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The British ordered the Acadians expelled from their lands in 1755 during
the French and Indian War, an event called the Expulsion of the Acadians or
le Grand Derangement.[89] The “explusion” resulted in approximately
12,000 Acadians being shipped to destinations throughout Britain’s North
America and to France, Quebec and the French Caribbean colony of Saint-
Domingue.[90] The first wave of the expulsion of the Acadians began with
the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755) and the second wave began after the final
Siege of Louisbourg (1758). Many of the Acadians settled in southern
Louisiana, creating the Cajun culture there. [91] Some Acadians managed to
hide and others eventually returned to Nova Scotia, but they were far
outnumbered by a new migration of New England Planters who were settled
on the former lands of the Acadians and transformed Nova Scotia from a
colony of occupation for the British to a settled colony with stronger ties to
New England. [91] Britain eventually gained control of Quebec City and
Montreal after Battle of Fort Niagara in 1759, and the Battle of the Thousand
Islands and Battle of Sainte-Foy in 1760.[92] Amongst notable Metis people
are television actor Tom Jackson,[98] Commissioner of the Northwest
Territories Tony Whitford, and Louis Reil who led two resistance
movements: the Red River Rebellion of 1869- 1870 and the North- West
Rebellion of 1885, which ended in his trial.[99][100][101]

The languages inherently Metis are either Metis French or a mixed language
called Michif. Michif, Mechif or Metchif is a phonetic spelling of Metif, a
variant of Metis.[102] the Metis today predominantly speak English, with
French s strong second language, as well as numerous Aboriginal tngues. A
19th-century community of the Metis people, the Anglo-Metis, were referred
to as Countryborn. They were children of Rupert’s Land fur trade typically of
Orcadian, Scottish, or England paternal descent and Aboriginal maternal
descent.[103] Their first languages would have been Aboriginal (Cree,
Saulteaux, Assiniboine, etc.) and English. Their fathers spoke Gaelic, thus
leading to the development of an English dialect referred to as
“Bungee”.[104]
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S.35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 mentions the Metis yet there has long been
debate over legally defining the term Metis,[105] but on September 23, 2003,
the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Metis are a distinct people with
significant rights (Powley ruling).[106]

Metis
The Metis are people descended from marriages between Europeans (mainly
French) [95] and Cree, Ojibway, Algonquin, Saulteaux, Menominee, Mi’kmaq,
Maliseet, and other First Nations.[14] Their history dates to the mid-17th
century.[3] When Europeans first arrived to Canada they relied on Aboriginal
people for fur trading skills and survival. To ensure alliances, relationship
between European fur traders and Aboriginal women were often
consolidated through marriage.[96] The Metis homeland consists of the
Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba,
Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scoti, and Ontario, as well as the Northwest
Territories (NWT).[97]

Warfare was common among Inuit groups with sufficient population density.
Inuit, such as the Nunatamiut (Uummarmuit) who inhabited the Mackenzie
River delta area, often engaged in common warfare. The Central Arctic Inuit
lacked the population density to engage in warfare. In the 13th century, the
Thule culture began arriving in Greenland from what is now Canada. Norse
accounts are scant. Norse-made items from Inuit campsites in Greenland
were obtained by either trade or plunder.[87] One account, Ivar Baroarson,
speaks of “small people” with whom the Norsemen fought.[88] 14th-century
accounts that a western settlement, one of the two Norse settlements, was
taken over by the Skrᴂling.[89]

After the disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland, the Inuit had no
contact with Europeans for at least a century. By the mid-16th century, Baque
fishers were already working the labrador coast and had established whaling
stations on land, such as been excavated at Red Bay.[90] The Inuit appear nit
to have interfered with their operations, but they did raid the stations in
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winter for tools, and particularly worked iron, which they adapted to native
needs.[91]

Inuit

The Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule culture,
which emerged from eastward across the Arctic, displacing the Dorset
culture (in Inuktitut, the Tuniit). Inuit historically referred to the Tuniit as
“giants”, or “dwarfs”, who were taller and stronger than the Inuit.[85]
Researchers hypothesize that the Dorset culture lacked dogs, larger weapons
and other technologies used by the expanding Inuit society.[86] By 1300, the
Inuit had settled in west Greenland, and finally moved into east Greenland
over the following century. The Inuit had trade routes with more southern
culture. Boundary disputes were common and led to aggressive actions.[15]

Many Aboriginal civilizations[76] established characteristics and hallmarks

that included permanent urban settlements or cities,[77] agriculture, civic
and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies.[78] These
cultureshad evolved and changed by the time of the first permanent
European arrivals (c. late 15th-early 16th centuries), and have been brought
forward through archaeological investigations.[79]

There are indications of contract made before Christopher Columbus

between the first peoples and those from other continents. Aboriginal people
in Canada interacted with Europeans around 1000 CE, but prolongled
contact came after Europeans established permanent settlements in the 17th
and 18th centuries.[80] Europeans written accounts generally recorded
friendliness of the First Nations, who profited in trade with Europeans. [80]
Such trade generally strengthened the more organized political entities such
as the Iroquois Confederation.[81] Throughout the 16th century, European
fleets made almost annual visits to the eastern shores of Canada to cultivate
the fishing opportunities. A sideline industry emerged in the un-organized
traffic of furs overseen by the Indian Department.[82]
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First Nation
First Nations peoples had settled and established trade routes across what
is now Canada by 500 BCE- 1,000 CE. Communities developed each with its
own culture, customs, and character.[75] In the northwest were the
Athapaskan, Slavey, Dogrib, Tutchone, and Tlingit. Along the Pacific coast
were the Tsimshian; Haida; Salish; Kwakiutl; Heiltsuk; Noontka; Nisga’a;
Senakw and Gitxsan. In the plains were the Blackfoot; Kaínawa; Sarcee and
Peigan. In the northern woodlands were the Cree and Chipewyan. Around
the Great Lakes were the Anishinaabe; Algonquin; Iroquois and Huron. Along
the Atlantic coast were the Beothuk, Maliseet, Innu, Abenaki and Mi'kmaq.
The Woodland cultural period dates from about 2,000 BCE- 1,000 CE, and
has locales in Ontario, Quebec, and Maritime regions.[71] The Introduction
of pottery distinguishes the Woodland culture from the earlier Archaic stage
inhabitants. Laurentian people of southern Ontario manufactured the oldest
pottery excavated to date in Canada.[60] They created pointed-bottom
beakers decorated by a cord marking technique that involved impressing
tooth implements into wet clay. Woodland technology included items such
as beaver incisor knives, bangles, and chisels. The population practising
sedentary agricultural life ways continued to increase on a diet of squash,
corn, and bean crops.[60]

The Hopewell tradition is an Aboriginal culture that flourished along

American rivers from 300 BCE- 500 CE. At its greatest extent, the Hopewell
Exchange System networked cultures and societies with the peoples in the
Canadian shores of Lake Ontario. Canadian expression of the Hopewellian
people encompasses the Point Peninsula, Saugeen, and Laurel complexes.
[72][73][74]

The west coast of Canada by 7,000-5,00 BCE ( 9,000- 7,000 years ago) saw
various cultures who organized themselves around salamon fishing.[65] The
Nuu-chah-nulth of Vancouver Island began whaling with advanced long
spears at about this time.[65] The Marinetime Archaic is one group of North
America's Archaic culture of sea-mammal hunters in the subarctic. They
prospered from approximately 7,000BCe-1,500 BCE (9,000-3,500 years ago)
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along the Atlantic Coast of North America.[66] Their settlements include
longhouses and boat-topped temporary or seasonal houses. They engaged in
long-distance trade, using as currency white chert, a rock quarried from
northern Labrador to Maine.[67] The Pre-Columbian culture, whose
members were called Red Paint People, is Indigenous to the New England
and Atlantic Canada regions of North America. The culture flourished
between 3,000 BCE- 1,000 BCE (5,000- 3,000 years ago) and was named
after their burial ceremonies, which used large quantities of red orchre to
cover bodies and grave goods.[68]

