The Natural Beauty of Canada
The Capone Connection
An excerpt from Mobsters and Rumrunners of Canada
Gallery
Quotes/Reviews
“Nice to meet you, gentlemen, “Sam said, extending his hand. “This is my brother Harry. Welcome to Saskatchewan, home of the best whiskey this side of the St. Lawrence.” Capone shook Sam’s hand. The steely-eyed gazes of the other gangsters sent a chill down Sam’s back. He wondered if he’d made a mistake cutting a deal with these hardened criminals.
Sam and Harry drove the gangsters out to one of their three Boozoriums south of town. Capone couldn’t believe his eyes. Here, in the middle of nowhere, 1000 miles from Chicago, was a warehouse filled with hundreds of barrels of whiskey. For three days, Capone and Bronfman talked business. Sam promised he could deliver as many cases of whiskey as Capone wanted to buy. Capone agreed to purchase the highly prized Canadian whiskey. Twenty-four four-quart bottles of booze were packed in burlap sacks stuffed with straw and then packed in barrels. Each barrel cost the Bronfmans $24 to make, and Sam sold a barrel to Al Capone for $140.
Capone bought a carload of 14 barrels and agreed to buy a similar amount weekly. An instant bond forged between the two men. They had similar rags-to-riches stories, and both were feared for their violent tempers. Each came from dirt-poor immigrant families. Capone’s mother and father came from Italy to the United States, and in 1889 Bronfman’s parents had fled Russia, where making whiskey was a way of life. The name “Bronfman” literally means “whiskey man” in Yiddish, and so the brothers simply continued the cultural and family tradition.
Bronfman and his brothers had started from scratch in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, making whiskey in a warehouse. They were soon making a healthy profit selling liquor across Canada. But their business really boomed when they began selling whiskey to American bootleggers during Prohibition in the 1920s. The Bronfman empire was born and continues to flourish today under the Seagram’s name. It’s not known exactly how much the Capone-Bronfman deal was worth, but by today’s standards it was likely in the millions. The two formed a partnership and a friendship that lasted more than 10 years.
But illicit dealings inevitably come with violence. One incident that happened in the area four years earlier highlights the ruthlessness and lack of respect for human life that these 1920s pirates showed for anyone who got in their way. The brutal murder shocked the small prairie town and led to a frustrating series of dead ends for the RCMP.
On October 4, 1922, the body of Paul Matoff was found on a back road about two miles south of Bienfait. He’d been killed with a single shotgun blast to the chest. Matoff was the Bronfmans’ brother-in-law and family business partner. It was Matoff who often conducted the business meetings with the mob and then arranged the booze exchange with the American gangsters. His murder was never solved, but the talk around town was that a Chicago gangster gunned him down over a booze deal gone bad.
A Roaring Twenties "Flapper Girl" removes a flask of liquor from
her Russian boot. It's believed that the term "bootleg" originated
from the practice of concealing a flask in high-top boots. U.S.
Library of Congress
The next evening, Dutch drove the gangsters and their luggage back to the Estevan station. At midnight, they boarded the train and carried on west to Moose Jaw. Capone hoped to strike an even bigger booze-smuggling deal there in the booming prairie town with the help of his friend Diamond Jim Grady.
It was just after midnight, and the rail cars were dark as the weary passengers tried to sleep. As the dark, prairie towns rolled by—Milestone, Rouleau, Regina and Briar Crest—the three men said goodnight, settling in for some sleep on the final leg of their journey on the Soo Line through Saskatchewan on The Mountaineer #998.
“That son of a bitch better be there when we pull in.” Capone struggled to get his suitcase out of the luggage rack above his seat as The Mountaineer arrived at Moose Jaw station just as dawn was breaking on the morning of July 1. They’d been on the train for more than five hours, and Capone was sick and tired of being treated like a second-class citizen. While his fellow Americans were getting ready to celebrate July 4 as best they could without any legal booze, Tony and Jack were getting their gear out of the luggage racks and preparing to get off the train.
The “son of a bitch” Capone was referring to was Diamond Jim Grady, whose diamond smile shone in the bright prairie sun. Every two-bit huckster, moonshiner and five-and-dime hood knew he was a member of the Chicago mob, but they never really expected to see the big boss in town. Grady was responsible for single-handedly running the bootlegging business in the Moose Jaw area. He made sure hundreds of gallons of booze made it to the train station via the underground tunnels and then on to the U.S. He’d had his run of the town for the past five years and walked around as if he owned the place, but even he never expected to see Al Capone.
Diamond Jim Grady used to be one of Capone’s top triggermen in Chicago but got into some trouble with the boss when he started dating one of Capone’s ex-girlfriends. When Al found out what was going on, he sent the pretty boy to the regions, as far north as the Syndicate’s influence would take him. It was either that or risk torture (usually by a lit cigarette), a bullet in the stomach and to be left bleeding to death on some Illinois back road. Diamond Jim was flattered, but he was nervous and afraid now that Scarface was in town.
Diamond Jim was no lightweight gangster. He’d been accused of 11 murders, five in Canada from 1922 to 1924 and six in Chicago in 1919. Rumors circulated that he’d pistolwhipped a man to death in a bar fight in Minneapolis for cheating at cards. But it had been years since Diamond Jim had seen Al Capone face to face, and the man he watched step off the train looked nothing like the man he remembered.
This Al Capone looked like a vicious bulldog dressed in the height of fashion. He wore brown and cream patent leather shoes, and his coat was open with the collar up and his fedora pulled low. Jim could see a diamond and gold stickpin clasped to a yellow and green checked tie. The Big Fellow stepped lightly off the train and looked directly at Diamond Jim, who was standing on the platform. Two goons quickly stepped down behind Al and looked around at the wooden buildings and unpaved roads. They were a long way from home.
Before any formalities could be exchanged, Diamond Jim quickly ushered his visitors to the west side of the platform. An old Asian man and his teenage son were waiting for them. They grabbed the gangsters’ bags and opened a door to what looked like an old coal chute. The six men stepped in and walked into a damp tunnel lined with pitted cement. The old wooden stairs were dimly lit by a single light bulb hanging from a frayed electrical cord. About 15 steps down, they stopped, and looking up from the dirt floor, they saw a long, dark brick-lined tunnel ahead.
“Welcome to The Jaw,” said a nervous Diamond Jim with his best smile, as he stuck out his hand. “Nice to see you guys.” Tony and Jack could have cared less, but Al greeted him warmly. “I hear you’re doing a great job here, Jim,” Capone said, pumping his hand, “but I want you to do more. We need to double the whiskey coming out of here.”
“We’ll talk, Mr. Capone. Right now, follow me. These old Chinamen tunnels will take us to any hotel in town.” The Moose Jaw tunnels were built in the late 1800s by Chinese people who lived under the stores and hotels illegally. Many worked on the CPR. It was the time when many western Canadians were afraid of what was known as the “yellow peril.” Ottawa had brought in restrictions on the number of Chinese immigrants that were allowed into the country so as not to take away too many jobs from Canadians. The government even imposed a head tax on every Chinese immigrant.
Many of these workers were unable to afford the tax, so they went underground to hide from the authorities. Eventually, many of the immigrants smuggled in their wives and even raised families in the dark secret tunnels under Moose Jaw.
History
comes alive in the Moose Jaw tunnel tour. Actors in period costumes
take you on a journey back to a time when Moose Jaw was known
as "Little Chicago." The Tunnels of Moose JawJim warned the men to watch their heads as they made their way down the long, dark tunnel. They walked for a least a city block before they heard music and laughter.
“We’re under the Royal Hotel; our stop is just under the street at the Brunswick,” said Grady, as they walked. “How long ya in town for?” Diamond Jim had to duck his head to direct his question back at Capone.
“Long as it takes,“ was the only reply he got, as the tunnel took a sharp left, and they trudged through the dim light.
“We’ve got 23 hotels and nightclubs in town. We like to call The Jaw “Little Chicago.” We’ll have a good time.” The two triggermen looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Once they were under Royal Street Jim stopped at an alcove and banged on a heavy wooden door. It swung open without a sound, and the four men climbed stairs that led them to a door in the Brunswick Hotel’s kitchen. The hotel would be home for the next few days. Grady took his American visitors up the backstairs to their rooms. When Capone got to his door, he said he wanted to get cleaned up, take a nap and relax for the rest of the day.
"Little Chicago," as Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
was know when bootlegging, prostitution and gambling
thrived in the prairie town during Prohibition. The
Tunnels of Moose Jaw“Welcome sir.” A wiry Irishman stepped forward. “It’s an honor to have you in our town. My name is Darcy, but they call me Shorty.”
“Why don’t you introduce the guys to Mr. Capone, Shorty?“ Grady said, as he poured a couple of drinks. “Anything you need you just—” Capone cut him off.
“Lookit. I’m not here on a pleasure trip. The reason I’m in Moose Jaw is simple,” Capone told the Grady Gang. “I need you to double the amount of liquor you’re sending stateside.” The awestruck hoods nodded in agreement. They knew that getting the many bootleggers in and around town to increase production was going to be an easy sell. In these tough times, they were more than willing to take Capone’s money. The men shook hands, and the deal was done.
http://www.lonepinepublishing.com/cat/1-894864-11-5/gallery/excerpt
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My Island relatives did this. Did yours? One way or the other you won’t want to miss: TV DOCUMENTARY EXPLORES ATLANTIC CANADA’S ROLE IN PROHIBITION
Halifax, Nova Scotia – February 7, 2012 – Adventure,
danger, fast money. Sounds like the script for an action movie. But for
rum runners in Atlantic Canada it was their job description.
In
the 1920s, the United States and Canada entered an era that would
become infamous: Prohibition. While being voted dry was greeted with
dismay by most Americans, for dozens of coastal communities in Atlantic
Canada hard hit by a downturn in the fisheries and still recovering from
World War I, it was a golden business opportunity.
Rum Running
is a half hour documentary that reveals how law abiding citizens of
Atlantic Canada were lured into the alcohol smuggling trade. The film
depicts the high stakes role that Nova Scotia and the French Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon
played during the era. Every month rum runners from the Maritimes,
would deliver up to 300,000 cases of alcohol – rum, whisky, wine, and
other liquors – from St. Pierre to America’s notorious ‘Rum Row’
off the US northeast coast. This thriving trade injected much needed
money into dozens of Maritime communities during tough economic times
and made many individuals rich.
Rum Running is written and directed by Latonia Hartery and produced by Edward Peill from Halifax-based Tell Tale Productions Inc.
“Most rum
runners were every day men – good men. This film reveals the risks they
undertook to survive the Great Depression” says Hartery. It also
provides a look at some of the powerful and seedy characters they came
in contact with, such as the American mobster, Al Capone.”
Remnants from the rum
running era are still visible today in the names of restaurants,
hotels, and streets in towns like Lunenburg. Houses built with money
from rum running still stand as a testament to the overnight fortunes
that were made. Even expressions uttered by rum runners, like “the Real
McCoy” in reference to pure liquor, are still used today.
Rum Running will celebrate its world broadcast premiere on CBC Television’s Land & Sea on Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 12 Noon. Following the broadcast, the documentary can be watched on the CBC TV website at: www.cbc.ca/landandsea. Land & Sea is one of CBC’s longest running TV series and can be followed on Twitter: @cbclandandsea
Rum Running was produced in association with CBC TV with funding from Film NS, and Provincial and Federal tax credits.
Film preview http://youtu.be/zbclESshR6MFacebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/events/270476169690052/
http://bayoffundy.ca/archives/1170
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BLOGGED:
nova0000scotia.blogspot.com/.../canada-military-news-great-depression.html - Cached
21 Mar 2015 ... Indian soldiers in the uniform of the Canadian
Expeditionary Force ... WWI & WWI Canadian
Posters DISC ... The Prairies and Maritimes were hardest hit, along with mining areas and heavy
industry areas of Ontario .... Between 1933 and 1937 to make matters even
worse, Saskatchewan suffered a drought.
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UNEMPLOYMENT-DROUGHT AND LOCUSTS- Canada in the Second World War
To reference this article in educational
works, use the following citation:
Landry, Pierre. “Unemployment, Drought and Locusts.”
Juno Beach Centre. The Juno Beach Centre Association, 2003. [Date Accessed].
<http://www.junobeach.org/canada-in-wwii/articles/unemployment-drought-and-locusts/>
Unemployment, Drought and Locusts
Unemployment, Drought and Locusts
Economically, the Great War resulted for Canadians in an era of precarious prosperity, which came to a sudden end in 1929 when the stock market crashed. At the time, the event was viewed as a brutal — but temporary — correction of the economic trend; things were expected to pick up soon, and on sounder bases. No one could imagine how deep-reaching was the crisis striking the industrialized world. The Great Depression lingered. It was to last almost ten years.Before the crash, exports made up more than a third of Canada’s revenue. The United States, the main market for these exports, react to the economic meltdown with protectionist measures. European countries follow suite and move to support their producers, especially in the agricultural sector. In the Prairies, agricultural production had boomed during the Great War; but now, not only did European countries buy less, but Canadian producers has also to face competition from the USSR, which had resumed grain exports in 1928.
The contraction of foreign markets for grain, pulp and paper, minerals and manufactured goods deals a severe blow to the agricultural and industrial sectors. As incomes fall, jobs vanish. The price of grain plummets. A bushel of wheat that used to sell for $1.03 in 1928 is worth only $0,29 in 1932; there is no profit possible from cultivating the land. The decline in the purchasing power of Canadians impacts on domestic markets and contributes to the slowing down of the manufacturing sector. Unemployment rises steadily. In 1930, 390,000 workers are without a job, i.e., some 13% of the total workforce. In 1936, that figure reaches 26%. Between 1929 and 1933, the average annual income of Canadians drops from $471 to $247.
Both my father and mother were hard-working people and took their respective duties seriously: the family had food on the table, we had a roof over our heads and we were dressed warmly. Although we were poor, we were not among the poorest…The situation is even worse in the Prairies than in Central or Eastern Canada. Between 1929 and 1937, an unprecedented drought hits Wheatland. The top soil is dried up by the heat and blown away by the wind, piling up against fences and along roads. In 1937, locust swarms storm the crops, leaving only straw behind them. The Promised Land of Bounty is turning into a dust desert. That year, two thirds of Saskatchewan’s rural population is depending on public welfare for subsistence and 95% of municipalities are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Jules Landry, Memories of My Father
I’ll tell you what that Depression was like. It was survival of the fittest and I read my Bible more now than I ever did and I never read of hard times like that, like we had in the middle of the Thirties. They was Dirty Thirties all right…The government sets in place welfare and work camp programs to help the poor and the unemployed, but fails coming up with efficient measures for improving the economy. Unemployment and poverty lead to demonstrations, and conflicts between workers and employers are at times brutally quelled by the police. This climate of uncertainty and urgency favours the development of communism, which in turns breeds fear in parts of the population. The Communist Party of Tim Buck will take part in all the struggles of the workers and will be severely repressed. New political parties are born from that situation. The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), under J.S. Woodworth, opposes Tim Buck’s marxist communist doctrine. The Social Credit of preacher William Aberhart is born in Western Canada and enjoys some success. None of these parties, however, succeeds in garnering sufficient electoral support and traditional political parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals retain power. With the October 1935 federal elections, the Conservatives of Prime Minister R.B. Bennett are defeated by the Liberal Party of W. L. Mackenzie King, who succeeds him as Head of the Government.
Barry Broadfoot, A Hot Sucking Wind
Strikers from unemployment relief camps enroute to Eastern Canada during “March to Ottawa”, Kamloops, B.C., June 1935. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Municipal Police brought the march to an end in Regina.
National Archives of Canada, C-029399.
National Archives of Canada, C-029399.
Canadian media are efficient: the press provides daily accounts, pictures and analyses of key events as they are unfolding in Europe. Radio, that more affluent people can afford, adds a new, immediate dimension to this information. During the capital years 1933-1939, Canadians watch anxiously as Nazi and fascist violence is unleashed. But this time their eagerness to defend democracy and fly to the assistance of allied nations is dampened by the poverty and uncertainty that plague their own country.
Une révolte impitoyablement écrasée. Une clique de chefs de troupes de choc, suivant les termes de Goering, a tenté en fin de semaine de renverser le gouvernement Hitler. Cette révolte a été noyée dans le sang et Hitler est complètement maître de la situation…
– La Presse, 2 July 1934.
Winnipeg citizens, like those in all parts of the world, listened to the tirade of Herr Hitler, Monday afternoon, wondering whether it was to be peace or war…
– Winnipeg Free Press, 28 September 1938.
Anxious, news-hungry crowds thronged six deep along the sidewalk beside the press room of The Globe and Mail last night, eagerly waiting for the presses to roll and pound out the news of Britain’s stand against aggression. Spirit of the crowd was one of complete orderliness combined with a tense waiting, only occasionally broken by a tight-lipped smile or joke…
– The Globe and Mail, 4 September 1939.
http://www.junobeach.org/canada-in-wwii/articles/unemployment-drought-and-locusts/
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CANADA- History of
Agriculture to the Second World War
Canadian
agriculture has experienced a markedly distinct evolution in each region of the
country. A varied climate and geography have been largely responsible, but, in
addition, each region was settled at a different period in Canada's economic
and political development. Canadian agriculture has experienced a markedly
distinct evolution in each region of the country. A varied climate
and geography have been largely responsible, but, in addition, each region was
settled at a different period in Canada's economic and political development.
The principal unifying factor has been the role of government: from the
colonial era to present, agriculture has been largely state-directed and
subordinate to other interests.
Aboriginal Practices
Prior to
the arrival of Europeans, Aboriginal
people of the lower Great Lakes and St Lawrence regions planted two types of maize, squash and beans,
and practised seed selection. Long before the appearance of French traders,
agricultural First Nations traded maize for skins and meat obtained by woodland
hunters. After the advent of the fur trade, Algonquian middlemen traded
maize with more distant bands for prime northern pelts, and traded furs, in
turn, with the French. First Nations agriculture was important in provisioning
the fur trade until the late 18th century.
Maritimes
18th century – mid-19th
century
Maritime
agriculture dates from the establishment of Port-Royal by the French in 1605. Acadian settlers diked the saltwater
marshes in the Annapolis basin and used them for growing wheat, flax, vegetables and pasturage.
After the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), France withdrew to
Plaisance, Newfoundland; Île Royale (Cape Breton Island); and Île St-Jean (PEI). They intended Île St-Jean to
serve as a source of grain and livestock for their naval and fishing base on
Cape Breton. Few Acadians moved from their homeland to Île St-Jean before the
1750s. By mid-century the predominantly fishing population in Île Royale was
cultivating small clearings with wheat and vegetables and possessed a variety
of livestock.
After
acquiring Acadia in 1713, Britain promoted Maritime agriculture in pursuit of
objectives of defence and mercantilism. Provisions were needed to
support Nova Scotia's role as a strategic bulwark
against the French. Britain also promoted agriculture to supply provisions for
the West Indies trade, and hemp for its navy and merchant marine [EJ1] . Financial incentives were
offered to Halifax
settlers to
clear and fence their land, but the lack of major markets kept the area in a
state of self-sufficiency. The Acadians continued to supply produce to the
French on Ile Royale, an act which contributed to their expulsion by the
British in 1755. Some Acadians were later asked, however, to instruct the
British in marshland farming. The influx of Loyalist settlers in the 1780s increased
demand for marshland produce. Since the American states provided stiff
competition in flour and grains, the Fundy marshlands were largely turned to
pasture and hay for cattle production. On PEI the British government attempted
to promote agricultural settlement by granting 66 lots of 8,094 ha to private
individuals.
Between
1783 and 1850 agriculture was dominant in PEI, but subordinate to the cod
fishery and the trade with the West Indies in Nova Scotia, and secondary to the
timber trade and shipbuilding in New
Brunswick. With British and Loyalist immigration, the area of agricultural
settlement in the Maritimes expanded from the marshlands to include the shores
of rivers, especially the Saint John. Although the new areas were
suited to cereal production, settlers tended to engage in mixed farming for
cultural, agricultural and marketing reasons. Most full-time farmers
concentrated on livestock raising, which required less manpower than did cereal
growing. Before 1850 both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick remained net importers
of foodstuffs from the United States. PEI alone achieved an agricultural
surplus, exporting wheat to England as early as 1831.
Agricultural
development in the early 19th century was limited by the skills post-Loyalist
immigrants possessed. Most of these settlers were Highland Scots who were ill-prepared for
clearing virgin forest, and the standard of agricultural practice was low. In
1818, John Young, a Halifax merchant using the
name "Agricola," began agitating for improved farming methods. As a
result, agricultural societies were formed with a government-sponsored central
organization in Halifax. Young's efforts had virtually no impact, however,
since merchants were not involved in local farming. Hence there was little
economic incentive for farmers to produce a surplus for sale. Nonetheless,
agricultural lands and output grew gradually, and by mid-century the farming
community was a political force, demanding transportation improvements and
agricultural protection.
Mid-19th century – Early 20th
century
After 1850
Maritime agriculture was affected by two principal developments: the transition
throughout the capitalist world from general to specialized agricultural
production and, especially after 1896, the integration of the Maritime economy
into the Canadian economy.
The last two decades of the 19th century witnessed an increase in the
production of factory cheese and creamery butter and a rapid increase in the
export of apples, especially to Britain (see Fruit
and Vegetable Industry).
After 1896
the boom associated with Prairie settlement opened the Canadian market to fruit
(especially apples) and potatoes.
By the 1920s, the British market for Nova
Scotia apples was threatened by American, Australian and British
Columbian competition, notwithstanding improvements introduced by Nova
Scotia producers to increase efficiency. The Canadian market for potatoes was
supplemented by markets in Cuba and the US. Although Cuba moved to
self-sufficiency after 1928, PEI retained some of the market by providing seed
stock.
Those
sectors of Maritime agriculture dependent on local markets began to suffer in
the 1920s. Difficulties in the forest industries
contributed to the disappearance of markets, and the introduction of the
internal combustion engine diminished the demand for horses and hay. Meat from
other parts of Canada supplanted local production. In the 1930s the potato
export market suffered as American and Cuban markets became less accessible.
These factors, coupled with problems in the silver fox industry (see Fur
Farming), were catastrophic for PEI; its agricultural income dropped from
$9.8 million in 1927 to $2.3 million in 1932. Only the apple export market
remained stable, a result of British preferential tariffs on apples from the
empire. In response to various difficulties during the 1930s, many farmers turned
to more diversified self-sufficient agriculture, a change reflected in
increased dairy,
poultry and egg production.
Newfoundland
In
Newfoundland agriculture was never more than marginally viable. Nonetheless,
fishermen practised subsistence agriculture along the creeks and harbours of
the East Coast, and commercial farming developed on the Avalon
Peninsula and on parts of Bonavista, and Notre Dame and Trinity bays.
Newfoundland's agricultural history really began with the food shortages
associated with the American
Revolution, when 3,100 ha were prepared for agriculture in the St John's,
Harbour Grace and Carbonear areas. In the early 19th century a number of
factors combined to give an impetus to agriculture: the arrival of Irish
immigrants with agricultural skills, the growth of St John's as a market for
vegetables, a road-building program, and in 1813 an authorization allowing the
governor to issue title to land for commercial use.
In the late
19th and early 20th centuries the government intensified its efforts to
interest the people in agriculture. By 1900, 298 km2 were under
cultivation and there were some 120,000 horses, cattle and sheep in the colony.
Through the Newfoundland Agricultural Board (formed 1907) the government
established agricultural societies (91 in 1913) which provided assistance in
such things as land clearing and the acquisition of seed and farm implements.
In the 1920s, the government imported purebred animals to improve the native
stock. In the 1930s, in order to mitigate the hardship of the economic
depression, the government responded to the urgings of the Land Development
association, a private group, by providing free seed potatoes in an effort to
promote "garden" cultivation. Upon joining Confederation in 1949,
Newfoundland took advantage of federal government funding to establish
agricultural measures such as a loan program, a land-clearing program, and the
stimulation of egg and hog production.
Québec
17th and 18th Centuries
In 1617, Louis
Hébert began to raise cattle and to clear a small plot for cultivation.
Small-scale clearing ensued as settlers planted cereal grains, peas and corn,
but only six ha were under cultivation by 1625. Beginning in 1612 the French
Crown granted fur monopolies to a succession of companies in exchange for
commitments to establish settlers. The charter companies brought some settlers,
who used oxen, asses and later horses to clear land, but agricultural
self-sufficiency was realized only in the 1640s and marketing agricultural
produce was always difficult during the French regime. In 1663, Louis XIV
reasserted royal control and promoted settlement by families. Intendant Jean Talon
reserved lots for agricultural experimentation and demonstration, introduced
crops such as hops and hemp, raised several types of livestock and advised
settlers on agricultural methods. By 1721 farmers in New France were producing
99,600 hectolitres (hL) of wheat and
smaller amounts of other crops annually, and owned about 30,000 cattle, swine,
sheep and horses (see Seigneurial
System).
After 1763
and the arrival of British traders, new markets opened for Canadian farm
produce within Britain's mercantile system. Francophone habitants
predominated in the raising of crops, but they were joined by anglophone
settlers. British subjects purchased some seigneuries, which they settled with
Scottish, Irish and American immigrants. New Englanders also settled the
Eastern Townships and other areas. Anglo-Canadians promoted some new techniques
of wheat and potato
culture via newspapers and in 1792 formed an agricultural society at Québec.
While the
focus of the government's promotional activity was in Upper Canada (Ontario)
and the Maritimes,
Lower Canada (Québec) enjoyed a modest growth of wheat exports before 1800.
Nevertheless, Lower Canadian wheat production lagged far behind that of Upper
Canada in the first half of the 19th century. The failure of Lower Canadian
agriculture has been blamed by some on the relative unsuitability of the
region's climate
and soils for growing wheat, the only crop with significant export potential;
soil exhaustion; and the growth of the province's population at a faster rate
than its agricultural production in this period. Because there was little
surplus for reinvestment in capital stock, Lower Canada was slow to develop an
inland road system, and transport costs remained relatively high.
Early 19th Century – Mid-20th
Century
By the
1830s Lower Canada had ceased to be self-sufficient in wheat and flour, and
increasingly began importing from Upper Canada. The mid-century gross
agricultural production of Canada East (Québec)
totalled $21 million — only about 60 per cent of Canada West's (Ontario's)
production. Both modernizing and traditional farms contained more children than
they could adequately support, and widespread poverty induced thousands of
habitants to migrate to Québec's cities and New England (see Franco-Americans).
As well, spurred by religious colonizers, settlement pushed north of Trois-Rivières,
south of Lac
Saint-Jean and south along the Chaudière
River. However, little commercial agriculture was practised.
Later
19th-century Québec agriculture was marked by increases in cultivated area and
productivity, and by a shift from wheat production to dairying and stock
raising. From the 1860s government agents worked to educate farmers to the
commercial possibilities of dairying, and agronomists such as Édouard
Barnard organized an agricultural press and instituted government
inspection of dairy products. Commercial dairies, cheese factories and
butteries developed around the towns and railways, most notably in the Montréal
plain and the Eastern Townships. By 1900, dairying was the leading agricultural
sector in Québec. It was becoming mechanized in field and factory and
increasingly male-oriented as processing shifted from the farm to factories. By
the end of the century 3.6 million kg of Québec cheese were being produced, an
8-fold increase since 1851.
By the
1920s, however, agriculture accounted for only one-third of Québec's total
economic output. The First
World War had artificially stimulated production, and new mining, forestry
and hydroelectric
ventures opened up new markets; but they also contributed to and symbolized the
shift from agricultural to industrial enterprises in the Québec economy. By the
1920s Québec soil was again becoming exhausted due to a lack of fertilizer
which stemmed from a lack of credit. Farmers' political organizations, such as
the Union catholique des cultivateurs (founded 1924), addressed the problem of
lack of credit and other issues.
Like their
counterparts elsewhere in Canada, Québec farmers suffered during the 1930s. In
areas removed from urban markets there was a return to non-commercial
agriculture, with a consequent increase in the number of farms. During the
decade farm income decreased more drastically than did urban wages. The Second
World War marked a return to widespread commercial agriculture, and postwar
trends included a decrease in the number of farm units and in farm population,
and an increase in the average size of farm holdings.
Ontario
Late 18th Century – Mid-19th
Century
American
independence in 1783 both created a potential security threat on British
North America's southern border and cut off Britain's principal
agricultural base in North America. The British channelled Loyalists into the
lower Great
Lakes region, where Governor
Simcoe suggested settling soldiers along the waterfront for defence, with other
settlers filling in the land behind. The authorities initially promoted hemp
culture as an export staple to stimulate British manufacturing and contribute
to defence. However, scarcity of labour in relation to land inhibited its
production. Between 1783 and 1815 settlement filled in along the lake shores
and the St
Lawrence, where some cereal grains and vegetables were grown, chiefly for
subsistence.
Agriculture
in what is now Ontario
was dominated from 1800-60 by wheat
production. Wheat was the crop most easily grown and marketed and was an
important source of cash for settlers. Apart from limited internal demand from
such sources as British garrisons, canal construction crews and lumber camps,
the principal markets were Britain and Lower Canada. Between 1817 and 1825
Upper Canadian farmers shipped an average of 57,800 (hectolitres) hL to Montréal.
Dependence
on wheat culture was reflected in a boom-and-bust economy. The application of
the Corn
Law restrictions in 1820 effectively shut BNA wheat out of British markets,
causing a disastrous drop in wheat prices and land values. With the fixing of
preferential duties for BNA wheat in 1825, prices and export volumes rallied,
but the market collapsed in 1834-35. Crop failures in the late 1830s resulted
in near starvation in many newly settled areas.
Mid-19th Century – Early 20th
Century
Despite the
American tariff, similar failures in the United States created a temporary
market for surplus Upper Canadian wheat.
Meanwhile, transportation improvements facilitated shipments out of the region.
As a result of these improvements, favourable climate conditions and growth in
markets, wheat exports increased from 1 million hL in 1840 to 2.25 million in
1850.
After 1850,
Ontario’s agriculture became increasingly diversified. Repeal of the Corn
Laws in 1846 removed the preferential status of BNA wheat and therefore
promoted price instability, but higher American prices after the discovery of
California gold
helped producers overcome trade barriers to livestock, wool, butter and coarse
grains. Favourable trading conditions continued with the Reciprocity
Treaty, 1854-66. Moreover, a price depression in 1857 and crop destruction
by the midge in 1858 hastened the switch to livestock. In 1864 factory cheese
making was introduced, and by 1900 Canadian cheddar cheese, largely from
Ontario, had captured 60 per cent of the English market. Two farmers’
organizations — the Grange
(after 1872) and the Patrons of Industry (after 1889) — reflected a developing
producer consciousness among Ontario farmers.
Technological
developments assisted both the grain and livestock sectors in the 19th century.
Field tillage was improved by the introduction of copies of American cast-iron
plows after 1815. To control weeds biennial summer fallow (i.e. unsown land)
was generally practised between about 1830 and 1850, when crop rotation became
prevalent. Government authorities also promoted the British technology of
covered drains to reclaim extensive tracts of swampy or bottom land, averting
the use of furrow and ditch drainage that impeded mechanization. The reaper
diffused rapidly in the 1860s, permitting increased grain production.
Widespread use of the cream separator by 1900 promoted butter production, while
refrigeration was a catalyst to the beef
and pork
industry.
Early – Mid-20th Century
In the late
19th and early 20th centuries, urbanization
expanded the demand for market gardening around cities and more specialized
crops in different regions. These included orchard farming in Niagara
Peninsula, Prince Edward and Elgin counties, and tobacco in Essex and Kent
counties. Dairying
developed on the fringes of cities and cash crop acreages declined in favour of
feed grains and fodder, while beef producers were unable to meet the domestic
demand. Throughout rural Ontario
there were farm-initiated associations of stockbreeders, dairy farmers, grain
growers, fruit growers, etc., as well as the government-initiated Farmers'
Institutes and Women's Institutes. The associations reflected a faith in farm
life in the face of rural depopulation and an industrializing society. Various
farmer-initiated groups worked in the United
Farmers of Ontario movement, which formed the provincial government in 1919
under E.C.
