Colonization in Canada

Colonization in Canada dates back to the early 1500s when Jean-François de la Rocque de sieur Roberval, the viceroy of Canada was tasked with creating a permanent colony in the New World (The Canadian Encyclopedia, n.d.) Over time, many other New World explorers and religious orders like the Jesuits joined Roberval in the colonization of Canada and began to engage in economic actions such as the fur trade (The Canadian Encyclopedia, n.d.) By the 1600s, the Hudson’s Bay Company was created, taking over the fur trade (Gismondi, 2020) and the forced transportation of slaves to the new world had begun (Parks Canada, 2020). The 1700s saw infighting amongst colonizing nations as they sought to take for themselves what they felt were the best parts of the land (The Canadian Encyclopedia, n.d.). As further emissaries from colonizing nations arrived in Canada, they brought along with them a disease that would go on to decimate Indigenous populations over the entire millennia, smallpox (Spaulding & Foster-Sanchez, 2020).Through all this, Indigenous people and the British government in Upper Canada (Ontario) were working towards one of the first land agreements in Canada, the Niagara Treaty of 1781 (The Canadian Encyclopedia, n.d.). The start of the 1800s brought about the beginnings of relief from the smallpox epidemic when the first smallpox vaccinations were given out by a doctor named John Clinch (The Canadian Encyclopedia, n.d.). This millennium also brought with it the creation of the Underground Railroad (The Canadian Encyclopedia, n.d.). This particular piece of history helps to position Canada as a safe haven for slaves. But as alluded to earlier in this section with the mention of the beginning of the slave trade in Canada, and what the next section of this toolkit represents, Canada’s relationship to slavery is much more complex than that. These past events helped to create the foundation on which our post-secondary institutions were formed and influenced the structures that brought these institutions into the present day.