The British ordered the Acadians expelled from their lands in 1755 during the

French and Indian War, an event called the Expulsion of the Acadians or le Grand
Derangement. The “expulsion” resulted in approximately 12,000 Acadians being
shipped to destinations throughout Britain’s North America and to France, Quebec
and French Caribbean colony of Saint-Dominigue. The first wave of the expulsion
of the Acadians began with the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755) and the second
wave began after the final Siege of Louisbourg (1758). Many of the Acadians
settled in southern Louisiana, creating the Cajun culture there. Some Acadians
managed to hide and other eventually returned to Nova Scotia, but they were far
outnumbered by a new migration of New England Planters who were settled on the
former lands of the Acadians and transformed Nova Scotia from a colony of
occupation for the British to a settled colony with stronger ties to New England.
Britain eventually gained control of Quebec City and Montereal after the Battle of
the Plains of Abraham and Battle of Fort Niagara in 1759, and the Battle of the
Thousand Islands and Battle of Sainte-Foy in 1760. Amongst notable Metis people
are television actor Tom Jackson, Commissioner of the Northwest Territories Tony
Whitford, and Louis Riel who led two resistance movements: the Red River
Rebellion of 1869-1870 and North West Rebellion of 1885, which ended in his
trial.

The languages inherently Metis are either Metis French or a mixed language called
Michif. Michif, Mechif, or Metchif is a phonetic spelling predominantly speak
English, with French a strong second language, as well as numerous Aboriginal
tongues. A 19th-century community of the Metis people, the Anglo-Metis, were
referred to as Countryborn. They were children of Rupert’s land fur trade typically
of Orcadian, Scottish, or English paternal decent and Aboriginal maternal descent.
Their first languages would have been Aboriginal (Cree, Saulteaux, Assiniboine,
etc.) and English. Their father spoke Gaelic, thus leading to the development of an
English dialect referred to as “Bungee”.

S.35 of the Constitutional Act, 1982 mentions the Metis yet there has long been
debate over legally defining the term Metis, but on September 23, 2003, the
Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Metis are a distinct people with significant
rights (Powley rulling).
 Metis

The Metis are people descended from marriages between Euuropeans (mainly
French) and Cree, Ojibway, Algonquin, Saulteaux, Menominee, Mi’kmaq,
Maliseet, and other first Nations. Their history dates to the mid-17th century. When
Europeans first arrive to Canada they relied on Aboriginal peoples for fur trading
skills and survival. To ensure alliance s, relationships between European fur traders
and Aboriginal women were often consolidated through marriage. The Metis
homeland consists of the Canadian provinces of British, Columbia, Alberta,
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario as
well as the Northern territories (NWT).

Warfare was common among Inuit groups with sufficient population density. Inuit,
such as the Nunatamiut (Uummarmiut) who inhabited the Mackenzie River delta
area, often engaged in common warfare. The Central Arctic Inuit lacked the
population density to engage in warfare. In the 13th century, the Thule culture
began arriving in Greenland from what is now Canada. Norse accounts are scant.
Norse-made items from Inuit campsites in Greenland were obtained by either trade
or plunder. One account, Ivar Baroarson, speaks of “small people” with whom the
Norseman fought. 14th century accounts that a western settlement, one of the two
settlements, was taken over by the Skræling.

After the disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland, the Inuit had no
contact with the Europeans at least a century. By the mid-16th century. Basque
fishers were already working the Labrador coast and had established whaling
stations on land, such as been excavated at Red Bay. The Inuit appear not to
interfered with their operations, but they did raid the stations in winter for tools,
and particularly worked iron, which they adapted to native needs.
 Inuit

The Inuit are the descendants of what the anthropologists call the Thule culture,
which emerged from western Alaska around 1.000 CE and spread eastward across
the Arctic, displacing the Dorset culture (in Inuktitut, the Tuniit). Inuit historically
referred to the Tuniit as “giants”, or “dwarfs”, who were taller and stronger than
the Inuit. Researchers hypothesize that the Dorset culture lacked dogs, larger
weapons, and other technologies used by the expanding Inuit society. By 1300, the
Inuit had settled in west Greenland, and finally moved to east Greenland over the
following century. The Inuit had trade routes with more southern cultures.
Boundary disputes were common and led to aggressive actions.

Many Aboriginal civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks that

include permanent urban settlements or cities, agriculture, civic, and monumental
architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. These cultures had evolved and
change by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (c. late 15 th-early 16th
centuries), and have been brought forward through Archeological investigations.

There are indications of contact made before Christopher Columbus between the
first peoples and those from other continents. Aboriginal people in Canada
interacted with Europeans around 1000 CE, but prolonged contact came after
Europeans established permanent settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries.
European written accounts generally recorded friendliness of the First Nations,
who profited in trade with the Europeans. Such trade generally strengthened the
more organized political entities such as the Iroquols Confederation. Throughout
the 16th century, Europeans fleets made almost annual visits to the eastern shores of
Canada to cultivate the fishing opportunities. A sideline industry emerged in the
un-organized traffic of furs overseen by the Indian Department.

First Nations peoples had settled and established trader routes across what is now
Canada around 500 BCE-1,000CE. Communities developed each with its own
culture, customs, and character. In the northwest were the Athapaskan, Slavey,
Dogrib, Tutchone, and Tlingit. Along the Pacific coast were the Tsimshian; Haida;
Salish; Kwakiutl; Heiltsuk; Nootka; Nisga’a; Senawk and Gitxsan. In the plains
where the Blacckfoot; Kainawa; Sarcee and Peigan. In the northern woodland were
the Cree and Chipewyan. Around the Great Lakes were the Anishinaabe;
Algonquin; Iroqouls and Huron. Along the Atlantic coast were the Beothuk;
Maliseet; Innu, Abenaki and Mi’kmaq.

The Woodland cultural period dates from about 2,000 BCE-1,000 CE, and has
locales in Ontario, Quebec, and Maritime regions. The introduction of pottery
distinguishes the Woodland culture from the earlier Archaic stage inhabitants.
Laurentian people of southern Ontario manufactured the oldest pottery excavated
to date in Canada. They created pointed-bottom beakers decorated by a cord
marking technique that involved impressing tooth implements into wet clay.
Woodland technology included items such as beaver incisor knives, bangles, and
chisels. The population practicing sedentary agricultural life ways continues to
increase on a diet of squash, corn and bean crops.

The Hopewell tradition is an Aboriginal culture that flourished along American

rivers from 300 BCE-500 CE. At its greatest extent, the Hopewell Exchange
System networked cultures and societies with the peoples on the Canadian shores
of Lake Ontario. Canadian expression of the Hopewllian peoples encompasses the
Point Peninsula, Saugeen, and Laurel complexes.

The west coast of Canada by 7,000-5,000 BCE (9,000-7,000 years ago) saw
various cultures who organized themselves around salmon fishing. The Nuu-cha-
nulth of Vancouver Island began whaling with advanced long spears at about this
time. The Maritime Archaic is one group of North America’s Archaic culture of
sea-mammal hunters in the subarctic. They prospered from approximately 7,000
BCE -1,500 BCE (9,000-3,500 years ago) along the Atlantic Coast of North
America. Their settlements included long houses and boat-topped temporary or
seasonal houses. They engaged in long-distance trade, using as currency white
chert, a rock quarried from northern Labrador to Maine. The Pre-Columbian
culture, whose members were called Red Paint People, is indigenous to the New
England and Atlantic Canada Regions of North America. The culture flourished
between 3,000 BCE-1,000 BCE (5,000-3,000 years ago) and was named after their
burial ceremonies, which used large quantities of red ochre to cover bodies and
grave goods.

The placement of artifacts and materials within an Archaic burial site indicated
social differentiations based upon status. There is a continuous record of
occupation of S’olh Temexw by Aboriginal people dating from the early Holocene
period 10,000-9,000 years ago. Archeological sites at Stave Lake, Coquitlam Lake,
Fort Langley and region uncovered early period artifacts. These early inhabitants
were highly mobile hunter-gatherers, consisting of about 20 to 50 members of an
extended family. [Verification needed] the Na-Dene people occupied much of the
land area of northwest and central North America starting around 8,000 BCE. They
were the earliest ancestors of the Athabaskan-speaking peoples, including the
Navajo and Apache. They had villages with large multi-family dwellings, used
seasonally during the summer, from which they hunted, fished and gathered food
supplies for the winter. The Wendat peoples settled into Southern Ontario along the
Eramosa River around 8,000-7,000 BCE (10,000-9,000 years ago). They were
concentrated between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay. Wendat hunted caribou to
survive on the glacier-covered land Many different First Nations cultures relied
upon the buffalo starting by 6,000-5,000 BCE (8,000-7.000 years ago). They
hunted buffalo by herding migrating buffalo off cloffs. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo
Jump, near Lethbridge, Alberta is a hunting grounds that was in use for about 5,000
years.

