Canada Under American Rule

[EnglishCanuck]

Canada as you well know was merely a province or two, not a singular overarching political entity with a fully fleshed out national identity. Confederation did not come until after the U.S. civil war. British North America was a hodgepodge of woodsmen, farmers, fur traders, and Indians with little more than a river basin (the St. Lawrence) and a peninsula (the maritime provinces) containing any city of significance. Yes, there were firm British loyalists. Yes, there were Quebeckers accepting of, even enthused by, British rule. But there were also people who were uncommitted, people who wanted freedom from Britain, and people whose vision of freedom was the Texas path to entry into the United States. Confederation happened as a response to all of these. If Britain was confident in its position on the North American continent, by bother with any sort of consolidation at all?

Pray tell, who are these uncomitted people who want freedom from Britain with a vision of Texas? They were pretty darn quiet from 1812 onwards...

1867 population was 3.5 million so 1860 3.0 yes

I mean, 3.1 million if you want to be pedantic.

We even had railways and canals not frontier country

Factories, shipyards, steamworks... Canada was not the rustic backwater a lot of people seem to picture it as. Roughly 250,000 people (10%) of the Province of Canada were urban dwellers in this period, and I may be undercounting that.

And by this time multiple U.S. states could count inhabitants in the millions if I recall correctly.

11 states could count populations over 1 million in 1860.

 

[Wendell]

Pray tell, who are these uncomitted people who want freedom from Britain with a vision of Texas? They were pretty darn quiet from 1812 onwards...

Forgive me, I don't have the poll numbers, and I doubt you do either (because there are none), but typically populations can be divided into multiple camps in a time of potential or actual revolution or change. It's not as though Confederation was universally embraced in 1867.

I mean, 3.1 million if you want to be pedantic.

Distinction without a difference.

Factories, shipyards, steamworks... Canada was not the rustic backwater a lot of people seem to picture it as.

Relative to other places, it was, especially in the "English" parts.

11 states could count populations over 1 million in 1860.

Good. Now we see just how little three million people in British North America actually means.

 

[Dan1988]

And by this time multiple U.S. states could count inhabitants in the millions if I recall correctly.

That's because individual US states had a lot more hanky panky going on in bed than even French-Canadians.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Forgive me, I don't have the poll numbers, and I doubt you do either (because there are none), but typically populations can be divided into multiple camps in a time of potential or actual revolution or change. It's not as though Confederation was universally embraced in 1867.

Oh but we do. Check, for example, the election of 1867, the elections of 1866 and the various by elections in the period. Precisely one future province fought Confederation, Nova Scotia, and even then when they ran an anti-Confederation Party in 1867, Howe crossed the isle and pledged himself to Confederation not two years later. Anti-Confederation sentiment dried up spectacularly after that which suggests less hostility to Confederation, and more the machinations of the local political machine.

There was no one, no one, waiting for a Texas style annexation. Being pro-US was the death sentence in Canadian politics in this period. Wilfred Laurier lost his election in 1911 because he was seen as being to cordial with the United States. John A. Macdonald campaigned by regularly slurring his opponents as being too cosy with Washington throughout the 1860s. Latent anti-Americanism was a staple of Canadian politics in this period.

Relative to other places, it was, especially in the "English" parts.

Not incorrect, but the largest and most industrialized city was Montreal, followed by Toronto and Quebec. These two cities in Quebec (Canada East) were, by virtue of their age, more developed but the towns in Canada West (Ontario) grew faster and were more common than in Canada East.

Good. Now we see just how little three million people in British North America actually means.

Compared to what? A potentially splintered US? A vast and empty prairie? The Eastern coast of the continent in general? Mexico?

 

[Wendell]

So, if being pro-U.S. was a death sentence, why would those so sympathetic have voted? Run for office? A self-selective poll is not a reliable example of popular sentiment.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

So, if being pro-U.S. was a death sentence, why would those so sympathetic have voted? Run for office? A self-selective poll is not a reliable example of popular sentiment.

