British North America Research Articles

“Quite a Genteel and Extreamly Commodious House”

When investigated through the tavern space, the processes of social differentiation so often associated with more populated northern “urban crucibles” appear less geographically determined than previously supposed. Colonial elites throughout British North America attempted to impose order and control over society during the eighteenth century. Elites’ quest for social differentiation and public order thus went beyond place. Whether patricians’ efforts occurred in Williamsburg or New York, such endeavors centered around the colonies’ most popular, accessible, and numerous public space—the tavern. This article will use Chesapeake and Low Country taverns to demonstrate, through outwardly broad but nonetheless effective comparisons with taverns in the northern colonies, that colonists throughout the eastern seaboard experienced very similar processes of social differentiation despite living thousands of miles apart. The tavern places Chesapeake and Low Country urban centers on an equal footing with their northern counterparts in their contributions to elites’ attempts at order and control.

Stephen Foster, ed. British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Oxford History of the British Empire: Companion Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 365. £45.00 (cloth).

Stephen Foster, ed. British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Oxford History of the British Empire: Companion Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 365. £45.00 (cloth).

British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries ed. by Stephen Foster (review)

British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries ed. by Stephen Foster (review)

Making a Bible Enterprise: James Thomson and the British and Foreign Bible Society in British North America, 1838–1842

The reading and study of bibles in Canada has shaped the ways in which the Christian faith is practiced, but it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that bibles became widely available. This article examines the historical developments of bible distribution in British North America, focusing on the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), which became the largest distributor of bibles in the world. Strengthening the BFBS's Canadian influence was its agent James Thomson, whose work in British North America between 1838 and 1842 expanded the organization’s reach and ensured an ample supply of bibles in the colonies. Through the expansion of local Bible Society auxiliaries and the establishment of distribution networks, Thomson laid the foundations for the BFBS’s success in establishing a successful bible enterprise that would dominate the trade in British North America for the rest of the century.

Monuments, memory and the maritime: Michael Sandle interviewed

The Sources & Documents section has three elements: a translation of a little-known article, a reproduction of drawings from a museum archive and an interview with a living sculptor. The translation considers the work and career of the Canadian sculptor François Baillairgé (1759–1830), who worked as an architect and wood carver, but also produced decorative schemes for ships during a period of increasing production in Canadian ship-building. The article was originally published in French in the Paris-based maritime history journal Neptunia in 1984, by Jean Belisle, now Emeritus Professor of Art History at Concordia University, Montreal. It examines Baillairgé’s designs for two specific ships, the Royal Edward and the Earl of Moira, arguing that the sculptor’s iconographic schemes reflect the political concerns of the period, in particular the relationship between British North America (the Canadian colonies) and their newly independent American neighbours.The second part comprises two rare watercolour designs by Baillairgé for the Royal Edward, reproduced in black and white in the original source, but here shown in colour, taken from the collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Quebec.The third section is an interview with the sculptor Michael Sandle (b. 1936), focusing on his use of maritime imagery and his memorials on maritime themes. The interview includes discussions of Sandle’s interest in the iconography of submarines, rafts and sea burial, and his commissions for memorials including his Malta Siege Memorial (1989–93), his project for the headquarters of the International Maritime Organization in London (2001) and his memorial to lifeboatmen in Douglas (2002). It also includes the sculptor’s recollections of his childhood on the Isle of Man, and his recent interest in memorializing the tragedies of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

François Baillairgé: a sculptor of figureheads

The Sources & Documents section has three elements: a translation of a little-known article, a reproduction of drawings from a museum archive and an interview with a living sculptor. The translation considers the work and career of the Canadian sculptor Francois Baillairge (1759–1830), who worked as an architect and wood carver, but also produced decorative schemes for ships during a period of increasing production in Canadian ship-building. The article was originally published in French in the Paris-based maritime history journal Neptunia in 1984, by Jean Belisle, now Emeritus Professor of Art History at Concordia University, Montreal. It examines Baillairge’s designs for two specific ships, the Royal Edward and the Earl of Moira, arguing that the sculptor’s iconographic schemes reflect the political concerns of the period, in particular the relationship between British North America (the Canadian colonies) and their newly independent American neighbours. The second part comprises two rare watercolour de...