The Arctic small tool tradition is a broad cultural entity that developed along the
Alaska Peninsula, around Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the Bering
Strait around 2,500 BCE (4,500 years ago). These Paleo-Arctic peoples had a
highly distinctive tool kit of small blades (microblades) that were pointed at both
ends and used as side- or end-barbs on arrows or spears made of other materials,
such as bone or antlers. Scrapers, engraving tools and adze blades were also
included in their toolkits. The Arctic small tool tradition branches off into two
cultural variants, including the Pre-Dorset, and the Independence traditions. These
two groups, ancestors of the Thule people, were displaced by the Inuit by 1000
Common Era (CE).
 Post-Achaic Periods

A northerly section focusing on the Saugeen, Laurel and Point Peninsula

complexes of the map showing south eastern United States and the Great Lakes
area of Canada showing the Hopewell interaction Sphere and in different colours
the various local expressions of the Hopewell cultures, including the Laurel
Complex, Saugeen Complex, Point Peninsula Complex, Marksville culture,
Copena Culture, Kansas City Hopewell, Swift Creek Culture, Goodall Focus, Crab
Orchard Culture and Havana Hopewell culture.

The Old Copper Complex societies dating 3,000 BCE- 500 BCE (5,000-2,000
years ago) are manifestation of the Woodland Culture, and are pre-pottery in
nature. Evidence found in the northern Great Lakes regions indicates that they
extracted copper from local glacial deposits and used it in its natural form to
manufacture tools and implements.

The Plano cultures was a group of hunter-gatherer communities that occupied the
Great Plains area of North America between 12,000-10,000 years ago. The Paleo-
Indians moved into new territory as it emerged from under the glaciers. Big game
flourished in this new environment. The Plano culture are characterized by a range
of projectile point tools collectively called Plano points, which were used to hunt
bison. Their diets also included pronghorn, elk, deer, raccoon and coyote. At the
beginning of the Archaic Era, they began to adopt a sedentary approach to
subsistence. Sites in and around Belmont, Nova Scotia have evidence of Plano-
Indians, indicating small seasonal hunting camps, perhaps re-visited over
generations from around 11,000-10,000 years ago. Seasonal large and smaller
game fish and fowl were food and raw material sources. Adaptation to the harsh
environment included tailored clothing and skin-covered tents on wooden frames.
 Archaic Period

The North American climate stabilized by 8000 BCE (10,000 years ago); climatic
conditions were very similar to today’s. This led to widespread migration,
cultivation and later a dramatic rise in population all over the Americas. Over the
course of thousands of years, American indigenous peoples domesticated, bred and
cultivated a large array of plant species. These species now constitute 50-60% of
all crops in cultivation worldwide.

Clovis sites dated at 13,500 years ago were discovered in western North America
during the 1930s. Clovis peoples were regarded as the first widespread Paleo-
Indian inhabitants of the New World and ancestors to all indigenous peoples in the
Americas. Archeological discoveries in the past thirty years have brought forward
other distinctive knapping cultures who occupies the Americas from the lower
Great Plains to the shores of Chile.

Localized regional cultures developed from the time of the Younger Dryas cold
climate period from 12,000 to 11,500 years ago. The Folsom tradition are
characterized by their use of Folsom points as projectile tips at archaeological sites.
These tools assisted activities at kill sites that marked the slaughter and butchering
of bison.

The land bridge existed until 13,000-11,000 years ago, long after the oldest proven
human settlements in the New World began. Lower sea levels in the Queen
Charlotte sound and Hecate Strait produced great grass lands called archipelago of
Haida Gwaii. Hunter-gatherers of the area left distinctive lithic technology tools
and the remains of large butchered mammals, occupying the area from 13,000-
9,000 years ago. In July 1992, the Federal Government officially designated
Xa:ytem (near Mission, British Columbia) as a National Historical Site, one of the
first indigenous spiritual sites inCanda to be formally recognized in this manner.
The first inhabitants of North America arrived in Canada at least 15,000 years ago,
though increasing evidence suggests an even earlier arrival. It is believed the
inhabitants entered the Americas pursuing Pleistocene mammals such as the giant
beaver, steppe wisent, musk ox, mastodons, woolly mammoths and ancient
reindeers (early caribou). One route hypothesized is that people walked south by
way of an ice-free corridor on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, and then
fanned out across North America before continuing on to South America. The other
conjectured route is that they migrated, either on foot or using primitive boats,
down the Pacific Coast to the tip of South America, and then crossed the Rockies
and Andes. Evidence of the latter has been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds
of metres following the last ice age.

The Old Crow Flats and basin was one of the areas in Canada untouched by
glaciations during the Pleistocene Ice ages, thus it served as a pathway and refuge
for ice age plants and animals. The area holds evidences of early human habitation
in Canada dating from about 12,000. Fossils from the area include some never
accounted for in North America, such as hyenas and large camels. Bluefish Caves
is an archeological site in Yukon, Canada from which a specimen of apparently
human-worked mammoth bone has been radiocarbon dated 12,000 years ago.

Maps depicting each phase of a three-step early human migrations

for the peopling of the Americas

According to Archeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were
the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin
glaciation, 50,000-17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move
across the Bering land bridge that joined Siberia to North America (Alaska).
Alaska was ice-free because of low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist.
The Laurentide ice sheet covered most of Canada, blocking nomadic inhabitants
and confining them to Alaska (East Beringia) for thousands of years.
Aboriginal genetic studies suggests that the first inhabitants of the Americas share
a single ancestral population, one that developed in isolation, conjecture to be
Beringia. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10,000-
20,000 years. Around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting following
people to move south and east into Canada and beyond,

The term Eskimo has pejorative connotations in Canada and Greenland.

Indigenous peoples in those areas have replaced the term Eskimo with Inuit. The
Yupik of Alaska and Siberia do not consider themselves Inuit, and ethnographers
agree they are a distinct people. They prefer the terminology Yupik, Yupiit, or
Eskimo. The Yupik languages are linguistically distinct from the Inuit languages.
Linguistic groups of Arctic people have no universal replacement term for Eskimo,
inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people across the geographical area inhabited by
the Inuit and Yupik peoples.

Besides these ethnic descriptors, Aboriginal peoples are often divided into legal
categories based on their relationship with the Crown (i.e. the state). Section 91
(clause 24) of the Constitution Act, 1867 gives the federal government (as opposed
to the provinces) the sole responsibility for “Indians, and Lands reserved for the
Indians”. The government inherited treaty obligations from the British colonial
authorities in Eastern Canada and signed treaties itself with the First Nations in
Western Canada (the Numbered Treaties). It governed its interactions with all
treaty and non-treaty peoples. Members of the First Nations bands that are subject
to the Indian Act with the Crown are compiled on a list called the Indian Register,
and such peoples are called Status Indians, Many non-treaty First Nations and all
Inuit and Metis peoples are not subject to the Indian Act. However, two court cases
have clarified that Inuit, Metis, and non-status First Nations people, are all covered
by the term “Indian” in the Constitution Act, 1867. The first was Re Eskimos in
1939 covering the Inuit, the second being Daniels v. Canada in 2013 which applies
to Metis and non-Status First Nations.

Notwithstanding Canada’s location within the Americas, the term “Native

American” is not used in Canada as it is typically used solely to describe the
indigenous peoples within the boundaries of the present-day United States.
The characteristics of Canadian aboriginal culture included permanent settlements,
agriculture, civic and ceremonial architecture, complex societal hierarchies and
trading networks. The Metis culture of mixed blood originated in the mid-17th
century when the First Nation and Inuit people married Europeans. The Inuit
people married Europeans. The Inuit had more limited interactions with Europeans
settlers during that legislation have been enacted between European Immigrants
and First Nations across Canada. Aboriginal Rights to Self-Government provides
opportunity to manage historical, cultural, political, health care and economic
control aspects within first people’s communities.

As of 2011 census, Aboriginal peoples in Canada totaled 1,400,685 people, or

4.3% of the national population, spread over 600 recognized First Nations
governments or bands with distinctive cultures, languages, art and music. National
aboriginal Day recognizes the cultures and contributions of aboriginal peoples to
the history of Canada. First Nations, Inuit and Metis prominent figures and have
served as role models in the Aboriginal community and help to shape the Canadian
cultural identity.

The terms First Peoples and First Nations are both used to refer to indigenous
peoples in Canada are normally broader terms than First Nations, as they include
Inuit, Metis and First Nations. First Nations (most often used in the plural) has
come into general use for the indigenous peoples of North America in Canada, and
their descendant, who are neither Inuit nor Metis. On reserves, First Nations is
being supplanted by members various nations referring to themselves by their
group or ethnical identity. In conversation this would be “I am Haida”, or “we are
Kwantiens”, in recognition on their First Nations ethnicities. In this Act,
“aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit and Metis peoples of
Canada.

Indian remains in place as the legal term used in the Canadian Constitution, Its
usage outside such situation s can be considered offensive. Aboriginal peoples is
more commonly used to describe all indigenous peoples of Canada. The term
Aboriginal people is beginning to be considered outdated and slowly being
replaced by the term indigenous people.

Indigenous Peoples in Canada

Indigenous peoples in Canada, also known as Indigenous Canadians or Aboriginal

Canadians, are the indigenous peoples within the boundaries of [resent-day
Canada. They comprise the First Nations, Inuit, and Metis. Although “Indian” is a
term still commonly used in legal documents, the descriptors “Indian” and
“Eskimo” have somewhat fallen into disuse in Canada and some consider them to
be pejorative. Similarly, “Aboriginal” as a collective noun is a specific term of art
used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act 1982, though in
some circles that word is also falling into disfavor.

Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are some of the earliest known sites of human
habitation in Canada. The Paleo-Indian Clovis, Plano and Dorset cultures pre-date
current indigenous peoples of the Americas. Projectile point tools, spears, pottery,
bangles, chisels and scrapers mark archeological sites thus distinguishing cultural
periods, traditions and lithic reduction styles.