I'm sorry it doesn't meet your not very rigorous standard, but face the facts here. There was no widespread call for annexation into the US at any point in Canadian history, especially not the 1860s. Sympathy for republican government was low, very low, to the point we can find it derided in most of the popular newspapers of the period. The Civil War largely sparked horror and stoked already existing anti-American sentiment which had been a latent force since 1815 in Canadian history, and even the province which opposed Confederation did not advocate joining the US in retaliation. Well, Howe did threaten it, but he was roundly criticized by his own supporters and the American press for such a statement, which meant it was empty rhetoric and nothing more.

There was no fifth column looking to Washington, the Civil War put paid to any fond ideas of republicanism pretty decisively. And despite the popular fantasy the US had precisely zero opportunity to turn north and annex Canada if it felt like it in the 1860s, and no one was really insane enough to consider it.

 

[NotedCoyote]

Canada as you well know was merely a province or two, not a singular overarching political entity with a fully fleshed out national identity. Confederation did not come until after the U.S. civil war. British North America was a hodgepodge of woodsmen, farmers, fur traders, and Indians with little more than a river basin (the St. Lawrence) and a peninsula (the maritime provinces) containing any city of significance. Yes, there were firm British loyalists. Yes, there were Quebeckers accepting of, even enthused by, British rule. But there were also people who were uncommitted, people who wanted freedom from Britain, and people whose vision of freedom was the Texas path to entry into the United States. Confederation happened as a response to all of these. If Britain was confident in its position on the North American continent, by bother with any sort of consolidation at all?

Confederation happened because Canadians feared military annexation by the US, not because there were any significant number of Canadians who wanted to be Americans and were threatening to join the Union through a Texan style revolt. That wasn't the only reason of course: there were solid economic reasons as well, particularly with the intention of constructing railroads and opening the country for greater settlement. Quebec and Ontario also both wished to end the political mess that was the 1840 Act of Union. To the extent that confederation was driven by the UK, it was driven by financiers who backed the creation of railroads and thought confederation would bring greater economic returns, and by the "Little England" movement that wanted to wash their hands of the colonies and foist self-governance onto them as quickly as possible.

As for the Canadian national identity, the seeds of that had been sown during the failed American invasions in 1812. The performance of the Canadian militias in that conflict far from lives up to the mythology that came to surround them after the fact, but it's not like no national identity existed.

 

[kernals12]

Now I've started another thread on a similar theme: Austria under German Rule

 

[Wendell]

I'm sorry it doesn't meet your not very rigorous standard, but face the facts here. There was no widespread call for annexation into the US at any point in Canadian history, especially not the 1860s. Sympathy for republican government was low, very low, to the point we can find it derided in most of the popular newspapers of the period. The Civil War largely sparked horror and stoked already existing anti-American sentiment which had been a latent force since 1815 in Canadian history, and even the province which opposed Confederation did not advocate joining the US in retaliation. Well, Howe did threaten it, but he was roundly criticized by his own supporters and the American press for such a statement, which meant it was empty rhetoric and nothing more.

There was no fifth column looking to Washington, the Civil War put paid to any fond ideas of republicanism pretty decisively. And despite the popular fantasy the US had precisely zero opportunity to turn north and annex Canada if it felt like it in the 1860s, and no one was really insane enough to consider it.

There were no remaining Tories in the U.S. then after 1789? That's essentially what you're arguing. On the other hand, my argument is that most people accept defeat and move on, regardless of what stances they previously held becoming untenable.

Confederation happened because Canadians feared military annexation by the US, not because there were any significant number of Canadians who wanted to be Americans and were threatening to join the Union through a Texan style revolt. That wasn't the only reason of course: there were solid economic reasons as well, particularly with the intention of constructing railroads and opening the country for greater settlement. Quebec and Ontario also both wished to end the political mess that was the 1840 Act of Union. To the extent that confederation was driven by the UK, it was driven by financiers who backed the creation of railroads and thought confederation would bring greater economic returns, and by the "Little England" movement that wanted to wash their hands of the colonies and foist self-governance onto them as quickly as possible.

As for the Canadian national identity, the seeds of that had been sown during the failed American invasions in 1812. The performance of the Canadian militias in that conflict far from lives up to the mythology that came to surround them after the fact, but it's not like no national identity existed.

