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5. The Immigration Boom 1895-1914
From Canadian History Portal - HCO
| C. Demand For Change →→ 1. Our Struggle for Rights →→ 2. Industry and Labour →→ 3. The Canadian Industrial Boom →→ 4. Gold and Imperial Adventure →→ →→ 5. The Immigration Boom 1895-1914 →→ 6. The New West 1885-1905 →→ D. World War I |
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The New Face of Canada
The worldwide depression that began in 1873 had severely curtailed immigration to Canada. In economically poor times, people tend to hold onto what they have and are far less likely to take the leap of faith required to move to a new land. As a result, in the ten years after 1881, Canada's population grew by less than 25%. In the decade of the 1880s, more Canadians went to the United States than Americans came to Canada.
However, all that changed in the 1890s. Between 1890 and 1910, Canada's population increased by almost 70%. Between 1896 and the outbreak of World War One in 1914, more than 2.5 million people immigrated to Canada. And in the first two decades of the twentieth century, Canada's total population skyrocketed from 5.4 million to 10.4 million.
The growth was most remarkable in the west. Saskatchewan saw its population grow from 91 000 in 1901 to 492 432 by 1911 to make it the third most populated province of Canada. Manitoba increased its population from 152 000 in 1891 to 554 000 in 1916. B.C.'s population skyrocketed from 98 000 to 456 000. In 1891 there were fewer than 100 000 people living between Manitoba and British Columbia; a quarter of century later, there were more than one million.
Immigration to Canada prior to World War One completely altered the face of Canada. It had a number of important economic effects. It helped complete Macdonald's National Policy. It led to fuller utilization of the CPR and the new Canadian Northern Railway. It helped fashion the Prairies as both the "breadbasket of Canada as well as a domestic market. Politically and geographically, it led to the creation of two new provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, in 1905. Demographically, the immigrant influx was tremendous, almost doubling Canada's population to over ten million by the end of WW I. Socially, as well, the coming of immigrants in such great numbers forced Canada to come to grips with a more multicultural vision and identity of itself.
The chart below shows the number of immigrants that came to Canada in the twenty-five years prior to the outbreak of World War One.
Immigration to Canada, 1890-1914
| Years | Number of Immigrants |
|---|---|
| 1890 | 75 067 |
| 1891 | 82 165 |
| 1892 | 30 996 |
| 1893 | 29 633 |
| 1894 | 20 829 |
| 1895 | 18 790 |
| 1896 | 16 835 |
| 1897 | 21 716 |
| 1898 | 31 900 |
| 1899 | 44 543 |
| 1900 | 41 681 |
| 1901 | 55 747 |
| 1902 | 89 102 |
| 1903 | 138 600 |
| 1904 | 131 252 |
| 1905 | 141 465 |
| 1906 | 211 653 |
| 1907 | 272 409 |
| 1908 | 143 326 |
| 1909 | 173 694 |
| 1910 | 286 839 |
| 1911 | 331 288 |
| 1912 | 375 756 |
| 1913 | 400 870 |
| 1914 | 150 484 |
Push Factors in the Immigration Boom
When demographers study immigration patterns, they separate the causal factors into two categories, push and pull factors. Push factors are those things that are encourage people to leave their homeland, while pull factors are those causes that are attract them to their new land.
A number of push factors exerted a strong influence on prospective immigrants. The net outflow of immigration that Canada experienced to the United States in the 1880s was dramatically reversed. In part that was due to the American belief that the good, arable land had all been taken. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner delivered a highly influential paper to the 1893 meeting of the American Historical Society in which he declared that 'the frontier' had closed up. As a result, American immigrants were 'pushed' out and came to north to Canada in record numbers.
Push factors in Europe exerted an even more powerful influence. Perceived land shortage, as in the United States, was one factor that led prospective European immigrants to look elsewhere. There was overcrowding, not just in European cities, but also in the countryside as well as generation after generation had to work ever-diminishing plots of land. Religious discrimination and persecution drove a number of Europeans to consider leaving the continent. So too did the looming threat of war as the nations of Europe appeared powerless to halt their inexorable slide into armed conflict.