Under letters patent from King Henry VII of England, the Italian John Cabot
became the first European known to have landed in Canada after the time of the
Vikings. Records indicate that on 24 June 1497 he sighted land at a northern
location believed to be somewhere in the Atlantic provinces. Official tradition
deemed the first landing site to be at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland, although
other locations are possible. After 1497 Cabot and his son Sebastian Cabot
continues to make other voyages to find the Northwest Passage, and other
explorers continued to sail out of England to the New world, although the details of
these voyages are not well recorded.
Based on the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Spanish Crown claimed it had territorial
rights in the area visited by John Cabot in 1497 and 1498 CE. However,
Portuguese explorers like Joao Fernandes Lavrador would continue to visit the
north Atlantic coast, which accounts for the appearance of “Labrador” on
topographical maps of the period. In 1501 and 1502 the Corte-Real brothers
explored Newfoundland (Terra Nova) and Labrador claiming these lands as part of
the Portuguese Empire. In 1506, King Manuel I of Portugal created taxes tfor the
cod fisheries in Newfoundland waters. Joao Alvares Fagundes and Pero de
Barcelos established fishing outposts in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia around
1521 CE; however, these were later abandoned, with the Portuguese colonizers
focusing their efforts.

There are reports of contact made before the 1492 voyages of Christopher
Columbus and the age of discovery between First Nations, Inuit and those from
other continents. The Norse, who had settled Greenland and Iceland, arrived
around the year 1000 and built a small settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows at the
northernmost tip of Newfoundland (carbon dating estimate 990-1050 CE) L’Anse
aux Meadows is also notable for its connection with the attempted colony of
Vinland established by Leif Erikson around the same period or, more broadly with
Norse exploration of the Americas.

Pre-Columbian distribution of Na-Dene languages in North America

The interior of British Columbia was home to the Salishan language groups such as
Shuswap (Secwepemc), Okanagan and southern Athabaskan language groups,
primarily the Dakelh (Carrier) and the Tsilhqot’in. The inlets and valleys of the
British Columbia Coast sheltered large, distinctive populations, such as the Haida
Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth, sustained by the regions abundant salmon
and shellfish. These peoples developed complex cultures dependent on the western
red cedar that included wooden houses, seagoing whaling and war canoes and
elaborately carved potlatch items and totem poles.
In the Arctic archipelago, the distinctive Paleo-Eskimos known as Dorset peoples,
whose culture has been traced back to around 500 BCE, were replaced by the
ancestors of today’s Inuit by 1500 CE. This transition is supported by archeological
records and Inuit mythology that tells of having driven off the Tuniit of ‘first
inhabitants’. Inuit traditional laws are anthropologically different from Western
law. Customary law was non-existent in Inuit society before the introduction of the
Canadian legal system.

Pre-Columbian distribution of Algonquian languages in North

America

Speakers of Algoquian languages including the Mi’kmaq and Abenaki of the

Maritime region of Canada and likely the extinct Beothuk of Newfoundland. The
Ojibwa and other Anishinaabe speakers of the central Algonquian languages retain
an oral tradition of having moved to their lands around the sea, likely the east
coast. According to oral tradition, the Ojibwa formed the Council of Three Fires in
796 CE with the Odawa and the Potawatomi.

The Iroquis (Haudenosaunee) were centered from at least 1000 CE in northern

New York, but their influence extended into what is now southern Ontario and the
Montreal are of modern Quebec. The Iroquis Confederacy, according to oral
tradition, was formed in 1142 CE. On the Great Plains of Cree or Nehilawe (who
spoke a closely related Central Algonquinan language, the plains Cree language)
depended on the vast herds of bison to supply foods and many of their other needs.
To the northwest were the peoples of the Na-Dene languages, which include the
Athapaskan-speaking peoples and the Tlingit, who lived on the islands of southern
Alaska and northern British Columbia. The Na-Dene language group is believed to
be linked to thr Yeniseian languages of Siberia. The Dene of the western Arctic
may present a distinct wave of migration from Asia to North America.

There were four French and Indian Wars and two additional wars in Acadia and
Nova Scotia between the thirteen American Colonies and New France from 1688
to 1763. During King William’s War (1688 to 1697), military conflicts in Acadia
included: Battle of Port Royal (1690); a naval battle in the Bay of Fundy (Action of
July 14, 1969); and the Raid of Chignecto (1696). The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697
ended the war between the two colonial powers of England and France for a brief
time. During Queen Anne’s War (1702 to 1713), the British Conquest of Acadia
occurred in 1710, resulting in Nova Scotia, other than Cape Breton, being officially
ceded to the British by the Treaty of Utracht including Rupert’s Land, which
France had conquered in the late 17th century (Battle of Hudson’s Bay). As an
immediate result of this setback, France founded the powerful Fortress of
Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.

Archeological and Aboriginal genetic evidence indicated that North and South
America were the last continents into which humans migrated. During the
Wisconsin glaciation, 50,000-17,000 years ago, falling, sea levels allowed people
to move across the Bering land bridge (Beringia), from Siberia into northwest
North America. At that point, they were blocked by the Laurentide ice sheet that
covered most of Canada, confining them to Alaska and the Yukon routes of the
peopling of the Americas are the subject of an ongoing debate. By 16,000 years
ago to the glacial melt allowed people to move by land south and east out of
Beingia, and into Canada. The Queen Charlotte Islands, Old Crow Flats, and
Bluefish Caves contain some of the earliest Paleo-Indian archaeological sites in
Canada. Ice Age hunter-gatherers of this period left lithic flake fluted stone tools
and the remains of large butchered mammals.

History of Canada

The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians
thousands years ago to the present day. Canada has been inhabited for millennia by
distinctive groups of Aboriginal peoples, with distinct trade networks, spiritual
beliefs, and styles of social organization. Some of these civilizations had long
faded by the time of the first European arrivals and have been discovered through
archaeological investigations. Various treaties and laws have been enacted between
Europeans settlers and the Aboriginal populations.
Beginning in the late 15th century, French and British expeditions explored, and
later settled, along the Atlantic Coast, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in
North America to Britain in 1763 after the Seven Years’ War. In 1867, with the
union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada
was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of
provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the British
Empire, which became official with the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and
completed in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal
dependence on the British parliament.

Great Depression

Canada was hard hit by the worldwide Great Depression that began 1929. Between
1929 and 1933, the gross national product dropped 40% (compared to 37% in the
US). Unemployment reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in 1933. Many
businesses closed, as corporate profits of $396 million in Canadian exports shrank
by 50% from 1929 to 1933. Construction all but stopped (down 82% 1928-33), and
wholesale prices dropped 30%. Wheat prices plunged from 78c per bushel (1928
crop) to 29c in 1932.

Urban unemployment nationwide was 19% Toronto’s rate was 17%, according to
the census of 1931. Farmers who stayed on their farms were not considered
unemployed. By 1933, 30% of labour force was out of work, and one-fifth of the
population became dependent on government assistance, Wages fell as did prices.
Worst hit were areas dependent on logging, as prices fell and there were few
alternative jobs. Most families had moderate losses and little hardship, though ther
too became pessimistic and their debts become heavier as prices fell. Some
families saw most or all of their assets disappear, and suffered severely.

In 1930, in the first stage of the long depression Prime Minister Mackenzie King
believed that the crisis was a temporary swing of businesses cycle and that the
economy would soon recover without the government intervention, He refused to
provide unemployment relief or federal aid to the provinces, saying that if
Conservative provincial governments demanded federal dollars, he would not give
them “a five cent piece”. His blunt wisecrack was used to defeat the Liberals in the
1930 election. The main issue was the rapid deterioration in the economy and
whether the prime minister was out of touch with the hardships of ordinary people.
The winner of the 1930 election was Richard Bedford Bennett and the
Conservatives. Benneth spending wary and cut back severely on Federal spending.
With falling support and the depression getting only worse, Bennett attempted to
introduce policies based on the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
(FDR) in the United States, but he got little passed. Bennett’s government became
a focus of popular discontent. For example, auto owners saved on gasoline by
using horses to pull their cars, dubbing them Bennett Buggies, The Conservative
failure to restore prosperity led to the return of Mackenzie King’s Liberals in the
1935 election.

In 1935, the Liberals used the slogan “King or Chaos” to win a landslide in the
1935 election. Promising a much-desired trade treaty with the U.S., the Mackenzie
King government passed the 1935 Reciprocal Trade Agreement. It marked the
turning point in Canadian-American economic relations, reversing the disastrous
trade war of 1930=31, lowering tariffs, and yielding a dramatic increase in trade.

The worst of the Depression had passed by 1935, as Ottawa launched relief
programs such as the National Housing Act and National Employment
Commission, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation became a crown corporation
in 1936. Trans-Canada Airlines (the precursor to Air Canada) was formed in 1937,
as was the National Film Board of Canada in 1939. In 1938, Parliament
transformed the Bank of Canada from a private entity to a crown corporation.

One political response was a highly restrictive immigration policy and a rise in
nativism.