Drury.
During the
1920s Ontario farmers experienced a taste of prosperity as prices increased on
various agricultural commodities. One result of this prosperity was a decline
in the drift to the cities. By 1931, however, Ontario farm receipts had
decreased 50 per cent from 1926. Although Ontario escaped the drought
conditions of the Prairies, farmers were unable to market much of their
produce, and surplus meat, cheese, vegetables and apples were shipped west. The
government responded to the crisis with regulation, with dairying being the
most important example. The Ontario Marketing Board was formed in 1931 with a
5-year plan instituted in 1932. In return for government loans, producers
improved their herds and modernized their barns. By the Second
World War Ontario agriculture was diversified for an urban market, with
both agricultural
marketing boards and farmer-owned co-operatives playing important roles.
The Prairies
Early 19th Century – Early
20th Century
In western British
North America, Scottish settlers practised river-lot agriculture at Red
River Colony after their arrival in 1812. While the survey system was
French Canadian, agricultural practices followed the Scottish pattern. Land
adjacent to the river was cultivated in strips in the manner of the Scottish
"infield," with pasturage reserved for the "outfield"
behind. The Métis
alternated agriculture with seasonal activities such as the Buffalo
Hunt. The Red River Colony came to assume a role in provisioning the fur
trade alongside Aboriginal and company agriculture.
Confederation
was the spur to the agricultural development of the Prairie
West. In the mid-19th century central Canadian businessmen were seeking
investment opportunities to complement central Canada's industrial development.
The prospect of agricultural expansion in the western interior was very
appealing. Canada proceeded to purchase the Hudson's
Bay Company's Rupert’s
Land (1870), repress Métis resistance (1869-70 and 1885), displace the
Aboriginal population, and survey the land for disposal to agricultural
settlers (see Dominion
Lands Policy). Wheat
quickly established its economic importance. However, continuing low world
prices, culminating in a worldwide depression in the early 1890s, halted
development until 1900. Western Canada's dry climate and short growing season
were the most serious stumbling blocks. Genetic experimentation, leading to the
development of Marquis wheat in 1907, in combination with the Dominion
government's promotion of summer-fallowing to conserve soil moisture and
control weeds, helped remove the technical barriers to continued agricultural
expansion.
Large-scale
ranching
on leased land began in what is now southern Alberta
and Saskatchewan
in the 1870s and 1880s. The area's dry climate
was practically overcome by small-scale irrigation from the 1870s on and by the
introduction of an irrigation
policy in 1894. Western agriculture received the necessary economic stimulus
from an overall decline in transportation costs (see Crow’s
Nest Pass Agreement) and a relative rise in the price of wheat in the late
1890s.
Under Clifford
Sifton’s immigration schemes, the Canadian government effectively completed
the agricultural settlement of the Prairies. Mechanization of the wheat economy
with steam, gas tractors, gang plows and threshing machines contributed to huge
production surpluses. An unprecedented boom in wheat prices during the First
World War promoted cultivation of new lands. Price depressions in 1913 and
after the war precipitated many bankruptcies by overcapitalized farmers.
Nevertheless, between 1901 and 1931 the amount of land under field crop on the
Prairies jumped from 1.5 to 16.4 million ha.
Early 20th Century – Mid -
20th Century
The
collapse of wheat
prices after First
World War had serious consequences for Prairie farmers. Many operators who
had purchased implements and more land at high prices during the war defaulted
and lost their farms. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s operators of farms on
poorer soils consistently lost money, as did farmers in the dry belt of
southwestern Saskatchewan
and southeastern Alberta.
Drought, grasshoppers and crop disease further worsened conditions for farmers
in the 1930s; the government responded with the Prairie
Farm Rehabilitation Administration. Technological advances such as the
development of the combine harvester resulted in both more efficient
agriculture and the forcing off the land of farmers lacking sufficient capital
to purchase the new technology. The mechanization process in Prairie
agriculture as a whole was essentially halted during the 1930s, to be
dramatically resumed after the Second
World War.
From the
early settlement era western farmers depended on central Canadian business to
provide their production inputs and to finance, purchase and transport their
grain. In order to gain some control over the economic forces which controlled
them, organizations were formed to advance their interests. Early agrarian
movements in Manitoba
and the Northwest
Territories espoused the virtues of co-operation and criticized the
Canadian government’s tariff policy, freight rates and federal disallowance of
railway charters to the Canadian
Pacific Railway's rivals. After forcing the government in 1899 to ensure
better service from the railways, farmers formed Grain
Growers’ Associations in the Territories in 1901-02 and in Manitoba in
1903. These organizations carried on educational work among farmers, promoted
provincial ownership of inland elevators and, ultimately, campaigned for the
co-operative marketing of grain. This latter objective was achieved in 1906
with the formation of the Grain Growers' Grain Company.
The Grain
Growers' Grain Company is representative of the first phase of Prairie
co-operative grain marketing. In the context of heightened farmer and worker
consciousness after the First World War, it came under criticism for having
become too business-oriented. A radical wing developed in the Prairie farm
movement, led by H.W. Wood of the United
Farmers of Alberta. In 1923-24 farmers organized compulsory pools ¾ a new
form of co-operative marketing ¾ in the three Prairie provinces (e.g., see Saskatchewan
Wheat Pool). Pools were successful throughout the 1920s, but collapsed
after the Great
Depression struck in 1929. Although the federal government moved to save
the pools and stabilize the wheat market, it did so by appointing a manager
from the private grain trade, undermining the pools’ original co-operative
design.
As a
further attempt to stabilize the market the government introduced the Canadian
Wheat Board in 1935, which farmers had been demanding since their wheat
board experience of 1919–20. Again, however, this board was dominated by the
private grain trade and reflected its interests as much as those of farmers. In
1943, the wheat board was made compulsory for the marketing of western wheat,
and in 1949 the board's authority was extended to western barley and oats. The
CWB’s monopoly was terminated by the Federal Government in 2012, allowing
farmers to market their grain to whichever company they wished. The agrarian
movement in western Canada was more than an economic phenomenon. People in the
pools, the grain growers' associations and farm political parties intervened
and were influential in Prairie culture, society and politics, as well as in
economics. Farm-movement women, for example, were active in the temperance
crusade, the women’s
suffrage movement, child welfare and rural education, as well as in the
economic and political struggles they shared with farm men. Political protest
movements which developed in the 1920s around the pooling crusade, such as the
Farmers' Union of Canada, eventually entered the Co-operative
Commonwealth Federation as an important component of the Canadian socialist
tradition.
British Columbia
19th Century
Agriculture
in British
Columbia was first developed to provision the fur trade. In 1811, Daniel
Harmon of the North
West Company started a garden at Stuart Lake, and later the Hudson
Bay Company planted small gardens on Vancouver
Island, at Fort St
James, Fort Fraser and Fort George. The HBC also helped establish the
Puget's Sound Agricultural Company. Commercial demand for agricultural products
was spurred by gold
rushes after 1858. However, while ranching was established in the interior
along the Thompson and Nicola valleys and some farming settlement occurred,
newcomers were more attracted to the lure of gold than to agricultural
opportunities. Production lagged far behind demand.
Railway
production camps in the early 1880s provided a domestic market for agricultural
products, but the establishment of Canadian rail linkages destroyed the early
wheat industry, which could not compete with Prairie wheat,
either in quality or in price. In the 1890s the establishment of the Boundary
and Kootenay mining industries created new markets. Lumbering and fish-packing
industries also stimulated agriculture although producers dependent on local
industry suffered when lumber camps moved on or mines or canneries closed.
Large-scale farming continued in districts such as the Cariboo and Similkameen,
while smaller-scale specialized agriculture developed in the Okanagan and
Fraser valleys. By the 1880s the Okanagan
Valley had developed a specialized fruit industry while market gardening
and dairying flourished in the lower Fraser Valley as urban markets increased.
Early 20th Century
The British
Columbia Fruit-Growers' Association, founded 1889, was the first formal
organization of producers in the province. Its objectives were to investigate
potential markets on the Prairies and methods of controlling fruit marketing.
In 1913 economic difficulties obliged Okanagan fruit growers to set up a
co-operative marketing and distribution agency, financed largely by the
provincial government. The agency helped eliminate eastern Canadian and
American competition on the Prairies. The depression of 1921–22, however,
signalled the beginning of an 18-year search for more permanent stability. A
1923 plan called on fruit growers to agree to sell for a 5-year period through
a central agency. Eighty per cent of producers supported the plan and
competition among shippers kept prices low. Various government and private
schemes were tried without success between 1927 and 1937.
In 1938 the
provincial government established the Tree Fruit Board to be the sole agency
for apple marketing. The following year producers set up Tree Fruits Ltd as a
producer-owned central selling agency. In 1939–40 farmers' co-operatives in BC
(of which Tree Fruits Ltd was the most important) did a combined business of
nearly $11 million. Although there were some difficulties for BC agriculture in
the Second
World War, with the export market being cut, a combination of government
assistance and improved purchasing power on the Prairies contributed to the
creation of a seller's market by 1944.
The North
Agriculture
north of 60° N lat began with European contact, since the region was beyond the
range of Aboriginal cultivation techniques. Following Peter
Pond’s 1778 experiment in gardening near Lake
Athabasca, the Hudson
Bay Company established crops and livestock along the Mackenzie
River at Fort
Simpson, Fort Norman (now Tulita), Fort
Good Hope, and at Fort
Selkirk at the junction of the Pelly and Yukon
rivers. Missionaries developed livestock, gardens and crops at a number of
missions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During the Klondike
Gold Rush, some miners grew their own vegetables in the relatively fertile Dawson City
soil, but most supplies were imported. The pattern that emerged from the gold
rush period and came to characterize northern agriculture in the 20th century
was one of small market gardens and part-time farming, subordinate to mining.
In the Yukon,
ranches developed on the Pelly River and along the Whitehorse-Dawson trail. The
mining area around Mayo provided a demand for market gardening. In Mackenzie
District, significant agricultural activity was undertaken by Oblate
missionaries at Fort Smith, Fort Resolution and Fort Providence.
During the
20th century the federal government studied the agricultural potential of the
North through co-operative experimental work with selected farmers (such as the
Oblate missionaries) and, after the Second
World War, in their own substations. The consensus that developed was that
agriculture was not commercially viable. Transportation improvements have
allowed southern produce to undercut potential northern production and climate
has been a continuing impediment.
- N. Séguin, Agriculture et colonisation au Québec (1980)
- G.E. Reamon, A History of Agriculture in Ontario, vol 1 (1970)
- I. MacPherson, Each for All (1979)
- J. McCallum, Unequal Beginnings (1980)
- R.L. Jones, History of Agriculture in Ontario, 1613-1880 (1946)
- V.C. Fowke, Canadian Agricultural Policy (1946) and The National Policy and the Wheat Economy (1957)
- C. Chatillon, L'Histoire de l'agriculture au Québec (1976)
- D.H. Akenson, ed, Canadian Papers in Rural History, 3 vols (1978-82)
Pirates and PrivateersThe History of Maritime PiracyCindy Vallar, Editor & Reviewer
P.O. Box 425, Keller, TX 76244-0425
Articles
Conlin, Daniel. "A Private War in the Caribbean: Nova Scotia Privateering 1793-1805," The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord. VI:4, 29-46.
Mullane, George. "The Privateers of Nova Scotia, 1756-1783," Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society (v. 20). William MacNab & Son, 1921.
Nichols, George E. E. "Notes on Nova Scotian Privateers," Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society. William MacNab & Son, 1921, 111-153.
Snider, C.H.J. "Privateers of the Spanish Main," Canadian Magazine (Sept. 1928), 5-7, 30.
Snider, C.H.J. "The Perkins Privateers," Canadian Magazine (Oct. 1928), 10-11, 28.
Snider, C.H.J. "Black Silver," Canadian Magazine. (November 1928), 16-17, 32.
"Des flibustiers en Nouvelle-France?" Encyclopirate (in French)
Gilbert Pike and Sheila Na Geira
Landry, Peter. "Baptiste, 1663-1714", Historical Biographies, Nova Scotia
Leier, Kerri. "Nova Scotia's Rebels-Pirates and Privateers", Horton Journal of Canadian History
"Pierre Le Picard, dit Capitaine Picard," Encyclopirate (in French)
Pirates: a Rogues Gallery (scroll down to Black Bart Roberts)
"Robert Chevalier, dit de Beauchêne," Encyclopirate (in French)
© 2003 Cindy Vallar
http://www.cindyvallar.com/canadianresources.html
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|
| Year | Day | Month | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| The separatist Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) sets off bombs in Montréal (Apr.-May). | |||
| 8 | April | Liberals under Pearson win a minority government. | |
| 29 | November | A TCA flight crashes in Québec, killing 118. | |
| -75000000 | Dinosaurs live in steamy forests and warm seas that cover much of what we now call Canada | ||
| -30000 | The first human inhabitants of North America probably cross from Siberia by land bridge as the last Ice Age draws to a close. | ||
| 600 | Five Iroquois nations form the powerful Confederacy of the Longhouse. | ||
| 1000 | Leif Ericsson's first voyage to Vinland. A Norse colony is established on Vinland, but lasts only a coupe of years. | ||
| 1000 | Native people of southern Ontario begin to plant and harvest corn. The Thule people - ancestors of the Inuit - migrate east across Artic Canada | ||
| 1492 | Columbus sails to America | ||
| 1497 | 24 | June | John Cabot claims New World territory (either Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island) for England. |
| 1497 | John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) of Genoa makes two voyages for England to the fishing grounds of Newfoundland. | ||
| 1498 | Cabot makes his second voyage across the Atlantic to the Maritimes but is lost at sea | ||
| 1500 | Gaspar de Corte-Real sails around Newfoundland | ||
| 1508 | Thomas Aubert visits Newfoundland | ||
| 1520 | Fagundes sails into the Gulf of St. Lawrence area | ||
| 1524 | Verrazzano for France and Gomes for Spain, Scout the Atlantic seaboard | ||
| 1527 | John Rut in Labrador | ||
| 1534 | Jacques Cartier explores the coast of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. He lands on the Gaspe Peninsula and claims the land for France. | ||
| 1534 | 24 | July | Jacques Cartier, on the Gasped Peninsula, claims the area for France. |
| 1535 | Jacques Cartier journeys up the St. Lawrence to the Native settlements of Stadacona and Hochelaga. He gives Canada its name (from Indian word kanata, meaning village). | ||
| 1541 | Cartier returns to North America with the Sieur de Roberval to found a settlement. They named it Charlesbourg-Royal and it became the first French settlement in North America. | ||
| 1542 | Roberval’s expedition | ||
| 1576 | Martin Frobisher journeys as far as Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island, on the first of three voyages in search of the Northwest Passage. | ||
| 1583 | Sir Humphrey Gilbert visits Newfoundland and claims it for England. | ||
| 1585 | Davis is dispatched to find the Northwest passage to Asia and Davis Strait is named after him | ||
| 1595 | Mercator’s Atlas is published | ||
| 1598 | La Roche’s colony is established on Sable Island | ||
| 1600 | Hakluyt’s Voyages is published | ||
| 1600 | King Henry IV of France awards a Fur trading Monopoly to a group of French merchants. | ||
| 1602 | Waymouth sails into Hudson Strait | ||
| 1604 | Pierre Du Gua de Monts and Samuel Champlain establish a colony in Nova Scotia. Marc Lescarbot starts the first library and first French school of Native people, and in 1606 produces the first play staged in Canada. After Lescarbot returns to France, he writes the first history of Canada. | ||
| 1605 | Port Royal is established in Nova Scotia by the French under Samuel de Champlain. - | ||
| 1606 | First theatrical production in Canada | ||
| 1608 | 3 | July | Champlain founds Quebec City. |
| 1608 | Samuel de Champlain founds a permanent French colony at Quebec. | ||
| 1609 | Lippershey invents spectacles | ||
| 1609 | Champlain travels with the Algonquins to Lake Champlain where they attack the Iroquois and the French use firearms against the Iroquois. - Lippershey invents spectacles | ||
| 1609 | 30 | July | Champlain is the first European to use firearms against Indians (Iroquois). |
| 1610 | Etienne Brule goes to live among the Huron and eventually becomes the first European to see Lakes Ontario, Huron and Superior. - | ||
| 1610 | Henry Hudson explores Hudson Bay and is set adrift by a mutinous crew and dies. | ||
| 1610 | Explorer Henry Hudson is set adrift by his mutinous crew in Hudson Bay. | ||
| 1611 | Etienne Brule reaches Lake Nipissing | ||
| 1611 | 24 | June | Henry Hudson cast adrift in James Bay by mutineers. |
| 1611 | 22 | May | First Jesuits arrive in New France (at Port Royal) |
| 1612 | Samuel de Champlain is named the Governor of New France | ||
| 1613 | Argall attacks St. Sauveur in Acadia | ||
| 1613 | Foundation of St. John’s Newfoundland | ||
| 1615 | The first Roman Catholic missionaries try to convert Native people to Christianity. | ||
| 1615 | Champlain discovers the Great Lakes | ||
| 1616 | Champlain completes eight years pf exploring, traveling as far as west Georgia Bay. The French and Huron form an alliance. | ||
| 1617 | Louis and Marie Hebert and their children become the first French settlers of farm land in New France. | ||
| 1621 | William Alexander is awarded Nova Scotia by England | ||
| 1623 | Founding of Avalon, Newfoundland | ||
| 1625 | Jesuits arrive in Quebec to begin missionary work among the Indians | ||
| 1627 | War breaks out between England and France | ||
| 1627 | 29 | April | The Company of One Hundred Associates is founded, by Cardinal Richelieu, to establish a French Empire in North America - War breaks out between England and France |
| 1629 | 20 | July | Champlain surrenders Quebec to Kirk brothers from England. (Port La Tour, N.S., is the only part of New France to avoid capture by English.) |
| 1630 | The first French schools are founded in Quebec by religious orders. | ||
| 1631 | Foxe explores the Artic looking for the North West passage | ||
| 1631 | Thomas James sails into Hudson Bay and discovers James Bay which is named after him | ||
| 1632 | 29 | March | Treaty of Saint-Germainen-Laye returns New France to French |
| 1634 | The Huron Nation is reduced by half from European disease (smallpox epidemic, 1639) | ||
| 1634 | Nicolet discovers Lake Michigan | ||
| 1635 | 25 | December | Champlain dies in Quebec, aged about 65. |
| 1635 | Founding of the French Academy; the Jesuit college at Quebec | ||
| 1637 | Kirke is named the first governor of Newfoundland | ||
| 1638 | Placentia Newfoundland is founded | ||
| 1639 | Grant of Batiscan; Jesuits found Ste. Marie among the Hurons | ||
| 1639 | The first Ursulines reach Quebec | ||
| 1640 | Discovery of Lake Erie | ||
| 1642 | Ville-Marie (Montreal) is founded by Paul de Maisonneuve. | ||
| 1642 | 17 | May | De Maisonneuve founds Ville-Marie (Montreal) |
| 1643 | 9 | June | Three settlers killed in first of countless Iroquois attacks on Ville-Marie. |
| 1644 | The founding of the Hotel-Dieu in Montreal | ||
| 1645 | The Hotel-Dieu Hospital in Ville-Marie, founded by Jeanne Mance, is completed. | ||
| 1648 | The First Council of New France is held | ||
| 1649 | 16 | March | The Jesuit Father Jean de Brebeuf is martyred by the Iroquois at St-Ignace. The Iroquois disperse the Huron nation (1648-49) |
| 1649 | War between the Huron and Iroquois confederacies leads to the destruction of the Huron nation. The Iroquois begin raids on New France. | ||
| 1649 | The Iroquois disperse the Huron nation (1648-49) | ||
| 1651 | Jean de Lauzon is appoint Governor of New | ||
| 1654 | Sedgwick seizes Port Royal | ||
| 1657 | Arrival of the Sulpicians in Canada | ||
| 1657 | Pierre d’Argenson becomes Governor of New France | ||
| 1658 | First girls school in Montreal | ||
| 1658 | Francois de Laval made Apostolic Vicar of New France | ||
| 1659 | 6 | June | Francois de Laval arrives at Quebec as de facto bishop of New France |
| 1660 | 2 | May | Iroquois attack Dollard des Ormeaux near Carillon, Que. |
| 1661 | D’Avaugour becomes the Governor of New France | ||
| 1661 | Radisson & Des Groseilliers explore to Hudson Bay | ||
| 1662 | Thomas Temple is appointed Governor of Nova Scotia | ||
| 1663 | King Louis XIV decides to rebuild New France. He sends a governor and troops to protect the colony, and intendant (Jean Talon) to administer it, and settlers to increase its population. | ||
| 1665 | 12 | September | With New France under the personal control of Louis XIV, Jean Talon arrives at Quebec as first intendant. |
| 1666 | 14 | September | Carignan-Salieres Regiment leaves Quebec on raids into Iroquois territory that will end Iroquois harassment of New France for 23 years. |
| 1666 | Fort Temple is founded as an English stronghold in | ||
| 1668 | 29 | September | English Ketch Nonsuch reaches Rupert River in James Bay, where crew will build first Hudson's Bay Company post. |
| 1669 | Lake Erie discovered. | ||
| 1670 | The English king grants a charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, giving it exclusive trading rights to vast territory drained by rivers the flow into Hudson Bay. | ||
| 1670 | 2 | May | Hudson's Bay Company receives royal charter in London. |
| 1671 | Founding of Fort Albany on the Hudson Bay | ||
| 1672 | The Hudson Bay Company is charter by King James of England | ||
| 1672 | Albanel completes an overland trip to Hudson Bay | ||
| 1672 | Frontenac becomes the Governor of Quebec | ||
| 1673 | Jolliet and Marquette reach the Mississippi | ||
| 1673 | Foundation of Cataraqui (Kingston) | ||
| 1673 | Moose Factory and Fort Monsoni are founded | ||
| 1673 | 12 | July | Frontenac awes restless Iroquois at Kingston, Ontario. |
| 1675 | Founding of Fort | ||
| 1679 | Sieur Du Lhut lands at present day Duluth. La Salle sails in Griffon. Griffon lost on return trip. | ||
| 1680 | Founding of the Comedie Francaise | ||
| 1682 | 9 | April | La Salle claims Louisiana for France |
| 1682 | La Salle reaches the mouth of the Mississippi | ||
| 1682 | La Barre becomes the Governor of Quebec | ||
| 1682 | Rene-Robert Cavalier de La Salle reaches the mouth of the Mississippi, and claims for France all the land through which the river and its tributaries flow. | ||
| 1685 | Denonville becomes the Governor of Quebec | ||
| 1686 | John Abraham explores the Churchill River | ||
| 1686 | Moose Factory and Rupert fall into French hands | ||
| 1689 | Kelsey explores the North for the Hudson Bay | ||
| 1689 | Frontenac begins his second term as vieregal | ||
| 1689 | Abenaki Indians seize Pemaquid | ||
| 1689 | 5 | August | Lachine Massacre starts new series of Iroquois raids. |
| 1690 | 21 | October | Frontenac victorious as Sir William Phips lifts four-day siege of Quebec. |
| 1692 | 22 | October | Madeleine de Vercheres defends family fort against Iroquois. |
| 1693 | The English retake Fort Albany from the French | ||
| 1694 | The Tartuffe affair at Quebec | ||
| 1694 | Iberville seizes York | ||
| 1696 | Iberville’s campaign in Newfoundland | ||
| 1696 | 4 | July | Frontenac and 2,000 men leave Montreal on raid that will permanently end Iroquois harassment of New France. |
| 1697 | Callieres becomes the administrator of Canada | ||
| 1697 | 5 | September | Iberville in Pelican wins control of Hudson Bay. |
| 1697 | First settlement at Moncton, New Brunswick | ||
| 1698 | Thomas Savery patents his “steam engine” | ||
| 1699 | End of the Iroquois. | ||
| 1700 | Horses come to the northern plains, and the region's Native people become nations on horseback. | ||
| 1701 | Cadillac at Detroit | ||
| 1701 | Treaty of peace with the Iroquois Confederacy is signed. | ||
| 1701 | 3 | August | Iroquois sign lasting peace with New France |
| 1702 | Having begun in Europe in1701, The War of the Spanish Succession spreads to North America (Queen Anne's War) in Acadia and New England. | ||
| 1702 | Leake ravaged French Newfoundland | ||
| 1703 | Vaudreuil becomes Governor of Quebec and Beauharnois becomes Intendant | ||
| 1704 | New flood of card money in Canada. | ||
| 1705 | J Raudot becomes the Intendant of Canada | ||
| 1706 | Opening of Montreal’s public marketplace | ||
| 1707 | Denis Papin constructs his first steamboat | ||
| 1708 | St. Johns falls into French hands | ||
| 1710 | Port Royal falls to the English. | ||
| 1710 | Montreal's public marketplace opens. | ||
| 1710 | 12 | October | Port Royal surrenders for the last time to the English |
| 1711 | Abortive invasion of New France. | ||
| 1713 | Acadia, Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay Company become English. | ||
| 1713 | 11 | April | Treaty of Utrecht cedes Hudson Bay, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and mainland Nova Scotia to England. |
| 1713 | The Treaty of Utrecht ends Queen Anne's War, confirming British possession of Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and Acadia (except l'Ile- Royale [Cape Breton Island]). France starts building Fort Louisbourg near the eastern tip of l'Ile-Royale. | ||
| 1713 | A peace treaty forces France to turn over Newfoundland and Acadia to Britain. The French begin construction of Louisbourg, strongest fortress in North America, on Cape Breton Island. | ||
| 1715 | Beginning of the ginseng boom. | ||
| 1717 | Construction begins on Fortress Louisbourg. | ||
| 1718 | The foundation of New Orleans | ||
| 1720 | Fort Rouille founded on the site of Toronto. | ||
| 1721 | Scroggs looks for a North West passage, while Richard Norton explores by land 1726 Beauharnois becomes Governor of New | ||
| 1726 | The first English school in Newfoundland is established, known as "the school for poor people". | ||
| 1729 | Reorganization of Newfoundland by the English | ||
| 1730 | The Mississauga drive the Seneca Iroquois south of Lake Erie. | ||
| 1731 | The La Vérendrye family organize expeditions beyond Lake Winnipeg and direct fur trade toward the east. They are the first recorded Europeans to sight the Canadian Rockies from the East. | ||
| 1731 | Gilles Hocquart becomes the Intendant of New France | ||
| 1736 | The Beauce country opened for settlement | ||
| 1737 | Opening of the North shore road from Quebec to Montreal | ||
| 1737 | Opening of the north shore road from Quebec to Montreal. | ||
| 1737 | Grey Sisters founded in Canada | ||
| 1738 | Opening of the St. Maurice Ironworks; founding of Port La Reine (Portage La Prairie) and Fort Rouge (Winnipeg, Manitoba). | ||
| 1740 | The Mandan Indians west of the Great Lakes begin to trade in horses descended from those brought to Texas by the Spanish. Itinerant Assiniboine Indians bring them from Mandan settlements to their own territories southwest of Lake Winnipeg. | ||
| 1743 | Discovery of the Rocky Mountains | ||
| 1743 | Discovery of the Rocky Mountains. | ||
| 1743 | Louis-Joseph, son of Pierre de la Verendrye, explores westward in search of the "Western Sea", crossing the plains almost to Rocky Mountains. | ||
| 1744 | Having begun in Europe in 1770, The War of the Austrian Succession spreads to North America (King George's War). | ||
| 1744 | Duvivier seizes Canso but fails at Annapolis | ||
| 1745 | New England forces seize Louisbourg. | ||
| 1745 | 15 | June | Fortress Louisbourg surrenders to the English (but will be handed back three years later). |
| 1747 | La Galissoniere becomes Governor of New France | ||
| 1748 | Bigot becomes Intendant of New France | ||
| 1748 | Louisbourg and l'Ile-Royale are returned to France by the Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle. - | ||
| 1749 | Foundation of Halifax. | ||
| 1749 | 21 | June | Halifax founded by the English to offset Louisbourg. |
| 1749 | The British found Halifax as a naval and military post; about 3 000 people settle there in one year. | ||
| 1750 | Fort Beausejour is built by the French - Fort Lawrence is built by the English | ||
| 1750 | The Ojibwa begin to emerge as a distinct tribal amalgamation of smaller independent bands. German immigrants begin to arrive in numbers at Halifax. | ||
| 1750 | Building of Fort Lawrence. | ||
| 1752 | 23 | March | Canada's first newspaper, the Halifax Gazette, appears. |
| 1752 | 25 | March | First issue of the Halifax Gazette, Canada's first newspaper. |
| 1753 | Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, is founded. | ||
| 1754 | Wilkinson’s first steel mill at Bradley | ||
| 1754 | Beginning of the French and Indian War in America, though not officially declared for another two years | ||
| 1754 | Fort Duquesne is constructed | ||
| 1754 | Jumonville is killed on the Ohio | ||
| 1754 | Anthony Henday explores the west | ||
| 1754 | Fort Necessity capitulates | ||
| 1755 | 28 | July | Acadians ordered deported. |
| 1755 | The expulsion of the Acadians by the British begins; 6 000 to 10 000 Acadians were driven from their homes. | ||
| 1756 | The Seven Years War between Great Britain and France begins, fought partly in their North America colonies. | ||
| 1756 | The Marquis de Montcalm assumes a troubled command of French troops in North America and proceeds to capture Fort Oswego. | ||
| 1757 | Fort William Henry falls | ||
| 1758 | 8 | July | French troops, under the command of Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, win victory over the British at Carillon (Ticonderoga). |
| 1758 | 26 | July | The British capture Louisbourg from the French. |
| 1758 | 26 | July | Louisbourg surrenders to the English for second time. (Now it will be destroyed) |
| 1759 | 13 | September | Wolfe defeats Montcalm on Plains of Abraham. |
| 1759 | 13 | September | At the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Quebec falls to the British. Both commander, Wolfe and Montcalm, are killed. |
| 1760 | 8 | September | Montreal surrenders to the English |
| 1760 | 8 | September | New France surrenders to the British. |
| 1760 | The British Conquest is assured when Levis wins the battle of St Foy. General James Murray is appointed first British military governor of Québec. | ||
| 1760 | Nova Scotia townships of Chester, Dublin, Liverpool, Cornwallis, Campbelton and Kentville are formed | ||
| 1763 | 10 | February | Treaty of Paris seals the fall of New France |
| 1763 | New France becomes a British colony called Quebec. Alliance of Native nations under Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa, makes war on the British, seizing many forts and trading posts. | ||
| 1764 | Murray becomes civil governor of Québec, but his attempts to appease French Canadians are disliked by British merchants. | ||
| 1768 | Guy Carleton succeeds Murray as governor of Québec. | ||
| 1769 | Prince Edward Island, formerly part of Nova Scotia, becomes separate British colony. | ||
| 1770 | Samuel Hearne, guided by Chipewyan leader Matonabbee, explores in a two-years voyage the Coppermine and Slave rivers and Great Slave Lake. He is the first white man to reach the Artic Ocean overland. | ||
| 1772 | The Hudson's Bay Company opens Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan. 1774 Carleton's recommendations are instituted in the Québec Act, which introduces B British criminal law but retains French civil law and guarantees religious freedom for Roman Catholics. The Act's geographical claims were so great that it helped precipitate the American Revolution. | ||
| 1773 | Scottish settlers reach Pictou, Nova Scotia, aboard the Hector. | ||
| 1774 | 22 | June | Quebec Act, guaranteeing civil, language and religious rights to French Canadians, comes into force. |
| 1774 | Quebec Act is passed by British Parliament, recognizing the French Canadian's right to preserve their language, religion, and civil law. | ||
| 1775 | 31 | December | American rebels' invasion stemmed at Quebec. |
| 1775 | The American Revolution begins gaining independence from Great Britain for the Thirteen Colonies. The people of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island decide against joining the revolution. | ||
| 1775 | 31 | December | American invaders under General Montgomery assault Quebec. The city is under siege until spring, when British reinforcements drive the Americans away. |
| 1776 | The fur traders of Montreal band together in the North West Company to compete with the traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. | ||
| 1776 | 6 | May | Under Carleton, Québec withstands an American siege until the appearance of a British fleet. Carleton is later knighted. |
| 1778 | Captain James Cook explores the Pacific Coast from Nootka, Vancouver Island, to the Bering Strait. | ||
| 1783 | The American revolutionary war ends. | ||
| 1783 | In Montréal and Grand Portage (in present-day Minnesota), the North West Company is formed by a group of trading partners. | ||
| 1783 | The border between Canada and the U.S. is accepted from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake of the Woods. | ||
| 1783 | In the area around the mouth of the Saint John River in Nova Scotia, thousands of United Empire Loyalists arrive to settle, with some heading on to Quebec. Loyalists are identified as those American colonists of British, Dutch, Irish, Scottish and other origins, and others who had remained loyal to their King during the American Revolution and were behind British lines by 1783. (Those who arrive after 1783 are called Late Loyalists.) Pennsylvania Germans begin moving into modern-day southwestern Ontario, then southwestern Québec | ||
| 1783 | Around 40 000 United Empire Loyalist from the Thirteen Colonies start immigrating to Canada. Most settle in Nova Scotia, Quebec, and New Brunswick (established as a colony separate from Nova Scotia in 1784). Three thousand Black Loyalists settle near Shelburne, Nova Scotia. | ||
| 1783 | 18 | May | First Loyalists land at Saint John, N.B. |
| 1784 | 16 | August | Province of New Brunswick formed. |
| 1784 | After helping the British during the American Revolution, the Iroquois are given two land grants. Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) settles his followers at the Six Nations Reserve, near Brantford. | ||
| 1785 | The city of Saint John, N.B. is incorporated. | ||
| 1785 | Fredericton opens a Provincial Academy of Arts and Sciences, the germ of the University of New Brunswick (1859). | ||
| 1789 | At the behest of the North West Company, Alexander Mackenzie journeys to the Beaufort Sea, following what would later be named the Mackenzie River. | ||
| 1791 | 19 | June | Province of Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario) formed. |
