Unit 1
Preindustrial Economies, 1763 to 1850s

This unit looks at how people living in the region now known as Canada earned their livings between 1763, the year Britain conquered New France, and the 1850s. During this period, northern North America was not an industrial nation. Most people did not work for wages; very few people worked in factories or in other large manufactory settings. Most people lived in rural areas where they ensured their own and their families’ survival by participating in activities such as hunting, gathering, trading, farming, and fishing.

This unit focuses on the three types of livelihoods that were commonly available to workers in Canada between 1763 and 1850:

• fur trading in western Canada,
• farming in Atlantic Canada, and
• canal building along the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Objectives

After completing Unit 1, you should be able to

1. explain how ethnicity encouraged workers in the fur trade between 1770 and 1821, and those involved in canal building in Upper Canada during the 1840s, to form bonds of solidarity.
2. describe how paternalism affected relationships in the fur trade in Montreal between 1770 and 1821.
3. describe how and why farmers in the northeastern Maritimes incorporated waged labour into their livelihoods between 1800 and 1850.
4. describe how ideals of masculinity and femininity affected working conditions and opportunities in the Montreal fur trade between 1770 and 1821 and in the job markets in the northeastern Maritimes between 1800 and 1850.
5. explain how the state reacted to the Irish canal labourers’ struggles to achieve better working conditions in Upper Canada during the 1840s.