The placement of artifacts and materials within an Archaic burial site

indicated social differentiation based upon status.[58] There is a continuous
record of occupation of S’olh Temexw by Aboriginal people dating from the
early Holocene period, 10,000-9,000 years ago.[62] Archaeological sites at
SteveLlake, Coquitiam Lake, Fort Langley and region uncovered early period
artifacts. these early inhabitants were highly mobile hunter-gatherers,
consisting of about 20 to 50 members of an extended family.[62][verification
needed] The Na-Dene people occupied much of the land area pf northwest
and central North America starting around 8,000 BCE.[63] They were the
earliest ancestorspf the Athabaskan-speaking peoples,including the Navajo
and Apache. They had villages with large multi-family dwellings, used
seasonally during the summer, from which they hunted,fished and Gathered
food supplies for the winter.[64] The Wendat peoples settled into Southern
Ontario along the Eramosa River around 8,000-7,000 BCE (10,000-9,000
years ago).[65] They were concentrated between Lake Simcoe and Georgian
Bay. Wendat hunted caribou to survive on the glacier-covered land.[65] Many
different First Nations cultures relied upon the buffalo starting by 6,000-
5,000 BCE (8,000-7,000 years ago).[65] They hunted buffalo by herding
migrating buffalo off cliffs. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, near Lethbridge,
Alberta, is a hunting grounds that was in use for about 5,000 years.[65]

The Arctic small tool tradition is a broad cultural entity that developed along
the Alaska Peninsula, around Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the
Bering Strait around 2,500 BCE(4,000 years ago).[69] These Paleo-arctic
peoples had a highly distinctive toolkit of small blades (microblades) that
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were pointed at both end and used as side- or end-barbs on arrows or spears
made other material, such as bone or antler, Scrapers , envraving tools and
adze blades were also include in thier toolkits.[69] The Arctic small tool
tradition branches off into two cultural variants, including the Pre- Dorset,
and the Independence traditions .These two groups, ancestors of Thule
people, were displace by the Inuit by 1000 Common Era (CE).[69]:179- 81

Post- Archaic Period

A northely section focusing on the Saugeen, Laurel and Point Peninsula
complexes of the map showing south eastern United State and the Great Lake
area of Canada showing the Hopewell Interaction Sphere and in different
colours the various local expression of the Hopewell cultures, including the
Laurel Complex, Saugeen Complex, Point Peninsula Complex, Marksville
culture, Copena culture, Kansas City Hopewell, Swift Creek culture, Goodall
Focus, Crab Orchad culture and Havana Hopewell culture.

The Old Copper Complex societies dating from 3,000 BCE- 500 BCE(5,000-
2,500 years ago) are manifestation of the Woodland Culture, and are pre-
pottery in nature.[70] Evidence found in the northern Great Lakes regions
indicates that they extracted copper from local glacial deposit and used it in
its natural form to manufacture tools and implements.[70]

The Plano culture was a group of hunter-gatherer communities that

occupied the Great Plains area of North America between 12,000- 10,000
years ago.[56] The Paleo-Indians moved into new territory as it emerged
from under the glaciers. Big game flourished in this new environment.[57]
The Plano culture are characterized by a range of projectile point tools
collectively called Plano points, which were used to hunt bison. Thier diet
also include pronghorn, elk, deer, raccoon and coyote.[56] At the beginning
of the Archaic Era, they began to adopt a sedentary approach to
subsistence.[56] Sites in and around Belmont, Nova Scotia have evidence of
Plano- Indianas, indicating small seasonal hunting camps, perhaps re-visited
over generations from around 11,000- 10,000 years ago.[56] Seasonal large
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and smaller game fish and fowl were food and raw material sources.
Adaptation to the harsh environment included tailored clothing and skin-
covered tents on wooden frames.[56]

Archaic period
The North America climate stabilized by 8000 BCE( 10,000 years ago);
climatic condition were very similar today’s.[58] This led to widespread
migration, cultivation and later a dramatic rise in population all over the
Americans.[58] Over the course of Thousands of years, American indigenous
people domesticated, bred a d cultivated a large array of plant species.These
species now constitute 50 -60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide.[59]

A Clovis point created using bi-facial percussion flaking (that is, each face is
flaked on both edges alternatively with a percussion)

Clovis sites dated at 13,500 years ago were discovered in western North
America during the 1930s. Clovis people were regarded as the first
widespread Paleo-Indians inhabitants of the New World and ancestors to all
indigenous peoples in the Americas.[49] Archaeological discoveries in the
past thirty years have brought forward other distinctive knapping cultures
who occupied the Americans from the lower Great Plains to the shores of
Chile.[50]
Localized regional cultures developed from the time of the Younger Dryas
cold climate period form 12,900 to 11,500 years ago.[51] The Folsom
tradition are characterized by their use of Folsom points as projectile tips at
Archaeological sites. These tools assisted activities at kill sites that marked
the slaughter and butchering of bison.[52]

The land bridge existed until 13,000- 11,000 years ago, long after the oldest
proven human settlements in the New World began.[53] lower sea level in
the Queen Charlotte sound and Hecate Strait produced great grass lands
called archipelago of Haida Gwaii.[54] Hunter-Gatherers of the area left
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distinctive lithic technology tools and the remains of large butchered
mammals, occupying the area from 13,000- 9,000 years ago.[54] In July
1992, the Federal Government officially designated Xa:ytem (near Mission,
British Columbia) as a National Historic Site, one of the first indigenous
spiritual sites in Canada to be formally recognized in this manner.[55]

The first inhabitants of North America arrived in Canada at least 15,000

years ago, though increasing evidence suggests an even earlier arrival.[40] it
is believed the inhabitants entered the Americans pursuing Pleistocene
mammals such as the giant beaver, steppe wisent, musk ox, mastodon, wolly
mammoths and ancient reindeer (early caribou).[41] One route
hypothesized is that people walked south by way of an ice-free corridor on
the east side of the Rocky Mountains, and then fanned out across North
America before continuing on to South America.[42] The other conjectured
route is that they migrated, either on foot or using primitive boats, down the
Pacific Coast to the tip of South America, and then crossed the Rockies and
Andes.[43] Evidence of the latter has been covered by a sea level rise a
hundereds of metres following the last ice age.[45]

The Old Crow Flats and basin was one of the areas in Canada untouched by
glaciation during Pleistocene Ice age, thus it served as a pathway and refuge
for ice age plants and animals.[46] The area holds evidence pf early human
habitation in Canada dating from about 12,000 years.[47] Fossils from the
area include some never accounted for in North America, such as hyenas and
large camels.[48] Bluefish Caves is an Archaeological site in Yukon, Canada
from which a specimen of apparently human-worked mammoth bone has
been radiocarbon dated to 12,000 years ago.[47] Fossils from the area
include some never accounted for in North America, such as hyenas and large
camels.[48] Bluefish Caves is an archaeological site in Yukon, Canada from
which a specimen of apparently human-worked mammoth bone has been
radiocarbon dated to 12,000 years ago.[47]
Maps depicting each phase of a three-step early human migrations for the
peopling of the Americas
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According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America

were the last continents in the world with human habitation.[27] During the
Wisconsin glaciation, 50,000- 17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed
people to move across the Bering land bridge that joined Siberia to north
west North America (Alaska).[28] Alaska was ice-free because of low
snowfall, allowing a small population to exist. The Laurentide ice sheet
covered most of Canada, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them
to Alaska (East Beringia) for thousands of years.[29][30]

Aboriginal genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas
share a single ancestral population, one that developed in isolation,
conjectured to be Beringia.[34][35][33] The isolation of these peoples in
Beringia might have lasted 10,000- 20,000 years.[34][35][36] Around
16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south
and east into Canada and beyond.[37][38][39]

The term Eskimo has pejorative connotations in Canada and Greenland.

