10.2 Demographics
Detailed records pertaining to population characteristics and behaviour were kept under the ancien régime, but it was during the 19th century that the bureaucratic machinery necessary to running a regular census appeared. Aggregate totals generated in these years (as today) reflect the ability and competence of the census takers and the registration machinery. Births and deaths were often registered only at the parish level, census takers had to do their work on foot and were not always welcomed by local residents (for fear that being surveyed meant being taxed), and people sometimes just lied.
Broadly speaking, however, we know that between the 1820s and the early 1850s the population of every colony except those on the West Coast rose significantly. Newfoundland’s and Lower Canada’s doubled; Nova Scotia’s did slightly better than that. New Brunswick and PEI posted a trebling and Upper Canada (Canada West) grew sixfold. Within each of these colonies there were more men than women living in areas of resource extraction, but otherwise the sex ratio was relatively even. (This was not the case in British Columbia from 1858 on, when the gold rush transformed demographics.) See Table 10.1 for details of the earliest census counts, by region.
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| *Figures for Assiniboia (a.k.a. Northwest Territories) reflect only the settler populations. There were at least another 30,000 Aboriginal people on the northern Plains and in Rupert’s Land in the first half of the century. **Of this number, perhaps 4,000 were non-Aboriginals. |
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| Region | First Census | Second Census | Third Census | Fourth Census |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upper Canada | 150,066 (1824) | 213,156 (1830) | 432,159 (1840) | 952,004 (1851) |
| Lower Canada | 427,465 (1822) | 553,134 (1831) | 650,000 (1841) | 890,261 (1851) |
| New Brunswick | 74,176 (1824) | 119,457 (1834) | 156,162 (1841) | 193,800 (1851) |
| Nova Scotia | 123,630 (1827) | 199,906 (1837) | not available | 276,854 (1851) |
| Prince Edward Island | 24,600 (1824) | 32,292 (1833) | 47,042 (1841) | 71,490 (1855) |
| Newfoundland | 55,719 (1825) | 73,705 (1836) | 96,295 (1845) | 101,600 (1851) |
| Assiniboia* | not available | 3,356 (1834) | 4,871 (1846) | 6,691 (1856) |
| BC and Vancouver Island | not available | 55,000 (1851)** |
Details from the early part of the 19th century are difficult to access and assess, but we know that 1851 British North America was dominated by those under 19 years of age (56%). In the absence of more precise numbers, we can only guess the distribution of the young population itself, but it is entirely reasonable to imagine that three-quarters were under the age of 15, which means that the dependent population (which includes the 2.7% over the age of 65 years) made up about 45% of the total.[2] (Keep these figures in mind when considering the ubiquity of child labour in these years, as discussed in Chapter 12.)
Mortality
Fertility, migration, and mortality are th