The history of the Dominion of Canada

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Preface

The subject of Canadian history has been usually treated in the text-books authorized in elementary and secondary schools from a Provincial rather than a Dominion standpoint. Such works at best do not meet our present need, as they necessarily fail to give adequate recognition to all sections of the country, and as they often contain exaggerated notions of provincial matters. It was thought by many teachers that this mode of treatment should be changed and a 'wider view presented of the history and consolidation of the Dominion.

In 1889 the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers discussed the feasibility of preparing a history of Canada with this object in view, and in the following year the Teachers’ Associations of Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia, also considered the same subject. In July, 1891, representatives of the different provinces met at the Education Department in Toronto, for a further consideration of the question. Nevertheless, it was not until July, 1892, at the meeting of the Dominion Educational Association in Montreal, that a scheme was formulated for the preparation of a text-book by competition, and a committee was appointed to examine such manuscripts as might be offered. The committee consisted of Hon. George W. Ross, LL.D., Minister of Education for Ontario, Chairman ; and W. Patterson, M.A., B.C.L., Principal of Royal Arthur School, Montreal, Secretary, and the following representatives of the provinces and territories : — R. E. Gosnell,- Esq. , Provincial Librarian, Victoria, B.C. ; D. J. Goggin, M.A., Superintendent of Education, Regina, N.W.T. ; D. McIntyre, M.A., Superintendent of Schools, Winnipeg, Man. ; W. J. Robertson, B.A., LL.B., Principal of the Collegiate Institute, St. Catharines, Ont. ; Benjamin Suite, the well-known historian, Ottawa, Ont. ; S. P. Robins, M.A., LL.D., Principal of McGill Normal School, Montreal; G. U. Hay, Ph.B., Principal of Victoria High School, St. John, N.B. ; J. B. Hall, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of the Normal School,

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VI

PREFACE.

Truro, N.S., and Alexander Anderson, LL.D., Principal of Prince of Wales College, Charlottetown, P.E.I.

In 1893 the governments of the provinces unitedly contributed the sum of two thousand dollars to cover the expense of the undertaking, each paying in proportion to the number of schools under its control. In July of that year the “Dominion History Competition” was opened. It was limited to British subjects who could produce satisfactory evidence of literary ability. Though ninety persons volunteered, only forty-six were permitted to write. When the competition closed on July 1st, 1895, fifteen had completed their task. The committee spent the next ten months in selecting the best manuscript, and this volume is the one to which it awarded the first place.

It will be observed that, while substantial prominence is given to important facts of a provincial character, the object of the author has been so to converge his narrative as to direct the mind of the reader to the federation of the provinces under the British North America Act of 1867, and in this way unite the various currents of provincial history into the broader channel of the Dominion. There was in some respects a community of interests between the provinces even long before Confederation. Now, since they are happily united under one system of government, they share more intimately in a common destiny. To that union of the interests, as well as of the patriotic sentiments and aspirations of all Canadians, attention is thoughtfully directed, with a view to impress upon our future citizens that we not only have a united country, but are a united people. It is to be hoped that the story of our Dominion, which in the following pages we believe is simply and faithfully told, will help to convey a fair and inspiring impression of the grandeur and importance of the heritage committed to us as Canadians and as citizens of the British Empire. At no more fitting time could this book be introduced to the schools of Canada than in this Jubilee year.

W. PATTERSON,

Secretary of Committee.

Royal Arthur School,

Montreal, June 22nd, 1897.

Contents

Chapter Pages

I. “The New Fonde Londe Quhar Men Goeth

A-Fisching ” 1

CHAPTER I. “the new fonde londe quhar men goeth a-fisching.”

Europe in the Middle Ages. — The period from the fifth to the fifteenth century is known in European history as the Middle Ages. During all these years, petty nobles with their bands of feudal retainers fought continually with each other for possession of the soil of Europe. Might was right. Those who were weak were despoiled of their lands ; those who were strong became lords of extensive domains. All who tilled the soil were tenants of some such lord, and were in duty bound to follow his banner to the wars. In any interval of peace, they were ground down at home. Of learning there was none, save in the quiet cloisters of the monasteries. Only to a learned few had the notion come of a round world. To the ignorant many the earth was flat, and the sun sank each night beyond an impassable waste. Of a land to the west beyond the Atlantic they had. no conception.