Pull Factors
As significant as were the push factors, probably the pull factors drawing immigrants to Canada were even greater. The Dominion Lands Act was a powerful inducement to immigration. Indeed, this was probably the single greatest incentive. Under the Act, the government gave free land, a quarter section, to newly arriving immigrants. (They had to pay a $10 registration fee and reside on the land for three years.) For land-hungry Europeans, this virtual gift of 160 acres was, almost by itself, enough to convince them to take the chance and come to Canada. It was beyond their wildest dreams.
Another pull factor was the economic and social opportunity that the relatively new nation of Canada offered. There was an absence of the rigid social classes of Europe. Instead there was both social and physical freedom of movement. In Canada, people could rise economically through luck, hard work, and determination. They could chose to settle anywhere they wanted. They could vote. They could practise and worship their religion freely. Truly, Canada was a land of opportunity and freedom, especially when compared to the rigidity and harshness of Europe.
The Canadian government itself offered some important pull factors attracting prospective immigrants. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was completed in November 1885. That meant that immigrants could travel west easier and faster and that their produce could do the same traveling to eastern markets. The federal government had concluded a number of signed treaties with the aboriginal peoples. By creating reservations for them, it opened up land for the incoming settlers. In the early 1870s, Ottawa had created the Royal North West Mounted Police which established law and order on the Prairies.
Marquis Wheat and Mechanized Farming
In the early 1900s, Charles Saunders, a plant breeder apppointed "Dominion Cerealist", worked rigorously to strain crosses of rust resistant Red Fife and Hard Red Calcutta wheat. In 1907 he tested a new frost-resistant strain he called Marquis at Indian Head, Saskatchewan. It matured much faster than Red Fife, and the shorter growing season meant farmers could grow the more valuable grain farther north. By 1910, over 2000 local farmers in were growing wheat where it not had been grown before.
Marquis proved to be a sensation, and the Canadian wheat harvest soon tripled. By 1920, 90% of the entire Prairie wheat crop was Marquis. Farmers opened up thousands more hectares of land, and new mechanical tractors and threshers boosted production further.
As the global depression disappeared, the demand for Canadian wheat soared, but so did supply, In 1900, the value of Canadian wheat exports was $6 million. By 1915, it was $45 million. Saunders had helped open the Prairies to large scale wheat farming, and Sifton's promoters were now describing Western Canada as "The Breadbasket of Empire."
Clifford Sifton
However, perhaps the most significant pull factor was Clifton Sifton, Laurier's Minister of the Interior. No single person was more responsible for the immigration wave than was he. He tirelessly promoted Canada through a number of ingenuous methods. He dispatched hundreds of immigrant promoters who made speeches extolling the virtues of Canada. He paid bonuses and negotiated deals with shipping lines to obtain greatly reduced rates for immigrants. He coined the memorable slogan, 'the Last Best West' which painted an idyllic picture of Canada. He placed advertisements in more than 6 000 newspapers in Europe and the United States. Free tours were given to American newspapermen to see all that Canada had to offer. In all, Sifton and his department spent more than one million dollars in their effort to attract immigrants.
Initially, Sifton and his agents sought immigrants from the British Isles, thinking that they would have the least problem adapting and also brought the additional advantage of helping to distinguish Canada from its southern neighbour. That strategy proved to be unsuccessful as many of the British immigrants found life too difficult in Canada, and many left to return home or migrated south to the U.S.
Sifton therefore changed his thinking. British immigrants had proven not to be ideal. He desperately wanted immigrants with farming experience who also had some familiarity with the rough climate on Canada's Prairies. His new ideal immigrant was best captured in his own words. 'I think a stalwart peasant in sheepskin coat, born on the soil whose forefathers have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half a dozen children, is good quality.'
