Introduction: British North America’s Global Age

The Wednesday, October 10, 1838 issue of the Quebec Gazette included news from the United States, the West Indies, the Maritime colonies (known as the “Lower Provinces”), Upper Canada, and Great Britain. In addition to reporting on these locales – some further afar than others – the Gazette also reproduced state documents such as Proclamations, Ordinances, and Correspondence alongside Petitions, Addresses, and Replies that engaged and, in some instances, enraged colonists. A list of passengers identified by name those new to the colony and noted the arrival of the governor general’s “bearer of dispatches,” W. H. F. Cavendish. Advertisements filled nearly two pages, tempting colonists to loosen their purse strings to spend money on furs, farms, or pairs of rubber shoes from India.¹ The local, colonial, imperial, and global news reported in just this single issue of the Quebec Gazette shares much with this themed section on British North America: both remind us that the history of British North America, and in particular Lower Canada, was part of a much larger international history.² By reading publications like the Quebec Gazette – or hearing them read – the residents of British North America could keep abreast of European political events, follow the latest trends in art, fashion, and literature, and stay on top of both the major developments and daily minutiae of imperial and colonial governance. In this society, public life was increasingly defined by the circulation of people, capital, commodities, and ideas. Any suspicion that the people of British North America lived in quiet isolation from the debates and conflicts remaking the world around them can be vigorously tossed aside with a cursory glance at the Quebec Gazette. From the wealthiest merchants and most well-connected public officials to the dockworkers and tenant farmers, the residents of British North America were contentious, mobile, and cosmopolitan.

This themed section on British North America is rooted in a conversation that we had in Toronto in May 2011. Weeks earlier we had each discovered that we had been awarded Post Doctoral Fellowships at the L. R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University. The Wilson Institute, under the direction of H. V. Nelles, is tasked with “rethinking Canadian History within a globalization framework.”³ This mandate encouraged us to organize a workshop designed to “foster an informed and constructive dialogue on the state of the historical literature relating to British North America, its ties to the larger world, and to consider how such scholarship has transformed how we think about and teach the history of British North America.”⁴

We felt this exercise to be both timely and necessary. The previous decade and a half had seen the publication of several titles that urged historians to reconsider the national framework that had dominated our understanding of this period for several generations. Discussions around issues as diverse as gender politics, governance, colonial autonomy, Aboriginal resistance, migration, and the environment were reinvigorated by the adoption of global or transnational perspectives. Thinking through the ways that policies and practices being implemented in British North America resembled those being adopted in other colonial societies added nuance and depth to our understanding of the politics and culture of our period. Engaging with colleagues working on similar problématiques in places like New Zealand, India, the Caribbean, and South Africa pushed us towards dynamic new interpretations of figures and events once dismissed as being stale. Meanwhile, the world in which historians work was in the midst of being transformed. The digitization of certain archival materials presented historians with a myriad of possibilities and challenges unimaginable only a few decades before. Finally, political and technological developments had changed the way in which historians interact with each other and with the communities where we live, teach, write, and research.

With these transformations in mind, we convened at the Wilson Institute in May 2012. Ten historians from across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom presented papers in a lively workshop.⁵ Much time was left for debate and discussion, which was both provocative and constructive throughout the two days we...