PODCAST · history
1867 & All That
by 1867 & All That
An Audio History of Canadian politics. So far there are two full seasons retelling the major stories of Canadian political history from the 1830s to 1867. Occasional interviews with historians flesh things out.
Episodes
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S2 Interview 3 Anne McDonald on a Lady’s Diary of Confederation
This week Anne McDonald joins the pod to talk about her book Miss Confederation: The Diary of Mercy Anne Coles. The diary is one of the very few documents written by a woman to talk about the events of Confederation - in this case the Quebec Conference of 1864 and the weeks after. It gives us…
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S2 Interview 2 David Wilson on the assassination of D’Arcy McGee
Late in the night on an Ottawa street someone snuck up behind Thomas D'Arcy McGee and shot him dead. We're back with David Wilson this week to talk about McGee and his assassination. There's really no one better to talk to than Wilson, the author of an award-winning two volume biography of McGee....
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S2 Interview1 David Wilson on the Fenians
This week we kick off our bonus interview episodes by welcoming University of Toronto professor David Wilson to talk about everyone's favourite Irish revolutionaries (who also happened to profoundly shape Canadian history) the Fenians. Wilson's new book Canadian Spy Story: Irish Revolutionaries…
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S2 Episode 24 What Does it all Mean?
The final episode of Season 2 answers all the big questions about Confederation: What just happened? Why? And - my favourite - so what? We rehash the the main events, talk way too much about federalism (sorry), and look ahead to the Canadian empire building that we will cover in Season Three. And...
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S2 Episode 23 The Kingdom of Canada
It's time to get Confederation done - but only after completing our trilogy of constitutional conferences, this one in London just before Christmas of 1866. The Canadians make the Maritimers wait for four months before they finally arrived across the ocean - having been busy fighting about (what...
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S2 Episode 22 A Common Enemy
The Fenians are back at it this week - threatening to raid New Brunswick and then (for real) attacking along the Niagara frontier. Arthur Gordon of New Brunswick steps up and makes things happen, obliterating the niceties of responsible government along the way. And the two maritime colonies of…
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S2 Episode 21 The Fenians Are Coming
The radical Irish republicans are coming and they're going to scare British North Americans into a confederation. This week we learn all about Irish secret societies and their plans to invade Canada. We also catch up with the crumbling government of New Brunswick that, even though it was only...
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S2 Episode 20 The Case for Canada
We time travel back one month earlier to February 1865 when everyone in Canada wanted to give a speech. And so they did. Canadians debated Confederation and we have the highlights. Then we turn east as the gloomy news for confederation supporters turns even gloomier. PEI doesn't like the scheme…
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S2 Episode 19 It All Falls Apart
Early 1865 is a bad time for supporters of Confederation in British North America. Joseph Howe is back - and he is penning scathing attacks on the Confederation scheme that derail the Quebec Resolutions in Nova Scotia. The situation in PEI isn't much better. And in New Brunswick, Albert James…
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S2 Episode 18 The St. Alban’s Raid
This week we catch up on the activities of a posse of Confederate soldiers who decide that the best way to fight their war with the American Union is to take over a town in Vermont - just long enough to rob all the banks anyway. But when they flee to Canada, things get interesting, especially for...
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S2 Episode 17 The Quebec Conference
We are heading to Quebec this week to drink more champagne, dance the night away, and spend hour after hour in conference meetings. There will be plenty of debate over pragmatic issues like the composition of the Senate and the House of Commons. But there will also be a lot of shared assumptions,...
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S2 Episode 16 Charlottetown Here We Come
We're off on board the Canadian steamer Queen Victoria this week as the Canadians crash the Maritime Union party at Charlottetown. We'll drink a fair bit of champagne, eat more than our share of oysters, and watch as the British North Americans decide that political matrimony might not be such a...
