Canada’s Dominion Lands Act encouraged immigrant farmers to settle in the recently acquired western part of the country. It was modeled after the U.S. Homestead Act of 1862, but it was less successful than the latter act in attracting immigrant settlers and increasing agricultural production until close to the turn of the twentieth century.
The Dominion Lands Act of 1872 was intended to attract settlers to a large area in western Canada formerly known as Rupert’s Land. In 1670, Charles II
Accordingly, Sir John Alexander Macdonald, minister of militia affairs for the Province of Canada, drafted the British North American Act, which was passed by the British parliament in 1867. This act created the Dominion of Canada, which included Ontario
The province of Manitoba
The law was designed to help populate Canada’s western prairies and dramatically to increase agricultural productivity. It provided that any head of household or male at least eighteen years old who paid a ten dollar fee could have 160 acres of free land, provided the homesteader resided there for three years, kept at least thirty acres under cultivation, and built a permanent dwelling. The act also established the Dominion Lands Survey, which divided the territory into square townships made up of thirty-six sections of 640 acres each, which were then subdivided into the 160-acre quarter-section farms. Dominion Lands policy also stipulated that the Hudson’s Bay Company would retain title to about 10 percent of the land, that a large amount of land would be given to the Canadian Pacific
The provisions of the Dominion Lands Act of 1872 closely paralleled those of the U.S. Homestead Act of 1862
There were several reasons for the fact that immigration to western Canada was slower than that to the plains of the United States. Canada experienced an economic recession that began shortly after the confederation of the country, and there was much more frost-free land available in the United States. The U.S. transcontinental railroad
In addition, when the Canadian Pacific
Ironically, one of the main reasons for the Canadian government’s very limited success in populating its western plains was the promotional campaign that was designed to encourage settlement. The advertisements in this campaign depicted the area as being so rich in resources, including water, wood, gold, silver, and fertile soil, that an utterly inexperienced farmer could realize a profit starting in the first year that would continue to increase thereafter. The unrealistic, romanticized vision of homesteading life presented in these ads even portrayed the cold climate as beneficial, because the water freezing in the ground would expand and break up the soil without the need for tilling.
Thus, many settlers wooed by these advertisements started their farms completely unprepared to deal with the real challenges and hardships of farming in the Canadian West. Typically, water had to be hauled long distances daily. There was no wood for construction or fuel, so cow or buffalo dung was used for cooking and heating, and homes built from sod were damp, insect- and worm-infested, and poorly insulated from the cold. Protectionist tariffs
As a result of all of these factors, the increase in wheat prices during the early 1880’s created an enormous upsurge in the homesteading population of the United States, but there was very little corresponding growth in Canada. After 1896, new dry-farming techniques and more rapidly maturing varieties of wheat resulted in a dramatic increase in Canadian homesteaders and wheat production.
By 1930, when the repeal of the Dominion Lands Act ended Canadian homesteading, the goals of Prime Minister Macdonald’s National Policy had been achieved. After 1896, when much of the prime land on the prairies of the United States was exhausted, the Canadian West saw a tremendous increase in immigration that populated all of what had once been Rupert’s Land and made Canada a unified nation whose borders stretched from coast to coast. Thriving towns and cities were created, and unprecedented economic growth was experienced, as Canada became one of the leading wheat producers in the world.
In addition, this influx of settlers into Canada during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included many immigrants from the United States, western Europe, and other parts of the world. The result was the cultural transformation of Canada into the nation of significant ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity that it is today.
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Richardson, Heather Cox. The Greatest Nation on Earth: Republican Economic Policies During the Civil War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. An examination of the domestic policy agenda in the United States during and following the U.S. Civil War, including the Homestead Act of 1862, the Union Pacific Railroad Act, antislavery legislation, and the Land Grant College Act. -
Rollings-Magnusson, Sandra. “Canada’s Most Wanted: Pioneer Women on the Western Prairies.” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 37, no. 2 (2000): 223-238. Discuses Canada’s National Policy, which was designed to encourage immigration to western Canada during the late nineteenth century with an emphasis on the important contributions of women in the settlements. -
Swainger, Jonathan. The Canadian Department of Justice and the Completion of Confederation, 1867-1878. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2000. Shows how the Department of Justice, created by Prime Minister Sir John Alexander Macdonald to reform the criminal justice system, came to be very influential in creating the National Policy.
Search for the Northwest Passage
Irish Immigration to Canada
Upper and Lower Canada Unite
Fraser River Gold Rush Begins
Lincoln Signs the Homestead Act
Lincoln Signs the Morrill Land Grant Act
British North America Act
Ukrainian Mennonites Begin Settling in Canada
Canada Forms the North-West Mounted Police
Supreme Court of Canada Is Established
Macdonald Returns as Canada’s Prime Minister
Immigrant Farmers Begin Settling Western Canada
Sir John Alexander Macdonald.