Indigenous peoples in those areas have replace the term Eskimo with
Inuit.[23][24] The Yupik of Alaska and Siberia do not consider themselves
Inuit, and ethnographers agree they are a distinct people.[8][24] They prefer
the terminology Yupik, Yupiit, or Eskimo. The Yupik languages are
linguistically distinct from the Inuit languages.[8] Linguistic groups of Arctic
people across the geographical area inhabited by the Inuit and Yupik
peoples.[8]

Beside these ethnic descriptors, Aboriginal peoples are often divided into
legal categories based on their relationship with the Crown (i.e. the state).
Section 91 (clause 24) of the Constitution Act, 1867 gives the federal
government (as opposed to the provinces) the sole responsibility for
“Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians”. The government inherited
treaty obligations from the British colonial authorities in Eastern Canada and
signed treaties itself with First Nations in Western Canada (the Numbered
Treaties). It also passed the Indian Act in 1876 which governed its
interactions with all treaty and non-treaty peoples. Members of First Nations
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bands that are subject to the Indian Act with the Crown are compiled on a
list called Status Indians. Many non-treaty First Nations and all Inuit and
Metis peoples are not subject to the Indian Act. However, two court cases
have clarified that Inuit, Metis, and non-status First Nations people, all are
covered by the term “Indians” in the Constitution Act, 1867. The first was Re
Eskimos in 1939 covering the Inuit, the second being Daniels v. Canada in
2013 which applies to Metis and non-Status First Nations.[25]

Notwithstanding Canada’s location within the Americas, the term “Native

America” is not used in Canada as it is typically used solely to describe the
indigenous people within the boundaries of the present-day United
States.[26]

the characteristics of Canadian Aboriginal culture included permanent

settlements,[10] agriculture,[11] civic and ceremonial architecture,[12]
complex societal hierarchies and trading networks.[13] The Metis culture of
mixed blood originated in the mid-17th century when First Nation and Inuit
people married Europeans .[14] The Inuit had more limited interaction with
European settlers during that early period.[15] Various laws, treaties, and
legislation have been enacted between European immigrants and First
Nations across Canada. Aboriginal Right to Self-Government provides
opportunity to manage historical, cultural, political, health care and
economic control aspects within first people’s communities.

As of the 2011 census, Aboriginal peoples in Canada totaled 1,400,685

people, or 4.3% of the national population, spread over 600 recognized First
Nations governments or bands with distinctive culture, languages, art, and
music.[1][16] National Aboriginal Day recognizes the culture and
contributions of Aboriginal peoples to the history of Canada.[17] First
Nations, Inuit and Metis people of all backgrounds have become prominent
figures and have served as role models in the Aboriginal community and help
to shape the Canadian cultural identity.[18]
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The terms First People and First Nations are both used to refer to indigenous
people of Canada.[19] The terms First People or Aboriginal peoples in
Canada are normally broader terms than First Nations, as they include Inuit,
Metis and First Nations. First Nations (most often used in the plural) has
come into general use for the indigenous people of North America in Canada,
and their descendants, who are neither Inuit nor Metis. On reserves, First
Nations is being supplanted by members of various nations referring to
themselves by their group or ethnical identity. In conversation this would be
“I am Haida”, or “we are Kwantlens”, in recognition of their First Nations
ethnicities.[20] In this Act, “Aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the
Indian. Inuit and Metis people of Canada.[21]

Indians remains in place as the legal term used in the Canadian Constitution.
Its usage outside such situations can be considered offensive.[7] Aboriginal
peoples is more commonly used to describe all indigenous people of
Canada.[22] The term Aboriginal people is beginning to be considered
outdated and slowly being replaced by the term Indigenous people.[2]

Indigenous people in Canada

Indigenous people in Canada,[2] also known as Indigenous Canadians or

Aboriginal Canadians, are the indigenous people within the boundaries of
present-day Canada. They comprise the First Nations,[3] Inuit [4] and Metis.
[5] Altought “Indian”is a term still commonly used in legal documents, the
descriptors “Indian” and “Eskimo” have somewhat fallen into disuse in
Canada and some consider them to be pejoratice.[6][7][8] Similarly.
“Aboriginal” as a collective noun is a specific term of art used in some legal
documents, including the Constitution Act 1982, though in some circles that
word is also falling into disfavour.[9]

Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are some of the earliest known sites of
human habitation in Canada. The Paleo-Indian Clovis, Plano and Pre- Dorset
cultures pre-date current indigenous people of the Americas. Projectile point
tools, spears, pottery, bangles, chisels and scrapers mark archaeological
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sites, thus distinguishing cultural periods, traditions and lithic reduction
styles.

Under letters patent from King Henry VII of England, the Italian John Cabot
became the first European known to have landed in Canada after the time of
the Vikings.[33] Records indicate that on 24 June 1497 he sighted land at a
northern location believed to be somewhere in the Atlantic provinces.[34]
Official tradition deemed the first landing site to be at Cape Bonavista,
Newfoundland, although other locations are possible.[35] After 1497 Cabot
and his son Sebastian Cabot continued to make other voyages to find the
Northwest Passage, and other explorers continued to sail out of England to
the New World, although the details of these voyages are not well
recorded.[36]

Based on the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Spanish Crown claimed it had

territorial rights in the area visited by John Cabot in 1497 and 1498 CE.[37]
However, Portuguese explorers like Joao Fernandes Lavrador would
continue to visited the north Atlantic coast, which accounts for the
appearance of “Labrador” on topographical maps of the period.[38] In 1501
and 1502 the Corte-Real brothers explored Newfoundland (Terra Nova) and
Labrador claiming these lands as part of the Portuguese Empire.[38][39] In
1506, King Manuel I of Portugal created taxes for the cod Fisheries in
Newfoundland waters.[40] Joao Alvares Fagundes and Pero de Barcelos
established fishing outpost in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia around 1521
CE; however, these were later abandoned, with the Portuguese colonizers
focusing their efforts.

There are reports of contact made before the 1492 voyages of Christopher
Colunbus and the age of discovery between First Nations, Inuit and those
from other continents. The Norse, who had settled Greenland and Iceland,
arrived around the year 1000 and built a small settlement at L’Anse aux
Meadows at the northernmost tip of Newfoundland (carbon dating estimate
990 – 1050 CE)[31] L’Anse aux Meadows is also notable for its connection
with the attempted colony of Vinland established by Leif Erikson around the
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same period or, more broadly, with Norse exploration of the
Americas.[31][32]

Pre-Columbian distribution of Na-Dene

languages in North America
The Interior of British Columbia was home to the Salishan Language groups
such as the Shuswap (Secwepemc), Okanagan and southern Athabaskan
language groups, primarily the Dakelh (Carrier) and the Tsilhqot’in.[27] The
Inlets and valleys of the British Columbia Coast sheltered large, distinctive
population, such as the Haida, Kwakwak’wakw and Nuu-chuh-nulth,
sustained by the region’s abundant salmon and shellfish.[27] These people
developed complex cultures dependent on the western red cedar that
included wooden houses, seagoing whaling and war canoes and elaborately
carved potlatch items and totem poles.[27]

