Chapter 1. Confederation and the Peoples of Canada
Chapter 1. Confederation and the Peoples of Canada
1.3 The Age of Federation
One month after the creation of the Dominion of Canada, the United States finally acted on its threats to annex territory to the north. Instead of some part or all of British North America (BNA), however, the Americans purchased Alaska. This was an audacious move. The idea of claiming territory that was thousands of kilometres away from the nearest American settlement, cut off by the presence in between of British North American territory, was a far cry from annexing contiguous lands. The same, of course, could be said for the Americans’ earlier wresting of California from Mexico. While much more of the American Empire was captured incrementally by squatters, settlers, and cavalry charges, the Alaskan purchase stands out for what it implies. That is, it was possible now for former colonies to administer sovereignty in remote lands. Canada watched and learned.
Fragile Unions
Canada had its own imperial ambitions. George Brown — Toronto newspaperman, Clear Grit reformer, coalition government partner, and a Father of Confederation — made his support of the coalition and Confederation conditional on the purchase of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson Bay Company (HBC). The sale of the vast territory (encompassing the whole of the Prairie West from Hudson’s Bay to the Rockies and from the 49th parallel to the Arctic Ocean) went through in 1869, but the process was badly flawed. The Canadians (in Ottawa and on the ground in the Red River Colony) rushed matters and aggravated local sentiment. The Métis community around the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers wasn’t alone in its dissatisfaction with Ottawa, but their resistance and the Provisional Government became understood in the new Dominion as an act of hostility against a legitimate government by an illegitimate junta. The execution of Thomas Scott by the Provisional Government would embitter Canada against the Manitobans and the Métis for years to come (see Sections 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, and 2.8).
All in all, the Dominion of Canada was off to a rather poor start. Provincial leaders in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were able to muster widespread support for taking a second look at Confederation. The possibility of secession might be ruled out by Westminster, but as far as Halifax and Fredericton anti-Confederationist politicians were concerned this was a matter of popular consent and/or discontent.
Federations, as the 1860s and ’70s would demonstrate, are difficult creatures. In this respect, the timing of the creation of the Dominion of Canada is important. It took place at a time when similar experiments were being launched or revised around the world. The most obvious case is that of the United States, where a century-old federation came apart along the Mason-Dixon Line. Although the South and the North were eventually re-united and re-federated, that change came about after years of a terrible civil war. Similarly, the 186