence of research and its liberation from British and American dominance - according to which the commodity trade was the real dominant (staples theory), gave the economy a strong integration role. He believed that a sequence of raw materials, beginning with cod and fur in the 16th and 17th centuries, runs through and integrates all of Canadian history. This exploitation of natural resources was the raison d'être for non-indigenous expansion and settlement. Nevertheless, he emphasized for the first time the central role of the indigenous peoples in the fur economy.

    Another thesis, the Laurentian thesis by Donald Grant Creighton , according to which the room was integrated by the members of the North West Company and aligned across the St. Lawrence River from east to west, led to similarly heated debates. It turned out that the integrative power of the fur trade was long overestimated, that of the means of transport was long underestimated. However, these modes of transport, particularly the railroad, were soon recognized as targeted endeavors of the British Empire.

    Another hypothesis that followed neither the raw materials, nor the Frontier or British Empire thesis, was the metropolitan thesis . It has already been tried out by DC Masters ( The Rise of Toronto, 1850-1890 , 1947), but above all by JMS Careless (1919-2009) ( Canadian Historical Review , 1954). She saw the metropolises as a supra-regional integration factor, which had a strong impact on their “hinterland”. This was especially true for economic development, in which Careless saw a sequence of development stages.

    Overall, the bond with Great Britain should not be underestimated. The urge for central state violence and the distrust of strong local violence, the British class society with its internal cultural differentiation corresponded to this attitude. She also stayed away from the despised Americans, whom she also feared. Likewise, for a long time she rejected the integration of pre-European cultures, which, albeit changed, largely continued to exist - some, on the contrary, propagated their destruction in the name of integration.

    The ethno-history has shown that the pre-colonial integration of the area was considerably stronger than long assumed. The gift economy and barter trade, but also the hunt for the large herds of animals and an extensive network of paths played a significant role. In addition, the few thousand settlers into the 19th century would not have been able to integrate the gigantic area without the flexible structures of the indigenous people, who themselves fell victim to severe epidemics from 1772 onwards. Until then, and occasionally still today, the Euro-Canadians' need to distinguish themselves from existing cultures promoted the massive emphasis on European roots. This emphasis is increasingly giving way to an integration of indigenous cultures into historiography. The acceptance of Canada's linguistic and cultural diversity, rooted in the defense against the expansion of its southern neighbor - initially towards the Francophones - also led to extensive studies on the country's numerous non-indigenous ethnic groups, which, however, still lack a synthesis.

    literature

    • Martin Brook Taylor (Ed.): Canadian History: A Reader's Guide. Volume 1, Toronto 1994
    • Nick Brune, Alastair Sweeny: History of Canada Online . Northern Blue Publishing, Waterloo 2005
    • JM Bumsted: The Peoples of Canada: A Pre-Confederation History and The Peoples of Canada: A Post-Confederation History. Oxford University Press, Toronto 2004
    • Margaret Conrad, Alvin Finkel: Canada: A National History. Pearson Education Canada, Toronto 2003
    • Terence Fay: A History of Canadian Catholics: Gallicanism, Romanism, and Canadianism. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal 2002
    • Will Ferguson: Canadian History for Dummies. CDG Books Canada, Toronto 2000
    • Gerald Hallowell (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Canadian History. 2004 (1650 short entries)
    • Historical Statistics of Canada. 2nd Edition. Statistics Canada, Ottawa 1983
    • Jacqueline Krikorian et al. a. Ed .: Vers la Confédération. La construction du Canada, 1867. 2 volumes. Presses de l'Université Laval, 2017
    • Ian McKay: Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada's Left History. Between the Lines, 2006
    • James C. Marsh (Ed.): Canada ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved July 26, 2019.
    • Desmond Morton: A Military History of Canada. Toronto 1999
    • Desmond Morton: Working People: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Labor Movement. 5. revised McGill-Queen's University Press, Montréal 2007
    • Kenneth H. Norrie, Owram Doug: A History of the Canadian Economy. Toronto 1991
    • David Orchard: The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism. Stoddart, Toronto 1993
    • Doug Owram (Ed.): Canadian History: A Reader's Guide. Volume 2, Toronto 1994 (Historiography)
    • Alison Prentice et al: Canadian Women: A History. 2nd edition Harcourt Brace Canada, Toronto 1996
    • Udo Sautter : History of Canada. 2nd, actual, edition CH Beck, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-406-44737-2 (concise representation)
    • Mason Wade, The French Canadians 1760-1945. 2 volumes. Toronto 1955
    • Hermann Wellenreuther : Decline and Rise: History of North America from the beginning of settlement to the end of the 17th century. 2nd edition Lit, Münster 2004 ISBN 3-8258-4447-1

