Responsible government means the Crown’s ministers must hold the confidence of a majority of elected representatives, and a government that loses a confidence vote must resign. Lord Durham recommended it after the rebellions of 1837–38. Nova Scotia was the first colony to attain it, in 1847–48, and Lord Elgin introduced it to United Canada in 1848–49.
1604 – 1759Royal New France and the Struggle for a Continent
The first European settlement north of Florida dates from 1604, when Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain planted a French colony — first on St. Croix Island (now in Maine), then at Port-Royal in Acadia (today’s Nova Scotia). Champlain went on to fortify the site of Quebec City in 1608; the harsh climate made life hard for the settlers.
Champlain’s allies were the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron. Their long-standing enemies, the Iroquois — a confederation of five (later six) First Nations — fought the French settlements for a hundred years, until peace came in 1701. French and Aboriginal people were partners in an enormous fur trade that existed because Europe wanted beaver pelts. Under leaders such as Jean Talon, Bishop Laval and Count Frontenac, France’s North American empire came to stretch from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. Frontenac, asked to hand Quebec to the English in 1690, answered: “My only reply will be from the mouths of my cannons!” Another hero of the period, Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, beat the English again and again, from James Bay in the north to Nevis in the Caribbean.
King Charles II of England chartered the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1670, giving it a monopoly on trade across every river that drains into Hudson Bay. Montreal-based traders were its rivals for the next 100 years. The bold canoe-men of the trade, the voyageurs and coureurs des bois, forged strong alliances with First Nations.
England’s Atlantic seaboard colonies, founded in the early 1600s, eventually outstripped New France in wealth and population, and the 1700s saw France and Britain at war for the continent. The decisive blow fell in 1759 at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Quebec City: a British victory that ended France’s empire in America. Neither commander survived: the Marquis de Montcalm and Brigadier James Wolfe both fell leading their men.
De Monts and Champlain settle St. Croix Island, then Port-Royal.
Champlain builds a fortress at Quebec City.
Charles II charters the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Frontenac refuses to surrender Quebec.
Peace between the French and the Iroquois.
Wolfe and Montcalm die at the Plains of Abraham; New France falls.
1812 – 1814The War of 1812
Once the Royal Navy had destroyed Napoleon Bonaparte’s fleet at Trafalgar (1805), Britain ruled the seas and used that power in its struggle against Napoleon. American shipping suffered from British interference, and resentment grew. Convinced Canada would be an easy conquest, the United States invaded in June 1812 — and was proved wrong, as Canadian volunteers and First Nations (including Shawnee under Chief Tecumseh) fought alongside the British regulars.
Major-General Sir Isaac Brock took Detroit in July 1812 but died at Queenston Heights, near Niagara Falls, repelling an attack the Americans went on to lose. 1813 was a busy year: Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Salaberry, with 460 mostly French-Canadien soldiers, drove 4,000 invaders back at Châteauguay south of Montreal; Laura Secord trekked 19 miles (30 km) to alert Lieutenant James FitzGibbon to a coming attack, helping win the Battle of Beaver Dams; the frigate HMS Shannon brought the captured USS Chesapeake into Halifax; and American troops burned Government House and the Parliament Buildings at York (Toronto). Major-General Robert Ross answered in 1814 by sailing from Nova Scotia to burn the White House and other Washington public buildings; killed in battle soon after, he was given a burial with full military honours in Halifax.
The American bid to conquer Canada had collapsed by 1814. Britain then paid for expensive defences — Fort Henry at Kingston, the naval drydock at Halifax and the Citadels at Halifax and Quebec City — all popular historic sites today. Today’s Canada–U.S. border is partly a product of the war, which kept Canada out of American hands. The Duke of Wellington, Napoleon’s conqueror in 1815, had sent some of his best troops to Canada in 1814; he later picked Bytown (Ottawa) as the terminus of the Rideau Canal, one link in a chain of forts against another invasion — giving him a direct hand in founding the national capital.
Trafalgar: the Royal Navy rules the waves.
The United States invades Canada.
Brock takes Detroit; later killed at Queenston Heights.
Châteauguay (de Salaberry); Beaver Dams (Laura Secord); Americans burn York.
Ross burns the White House; the invasion has failed.
Test questions on this topic
What were the French-speaking Catholic people of the Province of Quebec known as?
Why: After the war Britain gave the colony a new name, the "Province of Quebec." Its French-speaking Catholic inhabitants — habitants, or Canadiens — worked to hold onto their way of life inside an English-speaking, Protestant-governed empire.
In what year did the British Parliament pass the Quebec Act, one of the constitutional foundations of Canada?
