canadian history and the development of the north american west: myth and memory
TRANSCRIPT
Canadian History and the Development of the North American West: Myth and
Memory
Dr. Christopher HerbertColumbia Basin [email protected]
Canadian Heritage,Canadian History
Canadian Heritage, Canadian History
• Heritage: Nationalistic celebration of oft-mythic past
• History: Seeks to understand the past, warts and all
Unforgiven (1992)
Heritage Minute (ca. 1991)
The Mythic Canadian West• Non-violent and orderly• Strong, fair police presence• Natives treated with fairness• Diverse immigrants welcomed
The Origins and Settlement of Canada
Jacques Cartier1534, 1535,1541
Samuel de Champlain,Quebec (1608)
The Fall of New France• 1754 – 1763, Seven Year’s War• 1759, Quebec falls• 1760, French resistance collapses • Treaty of Paris (1763)• Quebec Act (1774)
1791: Upper and Lower Canada
The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching
- Thomas Jefferson, 1812
- Lord Durham
two nations warring within the bosom of a single state
The Durham Report (1838)• Amalgamate Upper and Lower
Canada (implemented)• Responsible Government
(implemented very slowly)
Red River
Confederation, 1 July 1867
Patterns of Canadian History
• Quebec v. Anglo-Canada Tensions• Fears of U.S. Aggression• Focus on the West
Nationalism and the West• Anglo-Ontario• Racist and anti-Catholic• Progress, assimilation, and
nationalism• Métis
Red River Settlement
Louis Riel1869 Resistance,1870 Exile in U.S.,1885 NW Rebellion,1885 Executed
Battle of Batoche, 1885
Clearing and Settling the Prairies
7 November, 1885
Native Policy• “peaceable agricultural labourers” • Small plots of land• Biologically incapable of being
capitalists• Use starvation as tool• Reservations as “incarceration
centres”
Clifford Sifton,Minister of the Interior,1896 – 1905
[the] stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, born on the soil, whose forefathers have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half–dozen children
The Last Best West
An Open Door?• Racially “undesirable” groups
discouraged or blocked• Poor and ill discouraged or blocked
“The same act which excludes Orientals should open wide the portals of British Columbia to White immigration.”
Doukhobors
Sons of Freedom/ Freedomites
Tourism, Myth, and Multiculturalism
America, Quebec, and Canadian Culture
The Massey Commission, 1951
• American cultural influence• Serious, uplifting, educational
content
Quebec• Parti Québécois (PQ), 1968• Official Languages Act, 1969• Policy expanded to multiculturalism,
1971
Immigration• Points-based immigration, 1967• Immigration Act, 1976
The New Canada• Multiculturalism, official
bilingualism, and immigration reform
• Peaceful, tolerant alternative to the United States
Canada Today
Conclusions• The importance of the Canadian
West• Stories matter• Those stories have been
disproportionately written by, and benefit, Anglo-Canadians