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Keywords: 1800–1899

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CA-K1564History

The invention of the telephone at Brantford, 1874–1876

At his father’s home near Brantford, Ontario, Alexander Graham Bell conceived the fundamental principle of the telephone on 26 July 1874. There, on 3 and 4 August 1876, he publicly demonstrated his patented invention, and on 10 August he made a long-distance call, to Paris, 13 kilometres away.

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Photo: K Danko · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context

CA-K1363History

Canada in the South African War, 1899–1902

The South African War, also known as the Boer War, was fought in southern Africa from 1899 to 1902 between the British Empire and the Boers. More than 7,000 Canadians volunteered to serve alongside British forces, and five earned the Victoria Cross. In February 1900 Canadians played an important role at Paardeberg, the first major British victory of the war.

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Photo: D. Gordon E. Robertson · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context

CA-K973History

Joseph Howe, “Tribune of Nova Scotia”

Joseph Howe, born in Halifax and largely self-taught, became publisher of the Novascotian and by 1836 was his province’s leading journalist and orator. Elected that year, he led the struggle that won responsible government in 1848. An eloquent opponent of Confederation in the 1860s, he joined the federal cabinet in 1869 after negotiating “better terms” for Nova Scotia, and shortly before his death in 1873 became its lieutenant governor.

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Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K879History

Sir Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, architect of responsible government

Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, a jurist and reformer born at Boucherville in 1807, was one of the architects of responsible government in Canada. With Robert Baldwin he led the reform governments of the Province of Canada in 1842 and 1848. He left politics in 1851, became Chief Justice of Lower Canada in 1853 and was made a baronet in 1854.

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Photo: Indéterminé · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K699Economy & trade

Sir Samuel Cunard and transatlantic steamships

Samuel Cunard, born in Halifax of Loyalist parents, built a Maritime empire in banking, lumber, land, coal and above all shipping. A pioneer of transatlantic steam navigation, he won an Admiralty contract in 1839 for scheduled Liverpool–Halifax–Boston mail service, and in July 1840 the Britannia, the first regular Cunarder, crossed in 13 days.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K686Institutions

Sir Charles Tupper, Father of Confederation and prime minister

Charles Tupper of Amherst, a physician, became premier of Nova Scotia in 1864 and, allied with John A. Macdonald, advocated Confederation despite substantial opposition in Nova Scotia. After federal cabinet posts and 11 years as High Commissioner in London, he succeeded Bowell as prime minister in 1896, then led the opposition after his party’s defeat that year.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K642Institutions

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, first francophone prime minister

Wilfrid Laurier of Saint-Lin, Quebec, was Canada’s first francophone prime minister, an MP for 45 years and Liberal leader for 32. As prime minister from 1896 to 1911 he presided over the settlement of the West, created Alberta and Saskatchewan and founded the Canadian Navy, and he worked to win greater autonomy for Canada and common ground between English and French Canadians.

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Photo: Topley Studio · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K593History

William Hall, first Black recipient of the Victoria Cross

William Neilson Hall of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, serving with the Royal Navy in India in 1857, became the first person of African descent and the first Nova Scotian awarded the Victoria Cross. He became a source of pride for Black Canadians.

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Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K554Economy & trade

Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, and the CPR

Donald Smith, born in Scotland, joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1838 and rose to be its governor in Canada. An MP for Selkirk who broke with the government over the Pacific Scandal, he joined his cousin George Stephen in the Canadian Pacific Railway syndicate and risked his fortune to see the line completed in 1885; he became Baron Strathcona in 1897.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Wellcome Collection, L0040025 · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context

CA-K470History

Sir William Logan, first director of the Geological Survey

Sir William Edmond Logan of Montréal, a mapmaker and geologist in the mining districts of Wales, became the first director of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1842. He led much of the early scientific mapping of the province, built the mineral collection that became the basis of the National Museum, and earned international recognition for his geological work.

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Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K443History

Laura Secord’s walk in 1813

On 22 June 1813, during the War of 1812, Laura Secord set out from her home in Queenston to warn the British of a planned American attack at Beaver Dams. She walked alone more than 30 kilometres behind enemy lines to the De Cew farmhouse and told Lieutenant FitzGibbon of the plan. Later in the 19th century, the first generation of women historians championed her deed to make women’s contributions to Canadian history known.

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Photo: Anonymous (photographer unidentified) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K436History

Sir Sandford Fleming, engineer and champion of standard time

Sir Sandford Fleming, born in Scotland, came to Canada in 1845 and became survey and construction engineer for the Intercolonial Railway and the Canadian Pacific. A man of wide interests and an ardent imperialist, he advocated the Pacific telegraph cable, designed the first Canadian postage stamp in 1851, and was an early champion of standard time.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K409Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Isapo-Muxika (Crowfoot), Siksika peacemaker

Isapo-Muxika (Crowfoot), born Kainai and raised among the Siksika (Blackfoot), became a leading chief known as a warrior, orator and peacemaker. Convinced that peace served his people best, he made peace with the Plains Cree, adopting Poundmaker as his son, and persuaded the Siksika to sign Treaty 7 in 1877.