Mexico sought to populate Texas precisely to keep it from falling into U.S. hands. We know what happened instead. Also, American power projection on its own, as so many in this thread have argued time and time again, made holding the British possessions north of the Great Lakes untenable, thus to argue that Confederation happened to prevent American invasion alone is disingenuous.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

There were no remaining Tories in the U.S. then after 1789? That's essentially what you're arguing. On the other hand, my argument is that most people accept defeat and move on, regardless of what stances they previously held becoming untenable.

Well that's not remotely what I said for starters...

But you're postulating that in Britain's North American possessions there was some secret desire for annexation to Washington (ala Texas) that we just don't know about because some secret percentage of the population just didn't bother to vote on the issue. I don't know that it needs to be addressed that this is a dubious idea. If the US invaded Canada, within a generation things would probably calm down, but if it went to war with Britain again, the old loyalties or earned grievances would come out of the woodwork. That's part of the problem.

Mexico sought to populate Texas precisely to keep it from falling into U.S. hands. We know what happened instead. Also, American power projection on its own, as so many in this thread have argued time and time again, made holding the British possessions north of the Great Lakes untenable, thus to argue that Confederation happened to prevent American invasion alone is disingenuous.

Yeah, but the Texans were a pretty open fifth column, which is precisely what the Mexicans worried about. Even then, the US waffled on it because the slavery question was so loaded. Confederation was partially to prevent an American invasion, and I can quote about half a dozen sources on that if you so desire. But it was also to make governing the place and economic expansion easier.

 

[Wendell]

Well that's not remotely what I said for starters...

But you're postulating that in Britain's North American possessions there was some secret desire for annexation to Washington (ala Texas) that we just don't know about because some secret percentage of the population just didn't bother to vote on the issue. I don't know that it needs to be addressed that this is a dubious idea. If the US invaded Canada, within a generation things would probably calm down, but if it went to war with Britain again, the old loyalties or earned grievances would come out of the woodwork. That's part of the problem.

How is that not, in essence, exactly what you've said. Also, I'm not saying that there was some magical, well-organized American fifth column in British North America, but that there's no real indication of a firm Canadian nationalism before Confederation that was any more potent a force than Texas nationalism before 1845. That difference is important.

Yeah, but the Texans were a pretty open fifth column, which is precisely what the Mexicans worried about. Even then, the US waffled on it because the slavery question was so loaded. Confederation was partially to prevent an American invasion, and I can quote about half a dozen sources on that if you so desire. But it was also to make governing the place and economic expansion easier.

What exactly is your argument here? Mexico invited the colonization of Texas, and ultimately, the decision of Texas to later seek annexation to the United States was not without opposition or controversy.

 

[NotedCoyote]

Mexico sought to populate Texas precisely to keep it from falling into U.S. hands. We know what happened instead. Also, American power projection on its own, as so many in this thread have argued time and time again, made holding the British possessions north of the Great Lakes untenable, thus to argue that Confederation happened to prevent American invasion alone is disingenuous.

Note that I specifically said in the post that you quoted that resisting American annexation was not the only reason for Confederation. However, it was one of the reasons, and there are abundant sources to demonstrate that it was considered an important one. The fact that the Canadians wouldn't have been able to resist a full-fledged American invasion by 1867 and the fact that the UK at the time might well have decided to cut Canada loose rather than using their navy to economically ruin an aggressive US is sort of irrelevant when discussing Canadian motivations for confederation.

As for Texas, as EnglishCanuck already said, there was a significant population of Texans who identified as American and wanted or at least welcomed the idea of American annexation. That was not the case anywhere in Canada, at least not in 1867. I've pointed out numerous times that there were plenty of Americans in Ontario/Upper Canada that did not identify as Canadians before 1812, but the way they were treated by the Americans during that conflict strongly discouraged them from thinking of themselves as American. A Nova Scotian at the time of confederation thought of themselves as a Nova Scotian instead of a Canadian, and many in what became Ontario would still think of themselves as Imperial Englishmen, but neither identified as American, while many Texans before, during and after the revolution did.

