Part 7: The Age of Empire, continued

Expansion of Empire: Australia
One result of the separation of the American colonies was that the British legal system lost one of the places to which convicts could be transported (Canada's climate was too severe for plantations and thus slave or convict labor). After considering the coasts of Africa, the British government decided that the lands called Botany Bay would be suitable and in 1788, the first shipload of 750 convicts arrived in that most inhospitable area of Australia.

Dutch sailors had landed on the coast of Australia in 1606, but they were driven off by natives. It wasn't until 1770 that Captain James Cook explored the eastern coast of what was then called "New Holland." Cook took possession of the island continent in the name of George III; he named his landfall Botany Bay on account of the great variety of plants he found there. The whole of Australia may have had no more than 250,000 natives at that time. There was lots of room to accommodate British convicts, further shiploads of which caused the early settlement to move to an area to be named Sydney, in the colony now named New South Wales.

It wasn't just land to resettle criminals that Britain needed. Both the agricultural and industrial revolutions had contributed to an enormous growth in population. There just were not enough jobs to go around, and as one historian has pointed out, in Ireland "there were neither enough tenements nor enough potatoes." Following the peace of 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, there was a great increase in the population of the British Isles, so much so that a feeling of alarm spread through government ranks.

A growing population which had hitherto been regarded as one of the strengths of the nation now found itself looked on as something of a curse. There simply were too many people to feed (and control). Increasing pauperism and distress, along with monstrously bad harvests, massive unemployment and public debt, severely strained the limited resources available, and drastic remedies were sought by the folks in Westminster.

Perhaps the easiest solution was emigration. In 1822, an article by James Mill on "Colonization" in the "Encyclopedia Britannica" offered emigration as a remedy for over-population. It was eagerly read and avidly discussed by M.P.'s such as Robert Horton, who spent quite a few years of his time in the House of Commons trying to convince his colleagues of the merits of his emigration schemes. In the years 1823- 25, attempts were made to put his plans into practice, especially because the Government wished to settle British people in new lands that could be contested by other nationalities. Though most of the emigrants chosen for government-assisted passages in these early years were Irish (one way to get rid of those troublesome Catholics) many Scots were attracted by the offers of free land overseas.

Despite its reputation as a penal colony, in the very early years of the 19th century, the island continent of Australia had more and more begun to appear as a practical proposition for settlement. Australia offered an alternative to the vast wildernesses of loyalist Canada. Attitudes in Parliament began to shift with the publication of Captain Alexander McConochie who recommended that Britain look to the Pacific Ocean to expand its commerce. He particularly advocated a settlement of New South Wales that would open up new markets as well as absorb what he termed Scotland's "superabundant population." McConochie's "A Summary View" of 1818 gave the people of power in Scotland, especially the commercial interests, an awareness of the potential awaiting them in Australia.

By 1815, the Blue Mountains had been crossed and the vast interior revealed, an interior suited to sheep farming. The introduction of the merino sheep was to lay the foundation for the great Australian wool industry. The native Aborigines were ignored, especially in Tasmania, where they were hunted down and killed off for possession of their lands.

Thousands of convicts continued to arrive each year, and from 1820-60 new colonies were established. These new colonies included : South Australia, Van Diemen's Land (later named Tasmania); the Swan River Colony (later part of Western Australia); Victoria, transformed by the discovery of gold at Ballarat and Bendigo and Queensland, created in 1859 out of New South Wales. The rapid increase in the number of free settlers led to demands for some kind of self-government as had been granted to Canada. A Parliamentary Committee condemned the convict system and gradually each Australian colony banned their importation. In 1856 all four colonies were granted constitutions which gave them responsible self-government; Queensland and Western Australia soon followed suit.

New Zealand
In 1642 Dutch captain Abel Tasman discovered what he named Van Diemen's Land after the governor general of the Dutch East Indies. Four months later, Tasman discovered the islands of New Zealand. In 1769, Captain Cook arrived to charter the coasts and to discover that the country consisted of two main islands. He reported that they were fertile and well-suited for colonization. Gradual penetration by settlers, whalers, convicts and missionaries followed, and in 1813 the islands were proclaimed as dependencies of New South Wales under British protection. Mainly due to missionary activity anxious to protect the native Maori population from exploitation, in 1840 Captain William Hobson was sent out from London to negotiate with the Maori chiefs for the cessation of sovereignty to the Crown.