In the Arctic Archipelago, the distinctive Paleo-Eskimos known as Dorset

peoples, whose culture has been traced back to around 500 BCE, were
replaced by the ancestors of today’s Inuit by 1500 CE.[28] This transition is
supported by archaeological records and Inuit mythology that tells of having
driven off the Tuniit or ‘first inhabitants’.[29] Inuit tradition laws are
anthropologically different from Western law. Customary law was non-
existent in Inuit society before the introduction of the Canadian legal
system.[30]

Pre-Columbian distribution of Algonquian

Languages in North America
Speakers of eastern Algonquian languages included the Mi’kmaq and
Abenaki of the Maritime region of Canada and likely the extinct Beothuk of
Newfoundland.[18][19] The Ojibwa and other Anishinaabe speakers of the
central Algonquian languages retain an oral tradition of having moved to
their lands around the western and central Great Lakes from the sea, likely
the east coast.[20] According to oral tradition, the Ojibwa formed the Council
of Three Fires in 796 CE with the Odawa and the Potawatomi.[21]
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The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) were centred from at least 1000 CE in

northern New York, but their influence extended into what is now southern
Ontario and the Montreal area of modern Quebec.[22] The Iroquois
Confederacy, according to oral tradition, was formed in 1142 CE.[23][24] On
the Great Plains the Cree of Nehilawe (who spoke a closely related Central
Algonquian language, the plains Cree language) depended on the vast herds
of bison to supply food and many of their other needs.[25] To the northwest
were the people of the Na-Dene languages, which included the Athapaskan-
speaking peoples and the Tlingit, who lived on the island of southern Alaska
and northern British Columbia. The Na-Dene language group is believed to
be linked to the Yeniseian languages of Siberia.[26] The Dene of the western
Arctic may represent a distinct wave of migration from Asia to North
America.[26]

There were four French and Indian Wars and two additional wars in Acadia
and Nova Scotia between theThirteen American Colonies and New France
from 1688 and 1763. During King William’s Wars (1688 to 1697), military
conflicts in Acadia included: Battle of Port Royal(1690); a naval Battle in the
Bay of Fundy (Action of July 14, 1796); and the Raid of Chignecto (1696).[81]
The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 ended the war between the two colonial
powers of England and France for a brief time.[82] During Queen Anne’s War
(1702- 1713), the British Conquest of Acadia occured in 1710,[83] resulting
in Nova Scotia, other than Cape Breton, being officially ceded to the British
by the Treaty of Utrecht including Rupert's land, which France had
conquered in the late 17th century (Battle of Hudson's Bay).[84] As an
immediate result of this setback, France founded the powerful Fortress of
Louisburg on Cape Breton Island.[85]

Archeological and Aboriginal genetic evidence indicate that North and South
America were the last continents into which human migrated.[1] During the
Wisconsin glaciation, 15,000- 17,000 years ago, falling sea level allowed
people to move across the Bering land bridge (Beringia), from Siberia i to
northwest North America.[2] At that point, they were blocked by the
Laurentide ice sheet that covered most of Canada, cofining them to Alaska
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and the Yukon for thousand of years.[3] The exact dates and routes of the
peopling of the Americas are the subject of an ongoing debate.[4][5] By
16,000 years ago the glacial melt allowed people to move by land south and
east Beringia, and into Canada.[6] The Queen Charlotte Islands, Old Crow
Flats and Bluefish Caves contain some of the earliest Paleo-Indian
Archaeological sites in Canada.[7][8][9] Ice-age hunter-gatherers of this
period left lithic flake fluted stone tools and the remains of large butchered
mammals.

History of Canada
The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians
thousands of years ago to the present day.Canada has been inhabited for
millennia by distinctive groups of Aboriginal peoples, with distinct trade
networks, spiritual beliefs, and style of social organization. Some of these
civilizations had long faded by the time of the firts European arrivals and
have been discovered through Archaeological investigation. Various treaties
and laws have been enacted between European settlers and the Aboriginal
populations.

Beginning in the late 15th century, French and British expeditions explored,
and later settled, along the Atlantic Coast. France ceded nearly all of its
colonies in North America to Britain in 1763 after the Seven’s year War. In
1867, with the union of three British North America colonies through
Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces.
The began an accretion of province and territories and a process of
increasing autonomy from the British Empire, which became official with the
Statute of Westminster of 1931 and completed in the Canada Act of 1982,
which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British Parliament.

Great Depression

Canada was hard hit by the worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929,
between 1929 and 1933, the gross national product dropped
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40%(compared to 37% in the US). Unemployment reached 27% at the depth
of the Depression in 1933.[169] Many businesses closed, as corporate profits
of $396 million in 1929 turned into losses of $98 million in 1933. Canadian
export by 50% from 1929 to 1933. Construction all but stopped (down 82%,
1929-33), and wholesale prices dropped 30%. Wheat prices plunged from
78c per bushel (1828 crop) to 29c in 1932.[169]

Urban unemployment nationwide was 19%, Toronto’s rate was 17%,

according to the census of 1931, Famers who stayed on their farms were nkt
considered unemployed.[170] By 1933, 30% of the labour force was out of
work, and one fifth of the population became dependent on government
assistance. Wages fell as did prices. Worst hit were areas dependent on
primary industries such as farming, mining and logging, as prices fell and
there were few alternative jobs. Most families had moderate losses and little
hardship, though they too became pessimistic and thier debts became
heavier as prices fell. Some families saw most or all of thier assets disappear,
and suffered severely.[171][172]

In 1930, in the first stage of the long depression Prime Minister Mackenzie
King believe that the crisis was temporary swing of the business cycle and
that the economy would soon recover without government intervention. Be
refused to provide unemployment relief or federal aid to the provinces
saying that if Conservative provincial government demanded federal dollars,
he would not give them “a five cent piece”.[173] His blunt wisecrack was used
to defeat the Liberals in the 1930 election.the main issue was the rapid
deterioration in the economy and whether the prime minister was out of
touch with the hardship of ordinary people.[174][175] the winner of the
1930 election was Richard Bedford Bennett and the Conservatives. Bennett
had promised high tariffs and large-scale spending, but as deficits increase,
he became wary and cut back severaly on Federal spending. With falling
support and the depression getting only worse. Bennett attempted to
introduce policies based on the New Deal of President Frainklin D. Roosevelt
(FDR) in the United States, but he got little passed. Bennett’s government
became a focus of popular discontent. For example, aiyo owners save on
gasoline by using horses to pull their cars, dubbing them Bennett Buggies.
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The Conservatives failure to restore prosperity led to the return of
Mackenzie King’s Liberals in the 1935 election.[176]

In1935, the Liberals used the slogan “King or Chaos” to win landslide in the
1935 election.[177] Promising a much-desired trade Agreement. It marked
the turning point in Canadian-American economic relations, reversing the
disastrous trade war of 1930-31, lowering tariffs, and yielding a dramatic
increase in trade.[178]

The worst of the Depression had passed by 1935, as Ottawa launched relief
programs such as the National housing Act and National Employment
Commission. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation became a crown
corporation in 1936. Trans-Canada Airlines (the precursor to Air Canada)
was formed in 1937, as was the National Film Board of Canada in 1939. In
1938, Parliament transformed the Bank of Canada from a private entity to a
crown corporation.[179]

One political response was a highly restrictive immigration policy and a rise
in nativism.[180]

Times were especially hard in Western Canada, where a full of recovery did
not occur until the Second World War began in 1939. once response was the
creation of new political parties such as the Social Credit movement and the
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, as well as popular protest in the
form of the On-to-Ottawa trek.[181]

Second World War

Canada's involvement in the Second World War began when Canada declare
war on Nazi Germany on September 10, 1939 , delaying it one week after
Britain acted to symbolically demonstrate independence. The war restored
Canada's economic health and its self-confidence, as it played a major role in
the Atlantic and in Europe. During the war, Canada became more closely
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linked to the U.S the Americans took virtual control of Yukon in order to build
the Alaska Highway, and were a major presence in the British colony of
Newfoundland with major airbases.[182]

Mackenzie King - and Canada - were largely ignored by Winston Churchill

and the British government despite Canada's major role in supplying food,
raw materials, munitions and money to the hard-pressed British economy,
training airmen for the Commonwealth, guarding the western half of the
North Atlantic Ocean against German U-boats, and providing combat troops
for the invasions of Italy, France and Germany and1943-45. the government
successfully mobilize the economy for war, with impressive result in
industrial and agricultural output. The depression ended, prosperity
returned, and Canada’s economy expanded significantly. On the political side,
Mackenzie King rejected any notion of a government of nation unity.[183]
The Canadian federal election,1940 was held as normally
scheduled,producing another majority for the Liberals.

