The Past Speaks

Starting this week, I am going to be teaching a first-year course on Canadian history before Confederation. The class is designed to address major themes in Canadian history from the end of the last Ice Age to the entry of PEI into Confederation.  I’ve pasted a list of the lectures below.  I am using a textbook called Origins, which is probably the most popular textbook for courses of this nature. In the post-Confederation Canadian history survey course, I use a book called Destinies by the same authors.

Page numbers for the weekly textbook readings refer to the fifth edition. Most lectures are accompanied by a map on Google Maps that I have created to familiarize students with the geography.

There are three written assignments, a mid-term, and a final exam.

Two of the assignments have 18th century Montreal as their theme. The first of these papers is about a Black slave who was executed at Montreal in 1734. It is based on this website. The students have to read a set of primary sources and then determine whether she was guilty of the crime for which she was executed.

The second assignment asks students to write a paper about the 1749 visit to Montreal of Pehr Kalm, a Finno-Swedish botanist. Kalm’s travel diary was translated into English and published in London the early 1770s. This journal is now available online in PDF format. The students are required to read the pages for the journal for the relevant dates and then write a paper answering some questions about Kalm’s comments about Montreal. The whole point of this assignment is to teach students about bias in primary sources. Kalm was massively biased in favour of the people of New France and casts all sorts of aspersions on the people of the British Colonies. Students will find out from another source I have given them that Sweden was allied with France at the time of Kalm’s visit and will be able to draw their own conclusions.

The third assignment deals with Manitoulin Island, which is within driving distance of Sudbury and familiar to many of my students. I’m using this local case study to teach the students about Native land claims and treaties.  The students will write a 3-page report on the 1862 Manitoulin Treaty.