    Source edition

    • Thomas Thorner, Thor Frohn-Nielsen (Eds.): "A Few Acres of Snow": Documents in Pre-Confederation Canadian History, and "A Country Nourished on Self-Doubt": Documents on Post-Confederation Canadian History. 2nd Edition. Broadview Press, Peterborough (Ontario) 2003.

    Web links

    Commons : History of Canada  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

    Remarks

    1. To understand Canada's prehistory as well as early history has established itself in the scientific and popular science area as well as in the didactic area. See last: David J. Meltzer : First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America. University of California Press 2009. Or: R. Douglas Francis, Richard Jones, Donald B. Smith: Journeys: A History of Canada. Nelson Education Limited 2006, 2010.
    2. In North America, the last ice age, which began around 80 to 100,000 years ago, is known as the Wisconsin glaciation . This in turn is characterized by three phases of greatest expansion of the glaciation (Tahoe, Tenaya and Tioga), the last of which around 28,000 to 8,000 BC. Lasted. See Cascades Volcano Observatory. Ice Sheets and Glaciations
    3. Nicolas Vallard made the oldest map in which "Canada" appears in 1547.
    4. The map can be found online here .
    5. See Mitochondrial Population Genomics Supports a Single Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the Peopling of the Americas. In: The American Journal of Human Genetics 82/3 (March 3, 2008) 583-592 or Renée Hetherington, Andrew J. Weaver, Álvaro Montenegro: Climate and the migration of early peoples into the Americas , Geological Society of America Special Papers 2007, 113-132.
    6. Distinctive Paleo-Indian Migration Routes from Beringia Marked by Two Rare mtDNA Haplogroups. In: Current Biology. 19 (January 13, 2009), 1–8, preprint ( Memento of August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF, 692 kB)
    7. ^ Claude Chapdelaine: Présences autochtone de l'âge glaciaire à aujoud'hui Des chasseurs de la fin de l'âge glaciaire dans la région du lac Mégantic: découverte des premières pointes à cannelure au Québec. In: Recherches amér Indiennes au Québec 30 (2004).
    8. See Timothy H. Heaton: On Your Knees Cave , 2002 ( Memento of June 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), archive.org, June 22, 2009.
    9. The expression plano peoples, which already suggests the existence of firmly established peoples, is represented here by people. Cf. MATRIX, North American Archeology, Peoples of the ancient Great Plains ( Memento from October 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), archive.org, October 20, 2012.
    10. D. Bruce Dickson: The atlatly assessed: A review of recent anthropological approaches to prehistoric North American weaponry. In: Bulletin of the Texas Archaeological Society. 56: 1-36 (1985).
    11. ^ William A. Haviland, Marjory W. Power: The original Vermonters. Native Inhabitants, Past and Present. Trustees of the University of Vermont 1994, p. 40.
    12. The oldest site is the L'Anse Amour Site , a grave from around 5500 BC. Chr.
    13. ^ Brian Kooyman, Jane Kelley: Archeology on the Edge. New Perspectives from the Northern Plains. University of Calgary Press 2004.
    14. Basic: Timothy G. Baugh, Jonathon E. Ericson: Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America. New York: Plenum Press 1994.
    15. On the early history of Manitoba: Brian Schwimmer, Virginia Petch, Linda Larcombe: Palaeo Period. 10,000 to 6,000 BC. The Arrival of the Big Game Hunters , 1998
    16. ^ Susan R. Martin: Wonderful power: the story of ancient copper working in the Lake Superior Basin. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1999, p. 143. It looks similar in Wisconsin : Early Cultures: Pre-European Peoples of Wisconsin. Old Copper Culture , ed. Mississippi Valley Archeology Center ( June 17, 2009 memento on Internet Archive ), or in Ohio : Hopewell Copper Artifacts, ed. Ohio Historical Society . Since the metal did not have to be extracted from ore in the world's largest deposit for elemental copper, no corresponding technology was developed.
    17. A History of the Native People of Canada, Early Plateau Culture (Précis, Chapter 10)
