Real Estate, Public Works, and Political Organization in Winnipeg, 1870–1885

• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12215
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Gustavo F. Velasco

Real Estate, Public Works, and Political

Organization in Winnipeg, 1870–1885

By GUSTAVO F. VELASCO*

ABSTRACT. The second half of the 19

th

century represented an era of

great territorial expansion in almost all the countries of “recent

settlement.” In Canada, Winnipeg, the capital of the Province of

Manitoba, went from a small hamlet located at the confluence of the

Assiniboine and Red Rivers to become the third largest Canadian city at

the turn of the century. I argue that the development of a real estate

market and the organization of the local political institutions in

Winnipeg were interconnected mechanisms that the emerging business

elite used to obtain political and economic power during the years of

city organization (1870–1885). The disputes over land ownership and

the uncertain distribution of land titles among parties related by

business and family ties showed how individuals exploited the

weakness of the state to secure personal benefits. In this era, old

settlers, newcomers, speculators, and business representatives of

central Canada and British firms, acting alone or in partnership,

attempted to obtain political control of a city in its making and to

acquire power and economic benefits through the commodification of

urban land. After a period of corruption and mismanagement, a new

group organized within the Board of Trade obtained political control of

the city and initiateda new cycle of political stability.

Introduction

After 1867, Canada initiated a movement to enlarge its frontier margins,

construct a transcontinental rail network, and eventually incorporate

the new space it had acquired into the expanding global economy

*Economic historian, researcher, and educator. Investigates the organization of

capitalism in the New World during the first era of globalization. PhD dissertation

(London School of Economics and Political Science) revisits the process of frontier

expansion and land appropriation in Western Canada from the 1850s until 1914.

E-mail:gvelasco@wsd1.org; gusv2007@gmail.com

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 77, No. 1 (January, 2018).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12215

V

C2018 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

(Innis and Innis 1962: 72). This article explores how this new legality of

land appropriation was experienced in Winnipeg, the capital of

the Province of Manitoba, from the late 1860s until 1885. It furthermore

shows how the formation of the local state and its institutions were

connected with the acquisition and distribution of urban land that

ultimately organized a strong real estate market, molding the dynamic

of the city’s development during its formative years. Thus, this article

follows a revisionist approach formulated earlier by other social

historians; however, it focuses on a formative period that ends in 1885,

a year that marked the consolidation of the Canadian nation-state when

the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the West Coast.

Other studies have analyzed the relationship between the organiza-

tion of a new settled space, the emergence of a real estate market, and

the influence of local politics in shaping power and privileges. They

did not, however, differentiate clearly the different economic sectors

that managed the municipal administration during this formative

period. Alan Artibise (1975: 23) identifies that the members of the

Winnipeg City Council were also members of the local business

community. David Burley (1988), conversely, demonstrates that those

who acquired power in Winnipeg after the 1860s had the advantage of

appropriating land. Don Nerbas (2004) scrutinizes the life of several

members of the nascent bourgeoisie who settled in Winnipeg after

1874 and describes their family connections, their way of life, and how

their businesses developed and expanded until World War I. Nerbas

contests the widely accepted “thesis of boosterism,” accepted by J. M. S.

Careless (1970) and Alan Artibise (1979a, 1979b). Careless imported the

American idea of the “self-made man” in his analysis of the develop-

ment of Winnipeg, but Nerbas clearly shows that entrepreneurs who

settled in Manitoba since the second half of the 19

th

century had come

to the area with important connections and abundant capital, particu-

larly after the 1890s.

Winnipeg’s bourgeoisie, this article argues, not only disputed

political power through the city’s corporation, as Artibise asserts, but

from the beginning tracedpowerful links of class solidarity and political

connections. As we shall see, John Sutherland, John Christian Schultz,

William Gomez Fonseca, Edmund L. Barber, A. W. Ross, and other

influential locals built direct connections with important politicians in

The American Journal of Economics and Sociology96