Canadian citizenship test · Discover Canada chapter 3 · 8 min read

From the first peoples and the Vikings to Confederation, the Metis uprisings, the railway and the world wars: explorers, New France, the Loyalists, the War of 1812, responsible government and women's suffrage. Study notes for the Canadian citizenship test.

Why this chapter matters

History is the longest section of Discover Canada and supplies many test questions. Learn it in order and fix the turning points with their dates: 1497, 1534, 1604, 1608, 1670, 1759, 1774, 1791, 1812, 1840, 1848-49, 1867, 1885, 1917 and 1918.

Aboriginal peoples and the first Europeans

• The first European explorers believed they had arrived in the East Indies, so they called the native peoples "Indians".
• Ways of life varied: the Huron-Wendat and Iroquois farmed and hunted; in the Northwest the Cree and Dene lived by hunting and gathering; the Sioux followed the bison herds; the Inuit lived off Arctic wildlife; West Coast peoples dried and smoked fish.
• European diseases killed many Aboriginal people, yet for about 200 years Aboriginals and Europeans built strong economic, religious and military ties.
• Vikings from Iceland reached Labrador and Newfoundland about 1,000 years ago. Their site at L'Anse aux Meadows is a World Heritage site.
• John Cabot (1497), an Italian immigrant to England, was the first to map Canada's east coast.
• Jacques Cartier made three voyages between 1534 and 1542, claiming land for King Francis I of France. He heard the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village", which became "Canada". He was the first European to explore the St. Lawrence River.

Royal New France

• 1604: Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded the first European settlement north of Florida, on St. Croix Island and then at Port-Royal in Acadia (today's Nova Scotia).
• 1608: Champlain built a fortress at today's Quebec City. He allied with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron against the Iroquois confederation; the French and Iroquois made peace in 1701.
• The economy rested on the fur trade, driven by European demand for beaver pelts. Leaders such as Jean Talon, Bishop Laval and Count Frontenac built a French empire from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.

Struggle for a continent

• 1670: King Charles II of England gave the Hudson's Bay Company exclusive trading rights over the lands draining into Hudson Bay. Canoe-travelling traders were called voyageurs and coureurs des bois.
• 1759: the British beat the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City, ending France's empire in America. Both commanders, James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm, were killed.
• Britain renamed the colony the Province of Quebec. Its French-speaking Catholics were called habitants or Canadiens.
• The Quebec Act of 1774 allowed Catholics religious freedom and public office, restored French civil law and kept British criminal law.

Loyalists and the beginnings of democracy

• After the 13 colonies declared independence in 1776, more than 40,000 Loyalists came north to Nova Scotia and Quebec. Joseph Brant led thousands of Loyalist Mohawks; about 3,000 black Loyalists also came, and in 1792 some moved on to found Freetown, Sierra Leone.
• Nova Scotia elected the first representative assembly, in Halifax in 1758. Prince Edward Island had one by 1773 and New Brunswick by 1785.
• The Constitutional Act of 1791 split Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario, mainly English-speaking and Protestant) and Lower Canada (later Quebec, mainly French-speaking and Catholic), gave both elected assemblies and made the name Canada official.

Abolition of slavery

• In 1793, under Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, Upper Canada became the first province in the Empire to move toward abolishing slavery.
• Britain banned the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery across the Empire in 1833.
• Thousands of enslaved people escaped the United States through the Underground Railroad.

The War of 1812

• The United States invaded in June 1812, expecting an easy conquest. British soldiers, Canadian volunteers and First Nations, including the Shawnee under Chief Tecumseh, defended Canada.
• Sir Isaac Brock captured Detroit but was killed at Queenston Heights. In 1813 Charles de Salaberry and 460 mostly French-Canadian soldiers turned back 4,000 Americans at Chateauguay.
• Laura Secord walked about 30 km to warn of an American attack, helping win the Battle of Beaver Dams.
• The Americans burned York (Toronto) in 1813; in 1814 a British force burned the White House. By 1814 the invasion had failed, and the war helped keep Canada independent of the United States.