    18. For Bear Cove cf. Catherine Carlson: The early component at Bear Cove. In: Canadian Journal of Archeology 3 (1979) 177-194; RJ Hebda: Late glacial and postglacial vegetation history at Bear Cove Bog, northeast Vancouver Island, British Columbia , in: Canadian Journal of Botany 61 (1983) 3172-3192 and C. Carlson: The Bear Cove Fauna and the Subsistence History of Northwest Coast Maritime Culture , in: Archeology of British Columbia. Essays in Honor of Professor Philip M. Hobler , Ed. RL Carlson, Archeology Press, Simon Fraser University 2003, pp. 65–86.
    19. See Obsidan from Mount Edziza . Retrieved August 17, 2018 . , from the Royal British Columbia Museum . The oldest find among the Tlingit already indicates extensive obisidian trade , the latest 8,300 BC. Chr. Obsidian possessed (cf. Forest Service returns ancient remains of Native American to Tlingit tribes in Alaska. In: The Seattle Times, October 20, 2007).
    20. ^ John H. Blitz, Adoption of the Bow in Prehistoric North America, in: North American Archaeologist 9/2 (1988) 123-145.
    21. ^ Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage. Maritime Archaic Tradition
    22. One of the oldest records of domesticated dogs in North America comes from the Illinois River Valley and is 8,500 years old. Even older, probably 10,000 years, is a find in the Danger Cave in Utah (Darcy F. Morey / Michael D. Wiant: Early Holocene Domestic Dog Burials From the North American Midwest. In: Current Anthropology 33/2 (April 1992) 224-229 and Robert Lee Hotz: Those New Tricks Came From Old Dogs. In: Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2002).
    23. Most recently: Thomas E. Emerson, Dale L. McElrath, Andrew C. Fortier: Archaic Societies: Diversity and Complexity Across the Midcontinent. State University of New York 2009.
    24. ^ Brian Lewis: Katzie heritage site being bulldozed for bridge. Only three per cent of artifacts have been recovered so far. In: The Province, June 22, 2008.
    25. ↑ Adapted from EO Randall: Serpent Mound Adams County, Ohio. Kessinger Pub, 2003, ISBN 0-7661-4466-6 , p. 115. Recorded in 1907.
    26. ^ EO Randall: Serpent Mound Adams County, Ohio. 2nd Edition. 1907, reprint 2003. To his displeasure, “white savages” had already searched for treasures or skulls.
    27. z. B. Keatly Creek Site, 20 km above Lillooet : Keatly Creek… a look into the past, Simon Fraser University 1996
    28. ^ FH West (Ed.): American Beginnings: The Prehistory and Paleoecolgy of Beringia. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1996.
    29. Guy E. Gibbon, Kenneth M. Ames: Archeology of Prehistoric Native America: an Encyclopedia. 1998, p. 426 f.
    30. ^ F. Donald Logan: The Vikings in history. 3. Edition. 2005, p. 76.
    31. ^ Peter Pope: The Many Landfalls of John Cabot. Toronto 1997.
    32. João Fernandes . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    33. ^ Corte-Real, Gaspar , in: Dictionary of Canadian Biography online
    34. ^ Tadoussac ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    35. Basque whaling in Newfoundland .
    36. ^ Voyage de J. Cartier au Canada in the Gutenberg project
    37. James F. Pendergast, Claude Chapdelaine, JV Wright: Essays in St. Lawrence Iroquoian Archeology. Dundas, Ontario: Copetown Press, 1993.
    38. Samuel de Champlain . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    39. Bruce G. Trigger: The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660. McGill-Queen's University Press 1976, reprinted 1987.
    40. Jacques Cartier . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    41. ^ After Roy Dalton: The Jesuit Estates Question 1760-88. University of Toronto Press, 1968, p. 60.
    42. Little is known about him, except that he returned to France in 1636. Whether Laviolette was his name or what his first name was is also unknown ( Laviolette )
    43. ^ Trois-Rivières ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    44. Multicultural Canada, Iroquians ( Memento from January 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
    45. Martin Frobisher . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    46. John Davis . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    47. William Baffin . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    48. Thomas James . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    49. Luke Fox . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    50. Henry Hudson . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    51. HJJB Chouinard (Honoré Julien Jean Baptiste): Paul de Chomedey de, Sieur de Maisonneuve, Fondateur de Montréal, Montreal 1882 (online)
    52. This was reported by the secretary Jean-Baptiste Patoulet to the artistic director Jean Talon in January ( Hero or Outlaw? ( Memento from August 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive )), archive.org, August 5, 2011.