Republicanism and Responsible Government: The Shaping of Democracy in Australia and Canada by Benjamin T. Jones

Reviewed by: Republicanism and Responsible Government: The Shaping of Democracy in Australia and Canada by Benjamin T. Jones Angela Woollacott Republicanism and Responsible Government: The Shaping of Democracy in Australia and Canada. By benjamin t. jones. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014. 299 pp. $100.00 (cloth); $34.95 (paper). Australian and Canadian history shared significant similarities both in politics and on their frontiers in the nineteenth century, along with important differences. While the expanding field of settler colonial history now often brings these histories into the same frame of analysis, studies that directly connect or compare them at length are not common. For this reason, Benjamin Jones’s study of the development of responsible government in the two places in the middle of the nineteenth century is to be welcomed. Republicanism and Responsible Government contributes to world history in the sense of connecting two disparate sites through this shared political evolution, though it does not seek to place these stories of political maturation in a broader global framework. Its methodology involves drawing connections more than making full-blown comparisons. Jones is as much—if not more—interested in political philosophy as in history. His focus is squarely on civic republicanism, which he defines as “a society of citizens engaging in activities to promote the body politic” and “to counter the desire for self-gain (corruption) with the desire for the greater good (virtue)” (pp. 18–19). This is a political philosophy now enjoying currency in both Spain and Switzerland, not least through the work of philosopher Philip Pettit. Jones presents a history of the ideas he sees in civic republicanism, and explains that the aim of his book is to show how the reform leaders in Canada and Australia from the 1830s through the 1850s drew on this intellectual tradition at least as much as they did from Lockean liberalism. He also puts forward the [End Page 698] concept of Christian civic republicanism, arguing that nonconformist religion was significant in shaping a shared vision of “a British Christian society dedicated to civic virtue, civic duty, and a civic religion” (p. 16). Further, Jones is at pains to argue that separatist (that is, anti-monarchical) republicanism was a minor strain in the politics of the day, and of much less import than civic republicanism. Beside the two introductory and one concluding chapters framing the book, there are four chapters on Canada and three on Australia. The Canadian chapters cover the rebellions of 1837–1838 in Upper and Lower Canada; Lord Durham’s 1838 Report on the Affairs of British North America and its significance; the role of newspaper editor Joseph Howe in pressing for responsible government in Nova Scotia; and those of Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine in Upper and Lower Canada, respectively. The Australian chapters deal with the political career and significance of the Presbyterian cleric John Dunmore Lang and his role in the movement for representative and responsible government in New South Wales; the Anti-Transportation League and its campaign to stop the shipping of convicts to Australia; and the story of the Eureka Stockade on the Ballarat goldfields in 1854 and the consequent 1855 trials. I am insufficiently expert in Canadian history to assess how original those chapters are, though I found them interesting. In relation to the chapters on Australia, that on John Dunmore Lang is welcome because while his name is familiar, he has not been the subject of much historical attention in recent decades. The Anti-Transportation League has received more attention, as in the recently completed doctoral dissertation by Chris Holdridge, comparing the opposition to convict transportation in both South Africa and Australia and showing the connections among those movements, the push for colonial constitutional reform, and the emerging settler polities.20 My main reservation about Jones’s book concerns his presentation of the Eureka Stockade. He is familiar with the debate in Australian historiography surrounding Eureka, even citing some of the prominent historians who have objected to its mythological elevation in Australian history and pointing out the consequent distortions. Nevertheless, Jones contends that civic republicanism “drove the miners to take their fateful stand and resulted soon after in the...

The Coxford Lecture Patriation and Patrimony: The Path to the Charter

This annotated Coxford Lecture is the first account dedicated to tracing the part played in the 1980-82 patriation of the Canadian Constitution by the British House of Commons, particularly by its Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. This committee, for which author was the adviser, investigated the propriety of the UK Parliament’s acceding to a request for amendment of the British North America Act 1867 (as amended) if the amendment were opposed by a substantial number of Provinces and it would affect their powers. Against the firm opposition of the Canadian government (secretly being assisted by the British government), the Committee reported in January 1981 that acceding to such a request in such circumstances would be a breach of Parliament’s constitutional responsibilities. A second report, in April 1981, defended that opinion against the Canadian government’s vigorous attempt in March to refute it. The Committee’s position strongly resembles that of the “conventions” majority of the Canadian Supreme Court in September 1981. But the resemblance should not obscure a significant difference, rooted in the distinct authority of the UK Parliament during this terminal phase of the patrimony that, by Canadian decision in 1931, it had inherited: some imperial responsibilities (by then only procedural, and terminated in 1982) for the polity and people of Canada.

