DISCLAIMER: Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration.
Magicals of all stripes from Europe and Asia had long known of the existence of the Americas well before "official" European contact with the New World was made in the fall of 1492 thanks to Christopher Columbus, then in service of the king and queen of recently-united Spain. Like their non-magical countrymen, magicals residing in the Americas were content to live in harmony with Nature, not advancing discoveries in local technology that might have given them an advantage when the white people began to migrate across the Atlantic in the wake of the landing on what Columbus called "San Salvador". Even more, while there had been contact between magicals of the Old World and the New World since before the time of Christ, it didn't result in any sort of large information exchange between peoples on either sides of the Atlantic or the Pacific; thanks to the existence of Nerio (the Mundus Magicus) and interplanetary trade between there and Earth, the fact that there was a rather large landmass lying to both Eurasia's west and east had been known to magicals of the Old World for ages.
This paucity of contact between cultures had both its good and bad effects on magical native Americans, especially when the desire to locate an easy way to access the treasures of the Far East drove European explorers to penetrate the Americas in increasing numbers after the landing in the Bahamas by Columbus in 1492. Magicals gladly came with the early explorers to the New World, helping their non-magical companions better understand what they were getting into. It wasn't without its hiccups, of course. To his death, Columbus refused to believe his magical advisers when it came to his staunch belief that he had not landed on outlying islands near "Cathay" but a whole new territory hence unknown to normal people to that date...never mind the belief that the Haudenosaunee term kanada ("village") that Jacques Cartier expressed in his 1535-36 voyage into the valley of the Saint Lawrence River represented the name of the territory he was then exploring.
Given the emphasis of this is meant to look on the magicals of the modern-day Dominion of Canada and how they developed over the years to become one of the most liberal magical societies on Earth, events in what later became the United States of America and elsewhere will only be briefly reflected on; detailed histories of those nations are chronicled elsewhere...
MAGIC AND CANADA
by Fred Herriot
Major Deannette Antonia "Dean" Raeburn, Admiral Francis William Harlan, the First Canadian Battleship Squadron, the War Hawks (First Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit), the Niphentaxians, the Avalonians/Sagussans and all related characters and situations were created by myself.
Including characters and situations from MahōSensei Negima, created by Akamatsu Ken; Dial "H" For Hero, published by DC Comics; Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, written by Seth Grahame-Smith; Kantai Collection, created by Kadokawa Games; Kōtetsu Tenshi Kurumi, created by Kaishaku (Ōta Hitoshi and Shichinohe Terumasa); Harry Potter, created by Joanna K. Rowling; The Guns of the South, written by Harry Turtledove; and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon.
NOUVEAU-FRANCE AND THE NATIVE MAGICALS OF CANADA
The early Seventeenth Century CE was an interesting time in the eyes of many on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. After two failed attempts at establishing a permanent settlement on the Atlantic coast in what today are Île-Saint-Croix in modern-day Maine near the border with New Brunswick and Port-Royal in Nova Scotia's Annapolis valley, French explorers under Samuel de Champlain were able to establish a permanent habitation at the site of the village of Stadacona (which had been visited decades earlier by Jacques Cartier on his second voyage), which would become Ville de Québec, Canada's oldest city. After the initial troubles of building a new town were fully surpassed and new trade structures for things like beaver pelts were properly established by rulers of what came to be called "New France", a small, steady stream of colonists seeking out their fortunes and a new life for themselves braved the Atlantic to reside in the valley of the Saint Lawrence River.
