Transcript 2.1 British Colonial Rule

British North America
Cluster 2
Looking Back…The Treaty of Paris
• After the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, France signed away
their North American empire. Under the terms of the Treaty of
Paris, the French gave up control of:
• Canada (really, the St Laurence heartland)
• The rest of Acadia (including Cape Breton and PEI)
• Any claim to the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes
• French Louisiana
• All that was left of France’s once vast empire in North America were two
small islands off the coast of Newfoundland: St Pierre and Miquelon—
which are territories of France to this day.
Pontiac’s Resistance
• With the Treaty of Paris signed, Britain now held claim to the vast interior of
the North American continent. They barely had time to catch their breath,
however, when a new challenge to their authority reared up. It came from
France’s former Native allies.
• The British had signed peace treaties with some of the First Nations in the
St Lawrence area prior to the Conquest, but not with those in the interior.
• As the British began moving in and taking over French posts throughout the
region, resentment among the Natives grew.
• Pontiac, an Odawa First Nations war chief, had fought as an ally of the
French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. After the conquest of
Nouvelle-France, he had tried to build alliances with the British, but without
success.
• He saw his people suffering under British rule and decided to do something
about it.
• Under his leadership, First Nations from the Ohio Valley, around the Great
lakes, and in the Northwest united to fight the British, beginning in 1762.
• In 1766, Pontiac, on behalf of the First Nations he represented, signed a
peace treaty with the British at Fort Ontario.
• Pontiac agreed to allow the British to take back their forts, but he insisted
that First Nations hunting grounds had to be protected from settlement.
Biological Warfare
• It was at the height of the Pontiac Rebellion that General Amherst earned
lasting notoriety as an early proponent of “biological warfare”.
• Amherst suggested the ruthless strategy of secretly circulating smallpox-infested
blankets among the First Nations peoples.
• Officers stationed at Fort Pitt presented Native leaders with a “gift” of blankets and
handkerchiefs taken from a smallpox hospital, which triggered an epidemic in First
Nations communities.
There is controversy about what actually happened. Some
historians believe smallpox spread among the First Nations
simply from contact with soldiers who had the disease. If
the account about the blanket pieces is true, however, the
action is one of the first examples in history of the use of
germ warfare to defeat an enemy.
The Royal Proclamation (1763)
• Pontiac’s Resistance showed that First Nations were a threat to British
control in North America. Britain decided that pacifying First Nations was
the best alternative to more costly wars.
• To accomplish this, Britain issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The
Royal Proclamation created a clear boundary between British colonies and
lands reserved for First Nations.
• Britain hoped that by keeping colonists separate from First Nations, further
conflicts over land could be avoided.
• Among the key points were the following:
• The St Lawrence region of New France became the newly created “Province of
Québec”
• The “Province of Nova Scotia” was expanded to include the remaining
territories of what had once been French Acadia (today’s Cape Breton, P.E.I.,
and New Brunswick). Nova Scotia now covered the entire Maritime region.
• The most striking feature of the Proclamation was its approach to Native lands.
To encourage a more “orderly” expansion, settlement was prohibited west of
the Appalachian Mountains, and anyone wishing to trade in the interior would
have to get a license first.
• The interior, off-limits to settlers, was reserved as “Indian territory” and
would be administered through a Superintendent of Indian Affairs, located
in London, whose job was to arrange land treaties with the First Nations
prior to development.
• The policy was designed to stabilize the volatile native interior and maintain
the fur trade with little disruption.
• The policy was aimed to make Quebec more attractive to English
settlers by introducing British law, and abolishing the seigneurial
system. This would increase the English speaking population and
decrease the Canadien (French speaking residents of Quebec)
majority in that area and encourage assimilation.
• However, only a handful of English settlers decided to make a home in
this French speaking Catholic colony.
• The Royal Proclamation marked the first time that Britain gave legal
recognition to prior aboriginal land rights. The key passage reads:
Any Lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us…are
restricted to the said Indians
The Proclamation Line
(1763)
The Québec Act (1774)
• In 1774, the British parliament passed the Québec Act, revoking the
Royal Proclamation and enlarging Québec’s territory to include the
Ohio Valley.
• The act also guaranteed French language rights and made provisions to
allow Roman Catholics to take some roles in the colony’s governance.
• The Québec Act reinstated French property and civil laws, but kept
British criminal laws. To this day, this legal blend still exists in the
province.
North America after the
Québec Act (1774)
The features contained in the Québec Act prompted a variety of reactions:
Discontent in the Thirteen Colonies
• For many people living in the Thirteen Colonies, their relationship with
Britain had become unbearable.
• Britain believed the colonists should help pay for the costly military efforts
of past wars and for keeping soldiers in North America.
• Britain instituted a number of taxes to try to recoup some of the expenses,
which outraged the colonists.
