Canadian Confederation fails, wither Rupert's Land?

[Timmy811]

Apparently there was political infighting among the Maritimes, Upper & Lower Canada and among the colonial elite, and on top of that the transcandian railroad nearly went bankrupt, so the Confederation of Canada was not a sure thing. I've read here on AH.com that a sale of the Rupert's Land to the US was briefly explored by the British. I'm interested in learning more about that. Are there any good sources anyone could recommend?

In the event that Confederation fails and Britain decides to sell off the Prairies to the U.S., how much of Rupert's Land was envisioned to be sold? Surely not the territories north and east of the Great Lakes such as Ungava, so where would the border be?

How was the Hudson Bay Company to be compensated?

How would British Columbia be impacted? Is it viable as an independent Dominion, surrounded by American territory?

 

[The Uchronian]

Apparently there was political infighting among the Maritimes, Upper & Lower Canada and among the colonial elite, and on top of that the transcandian railroad nearly went bankrupt, so the Confederation of Canada was not a sure thing. I've read here on AH.com that a sale of the Rupert's Land to the US was briefly explored by the British. I'm interested in learning more about that. Are there any good sources anyone could recommend?

In the event that Confederation fails and Britain decides to sell off the Prairies to the U.S., how much of Rupert's Land was envisioned to be sold? Surely not the territory north and east of the Great Lakes, so where would the border be?

How was the Hudson Bay Company to be compensated?

How would British Columbia be impacted? Is it viable as an independent Dominion, surrounded by American territory?

Well, TBH, I'm not all that sure that British Columbia would be able to survive the loss of all of Rupert's Land. If anything at all, this may make things quite difficult for them: it's even possible that B.C. may eventually just fold up, give in, and join the United States as well.

A more realistic scenario would be that Rupert's Land gets re-organized, and eventually becomes Assiniboia or something along those lines.....maybe around 1890 or so.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Apparently there was political infighting among the Maritimes, Upper & Lower Canada and among the colonial elite, and on top of that the transcandian railroad nearly went bankrupt, so the Confederation of Canada was not a sure thing. I've read here on AH.com that a sale of the Rupert's Land to the US was briefly explored by the British. I'm interested in learning more about that. Are there any good sources anyone could recommend?

The failure of Canadian Confederation is...unlikely at best. The provincial elites (both economic and political) realized there was too much to be missed if they backed out of Confederation. The demographic and economic factors were pretty much all against it, and at the Charlottetown Conference delegates from every province were enthusiastic about the idea.

That being said there is a chance Canada could be split into three separate entities: a 'Canada' consisting of potentially Canada East and West and much of the prairies, a Maritime Dominion consisting of only the Maritime Provinces, and British Columbia which would probably find itself linked to Canada by the want of both parties to connect to the trade on either side of the country.

In the event that Confederation fails and Britain decides to sell off the Prairies to the U.S., how much of Rupert's Land was envisioned to be sold? Surely not the territories north and east of the Great Lakes such as Ungava, so where would the border be?

How was the Hudson Bay Company to be compensated?

How would British Columbia be impacted? Is it viable as an independent Dominion, surrounded by American territory?

Not incredibly likely. The 49th Parallel had already been agreed upon by both parities at the Treaty of 1818 and Britain wasn't keen to see that change. Should Confederation fail then Britain will do all in her power to see that her colonies there absorb the prairies.

BC is put in an interesting position though, as she is technically only coming out of Crown Colony status since it was seen that Confederation was likely, and the British would probably want to tie her on to the Canadas which would prevent it from falling into American hands. That would of course bring incentive for a trans-continental railway which would bind the nation together.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

The failure of Canadian Confederation is...unlikely at best. The provincial elites (both economic and political) realized there was too much to be missed if they backed out of Confederation. The demographic and economic factors were pretty much all against it, and at the Charlottetown Conference delegates from every province were enthusiastic about the idea.

That being said there is a chance Canada could be split into three separate entities: a 'Canada' consisting of potentially Canada East and West and much of the prairies, a Maritime Dominion consisting of only the Maritime Provinces, and British Columbia which would probably find itself linked to Canada by the want of both parties to connect to the trade on either side of the country.

Remember that the original conference on Confederation was only the Maritime provinces. The Union of Canada (Upper and Lower = Ontario and Quebec) invited themselves to the meeting. If they hadn't, it's not terribly likely that the Maritime Union would have included Canada.

Note, too, that iOTL, PEI and Newfoundland both refused to join the new Union initially. PEI came around after a handful of years (AFTER BC!), and Newfoundland took until after WWII.

So, avoiding anything like OTL's Canada is pretty easy.


As for BC: It was accessed by sea mostly until the advent of the CPR. If OTL's Canada never happens, they could easily stay a British colony, ultimately a Dominion, just like Newfoundland did.

Prairies. There's a handful of ways to get to the Prairies.
1) You can do like the HBC did and come in through Hudson's Bay, which is only open a few months of the year, and then canoe upriver. No way are you are you going to get more than a handful of settlers in that way.
2) You can do like the NorthWest Company, and come in through Lake Superior, then paddle upriver, over portages, to Lake Winnipeg then paddle up river from there - following the same basic river routes as the HBC.

Neither of these methods lets you bring in more than a handful of settlers. And neither lets you export agricultural products. High value furs? Yes. Precious metals, if there were any, which there aren't? probably. Grain? No way on God's green earth.

3) up the Red River from Minnesota. Until the advent of the Railway, this is the ONLY way to get production out. However since this route goes through the US, the prairies would become first an economic colony, then a political one, of the US.

4) Building an (almost ASB level of) expensive railroad across the Canadian Shield. Something like a thousand miles of granite and basalt, interspersed with lakes and muskeg.



If that railway doesn't get built, as it very nearly didn't even in OTL, then the Prairies WILL be settled by Americans. Once the population is majority US citizens, well, Britain's not going to go to war over an area that a) doesn't want them, and b) they can't get an army to.

 

[Luminous]

snip

That's... an interesting point there. Say such a thing happens. What would happen to the various territories? And what would the defining points of a de facto American Rupert's Land be? The entirety of the territory? All parts excluding modern day Quebec? Modern Ontario? What of the island territories, Baffin Island et. al? With whom would they remain?

And if the US gets a great deal of the territory (up to OTL Quebec, for argument's sake) I wonder what would happen to Ontario. Could they have remained independent with the US surrounding them on all sides? Or would they have joined with Quebec to create Canada, with the Maritimes still separate?

That, and BC becomes all the more precarious. They probably could remain independent for a long time. If the US gets Alaska in this timeline, they wouldn't need BC to have a land route, but it would still be the shortest route. They would face the same problem as Ontario.

Pardon me if I'm incorrect on any presumption here. Just curious, as I hadn't known about those realities facing Rupert's land.

 

[The Gunslinger]

You might just Britain footing the bill for a transcontinental railroad to support the prairies.

And if Britain REALLY wanted too... they could always get a line south from Churchill to Winnipeg. It got built OTL without too much trouble (mostly financial as opposed to engineering).