Among them were many magicals, both wand-welders and more ancient mystics who still practised their traditional forms of magecraft which had endured the increasing influence of l'Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons as France's premier national magical school. Like their non-magical countrymen who came across from the Old World, magicals made the journey to New France for many reasons. However, the vast majority of French magicals seeking to settle to New France were what were known back in the home country as née moldues; "muggleborn" as their British counterparts settling on the Atlantic coast to the south of Québec were always called both by themselves and their pureblood countrymen. Like many such people in Europe born of normal parents who had been invited when they came of age to learn how to use their gifts at places such as Beauxbâtons, née moldues often found themselves getting the proverbial short end of the stick from both sides: Manipulated by normal friends to create "miracles"...while constantly loathed by the "pureblood" gentry for their "unclean" birth. This was not a pleasant time for not only normal-borns but other magicals in Europe; one has to remember that during the time New France was beginning to flower, the Dark Times of Magic had descended on Europe as rhabdophobes moved to either enslave magicals wholesale or burn them at the stake for their "evil" ways...killing many normal people along the way.
Ironically, the née moldues in New France soon discovered that they had gained spiritual allies among mystics of the various native nations the French were interacting with as they sought to expand the fur trade and convert normal natives to Roman Catholicism in a response of the Reformation which helped provoke the Dark Times of Magic. That unofficial social alliance came to form the unshakable foundation of modern Canadian magical society as a whole; rejected by their "pureblood" peers in France and accepted almost wholesale by tribes such as the Haudenosaunee as worthy friends and allies in facing a world becoming more complex by the day as people from the Continent came over, née moldues of New France soon became a political power within their own right. And they had the ear of colonial governors from Samuel de Champlain on down.
That made the acceptance of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy all the more easier for magicals of New France and neighbouring native nations when news of the treaty came across the Atlantic, followed by commands from various royal houses to have the treaty fully enforced in law. Prompted in part because of the tragedy of the Salem witch trials which would rock the British colony in Massachusetts in 1692-93, the real reason the alliance of née moldues and native mystics accepted the Statute wholesale was that it would protect normals and magicals from multiple threats. Like Australia was later discovered to be when the British began settling that continent in the Eighteenth Century, what later became Canada was a remote, foreboding land demanding much of those who braved its harsh terrain to seek out treasure there. While there would always been much in the way of sympathy when it came to normal peoples and how they fared in such a land, the strain on magicals to perform "miracles" had just got to far too many, especially among the descendants of the née moldues.
Within the borders of New France, the Statute was made royal law, enforced with the eternal magic of the land with the issuing of le Grande Ordonnance de Séparation Magique ("the Grand Ordnance of Magical Separation") in 1692 by the Sun King Louis XIV, just as the Salem witch trials reached their height and King William IV and Queen Mary II of Great Britain were moving to approve the establishment of the Wizengamot of British North America to administer the magicals living in their colonies south of New France. In the Grand Ordnance, a separate-but-equal government in the eyes of the Crown to le Ministère Royal de la Magie ("the Royal Ministry of Magic") designed to administer the magicals then living in France was established with headquarters in Québec City. Le Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la Nouvelle-France ("the Ministry of Magical Affairs of New France") would be led by a Ministre des Affaires Magiques ("Minister of Magical Affairs") elected every ten years by adult magical natives of New France and who was required by the Grand Ordnance to directly report to the Royal Governor on issues affecting magicals and normals alike. The Minister was supported by les États-Généraux Magique de la Nouvelle-France ("Magical Estates-General of New France"), an assembly whose members were all elected every five years; unlike the old country and elsewhere in Europe, seats wouldn't become the domain of family dynasties in Québec.
The pluralization of "Estates-General" in the title of the New French magical governing body had been deliberate from the start. The first Minister of Magical Affairs — who is seen somewhat erroneously today as the traditional founder of the modern Canadian Wizengamot — was a second-generation native of Trois-Rivières named Jean Dupré Harlan. Descent of Norman warriors from Cherbourg who had relatives in France and in England on both sides of the security divide now separating magical from normal, Harlan had always been disgusted by rising pureblood attitudes on everything from the née moldues like himself to sentient magical creatures such as the Kobaloi; to his dying day, he adamantly refused to call such beings "lutins" as was always done back in France. Determined to ensure such "backwards" attitudes would never haunt New France, Harlan won the support of the King in ensuring that the Grand Ordnance would keep New French magicals totally clear of any interference from the Royal Ministry of Magic in Paris; the sheer thought of French purebloods reaching across the Atlantic to ruin lives wholesale to assuage their offended "sensibilities" made Harlan's blood boil.
