April 28

Charlottetown, Quebec, and London Conferences

The Charlottetown Conference, Quebec Conference and the London Conference

Spring, 1864, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island were discussing the possibility of a Maritime Union.

But BNA has bigger problems, and they want to join the conference to shine a light on the legislative of Canada East, and Canada West. It was decided that they would hold the meetings in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The first meeting would begin September 1, 1864. Representatives were appointed from the Province of Canada, and the Three Maritime colonies that originally discussed union. Newfoundland asked belatedly if it might attend, but there wasn’t enough time to organize a delegation.

First person to arrive was Robert Dickey of Nova Scotia, on August 30th, his four delegates arrived the next day; New Brunswick’s delegates arrived the same late evening. The Canadians arrived in the morning of September 1st.

Proceedings began on the afternoon of September 1st, with the appointment of officers. The conference was following Parliamentary Protocol, Canadians were only observers. They made their presentations about union the next day, when invited to do so by the Maritime delegates. Once the presentations started, talk about Maritime Union disappeared from the conference agenda. Since the proceedings were closed, there exists little information about was said in the presentations. However it is known that George-Étienne Cartier and John A. MacDonald presented the argument in favor of union, that Alexander Galt discussed the posible financial arrangements, and that George Brown the form that a united government might take.

The Conference also included various social events that were just as important as the business. Activities included the famous oyster and champagne lunch aboard the Canadians’s ship, luncheons at the home of local delegates and officials, seaside excursions, and a grand ball at the legislative building. The letter George Brown sent to his wive during the Conference vividly explains these events.

The meetings at Charlottetown were adjourned on September 9, 1864, but the delegates continued with meetings in Halifax, Saint John, and Fredericton. It was decided that the idea of British North American union was worthy enough to hold a second conference for. The second conference was scheduled to begin October 10, 1864 in Quebec City.

Quebec Conference, October 10-27, 1864

The same delegates who met in Charlottetown met in Quebec City the next month, in a building overlooking the St. Lawrence River. In this meeting the delegates of the colonies established the 72 Resolutions, these resolutions are the basis for the upcoming London Conference.

The London Conference, December 1866

Only sixteen delegates traveled to England for discussion. Meetings began December 4th, at the Westminster Palace Hotel in London. They choose Canada as the name of the united colonies.

In addition of the BNA Act, the Conference had to endure the presence of an anti-union delegation form Nova Scotia, which was led by Joseph Howe, he was determined to overturn any union agreement. Charles Tupper was busy countering each submission.

The delegates completed the text for the bill and was submitted to the Queen on February 11. The bill was passed. And the BNA Act received the Royal Assent on March 29, 1867.

The Delegates returned home to prepare for union, which is scheduled to take place on July 1st.

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April 21

Internal Political Causes of Confederation

Double Majority: To make a bill a law, the majority of the Legislative Assembly of Canada East and Canada West had to for the decision. Because French Canadians were a minority compared to English Canadians. Because there were more English than French, the French couldn’t maintain their language, because they would never win anything by a majority vote.

Independents: Politicians who did not belong to a party, but still wanted to vote. The problem with independents were that they affected the amount of seats both colonies had in parliament, and they could overrule bills.

Equal Representation vs Representation by Population: Canada West was against equal representation because even though they had a greater population, they had no advantage against Canada East, because both colonies had equal number of seats in the government. This wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t cause constant disagreement.

Representation by population is a way of government seat organization by population. Because they were more English-speaking population, the English got more seats. And because French-speaking population were the minorities they got less seats in parliament. This meant the French could never vote out the English.

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April 20

Between 1861 and 1865, several southern states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The united states government rejected the southern secession and declared that the act was a rebellion. The Confederate states fought against the northern states about slavery and political decisions in a war. In 1865 the war ended with the North defeating the south. Britain and France both proclaimed neutrality in the war. But Britain’s cotton business was doing really well, and they needed their cotton shipments from South america. Ships from the north started doing blockades against these shipments, but Britain started using fast small ships instead of big slower ones as a solution. This made North Americans suspicious because even though Britain declared neutrality, they were still favoring the south. This increased tension between Americans and the British.