Whether or not the individual Canadian provinces thought of themselves as Canadian before confederation is ultimately beside the point: they all had historical reasons to oppose association with America, reasons that had been strengthened by the Civil War, which many outsiders blamed on the American political system. As for Texas, I was under the impression that the Mexicans sought settlers to discourage raids by the Comanches, not just to avoid it falling into America's hands. In any case, the American settlers in Texas formed a large group that openly flouted Mexican laws such as the prohibition of slavery, and which outnumbered the loyal Mexicans in the lands that would become Texas. Canada did not have a similar number of law-breaking American settlers at any point in its history. The British isles were the main early source of settlers, and the British authorities were aware of what had happened in Texas and did most of their recruiting for settlers in Europe, not least because they feared that large numbers of American settlers could come to dominate western Canada if they didn't populate it. With that in mind, I'm not sure what you're trying to argue by bringing up the example of Texas, there simply aren't enough similarities with the situation in British North America to suggest the two regions could have followed similar paths toward becoming American.

 

[Wendell]

Note that I specifically said in the post that you quoted that resisting American annexation was not the only reason for Confederation. However, it was one of the reasons, and there are abundant sources to demonstrate that it was considered an important one. The fact that the Canadians wouldn't have been able to resist a full-fledged American invasion by 1867 and the fact that the UK at the time might well have decided to cut Canada loose rather than using their navy to economically ruin an aggressive US is sort of irrelevant when discussing Canadian motivations for confederation.

So, the British feared an invasion most of this board argues was untenable. Got it. Now, what other reasons are there for Confederation?

As for Texas, as EnglishCanuck already said, there was a significant population of Texans who identified as American and wanted or at least welcomed the idea of American annexation. That was not the case anywhere in Canada, at least not in 1867. I've pointed out numerous times that there were plenty of Americans in Ontario/Upper Canada that did not identify as Canadians before 1812, but the way they were treated by the Americans during that conflict strongly discouraged them from thinking of themselves as American. A Nova Scotian at the time of confederation thought of themselves as a Nova Scotian instead of a Canadian, and many in what became Ontario would still think of themselves as Imperial Englishmen, but neither identified as American, while many Texans before, during and after the revolution did.

It took the civil war before people from the United States identified themselves as American, rather than, say, Virginian, Massachusite, or Texan.

Whether or not the individual Canadian provinces thought of themselves as Canadian before confederation is ultimately beside the point: they all had historical reasons to oppose association with America, reasons that had been strengthened by the Civil War, which many outsiders blamed on the American political system. As for Texas, I was under the impression that the Mexicans sought settlers to discourage raids by the Comanches, not just to avoid it falling into America's hands. In any case, the American settlers in Texas formed a large group that openly flouted Mexican laws such as the prohibition of slavery, and which outnumbered the loyal Mexicans in the lands that would become Texas. Canada did not have a similar number of law-breaking American settlers at any point in its history. The British isles were the main early source of settlers, and the British authorities were aware of what had happened in Texas and did most of their recruiting for settlers in Europe, not least because they feared that large numbers of American settlers could come to dominate western Canada if they didn't populate it. With that in mind, I'm not sure what you're trying to argue by bringing up the example of Texas, there simply aren't enough similarities with the situation in British North America to suggest the two regions could have followed similar paths toward becoming American.

Err, no, it's precisely the point. If the argument is being made that distinctive enough identity existed to make American rule untenable, then identifying as that unique thing, in this case, Canadian, is precisely the point.

As far as Texas goes, American settlers were divided on annexation, and many in the German and Tejano communities, who weren't WASPs, and weren't slave owners similarly supported Texas independence from mexico, and, later U.S. annexation.

 

[Dave Howery]

I've pointed out numerous times that there were plenty of Americans in Ontario/Upper Canada that did not identify as Canadians before 1812, but the way they were treated by the Americans during that conflict strongly discouraged them from thinking of themselves as American.

one book I have on the War of 1812 notes that the border was barely considered by anyone before the war, and Americans and Canadians freely moved back and forth and settled on each other's lands. The war did set the idea in people's minds that the border was a real thing. Another thing noted is that the American government fooled itself into thinking that Canadians would welcome being part of the US mainly because it was a case of 'merchants talking to merchants'; there was a small merchant class in Canada that thought that being part of America would be better for them, and naturally said such to their American counterparts. The idea that this small group of people weren't representative of the rest of Canada didn't seem to occur to DC....

 

[NotedCoyote]

So, the British feared an invasion most of this board argues was untenable. Got it. Now, what other reasons are there for Confederation?

...Err, no, it's precisely the point. If the argument is being made that distinctive enough identity existed to make American rule untenable, then identifying as that unique thing, in this case, Canadian, is precisely the point..

