The first "attempt" at settlement came only with Frenchman Jacques Cartier. The king of France, François I, wanted to follow up on Verrazano's voyages. An order dated March 1534 put a sum of money at Cartier's disposal to equip ships. The Saint-Malo navigator made three voyages to Canada (1534, 1535, and 1541) with the mission of "undertaking the voyage of this kingdom in the New Lands to discover certain islands and countries where there are said to be great quantities of gold and other riches."

Cartier discovered Chaleur Bay, Gaspé Bay (where he planted a cross in the name of the king of France), Anticosti Island, Tadoussac, Québec City (then Stadacona), and Montréal (then Hochelaga) and gave Canada its first French place names.

Later, French traders began coming periodically to trade furs. The Newfoundland region, with teemed with fish, became a source of wealth for the French fleets, as well as those from England, Spain, Basque country, and Portugal that regularly plied the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland. All these visitors spoke their own languages, but without colonization, none had yet taken root.

Jacques Cartier's voyages were also significant in that they set the stage for those of Samuel de Champlain and his successors. Cartier can still be considered the father of French Canada, at least in Acadia and the St. Lawrence River Valley. But not for another sixty years did France take further interest in what was to become Canada.

As for the British, explorers Martin Frobisher in the 1570s and Henry Hudson from 1609 to 1611 also searched in vain for a passage to Asia. Frobisher made three expeditions (in 1576, 1577, and 1578) to the Canadian Arctic, north of Ungava Bay (Baffin Island), and was the first European to travel through what would later come to be known as the Hudson Strait. He explored the southern coasts to the far reaches of Hudson Bay, right into James Bay. Although his discoveries seemed worthless at the time, the navigator opened the way for British travel to the Arctic regions, and left behind English place names such as Cape Digges and Cape Wolstenholme.

Another explorer was John Davis, who set out on a first voyage to the North Pole in 1585. Today's map of the Polar Regions still bears the names of his protectors, friends, and shipowners (Cumberland, Gilbert, Exeter, Raleigh, etc.). Canada's modern-day Hudson Bay area was an English territory, long inaccessible to the French. In 1615, English explorer William Baffin explored the Hudson Strait and drew up remarkably accurate navigational charts. During another expedition in 1616, he explored part of the bay named in his honour, Baffin Bay. So Hudson Bay, to go by place names, was English territory, not French.

In 1728, Danish explorer Vitus Bering opened a trade route between Alaska and Russia. Other European explorers arrived from the west and east. Between 1690 and 1692, Englishman Henry Kelsey opened a route for the Hudson's Bay Company from Hudson Bay to the Prairies (today the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan). Although French explorers Pierre Radisson and Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, had opened various routes across the vast plains by 1650, it was not until 1793 that Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie reached the Arctic and Pacific by way of land. Later, in 1845, his British countryman John Franklin, starting inland, travelled northward along the coast to the Arctic, exploring a number of rivers by canoe, but he never returned. He and his crew perished in 1847 when their ships froze in place. Nevertheless, Franklin's expeditions helped further knowledge of the Northwest Territories and part of the Arctic.

When the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713, New France had five colonies or territories, each with its own administration: Canada (the Great Lakes region, the Ohio Valley, and the St. Lawrence River Valley), Acadia (the Gaspé Peninsula, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, St. John's Island, and Île Royale [Cape Breton]), Hudson Bay (and James Bay), Newfoundland, and Louisiana. At the end of the 18th century, the territory known as New France was enormous, stretching from Baffin Land in the north to Mexico in the south and including nearly half of today's Canada and U.S.A.

Canada had a population of 55,000, Acadia 10,000, and the distant Louisiana 4,000. The island of Newfoundland and Hudson Bay did not have a permanent resident population.

Canada at the time of New France stretched, as we mentioned, from the St. Lawrence River Valley through to the Great Lakes and south to the Ohio Valley, corresponding to today's southern Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The Great Lakes region was also referred to as the "Upper Country," and in 1791 became Upper Canada. In other words, Canada at the time stretched further south of the Great Lakes than today, in one continuous expanse from the St. Lawrence River Valley in the north to Louisiana in the south.

