Promise of Eden : : The Canadian Expansionist Movement and the Idea of the West, 1856-1900 / / Doug Owram.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Owram, Doug,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©1992
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (264 p.)

Through the last half of the nineteenth century, numbers of Canadians began to regard the West as a land of ideal opportuniy for large-scale agricultural settlement. This belief, in turn, led Canada to insist on ownership of the region and on immediate development.Underlying the expansionist movement was the assumption that the West was to be a hinterland to central Canada, both in its economic relationship and in its cultural development. But settlers who accepted the extravagant promises of expanionism found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the assumption of easstern dominance with their own perception of the needs of the West and of Canada.Doug Owram analyses the various phases of this development, examining in particular the writings - historical, scientific, journalistic, and promotional - that illuminate one of the most significant movements in the history of nineteenth-century Canada.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preface to the 1992 edition -- Introduction -- 1. A far and distant corner of the Empire: the image of Rupert's Land before 1850 -- 2. New worlds to conquer: the opening of the expansionist campaign, 1856-57 -- 3. A means to empire: Canada's reassessment of the West, 1857-69 -- 4. Conspiracy and rebellion: the Red River resistance, 1869-70 -- 5. The geography of empire: the quest for settlers in the 1870s -- 6. The character of empire: the Britain of the West -- 7. John Macoun's Eden: the final stage of expansionism, 1878-83 -- 8. Disillusionment: regional discontent in the 1880s -- 9. The West as past: the foundations of western history -- Conclusion -- Notes -- A note on sources -- Index