Modern
Quebec was part of the territory of
New France, the general name for the
North American possessions of
France until 1763. At its largest extent, before the
Treaty of Utrecht, this territory included several colonies, each with its own administration:
Canada,
Acadia,
Hudson Bay, and
Louisiana. The borders of these colonies were not precisely defined, and were open on the western side, as the maps below show: File:1592 4 Nova Doetecum mr.jpg|
1592–1594: A map of New France made by
cartographers Jan Doetecom, Petrus Plancius, and Cornelis Claesz. Image:Samuel de Champlain Carte geographique de la Nouvelle France.jpg|
1612: A map of New France made by Samuel de Champlain. File:1730 Canada de l'Isle.jpg|
1730: New France, also referred to as Canada on the map.
Early years (1608–1663) Quebec City was founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain. Some other towns were founded before, like
Tadoussac in 1604 which still exists today, but Quebec was the first to be meant as a permanent settlement and not a simple
trading post. Over time, it became a province of Canada and all of New France. The first version of the town was a single large walled building, called the Habitation. A similar
Habitation was established in Port Royal in 1605, in Acadia. This arrangement was made for protection against perceived threats from the indigenous people. The difficulty of supplying the city of Quebec from France and the lack of knowledge of the area meant that life was hard. A significant fraction of the population died of hunger and diseases during the first winter. However, agriculture soon expanded and a continuous flow of immigrants, mostly men in search of adventure, increased the population. The settlement was built as a permanent
fur trading outpost. First Nations traded their furs for many French goods such as metal objects, guns, alcohol, and clothing. In 1616, the Habitation du Québec became the first permanent establishment of the with the arrival of its two very first settlers:
Louis Hébert and
Marie Rollet. The French quickly established trading posts throughout their territory, trading for fur with aboriginal hunters. The
coureur des bois, who were freelance traders, explored much of the area themselves. They kept trade and communications flowing through a vast network along the rivers of the hinterland. They established fur trading forts on the
Great Lakes (
Étienne Brûlé 1615),
Hudson Bay (
Radisson and
Groseilliers 1659–60),
Ohio River and
Mississippi River (
La Salle 1682), as well as the
Saskatchewan River and
Missouri River (
de la Verendrye 1734–1738). This network was inherited by the English and Scottish traders after the fall of the French Empire in Quebec, and many of the coureur des bois became
voyageurs for the British. In 1612, the
Compagnie de Rouen received the royal mandate to manage the operations of
New France and the fur trade. In 1621, they were replaced by the
Compagnie de Montmorency. Then, in 1627, they were substituted by the
Compagnie des Cent-Associés (Company of One Hundred Associates). Shortly after being appointed, the Compagnie des Cent-Associés introduced the
Custom of Paris and the
seigneurial system to New France. They also forbade settlement in
New France by anyone other than
Roman Catholics. The Catholic Church was given
en seigneurie large and valuable tracts of land estimated at nearly 30% of all the lands granted by the
French Crown in
New France. Because of
war with England, the first two convoys of ships and settlers bound for the colony were waylaid near
Gaspé by British
privateers under the command of three French-Scottish
Huguenot brothers,
David, Louis and Thomas Kirke. Quebec was effectively cut off. In 1629, there was the
surrender of Quebec, without battle, to English privateers led by David Kirke during the
Anglo-French War. On 19 July 1629, with Quebec completely out of supplies and no hope of relief, Champlain surrendered Quebec to the Kirkes without a fight. Champlain and other colonists were taken to England, where they learned that peace had been agreed (in the 1629
Treaty of Suza) before Quebec's surrender, and the Kirkes were obliged to return their takings. However, they refused, and it was not until the 1632
Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye that Quebec and all other captured French possessions in North America were returned to New France. Champlain was restored as de facto governor but died three years later. In 1633,
Cardinal Richelieu granted a charter to the
Company of One Hundred Associates, which had been created by the Cardinal himself in 1627. This gave the company control over the booming fur trade and land rights across the territory in exchange for the company supporting and expanding settlement in New France (at the time encompassing Acadia, Quebec, Newfoundland, and Louisiana). Specific clauses in the charter included a requirement to bring 4000 settlers into New France over the next 15 years. The company largely ignored the settlement requirements of their charter and focused on the lucrative fur trade, only 300 settlers arriving before 1640. On the verge of bankruptcy, the company lost its fur trade monopoly in 1641 and was finally dissolved in 1662. In 1634,
Sieur de Laviolette founded
Trois-Rivières at the mouth of the
Saint-Maurice River. In 1642,
Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded
Ville-Marie (now Montreal) on
Pointe-à-Callière. He chose to found Montreal on an island so that the settlement could be naturally protected against Iroquois invasions. Many heroes of New France come from this period, such as
Dollard des Ormeaux,
Guillaume Couture,
Madeleine de Verchères and the
Canadian Martyrs.