St. Lawrence River Valley

Samuel de Champlain spent 1615 and 1616 in the Upper Country to promote the fur trade and help set up missions among the Amerindians. The Recollets were the first to arrive (1615), followed by the Jesuits in 1626 and the Sulpicians in 1669. Until the early 18th century, there were no French women, families, or settlements in the Upper Country—just missionaries, fur traders, and militiamen, who spread the French language among the natives. It was mainly the missionaries who tried to get the natives to speak French by converting them to Christianity, spreading disease in the process. Eventually, the Hurons came to understand that, contrary to what the missionaries would have them believe, disease was not God's way of punishing them for their impiety, but that the missionaries themselves were the main cause of the curse weighing upon them.

The main economic appeal of the Upper Country was the fur trade. French authorities were understandably wary of those who became coureurs des bois and spent years in the Upper Country, i.e., the Great Lakes region and south to the Ohio Valley. Some 2,000 Frenchmen lived in this vast fur trade region with their Indian wives and Métis children, and were a very different people from the French in the St. Lawrence River Valley. Nevertheless, these officially "single" men gave visibility to France to the west of the colony. Officials in the St. Lawrence River Valley began to encourage marriage with the natives, which they viewed as a way to assimilate the native population and populate the colony without massive immigration from France. But the result was not assimilation. Instead, French-Indian marriages created a new people, the Métis, who founded their own communities along the shores of the Great Lakes. Most of these Métis ended up speaking French, but with many Amerindian words that pointed to their mixed roots. They also kept much of the Amerindian culture.

England laid claim to Acadia in 1621 and rechristened it with the Latin name Nova Scotia (rather than its English form New Scotland), but in 1632, the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye recognized French sovereignty in Acadia. Sir William Alexander's dream of founding a colony named after his homeland, Scotland, would be postponed. But the English threat still remained, because by the time the Treaty of Breda (1667) relinquished the territory to France, Acadia had spent 32 years under French rule and 31 under English, which meant there had always been villages of French and English/Scottish descent existing side by side. Between 1604 and 1670, the Acadian (i.e., French) population was concentrated in Port-Royal. Beginning in 1670, new settlements sprung up, first in Chignectou around 1670, then in Les Mines around 1680. In 1713, the Acadian population was only about 2,500. Most Acadians were from France, largely Poitou, Anjou, and Vendée, along with Basque and Breton fishermen and even a few Scottish immigrants. With less Parisian influence, the French spoken by the Acadians was more regionalized, but still essentially the same as the Canadian French in the St. Lawrence River Valley.

After the discoveries of the early explorers such as Giovanni Caboto, Humphrey Gilbert, Martin Frobisher, Henry Hudson, and William Baffin, England took an interest in the New World. It established its first overseas colony in 1607 in Virginia (New England), named in honour of England's Queen Elizabeth I, known as the "Virgin Queen."

England then turned its sights north. Sir Humphrey Gilbert had earlier landed in the harbour of St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1583, and laid claim to the land in the name of Queen Elizabeth I. The attempt, which failed, was spurred by England's wish to gain greater control over the fisheries and fish trade.

England's second colonization movement began in 1610 in Newfoundland, more precisely at Anse-à-Cuper (now known as Cupids). English explorer John Guy settled on Conception Bay on the northwest of the Avalon Peninsula with some forty colonists. French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English fishermen had already inhabited the island for nearly a century. John Guy was acting on behalf of the Newfoundland Colonization Company, owned by Sir Francis Bacon. The city of St John's grew, the fishing trade thrived, and merchants (mostly English) settled all along the harbour. In 1638, Sir David Kirke was given rights to the English part of Newfoundland island, but the French contested the British occupation. Rule on the island was only seasonal, by what was known as "fishing admirals." This did little to foster colonization.

However, the first governor of Her Majesty the Queen was not appointed until 1729, sixteen years after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) giving Great Britain ownership of the island. Toward 1790, Newfoundland had a population of 20,000, nearly all English speaking, and in 1815 almost 40,000. The English governor took up permanent residence on the island only in 1817. Since mercantilism dictated colonial politics, British merchants were long able to prevent the rise of a major colony. They retained control of the fishing ports and harbours, and the island remained primarily a naval base visited by fishing boats. That said, the French language did not disappear completely, since France long retained rights to seasonal fishing on the "French Shore" and inherited the small archipelago of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon in 1763, which it maintained as a base for fishing on the Grand Banks.