With this change of direction, Sifton and his overseas agents began recruiting immigrants from the Ukraine, Gallacia, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Scandinavia. Sifton discouraged immigrants from southern Europe or the Orient, believing that a familiarity with the Prairie climate was vital for future success.
This powerful combination of push and pull factors induced over two and a half million people between 1896 and 1914 to take the greatest chance of their lives, to endure the arduous trans-Atlantic voyage, and to face the uncertainties of a new future in a new land. The push factors - high unemployment, over-crowding, high taxes, land scarcity, religious persecution, and looming political and military unrest - coupled with the pull factors - free land, Sifton's advertising campaign, and religious and political freedom made for an unbeatable combination.
Optimism & Reality
As desirable, if not idyllic, as the advertising posters made the new land to be, seen from the newcomer's perspective, the immigrant experience was an exceedingly harsh and difficult one. Initially, there was the struggle over the actual decision to leave their homeland and try to adapt to the new ways of a strange, new land. Then there were the organizational problems of once having made the decision to leave, to get everything arranged for departure. Then there was the emotional difficulty, sometimes felt later when they were in Canada, of disconnecting themselves from family, friends, and routines. Next came the arduous trans-Atlantic voyage during which, because of unscrupulous ship owners, they were crowded together in cramped, uncomfortable conditions for many days. Upon arrival, there were often indignities of immigration and health officials who presented them with a battery of questions in an incomprehensible language. If they received medical clearance, and if they had sufficient money, the next stage in the journey was to board a train for a long transcontinental trip by rail.
Some remained at the transportation mecca of Winnipeg while others continued on through the seemingly endless stretch of prairie land. Once they arrived at their final destination, they were given their lot number, general directions, and some basic supplies. Imagine their initial impressions when they first laid eyes on their new land. It was nothing like what had been pictured in the posters! Many immigrants must have felt a welter of emotions - relief, fear, anxiety, satisfaction, and anticipation.
With a high sense of optimism and a grueling schedule, the family settled down to establish their new home. There were a seemingly endless number of tasks. But one of the most important was to build a home. (Many of the first ones were built out of sod, the most available material close at hand.) †Then they had to clear the land of rocks and stones and try to put in the first crop which necessitated ploughing and seeding.
The first year was extremely tiring for the newcomers. They had to endure the physical surroundings. Their first winter was a severe surprise, with lots of snow, very low temperatures, and lasting many months long. They had to adapt quickly and learn many new skills necessary to keep a farm running efficiently. They faced serious financial problems having to deal with the CPR and the banks. They experienced a profound sense of isolation and homesickness. Normally, they lived far from neighbours and had to be totally self-sufficient in order to survive. Then there were the problems of trying to fit in. The language, customs, holidays, and lifestyle were all very different from what they were used to. And the outside community, once they began to interact with it, was not very accepting or tolerant.
Asian Immigration & Racism
Most Anglo-Canadians saw the newcomers, especially those from central and eastern Europe, as strange and peculiar. They simply appeared too different in terms of their clothes, holidays, religion, language, food, and customs. They were just too different. Sometimes they were ignored; sometimes there was open discrimination.
Immigrants from Asia fared worse. Sometimes there was outright violence, as in an anti-Chinese riot in Calgary on August 2, 1892. British Columbia received most of the Asian newcomers, and an Asiatic Exclusion League was founded by people concerned that immigrants would cost jobs, lower wages, and not be able to be integrated.
By the turn of the century, eleven percent of BC's population was Oriental. The first Far Eastern immigrants had come to Canada as navvies to work on the most dangerous parts of the building of the transcontinental railway. Fifteen thousand Chinese workers risked their lives constructing the railway through the western mountain passes where it was said one died for every kilometer of track laid - nearly seven hundred in total.