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S2 Episode 15 The Maritime Prelude
Southern Confederate pirates bring the American civil war into Nova Scotian waters and we meet the pugnacious Charles Tupper who isn't afraid to use British cannons to fend off the threat. We are also introduced to an overly ambitious British Governor who historians love to chuckle over, and...
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S2 Episode 14 - The Confusing Case of New Brunswick
This week we begin in utter confusion - trying to figure out just exactly when New Brunswick achieved responsible government. There is, though, more familiar territory - about imperial economic preferences - and the seemingly always present scenarios of religious violence between Protestants and...
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S2 Episode 13 - An Island With a Lottery Problem
A London lottery creates more than 100 years of grumbling conflict on Prince Edward Island. We meet William Cooper who comes up with a too clever-by-half scheme to scoop the landlords from their properties. Then it's on to George Coles and responsible government. And finally we have a dash of...
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S2 Episode 12 - Newfoundland at Last
We're in Newfoundland this week so we are of course talking cod - and seals. But we also have a violent election in 1861 that involved an interfering Catholic Bishop, a British Governor behaving improperly, and troops firing on riotous crowds. Then there is a fight over something called The…
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S2 Episode 11 - George Brown Falls in Love
George Brown takes a British holiday and falls in love. He comes back a changed man - sort of. In Canada, it's another round of wack-a-mole and governments are the mole. Sandfield Macdonald loses power only to get it back, only to lose it again, only to have Macdonald and Brown come into power…
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S2 Episode 10 - Macdonald vs Macdonald
A drunken John A Macdonald and his government collapse over their plan to bolster Canadian defence in the midst of the American civil war. Then another John Macdonald - John Sandfield Macdonald - creates a government built on the idea of the Double Majority. We have another religiously divisive...
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S2 Episode 9 - War in America
The Americans decide to fight a civil war over slavery and Britain and British North America discover that this is going to shape their future too. For instance, what happens when an American naval captain decides to board the British ship Trent and take two Confederate diplomats hostage? Did…
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S2 Episode 8 - This Prince Ain’t For Walkin
Queen Victoria sends her teenage son (and aristocratic chaperone, the Duke of Newcastle) on a North American tour and the Canadians get a little over-excited. The Prince lands (and sometimes doesn't land) amidst the religious rivalries and the complications created by the exuberant supporters of...
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S2 Episode 7 - Double Shuffle
In one of the quirkiest episodes of Canadian political history John A Macdonald and George Etienne Cartier perform a political two-step to avoid facing an election. George Brown is more than a little disappointed. And it all started because Queen Victoria announced that Ottawa would be the…
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S2 Episode 6 - Thomas D’Arcy McGee’s Rather Eventful St. Patrick’s Day
John A Macdonald asks the Queen a favour. Thomas D'Arcy McGee arrives in the country, wonders which gang he should join, and then almost becomes a martyr at an absolutely historic St. Patrick's Day party. Oh, and Ottawa becomes the capital. If you like what you're hearing and want to support the...
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S2 Episode 5 - The Murder of Robert Corrigan
This week it's murder, mayhem, and controversy in the fallout from the murder of Robert Corrigan, an Irish Protestant tough guy who met a dark and painful end. Everyone is convinced that there is no justice for their own side. And then, almost randomly, the government sort of falls, only to be...
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S2 Episode 4 - Stoop To Conquer
The ornery and handsome George Brown is joined today by his nemesis - and later frenemy - John A Macdonald. The new Tory government gets things done and then goes and upsets Upper Canada by talking about Catholic schools. There's a massive railway fountain and a setup for the murder and mayhem...
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S2 Episode 3 - False Positions
This week we're introduced to the handsome George Brown, the fervent and ornery Reformer who inspired both love and hate. Two former friends - Francis Hincks and Augustin-Norbert Morin - come back to take a brief stint on centre stage. The election of 1854 upends the whole system of political...