| 1791 | With western Québec filling with English-speaking Loyalists, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divides Québec into Upper and Lower Canada (modern-day Ontario and Quebec). | ||
| 1791 | Quebec is divided into two colonies, Upper and Lower Canada, each with its own Assembly. | ||
| 1792 | Captain George Vancouver starts summer voyages to explore the coast of mainland British Columbia and Vancouver Island. | ||
| 1792 | 28 | August | Captains Vancouver and Quadra meet at Nootka Sound to settle British and Spanish claims to the Pacific coast. |
| 1793 | 27 | August | York (Toronto) founded. |
| 1793 | York (now Toronto) is founded by John Graves Simcoe, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada. | ||
| 1793 | By canoe and on foot, Alexander Mackenzie crosses the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Range, reaching the Pacific Ocean on July 22. | ||
| 1793 | 22 | July | Alexander Mackenzie, first man to cross North America north of Mexico, records his arrival at the Pacific on a rock near Bella Coola, B.C. |
| 1794 | 19 | November | An American diplomat, John Jay, oversees the signing of Jay's Treaty (Nov. 19) between the U.S. and Britain. It promises British evacuation of the Ohio Valley forts and marks the beginning of international arbitration to settle boundary disputes. |
| 1796 | York becomes the capital of Upper Canada. | ||
| 1797 | Having worked for the Hudson's Bay Company since 1784, David Thompson joins the North West Company as a surveyor and mapmaker, eventually surveying hundreds of thousands of square miles of western North America. Americans launch their first lake schooner, the Washington, on Lake Erie near Presque Isle. | ||
| 1798 | A new fur-trading company is formed to compete with the North West Company. Confusingly called the New North West Company, it is nicknamed the XY Company from the way it differentiates its bales from those of its competitor. Northwest Fur Company build lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. Lock is 38 ft x 8 3/4 ft with 30 inch depth over sills. | ||
| 1800 | Lake trade expands until by 1817 there are some 20 merchant vessels on Lake Erie. | ||
| 1802 | Mackenzie is knighted and becomes a member of the XY Company. | ||
| 1803 | The XY Company is reorganized under Mackenzie's name. | ||
| 1803 | First paper mill established in Lower Canada, producing paper from cloth rags. | ||
| 1804 | The earliest Fraktur paintings appear in Lincoln county, Ontario. | ||
| 1804 | The XY Company is absorbed by the North West Company. | ||
| 1806 | Le Canadian, a Québec nationalist newspaper, is founded. | ||
| 1807 | Fulton sails Hudson River in first steamboat. | ||
| 1807 | Slavery is abolished in British colonies. | ||
| 1808 | Simon Fraser travels the Fraser River for 1360 km to reach the Pacific Ocean on July 2. | ||
| 1808 | 2 | July | Nor' Western Simon Fraser reaches the mouth of the Fraser River |
| 1811 | 15 | July | Nor' Western David Thompson reaches the mouth of the Columbia River. |
| 1811 | Lord Selkirk plans a settlement of Highland Scots in Red River area, near present site of Winnipeg. First settlers arrive at Hudson Bay in the fall of 1811. | ||
| 1812 | 13 | October | Americans defeated (but Sir Isaac Brock killed) in the Battle of Queenstown Heights. |
| 1812 | 12 | September | Selkirk settlers reach Winnipeg |
| 1812 | 18 | June | United States declares war on Britain (the War of 1812) |
| 1812 | The War of 1812, between the United States and Britain begins. | ||
| 1812 | 12 | August | Detroit surrenders to British general Isaac Brock and Tecumseh, leader of the Native nations allied to Britain. |
| 1812 | 13 | October | Brock is killed during the Battle of Queenstown Heights. |
| 1813 | 25 | Oct | The Battles of Chateauguay with mostly French-Canadian soldiers is a Canadian Victory over larger Amercian forces |
| 1813 | 5 | Oct | Battle of Moraviantown which is an American victory and is also known as the Battle of the Thames, British supporter and Shawnee Indian Chief Tecumseh is killed. |
| 1813 | 11 | Nov | Crysler's Farm with English-Canadian soldiers ia a victory over larger American troops. |
| 1813 | Perry’s victory on Lake Erie gives US rights to all Great Lakes. | ||
| 1813 | 22 | June | Laura Second warns British troops of impending American attack. ( Seventeen days earlier, scout Billy Green had revealed details of American troop positions. Both reports lead to British victories.) |
| 1813 | 27 | April | Americans burn York |
| 1813 | 5 | October | Tecumseh dies during the British defeat of Moraviantown. |
| 1813 | 23 | June | Beaver Dam is Canadian victory, the latter in part due to Laura Secord's famous 32 km, walk to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon, who had already been warned by Indians. |
| 1813 | 5 | June | The Battles of Stoney Creek is Canadian Victory |
| 1813 | 11 | November | Americans defeated at the Battle of Chrysler's Farm, Near Morrisbourg, Ont. |
| 1813 | 26 | October | Americans defended at the Battle of Chateauguay, near Montreal |
| 1813 | 10 | Sept | The Battles of Put-in-Bay, Lake Erie is Amercian Victory |
| 1813 | 27 | April | Americans capture Fort York at present-day Toronto. |
| 1813 | 22 | June | Laura Secord overhears American troops planning an attack, and walks 30 km, crossing enemy lines, to warn Colonel James FitzGibbon. Two days later, the Americans are ambushed and surrender to FitzGibbon. |
| 1814 | 24 | December | The Treaty of Ghent officially ends the war. |
| 1814 | 24 | December | Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812, returns captured territory to the Americans. |
| 1816 | 19 | June | Métis and a few Indians Massacre Selkirk settlers at Seven Oaks (Winnipeg) |
| 1817 | First two lake steamers, Frontenac and Ontario, are launched on Lake Ontario. The Rush-Bagot agreement limits the number of battleships on the Great Lakes to a total of eight. | ||
| 1818 | Canada's border is defined as the 49th Parallel from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. | ||
| 1819 | 26 | September | Edward Parry anchors for a 10 month stay off Melville Island, (He is the first searcher for the Northwest Passage to winter the artic by Choice.) |
| 1821 | The Lachine Canal is completed. | ||
| 1821 | 26 | March | Hudson's Bay Company absorbs North West Company. |
| 1822 | Louis-Joseph Papineau, a member of the legislative assembly since 1814, travels from Montréal to England to oppose an Act of Union identifying the French Canadians as a minority without language rights. The act is not passed in the British Parliament. | ||
| 1824 | Fort Gratiot Light, first on Lake Huron. | ||
| 1824 | The first Welland Canal is completed, partly in response to American initiatives in the Erie Canal. Erie Canal completed in 1825 by the State of New York providing waterway between Buffalo on Lake Erie and Albany on the Hudson River, the greatest single transportation factor in early settlement of the like region and growth of lake navigation Work on Welland Canal starts. | ||
| 1825 | 7 | October | Miramichi Fire kills more than 160 persons and consumes 6,000 square miles of forest in New Brunswick. |
| 1826 | 6 | June | Reform editor William Lyon Mackenzie's printing shop in York is wrecked by Family Compact members |
| 1826 | Royal engineer Col. John By builds the Rideau Canal. | ||
| 1829 | 6 | June | Shawnandithit, the last of the Beothuks, dies at about age twenty-eight in St. John's, Newfoundland. |
| 1830 | Escaped slaves Josiah and Charlotte Henson and their children journey north from Maryland to Canada. The Henson's later help found a community of ex-slaves called Dawn, near Dresden, Ontario. | ||
| 1832 | 21 | May | British troops kill three French Canadians in street riot following Patriot by-election victory |
| 1832 | June | Immigrants with Cholera land at Quebec. By September the disease will kill 3,800 there 4,000 in Montreal | |
| 1832 | The Rideau Canal, built by Colonel John By, opens; the community of Bytown (later Ottawa), grows out of the camp for the canal workers. | ||
| 1834 | York is renamed Toronto. | ||
| 1834 | William Lyon Mackenzie becomes the first mayor of Toronto. | ||
| 1835 | 3 | March | Reform newspaper publisher Joseph Howe's oratory wins him acquittal on a libel charge and establishes freedom of the press. |
| 1836 | The first railway in Canada opens, running from La Prairie to St. John's, Quebec. | ||
| 1836 | 12 | July | Canada's first railway, the Champlain and St. Lawrence, starts service between Laprairie and Saint-Jean, Que. |
| 1837 | 7 | December | Upper Canada rebels scatter after militiamen attack and burn Montgomery's Tavern (rebel headquarters) |
| 1837 | 5 | December | Mackenzie and Upper Canada rebels marching on Toronto are stopped by a militia ambush. |
| 1837 | Along with a general feeling that the government was not democratic, the failure of the executive committee to maintain the confidence of the elected officials leads to violent but unsuccessful rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada. The leaders, W.L. Mackenzie (Reformers) and Louis-Joseph Papineau (Patriotes), both escape to the U.S. | ||
| 1837 | 23 | November | Patriot rebels defeat British troop at Saint-Denis, Que. |
| 1837 | 25 | November | British troops defeat Patriots at Saint-Charles, Que. |
| 1837 | 14 | December | Patriots crushed by British troops at Saint-Eustache, Que |
| 1837 | Rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada are put down by government troops. The rebel leaders, Louis-Joseph Papineau of Lower Canada and William Lyon Mackenzie of Upper Canada, are forced to flee. | ||
| 1838 | Lord Durham comes to Canada as governor. He recommends that the governments of the colonies should be chosen by the people's elected representatives. | ||
| 1839 | Lord Durham's report recommends the establishment of responsible government and the union of Upper and Lower Canada to speed the assimilation of French-speaking Canadians. Territorial disputes between lumbermen from Maine and New Brunswick lead to armed conflict in the Aroostook River valley (the Aroostook War). | ||
| 1839 | 31 | January | Durham Report urges responsible government and political union for Lower and Upper Canada, and assimilation for French Canadians. |
| 1840 | Britannia - the first ship of the Cunrad Line, founded by Samuel Cunrad of Halifax - arrives in Halifax harbor with transatlantic mail. | ||
| 1841 | 10 | February | Upper Canada becomes Canada West, and Lower Canada becomes Canada East: they are united into Province of Canada |
| 1841 | The Act of Union unites Upper and Lower Canada (which became Canada West and East) into the Province of Canada, under one government, with Kingston as capital. | ||
| 1842 | Aug | The Independent Order of Odd Fellows breaks from the Manchester Unity, soon opening lodges in Montréal and Halifax. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty ends the Aroostook War, settling once and for all the Maine-New Brunswick border dispute. | |
| 1842 | Charles Fenetry of Sackville, New Brunswick, discovers a practical way to make paper from wood pulp. Today the pulp and paper industry is Canada's largest manufacturing industry, and Canada exports more pulp and paper than any other country in the world. | ||
| 1843 | James Douglas of the Hudson's Bay Company founds Victoria and Vancouver Island. | ||
| 1843 | 15 | March | Work starts on the Vancouver Island HBC post that will become Victoria. |
| 1844 | Amnesty in Montréal provides for Papineau's return. | ||
| 1845 | Sir John Franklin and his crew disappear in the Arctic while searching the Northwest Passage. | ||
| 1846 | Geologist and chemist Abraham Gesner of Nova Scotia invents kerosene oil and becomes the founder of the modern petroleum industry. | ||
| 1846 | 15 | June | Oregon Treaty sets the 49th parallel as the western Canada/U.S. boundary. |
| 1847 | 24 | May | Lieut. Graham Gore's sledge party leaves the icebound ships of the Franklin Expedition to seek the last link in the Northwest passage. |
| 1848 | The so-called Great Ministry of Robert Baldwin and Louis-H. Lafontaine outlines the principles of responsible government in the Canadas. The Maritimes are brought into the plan by Howe, then a reform-minded member of the House of Assembly. | ||
| 1848 | 11 | March | The Province of Canada's first responsible government by party - the Great Reform ministry led by Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin - takes office. Reform Ministry led by Louis-Hopolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin-takes office. |
| 1848 | 22 | April | Franklin expedition ships Erbus and Terror abandoned. All 130 expeditions members will perish. |
| 1849 | 25 | April | English Tory mob burns the parliament buildings in Montreal after Governor General Lord Elgin signs the rebellion Losses Bill. |
| 1849 | An Act of Amnesty provides for W.L. Mackenzie's return from exile in the U.S. | ||
| 1849 | The boundary of the 49th Parallel is extended to the Pacific Ocean. | ||
| 1850 | Plains Indian culture is at its height, sustained by the use of horses and the exploitation of large game. | ||
| 1850 | The site of By's headquarters during the construction of the Rideau Canal is incorporated as Bytown. | ||
| 1851 | Britain transfers control of the colonial postal system to Canada. | ||
| 1851 | 23 | May | Marco Polo, to be the fastest ship in the world, launched at Saint John, New Brunswick. |
| 1851 | 23 | May | Province of Canada issues British North America's first postage stamp. |
| 1851 | Canada's first postage stamp is issued, a three-penny stamp with a beaver on it. | ||
| 1852 | Laval's Séminaire du Québec founds Université Laval, North America's oldest French Language university. | ||
| 1852 | The Grand Trunk Railway receives its charter. | ||
| 1854 | 6 | June | Canada and the U.S. sign a Reciprocity Treaty, ensuring reduction of customs duties. |
| 1855 | Bytown is renamed Ottawa. | ||
| 1856 | Timothy Eaton opens his first general store, in Kirkton, Ontario. Thirteen years later he opens a store at the corner of Queen and Yonge in Toronto. | ||
| 1856 | The Grand Trunk Railway opens its Toronto-Montréal line. | ||
| 1857 | Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as the new capital of the United Province of Canada. | ||
| 1858 | The Halifax-Truro line begins rail service. | ||
| 1858 | 19 | November | James Douglas, already governor of Vancouver Island, sworn in as governor of British Columbia |
| 1858 | Chinese immigrants from California arrive in British Columbia, attracted by the Fraser River Gold Rush. | ||
| 1858 | Gold is discovered in the sandbars of the Fraser River. Some twenty thousand miners rush to the area, and it comes under British rule as the colony of British Columbia. | ||
| 1859 | French acrobat Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope. On later tightrope walks, he crosses the falls on stilts, blindfolded, and with his feet in a sack. | ||
| 1860 | 1 | Sept | The cornerstone of the Parliament buildings is laid. |
| 1861 | Howe becomes Premier of Nova Scotia. | ||
| 1862 | Mount Allison University accepts the first woman student in Sackville, N.B. | ||
| 1862 | 21 | August | Billy Barker strikes gold on Williams Creek in the Caribou country of British Columbia |
| 1864 | Confederation conferences in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, September 1-9, and in Quebec, October 10-29. Delegates hammer out the conditions for the union of British North American colonies. | ||
| 1864 | 1 | September | Charlottetown Conference opens to discuss the confederation of British North America colonies. |
| 1864 | 10 | October | Quebec Conference opens to continue confederation talks. ( It will settle the fundamentals upon which the British North American Act will be based.) |
| 1866 | 4 | Dec | The London Conference passes resolutions which are redrafted as the British North America Act. |
| 1866 | 2 | June | The Fenians, a group of radical Irish-Americans organized in New York in 1859 to oppose British presence in Ireland, begin a series of raids on Canadian territory in the hopes of diverting British troops from the homeland. The most serious of these was the Battle of Ridgeway, which lent a special urgency to the Confederation movement. |
| 1866 | 19 | November | Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia are combined into one colony named British Columbia. |
| 1866 | 9 | June | Private Timothy O'Hara extinguishes a fire in a boxcar of ammunition at Danville. Que., and wins the only Victoria Cross ever rewarded for an act in Canada. |
| 1866 | 2 | June | Battle of Ridgeway climaxes biggest Fenian raid into Canada. |
| 1867 | 1 | July | Province and territories joined Confederation, or were created from existing parts of Canada: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec. |
| 1867 | 1 | July | Dominion of Canada comes into being: Sir John A. Macdonald sworn in as prime minister. |
| 1867 | 8 | March | British parliament passes the British North America Act. |
| 1867 | 29 | March | The British North America Act is passed by Britain's Parliament, providing for Canada's Confederation. |
| 1867 | 1 | July | Confederation: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario form the Dominion of Canada. John A. Macdonald becomes the first prime minister. |
| 1867 | Emily Stowe, the first woman doctor in Canada, begins to practice medicine in Toronto. | ||
| 1868 | 7 | April | Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the fathers of Confederation and an outspoken enemy of the Fenians, becomes Canada's first assassination victim at the hands of a Fenian. |
| 1869 | 22 | June | Canadian Parliament agrees to buy Rupert's Land - All the Hudson's Bay Company territory. |
| 1869 | 8 | December | Riel establishes a legal provisional government in Rupert's Land. |
| 1869 | The Métis of Red River rebel, under Louis Riel, after their region is purchased by Canada from Hudson's Bay Company. | ||
| 1869 | 2 | November | Louis Riel and Métis occupy Lower Fort Garry. The red River Rebellion has begun. |
| 1870 | 15 | July | Métis rights recognized, as Manitoba becomes a province. (But Riel will have to flee Canada because of Scott's execution.) |
| 1870 | 15 | July | Manitoba joins Confederation. The new province was much smaller than today's Manitoba. |
| 1870 | As buffalo become scarce, the last tribal war is fought on the Prairies between the Cree and the Blackfoot over hunting territories. | ||
| 1870 | 15 | July | Province and territories joined Confederation, or were created from existing parts of Canada: Manitoba, Northwest Territories |
| 1870 | 4 | March | Thomas Scott executed on orders of Riel. |
| 1870 | Demand for leather goods leads to the destruction of northern bison herds, which in turn leads to the collapse of the western native economy. | ||
| 1871 | 20 | July | Province and territories joined Confederation, or were created from existing parts of Canada: Prince Edward Island |
| 1871 | 20 | July | Province and territories joined Confederation, or were created from existing parts of Canada: British Columbia |
| 1871 | 20 | July | British Columbia joins Confederation. |
| 1873 | 2 | April | The Pacific Scandal erupts: Prime Minister Macdonald accused of corruption in negotiations over a transcontinental railway. ( His government will be forced to resign.) |
| 1873 | Prime Minister Sir John Macdonald resigns as a result of scandal over the partial financing of the Conservative election campaign by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. | ||
| 1873 | May | American whisky traders kill fifty-six Assiniboine in the Cypress Hills of the southern Prairies. The North-West Mounted Police (later the RCMP) is formed to keep order in the new Canadian territories. | |
| 1873 | 1 | July | Prince Edward Island joins Confederation. |
| 1874 | 8 | July | The Mounties leave Fort Dufferin on their march west to wipe out the whisky trade. |
| 1874 | 26 | July | Alexander Graham Bell discloses the invention of the telephone to his father at the family home on the outskirts of Brantford, Ontario. |
| 1874 | Anabaptists (Russian Mennonites) start to arrive in Manitoba from various Russian colonies. | ||
| 1874 | Feb | Riel is elected to the House of Commons but cannot take the seat. | |
| 1874 | 27 | October | William D. Lawrence, the biggest wooden ship ever built in the Maritimes, launched at Maitland, N.S. |
| 1875 | Grace Lockhart receives from Mount Allison University the first Bachelor of Arts degree awarded to a woman. | ||
| 1875 | Jennie Trout becomes the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada, although Emily Stowe has been doing so without a license in Toronto since 1867. | ||
| 1875 | June | Bell's first functioning telephone is demonstrated in Boston. | |
| 1875 | The Supreme Court of Canada is established. | ||
| 1875 | Riel is granted amnesty with the condition that he be banished for five years. | ||
| 1876 | The Toronto Women's Literary Club is founded as a front for the suffrage movement. | ||
| 1876 | 10 | August | The world's first long-distance phone call connects the Bell residence with a shoe and boot store in nearby Paris, Ontario (Aug. 10). |
| 1876 | 1 | July | The Intercolonial Railway, growing out of the Halifax-Truro line, links central Canada and the Maritimes. |
| 1876 | August | Scottish-born Alexander Graham Bell, who has been working on the invention of the telephone since 1874, makes the world's first long-distance call, from Brantford to Paris, Ontario. | |
| 1876 | 3 | August | The first intelligible telephone call between two buildings is made groom Brantford, Ont,. To Mount Pleasant, two miles away. |
| 1877 | The provincial legislature creates the University of Manitoba, the oldest University in western Canada. | ||
| 1877 | 22 | September | Treaty No.7 cedes the last big section of Prairie land to the government of Canada. |
| 1878 | The Conservatives under Macdonald win federal election. | ||
| 1878 | 17 | September | Secret ballot used for the first time in a federal general election. |
| 1878 | Anti- Chinese sentiment in British Columbia reaches a high point as the government bans Chinese workers from public works. | ||
| 1879 | 12 | March | Macdonald introduces protective tariffs, a transcontinental railway, and immigration to the west in his National Policy. |
| 1879 | 8 | February | Sandford Fleming proposes the idea of standard time. |
| 1879 | The first organized games of hockey, using a flat puck, are played by McGill University students in Montreal. Before this, hockey-like games have been played on ice with a ball. | ||
| 1880 | Britain transfer the Arctic, which it claims to own, to Canada, completing Canada's modern boundaries - except for Newfoundland and Labrador. | ||
| 1880 | Emily Stowe is finally granted a license to practice medicine in Toronto. | ||
| 1880 | The Canadian Pacific Railway recruits thousands of underpaid Chinese Labourers. | ||
| 1883 | Augusta Stowe, daughter of Emily, is the first woman to graduate from the Toronto Medical School. The Toronto Women's Suffrage Association replaces the Literary Club of 1876. | ||
| 1884 | A system of international standard time and official time zones, advocated by Canadian engineer Sir Sandford Fleming, is adopted. | ||
| 1885 | 16 | Nov | Riel is hanged in Regina. |
| 1885 | The Métis North-West Rebellion is led by Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. After early victories for the rebels, the rebellion is crushed by troops who arrive on the newly built railway. | ||
| 1885 | 16 | November | Riel hanged at Regina. |
| 1885 | 16 | November | Last spike of the CPR driven at Craigellachie, British Columbia. |
| 1885 | 12 | May | Batoche falls, Riel taken prisoner |
| 1885 | 28 | January | More than 300 voyageurs, the first Canadians to serve in an overseas ways, reach Khartoum after guiding a British a British expedition up the Nile River. |
| 1885 | 7 | November | The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway main line is driven at Craigellachie, BC. The next year, Vancouver is founded as the railway's western terminus. |
| 1885 | 3 | June | Crees, and whites led by Mounties, fight the last military engagement on Canadian soil (near Loon Lake, Sask.) |
| 1885 | Riel, who had become an American citizen in Montana in 1883 only to return to Canada in 1884, leads the North West Rebellion. | ||
| 1885 | 2 | May | The Métis are defeated at Batoche. |
| 1885 | 7 | Nov | The last spike of the transcontinental railway is put in place in the Eagle Pass, B.C. . |
| 1885 | 18 | March | Louis Riel proclaims an illegal provisional government at Batoche, Sask. The Northwest Rebellion has begun. |
| 1887 | The Liberals choose Wilfred Laurier as leader. | ||
| 1887 | The first provincial Premiers' conference takes place in Québec City. | ||
| 1890 | Isaac Shupe invents a curious sheet-metal clothing scrubber that automatically releases soap. | ||
| 1890 | March | Manitoba Liberals under Thomas Greenway halt public finding of Catholic schools. | |
| 1891 | The City of Toronto establishes the first Children's Aid Society in Canada. | ||
| 1891 | 6 | June | John A. Macdonald dies age 76. |
| 1893 | Lord Stanley, the governor general, donates the Stanley Cup as a hockey trophy. | ||
| 1893 | The National Council of Women of Canada is founded. | ||
| 1895 | The Yukon is made into a provisional district separate from the Northwest territories. | ||
| 1896 | 17 | August | George Carmack stakes a claim after striking gold on Rabbit Creek in the Klondike. |
| 1896 | 17 | November | Clifford Sifton named minister of the interior with the task of filling the Prairies with settlers. |
| 1896 | The economic depression ends. | ||
| 1896 | Gold is discover in the Klondike. By the next year, 100 000 people are rushing to the Yukon in hope of getting rich. | ||
| 1896 | 16 | August | Gold is discovered in the Klondike. |
| 1896 | Liberals under Laurier (the first French Canadian prime minister) win federal election partly on the Manitoba Schools Question, though his compromises are not instituted until 1897. | ||
| 1897 | L.T. Snow patents a simple mechanical meat grinder. | ||
| 1898 | 13 | July | Province and territories joined Confederation, or were created from existing parts of Canada: Yukon Territory |
| 1898 | The Klondike Gold Rush is fully under way. The Yukon provisional district is identified as a Territory separate from the Northwest Territories. | ||
| 1898 | Doukhobours begin to settle in Saskatchewan. | ||
| 1899 | The Boer War in South Africa stars, fought between Dutch Afrikaners (Boers) and the British. Seven thousand Canadian volunteers fight on the British side. | ||
| 1899 | 30 | October | First Canadian troops embark for the South African war. |
| 1899 | 30 | October | The first Canadian troops sent overseas participate in the Boer War in South Africa. |
| 1899 | 10 | December | Boer War-Battle of Stormberg; engagement at Vaalkop (Surprise Hill), Ladysmith; attack fort near Mafeking |
| 1899 | 26 | December | Boer War-Skirmish, Game Tree Fort (Platboomfort), Mafeking |
| 1899 | Canada's first woman lawyer is Clara Brett Martin. | ||
| 1899 | 28 | November | Boer War-Battle of Modder River (Tweeriviere); engagement at Carter's Ridge, (Lazarets Hill), Kimberley, Cape Colony |
| 1900 | 18 | February | Boer War-The Battle of Monte Cristo, Natal |
| 1900 | Reginald Fessenden transmits the world's first wireless spoken message via radio, and six years later the two-way voice transmission. His credited with the discovery of the super-heterodyne principle, the basis of all modern broadcasting. | ||
| 1900 | Jack Caffery of Hamilton, Ontario, wins the Boston Marathon in 2:39:44. Two other Canadian, Bill Sherring and Fred Hughson, finished second and third. Caffery won again in 1901. | ||
| 1900 | 25 | June | Boer War-Skirmish, Leliefontein, Senekal, OFS |
| 1900 | 10 | May | Boer War-Attack on Mafeking |
| 1900 | 23 | February | Boer War-Battle of Hart's Hill (Terrace Hill), Natal |
| 1900 | 18 | February | Boer War-The Battle of Paardeberg |
| 1900 | 23 | Dec | Canadian-born Reginald Fessenden makes the first wireless radio broadcast near Washington, D.C., narrowly beating Marconi, who receives the first transatlantic radio message at St. John's, Newfoundland, in the following year. |
| 1900 | 20 | January | Boer War-Battle of Tabanyama, Natal |
| 1900 | 23 | January | Boer War-Battle of Spioenkop, Natal |
| 1902 | The first symphony orchestra in Canada is created in Quebec City. | ||
| 1902 | 19 | January | Boer War-Attack, concentration camp/ blockhouseline, Pietersburg, Tvl |
| 1902 | Le Roy, the first true Canadian "production car", is built by the Good brothers, Milton and Nelson, in their company in Berlin, Ontario, (now Kitchener) that they founded in 1899. Its name came from the French "le roi", meaning the king, and its currently on display at the Doon Heritage Crossroads museum in Kitchener. | ||
| 1903 | Silver is discovered in Cobalt, Ontario, along with cobalt and nickel. Ontario rapidly became one of the world's leading silver producing districts, yielding more than 18,000 metric tonnes of silver between 1903 and 1989, when the last mine closed. | ||
| 1903 | The first nude demonstrations of the Doukhobours take place near Yorkton, Saskatchewan, to protest governmental policy regarding individual ownership. | ||
| 1903 | 20 | Oct | Canada loses the Alaska boundary dispute when British tribunal representative Lord Alverstone sides with the U.S.. Silver is discovered in Northern Ontario. |
| 1903 | The Ivanhoe, a popular electric car, is made by Canada Cycle and Motor Co. of Toronto | ||
| 1904 | Canada wins an Olympic gold medal in soccer. Though known more as a country that specialized in hockey, a team from Galt, Ontario, defeated the Americans for gold at the Olympics in St. Louis. | ||
| 1904 | Charles Saunders, a native of London, Ontario, developed the Marquis wheat at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. Maturing early than other varieties, this strain of wheat produced larger crops and resisted the cold and strong winds. The Marquis is given credit for bringing prosperity to Canada's prairies. | ||
| 1905 | 1 | September | Saskatchewan and Alberta join Confederation. Immigrants rush to settle in the plains, mainly as wheat farmers. |
| 1906 | 31 | August | Roald Amundsen's Gjoa reaches Nome, Alaska, after becoming the first ship to sail the Northwest Passage. |
| 1906 | 1 | September | Province and territories joined Confederation, or were created from existing parts of Canada: Alberta, Saskatchewan |
| 1906 | Norwegian Roald Amundsen, in the schooner Gjoa, finds his way through the Northwest Passage to the Pacific. | ||
| 1906 | 7 | May | Sir Adam Beck creates the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, the largest such company in Canada. |
| 1907 | December | Canada Dry Ginger Ale is first bottled. | |
| 1907 | Tom Longboat, an Onondaga from the Six Nations Reserve and world runner, wins the Boston Marathon in record time. In 1906 he won a 20 km race against a horse. | ||
| 1908 | The Parliament passed the Tobacco Restraint Act prohibiting the sale of tobacco to person under 16, and prohibiting them from purchasing or possessing tobacco. | ||
| 1908 | A branch of the Royal Mint is established in Ottawa, making for the first time coins in Canada. | ||
| 1908 | Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery, is published. In the next ninety years the book sells more than a million copies, is made into a television movie, and becomes a popular musical. | ||
| 1908 | Peter Verigin, leader of the Doukhobours since his arrival in Canada in 1902, leads the extremist Sons of Freedom to British Columbia. | ||
| 1909 | The first powered, heavier-than-air flight in Canada is made by J.A.D.McCurdy in the Silver Dart. The biplane flew almost a kilometer. | ||
| 1909 | The first Grey Cup game; the University of Toronto football team defeats Toronto Parkdale. A trophy has been donated by the governor general, Earl Grey. | ||
| 1909 | 1 | July | Joseph-Elzear Bernier affirms Canadian sovereignty in the High Artic by erecting a plaque on Melville Island. |
| 1909 | 23 | February | J. A. D. McCurdy makes the first manned flight in the British Empire, at Baddect, N.S. |
| 1909 | The Boundary Waters Treaty between Canada and United States creates the International Joint Commission, which first mission was to investigate the pollution of the Great Lakes in 1912. Its research and advocacy led to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1972. | ||
| 1909 | Canada's first powered air flight takes place at Baddeck, N.S. | ||
| 1909 | The first Grey Cup is played. | ||
| 1909 | The Department of External Affairs is formed. | ||
| 1910 | 4 | May | Royal Canadian Navy formed. |
| 1910 | William Gibson built the first aircraft engine in Canada in Victoria, BC. It produced fifty-five horsepower and was installed in the Gibson twin plane, the first one in North America to use contra rotating propellers. | ||
| 1910 | Laurier creates a Canadian navy the Naval Service Bill. | ||
| 1911 | A proposal for free trade between the United States and Canada is rejected in a fiercely contested general election. The Liberal government, under Wilfrid Laurier, is replaced by a Conservative government led by Sir William Borden. | ||
| 1911 | The last Dominion of Canada four-dollar notes were issued, being replaced by the five-dollar notes in 1912. Legislation was passed authorizing the striking of the silver dollar, Canada's first dollar coin, and two patterns for 1911 dollars were struck in silver. | ||
| 1911 | Robert Borden and the Conservatives win federal election, defeating Laurier on the issue of Reciprocity. | ||
| 1912 | A botanist, Carrie Derrick, is Canada's first woman professor, at McGill University. | ||
| 1913 | Vilhjalmur Stefansson leads a Canadian expedition to the Arctic, and explores the North by deliberately drifting on ice floes. | ||
| 1914 | 25 | December | Troops share an unofficial Christmas Truce in the Western Front trenches. |
| 1914 | 21 | October | Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry is assigned to the British 80th Brigade and become the first Canadians in France. |
| 1914 | 15 | September | Trenches first dug on the Western Front |
| 1914 | 23 | August | Germans and British troops engage for the first time at Mons. British slow the German advance |
| 1914 | 4 | August | Britain declares war on Germany, automatically drawing Canada into the conflict. |
| 1914 | 8 | August | US declares itself neutral |
| 1914 | 5 | August | Canada commits 25,000 troops to support England. |
| 1914 | 4 | August | Germany invades Belgium, establishing the Western Front war, Britain declares war |
| 1914 | 3 | August | Germany declares war on France |
| 1914 | 1 | August | Germany declares war on Russia |
| 1914 | 14 | October | First Canadian Troops arrive in Britain |
| 1914 | The Komagata Maru drops anchor in Burrard Inlet, sparking political maneuvers intended to exclude unwanted Sikh immigrants (May-July). | ||
| 1914 | 29 | May | Empress of Ireland sinks in the St. Lawrence; 1, 015 perish. |
| 1914 | 4 | August | Britain declares war on Germany. Canada is automatically at war too. |
| 1914 | The First World War begins. Britain declares war on Germany on behalf of the British Empire, including Canada. | ||
| 1914 | 29 | May | One thousand and twelve people died when Canadian Pacific steamer Empress of Ireland collided with Norwegian ship Storstad in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It’s the worst maritime disaster in Canadian history. |
| 1914 | 19 | June | A dust explosion at a coal mine in Hillcrest, Alberta, kills 189 miners. |
| 1914 | Annie Langstaff was the first woman to graduate with a law degree in Quebec. She was not able to practice, though, because Quebec Bar refused to admit her, who end up working as a legal clerk. | ||
| 1914 | August | Canada goes off the gold standard, breaking forever the link between national gold reserves and the money supply. | |
| 1914 | Parliament passes the War Measures Act, allowing suspension of civil rights during periods of emergency. | ||
| 1914 | 29 | May | The C.P. ship Empress of Ireland sinks in the St. Lawrence within fifteen minutes of a collision in dense fog. Over one thousand lives are lost. With nearly four hundred passengers on board, |
| 1914 | 3 | Oct | The first Canadian troops leave for England. |
| 1914 | 29 | July | Britain warns Canada of deteriorating situation in Europe. |
| 1914 | 28 | June | Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary assassinated in Sarajevo |
| 1914 | 4 | September | Aproximately 32,000 men have assembled at Valcartier. |
