Cultura angloamericana

CANADA: SOME HISTORY

Before the European conquest, Canada was inhabited by the so-called natives, who were mainly Inuit. There are a lot of Inuit communities that are still present in Canada, especially in the northern part. So Canada was not a desert land, it was an inhabited land.

• 1000 AD: groups of Scandinavians in particular Norse people got to Newfoundland.
• 1500: few fishing expeditions of Newfoundland (especially, on the part of English and French, but also Spanish and Portuguese).
• 1534: most important date. Jacques Cartier enters the Gulf of St. Lawrence, so this date is considered as the "official" starting date of colonization in Canada.
• 1605: French colonizers establish themselves in Nova Scotia (Acadia), which is one of the main regions of Canada and it is a very cold region in the eastern part of Canada.
• About 1650: starting of "real" colonization on the French part. French, and also English people, were attracted to Canada due

to regain control of the fur trade and improve their economic situation. 1840: Act of Union merges Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada. 1867: Confederation of Canada is formed, consisting of four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, NewBrunswick, and Nova Scotia. Throughout the 19th century, the fur trade declines in importance as other industries, such asagriculture and manufacturing, become more prominent in Canada's economy. Today, the fur trade still exists in Canada, but it is regulated and monitored to ensure thesustainability and ethical treatment of animals.

against the English crown because the English people who live there have become rich, but their power comes from the English crown. In the end, the English will win this war, so the loyalists (people loyal to the British crown) will win this war. From there on the English power in Canada will become undisputable.

1841: after the end of the rebellion all provinces are re-united.

1867: the process of reunification come to an end with the DOMINION OF CANADA (which includes Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec and Ontario) created through the British North American Act. The dominion of Canada is also called THE CONFEDERATION. Starting from 1867 up to the present, there is a continuous process of progressive detachment of Canada from England.

1982: there is the "Canada Act" through which Britain gives Canada total control on its constitution. Before this act British constitution was the same for Canadian, being part of the American independence is something obtained by

The US by force: US self-declare themselves as free from any bond to Britain. On the other hand, in this case, it is Britain that produces this act, so it grants freedom to some extent to Canada. 25 Commonwealth and depending from British crown. Though it is still dependent from the English crown, nowadays Canada has total control on its constitution. Following this Act, Canada thratifies its own constitution on April 25, 1982.

HOW WAS CANADA BORN?

1st July 1, 1867: the British North America Act became law and the Dominion of Canada (provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec) was born. The Confederation is the name given to the process which brought about the creation of the Dominion.

This date is the starting point for the creation of a nation, and this is something still in process.

This date marks a progressive detachment for Britain.

Canadian history has always been characterized by contrast between French-speaking and English-speaking colonizers. Still

Nowadays there are issues with French-speaking people who live in Canada because they claim more power and autonomy. English is the main language, even if also French is an official language in Canada. Everybody speaks English, some people have French as their first language, but in general all of French-speaking people speak English, but not all of English-speaking people speak French. This gives us an idea of the different importance which is given to these two communities.

Culturally speaking, the process for the creation of a nation starts with the confederation to culminate in the so-called Canadian Renaissance (1970s).

POLITICS: CANADA

Canada is a constitutional monarchy, where the Queen of England, Elizabeth II, is the head of the State. But, as a matter of facts, this is just a formal power, because Canada is a federal system of parliamentary democracy. Nevertheless the Queen is represented by the Governor General: Julie Payette. The Governor General is the official representative.

of queen Elizabeth and Britain in general on the Canadian territory (come il prefetto che rappresenta lo stato nelle province italiane).

Legislative power: is held by the bicameral Parliament of Canada (Senate and House of Commons).

Executive power: is held by the Cabinet, a committee of Ministers of the Crown, headed by the Prime Minister (Justin Trudeau). The prime minister is the one who is in fact in power in Canada.

Judicial power: Supreme Court of Canada.