    53. ^ Carolyn Podruchny: Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade. Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2006, p. 4.
    54. Pierre-Esprit Radisson . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    55. ^ Frontenac . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    56. ^ Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    57. Auchagah . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    58. Regis Roy, Gérard Malchelosse: Le régiment de Carignan. Son organization et son expédition au Canada (1665–1668). Montréal 1925 and Jack Verney: The Good Regiment. The Carignan-Salières Regiment in Canada, 1665–1668. Montréal 1991, pp. 92-107. Then 350 soldiers returned to France, 400 died during Courcelle's expeditions, and another 350 from disease.
    59. Figures on the population development of Canada can be found here ( Estimated population of Canada, 1605 to present ).
    60. They hit smallpox in the years 1639 to 1641, whereby, according to Jerôme Lâlemant an Richelieu, their number fell from 30,000 to 10,000 (Franz-Joseph Post: Shamans and Missionaries: Catholic Mission and Indigenous Spirituality in Nouvelle France , Münster: LIT 1997, p. 146).
    61. Erie History
    62. ^ Louise Deschêne: Le peuple, l'État et la guerre au Canada sous le régime français. Montreal: Boréal 2008, p. 162 f.
    63. See list of French forts in North America .
    64. See Canada's Playing Card Money. A historical parabola on inflation and deficit spending .
    65. This and the following from: Michel Bégon de la Picardière . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
    66. The text of this law can be found here: The Quebec Act, 1774 , The Solon Law Archive. Canadian Constitutional Documents
    67. ^ Quebec Act ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    68. ^ David Ammerman: In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774. New York: Norton, 1974.
    69. See Jeffrey Amherst's letters discussing germ warfare against American Indians .
    70. ^ Brendan Morrissey: Quebec 1775: The American invasion of Canada. Osprey Publishing 2003.
    71. ^ Edition of the Constitutional Act of the Province of Lower Canada, Montreal 1828
    72. An overall presentation that combines the oral and archaeological tradition with the historical one is still pending. For the complexity and sustainability of trauma and healing approaches, cf. Cynthia C. Wesley-Esquimaux, Magdalena Smolewski: Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation Research Series 2004, ISBN 0-9733976-9-1 .
    73. William S. Hanable: Cape Flattery Light on Tatoosh Iceland begins operating on December 28, 1857 , June 8, 2004
    74. On the fundamentals of the contrast between Canada and the USA cf. most recently Jason Kaufman: The Origins of Canadian and American Political Differences. Harvard 2009.
    75. See the illustration by Parks Canada ( The War of 1812 ) and that of the Library of Congress ( A Guide to the War of 1812 ).
    76. The text of the agreement can be found here: Rush-Bagot Agreement, Archives & Collections Society .
    77. General on the role of the Indians in the American Revolutionary War: Native Americans and the American Revolution , Historywiz
    78. Isabel Kelsay: Joseph Brant 1743-1780 Man of Two Worlds. 1984.
    79. The 8000 Mohawks of The Bay of Quinte live there today .
    80. Carl Benn: The Iroquois in the War of 1812. University of Toronto Press 1998. One of the most important sources turned out to be ( The Journal of Major John Norton , Toronto: The Champlain Society 1816 ( Memento of July 12, 2012 in the web archive archive. today )), a Mohawk chief who kept one of the densest veteran records from 1810 to 1816. He also translated the Bible.
    81. See Timber Trade History ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    82. Hudson's Bay Company ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . and North West Company ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    83. ^ Report on the affairs of British North America also Durham Report (see Durham Report ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .)
    84. The manifesto is available in Wikisource: Montreal Annexation Manifesto .
    85. It was the Losses Bill rebellion of February / March or April 25, 1849.
    86. For the population statistics of Canada cf. Population, Québec et Canada, 1851–2006 ( Memento from May 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