| 1914 | 14 | October | 1st contingent C.E.F. arrives in England. |
| 1914 | 3 | October | 1st contingent Canadian Expeditionary Force sails for England. |
| 1914 | 19 | August | The first volunteers begin to arrive at Valcartier camp. |
| 1914 | 6 | August | Britain accepts Canada's offer of troops. |
| 1914 | 5 | August | Britain declares war. Canada is automatically at war. |
| 1914 | 2 | August | Canada offers Britain troops for overseas service. |
| 1914 | 21 | December | Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry arrives in France. The first Canadian unit committed to battle in the Great War. |
| 1915 | 13 | October | Actions of the Hohenzollern Redoubt |
| 1915 | Elizabeth Smellie is appointed colonel in the Canadian Army nursing corps. She was the first Canadian women to hold this position. | ||
| 1915 | 14 | March | Action of St. Eloi |
| 1915 | 9 | May | Battle of Aubers Ridge |
| 1915 | 25 | September | Action of Bois Grenier (part of the Battle of Loos) |
| 1915 | 25 | September-October | The Battle of Loos |
| 1915 | 15 | June | Second Action of Givenchy |
| 1915 | 24 | May | Bellewaerde Ridge. Part of 2nd Ypres. |
| 1915 | 17 | May | Battle of Festubert |
| 1915 | 8 | May | Frezenberg Ridge. Part of 2nd Ypres. |
| 1915 | 7 | May | Lusitania is sunk by a German submarine; casualties include 124 Americans passengers. |
| 1915 | 24 | April | Battle of St.Julien. First use of poison gas against Canadian troops. |
| 1915 | 22 | April | Gravenstafel Ridge - Poison Gas is first used on the Western Front, in a German attack on French and Canadian troops on the Ypres Salient. Part of 2nd Ypres. |
| 1915 | 10 | March | Battle of Neuve Chapelle |
| 1915 | 16 | February | the 1st Canadian Division arrives in France |
| 1915 | 31 | January | First use of poison gas in WW1, by Germany at Bolimow in Poland on the Eastern Front |
| 1915 | 19 | January | First German Zeppelin raid on British mainland. |
| 1915 | 22 | April | Battle of Ypres starts in Belgium. It’s the first major battle fought by Canadian troops. They stand their ground against poison-gas attack. |
| 1915 | 22 | April | Canadian troops in the Second Battle of Ypres hold against history's first major gas attack. |
| 1915 | 24 | April-May | St. Julien. Part of 2nd Ypres. |
| 1915 | 18 | May | Battle of Festubert. |
| 1915 | 20 | December | Newfoundland Regiment evacuated from Suvla Bay |
| 1915 | National Transcontinental, the eastern division of the Grand Trunk Railway, consolidates a line from Moncton to Winnipeg. | ||
| 1915 | 16 | November | Canadian's launched their first trench raid at Riviere Douve. |
| 1915 | 19 | September | Newfoundland Regiment lands at Suvla Bay in Gallipoli. |
| 1915 | 25 | December | 3rd Canadian Division formed. |
| 1915 | 25 | May | Second Canadian Division formed in Canada. |
| 1915 | 22 | April | Battle of Ypres. First use of poison gas against French. |
| 1915 | 1 | April | 1st Canadian Division is moved north to the Ypres Salient. |
| 1915 | 3 | March | 1st Canadian Division is made responsible for 6000m of front near Fleurbaix. |
| 1915 | 7 | February | 1st Canadian Division begins moving to France. |
| 1915 | 22 | April | In their first battle, the 1st Canadian Division face one of the first recorded chlorine gas attacks at Ypres, Belgium. |
| 1915 | 5 | May | Lt-Col John McCrae of the Canadian Expeditionary Force composed the well-known poem In Flanders Fields. |
| 1915 | John McCrae writes "In Flanders' Fields." | ||
| 1915 | 15 | June | Battle of Givenchy. |
| 1916 | 20 | July | Attacks on High Wood |
| 1916 | 29 | July | A devastating forest fire broke out in northwest of North Bay, Ontario, killing between 200 and 250 men, women, and children and destroying six towns, including Matheson and Cochrane. Property damage was estimated at more than $2 million. |
| 1916 | 3 | February | The Centre Block of Parliament Hill burned to ground. MPs and Senators had to conducted the nation's business in a museum not far from the Hill doing their work in the former hall of invertebrate fossils. |
| 1916 | 2 | June | Battle of Mount Sorrel |
| 1916 | 1 | July | Albert (Capture of Montauban, Mametz, Fricourt, Contalmaison and la Boisselle) |
| 1916 | 27 | March-April | Action of St Eloi Craters |
| 1916 | 19 | July | Attack at Fromelles |
| 1916 | 3 | September | Guillemont |
| 1916 | 15 | September | Flers-Courcelette |
| 1916 | 26 | September | Thiepval Ridge |
| 1916 | 1 | October | Le Transloy Ridges (Capture of Eaucourt l'Abbaye) |
| 1916 | 1 | October-November | Ancre Heights (Capture of Regina Trench) |
| 1916 | 15 | November | The Ancre (Capture of Beaumont Hamel) |
| 1916 | 1 | September | Pozieres Ridge (Fighting for Mouquet Farm) |
| 1916 | 14 | July | Bazentin Ridge |
| 1916 | 3 | Feb | The Parliament buildings are destroyed by fire. |
| 1916 | The 1st Canadian Division discovers that the Canadian-made Ross rifle (controversial since 1905) is unreliable in combat conditions. It is withdrawn from service and replaced by the British-made Lee- Enfield (Aug.). | ||
| 1916 | The National Research Council is established to promote scientific and industrial research. | ||
| 1916 | Female suffrage is first granted in Canada in Manitoba. | ||
| 1916 | November | Sir Samuel Hughes Minister of Militia and Defense is sacked by Prime Minister Borden. | |
| 1916 | 26 | September | Battle of Thiepval Ridge. |
| 1916 | 15 | September | Battle of Courcelette. First use of the tank and the rolling barrage. |
| 1916 | 9 | September | Ginchy |
| 1916 | 6 | April | The Battle of St.Eloi Craters. |
| 1916 | 2 | June | Battle of Mount Sorrel. Major General Mercer killed. |
| 1917 | 26 | October-November | Second Passenchdaele |
| 1917 | 9 | April | The Battle of Vimy Ridge. |
| 1917 | 15 | December | Russia and Germany sign an armistice at Brest-Litovsk, effectively ending the two-front war and allowing Germany to concentrate troops on the Western Front |
| 1917 | 20 | November | Battle of Cambrai - Tank attacks |
| 1917 | 29 | August | Conscription became law in Canada. |
| 1917 | The Migratory Birds Convention Act is enacted, implementing the Treaty for International Protection of Migratory Birds which was signed by Canada and U.S.A. in 1916. It was the first international treaty for the conservation wildlife. | ||
| 1917 | 9 | October | Poelcappelle |
| 1917 | 26 | September-October | Polygon Wood |
| 1917 | 23 | November | Battle of Cambrai - Capture of Bourlon Wood |
| 1917 | 9 | April | Battle of Vimy Ridge |
| 1917 | A Union Government (a coalition of Liberals and Tories) under Borden wins in a federal election, in which all women of British origin are allowed to vote for the first time. | ||
| 1917 | 6 | December | The Halifax Explosion. French munitions vessel Mont Blanc explodes in Halifax Harbour killing almost 1600 people. |
| 1917 | 3 | May | Third Scarpe (Capture of Fresnoy) |
| 1917 | 28 | April | Arleux |
| 1917 | 23 | April | Attack on la Coulotte |
| 1917 | 15 | August | Battle for Hill 70. First use of mustard gas against Canadians. |
| 1917 | 1 | April | First Scarpe |
| 1917 | 11 | June | Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden introduced a Military Service Bill. |
| 1917 | 6 | April | The US declares war on Germany. |
| 1917 | 24 | March | German retreat to the Hindenburg Line |
| 1917 | 20 | November | The Battle of Cambrai. |
| 1917 | November | Prime Minister Borden's Unionists win a majority in the federal election. | |
| 1917 | 4 | October | Broodseinde |
| 1917 | 26 | October | The Battle of Passchendaele |
| 1917 | 23 | April | Second Scarpe |
| 1917 | 7 | June | Battle of Messines (Capture of Wytschaete) |
| 1917 | 9 | April | Canadians capture Vimy Ridge, France (Apr. 9-12) and |
| 1917 | 6 | Nov | Passchendaele, Belgium, in one of the war's worst battles. |
| 1917 | 6 | Dec | The explosion of a munitions ship in Halifax harbour wipes out two square miles of Halifax, killing almost 2000 and injuring 9000. |
| 1917 | In Alberta, Louise McKinney becomes the first woman elected to a legislature in the British Commonwealth. | ||
| 1917 | Heavy Canadian lost and a sharp decline in voluntary enlistment during the World War led Ottawa to introduce compulsory military service, French-Canadian opposition and English-Canadian support sparked a bitter linguistic and national unity crisis. | ||
| 1917 | Louise McKinney is the first woman in Canada to be elected to a provincial legislature when she won a seat in Alberta. | ||
| 1917 | 3 | June | Affairs south of the Souchez River |
| 1917 | 12 | October | First Passchendaele |
| 1917 | 26 | June | Capture of Avoin |
| 1917 | 23 | Feb | Borden sits as a member of the Imperial War Cabinet, giving Canada a voice in international war policy. |
| 1917 | 31 | July-August | Pilckem Ridge |
| 1917 | 26 | November | The National Hockey League is established in Montreal. The original teams are: Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, and Toronto Arenas. |
| 1917 | 11 | June | The military service bill is introduced, leading to a conscription crisis dividing French and English Canada. |
| 1917 | 9 | April | Battle of Vimy Ridge begins in France. A Canadian victory at the cost of more than 10 000 killed or wounded. |
| 1917 | 9 | April | Canadians capture Vimy Ridge. |
| 1917 | Sir William Borden leads a unionist coalition, which combines support by Conservatives and western Liberals, into a wartime election against the Laurier Liberals. Borden wins. | ||
| 1917 | The first Federal Income Tax is introduced. The Income Tax Act was presented as a "temporary" measure to help finance World War I, but, unsurprisingly, proved too good for the government to give up, even though the war ended in November 11, 1918. | ||
| 1917 | 6 | December | A French munitions ship explodes in Halifax harbor, flattening the city, killing 1 600, and injuring 9 000. |
| 1917 | 26 | May | First US troops arrive in France. |
| 1917 | 15 | August | Battle of Hill 70 |
| 1917 | Income tax is introduced as a temporary wartime measure. | ||
| 1917 | Flying ace Billy Bishop of Owen Sound, Ontario, wins the Victoria Cross for attacking a German airfield single-handed. | ||
| 1917 | 16 | August | Langemarck |
| 1917 | 20 | September | Menin Road Ridge |
| 1917 | 6 | December | Halifax explosion kills nearly 2,000 persons. |
| 1917 | 26 | October | Battle of Passchendaele starts also in Belgium. A Canadian victory at the cost of more than 15 000 casualties. Nine Victoria Crosses are awarded to Canadians. |
| 1917 | 8 | June | General Sir Arthur Currie appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Corps. Currie became the first Canadian to hold overall command of Canadian troops. He was appointed over other British Generals who had higher rank/more seniority. Currie had his detractors but was the greatest Canadian General and to some the greatest military leader of all time. |
| 1918 | 24 | March | First Bapaume |
| 1918 | 26 | March | Rosieres |
| 1918 | 30 | March | Moreuil Wood |
| 1918 | 30 | March | Canadian Cavalry attack at Moreuil Wood. |
| 1918 | 28 | March | First Arras |
| 1918 | 24 | March | Actions at the Somme Crossings |
| 1918 | 21 | March | St. Quentin |
| 1918 | 28 | May | US forces make their first offensive |
| 1918 | 8 | August | Canadians break through the German trenches at Amiens, France, beginning "Canada's Hundred Days." |
| 1918 | 11 | November | Armistice ends the war. |
| 1918 | Imprisoned in South Dakota for pacificism, Hutterites flee northward into the Prairie provinces. | ||
| 1918 | Women win the right to vote in federal elections. | ||
| 1918 | Between 1918 and 1925 the Spanish Influenza affected all regions, killing more than 50 000 Canadians. | ||
| 1918 | 18 | March | Daylight Saving Time is first used in Canada. |
| 1918 | 3 | October | Beaurevoir Line |
| 1918 | 8 | August | Battle of Amiens (code named "Llandovery Castle"). On 8 August, 'the Black Day of the German Army' - Canadian and Australian troops, plus 600 tanks, shatter German forces and reach Hindenburg line. |
| 1918 | 11 | November | At 10:58am Private George Price of the 28th Battalion is killed by a sniper. Two minutes later at 11:00am the armistice came into effect. The war was over. |
| 1918 | 21 | August | Albert (1st Pioneer Battalion on detached duty) |
| 1918 | 26 | August | The Battle of the Scarpe. |
| 1918 | 31 | August-September | Second Bapaume |
| 1918 | 26 | August-September | 2nd Battle of Arras |
| 1918 | 26 | August | Scarpe (Capture of Monchy-le-Preux). Part of the 2nd Battle of Arras. |
| 1918 | 2 | September | Drocourt-Queant Canal |
| 1918 | 12 | September | Havrincourt |
| 1918 | 18 | September | Epehy |
| 1918 | 4 | July | Capture of Hamel |
| 1918 | 29 | September-October | St. Quentin Canal |
| 1918 | 15 | August | Actions around Damery |
| 1918 | 8 | October | Cambrai (Capture of Cambrai) |
| 1918 | 28 | September-October | Battle of Ypres |
| 1918 | 9 | October | Pursuit to the Selle |
| 1918 | 14 | October | Battle of Courtrai |
| 1918 | 17 | October | Battle of the Selle |
| 1918 | 1 | November | Battle of Valenciennes (Capture of Mont Houy) |
| 1918 | 4 | November | Battle of the Sambre |
| 1918 | 5 | November | Passage of the Grande Honnelle |
| 1918 | 9 | November | Capture of Mons |
| 1918 | 11 | November | Armistice |
| 1918 | 27 | September-October | Canal du Nord (Capture of Bourlon Wood) |
| 1918 | 12 | April | Hazebrouck. Part of the battle of the Lys. |
| 1918 | 10 | November | The Canadian Corps Reached the outskirts of Mons. |
| 1918 | 2 | November | The Canadian Corps capture the town of Valenciennes in its last major battle of the war. |
| 1918 | 27 | September | The Battle of the Canal Du Nord and Cambrai. |
| 1918 | 2 | September | The Battle of the Drocourt-Queant Line. |
| 1918 | 8 | August | The Battle of Amiens. The beginning of what is known as Canada's Hundred Days. |
| 1918 | 21 | March | German Offensive begins. |
| 1918 | January | Conscription now in force. | |
| 1918 | 4 | April | Avre |
| 1918 | 10 | April | Messines (Loss of Hill 63). Part of the battle of the Lys. |
| 1918 | 28 | June | Action of La Becque |
| 1918 | 13 | April | Bailleul (Defence of Neuve Eglise). Part of the battle of the Lys. |
| 1918 | 17 | April | First Kemmel Ridge . Part of the battle of the Lys. |
| 1918 | 27 | June | Canadian Hospital ship Llandovery Castle sunk by German U-Boat. Life boats were pursued and sunk. 234 were killed, including 14 nursing sisters. 24 survived. This attack proved a rallying cry for the Canadian troops for the rest of the war. |
| 1918 | 29 | March | Anti-conscription riots break out in Quebec City. |
| 1918 | 11 | November | Armistice declared, one day after the capture of Mons has climaxed " Canada's Hundred Days" of unbroken advanced. |
| 1918 | 9 | April | Estaires (First Defence of Givenchy, 1918). Part of the battle of the Lys. |
| 1918 | 8 | May | US forces make their first offensive |
| 1919 | 28 | June | End of the war/Treaty of Versailles |
| 1919 | 4 | March | Kinmel Park Mutiny. Canadian troops mutiny because of delays in returning to Canada. |
| 1919 | 15 | May | The Winnipeg General Strike. A strike in the building and metal trades spreads to other unions, and 30 000 workers stop, crippling the city until June, 25, of the same year. |
| 1919 | 21 | June | Mounties smash 37 day old Winnipeg General Strike. |
| 1919 | The federal government passes a Technical Education act. | ||
| 1919 | Grand Trunk Pacific, the western division of the Grand Trunk Railway, consolidates a line from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert. | ||
| 1919 | The Canadian National Railways is created as a crown corporation to acquire and further consolidate these smaller lines. | ||
| 1919 | 14 | June | The first successful transatlantic flight leaves St. John's, Nfld. |
| 1919 | 1 | June | This day is called Bloody Saturday when policy charged a demonstration of strikers during the Winnipeg General Strike, killing two and wounding twenty seven others. |
| 1919 | James Shaver Woodsworth and others were charged with seditious conspiracy. | ||
| 1919 | August | Following the death of Laurier, William Lyon Mackenzie is chosen to be leader of the Liberal Party. | |
| 1919 | 21 | June | An armed charge by the RCMP on Bloody Saturday kills one and injures thirty. |
| 1919 | Beginning in the metals and buildings trades as a call for union recognition, a general strike expands until it paralyzes Winnipeg (May 19-June 26). | ||
| 1920 | Canada's director of military operations drafted a plan for the Canadian army to invade certain cities in the U.S. Fortunately, no one took the plan seriously. | ||
| 1920 | The Progressive Party is formed by T. A. Crerar to obtain law tariffs for western farmers. | ||
| 1920 | Canada joins the League of Nations at its inception. | ||
| 1920 | The Group of Seven artists hold their first exhibition in Toronto. | ||
| 1920 | The size of the cent is reduced from 25.4 mm to 19.05 mm. | ||
| 1921 | Woodsworth becomes the first socialist elected to the House of Commons. | ||
| 1921 | Mackenzie King and the Liberals win federal election. | ||
| 1921 | Agnes Macphail of Owen Sound, Ontario, becomes the first woman elected to the House of Commons, in the first election since women gained the vote. | ||
| 1921 | 26 | March | The Bluenose is launched at Lunenburg, N.S.. |
| 1921 | Agnes Macphail becomes the first woman elected to Parliament, then representing the Progressive Party (which came in second and held the balance of power despite refusals to form an official opposition). | ||
| 1921 | Agnes Campbell Macphail is the first woman in Canada to be elected to the House of Commons winning the Ontario riding of Grey South East. It was also the first election in which women had the right to vote. | ||
| 1921 | Colonial Motors of Walkerville, Ontario manufactures an automobile called the Canadian. | ||
| 1922 | August | Omar Roberts poured gasoline on Elora Gray and set fire to her and his house in Kemptville, Nova Scotia, because she had turned down his marriage proposal and was in love with another man. Police found Gray before she died, however, and she was able the tell them what Roberts had done. He was found guilty of murder and hanged in November of the same year. | |
| 1922 | Andrew Bonar Law of New Brunswick became leader of the Conservatives in England and then prime minister, post that he held for 209 days before resigning because of bad health. He moved to England in 1900 and became a MP. | ||
| 1922 | Banting, Best, MacLeod, and Collip share the Nobel Prize for the discovery of insulin. | ||
| 1922 | The mint replaces the small, inconvenient silver five-cent piece with one made out of nickel, quickly becoming known as "nickles", expression used even today. | ||
| 1922 | Of the other provinces, only Newfoundland has not yet given women the vote. | ||
| 1922 | A Provincial Franchise Committee is organized in Québec to work towards female suffrage in the province. | ||
| 1922 | Foster Hewitt makes the first hockey broadcast. | ||
| 1922 | Canada's reveals a growing independence by not going to Britain's aid in the Chanak crisis in Turkey. | ||
| 1922 | The Canadian Northern and Canadian Transcontinental Railways merge to form the Canadian National Railways. | ||
| 1923 | A feeling of independence continues to grow. Canada signs the Halibut Treaty with the U.S. without the traditional British signature. | ||
| 1923 | The Nobel Prize for Medicine is awarded to doctors Frederick Banting and J.J.R. Macleod. Along with Dr. Charles and others, Banting discovered the insulin as a treatment for diabetes. | ||
| 1923 | August | The Home Bank goes bankrupted with losses to depositors as well as shareholders. The failure led to the creation of the federal office of the Inspector General of Banks. | |
| 1923 | Always heavily subsidized, the Grand Trunk Railway is finally taken over by the government. | ||
| 1923 | The federal government more or less forbids Chinese immigration on Dominion Day, soon to be called "Humiliation Day" by Chinese-Canadians. | ||
| 1923 | Mackenzie King leads the opposition to a common imperial policy at the Imperial Conference in London. | ||
| 1925 | Newfoundland women receive the right to vote. | ||
| 1926 | Armand Bombardier, of Valcourt, Quebec, developed the snowmobile, vehicles were in difficult terrain. In 1950 he pioneered the development of small, light snow vehicles for winter sports. | ||
| 1926 | 18 | November | The Balfour Report defines British dominions as autonomous and equal in status. |
| 1927 | 1 | March | Britain's Privy Council awards Labrador to Newfoundland instead of Québec. |
| 1927 | 1 | July | To celebrate Canada's Diamond jubilee (sixtieth birthday) the first coast-to-coast radio broadcast is made. |
| 1927 | The first coast-to-coast radio network broadcast celebrates the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation. | ||
| 1927 | The first government old-age pension pays up to $20 per month. | ||
| 1928 | At the first Olympics in which women may compete, a Canadian women's six-member track team wins bronze, two silver, and two gold medals. | ||
| 1928 | The Supreme Court of Canada rules that the BNA Act does not define women as "persons" and are therefore not eligible to hold public office. | ||
| 1929 | England's Privy Council rules that women are indeed "person", and therefore can be appointed to the Canadian Senate. The next year, Cairine Wilson becomes Canada's first woman senator. | ||
| 1929 | 29 | October | North American stock markets crash and the Great Depression begins. |
| 1929 | 18 | October | The British Privy Council reverses the Supreme Court decision of 1928, and women are legally declared "persons". |
| 1929 | The Great Depression begins. | ||
| 1929 | The bush pilots Vic Horner and Wop May battled snowstorm and minus 40 degrees weather to fly anti-toxins to Fort Vermillion to stop a diphtheria epidemic that threatened to wipe out Métis and Native in the fort. They were apparently so frozen when they return that was necessary to lifted them form the cockpit. | ||
| 1929 | The Workers' Unity League is formed. | ||
| 1930 | R.B. Bennett leads the Conservative Party to victory over William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal as the country plunged into the Great Depression. | ||
| 1930 | Dr. Wilbur Franks, of Weston, Ontario, developed the G-suit, which allowed fighter pilots to carry out high-speed maneuvers without blacking out. Used by Allied pilots from 1942 onwards, it led to the development of modern day astronauts' suits. | ||
| 1930 | Cairine Reay Wilson is the first woman in Canada appointed to the Senate. | ||
| 1930 | The Conservatives under R.B. Bennett win federal election. | ||
| 1930 | Jean de Brébeuf and other Jesuit martyrs are officially canonized. | ||
| 1930 | Canada's first woman senator is Cairine Wilson. | ||
| 1931 | 11 | December | The Statute of Westminster authorizes the Balfour Report (1926), granting Canada full legislative authority in both internal and external affairs. |
| 1931 | The Governor General becomes a representative of the Crown. | ||
| 1931 | 11 | December | British parliament passes the Statute of Westminster, giving Canada final independence. |
| 1932 | Doukhobours add the burning of farm buildings to their protest techniques. | ||
| 1932 | Bennett's government establishes militaristic and repressive Relief Camps to cope with the problem of unemployed single men. | ||
| 1932 | Woodsworth plays a role in forming a democratic socialist political party, the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Calgary. | ||
| 1932 | The Ottawa Agreements provide for preferential trade between Canada and other Commonwealth nations. | ||
| 1934 | The birth of the Dionne quintuplets attracts international media attention. | ||
| 1934 | The Bank of Canada is formed. | ||
| 1934 | Bob Noorduyn built in Montreal the Norseman, the world's first bush plane which became the universal workhorse of the north. Nearly one thousand were produced and most are still in use today around the world. | ||
| 1935 | 11 | March | The Bank of Canada is created with a mandate to be the sole issuer of Canadian bank notes. The first issue of bank notes was unilingual English or French, becoming bilingual in 1937. |
| 1935 | Inspired in part by the Workers' Unity League, about one thousand unemployed and disillusioned men from all over the western provinces begin a mass march, usually called the On-to-Ottawa trek, to confront Bennett over the Relief Camps (June 3-July 1). | ||
| 1935 | In an attempt to remove a corrupt Liberal administration, Maurice Duplessis, a Québec Conservative, allies with a splinter group of Liberals under Paul Gouin to form the Union nationale. | ||
| 1935 | March | The Bank of Canada, as the country central bank, is founded. | |
| 1935 | August | William Aberhart is elected premier of Alberta on a Social Credit platform and begins issuing his own in the form of prosperity certificates which could be used as currency. The Supreme Court of Canada, however, disallowed the practice, ruling that banking and money fell under the control of federal government. | |
| 1936 | November | Joan Miller of Nelson, British Columbia, was the world's first woman professional television performer. She was the star of the first TV show, "Picture Page Girl", produced by the BBC. She was paid 12.10 pounds per week. | |
| 1936 | Mary Teresa Sullivan becomes Canada's first female municipal councilor when she was sworn in as a member of Halifax city. | ||
| 1936 | Driven by the reformist Union nationale, Duplessis manages to oust Gouin and becomes Premier of Québec. | ||
| 1936 | 5-17 | July | Seven hundred and eighty Canadians died when temperatures exceeded 42 degrees Celsius from Alberta to Ontario, in Canada's longest and deadliest heat wave. |
| 1936 | 2 | November | The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is established. |
| 1937 | The Rowell-Sirois Commission is appointed to investigate the financial relationship between the federal government and the provinces. | ||
| 1937 | 1 | September | Trans Canada Air Lines begins regular flights. |
| 1938 | Meeting Mackenzie King in Kingston, Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first U.S. president to make an official visit to Canada. | ||
| 1938 | 19 | June | The Workers' Unity League helps to organize the Vancouver Sit-ins in which Relief Camp workers and others occupied the Vancouver Post Office and some other public buildings. The protest was peaceful until the police extracted the men by force on Bloody Sunday, when 35 people were wounded. |
| 1938 | Thomas Carroll built the first experimental model of the self-propelled farm combine in a Massey-Harris factory in Toronto. The machine revolutionized wheat farming in Canada by saving time, money, and backbreaking work. | ||
| 1939 | 1 | April | Trans-Canada Airlines (later Air Canada) makes the first scheduled passenger flight from Vancouver to Montreal. |
| 1939 | The Second World War starts. After Germany invades Poland and Britain declares war, Canada declares war as well. | ||
| 1939 | 10 | September | Canada declares war on Germany after approval by the Canadian parliament. |
| 1939 | 10 | September | Canada declares war on Germany after remaining neutral for a week following the British declaration. Premier Duplessis opposes war. |
| 1940 | Idola Saint-Jean and other early feminists finally succeed in obtaining the vote for Québecois women. | ||
| 1940 | The Unemployment Insurance Commission is introduced. Canada and the U.S. form a Permanent Joint Defense Board. | ||
| 1940 | Despite provincial disagreement, some of the financial recommendations of the Rowell-Sirois commission -- especially those relating to a minimum national standard of services -- are implicitly and unilaterally adopted by Ottawa. | ||
| 1940 | Parliament passes the controversial National Resources Mobilization Act (June), which allows conscription for military service only within Canada. | ||
| 1941 | July | The first national unemployment-insurance program comes into operation. | |
| 1941 | Hong Kong falls to the Japanese and Canadians are taken as POW's. The U.S. enters the war due to Japanese aggression. Together, the incidents lead to racial intolerance in Canada. | ||
| 1941 | 7 | December | The Japanese attack the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, and Canada declares war on Japan. |
| 1941 | December | The Fall of Hong Kong. More than 500 Canadians die in battle or of starvation and ill-treatment in Japanese prison camps. | |
| 1942 | From May to October, German submarines in the Gulf of St. Lawrence sink twenty-three Allied ships, with a loss of 258 lives. The gulf is then closed to ocean shipping until 1944. | ||
| 1942 | 26 | February | About 22000 Canadians of Japanese descent are stripped of non- portable possessions, interned and evacuated as security risks. |
| 1942 | 27 | April | A national plebiscite approves amendment of the National Resources Mobilization Act to permit sending conscripts overseas, once again revealing deep divisions between Québec and English Canada. |
| 1942 | 19 | August | The Dieppe raid, Canada's first participation in the European theatre, is a disaster. |
| 1942 | 11 | October | RCMP ship St. Roch reaches Halifax after becoming the second ship ever (and the first going west to east) to sail the Northwest Passage. |
| 1942 | 19 | August | Dieppe raid leaves 907 Canadians dead. 1, 946 capture. |
| 1942 | 19 | August | In a disastrous raid on Dieppe, France, 900 out of 5 000 Canadians are killed and almost 2 000 are taken prisoner. |
| 1942 | Polymer Corporation Limited is formed because western nations were cut off from all sources of natural rubber during the World War II. It took fourteen month to build a $50 million plant which became the forerunner of many large-scale petrochemical plants and refineries. | ||
| 1942 | Twenty two thousand Japanese Canadians are rounded up by RCMP and placed in work camps until after the war. | ||
| 1943 | July | Canadian troops invade Sicily and, with other Allied troops, fight their way north through Italy. They reach Rome on June 4, 1944. | |
| 1943 | 10 | July | Canadians participate in the invasion of Sicily |
| 1943 | 20 | December | Canadians win the Battle of Ortona, a German stronghold on the Adriatic. |
| 1944 | 6 | June | Canadians troops, along with British and Americans, land successfully on the coast of France and begin to drive the Germans back. |
| 1944 | The CCF under Tommy Douglas wins the provincial election in Saskatchewan, forming the first socialist government in North America. | ||
| 1944 | August | The Family Allowance Act is passed. | |
| 1944 | 6 | June | Canadian troops push further than other allied units on D-Day. |
| 1944 | 23 | July | Canadian forces fight as a separate army. |
| 1945 | 5 | May | European hostilities end. |
| 1945 | 20 | June | The first family allowance ("baby-bonus") payments are made. |
| 1945 | 26 | June | Canada joins the United Nations. |
| 1945 | 2 | September | Hostilities in the Pacific basin end. |
| 1945 | 5 | September | Igor Gouzenko defects from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa and reveals the existence in Canada of a Soviet spy network. |
| 1945 | Canada's first nuclear reactor goes on line in Chalk River, Ontario. | ||
| 1945 | 5 | September | The first Canadian nuclear reactor goes into operation. |
| 1945 | Family-allowance payment begin. All families receive a monthly sum for each child under sixteen who is in school. | ||
| 1946 | Canada's largest on-land earthquake shakes Central Vancouver Island measuring 7.3 on the Richter Scale and causing extensive property damage. Seventy percent of the chimneys were knocked down in Courtenay, Cumberland, and Union Bay. One person was drowned and one died of heart attack. The quake was felt from Oregon to Alaska and east to the Rocky Mountains. | ||
| 1947 | 3 | February | Canada's record cold temperature is set in Snag, Yukon Territory, when the mercury plunged to -63 degrees Celcius, solidifying Canadian reputation as one of the coldest country in the world. |
| 1947 | February | Prospectors strike oil in Leduc, Alberta, beginning Alberta's oil boom. | |
| 1948 | Canadians Suzanne Morrow and Wally Distelmeyer perform for the first time the Death Spiral in an international skating competition. It’s a circular move in which the man lowers his partner to the ice and swings her in circle while she is arched backward gliding on one foot with the head almost touching the ice. | ||
| 1948 | 15 | November | Louis St. Laurent succeeds Mackenzie as prime minister. |
| 1948 | 30 | June | The Income Tax Act is enacted, taking effect for the 1949 and subsequent taxation years. After numerous amendments to the Income War Tax Act introduced in 1917, the new act largely reworded and codified the former law with little change in actual policy. |
| 1949 | 31 | March | Newfoundland and Labrador join Confederation as the tenth province. |
| 1949 | William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada's longest-serving prime minister, retires at the age if 74. | ||
| 1949 | Canada's Supreme Court replaces Britain's judicial committee as the final court of appeal. | ||
| 1949 | 31 | March | Province and territories joined Confederation, or were created from existing parts of Canada: Newfoundland |
| 1949 | 31 | March | Joey Smallwood brings Newfoundland into Confederation. |
| 1949 | Canada joins NATO. | ||
| 1949 | Canada's biggest earthquake in the 20 century hits Queen Charlotte Island, in British Columbia, with a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter Scale. The shaking was so severe that cows were knocked off their feet and people could not stand. The value of the damage, however, was not high because of the sparse population on the island. It was also felt over a wide area in western North America. | ||
| 1950 | Harold Adams Innes publishes Empire and Communications, a book that deals with the role of communications in various societies throughout history. Innes shows the connection between communications technology and the ability of different empires to survive and prosper. | ||
| 1950 | The construction of Trans-Canada Highway starts, to be completed in 1970. The 7 821 kilometer road cost more than one billion, linked the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and its ranked as one of Canada's most important transportation projects | ||
| 1950 | Heart pacemaker was invented in a National Research Council laboratory in Ottawa by Winnipeg native John Hops to keep weak of heart alive and kicking. | ||
| 1950 | Volunteers in the Canadian Army Special Force join the United Nations forces in the Korean war. | ||
| 1950 | Inuit win the right to vote in federal elections. | ||
| 1950 | The Korean War starts. Twenty-seven thousand Canadians serve and more than 1 600 are killed or wounded. | ||
| 1950 | Park Royal Shopping Centre opens in West Vancouver, British Columbia, as the first suburban shopping mall in Canada. Today the mall has both a north side, the original, and the south side, which construction started in 1960s. | ||
| 1951 | Census shows population as just over 14 million. | ||
| 1951 | The Massey Royal Commission reports that Canadian cultural life is dominated by American influences. Recommendations include improving grants to universities and the eventual establishment of the Canada Council (1957). | ||
| 1951 | Charlotte Whitton becomes mayor of Ottawa, the first woman in Canada elected for this post. | ||
| 1952 | The outbreak of the Foot and Mouth Disease in Saskatchewan results in the slaughter of thousands of animals but also sets the stage for very rigorous regulations regarding the health of domestic livestock. Today Canada's herd health programs are recognized around the world as being the most stringent anywhere. | ||
| 1952 | September | Canada's first television stations begin part-time broadcasts in Montréal and Toronto. | |
| 1952 | Vincent Massey becomes the first native-born Governor General. | ||
| 1952 | 6 | September | The first Canadian scheduled TV broadcast. |
| 1952 | Former prime minister Lester B. Pearson is elected president of the United Nations General Assembly. | ||
| 1952 | Vincent Massey becomes the first Canadian-born governor general since Pierre Regaud de Vaudreuil governed New France. | ||
| 1953 | 27 | July | The Korean War ends. |
| 1953 | Paule-Emile Leger, archbishop of Montreal, is appointed cardinal by the Vatican. Leger served as a missionary among lepers and handicapped children in Cameroon, Africa. He also was involved in many humanitarian activities and was recipient of the Pearson Peace Medal. | ||
