The History Of Immigration In Canada

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THE HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION IN CANADA Multiculturalism: Canada is a multicultural nation because Canadians come from many cultural backgrounds and races. This is because all Canadians, including the First Nations people, have ancestors that immigrated to what is now Canada. The History of Immigration in Canada Ten thousand years ago, at the time of the last ice age[1], ancestors of our First Nations people came to Canada from Asia across the frozen Bering Straight. Over hundreds of years they migrated across North America making separate cultures and having different languages and customs. Five hundred years ago Europeans began immigrating to Northern America. The French people settled along the St. Lawrence River, Port Royal(1604) and Quebec City (1608) The fur trade was the main industry. French and British settlers moved to the Maritime provinces. Most of the early immigrants came to Canada from Britain or the United States. Some people of other nationalities came from Europe because of a chance to make money or to get away from dangers in their own countries. In the years before the American Civil War in 1861, thousands of black slaves came to Canada on the Underground Railway looking for freedom [3]. After Canadian Confederation in 1867, thousands of Irish and Chinese people came to build the Canadian Pacific Railway [4]. 6,000 Chinese workers were hired to build the CPR railway. They were paid one dollar per day. Non-Chinese were paid two dollars to two fifty a day.[7] On the west coast of Canada, people from all countries, including China came to join the gold rush [5]. In the early 1900’s farmers from central and eastern Europe moved to the Canadian prairies because they saw advertisements offering free land. The Canadian government wanted to populate the empty prairie lands. The Dominion Lands Act, 1872, gave British and European men 160

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