Then in 1706, the French destroyed nearly every English village in Newfoundland, but in 1710 New England retook Acadia. In 1711, Admiral Hovenden Walker advanced on Québec, but his fleet was wrecked on the northern coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. These relentless conflicts had little impact on language other than that of place names, except when colonists were driven out, which happened to the French as often as the English.

This rivalry extended to North America, where the two nations had neighbouring colonies. From the time Samuel de Champlain founded New France in 1608, the French colony became caught in a colonial tug-of-war between England and France. Fighting was quick to erupt in North America, just like in Europe. But before the decisive battles, lands were constantly changing hands in smaller skirmishes. And as they went back and forth, place names often changed from French to English, and vice versa. During their common history on the continent, the French and English would regularly replace the names their predecessors used, especially in Acadia and the Hudson Bay area, and later in the "upper country," which would become Upper Canada, then Ontario. So these preliminary hostilities affected little other than geographical names, although they did set the stage for the final showdown—the French and Indian War.

The part of New France known as Canada came under English occupation from 1629 to 1632. Likewise, Acadia was occupied from 1654 to 1667. The English colonies developing all along the Atlantic coast (New England) felt caged in by New France, first by Acadia, then by Canada and Louisiana as the French expanded into the Mississippi Valley. The French in Canada also felt threatened, trapped between Rupert's Land (the Hudson's Bay Company), which covered most of northern Canada, and the New England colonies to the south. For much of the 17th century, the British and French fought constantly over Canadian land, changing place names as they went.

But in 1654, another British fleet from Boston landed in Port Royal. England declared Acadia "illegitimately occupied by the French" and set out to win it back. Major Segewick attacked Acadia once again. The English threat to Acadia was ever-present, and by the time the 1667 Treaty of Breda ceded the territory back to France (in exchange for islands in the West Indies), Acadia had been under French rule for 32 years and English for 31 years, and settlements had been renamed time and time again.

From this point on in Canadian history, the term Canadians referred to the Canada-born descendants of French colonists, as opposed to the French from France. Canadians gradually developed a distaste for their French cousins, whom they called the "damned French." Francophones drew distinctions between Canadians, Acadians, the French, Indians (commonly called Savages), and the English. The English, however, distinguished only between the Indians and the French. In other words, the British regarded Canadians, Acadians, and Louisiana as French. For the French, the inhabitants of New England, England, Scotland, and Wales were British, if not English.

England's second colonization movement began in 1610 in Newfoundland, more precisely at Anse-à-Cuper (now known as Cupids). English explorer John Guy settled on Conception Bay on the northwest of the Avalon Peninsula with some forty colonists. French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English fishermen had already inhabited the island for nearly a century. John Guy was acting on behalf of the Newfoundland Colonization Company, owned by Sir Francis Bacon. The city of St John's grew, the fishing trade thrived, and merchants (mostly English) settled all along the harbour. In 1638, Sir David Kirke was given rights to the English part of Newfoundland island, but the French contested the British occupation. Rule on the island was only seasonal, by what was known as "fishing admirals." This did little to foster colonization.

However, the first governor of Her Majesty the Queen was not appointed until 1729, sixteen years after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) giving Great Britain ownership of the island. Toward 1790, Newfoundland had a population of 20,000, nearly all English speaking, and in 1815 almost 40,000. The English governor took up permanent residence on the island only in 1817. Since mercantilism dictated colonial politics, British merchants were long able to prevent the rise of a major colony. They retained control of the fishing ports and harbours, and the island remained primarily a naval base visited by fishing boats. That said, the French language did not disappear completely, since France long retained rights to seasonal fishing on the "French Shore" and inherited the small archipelago of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon in 1763, which it maintained as a base for fishing on the Grand Banks.