Why: Westminster passed the Quebec Act in 1774 to govern the French Roman Catholic majority more effectively. It counts among Canada's constitutional foundations, fitting the principles of British institutions to what the province actually was.
What did the Quebec Act of 1774 do with respect to law in the province?
Why: Catholics gained religious freedom under it and the right to hold public office — something still barred in Britain itself. The Act also brought back French civil law while leaving British criminal law in place.
Under the Quebec Act, Catholics gained religious freedom and the right to hold public office — something Britain itself did not then permit.
Why: Catholics gained religious freedom under it and the right to hold public office — something still barred in Britain itself. The Act also brought back French civil law while leaving British criminal law in place.
How many Loyalists fled the American Revolution and settled in Nova Scotia and Quebec?
Why: Over 40,000 who stayed loyal to the Crown — the "Loyalists" — escaped persecution during the American Revolution and settled in Nova Scotia and Quebec. Joseph Brant brought thousands of Loyalist Mohawk into Canada.
Which leader brought thousands of Loyalist Mohawk into Canada?
Why: Over 40,000 who stayed loyal to the Crown — the "Loyalists" — escaped persecution during the American Revolution and settled in Nova Scotia and Quebec. Joseph Brant brought thousands of Loyalist Mohawk into Canada.
In 1792, some black Nova Scotians who had received poor land left to found which new British colony for freed slaves?
Why: Some 3,000 black Loyalists, both freedmen and slaves, came north in search of something better. Allotted poor land, a number of black Nova Scotians left again in 1792 to found Freetown in Sierra Leone, a new British colony in West Africa for freed slaves.
Which Governor of Quebec upheld the rights of the Canadiens, threw back an American invasion in 1775, and oversaw the Loyalist migration?
Why: As Governor of Quebec, Sir Guy Carleton — Lord Dorchester — stood up for the rights of the Canadiens, threw back an American invasion of the province in 1775, and oversaw the Loyalist migration into Nova Scotia and Quebec in 1782-83.
Where was the first representative assembly in Canada elected, in 1758?
Why: Democratic institutions came in by degrees, without violence. Halifax, Nova Scotia elected the first representative assembly in 1758; Prince Edward Island did so in 1773 and New Brunswick in 1785.
What did the Constitutional Act of 1791 divide the Province of Quebec into?
Why: The Constitutional Act of 1791 split the Province of Quebec in two: Upper Canada, later Ontario, which was English-speaking, Protestant and largely Loyalist; and Lower Canada, later Quebec, French-speaking and heavily Catholic.
Upper Canada (later Ontario) was mainly Catholic and French-speaking.
Why: The Constitutional Act of 1791 split the Province of Quebec in two: Upper Canada, later Ontario, which was English-speaking, Protestant and largely Loyalist; and Lower Canada, later Quebec, French-speaking and heavily Catholic.
What were the Atlantic colonies and the two Canadas known collectively as?
Why: Canada became the official name at that point and has stayed in use since. Taken together, the Atlantic colonies and the two Canadas went by the name British North America.
Which English reformer, sent to report on the 1837-38 rebellions, urged merging Upper and Lower Canada and granting responsible government?
Why: Sent from England to report on the rebellions, the reformer Lord Durham urged that Upper and Lower Canada be joined and granted responsible government — meaning no ministry of the Crown could govern without majority backing among the elected members.
What does responsible government mean, as recommended by Lord Durham?
Why: Sent from England to report on the rebellions, the reformer Lord Durham urged that Upper and Lower Canada be joined and granted responsible government — meaning no ministry of the Crown could govern without majority backing among the elected members.
Lord Durham recommended that French Canadians should preserve the distinct identity of French Canada.
Why: More contentiously, Durham argued that the Canadiens would advance fastest by absorbing into English-speaking Protestant culture. The proposal showed he had understood nothing of French Canadians, whose aim was to keep the distinct identity of French Canada alive.
In what year were Upper and Lower Canada united as the Province of Canada?
Why: The union of Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada came in 1840. Reformers — Robert Baldwin and Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, with Joseph Howe in Nova Scotia at the same period — pressed British governors toward responsible government.
Which colony in British North America was the first to win full responsible government, in 1847–48?
Why: Nova Scotia was the first colony in British North America to win full responsible government, in 1847-48. A year later, in 1848-49, Lord Elgin brought it to United Canada with London's backing.
Which champion of democracy and of French language rights headed the first responsible government in the Canadas?
Why: La Fontaine, who fought for democracy and for French language rights, headed the first responsible government the Canadas had.
Under the system of responsible government, what must the government do if it loses a confidence vote in the assembly?
Why: That arrangement still stands: a government defeated on a confidence vote in the assembly has to resign.
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