New France, the Quebec Act and the United Empire Loyalists

France’s ambitions in North America went far beyond exploration. Beginning in 1604, French settlers built permanent communities, forged alliances with Aboriginal peoples and created a fur-trade empire stretching from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. The eventual British victory over France — and how Britain chose to govern the people it had conquered — set the stage for the Canada that exists today. The flood of Loyalists from the American Revolution then added an entirely new dimension to the colony’s population.

Royal New France: Settlement and Alliance

In 1604, French explorers Pierre de Monts A French nobleman and explorer who co-founded the first European settlement north of Florida in 1604. and Samuel de Champlain A French explorer who helped establish the first permanent European settlements in Canada and built a fortress at the site of present-day Québec City in 1608. established the first European settlement north of Florida — beginning on St. Croix Island (in present-day Maine), then relocating to Port-Royal in Acadia The French colonial territory in what are now Canada's Maritime provinces. , in present-day Nova Scotia. In 1608, Champlain built a fortress at the location that is now Québec City.

Champlain allied the colony with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron nations — enemies of the Iroquois Confederacy A confederation of originally five, later six, First Nations who were rivals of the French settlements and their Aboriginal allies. The French and Iroquois made peace in 1701. , a confederacy of five (later six) First Nations that battled French settlements for roughly a century. The French and Iroquois finally made peace in 1701.

The Fur Trade and the French Empire

The economic engine of New France was the fur trade The commercial trade in animal pelts — particularly beaver fur — between Aboriginal peoples and European traders, which drove much of Canada's early exploration and settlement. , powered by strong European demand for beaver pelts. French and Aboriginal peoples collaborated closely across this vast enterprise.

In 1670, King Charles II of England granted the Hudson's Bay Company A trading company granted exclusive rights over the Hudson Bay watershed in 1670, which competed with Montreal-based French traders for over a century. exclusive trading rights over the entire watershed draining into Hudson Bay. For the next 100 years, the Company competed with Montreal-based traders. The skilled and courageous canoe-men who paddled deep into the continent were known as voyageurs French-Canadian paddlers who transported furs and trade goods over great distances through the interior. and coureurs des bois Independent French fur traders — 'runners of the woods' — who travelled deep into the continent and built alliances with First Nations. , and they formed strong alliances with First Nations.

Outstanding leaders — including Jean Talon A capable administrator who helped build and expand New France in the late 17th century. , Bishop Laval The first Bishop of New France, a major figure in the colony's religious and social life. and Count Frontenac A Governor of New France who famously refused to surrender Québec to the English in 1690, and whose empire stretched from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. — built a French empire in North America that stretched from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Struggle for a Continent

English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard grew richer and more populous than New France throughout the 1700s. In 1759, the decisive moment came at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham The pivotal 1759 battle at Québec City in which British forces under Brigadier James Wolfe defeated the French under the Marquis de Montcalm, ending France's empire in North America. Both commanders were killed in the battle. . The commanders of both armies — Brigadier James Wolfe The British commander at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, killed in the moment of victory in 1759. and the Marquis de Montcalm The French commander at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, also killed during the battle. — were both killed leading their troops. France’s North American empire came to an end.

The Province of Quebec and the Quebec Act

Following the war, Britain renamed the colony the “Province of Quebec.” The French-speaking Catholic inhabitants — known as habitants French-speaking Catholic farmers and settlers who formed the backbone of the colonial population of New France and later the Province of Quebec. or Canadiens — were determined to preserve their way of life within the English-speaking, Protestant-ruled British Empire.

To govern this French Roman Catholic majority, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act A 1774 Act of the British Parliament that accommodated the rights of French Catholics in the Province of Quebec, allowing religious freedom, the right to hold public office, and restoring French civil law alongside British criminal law. It is considered one of Canada's constitutional foundations. of 1774 — one of the constitutional foundations of Canada. The Act adapted British institutions to the reality of the province: it allowed Catholics to practise their faith freely and to hold public office (a right not even granted to Catholics in Britain itself at the time), and it restored French civil law The body of law governing private matters such as property and contracts, rooted in French legal tradition, restored in Quebec by the Quebec Act of 1774 alongside British criminal law. while retaining British criminal law.

A key figure from this era was Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville A celebrated hero of New France who won many victories over the English from James Bay to the Caribbean in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. , who had won significant victories over the English across a vast theatre from James Bay to Nevis in the Caribbean. Later, Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester), as Governor of Quebec, defended the rights of the Canadiens, defeated an American military invasion of Quebec in 1775, and supervised the Loyalist migration to Nova Scotia and Quebec in 1782–83.

The United Empire Loyalists

In 1776, the thirteen British colonies to the south declared independence, forming the United States of America. More than 40,000 people who remained loyal to the Crown — known as Loyalists People who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution and fled to settle in Nova Scotia and Quebec, significantly reshaping British North America's population. — fled the American Revolution to settle in Nova Scotia and Quebec. They came from strikingly diverse backgrounds: Dutch, German, British, Scandinavian, Aboriginal and other origins, and from Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Jewish, Quaker and Catholic religious traditions.

led thousands of Loyalist Mohawk Indians north into Canada. About 3,000 Black Loyalists — freedmen and enslaved people — also came north seeking a better life. In 1792, some Black Nova Scotians who had been given poor land moved on to establish Freetown, Sierra Leone in West Africa — a new British colony for freed slaves.