Freight Capacity and Utilization of the Erie and Great Lakes Canals before 1850

1976 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 852-877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. McIlwraith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Canal Enlargement ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Eastern Half ◽  
St Lawrence River

This paper deals with the relationship between tonnage capacity and utilization of the Erie, Welland and St. Lawrence River canals before 1850. Estimates are presented for the capacities of the canals, as built and modified. Comparison with the actual tonnage carried eastward for selected years shows that the British canals were grossly and increasingly underutilized, while the Erie's utilization was closely correlated with its capability, particularly through its eastern half. Reasons for this situation are given and it is argued that had British funds been redirected away from canal enlargement and applied to the construction of vessels and harbor facilities, the British might have entered upon a prosperous carrying trade within North America in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

Early Maize in Northeastern North America: A Comment on Emerson and Colleagues

2021 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 425-427
Author(s):  
John P. Hart ◽  
William A. Lovis ◽  
M. Anne Katzenberg
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Human Bone ◽  
Northeastern North America ◽  
Isotopic Evidence ◽  
St Lawrence River

Emerson and colleagues (2020) provide new isotopic evidence on directly dated human bone from the Greater Cahokia region. They conclude that maize was not adopted in the region prior to AD 900. Placing this result within the larger context of maize histories in northeastern North America, they suggest that evidence from the lower Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River valley for earlier maize is “enigmatic” and “perplexing.” Here, we review that evidence, accumulated over the course of several decades, and question why Emerson and colleagues felt the need to offer opinions on that evidence without providing any new contradictory empirical evidence for the region.

The Issue of Tridentine Marriage in a Composite North Atlantic World

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Codignola
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
New France ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
European Origin ◽  
British North America ◽  
Illinois Country ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
St Lawrence River

This article examines the transfer and the impact of the marriage stipulations enacted by the Council of Trent in French and British North America over a lengthy period of time from the early seventeenth century through 1738. It first examines marriage between two Native partners in the regions of Canada (the French settlement along the St. Lawrence River) and Acadia. It then considers marriages between residents of European origin and Natives. The article argues that in the 1660s the debate over the implementation and the effectiveness of any marriage policy lost its centrality. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century the issue of improper marriages among French inhabitants resurfaced in the West (Pays d’en Haut, Louisiana) as a consequence of contact with large Native nations that vastly outnumbered the population of European origin. In the Illinois country and in Louisiana the issue of intermarriage was further complicated by the presence of Africans, most of whom were enslaved. As for the British continental colonies, ethnic intermixing and intermarriage proceeded at a pace that, most probably, was not substantially different from New France, although, given the illegal and minuscule presence of a Catholic community, no evidence survived showing any intermarriage having been performed in compliance with Tridentine discipline or otherwise. In the end, however, this article shows that marriage policies, devised in Europe and implemented in North America, had in fact little real impact on the development of the relationship between Europeans and Native peoples.

The Making of an Eclectic Archive

2018 ◽  
pp. 151-168
Author(s):  
Clare Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Surgeon General ◽  
History Approach ◽  
Medical Dictionary ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Medical Interest

This chapter takes a transnational and connected history approach to the papers of Surgeon-General J.P. Walker, who was employed in the Indian Medical Service in the nineteenth century. Upon his retirement he began the process of compiling a great dictionary that reflected his medical interest in eclectic and specific medicine. Despite the surprising elision of ‘India’ from the draft of his great medical dictionary, its incorporation of the medical knowledge of Africans and Indigenous Americans reveals the globality that underpinned his medical knowledge and practice. In this respect, a critical reading of the epistemology of Walker's archive enables a new understanding of the relationship between medicine in and of Britain, South Asia and North America during the nineteenth century.

