# Why wasn't Canada considered one of the American colonies before the revolution? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 20, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913 "2007-09-20T20:41:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![back\_before\_irony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb9ed0/32.png) [@back\_before\_irony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/back_before_irony)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/1 "2007-09-20T20:41:06Z")
Weren’t they subject to the stamp tax and tea tax etc? Didn’t they have the same problems with taxation vs representation? Why weren’t they in the club at the beginning? ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/2 "2007-09-20T20:53:06Z")
Well, I don’t know the history exactly, but British control of Canada came about at a different time and under different circumstances than the 13 colonies that became the USA. I believe the British took Canada from the French not too long before the American Revolution as part of what we call in the US the French and Indian War. Also, is it a fact that Canada wasn’t subject to the Stamp Tax? I don’t know the answer to this. It’s possible they were part of the Stamp Tax but didn’t rebel. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/3 "2007-09-20T20:58:23Z")
An important factor was the Quebec Act of 1774: > **[Quebec Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Act)** > > The Quebec Act 1774 (French: Acte de Québec), or British North America (Quebec) Act 1774,\[a\] was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (14 Geo. 3. c. 83) which set procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. One of the principal components of the Act was the expansion of the province's territory to take over part of the Indian Reserve, including much of what is now southern Ontario, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota. > The Act removed the reference... ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/4 "2007-09-20T21:19:59Z")
[QUOTE=yabob] An important factor was the Quebec Act of 1774: > **[Quebec Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Act)** > > Canada portal The Quebec Act 1774 (14 Geo. 3. c. 83) (French: Acte de Québec de 1774) was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which set procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. One of the principal components of the act was the expansion of the province's territory to take over part of the Indian Reserve, including much of what is now southern Ontario, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota. The act removed the reference to the Protestant faith fr... [/QUOTE] Interesting. I never knew that! I find this puzzling: > [@](#): > > American colonists had concerns with the provisions of the act. For one, it guaranteed that residents of the Ohio Country were free to profess the Roman Catholic faith. Settlers from Virginia and other colonies were already entering that area.[citation needed] Land development companies had already been formed to drive out the Native inhabitants and exploit the territory. Many of the leaders of the American Revolution, such as George Washington and Daniel Boone, were wealthy land speculators who had much to gain by establishing a new government that would not be bound by British treaties with the Indians, such as the Proclamation of 1763, that recognized Indian rights to these lands.[1] Americans denounced the Act for promoting the growth of Papism and cutting back on freedom and traditional rights.[citation needed] Was Catholicism banned from any of the 13 American colonies? I know that Maryland was founded as a sort of refuge for Catholics, but hadn’t the colonies moved passed that type of religious discrimination by the 1770s? I mean, they did write some pretty strong religious freedom clauses into the Constitution. But then, those clauses weren’t meant to apply to the states, so maybe… ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/5 "2007-09-20T21:30:24Z")
[QUOTE=back before irony] Weren’t they subject to the stamp tax and tea tax etc? Didn’t they have the same problems with taxation vs representation? Why weren’t they in the club at the beginning? [/QUOTE] I do know that Canada was pre-approved for membership in the Articles of Confederation. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/6 "2007-09-20T21:30:25Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] …Was Catholicism banned from any of the 13 American colonies? I know that Maryland was founded as a sort of refuge for Catholics, but hadn’t the colonies moved passed that type of religious discrimination by the 1770s? I mean, they did write some pretty strong religious freedom clauses into the Constitution. But then, those clauses weren’t meant to apply to the states, so maybe… [/QUOTE] Many (most?) colonies had denied the franchise to non-members of their established churchs (the Church of England in most cases). I’m not sure but I think some states still had some (unenforcable) restrictions on Catholic civil rights in their constitutions well into the 1800s. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/7 "2007-09-20T21:46:02Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] Many (most?) colonies had denied the franchise to non-members of their established churchs (the Church of England in most cases). I’m not sure but I think some states still had some (unenforcable) restrictions on Catholic civil rights in their constitutions well into the 1800s. [/QUOTE] Um, with respect, the states were free to discriminate on the basis of religion until 1940, when in [_Cantwell v. Connecticut_, 310 U.S. 296 (1940)](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=310&page=296) the Supreme Court finally decided that the right protected by the First Amendment’s “free exercise clause” should be selectively incorporated into the concept of “liberty” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s “due process clause.” The “establishment clause” was incorporated in 1947 in [_Everson v. Board of Education_, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=330&page=1). It is incorrect to think of the First Amendment as having any effect upon the states. Some states barred themselves from affecting “freedom of religion” through either constitutional clauses or legislative acts. But some states openly aided one religion, or acted discriminatorily against one religion until very late in the game as the above citations show. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/8 "2007-09-20T22:13:12Z")
