Sir John Alexander Macdonald

Sir John Alexander Macdonald led the way. In his youth, British North America was a patchwork of colonies and territories. When he died, Canada had become a country stretching from sea to sea. A charming man and a shrewd manipulator, Macdonald had imagination and keen political instincts. He persuaded New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to join Quebec and Ontario in forming Confederation in 1867 and, under his leadership, the alliance continued to grow. The main author of Canada’s constitution, he also negotiated trade agreements and boundaries with an aggressive United States, tied Canada together with a transcontinental railway and inaugurated the great era of Canadian immigration.