| 1953 | 13 | July | The Stratford Festival opens. |
| 1953 | 1 | January | The National Library is established in Ottawa. |
| 1954 | 30 | March | The first Canadian subway opens in Toronto. |
| 1954 | 9 | September | Marilyn Bell, age sixteen, is the first person to swim Lake Ontario. |
| 1954 | 15 | October | Hurricane Hazel touches down in Toronto with 178 millimeters of rain. Eighty-three people died, entire streets in west Toronto ware destroyed and many bridges were washed away in the worst inland storm in Canada. |
| 1954 | 15 | October | Hurricane Hazel kills almost seven dozen people in Toronto. |
| 1954 | The Yonge Street subway opens in Toronto, the first underground public transit system in Canada. | ||
| 1954 | Banks in Canada are authorized to make residential mortgage loans for the first time and also take "chattel mortgages", which led banks to offer automobile financing. | ||
| 1954 | 9 | September | Marilyn Bell is the first person to swim across Lake Ontario. |
| 1954 | Viewers of the British Empire games in Vancouver see two runners break the four minute mile in the same race. | ||
| 1954 | The post-war boom is briefly interrupted by an economic slump. | ||
| 1955 | 17 | March | Riots in Montréal are caused by the suspension of hockey star Rocket Richard. |
| 1955 | The Canadian Labour Congress is formed. | ||
| 1956 | 1 | November | United Nations General Assembly adopts Lester B. Pearson's Suez peace-keeping plan. |
| 1956 | The Liberals use closure to limit the Pipeline Debate -- which begins with concern over the funding of the natural gas industry and ends in contoversy over proper parliamentary procedure (May 8- June 6). The action contributes directly to their electoral defeat (after twenty two years in power) the following year. | ||
| 1957 | John George Diefenbaker leads the Conservative Party to decisive victory over Louis St. Laurent's Liberals in a federal election, winning more seats in the House of Commons than any party has before. | ||
| 1957 | Ellen Fairclough becomes the first female federal cabinet minister. | ||
| 1957 | Lester Pearson wins the Nobel Prize for proposing a United Nations peacekeeping force to prevent war over control of the Suez Canal. | ||
| 1957 | 10 | June | John Diefenbaker and the Conservatives win a minority government. |
| 1957 | The Canada Council is formed to foster Canadian cultural uniqueness. | ||
| 1957 | 12 | October | Lester B. Pearson wins the Nobel Peace Prize for helping resolve the Suez Crisis. |
| 1957 | Registered Retirement Saving Plan is introduced allowing Canadians who were either self-employed or did not belong to a benefit plan could put aside money for their retirement on a tax-deferred basis. Today, the RRSP is a multi-billion dollar industry and considered one of the few tax breaks available for ordinary Canadians. | ||
| 1957 | October | The newspaper Montreal Herald stopped publication after 146 years of circulation. | |
| 1958 | 10 | October | The last weld is completed on the TransCanada Pipeline, a 2 290 kilometer, $375 million gas line that took twenty-eight months to build and ran from Burstall, Saskatchewan, to Kapuskasing, Ontario. Capable of delivering more than nine billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, the project is compared to the building of the transcontinental railway in the 19th century. |
| 1958 | 31 | March | Diefenbaker's minority becomes the largest majority ever obtained in a federal election. |
| 1958 | A coal mine disaster at Springhill, N.S. kills 74 miners. | ||
| 1958 | 23 | October | The Springhill Mining Disaster. Shifting rock kills seventy-four coal miner. Some of the survivors are trapped for eight days before being rescued. |
| 1959 | 26 | June | The St. Lawrence Seaway opens. |
| 1959 | 26 | June | Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower officially open the St. Lawrence Seaway, which lets ocean vessels reach the Great Lakes. |
| 1959 | 20 | February | Diefenbaker cancels the Avro Arrow project (CF-105 aircraft) to public outcry. Almost 14000 jobs are lost. |
| 1960 | A Canadian Bill of Rights is approved. | ||
| 1960 | Social changes and a new government in Quebec lead to the beginning of Quebec's "Quiet Revolution". Stirring of interest in independence for Quebec soon follow. | ||
| 1960 | Native people living on reserves get the right to vote in federal elections. | ||
| 1960 | Native people win the right to vote in federal elections. | ||
| 1960 | 22 | June | Liberals under Jean Lesage win provincial election in Québec, inaugurating the Quiet Revolution which pressed for special status within Confederation. |
| 1960 | 4 | March | A shower of more than five hundred stony mereorites, some as small as as peas, fells from the sky in Bruderheim, Alberta. It was the biggest Canadian mereorite fall, with more than three hundred kilograms recovered from the field. |
| 1961 | The Canadian Medical Association concluded that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. | ||
| 1961 | The New Democratic Party replaces the CCF. | ||
| 1962 | Saskatchewan is the first province to have medical insurance covering doctor's bills. In 1966, Parliament passes a legislation to establish a national Medicare program. By 1972, all provinces and territories have joined the program. | ||
| 1962 | 3 | September | The Trans- Canada Highway opens. |
| 1962 | 29 | September | Canada becomes the third nation in space with the launch of the satellite Alouette I. |
| 1962 | 11 | December | Canada's last executions take place in Toronto. |
| 1962 | 1 | July | Socialized medicine is introduced in Saskatchewan, leading to a doctors' strike. |
| 1962 | 29 | September | Canada launches the Alouette I satellite to study the ionosphere, becoming the third country in space after Russia and United States. |
| 1962 | 18 | June | The Conservatives are returned to minority status in a federal election. |
| 1962 | Blanche Margaret Meagher is appointed ambassador to Austria, being the first in Canada to hold this position. While in Vienna she also became Canada's representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency. | ||
| 1963 | The FLQ, a terrorist group dedicated to revolution to establish an independent Quebec, explodes bombs in Montreal. | ||
| 1964 | Marshall McLuhan publishes the book Understanding the Media which helped Canada and the world to understand the changes technology and communications were bringing to society. | ||
| 1964 | April | Canadians get social insurance cards | |
| 1964 | Northern Dancer is the first Canadian horse to win the Kentucky Derby. | ||
| 1965 | 9 | November | The Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario inadvertently causes a major power blackout in North America. |
| 1965 | 7 | March | Roman Catholic churches begin to celebrate masses in English. |
| 1965 | January | Canada and the U.S. sign the Auto Pact | |
| 1965 | 15 | February | Canada gets a new red-and-white, maple leaf flag. |
| 1965 | 15 | February | The new flag is inaugurated |
| 1966 | Canada Pension Plan (or CPP) is created, requiring contributions from both employers and employees for a publicly financed retirement saving plan. Lately the CPP has been mired in controversy about its solvency, resulting in steep increase inn the premiums paid by employers and employees. | ||
| 1966 | 4 | March | The Munsinger affair (in which the Associate Minister of National Defence, Pierre Sévigny, had a liaison with a German divorcée suspected by the RCMP) becomes Canada's first political sex scandal. |
| 1966 | The Canada Pension Plan is established. | ||
| 1966 | 1 | October | The CBC introduces some colour broadcasts. |
| 1967 | 1 | July | Centennial celebrations officially begin. |
| 1967 | 24 | July | French president Charles de Gaulle says "Vive le Québec libre" in Montréal. |
| 1967 | 27 | April | World attention is turned to Expo '67 in Montréal. |
| 1967 | 25 | April | The air force, army, and navy are unified as the Canadian Armed Forces. |
| 1967 | April | Expo 67, the Montreal world's fair, attracts more than 55 million visitors from April to October. | |
| 1967 | Canada celebrates a hundred years of Confederation. Across the country, communities sponsor centennial projects. In Ottawa, on July 1, Queen Elizabeth II cuts a giant birthday cake. | ||
| 1967 | December | Federal legislation abolishes the death penalty for murder, except when police officers or prison guards are the victims. | |
| 1968 | A Royal Commission on the Status of Women is appointed. | ||
| 1968 | 25 | June | Pierre Trudeau succeeds Pearson as leader of the Liberals and wins a majority in a federal election in an atmosphere like a media circus. |
| 1968 | Canadian divorce laws are reformed. | ||
| 1968 | Pierre Elliott Trudeau succeeds Lester Pearson as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party. "Trudeaumania" sweeps the country in the subsequent federal election. | ||
| 1968 | Rene Levesque founds the Parti Quebecois, with the goal of making Quebec a "sovereign" (independent) state "associated" with Canada. | ||
| 1968 | The rising price of silver forces the mint to replace the 10, 25, and 50 cent pieces and the dollar coin with one made of nickel. | ||
| 1969 | May | Abortion laws are liberalized. | |
| 1969 | 1 | February | Postal reforms end Saturday deliveries. |
| 1969 | 9 | July | English and French are both recognized as offical languages by the federal government. |
| 1969 | 20 | July | U.S spacecraft Apollo II lands on the moon with Canadian-built landing gear. |
| 1969 | 4 | March | The Royal Canadian Mounted Police replaced the dog teams by snowmobiles to patrol and search. |
| 1969 | 1 | December | The breathalizer is put into use to test for drunken drivers. |
| 1970 | 5 | October | British trade commissioner James Cross is kidnapped by the FLQ, precipitating the October Crisis. |
| 1970 | 10 | October | Québec's labour and immigration minister Pierre Laporte is kidnapped and later found murdered. |
| 1970 | 17 | October | The strangled body of Pierre Laporte, a Quebec cabinet minister, was found in the trunk of a car in St. Hubert, Quebec, during the FLQ crisis. Paul and Jacques Rose, Francis Simard, and Bernard Lortie were charged in 1971 with kidnapping and non-capital murder, and later all were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight years to double life. |
| 1970 | Greame Ferguson, Robert Kerr, Roman Kroitor, Bill Shaw, and Bill Breukelman developed the IMAX System, a giant-screen, large-format film medium, which uses the largest film frame in movie history and multi-track sound system. The first permanent Imax Theatre was built at Toronto's Ontario Place in 1971. Today there are Imax theatres all over the world. | ||
| 1970 | The October Crisis. After the FLQ kidnaps a Quebec government minister and a British trade commissioner, Prime Minister Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act, which allows Canadians to be arrested and held without being charged. | ||
| 1970 | Voting age lowered from twenty-one to eighteen. | ||
| 1970 | The greatest change ever in crop planting came with the introduction of canola, a plant able to produce a more desirable oil for the food trade. Canola became a dominant crop on the Canadian prairies, causing the greatest change ever in crop planting. | ||
| 1970 | 16 | October | The War Measures Act is invoked, banning the FLQ and leading eventually to nearly 500 arrests. |
| 1971 | Gerhard Herzberg of the National Research Council wins the Nobel Prize in chemistry for studies of smog. | ||
| 1971 | The federal government officially adopts a policy of multiculturalism. | ||
| 1971 | 5 | March | Fifty-two-year-old bachelor prime minister Pierre Trudeau married twenty-two-year-old Margaret Sinclair, the daughter of a former Liberal cabinet minister. From then, though the birth of their three sons, to the couple's divorce in 1984, the world watched as the antics of Pierre and Margaret charmed and same times embarrassed Canadians. |
| 1971 | Gerhard Hertzberg of Ottawa wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. | ||
| 1971 | The Tobacco companies announced that effective in 1972 they would voluntarily place a warning on cigarette packages and would no advertise cigarettes on radio or television. | ||
| 1972 | Canada wins the first hockey challenge against the Soviets. | ||
| 1972 | 28 | September | Few Canadian have been credited with deeds as momentous as the goal Paul Henderson scored for Team Canada The converted rebound, with thirty-four seconds remaining in the final game of the first ever Canada-Russia series, turned back a relentless Soviet Union advance in the climactic eight mach and gave Canada a victory that may never be forgotten. |
| 1972 | Rosemary Brown is the first black woman elected to the provincial legislature in British Columbia. | ||
| 1972 | Anik 1 Geo-stationary Commercial Satellite is launched by Telesat, making Canada the first country in the world to use satellites for domestic communications. | ||
| 1972 | Trudeau's Liberals win a minority government by only two seats. | ||
| 1973 | The separatist Parti Québecois becomes the official opposition in a provincial election. | ||
| 1973 | 13 | November | Henry Morgentaler is acquitted of illegal abortion charges in Montréal. |
| 1973 | 5 | January | The House of Commons criticizes U.S. bombing of North Vietnam. |
| 1974 | 8 | July | Trudeau's Liberals win a majority government. |
| 1974 | 4 | March | The Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario changes its name to Ontario Hydro and begins to update its image. |
| 1974 | 29 | June | Mikhail Baryshnikov defects in Montréal. |
| 1975 | 2 | April | Toronto's CN Tower becomes the world's tallest free-standing structure. |
| 1975 | 14 | October | Trudeau institutes wage and price controls to fight inflation. |
| 1975 | TV cameras are allowed in the House of Commons for the first time. | ||
| 1975 | 18 | July | The Foreign Investment Review Agency intends to screen foreign investment in Canada. |
| 1976 | Rene Levesque and Parti Quebecois are elected in Quebec. | ||
| 1976 | The Eaton Company discontinues catalogue sales after 92 continuous years. | ||
| 1976 | 15 | November | René Lévesque and the Parti Québecois win a provincial election. |
| 1976 | 15 | September | Team Canada wins the first Canada Cup. |
| 1976 | 17 | July | The Olympic games are held in Montréal under tight security. |
| 1976 | 14 | July | The death penalty is abolished. |
| 1976 | 4 | June | Canada announces a 200-mile coastal fishing zone. |
| 1976 | 14 | October | Organized by the Canadian Labor Congress to oppose wage controls, the Day of Protest was the Canada's first national general strike and saw more than one million workers leaving their jobs for a day. |
| 1976 | Wayne Gretzky, age seventeen, plays hockey for the Oilers; he is the youngest person in North America playing a major-league sport. | ||
| 1977 | 6 | September | Highway signs are changed to the metric system. |
| 1977 | 26 | August | Québec passes Bill 101, restricting English schooling to children of parents who had been educated in English schools. |
| 1978 | 24 | January | The remains of a Soviet nuclear-powered satellite crash in Canada's north. |
| 1978 | Sun Life Assurance acknowledges that it moved its head office to Toronto because of Montréal's language laws and political instability. | ||
| 1978 | Manufacturers of birth control pills are required to provide labels of health risks for smokers and women over forty. | ||
| 1979 | 10 | November | Most of Mississauga, Ontario is evacuated to avoid derailed train cars containing chemicals. |
| 1979 | 10 | November | The blue box recycling program is launched in Kitchener, Ontario. Since then, the program has spread to all the provinces and has played a key role in making Canada's environment better. |
| 1979 | 13 | December | Clark's Conservatives lose a non-confidence vote on the budget, forcing their resignation. |
| 1979 | 13 | December | The Supreme Court of Canada declares unconstitutional the creation of officially unlilingual legislatures in Manitoba and Québec. |
| 1979 | 5 | September | The first uniquely Canadian gold bullion coin, stamped with a Maple Leaf, goes on sale. |
| 1979 | 22 | May | Conservatives under Joe Clark win a federal election. |
| 1980 | 27 | June | O Canada is officially adopted as Canada's national anthem. |
| 1980 | 12 | April | Terry Fox begins his cross-country run, the "Marathon of Hope". On September 1, he is forced to stop the run when his cancer returns. |
| 1980 | At least 1 200 Canadians of all ages were infected with the deadly AIDS virus and thousands more contracted hepatitis C after receiving blood transfusion between 1980 and 1990. Blame for the suffering has been lain with the Red Cross, public health officials, bureaucrats, and politicians in what has been called "the greatest preventable medical scandal" in Canada's history. | ||
| 1980 | The Supreme Court recognizes the equal distribution of assets in failed common-law relationships. | ||
| 1980 | 15 | May | Quebec voters reject "sovereignty-association" in favor of renewed Confederation. |
| 1980 | Ken Taylor, former Canadian ambassador to Iran, hid six American diplomats and spirited them out of Tehran after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. embassy and took sixty-six hostages. | ||
| 1980 | 22 | May | A Québec referendum rejects sovereignty-association. |
| 1980 | Canada boycotts Moscow's Olympic games due to the invasion of Afghanistan. | ||
| 1980 | 28 | January | Ken Taylor, Canadian ambassador to Iran, becomes an international celebrity for helping six Americans escape Tehran. |
| 1980 | Federal legislation allows 100 percent owned foreign banks to be established in Canada. | ||
| 1981 | 28 | June | Terry Fox dies. Minus one leg already lost to cancer, Fox attempted to run across Canada in 1980 in his Marathon of Hope to raise money for cancer research. But in September, near Thunder Bay, Ontario, cancer struck again and the run was called off. By the time of his death $24 million was raised for his cancer research fund. Every September, runs are held in Canada and around the world to keep Fox's memory alive and also raising fund for the cancer research. Terry Fox in one of the most beloved Canadian heroes. |
| 1981 | 5 | November | The federal government and every province except Quebec reach agreement for patriating the Canadian constitution (bringing it to Canada from Great Britain). |
| 1981 | 29 | June | Terry Fox dies of cancer in the middle of his cross-Canada Marathon of Hope. |
| 1981 | His example eventually raises about 25 million dollars. | ||
| 1981 | 23 | September | Québec bans public signs in English. |
| 1981 | 5 | November | The federal and provincial governments (except Québec) agree on a method to repatriate Canada's constitution. |
| 1981 | The University of Waterloo, Ontario, develops the first local area networks, or LAN, for microcomputers. The networks were created as soon the first Macintosh computers and IBM personal computers were available. LANs allow all computers in an office communicate with one another. | ||
| 1981 | November | First flight of the Canadian Remote Manipulator System (Canadarm) on the space shuttle. The highly computerized 15m arm can be operated from inside the shuttle to release, rescue, and repair satellites. | |
| 1982 | 4 | March | Bertha Wilson is the first woman appointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court. |
| 1982 | 17 | April | Canada gets a new Constitution Act, including a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. |
| 1982 | 7 | April | The Québec government demand for a veto over constitutional change is rejected. |
| 1982 | 17 | April | Canada gains a new Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms. |
| 1982 | The worst recession since the Great Depression begins. | ||
| 1982 | 15 | February | The offshore oil rig Ocean Ranger sinks, killing 84. |
| 1983 | Jeanne Sauve is named Canada's first female governor general. She was also the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons and the first female MP from Quebec to be a cabinet minister. | ||
| 1983 | 23 | December | Jeanne Sauvé is appointed the first female Governor General. |
| 1983 | 1 | February | Pay TV begins operation. |
| 1983 | Public outcry opposes the government's approval of U.S. cruise missile testing in the west. | ||
| 1984 | 5 | October | Hitching a ride on the U.S. shuttle Challenger, Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space. |
| 1984 | 5 | October | Astronaut Marc Garneau, aboard the U.S. space shuttle Challenger, becomes the first Canadian in space. |
| 1984 | 14 | May | Jeanne Sauve is Canada first woman governor general. |
| 1984 | John Turner succeeds Trudeau as Liberal prime minister (June 30) but is soon defeated by Brian Mulroney's Conservatives with an even larger majority than that achieved by Diefenbaker in 1958 (Sept. 4). | ||
| 1984 | At the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Canada wins its greatest-ever number of gold medals: ten, including two for swimmer Alex Baumann. | ||
| 1984 | 9 | September | The Pope visits Canada. |
| 1985 | U.S. ice-breaker Polar Sea challenges Canada's Arctic sovereignty by traveling through the Northwest Passage. | ||
| 1985 | Ontario Liberals under David Peterson end forty years of Conservative Premiership. | ||
| 1985 | 5 | March | Wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen leaves Vancouver on a round-the-world "Man in Motion" tour to raise money for spinal-cord research and wheelchair sports. |
| 1985 | Lincoln Alexander becomes Ontario's first black lieutenant-governor. | ||
| 1985 | 2 | December | Mulroney and U.S. president Ronald Reagan declare mutual support for orbital Strategic Defense Initiatives (Star Wars) and Free Trade at the Shamrock Summit (so-named for their ethnic backgrounds) in Québec City. |
| 1986 | 11 | August | Tamil refugees are found drifting off the coast of Newfoundland. |
| 1986 | 5 | August | Canada adopts sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid policies. |
| 1986 | 22 | May | The U.S. imposes tariffs on some imported Canadian wood products. |
| 1986 | May | Expo '86 opens in Vancouver (May 2-Oct. 13). | |
| 1986 | 31 | January | The Canadian dollar hits an all-time low of 70.2 U.S. cents on international money markets. |
| 1986 | Air Canada became the first North America carrier to ban smoking from its flights following the 1971 introduction of no-smoking sections on its aircraft. | ||
| 1986 | Canadian John Polanyi shares the Nobel prize for chemistry. | ||
| 1986 | John Polany of Toronto is co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. | ||
| 1986 | 6 | October | Canada receives a United Nations award for sheltering world refugees. |
| 1987 | 30 | August | Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson sets a new world record for the 100-metre dash. |
| 1987 | 3 | October | The Canada- U.S. Free Trade agreement is reached, but still requires ratification. |
| 1987 | 19 | October | Stock prices tumble throughout the world. |
| 1987 | 30 | April | Ten provincial premiers and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney agree to the Meech Lake Accord, which would make large changes to Canada's Constitution and address Quebec's concerns. Parliament and the legislatures of all provinces have three years to accept the Accord. It dies in June 1991, when both Newfoundland and Manitoba refuse to endorse it. |
| 1987 | 30 | April | Mulroney and the provincial Premiers agree in principle to the Meech Lake Accord designed to bring Québec into the new Constitution. |
| 1987 | 20 | July | A tornado rips through Edmonton, killing 26 and injuring hundreds. |
| 1988 | 13 | February | The Winter Olympics open in Calgary. |
| 1988 | December | Free Trade legislation passes the House of Commons and the Senate. | |
| 1988 | February | The Calgary Winter Olympics. Canada wins two silver medals (Brian Orser and Elizabeth Manley, for figure skating) and three bronze medals. | |
| 1988 | Ben Johnson wins the 100 meters in the Olympics dilating Canadians. But the cheers faded quickly after drugs screening sowed the Toronto athlete had tested positive for steroids. He was stripped of the gold medal and his actions led to an inquiry into drugs and sport not only in Canada but also around the world. | ||
| 1988 | 9 | September | David See-Chai Lam, born in Hong Kong, becomes British Columbia's lieutenant-governor. |
| 1988 | 24 | September | Ben Johnson sets a world record and wins the gold medal at the Seoul Olympics in Korea (Sept. 24). Testing positive for steroids, he is stripped of his medal two days later. The Supreme Court strikes down Québec's French-only sign law. |
| 1988 | 21 | December | Finding a loophole (the "notwithstanding" clause) in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the province reinstates the law. |
| 1988 | Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon slows the ratification of the Meech Lake Accord in reaction to Québec's move. | ||
| 1988 | 28 | January | The Supreme Court strikes down existing legislation against abortion as unconstitutional. |
| 1989 | 2 | December | The first woman to lead a federal political party, Audrey McLaughlin replaces Ed Broadbent as head of the NDP. |
| 1989 | 6 | December | Fourteen female engineering students are separated from their male colleagues and murdered by a gunman at the University of Montréal. |
| 1989 | 2 | December | Audrey McLaughlin becomes the first woman leader of a federal party - the New Democratic Party. |
| 1989 | 5 | June | The government announces cuts in the funding of VIA Rail, to much public outcry. |
| 1989 | One-dollar bills are replaced by the one-dollar coin, popularly called the "loonie." | ||
| 1989 | Heather Erxleben becomes Canada's first acknowledged female combat soldier. | ||
| 1989 | 1 | January | Free Trade goes into effect. |
| 1989 | 1 | January | After a federal election fought over the issue of free trade, the free-trade agreement between Canada and the United States comes into effect, gradually ending controls on trade and investment between the two countries. |
| 1989 | 6 | December | Marc Lepine kills fourteen female engineering students at Ecole Polytechnique at the University of Montreal and than shoots himself. The "Montreal Massacre" has since become a symbol of violence against women and is commemorated each December across the country. |
| 1989 | Audrey McLaughlin is elected leader of the federal New Democratic Party, becoming the first women to lead a national party in Canada and North America. | ||
| 1989 | 1 | March | The Canadian Space Agency is created to promote the peaceful use and development of the space and ensure space science and technology provide social and economic benefits to Canadians. |
| 1990 | A recession is officially announced. | ||
| 1990 | A land dispute causes a 78-day armed confrontation between Mohawks and the army on a reserve near Oka, Quebec. | ||
| 1990 | 1 | December | The federal government banned the use of leaded gas in motor vehicles after years of debate. Research had linked lead to health problems, mainly in children. |
| 1990 | 25 | July | Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells further slows down the signing of the Meech Lake Accord, but a native member of the Manitoba legislative, Elijah Harper, deals it the fatal blow with his absolute refusal to accept Québec as Canada's principal, if not only, "distinct society" (June 22). One of the many responses is the formation of the Bloc Québecois by a handful of disenchanted politicians. |
| 1990 | September | Bob Rae upsets David Peterson and, with a surprising majority, becomes Ontario's first NDP Premier. | |
| 1990 | December | Despite the Liberals' sometimes peculiar stalling tactics, the Senate passes the unpopular Goods and Services Tax. | |
| 1990 | April | The federal government settles a land claim with the Inuit that will give them 350 000 square km of territory in the North, to be called Nunavut. | |
| 1991 | January | The war in the Persian Gulf starts. Canada sends three warships, twenty-six fighter jets, and 2 400 people to the Persian Gulf as part of a United Nations effort to force Iraqi troops to withdraw from Kuwait. | |
| 1991 | The Tungavik sign an agreement with Ottawa to create a new, quasi-independent Inuit territory in the eastern Arctic. | ||
| 1991 | November | In a Brantford, Ontario courtroom, a Six Nations man is the first to be allowed to make a traditional native oath instead of swearing on the Bible. | |
| 1991 | 8 | September | Canada's Wind Imaging Interferometer (WINDII) is launched aboard NASA's Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS) to provide new measurements of the physical and chemical processes taking place at altitudes ten to three hundred kilometers above the earth's surface. |
| 1991 | 15 | January | Canadian forces join the multinational forces in the battle to drive Saddam Hussein's Iraqi troops from Kuwait. |
| 1991 | May | George Erasmus, leader of the Assembly of First Nations, resigns at the end of his second term (May); he is succeeded by Ovide Mercredi, whose popularity earns him the nickname of "eleventh premier." | |
| 1991 | Yet another committee crosses the country soliciting citizens' opinions on proposed constitutional reforms. | ||
| 1991 | David Schindler of the University of Alberta wins the first international Stockholm Water Prize for environmental research. | ||
| 1991 | British Columbia premier Bill Van Der Zalm resigns in the midst of a real estate scandal. | ||
| 1991 | 1 | January | GST (Good and Services Tax) is introduced by Brian Mulroney's Conservative government. The 7 percent tax paid at the cash register replaced the 13.5 percent federal manufacturer's tax. |
| 1991 | 1 | January | The unpopular Goods and Services Tax comes into effect. |
| 1992 | 26 | October | Canadians vote "no" in a referendum seeking popular support for the Charlottetown Agreement, intended as a corrective to the Canadian Constitution in the wake of the failed Meech Lake Accord. |
| 1992 | Although the players are all American, the Toronto Blue Jays become the first nominally Canadian team to win baseball's World Series. | ||
| 1992 | 22 | January | Dr. Roberta Bondar becomes the first Canadian woman in space, aboard the U.S. space shuttle Discovery. |
| 1992 | The Miss Canada pageant is scrapped. | ||
| 1992 | Ontario lawyers vote no longer to swear an oath to the Queen. | ||
| 1992 | 24 | October | Toronto's Blue Jays became the first Canadian team to win baseball's World Series. |
| 1992 | June | Canada is the first country to sign the international bio-diversity convention at the Earth Summit in Brazil. | |
| 1992 | Roberta Bondar is Canada's first female astronaut in orbit. | ||
| 1992 | 28 | August | Canadian leaders adopt the Charlottetown Accord to reform Canada's constitution, but in a national referendum in October, Canadians reject it. |
| 1993 | July | Part of northwest B.C. is set aside as a world heritage conservation site. Protesters block loggers' access to ancient forests near Clayoquot Sound. | |
| 1993 | 23 | October | The Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series for the second year in a row. |
| 1993 | June | im Campbell replaces Brian Mulroney as the head of the Progressive Conservatives, becoming Canada's first woman Prime Minister. | |
| 1993 | March | Catherine Callbeck becomes the first woman Premier, in Prince Edward Island. Environmental activists cause minor damage to government buildings in Victoria, B.C., during a demonstration. | |
| 1993 | 25 | October | Liberal leader Jean Chrétien is elected in a landslide victory, with Lucien Bouchard's Bloc Québecois and Preston Manning's Reform Party only one seat apart in distant second and third places. The Progressive Conservatives, in power for nine years, are reduced to a mere two seats -- less than is required to be considered an official party. |
| 1993 | Common-Law Union is recognized. Effective for the 1993 and subsequent tax years, common-law unions began to be considered the equivalent of a legal marriages for tax purposes. The measure was a response to court challenges that had argued that the tax system discriminated against legally married couples in favor of common-law ones. | ||
| 1993 | 22 | February | Paul Martin abolishes the $100.000 Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption in his first budget as finance minister, except for qualified farm property and qualified small business corporation shares. |
| 1993 | Four members of the elite Canadian Airborne Regiment who were in Somalia for a peacekeeping mission were charged with the torture and beating death of Samali civilian. In 1994 Private Elvin Kyle Brown was convicted of manslaughter and torture and sentenced to five years in prison. The government disbanded the regiment later in 1995. | ||
| 1993 | 25 | June | Kim Campbell, the new Conservative party leader, becomes Canada's first female prime minister, but in October Jean Chrétien's Liberals win the general election. |
| 1993 | Kim Campbell becomes the first female prime minister of Canada. She was also the first woman to lead the federal Progressive Conservative Party. | ||
| 1993 | Canada, with Kurt Browning (gold), Elvis Stojko (silver), and Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler (gold), has its best skating World Championship since 1962. | ||
| 1994 | 15 | September | Separatist Jacques Parizeau becomes the premier of Quebec. |
| 1994 | The Canadian pilot of a Korean airliner that crashed is arrested for endangering the lives of his passengers. | ||
| 1994 | The North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect, linking Canada, the United States, and Mexico in a new economic partnership. | ||
| 1995 | 4 | November | RADARSAT is launched as the first Canadian earth observation satellite and first non-communications satellite since 1971. It can provide images of the earth's surface day and night, in any climate conditions, to clients around the world. |
| 1995 | A thirteen kilometer bridge connecting Prince Edward Island to the mainland is opened. | ||
| 1995 | "Turbot war" erupts when Canada arrests a Spanish ship in a bid to prevent European fleets from over-harvesting Newfoundland fish stocks. | ||
| 1995 | Canadian James Gosling, working for American company Sun Microsystems, develops Java, an object-oriented programming language that allows many different kinds of computers, consumer gadgets, and other devices communicate with one another more easily. | ||
| 1995 | 30 | October | Quebec votes in a referendum on sovereignty and the federalists win a razor-thin victory. |
| 1995 | Donovan Bailey becomes "the world's fastest man" when he breaks the record for the 100-metre race. | ||
| 1996 | 19 | May | Astronaut Marc Garneau makes his second trip into space. |
| 1996 | 29 | January | Lucien Bouchard is sworn in as the new premier of Quebec. |
| 1997 | 31 | May | Confederation Bridge opens for business, linking Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. The 12.9 kilometer bridge cost $1 billion. |
| 1998 | December | The federal government rejects proposed bank merges that would have united the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce with the Toronto-Dominion Bank and the Royal Bank with the Bank of Montreal. | |
| 1998 | 4-9 | January | The most desctructive and disruptive ice storm in Canadian history dropps close to one hundred millimetres of freezing rain in some areas of central and eastern Canada, affecting nearly 20 percent of Canada's population, mainly in Montreal and Ottawa. |
| 1999 | 15 | April | Wayne Gretzky plays the last game in a Canadian arena at the Corel Centre, in Nakata, Ontario. After twenty years in the National Hockey League with Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues, and New York Rangers, the Great One announced his retirement. His final game in the NHL was three days later at Madison Square Garden in New York. |
http://www.canadahistory.com/timeline.asp
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Pirates of Nova Scotia
On the shore, Nova Scotia was home to the infamous
"masterless men," the "shore pirates" and the
"wreckers." These ruthless men deliberately lured many unsuspecting
ships ashore, and then murdered the surviving passengers and crew. They would
then strip the ship of its cargo, valuables and whatever else was of use. The
business of "wrecking" was practiced extensively along the Nova
Scotia coast for over 200 years, and Cape Breton Island has a history of piracy
that can be traced back to the 1400s.
