History of Immigration

The Beginnings

Benereta Lopari

The prehistoric ancestors of Canada’s present-day Indians and Inuit became this country’s first immigrants when they journeyed to America by way of the Bering Strait, at a time when a land bridge, now vanished, still connected Asia and America. Centuries later, according to an unconfirmed hypothesis, Irish monks visited Newfoundland.

Then, starting around the year 1000, Vikings made occasional stops, overwintering at points on Baffin Island, Labrador, and the northern eastern tip of Newfoundland. Still later, in 1497, the Italian mariner John Cabot, sailing n the service of England, glimpsed the shores of Newfoundland while searching for the country of the Great Khan (Asia). After viewing the Grant Banks, he sailed back to Bristol with amazing tales of an ocean dense with schools of codfish.

It was Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman carrying on the exploration started by Verrazano, who paved the way for permanent European settlement in Canada. On July 24, 1534, Cartier clambered up the Gaspe shore of the Baie de Chaleur and claimed the newly discovered territory for His Most Christian Majesty, Francis I. On his second voyage, mad the following year, the French explorer journed up the St. Lawrence River and visited Stadacona (Quebec). Then he went on to Hochelaga (Montreal) before wintering.

The first French monopolists failed in their attempts to establish sustaining colonies on the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence; on that desolate pile of sand off Nova Scotia known as Sable Island; and at Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River.

When these risk takers did at last succeed, credit was due not to the noblemen or merchants in France but to their agent in Canada, Samuel de Champlain, a navigator, visionary, soldier, geographer, and ardent Catholic, to name but a few of the description that apply to this remarkable pioneer.

The French Beachhead in North AmericaHaving helped to establish a French foothold in North America, Champlain returned to the New World in 1608, again in the employ of De Monts’s company, but this time in command of a ship. For 26 years Quebec would be the only French settlement on the St Lawrence, a tiny but vital fur-trading post dependant on France for virtually all its supplies. In the eyes of Champlain and other devout Frenchmen, it was also an invaluable commercial tool to be used in the pursuit of a higher goal: the conversion of the Indians to Catholicism.

In exchange for their furs the Hurons and Algonquins received not only European goods but Recollet brothers (friars of the thirds order of Franciskans) fired with missionary zeal.

Champlain also realized that colonization was essential to both conversion and commerce.

European settlers were required to demonstrate the Christian way of life to the Indian converts and to make the settlement self-sufficient.

Therefore in 1618 when he was living in France, Chanplain presented a memorial to Louis XIII and another to the Chambre du Commerce of Paris in which he made a strong pitch for immigration to New France. The court was indifferent to his plans for overseas expansion.

Not until Richelieu was appointed for a second time to the council and became “chef du conseil” did the cardinal became fully convinced of France’s need to embark on an aggressive colonization policy.

The Company of New France To launch France on this daring new course, Richelieu, in 1627, spearheaded the establishment of a powerful commercial company designed to establish agricultural settlements, encourage missionary activity in New York and exploit its resources. Officially knows as Campaigne de la Nouvelle France, it was composed of more than a hundred associates, who provided working capital of 300,000 livres.

In return for title to all the lands claimed by France in North America and a monopoly on all commerce except fishing, the company undertook to settle 4,000 French Catholics in its domains between 1627 and December 1643.

With the arrival of this first influx since 1617, the advance of population was pushed upriver from Quebec and Canada began the transition from a mere fur-trading post to a true colony. In the next decade, settlement would concentrate not only around two new regional centres of population: Trois-Rivieres and Montreal.

Among these early waves of immigrants were merchants, professional men, and some landless nobles, for whom the alluring prospect of a seigneur in Canada more than compensated for the anticipated rigors of a long, rough voyage across the Atlantic. There were also skilled workers such as blacksmiths, coopers, joiners and carpenters.

