why is canada not apart of the usa. how did canada exist as a country? click for the detail?

Question

i live in the uk ..yet am not british..anyways..i just got intrested in american history..so while i was thinkin.i wanted to kno how canada exicted.. i kno america went into civil war..but what happend in canada.. just a briefly explain..any help would be apresiated.thnks?

Answer 1

The area that is now Canada was mainly colonized by French settlers from Atlantic to the Great Lakes. During the wars between France and Britain during the 1700s, the Brits won Canada away fromthe French, but the people were still mainly of French origin. So, later when the 13 American colonies revolted, the French people in Canada did not particularly want to be associated with the Americans.

The Americans tried to invade Canada several times and each time the British and Canadians whupped their butts.! Inthe War of 1812, not only did the Americans not manage to capture Canada, but the Canadians actually captured a good part of the Northern New England region of the USA.

Canada was not just a single colony - it actually was at least a couple, maybe more than a couple separate colonies that did not become fully connected together until the 20th century. Actually, I'm not sure that they are totally unified even now..... a good Canadian could answer this - waht about Newfoundland, P.E.I and the western and northern provinces, and the new province of the Inuits???

Answer 2

The answer given by Ravenwolf is spot on. The USA started out as 13 British colonies, dotted along the coast of the atlantic ocean. There were also british colonies formed in Canada too around the same time. When it came down to the 13 colonies wanting to break from Britain, the colonies on the Canada side said they wanted to remain loyal to Britain. Alot of citizens of the 13 colonies that didn't agree with the War of Independence fled and found refuge in Canada. They were called The United Empire Loyalists. Even today, Canada is part of the Commonwealth countries that have very close ties to the British. Canadian history is very cool, but often overlooked in favor of American history, you should check it out!

Answer 3

Canada was established as a British colony, which is similar to the USA. However, Canada did not violently revolt against the British to claim their independence, they gradually became the independent nation that they are today. In fact, there is still a symbolic British presence within Canada, in the form of a Governor General, who is appointed by the British.

Answer 4

Under the Articles of Confederation, which were succeeded by the Constitution, one of the Articles provided that Canada could join the US if it chose to. However, the inhabitants of Canada tended to be strongly loyalist, perhaps because their existence (surrounded by hostile French and Indians) was more dependent upon English support than were the lower colonies, which were more heavily populated and largely independent economically. Efforts to invade Canada and bring it into the rebellion were made but did not succeed. The Article offering Canada membership in the Union was obviously very objectionable to Britain, and all reference to Canada was subsequently omitted from the Constitution.

Answer 5

Canada was asked to join the American war of Independence. When the American Revolution broke out in 1775, George Washington sent two armies north to besiege Quebec City and conquer Canada. In the early morning of December 31, American generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold launched a desperate assault on Quebec. In the future Canada, Mexico, and the U.S, might do what Europe is trying, form one political entity.

Answer 6

Not sure what you mean by "does Sharia Law exist" yes it does and its existence is acknowledged by all countries since it is the main body of law throughout huge areas of the globe (Indonesia to Pakistan, to Iran to Algeria for example). If you mean does any European country use Sharia law either as part of the general law or as the basis for its laws then the answer is no. That said Muslim communities throughout the world have seen the way that certain other religious groups have set up courts of arbitration based on their religious laws (for examples Jewish communities in the UK) and copied this model. These courts are able to address certain specific types of issue but not criminal or statutory issues (e.g. divorce or burglary). The use of such courts is neither discouraged or supported by the relevant state but accepted as it enables people to resolve issues outside of the mainstream legal process which saves both the parties to the issue and relevant state courts quite a bit of money. The decision made by such bodies are binding only to the extent that both parties agree to abide by it. There is nothing to stop one party seeking redress under the relevant national law of the country in which they reside. I would assume that even the USA has similar unofficial arbitration bodies, the Jewish community certainly has them.

Answer 7

Matt, if u are not Canadian I compliment you on what you contributed. More than most non-Canadians could come up with.

Johnny Canuck- You were a comic book at one time where you not? I read your report with great interest. Being from Halifax, I delight in telling tourists how Nova Scotia was invited to the party, but declined. To this day, you can not get a decent cup of tea in Boston. I swear they use harbour water

Answer 8

canada was part of the british empire at one time.
americans tried to invade and conquer canada back in the 1800's and failed!

canada is not a barren wasteland of icebergs and forests! they are a very modern, civilized country, with beautiful cities and a wonderful culture. they have a thriving economy despite the attempted economical bullying by other countries.

they are a very polite, kind-hearted nation, whose people are welcome almost everywhere in the world.

Answer 9

Here is your Canadian historian to answer this.

In one sentence, Canada remained outside the American Union because it was willed so by the British and up until the early/mid twentieth century (when the Americans were not longer interested) the US Navy had no chance of defeating the Royal Navy.

Here's your more detailed answer.