    87. ^ Afua Cooper: The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal. Toronto: Harper Perennial 2006. On black Canadians cf. Black Canadians: Heritage, Culture, and Contributions , on literature cf. Karina Joan Vernon: The Black Prairies: History, Subjectivity, Writing. University of Victoria 2008.
    88. The way to freedom. The history of the "Underground Railroad"
    89. ^ Black Canadians ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . and Black History, Archives of Ontario ( November 2, 2012 memento on the Internet Archive ), archive.org, November 2, 2012.
    90. The text of the treaty can be found here: Treaty between Her Majesty and the United States of America, for the Settlement of the Oregon Boundary ( Memento of October 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), archive.org, October 12, 2011.
    91. The text of the contract can be found here .
    92. Manitoba Schools Question ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    93. ^ Ontario Schools Question ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    94. ^ New Brunswick School Question ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    95. ^ North-West Schools Question ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    96. ^ Canada & The South African War, 1899–1902
    97. ^ First World War (WWI) ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    98. Conscription ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia ..
    99. On urbanization: DM Ray: Urban Growth and the Concept of Functional Region. In: NH Lithwick, G. Paquet: Urban Studies: a Canadian Perspective. Toronto 1968.
    100. ^ Labor Organization ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    101. ^ Why, in 1931, Canada Chose Not to Exercise its Full Autonomy as Provided for Under the Statute of Westminster, Government Page of Canada
    102. Great Depression ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    103. Recession? Depression? It may depend how you count , CBC News, Jan. 9, 2009 ( February 8, 2011 memento on the Internet Archive ).
    104. ^ John Manley: "Audacity, audacity, still more audacity": Tim Buck, the Party, and the People, 1932-1939 ( Memento of July 30, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
    105. ^ A b Second World War (WWII) ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    106. ^ Second World War Service Files: Canadian Armed Forces War Dead , Library and Archives Canada. According to other sources, there were 1,086,343 dead and 42,042 dead Second World War (WWII) ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    107. Chronology of the expropriations and forced relocations of the Japanese citizens of Canada . A brief summary is provided by: H.-J. Hübner: Japanese in Canada
    108. ^ Ann Gomer Sunahara: The Politics of Racism: The Uprooting of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Ottawa 2000, p. 12.
    109. CBC report of September 22, 1988 .
    110. On the history of the Germans in Canada cf. H.-J. Hübner: Germans in Canada
    111. Renate Held: Captivity in Great Britain: German soldiers of the Second World War in British custody. Munich: Oldenbourg 2008, p. 39, 235.
    112. Renate Held: Captivity in Great Britain: German soldiers of the Second World War in British custody. Munich: Oldenbourg 2008, p. 108. A contribution by the CBC from November 10, 2003 can be found here .
    113. ^ Wrecker's ball hovers over Ontario compound that housed top Nazi officers. In: Truro Daily News. September 3, 2009
    114. ^ Judith Kestler: Captured in Canada. For the internment of German merchant ship crews during the Second World War . transcript, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8376-3619-2 , p. 10.
    115. Renate Held: Captivity in Great Britain: German soldiers of the Second World War in British custody. Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, p. 227.
    116. Nathan, Henry. In: Parliament of Canada
    117. ^ The Virtual Jewish History Tour. Canada
    118. ^ Timothy John Balzer: The Information Front: The Canadian Army, Public Relations, and War News during the Second World War. Diss., Victoria, BC 2009.
    119. Broadcasting, Radio and Television, Canadian Encyclopedia: ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    120. ^ Newfoundland History. Newfoundland Joins Canada (1946-1949), Newfoundland and Confederation (1949) , Web site of Marianopolis College , Montréal