Royal Province (1663–1760) The establishment of the
Conseil souverain, political restructuring which turned New France into a province of France, ended the period of company rule and marked a new beginning in the colonization effort. In 1663, the
Company of New France ceded Canada to the King,
King Louis XIV, who officially made New France into a royal province of France. New France would now be a
true colony administered by the
Sovereign Council of New France from
Québec, and which functioned off . A
governor-general, assisted by the
intendant of New France and the
bishop of Québec, would go on to govern the colony of Canada (Montreal, Québec, Trois-Rivières and the Pays-d'en-Haut) and its administrative dependencies:
Acadia,
Louisiana and
Plaisance.,
Quebec City.The French settlers were mostly farmers and they were known as "
Canadiens" or "
Habitants". Though there was little immigration, the colony still grew because of the Habitants' high birth rates. In 1665, the
Carignan-Salières regiment developed the string of fortifications known as the "Valley of Forts" to protect against Iroquois invasions. The Regiment brought along with them 1,200 new men from
Dauphiné,
Liguria,
Piedmont and
Savoy. To redress the severe imbalance between single men and women, and boost population growth, King Louis XIV sponsored the passage of approximately 800 young French women (known as
les filles du roi) to the colony. In 1686, the
Chevalier de Troyes and the
Troupes de la Marine seized three northern forts the English had erected on the lands explored by
Charles Albanel in 1671 near Hudson Bay. Similarly, in the south,
Cavelier de La Salle took for France lands discovered by
Jacques Marquette and
Louis Jolliet in 1673 along the
Mississippi River. As a result, the colony of New France's territory grew to extend from Hudson Bay all the way to the
Gulf of Mexico, and would also encompass the
Great Lakes. speaking with the envoy of Sir William Phipps at the Battle of Quebec, in 1690. In the early 1700s,
Governor Callières concluded the
Great Peace of Montreal, which not only confirmed the alliance between the
Algonquian peoples and New France, but also definitively ended the
Beaver Wars. In 1701,
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville founded the district of
Louisiana and made its administrative headquarter
Biloxi. Its headquarters was later moved to
Mobile, and then to
New Orleans. During this time, the town had a population of 2,000 settlers. In 1738,
Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, extended New France to
Lake Winnipeg. In 1742, his
voyageur sons,
François and
Louis-Joseph, crossed the
Great Plains and discovered the
Rocky Mountains. From 1688 onwards, the fierce competition between the
French Empire and
British Empire to control North America's interior and monopolize the fur trade pitted New France and its
Indigenous allies against the
Iroquois and English -primarily in the
Province of New York- in a series of four successive wars called the
French and Indian Wars by Americans, and the Intercolonial wars in Quebec. The first three of these wars were
King William's War (1688–1697),
Queen Anne's War (1702–1713), and
King George's War (1744–1748). Many notable battles and exchanges of land took place. In 1690, the
Battle of Quebec became the first time Québec's defences were tested. In 1713, following the
Peace of Utrecht, the
Duke of Orléans ceded Acadia and
Plaisance Bay to the
Kingdom of Great Britain, but retained
Île Saint-Jean, and
Île-Royale (
Cape Breton Island) where the
Fortress of Louisbourg was subsequently erected. These losses were significant since Plaisance Bay was the primary communication route between New France and France, and Acadia contained 5,000
Acadians. In the
siege of Louisbourg in 1745, the British were victorious, but returned the city to France after war concessions.
Catholic nuns (c.1700), one of the many women who contributed to their communities as nuns. Outside the home, Canadian women had few domains which they controlled. An important exception came with Roman Catholic
nuns. Stimulated by the influence in France of the popular religiosity of the
Counter-Reformation, new orders for women began appearing in the seventeenth century and became a permanent feature of Quebec society. The
Ursuline Sisters arrived in Quebec City in 1639, and in Montreal in 1641. They spread as well to small towns. They had to overcome harsh conditions, uncertain funding, and unsympathetic authorities as they engaged in educational and nursing functions. They attracted endowments and became important landowners in Quebec.