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Photo: Alex Ross · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K386Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Alexander Morris and the Numbered Treaties

Alexander Morris, a supporter of Confederation and lieutenant-governor of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, negotiated Treaties 3, 4, 5 and 6 with First Nations from 1873 to 1876. First Nations sought a reciprocal relationship that safeguarded their autonomy, while Canada’s main goal was territorial expansion for settlers; Morris pressed the government to keep its spoken promises.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K277History

George Brown, The Globe and the Great Coalition

George Brown (1818–1880) founded the influential newspaper The Globe in 1844 and became a leading reformer and head of the “Clear Grit” party. In 1864 he was a key figure in the Great Coalition that made Confederation possible, and he co-founded the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada.

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Photo: Hunter & Co. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K258History

Louis-Joseph Papineau, leader of the Patriotes

Louis-Joseph Papineau (1786–1871) strove to reform Lower Canada’s political institutions and strengthen democracy. As Speaker of the House of Assembly and leader of the Parti canadien, later the Parti patriote, he became the leading political figure of the 1837–1838 uprisings; in 1850 he settled at his manor in Montebello.

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Photo: Marc-Lautenbacher · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context

CA-K247Symbols

The RCMP Musical Ride, first performed in 1887

The RCMP Musical Ride, a precision performance by scarlet-uniformed police on horseback set to music, was first performed in Regina in 1887 by the North-West Mounted Police. The RCMP has bred and trained black horses for the Ride since the 1940s, and it is one of the distinctive symbols of Canadian identity at home and abroad.

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Photo: Andrea_44 from Leamington, Ontario , Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context

CA-K246History

Nursing Sisters, the first women with military rank

Canadian military nurses have cared for the sick and wounded in battle since 1885. In 1904, professional nurses joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps as Nursing Sisters, the first women in the British Empire to receive military rank; in the two world wars hundreds were decorated and dozens died from enemy action.

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Photo: William Rider-Rider · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K204History

The North-West Mounted Police, 1873

The North-West Mounted Police was established in 1873 by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald’s government as a paramilitary force of 300 mounted constables, to assert Canadian control over the North-West Territories. Arriving in 1874 after a 1,300-kilometre trek from Dufferin, Manitoba, the force set up posts without the consultation or permission of First Nations and enforced laws that disregarded Indigenous laws and ways of life.

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Photo: Awmcphee · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context

CA-K200History

John Ware, Black cowboy of the Canadian West

John Ware (c. 1850–1905), a Black cowboy who had been enslaved, entered the District of Alberta in 1882 with a trail crew driving cattle to the Bar U Ranch. Despite racism and rough frontier conditions, he built his own ranch with his wife Mildred and their children, and his skill and generosity earned him a prominent place in the history of the Canadian West.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K199History

Richard Pierpoint, Black Loyalist

Richard Pierpoint (c. 1744–c. 1838), born in Bundu in present-day Senegal, was captured and sold into slavery in the Thirteen Colonies around 1760. He fought as a free man with Butler’s Rangers in the American Revolution, settled in Niagara, and during the War of 1812 contributed to the creation of the Colored Corps; afterward he asked for passage to West Africa but was given land in Upper Canada instead.

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Photo: Chris Woodrich · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context

CA-K187History

Emily Stowe, Canada’s first woman doctor in private practice

Denied university entry in Canada because she was a woman, Emily Stowe (1831–1903) studied medicine in New York City and in 1867 opened the first private medical practice in Canada run by a woman doctor, in Toronto. She led the drive to found Woman’s Medical College in 1883 and, through the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association, kept suffrage in the public eye.

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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context

CA-K165History

Chinese workers who built the CPR in British Columbia

In the early 1880s, thousands of labourers from China helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway through British Columbia’s mountains; about three-quarters of the men on the section between the Pacific and Craigellachie were Chinese. They were paid a dollar a day, half a white worker’s pay, and hundreds died from accidents or illness.

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Photo: Shaun Merritt · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context

CA-K164History

Mary Ann Shadd and the Provincial Freeman

Mary Ann Shadd (1823–1893) became a prominent activist in the Underground Railroad refugee communities of Upper Canada in the 1850s. In 1853 she established the Provincial Freeman, an influential newspaper that argued for the rights of Black people and women and became the leading voice of refugees in Canada.

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Photo: Chris Woodrich · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context

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Keywords: 1800–1899

The invention of the telephone at Brantford, 1874–1876

Canada in the South African War, 1899–1902

Joseph Howe, “Tribune of Nova Scotia”

Sir Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, architect of responsible government

Sir Samuel Cunard and transatlantic steamships

Sir Charles Tupper, Father of Confederation and prime minister

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, first francophone prime minister

William Hall, first Black recipient of the Victoria Cross

Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, and the CPR

Sir William Logan, first director of the Geological Survey

Laura Secord’s walk in 1813

Sir Sandford Fleming, engineer and champion of standard time

Isapo-Muxika (Crowfoot), Siksika peacemaker

Alexander Morris and the Numbered Treaties

George Brown, The Globe and the Great Coalition

Louis-Joseph Papineau, leader of the Patriotes

The RCMP Musical Ride, first performed in 1887

Nursing Sisters, the first women with military rank

The North-West Mounted Police, 1873

John Ware, Black cowboy of the Canadian West

Richard Pierpoint, Black Loyalist

Emily Stowe, Canada’s first woman doctor in private practice

Chinese workers who built the CPR in British Columbia

Mary Ann Shadd and the Provincial Freeman

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Keywords: 1800–1899