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New France (French: la Nouvelle-France) describes the area colonized by France in North America during a period extending from the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River, by Jacques Cartier in 1534, to the cession of New France to the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1763. At its peak in 1712 (before the Treaty of Utrecht), the territory of New France extended from Newfoundland to Lake Superior and from the Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. The territory was then divided in five colonies, each with its own administration: Canada, Acadia, Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and Louisiana.

Samuel de Champlain was part of a 1603 expedition from France that traveled into the St. Lawrence River. In 1608, he returned as head of an exploration party and founded Québec City with the intention of making the area part of the French colonial empire. Champlain's Habitation de Québec, built as a permanent fur trading outpost, was where he would forge a trading, and ultimately a military alliance, with the Algonquin and Huron nations. In 1608, sponsored by Henry IV of France, Samuel de Champlain founded Québec with six families totalling 28 people, the first successful settlement in what is now Canada.

From Québec, Voyageurs, Coureurs des bois, and Catholic missionaries used river canoes to explore the interior of the North American continent, establishing fur trading forts on the Great Lakes (Étienne Brûlé 1615), Hudson Bay (Radisson and Groseilliers 1659-60), Ohio and Mississippi Rivers (La Salle 1682), as well as the Prairies and Missouri River (de la Verendrye 1734-1738). After 1627, King Louis XIII of France introduced the seigneurial system and forbade settlement in New France by anyone other than Roman Catholics. Sulpician and Jesuit clerics founded missions in Trois Rivières (Laviolette) and Montréal or Ville-Marie (de Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance) to convert New France's Huron and Algonkian allies to Catholicism.

Cardinal Richelieu, adviser to King Louis XIII, wished to make New France as significant as the English colonies.The seigneurial system of governing New France also encouraged immigration from the motherland. At the same time, however, the English colonies to the south began to raid the St. Lawrence valley, and, in 1629, Québec itself was captured and held by the British until 1632. In 1627, Richelieu founded the Company of One Hundred Associates to invest in New France, promising land parcels to hundreds of new settlers and to turn Québec into an important mercantile and farming colony. Champlain was named Governor of New France. Richelieu then forbade non-Roman Catholics from living there. Protestants were required to renounce their faith to establish themselves in New France; many chose instead to move to the English colonies. The Roman Catholic Church, and missionaries such as the Recollets and the Jesuits, became firmly established in the territory.

Champlain quickly allied himself with the Algonquin and Montagnais peoples in the area, who were at war with the Iroquois. He established strong bonds with the Hurons in order to keep the fur trade alive. He also arranged to have young French men live with the natives, to learn their language and customs and help the French adapt to life in North America. These men, known as coureurs de bois (such as Étienne Brûlé), extended French influence south and west to the Great Lakes and among the Huron tribes who lived there. In 1630, there were only 100 colonists living in the settlement, but, by 1640, there were 359.

New France became a Royal Province in 1663 under King Louis XIV of France with a Sovereign Council that included intendant Jean Talon. This ushered in a golden era of settlement and colonization in New France, including the arrival of les "Filles du Roi". The population would grow from about 3,000 to 60,000 people between 1666 and 1760. Since Henry Hudson claimed Hudson Bay, James Bay and surrounding territory for the English, they began expanding their boundaries across what is now the Canadian north beyond the French-held territory of New France. Colonists built farms on the banks of St. Lawrence River and called themselves "Canadiens" or "Habitants". The colony's total population was limited, however, by a winter climate significantly harsher than that found in France; by the spread of diseases; and by the refusal of the French crown to allow Huguenots, or French Protestants, to settle. The population of New France lagged far behind that of the 13 Colonies to the south, leaving it vulnerable to attack.

In 1753 France began building a series of forts in the British Ohio Country. They refused to leave after being notified by the British Governor and in 1754 George Washington launched an attack on the French Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh) in the Ohio Valley in an attempt to enforce the British claim to the territory. This frontier battle set the stage for the French and Indian War in North America. By 1756, France and Britain were battling the Seven Years' War worldwide. In 1758, the British mounted an attack on New France by sea and took the French fort at Louisbourg. Ohio Territory was the name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie. One of the first frontier regions of the United States, the area encompassed roughly the present-day states of Ohio, eastern Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and northwestern West Virginia. The issue of settlement in the region is considered by historians to have been a primary cause of the French and Indian War and a contributing factor to the American Revolutionary War.

In the 17th century, the area north of the Ohio River had been occupied by the Algonquian-speaking Shawnees. Around 1660, during a conflict known as the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois seized control of the Ohio Country, driving out the Shawnee and conquering and absorbing the Erie tribe. The Ohio Country remained largely uninhabited for decades, and was used primarily for hunting by the Iroquois. In the 1720s, a number of Native American groups began to migrate to the Ohio Country. By 1724, Delaware Indians had established the village of Kittanning on the Allegheny River in present-day western Pennsylvania. The Delawares were migrating because of the expansion of European colonial settlement in eastern Pennsylvania. With them came those Shawnees who had settled in the east. Other bands of the scattered Shawnee tribe also began to return to the Ohio Country in the decades that followed. The desire of the Americans to establish control over the region was strong. In 1778, after victories in the region by American General George Rogers Clark, the Virginia legislature organized the first civil government in the region, called the county of Illinois, which encompassed all of the lands lying west of the Ohio River to which Virginia had any claim. In 1783, following the Treaty of Paris, the area became part of the original territory of the United States and was immediately opened to legal settlement.

