Canada’s History

Before contactThe First Peoples

When Europeans arrived they found every region occupied by native peoples they called Indians, because the first explorers believed they had reached the East Indies. These peoples lived off the land, some by hunting and gathering, others by raising crops.

Warfare was common as groups competed for land, resources, and prestige. Large numbers of Aboriginals later died of European diseases to which they lacked immunity. Yet in the first 200 years of coexistence, Aboriginals and Europeans formed strong economic, religious, and military bonds that laid the foundations of Canada.

1000 AD – 1542The First Europeans

The Vikings from Iceland who colonized Greenland 1,000 years ago also reached Labrador and the island of Newfoundland. The remains of their settlement, l'Anse aux Meadows, are a World Heritage site.

European exploration began in earnest in 1497 with John Cabot, an Italian immigrant to England and the first to draw a map of Canada's Atlantic shore, setting foot on Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island. English settlement, however, did not begin until 1610. A generation later, between 1534 and 1542, Jacques Cartier made three voyages across the Atlantic and claimed the land for King Francis I of France.

Cartier was the first European to explore the St. Lawrence River and to set eyes on present-day Quebec City and Montreal. He heard two captured guides speak the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village"; by the 1550s the name Canada began appearing on maps.

1604 – 1759Royal New France

In 1604, French explorers Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded the first European settlement north of Florida, first on St. Croix Island (present-day Maine), then at Port-Royal in Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia). In 1608 Champlain built a fortress at what is now Quebec City.

Champlain allied the colony with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron, historic enemies of the Iroquois — a confederation of five (later six) First Nations who battled the French settlements for a century until the two sides made peace in 1701. The French and Aboriginal people collaborated in the vast fur-trade economy, driven by European demand for beaver pelts. Leaders such as Jean Talon, Bishop Laval, and Count Frontenac built a French Empire reaching from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1670, King Charles II of England granted the Hudson's Bay Company exclusive trading rights over the watershed draining into Hudson Bay, and for the next 100 years it competed with Montreal-based traders. The skilled canoe-men of the trade were called voyageurs and coureurs des bois, and they formed strong alliances with First Nations. Heroes of the era included Count Frontenac, who refused to surrender Quebec to the English in 1690 — "My only reply will be from the mouths of my cannons!" — and Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, who won victories over the English from James Bay to Nevis in the Caribbean.

Meanwhile the English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard, dating from the early 1600s, grew richer and more populous than New France. In the 1700s France and Great Britain battled for control of North America, and in 1759 the British defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City — the end of France's empire in America. Both commanders, Brigadier James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm, were killed leading their troops.

1763 – 1791British Rule and Accommodation

After the war, Great Britain renamed the colony the Province of Quebec. Its French-speaking Catholic people, known as habitants or Canadiens, strove to preserve their way of life within an English-speaking, Protestant-ruled empire.

To better govern the French Roman Catholic majority, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act of 1774 — one of the constitutional foundations of Canada. It allowed religious freedom for Catholics and let them hold public office (not then allowed in Britain), and restored French civil law while keeping British criminal law.

When the 13 colonies to the south declared independence in 1776 and formed the United States, more than 40,000 Loyalists fled north to settle in Nova Scotia and Quebec. They came from Dutch, German, British, Scandinavian, Aboriginal, and other origins, and from Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Jewish, Quaker, and Catholic backgrounds. Joseph Brant led thousands of Loyalist Mohawk into Canada, and about 3,000 black Loyalists, freedmen and slaves, came north seeking a better life. In 1792, some black Nova Scotians, given poor land, left to establish Freetown, Sierra Leone, a new British colony for freed slaves.

Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester), as Governor of Quebec, defended the rights of the Canadiens, defeated an American invasion of Quebec in 1775, and supervised the Loyalist migration of 1782–83. Democratic institutions then developed gradually and peacefully: the first representative assembly was elected in Halifax in 1758, followed by Prince Edward Island in 1773 and New Brunswick in 1785.

The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario), mainly Loyalist, Protestant, and English-speaking, and Lower Canada (later Quebec), heavily Catholic and French-speaking. For the first time the Canadas were granted legislative assemblies elected by the people, and the name Canada became official. The Atlantic colonies and the two Canadas were known collectively as British North America.

1793 – 1850sAbolition and a Growing Economy

The movement to abolish the transatlantic slave trade emerged in the British Parliament in the late 1700s. In 1793, Upper Canada, led by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, became the first province in the Empire to move toward abolition. Britain prohibited the buying and selling of slaves in 1807 and abolished slavery throughout the Empire in 1833.

Thousands of slaves escaped the United States, followed "the North Star," and settled in Canada via the Underground Railroad, a Christian anti-slavery network. John Graves Simcoe was also the founder of the City of York (now Toronto). Mary Ann (Shadd) Carey, an outspoken anti-slavery activist, became in 1853 the first woman publisher in Canada, helping found and edit The Provincial Freeman.