With the Grand Ordnance in place and enforced by a sublime loyalty clause to the French Crown that remains in effect (in modified form given the modern Republic's current presidential mode of government) to this day among natives of France, the structure of New French magical society developed in such a way that would ensure that not only did the descendants of née moldues residing in places like Québec and Montréal would have equal representation in the face of the Crown...but so would native magicals from allied nations that interacted with New France such as the Haudenosaunee; the various tribal elders agreed with New French Governor General Louis de Buade, the Comte de Frontenac, to allow Minister Harlan to help administer magicals among those tribes within the territory of the royal colony. That — much to the shock and horror of the pureblood gentry then busy establishing their Royal Ministry of Magic in Paris — effectively opened the door for members of non-humanoid and part-human magical beings such as the Kobaloi, the Veela and the Dweorg to be represented in the New French magical government. That not only caused a mass migration of such beings across the Atlantic to la Terre de Liberté Égale ("the Land of Equal Freedom") — as New France came to be seen by all — it also ensured native magical creatures would be cared for in a more humane manner that was seen as "proper" in Europe, much less British North America or New Spain. Lunar therianthropes such as werewolves found themselves quite at home in New France; Minister Harlan spearheaded the establishment of special safe zones for such begins to pass the full moons without threat of harming an innocent bystander. Even more so, native American creatures such as the infamous Wendigo were expertly controlled by local authorities in a manner that would have left hundreds of slain magicals had it happened in Europe.
For all his efforts in creating such a loyal society of magicals across the Atlantic, the Sun King bestowed the title Comté-Duc de Tadoussac ("Ducal Count of Tadoussac") to Harlan before Louis XIV himself died in 1715. Doing this elevated the patriarch/matriarch of the Harlan family of Trois-Rivières — who moved to a new magical estate at the point where the Saguenay River flowed into the Saint Lawrence, near an ancient native trading outpost — to a level that was above the highest magical lord back in metropolitan France; they were only rated as counts among the nobility of the Ancien Régime.
Harlan would finally step down as Minister of Magical Affairs on the twentieth anniversary of the Grand Ordnance of Separation. He would be succeeded by Françoise Trianon of Sorel near Montréal, who would become one of the first female post-Statue of Secrecy national magical leaders in the world.
But was New France "national"...?
THE INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF WIZARDS AND RELATIONS WITH NEW FRANCE
Thanks to both the French Grand Ordnance of Separation and the British Separation Act of 1692, magicals in territories ruled by Great Britain or France were allowed to effectively govern themselves with little or no interaction from normal governing bodies such as Parliament in Westminster or the Estates-General in Versailles. This development brought forth a sigh of relief not only among magicals, but among normals who were let in on the secret in government and among close relatives of normal-borns who no longer had to fear peers manipulating them to force children to do things against their will. But in Britain and France, something happened with the passing of the Grand Ordnance and the Separation Act that caused a lot of confusion within the halls of the International Confederation of Wizards in Geneva: There were now legally multiple equal governmental bodies representing British and French magicals across the planet, especially from North America!
