Letters Patent Issued to John Cabot and the Royal PrerogativeAn excerpt follows from "The Letters Patents of King Henry the Seventh Granted unto Iohn Cabot and his Three Sonnes, Lewis, Sebastian and Sancius for the Discouerie of New and Unknowen Lands," of March 5, 1498. Letters Patent and other instructions given to voyagers to the "new world," illustrate how Great Britain and France initially had far-reaching plans for imperialist adventures in North America that took little account of the rights of the Aboriginal inhabitants:
"Henry, by the grace of God, king of England and France, and lord of Ireland, to all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting. Be it knowen that we haue giuen and granted, and by these presents do giue and grant for vs and our heiress to our welbeloued Iohn Cabot citizen of Venice, to Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of the sayd Iohn, and to the heires of them, and euery of them, and their deputies, full and free authority, leaue, and power to saile to all parts, countreys, and seas of the East, of the West, and of the North, vnder our banners and ensignes, with fine ships of what burthen or quantity soeuer they be, and as many mariners or men as they will haue with them in the sayd ships, vpon their owne proper costs and charges, to seeke out, discouer, and finde whatsoever isles, countreys, regions or prouinces of the heathen and infidels whatsoeuer they be, and in what part of the world soeuer they be, which before this time haue bene vnknowen to all Christians; we haue granted to them, and also to euery of them, the heires of them, and euery of them, and their deputies, and haue giuen them licence to set vp our banners and ensignes in euery village, towns, castle, isle, or maine land of them newly found. And that the aforesayd Iohn and his sonnes, or their heires and assignee may subdue, occupy and possesse all such townes, cities, castles and isles of them found, which they can subdue, occupy and possesse, as our vassals, and lieutenants, getting vnto vs the rule, title, and jurisdiction of the same villages, townes, castles, & firme land so found.... Witnesse our selfe at Westminister, the fifth day of March, In the eleventh yeere of our reigne." In the European context, all the rights pertained to the king by divine right and he ruled in conjunction with the church. In 1215, Magna Carta was signed by which the feudal nobility forced the king to hand some of his rights over to them. The King or Queen issued royal Charters by the authority of the Royal Prerogative, which continues to date in the unrepresentative Westminster parliamentary system imposed on Canada in 1867. Charters are legal documents that decreed grants, particularly land grants, by the sovereign to his or her subjects. The power and authority of the King and Queen are almost absolute, as the following commentary on the laws of England by William Blackstone shows: "And, first, the law ascribes to the king the attribute of sovereignty, or pre-eminence.... He is said to have imperial dignity, and in charters before the conquest is frequently styled basileus and imperator, the titles respectively assumed by the emperors of the east and west. His realm is declared to be an empire, and his crown imperial, by many acts of parliament, particularly the statutes 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12. and 25 Hen. VIII. c. 28; which at the same time declare the king to be the supreme head of the realm in matters both civil and ecclesiastical, and of consequence inferior to no man upon earth, dependent on no man, accountable to no man." Between 1754 and 1763 the British generals monopolized power in their own hands through conquest on behalf of the Crown. In a series of acts, the British modified the Royal Prerogative to include a new basis legitimizing the subjugation of the Indigenous peoples and to include men of propertied means in the political power whose power was absolute. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, one of the most significant colonial decrees issued after the ceding by France of Canada to the British (Treaty of Paris, deciding the Seven Years War), explicitly forbade grants "upon any Pretence whatever" of any land "not having been ceded to or purchased by us" from the Indigenous peoples: "And whereas it is just and reasonable, and essential to our interest and the security of our colonies, that several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom we are connected, or who live under our protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the possession of such parts of our dominions and territories as not having been ceded to or purchased by us are reserved to them or any of them as their hunting grounds." It goes on to forbid any more private purchases and prescribes the procedure by which the Crown would acquire land so reserved and when it was needed for settlement. Hardial Bains wrote in A Future to Face,[1] a book published at the time of the campaign to defeat the 1992 Charlottetown Accord: "The Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763 placed the political power in the hands of an Executive consisting of a Governor and Council appointed by the ruling authority, the Colonial Office in London. It was a direct rule under the sovereign authority of the British King as advised by the 18th century Parliament. The proclamation