In 1697, the Treaty of Ryswick (now Rijswijk, near The Hague in the Netherlands) put an end to the war of the League of Augsburg between Louis XIV and the Grand Alliance. The treaty asserted France's authority in North America. Parts of Newfoundland returned to English rule, while Acadia and Hudson Bay became independent colonies of New France. According to the terms of the treaty, the "head of the bay" remained French, and Fort York was given to the Hudson's Bay Company. But in fact, the English kept Fort Albany and the French, Fort Bourbon (Fort York). The names of the forts, or trading posts, were French (Fort Bourbon, Fort Saint-Louis, Fort Saint-Jacques, Fort Sainte-Anne, Fort Neuve Savane, etc.).

Then in 1706, the French destroyed nearly every English village in Newfoundland, but in 1710 New England retook Acadia. In 1711, Admiral Hovenden Walker advanced on Québec, but his fleet was wrecked on the northern coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. These relentless conflicts had little impact on language other than that of place names, except when colonists were driven out, which happened to the French as often as the English.

The Treaty of Utrecht (Netherlands) put an end to the 1701–1714 War of the Spanish Succession between the Grand Alliance—initially made up of England, the United Provinces, and German-Roman Empire, and later joined by Portugal and Savoy—and a coalition of France, Spain, and a number of Italian and German principalities. To gain peace, Louis XIV had to sacrifice colonies. The agreements were mostly favourable to England, which had officially become Great Britain in 1701. England came away with Newfoundland (including the Saint-Pierre and Miquelon archipelago), Acadia, the Hudson Bay territory, and the Caribbean island of Saint Christopher (today St. Kitts and Nevis). France went so far as to recognize Great Britain's dominion over the land of the Iroquois Confederacy, which offended the Iroquois, who considered that the two powers did not have the right to decide their fate. Even so, the map of North America had been transformed.

However, section 14 of the Treaty of Utrecht stated that in Acadia, "the subjects of the said king may have liberty to remove themselves within a year to any other place, [...] together with all their movable effects. But those who are willing to remain there, and to be subject to the Kingdom of Great Britain, are to enjoy the free exercise of their religion, according to the usage of the Church of Rome, as far as the laws of Great Britain do allow the same." The British were conciliatory to the local population since they themselves could not populate Acadia with English colonists.

The Fortress of Louisbourg was designated the new capital of French Acadia, while Annapolis Royal (the name "Port Royal" now permanently a part of the past) took over as the capital of Nova Scotia (also called "English Acadia" by the Canadians), until it was replaced by Halifax in 1749. From this time on, French Acadia grew even more independent from Canada. Unlike the St. Lawrence River Valley, which was essentially agricultural, Cape Breton was a place of trade and looked to New England for business, despite the reluctant tolerance of the French authorities. The population of the thriving island soon grew to some 5,000 settlers of French origin.

Under British dominion, the Acadians of Nova Scotia lived in relative peace, with few English colonists to bother them. The island of Newfoundland was repopulated with English colonists, mostly from western England, although Irish Catholics arrived with their Irish traditions. Then the forts the French had captured in the Hudson Bay area were reconquered by the English. Over the course of the various French-British conflicts, a number of forts changed names: Fort Bourbon became Fort Nelson, then York Factory; Fort Saint-Louis became Moose Factory; Fort Saint-Jacques became Fort Charles, then Fort Rupert; Fort Sainte-Anne became Fort Albany; and Fort Neuve Savane became New Severn, then Fort Severn, then Albany. In short, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht set the stage for the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and diluted the French presence in North America.

The French and Indian War (1756–1760) coincided with the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) in Europe and heralded the end of French presence in North America. Despite the peace brought about by the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, English-French rivalries were inevitably reawakened. Even in times of peace, the very existence of Louisbourg was enough to irritate English colonists in New England, especially Massachusetts. Merchants in New England wanted to do business with Louisbourg, but could not accept the French presence in a territory they considered their own backyard. Conflicts were rekindled with the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740.