The Northmen — Marco Polo. — In the ninth century the Yikings of Norway took possession of Iceland. From this island, early in the eleventh century, two adventurous sailors, Lief and Bjorn, made a voyage far to the south-west, and, it is claimed, planted a colony on what is now Rhode Island. The hostility of the Skraelings (natives) led to the breaking up of this settlement, and soon its story became a mere tradition among the Northmen. In the thirteenth century a young Venetian, Marco Polo, journeyed east from Europe, and, after many years’ absence, brought back (about 1295) a tale of fabulous wealth in a far country which he called Cathay. After his death his written narrative was known to monkish scholars, and the story was told as an old “sailor’s yarn ” among the mariners of the Mediterranean.

HISTORY OF CANADA.

The Renaissance. — During the latter years of the fifteenth century western Europe slowly emerged from the mists of the Middle Ages. Out of the confused strife of the* feudal nobility certain families had risen to power — the Tudor in England, the Yalois in France, and the united houses of Aragon and Castile in Spain. In these separate kingdoms the lesser nobles were put down. Government was centralized, and intestine strife gave place to larger national wars. Men breathed more freely. Learning became more general, and a spirit of inquiry was abroad. It was the era of the Renaissance — the “new birth” of the arts and sciences.

Discovery of America — The North Neglected. — In no department was this new-born zeal followed by more startling

results than in the department of maritime discovery. The nations lying around the Mediterranean led the van. The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (A.D. 1492) was the result of an attempt to reach the ‘ ■ Far Cathay ” of Marco Polo by sailing west.

This golden Orient lay — so the rumor ran — in southern seas, and the tide of exploration which followed Columbus tended, therefore, to the south rather than to more northern latitudes. For more than CHRISTOPHER columbus. thirty years after Columbus first landed on one of the outlying islands of the New World, what lay to the north was largely mere conjecture.

John Cabot.— At first, it is true, some attention was turned to the north. Henry YII. of England was unwilling that Spain should reap all the glory and profit of western discovery ; and so, in 1497, he- commissioned a Venetian navigator, John Cabot, then a trading citizen of Bristol, to sail north-westerly, in the hope that in that direction perchance a way to Asia might be found. But,

HISTOKY OF CANADA.

though plain John Cabot became Sir John Cabot in requital for his services upon this voyage, it has never been made quite clear what part of our coast he visited. The same uncertainty surrounds the voyage of his son Sebastian in the following year.

Cortereal. — Portugal, too, turned her attention toward the north, and in the year 1500 sent thither Cortereal, one of her most renowned sea-captains, upon a voyage of discovery. His route also is doubtful. The name Labrador (slave-land) has come down to us from his time, for he carried back with him from that region a cargo of Indians and sold them into slavery. The story of rock-bound coasts, of fog and cold, brought back by Cabot and Cortereal, contained little to favor the notion that Cathay — a land of golden warmth — lay in the direction they had gone, and accordingly English and Portuguese navigators joined those of Spain in more southerly voyages.

The Fishermen of the Banks. — There was much national rivalry in the race for the new lands in the west. Columbus, the Cabots, Cortereal, and many others sailed under royal commissions. They were official explorers, Each was under orders to take possession for his sovereign of all the lands he might discover. A very different class of men soon found their way into those “mists of the mighty Atlantic” which lie off the coasts of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. In the north-western seaports of France lived Norman and Breton fishermen, who plied their hazardous calling upon the rocky coasts of the French provinces of Picardy, Normandy and Brittany. To them came tidings of the new lands to the west. In a spirit of hardihood born of their daily life they put out to sea in search of this new shore. Some say they reached it even before Cabot. This much seems clear, that at least as early as 1504 the cod fishery of the Newfoundland Banks — our oldest industry — had its beginning.

A Growing Industry. — The French king, Louis XII., was

SEBASTIAN CABOT.

