David wilson dictionary of canadian biography online
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The Irish in Canada: A Mildly Subversive History
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For much of the 19th century, the Irish were the single largest ethnic group in English-speaking Canada, outnumbering the English, Scots and Welsh combined. This lecture focuses on kvartet aspects of their history: the Famine migration of 1846-51; the Fenian invasions of 1866 and 1870; D’Arcy McGee and Canadian Confederation; and the rise and fall of the Orange beställning. In considering each aspect, it challenges traditional images of the Irish in Canada and highlights new research in the field.
David A. Wilson is
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David Wilson’s new book captures a little-known era of Canadian history that has more lies, deception, betrayal and scandals than a Netflix series.
Wilson, a professor with the Department of History and the Celtic Studies Program, has just published Canadian Spy Story: Irish Revolutionaries and the Secret Police with McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Researched and written over the past decade, the non-fiction book captures Canada in the late 1860s, when a group of Irish revolutionaries, known as the Fenians, set out of invade Canada in order to weaken Britain’s North American empire and ultimately liberate their country from British rule.
“It’s an absolutely fascinating story,” says Wilson, noting that his research uncovered shocking revelations such as a sex scandal, a plan to kidnap John A. MacDonald, and a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria.
The Fenians believed attacking Canada would create a crisis in Britain that could lead to a war between Britain and the United States.
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No one knows what became of Chloe Cooley after she was forcibly taken by boat across the Niagara River from Upper Canada to upstate New York on March 14, 1793. The enslaved Black woman was bound with rope by her enslaver Adam Vrooman and brought, screaming and struggling, across the Niagara River to be sold.
However, two witnesses — one of whom was a Black Loyalist — reported the incident to the Executive Council, which unsuccessfully attempted to prosecute Vrooman. Soon after, Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe and Attorney General John White introduced a law to end slavery in the province. Facing strong resistance in the House of Assembly, they compromised with the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada — an act that failed to abolish slavery, but which made it illegal to import enslaved people into the province and laid the foundations for gradual abolition. In 2022 the Canadian government designated Chloe Cooley a person of national historic significance.
Cooley’s story is