With Louisbourg reinstated to France, Great Britain sought to restore balance and secure its Nova Scotia colony. In 1749, two regiments and 2,500 colonists founded the city of Halifax, the new capital of Nova Scotia, with Edward Cornwallis as governor. Annapolis Royal was deemed too weak and poorly situated to stand up to Louisbourg and the French. Edward Cornwallis hoped that by bringing more English colonists to the region, the Acadians would be assimilated. However, most of the colonists came from the poorer parts of England's cities and were reluctant to take an active part in assimilation efforts. To boost population in the area, Great Britain brought over 1,500 "foreign Protestants," i.e., Germans and Swiss. But their language and religion (Lutheranism) disturbed the Anglican anglophones. In 1753, Colonel Charles Lawrence packed Halifax's German colony off to Mirliguesch (Milky Bay), which became Lunenburg. The German immigrants did not mix with the Acadians, and preserved their language for many years. Nova Scotia continued to grow as colonists arrived from New England. The languages most commonly used in Nova Scotia were English, Scottish, French, and German. In the meantime, France was strengthening its Louisbourg garrison and fortifying the southern coast of Cape Breton Island.

When Newfoundland was ceded to Great Britain, English fishermen inherited the French settlements, and shiploads of colonists came in from southwest England. In 1720, more immigrants flocked to the area from the southeast coast of Ireland. Newfoundland went from having a French majority to having a strong Anglo-Irish majority, including on the St. Pierre and Miquelon archipelago. But the French-British rivalry was not over in Newfoundland; it carried on in the cod trade with French fishermen. It became clear that only military action in the waters of Newfoundland could put an end to the rivalry in an industry that was more profitable than the fur trade.

In Nova Scotia, Colonel Charles Lawrence, the governor, felt his colony was under threat from French forces in the east (the Fortress of Louisbourg) and the north (Canada), as well as from the Acadians and their Micmac allies at home. In 1755, Lawrence asked the Acadians to swear an unconditional oath of allegiance to the British crown. But when the Acadians chose to remain neutral, he considered deportation a necessary precaution to rid his colony of elements who could one day prove disloyal.

On September 3, 1755, Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow summoned the Acadians of Grand-Pré together and made the following proclamation at Saint-Charles-des-Mines church in Grand-Pré:

Gentlemen:

I have received from his Excellency, Governor Lawrence, the King's instructions, which I have in my hands. By his orders you are called together to hear His Majesty's final resolution concerning the French inhabitants of this Province of Nova Scotia, who for more than a half century have had more indulgence granted them than any of his subjects in any part of his dominions. What use you have made of it, you yourselves best know.

The duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you, who are of the same species.

But it is not my business to dwell on the orders I have received, but to obey them and, therefore, without hesitation, I shall deliver to you His Majesty's instructions and commands, which are...

That your lands and tenements and cattle and livestock of all kinds are forfeited to the crown, with all your effects, except money and household goods, and that you yourselves are to be removed form this Province.

The preemptory orders of His Majesty are, that all the French inhabitants of these Districts be removed, and through His Majesty's goodness, I am directed to allow you your money and as many of your household goods as you can take without overloading the vessels you go in. I shall do everything in my power that all these goods are secured to you and that you be not molested in carrying them away, and also that whole families shall go in the same vessel; so that this removal, which I am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, may be made as easy as His Majesty's service will admit; and I hope that in whatever part of the world your lot may fall, you may be faithful subjects, and a peaceable and happy people.

I must also inform you, that it is his Majesty's pleasure that you remain in the security under inspection and direction of the troops that I have the honor to command.

The deportation, which the Acadians would call the "Great Upheaval," was carried out surprisingly fast. Not only did Charles Lawrence put his entire British army of 315 men on the job, he also obtained the support of Massachusetts governor William Shirley to convince the General Court of the Colony to send 2,000 volunteers to drive the Acadians and French out of Nova Scotia. He then brought in a fleet of 16 trading ships requisitioned from New England and expelled the Acadian population, village by village, out of Grand-Pré, Les Mines, Beaubassin, the French Bay area (Bay of Fundy), and others.

Before the end of 1755, more than 7,000 Acadians had been sent into exile. Thousands of others would follow in the years ahead. Out of a population of some 13,500 Acadians, an estimated 12,600 plus were deported, but over 4,000 of them died from infectious disease. Others reached Canada or what remained of French Acadia (the Gaspé Peninsula, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward Island). As illustrated in the table below, the majority of deported Acadians went to France (3,500), followed by Canada (2,000), Massachusetts (1,043), and Connecticut (666).