Again, not actually clear why you think the opinion of modern historians (with hindsight on their side) that the late 19th century Americans would have succeeded in an invasion of Canada changes or alters the motivation of the people living at the time, who believed that a united Canada would be better able to resist an American invasion and would be a less tempting target for American politicians arguing in favour of violent expansion. The Canadians in 1867 were well aware that they were outnumbered on their continent, they still believed (correctly) that their chances of keeping their independence would be better together than they would be separate.

There have been a number of posts in this thread listing the reasons for confederation. I myself have listed several already. Those I've already mentioned included the construction of railroads, opening what had been the HBC controlled west to settlement, politically separating Ontario and Quebec to end the political stasis created when they shared a legislature, and limiting the need for the UK to continue garrisoning its forces in the country. There were other issues, but most of them boil down to anxiety about American expansion: the Fenian raids, the Alaska purchase, the American Civil War, and the American abandonment of the Elgin-Marcy Treaty all contributed to the idea that Canada would be far more economically and politically secure if the colonies joined together. Since, to the best of my knowledge, serious calls by members of the American government to annex Canada largely ended after the 1860s, the approach seems to have been successful.

Ultimately, you still haven't demonstrated why a unified Canadian identity would be necessary to keep the Canadians from following the path of Texas (a path that they didn't come close to following in OTL). Sure, as others have said, there might well have been parts of Canada that could have accommodated themselves to American rule within a generation or two. Quebec was not one of them, and even in the western provinces where there's less historical hostility to American culture and identity, it would take a generation (or a massive flood of settlers) to make the population stop resisting inclusion in the United States. It would also have taken a direct American invasion. Unlike Texas, there was never a majority of Canadians that favoured having Canada annexed by the United States, while in Texas that group was always the majority even if the attitude wasn't a universal one. We have plenty of historical evidence from the population of Upper Canada in 1812 and of the Maritimes after the American Revolution of how the people of Canada generally responded to US invasions and occupations. Far from embracing rule by Washington, in every invasion the people fought back and had their opposition to America entrenched deeper than it had been before the conflict.

 

[Wendell]

Why is Confederation necessary to develop infrastructure though?

My point is that anxiety about American ambitions exists for more than military reasons.

If the Fenian raids really mattered, then obviously, there's not the coherent, uniform Canadian consciousness one side in this argument insists existed and was overwhelingly dominant, no?

A trade deal between the U.S. and Canada was defeated on the Canadian side in 1911 because several leading politicians on the U.S. side argued that the treaty was a step towards annexation.

I'm still waiting on the pol of a majority of Canadians....

 

[NotedCoyote]

Why is Confederation necessary to develop infrastructure though?

My point is that anxiety about American ambitions exists for more than military reasons.

If the Fenian raids really mattered, then obviously, there's not the coherent, uniform Canadian consciousness one side in this argument insists existed and was overwhelingly dominant, no?

A trade deal between the U.S. and Canada was defeated on the Canadian side in 1911 because several leading politicians on the U.S. side argued that the treaty was a step towards annexation.

I'm still waiting on the pol of a majority of Canadians....

Confederation made economic development easier because it gave the Canadians more control over their own economic development, and streamlined the rules for trade and shipping between provinces. It's no coincidence that the Canadian Constitution gives the federal government authority over inter-provincial trade, and over national infrastructure projects like railroads that cross provincial borders. Having one government be needed to sign off on a railroad makes it a much more tempting choice for investment than if there are a large number of smaller local authorities (or distant colonial ones) that need to agree. It was also thought that closer economic ties between the provinces would help compensate for the loss of free trade with the US. Was it necessary to develop infrastructure? Probably not. Did it make developing infrastructure easier? Absolutely, and the Canadian business classes knew it would.

The Fenian raids mattered because they demonstrated that the Canadian militias in 1866 were poorly suited to defending the country, and they helped to strengthen a national Canadian identity by demonstrating that unity would be necessary to overcome foreign threats. As incentives for military reform went, they were similar to the disastrous performance of the American militia in 1812: they demonstrated the weakness of the present system without any actual major cost to those learning the hard lesson. The raids also increased anti-American settlement, because the US was seen as tacitly supporting the Fenians. As motivations for confederation go, the Fenian raids were a small one, but they contributed to the growing sense of Canadian national identity and helped convince the Maritimes that there were good military reasons to join together. They didn't create a uniform Canadian consciousness, but they strengthened the already growing sense of Canadian identity and hardened Canadian attitudes toward the United States.