Rebellion, responsible government and Confederation

• Armed rebellions in 1837-38 near Montreal and in Toronto lacked public support and were defeated.
• Lord Durham recommended uniting the Canadas and giving them responsible government, but also wrongly urged that French Canadians assimilate.
• 1840: Upper and Lower Canada united as the Province of Canada.
• Responsible government means ministers need the support of a majority of elected members; a government that loses a confidence vote must resign. Nova Scotia was the first colony to achieve it (1847-48); Lord Elgin introduced it in United Canada in 1848-49, and Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine became its first leader there.
• 1864-1867: the Fathers of Confederation from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada created a federal and a provincial level of government. The British North America Act created the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867, with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. July 1 was Dominion Day until 1982 and is now Canada Day.
• Sir Leonard Tilley suggested the name Dominion of Canada in 1864, inspired by Psalm 72.
• Sir John A. Macdonald became the first Prime Minister in 1867 (January 11 is Sir John A. Macdonald Day). Sir George-Etienne Cartier led Quebec into Confederation.

Expansion of the Dominion

The West and the railway

• When Canada took over the Northwest from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869, the Red River Metis were not consulted. Louis Riel led an uprising and seized Fort Garry. Troops retook it in 1870 and Manitoba was created.
• A second rebellion in 1885 in today's Saskatchewan led to Riel's execution for high treason. Many see him as a defender of Metis rights and the father of Manitoba. Gabriel Dumont was the Metis military leader.
• Macdonald created the North West Mounted Police in 1873; it became today's RCMP.
• British Columbia joined in 1871 after a promise of a railway. On November 7, 1885, Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona) drove the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway, built by European and Chinese workers. Chinese immigrants later faced the Head Tax, for which the government apologized in 2006.
• Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the first French-Canadian prime minister since Confederation, encouraged settlement of the West.

The First World War and the vote

• Over 7,000 Canadians fought in the South African (Boer) War, 1899-1902.
• More than 600,000 Canadians served in the First World War. The Canadian Corps took Vimy Ridge in April 1917 (April 9 is Vimy Day). Sir Arthur Currie led the Corps in the last hundred days, including Amiens on August 8, 1918. The war ended on November 11, 1918; 60,000 Canadians were killed.
• Between 1914 and 1920 more than 8,000 people who had been Austro-Hungarian subjects, most of them Ukrainian men, were interned by Ottawa as "enemy aliens".
• Women's suffrage: founded in Canada by Dr. Emily Stowe. Manitoba gave women the vote first (1916). In 1917 the Borden government gave the federal vote to some women, and in 1918 most women citizens aged 21 and over could vote federally. Agnes Macphail became the first woman MP in 1921. Quebec followed in 1940, thanks partly to Therese Casgrain.

Between the wars and the Second World War

• After 1918 the Empire became the British Commonwealth of Nations.
• The 1929 crash brought the Great Depression ("Dirty Thirties"); unemployment hit 27% in 1933. The Bank of Canada was created in 1934.
• Remembrance Day, November 11: Canadians wear the red poppy and keep a moment of silence at the 11th hour. John McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields" in 1915.
• More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in the Second World War (1939-1945); 44,000 were killed. Canadians fought at Hong Kong (1941) and Dieppe (1942).
• Over 130,000 Allied air crew trained in Canada. The navy's finest hour was the Battle of the Atlantic, and Canada ended the war with the third-largest navy in the world.
• On D-Day, June 6, 1944, 15,000 Canadians captured Juno Beach. The Canadian Army liberated Italy (1943-44) and the Netherlands (1944-45).
• Japanese Canadians were forcibly relocated during the war; the government apologized in 1988.

Check yourself

1. Who first mapped Canada's east coast, and in what year?
2. What did the Quebec Act of 1774 restore, and what did it keep?
3. Which colony achieved responsible government first?
4. Which four provinces formed Canada in 1867?
5. Which province first gave women the vote?