Times were especially hard in western Canada, where a full recovery did not occur
until the Second World War began in 1939. One response was the Social Credit
movement and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, as well as popular
protest in the form of the On-to-Ottawa Trek.
 Second World War

Canada’s involvement in the Second World War began when Canada declared war
on Nazi Germany on September 10, 1939, delaying it one week after the Britain
acted to symbolically demonstrate independence. The war restored Canada’s
economic health and its self-confidence, as it played a major role in the Atlantic
and Europe. During the war, Canada became more closely linked to the U.S. The
Americans took virtual control of Yukon in order to build the Alaska Highway, and
were a major presence in the British colony of Newfoundland with major airbases.

Mackenzie King – and Canada – were largely ignored by Winston Churchill and
the British government despite Canada’s major role in supplying food, raw
material, munitions and money to the hard-pressed British economy, training
airmen for the Commonwealth, guarding the western half of the North Atlantic
Ocean against German U-boats, and providing combat troops for the invasions of
Italy, France and Germany in 1943-45. The government successfully mobilized the
economy for war with impressive results on industrial and agricultural output. The
depression ended, prosperity returned, and Canada’s economy expanded
significantly. On the political side, Mackenzie King rejected any notion of a
government of national unity. The Canadian federal election, 1940 was held as
normally scheduled, producing another majority for the Liberals.

Building up the Royal Canadian Air Force was a high priority; it was kept separate
dorm Britain’s Royal Air Force. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
Agreement, signed in December 1939, bound Canada, Britain, New Zealand, and
Australia to a program that eventually trained half the airmen from those four
nations in the Second World War.

After the start of war with Japan in December 1941, the government, in
cooperation with the U.S., began the Japanese-Canadian internment, which sent
33,000 British Columbia residents of Japanese descent to relocation camps far
from the coast. The reason was intense public demand for removal and fears of
espionage or sabotage. The government ignored reports from the RCMP and
Canadian military that most of the Japanese were law-abiding and not a threat.

The Battle of the Atlantic began immediately, and from 1934 to 1945 was led by
Leonard W. Murray, from Nova Scotia. German U-boats operated in Canadian and
Newfoundland waters throughout the war, sinking many naval and merchant
vessels, as Canada took charge of the defenses of the western Atlantic. The
Canadian army was involved in the failed defense of Hong Kong, the unsuccessful
Dieppe Raid in August 1942, the Allied invasion of Italy, and the highly successful
invasion of France and the Netherlands in 1944-45.

The Conscription Crisis of 1944 greatly affected unity between French and
English-speaking Canadians, though was not as politically intrusive as that of the
First World War. Of a population of approximately 11.5 million, 1.1 million
Canadians served in the armed forces in the Second World War. Many thousands
more served with the Canadian Merchant Navy. In all, more than 45,000 died, and
another 55,000 were wounded.

Post-war Era

Prosperity returned to Canada during the Second World War and continued in the
proceeding years, with the development of universal health care, old-age pensions,
and veterans’ pensions. The financial crisis of the Great Depression had led the
Dominion of Newfoundland to relinquish responsible government in 1934 and
become a crown colony ruled by a British governor. In 1948, the British
government gave voters three Newfoundland Referendum choices; remaining a
crown colony, returning to Dominion status (that is independence), or joining
Canada. Joining the United States was not made an option. After bitter debate
Newfoundlanders voted to join in Canada in 1949 as a province.
The foreign policy of Canada during the Cold War was closely tied to that of the
United States. Canada was a founding member of NATO (which Canada wanted to
be a transatlantic economic and political union as well). In 1950, Canada sent
combat troops to Korea during the Korean War as part of the United Nations
Forces. The federal government’s desire to asset its territorial claims in the Arctic
during the Cold War manifested with the High Arctic relocation, in which Inuit
were moved from Nunanvik (the northern third of Quebec) to barren Cornwallis
Islands; this project was later the subject of a long investigation by the Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

In 1959, the United Nations responded to the Suez Crisis by convening a United
Nations Emergency Force to supervise the withdrawal of invading forces. The
peacekeeping force was initially conceptualized by Secretary of External Affairs
and future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. Pearson was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1957 for his work in establishing the peacekeeping operation.
Throughout the mid-1950s, Louis St. Laurent (12th Prime Minister of Canada) and
his successor John Diefenbaker attempted to create a new, highly advanced jet
fighter, the Avro Arrow. The controversial aircraft was cancelled by Fiefenbaker in
1959. Diefenbaker instead purchased the BOMARC missile defense system and
American aircraft. In 1958 Canada established (with the United States) the North
American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

In 1604, a North American fur trade monopoly was granted to Pierre Du Gua,
Sieur de Mons. The fur trade became one of the main economic ventures in North
America. Du Gua led his first colonization expedition to an island located near the
mouth of the St. Croix River. Among his lieutenants was a geographer named
Samuel de Champlain, who promptly carried out a major exploration of the
northeastern coastline of what is now the United States. In the spring of 1605,
under Samuel de Champlain, the new St. Croix settlement was moved to Port
Royal (Today’s Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia).

The Quebec Settlement : A. –The Warehouse. B. –Pigeon-loft. C. -Detached

Buildings where we keep our arms and for lodging our Workmen. D. –Another
Detached Building for the Workmen. E. –Sun-dial. F. –Another Detached Building
where is the Smithy and where the Workmen are Lodged. G. –Galleries all around
the lodging. H. –The Sieur de Champlain’s Lodging. I. –The door of the Settlement
with a Draw-bridge. L. –Promenade around the Settlement ten feet in width to the
edge of the Moat. M. –Moat the whole way around the Settlement on the Shore of
the River. R, -The great River St. Lawrence.

Music

The aboriginal peoples of Canada encompass diverse ethnic groups with their
individual musical traditions. Music is usually social (public) or ceremonial
(private). Public, social music mat be dance music accompanied by rattles and
drums. Private, ceremonial music includes vocal songs with accompaniment on
percussion, used to mark occasions like Midewivin ceremonies and Sun Dances.

Traditionally, Aboriginal peoples used the materials at hand to make their

instruments for centuries before Europeans immigrated to Canada. First Nations
people made gourds and animal horns into rattles, which were elaborately carved
and brightly painted. In woodland areas, they made horns of birch bark and
drumsticks of carved antlers and wood. Traditional percussion instruments such as
drums were generally made of carved wood and animal hides. These musical
instruments provide the background for songs, and song the background for
dances. Traditional First Nations people consider song and dance to be sacred. For
years after Europeans came to Canada, First Nations people were forbidden to
practice their ceremonies.

Demographic and classification of Indigenous peoples

There are three (First Nations, Inuit and Metis) distinctive groups of North
America indigenous peoples recognized in the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982,
section 25 and 35. Under the Employment Equity Act, Aboriginal people are a
designated group along with women, visible minorities, and persons with
disabilities. They are not visible minority under the Employment EQUITY Act and
in the view of Statistics Canada.

The 2011 Canadian Census enumerated 1,400,685 Aboriginal people in Canada,

4.3% of the country totals population. This total comprises 852,560 people of First
Nations descent, 452,795 Metis and 59,445 Inuit. National representative bodies of
Aboriginal people in Canada include the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit
Tapiriit Kanatami, the Metis National Council, the Native Women’s Association of
Canada, the National Association of Native Friendship Centres and the Congress of
Aboriginal Peoples.

Visual Art

Indigenous peoples were producing art for thousands of years before the arrival of
European settler colonists and the eventual establishment of Canada as a nation
state. Like the peoples who produced them, Indigenous art traditions spanned
territories across North America. Indigenous art traditions are organized by art
historians according to cultural, linguistic or regional groups: Northwest Coast,
Plateau, Plains, Eastern Woodlands, Subarctic, and Arctic.

Art traditions vary enormously amongst and within these diverse groups.
Indigenous art with a focus on portability and the body is distinguished from
European traditions and its focus on architecture. Indigenous visual art may be
used conjunction with other arts. Shamans’ masks and rattled are used
ceremoniously in dance, storytelling and music. Artworks preserved in museum
collections date from the period after European contact and show evidence of the
creative adoption and adaption of European trade goods such as metal and glass
beads. The distinct Metis cultures that have arisen from inter-cultural relationships
with European contribute culturally hybrid art forms. During the 19th and the first
half of the 20th century the Canadian government pursued an active policy of
forced and cultural assimilation toward indigenous peoples. The Indian Act banned
manifestations of the Sun Dance, the Potlatch, and works of art depicting them.
It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that indigenous artists such as Mungo Martin,
Bill Reid and Norval Morrisseau began to publicly renew and re-invent indigenous
art traditions, Currently there are indigenous artists practicing in all media in
Canada and two indigenous artists, Edward Poitras and Rebecca Belmore, have
represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and 2005 respectively.

Approximately 40,225 individuals of Aboriginal heritage could not be counted

during the 2006 census. This is due to the fact that certain Aboriginal reserves and
communities in Canada did not participate in the 2006 census, since enumeration
of those communities were not permitted. In 2006, 22 Native communities were
not completely enumerated unlike in the year 2001, when 30 First Nation
communities were not enumerated and during 1996 when 77 Native communities
could not be completely enumerated. Hence, there were probably 1,212,905
individuals of Aboriginal ancestry (North American Indian, Metis and Inuit)
residing in Canada during the time when the 2006 census was conducted in
Canada.

Indigenous people assert that their sovereign rights are valid, and point to the
Royal Proclamation of 1763, which is mentioned in the Canadian Constitution Act,
1982, Section 25, the British North America Acts and the 1969 Vienna Convention
on the Law od Treaties (to which Canada is a signatory) in support of this claim.

