Hi dear forum friends,
Canuck's and my family (we are brother and sister), is a good example of the way that Canada has been populated by the persecuted and the dispossessed.
If you read my personal introduction to the story of RIP VAN WINKLE you know that some of our ancestors have been in North America since the early 1600's, almost the beginning of European settlement here. You may have thought I was bragging. Not so. We are a family of many ages of persecution. Our family is an example of the way this country has been formed. Those earliest family members here were refugee immigrants escaping religious persecution.
They eventually had to flee again from the US to safety in Canada. Their reasons for becoming immigrant refugees again here -- on the wrong side of the American Revolution. They were political refugees.
One Irish grandfather a long way back in the 1700's came to make a better life in America than the poverty of Ireland. He may also have come for religious reasons, as he was an early Protestant, from a Roman Catholic country, at a time of religious persecution.
Some German grandparents back in the 1700's came because they also were escaping death from the same religious Inquisition. More refugees from religious persecution.
A Scottish grandparent family arrived in Canada to have a better life in the 1850's. They seem to have likely been economic immigrants who came for a piece of land and a chance of improved opportunities. Economic immigrants.
My mother's family have only been here since 1913. They were immigrants from the old eastern part of Austria, called Bukovina, which has been a major war zone in both world wars. That grandfather came to Canada twice. When he realized major war was about to start he wrote to his wife "sell everything, bring the children and come immediately," which she did. My grandmother couldn't bring her first son because he was well educated and had already been made an army officer. She read about his death from an old country newspaper while here in Canada. They were refugee immigrants escaping war,which twice swept through their homeland.
Our newest refugee family member is my daughter's fine husband. He was a young teenager rescued by a Canadian newspaper woman. She adopted him and smuggled him safely out of war torn El Salvador, all the way to Canada by land, just as he was about to be forced into the dirty factional fighting and likely killed, as so many others were. He too was an immigrant escaping war.
My dear Ben came after the Second World War because of his experience of war in Germany, and the religous persecution he learned about afterwards. He hated what had been done to Jews.
Canada is a country of immigrants. Even Native Indians originally came by way of Siberia and the land bridge that existed then. They came about 12,000 years ago. Who knows if there were any people here when they arrived? Why did they come? We don't know why they travelled so far to come here yet. There must have been some kind of pressure. Or were they simply exploring what climate change had made possible?
Native Indians, (such as the Six Nations Indians who now live along the Grand River in the Province of Ontario) fled from Upper New York State in the U.S. after the American Revolutionary War of the late 1700's, or they would have been wiped out for being on the wrong side as others were. One of our distant grandmothers played a central part in those natives coming here. She was an adopted matriarch of the Indian Nation and so held matriarchal power and was always one of those consulted. She went back at 65 years of age, through primeval winter forests, from her own safety in Canada, to convince them at a critical time to come to Canada and safety.
The fierce Chief Sitting Bull was another native leader who brought his people to Canada from the U.S., to safety. (Or as it turned out, partial safety.) They would have been killed in the US for their land. The only thing the Canadian Northwest Mounted Policeman asked of them when they crossed the line was that they should obey the laws of Canada. Sitting Bull agreed on behalf of his people. Canada was heavily pressured by the United States and did not give them help with food. Members of the Northwest Mounted Police spent their own pay to help those people, but many starved anyway. This is a very sad part of Canadian history.
Canada is made up of many generations of immigrants from all over the world who have come here to escape violence from various sources. It is still being populated in the same way. Presently 21% of Canadians are new immigrants who have fled here. There are also fewer numbers among them who came to better their families' chances in life.
Canadians are now swiftly becoming a vast mixture of peoples from all over the world, living in peace together. Having personally or ancestrally experienced violence we have a deep dislike of it and have worked out ways of living together to avoid it among us. More and more people are coming from everywhere, mostly from war-torn areas and persecution, as always. We are still receiving the religously persecuted, the economically disadvantaged and the escapers from war.
Because of our history which in many ways is different from the USA we tend to accept the other guy for whatever he is, so long as he doesn't break the peace and do criminal acts, or cause other people trouble. The US Constitution sets out as their intention "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From the beginning of Canada our similar intention has been set out as "Peace, order and good government." That makes for a difference and shows the difference in thinking.
We tend to mind our own business. We tend to be very polite to each other. You, a stranger, trip over my foot or touch me in passing and I will probably say "Sorry". We don't try to absorb people who come and to make them all similar. We want to enjoy the varieties, together. Canada is being called The First Post-Modern Nation. We hope to be continue to be an example to other countries of how to maintain peace among themselves by doing it among ourselves and living it in the world. Ihope we can continue to do it.
Warm and friendly greetings, Mary