Source: R.A. LEBLANC. "Les migrations acadiennes," Cahiers de géographie du Québec, Vol. 23, No. 58, April 1979, p. 99–124.

The banishment took until 1762 to complete. The British believed that once the Acadians were dispersed across the colonies, they would no longer pose a risk and would assimilate into the local population. Today, this type of operation would be considered "ethnic cleansing." It was a radical move from a linguistic standpoint, because once the speakers were gone, so was their language! The French and British tried the same thing repeatedly in the small archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Between 1690 and 1814, the archipelago changed hands nine times. Four times in 125 years, the settlements were completely levelled and all the colonists deported, the houses destroyed, and fields burned. The difference with the Acadian deportation was that it was conducted on a much broader scale and without authorization from the British government, which gave its approval after the fact. Earlier, in 1745, the English had deported the entire French colony of Louisbourg (4,000 people) to France after it surrendered, but the French returned in 1748.

After that, the heart of Acadia shifted westward, then toward Louisiana, which had become Spanish territory in 1762. During these years, colonial New England complained to London about the arrival of thousands of poor Acadians—French speakers no less—whom the American colonists had to house and feed with no compensation from the British government. London even launched an inquiry to clarify the circumstances surrounding the deportation, because Charles Lawrence had been accused of taking rations confiscated in the name of the king and selling them to the army, and manipulating the distribution of land to the new colonists in Nova Scotia to his own personal gain. But the accusations did not make it into court before Lawrence died in 1760. Overall, the deportation was a radical measure that changed the balance of power between populations. The void left by the Acadians would be quickly filled by English-speaking colonists.

Leading into the French and Indian War, present-day Canada had a population of some 75,000 French colonists and 20,000 British colonists, not counting the much more numerous natives, who numbered 200,000. French colonists were divided between Acadians, 5,000 of whom remained after the deportation, and Canadians, who numbered 70,000 in the St. Lawrence River Valley, including 2,000 in the "upper country." As for the British, there were some 10,000 colonists on the island of Newfoundland and as many in Nova Scotia. In New England, the population stood at 1.6 million. In other words, while New France welcomed an average of 56 immigrants a year between 1608 and 1760, New England had been adding a thousand a year. If France had worked as hard at populating its colonies (Canada, Acadia, and Louisiana) as Great Britain, North America would be a very different place today, with a larger French Canada and a French Louisiana encompassing half of the U.S. All it took to radically change the course of history was for one country to send a thousand colonists a year for a century and a half, while the other sent fewer than sixty. This demographic imbalance was the cause of the French defeat in 1760 and the crushing dominance the English language today.

In spring of 1756, the Seven Years' War broke out in Europe (1756–1763). Most of the major powers of Europe were involved, with Prussia, Great Britain, and Hanover on one side, and Austria, Saxony, France, Russia, Sweden, and Spain on the other. In India, it was France against Great Britain, and in North America, the British Crown and colonial New England against the French and their Amerindian allies. In North America, it was actually the French and Indian War, which coincided with the Seven Years' War in Europe but ended three years earlier, in 1760.

This war, which had a critical impact on language in North America, goes by many names. In French, it is usually called Guerre de la Conquête (War of the Conquest), but sometimes Guerre de Sept Ans (Seven Years' War). In English, it is often called the French and Indian War, the Seven Years' War, the War for Empire, or the British Conquest. Some historians also talk about a kind of "first world war," because the war spanned the globe from Europe to India, from the West Indies to the Philippines, and from North America to Asia. Of all these names, the French and Indian War is the most appropriate, because it points to the French-Indian alliances in this decisive crusade. In French Canada, the war is usually referred to as La Conquête, and La Conquête always means the conquest of 1760.