Feisal G. Mohamed and Mary Nyquist Milton andQuestions of History: Essays by Canadians Past and PresentMilton and Questions of History: Essays by Canadians Past and Present. Edited by Feisal G. Mohamed and Mary Nyquist. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. Pp. viii+426.

<i>Feisal G. Mohamed</i> and <i>Mary Nyquist</i> Milton andQuestions of History: Essays by Canadians Past and Present<i>Milton and Questions of History: Essays by Canadians Past and Present</i>. Edited by Feisal G. Mohamed and Mary Nyquist. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. Pp. viii+426.

British North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

British North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Remembering Canada: the place of Canada in the memorializing of the Great Irish Famine

Over 250,000 Irish migrants ventured to British North America during the years of the Great Irish Famine. Recently, Canadians have commemorated their role in assisting Famine refugees in several eastern Canadian cities and at quarantine stations in New Brunswick and Quebec. When the commemorations and monuments were being constructed, revisionist historians in Canada questioned, with some success, the centrality of the Famine to the entire process of Irish migration to Canada. Some historians have claimed that such commemorations will continue the “problem” of viewing all of the Irish migration to Canada through the lens of the Famine. While acknowledging the domestic historical conundrum about remembering the Famine in Canada, this article, however, proposes a different perspective: how is the Canadian role in the Irish Famine migration documented by Irish historians and memorialized in the Famine commemorations in Ireland itself? Through an examination of monuments to the Famine, Irish folk and theme parks, local and national museums, and formal public commemorations, the article will explore how the Irish depictions of the Famine diaspora to Canada, when evident at all, compare to Irish discussions of migration to the UK, the USA, and Australia.

The making of the Canadian legal profession: a hybrid heritage

The Canadian legal profession emerged from the confluence of two distinct traditions: the American and the English. The colonies of British North America followed the pre-revolutionary American model of a unified legal profession, according to which all lawyers could practise as barristers and solicitors. American and Canadian lawyers pursued a client- and market-driven, eclectic type of practice that was receptive to innovations – such as the large law firm, the contingency fee, and university legal education – that were strongly resisted in England. On the governance side, however, Canadian lawyers created an indigenous but English-inflected model whereby professional self-governance was delegated to a statutorily-created body that had the power to compel all lawyers to join if they wished to practise law. With their commitment to client-centred service and strong governance, Canadian lawyers long enjoyed a cooperative and productive relationship with provincial governments, unlike the adversarial one characteristic of the United States or the long benign neglect of the legal professions by the English state. It is argued that this historical pattern may help to explain the continuing strength of the self-governance model in Canada at a time when it is being questioned and radically reformed elsewhere in the common law world.

The Impact of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 on Quebec: Then and Now

The Royal Proclamation was the first imperial constitutional instrument in Canada that brought within its fold the indigenous people, the French people of Canada, and the British. For the first time in Canada the question of the fate of the French and the aboriginal peoples in British North America was posed.I want to frame my presentation within this foundational triangular or tripartite relationship, which was laid down in the Royal Proclamation and which substantially endures to this day, although it has very much evolved since then with the emergence of a strong multicultural dimension.In discussing the impact of the Proclamation on Quebec, I will of course be talking about its impact on the people that occupied the territory before the British took over and called it “The Province of Quebec” for the very first time in 1763.These people were the aboriginal peoples who occupied their traditional land and also some reserves created under the French regime and the French people of Canada who had been in the St-Lawrence Valley since the early 17th century. Of course, the territory of New France had been much larger than the tiny Province of Quebec created by the Proclamation but the majority of French settlers did live in that part of the territory claimed by France. I will first briefly canvass the impact of the Proclamation on the French people which has not yet been addressed in detail today. I will also touch on the impact of the Proclamation on the relationship between the French people and indigenous peoples. I will then move on to its impact on indigenous peoples. Since this aspect has been extensively covered by other speakers, I will only add a few additional comments.