Building up the Royal Canadian Air Force was a high priority; it was kept
separate from Britain’s Royal Air Force. The British Commonwealth Air
Training Plan Agreement, signed in December 1939, bound Canada, Britain,
New Zealand, and Australia to a program that eventually trained half the
airmen from those four nations in the Second World War.[184]

After the start war with Japan in December 1941, the government, in
cooperation with the U.S., began the Japanese-Canadian internment, which
sent 22,000 British Columbia residents of Japanese descent to relocation
camps far from the coast. The reason was intense public demand for removal
and fears of espionage or sabotage.[185] The government ignored reports
from the RCMP and Canadian military that most of the Japanese were law-
abiding and not a threat.[186]

The Battle of the Atlantic began immediately, and from 1943 to 1945 was led
by Leonard W. Murray, from Novia Scotia. German U-boats operated in
Canadian and Newfoundland waters throughout the war, sinking many naval
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and merchant vessels, as Canada took charge of the defenses of the western
Atlantic.[187] The Canadian army was involved in the failed defence of Hong
Kong, the unsuccessful Dieppe Raid in August 1942, the Allied invasion of
Italy, and highly successful invasion of France and the Netherlands in 1944-
45.[188]

The Conscription Crisis of 1944 greatly affected unity between French and
English-speaking Canadians, though was not as politically intrusive as that
of the First World War.[189] Of a population of approximately 11.5 million,
1.1 million Canadians served in the armed forces in the Second World War.
Many thousands more served with the Canadian Merchant Navy.[190] In all,
more than 45,000 died, and another 55,000 were wounded.

Post-war Era 1945-1960

Prosperity returned to Canada during the Second World War and continued
in the proceeding years, with the development of universal health care, old-
age pensions, and veterans’ pensions.[193][194] The financial crisis of the
Great Depression had led the Dominion of Newfoundland to relinquish
responsible government in 1934 and become a crown colony ruled by a
British governor.[195] In 1948, the British government gave voters three
Newfoundland Referendum choices: remaining a crown colony, returning to
Dominion status (that is , independence) , or joining Canada. Joining the
United States was not made an option. After bitter debate Newfoundlanders
voted to join Canada in 1949 as a province.[196]

The foreign policy of Canada during the Cold War was closely tied to that of
the United States. Canada was a founding member of NATO (which Canada
wanted to be a transatlantic economic and political union as well[197]). In
1950, Canada sent combat troops to Korea during the Korean War as part of
the United Nations forces. The federal government’s desire to assert its
territorial claims in the Arctic during the Cold War manifested with the High
Arctic relocation, in which Inuit were moved from Nunavik (the northern
third Quebec) to barren Cornwallis Island;[198] this project was later the
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subject of a long investigation by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples.[199]
In 1956, the United Nations responded to the Suez Crisis by convening a
United Nations Emergency Force to supervise the withdrawal of invading
forces. The peacekeeping force was initially conceptualized by Secretary of
External Affairs and future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.[200] Pearson
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his work in establishing the
peacekeeping operation.[200] Throughout the mid-1950s, Louis St. Laurent
(12th Prime Minister of Canada) and his successor John Diefenbaker
attempted to create a new, highly advanced jet fighter, the Avro Arrow.[201]
The controversial aircraft. In 1958 Canada established (with the United
States) the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).[202]

In 1604, a North American fur trade monopoly was granted to Pierre Du Gua,
Sieur de Mons.[49] The fur trade became one of the main economic ventures
in North America.[50] Du Gua led his first colonization expedition to an
island located near the mouth of the St. Croix River. Among his lieutenants
was a geographer named Samuel de Champlain, who promptly carried out a
major exploration of the northeastern coastline of what is now the United
States.[49] In the spring of 1605, under Samuel de Champlain, the new St.
Croix settlement was moved to Port Royal (today’s Annapolis Royal, Nova
Scotia).[51]

The Quebec Settlement: A. –The Warehouse. B. –Pigeon-loft. C.—Detached

Buildings where we keep our arms and for lodging our Workmen. D.—
Another Detached Building for the Workmen. E.—Sun-dial. F.—Another
Detached Building where is the Smithy and where the Workmen are Lodged.
G.—Galleries all around the Lodgings. H.—The Sieur de Champlain’s Lodging.
I.—The door of the Settlement with a Draw-bridge. L.—Promenade around
the Settlement ten feet in width to the edge of the Settlement. O.—The Sieur
de Champlain’s Garden. P.—the Kitchen. Q.—Space in front of the Settlement
on the Shore of the River. R.—The great River St. Lawrence.
Music
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The Aboriginal peoples of Canada encompass diverse ethnic groups with
their individual musical tradition. Music is usually social (public) or
ceremonial (private). Public, social music may be dance music accompanied
by rattles and drums. Private, ceremonial music includes vocal songs with
accompaniment on percussion, used to mark occasions like Midewivin
ceremonies and Sun Dances.

Traditionall, Aboriginal peoples used the materials at hand to make their

instruments for centuries before Europeans immigrated to Canada.[156]
First Nations people made gourds and animal horns into rattles, which were
elaborately carved and brightly painted.[157] In woodland areas, they made
horns of birch bark and drumsticks of carved antlers and wood. Traditional
percussion instruments such as drums were generally made of carved wood
and animal hides. These musical instruments provide the background for
songs, and songs the background for dances. Traditional First Nations people
consider song and dance to be sacred. For years after Europeans came to
Canada, First Nations people were forbidden to practice their
ceremonies.[155][156]

Demographics and classification of Indigenous people

There are three(First Nation,[3] Inuit[4] and Metis[5]) distinctive groups of

North America indigenous peoples recognized in the Canadian Constitution
Act, 1982, sections 25 and 35.[21] Under the Employment Equity Act,
Aboriginal people are a designated group along with women, visible
minorities, and person with disabilities.[158] They are not a visible minority
under the Employment Equity Act and in the view of Statistics Canada.[159]

The 2011 Canadian enumerated 1,400,685 Aboriginal people in Canada,

4.3% of the country’s total population.[1] This total comprises 851,560
people of First Nations descent, 451,795 Metis, and 59,445 Inuit. National
representative bodies of Aboriginal people in Canada include the Assembly
of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Metis National Council, the
Native Friendship Centres and the Congress of Aboriginal People.[160]
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Visual art

Indigenous people were producing art for thousands of years before the
arrival of European settler colonists and the eventual establishment of
Canada as a nation state. Like the peoples who produce them, Indigenous art
traditions spanned territories across North America. Indigenous art
traditions are organized by art historians according to cultural, linguistic or
regional groups: Northwest Coast, Plateau, Plains, Eastern Woodlands,
Subarctic, and Arctic.[152]

