History of Canada

Canada is a nation of 33 million inhabitants, occupying almost all of the northern half of the North American continent, and being the second largest country in the world. Canada has evolved in four hundred years from a group of European colonies into a federation of ten provinces and three territories, having been granted its sovereignty peacefully from its last colonial possessor, the United Kingdom.

The Confederation movement and the Dominion of Canada 1840-1867

Agitation for union or confederation of the colonies within B.N.A. grew in the first half of the nineteenth century. After the rebellions of 1837-8, the colonies of Lower and Upper Canada were united in one government, the Province of Canada, with the Act of Union (1840), in a failed attempt to assimilate the French Canadians. Support for an even greater confederation was strengthened by events such as the Battle of Ridgeway, an invasion into Ontario by some 1500 U.S.-based Irish Fenian nationalists, an attack repulsed largely by local militia.

Related Topics:
Confederation - Province of Canada - Act of Union (1840) - Battle of Ridgeway - Ontario - Fenian

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British North American politicians held the Charlottetown Conference and Quebec Conference, 1864 to work out the details of a federal union. On July 1, 1867, with the passing of the British North America Act by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, three colonies of British North America (the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia) became a federation styled the Dominion of Canada. It consisted of four provinces, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

Related Topics:
Charlottetown Conference - Quebec Conference, 1864 - July 1 - 1867 - British North America Act - United Kingdom - Province of Canada - New Brunswick - Nova Scotia - Federation

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