    121. ^ Welfare State ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    122. ^ About Food Banks Canada
    123. ^ Creeping poverty - Deutschlandradio, May 20, 2006.
    124. ^ Korean War ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    125. ^ Suez Crisis ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    126. ^ Railway History ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    127. ^ Trans-Canada Airlines ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    128. This and the following after Immigration ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    129. Canada's Immigration Program ( Memento of February 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
    130. ^ Quiet Revolution ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
    131. Recording of the speech in the archive of the CBC ; for details see Felix de Taillez, "Amour sacré de la Patrie" - de Gaulle in Neufrankreich , Munich: Utz, 2011.
    132. FLQ sympathizers threaten BC mayor
    133. Trudeau's address on October 16, 1970 .
    134. Cf. Center for Canadian Studies ( Memento of February 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) at Mount Allison University in cooperation with the Canadian Heritage Canadian Studies Program . The Multicultural History Society of Ontario played a significant role in the anchoring in Canadian society .
    135. ^ The Clarity Act can be found on the Justice Department website .
    136. An overview is provided by Canadian Native Law Cases , which the Native Law Center at the University of Saskatchewan compiled from 1990 to 1991 for the period from 1763 to 1978.
    137. Canada ( Memento of October 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
    138. Canadians wounded in Afghanistan top 360 in past 3 years, in: CBC News, December 28, 2008 ( Memento of February 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), archive.org, February 12, 2011.
    139. Canada in Afghanistan, in: CBC News, February 10, 2009 ( January 19, 2011 memento in the Internet Archive )
    140. ^ Neil Macdonald: The questions we are not asking , CBC News, Nov. 25, 2009 , archive.org, Jan. 19, 2011.
    141. A list of the dead can be found here .
    142. Lessons in Arghandab , CBC, December 8, 2009.
    143. For the older figures cf. Canadian Economy ( August 1, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive ) on the Government of Canada website. The current figures are found since December 2009, here .
    144. ^ Canadian Studies: Resources: Basic Info. Michigan State University, accessed December 29, 2018 .
    145. ^ Directory of Online Canadian History Publications, Journals, Databases, & Exhibits. AcademicInfo, accessed December 29, 2018 .
    146. ^ Canadiana homepage. Retrieved December 28, 2018 .
    147. Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC). Retrieved December 28, 2018 .
    148. Canada Agriculture Museum / Musée de l'Agriculture du Canada. Accessed September 7, 2019 .
    149. Statistics Canada ( Memento from January 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), archive.org, January 15, 2011.
    150. On the most recent debates, cf. Christopher Dummitt, Michael Dawson (Eds.): Contesting Clio's craft: new directions and debates in Canadian history , London: Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2009; Ted Binnema, Susan Neylan: New histories for old: changing perspectives on Canada's native pasts , Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press 2007; Tim Cook: Clio's warriors: Canadian historians and the writing of the world wars. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press 2006; Donald Wright: The professionalization of history in English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.
    151. Turner's thesis followed SD Clark: Mining Society in British Columbia and the Yukon of 1942, other historians tended more towards the Great Britain thesis (Barry M. Gough: The Character of the British Columbia Frontier. In: BC Studies 32 (Winter 1976/77 ) 28-40).
    152. ^ Jean Barman: The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia. University of Toronto, revised edition. 1996, reprinted 2004.
    153. He expressed them mainly in The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History , 1930, reprinted UTP 1970.
    154. ^ Carl Berger: The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing since 1900, 1976, 2nd edition. UTP 1986.
    This article was added to the list of excellent articles on January 17, 2010 in this version .