The first companies in Canada, formed under the French and British regimes, competed for the fur trade. The Hudson's Bay Company came to dominate the northwest from Fort Garry (Winnipeg) and Fort Edmonton to Fort Langley and Fort Victoria — posts that later became cities. The first financial institutions opened in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and the Montreal Stock Exchange opened in 1832. For centuries Canada's economy was based on farming and on exporting natural resources such as fur, fish, and timber.

1812 – 1814The War of 1812

After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte's fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), the Royal Navy ruled the waves. American resentment at British interference with their shipping, plus the belief that conquering Canada would be easy, led the United States to invade in June 1812. Canadian volunteers and First Nations, including Shawnee led by Chief Tecumseh, supported the British defence.

In July, Major-General Sir Isaac Brock captured Detroit but was killed defending against an American attack at Queenston Heights, near Niagara Falls — a battle the Americans lost. In 1813, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Salaberry and 460 soldiers, mostly French Canadiens, turned back 4,000 American invaders at Chateauguay. That same year Laura Secord made a dangerous 19-mile (30-km) journey on foot to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon of a planned attack, helping secure victory at the Battle of Beaver Dams.

The Americans burned Government House and the Parliament Buildings in York in 1813; in retaliation in 1814, Major-General Robert Ross led an expedition from Nova Scotia that burned the White House and other public buildings in Washington, D.C. Ross died in battle soon after and was buried in Halifax with full military honours. By 1814 the American attempt to conquer Canada had failed.

Britain then paid for a costly defence system, including the Citadels at Halifax and Quebec City, the naval drydock at Halifax, and Fort Henry at Kingston. The present-day Canada–U.S.A. border is partly an outcome of the war, which ensured Canada would remain independent of the United States. The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon in 1815, chose Bytown (Ottawa) as the endpoint of the Rideau Canal, playing a direct role in founding the national capital.

1837 – 1864Rebellion and Responsible Government

In the 1830s, reformers in Upper and Lower Canada believed progress toward full democracy was too slow; some wanted American republican values or even to join the United States. Armed rebellions broke out in 1837–38 outside Montreal and in Toronto, but the rebels lacked public support and were defeated by British troops and Canadian volunteers. A number were hanged or exiled, some later returning to Canada.

Lord Durham, an English reformer sent to report on the rebellions, recommended merging Upper and Lower Canada and granting responsible government — meaning the ministers of the Crown must have the support of a majority of elected representatives in order to govern. He also urged that the Canadiens assimilate into English-speaking Protestant culture, showing a complete lack of understanding of French Canadians.

In 1840 the two were united as the Province of Canada. Reformers such as Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine and Robert Baldwin, alongside Joseph Howe in Nova Scotia, worked with British governors toward reform. Nova Scotia became the first colony to attain full responsible government in 1847–48, and in 1848–49 Governor Lord Elgin introduced it to United Canada — under which a government that loses a confidence vote must resign. In 1849, La Fontaine, a champion of democracy and French language rights, became the first leader (similar to a prime minister) of a responsible government in the Canadas.

1864 – 1867Confederation, 1867

From 1864 to 1867, representatives of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada, with British support, worked together to create a new country. These men are known as the Fathers of Confederation. They built two levels of government — federal and provincial — and split the old Province of Canada into Ontario and Quebec, each province electing its own legislature with control over areas such as education and health.

The British Parliament passed the British North America Act in 1867, and the Dominion of Canada was officially born on July 1, 1867. Until 1982, July 1 was celebrated as Dominion Day; today it is Canada Day.

1867 – 1885Building a Nation: The West

In 1867, Sir John Alexander Macdonald, a Father of Confederation, became Canada's first Prime Minister. Born in Scotland on January 11, 1815, he came to Upper Canada as a child and became a lawyer in Kingston, Ontario. Parliament has recognized January 11 as Sir John A. Macdonald Day, and his portrait appears on the $10 bill. Sir George-Etienne Cartier, a Montreal railway lawyer, was the key architect of Confederation from Quebec, leading Quebec in and helping negotiate the entry of the Northwest Territories, Manitoba, and British Columbia.

When Canada took over the vast northwest from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869, the 12,000 Metis of the Red River were not consulted. Louis Riel led an armed uprising and seized Fort Garry, the territorial capital. Ottawa sent soldiers to retake it in 1870; Riel fled to the United States and Canada created a new province, Manitoba. Riel was elected to Parliament but never took his seat. A second rebellion in 1885 in present-day Saskatchewan led to his trial and execution for high treason — a decision strongly opposed in Quebec. Many see him as a hero, defender of Metis rights, and father of Manitoba.