Within the halls of the Confederation erected on the shores of le Rhône near Geneva, the Royal Ministry of Magic in France attempted to act as the sole governing body for all magicals across the planet ruled by King Louis XIV, doing their best to demote the Ministry of Magical Affairs in Québec to a "subordinate" department. However, on noting the British Ministry of Magic wasn't doing anything to subordinate the British North American Ministry to its operational control, people from Geneva travelled to Québec to see what was going on. Much to the furor of leaders in Paris, Dupré Harlan directed the ICW visitors to read the Grand Ordnance of Separation and see for themselves. With that revelation, the issue was settled in the eyes of the ICW and New France was invited to send a representative to Geneva with equal voting rights to the other kingdoms and empires across the world in 1695. While snubbed by representatives from Paris — who verbally put down their counterparts from Québec on every occasion possible — the first New French ambassador, Madame Thérèse de Montmagny of Montréal (a née moldue descendant of a former governor of the colony), won fans from all over the world with her charming wit and common sense. To her eternal embarrassment, both the Kāngxī Emperor of Qīng China and the Heavenly Sovereign Nakamikado of Tokugawa Japan awarded her honorary fiefdoms in their lands after glowing reports of her supporting the protection of traditional Oriental practices in the face of European desires to "update" teachings to enforce the Statute's regulations were presented to Their Imperial Majesties by their ambassadors to the ICW in 1720.
Still, no matter what people such as Madame de Montmagny did, the damage had been done by their many rivals in Paris. Even if Québec had an equal seat at the table in Geneva and did all to honour its obligations under the Statute, the verbal abuse unleashed by French purebloods on the reputation of the parvenus des née moldues ("muggle-born upstarts") had been considerable. It wasn't helped when the egalitarianism of how things were run in Québec sank into the minds of magical leaders in Europe. That effectively saw New France held as an example of what not to do when it came to establishing magical colonies around the world as European expansionism began to encroach on Asia and Africa.
That, experts today in many countries agree, helped plant the seeds of Tsukuyomi's War of Liberation and Grindelwald's War in the 1940s...
THE RISE OF THE CANADIAN FORESTERS
Despite the frequent wars that rocked relations between normals in the British American colonies and New France throughout the first half of the Eighteenth Century, relations between magicals on both sides of the Appalachian Mountains were always quite peaceful. Thanks to considerable interference from Paris when it came to sending magicals to the mother country to attend Beauxbâtons when came their time to learn how to use their powers, the new schools at the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (for both genders) and the Salem Witches Institute (for girls) in Massachusetts and the Seven Hills Wizarding Academy (for boys) in Virginia gladly opened their doors to eager students from New France who didn't want to risk an ocean journey to learn how to properly use their gifts, much less interference thanks to French pureblood prejudices. Yearly conferences between people such as Dupré Harlan and Josiah Jackson (the first Minister for Magic of British North America) became a tradition, even during the dark times such as Queen Anne's War (the War of the Spanish Succession) in the first two decades of the Eighteenth Century or King George's War (the War of the Austrian Succession) during the 1740s. Even if there were some normal-borns who lost relatives in the fighting, the prompt action of American aurors and New French magical constables ensured no Statute breaches occurred.
This peaceful period between British North America and New France was also the time that the ancestors of Canada's modern elite magical militia came into being. Thanks very much to the Scourers — wizarding mercenaries then active in the British colonies before the Statute of Secrecy was established who had served as vigilantes and volunteer law enforcement before corruption set in at a scale which still staggers magical historians to this very day — normal and magical natives of New France and allied nations were often delivered to Puritan rhabdophobes in places such as Massachusetts in exchange for gold; such often cost the victims their lives at the stake if local magicals didn't save them. Disgusted at such behaviour, Dupré Harlan obtained Royal Assent to create a volunteer Société des Forestiers Magiques ("Company of Magical Foresters") to hunt the Scourers down and clear them from New France...and from British North America if the American Wizengamot (then based at Ilvermorny on the slopes of Mount Greylock in northwest Massachusetts near the border with New York) so desired. Trained in both European and native forms of magic as well as non-magical weapons, the Foresters became a nightmare to the Scourers, who had been outlawed and were forced to hide themselves from British authorities. What later was called the "First Foresters War" from 1695-1715 — in truth, a series of localized actions that saw Scourers run down and stripped of their magic, then obliviated to ensure they would never threaten others again — effectively wiped the latter group in New France and drove them underground in British North America for decades to come.
