sentences:  In 1873, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, anxious to thwart US expansionism and facing the distraction of the Pacific Scandal, negotiated for Prince Edward Island to join Canada.The Federal Government of Canada assumed the colony's railway debts and agreed to finance a buy-out of the last of the colony's absentee landlords to free the island of leasehold tenure and from any new migrants entering the island.Prince Edward Island entered Confederation on July 1, 1873.