• The colonists also argued that they should have more voice in how they were
governed and how they would be taxed.
The American War of Independence is often called the
American Revolution, and the “rebels” who supported the
war against the British are sometimes called “patriots”.
• What is the difference between each term?
• What does the difference teach you about perspectives in
this war and others?
• The rebels from the Thirteen Colonies hoped the Canadiens would
support their cause to overthrow the British.
• Britain hoped the Québec Act had sufficiently appeased the Canadiens
and that they would take up arms to fight the rebels. Church leaders
supported Carleton (governor who helped institute the Québec Act),
and advised their congregations to side with the British rather than the
rebellious Yankees.
• When the American rebels attacked Québec City and Montréal in 1775,
they were met with indifference from most Canadiens.
• Some Canadiens formed groups to fight the British, but most remained
neutral.
Treaty of Paris (1783)
• The Treaty of Paris of 1783 officially put an end to the American
War of Independence.
• The treaty recognized British North America’s right to exist
independently from the new country to the south, the United
States of America.
• However, most of the terms of the Treaty of Paris, such as new
boundary lines, were generous to the United States at British
North America’s expense.
North America after the
Treaty of Paris (1783)
• What do you think were the most
important changes to take place in North
America in the last 20 years from the fall
of Nouvelle-France to the Treaty of
Paris?
• How do you think life stayed the same?
The Loyalists
• Two major concessions Britain received in the 1783 Treaty of
Paris was the protection of those who had remained loyal to them
during the American War of Independence. Not everyone living
in the Thirteen Colonies had been sympathetic to the
revolutionaries.
• Those who remained loyal to Britain were called the United
Empire Loyalists.
• Many had been persecuted by rebel forces during the war. Most were
forced to flee their land, homes, and possessions.
• Some Loyalists started arriving in BNA soon after the war broke
out, but most were evacuated by ship from New York in 1783 and
1784, after the war was over. Some returned to Britain or to other
British colonies.
• Between 1782 and 1784, approximately 35 000 Loyalist families
settled in Nova Scotia, with about 10 000 Loyalist families settling
in Québec.
• In Nova Scotia, the Loyalists quickly outnumbered the rest of the
population, and began to demand more political autonomy.
• In 1784, the area was separated from Nova Scotia to become the
colony of New Brunswick.
The Loyalists were a varied group. They had little in common
except that they were opposed to the American Revolution.
Consider some of the different groups among them.
Loyalist Routes and
Settlements before 1800
The Constitutional Act (1791)
• The arrival of the Loyalists changed BNA’s demographics by
increasing both its English speaking population and demand for
agricultural land.
• In response to the changing social landscape, Sir Guy Carleton
decided to revamp the terms of the Québec Act, instituting the
Constitutional Act of 1791.
• This act recognized that there were two dominant groups in the colony:
English and French.
• Each group had different religions, political and legal outlooks and had
different economic and land-owning traditions.
• To reflect this distinctive reality, Carleton created two separate colonies:
Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) and Lower Canada (present-day
Québec)
• Each of the Canadas could maintain its own language regulations, laws, and
land-owning system, and religious institutions.
British North America
1791
Dissatisfaction Grows…
• The tension between Britain and the United States did not end with the
signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Many issues continued to
aggravate relations between the two countries.
• To avoid another war, the United States and Britain signed yet another
treaty, to maintain peace and increase trade, but still did not resolve all
issues.
• By 1812, a group of American politicians believed Britain was once again
strangling their political and economic goals, and called for the opportunity to
permanently rid North American of British influence
The War of 1812
• In 1812, the United States declared war on Britain, and American soldiers
marched north. They thought they would win British North America easily,
since there were so many former American colonists there. They even
thought the French might join with the former Americans to get the British
out of the colony.
• However, most settlers did not support the Americans. Even some of their
own American countrymen did not support the war.
• Both the British and Americans won and lost battles during the War of 1812.
• After two years of fighting, the War ended in a stalemate.
• When the war ended in 1814, they signed the Treaty of Ghent. Neither the
British nor the Americans gained any land in the treaty.
• Canada and the US have not been at war with each other since the end of
the War of 1812.
• What do we really know about the War of 1812?
• The War of 1812: The Movie
• RMR: The War of 1812
Toward Responsible Government…
• The problem with the 1791 Constitutional Act was that an elite minority
ruled the colony.
• Though divided linguistically, most Upper and Lower Canadians in BNA
shared similar democratic goals, yet each side was controlled by an
oligarchy, a small ruling class.
• The elites used political power to expand their own economic power.
• The people who gave a voice to the needs of the majority of the population
were the reformers, who held the majority in the assemblies of both Upper
and Lower Canada.
• Reformers were people who wanted responsible government, in which
government is kept accountable by voters, who can elect to support a
government, or to vote in a new government.
• Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the reformers’ demands grew in urgency
as the elites continued to ignore them.