There were many land disputes between the Maori and the white settlers, but under the leadership of Sir George Grey, 1845-53, native lands and possessions received some kind of protection. The Maori had banded together in the face of increasing immigration from Britain and elsewhere, and for almost twelve years, a military police action against them eventually led to their being granted full citizenship rights, including fair prices for their land and equal treatment under the law. The Treaty of Waitingo was signed by many Maori chiefs, and though some resentments linger among the Maori people, who number about 12 percent of the country's population, it remains an important symbol for the equal partnership between the races that is the foundation of New Zealand's national identity.

New Zealand particularly owes a great debt to John Mackenzie, who had left Ardross, Ross-shire in 1860 to become a farmer in his new country. In Scotland he had developed a deep antagonism towards the power of the landlords to dispossess small farmers, a phenomenon that was destroying much of the traditional life of the Highlands. Witnessing the same kind of activity in New Zealand, Mackenzie entered politics to prevent it from happening in his adopted land. He was elected to Parliament in 1881 as a Liberal, becoming Minister of Lands and Immigration in 1891 under Prime Minister John Ballance, equally committed to protecting the small farmers against encroachment by the large landowners.

In 1892, Mackenzie won passage of the Lands for Settlement Act, opening up Crown land for leasing. An amendment in 1894 compelled the owners of large estates to sell parts of their lands. The same year, the Advances to Settlers Act greatly expanded the supply of credit available for small farmers. He also sponsored a plan to use the unemployed to clear and then lease land holdings. In addition to his sponsorship of legislation to aid the small farmers and break up the large estates (something that had never been achieved in his native Scotland), Mackenzie used his political clout to promote scientific methods of agriculture. Also to his credit was the laying of the foundation of the New Zealand ministry of agriculture. There were many more Scots of influence in the islands; they did much to make the country prosperous, as well as keeping it closely tied with and proud of its association with, Great Britain.

In l880, New Zealand began to export huge quantities of frozen mutton and lamb to Britain. By l902, this process began to flood the English market. Alas, Scots settlers stripped millions of acres of lush, sub-tropical forests to create their sheep pastures, and the ruinous effects of the subsequent soil erosion are still very much in evidence.

Canada
Captain James Cook had made three exploratory voyages to the West Coast of Canada between 1768 and 178l. Because the Chinese were very interested receiving fur in exchange for the tea, silks and porcelain in so much demand in Europe, the lucrative fur trade beckoned further English interest. In 1788, a group of English traders settled on Vancouver Island (discovered by Cook 10 years before). Spain still claimed the whole West Coast of America up to the boundary of what is now Alaska, but after a confrontation at Vancouver between the two countries, England presented an ultimatum to the Spanish whose lack of allies, and an effective navy, forced them to accept its terms. The Spanish recognition of British trading and fishing rights in the area opened the way for the establishment of British Columbia and the creation of a British North America stretching from ocean to ocean. There still remained the thorny question of the borders with the United States.

Many thousands of Empire loyalists left the United States after its independence to settle in Canada, mainly in the eastern Maritime Provinces. Many of the kilted soldiers who conquered Quebec for Britain had been Jacobites and followers of Prince Charles Edward. It has been suggested that their victory at Quebec was sweet revenge for France's general indifference to and failure to help the Jacobite cause.

Perhaps the Canadian province most closely connected with Scotland is Nova Scotia New Scotland. The land had been discovered by John Cabot in 1497 and claimed for Britain. The vast territory of Acadia was seized by Captain Argall in the name of James VI of Scotland (James I of England), in 1613. Part of this lovely land became the first permanent North American settlement north of Florida when Scotsman Sir William Alexander, friend of the king, was granted a charter in 1621. In his book describing the colony, Sir William deplored the ancient proclivity of Scotsmen to expend their energies in foreign wars and encouraged them instead, to send swarms of emigrants "like bees" to New Scotland. Over 300 years later, seven eighths of its people acknowledge British ancestry, mainly Scottish.

The West was still unknown territory. In 1809, Welsh-born fur trader David Thompson surveyed and mapped more than 1 million square miles of territory between Lake Superior and the Pacific. The War of 1812 seems to have begun over the impressment of US seamen, but frontiersmen on both sides were intent on territorial gains in many disputed areas.

The naval battles on Lake Erie showed only too well US interest north of the established borders. The Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817 limited US and British naval forces on the Great Lakes. One year later, the US-Canadian border was established by a convention, making the 49th parallel the boundary to the Rockies while Thompson continued his survey. The two countries agreed to a joint occupation of the Northwest Territories for a 10-year period. The treaty was extended in 1828 for an indefinite period.

