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664-668-0626s2 10/11/02 2 4:37 PM Page 664 Page 1 of 5 Self-Rule for British Colonies MAIN IDEA WHY IT MATTERS NOW Britain allowed self-rule in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand but delayed independence for Ireland. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are strong democracies today, while Ireland is divided and troubled. TERMS & NAMES • • • • • dominion Maori Aborigine penal colony home rule SETTING THE STAGE By 1800, Great Britain had colonies around the world. These included small outposts in Africa and Asia. In these areas, the British managed trade with the local peoples, but they had little influence over the population at large. In the colonies of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, on the other hand, European colonists had overrun and replaced the native populations. As Britain industrialized and prospered in the 1800s, so did these colonies. Like the United States, which had already broken away from British rule, some of these colonies were becoming strong enough to stand on their own. Canada Struggles for Self-Rule Canada was originally home to many Native American peoples, including the Algonquin, Huron, Cree, Blackfoot, and Inuit. The first European country to colonize Canada was France. Great Britain took possession of the country in 1763, following the French and Indian War. The thousands of French who remained there lived mostly in the lower St. Lawrence Valley. Many English-speaking colonists arrived in Canada after it came under British rule. Some came from Great Britain, and others were Americans who had stayed loyal to Britain after the American Revolution. They settled separately from the French—mostly along the Atlantic seaboard and north of the Great Lakes. The earliest French colonists had included many fur trappers and missionaries. They tended to live among the Native Americans rather than displace them. Some French intermarried with Native Americans. As more French and British settlers arrived, they took over much of eastern and southern Canada. Native groups in the north and west, however, remained largely undisturbed until later in the 1800s. French and English Canada Religious and cultural differences SPOTLIGHT ON Canadian Mounties One of the most recognized symbols of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, began its existence in the 1870s to patrol Canada’s western frontier. One of its first tasks was to drive out whiskey smugglers from the United States. The Mounties’ main purpose was to prevent bloodshed as white settlers moved into traditional Native American lands in the west. Although it was meant to be a temporary force, the Mounties became Canada’s national police force. 664 Chapter 26 between the mostly Roman Catholic French and the mainly Protestant English-speaking colonists caused conflict in Canada. Both groups also pressed Britain for a greater voice in governing their own affairs. In 1791 the British Parliament tried to resolve both issues by creating two new Canadian provinces. Upper Canada (now Ontario) had an English-speaking majority. Lower Canada (now Quebec) had a French-speaking majority. Each province had its own elected assembly with limited powers. The Durham Report The division of Upper and Lower Canada eased colonial tensions only temporarily. In both colonies, the royal governor and a small group of wealthy British held most of the power. During the early 1800s, the people in both colonies, led by middle-class professionals, began to demand political and economic reforms. In Lower Canada, these demands were also fueled by French resentment toward British rule. In the late 1830s, rebellions broke out in both THINK THROUGH HISTORY A. Clarifying Why did Britain create Upper Canada and Lower Canada? Who lived in each colony? 664-668-0626s2 10/11/02 THINK THROUGH HISTORY B. Recognizing Effects How do you think Durham’s recommendations affected French-speaking 4:37 PM Page 665 Page 2 of 5 Upper and Lower Canada. The British Parliament remembered the events that had led to the American Revolution. So, it sent a reformminded statesman, Lord Durham, to investigate Canadians’ demands for self-rule. Durham’s report, issued in 1839, urged two major reforms. First, Upper and Lower Canada should be reunited as the Province of Canada, and British immigration should be encouraged. In this way, Durham said, the French would slowly become part of the dominant English culture. Second, colonists in the provinces of Canada should be allowed to govern themselves in domestic matters. Parliament should regulate only in matters of foreign policy. Within ten years, both proposals had been carried out. The Dominion of Canada By the mid-1800s, many Canadians believed that Canada needed a central government. A central government would be better able to protect the interests of Canadians against the United States, whose territory now extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. In 1867, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick joined with the Province of Canada to form the Dominion of Canada. As a dominion, Canada was self-governing in domestic affairs but remained part of the British Empire. Canada’s Westward Expansion Canada’s first prime minister, John MacDonald, quickly expanded Canada westward by purchasing lands and persuading frontier territories to