As part of its program for recruiting colonists, the Company of One Hundred Associates continued the practice, begun earlier, of granting large tracts of land to organizations or private individuals who agreed to establish settlers on them. Robert Giffard, surgeon and apothecary from Perche, that little “ pays” so famous for its draught horses, was one entrepreneur who took up the challenge.

In 1634, he secured the seigneury of Beauport near Quebec, signed a commercial partnership agreement with another gentleman from Perche and then set sail with his family and a sizeable number of other colonists for Canada.

The following year he recruited other families for his seigneury, including the progenitors of some of French Canada’s most prominent families. One, the Sieur des Chatelets, later obtained his own seigneur at Cap Rouge above Quebec. In less than thirty years, seventy such seigneuries would be granted along the banks of the St. Lawrence between Quebec and Montreal.

Although the Company of One Hundred Associates was the first group of monopolist to recruit settlers in significant numbers for the St. Lawrence colony, it did not meet with outstanding success in promoting settlement there. In 1641, the settlement’s population numbered only two hundred. This was certainly far short of the goal of 4000 settlers stipulated in the company’s contract

In 1663 Louis XIV responded by taking New France out of the hands of the Company of One Hundred Associates altogether and making it a royal province to be governed directly by the Crown. According to the royal plan, France would henceforth assume full responsibility for administration, security, justice, economic development and finance in all her possessions in North America.

The Advent of Royal Government

French Monark appointed a new governor and an intendant of justice, public order, and finances, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, with whom established the French West Indies Company, to which they entrusted a role in the ownership and administration of New France.

Once again, monopolists were to have a role in New France’s development. With the introduction of royal government, the St Lawrence settlement crossed the threshold era.

Although Colbert frequently resorted to expediency in his master plan for France’s growth and development, hi did make a genuine effort to put into practice the principles of mercantilism which linked together industrial growth in the mother country, colonial expansion and state power.

To begin the remaking of New France, Colbert chose the skilled and ambitious administrator Jean Talon. He had served as an intendant with the French army and then as intendant of Hainaut. Jean Talon was determined to make Canada self-supporting.

Talon decided that the colony had to develop other, more stable, sources of revenue such as lumbering, mining, fishing, manufacturing and trade with the West Indies. In order for these sectors to be developed, it was imperative that the settlement have capital, men with managerial talent and skilled labour, al three of which were in short supply in Canada.

Once again immigration became a top priority, but this time it was to be well ordered and subsidized by the government.

Talon serving as New France’s most important official, worked tirelessly to encourage agriculture, crafts and industry in the St.Lawrence colony, to provide it with a system of swift and impartial justice and to stimulate trade with France and French islands in the West Indies.

He concluded an agreement and the advent of royal government set the stage for a dramatic rise in immigration to the St.Lawrence colony. Indeed the 1663-73 represents the one period in the history of pre-1760 Canada when immigration figured prominently in its development. 2000 settlers were sent out from France in these years. They came from all the French provinces, although three quarters originated in districts west of a line between Soissons and Bordeaux.

Although the newcomers who came to Canada during Talon’s time included families, most of them were unmarried men. Some were indentured workers, who had signed three years contracts to work in Canada. Others were clerks and impressive numbers were soldiers, who were later given liberal discharge grants as an inducement to remain in the colony.

Accordingly the authorities persuaded a substantial number of unmarried women to emigrate to the colony, offering husbands as the prize at the other end. In the summer of 1666 90 of these so-called filles du roi were shipped out at the king’s charge; by mid November of that year 84 of them were married. A second group arrived the next summer and once again, an impressive number (102) of the women who got off the ship found husbands by mid-November.

In the words of a contemporary observer, they were a “mixed cargo”, part of the forced immigration that helped to populate numerous colonies at that time.

Among the filles du roi there were also some young ladies of higher social standing who were sent out to become the wives of military officers. In the XVII century women made up a third of all immigrants, but after 1673 their number dropped to an average of three per year, a level that persisted until the end of the French regime.