Black Catholicism

Black Catholicism

Indigenous Peoples and the Ethos of Legal Pluralism in Canada

In a luminous book entitled Shadow Nations, Bruce Duthu reconstructs relations between Indian nations and the United States according to a founding ”ethos of legal pluralism.” In its afterglow, many scholars will be inspired to approach their jurisdictions with a similar objective in mind. Writing from Canada, with its strong ties to legal pluralism in theory if not in practice, Shadow Nations led me to ask the following questions. How receptive is the Canadian constitutional environment to conceiving of Indigenous-Canadian relations in accordance with similar ethos of legal pluralism? Are there institutional and doctrinal openings for such a reconstruction to take root? What forms of structural and political resistance might act as impediments? This chapter offers some preliminary reflections on these questions. It first outlines legal pluralism’s promise in early encounters between Indigenous peoples and colonists in New France and British North America and offer reasons why legal pluralism thus far fails to characterize Indigenous-Canadian relations. It then identifies three developments that could form a foundation for its resurgence. Two are occurring inside Canadian law, looking out to Indigenous legal norms. The third is occurring beyond Canadian law, and is not necessarily looking in to Canadian legal norms. My reflections on these developments provide little more than a foundation from which answers to these questions might flow. But I hope they shed some light on the receptivity of relations between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state to an ethos of legal pluralism.

The Great African Slave Revolt of 1825: Cuba and the Fight for Freedom in Matanzas

Manuel Barcia has produced an important contribution to the study of slavery and slave resistance in Cuba with his engaging study of a crucial 1825 revolt in Matanzas. Barcia sets out to establish the significance of the 1825 revolt, arguing that it was a turning point in slave rebellions in Cuba, an action distinct from previous incidents in that it was organized by Africans rather than collaborative groups that included slave and free, Africans and creoles. This would have several consequences, as Barcia demonstrates, both for the participants and for our understanding of slave uprisings in Cuba.To make the case that this relatively unknown incident was pivotal in the history of Cuban slavery, the author begins with an overview of earlier slave revolts on the island. Barcia situates the Cuban examples within the larger regional context, including US and British North America. He also offers concise discussions of the Haitian Revolution and its impact on Cuba, as well as the colonial constraints imposed by Spain. These all affected growth and development in Cuba, including the area near Matanzas, where a rapid increase of the enslaved African population helped create the conditions for the slave revolts.Barcia situates his study in relation to scholarship on rebellions in Cuba by Robert Paquette, Matt Childs, and Gloría García in order to highlight the differences of the 1825 revolt. He also contrasts the context of this revolt to slaves’ experiences as described in the works of Manuel Moreno Frajinals, Fernando Ortiz, and Laird Bergad. This contrast is significant because it enables Barcia to discuss the larger picture of plantation agriculture on the island and show that the landscape of slavery in Cuba was much more complex than many might assume. Revolts occurred in many places and involved slaves on multiple plantations as well as in urban locations, but Barcia significantly demonstrates that many rebellions began on coffee plantations rather than on sugar cane plantations, as has often been assumed. The story of the 1825 revolt that Barcia tells is as much about the growth of the coffee district and the coffee plantation complex as it is about a consequential revolt. This work joins other recent studies, such as those by María Elena Díaz and Charlotte Cosner, that shift away from sugar, the focus of the vast majority of the historiography on slavery in Cuba, to other important topics.Beyond this important contribution, Barcia is centrally concerned to show that acts of revolt were rooted in African cultural understandings of war. Using extensive documentation, Barcia recreates the revolt’s cells, describing their leaders, the steps they followed, and the violence that occurred, as well as the reaction of the survivors. Through this painstakingly reconstructed detail Barcia demonstrates a point he has argued elsewhere: that African military knowledge and experience, especially among the leaders, was a crucial factor in the rebellions in Cuba from this revolt on. This is best seen in the uprising’s planning by an ethnically diverse group of slaves living on several different farms.Barcia rightly notes that to better understand this rebellion and its importance we must also know why the slaves rebelled. Barcia offers some of his strongest analysis in explaining the counterintuitive connection between the relatively easier lives for slaves on coffee plantations, compared to their counterparts on sugar cane plantations, and revolt. He attributes this to increased freedom of movement, evidenced in the revolt’s planning. The second factor was their African backgrounds, which included an understanding of the ways of war. This is a compelling case but does not speak to why slaves gathered to plot and ultimately rebel rather than to interact benignly. Barcia does an excellent job discussing the motivations of authorities in Havana and Matanzas as well as planters in Guamacaro; existing documents illuminate their reactions to events as they unfolded. Admittedly, it is more difficult to get at the slaves’ proactive motives for revolt, as Barcia notes; the authorities were the ones who produced the documentation of the event, who told the stories they wanted to tell and who thereby distorted the testimonies of the captured rebelling Africans.The work concludes with a rousing call for more studies, acknowledging that this is a first attempt at addressing some of these largely ignored issues. The author also notes that nearly all the literature that actively takes up the connection between slave revolts and the Age of Revolution suggested by Ira Berlin ignore Cuba, even though, as Barcia has shown, there were important rebellions during the period that warrant investigation.Barcia, with this monograph, has started us on the road to filling a substantial gap in the historiography of slavery in Cuba. This work will also prove to be a significant contribution that connects African origins with the cultural practices of enslaved Afri-cans and African-descended people in the Western Hemisphere.

