JOHN MACDONALD
(Sir John Alexander Macdonald | John A. MacDonald)
The Canadian government had put down a brief rebellion led by Louis Riel, 1844-1885, in Winnipeg. French Canadians in Quebec identified with the nationalist and many protested his death sentence. Riel was hanged shortly thereafter.
Between a purchase of lands from the Hudson's Bay Corporation and land grants, Canada annexed millions of acres of land without much political activity or any assent from the people who lived on those lands.
Sir John Alexander Macdonald GCB PC QC was the first prime minister of Canada (1867β1873, 1878β1891). The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that spanned almost half a century. Macdonald was born in Scotland; when he was a boy his family immigrated to Kingston in the Province of Upper Canada (today in eastern Ontario). As a lawyer, he was involved in several high-profile cases and quickly became prominent in Kingston, which elected him in 1844 to the legislature of the Province of Canada. By 1857, he had become premier under the colony's unstable political system.
