Andrew Archibald Macdonald
My latest article in the Canadian Encyclopedia is about Andrew Archibald Macdonald, one of the Fathers of Canadian Confederation from Prince Edward Island. Macdonald was one of the Prince Edward Island delegates to the Charlottetown and Québec Conferences that preceded Confederation. Though initially opposed to a federal union, Macdonald changed his mind after the Island faced bankruptcy from its railway debt. He thereafter supported Prince Edward Island’s entry into Confederation, as Canada’s seventh province in 1873. Macdonald outlived all of the Fathers of Confederation except Sir Charles Tupper and wrote extensively about his experiences at the Confederation conferences in the last decade of his life.