In 1784 the area was part of the Trans-Appalachian region that Thomas Jefferson proposed for the creation of future states to be admitted to the Union. Jefferson proposed that the states surrender their respective claims to the region. One of the most contentious issues was whether or not the area would be open to slavery. In 1787, with the passage by the Congress of the Northwest Ordinance, the boundaries of the region were firmly established. Virginia was granted the land south of the Ohio and Pennsylvania was granted the area around the headwaters of the Ohio. The remaining area west of the Pennsylvania boundary and north of the Ohio became part of the newly-formed Northwest Territory, the first organized territory in the United States, with a civil government under the jurisdiction of the Congress. All the existing states surrendered all their claims to the Ohio Country land within the Northwest Territory. Connecticut and Virginia reserved the right to use land in the new territory as payment to veterans of the Revolutionary War, without claiming sovereignty over the reserved areas, known respectively as the Connecticut Western Reserve and the Virginia Military District. The Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in the territory and adopted the Jeffersonian proposal that the territory should eventually be admitted as future states of the Union. The "Ohio Territory" is sometimes used in reference to the Northwest Territory. In 1802, the Enabling Act specifically provided for the admission of new states, the first of which, Ohio, was admitted to the Union on February 19, 1803, celebrated as March 1, 1803, the date of the first meeting of the Ohio state legislature.

The Ohio Country quickly became one of the most desirable locations for Trans-Appalachian settlements, in particular among veterans of the American Revolutionary War. By 1800, many of the Shawnee had ceded their lands to control of the United States in exchange for lands in Missouri. By 1817, the Shawnee, as well as the other Algonquin-speaking tribes in the region, had ceded all their lands to the United States. Virginia, based on the charter of the Virginia Colony, claimed the entire region. New York claimed the entire region. Connecticut claimed a strip of land across the northern part of the region delineated by the westward extension of its northern and southern state boundaries.

In 1774, fearful that the French-speaking population of Québec (as the colony was now called) would side with the rebels of the Thirteen Colonies to the south, the British Parliament passed the Québec Act giving recognition to French law, Catholic religion and French language in the colony; before that Catholics had been excluded from public office and recruitment of priests and brothers forbidden, effectively shutting down Québec's schools and colleges. The first British policy of assimilation (1763-1774) was deemed a failure. Both the petitions and demands of the Canadiens' élites, and Governor Guy Carleton, played an important part in convincing London of dropping the assimilation scheme, but the looming American revolt was certainly a factor. By the Québec Act, the Québec people obtained their first Charter of rights. That paved the way to later official recognition of the French language and French culture. The Act allowed Canadiens to maintain French civil law and sanctioned the freedom of religious choice, allowing the Roman Catholic Church to remain. It also restored the Ohio Valley to Québec, reserving the territory for the fur trade. The act, designed to placate one North American colony, had the opposite effect among its neighbors to the south. The Québec Act was among the Intolerable Acts that infuriated American colonists, who launched the American Revolution. A 1775 invasion by the American Continental Army met with early success, but was later repelled at Québec City. However, the American Revolutionary War was ultimately successful in winning the independence of the Thirteen Colonies. With the Treaty of Paris (1783), Québec would cede its territory south of the Great Lakes to the new United States of America.

Like their counterparts in Upper Canada, in 1837, English and French speaking residents of Lower Canada, led by Louis-Joseph Papineau and Robert Nelson, formed an armed resistance group to seek an end to British colonial rule. They made a Declaration of rights with equality for all citizens without discrimination, and a Declaration of Independence in 1838. Their actions resulted in the Lower Canada Rebellion. An unprepared British Army had to raise a local militia force and the rebel forces were soon defeated after having scored a victory in Saint-Denis, Québec, east of Montreal.

An Act of Union after the rebellions, Lord Durham was asked to undertake a study and prepare a report on the matter and to offer a solution for the British Parliament to assess. The final report recommended that the population of Lower Canada be assimilated. Following Durham's Report, the British government merged the two colonial provinces into one Province of Canada in 1841. However, the union proved contentious. Reformers in both Canada West (formerly Upper Canada) and Canada East (formerly Lower Canada) worked to repeal restrictions on the use of the French language. The two colonies remained distinct in administration, election, and law. In 1849, Baldwin and LaFontaine, allies and leaders of the Reformist party, obtained the grant (from Lord Elgin) for responsible government and returned the French language to legal status.

Québecers comprise the largest French-speaking society in the Americas. Most French Canadians live in Québec, though there are other concentrations of French-speakers throughout Canada with varying degrees of ties to Québec. Montreal is the vibrant cosmopolitan cultural heart of Québec. History made Québec a place where cultures meet, where people from all over the world experience America, but from a little distance and through a different eye. Often described as a crossroads between Europe and America, Québec is home to a people that are connected to the strong cultural currents of the United States, France, and the UK all at the same time. Québec is also home to 11 aboriginal nations and to a large English-speaking (less than 8%) minority of approximately 600,000 people.

In 1870, Canada purchased Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company and over the next few decades the Parliament of Canada transferred portions of this territory to Québec that would more than triple the size of the province. The most populated region is the St. Lawrence River valley in the south, where the capital, Québec City, and the largest city, Montreal, are situated. North of Montreal are the Laurentians, a mountain range, and to the east are the Appalachian Mountains which extend into the Eastern Townships and Gaspésie regions.