HISTORY OF CANADA.

at this time much occupied in Italian wars. While he and his nobles were thus engaged to the south-east of his kingdom, the fishermen of the north-western coasts were free to pursue their calling in peace, and the fisheries of the Banks soon became an established industry. English and Portuguese fishermen, and fishermen from the Basque provinces lying around the south-eastern angle of the Bay of Biscay, joined in this pursuit. The history of Canada during the sixteenth century is but the story of the toil, year after year, of the fishermen who frequented its shores.

Fishing stations and harbors of refuge were established. Various places on the coast of Newfoundland still bear the names then given them. The Bretons gave their name to a headland of one of the islands, and the island itself is now known as Cape Breton. On one old map the new region is quaintly described as “The New Fonde Londe quhar men goeth a-fisching.”

Early Knowledge of the St. Lawrence.— Within the Straits of Belle Isle was the fishing station of Brest, and before long the shores of the gulf behind Newfoundland — which we know

HISTORY OF CANADA.

as the Gulf of St. Lawrence — became familiar to these hardy sailors. It is claimed that at least two of them — Denys and Aubert —had found their way well up the St. Lawrence before 1510. Certain it is that knowledge of the gulf had in some way reached the map-maker Sylvanus in 1511, for in his map of that year the “Square Gulf” ( Golfo quadrado) is outlined, lying to the west of H ewf oundland .

Verrazano. — In 1515 Francis I. came to the throne of France. He was ambitious to gain for her a share in the golden stream which was flowing into the coffers of Spain from her new discoveries in the west. In 1524 he commissioned Yerrazano to voyage into those parts and secure a portion of this western world for France. Yerrazano coasted along the shore from Florida to what is now the State of Maine, and called it all Hew France. He reported that the streams flowing into the Atlantic were all small. Hence, it is supposed, arose the notion of a narrow barrier of land with, behind it, the Sea of Yerrazano — a notion which lasted for many years among the map-makers and scholars of Europe.

The Master Pilot of St. Malo. — To find a way through to this Sea of Yerrazano and so reach Cathay was the ardent wish of Francis I. His conflict with his great rival, Charles Y., King of Spain and Emperor of Germany, gave him, however, but scant leisure to turn his thoughts beyond the Atlantic. Hot until 1534 was he able to send another official explorer to investigate the waters behind the new-found land off which his subjects fished. What more natural than to choose a leader for the expedition from among the men of St. Malo, whose fishermen knew the region well?

And who more capable than Jacques Cartier, master pilot ? In 1534 Cartier sailed through the Straits of Belle Isle, and coasted down the western shore of Hewf oundland. From its rugged sterility he concluded that “this must be the land which God allotted to Cain.”

W'

JACQUES CARTIER.

HISTORY OF CANADA.

Circling around to the New Brunswick shore, he was delighted with the soil and climate there. In July he visited, and from its heat named, the Bay of Chaleur. At Gaspe he set up a huge cross in token of French sovereignty over these regions. There also he kidnapped two Indians, natives, as he afterwards learned, of a region higher up the St. Lawrence. These he carried with him to France.

In some way Cartier, on his first voyage, failed to find the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. His fellow-townsmen, the fishermen of St. Malo, aided perhaps by the two Indian captives, were able to convince him that although he had missed the passage through to the west, the passage was nevertheless there. Next year, accordingly, with three ships he again headed for the Straits of Belle Isle. That his aim was to find a salt-water passage through to Yerrazano’s sea and so on to Asia is clear; for when, after passing Anticosti, he learned from his two Indians that higher up he would reach fresh water, he turned back along the northern shore to find perchance an overlooked salt-water passage. Finding none, he again turned westward.

Cartier discovers “ Canada.”— Above the Island of Orleans — called by Cartier the Isle of Bacchus, from its luxuriant growth of grapes — was the Indian town of Stadacona, situated just behind the site of the present city of Quebec, on what is now the St. Charles River. Here dwelt Donnacona, king (as the Frenchmen called him) of the surrounding country, and from him Cartier learned that farther west lay the still larger town of Hochelaga. The territory from Hochelaga to the gulf was apparently divided into three districts — Hochelaga, Cajstada and Saguenay. Here first we meet the name now borne by our Dominion. It is a word of Huron-Iroquois origin, meaning a town or collection of Indian dwellings. In Cartier’s time it was used to designate a small inhabited region on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. Afterwards it was applied to the entire valley watered by that stream and its tributaries. Now it brings before the mind our great confederation of self-governing provinces, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, fitted we know and destined we trust to be the home of many happy millions.