join the Canadian union. Canada stretched to the Pacific Ocean by 1871. MacDonald also began the construction of a transcontinental railroad to unite distant parts of the dominion. It was completed in 1885. The dominion government also took other steps to strengthen Canada. It encouraged foreign investment to develop Canada’s rich supply of natural resources. It also encouraged immigration to provide a labor force for Canada’s farms and factories. UNITED STATES GREENLAND (DENMARK) Beaufort Sea Baffin Bay Victoria Island Yukon Territory NUNAVUT TERRITORY Baffin Island Labrador Sea CANADA British Columbia Alberta Hudson Bay Saskatchewan Manitoba Newfoundland Ontario Quebec UNITED STATES CONNECT to TODAY The Nunavut Territory While Canada expanded westward in the 1870s, it also gained vast lands in the Arctic north. Most of the inhabitants of this sparsely populated region were Inuit. This native people had developed a way of life in the harsh Arctic climate over a period of thousands of years. During the 20th century, the northern region became important to Canada for its rich natural resources and as a location for military bases. At the same time, the Inuit wanted more control over the resources of their native lands and a greater voice in their own affairs. In the early 1990s, the Inuit and the Canadian government agreed to create a new self-governing territory called Nunavut in 1999. The name is an Inuit word meaning “Our Land.” Nunavut includes the eastern two-thirds of the Northwest Territories—an area of land one-fifth the size of Canada. Australia and New Zealand The British sea captain James Cook claimed New Zealand in 1769 and Australia in 1770 for Great Britain. Both lands were already inhabited. On New Zealand, Cook was greeted by the Maoris, a Polynesian people who had settled on New Zealand’s two main islands around A.D. 800. Maori culture was based on farming, hunting, and fishing. Although the Maoris had driven away Dutch explorers in the 1640s, they made peace with Cook. As British colonization began, however, they stood ready to defend their land. When Cook reached Australia, he considered the land uninhabited. In fact, Australia was sparsely populated by Aborigines, as Europeans later called the native peoples. These nomadic peoples fished, hunted, and gathered food. As they did not practice warfare among themselves, they at first raised little resistance to the flood of British immigrants who settled their country. Britain’s Penal Colony Britain began colonizing Australia in 1788—not with ordi- nary settlers, but with convicted criminals. The prisons in England were severely overcrowded. To solve this problem, the British government established a penal colony in Australia. A penal colony is a place where convicts were sent to serve their sentences as an alternative to prison. Many European nations used penal colonies as a way to prevent overcrowding of their prisons. After their release, the freed convicts could buy land and settle as free men and women. An Age of Democracy and Progress 665 P.E.I. 664-668-0626s2 10/11/02 4:37 PM Page 666 Page 3 of 5 Australia and New Zealand to 1850 @;@;@; @;@@;;@;@@;;@; @;@;@;@;@; @;@;@;@; @;@;@;@;@; @;@;@;@;@;@; @; @; @;@@;;@; @;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@; ; ; @ ; @ @ ; @ ; @ ; ; @ ; @ @ @;@;@;@; @; @; @; @;@;@;@;@;@;@; ; ; ; ; @ @ ; @ @ ; @ @ ; @ ;@;@ @; @; ; @ ; ; ; ; @ ; @ @ @ ; @ @ @; @;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@;@; ; @ ; ; ; ; @ @ ; @ @ @ @;@;@;@; @; @; @; @; @; 500 Miles 150°E 140°E 130°E 0 0 1,000 Kilometers G RE AT INDIAN OCEAN DI GREAT SANDY DESERT VI 20°S Coral Sea DI NG SIMPSON DESERT RA N Tropic of Capricorn GIBSON DESERT 40°S Great Australian Bight Adelaide, 1836 Climate Regions Rainforest Desert Savanna Grassland Mediterranean Woodlands Densest Aborigine or Maori populations, around 1770 D R. ing Newcastle, l r a 1804 Sydney, 1788 M urray R. Melbourne, 1835 New Zealand Port Phillip, 1,300 miles 1803Bass Strait GEOGRAPHY SKILLBUILDER: Interpreting Maps 1. Place What is the site of the first British settlement on Australia? 2. Region What regions of Australia and New Zealand were most densely inhabited by native peoples? Launceston,1804 Tasmania Tasman Sea Hobart,1804 170°E A. GR LIN Albany, 1827 GREAT VICTORIA DESERT Brisbane, 1824 L.. Eyre NEW ZEALAND Russell, 1829 Auckland, 1840 New Plymouth, North I. 1841 40°S Nelson, 1841 Wellington, 1840 South I. @;@; @;@; R DA 30°S E G A U S T R A L I A PACIFIC OCEAN Dunedin, 1848 0 0 200 Miles 500 Kilometers Free Settlers Arrive In time, the former convicts in both Australia and New Zealand were joined by other British settlers who came of their own free will. In the early 1800s, an Australian settler named John MacArthur experimented with breeds of sheep until he found one that produced high quality wool and thrived in the country’s warm dry weather. Although sheep are not native to Australia, the raising and export of wool became its biggest business. Australians say that their country “rode to prosperity on the back of a sheep.” To encourage immigration, the government offered settlers cheap land. It used the money from land sales to lure laborers from Britain by paying the costs of the long voyage. The population grew steadily in the early 1800s and then skyrocketed after a gold rush in 1851. The scattered settlements on Australia’s east coast grew into separate