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S2 Episode 2 - The Reform Bromance Breaks Up
This week we revisit some old friends - William Lyon Mackenzie, Robert Baldwin, and Louis Lafontaine - and meet a new one - William McDougall. We learn that taking away a Chancery from Baldwin is one court too far, and we also get the first taste of our Clear Grits. If that doesn't mean anything…
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S2 Episode 1 - A Riotous Beginning
We're back with Season Two of 1867 & All That and we're starting (where else?) with yet another riot. This time it's the controversial ex-priest and anti-Catholic Alessandro Gavazzi who seems determined to stir up anger on his trip to Canada. It's a sign that even after the victory of responsible...
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Episode 24 - Making Sense of it all
This week we are at the end of Season One and we do our best to figure what just happened. What was responsible government? Why did it emerge when it did in the 1840s? And, most importantly, so what? What was the legacy of these events - the rebellions and responsible government - at the time and...
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Episode 23 - Rebellion Redux
Louis Lafontaine proposes the Rebellion Losses Bill into the Canadian parliament and things get ugly. A mob burns parliament; Montreal is turned inside out; even the Governor General Lord Elgin isn’t safe. Will responsible government hold? And at what cost? And, finally, why are Montreal Tories...
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Episode 22 - Disasters and Democracy
The potato blight arrives and disaster does too. It's time for coffin ships, disease, and economic strife as a new Governor General - Lord Elgin - arrives in the Canadas. There's another election and this time the Governor General stays out of it. Lafontaine and Baldwin have another go at…
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Episode 21 - The Nova Scotia Breakthrough
Lord Sydenham takes a summer work-cation in Nova Scotia and leaves a political system. Joseph Howe joins a coalition government and then falls out with the Governor. But he takes with him a Tory named James Uniacke who converts to the idea of responsible government. Free trade ideas take over in...
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Episode 20 - Joseph Howe's Non-Revolution
Fresh from his libel trial, Joseph Howe gets himself elected to the Nova Scotian Assembly. And then he makes himself even more famous by doing what all Reformers seemed to desperately want to do in these years - he makes up some resolutions. Howe also writes some famous letters to Lord John…
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Episode 19 - Tribune of the People
We are in Nova Scotia this week (and for the next two weeks) so it's rewind time as we (briefly) catch up on things like the Acadian expulsion and the rum trade with the West Indies. Then we zoom forward to meet one of the most interesting people in Canadian history: Joseph Howe, the poetry...
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Episode 18 - Double Majority
Governor General Charles Metcalfe tries to keep a government going - fending off nice insults like 'Old Square Toes' - while Reformers try to embarrass his government into submission. And vying ideas of how to govern the Canadas face off in an as-yet-undecided mid 1840s contest: it's responsible...
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Episode 17 - The Metcalfe Crisis
The Canadas have a new Governor General and this one comes with a cancerous tumour that is going to - yet again - limit his time on this planet. But while he's here, Lafontaine and Baldwin go toe to toe with him to determine who really controls the government. The Reformers pass a misjudged…
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Episode 16 - Reform Ascendant
The new Governor General Charles Bagot decides to ask for forgiveness and not permission. And this means we have a government - sort of - controlled by the Reformers Louis Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin. Robert Baldwin is defeated by his cousin and that gives Lafontaine an idea. And our new…
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Episode 15 - Bromance
It all starts with a letter from Francis Hincks to Louis Lafontaine. But soon Robert Baldwin is getting in on the action and then the Reformer bromance really takes off - and all with the idea of responsible government at its political heart. The Assembly meets in the brand new capital of…
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Episode 14 - The Sydenham System
It is early 1841 and the Canada's have been officially joined together. Now Lord Sydenham has to find someway of making the shotgun marriage actually work. A lot of reformers were hoping for a switch to this newfangled thing called 'responsible government'. But Lord Sydenham has his own system...
