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Jan 1, 1492
Where It All Started-First Nations People
Thousands of years before there was Rome, Egypt and Babalon, people were taking route in the Americas. Eventually, as many as 15 million people lived here; in the Northern Regions the part that would one day be called Canada. They went through the Barring Straight during the Ice Age because the water levels were so low you could walk through it. The majority of these people who went to Canada were the first people to come/immigrate here, they started it all. Like the Big Bang of immigration. -
Period: Jan 1, 1492 to
Immigration to Canada
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Jan 1, 1497
John Cabot
The next European explorer after Columbus acknowledged as landing in what is now Canada was John Cabot, who landed somewhere on the coast of North America (probably Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island) and claimed it for King Henry VII of England. He fished off the Grand Banks and when spreading word back home how plentiful of fish there were here in our waters people especially fishermen came & immigrated here to feed the mouths of Europe. -
Jan 1, 1534
Jacques Cartier
It was the French who first began to explore further inland and set up colonies, beginning with Jacques Cartier. The first French settlement was made in 1604 in the region of New France known as Acadie on Isle Ste-Croix (which now belongs to Maine) in the Bay of Fundy. Cartier’s main accomplish was traveling up the St. Lawrence River and mapped the river which helped future explorers which also allowed further immigration here for future travelers or explorers forever changing history. -
The Inuit
The Inuit immigrated here thousands of years later by sea from the west; long after the land bridge had disappeared. They settled in a place where the struggle to survive was posed in its darkest form. Across trackless miles and through the generations, the Inuit followed the whales and the seals, the caribou and the muskox. They had learned the secret of this land of midnight sun; behind the harshness there was an abundance of life. A people who found a balance between life and death. -
Samuel De Champlain
Champlain established a settlement at Donnacona; that would later grow to become Quebec City. The French then claimed Canada as their own & 6,000 settlers arrived immigrating here & settling along the St. Lawrence & in the Maritimes. Britain also had a presence in Newfoundland & with the advent of settlements/immigrants, claimed the south of Nova Scotia as well as the areas around the Hudson Bay. Without the claiming from the French or British all of those people might not have immigrated here. -
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham ended w/ the British conquering the French. The battle of Quebec signaled a major turning point in world history, This affected immigration to Canada immensely w/ French influence & control in the continent all but extinguished. Most of what would become of Canada would become an English speaking area, w/ more English speaking citizens immigrating here since it was now under British rule, however the province of Quebec remains a mostly French-speaking region. -
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The Loyalists
The Loyalists impacted Canada's immigration during the American Revolution with people called "the loyalists" (people who were loyal to the British crown). With America declaring its independence, Great Britain lost 2.5 million subjects, however 100,000 people remained loyal (the loyalists), these are the people who became refugee's who were forced to leave. There were 100,000 of these people and over half of them immigrated to & find refuge in Canada. -
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The Great Migration
The Great Migration affected Canada's immigration in tremendous ways. In the late 1840's many Irish people were unable to pay their rent based on the failure of the potato crop thus being evicted from their homes and immigrating, with many coming to Canada to start a new life; and hoping to find economic success. Over 800,000 people immigrated to Canada within this time period. -
War of 1812
Immigration from Britain & Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 & included British army regulars who had served in the war. The colonial governors of Canada, who were worried about another American invasion attempt and to counter the French-speaking influence of Quebec, rushed to promote settlement in back country areas along newly constructed plank roads within organized land tracts, mostly in Upper Canada (present-day Ontario). -
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The Underground Railroad
Canada was thought of as a safe haven where a black person could be free from the horrors of plantation life in the American South. In Canada slavery was illegal since the 1700's. A women named Harriet Tubman made 19 trips in this time leading around 300 people here to freedom. -
Gold Rush in BC
The non-local native population of the British Pacific was in the 150-300 range until the advent of the Fraser Gold Rush, when Victoria's population swelled to 30,000 in four weeks & towns of 10,000. This wave of immigration was near-entirely from California & was approximately 1/3 each American, Chinese & various Europeans & others; nearly all had been in California for many years, including the early Canadians & Maritimers who made the journey north to the new "Gold Colony" (British Columbia). -
Dominion Lands Act
Treaties 1&2 we & the First Nations signed provided for the taking up of lands "for immigration and settlement". The Dominion Lands Act was a Canadian law that aimed to encourage the settlement of the Canadian Prairies & to help prevent the area being claimed by the United States. In order to settle the area, Canada invited mass emigration by European & American pioneers & by settlers from eastern Canada. To help persuade people to immigrate Canada offered 160 free acres of land for each family. -
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People From Many Lands
Canada's immigration skyrocketed w/ people from primarily Great Britain, Continental Europe and East Asia immigrating to Canada within this time period. Over millions of people came here for many different reasons. Farmers from Great Britain came because of the availability of land & rising price of wheat. People from the Ukraine came because they suffered terribly from the hands of their rulers. No rights, little to no education, weren't allowed to speak their own language, etc. -
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The Chinese
The Chinese expanded Canada's immigration immensely within this period because workers were needed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Over 17,000 Chinese labourers immigrated here and helped build the difficult & extremely dangerous B.C. section of this railway. The conditions that they worked in were terrible; 1 Chinese worker died for every mile of track laid between Vancouver & the Rockies. -
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The Northwest Rebellion
This battle was a brief & unsuccessful uprising by the Métis people under Louis Riel & an associated uprising by First Nations Cree & Assiniboine, of the District of Saskatchewan against the government of Canada. The Métis believed that Canada had failed to protect their rights, their land & their survival as a distinct people. Riel had been invited to lead the movement but he turned it into a military action with a heavily religious tone. This put immigration to a brief cease in the west. -
Chinese Head Tax
Canada's immigration took a plummet when the Pacific Railway was finished and the workers were no longer needed there was a public backlash against the Chinese. After a Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, the Canadian federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, putting a head tax of $50 on Chinese immigrants in the hopes of discouraging them from entering Canada. In 1900 the head tax was increased to $100. In 1903 the head tax went up to $500, which was about two years pay. -
Prairie Provinces Immigration
Despite the railway making the region more accessible there were fear that a tide of settlers from the United States might overrun British territory. Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton launched a program of settlement with offices and advertising in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. This began a major wave of railway-based immigration which created the farms, towns and cities of the Prairie provinces. -
Open Door Immigration Policy
Wilfrid Laurier & his Liberal government made "The Open Door Immigration Policy". A policy that contributed incredibly to our immigration, attracting more than 1 million people to come to Canada. More than half of these people were from Great Britain and the United States, most of the others are from Europe and even to this day are still coming. These emigrants formed the social fabric that was the basis for the cultural diversity found in the Western provinces today. -
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Immigration Before WW1
In the beginning of 1902 the greatest influx of immigrants in Canada's history began and continued until the beginning of World War 1 in 1914. After an emigration office established in Trafalgar House, Trafalgar Square, London, in 1903 the number of Britons enticed to emigrate to Canada increased to 42,198 from 17,275 the previous year. The new immigrants of Canada reached its peak in the years 1912 & 1913. Between 1902 & 1914 approx. 2.85 million newcomers immigrated to Canada. -
Continuous Journey Regulation
The Canadian gov's 1st attempt to restrict immigration from India was to pass an order-in-council that prohibited immigration of people who did not "come from the country of their birth or citizenship by a continuous journey & or through tickets purchased before leaving their country of their birth. This applied only to ships that began their voyage in India as the great distance usually necessitated a stopover in Japan or Hawaii. This regulation put a huge dent in immigration from these places.