“Codex canadiensis”, an early illustrated manuscript of Canadian natural history

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry M. Reeves ◽  
FrançOis-Marc Gagnon ◽  
C. Stuart Houston
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
French Canadian ◽  
French Canada ◽  
Histoire Naturelle ◽  
History Of ◽  
St Lawrence River

ABSTRACT: “Codex canadiensis” consists of 79 leaves with 180 illustrations of plants, birds, mammals, fishes, and a few fabulous animals. This manuscript arguably is the most obscure and enigmatic surviving document pertaining to the early natural history of French Canada. It was lost until 1930, when Baron Marc de Villiers first published a facsimile. Two inferior editions later appeared in Canada. The codex was acquired about 1949 by Oklahoma oil baron Thomas Gilcrease and then deposited in the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Under the direction of one of us (Gagnon), French-Canadian scholars have established the codex's author was Father Louis Nicolas (1634–c. 1678), a Jesuit priest who laboured among tribes along the St Lawrence River and the Great Lakes during 1664–1675. This rejects the previous attribution to Charles Bécard (correctly Bécart), Sieur de Granville. The codex likely was completed in part, if not entirely, after Nicolas' return to France in 1675, and it is closely related to a much larger undated work by Nicolas, “Histoire naturelle des Indes Occidentales”. “Codex canadiensis” is among the most valuable extant manuscripts illustrating the natural history of North America as explored by early European naturalists.

scholarly journals Who speaks for extinct nations? The Beothuk and narrative voice

Literator ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Leggo
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Narrative Voice ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
White Settlers ◽  
Authentic Voice ◽  
Voice And Silence ◽  
The Relationship

The Beothuk of Newfoundland were among the first inhabitants of North America to encounter European explorers and settlers. By the first part of the nineteenth century the Beothuk were extinct, exterminated by the fishers and soldiers and settlers of western Europe. The last Beothuk was a woman named Shanadithit. She was captured and lived with white settlers for a few years before she died in 1829. Today all that remains of the Beothuk nation, which once numbered seven hundred to one thousand people, are some bones, arrowheads, tools, written records of explorers and settlers, and copies of drawings by Shanadithit in the Newfoundland Museum. In recent years several writers (all are white and male) have written fiction and poetry and drama about the Beothuk, including Peter Such (Riverrun, 1973), Paul O'Neill (Legends of a Lost Tribe, 1976), Sid Stephen (Beothuk Poems, 1976), Al Pittman ("Shanadithit," 1978), Geoffrey Ursell (The Running of the Deer; A Play, 1981), Donald Gale (Sooshewan: A Child of the Beothuk, 1988), and Kevin Major (Blood Red Ochre, 1990). A recurring theme in all these narratives is the theme of regret and guilt. These narrative accounts of the Beothuk raise significant questions about voice and narrative, including: Who can speak for Native peoples? Who can speak for extinct peoples? Are there peoples without voices? How is voice historically determined? What is the relationship between voice and power? How are the effects of voice generated? What is an authentic voice? How is voice related to the illusion of presence? What is the relation between voice and silence? In examining contemporary narrative accounts of the Beothuk my goal is to reveal the rhetorical ways in which the Beothuk are given voice(s) and to interrogate the ethical and pedagogical implications of contemporary authors revisiting and revisioning and re-voicing a nation of people long extinct.

Domestic ballast operations on the Great Lakes: potential importance of Lakers as a vector for introduction and spread of nonindigenous species

2010 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Rup ◽  
Sarah A. Bailey ◽  
Chris J. Wiley ◽  
Mark S. Minton ◽  
A. Whitman Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Ballast Water ◽  
Small Proportion ◽  
River System ◽  
Nonindigenous Species ◽  
Potential Importance ◽  
Water Transfers ◽  
Invasion Impacts ◽  
St Lawrence River

Ballast water is recognized globally as a major vector of aquatic nonindigenous species (NIS) introductions; domestic ballast water transfers, however, have generally been considered low risk in North America. We characterize ballast operations of domestic ships in the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River system (Lakers) during 2005–2007 to examine the risk of primary and secondary introductions associated with ballast water transfers over short distances. Results indicate that Lakers transported at least 68 million tonnes of ballast water annually. Approximately 71% of ballast water transfers were interregional, with net movement being from lower to upper lakes. A small proportion of ballast water discharged in the Great Lakes (<1%) originated from ports in the St. Lawrence River that may serve as sources for new NIS. These results indicate that domestic ballast water transfers may contribute to NIS introductions and are likely the most important ballast-mediated pathway of secondary spread within the Great Lakes. Future efforts to reduce invasion impacts should consider both primary and secondary introduction mechanisms.

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