The Imperial Myth of Canada’s National Policy Part 2: Sir John A. Macdonald, the Aryan Anglophile and the Race to Capture British Columbia
By Matthew Ehret
Sir John A. Macdonald, the primary father of Confederation, was appointed Canada’s 1st Prime Minister by the Governor General and knighted on the day of its passage for services rendered to the British Empire. In his last election campaign speech before his death in 1891, Macdonald, now celebrated as the great nationalist, stated
“A British subject I was born; a British subject I will die”… strange words for the “founding father” of a supposedly “sovereign” nation.
On closer examination, it may come as no surprise to some that this Anglophobe “father of Confederation” was little more than a racist bigot who also advocated for an ‘Aryan Canada’, cleansed of the Asiatic races, then being used as slave labour to build the Canadian Pacific Rail into the west [12].
A paradox is here presented. If Britain has traditionally kept its Colonies consciously underdeveloped in order to maintain fixed, and thus easy-to-control systems of equilibrium, then under what intention did the British Crown and Privy Council mandate the construction of a rail system from the east coast of Canada all the way to the coastal limit of British Columbia in the west unleashing vast rates of increase in prosperity of the nation? The opening up of the Prairies to development had been something which the Empire, using its Hudson’s Bay Company had been working for over 200 years to prevent… so why did this policy change during the period of Macdonald?
A clue to this question can be found in Macdonald’s famous 1867 quote: “I would be quite willing, personally to leave the whole country a wilderness for the next half century, but I fear if Englishmen do not go there the Yankees will.”
The Historical Dynamic leading up to B.C. Bribe of 1870
Up until 1870, the fate of the new BNA Act was still highly questionable. The Nova Scotian annexation movement had risen to new levels of influence with the post 1867 collapse of their fisheries dominated economy. This collapse was shaped by 1) new binding free trade treaties with Britain which the new Confederacy was subject to and 2) the 1865 cancelling of the U.S.-Canada “Reciprocity Treaty of 1854” by the Americans in response to the British support for the southern rebels during the Civil War. No other path to survival could be seen by the republican Nova Scotians but changing its alliances and breaking out of the 1867 BNA Act. If they would do so, then it was all but guaranteed that New Brunswick would do the same. Meanwhile turmoil in the Red River Settlement (located in today’s Manitoba) had also imbued deep concerns in the British Empire.
Of far more strategic significance to the continuation of the British Empire’s interests than the Red River Settlement or east coast annexation movements, was the troubling developments occurring in the colony of British Columbia. After the 1867 American purchase of Alaska, British Columbia had become very hot real estate. Lincoln republicans in America led by William Seward and Senator Sumner, made their intention of annexation of B.C. well known.
Frustrating matters for the British was the reality that the deep economic depression in B.C. [13], combined with the colony’s vast geographical separation from of its confederated sister colonies on the east coast had resulted in a massive yearning in its inhabitants for annexation into the United States, some on principle and some simply for survival.
Out of sheer desperation, leading merchants and politicians of the colony sent the first Annexation Petition to Queen Victoria on July 2, 1867 which laid out a politely worded ultimatum:
“Either, that Your Majesty’s Government may be pleased to relieve us immediately of the expense of our excessive staff of officials, assist the establishment of a British steam-line with the Panamas, so that immigration from England may more easily reach us, and also assume the debts of the colonies, Or that your Majesty will graciously permit the colony to become a portion of the United States” [14]
In response to this petition, no formal response was given beyond an appeal for the colony to join the confederation. Knowing this was impossible, Governor of the Colony of B.C., Frederick Seymour, who was also a powerful opponent of Confederation, wrote to the Duke of Buckingham later that month describing the situation:
“There is a systemic agitation going on in this town in favour of annexation to the United States. It is believed that money for its maintenance is provided from San Francisco. As yet, however, nothing else has reached me officially on the subject, and should any petition on the subject, I will know how to answer it before I transmit it to your Grace. On the mainland, the question of annexation is not moot.” [15]
As the subsequent year passed, with still no traction on either side, the tension grew more feverish with greater quantities of British loyalists defecting to the annexation camp out of sheer despair. An April 20, 1869 Letter to the Editor of the British Columbian expresses this sentiment well:
“With a depleted treasury, revenue falling off, and the Colony suffering from a depression beyond all precedent, with no prospect, either present, or remote, of immigration, what are we to do? … Were the inhabitants of British Columbia a thriving community, the question of annexation would not be popular; for the people are loyal and patriotic. The force of circumstances alone compels them to advocate a change in nationality… I am a loyal Briton, and would prefer living under institutions of my own country, were it practicable. But I, like the rest of the world of which we are each an atom, would prefer the flag and institutions of the United States with prosperity, to remaining as we are, with no prospect of succeeding as a British Colony”. [16]
Such sentiment, resulted in a second, more powerfully worded petition signed by 100 influential leading citizens, now directed both to the Queen as well as the President of the United States. It read:
“We are constrained by the duty we owe to ourselves and families, in view of the contemplated severance of the political ties which unite this Colony to the “Mother country”, to seek for such political and commercial affinity and connection, as will insure the immediate and continued prosperity and wellbeing of this our adopted home…
That we view with feelings of alarm the avowed intention of Her Majesty’s Government to confederate this Colony with the Dominion of Canada, as we believe such a measure can only tend to still further depression and ultimate injury for the following reasons, viz:
That Confederation cannot give us protection against internal enemies or foreign foes, owing to the distance of this Colony from Ottawa,
That it cannot open to us a market for the produce of our lands, our forests, our mines or our waters.