included a provision for a popular assembly 'as soon as... circumstances admit.'" In 1767 the whole of Prince Edward Island was granted in one day by royal decree to a few dozen "absentee proprietors." The Quebec Act, 1774, followed by the Constitutional Act, 1791, marked the use of noblesse in order to preserve and extend the power established in 1763. The latter act, along with the division of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada, vested legislative authority in the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor acting with the advice of a legislative council and assembly in each of the two colonies. "A bill passed in both the Legislative Assembly and the appointed Legislative Council could be accepted or rejected by the Governor or he could reserve it for the pleasure of the Crown. Any bill assented by the Governor could be over-ruled by the British government any time within two years. The Governor and Executive Council were constituted into the Court of Appeal, with the right to appeal to the British Privy Council in London as final arbiter." In 1867, the Confederation as it emerged did not provide a modern conception of democracy which eradicates enslavement. Confederation was not negotiated on the basis of a free and voluntary union with the Indigenous peoples, nor was it put to the population of the Canadas for approval or rejection in any democratic vote in any of the colonies, with the exception of New Brunswick where it was defeated. Put into effect in 1867, the British North America Act -- in modern terms referred to as Constitution Act, 1867 -- formulated a central government that preserves the sovereignty of the Queen. The concentration of executive power, through conquest, becomes perpetuated through to the 21st century in the form of executive federalism and the Westminster parliamentary democracy. The Dominion of Canada was the name commonly used until around World War II. Invoking the providence of the Biblical God of the Israelites, the neo-colonial state drew upon the Old Testament and the eighth verse of King Solomon's 72d Psalm for its name: "And He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, And from the River unto the ends of the earth." The Royal Charter to the Hudson's Bay CompanyOn May 2, 1670, Charles II granted a Royal Charter to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) headed by his cousin Prince Rupert of the Rhine and his Company of Adventurers of England -- "Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay -- delivering proprietary rights, exclusive trading privileges, and limited governmental power covering: "...all the Landes and Territoryes upon the Countryes Coastes and confynes of the Seas Bayes Lakes Rivers Creekes and Soundes aforesaid [that is, "that lye within the entrance of the Streights commonly called Hudsons Streights"] that are not already actually possessed by or granted to any of our Subjectes or possessed by the Subjectes of any other Christian Prince or State..." The charter granted one company a monopoly of trade in the Bay and ownership of all lands drained by rivers flowing into the Bay. The HBC established an English colonial presence in the Northwest and a competitive route with France to the fur trade. Numerous unsuccessful challenges emerged concerning the legitimacy and accuracy of the land grant. The Hudson Bay Company, Canadian Land Company and British American Land Company all included British slave owners on their boards of directors. Much of the profits of Barings, which enriched itself from slavery and the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act, were re-exported to finance the neo-colonial confederation of Canada created in 1867 and the railway and territorial expansion of the U.S. and Canadian colonial states in the 1800s.[2] The slave trade formed the basis of wealth for many leading families of the gentry, among them the "father of Confederation" Sir John A. Macdonald, who had a direct personal family link to slavery. Most importantly, Macdonald was himself an ardent architect of genocide.[3] The wealth of the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Royal Bank -- both of which were founded in Halifax -- was originally generated from the significant mercantile trade from the Atlantic fisheries to provide protein to the slave plantations (the triangular trade) in the Caribbean, along with the building of slave ships -- euphemistically described by historians as the "West Indies trade" -- and later in the sugar, rum, and coffee trade, exploitation of railways, shipping, electrical power, bauxite and other mining resources, and military adventures. London-based slave owners played a significant role in the settlement, exploitation, and expansion of Canada through to the 1800s. The Royal FamilyHenry VII, Giovanni Caboto's royal benefactor, in 1497 -- the year of Cabot's first expedition -- smashed the Second Cornish Rebellion, killing 2,000 and selling thousands of captured rebels into slavery. Later, from the enslavement and deportation of the Irish to British colonies in the West Indies to the kidnapping of Africans, the British Crown made much of their vast personal wealth from the human slave trade. In The Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano describes how in 1562 Queen Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603) became a business partner of the English pirate Captain John Hawkins, "the English father of the slave trade."