IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v35y1975i02p410-427_07.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Rate of Settlement of the Canadian Prairies, 1870–1911

Author

Listed:
  • Norrie, K. H.

Abstract

An issue of continuing interest in Canadian economic history is the lag between the formulation of policies directed toward settling the prairies and the appearance of any significant agricultural population. Proposals to develop the region preceded the union of the British North American colonies in 1867. By 1872 the first Homestead Act had been passed and a commitment made to construct a transcontinental railway linking the western provinces to Central Canada. Yet except for a brief speculative boom in the early 1880's, occasioned by the CPR reaching Winnipeg, the rate of settlement remained well below expectations. Homestead entries averaged under 3,000 from 1874 to 1896, and in many years there were nearly as many cancellations as new entries. In the same period adjacent American lands were filling up, in large part with emigrant Canadians. Settlement of the Dakotas, beginning in 1870 but depressed from 1873 to 1878, boomed from 1879 to 1886. Over the thirty years from 1870 to 1900 an estimated 120,000 Canadians chose the American prairies over the Canadian.

Suggested Citation

  • Norrie, K. H., 1975. "The Rate of Settlement of the Canadian Prairies, 1870–1911," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 410-427, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:35:y:1975:i:02:p:410-427_07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050700075112/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Green, Alan G. & Sparks, Gordon R., 1999. "Population Growth and the Dynamics of Canadian Development: A Multivariate Time Series Approach," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 56-71, January.
    2. Vincent Geloso & Peter Lindert, 2020. "Relative costs of living, for richer and poorer, 1688–1914," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(3), pages 417-442, September.
    3. Alan L. Olmstead & Paul W. Rhode, 2011. "Responding to Climatic Challenges: Lessons from U.S. Agricultural Development," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Climate Change: Adaptations Past and Present, pages 169-194, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Livio Di Matteo & Robert Petrunia, 2022. "Does economic inequality breed murder? An empirical investigation of the relationship between economic inequality and homicide rates in Canadian provinces and CMAs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(6), pages 2951-2988, June.
    5. Di Matteo, Livio, 2013. "Women, wealth and economic change: An assessment of the impact of women's property law in Wentworth County, Ontario, 1872–1927," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 285-307.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:35:y:1975:i:02:p:410-427_07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.