But I don’t believe any states had established religions on the books passed the first decade or two of the 19th century, even if they might have been technically able to do so. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/9 "2007-09-21T00:46:32Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84] I do know that Canada was pre-approved for membership in the Articles of Confederation. [/QUOTE] And they were invited to the Continental Congress in 1774. They declined the invitation. The British, having just gotten Quebec away from the from the French, were willing to make some concessions to the French population to keep the peace, hence the aforementioned Quebec Act. It also made the idea of throwing in with the revolutionaries not terribly attractive to the French Canadians. The Brits were largely giving them what they wanted. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/10 "2007-09-21T01:22:19Z")
What Yabod said, plus the economy of Quebec was greatly dependent on the fur trade with the Ohio and Great Lakes tribes. While the restriction on settlement beyond the mountain line infuriated the likes of Daniel Boone, Quebec was perfectly happy to see the wild frontiersmen from Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas prohibited and restrained from screwing up the fur trade. The Maritime Provinces (Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island) were economically dependent on selling cod fish to England and Europe. The last thing they wanted was to see that trade disrupted. Joining with the southern rebel colonies just wasn’t all that attractive to Quebec and the Maritimes. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/11 "2007-09-21T02:21:10Z")
[QUOTE=yabob] And they were invited to the Continental Congress in 1774. They declined the invitation. [/QUOTE] Ingrates! Call O’Reilly-- we need a boycott of Canada!! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/12 "2007-09-21T02:39:05Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Was Catholicism banned from any of the 13 American colonies? I know that Maryland was founded as a sort of refuge for Catholics, but hadn’t the colonies moved passed that type of religious discrimination by the 1770s? [/QUOTE] After the Glorious Revolution (I believe) the Baltimores switched from Catholic to Anglican. The Catholics in Maryland thus lost their patrons in the Court of St. James and were opened up for oppression. There were several small not-quite-wars in which anti-papists from Virginia sailed up the Chesapeake to attack Catholic settlements and disenfranchise the Catholic population of Maryland–confiscating land or burning out settlers in several instances. I do not recall any laws that actually prohibited the practice of Catholicism in any of the colonies or states (once Massachusetts got rid of its laws insisting that everyone worship as Puritans were abolished), although during and after the War for Independence, only four of the new states put langauge into their constitutions rescinding the British Penal Laws that provided extra taxes for Catholics and limited their abilities to hold public office or punished them for not supporting the Established Church. (New York had a law prohibiting Catholic priests from wearing clerical garb in public until the 1830s, or so.) On the other hand, both of the Carroll brothers, John and Daniel, as well as their cousin Charles were active in helping organize the new United States and they were definitely Catholic. (John was a priest and, later, the first U.S. bishop.) Catholics were not the only ones who suffered discrimination, of course. The Society of Friends was openly banned in several colonies up until the War for Independence and I am not sure when those laws were repealed. Jefferson’s famous “wall of separation” was part of a letter to a group of Baptist ministers chafing under taxes that were being collected from them to support their state’s established church. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/13 "2007-09-21T03:06:59Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] But I don’t believe any states had established religions on the books passed the first decade or two of the 19th century, even if they might have been technically able to do so. [/QUOTE] The British, themselves, began dismantling the Penal Laws in 1778 and 1791, removing some of the philosophical support for anti-Catholic legislation. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/14 "2007-09-21T03:29:52Z")
[QUOTE=back before irony] Weren’t they subject to the stamp tax and tea tax etc? [/quote] Yes. > [@](#): > > Didn’t they have the same problems with taxation vs representation? No. They were French, and had lived under French colonial rule until 1759. They were used to living under absolute monarchy and had no tradition of representative government. > [@](#): > > Why weren’t they in the club at the beginning? Because they were French. They had nothing in common with the other colonies–not culture, not language, not religion. They nursed their own grievances against the British, whom they viewed as an alien government of occupation, but these had been allayed by the aforementioned Quebec Act. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/15 "2007-09-21T07:52:34Z")