To impede the return of established settlers to France, visas issued by the governor were required and rarely granted. But these and other immigration-related measures were not enough to populate the colony and steps were taken to encourage natural increase. Fathers, as heads of families, were rewarded with a family allowance bonus if they had at least ten children “living and not in holy orders”, and were fined if their sons and daughters were not married at an early age.

By 1700, Canada’s population had climbed to almost 15,000 with most “Canadians” concentrated in and around the towns of Quebec and Montreal. During the XVII century 6,000 immigrants had come and remained in Canada compared to 20,000 who had gone to Antilles and 8,000 French Huguenots who had emigrated to the various Anglo-American colonies.

Acadia the Neglected Outpost

Acadia, France’s second area of settlement in New France, witnesses even less activity than the St.Lawrence settlement in these years. As late as 1686, only 885 “ ames”, according to a census, lived in this part of France’s North American domain, chiefly at the head of the Bay of Fundy and in the Annapolis Valley.

Acadia, in stark contrast to Canada received minimal assistance from Crown and as a consequence, little immigration.

France neglected this part of her North America that in 1686 Intendant Jacques de Meulles could report to Louis XIV : “Acadia is at present of so little importance, since it’s supported in no way and receives no help from France, that most of the settlers, because of their frequent contacts with the English and the trade that they carry on continually with them, have abandoned these shores to live around Boston”.

In phase one of a projected settlement program, Governor Isaac de Razilly arrived that year with “300 gentleman of quality” and moved the capital from Port Royal to La Heve, located on the south shore of present-day Nova Scotia. When Razilly died in 1635 territorial disputes continued to rage during the period when Acadia was in English hands (1654-67) and into the XVIII century.

As a result of this instability the colony saw little new settlement in these years. Left completely to her own devices, Acadia soldiered on without the benefit of any sizeable influx of immigrants.

In 1713 the population numbered 1,500 to 2,000 Acadians in the drained marshlands area of the Bay of Fundy and scarcely a hundred white inhabitants in continental Acadia.

Immigration In the Eighteenth Century

In the XVIII century, the state dispatched soldiers, artisans, and brides to the St. Lawrence colony in about the same numbers as during the previous century. As a result total immigration from France during “ancient regime” numbered no more than 12,000 permanent settlers. There was virtually no individual, church-sponsored, or seigneurial-sponsored, immigration.

Indian and black slaves also formed a significant addition to the colonial population. Over a period of 150 years 2,700 Amerindian and 1,400 black slaves were recorded in Canada, most of them kept as domestic servants by the religious communities, military officers and merchants, but some of whom were employed as agricultural workers.

50%of all slaves, including the blacks, most of whom comes from Antilles, were to be found in the Montreal region, with the reminder concentrated in the towns of Quebec, Detroit and Trois-Riviers.

The outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession (1774-48), in which France and Great Britain again declared war on one other, saw contingents of regular troops dispatched from France to defend the colony. Even greater numbers were sent after 1755, during the Seven Years 'War. Since there were no barracks, the soldiers were billeted with habitants.

Relationships developed between the colonials and newcomers, marriages took place, and by the end of the war 800 military men elected to remain in the colony as settlers.These soldiers probably represented the largest single influx of immigrants that the colony had ever received. Their numbers helped to swell the population to more than 70,000 people by the time the Capitulations of Montreal transferred Canada to Britain in September 1760.

This is a huge number compare to 9,000 settlers in the St Lawrence colony during the 150 years of the French regime. With immigration from France cut off by the British conquest, Canada’s francophone population would grow only through natural increase.

Developments In XVIII Century Acadia

Nova Scotia had been ceded to Great Britain in 1713, Ile Royale and Ile St.Jean remained French. France shifted her attention to the wild, almost empty Ile Royale (cape Breton). Here several hundred civilians refugees from Placenta and other French settlement in Newfoundland, who had been largely engaged in the fishing trade, settled.