In 1886, Chinese workers were no longer needed to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the Canadian government imposed a 'head tax' of $50 to discourage more immigrants from China to the west coast. From 1886 to 1894, 12,197 Chinese people immigrated to Canada, and paid the tax; between 1895 and 1904, this figure grew to 32,457 people. In 1901, responding to public pressure about a contuining influx of Chinese, Ottawa doubled the head tax to $100, and three years later, raised it to $500. It was a large sum at a time when the average production worker in Canada took home only $417 in annual wages.
Despite the astronomical figure, Chinese immigration continued to rise during the early years of the century, reaching a record of 7 500 in 1913. However, after that point, the discriminatory 'head tax' had the desired effect as Chinese immigration virtually ceased after World War One.
The Immigration Act of 1910 also gave the Cabinet the authority to exclude "immigrants belonging to any race deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada." The cabinet soon passed an order requiring immigrants of Asiatic origin to have $200 in cash at the time of landing.
On July 1, 1923, Ottawa replaced the head tax by passing the Chinese Immigration Act [Exclusion Act], which barred Chinese immigrants from the country altogether. This caused great hardship, since more than 90% of the Chinese men in Canada were bachelors and the law would not allow the men to date or marry non-Chinese women. Thousands of families were separated for decades until the Exclusion Act was repealed in 1947.
Between 1885 and 1923, Canada collected $23 million from over 80,000 Chinese immigrants, the equivalent today of about $1 billion.
Japanese Exclusionism
The first wave of Japanese people immigrated to Canada between 1877 and 1908. These were mostly young, literate men, who came via Hawaii to work as fishermen or lumbermen along the Pacific coast of British Columbia. They also settled in the Fraser Valley and parts of Alberta.
By the early 1900s, Japanese immigration had soared to unprecedented levels, and some West Coast whites started to feel alarm that the Japanese had become a threat to B.C.'s security. After Japan's crushing victory over Russia in the RussoJapanese War (19045), a growing number of Canadians regarded Japanese immigrants as loyal first to Japan, and eager to further that country's expansionist aims. Articles warning about the Japanese "invasion appeared in the newspapers, and the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council demanded measures to stem the rising immigrant tide.
The Vancouver Riot of 1907
In the early 1900s, many Canadians on the west coast were alarmed by the increase in Asian immigration, and wanted the "brown invasion to stop. Workers in particular felt that the Indians, Japanese and Chinese coming to Canada would work for lower wages, and take over their jobs in factories, mills and lumber yards.
In 1907, Vancouver was in an economic slump. Unemployed whites were competing with the Chinese and Japanese for work. The alarm came to a head in early September, when the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway said it was planning to import thousands of Japanese labourers to work on the completion of the railway's western leg. Japanese immigration to B.C had risen substantially from 4 000 in 1905, and over 2,300 Japanese had arrived in the province in July alone.
That summer, the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council formed the racist Asiatic Exclusion League. On September 8, the League organized a giant anti-immigration rally at city hall to protest against giving jobs to Asian immigrants. After a series of inflammatory anti-Asian speeches about the "yellow peril", the rally degenerated into a riot when a youth threw a rock through the window of a Chinese store. A mob of 7 000 people marched through the streets of downtown Vancouver, smashing windows and destroying signs on Oriental businesses. In Chinatown, they looted and burned thousands of dollars worth of Chinese property.
Prime Minister Laurier publicly apologized for the incident, and sent William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Deputy Minister of Labour, to Vancouver to hold a one-man Royal Commission of enquiry into the riots.
In his report, King agreed to award about $26,000 to Chinese businesses and $9,000 to the Japanese community in damages. He also recommended that companies should be prohibited from importing contract labour, and that immigration from India and Japan should be discouraged.
In late 1907, King also entered into an unofficial "gentleman's agreement" with the United States to start limiting the number of Japanese people emigrating from America to Canada. Shortly after, he secretly negotiated with the Japanese government, which also wanted to curtail emigration from Japan. Japan and Canada agreed that no more than 450 people of Japanese origin could enter Canada each year. In practice, however, far fewer Japanese immigrants were allowed into Canada than this agreed-on quota number.
