1858 in Canada - Events

Events

• The Canadian government imposes revenue tariffs on US manufactured goods to pay for railroad debts.
• The Halifax-Truro line begins rail service.
• The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush starts, leading to the creation of the Colony of British Columbia on the Mainland and igniting the Fraser Canyon War.
  • Chinese, German, Norwegian, Jews, American, Irish, Latin American, French, Belgian Canadian and other immigrants who had been in the California goldfields arrive in British Columbia, attracted by the Fraser River Gold rush, joining French Canadians, Métis, Hawaiians and others already in the area who abandoned regular employment to work the banks of the Fraser alongside the native peoples, who also took part in the rush.
  • About 600 African-Americans from California move to Victoria, British Columbia by invitation of Governor James Douglas as part of the gold rush migration. One of them, Mifflin Gibbs, later plays a key role in persuading British Columbia to become part of Canada. Douglas declares Emancipation Day, August 1, the anniversary of the end of slavery in the British Empire, as the colonies' first official holiday August 1, to the chagrin of the white American element in the colony, though Victoria's West Indian police force, recruited by Douglas, was necessarily disbanded because of the hostility from the numerous Americans in the emerging city. Also among the African-Americans who came with the gold rush was Isaac "Ikey" Dixon, whose brawl in his Yale barbershop and subsequent safe-custody arrest triggered off the events known as McGowan's War, and who soon after became a noted and popular columnist for the Barkerville newspaper The Cariboo Sentinel.
• The Toronto Islands are created after a fierce storm detaches the island from the mainland at the Eastern gap.
• The British Columbia Provincial Police are established.