The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 by Bernard Bailyn (review)

The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 by Bernard Bailyn (review)

An Advancement in an Accounting Technology as an Aid to Shaping a Governable Domain

In this study we examine the introduction of an accounting technology in the Province of Canada, namely reporting gross revenues and expenditures in the Public Accounts. We situate this technology within the broader societal arena of British North America and the political turmoil of Upper and Lower Canada. Drawing on insights from Foucault’s governmentality we argue that this technology was an essential apparatus in the art of government that arose from and contributed to the move from colonial sovereign rule to responsible government. This contributes to our understanding of the constitutive role of accounting and the role of accounting in government by presenting a case showing its role in the construction of a governable domain. This understanding is complementary to previous Foucauldian interpretations whose focus is on the government governing the population. We argue that accounting facilitates government by empowering the population and through this, the population becomes governable. As a mechanism of control and accountability, it served to empower the population. Studying the development of accounting technologies in the Province of Canada provides an important opportunity to enhance our understanding of the role of accounting in shaping governable domains and the development of public sector accounting techniques through the emergence of responsible government in a former colony of the British Empire.

Crossroads of Empire: The Middle Colonies in British North America (review)

Crossroads of Empire: The Middle Colonies in British North America (review)

Creole Frontiers: Imperial Ambiguities in John Richardson’s and James Fenimore Cooper’s Fiction

In his 2010 article Settler Postcolonialism as a Reading Strategy, Edward Watts argues that by using settler theory to study early literature, scholars in field can move away from binary of empire and resistance, toward a better understanding of multiple experimental and alternative nationalisms of early Republic. This timely decentering of nationalist narrative builds on shift toward postcolonial studies in literature, while reflecting more general transatlantic and hemispheric turn in studies in recent years. (1) In Watts's reading, then, settler theory has potential to transcend what Ralph Bauer describes as the limitations of critical and theoretical concepts, as well as markers of identity current in US studies ... across cultural and disciplinary borders (Early American 225). On one hand, postcolonial theory has created useful comparative frameworks for discussing local colonialisms; on other, dominant Anglo-American emphasis on colonizer-colonized conceptual binary fails to prove consistently useful in a hemispheric context. Furthermore, traditional periodizations of literary studies that separate colonial and national artificially normalize experience of decolonization, since US model was exception rather than norm in hemisphere until at least 1820 (Bauer, American 225). Thus, settler theory has unique potential to address both disciplinary shortcomings by positing early Americans as just one group of Euro-Creoles in Americas, simultaneously agents and subjects of imperial power, whose identities and relationship to land were triangulated across multiple political formations. This article examines relationship between such political formations and competing narratives of indigeneity and authenticity that underpinned frontier fiction in United States and Canada in 1820s and 1830s. (2) James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) and his contemporary and admirer, Canadian novelist John Richardson (1796-1852), have been traditionally read through lens of national canon as early representatives of Canadian and literatures, respectively. (3) The works of both have long drawn comparisons, which I do not intend to revisit here. (4) Rather, my goal is to illuminate commonalities of these two Euro-American Creoles via an examination of role that land, empire, and whiteness play in their literary invention of competing national and prenational pasts. In doing so, my use of settler postcolonialism dissociates term Creole from its racial connotations, dominant in studies scholarship, and uses it as a marker of difference in relationship between metropolis and its colonial outposts. At same time, rather than positing Richardson as a British colonial epigone of Cooper, I view him as translator of a literary model into a cultural paradigm shaped by different historical circumstances, and informed by different transatlantic and hemispheric power relations. Central to my argument is fact that, although both authors engage same empires and same geography, they wrote from within two concurrent political regimes, one colonial, one national, whose structures and conventions informed their respective frontiers. In early decades of nineteenth century, northern borderlands of Republic were underpinned by real, albeit contested, ideological fault lines. Early settlerhood evolved in dialogue with colonial settlerhood of British North America. British literature was widely read in colonies, but so were authors. Early Canadian fiction engaged not only with British imperial narratives and tropes of belonging but also with nationalism, defining itself in relation to both. Similarly, throughout nineteenth century culture remained involved in a series of complex political, cultural, and literary negotiations with Canada. …