Languages

There are 13 Aboriginal language groups. 11 oral and 2 sign, in Canada made up of
more than 65 distinct dialects. Of these, only Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibway have a
large enough population of fluent speakers to be considered viable to survive in the
long term. Two of Canada’s territories give official status to native languages. In
Nunavut, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun are official languages alongside the national
languages of English and French, and Inuktitut is a common vehicular language in
territorial government. In the NWT, the Official Languages Act declares that there
are eleven different languages: Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwinch’in,
Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inukvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey and Tljcho.
Besides English and French, these languages are not vehicular in government:
official status entitles citizens to receive services in them on request and to deal
with the government in them.

Aboriginal cultural areas depend upon their ancestors’ primary lifeway, or

occupation, at the time of European contact. These culture areas correspond closely
with physical and ecological regions of Canada. The Indigenous peoples of the
Pacific Northwest Coast were centred around ocean and river fishing; in the
interior of British Columbia, hunter-gatherer and river fishing. In both of these
areas the salmon was of chief importance. For the people of the plains. Bison
hunting was the primary activity. In the subarctic forest, other species such as the
moose were more important. For peoples near the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence
River, shifting agriculture was practiced, including the raising of maize, beans, and
squash. While for the Inuit, hunting was the primary source of food with seals the
primary component of their diet. The caribou fish, other marine mammals and to a
lesser extent plants, berries and seaweed are part of the Inuit diet. One of the most
noticeable symbols of Inuit culture, the Inukshuk is the emblem of the Vancouver
2010 Winter Olympics. Inuksuit are rock sculptures made by stacking stones; in
the shape of human figure, they are called inunnguaq.

Culture of Indigenous Peoples

Through storytelling and other interactive learning styles, countless North

American Indigenous words, inventions and games have become an everyday part
of Canadian language and use. Thanks to groups such as the Aboriginal Language
and Culture (ALC) teachers of British Columbia, these practices continue to be
passed down to each generation. The canoe, snowshoes, the toboggan, lacrosse.
Tug of war, maple syrup and tobacco are just a few of the products, inventions and
games. Some of the words include the barbecue, caribou, chipmunk, woodchuck,
hammock, skunk, and moose. Many places in Canada, both natural features and
human habitations, use indigenous names. The word “Canada” itself derives from
the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word meaning “village” or “settlement”. The province
of Saskatchewan River, which in the Cree language is called “Kisiskatchewani
Sipi”, meaning “swift-flowing river”. Canada’s capital city Ottawa comes from the
Algonquin language term, “adawe” meaning “to trade”. Modern youth groups such
as Scouts Canada and the Girl Guides of Canada include programs based largely
on Indigenous lore, arts and crafts, character building and outdoor camp craft and
living.

Indian reserves, established in Canadian law by treaties such as Treaty 7, are lands
of First Nations recognized by non-indigenous governments. Some reserves are
within cities, such as the Opawikoscikan Reserve in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan,
Wendake in Quebec City or Stony Plain 135 in the Edmonton Capital Region.
There are more reserves in Canada than there are First Nations, which were cede
multiple reserves by treaty. Aboriginal people currently work in a variety of
occupations and may live outside their ancestral homes. The traditional cultures of
their ancestors, shaped by nature, still exert a strong influence on them, from
spirituality to political attitudes. National Aboriginal Day is a day recognition off
the cultures and contribution of the First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples of
Canada. The day was first celebrated in 1996, after it was proclaimed that year, by
then Governor General of Canada Romeo LeBlanc, to be celebrated on June 21
annually. Most provincial jurisdictions do not recognize it as a statutory holiday.

Royal Commission

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was a Royal Commission

undertaken by the Government of Canada In 1991 to address issues of the
Aboriginal peoples of Canada. It assessed past government policies toward
Aboriginal people, such as residential schools, and provided policy
recommendations to the government. The Commission issued its final report in
November 1996. The five-volume, 4,000-page report covered a vast range of issue;
its 440 recommendations called for sweeping changes to the interaction between
Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal people and the governments in Canada. The report “set
out a 20-year agenda for change.
 Political Organization

First Nations and Inuit organizations ranged in size from band societies of a few
people to multi-nation confederacies like the Iroquols. First Nations leaders from
across the country formed the Assembly of First Nations, which began as the
National Indian Brotherhood in 1968. The Metis and Inuit are represented
nationally by the Metis national Council and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami respectively.

Today’s political organizations have resulted from interaction with European-style

methods of government through the Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-Status
Indians. Aboriginal political organizations throughout Canada vary in political
standing, viewpoints, and reason for forming. First Nations, Metis and Inuit
negotiate with the Canadian Government through Indian and Northern Affairs
Canada in all affairs concerning land, entitlement, and rights. The First Nation
group that operate independently do not belong to these groups.

Health Policy

In 1995, the federal government announced the Aboriginal Right to Self-

Government Policy. This policy recognizes that First Nations and Inuit have the
constitutional right to shape their own forms of government to suit their own forms
of government to suit their particular historical, cultural, political and economic
circumstances. The Indian Health Transfer Policy provided a framework for the
assumption of control of health services by Aboriginal peoples, and set forth a
developmental approach to transfer centred on self-determination in health.
Through this process, the decision to entered transfer discussions with Health
Canada rests with each community. Once involved in transfer, communities can
take control of health programme responsibilities at a pace determined by their
individual circumstances and health management capabilities. The National
Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO) incorporated in 2000, is an Aboriginal-
designed and-controlled not-for-profit body in Canada that works to influence and
advance the health and well-being of Aboriginal Peoples.
Those people accepted into band membership under band rules may not be status
Indians. C-31 clarified that various sections of the Indian Act would apply to band
members. The sections under debate concern community life and land holdings.
Sections pertaining to Indians) First Nations peoples) as individuals (in this case,
wills and taxation of personal property) were not included.

Indian Act

The Indian Act is federal legislation that dates from 1876. There have been over 20
major changes made to the original Act since then, the last time being in 1951;
amended in 1985 with Bill C-31. The Indian Act indicates how Reserves and
Bands can operate and defines who is recognized as an “Indian”,

In 1995, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-13, “An Act to Amend the Indian
Act”. Because of a Constitutional requirement, the Bill took effect on April 17,
1985.

 It ends discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act, especially

those that discriminated against women.
 It changes the meaning of “’status” and for the first time allows for limited
reinstatement of Indians who were denied or lost status and/or Band
membership.
 It allows bands to define their own membership rules.
According to the First Nations- Federal Crow Political Accord “cooperation will be
a cornerstone for partnership between Canada and First Nations, wherein Canada is
the short-form reference to Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada. The
Supreme Court argued that treaties “served to reconcile pre-existing Aboriginal
sovereignty with assumed Crown sovereignty, and to define Aboriginal rights”.
First Nations people interpreted agreements covered in treaty 8 to last “as long as
the sun shines, grass grows and river flow.”
 Politics, Law and Legislation Treaties

The Canadian Crown and Aboriginal peoples began interactions during the
European colonization period. Numbered treaties, the Indian Act, the Constitution
Act of 1982 and case laws were established. Aboriginal peoples construe these
agreements as being between them and the Crown of Canada through the distinct
Indian Agent, and not the Cabinet of Canada. The Maori interprets the Treaty of
Waitangi in New Zealand similarly. A series of eleven treaties were signed between
First Nations in Canada and the reigning Monarch of Canada from 1871 to 1921.
The Government of Canada created the policy, commissioned the Treaty
Commissioners and ratified the agreements. These Treaties are agreements with the
Government of Canada administered by Canadian Aboriginal law overseen by the
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Because of laws and policies that encouraged or required Indigenous peoples to

assimilate into a Eurocentric society, Canada violated the United Nations Genocide
Convention that Canada signed in 1949 and passed through Parliament in 1952.
The residential school system that removed Aboriginal children from their homes
has led scholars to believe that Canada can be tried in international court for
genocide. A legal case resulted in settlement of 2 billion C$ in 2006 and the
establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which confirmed the
injurious effect on children of this system and turmoil created between Aboriginal
Canadians and Canadian Society. In 2008 Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an
apology on behalf of the Canadian government and its citizens for the residential
school system.

The final government strategy of assimilation made possible by the Indian Act was
the Canadian residential school system:

Of all the initiatives that were undertaken in the first century of Confederation,
none was more ambitious or central to the civilizing strategy of the Department, to
its goal of assimilation, then the residential school system… it was the residential
school experience that would lead children most effectively out of their “savage”
communities into “higher civilization” and “full citizenship”.

Beginning in 1847 and lasting until 1996, the Canadian government, in partnership
with the Catholic Church, ran 130 residential boarding schools across Canada for
Aboriginal children, who were forcibly taken from their homes. While the schools
were said to educate, they were plagued by under-funding, disease, and abuse.

Forced Assimilation

From the late 18th century, European Canadians (and the Canadian government)
encouraged assimilation of Aboriginal culture into what was referred to as
“Canadian culture”. These attempts reached a climax in the late 19 th and early 20th
centuries, with a series of initiatives that aims at complete assimilation and
subjugation of the Aboriginal peoples. These policies, which were made possible
by legislation such as the Gradual Civilization Act and the Indian Act, focused on
European ideals of Christianity, sedentary living, agriculture, and education.