Pirate and Privateer weapons were similar. Both
carried a cutlass (a short broad bladed knife), a musketoon (a short barreled
musket, which was good for short ranged fighting), a flintlock pistol (light-
weight and good for an attack on a neighboring ship) and a powder horn (a horn
shaped container for gunpowder). Pirates were an important part of the everyday
life. Without Privateers many battles would be lost and many countries would
fall into the crack. Sir Francis Drake, hired by the British crown to explore,
acted as a privateer around North America. He was involved with a number of
attacks and captured many ships for the British Crown.
Nova Scotia had one of the most prosperous
privateering industries. Because of Nova Scotia�s maritime dependency it was up
to privateers to keep the Nova Scotian waters clear of threats and to bring in
any extra ships that were in places that they shouldn�t be. Canada
owes a great deal to the privateers because of their involvement in the War of
1812. Nova Scotian privateers saved the day by closing the blockade of American
ports. With larger vessels, the Royal Navy was more effective at high seas
blockade. The numerous captures of American ships in Nova Scotian waters gave
the Canadian forces a chance to beat the Americans back. Nova Scotian
privateers played a significant role in demoralizing New England communities,
undermining their support for the war and putting pressure on them to push for
peace. Their involvement also inspired Stan Rogers to write a song about a
mythical group "Barrett�s Privateers".
Pirates on ships were outlaws that attacked other
ships at will, and robbed and often killed the passengers and crew. They then
confiscated the cargo, the ship, and any treasures on board. Pirates played a
lone hand against all comers, without political purpose or official authority.
Privateers, on the other hand, attacked ships in a similar manner, but were
contracted by a nation or government to prey on the ships of their enemies.
Basically, privateers were licensed pirates, and as you can imagine, there was
a fine line of difference between the two.
A pirate captain, like a privateer captain, was an
elected leader, liable to instant demotion if he had bad luck, not enough loot,
or in the opinion of the company, showed cowardice or bad judgment. And as for
the men that crewed these infamous vessels, they were adventurers and social
rebels, with a greed for gold. And even though their pay was never guaranteed,
a chance at riches (and immediate treats of rum) often enticed fishermen,
merchant seamen, adventurers and navy deserters to join up. Upwards of 80 men
were needed to crew a pirate ship. This manpower was used to capture other
ships and sail the captured vessels home. Because of their achievements in charting
coasts and their exploration of unknown regions, pirates probably deserve more
recognition than they have received. Their remarkable feats of navigation and
endurance in search of loot remain an inspiration to many modern adventurers.
Although a few obscure pirates may have been hanged from time to time, it is
interesting to note that not a single pirate captain of notoriety or
connections ever suffered more than a petty fine.
In the 1970s, evidence of a pirate shipyard was
discovered on Cape Breton's Mira River. And about 15 miles from Mira Gut, there
is a carved stone memorial to the famous pirate, Captain William Kidd. The
pirates used this shipyard as a safe haven and as a base to haul their ships
and clean the hulls. They operated out of the Mira River for over 100 years.
According to the history of Trepassy, Newfoundland, in 1720, a Captain Roberts
(aka Black Bart), from Mira River, sailed into Trepassy Bay and looted 22 ships
in one day. The pirates left few records of their activities, but those that
did refer to the safe harbor of Saint Mary's, and old maps show the Mira River
as the Saint Mary's River.
Native of Windsor Tells Of Pirate Hoard.
The Register, Wednesday Evening. June 1, 1927
Buried On the Tusket Islands On the South-west Coast
of Nova Scotia.
Buried deep in the ground of the shores and islands
of Nova Scotia lies millions of dollars worth of pirate�s loot left
there hundreds of years ago by swashbuckling sea-dogs. This was the romantic
statement made by Anthony Ferdinand Herbin, an aged foreman of a hat factory
and a former Nova Scotian navigator who is a native of Windsor and now a
resident of Guelph, Ont. Riches beyond the dreams of avarice await the person
who can discover the secret caches of the buccaneers who made their
headquarters off the southwest corner of Nova Scotia. Herbin has two
parchments, yellow with age and returning to dust, which he claims will someday
lead him or his children, to three boxes of Spanish doubloons and two chests of
silver, which he estimates will be worth at least one million dollars. And he
firmly believes his story.
Was the home of Evangeline also the hiding place of
bands of blood-thirsty pillagers of the sea? Herbin should know as he was born
and raised along the shores of the Atlantic to the tune of the rearing seas and
the crashing surf.
Uncle Had Encounter
Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, he first heard of
pirates from his uncle at the tender age of six years after he returned to
safety following an encounter with brigands of the sea. Later his uncle, a
captain of a sailing barque, was murdered by a sailor. For the rest of his life
Herbin mingled with old tars, listened to their stories of the pirates. During
his roaming around the world he secured the two charts that will some day, he
believes, lead him to riches left there over two hundred years ago. "I am
positive that the loot is hidden in the Tusket Islands," he said calmly.
"These are about three hundred and sixty-five in number and are situated
off the south-western end of Nova Scotia, abounding with dangerous reefs and
shoals that could only be passed by experienced navigators. I know a man who
found a gallon tin of Spanish gold pieces on one of these islands. There is
absolutely no possible doubt but what the booty is there."
Herbin is a typical old sea captain. Tall, erect, his
face tanned by years at the mast, steel grey hair and eyes, brawny shoulders,
he is just such a man as would be expected to be seen at the wheel of some
Bluenose fishing schooner. His reputation in his community is enviable. The
children love him, the older people look upon him with great regard and his
employers value his services greatly. "I was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia,
sixty-three years ago," said he. "At that time my uncle, Chas.
Robishau, was sailing a vessel, Acadia and Bordeaux. I can remember when I was
just six years old my uncle returning after he had been chased by a ship flying
the skull and crossbones.
Chased By A Pirate
"He told my mother how he had been navigating
his barque about 120 miles off Cape Sable when a pirate opened fire and gave
chase. This was in the afternoon. For the rest of the day he flew before the wind
and after sunset put out all his lights and doubled back on his track. In this
way he avoided them and escaped. He had several other adventures like this.
"My uncle was murdered by a member of his crew
named J. Dugal, a French-Canadian, near Belleveau, N.S." There is a record
to show that this is authentic. The murderer was hanged. "From that time
on I studied pirates," said Herbin, continuing his narrative. "At the
age of twelve I shipped on the sailing vessel "Jane", from
Philadelphia bound for France. This ship was built on the Meteghan River in
Nova Scotia. I was just a youngster then and would slip into the forecastle and
listen to the old seamen tell of their experiences with the buccaneers. "I
read a lot in the captain�s cabin and in this way educated myself. Then I began
to get in touch with seamen who could tell me something about the robbers of
the high seas. I met one man, a foreigner, who knew a lot about them. He said
their headquarters were in the southwest portions of Nova Scotia."Most of
my material was gathered while sailing to the West Indies. I found that there
had been bands of pirates ravaging the Atlantic Ocean and those governments
were unable to discover their hiding places, which were in the Tusket Islands.
It would be impossible to navigate a vessel through these shoals unless the
pilot was acquainted with the bearings of the reefs. I am told that the
government has not yet surveyed these bays and coves. But anyway the pirates
would sneak out from the Tusket Islands, pillage a ship, steal the gold and
silver, make the prisoners walk the plank, then scurry back to safety.
Infested Nova Scotia Coast
"At one time the pirates infested the coast of
Nova Scotia to such an extent that ships were afraid to pass nearby them.
Instead of crossing at Cape Sable the vessels would follow the American shore
line past Boston and New York and so on down to the West Indies and
Barbados."
Then Mr. Herbin revealed the secret of his two
charts. "The loot is hidden in the south-west end, and there are three
boxes of gold and two of silver that I know of. I have located the exact spot
in each case. One time I was in the very field where the gold is hidden without
knowing it. Another time I sailed past the hidden cache. "The first map
shows two cases of gold and one of silver. Here is how I came to get it. My
uncle, Henry Robishau, was a member of parliament for that district and was
also engaged in the logging business. An old man, H. Garson, a French-Canadian,
was given a job by my uncle driving his oxen. After returning from the West
Indies one winter I stayed at his camp and became very friendly with Garson,
who had a large family and was very poor. We would have long talks about
pirates and one day he told me about a map that he had been given by his great
grandfather. "I will never be able to dig it up myself." he said;
"you take it." I have now located the island to be about six miles
west of Yarmouth."
Has Had Map 45 Years
"The other map was given to me by a Joe Muff in
Halifax. He was also very old and had no chance of ever digging up the booty,
so he also handed it on to me. He had procured the charts when he was a little
boy from a drunken man in a saloon whom he had bought a drink for. I have had
both of them for some forty-five years now and have never been able to
investigate them. I will some day." He estimated that this treasure would
be worth around one million dollars. Herbin says that there is still more
treasure there. Many bands of pirates likely hid their plunder on these islands
while they continued their nefarious trade and he has only two maps or charts.
These he is keeping in a safety deposit box in a bank.
Nova Scotians were also the victims of American
privateers who were violent, often killing their victims. One particularly
violent case occurred on November 17, 1775. Two American schooners arrived in
Charlottetown where they kidnapped Governor Callbeck and looted his house,
slitting the throat of his pregnant wife. Unfortunately due to the attacks made
on Nova Scotia during this time, food prices soared, fishing boats stolen,
trashed or taken for a ride. Contact between ports was eliminated and the lack
of communication caused ports to close. As the harassment continued not even
the smallest port was spared and the privateers became more brazen. They often
left their victims naked for amusement or greed because they took everything
they could get their hands on. Another famous privateer to grace the shores of
Nova Scotia was Captain Amos Potter, a Yankee, and his crew. After capturing the
ship "Resolution" Potter�s crew attempted to board an English vessel. The
English heard of his scheme and upon his boarding the ship he was captured by
the English. Potter�s crew went to avenge his capture by looting
Annapolis, a small port which was forever being plundered and kidnapping a
prominent member of the community. Privateers often helped the war effort by
attacking supply ships for the opposing side. In fact privateers brought in the
funding for a new government house. Although they weren�t always
dependable, they risked their lives for their country, although they often
enjoyed their adventurous life. It was not unusual for privateers to be
attacked by a ship in the Caribbean, see members of their crew go through a
press gang (another gang of privateers with knives who would all gang up and
attack) and then sail home to capture an enemy ship. (1798 Cruise Report)
The life of a privateer was harsh but legal and most
of the privateers followed the rules of their leader. They were cruel and acted
like pirates at times but lacked the absolute "killer instinct" that
pirates had. Pirates pillaged and burned, raped and plundered and didn�t have any
loyalty to anybody. Pirates in Nova Scotia were not an unheard of occurrence.
There were many rumored to have sail around our coastal shores. However, actual
evidence of any kind is hard to come by.
Everything about pirates and their way of life was
done to strike fear into the hearts of their opponents. Although the Jolly
Roger (skull and crossbones) was feared, nothing terrified victims more than
the red flag, which signified no mercy. Although the stereotypes of pirates on
land tell us they drank their treasure away, in actuality there was work to do
when they reached the shore. Their boat had to be sea worthy and there was a
lot of work to complete to keep it that way. Holes from canon fire and scraps
from bumping against another ship meant major repairs, and it was up to the
pirates to complete them. Despite their law breaking ways, they had specific
codes of conduct, which were highly respected and upheld. Beware the pirate
code. (Isle of Tortugo)
One of the pirates rumored to have lurked around our
little province was Captain Hall. Captain Hall used, what is now called, Hall�s Harbor as his
main port for his loot. Just above the harbor was the main camping ground of
his Native American girlfriend. After one of Hall�s pillages, he obtained a box of
presents for her. Unfortunately the British, tired of being plundered, had arrived
before Hall and convinced the Natives that they were friends of Hall�s. As Hall
approached the camping ground the British opened fired and the box was buried
between Baxter�s Harbor and
Hall�s Harbor.
The most famous pirate to grace Nova Scotian soil is
the one we�ll never know.
The mystery of the Oak Island treasure has been going on for some time; nobody
knows who left it or what "it" is for that matter. Theories from
"Captain Kidd" to "Incas" fleeing the Spanish have been
brought up but none of it can be proven and it is all just speculation. The
mystery started when a seventeen-year old boy named Daniel McGinnis went to the
island to explore. He was soon intrigued by a sawed off branch on an oak tree
and a large depression in the ground. He quickly gathered a few friends and
some tools and went to investigate. Four feet down they discovered flag stone,
alien to the island. After digging for another six feet they found a platform
of oak logs embedded into the shaft. Excited by the discovery of "pirate treasure"
they continued to dig until they found another oak platform (twenty feet and
another (thirty feet). Unfortunately the pit was now too deep to remove the
logs and they had to give up, but they didn�t forget. (Oak Island)
In 1803 the boys returned to the island with a
wealthy businessman, who had enough money to launch a full-scale investigation.
After digging past the thirty feet they found oak platforms every ten feet, but
this time the some of the platforms were sealed with coconut fiber and putty.
Ninety feet down a large flat stone was discovered with the inscription
"Forty feet below two million pounds are buried." After removing the
platform under the rock the light was fading and the crew was forced to go
home. When they returned the next morning, the hole was full of water and it
was impossible to continue. They attempted to tunnel their way toward the
treasure but two feet away the clay walls gave out and water rushed in.
Heartbroken and discouraged, they were forced to give up the project.
There have been numerous attempts to reach the
treasure, and a few even retrieved articles from the hole, but none have been
successful at reaching the treasure. The Oak Island treasure has captured the
imagination of millions, including Franklin Roosevelt and John Wayne but it is
still an unsolved mystery. (Oak Island) Our history of privateers and pirates
in Nova Scotia is vast and intriguing. Our economic state during the time of
pirates and privateers required these men to work as outlaws. It was important
to our war effort for these men to steal the ships of our enemies, without them
many wars would be lost. Acting out of financial need, these men risked their
lives everyday for their crown and country. Although they thoroughly enjoyed
their jobs, they were doing a great service to their country. Despite their
rugged appearance, these men did their job vigorously, when they weren�t pillaging and
burning things.
Pirates capture the imagination of millions; they
have been a focus of our attention for hundreds of years. Pirates have added an
air of mystery to our province and a large bonus to our tourist industry. They
have given us an outlet for our imagination and an excuse for searching for
buried treasure. Pirates and Privateers are probably the most exciting part of
our maritime history and definitely worth our recognition and respect.
Piracy is murder and robbery at sea. It dates to
ancient times and continues today. The �Golden Age of Piracy� occurred from 1690 to 1730 when
Nova Scotia, was largely unsettled by Europeans, making it a possible location
for pirates to hide-out or refit. The governor of Fortress Louisburg in the mid
1720s was so afraid of pirate attacks in Cape Breton that he asked for extra
naval protection. One of the nastiest pirates of the "Golden Age", Ned
Low, raided fishing fleets that used Nova Scotian harbors as shelters and
fishing stations. Low terrorized a New England fleet in Shelburne in 1720. Some
have suggested that he hid treasure in Nova Scotia. The law required that the
pirates be executed with their bodies displayed in public as a warning to other
sailors. The body was covered in tar and hanged from chains in an iron cage
called a gibbet. The Royal Navy used the same treatment on mutineers. Two
pirates were hanged this way on George's Island in 1785. Another, Jordan the
pirate, was hanged at Point Pleasant Park, near the Black Rock beach in 1809.
At the same time, the Navy hanged six mutineers at Hangman's Beach on McNabs
Island, just across the Harbour. Any ship entering Halifax Harbour in 1809 had
to pass between hanging and rotting corpses. The last major piracy trial in
Nova Scotia was in 1844 when a gang of six pirates were brought to Halifax in
1844 when their ship, the barque Saladin, was shipwrecked on the Eastern Shore.
Saladin had a cargo of silver bars and a large shipment of coins they had
mutinied and killed the captain and half the crew before falling out among
themselves. Initially charged with piracy, they were subsequently convicted of
murder. Four of them were hanged near the old VG hospital on South Park Street.
Two are believed to be buried under the sidewalk at the Library on Spring
Garden Road
While they were not pirates, naval sailors and
privateers (sailing licensed private warships) personally profited from
capturing enemy ships in wartime as they received a share called �prize money� from each
capture. Sometimes their aggressive captures gave them a �piratical� reputation. The
pirate, William Kidd, claimed to have hidden treasure before he surrendered in
1699, the only pirate known to have actually hidden treasure. Only one location
was verified (Gardener's Island near Long Island, NY). Some people believe Nova
Scotia may have been one of his hiding places, although there is no real
evidence. Nova Scotia is rich in pirate folklore where imagination takes over
from history. Pirate legends exist for almost every major island in the
province. In Halifax alone, George's Island is said to be haunted by two young
pirates hanged there in 1784. Hangman's Beach is supposed to be haunted near
the lighthouse by hanged mutineers. Also on the island, strange noises and
lights were seen in 1845 near Finlay Cove beside a mysterious hole in the
ground. Navy Island, in Bedford Basin, is also home to treasure legends,
including a whole crew of pirate ghosts who stand guard over the treasure
there. At Oak Island in Mahone Bay, treasure hunters have unsuccessfully dug
for 200 years.
The little village of Pirate Harbour in Guysborough
County was named after the famous English pirate, Captain Kidd. Why Captain
Kidd was forced to take refuge in Pirate Harbour I will now relate to you as it
was told to me. Hundreds of years ago when the only means of transportation was
by water, nations built merchant ships or vessels which they used to travel and
trade with other nations. The three great sea powers were England, France and
Spain. As all three were trying to gain supremacy of the sea they were usually
at war with one another. If a French ship was spotted returning to her home
port laden with goods, they were often attacked by English or Spanish merchant
ships who hoped to capture them as prizes of war. The same applied to the
English or Spanish ships. Lurking in the background were the ever-watchful
pirates. They would let the merchant ships fight it out; then they would close
in and capture both. These pirates were highly trained fighting men with
pistol, sword and cutlass. They also were trained gunners as they carried
cannons on deck.
The most famous was an English pirate, Captain Kidd.
As many ships returned to England badly maimed minus their cargo and only a
skeleton crew, the British government decided to put to an end the career of
Captain Kidd. They built small ships called gun boats which could maneuver more
quickly. Manned by highly trained fighting men, they had many mounted cannons.
They were sent to sea with explicit order from the King of England to bring
back Captain Kidd and his henchmen, dead or alive. Things became hectic for
Captain Kidd not only on the Spanish Main but anywhere he tried to ply his �trade�. The captain
and his jolly rovers were forced to flee across the Atlantic with the gun boats
in hot pursuit. Late in October they found the mouth of the Strait of Canso
which they sailed up looking for a harbour, cove or inlet in which to hide from
their relentless pursuers. Just about dusk they discovered the small opening
leading into Pirate Harbour and sailed into it. When the gun boats reached the
harbour mouth it was dark and they sailed passed it thus missing their quarry.
Captain Kidd spent the winter in Pirate Harbour and
before leaving in the spring, as was their custom, they buried their treasure
to return for it at a later date. It was also customary to draw lots among the
seamen and the one getting the short end of the stick was beheaded and buried
with the treasure. His spirit was to guard it until the return of the pirates.
The seaman beheaded in Pirate Harbour was a black man named Black Peter. About
a mile from our home there was a brook where the villagers watered their horses
when leaving or returning home. It was called Black Peter�s Brook as the
ghost of Black Peter was supposed to have been seen there on different
occasions. Also at another place between Susie�s Island and McGuire�s gulch on
moonlight nights a headless negro would be seen wandering along the rugged
shoreline apparently in quest of his head.
Captain Kidd was finally captured and brought to
justice in an English court. Both he and his crew were found guilty and
sentenced to die on the gallows. �Tis said the captain told the King if he would grant
him a pardon he would give him enough gold to make a gold chain around the city
of London. As the King wisely refused, the famous pirate paid his debt to
society, death on the gallows
Pirate Festival in Mahone Bay .
Legends of pirate treasure abound in this neck of the
woods (this leg of the ocean?). Oak Island where people still to this day are
looking for hidden treasure in the money pit. A convoluted story starting with
an American Privateer ship named The Teazer which was captured by the Brits in
1812, the Captain took an oath to never again bear arms against the King to
save his neck (literally) and returned to the US of A. only to receive another
letter of mark in 1813 to recommence his privateering days. (The life of a
pirate ?) She was instantly successful and therefore instantly sought out by
the Brits. On her last attempt to flee the Brits she sailed into Mahone Bay as
cover .. alas, it didn�t work and before the ship could be capture the
captain caught his ship on fire and the day ended with an incredibly dramatic
explosion from all the munitions aboard. Wow. The ship still haunts the
harbour, and part of the festival is the reenactment of the Young Teazer�s final
journey.
Just before his death on the gallows in England,
Captain Kidd said, "After my death, you may find treasure I have buried in
a place where two tides meet." There are descendants of old pirates today
living in Nova Scotia who point to the Bay of Fundy and say, "This is
where the two tides meet, and where Captain Kidd hid his treasure. Annapolis
Royal, formerly Port Royal, was the first settlement on the North American
continent. Fort Anne has seen many a battle between the French, English and
Indians. Treasures of antiquity abound in this area. There is a tradition that
a year after Captain Kidd had been taken to England on charges of piracy and
hanged in 1701, some of his old pirate crew appeared off old Port Royal -
modern-day Annapolis - searching for treasure they swore he had buried in that
region on an island in the wide Bay of Fundy. Despite their exhaustive search,
they did not find it. Legends say that Captain Kidd buried gold contained in
wooden trunks, leather bags, kegs and canvas sacks on an island which lies 4
miles off the shores of County Yarmouth in the southeastern end of the Bay of
Fundy. The spot is marked by a cleft rock in which is driven sticks of lignum
vitae, a very hard and heavy wood similar to ebony or teak.
Star Island, off the southern shores of Nova Scotia,
is known to have been frequented by American pirates and privateers in the late
17th and 18th centuries. The pirate Edward Baker is said to have cached $200,000
in gold and a quantity of various stores in a cave in a hillock on Star Island.