The Komagata Maru Affair of 1914
Canada could and did take steps to control Japanese and Chinese immigration through open exclusion laws or agreements. But in the case of Indian immigrants, Canada could not target Indians directly, because India was part of the British Empire. And London had warned the Canadians to avoid inflaming nationalist fervour in India.
But Canada found other ingenious ways to block immigration from India. In 1907 the Laurier government made Indian immigration unattractive by passing several bills limiting the civil rights of Indians. Indians were not allowed the right to vote, to hold public office, to serve on juries, or practise as pharmacists, lawyers, and accountants.
In 1908 Ottawa passed an amendment to the Immigration Act known as the "continuous-journey regulation." All would-be immigrants now had to come to Canada by "continuous passage" from their country of origin or citizenship on a through-ticket purchased in that country, They also had to enter with at least $200 cash on their persons. The regulation seemed seemed fair and applicable to all immigrants, with no mention or race or nationality. But it was clearly aimed at Indians, because at the same time the Canadian government forced Canadian Pacific to stop its lucrative shipping line between Vancouver and Calcutta. The regulation also closed the door on the Hawaii route for Japanese immigration.
In 1914, Gurdit "Bagga" Singh Sarhali, a wealthy Sikh labour contractor living in Hong Kong, decided to challenge the continuous journey regulation. He chartered a Japanese tramp coal steamer, the Komagata Maru, and began selling tickets. He was soon arrested by the Hong Kong police for illegally selling tickets for an illegal voyage, but on March 24, 1914, the governor of Hong Kong released him from custody and granted him leave to sail to Canada.
The Komagata Maru left Hong Kong on April 4. When the ship stopped in Shanghai on April 8, a German cable company sent a message to the German press announcing the departure of the steamer Komagata Maru from Shanghai for Vancouver with "400 Indians on board". The Vancouver Province picked up the story and published it under the headlines, "Boat Loads of Hindus on Way to Vancouver and "Hindu Invasion of Canada".
On May 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru reached Vancouver and anchored in English Bay. On board were 376 Punjabis, including 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims and 12 Hindus. Among them were 20 returning British Columbia residents. All of them were British subjects (as Canadians were) and all had valid British passports. The Indian community was waiting with a "Shore Committee" of lawyers, with money and other provisions ready to help the passengers. But the Canadian authorities claimed the ship had violated the exclusionist law, and did not let any passengers leave the boat. Hired immigration boats with armed guards circled Komagata Maru. No one was permitted to go ashore, with the exception of the 20 returning residents and the ship's doctor and his family.
In an affort to weaken their resolve, Canadian Immigration Inspector Reid did not allow supplies to be taken to the passengers. For weeks the vessel lay in harbour, its human cargo deprived of food and water. Finally, on 20 June, the passengers' committee agreed to a test case before an Immigration Board of Enquiry in return for allowing the starving passengers to be supplied.
In the meantime, Gurdit Singh and the Shore Committee had raised $5000 for legal bills, and another $20,000 to pay the Japanese ship owners to keep the ship in the harbour. "We are British citizens and we consider we have a right to visit any part of the Empire," said Gurdit. "We are determined to make this a test case and if we are refused entrance into your country, the matter will not end here."
A week later the Immigration Board of Enquiry heard the test case of Munshi Singh, a young Sikh farmer. His entry into Canada was ruled inadmissible on the grounds that he had violated three Orders in Council, in particular the continuous-journey regulation. He also did not have the $200 that would have qualified him to enter British Columbia. The Shore Committee immediately took the decision to the British Columbia court of Appeal.
When the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld the refusal of the Immigration Board to order his release into Canada, the way was paved for authorities to deport Munshi Singh and all the remaining passengers. Still the Komagata Maru rode at anchor in English Bay.