The attempt at Christianization of the Aboriginal people of Canada had been

ongoing since the first missionaries arrived in the 1600s, however it became more
systematic with the Indian Act in 1876, which would bring new sanctions for those
who did not convert to Christianity. For example, the new laws would prevent non-
Christian Aboriginal people from testifying or having their cases heard in court and
ban alcohol consumption. When the Indian Act was amended in 1884, traditional
religious and social practices, such as the Potlatch, would be banned and further
amendments in 1920 would prevent “status Indians” (as defined in the Act) from
wearing traditional dress or performing traditional dances in an attempt to stop all
non-Christian practices.

Another focus of the Canadian government was to make the Aboriginal groups of
Canada sedentary, as they thought that this would make them easier to assimilate.
In the 19th century, the government began to support the creation of model farming
villages, which were meant to encourage non-sedentary Aboriginal groups to settle
in an area and begin to cultivate agriculture. When most of these model farming
villages failed, the government turned instead to the creation of the Indian reserves
with the Indian Act of 1876. With the creation of these reserves came many
restricting laws, such as further bans on all intoxicants, restrictions on eligibility to
vote in band elections, decreased hunting and fishing areas, and inability for status
Indians to visit other groups on their reservations.

Through the Gradual Civilization Act in 1857, the government would encourage
Indians (i.e., First Nations) to enfranchise – to remove all legal distinctions
between [Indians] and Her Majesty’s other Canadian Subjects. If an aboriginal
chose to enfranchise, It would strip them and their family of Aboriginal title, with
the idea that they would become “less savage” and “more civilized”, thus become
assimilated into Canadian society. However, they were often still defines as non-
citizens by Europeans, and those few who did enfranchise were often met with
disappointment.

With the end of the Seven Years’ War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763),
France ceded almost all of its remaining territory in mainland North America,
except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the two small islands of Saint
Pierre and Miqueion where its fisherman could dry their fish. France had already
secretly ceded its vast Louisiana territory to Spain under the Treaty of
Fontainebleau (1762) in which King Louis XV of France had given his cousin
King Charles III of Spain the entire area of the drainage basin of the Mississippi
River from the Great Lakes to Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian.

Canada under British Rule (1763-1867)

The new British rulers of Canada retained and protected most of the property,
religious, political, and social culture of the French-speaking habitants,
guaranteeing the right of the Canadians to practice the Catholic faith and to the use
of French civil law (now Quebec law) through the Quebec Act of 1774. The Royal
Proclamation organized Great Britain’s new North American empire and stabilized
relations the between Crown and Aboriginal peoples through regulation of trade,
settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier.

With the end of Seven Year’s War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763),
France ceded almost all of its remaining territory in mainland North America,
except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the two small islands of Saint
Pierre and Miquelon where its fishermen could dry their fish. France had already
secretly ceded its vast Louisiana territory to Spain under the Treaty of
Fontainebleau (1762) in which King Louis XV of France had given his cousin
King Charles III of Spain the entire area of the drainage basin of the Mississippi
River from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian
Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. France and Spain kept the Treaty of
Fontainebleau secret from other countries until 1764. In return for acquiring
Canada, Britain returned to France its most important sugar-producing colony,
Guadeloupe, which the French at the time considered more valuable than Canada.
(Guadeloupe produced more sugar than all the British islands combined, and
Voltaire had notoriously dismissed Canada as “Quelques arpents de neige”, “A few
acres of snow”).

When the British evacuated New York City in 1783, they took many Loyalist
refugees to Nova Scotia, while other Loyalists went to southwestern Quebec. So
many Loyalists arrived on the shores of the St. John River that a separate colony –
New Brunswick – was created in 1784; followed in 1791 by the division of Quebec
into the largely French-speaking Lower Canada (French Canada) along the St.
Lawrence River and Gaspe Peninsula and an Anglophone Loyalist Upper Canada,
with its capital settled by 1796 in York, in present-day Toronto. After 1790 most of
the new settlers were American farmers searching for new lands; although
generally favorable to republicanism, they were relatively non-political and stayed
neutral in the War of 1812.
 American Revolution and the Loyalists

During the American Revolution, there was some sympathy for the American
cause among the Acadians and the New Englanders in Nova Scotia. Neither party
joined the rebels, although several hundred individuals joined the revolutionary
cause. An invasion of Quebec by the Continental Army in 1775, with a goal to take
Quebec from the British control, was halted at the Battle of Quebec by Guy
Carleton, with the assistance of local militias. The defeat of the British army during
the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781 signaled the end of Britain’s struggle to
suppress the American Revolution.

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and the British, with the
British North American colonies being heavily involved. Greatly outgunned by the
British Royal Navy, the American war plans focused on an invasion of Canada
(especially what is today eastern and western Ontario. The American frontier states
vote for war to suppress the First Nations raids that frustrated settlement of the
frontier. The war on the border with the United States was characterized by a series
of multiple failed invasions and fiascos on both sides. American forces took control
of Lake Erie in 1813, driving the British out of western Ontario, killing the Native
American leader Tecumseh, and breaking the military power of his confederacy.
The war was overseen by British army officers like Isaac Brock and Charles de
Salaberry with the assistance of First Nations and loyalist informants, most notably
Laura Secord.

Lower emphasizes the positive benefits of the Revolution for Americans, making
them an energetic people, while for English Canada the results were negative.

[English Canada] inherited, not the benefits, but the bitterness of the Revolution. It
got no shining scriptures out of it. It got little release of energy and no new
horizons of the spirit were opened up. It had been a calamity, pure and simple. To
take the place of the internal fire that was urging Americans westward across the
continent, there was only melancholy contemplation of things as they might have
been and dingy reflections of that ineffably glorious world across the stormy
Atlantic. English Canada started its life with as powerful a nostalgic shove
backward into the past as the Conquest had given to French Canada; two little
peoples officially devoted to counter-revolution, to lost causes to the tawdry ideals
of a society of men and masters, and not to the self-reliant freedom alongside of
them.

Rebellions and the Durham Report

The rebellions of 1837 against the British colonial government took place in both
Upper and Lower Canada. In Upper Canada, a band of Reformers under the
leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie took up arms in a disorganized and
ultimately unsuccessful series of small-scale skirmishes around Toronto, London,
and Hamilton.

In Lower Canada, a more substantial rebellion occurred against British rule. Both
English- and French-Canadian rebels, sometimes using bases in the neutral United
States, fought several skirmishes against the authorities. The towns of Chambly
and Sorel were taken by the rebels, and Quebec City was isolated from the rest of
the colony. Montreal rebel leader Robert Nelson read the “Declaration of
Independence of Lower Canada” to a crowd assembled at the town of Napierville
in 1838. The rebellion of the Patriote movement was defeated after battles across
Quebec. Hundreds were arrested, and several villages were burnt in reprisal.

The signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the war. Britain made
several concessions to the Americans at the expense of the North American
colonies. Notably, the borders between Canada and the United States were
officially demarcated; all land south of the Great Lakes, which was formerly a part
of the Province of Quebec and included modern day Michigan, Illinois and Ohio,
was ceded to the Americans. Fishing rights were also granted to the United States
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the coast of Newfoundland and the Grand
Banks. The British ignored part of the treaty and maintained their military outposts
in the Great Lakes areas it had ceded to the U.S., and they continued to supply their
native allies with munitions. The British evacuated the outposts with the Jay Treaty
of 1795, but the continued supply of munitions irritated the Americans in the run-
up to the War of 1812.

The war ended with no boundary changes thanks to the Treaty of Ghent of 1814,
and the Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817. A demographic result was the shifting of the
destination of American migration from Upper Canada to Ohio, Indiana and
Michigan, without fear of Indian attacks. After the war, supporters of Britain tried
to repress the republicanism that was common among American immigrants to
Canada. The troubling memory of the war and the consciousness of Canadians as a
distrust of the intentions of the United States towards the British presence in North
America.

British Government then sent Lord Durham to examine the situation; he stayed in
Canada only five months before returning to Britain and brought with him his
Durham Report, which strongly recommended responsible government. A less
well-received recommendation was the amalgamation of Upper and Lower Canada
for the deliberate assimilation of the French=speaking population. The Canadas
were merged into a single colony, the United Province of Canada, by the 1840 Act
of Union, and responsible government was achieved in 1848, a few months after it
was accomplished in Nova Scotia. The parliament of United Canada in Montreal
was set on fire by a mob of Tories in 1849 after the passing of an indemnity bill
for the people who suffered losses during the rebellion in Lower Canada.

Between the Napoleonic Wars and 1850, some 800,000 immigrations came to the
colonies British North America, mainly from the British Isles, as part of the great
migration of Canada. These included Gaelic-speaking Clearances to Nova Scotia
and Scottish and English settlers to the Canadas, particularly Upper Canada. The
Irish Famine of the 1849s significantly increased the pace of Irish Catholic
Immigration to British North America, with over 35,000 distressed Irish landing in
Toronto alone in 1847 and 1848.
Spanish explorers had taken the lead in the Pacific Northwest coast, with the
voyages of Juan Jose Perez Hernandez in 1774 and 1775. By the time the Spanish
determined to build a fort on Vancouver Island, the British navigator James Cook
had visited Nootka Sound and charted the coast as far as Alaska, while British and
American maritime fur traders had begun a busy era of commerce with the coastal
peoples tp satisfy the brisk market for sea otter pelts in China, thereby launching
what became known as the China trade. In 1789 war threatened between Britain
and Spain on their respective right; the Nootka Crisis was resolved peacefully
largely in favor of Britain, the much stronger naval power. In 1793 Alexander
Mackenzie, a Canadian working for the North West Company, crossed the
continent and with his Aboriginal guides and French-Canadian crew, reached the
mouth of the Bella Coola River, completing the first continental crossing north of
Mexico, Missing George Vancouver’s charting expedition to the region by only a
few weeks. In 1821, the North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company
merged, with a combined trading territory that was extended by a license to the
North-Western Territory and the Columbia and New Caledonia fur districts, which
reached the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Pacific Ocean on the west.

