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| 1856, June 24 |
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| The Legislative Council, hitherto appointed, was made elective. | 1 |
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| 1857 |
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| Discovery of gold in Vancouver attracted a variety of new ethnic groups to the area, including Mexicans and Chinese as well as Europeans. | 2 |
| The Canadian legislature passed the Act for the Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes in the Canadas, which included forced removal of Indians from the path of European settlement. | 3 |
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| 1858, Aug. 2 |
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| British Columbia, having been withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Hudson's Bay Company, was given separate administration. | 4 |
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| 1850–60 |
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| Hugh Allan (1810–82), president of the Montreal Board of Trade (1851–54), was considered the leading financier and industrialist of the period. He formed the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company in 1854 and held investments in the Cornwall Woolen Manufacturing Company, the Montreal Rolling Mills, and the Canada Paper Company. | 5 |
| Women and girls soon made up over a third of Montreal's industrial labor force. They made up a majority of workers in the garment and tobacco industries. | 6 |
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| 1861 |
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| The final Nova Scotia peace treaty with the Micmacs failed to deal with the land rights of Indians. | 7 |
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| 1866 |
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| Beginning of the Fenian (Irish-American) raids, designed to bring pressure on the British government in favor of Ireland. Fenians from Buffalo seized Fort Erie (June 1), but were driven out. Other raids took place from Vermont, and Fenian troubles continued to some extent until 1871. | 8 |
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| 1867, March 29 |
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| BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT united Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia in the Dominion of Canada (effective on July 1). The movement for confederation was the result of growing difficulty in the government of United Canada (religious and racial differences, problems of representation), as well as of economic (especially railway) considerations and military (defense) problems in the American Civil War period. The movement began in the Maritime Provinces (Charlottetown conference, Sept. 1864), but expanded almost at once (Quebec convention, Oct. 10–28, 1864, in which all provinces were represented). The 72 Quebec resolutions became the basis for the act of confederation. They provided for a federal government and provincial governments, a federal Parliament of two houses (the Senate consisting of 24 members each from Ontario, Quebec, and a third division comprising Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; and an elected lower house). Representatives of the provinces conferred with imperial authorities in London (Dec. 1866) and drew up the London resolutions, which were transformed into the final act. | 9 |
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| 1867–68 |
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| Lord Monck, first governor-general. (Sir) John A. Macdonald was first premier of the Dominion. | 10 |
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| 1868, Dec. 29 |
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| Sir John Young (Lord Lisgar) was appointed governor-general (1868–72). | 11 |
| “Canada First” movement was initiated with a small group of intellectuals in memory of the parliamentarian D'Arcy McGee. The movement emphasized the “Aryan origins” of Canada and attacked the Indians and Métis as inferior elements in Canadian culture and history. | 12 |
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| 1869, Nov. 19 |
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| THE DOMINION PURCHASED THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES from the Hudson's Bay Company for $1,500,000. The company retained one-twentieth of the land. The territories were taken over in 1870. | 13 |
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| 1869–70 |
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| RED RIVER REBELLION. The multiracial Métis, led by Louis Riel (1844–85) near Fort Garry (Winnipeg), were irritated chiefly by the belief that surveys being made were to rob them of their land. They set up a provisional government (Nov. 1869) with Riel as president; in their expedition from Portage Laprairie, they were defeated and captured (Feb. 1870). Thomas Scott (Orangeman) was executed (March), and great indignation was aroused in Ontario. The rebels were dispersed without a blow before the advance of an expedition under Col. Garnet (later Lord) Wolseley. Their actions nonetheless led to the Manitoba Act (1870), which extended provincial status to the region. | 14 |
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| 1871, July 1 |
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| British Columbia joined the Dominion. | 15 |
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