William Pitt (known as "Pitt the elder"), who became prime minister of Great Britain in 1757, was firmly committed to waging the war against France in the colonies, not in Europe. He believed that the war would be won or lost in North America. The first phase of his plan was to seize Louisbourg, the French fortress that defended the entrance to the St. Lawrence. The prime minister also knew that the conquest of Canada would cost many vessels, arms, and troops. He had to borrow huge sums from abroad—into the hundreds of millions. Lastly, James Wolfe was a serious young brigade general who had played an active role in the capture of Louisbourg and St. John's Island (Prince Edward Island) and the plundering of the region's lands and farms. When he left England, he declared, "I must admit, I will enjoy seeing the Canadian vermin sacked, pillaged, and repaid for their appalling cruelties." Satisfied with Wolfe's previous successes, William Pitt chose him as general to command British land forces in the assault on Quebec.

There were also American figures involved in the war: George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Prior to the French and Indian War, Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette, was an active proponent of expanding the New England colonies. He dreamed of a white Anglo-Saxon protestant America. In general, the politicians, the merchants, and the speculators agreed with Franklin, but had their eye more on the Ohio Valley. In his 1751 essay Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "This Million doubling suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water." He believed that the French had to be eliminated from the future of English America:

The French population [...] will incite the Indians to harass us at our borders, in times of peace or war [...] They will murder and scalp our people and drive out the colonists; they will discourage our countrymen from marrying, and the population will cease to grow; by doing so (if I may speak as such), they will kill thousands of our children before they are born.

Benjamin Franklin campaigned for the war: "The safety of all English colonies in North America, their very survival as English colonies, makes these measures imperative and pressing." As for George Washington, he got involved very early in the war against New France in the Ohio Valley. The battle of Fort Necessity in 1754 was the first major incident in George Washington's military career and his only defeat to the enemy, but the battle triggered the war between France and Great Britain for control of North America. Washington was proclaimed the winner of the war that preceded the American Revolution.

Because of Great Britain's mastery of the seas, it was able to send troops and equipment in much greater supply than France. Over 20,000 soldiers (out of 140,000) served in North America, alongside a substantial colonial army of 12,000 regular and 21,000 provincial soldiers. France had only 6,800 regular soldiers and 15,000 Canadian militiamen in Canada and relied heavily on the support of its Amerindian allies. In Louisbourg, the British army had 28,000 men up against 6,000 French (supported by 500 Indians). The contest was far from equal.

Governor Vaudreuil dispatched a number of emissaries to Paris to ask for reinforcements, ammunition, and rations, but naval minister Nicolas-René Berryer answered, "You don't try to save the stables when the house is on fire." Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, Montcalm's flag lieutenant, retorted "At least you don't speak like a horse." The defeats, France's idleness, and, above all, famine led more and more Canadians to hope for an English victory.

British government waged the North American war against France on several fronts: the Ohio Valley, Louisbourg, and Quebec.

Ohio Valley

In North America, the French and Indian War began in the Ohio Valley, where France and Great Britain both claimed ownership of the same land. In 1750, the French decided to buttress their forces in the south and west, from Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario. The governor of Canada sent companies of colonial troops, "Compagnies franches de la Marine." The French drove New England merchants out of the region.

In 1753, Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie sent an expedition under the command of Colonel George Washington to force the French out of Fort Presque-Isle (near Lake Erie) and Fort Le Boeuf (the part of Ohio claimed by Virginia). But the French defeated Washington's troops, who were forced to surrender, then burned Fort Necessity and returned to Fort Duquesne. The English were driven back to Virginia, but the Indians took and massacred hundreds of captives, mostly women and children. The Anglo-American defeat caused an uproar in New England and made the English more aggressive against Canada and the French. The following year (1755), 250 Canadian militiamen and 600 Amerindians defeated an army of 1,500 soldiers under the command of Edward Braddock. The colonial authorities of New England offered a reward of 50 pounds to anyone bringing back the scalp of a Frenchman (or Canadian colonist) or French-allied Indian.

After the battle of Fort Necessity (1754), the French thought the British would no longer contest their claim to the Ohio Valley, but Great Britain would not accept defeat, instead dispatching forces against the French strongholds Fort Duquesne (later Fort Pittsburg) in Ohio, Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario, Fort St. Frédéric (at Crown Point) on Lake Champlain, and Fort Beauséjour in Acadia. The battle of Fort Necessity in 1754 was part of the chain of events that led Great Britain to declare war on France in 1756 for control of North America. Four years later, in April 1758, the French lost Fort Frontenac and Fort Duquesne (Canada). Niagara was taken on July 25, 1759, by Anglo-American troops backed by Six Nations Iroquois warriors—a catastrophic loss for the Canadians and French.