[4] Official English participation in the African Slave Trade began that year and Blacks were expelled from England by law in 1596, by a proclamation issued by Elizabeth I: "[T]here are of late divers blackmoores brought into this realme, of which kinde of people there are allready here to manie ... Her Majesty's pleasure therefore ys that those kinde of people should be sent forth of the lande." Accordingly, a group of slaves were rounded up and given to a German slave trader, Caspar van Senden, in "payment" for duties he had performed. In 1632, King Charles I granted a licence to transport slaves from Guinea, from which is derived the name of the coin of the realm -- guinea. Charles II was a shareholder in the Royal African Company, which made vast profits from the slave trade, paying 300 per cent in dividends, although only 46,000 of the 70,000 slaves it shipped between 1680 and 1688 survived the crossing. Its Governor and largest shareholder, was James, Duke of York who branded the initials "DY" on the left buttock or breast of each of the 3,000 Blacks that his concern annually took to the "sugar islands." Princess Henrietta (Minette), the King's sister, also had a share. The shareholders of its predecessor, Royal Adventurers into Africa (1660-1672), included four members of the royal family, two dukes, a marquess, five earls, four barons, seven knights and the "philosopher of liberty" John Locke.[5] For its part, the Royal Family has never apologized for its intimate role in the Atlantic Slave Trade and the genocide of the Indigenous peoples nor been forced to pay a single cent in reparations. Notes1. Hardial Bains, A Future to Face, (MELS, 1992), p.12. 2. Barings, a stronghold of British finance capital, was financial agent for Canada in London. Barings Bank was behind the forced union of the Canadas in 1841. R.T. Naylor remarked that Baring Brothers were the true Fathers of Confederation. It acted as the exclusive financial agents for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, as well as Upper Canada along with George Carr Glyn, a big investor in the colonies. By the last quarter of the 19th century, Baring Brothers was financing one-quarter of all U.S. railroad construction, along with the Intercolonial, Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific railways in Canada. A railroad town in British Columbia was renamed Revelstoke, in honour of the leading partner of the bank, Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke, commemorating his role in securing the financing necessary for completion of the CPR. Some of the information on Barings and the land companies is drawn from Dr. Laurence Brown, "The slavery connections of Northington Grange," University of Manchester, 2010; Peter Austin, Baring Brothers and the birth of Modern Finance, London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 63; and Nicholas Draper et al, Legacies of British Slave-ownership: Colonial Slavery and the Formation of Victorian Britain, Cambridge University Press, 2014. Draper and others have developed at University College London a research centre for the study of the legacies of British slave-ownership. More information about their work and links to a database of compensation paid at abolition to former slave-owners can be found at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/project/project. 3. Macdonald's
father-in-law, Thomas James Bernard, owned a sugar
plantation near Montego Bay, Jamaica and 96
enslaved Africans. He received £1,723
"compensation" from the British government under
the Abolition of Slavery Act of March
1833, a vast sum considering the annual salary for
a skilled worker in Britain at the time was around
£60. Macdonald married Bernard's daughter, Agnes,
1st Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe, in 1867.
Macdonald had to resign in 1873 when the Pacific
Scandal exposed his receipt of campaign donations
from the owner of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
See also "Sir
John A. MacDonald's Reign of Terror," Tony Seed,
TML Weekly, October 3, 2017. 4. Hawkins' first slave expedition in 1562 was made with a fleet of three ships and 100 men. He smuggled 300 Blacks out of Portuguese Guinea "partly by the sworde, and partly by other meanes." A year after leaving England, Hawkins returned to England "with properous successe and much gaine to himself and the aforesayde adventurers." Queen Elizabeth was furious: "It was detestable and would call down vengeance from heaven upon the undertakers," she cried. But Hawkins told her that in exchange for the slaves he had a cargo of sugar, hides, pearls, and ginger in the Caribbean, and "she forgave the pirate, and became his business partner." Elizabeth I supported him by lending him for a second expedition, The Jesus of Lubeck, a 700-ton vessel purchased by Henry VIII for the Royal Navy. Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, Translated by Cedric Belfrage. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997. p.80; James Walvin, Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire, London: HarperCollins, 1992, p. 25. 5. The idea of the innate inferiority of non-Europeans is prominent in the John Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1690).
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