60 Acadian families decided to settle in the interior of the island, away from the fortress of Louisbourg, the largest fortress of its kind in North America. Ile Royale became entrepot. Soon the town of the Louisbourg itself, the centre of population, numbered several thousand of people – soldiers, fishermen, merchants and artisans.

After capturing Louisbourg in 1758, the British blew up the fortifications and abandoned the town. Ile Royal renamed Cape Breton, saw most of its French habitants return to France . by 1785 only about a thousand Acadians remained and they were in the south of the island. From now on this part of the world would see British, American, and German immigrations, but not French.

The Founding of Halifax

Between 1760 and 1800, immigration to British North America was largely haphazard as Britain had no stated policy for populating its North American colonies. The English Parliament by and large opposed the outward movement of British citizens, convinced that emigration would sap the nation’s vitality.

One striking example of a departure from this thinking involved the founding of Halifax, Nova Scotia’s capital and Atlantic Canada’s largest city. Its establishment resulted from a deliberate attempt to make Nova Scotia an instrument for thwarting French attacks against New England.To achieve this goal, British authorities decided to erect extensive fortifications in and to people the province with subject loyal to the Crown.

The architect of this plan was Lord Halifax, who thought that the Acadians posed the greatest danger to British interests. The settlement scheme proposed that English and protestant settlers be mingled with French-speaking subject so they would lose their identity as a separate people and become obedient to royal authority

This plan has also other goals in mind: exploiting the rich cod fishery, procuring masts for the British navy and restraining French fishermen from using British waters.

After Louisburg was returned to France in the peace treaty of 1749, Halifax proposed that 3,000 mostly discharged soldiers and sailors, sat sail for the province, followed by ships bearing settlers and supplies.

These townspeople were soon joined by merchants and fishermen from New England and by immigrants from other seaboard colonies.

Halifax would only revive when, on the evacuation of Boston in 1776, it became a naval and military base and a home for Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution.

The New England Planters The New England Planters England’s expulsion of the Acadians in 1756 precipitated an influx of New England Planters, the largest of sacral immigrant groups to put down roots in Nova Scotia in the last half of the XVIII century. Immigration began in 1760 and in 8 years 8,000 New Englanders established themselves in the colony.

Although there were heterogeneous groups, most of these settlers were either farmers or fishermen, driven to emigrate by economic and social pressures in their home towns.

Indeed, poverty was a stark reality in colonial New England, where man would force subsequent generations to seek new opportunities elsewhere.

The farmers, who hailed primarily from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, were offered a maximum 1,000 acre parcel of land that came rent-free for the first ten years. These terms were also extended to the fishermen who had been visiting Nova Scotia’s shores for decades, attracted by its abundant fishery. Both groups succeeded in permanently transforming Nova Scotia.

Early Immigration to Newfoundland

European were first attracted to Newfoundland by the rich supplies of cod that John Cabot observed off its Grand Banks in 1497.

French and Portuguese fishermen, soon joined by Basques, conducted the earliest trans-Atlantic migratory fishery.

European settlement in Newfoundland began with the establishment of a resident fishery, carried out by fishermen resident on the island.

French settlement was confined to the South Shore while English over winterers were scattered among thirty harbours and coves.

Visiting English fishermen, who undertook the long voyage from England each summer, bitterly opposed this colony as well as al succeeding moves to establish permanent settlements on the island.

Between 1660 and 1690, the English government wrestled with the concepts of permanent settlement in Newfoundland. At one point it went so far as to attempt to remove residents from the island. In 1699, however, an act was passed that formally recognized the presence of inhabitants.

In the XVIII century, southeastern Ireland, provided Newfoundland with a steady source of new settlers. In fact 30,000 Irish settled in the offshore colony from the 1770s to the 1830s. The Atlantic fisheries, supplied the first significant Irish settlement in what would eventually become Canada. Many of these immigrants would subsequently move from Newfoundland to the British North American Mainland and New England.