1534 The French explorer Jacques Cartier takes possession of New France in the name of  his King, François 1er. In Gaspée he meets native American tribes.

Native Americans have lived on the continent for centuries.

1537 Jacques Cartier’s second voyage. He sails further down the St Lawrence river to what will become Québec. He and his expedition befriend the Algonquin nation and discover Tobacco.

Fur trade begins. 

1605 The French geographer Samuel de Champlain sails from France to the New World.  The fort of Port Royal in Acadia (current Nova Scotia) is one of the first French settlements on the new continent. The Micmac Indians bring the new settlers fish and game.

1608 Samuel de Champlain founds the permanent settlement of Québec.  The fur trade is the principal commercial endeavor. But the number of colonists remains low. Champlain is not the governor of the new colony. His mandate from the king is to find new sources of furs which send him off on new explorations. He discovers Lake Champlain. Champlain trades furs with the Algonquins, the Ottawais, the Montagnais, the Abenaquis whose enemy are the Iroquois, a powerful confederation of five nations. Champlain consolidates his relations with the tribes the French trade with by going to war with their enemy, the Iroquois, a war which lasts close to a century.

Fur trade: Contrary to the English of New England, the French traders don’t wait for the Indians to come to their outposts. They visit the Indians in their villages and trade with them there. The relations between the hunters and the traders were cordial. Champlain dreams of founding a new people made up of the French and the Native tribes that would dominate a vast territory extending to the Huron country of the Great Lakes.

He also claims that he will find the route to the South China sea by  way of the St Lawrence river. He dies in 1635.

The French settlers bring their European agricultural methods, and adopt the native crops of corn and squash.

1649 The Iroquois attack the Huron settlement of Ste Marie. It marks the beginning of the Huron genocide, and the massacre of missionaries. The French engage in a militia style war with the Iroquois who want total control of the fur trade. The Iroquois attack Ville Marie (Montréal), Trois Rivières, Québec, Ile d’Orléans.

1665 Jean Talon is king Louis the 14th’s new ‘intendent’. He drafts a census of the population and discovers there are too few women. He has young women, called ‘Les filles du Roi’, sent to New France from institutions like ‘La Salpêtrière’’, a hospice for poor women in Paris.

1750: There are 60,000 people in New France compared to 1,000,000 in British colonies to the South.

Expansion of the French territory through explorations all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. 10 times the size of the British colonies.

Seven Year War (1756-1763) between France and England, involving their mutual colonies in North America. Otherwise known in the US as the French and Indian war. British forces take over Québec in 1759, Montréal in 1760. Britain’s defeat of France is made official by The Treaty of Paris 1763.  It is the end of la Nouvelle France, the beginning of British colonial rule, known in Québec as La conquête, the Conquest.

British subjects must swear an oath to renounce their Catholic faith to be eligible for employment in any official capacity.

1774 Boston Tea Party. 

1774 Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Known as The Quebec Act.  The British fear a rebellion of French Canadians and especially the possibility that they might ally themselves to the American rebels who want independence from British rule. The new law restores French civil law, guaranties the right to practice their Catholic religion and abolishes the oath. It recognizes the rights of the Catholic Church and of its clergy to collect tithe.  It enlarges the territory of Québec, now known as Canada, to include the Great Lakes, Ohio and Labrador. 

These measures anger the 13 colonies but gain favor with landowners and the clergy in Québec. However some 747 French Canadians fight with the American militia against the British forces.

The British defeat in the War of independence brings 7,000 Loyalists to Canada. These loyalists to the British crown put pressure on Britain to grant them their own territory, who deed them large land grants in what will be known as the Eastern Townships. Their numbers permanently alter the religious and linguistic makeup of Canada.

1791 The Constitutional Act separates Canada into Lower Canada (majority French speaking Québec) and Upper Canada to the west of the Ottawa River where the majority is English speaking, further weakening Québec’s power.

1837-1838 The Rebellion: French Canadians organize to protest against their colonial province’s lack of actual governing powers. They appeal directly to Parliament in London but are rebuffed. The movement turns into an armed rebellion to gain rights for French Canadians but also influenced by the revolutionary European currents who want democracy and self-determination. The Rebellion is brutally defeated by the British Army.

1840 Union Act: The Durham Report on the troubles in Bas Canada concludes that they were due to the presence of two different cultures within the same territory. The British parliament passes the Union Act which reunites Lower and Upper Canada and institutes measures to assimilate French Canadians into the English majority. French Canadians representatives now constitute a minority in the new Canadian assembly.