In the early morning hours of July 19, a police boarding party approached on the tugboat Sea Lion, with 35 specially deputized immigration officers, armed with rifles borrowed from the Seaforth Highlanders, and 125 Vancouver Police officers. The passengers resisted any effort to board their ship, and when Sea Lion's captain tied on to the ship, the passengers fought a pitched battle, pelting the police with a barrage of coal and fire bricks, until a Punjabi with an axe chopped off Sea Lion's line. The tug retreated "looking as if it had run under a coal chute."
Finally, on July 23, with the local citizenry cheering from the docks, Sea Lion and the naval vessel HMCS Rainbow escorted the Komagata Maru to international waters at gunpoint, to make the long journey back to Asia.
The handling of the Komagata Maru affair proved embarrassing for the Laurier government. While accepting massive numbers of European immigrants - over 400,000 in 1913 alone - Canada had turned away only 376 Punjabis. The inequality of Canada's immigration system, demonstrated by the voyage of the Komagata Maru, took decades to be redressed.
In 1919, Sikh political pressure finally persuaded Ottawa to allow "British Hindus residing in Canada" to bring their wives and children to this country. however, the continuous-journey regulation remained in effect until 1947.
SIDELIGHT: The Budge Budge Massacre
After being refused permission to land by the governments of Hong Kong and Singapore, the Komagata Maru headed for Calcutta, India. When she arrived on September 26, the ship was stopped by a British warship, since World War I had been declared. Authorities charged all aboard with attempting to overthrow the British government, and sent 25 km away to Budge Budge, where the British intended to put them on a train bound for Punjab. But the passengers wanted to stay in Calcutta. They marched on the city, but were forced to return to Budge Budge and reboard the ship. Many refused, and troops opened fire on the unarmed men. Over 20 Sikhs died in the ensuing battle, the rest were imprisoned and tortured, many were hanged. Gurdit Singh escaped and went into hiding. In 1922, at the urging of Mohandas Gandhi, he gave himself up "as a true patriot." He was sent to jail for five years.
The first monument erected by the new Republic of India in 1951 commemorated the massacre at Budge Budge.
On July 23, 1989, a plaque commemorating the 75th anniversary of the departure of the Komagata Maru was placed in the Sikh gurdwara (temple) in Vancouver.
A Canada of Many Cultures
The arrival of the wave of immigration had a tremendous effect on Canada. Huge stretches of land were cleared and cultivated as the western breadbasket was slowly created. The newcomers became an integral component of the expanding domestic market. Slowly and incrementally, the new arrivals forced Canada to assess its own identity. Gradually it was moving from the Anglo and Protestant persona that it possessed to something much more varied and multicultural.
Another impact was in the realm of politics. The huge increase in population on the prairies forced Ottawa to reassess the organization and administration of the area. The initial question for the Laurier government was whether the area should be turned into two or three provinces. The 1905 Autonomy Acts created the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Yet again, the issues of religion and language arose. The North West Territories Act of 1875 had guaranteed access to Catholic education as well as the status of the French language within the territory.
While Minister of Justice Clifford Sifton was out of the country, Laurier, collaborating with French-Canadian nationalist Henri Bourassa, added an amendment to the Autonomy Acts that ensured language and religious rights in the two newly created provinces. When Sifton returned however, he was livid and resigned in protest. Laurier relented, rewrote the amending clause, effectively ending protection for French Catholics in the two new provinces.
| 5. The Immigration Boom 1895-1914 -- Gallery →→ Stories & Texts →→ Web Links →→ Student Activities →→ Shared Projects →→ Quizzes →→ |
| C. Demand For Change →→ 1. Our Struggle for Rights →→ 2. Industry and Labour →→ 3. The Canadian Industrial Boom →→ 4. Gold and Imperial Adventure →→ →→ 5. The Immigration Boom 1895-1914 →→ 6. The New West 1885-1905 →→ D. World War I |
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