Unknown author（佚名） · Public domain
1867–1873
John Alexander Macdonald, known as Sir John A. Macdonald
John Alexander Macdonald · 加拿大
Canada's first prime minister (1867–1873, 1878–1891) and the central figure in creating the federation.
Born in 1815 in Glasgow, Scotland (specifically 10 or 11 January, two accounts, uncertain), he immigrated with his family to Kingston, Ontario, in 1820, qualified as a lawyer in 1836, and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada in 1844; in 1864 he formed a Great Coalition with his political opponents, pushed through the Charlottetown, Quebec, and London conferences, and secured the passage of the *British North America Act*; after Canadian Confederation in 1867 he served as first prime minister, bringing Manitoba (1870), British Columbia (1871), and Prince Edward Island (1873) into the federation, and promoting the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway; he died in Ottawa on 6 June 1891.
People & stories
Places in their life
Birthplace Glasgow (Scotland); place of immigration and practice Kingston (Ontario); federation conference.
People
Cultural significance
Creator of Canada's federal system and its transcontinental national territory; at the same time his legacy is controversial — the Canadian Encyclopedia entry expressly records the residential school system for Indigenous peoples, the famine policy toward the Plains Indigenous peoples, and the head tax on Chinese immigrants under his tenure, and the main text does not avoid this assessment.