Hochelaga. — During the autumn of 1535 Cartier with a number of his followers visited Hochelaga. This Indian town,

HISTORY OF CANADA.

populous and strongly defended after the Iroquois fashion by a triple palisade, lay where now lies a city, of more than 250,000 inhabitants, bearing the name given by Cartier to the lofty hill behind it — Montreal (Mont Royal). The Indians of Hochelaga were of Huron-Iroquois stock. Cartier and his friends, being deemed of celestial origin, met with a very hospitable reception. Returning to Stadacona, they spent the winter in a rude fort on the shores of the St. Croix, that being the name given by Cartier to the stream which we know as the St. Charles. Scurvy carried off many of his men, and in the spring of 1536 he returned to France with a sadly diminished crew, taking with him, however, Chief Donnacona and some of his tribe, whom he had treacherously seized.

Pioneer French Settlers. — The French king was again at war with his great rival, and not until 1541 was Cartier able to revisit the new world. In that year Francis I., with a view to a more formal assertion of his claim, planned to settle a colony in New France. Roberval was appointed viceroy, with wide powers for its government. Cartier was named as captain-general to lead the colonists to their new home. Roberval delaying, Cartier sailed without him in the spring of 1541, planted the colony above Quebec near the promontory of Cap Rouge, and called the place Charlesbourg Royal. Donnacona had died in France, and in consequence his tribesmen of Stadacona looked with some distrust upon the Frenchmen. After another visit to Hochelaga — doubtless to inquire further for a passage-way to Cathay — Cartier and his colonists settled down for the winter in Charlesbourg Royal. Roberval failed to appear with supplies; and cold, disease and famine so discouraged these pioneers that with the opening spring those who survived fled with Cartier back to France. Roberval came out with other colonists in 1542 ; but, after two winters spent among the now unfriendly Indians, they, too, returned home (1544).

Growing Importance of New France.— During all the remaining years of the sixteenth century Old France was torn by war, and no man in public life there had much time to think of the New France across the Atlantic. But New France was not abandoned. Year after year the Norman, Breton and Basque fishermen spent the season on the Banks of Newfoundland, and

HISTORY OF CANADA.

English, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen also plied their calling there. In the opening months of the year sometimes as many as two ships a day would sail from French ports for the fishing grounds, and several hundred vessels of various nationalities might be counted at one time in some of the harbors of refuge along the Newfoundland shore. Before the close of the century the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia and the shores of the Bay of Fundy had also become fairly well known to these hardy fishermen, who, in imitation of the Indians, called the region Acadie.

The Fur Trade Opened. — Gradually there grew up a traffic in furs with the Indians whom these fishermen met along the coast from Belle Isle to the Bay of Fundy, and on the shores within the gulf. From as far south as the Potomac the Indians came to the fishing regions to exchange their peltry for gaudy trinkets from Europe. Ivory, too, from the tusks of the walrus was much sought after. The trade was very profitable, and bitter hostility was shown toward all who attempted to procure from the king a monopoly of it. Even Cartier’s nephew was forced to surrender a monopoly granted him in 1588, under which the Cartier family carried on a fur trade far up the St. Lawrence. The knowledge gained by the fishermen and fur traders did not, however, find its way to the map-makers of Europe. Until the close of the sixteenth century, Jacques Cartier’s narrative, with its accompanying charts (since lost), was the sole basis of those curious maps of the St. Lawrence gulf and river region which have come down to our time.

England’s Oldest Colony. — Ever since the time of the Cabots, England had claimed Newfoundland as her own, and had exercised a mild protectorate over the fishing stations there. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert took formal possession of the island for Elizabeth of England, basing her claim upon its discovery by the Bristol navigator eighty-six years before. Sir Humphrey was lost on the return voyage.