Back east however, a French Canadian rebellion against British rule, led by Papineau and Mackenzie took place in 1837. It was crushed after some desultory skirmishes. In 1839, in his Report on the Affairs of British North America, the Earl of Durham proposed a union of Upper and Lower Canada and the granting of self-government. Durham argued for putting the government of Canada into the hands of the Canadians. The Union Act was passed in July, 1840. Two years later, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty finalized the Maine-Canadian border.

Still in dispute was the boundary of the Oregon Territory, which received thousands of American immigrants after John Fremont mapped the Oregon Trail guided by Kit Carson. Other settlers from the US arrived in the Columbia River Valley, claimed by Britain. In 1846, the Oregon Treaty granted land south of the 49th parallel to the US, thus extending the frontier to the Pacific and granting British Columbia and Vancouver to Britain.

In 1847, Lord Elgin was made Governor of the newly united colony of Canada. By the 1860's, the fear of economic and political subordination to the US stimulated the movement to combine the eastern Maritime Provinces to the rest of Canada. In 1867 the British North America Act united Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the Dominion of Canada with its capital at Ottawa, first settled in 1827.

A Scots-Canadian, John Alexander Macdonald, who had led the federation movement became the first premier. Within six years, the Dominion was joined by Manitoba, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island (Newfoundland joined in 1949). The Canadian Pacific Railway begun in 1880 then became a crucial link in the chain of confederation, making it possible for the addition of the two prairie provinces to join in 1905, Alberta and Saskatchewan. In June, 1880, the anthem "Oh Canada" was sung for the first time in Quebec; it received official English lyrics in 1908.

Other Maritime Provinces were also heavily influenced by Scottish settlers. Prince Edward Island was captured from the French by Lord Rollo, a Scottish Peer, in 1758 and parceled out among a number of landed proprietors, including many Scots. One was John Macdonald of Glenaladale, who conceived the idea of sending Highlanders out to Nova Scotia on a grand scale after Culloden.

New Brunswick also became the home for many Scots. In 1761, Fort Frederick was garrisoned by a Highland regiment. The surrounding lands surveyed by Captain Bruce in 1762 attracted many Scotch traders when William Davidson of Caithness arrived to settle two years later. Their numbers were swelled by the arrival of thousands of loyalists of Scottish origin, both during and after the American Revolution. A continual influx of immigrants from Scotland and Ulster meant that by 1843, there were over 30,000 Scots in New Brunswick.

A large group of Scots chiefly from Ross-shire arrived in 1802 on the Nephton to settle in the Quebec province. Many of their descendents have become prominent in the business, financial and religious activities of Montreal ever since. The great centre of the Scottish Loyalists, however, was not in Quebec, but in Upper Canada, the Glengarry Settlement in what is now Ontario. Here, in what was then wilderness, many of the early settlers had come from Tryon County in New York State. They were joined by many Highlanders during the Revolution, and after the War had ended, by a whole regiment of the "King's Royals."

Unemployment and suffering that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars caused the British government to reverse its former policies and to actively encourage emigration. In 1815, three loaded transports thus set sail from Greenock for Upper Canada: the Atlas, the Baptiste Merchant and the Borothy. After the end of the War of 1812, they were joined by many soldiers from the disbanded regiments. In 1816, further arrivals from Ulster helped swell the Scottish element in what was at first a military settlement. Many Perth families became prominent in both state and national governments.

The list of Scots who influenced Canada's history is indeed a long one. We can only mention a few more who contributed in so many different areas. Explorer Alexander Mackenzie completed the first known transcontinental crossing of America north of Mexico. John Sandfield Macdonald (1812-72) became Prime Minister of the province of Canada in 1862 and the first Prime Minister of Canada in 1867. Sir John Macdonald (1815-91), who emigrated in 1820, became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada, leading the country through its period of early growth. Under his leadership, the dominion expanded to include Manitoba, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island. Sir Richard McBride (1870-1917) was Premier of British Columbia from 1903 to 1915, where he introduced the two-party system of government and worked tirelessly on behalf of the extension of the railroad.

The list seems endless. Immigrant Alexander Mackenzie was the first Liberal Prime Minister of Canada (1873-78). Another Scot, William Lyon Mackenzie, who led the revolt in Upper Canada against the Canadian government in 1858, became a symbol of Canadian radicalism. His rebellion dramatized the need for a reform of the country's outmoded constitution and led to the 1841 Confederation of Canadian provinces.

Resource Information

Part 7: The Age of Empire, continued