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Episode 13 - Shotgun Marriage
How did we go from loyalist victory in the rebellions to loyalist anger in the Rebellion Losses Bill mob riot in 1849? When did winning look so much like losing? This week we start in 1849 but quick return to the years right after the rebellions. Lord Durham is back (but don't worry, as usual…
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Episode 12 - What the !$#! Just Happened?
The Rebellions of 1837 and 1838 are finally over. Houses have burned; Governors General have come and gone; rebels have fled, been imprisoned, hanged and been exiled. And now we need to figure out what it all means. We step back in this episode to ask:what caused the rebellions? why did they…
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Episode 11 - Once More Unto the Breach
The secret Hunters Lodges come out of hiding and launch attacks in the autumn of 1838 and General Colborne, and especially the loyalist militia, get back to their work of suppressing rebellion. The rebel leaders once again show themselves not quite up to the task; we have a naval raid along the…
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Episode 10 - Exile and Terror
Winter extends from 1837 to 1838 and the rebels in exile try to turn around their fortunes. William Lyon Mackenzie captures an island. Canadian loyalists sink a ship but they also kill an American. Radical Patriotes read a revolutionary declaration into the late February winter wind in Lower…
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Episode 9 - Lake of Two Mountains on Fire
A Swiss-born revolutionary stirs things up in an already pretty agitated region of rebellion west of Montreal. Things turn pretty dire for the Patriotes this week. There is fire, and then some more burning. Then, to make things fun, more fire. And General Colborne earns a nickname - the 'vieux...
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Episode 8 - William Lyon Mackenzie's Very Bad Day
The regular troops have left Upper Canada to go help put down rebellion in Lower Canada and that gives William Lyon Mackenzie an idea. Well, he had the idea already, but this seems like a good time to act on it. We have rebellion in Upper Canada. There is a secret meeting at a brewery; rebels and...
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Episode 7 - The Battle At St. Charles
An intercepted letter proves fateful to the fate of rebellion. And the remaining British force in the Richelieu valley heads toward (and not away from) conflict. The early good showing of the Patriotes proves short-lived but, by the end of November 1837, it is still unclear how the rebellion in...
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Episode 6 - 'Let's Dance!'
The Rebellion in Lower Canada is absolutely underway this week - the Patriotes leaders flee Montreal; the habitants fortify local strongholds; and the British General Colborne sends troops out to try to drown the the flames of rebellion before they burn too strong. And we have pig noises. Just...
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Episode 5 - Denounce the Oppressors
It's the summer of 1837 and Lower Canada is in turmoil - horses are losing their tails, effigies are burning, the charivari has turned political, and we have more (and more) resolutions. Oh, and a little thing called rebellion breaks out.
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Special Bonus Episode - Cool Canadian History
A special bonus episode from our sister podcast Cool Canadian History. You can - and should! - subscribe to more than one Canadian history podcast.
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Episode 4 - Good Governor, Bad Governor
From 1834 to 1836 reformers in both colonies move from hope to anger as two new governors, in their very different ways, prove to not be what the more radical of reformers want. We have the famous 92 resolutions that might (maybe) read like a passive aggressive almost break-up letter. And we also...
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Episode 3 - Expulsion
In Upper Canada a fiery reformer named William Lyon Mackenzie shows that anger at the political system can flourish even amongst supposedly loyal English speaking colonists. Mackenzie also learns that printing presses don't swim very well.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
An Audio History of Canadian politics. So far there are two full seasons retelling the major stories of Canadian political history from the 1830s to 1867. Occasional interviews with historians flesh things out.
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How many episodes does 1867 & All That have?
1867 & All That currently has 52 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is 1867 & All That about?
An Audio History of Canadian politics. So far there are two full seasons retelling the major stories of Canadian political history from the 1830s to 1867. Occasional interviews with historians flesh things out.
How often does 1867 & All That release new episodes?
1867 & All That has 52 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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Who hosts 1867 & All That?
1867 & All That is created and hosted by 1867 & All That.
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