Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A survey of Canadian history to 1867. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

The Land and Its Peoples before Canada

This course offers an introductory survey of northern North America from its earliest beginnings to the mid nineteenth century.

Our path will chart the major themes of this history, including: the diverse ways in which the peoples Indigenous to this land made their home here; European contact and the subsequent relations between Indigenous peoples and newcomers; the development of New France; the trade in furs; imperial struggles to dominate the continent; immigration; social and political reform in nineteenth-century British North America; settler colonialism; industrialization; and the competing visions of nationhood on display in the years 1864-70, both settler and Indigenous.

Although originally framed as such, this course does not aim to offer a history of national beginnings.  Rather than attempt to study “Canadian” history before Canada existed, we will attend to the developments of the great diversity of communities and cultural and political formations to be found through this period, which arguably presented possible alternative futures.  We will play with the historian’s tool of employing periodizations, and along the way reflect on how the different interpretations of this history might be helpful in understanding life today on the lands of what is now known as Canada.

Finally, you will be introduced to key methods of historical practice, developing research, critical thinking and communication skills that can serve you well both in and beyond the study of history.

Grading

Materials

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