I wasn't aware of Americans calling for annexation in 1911, so thanks for pointing that out. As you can see by the result though, signals from Washington in favour of annexing Canada tend to have a negative effect on Canadian attitudes toward America. As the Chicago Tribune put it at the time "Remarks about the absorption of one country by another grate harshly on the ears of the smaller." For one thing, those comments were enough to sink Wilfred Laurier's government - all the Conservatives had to do was point to the comments to unleash an almost hysterical wave of Anti-Americanism across the country.

You'll probably have to keep waiting on that poll - it's not like the British routinely held votes on whether or not their colonial possessions would like to become part of another country. Several of us have pointed out already that there's no historical evidence of a large group of pro-American Canadians hungry to be annexed by the US. If you have any evidence that they existed in the 1860s, you could certainly advance your position by presenting it. To the extent that Canadians feared a non-military annexation by the US, concerns were more about a wave of settlers outnumbering British and Canadian voices in the west (which could have had a Texas-like effect) rather than concerns about people already living within Canadian territory.

 

[Wendell]

But I was told that Anti-American sentiment was already pervasive by others in this thread, so how would he Fenian raids increasing such sentiment be relevant, or even achievable?

 

[Dan1988]

Why is Confederation necessary to develop infrastructure though?

It's actually pretty simple, really. Apart from the very poor state of the roads (admittedly one that was universal throughout North America) and the dominance of the waterways and canals (particularly the St. Lawrence in the case of Canada), the infrastructure in general was lacking and was not in a conducive east-west fashion (or, to be more accurate to compass points, northeast to southwest) outside of what was left over from the ancien régime. While the railways were a big thing, there was also a difference in that there were of different track gauges from the US and there was not much in terms of coordination. It's that sense of coordination among the remaining British North American colonies that was one factor (but not the only one) for the unification of BNA into one.

Of course, then you get crazy stuff like businessmen in Maine which wanted to unify their slowly developing rail network with Canada's because the promoters believed the Canadians found the magic solution for taming the New England winter, and making them safe for trains, but in the general scheme of things they could be dismissed as cranks/crackpots.

If the Fenian raids really mattered, then obviously, there's not the coherent, uniform Canadian consciousness one side in this argument insists existed and was overwhelingly dominant, no?

On the contrary - there was some sort of uniform consciousness within the then-United Province of Canada (the only example of a large-scale unitary state) that developed gradually, so it does not negate that. The Fenians were just basically airing their grievances against Britain vis-à-vis Ireland and forcing the Irish question out in the open, doing so in the most bone-headed way possible. Something which even Canada's growing Irish community looked down on; while they could understand the grievances, an invasion was certainly not the way to do it - and on this, whether or not one was a member of the Orange Order, everyone in the Irish-Canadian community could agree on that. Why it mattered to Canada was that it was feared that the Fenians were something other than just Ireland; that it was a Trojan horse for the US even though the US military was exhausted from the Civil War and needed time to regroup.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

How is that not, in essence, exactly what you've said. Also, I'm not saying that there was some magical, well-organized American fifth column in British North America, but that there's no real indication of a firm Canadian nationalism before Confederation that was any more potent a force than Texas nationalism before 1845. That difference is important.

How is there no indication of a Canadian identity? Not the 2019 Canadian identity no, but the English speaking Canadians overwhelmingly thought of themselves as British citizens, entitled to all the rights and protections thereof. The French speaking Canadiens (important difference pre-1867) had an independent identity going back to the conquest of Canada by Britain.

Those two distinct national identities were easily spotter by Lord Durham 150 years ago, and were quite evident to the people on the ground at the time.

What exactly is your argument here? Mexico invited the colonization of Texas, and ultimately, the decision of Texas to later seek annexation to the United States was not without opposition or controversy.

That Texas bears no similarity to Canada in the period whatsoever. No one in Canada wanted to be American, pretty clearly evidenced by no one ever sincerely calling for annexation between 1775 and 1867. Unlike Texas.