The Pacific Coast. — -Meanwhile, to the south, Spain had been pushing her search for the Southern Seas. In 1513 Balboa crossed the isthmus of Panama and, first of Europeans, looked out upon the waters of the Pacific Ocean. In 1518 Mexico was discovered, and three years later Cortez overturned its ancient civilization and made it a Spanish vice-royalty. Magellan, a

HISTORY OF CANADA.

Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, passed in 1820 through the straits which bear his name, thus opening a western way to the Orient and a route by sea to the Spanish possessions on the Pacific coast of North America. In 1537 California was discovered by Cortez, and Spanish captains explored its coasts.

Early Voyages Northward. — The great English navigator, Sir Francis Drake, visited this region in 1578-1579. Inspired by love of booty and hatred of the Spaniards, he plundered and burned their cities, and took and rifled their galleons. He then sailed along the coast from the Spanish , possessions northward as far, so some claim, as Queen Charlotte Islands and called it all New Albion. Drake’s success inspired other English adventurers, notably the famous Cavendish, who in 1587 followed Drake’s course around the Horn, and again ravished the “ Spanish Main.” But, with the exception of the voyage (1592) of Juan de Fuca, a Greek pilot in the service of the Spanish viceroy of Mexico, to the straits which bear his name, no authentic record remains of any visit to what is now the coast of British Columbia prior to Captain Cook’s third voyage in 1778 ; so that for many years to come attention may be confined to the Atlantic coast and the progress of discovery and settlement there.

Chapter II. The Indian Tribes Of Canada

Indian Tradition Vague. — The history of the Indian prior to the discovery of America rests on mere tradition. To him the art of writing was unknown. Even for what took place between Cartier’s visits and the end of the sixteenth century we have only vaguest legend. From the year 1600 onward, however, we have records, more or less trustworthy, of the various conflicts between the European and the Indian in the different regions into which settlers, fur traders and explorers pushed their way.

Eastern Groups. — Two main groups, speaking languages radically distinct, were found by the earliest northern colonists. These were the Algonquin and the Huron-Iroquois, the latter so named from its two most important members. In each of these

HISTORY OF CANADA.

groups there were numerous tribes, differing, sometimes slightly, sometimes very markedly, in dialect. The Huron-Iroquois stood at the top of the Indian social scale. They lived within well-marked limits, had a rude political system, and took some part of their living from the soil. The Algonquins, almost without exception, lived by the chase alone, .and were in consequence more nomadic in their habits.

Huron-Iroquois Group— (1) The Iroquois. — The Iroquois occupied a stretch of country from the Hudson River westward up the Mohawk, and across what is now the State of New York, nearly to the Niagara River. They were of five distinct tribes, named (in order from the east) Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, all joined together in loose political union, with a common council-fire at Onondaga. They were further interlaced by a system of clanship, running through all the tribes and yet distinct from the tribal connection. Each of the seven or eight clans bore the name of some animal, a picture of which was frequently rudely daubed upon the houses of its members. This was known as the totem of the clan. We read of the clans of the Bear, the Wolf, the Turtle, and others.

These five tribes together are sometimes called “Indians of the Long-House,” their wide stretching confederacy being likened to a typical Iroquois dwelling. The sides of these dwellings were formed of two rows of upright saplings bent over at the top to form an arch, and bound strongly together with cross saplings. Along the whole of this framework a covering of bark was laid nearly to the top, much after the modern clapboard fashion. These dwellings varied in length from 30 to 150 feet, and were usually about 20 feet in width. In each of them lived a number of families, each group of four having a common fire. Thus down the centre there would be a row of these fires, the smoke from which found escape through the space left open along the top.

At a time when rivers and creeks were the only highways, and the canoe was the only carriage, the natural advantage of the Iroquois' position was very marked. They ogcupied a central watershed, the streams from which gave them outlets for hunting or war in every direction — westward to the valley of the Ohio, southward and south-eastward to the Atlantic seaboard, and northward by Lake Ontario and the water system of Lake Champlain

HISTORY OF CANADA.

to the entire valley of the St. Lawrence. Along the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and down both sides of the St. Lawrence to the rapids of Lachine, there was primeval forest to the water’s edge. In fact, the country of the Iroquois was surrounded on all sides by a stretch of wilderness through which they hunted in savage mastery.