The Trent Affairs

November 1861, an American Warship stopped the British Mail ship called “Trent”, which was carrying 2 agents back to Britain. They were going to Britain to ask for support for the “Confederate Cause”. Even though they were on neutral waters, the Americans took the two agents prisoners. Britain threatened retaliation if the prisoners weren’t released. American President Abraham Lincoln freed the prisoners because he didn’t want to go to war with Britain while also fighting the Confederates. Tension still remained, and Americans wanted revenge. Britain dispatched 14,000 troops to BNA.

St. Alban’s Raid

In 1864, a group of Confederate soldiers attacked the town of St. Alban’s, Vermont, using Montreal as their base. After the attack soldiers escaped back across the border to avoid prosecution. The United Sates government was angry and they would threaten BNA if future attacks were not turned over to American authorities. This threat from the US made the British realize that they have no defense.

United States Expansionism: Manifest Destiny

The Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States was destined to control all of North America. During the 1840s, the Americans were expanding across the continent. The US saw the North-West lands of the continent as a rich sources of natural resources. The outbreak of the American Civil War strengthened the sense of Manifest Destiny. A group of American vocal expansionists believed the United States should turn its attention to the annexation of British North America. Although the ultimate goals of Manifest Destiny were never reached, the popularity of the idea undoubtedly weighed on the minds of many British North American leaders and Presidents.

Using the above, explain how the political context in the 1860s would encourage the BNA colonies to unite or stay apart:

It would encourage them to unite because they were dealing with a common enemy. The Confederate States.

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April 19

The Economic Situation in the 1860s

The construction of the railway encouraged British North America Colonies to unite.The railways helped transport resources, from one colony to another. Because Lower Canada was experiencing a depression they needed the Americans to sign the Reciprocity Treaty; which is a treaty allowing the ownership and transport of goods from on colony to another, which included the United States. The Corn Law kept prices of grain high, but when the law was “removed”, it led to an economic failure in Canada. This forced Canada rebuild their economy by uniting the colonies.

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April 13

Why the Rebellion of 1837 failed

According to L.A. Norton the rebellion was poorly armed, had no drill or discipline and none of them knew how to properly use a weapon, but despite of that, they still went to battle. A narrative written by Mackenzie states that because of lack of training, some of their men were shot by allies. When the men in the first row of the firing squad fell down so the row in the back could shoot, the row in the back thought they were overpowered by the enemy, and because of this they retreated. If we summarize Sydney Bellingham’s writings, we’ll learn that the rebels were cowards, who wanted to make a change, but they just didn’t have the proper training or artillery to do so.

And this is “Why the Rebellion of 1837 failed”.

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April 6

Movie Pitch

Movie Pitch Presentation

Movie pitch

 

Type of movie: Drama

Who is the target audience: Teens, adults, and students.

Theme: Slavery and discrimination.

Plot:

The Merchant and the Slave

An Irish merchant named Rob is fired from his job.

The farming business is greatly affected by something called to potato famine, the potato business is failing because disease that destroys potato crops, all of Ireland’s cereal crops are being shipped to Britain. Because farmers have nothing to sell, merchants have nothing to sell.

Rachel is a black women, who is escaping slavery because she doesn’t want to be punished by whipping and also doesn’t want to be auctioned off to someone, so she is on the road escaping to Canada, you’d think just escaping from a slave state would be enough, but it isn’t, these slave hunters will capture anyone, anywhere.

Meanwhile Rob traveled to America by coffin ship, which was a horrible and disgusting experience, he’s on the road to Canada, to the Hudson’s Bay. He’s going to Canada because they accept all races.

Slave hunters find Rachel, and capture her, Rob is a witness to this and decides to help. He kills the hunters and frees her.

They get to know each other and decide to travel together.

They ride in the empty wagons of trains, all the way to the border of Canada.

They both decide to look for land, just to check prices and land quality, but all the good land is owned buy absentee landlords and land speculators, or they’re reserve lands. They’re traveling by train to the Hudson’s Bay were there’s lots of business in bartering fur. They buy lots of pemmican from metis at a train stop, and continue on their road to the Hudson’s Bay. Pemmican is dried meat with lots of fat typically carried in a leather bag.

They arrive to their destination, in a small town in the south of the Hudson. They find land outside of the town, that is easy to clear, and they buy it for cheap, using all the money they had.