Confederation

The Seventy-Two Resolutions from the 1864 Quebec Conference and

Charlottetown Conference laid out the framework for uniting British colonies in
North America into a federation. They had been adopted by the majority of the
provinces of Canada and became the basis for the London Conference of 1866,
which led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. The term
dominion was chosen to indicate Canada’s status as a self-governing colony of the
British Empire, the first time it was used about a country. With the coming into
force of the British North America Act (enacted by the British Parliament), the
Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia became a federated
kingdom in its own right.

The Colony of Vancouver Island was chartered in 1849, with the trading post at
Fort Victoria as the capital. This was followed by the Colony of the Queen
Charlotte Islands in 1853, and by the creation of the colony of British Columbia in
1858 and the Stikine Territory in 1861, with the latter three being founded
expressly to keep those regions from being overrun and annexed by American gold
miners. The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1853, and by the creation of
the Colony of British Columbia in 1858 and the Stikine Territory in 1861, with the
latter three being founded expressly to keep those regions from being overrun and
annexed by American gold miners. The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands and
most of the Stikine Territory were merged into the Colony of British Columbia in
1863 (the remainder, north of the 60th Parallel, became part of the North-Western
Territory).

Expansion

Using the lure of the Canadian Pacific Railway, a transcontinental line that would
unite the nation, Ottawa attracted support in the Maritimes and in British
Columbia. In 1866, the Colony of British Columbia and the Colony of Vancouver
Island merged into a single Colony of British Columbia; it joined the Canadian
Confederation in 1871. In 1873, Prince Edward Island joined Newfoundland –
which had no use for a transcontinental railway – voted no in 1869, and did not
join Canada until 1949.

Federation emerged from multiple impulses; the British wanted Canada to defend
itself; the Maritimes needed railroad connections, which were promised in 1867;
British Canadian nationalism sought to unite the lands into one country, dominated
by the English language and British culture; many French-Canadians saw an
opportunity to exert political control within a new largely French-speaking Quebec
pp. 323-324 and fears of possible U.S. expansion northward. On a political level,
there was a desire for the expansion of responsible government and elimination of
the legislative deadlock between Upper and Lower Canada and their replacement
with provincial legislatures in a federation. This was especially pushed by the
liberal Reform movement of Upper Canada and the French-Canadian Parti rouge in
Lower Canada who favored a decentralized union in comparison to the Upper
Canadian Conservative Party and to some degree the French-Canadian Parti bleu,
which favored a centralized union.
In 1905 when Saskatchewan and Alberta were admitted as provinces, they were
growing rapidly thanks to abundant wheat crops that attracted immigration to the
plains by Ukrainians and Northern and Central Europeans and by settlers from the
United States, Britain and eastern Canada.

The Alaska boundary dispute, simmering since the Alaska purchase of 18867,
became critical when gold was discovered in the Yukon during the late 1890s, with
the U.S. controlling all the possible ports entry. Canada argued its boundary
included the port of Skagway. The dispute went to arbitration in 1903, but the
British delegate sided with the Americans, angering Canadians who felt the British
had betrayed Canadians interests to curry favour with the U.S.

In the 1890s, legal experts codified a framework of criminal law, culminating in

the Criminal Code, 1892. This solidified the liberal ideal of “equality before the
law” in a way that made an abstract principle into a tangible reality for every adult
Canadian. Wilfrid Laurier who served 1896-1911 as the Seventh Prime Minister of
Canada felt Canada was on the verge of becoming a world power, and declared that
the 20th century would belong to Canada.

Laurier signed a reciprocity treaty with the U.S. that would lower tariffs in both
directions. Conservatives under Robert Borden denounced it, saying it would be
integrate Canada’s economy into that of the U.S. and loosen ties with Britain. The
Conservative party won the Canadian federal election, 1911.

In 1873 John A. Macdonald (First Prime Minister of Canada) created the North-
West Mounted Police (now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) to help police the
Northwest Territories. Specifically the Mounties were to assert Canadian
sovereignty over possible American encroachments into the sparsely populated
land.
The Mounties’ first large-scale mission was to suppress the second independence
movement by Manitoba’s Metis, a mixed blood people of joint First Nations and
European descent, who originated in the mid-17th century. The desire for
independence erupted in the Red River Rebellion in 1869 and the later North-West
Rebellion in 1885 led by Louis Riel. Suppressing the Rebellion was Canada’s first
independent military action. It cost about $5 million and demonstrated the need to
complete the Canadian Pacific Railway. It guaranteed Anglophone control of the
Prairies, and demonstrated the national government was capable of decisive action.
However, it lost the Conservative Party most of their support in Quebec and led to
permanent distrust of the Anglophone community on the part of the Francophones.

Popular Culture

In Canada, leisure in the country is related to the decline in work hours and is
shaped by moral values, and the ethnic-religious and gender communities. Ina cold
country with winter’s long nights, and summer’s extended daylight, favorite leisure
activities include horse racing, team sports such as hockey, singalongs,
Rollerskating and board games. The churches tried to steer leisure activities, by
preaching against drinking and scheduling annual revivals and weekly club
activities. By 1930 radio played a major role in uniting Canadians behinds their
local or regional hockey teams. Play-by-play sports coverage, especially of ice
hockey, absorbed fans far more intensely than newspaper accounts the next day.
Rural areas were especially influenced by sport s coverage. Canadians in the 19 th
century came to believe themselves possessed of a unique “northern character,”
due to the long, harsh winters that only those of hardy body and mind could
survive. This hardiness was claimed as a Canadian trait, and such sports as ice
hockey and snowshoeing that reflected this were asserted as characteristically
Canadian. Outside the sports arena Canadians express the national characteristics
of being peaceful, orderly and polite. Inside they scream their lungs out at ice
hockey games, cheering the speed, ferocity, and violence, making hockey an
ambiguous symbol of Canada.

Support for Great Britain during the First World War cause a major political crises
over conscription, with Francophones, mainly from Quebec, rejecting national
policies. During the crisis, large numbers of enemy aliens (especially Ukrainians
and Germans) were put under government controls. The Liberal party was deeply
split, with most of its Anglophone leaders joining the unionist government headed
by Prime Minister Robert Borden, the leader of the Conservative party. The
Liberals regained their influence after the war under the leadership of William
Lyon Mackenzie King, who served as prime minister with three separate terms
between 1921 and 1949.

First World War

The Canadian Forces and civilian participation in the First World War helped to
foster a sense of British-Canadian nationhood. The highpoints of Canadian military
achievement during the First World War came during the Somme, Vimy,
Passchendaeie battles and what later became known as “Canada’s Hundred Days”.
The reputation Canada troops earned, along with the success of Canadian flying
aces including William George Barker and Billy Bishop helped to give the nation a
new sense of identity. The War Office in 1922 reported approximately 67,000
killed and 173,000 wounded during war. This excludes civilian deaths in war-time
incidents like the Halifax Explosion.

Woman Suffrage

Women’s political status without the vote was vigorously promoted by the National
Council of Women of Canada from 1894 to 1918. It promoted a vision of
“transcendent citizenship” for women. The ballot was not exercised through
personal influence and moral suasion, through the election of men with strong
moral character through the election of men with strong moral character, and
through raising public-spirited sons. The National Council position reflected its
nation-building program that sought to uphold Canada as a White settler nation.
While the woman suffrage movement was important for extending the political
rights of White women’s enfranchisement to the need to protect the nation from
“racial degeneration”.
Women did have a local vote in some provinces, as in Canada West from 1850,
where women owning land could vote for school trustees. By 1900 other provinces
adopter similar provision, and in 1916 Manitoba took the lead in extending full
woman’s suffrage. Simultaneously suffragists gave strong support to the
prohibition movement, especially in Ontario and the Western provinces.

The Military Voters Act of 1917 gave to vote to British women who were war
widows or had sons or husbands serving overseas, Unionists Prime Minister
Borden pledged himself during the 1917 campaign to equal suffrage for women.
After his landslide victory, he introduced a bill in 1918 for extending the franchise
to women. This passed without division, but did not apply to Quebec provincial
and municipal elections. The women of Quebec gained full suffrage in 1940. The
first women elected to Parliament was Agnes Macphail of Ontario in 1921.

On the World Stage

As a result of its contributions to Allied victory in the First World War, Canada
became more assertive and less deferential to British authority. Convinced that
Canada had proven itself on the battlefields of Europe, Prime Minister Sir Robert
Borden demanded that it have a separate seat at the Paris Peace Conference in
1919. This was initially opposed not only by Britain but also by the United States,
which saw such a delegation as an extra British vote. Borden responded by
pointing out that since Canada had lost nearly 60,000 men, a far larger proportion
of its men, its right to equal status as a nation had been consecrated in the
battlefield. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George eventually relented, and
convinced the reluctant Americans to accept the presence of delegations from
Canada, India, Australia, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa. These
also received their own seats in the League of Nations. Canada asked for neither
reparations nor mandates. It played only a modest role at Paris, but just having a
seat was a matter of pride. It was cautiously optimistic about the new League of
Nations, in which it played an active and independent role.
In 1923 British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, appealed repeatedly for
Canadian support in the Chanak crisis, in which a war threatened between Britain
and Turkey. Canada refused, The Department of External Affairs, which had been
founded in 1909, was expanded and promoted Canadian autonomy as Canada
reduced its reliance on British diplomats and used its own foreign service. This
began the careers of such important diplomats as Norman Robertson and Hume
Wrong, and future Prime Minister Lester Pearson.

