This work was originally prepared as a doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford, and began as a mere examination of the complications relating to French treaty rights in Newfoundland. It was soon obvious that the subject could not be examined in vacuo, for the influence of the colony of Newfoundland became increasingly apparent. If Newfoundland can be called the Cinderella of the Empire, then certainly Canada was one of the notorious step-sisters, and very often the United States took on the appearance of the handsome prince. The story of the French shore problems is not merely concerned with international treaties which both Britain and France interpreted to their advantage, but is also much of the story of Newfoundland’s emergence from Imperial proscription.
The first comprehensive history of Newfoundland was published in 1793, but a centenary and a half passed before the first university course in the history of the island was offered there. During the past fifteen years there has been growing activity in the subject. This volume is the work of six scholars who have either studied or taught at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Some have done both. The book has two broad aims. First, to point out the major themes of modern Newfoundland history currently being examined, and to offer a number of new interpretations of economic and political development in the last two centuries. Second, to supplement the standard works that are readily available to students. In some areas it provides additional details; in others, it bridges wide gaps. The themes considered include: an introduction to the writing of Newfoundland history; the transition from the purely maritime economy of the nineteenth century to the mixed oceanic and inland resource economy of the twentieth, and the difficulties this involved; the decline of the traditional cod fishery in the nineteenth century; Newfoundland's rejection of confederation in 1896; the limitations imposed by the fisheries agreements Britain negotiated with France and the United States; the consequences of the decision to reject confederation and diversify the local economy; the growth of the Fisherman's Protective Union; the political atmosphere of the 1920s; the party politics in the post-confederation period; and, finally, the collapse of Newfoundland's oldest industry, the saltfish trade, and the province's integration into the North American economy. This is a book intended for both regional specialists and general students of Canadian history. It provides a valuable resource about a province of rapidly growing importance.
Nineteenth-century Newfoundland was an archetypal borderland - a space where changes in the authority of imperial, national, and indigenous territorial claims shaped the opportunities and identities of a socially diverse population. Conflicted Colony elucidates processes of state formation in Newfoundland through a reassessment of key moments in the country's history. Kurt Korneski closely examines five conflicts from the late nineteenth century - the Fortune Bay Dispute of 1878, the St George's Bay Dispute of 1889-92, the 1890s Lobster Controversy, the Battle of Foxtrap, and disputes over salmon grounds in Hamilton Inlet, Labrador - to explain how local regimes received, challenged, and reworked formal and informal diplomatic and commercial arrangements, as well as policies set out by the colonial and imperial government. The chapters examine antagonisms and divisions that grew out of clashes between the distinct commercial and social identities of regions in the borderlands and the sensibilities of merchants, politicians, and working people on the Avalon Peninsula. Providing new insight into the social history of Newfoundland and Labrador, these disputes illuminate contending perspectives driven by informal systems of governance, political movements, and local economic, social, demographic, and ecological circumstances. Conflicted Colony broadens, deepens, and clarifies our understanding of how Newfoundland became an integrated Dominion in the British Empire.
The largest estuary in the world, the Gulf of St Lawrence is defined broadly by an ecology that stretches from the upper reaches of the St Lawrence River to the Gulf Stream, and by a web of influences that reach from the heart of the continent to northern Europe. For more than a millennium, the gulf's strategic location and rich marine resources have made it a destination and a gateway, a cockpit and a crossroads, and a highway and a home. From Vinland the Good to the novels of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the Gulf has haunted the Western imagination. A transborder collaboration between Canadian and American scholars, The Greater Gulf represents the first concerted exploration of the environmental history – marine and terrestrial – of the Gulf of St Lawrence. Contributors tell many histories of a place that has been fished, fought over, explored, and exploited. The essays' defining themes resonate in today's charged atmosphere of quickening climate change as they recount stories of resilience played against ecological fragility, resistance at odds with accommodation, considered versus reckless exploitation, and real, imagined, and imposed identities. Reconsidering perceptions about borders and the spaces between and across land and sea, The Greater Gulf draws attention to a central place and part of North Atlantic and North American history. Contributors include Rainer Baehre (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Jack Bouchard (Folger Institute), Claire Campbell (Bucknell University), Caitlin Charman (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Jack Little (Simon Fraser University), Edward MacDonald (University of Prince Edward Island), Matthew McKenzie (University of Connecticut), Suzanne Morton (McGill University), Brian Payne (Bridgewater State University), John G. Reid (St. Mary's University), and Daniel Soucier (University of Maine).
Written to honour the life and work of the late Peter N. Oliver, the distinguished historian and editor-in-chief of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History from 1979-2006, this collection assembles the finest legal scholars to reflect on the issues in and development of the field of legal history in Canada. Covering a broad range of topics, this volume examines developments over the last two hundred years in the legal profession and the judiciary, nineteenth-century prison history, as well as the impact of the 1815 Treaty of Paris. The introduction also provides insight into the history of the Osgoode Society and of Oliver's essential role in it, along with an illuminating analysis of the Society's publications program, which produced sixty-six books during his tenure. A fitting tribute to one of the foremost legal historians, this tenth volume of Essays in the History of Canadian Law is a significant contribution to the discipline to which Oliver devoted so much.
Covering a broad range of topics, this volume examines developments over the last two hundred years in the legal profession and the judiciary, nineteenth-century prison history, as well as the impact of the 1815 Treaty of Paris.
From 1763 to 1867 the land system of Upper Canada was one of the most important questions in the development of the new country. This detailed study of the subject examines Great Britain's plans for Canada after the conquest, the problems created by the royal "promise" of land to the loyalists, Lord Durham's Report, and the failure of the land policies to reach their economic and political objectives. In addition it covers the land problems in Canada after responsible government was achieved: Clergy Reserves, untenanted and abandoned land, settlement duties, speculation, wild land tax and assessment, and the activities of squatters. Based on Colonial Office depsatches, legislative records, the Crown Land Papers, newspapers and various private collections of documents, this work offers an accurate account of the social, economic and political aspects related to land policy in nineteenth-century Upper Canada.
More than a hundred years of trouble followed the land grant of half a million acres along the St. Lawrence River to the Jesuits. The history of this land is a turbulent one that involved every area of colonial settlement and finally threatened Confederation. In 1888 the Quebec legislature passed an "Act Respecting the Settlement of the Jesuits' Estates": the result was a storm of protest that came close to shattering the union of the provinces. At the time of this Act there was no balanced historical account of the Jesuits' estates. nor until this one has there been any subsequent study that has ever begun to explore their tangled history. Professor Dalton provides a badly needed investigation into this area of Canadian history: his work is unbiased and thorough and offers new material for a reappraisal of this century of our past. (Canadian Studies in History and Government, No. 11.)