The treasure was buried in three separate locations. Tradition says that a
large chest of gold doubloons was dug up on Spook Island, near Dover, Peggy's
Cove and Jolly Roger's Bay, one day's ride from Chester in Mahone Bay. In 1795,
three young men landed at Oak Island, in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, and came upon
a scarred, horizontal oak limb overhanging a depression in the earth. Little
were they to know that they would begin, what has become, the most widely publicized
and well-known treasure location today. On the following day they returned with
picks and shovels and commenced digging, eventually uncovering wooden platforms
at approximately ten, twenty, and thirty foot levels before finally deciding
that much more elaborate equipment would be required to verify their suspicions
of buried treasure. Later operations unearthed wooden platforms at ten foot
levels down to one hundred and ten feet below the surface, with the exception
of two which were of ship's putty and of charcoal. A drill, used in one of
these undertakings, brought to the surface the only actual treasure located
here after two and a half centuries of digging...bits of a gold chain and a
small section of parchment was found.
At ninety feet, the excavators discovered a thin flat
stone bearing indecipherable characters. Evidence obtained from numerous
digging and drilling operations indicates that the treasure is located in a
cemented subterranean structure some forty feet from the floor to the ceiling,
the bottom of the structure, or vault, being reached at approximately 150 feet
below the surface. The treasure vault is protected by a joining tunnel at 110
feet which connects with drains from the Atlantic Ocean and whenever digging
operations reach this depth, the shaft fills with water. All efforts to destroy
this inlet have been unsuccessful. The origin of the treasure in this vault,
which seems to consist of at least seven chests and barrels, is not know, but
may possibly be Norse. Another rumor says it consists of the crown jewels of
Louis XVI of France. A treasure company engaged in the 1930's at Oak Island
found that as a result of constant flooding through the inlet tunnel, the vault
itself is no longer stationary, but shifts its position in the softened earth
around it. More recent excavations included the use of a submersible television
camera which worked intermittently. During one of its working moments, a
closed-circuit screen revealed the image of several chests and the form of a
human hand floating in the waters below. From time-to-time the leases on
searching this area are taken up and renewed. Among the many hundreds of
thousands of dollars spent in trying to recover this treasure and unravel its
mysteries, only those tiny bits of gold chain and parchment testify to treasure
lying below. A "second money pit" is believed to have been discovered
on mystery-shrouded Oak Island by recent treasure seekers.
Tradition says that loot sacked from Lunenberg by the
pirate Captain Scammell and Noah Stothard, was buried in an island in Shad Bay
or in neighboring Mahone Bay. In the early 1800's, an iron chest 3 feet long, 2
feet wide and 1 1/2 feet deep was recovered from a hole near a well-known mark
on some rocks on Owl's Head, which lies at the entrance of St. Margaret's Bay,
Halifax. The heavy chest was found by a woman who claimed to be a descendant of
Captain Kidd the pirate. Legends tell of pirate treasure cached in St.
Margaret's Bay. A former pirate told of a ship which landed at St. Margaret's
Bay and buried a cache of treasure. Pirates are said to have cached their
plunder on Clam, (also known as Corkan, Cochrane, Redmond and Plum Islands)
sometime around 1768. The cache, boxes of gold valued by some at $15,000,000
and others at $50,000,000, was buried by Captain William Edward Keede, not to
be confused with the famous Captain William Kidd, and is hidden in a cave
located at the summit of a hillock in the eastern part of the island. The
location is approximately 35 miles east of Oak Island. It is believed that more
than one cache of treasure exists here.
Liverpool
Packet 1812-1814 Probably the most successful Canadian privateer ever.
Sometimes nicknamed "The Black Joke", she was an ex-slave ship taken
by the Royal Navy just before the War of 1812. When hostilities began she put
to sea as a privateer as soon as a commission became available and quickly
earned a reputation as a fast and successful prowler off Cape Cod, Boston and
other American ports. She was captured briefly by the Americans during the war,
but soon retaken by the British and returned to cruising under her old name.
The success of this tiny raider caused hysterical fear in American ports where
newspapers, in anger and fear, often exaggerated her success (sometimes
crediting her with up to 200 captures!) She was sold after the war to owners in
Kingston Jamaica and her subsequent fate is not known.
War of 1812
The Liverpool Packet was the most successful privateer during this war. A former slaver captured by the Royal Navy, she sailed from 1812 to 1814 under four different captains: Thomas Freeman, Joseph Barss Jr., Caleb Seely, and Lewis Knaut. The sixty-seven ton topsail schooner carried a crew of forty men and five carriage guns. She soon earned a reputation for speed and prowling. Her successes, which were reported in New England newspapers, caused panic among Americans because the reports of her deeds were exaggerated. When she completed her first voyage, she entered Liverpool with two prizes in tow. Her earlier 21 captures were already moored there. Her owners bought the schooner for £420. Her prizes were valued at between $264,000 and $1,000,000.
The largest and fastest privateer was a 278-ton brig.
Although the Sir John Sherbrooke only sailed for one year, she captured 18
prizes, destroyed two American raiders, and captured a schooner while
destroying another. When HMS Shannon engaged and defeated the USS Chesapeake,
the Sir John Sherbrooke supplied the British ship with much-needed
reinforcements. Her armament included boarding pikes, 50 muskets, and 80
cutlasses for her crew of 150 and 2000 pounds of powder and 1600 shot for her
18 guns.
The privateers of Nova Scotia played an integral role
in closing American ports during the War of 1812. They served as an auxiliary
naval force in Canadian waters. They gathered intelligence on American strength
and ship movements for the Royal Navy. While 15 commissioned ships from New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia failed to capture any prizes and another ten only
took one each, the remaining privateers made fortunes for their owners.
Crew: 40
Tonnage: 67
Rig: Topsail Schooner
Armament: 5 guns (one 6 pdr and two 4 pdr cannon plus two 12 pdr carrondes)
Homeport: Liverpool
Letter of Marque Issued: Aug. 20, 1812
Captains: Thomas Freeman (1812), Joseph Barss Jnr. (1812-1813), Caleb Seely (1813-1815) and Lewis Knaut (1814)
Owners: Enos Collins, John Allision, and Joseph Barss
Prizes Taken: 50
Tonnage: 67
Rig: Topsail Schooner
Armament: 5 guns (one 6 pdr and two 4 pdr cannon plus two 12 pdr carrondes)
Homeport: Liverpool
Letter of Marque Issued: Aug. 20, 1812
Captains: Thomas Freeman (1812), Joseph Barss Jnr. (1812-1813), Caleb Seely (1813-1815) and Lewis Knaut (1814)
Owners: Enos Collins, John Allision, and Joseph Barss
Prizes Taken: 50
Charles Mary Wentworth 1798-1800
A very successful privateer in her short career.
Designed and built in Liverpool - some have argued that she was the first
warship ever built, crewed and commanded by Canadians. She captured 11 enemy
vessels, some of them quite large, and also captured a Spanish island and fort
off the coast of Venezuela. She more than paid for herself on her first voyage
and earned spectacular profits on her second voyage with five large prizes. On
subsequent cruises, she was less successful and was eventually converted to an
armed merchant ship. She capsized and sank in a storm in 1802, fortunately with
no loss of life
Crew: 80
Tonnage: 130
Rig: full rigged ship
Prizes Taken: 11
Armament: 16 guns (4 & 6 pounders)
Captains: Joseph Freeman 1798, Thomas Parker 1799-1800
Homeport: Liverpool
Letter of Marque Issued: May 1798
Owners: J. Freeman, T. Bennett, S. Perkins, J. Barrs, S. Parker
Built: Liverpool, NS June 1798
Tonnage: 130
Rig: full rigged ship
Prizes Taken: 11
Armament: 16 guns (4 & 6 pounders)
Captains: Joseph Freeman 1798, Thomas Parker 1799-1800
Homeport: Liverpool
Letter of Marque Issued: May 1798
Owners: J. Freeman, T. Bennett, S. Perkins, J. Barrs, S. Parker
Built: Liverpool, NS June 1798
The Napoleonic Wars
The war that Britain fought against Napoleon
Bonaparte destroyed Nova Scotia�s prosperous trade with the West Indies. To combat
this, Canadian privateers attacked French and Spanish merchant ships. The
Charles Mary Wentworth had much success in her ventures, especially during her
first two voyages when she captured eleven ships, a Spanish island, and a
Spanish fort. The prizes from her first cruise netted the owners a 92% profit
while the second cruise brought them a profit of 814%. Although she sank in a
storm in 1802, none of her crew lost their lives.
One of unluckiest privateers was the Frances Mary.
Rather than capturing an enemy ship during her maiden voyage, she herself was
captured in August 1800. When her crew was exchanged, many found themselves
pressed into the Royal Navy instead of being able to return home. The schooner Lord
Spencer captured two prizes and then had the misfortune of striking a reef
on her first voyage.
Another privateer from Nova Scotia rescued her crew
of fifty-eight. Her captain, , Joseph Barss, Jr. survived the ignominy of
losing his ship and went on to become one of Canada�s most
successful privateers.
Resolution was perhaps the fiercest of the privateers. In July
1780, she engaged the Viper off Sampo Light, Nova Scotia. When the Resolution
struck her colors, both ships were badly damaged. Thirty-three of Viper�s crew lay dead
or wounded compared to the 18 lost among Resolution�s.
The most famous of the Canadian privateers was the
Rover. The small brig sailed from 1800 to 1804 mostly under the captainship of
Alexander Godfrey, who had refused a commission in the Royal Navy. All alone,
she attacked a convoy of seven ships and captured three of them. Against
overwhelming odds, her gunners engaged three Spanish warships off the
Venezuelan coast and won the day. Her success garnered attention in The Navy
Chronicle, but in 1803 under a new captain, she lost her commission as a
privateer for illegally seizing several ships.
Privateer Brig Rover - 1800 to 1804
She was the most famous privateer from Nova Scotia in the Napoleonic
Wars. Under Alex Godfrey she fought two
remarkable battles against strong odds. In one case, Rover single handedly
attacked a French convoy of seven ships dispersing them and capturing three. In
another, she beat three Spanish warships in a gunnery duel and boarding off the
coast of Venezuela. These battles won praise in Britain from the distinguished
magazine The Naval Chronicle and Godfrey was offered a Royal Navy
commission, which he declined. Later cruises proved less rewarding. A
subsequent captain, Benjamin Collins lost his commission and landed Rover's
owners in trouble for several illegal captures. After French shipping vanished
and prizes disappeared, she was converted to an armed merchant ship under
Halifax owners.
The Ballad of the
Rover a song by Archibald MacMechan celebrating her famous victory.
Crew: 60
Rig: Brig
Tonnage: 100
Armament: 16 guns (four pounders)
Built: Liverpool, NS April, 1800. Builder: Snow Parker
Homeport: Liverpool, Nova Scotia
Letter of Marque Issued: May 20. 1800
Captain: 1800-1801 Alex Godfrey, 1801 Joseph Barss Jnr., 1803 Benjamin Collins
Prizes Taken: 8
Owners: Simeon Perkins, Snow Parker, William Lawson
Rig: Brig
Tonnage: 100
Armament: 16 guns (four pounders)
Built: Liverpool, NS April, 1800. Builder: Snow Parker
Homeport: Liverpool, Nova Scotia
Letter of Marque Issued: May 20. 1800
Captain: 1800-1801 Alex Godfrey, 1801 Joseph Barss Jnr., 1803 Benjamin Collins
Prizes Taken: 8
Owners: Simeon Perkins, Snow Parker, William Lawson
The Crew of a Pirate ship
Pirates required a ship to practice their trade.
While they dispensed with many of the traditional seafaring hierarchies, they
understood the need to have some members lead them in battle. They elected
their officers, and certain pirates had a greater value than others because of
their skills.
Pirates didn�t live or work in a vacuum. They required others to
fence the stolen booty or to prey upon. The outrages they committed stirred
merchants, ministers, and governments to see that justice was done. The pirates
also visited safe havens where women and spirits awaited them. Informants
shared their knowledge. Governors authorized hunting expeditions. Hunters
tracked down their quarry. Victims testified at trials. Once caught, most
pirates met a similar fate -- dancing the hempen jig.
Making Your Mark. Pirates were notorious for their
lawlessness and brutality. Yet they adhered to the ideals of the French
Revolution-liberty, equality, and brotherhood-a century before that country's
monarchy fell. Their Articles of Agreement set them apart from other naval and
governmental institutions of the time because they incorporated principles of
democracy.
December 10th�. In the afternoon of this day our chief surgeon cut off the foot of a negro-boy, which was perished with cold�. December 12th�Yesterday died the negro-boy whose leg was cut off by our surgeon, as was mentioned the day before. This afternoon also died another negro, somewhat bigger than the former, named Chepillo. The boy�s name was Beafero. All this evening but small wind. Basil Ringrose penned these words in his journal in 1680. Mere notes in history, his entries provide a glimpse of the tenuous lives pirates lived. If they survived diseases (the principal cause of death for many), they might develop a �bursted belly� (hernia) from lifting and pulling, or break a finger or arm while loading cargo, or fall from a mast, or burn a hand while tarring ropes, or be washed overboard. An additional danger for pirates was the chance of being wounded or killed during battle. This was why one of the most esteemed members of any crew was the surgeon. But his work was rarely easy.
The most unwelcome death to a pirate was to by a
castaway on a deserted island is a far cry from the reality of a pirate
sentenced by his fellow mates to be marooned. In most cases it was a death
sentence.
Sand sifting through an hourglass symbolizes the
swiftness with which time passes. For pirates, it meant life was fleeting so
they played with the same ferocity as they preyed. Yet the dangers they faced
were not so different from those of others who sailed during the Age of Sail.
The beauty of the sea belied the danger it possessed, for in the blink of an
eye a ship became a wreck or a storm swept the ablest of seamen from the deck.
If by chance they survived those perils, they might fall victim to disease. If
life at sea was so dangerous, why did men become pirates? Was it the lure of
treasure or were there other reasons for making a choice that might lead to
death by hanging if caught?
Figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B isn�t a major
concern for us today. After all, we have road maps, online maps with
step-by-step instructions, cell phones, and GPS devices for when we�re lost. We
have it easy compared to navigators of the past. Many didn�t even know
there was a world beyond the horizon. Intrepid mariners discovered new lands
and forged new passages, but navigating their vessels to go where they wished
was a major feat. Various devices aided in latitudinal calculation, as did
estimates regarding tides, currents, and ship�s speed and course. The
inability to determine longitude meant many ships were not where their
captains, or navigators, thought they were. It was common to miss an island or
landfall by going too far or not far enough. Such an error could seriously
endanger the ship and those on board.
Planning, intelligence, the ability to adapt to any given situation, leadership, and teamwork are key to the success of any action. If any one of these is lacking, the action may be jeopardized and the consequences unpredictable. Pirates incorporated these elements into each attack or raid they made. This article examines the various strategies and tactics they employed to carry out successful missions.
Planning, intelligence, the ability to adapt to any given situation, leadership, and teamwork are key to the success of any action. If any one of these is lacking, the action may be jeopardized and the consequences unpredictable. Pirates incorporated these elements into each attack or raid they made. This article examines the various strategies and tactics they employed to carry out successful missions.
Many pirates experienced or witnessed various forms of torture at some point in their lives before going on the account, and just as law-abiding citizens tortured people, so did pirates.
Although often seen as lawless, pirates sailed under agreements that included methods of punishment should they disregard the oaths they signed. They also inflicted various forms of punishment and torture on their victims. Some of these accounts appear brutal in the extreme, but people of the past lived in a harsh and violent world. Torturing and maiming people to extract information were a common practice, perhaps best illustrated by the Spanish Inquisition. Men and women who refused to enter a plea in English courts found themselves stretched on their backs in Newgate Prison�s Press Yard where the jailer placed weights on their chests until they acquiesced. If they didn�t, they were crushed to death. Once pirates had a ship, they sailed the High Seas in search of prey
How many different synonyms for pirates, Buccaneer, corsair, marooner, swashbuckler, these are just a few, but do they really mean the same thing as pirate?
The Jolly Roger . Skulls and crossed bones are
synonymous with pirate flags, but the use of such symbols to denote death
predates the appearance of the first Jolly Roger. They are frequently found on
tombstones, and ships� logs often contain skulls beside deceased crew
members� names. Once
pirates adopted the familiar skull and crossbones as their emblem, frequently
on a field of black, anyone who saw their flags recognized the implied threat.
To further intimidate their prey, pirates used other symbols. Christopher Moody
added an hourglass with wings to make his intentions clear: time was swiftly
running out. Dancing skeletons signified that the pirates cared little for
their fate. A raised glass meant they toasted death.
Pirates earned their wages by capturing prizes and
ransoming captives. To do battle against their opponent risked the intended
cargo and ship they meant to confiscate. A fight could also mean their own
deaths. Rather than resort to physical violence (although they did so when
necessary), they preferred to wage psychological warfare. Woe to any
merchantman who dared to defy the warning, for some pirates gave no quarter.
Pirates, navies, and merchantmen used flags to
identify other ships. Most carried an assortment of ensigns aboard. The ruse
de guerre was a frequent ploy that allowed ships to approach the enemy
before declaring their true intentions. As they neared their target, the ship
flew the national flag of the ship they approached, signifying friendship. When
the prey was within range, they hoisted their true colors and caught them off
guard. The first maritime flags were often solitary-colored banners and came
into use during the middle Ages. Eventually each nation adopted its own flag
for easier identification and solidarity. Pirates were no different, for they
considered themselves a nation (albeit one of a criminal nature). In time,
anyone who saw their flag through a spyglass dreaded the meeting to come. Near
the start of the 18th century, the Jolly Roger gained prominence amongst
pirates and captains created their own designs. Aside from those mentioned
earlier, anyone who spotted a skeleton holding an hourglass in one hand and a
spear or dart in the other while standing beside a bleeding heart knew who
chased them � Edward Teach,
aka Blackbeard. Black Bart favored one of two flags: a man and a skeleton,
which held a spear or dart in one hand, holding either an hourglass or a cup
while toasting death, or an armed man standing on two skulls over the letters
ABH and AMH. The latter warned residents of Barbados and Martinique that death
awaited them, for these islanders had dared to cross Bartholomew Roberts.
This message was confirmed by Captain Richard Hawkins
in 1724 when pirates overtook his ship: they all came on deck and hoisted
Jolly Roger�. When they fight under Jolly Roger, they give
quarter, which they do not when they fight under the red or bloody flag.
One is that the name is an English corruption of the
French jolie rouge, which means pretty red. Others believe it
comes from English slang used to denote the devil � Old Roger. Or
perhaps it comes from Ali Raja, a Tamil pirate captain who terrorized the
Indian Ocean. No matter its origin, the intent of the skull and crossbones was
clear � intimidation
and fear � and even today
we comprehend its meaning.
At the age of seven Robert Chevalier ran away from
home and was adopted by the Iroquois who lived near Quebec. In 1695, however,
his grand adventure ended when he was captured and returned to his parents.
Boredom soon found him allying himself with the Algonquin. France and England
were at war, and that conflict was felt in the colonies, especially at Louisbourg
where the English lay siege to the French garrison. Chevalier and his Algonquin
friends, who fought for the French, met buccaneers in Louisburg and their tales
led him to join their crew. He soon became a successful pirate, but he also
became known as a womanizer, preferring petticoats to treasure. That failing
led to his demise when he died as a result of a duel over a woman. When Pierre
Le Picard retired to Acadia (Nova Scotia), he left behind a career plagued by
bad luck. He joined forces with the notorious L�Ollonnais in 1688. They wished
to attack Nicaragua, but ended up in Honduras. They ransacked a number of
cities, but acquired little treasure. A galleon of the Spanish treasure fleet
was soon to put into Belize, but the two pirates waited three months for its
arrival. Hoping to improve his fortune, Picard struck out on his own. He
plundered and killed, but achieved little of note. Then he joined a band of 260
pirates led by seven captains that terrorized the Pacific coast of Latin
America. Eventually they divided into smaller, more mobile groups, but this
strategy failed to deliver significant rewards. After retirement, he raided the
English after they attacked a French settlement.
When his attacks met with success, a former comrade
and English pirate was sent to ensnare him. Picard withdrew and was never heard
from again.
When John Stairs, a witness for the Crown, took the
stand in the Halifax courthouse, he recounted a harrowing tale of what
transpired aboard Three Sisters on 13 September 1809. When the schooner
he captained set sail three days earlier, on board were the crew (John Kelly,
Thomas Heath, and Ben Matthews) and several passengers (Edward Jordan, his wife
Margaret, and their four children). While Stairs was in his cabin on the
fateful day, Jordan tried to shoot him. The ball grazed his nose and face
before entering Heath�s chest, killing him. Stairs went to arm himself, but
found his weapons missing. He met Jordan, armed with pistol and axe, at the
ladder. Stairs called for help, but Kelly failed to answer because he was in
league with Jordan. Matthews, however, did and was wounded. During the
struggle, Mrs. Jordan repeatedly hit Stairs with a boat hook. Jordan hit the
wounded Matthews several times on the back of the head with an axe. Fearing for
his life, Stairs jumped overboard and was rescued by a fishing schooner three
hours later.
In October, Jordan, who wished to sail the schooner
to Ireland, hired Patrick Power as navigator in St. John�s,
Newfoundland. They never reached their destination because Lieutenant Bury and
a boarding party from HM schooner Cuttle ordered them to Halifax. Power
told Bury that Jordan had said he would have succeeded in the venture had Kelly
allowed him to kill Stairs outright. Instead, Kelly had insisted that Stairs
would never survive the swim to shore. The court took less than an hour to find
Edward Jordan guilty of piracy, murder, and robbery. On 24 November, he was
hanged. Margaret Jordan was acquitted.
Thirty-five years later six men, known as the Saladin
pirates, went on trial for piracy. Their crime was described as one of the
most spine-chilling and blood drenched tales of the sea. When Captain
Cunningham boarded the Saladin in May 1844, the crew claimed that their
captain and first officer had died and that the second officer and several
others had fallen from aloft and drowned. The Saladin sailed from
Valparaiso on 8 February. The last entry in the log was dated 14 April. The man
responsible for those deaths was never tried.
Captain Fielding lost his ship and his reputation
when he circumvented Peruvian law by smuggling. Captain Mackenzie of the Saladin,
a Scot who planned to retire after this voyage to London, accepted Fielding and
his fifteen-year-old son as non-paying passengers. The two captains failed to
get along, and Fielding persuaded George Jones to help him kill the captain and
commandeer the ship. Other crew members (John Hazleton, William Trevaskiss,
Charles Anderson, William Carr, and John Galloway) were also enlisted.
Mate F. Byerly woke to find three men standing over
him. They struck him twice with an axe, then threw him overboard. James Allen
was struck from behind at the wheel. The carpenter, whose tools became murder
weapons, was the next struck down, but he was alive when he hit the water. This
gave Fielding a reason to roust MacKenzie from his cabin and kill him. Moffat
and Collins soon followed. Galloway and Carr knew none of this at the time.
When they came on deck, the mutineers had had their fill of killing and refused
to slay them. Fearing for their lives, the two men agreed to join the pirates.
Wary that Fielding might double-cross them, the pirates killed Fielding and his
son.
Galloway�s confession led the others to confess. Jones,
Hazelton, Anderson, and Trevaskiss were tried for piracy and murder. The jury
deliberated for fifteen minutes before returning guilty verdicts and sentences
of death by hanging. A separate trial for murder was held for Carr and
Galloway. The jury felt that they had no alternative but to kill or be killed.
They were found not guilty.
Queen Elizabeth sent Peter Easton, a naval officer,
to Newfoundland in 1602. The following year, though, James 1 became King of England.
Preferring peace to war, he signed a treaty with Spain and downsized the Royal
Navy, leaving Easton and his men without pay or the means to return home. As a
result, they turned pirate, plundering ships and pillaging coastal communities.
By 1610, the English referred to Easton as Notorious Pirate. His fleet of forty
ships crewed by upward of 5000 pirates and plundered wealth made him a powerful
adversary. Bristol merchants complained to the Lord Admiral, who attempted to
rid the Western Hemisphere of this scourge. Instead, Easton captured the earl�s ships,
pocketed $100,000, and enlisted 500 more men to his cause.
After Easton fortified Harbour Grace in 1610, he
captured Sir Richard Whitbourne, the King�s representative, and imprisoned him aboard ship for
eleven weeks, hoping to persuade him to join his piracy ventures. Whitebourne
refused, but offered to petition King James for a pardon for the pirate. The
English government sent the requested pardon, but Easton never received it,
even though he waited two years for it. In 1614 he captured three Spanish
treasure ships and fought for the King of Algiers against Spain. Eventually he
retired to France where he married a woman of nobility and became the Marquis
of Savoy.
Perhaps the most legendary of Easton�s captives was
the Carbonear Princess. Her name was Sheila Na Geira and she was an
Irish princess, descended from a Celtic king of western Ireland. Or perhaps she
was the daughter of Sir Hugh O�Connor of Connaught, whom the Irish deemed a traitor
for siding with the English. She sailed from Ireland either to visit her aunt,
the abbess of a French convent, or to escape a threat of death or kidnapping
from Irishmen bent on reeking vengeance on her father. Dutch pirates captured
her ship, and shortly thereafter, Easton captured the Dutch. Sheila fell in
love with one of Easton�s navigators, Gilbert Pike, and married him ten days
later. Legend also says that their child was the first European born in Newfoundland.
Whatever the truth behind the legend, one thing should be noted. At the time
Easton captured the Dutch pirates and Sheila wed Pike in 1602, Easton was not a
pirate. When he turned to piracy a year later, Pike resigned from Easton�s crew.
Another pirate who followed in Easton�s wake was John
Nutt. He first appeared in Newfoundland around 1620. Three years later, he was
granted a pardon on condition of paying a ransom of £500. He returned to
England where the Vice Admiral of Devon, John Eliot, imprisoned Nutt and tried
him for piracy. Convicted of the charges, Nutt was sentenced to hang, but the
Secretary of State, George Calvert, intervened. He freed Nutt and gave him £100
in compensation, then arrested Eliot.
Pierre Maisonnate, aka Baptiste, was a French pirate
who frequented the ports of St. John�s and Beaubassin. In 1692 over a period of six
months, he captured nine English ships. He sailed them to France where he
regaled his countrymen with tales of his exploits. Upon his return to Nova
Scotia two years later, he brought with him five prizes taken off the New
England coast. The following year he and his men eluded capture by two English
warships, but the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick meant Baptiste could no
longer prey upon English ships. Instead, the French hired him to enforce the
treaty�s provisions
that prohibited New Englanders from fishing within sight of Acadian lands. This
led to his capture in 1702, but since England and France were once again at
war, he was no longer considered a pirate but rather a prisoner of war. After
four years of captivity, he was exchanged for the Reverend John Williams, a
prominent New Englander captured by the Abenaki in a raid. Baptiste married
twice and outfitted privateers until 1713 when the French ceded their
settlements to England. The last mention of him appeared in the 1714 census.
Perhaps the most daring pirate endeavor, though, belongs to Bartholomew
Roberts, aka Black Bart. He turned to piracy
at the age of 36 when the pirate Howell Davis captured the ship on which
Roberts sailed. Upon Davis� death, the pirates chose Roberts as their new
captain even though he abhorred liquor, forbade gambling, and encouraged
prayer. In just 2 � years, he captured more than 400 prizes. Known for
his flamboyant dress, Black Bart wore crimson waistcoat and breeches, a hat
with a scarlet plume, and a jeweled cross hanging from a gold chain whenever he
went into battle. In 1720 he sailed into Newfoundland�s Trepassey Bay
aboard a 10-gun sloop. He and his crew of sixty plundered and destroyed 21
merchant ships manned by 1200 tars. The pirates stowed their booty aboard the
remaining brigantine and sailed away. Two years later the HMS Swallow
engaged Roberts in battle off the coast of Africa. Wounded in the neck when a
broadside hit the ship, Roberts died. His fellow pirates followed his last
order and dumped his body overboard
-------------
The Social Construction
of Crime In the Atlantic World: Piracy as a Case Study
The eighteenth century was a hotbed of piracy. For years merchants and
the British Navy employed seamen with steady work and pay, which made seafaring
a respectable career. Unfortunately, the men who ventured onto the waters were
faced with low and sporadic pay (the majority of which had to be sent home to
families), frequent injury due to unsafe working environments, illness from
spoiled food and rancid drinking water, and untimely deaths thanks to accidents
and infections from the lack of proper medical care.
Superiors were cruel masters who often beat those stationed below them
for the most minor infractions because they were corrupt and immobile in their
rules and regulations. It is not surprising to find that many seamen abandoned
ship in port cities throughout the world. However, what is especially notable
is just how many of these seamen actively chose to leave what was deemed a
respectable job for a life among pirates.
In contrast to the Navy and merchant ships, it has been suggested that
pirates ran a democratic order where the men voted on rules, regulations, and
leaders. Their plundering brought them quick wealth, which, in turn, led to
higher-quality food and drinkable water. Pirates were given compensation for
their illnesses and injuries and overall received better treatment due to the
strict rules that they placed upon themselves. Indeed, it is not difficult to
see why this life of crime proved to be a more desirable existence even when
faced with social ostracism, persecution, and ultimately execution for their
actions.[1]
What makes a person a criminal? What makes a man a pirate? How and
why were these people seen as law-breakers? What was licit versus illicit
behavior and how were they differentiated from each other? This essay
seeks to answer these questions by examining the social constructs of
eighteenth-century colonial America and the Atlantic world primarily through
newspapers, pamphlets, laws, and speeches as some key indicators of the
societal norms of time.[2] Legally, a
crime has three components: mens rea, the mental state of the
criminal; actus reus, acts committed; and locus, where the crime
occurred. This made classifying pirates as criminals a difficult task because
although the actus reus remained fairly consistent, the locus did
not. The real threat of piracy came from its implied challenges to the laws and
because they removed themselves from the states’ jurisdiction, formed
extraterritorial enclaves, and waged private war for pecuniary ends.[3] Newspapers
were littered with articles detailing their misdeeds and foul ways.
Pirates were synonymous with criminals and their actions were always
seen villainous. The very definition of a crime stems from the common actions
of pirates: mutiny, robbery, and destruction of property. In one instance, a
group of pirates stole aboard a ship and were said to have taken “Linen and
other Goods … [and] from the Sloop about thirty Barrels of Flower.”[4] This article
describes a fight that broke out between the pirates and sailors in which the
latter ended up being victorious despite suffering from wounds. There was
another report that a group of pirates led by a man named Paul Williams stole
aboard another ship and “took him 350 Ounces of Silver.” When the captain
of this ship attempted to escape, the pirates “barbarously” beat him and left
him within an inch of his life.[5] All of these
crimes warranted death sentences and nearly all caught and convicted pirates were
executed for their misdeeds.
Most striking is how reports of piracy consistently acknowledged
behaviors that had little to do with their actual crimes: public drunkenness
and swearing. These types of actions were considered irreligious and
therefore a crime in colonial America. The early American ideas of crime
stemmed from moral and religious origins rather than just economic and
political origins. According to crime historian, Samuel Walker, “crime
and sin were virtually synonymous in this religion-centered society. An offence
against God was a crime against society; and a crime against society was an
offence against God.”[6] Religious and moral
ideals prevalent throughout Puritan and Protestant early American society were
the driving forces behind the social construction of crime, especially in
regards to piracy. To analyze this argument, this essay will first look at the
crime of piracy as a whole and then at the religious construction of crime in
the eighteenth century.
A brief survey of Britain’s North American colonies demonstrates that
seventeenth and eighteenth-century codes of justice were heavily based upon the
religious moral ideals of the time. In New England, people regarded crime as a
sin and therefore their courts were seen as the guardians of Biblical precepts.[7] Even natural
disasters such as earthquakes, epidemics, and storms at sea were interpreted as
divine responses to everyday mortal vices.[8] Citizens regarded
the law as a mechanism to secure a pure religious community that was free from
sin and corruption. Puritan colonists believed that work was pleasing to God
when performed in a regular and disciplined manner. Irregular work in the
maritime world that alternated between frantic activity and idleness was a
moral failing.[9] In the
colonies, the most prosecuted crimes were moral offenses, such as drunkenness
and theft. The justice system was such that the majority of defendants could be
terrorized into confessing crimes that they may not have committed.[10]
It has been argued that the New England and Chesapeake colonies were the most
successful than any other British colonies throughout the Atlantic as
suppressing crime and social disorder thanks to their harsh sentences.[11]
In the eighteenth century the focus of crimes shifted from moral
offenses to economic offenses, such as property destruction and theft, in the
eighteenth century. However, it must be taken into account that primary
research of newspapers shows no decrease in their reports of moral crimes.
