Canadian Confederation creates the Dominion of Canada

Date

1 July 1867

Category

Politics & governance

Region

North America (Canada)

Era

Modern

Significance

On 1 July 1867 the British North America Act came into force, uniting three British colonies—the Province of Canada (divided into Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick—into a single federation styled the Dominion of Canada.

The act, passed by the British Parliament and based on resolutions reached at the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences of 1864 and refined in London in 1866, established a federal system with a central government and provincial legislatures, blending British parliamentary tradition with a division of powers. The term "dominion" was newly coined to describe Canada's status as a self-governing polity within the British Empire that nonetheless remained tied to the Crown, with Britain retaining authority over foreign affairs and constitutional amendment. Confederation laid the institutional foundation for a transcontinental nation: over the following decades Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and other provinces joined, and a transcontinental railway bound the country together. As a peaceful, negotiated route to nationhood—contrasting with the revolutions and civil wars elsewhere in the Americas—it became a model of evolutionary self-government within the British world.

Empires active in 1 July 1867

• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related politics & governance events

• The Meiji Restoration
  1868 (proclamation 3 January 1868)
• Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand and the Kingdom of Italy
  May–September 1860; Kingdom of Italy proclaimed 17 March 1861
• Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the birth of the British Raj
  1857–1858 (rebellion); Government of India Act 2 August 1858
• Commodore Perry forces the opening of Japan
  1853–1854 (Treaty of Kanagawa, 31 March 1854)
• Berlin Conference and the partition of Africa
  15 November 1884 – 26 February 1885
• The Revolutions of 1848 (the Springtime of Peoples)
  1848–1849

Also relevant

• The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery in the United States
  6 December 1865

Further reading

Empire of the Summer Moon

The wider story

Empire of the Summer Moon

S. C. Gwynne

Bestselling narrative of Comanche power on the plains.

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