Months later they got married. While Rob went to work, Rachel stayed home, and according to the “Female Emigrant’s guide” and other women, you’re supposed know how to cook, make and fix clothes, and other things, but she didn’t know how to do these things because she was never taught.

In the middle of the night, some slave hunter from the US kidnaps Rachel, Rob tries to save her but he get’s knocked out, Rachel is taken to a slave state in the US.

Rob wakes up and follows a trail made by Rachel’s heavy chains being dragged on the ground. He never stop’s following the trail, not even at night. He catches up to them while the hunter is asleep, Rob takes this opportunity to steal the keys to Rachel’s cuffs to free her.

On the road back to Canada, in a state up north they find some travelers, they were also slaves once, but they escaped, they travel from safe house to safe house, they call this way of traveling the “underground railroad”.

Once close to the border of Canda, Rob and Rachel find some metis, who are traveling by boat, portaging from one navigable water to another. So they travel with them for a while.

Knowing that they can’t go back to the Hudson, they go to a more rural part of Canada.

They live in a small home on the verge of being evicted, Rob can only get a job in the fur trade industry because he is discriminated for his race in that specific area. The fur trade doesn’t pay very much in this part of Canada.

Newspapers that come from America are full of racist comments and cartoons, Rachel hates that, because they make fun of her race every week. But sadly, can’t do anything about it.

Back in Ireland, no-one accepted immigrants, or in some places even the Irish were discriminated, no-one gave them jobs, and everyone let them rot in their own filth until they died of illness.

They’re lucky, that they even have the opportunity to get a job.

Rob contracted measles on the job, rendering him useless. Rachel tried to take care of him, but to no avail. Rob died that year…

Rachel, not being able to find a job because she’s a woman, she is evicted and forced to be homeless, begging for food. “Is this still better than slavery ?” She wonders.

Clearing Land: Clearing Land is the first thing to do with an area you plan to build on. So finding land that does no need to be cleared is pretty rare.

Bartering: Bartering is the exchange of goods, without the use of money.

Land Speculators: Land Speculators bought land for the sole purpose of selling it for a better price, so rich people loved buying up all the land because they knew it would be of high demand.

Absentee Landlords: These are landlords who buy land to rent it out to people, and by saying that “all the good land” is owned by them, shows how important these landlords are.

Reserve Lands: These lands are reserved for people of the government and churches.

Loyalty to Britain: We showed loyalty to Britain using the potato famine because it shows how devoted Ireland is to Britain.

Hudson’s Bay Company: We wanted to show the area of the Hudson’s Bay as a place where lots of bartering happens.

Metis: Metis are a mix of American Indian and Euro-American ancestry.

Portages: Portaging is the action of carrying a water craft in between 2 navigable waters. We mention this in our story when Rachel and Rob are traveling back to Canada with Metis.

Marriage, Domestic, Guides, and Survival: A woman was expected to be married to a man, and to help out at home. Rachel wanted to help around the house but she couldn’t because she never learned the necessary skills.

Discrimination: Discrimination is an important part of our story because that is what caused slavery and unemployment for our characters. Discrimination was a common thing back then because people didn’t learn much about the origins of races and such.

Acceptance of African Americans and Irish: In our story, the objective of their journey is to live in Canada, in hopes of not being discriminated.

Social Darwinism: Both Rachel and Rob are affected by Social Darwinism, but Rachel is affected the most because of American Newspapers and their offensive cartoons.

Potato Famine: The Potato Famine was caused by a disease that destroyed potato crops.This is the major event that drives Rob to give up and go to Canada.

Evictions: Evictions were pretty extreme in the 1800s, if you couldn’t pay the landlord, he would do anything to get you off his land. And that is why being on verge of being evicted is such a bad situation.

Coffin Ship Experience: Coffin ships were a common way for Irish immigrants to escape the famine. We didn’t want to our story focus on coffin ships, but we did want Rob to travel in one, because it shows how badly he wants to leave Ireland.

Slavery: Slavery was first introduced in America to help the production of tobacco crops. This was one of most important things in our story, because it was one of the worst things of the 19th century, and one of our characters happened to experience it.

Underground Railroad: The underground rail road or roads were trails and safe house to help black slaves escape to free states. Rob and Rachel find a group of black people traveling this way, they decide to join them.

Story by Botond Diosy and Blake McMullan

 

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