(2) The Neutrals. — Of kin to these were the Indians of the Neutral nation, whose home lay along the north shore of Lake Erie and stretched eastward across the Niagara River into the State of New York. Their name denotes the position they occupied when first brought into contact with the French. They stood neutral between the Iroquois confederacy and the Huron tribes.

(3) The Hurons. — These occupied the region between Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay. They lived in palisaded villages, and in population are sometimes placed as high as 30,000. They tilled the soil, and carried on a rude traffic as middlemen between the Neutral and Tobacco nations on the one hand, and the tribes of the Ottawa valley on the other, exchanging the corn of the former for the furs of the latter. The Tobacco nation lived among the Blue Mountains to the west of the Hurons, and were in close alliance with them against the Iroquois, their common foe. Indian com was the chief agricultural product of all these tribes, and we have many amusing accounts of the different styles in which this cereal was served. The usual form was “sagamite,” a kind of porridge mixed with scraps .of game or fish.

The Algonquin Group. — The other main group of eastern Indians was the Algonquin, the numerous tribes of which lay in a wide circle around the Huron-Iroquois centre. Beginning as far south as Virginia, they occupied the Atlantic seaboard and stretched through New England, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, along the northern heights of the lower St. Lawrence valley, thence up the Ottawa, past Lake Nipissing, and across the head of the Georgian Bay and Lake Huron to Lake Superior ; thence down the western shore of Lake Michigan, through Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, they extended in a wide circle even into Kentucky.* With the exception

* Tribal Divisions. — They were known by various names — Abenakis in Maine, Micmacs in Nova Scotia and eastern New Brunswick, Etchemins or Maladtes in western New Brunswick, Montagnais between the lower St. Lawrence and Hudson Bay, Atticamegues behind Three Rivers, La Petite Nation and Nation de I’Isle on

HISTORY OF CANADA.

of the more southerly tribes of New England and a few in Acadia, the whole of this Algonquin group lived entirely by the chase. Their dwellings were mere temporary wigwams, easily put up and easily abandoned. To gorge in summer and starve in winter seems to have been their usual lot. In consequence of the furious enmity of the Iroquois, the Hurons had been forced into alliance with the Algonquin tribes to the north and north-east of the Huron country. To these the River Ottawa (then called the River of the Algonquins) was the great highway by which the furs of these northerly regions were brought to the rendezvous at Montreal or to Three Rivers.

"Western Groups. — Beyond the great lakes were various groups of Dakotah stock. On the head waters of the Mississippi were the Sioux, a group of fierce tribes sometimes called the Iroquois of the Plains. North of these, in what is now Manitoba, were the Assiniboels. Farther west, the various tribes of the Crees hunted the buffalo over our north-western prairies. The Chippewyans occupied the more northerly region around the Great Slave Lake and Lake Athabaska. Beyond the Rockies were numerous tribes, forming a group to which, of late years, the name Mongoloid has been given to denote their likeness to the Mongolians of northern Asia. Many ye'ars, however, were to elapse before Europeans came into contact with these western groups.

The Esquimaux. — On our Arctic slope, living in snow-built huts, are the simple but picturesque Esquimaux. Through the opening up of the Hudson Bay region they became well known early in our history. Being of a very peaceful disposition, they offered no opposition to European exploration and settlement. Their stout, fur-clad figures, their dog- trains, and the “blubber” (walrus fat) on which they live, have become familiar to us through stories of Arctic adventure.

Character and Habits. — To the early Europeans the Indian was not an attractive figure. They describe him as -of unclean habits and without morals. Master of woodcraft, he was seen at

and north of the Ottawa, and Nipissings around the lake of that name. To the west, at the outlet of Lake Superior, were the Ottawas and Ojibways. Down the western shore of Lake Michigan were many tribes, Foxes, Sacs, Menomenees, Winnebagos. The Illinois and Miamis through Michigan and southern Ohio completed the circle. The name Algonquin is sometimes given to a single tribe on the upper reaches of the Ottawa, but it belongs properly to the entire group.