Louisbourg

On July 27, 1759, Louisbourg fell after a two-month siege in the greatest naval landing to that date in North America, under the command of young brigadier James Wolfe. The French population on Île Royale (now Cape Breton) plummeted from 2,500 to 700. Two-thirds (68%) were deported to France (La Rochelle), while the remainder stayed on the island or went into hiding on St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island). Two years later, the British secretary of state ordered the fortress torn down, since it stood as a symbol of France's ambition to colonize North America. Of the some 5,000 people living on St. John's Island, about 2,000 Acadians were deported to France, and the remainder withdrew into the woods.

Québec

Marquis de Montcalm led a number of victories in Canada, notably Carillon in 1758. The following year, General Wolfe laid siege to Québec after devastating the surrounding countryside over a distance of at least 100 km downriver, as well as all the Acadian settlements in the Saint John River area (New Brunswick). Then Montcalm suffered crushing defeats, including the battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759) in Québec, where he died together with his conqueror, General James Wolfe, who has been a British hero ever since. During the Québec siege, General Montcalm had a military force of 15,000 men, compared to General Wolfe's 8,500. When the British army took up positions on the Plains of Abraham on the morning of September 13, 1759, it was only 4,800 men strong, compared to Montcalm's 4,500 men, including 2,500 Canadian militiamen. As eager for battle as Wolfe, Montcalm did not wait for his full forces, instead ordering Canadian militiamen to fight like regular French troops. In less than twenty minutes, Montcalm's army was in retreat. According to historians, the French defeat on the Plains of Abraham could not have been due to a weak French Canadian army, but rather to an error in judgment by General Montcalm, who could have defeated the British if he had had the patience to wait two or three hours for reinforcements from Bougainville and Vaudreuil. Some historians call September 13 the "day of mistakes." Wolfe risked it all and was willing to sacrifice his troops before an army he knew could be larger, but he was up against a general even more inept than he.

Obviously, September 13, 1759, was a decisive date for Canada and a day that would change the course of North American history. The efforts of Montcalm's successor, Chevalier de Lévis, and Governor Vaudreuil could not forestall Montréal's surrender. To prevent the massacre of his colonists, Governor Vaudreuil decided to sign Canada's surrender on September 8, 1760, in Montréal, and, in the process, the capitulation of New France, with the exception of Louisiana, which had been ceded secretly to Spain

The Québec and Montréal surrenders were drawn up in French. In accepting the surrender, General Wolfe's successors guaranteed the civil and religious rights as well as the property of Canadians who laid down their arms. New France passed into British hands, except for Louisiana, which was officially declared Spanish territory in 1763 in the Treaty of Paris. General Amherst named James Murray temporary military governor of Québec; Ralph Burton, of Trois-Rivières; and Thomas Gage, of Montréal. Nobody knows exactly how many Canadians died in the French and Indian War, but historians estimate some 6,000 or 7,000—a tenth of the total population.

Regardless of the figure, the war exhausted the colony, and the population fell by 10,000 (from 70,000) from death due to disease and famine. After the war, Great Britain found itself with a land made up of an entirely French-speaking, white, Catholic population and a native population largely converted to Christianity and very superficially to French.

Meanwhile, Catherine the Great had ascended to the throne of Russia and was dreaming of an empire that would include North America. She wanted to extend the Russian fur trade along the western coast of North America, establish Russian colonies, and assert her sovereignty over the region. But Russia would have to settle for Alaska, where it established colonies in 1784. The Russian language was spoken in Alaska until 1867, when the colony was sold to the Americans and the language gave way to English.

We are in the early days of European colonization in Canada. In the 17th century, French and English were spoken in specific regions of Canada. French was spoken in the St. Lawrence River Valley, Acadia, and Newfoundland, while English was spoken in Acadia (Nova Scotia) and Newfoundland. The two languages have long histories together in what would later become Canada.