32.8 America: a.d. 1701 to 1800  (Page 3/20)

In 1791 Parliament passed the Canada Act, dividing the region into Upper and Lower Canada, this roughly corresponding to English and French areas, respectively. For a quarter of a century there was peace. The Canadian Pacific coast had been ~ailed in the 1780s and in 1792 Captain George Vancouver explored and surveyed the region now bearing his name. Alexander Mackenzie went overland to the Pacific in 1793 as the first European to cross this continent, coast to coast. His route was by canoe west from Lake Athabasca, up the Pease River, portage across the Rockies to the Parsnip, then the Fraser, Blackwater and Bella Coola rivers, in turn, to the Pacific. (Ref. 212 ) He used Pemmican (Cree name for "fat") as part of his food supply. This was made by drying thin-sliced, lean meat over a fire, then pounding it to shreds and mixing it with an almost equal amount of melted fat, along with some marrow and a few handfuls of wild cherries (later currants or sugar were used), after which it was packed in rawhide sacks tightly sewed and sealed with tallow. This food supplied adequate calories for survival. An additional travel food was a dried corn meal pancake called "Johnnycake". (Ref. 211 ) By 1800 trappers and traders had crisscrossed the continent many times. (Ref. 68 )

At the last of the century Spain was at war with Great Britain and in 1789 the Spanish Captain Martinez siezed 4 British ships in Nootka sound. This started a year's dispute terminated by a convention of October, 1790 in which it was agreed that all had a right to navigating and fishing in the Pacific and of making settlements there, but the British should not do so within 10 leagues of any coastal area already occupied by Spain.

Because of the warm Japan Current, much of the Canadian western coast land (and adjacent islands) is warm, with great forests and rivers teeming with salmon. The Haida, Kwakiutl and Bella Coola Indians lived too easily there and had so much leisure time that they could create great native civilizations, with a culture expressed in wood-working, including magnificently carved totem poles, some SO feet high and lodges as large as 3,000 square feet. They had sea-gray canoes holding 50 men. (Ref. 212 ) (See pages 269,374 and 568)

Meanwhile in the far eastern North American region, Danish missionaries and traders had brought fabrics, implements and some new foods to the Greenland Eskimos. Although the latter kept their old customs of using kayaks and harpoons for seal hunts, they now used guns for killing caribou. They lived in communal houses of stone and turf. (Ref. 288 )

The united states

Area of original 13 colonies (and florida)

The eastern colonies had 250,000 people at the beginning of this century. By 1750, including the 100,000 Negro slaves, the colonies were almost one-third as populous as England itself. (Ref. 8 ) By 1776 the population had increased to about 2 1/2 million. Patterns of migration changed during the century, with Scotch, Welch, Irish, Germans and Dutch arriving in ever increasing numbers. Some Scandinavians, Swiss, Belgians and French signed terms of indenture by the thousands in order to get to America. The mixture by 1763 has been estimated at 50% English, 18% Scotch and Scotch-Irish, 18% African, 6% German and 3% Dutch, thus already a "melting pot". (Ref. 68 ) Europe had no need for food products from the colonies, such as grain, meat and butter so these things were sold to the Caribbean and the bills of exchange so obtained were used for purchasing manufactured items from the British Isles. It was different with tobacco and even by 1723 some 200 ships carried 30,000 kegs a year to England, where it was re-exported to northern Europe. (Ref. 260 ) Gradually a few other products were shipped directly across the Atlantic. Just before the American Revolution, South Carolina sent more than a million pounds of indigo to England. (Ref. 39 )