- SUSANNA MOODIE (1803-1885)

Roughing It in the Bush (1852)

Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush (1853)

We saw that colonization in Canada officially began in the 16th century (1534). Of course starting from 1534 onwards also in Canada we have an awful number of chronicles, or diary, or letters that were written by colonizers, by settlers and by tradesmen. All of these documents are very important to create a cultural idea of how things went from 1534 onwards. We could say that in Canada, the first colonizers whowitnessed the cultural and practical reality of his time with a text of some literary value, came a little bit afterwards with respect to what happened in the United States, because in the US already in the 17th century there were a lot of well-complete literary testimonies. This is different in Canada because this happens only at the beginning or around the half of the 19th century, so quite late in history. Susanna Moodie was English, so she came from England and she emigrated to Canada at the beginning of the 1830s. The queen of England in those years was queen Victoria for most of the 19th century: Susanna Moodie was a Victorian lady, and this is important when we come to analyse herself as a character and herself as far as her writing is concerned. During the Victorian Age in England we had the second industrial revolution, and in this period the middle class (borghesia) definitely gained the economic power. In the 19th century the

noble people–the people who had nobility in their family were not so rich as they used to be, but middle class became richer and richer, because of the industrial revolution. Middle class people did not do manual jobs, so they did not work with their hands (it was working-class people that worked). If you were a middle-class person in order to be respectful:

• Middle-class men worked, in a sense that they were tradesmen or they owned for example farms, factories, and they obliged the working-class to work: middle-class men worked as tradesmen or owners of factories (managers).
• Women didn't have to work, because from an economical point of view, the middle-class husband would earn enough money; but their main job was public relations: looking after appearance and taking care of relationships with other women and families, because in particular regarding their daughters finding a suitable husband was women's business. So

we can say that the main occupations of women were: public relations, tea time, attending other friends/family, knowing everything about what was happening in the roundabout, but also finding a suitable husband for their daughters. They had to look after their own families and they were called in particular "angels of the hearth". So Susanna Moodie was a Victorian woman, a middle-class woman, but being a middle-class woman, she was not accustomed to do manual jobs. In 1831 she moved to Canada with her husband and they had a number of years (7/8 years) that were extremely tough, because the situation they found in Canada was very difficult and it involved a lot of sacrifice. They had to work very hard in order to survive, but they were not accustomed to work with their hands, because when they were in England they were accustomed to having servants that would do practical things for them. These years were very tough for her, and this is a point that Susanna Moodie makes clear in

“Roughing It in the Bush”(1852). Susanna Moodie was a Victorian lady, so her experience in Canada is not reported in a–substantial way, but taking care of appearance as it happened with Victorian culture. A person–especially a lady could not relate completely negative things, all things had to be minimized becauseotherwise wouldn’t be considered as acceptable. So when you read “Roughing It in the Bush” what youfind that is described there is minimized with respect to what it was in real life. It is also important to addthat Susanna Moodie, during these first tough years, lost a son in Canada: he drowned in the river andthis was a very big trauma for her.

“Roughing It the Bush” is a memoir she wrote later on in her life, but it makes reference to the 30s whenshe was colonizing Canada and it makes reference in particular to the harshness of life for settlers atthat period. This is the first important evidence/testimony of colonizing Canada.

which has also a literary value. The literary style is very close to British Victorian style.

Susanna Moody: biography

Susanna Moodie was born Strickland, so her family name was Susanna Strickland. She was the younger of three other writers, because also her siblings were writers. She started writing when she was 19, when she was still in England. At the beginning she wrote in particular children's books and poetry: her first literary genre was not novel, was not memoir, but it was literature for children and poetry. In 1831 she got married to John Moodie and they had a baby. John Moodie was a retired officer who had served in the Napoleonic wars. In the following year 1832 they emigrated to Canada with their first baby. They emigrated to Canada because in the 1830s there was an economic crisis in England people. It didn't mean that these people didn't have enough which stroked, in particular, middle-class money to live, but the problem.