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1867-1914: Background / Fitful Growth / Changing Conditions / First Wave / Laurier Boom
Background
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Landing of the Loyalists, 1783,
by The Loyalists -- American colonists who remained loyal to the British monarchy during the American Revolutionary War -- emigrated from the United States in the thousands during the 1780s and early 1790s. Although many returned to Britain, tens of thousands of Loyalists resettled in British North America, particularly the new colonies of New Brunswick and Upper Canada. |
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The Steam Revolution |
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Beckles Wilson, Canada, with Eight Reproductions from Original Coloured Drawings by Henry Sandham (London: T. Nelson, n.d.). |
Throughout the pre-Confederation era, periods of colonial warfare and social and political unrest also prompted dramatic population movements. Between 5,000 and 8,000 "Loyalists" left the rebellious English colonies to come to Upper Canada between 1780 and 1793. Americans seeking land migrated in large numbers to Upper Canada between 1790 and 1812. By 1812, some 80 per cent of its population was American by birth. The migration of refugee slaves to Upper Canada in the 1850s and 1860s-using the "Underground Railway"-probably brought 30,000
Black Americans to Canada, if only for temporary residence. 2
British North America before and after Confederation, then, became a meeting place for migrants. They travelled to find new opportunities or to leave troubles behind. Many followed the invitations from friends and family who had already migrated. But others, in flight from the social and economic circumstances of their homelands, arrived with little information about the New World.
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