25 Million Acres
In 1881, the 14-year-old colonial federal government granted 25 million acres of Indigenous land to the newly incorporated Canadian Pacific Railway Company.
The federal government gave this land to the CPR in exchange for its construction of the transcontinental rail line. For the terminus station of its transcontinental line, the CPR chose an area that had been inhabited for thousands of years by the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam Peoples. This played a foundational role in the incorporation of the City of Vancouver in April 1886.
By the time the first CPR train pulled into the Vancouver terminus station in 1887, the company was facing mounting debt. In efforts to turn a profit, the CPR launched a massive campaign to attract white migrants from Europe and the United States. Setting up recruitment offices abroad, the company promoted Canada as a land of prosperity, creating narratives that justified land theft and colonization. By 1909, the CPR was selling “ready-made farm” packages that included a house, barn, well, and cultivated land on the Prairies. Leveraging its access to land and government support, the CPR dramatically fuelled the colonization of Western Canada.
Next: Settling Canada