From wiki "British colonies in North America \*The Kingdom of Great Britain acquired the French colony of Acadia in 1713 and then the northern part of New France and the Spanish colony of Florida in 1763. The most-populated region of New France became the Canadas. In the north, the Hudson’s Bay Company actively traded for fur with the Indians, and had competed with French fur traders. The company came to control the entire drainage basin of Hudson Bay called Rupert’s Land. The small part of the Hudson Bay drainage which is south of the 49th parallel went to the United States in 1818. Thirteen of Great Britain’s colonies rebelled, beginning in 1776, primarily over representation, local laws and tax issues, and established the United States of America. Acadia (in the French language l’Acadie) was the name given to a colonial territory in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day New England, stretching as far south as Philadelphia. The actual specification by the French government for the territory refers to lands bordering the Atlantic coast, roughly between the 40th and 46th parallels. Later, the territory was divided into the British colonies which were to become Canadian provinces and American states.\* ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/16 "2007-09-21T09:53:23Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84] I do know that Canada was pre-approved for membership in the Articles of Confederation. [/QUOTE] They were also pre-approved for a Citibank credit card, but never sent in either application. According to [this page](http://www.motherbedford.com/Chronology14.htm), at least some Nova Scotians wanted to join the Revolution. Nova Scotia was also invited to the Continental Congress. The second one, that is, in 1775. Which is also the same one that Quebec was invited to. Also Georgia (which didn’t attend the first Congress), St John’s (Newfoundland), and West and East Florida, which were not English colonies. Not sure about the rationale of those last two invites; surely they didn’t want to be revolting against two European powers at once. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/17 "2007-09-21T12:35:10Z")
Interesting stuff, **tomndeb** – I never knew that. I knew about the Massachusetts religious laws, and they taught us about Charles Carroll of Maryland in parochial school (but not, oddly enough, his cousins), but the bit about the Baltimores changing to Anglican and the actions against Maryland Catholics somehow slipped everyone’s minds. Interesting to know how tough it was. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/18 "2007-09-21T14:26:26Z")
[QUOTE=dtilque] and West and East Florida, which were not English colonies. Not sure about the rationale of those last two invites; surely they didn’t want to be revolting against two European powers at once. [/QUOTE] West and East Florida had been British colonies since the Seven Years War/French and Indian War. From the Treaty of Paris, brackets mine…: > [@](#): > > In consequence of the restitution stipulated in the preceding article [the return of Havana to Spain], his Catholick Majesty [of Spain] cedes and guaranties, in full right, to his Britannick Majesty, Florida, with Fort St. Augustin, and the Bay of Pensacola, as well as all that Spain possesses on the continent of North America, to the East or to the South East of the river Mississippi.. . . ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/19 "2007-09-21T15:39:58Z")
Thomas Jefferson had dreams of empire stretching into Canadian country in the early 1800s. The thinly-disguised Lewis and Clark expedition, in addition to laying claim to the Missouri River, also looked to explore any rivers draining into the system, with the hopes that they originated in Canada, thus laying the groundwork for claims to ownership by the U.S. It was a huge disappointment to Jefferson that this was not to be so, and that there was no Northwest Passage to be found. Read “Undaunted Courage”, by Stephen Ambrose. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913/20 "2007-09-21T15:42:54Z")
One could perhaps list all of the British colonies in North America, and capsule reasons why they didn’t join the 13 colonies in rebellion: Canada (Quebec): almost entirely French-speaking and Catholic, no tradition of self-government, refusal to risk the prerogatives granted by Britain in the Quebec Act Nova Scotia: sparsely populated, mostly by European Protestants and by Acadians who survived the ethnic cleansing. Some disposition to revolt among the small number of English settlers, easily quelled by the British naval base at Halifax. Populated by fleeing loyalists after 1776. Newfoundland: an isolated series of fishing stations, hundreds of miles from anything. Insert your Newfie joke here. Floridas: legacy of Spanish rule, few European inhabitants and even fewer English speakers. Of so little importance to the other colonies that they ceded it back to Spain in return for alliance during the Revolutionary War. Caribbean colonies: low ratio of settlers to slaves–much lower than on the mainland. Too much to risk in rebellion–the same reason why Cuba and Puerto Rico remained Spanish colonies after the rest of the Americas broke away. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-canada-considered-one-of-the-american-colonies-before-the-revolution/419913.md?page=2)