Early Modern Imperial Governance and the Origins of Canadian Political Culture

1999 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Mancke
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
British North America ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Imperial State ◽  
Canadian Political Culture

AbstractFor the last three decades, scholars of Canadian political culture have favoured ideological explanations for state formation with the starting point being the American Revolution and Loyalist resettlement in British North America. This article challenges both the ideological bias and the late eighteenth-century chronology through a reassessment of early modern developments in the British imperial state. It shows that many of the institutional features associated with the state in British North America and later Canada—strong executives and weak assemblies, Crown control of land and natural resources, parliamentary funding of colonial development and accommodation of non-British subjects—were all institutionalized in the imperial state before the American Revolution and before the arrival of significant numbers of ethnically British settlers to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec. Ideological discourses in the British North American colonies that became Canada, unlike those that became the United States, traditionally acknowledged the presence of a strong state in its imperial and colonial manifestations. Rather than challenging its legitimacy, as had Americans, British North Americans, whether liberals, republicans or tories, debated the function of the state and the distribution of power within it.

Refugiés Or Émigrés? Early Modern French Migrations to British North America and the United States (c. 1680 – c. 1820)

Itinerario ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-32
Author(s):  
Bertrand Van Ruymbeke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political History ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
British North America ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Gulf Of Saint Lawrence

Historians have traditionally paid relatively little attention to the French migrations to America. Although in the early modern period France was a demographic giant, had a deep – yet not enough recognized – maritime tradition, had many colonies in the Americas from the Gulf of Saint-Lawrence to the Amazon, and suffered from a tumultuous political history comparatively few of its people migrated to British North America and the United States. France has therefore and to some extent understandably enjoyed minimal visibility in the American ethnic landscape. There is, however, a long tradition of French migrations to America, beginning with the Huguenots at the end of the seventeenth century. At times these influxes were important in terms of number and influence, indeed in 1690 and in 1790 French was spoken in the streets of Charleston and of Philadelphia.

Women, Power, and Families in Early Modern North America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M. S. Pearsall
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
North America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Sources Of Authority ◽  
Effects Of War

The early modern period, spanning 1500 to 1800, was a vital one for what became the United States, and families were critical to the colonies that underpinned it. Households determined lines of belonging and governance; they gave status and formed a central source of power for both women and men. They also functioned symbolically: creating metaphors for authority (father-king) as well as actual sources of authority. Colonialism, or the imposition of foreign governing regimes, also shaped families and intimacies. The regulation of domestic life was a central feature of colonial power, even as individual families, both settler and indigenous, breached rules that authorities sought to impose. This chapter considers the importance of lineage and households, as well as the effects of war, epidemics, and slavery. It traces a range of households, Native American, African, and Euro-American, to argue for the central importance of families in shaping colonial North America.

scholarly journals Les relations canado-américaines : Nationalisme et continentalisme

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Balthazar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
British North America ◽  
History Of ◽  
Canadian Nationalism ◽  
Set Up ◽  
National Perspective

This paper's objective is to bring forth some elements which confirm the following hypothesis : Canada is consigned to continentalism, namely to economic and cultural integration with the United States though this fact is shrouded in a Canadian nationalism of sorts. The continentalist mentality is rooted in the history of British North America, inhabited mostly by refugees from America who have remained inherently "Yankees" in spite of their anti-americanism. The Confederation itself is based on a sort of complicity with the United States. More recently there were talks of a "North American nationality", and continentalism both cultural and economic has come to be seen as a 'force of nature" which the governments, at the most, put into a chanelling process. Still, it is possible for Canadian nationalism to exist provided it does not go beyond the threshold whence it would run headlong into the continental mentality. Canada has defined itself through an international or non-national perspective far too long for today's nationalism not to remain weak and poorly established. But the Americans whose "manifest destiny" has succeeded in spreading over Canada without even their having tried to hoist their flag there find it to their advantage to maintain some form of Canadian sovereignty. Canada as a "friendly nation" can be of use to Washington. That is why there are almost as many advocates for Canada's independence in the United States as there are north of the border. Canadian nationalism can thus further the interests of some Canadian elites without seriously prejudicing continental integration which can very well afford not to be set up into formalized structures.

The Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty of 1855 to 1866

1968 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 598-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Officer ◽  
Lawrence B. Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Coastal Waters ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Access ◽  
British North America ◽  
British North American ◽  
Atlantic Coastal ◽  
St Lawrence River

The Reciprocity Treaty between the British North American Provinces (Canada) and the United States was ratified in February 1855 and terminated in March 1866. It provided for free trade in all natural products, free access for United States fisheries to the Atlantic coastal waters of British North America, and access to the St. Lawrence River for American vessels under the same tolls as native vessels.

NOTES ON A EUROPEAN WEEVIL, CEUTORHYNCHUS ASSIMILIS PAYK., RECENTLY FOUND IN THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

1936 ◽  
Vol 68 (9) ◽  
pp. 191-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
WM. W. Baker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Importance ◽  
The State ◽  
Ceutorhynchus Assimilis ◽  
Cabbage Seed ◽  
Seed Growing

During May, 1935, C. F. Doucette collected a few adult weevils on flower heads of mustard growing at the edge of a bulb field near Lynden. Wash. These weevils were recognized by the writer as apparently different from any of the species listed from North America, and a trip was made to Lynden on June 1, 1935, to obtain additional specimens. Specimens were also collected on mustard close to the northern limits of Bellingham, at two points between there and Lynden, north of Lynden, and in the vicinity of Nooksack, all in Watcom County. On the following day two specimens were collected on mustard at Big Lake, Skagit County. Big Lake is practically in the seed-growing section of the county, where a large portion of the cabbage seed used in the United States is produced. Weevils were determined by L. L. Buchanan as Ceutorhynchus assilmilis Paykull, and Mr. Buchanan stated that this species had not previously been reported from North America and that it appeared to be of considerable economic importance in Europe.

Federation and the History of the Administration of Indigenous Affairs in Canada, the United States, and Australia: New Insights through a Transnational Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-53
Author(s):  
Ted Binnema
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Previous History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal States ◽  
British North America ◽  
Exclusive Jurisdiction ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Relations

The importance of decisions regarding the allocation of jurisdiction over Indigenous affairs in federal states can only be understood well when studied transnationally and comparatively. Historians of Canada appear never to have considered the significance of the fact that the British North America Act (1867) gave the Canadian federal government exclusive jurisdiction over Indian affairs, even though that stipulation is unique among the constitutional documents of comparable federal states (the United States and Australia). This article explains that the constitutional provisions in Canada, the United States, and Australia are a product of the previous history of indigenous-state relations in each location, but also profoundly affected subsequent developments in each of those countries. Despite stark differences, the similar and parallel developments also hint at trends that influenced all three countries.

Friends of Ireland: early O’Connellism in Lower Canada

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (157) ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Shane Lynn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
Lower Canada ◽  
British North America ◽  
Reciprocal Interactions ◽  
Irish America ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
British North American

AbstractIn September 1828, societies of the ‘Friends of Ireland’ were founded throughout the United States and British North America for the purpose of raising funds and disseminating propaganda in support of the O’Connellite campaign for Catholic emancipation. In March 1831, the societies were briefly revived to agitate for repeal of the Union. The first Irish diasporic social movement to appear in Britain’s overseas empire, the British North American Friends of Ireland enjoyed greatest support in French-speaking Lower Canada, where for a time sympathetic local patriotes perceived a common cause with their new Irish neighbours. This article explores the transatlantic reciprocal interactions, cross-ethnic alliances and regional distinctions which characterised early O’Connellism in Lower Canada. It follows its initial successes to its virtual collapse in the early 1830s, as an increasingly polarised Lower Canada slid towards rebellion. Comparisons are employed with similar agitation elsewhere in British North America, in the United States, and in Ireland. It is argued that instrumentalist explanations for Irish diasporic nationalism, typically drawn from studies of post-famine Irish-America, do not convincingly account for the appearance and form of O’Connellite nationalism in British North America.

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