Art traditions vary enormously amongst and within these diverse group.
Indigenous art with a focus on portability and the body is distinguished from
European traditions and its focus on architecture. Indigenous visual art may
be used conjunction with other arts. Shaman’s masks and rattles are used
ceremoniously in dance, storytelling and music.[152] Artworks preserved in
museum collection date from the period after European contact and show
evidence of the creative adoption and adaptation of European trade goods
such as metal and glass beads.[153] The distinct Metis cultures that have
arisen from inter-cultural relationship with Europeans contribute culturally
hybrid art forms.[154] During the 19th and the first half of the 20th century
the Canadian government pursued an active policy of forced and cultural
assimilation toward indigenous people. The Indian Act banned
manifestations of the Sun Dance, the Potlatch, and works of art depicting
them.[155]
It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that indigenous artists such as Mungo
Martin, Bill Reid and Norval Morrisseau began to publicly renew and re-
invent indigenous art traditions. Currently there are indigenous artists
practicing in all media in Canada and two indigenous artists, Edward Poitras
and Rebecca Belmore, have represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in
1995 and 2005 respectively.[152]
Approximately 40,115 individuals of Aboriginal heritage could not be
counted during the 2006 census.[161][162] This is due to the fact that
certain Aboriginal reserve and communities in Canada did not participate in
the 2006 census, since enumerate of those communities were not
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permitted.[161][163] In 2006, 22 Native communities were not completely
enumerated unlike in the year 2001, when 30 First Nation communities were
not enumerated and during 1996 when 77 Native communities could not be
completely enumerated.[161][163] Hence, there were probably 1,212,905
individuals of Aboriginal ancestry (North America Indian, Metis, Inuit)
residing in Canada during the time when the 2006 census was conducted in
Canada .

Indigenous people assert that their sovereign rights are valid, and point to
the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which is mentioned in the Canadian
Constitution Act, 1982, Section 25. The British North America Acts and the
1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (to which Canada is a
signatory) in support of this claim.[164][165]

Languages
There are 13 Aboriginal language groups, 11 oral and 2 sign, in Canada, made
up of more than 65 distinct dialect.[148] Of these, only Cree, Inuktitut and
Ojibway have a large enough population of fluent speakers to be considered
viable to survive in the long term.[149] Two of Canada’s territories give
official status to native languages. In Nunavut, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun are
official languages alongside the national languages of English and French,
and Inuktitut is a common vehicular language in territorial
government.[150] In the NWT, the Official Languages Act declares that there
are eleven different languages: Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in,
Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey and
Tljcho.[151] Besides English and French, these languages are not vehicular
in government; official status entitles citizens to receive services in them on
request and to deal with the government in them.[149]
Aboriginal cultural areas depend upon their ancestor’s primary lifeway, or
occupation, at the time European contact. These culture areas correspond
closely with physical and ecological regions of Canada.[163] The indigenous
peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast were centred around ocean and river
fishing; in the interior of British Columbia, hunter-gatherer and river fishing.
In both of these areas the salmon was chief importance. For the people of the
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plains, bison hunting was the primary activity. In the subarctic forest, other
species such as the moose were more important. For peoples near the Great
Lakes and Saint Lawrence River, shifting agriculture was practiced, including
the raising of maize, beans, and squash.[16][143] While for the Inuit, hunting
was the primary source of food with seals the primary component of their
diet.[144] The caribou, fish, other marine mammals and to a lesser extent
plants, berries and seaweed are part of the Inuit diet. One of the most
noticeable symbols of Inuit culture, the inukshuk is the emblem of the
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Inuksuit are rock sculptures made by
stacking stones; in the shape of a human figure, they are called
inunnguaq.[145]

Culture of Indigenous peoples

Through storytelling and other interactive learning styles, countless North

American Indigenous words, inventions and games have become an
everyday part of Canadian language and use. Thanks to groups such as the
Aboriginal Language and Culture (ALC) teachers of British Columbia, these
practices continue to be passed down to each generation, the canoe,
snowshoes, the toboggan, lacrosse, tug of war, maple syrup and tobacco are
just a few of the products, inventions and games.[138] Some of the words
include the barbecue, caribou, chipmunk, woodchuck, hammock,skunk, and
moose.[139] Many places in Canada, both natural features and human
habitations, use indigenous names. The word “Canada” itself derives from
the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word meaning “village” or “settlement”.[140]
The province of Saskatchewan derives its name from the Saskatchewan
River, which in the Cree language is called “Kisiskatchewani Sipi”, meaning
“swift-flowing river”.[141] Canada’s capital city Ottawa comes from the
Algonquin language term “adawe” meaning “to trade”.[141] Modern youth
groups such as Scouts Canada and the Girl Guides of Canada include
programs based largely on Indigenous Iore, arts and crafts, character
building and outdoor camp craft and living.[142]
Indian reserves, established in Canadian law by treaties such as Treaty 7, are
lands of First Nations recognized by non-indigenous governments.[146]
Some reserves are within cities, such as the Opawikoscikan Reserve in Prince
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Albert, Saskatchewan, Wendake in Quebec City or Stony Plain 135 in the
Edmonton Capital Region. There are more reserves in Canada that there are
First Nations, which were ceded multiple reserves by treaty.[147] Aboriginal
people currently work in a variety of occupations and may live outside their
ancestral homes. The traditional cultures of their ancestors, shaped by
nature, still exert a strong influence on them, from spirituality to political
attitudes.[16][143] National Aboriginal Day is a day of recognition of the
cultures and contributions of the First Nations, Inuit and Metis people of
Canada. The day was first celebrated in1996, after it was proclaimed that
year, by then Government General of Canada Romeo LeBlanc, to be
celebrated on June 21 annually.[17] Most provincial jurisdictions do not
recognize it as a statutory holiday.[17]

Royal Commisson

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was a Royal Commission

undertaken by the Government of Canada in 1991 to address issues of the
Aboriginal peoples of Canada.[128] It assessed past government policies
toward Aboriginal people, such as residential schools, and provided policy
recommendations to the government.[129] The Commission issued its final
report in November 1996. The five-volume, 4,000-page report covered a vast
range of issues; its 440 recommendations called for sweeping changes to the
interaction between Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal people and the governments
in Canada.[128] The report “set out a 20-year agenda for change.”[130]

Political organization

First Nations and Inuit organizations ranged in size from band societies of a
few people to multi-nation confederacies like Iroquois. First Nations leaders
from across the country formed the Assembly of First Nations, which began
as the National Indian Brotherhood in 1968.[136] The Metis and the Inuit
are represented nationally by the Metis National Council and Inuit Tapiriir
Kanatami respectively.
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Today’s political organizations have resulted from interaction with
European-style methods of government through the Federal Interlocutor for
Metis and Non-Status Indians. Aboriginal political organizations throughout
Canada vary in political standing, viewpoints, and reasons for forming.[137]
First Nations, Metis and Inuit negotiate with the Canadian Government
through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada in all affairs concerning land,
entitlement, and rights.[136] The First Nation groups that operate
independently do not belong to these groups.[136]