In 1931 the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster which gave each
dominion the opportunity for almost complete legislative independence from
London. While Newfoundland never adopted the statute, for Canada the Statute of
Westminster became its declaration of independence.

British America, New France and Colonization 1534-1763

French interested in the New World began with Francis I of France, who in 1525
sponsored Giovanni da Verrazzano to navigate the region between Florida and
Newfoundland in hopes of finding a route to the Pacific Ocean. In 1534, Jcques
Cartier planted a cross in the Gaspe Peninsula and claimed the land in the name of
Francis I. Earlier colonization attempts by Cartier at Charlesbourg Royal in 1641,
at Sable Island in 1698 by Marquis de La Roche-Mesgouez, and at Tadoussac,
Quebec in 1600 by Francois Grave Du Pont had failed. Despite these initial
failures, French fishing fleets began to sail to the Atlantic coast and into the St,
Lawrence River, trading and making alliances with First Nations.

In 1926 Prime Minister Mackenzie Kind advised the Governor General, Lord
Byng, to dissolve Parliament and call another election, but Byng refused, the only
time that the Governor General has exercised such a power. Instead Byng called
upon Meighen, the Conservative Party leader, to form a government, Meighen
attempted to do so, but was unable to obtain a majority in the Commons and he
too, advised dissolution which this time was accepted. The episode, the King-Byng
Affair, marks a constitutional crisis that was resolved by a new tradition of
complete non-interference in Canadian political affairs on the part of the British
government.

Domestic Affairs

In 1921 to 1926, William Lyon Mackenzie king’s Liberal government pursued a

conservative domestic policy with object of lowering wartime taxes and,
especially, cooling wartime ethnic tensions, as well as defusing postwar labour
conflicts. The Progressives refused to join the government, but did help the
Liberals defeat non-confidence motions. King faced a delicate balancing act of
reducing tariffs enough too much to alienate his vital support in industrial Ontario
and Quebec, which needed tariffs to compare with American imports. King and
Conservative leader Arthur Meighen sparred constantly and bitterly in Commons
debates. The Progressives gradually weakened. Their effective and passionate
leader, Thomas Crerar resigned to return to his grain business, and was replaced by
the more placid Robert Forke, The socialist reformer J.S. Woodsworth gradually
gained influence and power among the Progressives, and he reached an
accommodation with King on policy matters.

In 1608 Champlain founded what is now Quebec City, one of the earliest
permanent settlements, which would become the capital of New France. He took
personal administration over the city and its affairs, and sent out expeditions to
explore the interior. Champlain himself discovered Lake Champlain in 1609. By
1615, he had travelled by canoe up the Ottawa River through Lake Nipissing and
Georgian Bay to the centre of Huron country near Lake Simcoe. During these
voyages, Champlain aided the Wendat (aka ‘Hurons’) in their battles against the
Iroquols would become enemies of the French and be involved in multiple
conflicts (known as the French and Iroquols Wars) until the signing of the Great
Peace of Montreal in 1701.

The English, led by Humphrey Gilbert, had claimed St. John’s, Newfoundland, in
1583 as the first North American English colony by royal prerogative of Queen
Elizabeth I. In the reign of King James I, the English established the first
successful permanent settlements of Virginia to the south. On September 29, 1621,
a charter for the foundation of a New World Scottish colony was granted by King
James to Sir William Alexander. In 1622, the first settlers left Scotland. They
initially failed and permanent Nova Scotian settlements were not firmly established
until 1629 during the end of Anglo-French War. These colonies did not last long: in
1631, under Charles I of England, the Treaty of Suza was signed ending the war
and returning Nova Scotia to the French. New France was not fully restored to
French rule until the 1632 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. This led to new
French immigrants and founding Trois-Rivieres in 1634.

In 1604, a North American fur trade monopoly was granted to Pierre Du Gus, Sieur
de Mons. The fur trade became one of the main economic ventures in North
America. Du Gua led his first colonization expedition to an island located near the
mouth of the St. Croix River. Among his lieutenants was a geographer named
Samuel de Champlain, who promptly carried out a major exploration of the
northeastern coastline of what is now the United States. In the spring of 1605,
under Samuel de Champlain, the new St. Croix settlement was moved to Port
Royal (today’s Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia).

The Quebec Settlement : A. – The Warehouse. B. –Pigeon-loft. C. –Detached

Buildings where we keep our arms and for Lodging our Workmen. D. –Another
Detached Building for the Workmen. E. –Sun-dial. F. –Another Detached Building
where is the Smithy and where the Workmen are Lodged. G. –Galleries all around
the Lodgings. H. –The Sieur de Champlain’s Lodgings. I. –The door of the
Settlement with a Draw-bridge. L Promenade around the Settlement ten feet in
width to the edge of the Moat. M. –Moat the whole way around the Settlement. O.
–the Sieur de Champlain’s Garden. P. –The Kitchen. Q. –Space in the front of the
Settlement on the Shore of the River. R. –The great River St. Lawrence.

Although immigration rates to New France remained very low under direct French
control, most of the new arrivals were farmers, and the rate population growth
among the settlers themselves had been very high. The women had about 30 per
cent more children than comparable women who remained in France. Yves Landry
says, “Canadians had an exceptional diet for their time”. This was due to the
natural abundance of meat fish, fish, and pure water; the good food conservation
conditions during the winter; and an adequate wheat supply in most years. The
1666 census of New France was conducted by France’s intendant, Jean Talon, in
the winter of 1665-1666. The census showed a population count of 3,215 acadians
and habitants (French-Canadian farmers) in the administrative distrincts of Acadia
and Canada. The census also revealed a great difference in the number of men at
2,034 versus 1,181 women.

During this period, in contrast to the higher density and slower moving agricultural
settlement development by the English inward from the east coast of the colonies,
New France’s interior frontier would eventually cover an immense area with a thin
network centred on fur trade, conversion efforts by missionaries, establishing and
an empire, and military efforts to protect and further those efforts. The largest of
these canoe networks covered much of present-day Canada and central present-day
United States.

After Champlain’s death in 1635, the Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuit
establishment became the most dominant force in New France and hoped to
establish a utopian European and Aboriginal Christian community. In 1642, the
Sulpicians sponsored a group of settlers led by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve,
who founded Ville-Marie, precursor to present-day Montreal. In 1663 the French
crown took direct control of the colonies from the Company of New France.

By the early 1700s the New France settlers were well established along the shores
of the Saint Lawrence River and parts of Nova Scotia, with a population around
16,000. However new arrivals stopped coming from France in the proceeding
decades, resulting in the English and Scottish settlers in Newfoundland, Nova
Scotia, and the southern Thirteen Colonies to vastly outnumber the French
population approximately ten to one by the 1750’s. From 1670, through the
Hudson’s Bay Company, the English also laid claim to Hudson Bay and its
drainage basin known as Rupert’s Land establishing new trading posts and forts,
while continuing to operate fishing settlements in Newfoundland. French
expansion along the Canadian canoe routes challenged the Hudson’s Bay Company
claims, and in 1686, Pierre Troyes led an overland expedition from Montreal to the
shore of the bay, were they managed to capture a handful of outposts. La Salle’s
explorations gave France a claim to the Mississippi River Valley, where fur
trappers and a few settlers set up scattered forts and settlements.

Louisbourg was intended to serve to serve as a year-round military and naval base
for France’s remaining North American empire and to protect the entrance to the
St. Lawrence River. Father Rale’s War resulted in both the fall of New France
influence in present-day Maine and the British recognition off having to negotiate
with the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia. During King George’s War (1744 to 1748), an
army of New Englanders led by William Pepperrell mounted an expedition of 90
vessels and 4,000 men against Louisbourg in 1745. Within Three months the
fortress surrendered. The return of Louisbourg to French control by the peace of
treaty prompted the British to found Halifax in 1749 under Edward Cornwallis.
Despite the official cessation of war between the British and French empires with
the Treaty of Aix-la-Champelle; the conflict in Acadia and Nova Scotia continued
on as the Father Le Loutre’s War.

There were four French and Indian Wars and two additional wars in Acadia and
Nova Scotia between the Thirteen American Colonies and New France from 1688
to 1763. During King William’s War (1688 to 1697), military conflicts in Acadia
included” Battle of Port Royal (1690); a naval battle in the Bay of Fundy (Actions
of July 14, 1969(; and the Raid on Chignecto (1696). The Treaty of Ryswick in
1697 ended the war between the two colonial powers of England and France for a
brief time. During Queen Anne’s War (1702 to 1713), the British Conquest of
Acadia occurred in 1710, resulting in Nova Scotia, other than Cape Breton, being
officially ceded to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht including Rupert’s Land,
which France had conquered in the late 17th century (Battle of Hudson’s Bay). As
an immediate result of this setback, France founded the powerful Fortress of
Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.