Marie de l'Incarnation (1599–1672) was the mother superior at Quebec, 1639–72. During the 1759 Quebec Campaign of the Seven Years' War, Augustinian nun Marie-Joseph Legardeur de Repentigny, Sœur de la Visitation, managed the Hôpital Général in Quebec City and oversaw the care of hundreds of wounded soldiers from both the French and British forces. She wrote in after-action report on her work, noting, "The surrender of Quebec only increased our work. The British generals came to our hospital to assure us of their protection and at the same time made us responsible for their sick and wounded." The British officers stationed at the hospital reported on the cleanliness and high quality of the care provided. Most civilians deserted the city, leaving the Hôpital Général as a refugee centre for the poor who had nowhere to go. The nuns set up a mobile aid station that reached out to the cities refugees, distributing food and treating the sick and injured.
British conquest of New France (1754–1763) In the middle of the 18th century,
British North America had grown to be close to a full-fledged independent country, something they would actually become a few decades later, with more than 1 million inhabitants. Meanwhile,
New France was still seen mostly as a cheap source of natural resources for the metropolis. New France was territorially larger than the
Thirteen Colonies but had less than as much population, only about 60,000 inhabitants. There was warfare along the borders, with the French supporting Indian raids into the American colonies. The earliest battles of the
French and Indian War occurred in 1754 and soon widened into the worldwide
Seven Years' War. The territory of New France at that time included parts of present-day
Upstate New York, and a series of battles were fought there. The French military enjoyed early successes in these frontier battles, gaining control over several strategic points in 1756 and 1757. The British sent substantial military forces, while the Royal Navy controlled the Atlantic, preventing France from sending much help. In 1758 the British
captured Louisbourg, gaining control over the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and also took control of key forts on the frontier in battles at
Frontenac and
Duquesne. In spite of the spectacular defeat of the supposed main British thrust in the
Battle of Carillon (in which a banner was supposedly carried that inspired the modern
flag of Quebec), the French military position was poor. at the
Plains of Abraham. In the next phase of the war, begun in 1759, the British aimed directly at the heart of New France.
General James Wolfe led a fleet of 49 ships holding 8,640 British troops to the fortress of Quebec. They disembarked on
Île d'Orléans and on the south shore of the river; the French forces under
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, Marquis de Saint-Veran, held the walled city and the north shore. Wolfe laid siege to the city for more than two months, exchanging cannon fire over the river, but neither side could break the siege. As neither side could expect resupply during the winter, Wolfe moved to force a battle. On 5 September 1759, after successfully convincing Montcalm he would attack by the
Bay of Beauport east of the city, the British troops crossed close to Cap-Rouge, west of the city, and successfully climbed the steep Cape Diamond undetected. Montcalm, for disputed reasons, did not use the protection of the city walls and fought on open terrain, in what would be known as the
Battle of the Plains of Abraham. The battle was short and bloody; both leaders died in battle, but the British easily won. (
The Death of General Wolfe is a well-known 1770 painting by artist
Benjamin West depicting the final moments of Wolfe.) Now in possession of the main city and capital, and further isolating the inner cities of Trois-Rivières and Montreal from France, the rest of the campaign was only a matter of slowly taking control of the land. While the French had a tactical victory in the
Battle of Sainte-Foy outside Quebec in 1760, an attempt to
lay siege to the city ended in defeat the following month when British ships arrived and forced the French besiegers to retreat. An attempt to resupply the French military was further dashed in the naval
Battle of Restigouche, and
Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial, New France's last Royal governor,
surrendered Montreal on 8 September 1760. Because the Seven Years' War was still ongoing in Europe, the British put the region under
a military regime between 1760 and 1763.
Britain's success in the war forced France to cede all of Canada to the British at the
Treaty of Paris. The Royal Proclamation of 7 October 1763 by King
George III set out the terms of government for the newly captured territory, as well as defining the geographic boundaries of the territory. The rupture from France would provoke a transformation within the
descendants of the Canadiens that would eventually result in the
birth of a new nation whose development and culture would be founded upon, among other things, ancestral foundations anchored in Northeastern America. What British Commissioner
John George Lambton (Lord Durham) would describe in his
1839 report would be the kind of relationship that would reign between the "
Two Solitudes" of Canada for a long time: "I found two nations at war within one state; I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races". Incoming British immigrants would find that Canadiens were as full of national pride as they were, and while these newcomers would see the American territories as a vast ground for colonization and speculation, the Canadiens would regard Quebec as the heritage of their own race - not as a country to colonize, but as a country already colonized. == Province of Quebec (1763–1791) ==