The first permanent European settlement in the area that is now included in the modern state of Canada was settled by the French in the early seventeenth century. This French colony, unlike the British ones to the south was never really intended to be a place to export surplus population but rather as an outpost for France to exploit the resources of the New World and to gain aboriginal converts to Catholicism. As a consequence this colony was quickly dwarfed by it's southern British neighbours and when it was drawn into the conflicts of the European monarchs in the 1750s, it was identified as a target for the British military and their subject militias. It was conquered over the winter of 1760 and incorporated de jure into the British Empire three years later. From that point on, the British military and government identified their new colony of "Quebec" as a tool for their use to manage the explosive growth of the other English speaking colonies. To secure this ability within the colony, the new British military governors of the conquered French guaranteed the position of the Catholic Church, the use of the French language in society, and the maintenance of French Civil Code (governing property, inheritance etc) for their subjects. Now as small as this may seem, it secured a very unexpected level of loyalty among the newly incorporated French subjects. Given this immediately inspired several prominent colonial leaders/politicians to the south to begin to call for British government to properly assimilate these "backwards" papists, the intended effect of move was very quickly engrained.

What was more important to the future evolution of Canada however was what the British government used the Quebec colony for in regards to their aboriginal neighbours. Essentially the British expanded the boundaries of Quebec south through the Ohio country (all the lands west of the Appalacian Mountains) and forbade white settlement in the area. Tired of fighting aboriginal peoples on behalf of their colonists, this was a very clear effort to hem in the expansion minded American colonists and among them this created no small bit of rage at the crown. It was to be one of the first steps towards the rebellion that created the American state.

Now although this British prohibition on white settlement west of the Appalacian mountains never withstood the efforts of the Contiental Congress and Army, the French attachment to the British Crown did. Because Quebec was controlled by English speaking elites with close ties to the British authorities, they continually declined to participate in the efforts of the Continental Congress even prior to talk of independance. Later when the Continental Army came north to incorporate Quebec into their union by force and hopefully eliminate this military beachhead for the British, they weren't so much beaten as starved out. The French citizenry was not inclined to support the cause and therefore would not surrender food or shelter to the continentals and would certainly not accept the newly printed scrip (proto-American dollar of sorts) being offered as payment. With that as the case, the professional British troops in the colony easily drove the continentals out and maintained Quebec as part of the Empire. Given the other northernmost colony of Nova Scotia was also heavily fortified like Quebec was and their elites had close ties to the British authorities, they too were kept out of the American Union although they were present within the Continental Congress prior to the Declaration of Independance.

Where the English part of Canada came from occurred in the aftermath of the American Revolution. When the British military gave up their efforts to hold onto the colonies because of a lack of political will to continue the fighting (an excellent comparison for the British in this war would be the Americans themselves two hundred years later in Viet Nam) the Revolutionaries began a purge of their homelands to root out all those people that had been loyal to the British Crown. As glorious as pop history may want to cast the Revolution, it was in reality a brutal civil war with all sorts of atrocity committed on both sides and the winners wanted to deal with their cause of their acrimony. What this created was a massive refugee crisis where thousands of people were exiled from the new USA. Some went back to Britain, some to the West Indies, but by far and away, the magority went north into new lands opened to west of the French settled areas in Quebec where the British military was offering free land and economic support for the refugees. In the end what this created was two distinct peoples north of the United States both of which felt at best fear of and at worst blinding hatred of the new, highly protestant, highly republican US. Backed up by the British Empire who was not about to have its imperial prestige offended any more by these American "upstarts" these peoples began to flourish and rebuff all the American efforts to incorporate them into the Union including an outright invasion in the summer of 1812 and 1813. When the Royal Navy sent a veteran fleet over the Atlantic in 1814 however to indulge in a punitive expedition against eastern American cities, a new balance of power was set. It was realized that although the Americans could take away Canada from the British if they put a solid effort in, their eastern cities (New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Charleston) were almost undefensible against the might of the Royal Navy. Again, It was largely for that reason that Canada exists today as a separate entity from the Republic of the United States.

Over time the colonies to the north of the US evolved and grew. In 1867 three of them (The Colony of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia) unified into an experimental government form in the empire they called a Dominion which was completely self governing in domestic affairs. In 1870 the commercial possessions of the Hudson's Bay Company were annexed into this Dominion and brought this dominion's boundaries to the Rocky Mountains. The following year the Pacific gold mining colony of British Columbia was incorporated as well, and was followed in 1872 by the small Atlantic colony of Prince Edward Island. The martime north (the Artic archipelago) was transferred from nominal British authority to nominal Canadian in 1888, and finally in 1949 the colony of Newfoundland became the latest addition to Canada. In each case, these moves were made as a result of a decline in British will to exercise direct authority over North American politics which co-incided with a thawing of the Anglo-American relationship and even the development of the English speaking nations friendship that we have today.

Hope that helped and didn't bore you.

Answer 10

i am told they have local ISD lines.