That it cannot bring us population, (our greatest need) as the Dominion itself is suffering from a lack of it.
That our connection with the Dominion can satisfy no sentiment of loyalty or devotion.
That her commercial and industrial interests are opposed to ours.
That the tariff of the Dominion will be the ruin of our farmers and the commerce of our chief cities.
… The only remedy for the evils which beset us, we believe to be in a close union with the adjoining States and Territories, we are already bound to them by a unity of object and interest; nearly all our commercial relations are with them; They furnish the Chief Markets we have for the products of our mines, lands and waters; They supply the Colony with most of the necessities of life; They furnish us the only means of communication with the outer world;…
For these reasons we earnestly desire the ACQUISITION of this Colony by the United States.” [17]
A copy of the petition was given to Vincent Collyer, the great American painter and Indian Commissioner of Alaska which he personally delivered to President Ulysses S. Grant. The press dispatch from the office of the President printed in the British Colonist of January 11, 1870 read:
“Washington D.C. December 30, Vincent Collyer yesterday handed to the President [Grant] a memorial signed by a number of property holders and businessmen in Victoria to be followed by another which will contain the names of all the British merchants and others at Victoria, Nanaimo and other places, in favor of the transfer of British Columbia to the United States. The President today returned Collyer a verbal reply that he had received it with great interest and sent it to the Secretary of State. Collyer also showed a memorial to Senator Sumner, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, who, after reading it, said the movement was important and could have but one termination. Meanwhile, the government waits to movement of England which is fast seeing the uselessness and impracticability of European Empire on this hemisphere. Both the President and Sumner desired their replies to be made known to the memorialists” [18]
By now, it was a race against time. The colonists knew that Britain was preparing vigorously to regain control of their colony. In July of 1868, the Crown mandated that an Act of British Canada’s parliament allocate funds to purchase Rupert’s Land and the Northwest Territories from the Hudson’s Bay Company, which occurred that same month erasing one major obstacle to British negotiations. On the other hand, by May 10, 1869, the American Transcontinental Railway was completed, linking for the first time an entire continent by rail from coast. A ferry system already existed from B.C. to California, bringing a boom of prosperity to the poor colony and making the feasibility of a rail extension from America into the colony that much more realistic.
The deadly mistake made by the author of the press dispatch, including President Grant was their assumption that England’s intention could be accessed by the loud voices of some of its members of parliament calling for a release of British Columbia. It was and still is the case that the true seat of power of Britain is located far above the parliament in the form of the Queen’s Privy Council and Foreign Office which then had no intention whatsoever of losing this vital possession. Although Sumner and Seward were far less naïve on this matter, the majority of leading Americans, the President included, didn’t fully “get it”. The British Minister in Washington writing to his London associates is useful in providing insight into the British oligarchy’s perception of events:
“The circumstance, the existing disturbance in the Hudson’s Bay Settlement [Red River Colony –ed], and the asserted disaffection in Nova Scotia, are much commented upon by the newspapers of this country, and are looked upon as the beginning of a separation of the British provinces from the mother country, and of their early annexation to the United States. This view of the matter is put in connection with the settlement of the differences with us arising out of the “Alabama Affair”, and senators are evidently indulging in the illusive hope that England has it in her power, and might not be unwilling to come to an amicable settlement of those differences on the basis of the cessation of our territory on this continent to the United States” [19].
The greatest tragedy of patriots everywhere in dealing with the British have been their tendency not to look upon the true nature of its evil soul. This letter demonstrates clearly the disdain that British imperialists have felt towards the naïve idealism of the victims whom they intend to destroy. An evil intention animated by a passionate desire to destroy the good will go to any ends of deceit in order to turn any obstacle against their power into a weapon against their naïve enemies. A case in point can be found in the reference made by the British ambassador to the “Alabama Affair”.
To be continued in a few days with part 3
Notes
[11] This 1867 mandate was re-affirmed in Section 14 of the National Defence Act of 1985 with the words: “The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces.”
[12] During the 1885 Commons debates on the Electoral Fran-chise Act, Sir John is quoted with the following racist state-ment: “The Aryan races will not wholesomely amalgamate with the Africans or the Asiatics… the cross of those races, like the cross of the dog and the fox, is not successful. It cannot be and never will be.” He also went on to say that “if the Chinese were given voting rights then “the Aryan character of the future of British America should be destroyed”. [citation from Tim Stanley’s Ottawa Citizen article: “John A. Macdonald wanted an ‘Aryan’ Canada”, August 2012]
[13] The depression then being suffered by B.C. was caused by the collapse of the speculative bubble of the 1857-58 gold rush wherein over 30 000 settlers stormed into town alongside 20 000 prospectors. Entire towns sprung up over night, and land speculation soared. The bubble popped in the mid 1860s leading to the deepest recession in the colony’s history.
[14] Annexation Petition, July 1867, enclosed in Allen Francis to F.H. Seward, July 2, 1867, Consular letters from Victoria to Vancouver Island, Dept. of State, archives, Washington D.C., vol. 1
[15] Letter of Seymour to Buckingham, July 26, 1867 cited in William Ireland, The Annexation Petition of 1869”, British History Quarterly, vol. 4 1940, p. 268
[16] Letter cited in William Ireland, Annexation Petition of 1869.
[17] Ibid. p.270
[18] The British Colonist, Jan. 11, 1870. Cited in William Ireland, Annexation Petition of 1869, p.271
[19] Minister Thornton to Clarendon, January 3, 1870, cited in Ireland’s Annexation Petition of 1869, p.285