Health policy

In 1995, the federal government announced the Aboriginal Right to Self-

Government Policy.[131] This policy recognize that First Nations and Inuit
have the constitutional right to shape their own forms of government to suit
their particular historical, cultural, political and economic circumstances.
The Indian Health Transfer Policy provided a framework for the assumption
of control of health services by Aboriginal peoples and set forth a
development approach to transfer centred on self-determination in
health.[132][133] Through this process, the decision to enter transfer,
communities can take control of health programme responsibilities at a pace
determined by their individual circumstance and health management
capabilities.[134] The National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO)
incorporated in 2000, is an Aboriginal-designed-and-controlled not-for-
profit body in Canada that works to influence and advance the health and
well-being of Aboriginal Peoples.[135] Those people accepted into band
membership under band rules may not be status Indians. C-31 clarified that
various sections of the Indian Act would apply to band members. The
sections under debate concern community life and land holdings. Section
pertaining to Indians (First Nations people) as individuals (in this case, wills
and taxation of personal property) were not included.[127]

Indian Act

The Indian Act is federal legislation that dates from 1876. There have been
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over 20 major changes made to the original Act since then, the last time being
in 1951; amended in 1985 with Bill C-31. The Indian Act indicates how
Reserves and Bands can operate and defines who is recognized as an
“Indian”.[126]

In 1985, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-31, “An Act to Amend the
Indian Act.” Because of a Constitutional requirement, the Bill took effect on
April 17, 1985.[127]
• It ends discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act, especially those
that discriminated against women.[127]
• It changes the meaning of “status” and for the first time allows for
limited reinstatement of Indians who denied or lost status and/or
Band membership.[127]
• It allows bands to define their own membership rules.[127]
According to the First Nations- Federal Crown Political Accord ‘cooperation
will be a cornerstone for partnership between Canada and First Nations,
wherein Canada is the short-form reference to Her Majesty the Queen in
Right of Canada.[122] The Supreme Court argued that treaties “served to
reconcile pre-existing Aboriginal sovereignty with assumed Crown
sovereignty, and to define Aboriginal rights”.[122] First Nations people
interpreted agreements covered in treaty 8 to last “as long as the sun shines,
grass grows and rivers flow”.[125]

Politics, law and legislation

Treaties
The Canadian Crown and Aboriginal peoples began interactions during the
European colonialization period. Numbered treaties, the Indian Act, the
Constitution Act of 1982 and case laws were established. Aboriginal peoples
construe these agreements as being between them and the Crown of Canada
through the districts Indian Agent, and not the Cabinet of Canada.[122] The
Maori interprets the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand similarly.[123] A
series of eleven treaties were signed between First Nations in Canada and
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the reigning Monarch of Canada from 1871 to 1921. The Government of
Canada created the policy, commissioned the Treat Commissioners and
ratified the agreements. These Treaties are agreements with the Government
of Canada administered by Canadian Aboriginal law and overseen by the
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.[124] Because of laws
and policies that encouraged or required Indigenous people to assimilate
into a Eurocentric society, Canada violated the United Nations Genocide
Convention that Canada signed in 1949 and passed through Parliament in
1952.[119] The residential school system that removed Aboriginal children
from their homes has led in international court for genocide.[119] A legal
case resulted in settlement of 2 billion CS in 2006 and the establishment of a
Truth and Reconciliation Commission which confirmed the injurious effect
on children of this system and turmoil created between Aboriginal
Canadians and Canadian Society.[120] In 2008 Prime Minister Stephen
Harper issued an apology on behalf of the Canadian government and its
citizens for the residential school system.[121] The final government
strategy of assimilation, made possible by the Indian Act was the Canadian
residential school system:

Of all the initiatives that were undertaken in the first century of

Confederation, none was more ambitions or central to the civilizing strategy
of the Department, to its goal of assimilation, than the residential school
system… it was the residential experience that would lead children most
effectively out of their “savage” communities into “higher civilization” and
“full citizenship”.[116]

Beginning in 1847 and lasting until 1996, the Canadian government, in

partnership with the Catholic Church, ran 130 residential boarding schools
across Canada for Aboriginal children, who were forcibly taken from their
homes.[117] While the schools were said to educate, they were plagued by
under-funding, disease, and abuse.[118]

Forced assimilation
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From the late 18th century, European Canadians (and the Canadian
government) encouraged assimilation of Aboriginal culture into what was
referred to as “Canadian culture”.[109][110] these attempts reached a climax
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a series of initiatives that aimed
at complete assimilation and subjugation of the Aboriginal peoples. These
policies, which were made possible by legislation such as the Gradual
Civilization Act[111] and the Indian Act,[112] focused on European ideals of
Christianity, sedentary living, agriculture, and education.

The attempt at Christianization of the Aboriginal people of Canada had been

ongoing since the first missionaries arrived in the 1600s, however it became
more systematic with the Indian Act in 1876, which would bring new
sanctions for those who did not convert to Christianity. For example, the new
laws would prevent non-Christian Aboriginal people from testifying or
having their cases heard in court and ban alcohol consumption.[113] When
the Indian Act was amended in 1884, traditional religious and social
practices, such as the Potlatch, would be banned, and further amendments
in 1920 would prevent “status Indians”(as define in the Act) from wearing
traditional dress or performing traditional dances in an attempt to stop all
non-Christian practices.[113]
Another focus of the Canadian government was to make the Aboriginal
groups of Canada sedentary, as they thought that this would make them
easier to assimilate. In the 19th century, the government began to support the
creation of model farming villages, which were meant to encourage non-
sedentary Aboriginal groups to settle in an area and begin to cultivate
agriculture.[114] When most of these model farming villages failed,[114] the
government turned instead to the creation of Indian reserves with the Indian
Act of 1876.[112] With the creation of these reserves came many restricting
laws, such as further bans on all intoxicants, restrictions on eligibility to vote
in band elections, decreased hunting and fishing areas, and inability for
status Indians to visit other groups on their reservations.[112]
Through the Gradual Civilization Act in 1857, the government would
encourage Indians (i.e., First Nations) to enfranchise – to remove all legal
distinctions between [Indians] and Her Majesty’s other Canadian
Subjects.[111] If an Aboriginal chose to enfranchise, it would strip them and
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their family of Aboriginal title, with the idea that they would become “less
savage” and “more civilized”, thus become assimilated into Canadian
society.[115] However, they were often still defined as non-citizens by
Europeans, and those few who did enfranchise were often met with
disappointment.[115]
Canada under British rule (1763-1867)
With the end of the Seven Years’ War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris
(1763), France ceded almost all of its remaining territory in mainland North
America, except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the two small
Islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon where its fishermen could dry their fish.
France had already secretly ceded its vast Louisiana territory to Spain under
the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762) in which King Louis XV of Spain the entire
area of the drainage basin of Mississippi River from the Great lakes to the
Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian.
The new British rules of Canada retained and protected most of the property,
religious, political, and social culture of the French- speaking habitants,
guaranteeing the right of the Canadiens to practice the Catholic faith and to
the use of French civil law (now Quebec law) Through the Quebec Act of
1774.[95] The Royal Proclamation of 1763 had been issued in October, by
King George III following Great Britain’s acquisition of French territory.[96]
The proclamation organized Great Britain’s new North American empire and
stabilized relations between the British Crown and Aboriginal peoples
through regulation of trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western
frontier.[96] With the end of the Seven Years’ War and the signing of the
Treaty of Paris (1763), France ceded almost all of its remaining territory in
mainland North America, except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the
two small island of Saint Pierre and Miquelon where its fishermen could dry
their fish. France had already secretly ceded its vast Louisiana territory to
Spain under the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762) in which King Louis XV of
France had given his cousin King Charles III of Spain the entire area of the
drainage basin of the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of
Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. France
and Spain kept the Treaty of Fontainebleau secret from other countries until
1764.[93] In return for acquiring Canada, Britain returned to France its most
important sugar-producing colony, Guadeloupe more valuable than Canada.
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(Guadeloupe produced more sugar than all the British Islands combined, and
Voltaire had notoriously dismissed Canada as “Quelques arpents de neige,”
“A few acres of snow”).[94]
When the British evacuated New York City in 1783, they took many Loyalist
refugees to Nova Scotia, while other Loyalists went to southwestern Quebec.
So many Loyalists arrived on the shores of the St. John River that a separate
colony – New Brunswick – was created in1784;[1100] followed in 1791 by
the division of Quebec into the largely French-speaking Lower Canada
(French Canada) along the St. Lawernce River and Gaspe Peninsula and an
anglophone Loyalist Upper Canada, with its capital settled by 1796 in York,
in present0-day Toronto .[101] After 1790 most of the new settlers were
American farmers searching for new lands: although generally favorable to
republicanism, they were relatively non-political and stayed neutral in the
War of 1812.[102]
American Revolution and the Loyalists

