1870 in Canada

Events from the year 1870 in Canada.

← 1869 1868 1867 1870 in Canada → 1871 1872 1873
Decades:	1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar
• Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
• Parliament – 1st

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

• March 4 – Thomas Scott is executed by Riel's provisional government in the Red River Colony.
• 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.
• May 25 – Battle of Eccles Hill: Canadian Militia defeat Fenian raiders.
• May 27 – Battle of Trout River: British regulars and Canadian militia defeat Fenian raiders.
• 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.
• August 24 – The Wolseley expedition arrives at Upper Fort Garry, Manitoba
• September 16 – Alfred Boyd becomes the first premier of Manitoba.
• October – Battle of the Belly River: the Blackfoot Confederacy decisively defeats the Iron Confederacy.
• December 27 – The 1870 Manitoba election

Arts and literature

Births

Howard Ferguson

• 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)

R. B. Bennett

• 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.1909)
• 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)
• November 17 – Jean Prévost, politician (d. 1915)
• 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 4 – Thomas Scott, Orangemen (b.1842)
• 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)

Historical documents

Metis List of Rights calls for Rupert's Land and the Northwest to become the Province of Assiniboia^[2]

President Louis Riel gives his first speech to the Red River provisional government^[3]

Doubtful about Louis Riel, Prime Minister Macdonald begins assembling a military force^[4]

MP praises liberal approach in creating Manitoba in House of Commons speech^[5]

Red River resident objects to amnesty for Louis Riel and other leaders^[6]

President Grant calls Canada unfriendly to U.S. fishers and shippers^[7]

Call for a state-supported "Dominion University" in Canada^[8]

McGill University's John William Dawson on science education abroad and its application to Canada^[9]

Reports of smallpox among Blackfoot, Cree and other nations^[10]