colonies. Meanwhile, a few pioneers pushed westward across the vast dry interior and established outposts in western Australia. In the 1860s, settlers finally pressured the British to stop sending convicts to Australia. Settling New Zealand European settlement of New Zealand grew more slowly. This was because the British did not claim ownership of New Zealand, as it did Australia. Rather, it recognized the land rights of the Maoris. Among the first British settlers in New Zealand were convicts who had escaped from Australia. In 1814, missionary groups began arriving from Australia seeking to convert the Maoris to Christianity. The arrival of more foreigners stirred conflicts between the Maoris and the European settlers over land. Responding to the settlers’ pleas, the British decided to annex New Zealand in 1838 and appointed a governor to negotiate with the Maoris. In a treaty signed in 1840, the Maoris accepted British rule in exchange for recognition of their land rights. Britain quickly established colonies around New Zealand. Many colonists successfully turned to producing wool and other agricultural products for export. Self-Government Like many Canadians, the colonists of Australia and New Zealand wanted to rule themselves yet remain in the British Empire. During the 1850s, the colonies in both Australia and New Zealand became self-governing and created parliamentary forms of government. In 1901, the Australian colonies were united under a federal constitution as the Commonwealth of Australia. During the early 1900s, both Australia and New Zealand became dominions. The people of Australia and New Zealand pioneered a number of political reforms. For example, the secret ballot, sometimes called the Australian ballot, was first used in Australia in the 1850s. In 1893, New Zealand became the first nation in the world to give full voting rights to women. These rights were granted only to white women of European descent. 666 Chapter 26 THINK THROUGH HISTORY C. Contrasting How did the colonial settlement of Australia and New Zealand differ? 664-668-0626s2 10/11/02 4:37 PM Page 667 Page 4 of 5 Status of Native Peoples Native peoples and other non-Europeans were generally excluded from democracy and prosperity. As in the Americas, diseases brought by the Europeans killed a great number of both Aborigines and Maoris. As Australian settlement grew, the colonists displaced or killed many Aborigines. Sheep ranchers in particular took possession of vast tracts of land for grazing. Both the loss of open land and the spread of diseases contributed to the destruction of the Aborigines’ way of life. In New Zealand, tensions between settlers and Maoris continued to grow after it became a British colony. Between 1845 and 1872, the colonial government fought the Maoris in a series of wars. Reduced by disease and outgunned by British weapons, the Maoris were finally driven into a remote part of the country. This photo from the early 20th century shows a Maori man with traditional dress and face markings. Background The act that joined Ireland to Britain created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The 1707 Act of Union had created Great Britain out of England, Scotland, and Wales. Background Before the famine, the average Irish adult ate an estimated 9 to 14 pounds of potatoes a day. The Irish Fight for Home Rule English expansion into Ireland had begun in the 1100s, when the pope granted control of Ireland to the English king. English knights invaded Ireland, and many settled there to form a new aristocracy. The Irish, who had their own ancestry, culture, and language, bitterly resented the English presence. This resentment grew stronger after English King Henry VIII tried to tighten England’s hold on Ireland. In hopes of planting a pro-English population in Ireland, Henry VIII and some later English leaders (including Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell) encouraged English and Scottish subjects to move there. Large numbers did, mostly to the north. Religious differences between the native Irish, who were Catholic, and these Protestant settlers caused conflicts. Laws imposed in the 1500s and 1600s limited the rights of Catholics. For example, Catholics could no longer hold public office. They had to pay taxes to support the Church of Ireland, which was Protestant. In addition, English was made Ireland’s official language. Many Irish hated British rule. However, the British government was determined to preserve its control over Ireland. It formally joined Ireland to Britain in 1801. Though a setback for Irish nationalism, this move did give Ireland representation in the British Parliament. One brilliant Irish leader, Daniel O’Connell, persuaded Parliament to pass the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829. This law restored many rights to Catholics. The Great Famine In the 1840s, Ireland expe- rienced one of the worst famines of modern history. For many years, Irish peasants had depended on potatoes as virtually their sole source of food. From 1845 to 1848, a plant fungus ruined nearly all of Ireland’s potato crop. Out of a population of 8 million, about a million people died from starvation and disease over the next few years. A traveler described what he saw on a journey through Ireland in 1847: A VOICE FROM THE PAST We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible, from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled together, lying there because they were too weak to rise, pale and ghastly, their little limbs— on removing a portion of the filthy covering— perfectly emaciated, eyes sunk, voice gone, and evidently in the last stage of actual starvation. WILLIAM BENNETT, quoted in The Peoples of Ireland The Great Famine, 1845–1851 Fate of the Irish during the famine 70% remained in Ireland, though millions more Irish emigrated after 1851 12% died 18% emigrated Where they emigrated to (1851) Australia, 2.5% Canada, 11.5% Sources: R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland, 1600–1972; D. Fitzpatrick, Irish Emigration, 1804–1921 Britain, 36% United States, 50% SKILLBUILDER: Interpreting Graphs 1. What percentage of Ireland’s population died during the great famine? 2. Which country received the most Irish emigrants? An Age of Democracy and Progress 667 664-668-0626s2 10/11/02 4:37 PM Page 668 Page 5 of 5 During the famine years, about a million-and-a-half people fled from Ireland. Most went to the United States; others went to Britain, Canada, and Australia. At home, in Ireland, the British government enforced the demands of the English landowners that the Irish peasants pay their rent. Many Irish lost their land and fell hopelessly in debt, while large landowners profited from higher food prices. This situation fueled even greater Irish resentment toward their British overlords. Demands for Home Rule During the second half of the 1800s, opposition to British rule over Ireland took two forms. Some people wanted Ireland to be completely independent. A greater number of Irish preferred home rule—local control over internal matters only. The British refused, however, to consider home rule for many decades. One reason for Britain’s opposition to home rule was concern for Ireland’s Protestants. Protestants made up a small minority of the population. Most lived in the northern part of Ireland, known as Ulster. Irish Protestants feared being a minority in a country dominated by Catholics. Finally, in 1914, Parliament enacted a home rule CONNECT to TODAY bill for southern Ireland. Just one month before the plan was to take effect, World War I broke out in Europe. The issue of Irish indepen“Troubles” in dence was put on hold. Northern Ireland When Northern Ireland decided to stay united with Great Britain, many Catholics there refused to accept the partition, or division. Catholics also resented that the Protestant majority controlled Northern Ireland’s government and economy. In the late 1960s, Catholic groups began to demonstrate for more civil rights. Their protests touched off violent rioting and fighting between Catholics and Protestants. Militant groups on both sides engaged in terrorism. This violent period, called the “troubles,” continued into the 1990s. In 1999, on the heels of a historic peace accord, Catholics and Protestants began sharing power in a new home-rule government. Nonetheless, tensions between the two sides remain. Rebellion and Division Frustrated over the delay in indepen- dence, a small group of Irish nationalists rebelled in Dublin in Easter week, 1916. British troops quickly put down the Easter Rising and executed its leaders. Their fate, however, aroused wider popular support for the nationalist movement. After World War I ended, the Irish nationalists won a major victory in the elections for the British Parliament. To protest delays in home rule, the nationalist members decided not to attend Parliament. Instead, they formed an underground Irish government and led a series of violent attacks against British officials in Ireland. The attacks sparked war between the nationalists and the British government. In 1921, Britain tried to end the violence by dividing Ireland and granting home rule to southern Ireland. Ulster, or Northern Ireland, remained a part of Great Britain. The south became a dominion called the Irish Free State. However, many Irish nationalists, led by Eamon De Valera, continued to seek total independence from Britain. In 1949, the Irish Free State declared itself the independent Republic of Ireland. This poster urges Protestant Northern Ireland to reject home rule. The militant tone foreshadows the continuing political troubles in Northern Ireland today. THINK THROUGH HISTORY D. Evaluating Decisions Was Britain’s policy in dividing Ireland successful? Why or why not? Section 2 Assessment 1. TERMS & NAMES Identify • dominion • Maori • Aborigine • penal colony • home rule 2. TAKING NOTES Using a chart like the one below, compare progress toward selfrule by recording significant political events in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland during the period. Country Canada Australia New Zealand Ireland 668 Chapter 26 Political Events 3. COMPARING How was Great Britain’s policy towards Canada beginning in the late 1700s similar to its policy towards Ireland in the 1900s? THINK ABOUT • the creation of Upper and Lower Canada • the division of Ireland into Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State 4. ANALYZING THEMES Empire Building At various times, England encouraged emigration to each of the colonies covered in this section. What effects did this policy have on these areas? THINK ABOUT • cultural divisions in Canada • native peoples in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand • political divisions in Ireland