During the American Revolution, there was some sympathy for the American
cause among the Acadians and the New Englanders in Nova Scotia.[97]
Neither party joined the rebels, although several hundred individuals joined
the revolutionary cause.[97][98] An invasion of Quebec by the Continental
Army in 1775, with a goal to take Quebec from British control, was halted at
the Battle of Quebec by Guy Carleton, with the assistance of local militias. The
defeat of the British army during the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781
signaled the end of Britain’s struggle to suppress the American
Revolution.[99]

War of 1812
The War of 1812 was fought between the United Stated and the British, with
the British North American colonies being heavily involved.[106] Greatly
outgunned by the British Royal Navy, the American war plans focused on an
invasion of Canada (especially what is today eastern and western Ontario) .
the American frontier.[106] The war on the border with the United States
was characterized by a series of multiple failed invasions and fiascos on both
sides. American forces took control of Lake Erie in 1813, driving the British
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out of western Ontario, killing the Native American leader Tecumseh, and
breaking the military power of his confederacy.[107] the war was overseen
by British army officer like Isaac Brock and Charles de Salaberry with the
assistance of First Nations and loyalist informants, most notably Laura
Second.[108] Lower emphasizes the positive benefits of the Revolutions for
Americans, making them an energetic people, while for English Canada the
results were negative:

[English Canada] inherited, not the benefits, but the bitterness of the
Revolution. It got not shining scriptures out of it. It got little release of energy
and no new horizons of the spirit were opened up. It had been a calamity,
pure and simple.[105] To take the place of the internal fire that was urging
Americans westward across the continent, there was only melancholy
contemplation of things as they might have been and dingy reflection of that
ineffably glorious world across the stormy Atlantic. English Canada started
its life with as powerful a nostalgic shove backward into the past as the
Conquest had given to French Canada: two little peoples officially devoted to
counter-revolution, to lost causes, to the tawdry ideals of a society of men
and masters, and not to the self-reliant freedom alongside of them.[105]

Rebellions and the Durham Report

The rebellions of 1837 against the British colonial government took place in
booth Upper and Lower Canada. In Upper Canada, a band of Reformers under
the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie took up arms in a disorganized
and ultimately unsuccessful series of small-scale skirmishes around Toronto,
London, and Hamilton.[110]

In lower Canada, a more substantial rebellion occurred against British rule,

Both English- and French-Canadian rebels, sometimes using bases in the
neutral United States, fought several skirmishes against the authorities. The
towns of Chambly and Sorely were taken by the rebels, and Quebec City was
isolated from the rest of the colony. Montreal rebel leader Robert Nelson
read the “Declaration of Independence of Lower Canada” to a crowd
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assembled at the town of Napierville in 1838.[111] The rebellion of the
Patriote movement was defeated after battles across Quebec. Hundreds were
arrested, and several villages were burnt in reprisal.[111]
The signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the war. Britain
made several concessions to the Americans at the expense of the North
American colonies.[103] Notably, the borders between Canada and the
United States were officially demarcated;[103] all land south of the Great
Lakes, which was formerly a part of Province of Quebec and included modern
day Michigan, Illinois and Ohio, was ceded to the America. Fishing rights
were also granted to the United States in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the
coast of Newfoundland and the Grand Banks.[103] The British ignored part
of the treaty and maintained their military outposts in the Great Lakes areas
it had ceded to the U.S., and they continued to supply their native allies with
munitions. The British evacuated the outposts with the Jay Treaty of 1795,
but the continued supply of munitions irritated the Americans in the run-up
to the War of 1812.[104]
The War ended with no boundary changes thanks to the treaty of Ghent of
1814, and the Rush- Bagot Treaty of 1817.[106] A demographic result was
the shifting of the destination of American migration from Upper Canada to
Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, without fear of Indian attacks. [106] After the
war, supporters of Britain tried to repress the republicanism that was
common among American immigrants to Canada.[106] The troubling
memory of the war and the American invasions etched itself into the
consciousness of Canadians as a distrust of the intentions of the United
States towards the British presence in North America.[109]pp.254-255
British Government then sent Lord Durham to examine the situation; he
stayed in Canada only five months before returning to Britain and brought
with him his Durham Report, which strongly recommended responsible
government.[112] A less well-received recommendation was the
amalgamation of Upper and Lower Canada for the deliberate assimilation of
the French-speaking population. The Canadas were merged into a single
colony, the United Province of Canada , by the 1840 Act of Union, and
responsible government was achieved in 1848, a few months after it was
accomplished in Nova Scotia.[112] The parliament of United Canada in
Montreal was set on fire y a mob of Tories in 1849 after the passing of an
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indemnity bill for the people who suffered losses during the rebellion in
Lower Canada.[113]
Between the Napoleonic Wars and 1850, some 800,000 immigrants came to
the colonies of British North America, mainly from the British Isles, as part
of the great migration of Canada.[114] These included Gaelic-speaking
Highland Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances to Nova Scotia and
Scottish and English settlers to the Canadas, particularly Upper Canada. The
Irish Famine of the 1840s significantly increased the pace of Irish Catholic
immigration to British North America, with over 35,000 distressed Irish
landing in Toronto alone in 1847 and 1848.[115]
Spanish explorers had taken lead in the Pacific Northwest coast, with the
voyages of Juan Jose Perez Hernadez in 1774 and 1775.[116] By the time
Spanish determined to build a fort on Vancouver Island, the British navigator
James Cook had visited Nootka Sound and charted the coast as far as Alaska,
while British and American maritime fur traders had begun a busy era of
commerce with the coastal peoples to satisfy the brisk market for sea otter
pelts in China, thereby launching what became known as the China
Trade.[117] In 1789 war threatened between Britain and Spain on their
respective rights; the Nootka Crisis was resolved peacefully largely in favor
of Britain, the much stronger naval power. In 1793 Alexander MacKenzie, a
Canadian working for the Northwest Company, crossed the continent and
with his Aboriginal guides and French-Canadian crew, reached the mouth of
the Bella Coola River, completing the first continental crossing north of
Mexico, missing George Vancouver’s charting expedition to the region by
only a few weeks.[118] In 1821, the North West Company and Hudson’s Bay
Company merged, with a combine trading territory that was extended by a
licence to the North-Western Territory and the Columbia and New Caledonia
fur districts, which reached the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Pacific
Ocean on the west.[119]
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Confederation
The Seventy-Two Resolution from the 1864 Quebec Conference and
Charlottetown Conference laid out the framework for uniting British
colonies in North America into a federation.[121] They had been adopted by
the majority of the provinces of Canada and became the basis for the London
Conference of 1866, which led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada
on July1, 1867.[121] The term dominion was chosen to indicate Canada’s
status as a self-governing colony of the British Empire, the first time it was
used about a country.[122] With the coming into force of the British North
America Act(enacted by the British Parliament), the Province of Canada,
New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia became a federated kingdom in its own
right.[123][124][125]