1867 & All That

S2 Episode 17 The Quebec Conference

We are heading to Quebec this week to drink more champagne, dance the night away, and spend hour after hour in conference meetings. There will be plenty of debate over pragmatic issues like the composition of the Senate and the House of Commons. But there will also be a lot of shared assumptions, little-debated and cherished all the more for it, about the desire to stay British even as the delegates created a new nation. Oh, and not to be American too!

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S2 Episode 16 Charlottetown Here We Come

We're off on board the Canadian steamer Queen Victoria this week as the Canadians crash the Maritime Union party at Charlottetown. We'll drink a fair bit of champagne, eat more than our share of oysters, and watch as the British North Americans decide that political matrimony might not be such a bad thing after all. 

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S2 Episode 15 The Maritime Prelude

Southern Confederate pirates bring the American civil war into Nova Scotian waters and we meet the pugnacious Charles Tupper who isn't afraid to use British cannons to fend off the threat. We are also introduced to an overly ambitious British Governor who historians love to chuckle over, and Sandford Fleming - the famous surveyor who comes east on his snowshoes with a message of goodwill and railway hope. Then we tag along on the rum-soaked  'Big Intercolonial Drink' - the warmup party to the Charlottetown conference, where D'Arcy McGee decides that what everyone needs is one big game of leapfrog.

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S2 Episode 14 - The Confusing Case of New Brunswick

This week we begin in utter confusion - trying to figure out just exactly when New Brunswick achieved responsible government. There is, though, more familiar territory - about imperial economic preferences - and the seemingly always present scenarios of religious violence between Protestants and Catholics. Finally we meet Leonard Tilley, the most important and interesting political figure you might not have heard about. By the end of the episode, we're about ready to join back up with the Canadians again to pick up the story of the march towards British North American union.

If you like what you're hearing and want to support the podcast, please head on over to our Patreon page where, for only $5/month, you can become a real-life patron of the arts - and keep 1867 & All That online in perpetuity. It's kind of like making history. https://www.patreon.com/1867andAllThat  

 

S2 Episode 13 - An Island With a Lottery Problem

A London lottery creates more than 100 years of grumbling conflict on Prince Edward Island. We meet William Cooper who comes up with a too clever-by-half scheme to scoop the landlords from their properties. Then it's on to George Coles and responsible government. And finally we have a dash of Protestant-Catholic identity politics - because what episode would be complete without that savoury spice?

If you like what you're hearing and want to support the podcast, please head on over to our Patreon page where, for only $5/month, you can become a real-life patron of the arts - and keep 1867 & All That online in perpetuity. It's kind of like making history. https://www.patreon.com/1867andAllThat  

S2 Episode 12 - Newfoundland at Last

We're in Newfoundland this week so we are of course talking cod - and seals. But we also have a violent election in 1861 that involved an interfering Catholic Bishop, a British Governor behaving improperly, and troops firing on riotous crowds. Then there is a fight over something called The French Shore. 

If you like what you're hearing and want to support the podcast, please head on over to our Patreon page where, for only $5/month, you can become a real-life patron of the arts - and keep 1867 & All That online in perpetuity. It's kind of like making history. https://www.patreon.com/1867andAllThat 

S2 Episode 11 - George Brown Falls in Love

George Brown takes a British holiday and falls in love. He comes back a changed man - sort of. In Canada, it's another round of wack-a-mole and governments are the mole. Sandfield Macdonald loses power only to get it back, only to lose it again, only to have Macdonald and Brown come into power and lose it themselves within two months. It's at that moment that the newlywed George Brown steps forward to say: 'Hold my beer'.

If you like what you're hearing and want to support the podcast, please head on over to our Patreon page where, for only $5/month, you can become a real-life patron of the arts - and keep 1867 & All That online in perpetuity. It's kind of like making history. https://www.patreon.com/1867andAllThat 

S2 Episode 10 - Macdonald vs Macdonald

A drunken John A Macdonald and his government collapse over their plan to bolster Canadian defence in the midst of the American civil war. Then another John Macdonald - John Sandfield Macdonald - creates a government built on the idea of the Double Majority. We have another religiously divisive murder - this one over runaway chickens no less - and then a fight about the creation of publicly funded Catholic schools. At the end, another government falls because... why wouldn't it?!

If you like what you're hearing and want to support the podcast, please head on over to our Patreon page where, for only $5/month, you can become a real-life patron of the arts - and keep 1867 & All That online in perpetuity. It's kind of like making history. https://www.patreon.com/1867andAllThat 

S2 Episode 9 - War in America

The Americans decide to fight a civil war over slavery and Britain and British North America discover that this is going to shape their future too. For instance, what happens when an American naval captain decides to board the British ship Trent and take two Confederate diplomats hostage? Did this mean war? We have all of this plus more, including Rep by Pop updates, a controversial census, and George Brown losing an election and deciding to take a vacation (which is more important than it might first seem).

If you like what you're hearing and want to support the podcast, please head on over to our Patreon page where, for only $5/month, you can become a real-life patron of the arts - and keep 1867 & All That online in perpetuity. It's kind of like making history. https://www.patreon.com/1867andAllThat 

S2 Episode 8 - This Prince Ain’t For Walkin

Queen Victoria sends her teenage son (and aristocratic chaperone, the Duke of Newcastle) on a North American tour and the Canadians get a little over-excited. The Prince lands (and sometimes doesn't land) amidst the religious rivalries and the complications created by the exuberant supporters of the Orange Order. But first, we review where we are so far in the history of the Canadas at the end of the 1850s, as a sort of preamble to our push towards confederation.

 

If you like what you're hearing and want to support the podcast, please head on over to our Patreon page where, for only $5/month, you can become a real-life patron of the arts - and keep 1867 & All That online in perpetuity. It's kind of like making history. https://www.patreon.com/1867andAllThat