Moral crimes, such as swearing and drunkenness, clearly remained to be an issue
throughout colonial America.[12]
This is evidenced in the newspapers, which consistently made references
to these pirates’ habits – behaviors that were not mentioned in other articles detailing
crimes such as murder or theft by other criminals. This is further supported by
the fact that Massachusetts continued to undertake prosecutions of moral
offenses throughout the eighteenth century.[13]
Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony saw themselves as on “‘an errand
of the wilderness’ to build a model community of righteousness that would be a
beacon to the world.”[14]
Other colonists, along with the Puritans, generally held a pessimistic view of
humankind – “man was a depraved creature, cursed by original sin. There was
no hope of Ôcorrecting’ or Ôrehabilitating’ the offender.”[15]
Punishments were always harsh, with branding and mutilation as the most common
forms of sentences. The Puritans of Massachusetts, for example, sought to
suppress Quakerism by cropping ears and administering severe whippings.
Corporal punishments such as these were considered to be the norms in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[16]
The moral sentiments behind criminal laws extended from familial
situations because the “family” was seen as the main social institution in
colonial American life.[17]
A 1650 Connecticut law specified the death penalty for any sixteen-year-old
child who “shall curse or smite their natural father or mother.”[18]
Respect for parental authority was seen as the necessary and proper training
for religious discipline, which would carry on into the punishments directed at
pirates. [19]
In retaliation, pirates would take these punishments and direct them towards
civilians they chose to terrorize. Statistical analysis has shown that over one
third of colonial American crimes were considered violent and less than
one-fifth property.[20]
Pirates throughout colonial America and the Atlantic world uniformly committed
moral and violent crimes, which people heard of throughout the colonies.
Violence has always been a source of fascination for the public. Early
modern English men and women absorbed violent stories from newspapers as much
as people do today. When the pirate Captain Kidd was sentenced to hanging by
the British government, broadsheets detailing his career and dying moments were
circulated around London because this was a public that doted on scandalous
lives.[21]
Court records and popular entertainment in the Atlantic World during the early
modern period frequently referenced brutal acts from drunken brawls,
state-sponsored maimings, and executions. These accounts often claimed to offer
moral lessons to readers, but it was the entertainment value that overruled any
virtuous intent.[22]
Reports of piracy in seventeenth and eighteenth-century newspapers contained
compelling accounts of violence, drunkenness, and swearing – three major acts that
went against the reigning Protestant values.
The analysis behind the definition of violence enacted by government
officials and pirates is strikingly similar. Melanie Perreault believes that
the English saw violence as situational and that any act of violence had to be
considered before it could be properly evaluated.[23]
She argues that the early modern English had three general classifications of
righteous violence: state-sanctioned punishment or military action, actions
taken in defense of community standards, and violence in the name of religion.[24]
Similarly, Robert C. Ritchie argues that there were three types of pirates:
state-sanctioned pirates hired by governments to terrorize their political
enemies, commercial piracy in which merchants hired pirates for their own
profits, and deep-sea marauders who roamed the seas looking for targets.
These latter types of pirates used organized marauding (remaining attached to a
base of operation) and anarchistic marauding (leaving the base and wandering
for months or years at a time).[25]
This particular study focuses on violence in the name of religion and the
deep-sea marauders namely because the colonial-era newspapers do not distinguish
between any of these three groups of definitions that were created by
modern-day historians.
Society and pirates used a dialectic of terror against each other that
was practiced in two ways. The first type was practiced namely by
ministers, royal officials, and wealthy men who sought to eliminate piracy as a
crime against mercantile property.[26]
These men would use terror to protect property, punish those who resisted its
law, “to take vengeance against those they considered their enemies, and to
instill fear into sailors who might wish to become pirates.”[27]
All of this was one in the name of the social order. The other type of terror
that is the kind that was practiced by common seamen “who sailed beneath the
Jolly Roger.” Pirates used terror to accomplish their aims: gain wealth,
attack their enemies, and intimidate sailors, captains, merchants, and
officials who might strike against or resist them.[28]
These types of attacks were detrimental to merchants and sailors, whose
livelihoods depended on the goods they transported on their ships. Among
the merchants, for instance, both the elite and the lesser ship-owners risked
pirate aggression because trading vessels were not built for speed and if these
businessmen were being pursued at sea it could take them several days to escape
hostility.[29]
Simple colonial American sailors had extreme concerns about their assets
because they earned tiny wages that afforded them little more than basic
necessities.[30]
Entire livelihoods were constantly at stake and when it came to individual
property all classes were threatened. A 1717 report from the Boston
Newsletter describes this: “…a Pirate Ship and Sloop are upon the Coast of
Virginia, have taken several Vessels from Europe, some they plundered, and some
they sunk.”[31]
Much of the colonial American economy depended on maritime business and trade
so the newspapers would emphasize this threat to the local readers. Hearing
reports of pirates sinking European ships right off the colonial coasts would
have undoubtedly caused concern for those who depended on trade goods the ships
may have possessed. Another article from the Boston Newsletter lists
specific plundered items: “They took from the Sloop about thirty Barrels of
Flower two Pipes of Wine…and from all the four Vessels such Provisions and
other things as pleased them.”[32]
With these two social groups against each other, the line becomes blurred
between the villain and the victim, the justifiable action and the crime.
The fear instilled in sailors and civilians was completely legitimate
because pirates were known to torture their captives. Torture was their method
to elicit information, punish governmental officials for attempting to capture
them, and to punish unscrupulous merchant captains.[33]
Articles gave detailed descriptions of pirates “barbarously beating” ship
captains and giving them threats such as, “to be skin’d and barbacu’d.”[34]
By instilling fear into governmental officials, the political leaders were able
to turn around and plant that terror into civilians’ minds, which continued the
reputation that pirates were violent, loathsome creatures. To emphasize this,
harsh punishments were enacted against pirates who were captured. In one case,
a convicted pirate named Joseph Andrews was sentenced to death and “hanged
pursuant to his sentence. After he was dead, his body was cut down, and hanged
in chains…”[35]
A public display such as this would serve as a dire warning to thieves upon the
high seas as the laws against them tightened.
Crime was not a universal term in colonial America, nor did it have a
single definition. The word “crime” was used as a genus composed of many
offences or breaches of the law in order for a case to be considered or charged
as a crime in the colonies. The action therefore had to include acts of
treason, robbery, murder, or piracy.[36]
Other unlawful acts that were tried were those that included seizure of
property, which was commonly associated with pirates during the eighteenth
century. If such a robbery occurred, then the attitude was that those
responsible for whatever theft were to be brought to punishment “for the public
good of all commercial countries.”[37]
Piracy had been considered a capital offence since the Middle Ages and it was
an act that was defined by being unique to the seas. Ever since waterways
and the seas have been used for transport, there have been sea robbers ready to
emulate their land-bound colleagues by taking the ocean’s bounty through
plundering the remains of shipwrecks or seizure.[38]
These rogues were almost always sent to the gallows if they were caught with
stolen property that was worth hundreds of pounds.[39]
In addition to being criminals, pirates were also seen as synonymous
with thievery and murder. Right before the breakout of the American Revolution,
a man in Bristol, England, wrote to his friend in Salem to say that the
British’s “conduct towards the Americans is horrid, cruel and detestable; they
call you all thieves, pirates and rebels, for which in return I make no scruple
to call them knaves, scoundrels, and spiritless slaves”.[40]
In retaliation to the British view of Americans, the colonists also pointed
fingers back at their mother country during the outbreak of the war:
Why should we timidly look up any longer for protection to that
unnatural power, which hath already tried its force to distress and subdue us
by every cruel method of oppression and bloodshed…and after having tried in
vain to subdue us by land, is now exerting her last feeble efforts to rob us,
like pirates…[41]
At this time, the English colonists at least had the assurance that the
British Navy would protect their ports and ships. However, after the War the
Americans found themselves to be at the mercy of North African pirates since
they no longer had British naval protection.[42]
To the English, the Americans were no better than pirates for their rebellion;
to the Americans, their British counterparts were at the same level as the sea
rogues with the seizure of their maritime property.
The socialization of crime did not concentrate solely on the destruction
of property that pirates engaged in; it also came straight from the bible so
the colonial systems of punishment reflected the equation of crime and
sin. Criminal codes were specifically designed to enforce public and
private morals.[43]
Crimes of piracy could be used as a source of propaganda to keep
religious order alive. One particular case study details the ordeal of a man
named Philip Ashton who was forced into pirate captivity for three years. He
wrote a memoir of his experience and Reverend John Barnard who preached about
“God’s Ability to Save His People from All Danger immediately capitalized his
trials,” immediately capitalized on the account to spread religious fervor.[44]
The eighteenth century saw a period of secularization throughout the
Colonies in which religious practice became institutional rather than
individual. To combat this, ministers reached out to all levels of society with
a personal, evangelical form of piety by publishing sermons and narratives to
emphasize God’s control over creation.[45]
People were reminded that they had not been case aside by an indifferent God
and that their lives were not without significance. Because the eighteenth
century was a time of rapid change in colonial America, these types of
narratives became a popular way for the clergy to impose order upon the people.
New Englanders in particular felt that they had been offered evangelical hope
on national and individual levels, which reaffirmed their identity as a people
of God.[46]
Ashton’s memoir also described the pirates’ plentiful drinking and
swearing habits and claimed that they “were at an open Defiance with their
Maker” and that they made an “agreement with Hell.”[47]
This further emphasizes the consistent pattern of moral judgments made when
reporting cases of piracy as nearly every newspaper article made a mention of
these habits. Propaganda and sensationalism made its way into the colonial
newspapers. In one case in London, a Captain James Lowry was on trial for
piracy and murder:
James Lowry being put to the Bar, and arraigned on an Indictment for
Murder, which set forth, that he, James Lowry, late Commander of the Merchant
Ship Molly, not having the Fear of God before his Eyes, but being moved by the
Instigation of the Devil, did, on the 24th
Day of December…board the said Ship Molly…cruelly and violently assault,
strike, and beat Kenneth Hussack…of which Beatings, Wounds and Bruises, he
instantly died.[48]
This news made its way across the Atlantic and the Pennsylvania
Gazette published a transcript of the court testimony and throughout the
trial the defendant’s chief mate, James Gatharah, is quizzed about their
habits, included drinking, which he emphatically denied.[49]
This implies that courts began their trials with preconceived notions of the
justice’s outcome. Whether or not pirates were guilty of their crimes, their
habits were highly sensationalized for the sake of readership and the moral and
religious agendas of the times.
The religious principles of the eighteenth century stipulated that
pirates were no better than savage barbarians and therefore must be feared and
prosecuted.[50]
The popular opinion was that people felt their demise would brighten human
nature and cause the seas to become a pleasant place one more.[51]
One man in New England wrote a letter to his friend in Glasgow, Scotland to
express his personal feelings on the matter:
…And it is not self-evident there is no other Love to Men among them,
but a mere Counterfeit such as may be found among Pirates, Robbers, Publicans,
and Sinners? A disinterested Love to Enemies being what they are void of;
a sure Evidence they are not the Children of our Father which is in Heaven.[52]
Ministers emphasized these points against pirates by preaching that
“Every willful Sinner is an Enemy to GOD” and that “God is able to inflict the
deserved punishment, upon all that are in a State of Enmity against him.”[53]
Pirates were seen as the most depraved examples of self-indulgence because they
were said to engage in “all sinful Compliances” while challenging God’s
authority. They were “the worst of Men upon all Accounts.”[54]
To the distinguished citizens of colonial America, pirates had no place
for God in their lives and therefore God could not accept them.
Merely having the idea of pirates removed from the grace of God in his
mind echoed how people felt towards pirates on both sides of the Atlantic,
although a minority of people in the upper echelon felt that all they needed to
do was make themselves more useful to society. The Boston Newsletter
urged is readers to “instruct, to admonish, preach and pray for them” because
the pirates who had been executed for their crimes were without salvation.[55]
The public felt that some pirates’ attitudes might be “softened by the practice
of agriculture, and the influence of religion. They might become defenders of
the state, where they had a fixed settlement…”[56]
Pirates were seen as no better than the gravest of sinners who kept
themselves in company of the devil.
This was no concern for the pirates, as they did not see themselves as
religious men nor did religion matter to them. They saw themselves removed from
any form of authority, particularly beyond the church.[57]
In terms of societal norms, it has been suggested that cursing, swearing, and
blaspheming may have been defining traits of pirate-speech.[58]
Marcus Rediker notes an example of their tongue with source-description that
shows how pirate Bartholomew Roberts swore at a British official “like any
Devil.” In response, the British official fell to the ground “swearing
and cursing as fast or faster than Roberts; which made the rest of the Pirates
laugh heartily.”[59]
This suggests that not only was this a common type of speech, but it was also
amusing. Pirates were gleeful when faced with a gentleman who spouted foul
language with equal fervor. As explained above, swearing and any forms of
blasphemy went against Protestant teachings and moral codes, which was clearly
of no matter to pirates on the high seas.[60]
Other popular papers deemed pirate behavior as barbarous and foul due to
the way they spoke.[61]
Additional sources described them as “scandalous” and insolent.[62]
Papers encouraged people to “instruct, admonish, preach, and pray for them” as
they led a “wicked and vitious[sic] life” hardened in their sin.[63]
Religious tracts in colonial America’s stance against crime can be dated back
to 1648 with the Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes. This book was
carried out by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which carried a stronger religious
influence than could be found in England. Due to the Puritan ideal of this
colony, the Old Testament would often find its way into the English Common Law
Heritage.[64]
This book would cite direct references from the Bible for authoritative
purposes behind local laws. For example, one law states, “If any man or woman
be a WITCH…they shall be put to death. Exod. 22. 18 Levit. 20.
27. Deut. 18. 10. 11.”[65]
The death penalty in colonial America stems from its popular usage in
England. Although the colonists sentenced execution much less than the
English, colonies such as Pennsylvania sentenced eleven crimes with the death
penalty.[66]
With the Bible as support, crime and punishment relations took on a distinctly
religious tone.
In 1797, the Committee of the Special Constables and the Society for the
Reformation of Manners published an abstract, which included a section that was
devoted to the laws against swearing. If any person was convicted of
cursing or swearing (verbal blaspheme), then he was punished with fines that
would double or triple, depending on how many times he was convicted. What is
interesting to note is that a common day laborer, sailor, or soldier were fined
one sterling; any other person “under the Degree of a Gentleman” was fined two
sterling; and “every Person of or above the Degree of a Gentleman” was fined up
to five sterling.[67]
This suggests that the higher rank in society a person kept, the higher
standards they were held to. However, other evidence shows that money was not
always sufficient enough to pay for a verbal assault. Edward Vickars, a
servant, was arrested when he cursed and swore in public. At his trial,
he was judged to be “highly guilty of Common & frequent Curseing and
sweareing in a most prophane & blasphemous manner.” The Judge did not
fine Vickars. Instead, he was whipped for his crime.[68]
Such examples had to be made or else the colonies would run wild with illicit
chaos.
Irreligious behavior among lawful sailors has undergone analysis by
historians such as Christopher Magra who argues that eighteenth century
fishermen, merchant mariners, and naval seamen frequently drank to excess, used
profane language, and spent much of their money on alcohol and prostitutes.[69]
These types of activities were considered to be classic maritime diversions.[70]
Social drinking drew fishermen together in the comfort of warm taverns and also
because this culture allowed them to mock Puritan teachings.[71]
The colonies maintained strict religious observance on land so it is
interesting to note how maritime laborers’ religious fervor diminished
rapidly. Their irreligiousness was undoubtedly influenced by rigorous and
dangerous work at sea that left men far from the influences of their homes and
churches.[72]
These influences are further demonstrated by the fact that swearing and rough
language was prominent among ships.[73]
Without homes and churches to discourage this behavior, which was particular
frowned upon by Protestant sermons during the eighteenth century, sailors fell
into the habit as an escape from their land-locked lives. Sea life was
notoriously dangerous with poor food and water, dangerous working environments,
harsh punishments, and land appointments surrounding taverns and brothels full
of temptation. Life at sea was extremely lonely so it is not surprising to
discover that seamen frequently spent their money on prostitutes because they
“felt very lonesome, and had to go to Taverns, and spend evenings improperly.”[74]
There were strict opinions of what was licit versus illicit behavior and
one description showed up commonly in the newspapers when describing pirate
behavior: drinking. The London Gazette reported that when pirates raided
and took over a Boston-based ship, they would get drunk on Madera wine and then
pass out on the decks, which ultimately led to their capture.[75]
In another case, two pirates named France Pye and Richard Paddy, were convicted
and executed for robbery and murder on a ship. When they raided the
vessel, Pye carried out his deeds while drunk on brandy.[76]
As shown, drinking and drunkenness were not condoned activities in the
colonies. According to the abstract of the laws mentioned above, proper
decorum dictated that one must not appear drunk in public or else they would
face a large fine and spend hours in the stocks. These regulations
included the alehouse keepers as well: if they were found to be inebriated for
all to see, their establishments would get shut down for up to three years.[77]
Maritime employees were also prone to excess drinking and alcoholic
tendencies. Alcohol was extremely common among seamen because liquor
numbed workers to their rigorous labors and provided an escape from their hard
lives. Alcoholism was so prevalent that the navies had to resort to regular
punishments for drunkenness.[78]
In fact, in 1650 the General Court in Boston prohibited sailors from drinking
all spirits because the habit resulted in “the great dishonor of God, and
reproach of religion and governments here established, which also oftentimes
occasions much prejudice and damage to the masters and owners of such ships and
vessels to which they belong.”[79]
Daniel Vickers’s analysis of maritime drinking argues that fishermen did
not drink as a form of escape but rather to deliberately mock Puritan
ideals. Drinking was an activity to defy colonial norms and to create an
insular community among sailors separate from their land counterparts. While
Vickers does acknowledge that drinking in company was important because the
warmth of the taverns provided comfort to men who worked in cold and wet
conditions, he stresses that the public houses provided a cultural release for
men for mock Puritan teachings. The purpose of drinking was to isolate them
from society so the sailors could maintain their autonomy from colonial
establishments.[80]
With religion as a cultural backing, the public took a moral stance
against crime and piracy. Newspapers often described murders with
sensationalism, mirroring their own personal opinions on the matters. When
pirates murdered the British Captain, Christopher Brooks, in 1734, the
newspapers described the perpetrators as ruffians and deceitful wretches who
wounded the sailors in the “most inhumane manner.”[81]
The disgust in this crime and those similar to it can once again be found
in the above-mentioned be letter from a gentleman in New England to his friend
in Glasgow, who stated that there is no love form men such as pirates, robbers,
publicans, and sinners who “are not the Children of our Father which is in
Heaven.”[82]
This reiterates the notion that pirates and similar criminals were among the
fallen and could not rejoin the righteous. These common thieves had no business
in society.
Piracy was a common problem in Colonial America and the Atlantic world.
These crimes were rampant both on land and on the waters. Although Marcus
Rediker argues that pirates chose their lives in search for a better living,
society placed the label “criminal” onto them. Their actions of drinking and
swearing went against common moral tracts that were printed and circulated in
order to ensure a common code of behavior among the Protestant folk. Murder and
robbery were offences punishable by death thanks to biblical influences, which
dictated Commandments that specifically ordered execution to take place. To
reiterate Samuel Walker’s point: “An offence against God was a crime against
society; and a crime against society was an offence against God.”[83]
A person became a criminal by terrorizing the law and society. Illicit
behavior was socially constructed to define codes of moral behaviors, such as
anti-drinking and swearing laws that led to hefty fines and occasional
imprisonment for land-based offenses. Pirates were unique in that they faced
the death penalty for committing crimes at sea that would only be considered
felonies on land. People feared pirates and the godlessness behind their
actions not just for economic reasons such as theft and destruction, but
because they represented everything that struck against early modern law and
societal norms. They did not answer to any authority, government, state, or
religion – the key factors that maintained a cohesive Atlantic world. Many
newspapers exaggerated accounts and dramatized crimes for the sake of
readership but this did not make the pirate issue any less of a concern for the
Atlantic world. Pirates were not just economic foes against the British and
colonists. They represented every blasphemy that the early modern Protestant
society recoiled against.
Bibliography
PRIMARY SOURCES
Books and Pamplets
Adams, Reverand John. The Flowers of Modern History.
Zachariah Jackson: Dublin,
1789.
Shurtleff, Nathaniel B. Records of the Governor and Company of the
Massachusetts
Bay in New England.
Boston: William White Printing, 1854.
Abstract of the Laws Against Sabbath-Breaking, Swearing, and Drunkenness. Stockport:
Nov, 1797.
Letter from a Gentleman in New England.
1742.
The State of Religion in New England.
Glasgow: 1742.
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“A Letter From Portsmouth, Dated February 1.” The New York
Gazette. New York:
March 28, 1757.
“An Account of the Trial of Captain James Lowry, before the Court of
Admiralty, held
on Tuesday, the 13th of February, 1752, at Justice-Hall in
the Old Bailey.”
Pennsylvania Gazette. Philadelphia: June 25, 1752.
“Bermudas, July 30.” London Gazette. London: September 21 –
September 24, 1717.
“Defence[sic] the II.” Pennsylvania Packet. Philadelphia:
February 21, 1774.
“Georgia, Nov. 1, 1775: To All Men in all civilized Kingdoms, States,
Provinces, and
Islands.” Pennsylvania Ledger. Philadelphia: January 6, 1774.
“From a New York Paper.” Continental Journal. June 6, 1776.
“Further Advices by the Packet, London, June 1.” The New York
Gazette. New York:
August 14, 1769.
“London, August 2.” Salem Gazette. Salem: October 30, 1783.
“New York, May 6.” The Boston Newsletter. Boston: May
6 – May 13, 1717.
“New York, May 17.” The Boston Newsletter. Boston:
June 17 – June 24, 1717.
“New York, May 29.” The New York Chronicle. New York: May 22 –
May 29, 1769.
“New York, June 17.” The Boston Newsletter. Boston: June 17
– June 24, 1717.
“Philadelphia, June 20.” The Boston Newsletter.
Boston: June 24 –July 1, 1717.
“Philadelphia, October 5: Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in
Bristol to his friend in
this city, dated July 20, 1774.” Essex Gazette. October 18
– October 25, 1774.
“Philadelphia, November 11, Extracts from the Votes of the Honourable
House of
Representatives, October 31, 1775.” New York Gazette. New York:
November 20,
1775.
“Piscataqua, July 19.” The Boston Newsletter.
Boston: July 15 – July 22, 1717.
“St. John’s (Antigua) November 3.” New York Evening Post.
New York: December 18,
1752.
“The Following Account of the Murder of Capt. Christopher Brooks,
Commander of the
Ship Haswell of London, with his first and second Mate, we have
extracted from the
Barbados Gazette, of the 27th
of April past; written by James Hill, a Passenger on
board the said Ship.” The Weekly Rehearsal. Boston: June 9,
1735.
[No Title] The Boston Newsletter. Boston: June 26 – July 3, 1704.
SECONDARY SOURCES
Books
Burgess, Jr., Douglas R. The Pirates’ Pact: The Secret
Alliances Between History’s Most
Notorious Buccaneers and Colonial America. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008.
Hatfield, April Lee. Atlantic Virginia: Intercolonial Relations in
the Seventeenth
Century.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
Leeson, Peter T. The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economies of
Pirates. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2009.
Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the
Golden Age. Boston:
Beacon Press, 2005.
Ritchie, Robert C. Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates.
Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1986.
Vickers, Daniel. Farmers and Fishermen: Two Centuries of Work
in Essex County,
Massachusetts,
1630 – 1850. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
Vickers, Daniel. Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age
of Sail. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Walker, Samuel. Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal
Justice. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1980.
Articles
Armitage, David. “Three Concepts of Atlantic History.” The
British Atlantic World
1500 – 1800,
ed. David Armitage and Michael J. Braddick, Palgrave MacMillan,
2009.
Canny, Nicholas. “Writing Atlantic History; or, Reconfiguring the
History of Colonial
British America.” Journal of American History 86, December,
1999.
Games, Alison. Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and
Opportunities.” American
Historical Review, 2006.
Greenberg, Douglas. “Crime, Law Enforcement, and Social Control in
Colonial
America.” The American Journal of Legal History 26,
October, 1982.
Henrietta, James A. “The Northern Colonies as a Family-Centered
Society.” Major
Problems in American History Volume 1: To 1877, ed. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman and
Jon Gjerde. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Magra, Christopher P. “Faith at Sea: Exploring Maritime
Religiosity in the Eighteenth
Century.” International Journal of Maritime History 19,
2007.
Perreault, Melanie. “‘To Fear and to Love Us:’ Intercultural Violence in
the English
Atlantic.” Journal of World History 17, March 2006.
Rediker, Marcus. “Under the Banner of King Death.” The William
and Mary Quarterly,
Third Series, Vol. 38, No. 2, April, 1981.
Williams, Daniel E. “Providence and Pirates: Philip Ashton’s
Narrative Struggle for
Salvation.” Early American Literature 24, 1989.
[1] Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations:
Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004), 6 – 10. It
must be noted that many pirates chose a life sea crimes if they had no other
choice and frequently because they were rarely professionally qualified for any
profession based on land. Pirates were generally young men who had once been in
the Navy or employed on merchant ships. Additionally, many of them were runaway
slaves who could not safely obtain employment anywhere else.
[2] In order to connect the topic to the wider
Atlantic world, this study is going to provide a different kind of study.
In her essay ” Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportunities” (American
Historical Review, 2006, p. 750), Alison Games argues that the
examination of the Atlantic world cannot simply be fixed in any one location.
Studying the Atlantic world involves an examination of European movement from
the continent to North America, the Caribbean, and South America. Colonial
America will serve as my base, but the story takes place on the high seas.
Marcus Rediker argues in his book, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic
Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004) , that this type of
lifestyle would appeal especially to the eighteenth-century pirates who thought
of themselves as belonging to all nations. Nicholas Canny argues in his
essay, “Writing Atlantic History; or, Reconfiguring the History of Colonial
British America,” Journal of American History 86 (December, 1999), when
studying piracy, crime, and their societal constructions, the subject must
encapsulate what has been called the “new social history.” The historians
who originally pioneered this field of history came to prominence thanks to
their extensive and groundbreaking studies of the demographics of towns,
counties, and colonies in colonial British America. However, to take this a
step further, examining the social construction of crime and piracy must honor
scholastic pioneers. The questions stated above will be answered with a new
constructional idea of these sea villains. David Armitage has broken up
Atlantic history into three branches: circum, trans, and cis. To utilize his
definitions, the project will fit into his idea of circum-Atlantic history in
that I am taking away political borders by tracing crime and piracy as a whole.
Armitage defines this specifically as “the history of the Atlantic as a
particular zone of exchange and interchange, circulation, and transmission. It
is therefore the history of the ocean as an arena distinct from any of the
particular, narrower, oceanic zones that compose it. David Armitage, “Three
Concepts of Atlantic History” from The British Atlantic World 1500 – 1800,
ed. David Armitage and Michael J. Braddick (Palgrave MacMillan: 2009),
16.
[3] Douglas R. Burgess, Jr., The Pirates’
Pact: The Secret Alliances Between History’s Most Notorious Buccaneers and
Colonial America (New York: McGraw Hill, 2008), 14 – 19. Burgess also
points out that the term “pirate” may have been used loosely because they
committed the same common crimes at sea that were committed on land: theft and
murder. However, because they remained outside of state jurisdiction and
terrorized at will, their crimes were tried harsher than felonies.
[6] Samuel Walker, Popular Justice: A
History of American Criminal Justice (Oxford: University of Oxford Press),
13.
[7] Douglas Greenberg, “Crime, Law Enforcement,
and Social Control in Colonial America, The American Journal of Legal
History 26 (October, 1982), 297.
[8] Christopher P. Magra, “Faith at Sea:
Exploring Maritime Religiosity in the Eighteenth Century,” International
Journal of Maritime History 19 (2007), 15.
[9] Daniel Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen:
Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Massachusetts, 1630 – 1850
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 127.
[12] For a
detailed explanation and survey of the colonial American criminal justice
system, see Greenberg’s essay.
[17] James A.
Henrietta, “The Northern Colonies as a Family-Centered Society” Major
Problems in American History Volume 1: To 1877, ed. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman
and Jon Gjerde (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company), 80.
[21] Robert C.
Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1986), 2.
[22] Melanie
Perreault, “‘To Fear and to Love Us:’ Intercultural Violence in the English
Atlantic,” Journal of World History 17 (March 2006), 71 – 72.
[29] Daniel
Vickers, Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 92 – 93.
[33] Peter T.
Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economies of Pirates (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2009), 108 – 109.
[34]
“Philadelphia, June 20,” Boston Newsletter, June 24 – July 1, 1717.
“Piscataqua, July 19,” Boston Newsletter July 15 – July 22, 1717.
[37] “Georgia,
Nov. 1, 1775: To All Men in all civilized Kingdoms, States, Provinces, and
Islands,” Pennsylvania Ledger, January 6, 1774.
[40]
“Philadelphia, October 5: Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in Bristol to
his friend in this city, dated July 20, 1774,” Essex Gazette, October 18
– October 25, 1774.
[44] For a
detailed analysis of Philip Ashton’s experience, see Daniel E. Williams’ essay,
“Providence and Pirates: Philip Ashton’s Narrative Struggle for Salvation,” Early
American Literature 24 (1989), 170
[48] “An
Account of the Trial of Captain James Lowry, before the Court of Admiralty,
held on Tuesday, the 13th of February, 1752, at Justice-Hall in
the Old Bailey,” Pennsylvania Gazette, June 25, 1752.
[50]
“Philadelphia, November 11, Extracts from the Votes of the Honourable House of
Representatives, October 31, 1775,” New York Gazette, November 20, 1775.
[53] As quoted
in Daniel E. William’s essay, “Of Providence and Pirates: Philip Ashton’s
Narrative Struggle for Salvation” Early American Literature 24 (1989),
174.
[57] Marcus
Rediker, “‘Under the Banner of King Death’: The Social World of Anglo-American
Pirates, 1716 to 1726, The William and Mary Quarterly 38 (April 1981),
227.
[60] Atlantic
historian, Christopher Magra, has discussed irreligious behaviors among legal
sailors in his article “Faith at Sea: Exploring Maritime Religiosity in the
Eighteenth Century,” published in the International Journal of Maritime
Studies, where he argues that sailors chose to leave their religious
education behind on land in order to adapt to sea life. However, there has been
little discussion on how and why pirates chose to lead irreligious lives.
[68] April Lee
Hatfield, Atlantic Virginia: Intercolonial Relations in the Seventeenth
Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), 182 – 183.
[74] As quoted
by Christopher P. Magra in his article “Faith at Sea: Exploring Maritime
Religiosity in the Eighteenth Century,” 8.
[77] Abstract
of the Laws Against Sabbath-Breaking, Swearing, and Drunkenness (Stockport:
Nov, 1797).
[79] Nathaniel
B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts
Bay in New England (Boston: William White Printing, 1854), Vol. 4, 2-3.
[81] “The
Following Account of the Murder of Capt. Christopher Brooks, Commander of the
Ship Haswell of London, with his first and second Mate, we have extracted from
the Barbados Gazette, of the 27th
of April past; written by James Hill, a Passenger on board the said
Ship,” The Weekly Rehearsal, June 9, 1735.
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1.
PDF]
The success of the
Prohibition movement in Nova Scotia in 1921
was a result ...... 1919, which for the first time
mentioned smuggling and moonshining.70.
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