The Past Speaks

HIST 1406: Canadian History Survey

My lecture on Tuesday was called, “The Children of Aataentsic: the Rise and Fall of the Huron Confederacy”. It provided students with a detailed overview of the political system, trade, and social customs of the Huron Confederacy and an explanation of why they were defeated by the Iroquois.  Drawing on the research of Bruce Trigger and others, I spoke about a wide range of matters, including Huron attitudes to pets, the political role of women, and sexuality.

Sainte Marie Among the Hurons

My lecture on Friday was about the evolution of social institutions such as the seigneurial system in New France.

A survey I ran through SurveyMonkey indicated that the material presented on Tuesday was the most interesting lecture to date in the class.

HIST 3266: History of the North American West

James Douglas

On Monday, I gave a lecture comparing and contrasting the careers and values of two important figures from British Columbia history, Sir James Douglas and Amor De Cosmos. This lecture dealt with such themes as the evolution of whiteness in gold rush societies, Native-White relations in BC, the role of the Royal Navy, the suppression of slavery in British Columbia, BC’s entry into Confederation, the construction of the CPR, and the campaign for restriction on Chinese immigration. In the lecture I stressed the influence of naval power on the history of Native-White relations in British Columbia.

On Wednesday, our focus shifted to the Prairies with a lecture on Poundmaker, a Plains Cree leader who was imprisoned for his supposed role in the 1885 rising.

Poundmaker

HIST 4135

In my fourth-year seminar on North America in the 1860s, our focus was on economic development in British North America. The students discussed the following secondary sources:

Douglas McCalla, “Upper Canadians and Their Guns: an Exploration via Country Store Accounts, 1808-1861” Ontario History 97 (2005): 121-37.

Peter George and Philip Sworden, “The Courts and the Development of Trade in Upper Canada, 1830-1860” Business History Review 60 (1986): 258-280.

Lawrence H. Officer and Lawrence B. Smith, “The Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty of 1855 to 1866” The Journal of Economic History 28 (1968): 598-623

Peter Baskerville, “Americans in Britain’s Backyard: The Railway Era in Upper Canada, 1850-1880” Business History Review 55 (1981): 314-336

We also discussed this primary source:

Charles John Brydges, Letter from Mr. Brydges in Regard to Trade Between Canada and the Lower Provinces Montreal : [s.n.], 1866.  In this pamphlet, Brydges discussed some of the economic benefits that would result from Confederation and the construction of the Intercolonial Railway.

In addition, we listened to student presentations on the Lives and Times of the following individuals: Isaac Buchanan;  Sir Samuel Cunard;  Charles John Brydges; Walter Shanly.

Honours Thesis Supervision

I also met the fourth-year student whose thesis I am supervising. Her thesis is on George Taylor Denison III (1839 –1925), a Canadian soldier, judge, and Confederate sympathizer.  Denison was one of Toronto’s strongest supporters of the Southern cause during the American Civil War. Denison was later involved in the repelling the Fenian Raids and the suppression of the North-West Rebellion. As a police magistrate in Toronto, Denison was noted for extreme bias in handling of cases: retired British soldiers and wealthy people were treated leniently, but Irish Catholics and Blacks were given harsh sentences. In his old age, Denison became  staunch supporter of Imperial Federation– the idea of giving Canada and other colonies of white settlement representation in the British parliament.

Denison’s colourful career had many aspects any one of which could be the subject of an honours thesis. In the interest of narrowing the research remit down to a manageable topic, the student has decided to focus on Denison’s role in assisting Confederate agents in Canada to raid communities on the other side of the border. During the Civil War, Denison’s farm home, Heydon Villa, on his father’s estate in west Toronto, became a haven for Confederate agents, exiles, and sympathizers and a clearing house for smuggled documents. Denison and his friends attempted to purchase a steamship called the Georgian for use as a Confederate privateer on the Great Lakes.

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Update:

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