After the first uprising, Macdonald established the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) in 1873 to pacify the West and assist in negotiations with the Indians. The NWMP founded Fort Calgary, Fort MacLeod, and other centres, with headquarters at Regina. Today the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP, or "the Mounties") are the national police force and one of Canada's best-known symbols. Major General Sir Sam Steele rose from the ranks of the Mounties, while Gabriel Dumont was the Metis' greatest military leader.

British Columbia joined Canada in 1871 after Ottawa promised a railway to the West Coast. On November 7, 1885, Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona), Scottish-born director of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), drove the last spike. Financed by British and American investors and built by European and Chinese labour, the CPR's "ribbons of steel" fulfilled a national dream. Afterward the Chinese faced discrimination, including the race-based Head Tax; the Government of Canada apologized in 2006.

1890s – 1914Moving Westward

Canada's economy grew and industrialized during the boom of the 1890s and early 1900s, when one million British and one million American immigrants arrived. Sir Wilfrid Laurier became the first French-Canadian prime minister since Confederation and encouraged immigration to the West; his portrait is on the $5 bill.

The railway let immigrants — including 170,000 Ukrainians, 115,000 Poles, and tens of thousands from Germany, France, Norway, and Sweden — settle the West before 1914 and develop a thriving agricultural sector.

1899 – 1921The First World War

Over 7,000 Canadians volunteered for the South African War (1899–1902), popularly known as the Boer War, and over 260 died. In 1900 they fought in the battles of Paardeberg ("Horse Mountain") and Lillefontein.

When Germany attacked Belgium and France in 1914 and Britain declared war, Ottawa formed the Canadian Expeditionary Force (later the Canadian Corps). More than 600,000 Canadians served, most of them volunteers, out of a population of eight million. The Corps captured Vimy Ridge in April 1917, with 10,000 killed or wounded — the first British victory of the war — securing its reputation as the "shock troops of the British Empire." April 9 is celebrated as Vimy Day, and the Vimy Memorial in France honours the fallen.

From 1914 to 1920, Ottawa interned over 8,000 former Austro-Hungarian subjects, mainly Ukrainian men, as "enemy aliens" in 24 labour camps, despite British advice against it. In 1918, under General Sir Arthur Currie, Canada's greatest soldier, the Corps led the last hundred days, including the victorious Battle of Amiens on August 8, 1918, which the Germans called "the black day of the German Army." The war ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918. In total 60,000 Canadians were killed and 170,000 wounded. Canada's soldiers had begun using the maple leaf in the 1850s.

1758 – 1940Women Get the Vote

At Confederation the vote was limited to property-owning adult white males, common in democracies at the time. The women's suffrage movement sought to change this; its Canadian founder was Dr. Emily Stowe, the first Canadian woman to practise medicine in Canada.

More than 3,000 nurses, nicknamed "Bluebirds," served in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, 2,500 of them overseas.

1915 – todayRemembrance Day

Each year on November 11, Remembrance Day, Canadians wear the red poppy and observe a moment of silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, honouring over a million who have served and the 110,000 who gave their lives. Canadian medical officer Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae composed the poem "In Flanders Fields" in 1915, often recited on this day.

1919 – 1939Between the Wars

After the First World War, the British Empire evolved into a free association of states known as the British Commonwealth of Nations, of which Canada remains a leading member alongside successor states such as India, Australia, New Zealand, and several African and Caribbean countries. The "Roaring Twenties" brought prosperity and low unemployment.

The stock market crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, or the "Dirty Thirties," with unemployment reaching 27% in 1933. Farmers in Western Canada were hit hardest by low grain prices and drought. The Bank of Canada, a central bank to manage the money supply, was created in 1934. Immigration dropped and many refugees were turned away, including Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939.

1939 – 1945The Second World War

The war began in 1939 when Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of Germany, invaded Poland and conquered much of Europe. More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served, out of a population of 11.5 million; 44,000 were killed. Canadians fought bravely in the unsuccessful defence of Hong Kong (1941) and a failed raid on Nazi-controlled Dieppe (1942).

The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) took part in the Battle of Britain, and over 130,000 Allied air crew were trained in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) saw its finest hour in the Battle of the Atlantic, protecting convoys from German submarines; by war's end Canada had the third-largest navy in the world. In the Pacific, Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, attacked a lighthouse on Vancouver Island, launched fire balloons over B.C. and the Prairies, and maltreated Canadian POWs from Hong Kong, surrendering on August 14, 1945.

The war also led to the forcible relocation of Canadians of Japanese origin and the sale of their property without compensation; the Government of Canada apologized and compensated the victims in 1988.

Canadians helped liberate Italy in 1943–44. In the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 — D-Day — 15,000 Canadian troops stormed and captured Juno Beach; about one in ten Allied soldiers that day was Canadian. The Canadian Army then liberated the Netherlands in 1944–45 and helped force the German surrender of May 8, 1945, ending six years of war in Europe.

1867 – 1999Must-Know Dates: Provinces Join

In the 1920s, some believed the British West Indies should become part of Canada, which did not occur.