While the Foresters were hailed as heroes on both sides of the Appalachians for putting the Scourers down and protecting all, ICW leaders who were monitoring this situation from Geneva were horrified. It was with reason; one of the clauses in the Statute of Secrecy was a flat-out prohibition when it came to the creation of magical military combat forces as such as seen as a guarantee to prevent the unleashing of wars that could easily spill into the normal world. When made to answer to this, Thérèse de Montmagny reminded fellow delegates that such a prohibition was meant to prevent standing armies from being established and maintained; such a clause never referenced anything about part-time militias which were only mobilized at the order of the Crown to ensure the magical peace both in New France and among her neighbours. As prohibiting such could also be used to hamstrung local law enforcement if that clause was interpreted the wrong way, the Foresters were left alone once they were demobilized on the death of the Sun King, their mission against the Scourers a success.
And so it went until 1763...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
This narrative is meant to serve as a background information file concerning how magic would have developed in Canada in the mixed worlds of my stories. If anyone wishes to make use of what is contained here, please feel free to do so, but do allow proper credit to be bestowed. Naturally, it draws primarily on the world of Harry Potter as created by Joanna Rowling, but also includes my own creations as well as the creations of other authors as noted in the title blurb, especially the world of Mahō Sensei Negima as created by Akamatsu Ken and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as created by Josh Whedon.
Please note that HP elements of this story heavily draw on what was recently promoted in Pottermore concerning worldwide magical development, though it is modified to acknowledge the true history of North America and other nations. As serious historians know, the very concept of the United States of America didn't enter public discourse until the 1770s, thus it would be IMPOSSIBLE for something called the "Magical Congress of the United States of America" (MACUSA) to exist as far back as 1692! Given the very strong British influence on American life at the end of the Seventeenth Century CE, giving the name of the local British magical ministry as I've indicated here makes more sense.
Specific notes for this part:
Unlike what Akamatsu-sensei promoted in Mahō Sensei Negima, I don't see the Mundus Magicus as being Mars under magical disguise, but a separate planet of about the same general size as the red world in a hidden Trojan orbit between Earth and Mars. I coined the term "Nerio" in my stories for this planet; the name is that of an ancient Roman war goddess who personified valour on the field of honour and was Mars' partner in being the patron of soldiers.
The Haudenosaunee is the proper name of the group of native Americans known more commonly as the "Iroquois".
Née moldues is taken from the phrase for muggleborns used in the French translation of the Harry Potter novels. The term "moldu" was invented for such by the people who rendered the books into French, but I can't find the origin of the term. According to the Urban Dictionary, the term is "A word that can be substituted for pretty much any other noun in the English language; usually used in an insulting manner, but sometimes used to show the superior quality of an object and/or concept."
Rhabdophobe is my term for people who are afraid of magicals; the name of the fear is rhabdophobia and the adjective is rhabdophobic. The base term comes from the Greek term for a wand, though it is meant to serve as a catch-all fear for all magicals. The opposite fear is mugalophobia with a person expressing such being a mugalophobe and the adjective is mugalophobic. The base term here comes from the Greek term for "muggle" used in the local translation of the novels.
The term Kobaloi is the plural of "kobalos", who were mythological tricksters in Greek mythologies fond of deceiving and frightening mortal men. This term evolved into the Latin "cobalus", from which the English word "goblin" possibly evolved. The term Dweorg is the old English term for a dwarf. It is derived from the proto-Germanic term "dwergaz".
The Wendigo is a cannibal monster from Algonquian folklore. Fans of Marvel Comics will be familiar with this creature; the Hulk, Wolverine and other superheroes have often encountered such a being. In the universe of my stories, it is a dark curse that strikes magically sensitive beings that drives them to consume the flesh of their fellow men.
As fans of Goblet of Fire will recall, the Salem Witches Institute was the first American magical school introduced in the series, long before the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was mentioned in Pottermore. I first mentioned the boy's only counterpart of Salem, the Seven Hills Wizarding Academy, in The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone.
