1870 in Canada
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Years in Canada: | 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 |
Centuries: | 18th century · 19th century · 20th century |
Decades: | 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s |
Years: | 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 |
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Historically significant |
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By Provinces and Territories |
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Events from the year 1870 in Canada.
Incumbents
Federal government
Provincial governments
Lieutenant governors
- Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Adams George Archibald (from May 20)
- Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Lemuel Allan Wilmot
- Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Charles Hastings Doyle
- Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – William Pearce Howland
- Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Narcisse-Fortunat Belleau
Premiers
- Premier of Manitoba – Alfred Boyd (from September 16)
- Premier of New Brunswick – Andrew Rainsford Wetmore (until June 9) then George Edwin King
- Premier of Nova Scotia – William Annand
- Premier of Ontario – John Sandfield Macdonald
- Premier of Quebec – Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau
Territorial governments
Lieutenant governors
- Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Territories – William McDougall (until May 10) then Adams George Archibald
Events
- May 12 – The Canadian Parliament's Manitoba Act receives royal assent. The act provides for the establishment of the province Manitoba when Rupert's Land is transferred to Canada.
- June–July – The 1870 New Brunswick election
- July 15 – The British Privy Council's Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory Order transfers those territories to Canada, and Manitoba and the North-West Territories are established.
- September 16 – Alfred Boyd becomes the first premier of Manitoba.
- December 27 – The 1870 Manitoba election
Arts and literature
Births

- May 14 – Richard Langton Baker, politician (d.1951)
- May 21 – Leonard Percy de Wolfe Tilley, lawyer, politician and 20th Premier of New Brunswick (d.1947)
- June 18 – Howard Ferguson, politician and 9th Premier of Ontario (d.1946)

- July 3 – R. B. Bennett, lawyer, businessman, politician, philanthropist and 11th Prime Minister of Canada (d.1947)
- July 28 – Aubin-Edmond Arsenault, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (d.1968)
- July 29 – George Dixon, boxer, first black world boxing champion in any weight class and first Canadian-born boxing champion (d.1908)
- September 7 – James Tompkins, priest and educator (d.1953)
- October 16 – Wallace Rupert Turnbull, engineer and inventor (d.1954)
- November 10 – Harlan Carey Brewster, politician and Premier of British Columbia (d.1918)
- December 15 – Richard McBride, politician and Premier of British Columbia (d.1917)
Full date unknown
- Thomas Langton Church, politician and Mayor of Toronto (d.1950)
Deaths
- February 6 – William MacBean George Colebrooke, lieutenant governor of New Brunswick (b.1787)
- March 31 – Thomas Cooke, missionary, and the first Bishop of Trois Rivières (b.1792)
- August 7 – François Lesieur Desaulniers, farmer and political figure (b.1785)
- October 13 – Charles-François Baillargeon, Archbishops of Quebec (b.1798)
- October 25 – Etienne-Michel Faillon, Catholic historian (b.1800)
- December 23 – Théophile Hamel, painter (b.1817)
Full date unknown
- Thomas Scott, Orangemen (b.1842)
Historical Documents
Metis List of Rights calls for Rupert's Land and the Northwest to become the Province of Assiniboia[1]
President Louis Riel gives his first speech to the Red River provisional government[2]
Doubtful about Louis Riel, Prime Minister Macdonald begins assembling a military force[3]
MP praises liberal approach in creating Manitoba in House of Commons speech[4]
Red River resident objects to amnesty for Louis Riel and other leaders[5]
President Grant calls Canada unfriendly to U.S. fishers and shippers[6]
Call for a state-supported "Dominion University" in Canada[7]
McGill University's John William Dawson on science education abroad and its application to Canada[8]
Reports of smallpox among Blackfoot, Cree and other nations[9]
References
- D'Arcy G. Vermette, "II.a.The Lists of Rights and Metis Demands," Beyond Doctrines of Dominance, pgs. 108-9. Accessed 21 September 2018 https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/23138/3/Vermette_DArcy-Gordon_2012_thesis.pdf
- "Provisional Government; First Council Meeting; Speech of the President," The New Nation, Winnipeg, Vol. I, No. 10 (March 11, 1870), pg. 2. Accessed 20 September 2018 https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2743832
- Joseph Pope, Memoirs of the Right Honourable Sir John Alexander Macdonald, G.C.B., First Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada (London: Edward Arnold, 1894), pgs. 62-3. Accessed 10 September 2018 https://archive.org/stream/memoirsofrightho02popeiala#page/62/mode/2up/
- Adams George Archibald, Speech Delivered in the House of Commons by the Hon. A.G. Archibald, during the Debate on the "Manitoba Bill," May 7, 1870 (Ottawa: Printed by L.B. Taylor, 1870). Accessed 10 September 2018 http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/526/4.html
- Letter in "Report of the Select Committee on the Causes of the Difficulties in the North-West Territory in 1869-70," Journals of the House of Commons 1874, Vol. 8, Appendix 6, pg. 195. Accessed 10 September 2018 http://www.canadahistory.com/sections/documents/thewest/lynchredriver.htm
- Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873; Monday, December 5, 1870, pgs. 15-18. Accessed 10 September 2018 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(sj0653)):#0650015
- R.G. (Robert Grant) Haliburton, Mr. Haliburton's Speech on the Young Men of the New Dominion; from the Ottawa Citizen, January 27, 1870. Accessed 10 September 2018 https://fishercollections.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/broadsides%3ARBDM0164_0001
- John William Dawson, Science Education Abroad, a Lecture; Being the Annual University Lecture of the Session 1870-71. Accessed 10 September 2018 https://fishercollections.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/broadsides%3ACAP01284_0007
- William Francis Butler, Report by Lieutenant Butler, 69th Regt., of His Journey from Fort Garry to Rocky Mountain House and Back (Winnipeg: 1871), pgs. 9-12. Accessed 11 September 2018 http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/615/11.html